Conspiracy

by Adrian Wills

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘Wrong number.’ Parkes forced a smile. ‘Sorry, you were about to tell me about your combat action.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Stone.

  ‘Your friend said you both saw action in Iraq.’

  Stone’s eyes opened wide. ‘He said that?’

  ‘He was telling me about it when you went to the bar. That must have been a real experience.’

  ‘I guess.’ Stone picked at the duvet cover.

  ‘Did you kill anyone?’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, it’s just the thought of you having to face all those bombs and bullets, well, it’s a turn on.’

  ‘It was a shithole. I hated it.’

  ‘Where were you based?’

  ‘Basra.’

  Blake bit his lip. A confession at last and evidence Fletcher had been lying after all.

  ‘I’ve heard of that,’ said Parkes.

  ‘I’m not surprised, the place was crawling with news teams while we were there.’

  ‘And that soldier who’s missing?’

  Stone bristled as if he’d just heard the click of a Claymore under his boot.

  ‘Is he a friend of yours? What do you think’s happened to him?’

  ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

  ‘Sorry, I talk too much when I get nervous.’

  ‘Maybe this will settle your nerves,’ Stone said, leaning into her. This time she accepted his kiss, briefly, before pulling away.

  ‘So what did you do out there?’

  ‘Mostly we were just on patrol, trying to keep the peace.’

  ‘Was it dangerous?’

  ‘Only when the locals got bored of us, but I’m not really supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Stuff happened, you know.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Blake’s whole body was screaming in agony, but he dared not move.

  Stone shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You can tell me.’ Parkes made puppy dog eyes at him, kneeling on the bed and starting to unbutton her blouse. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’

  ‘We’ve only just met. I don’t know anything about you.’

  ‘Plenty of time to find out,’ she said, letting her blouse fall off her shoulders. Blake forced himself not to look. He’d put Parkes in this situation and now he felt like a voyeur, watching their intimacy unfold. It made uncomfortable viewing even though he knew it was an act. ‘So what was he like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your friend, the guy who’s missing.’

  ‘Kyle? Yeah, he’s a good lad.’

  ‘I guess you must be worried about him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was no good. Blake had to stretch a leg. He shifted his weight, taking the pressure off his straining muscles. He’d not experienced discomfort like it since he’d been held in agonising stress positions, blindfolded and blasted with white noise for hours on end during interrogation resistance training with the SAS.

  The wardrobe creaked. Stone squinted across the room. Parkes must have heard it too, but was quick to divert Stone’s attention, sliding off the bed and unzipping her trousers. ‘What do you think?’ she cooed, cocking her hips and pouting as they dropped to the floor leaving her standing in her flimsy underwear.

  Stone swallowed hard.

  ‘To think you could have died at any moment.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In Iraq.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Stone sat up and tried to move towards Parkes again, but she pushed him back onto the bed playfully.

  ‘So how long were you there?’

  ‘Not long. They sent us back after a month or so.’

  ‘Why?’

  Stone’s brow furrowed and he went quiet, picking at the duvet.

  ‘Jake? What is it?’ She tried to take his hand.

  ‘Stop,’ he said, shrugging her off. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.’ A sadness had descended over the soldier like dark clouds rolling in to spoil a sunny summer’s day.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Parkes pleaded.

  ‘I can’t.’

  Parkes took his face in her hands and held up his head, looking deep into his eyes like she was staring into his soul. But despite her best efforts he couldn’t, or wouldn’t meet her gaze. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Jake. Perhaps I can help.’

  ‘I wish I could. Really I do.’

  ‘You might feel better if you got it off your chest.’

  ‘They’d kill me if they knew I’d said anything.’

  ‘Who?’

  Out of nowhere, Stone howled. A primeval, gut-wrenching noise that made Blake’s blood run cold. Tears welled in his eyes and his face crumpled as a truckload of pent-up emotion poured out.

  ‘Jake, you’re scaring me.’ Parkes stepped off the bed, a fear in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t even know their names. They were just children,’ Stone wailed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Blake’s pulse skyrocketed. This was it. Here was the truth they’d all being trying to protect. He was sure of it.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice, do you understand?’ Stone jumped off the bed and grabbed Parkes’ arms so hard, she squealed. ‘Fletcher made me do it. It’s all his fault.’

  ‘What did he make you do?’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Stone’s eyes had turned black. ‘I should never have said anything.’ He snatched his hands back and stared at his palms as if they were covered in blood. ‘Christ, what have I done?’

  ‘Jake, listen to me,’ Parkes stammered. ‘Are you saying that Lieutenant Fletcher ordered you to kill children?’

  ‘He was only a sergeant back then. I promised I’d never say anything and now look what you’ve made me do.’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul. You can trust me.’

  ‘Shut up!’ He lunged at Parkes and pushed her against the wall, while reaching under his trouser leg to produce a small, but deadly-looking scuba knife with a hooked blade and serrated edge he’d had strapped to his calf. He grabbed her wrists, pinned them over her head with one hand and pressed the knife under her chin. ‘Scream and I’ll kill you,’ he said.

  Blake didn’t even stop to think. He burst out of the wardrobe like a hurricane. ‘Let her go!’

  Stone was momentarily thrown but kept the knife at Parke’s throat.

  ‘It’s over. Put the knife down.’

  Stone stared at Parkes’ terrified face, pure hatred in his eyes. ‘You bitch. You tricked me.’

  ‘It’s not like that. Please, Jake, don’t.’

  ‘We can protect you, but not if you hurt her,’ said Blake.

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  Stone glanced around the room, at the window and the door, as if plotting a way out.

  ‘Please put the knife down,’ Blake repeated, keeping his voice calm and even, trying to take the sting out of the situation and lower everyone’s adrenaline levels

  ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘I know Fletcher’s involved. I’m already onto him.’

  ‘This goes way beyond Fletcher. He wasn’t in command.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Jake? Do you mean someone else gave the order?’

  Stone grinned at Blake like a maniac. ‘I guess you’ll have to find that out for yourself.’

  ‘Nobody’s above the law. Give me a name and I promise we’ll work something out. I can protect you.’

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you? He is the law.’

  ‘Who, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head, or I’ll cut her open.’

  ‘I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘Do it,’ he screamed.

  ‘Who were the children?’

&n
bsp; ‘Witnesses. What does it matter?’

  ‘Witnesses to what?’

  Stone’s eyes misted up. ‘No kid should have to see their parents die like that. But they saw everything.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense. What kids and what happened to their parents?’

  ‘I said get on your knees or I’ll slit her throat.’

  ‘It sounds like you were following orders. Whatever happened, it doesn’t sound like it was your fault.’

  Stone laughed. ‘You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Kyle Hopkins disappearing? Was he there when those children died?’

  ‘We all were.’ Stone sighed as an unexpected calmness seized him. He relaxed his grip on Parkes and shoved her away. Blake caught her and pushed her behind his back, shielding her with his body. ‘That’s good, Jake. Now drop the knife.’

  For a moment, Blake thought he was going to do it. Stone lowered his hand, holding the blade limply by his leg.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with what sounded like genuine remorse. And then the knife was at his throat, his eyes blank and unseeing. With a deadly swipe, he drew the blade across his neck, hacking through skin and muscle and rubbery cartilage, opening up a scarlet gash that squelched and wheezed. The knife fell to the floor and bounced across the carpet a second before his body collapsed in a dying heap.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Parkes tore a sheet from the bed, but her attempt to stop the flow of blood pumping from the horrific wound at Stone’s neck were futile.

  ‘Stop,’ said Blake, trying to pull her away. She was hysterical, which he guessed was understandable in the circumstances, but not a great deal of help. ‘There’s nothing you can do for him.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ she screamed, scrunching the blood-stained sheet into a ball. ‘We have to try.’

  ‘It’s too late.’

  Stone’s eyes had rolled up into his head, his face was deathly pale, and his mouth gaped open as wide as the slash across his throat.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Blake, dragging Parkes away as she collapsed in a hysterical fit.

  ‘What have we done?’ she sobbed. ‘What have we done?’

  ‘Get a grip or you’re going to wake the whole hotel.’ Blake took her by the shoulders and turned her gaze from Stone’s body, making her look him in the eye. ‘It’s not your fault, okay?’

  ‘Of course it’s my fault. I brought him here!’

  ‘Go and wash your hands and face.’ Blake steered her towards the bathroom. ‘Then get back to your room. I’ll make the call.’

  Parkes dug her feet in and wrenched her arms free from Blake’s grip. She stared at him like he’d gone mad. ‘No, I’ll call,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. The police can’t know you were involved. You’ll lose your job.’

  ‘Screw my job. There’s a man by the bed who’s just cut his own throat because of me.’

  ‘No, because of the lie he’s been living.’

  ‘What lie? We don’t even know what he was talking about.’

  ‘Then we need to find out,’ said Blake. ‘You heard what he said, about Iraq and Fletcher.’

  ‘He wasn’t even coherent. He didn’t know what he was saying.’

  ‘I disagree. Get cleaned up, go to your room and wait.’

  ‘No.’ She grabbed her bag from near the desk and pulled out her mobile phone with trembling hands. ‘We’ve done enough damage. I’m not going to cover this up. That’s not how it works, and besides Sean van Dijk knows Stone came back to the hotel with me.’

  ‘Well, tell them you met me in the bar and that you felt unwell and went to bed early. I’ll tell them Stone came back to my room to talk about Kyle Hopkins.’

  Parkes shook her head in disbelief. ‘No, Blake. A man is dead.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Blake. Time was ticking and he could see she was determined not to back down. ‘Then at least do me one favour.’

  She glanced up from the screen as she dialled. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t tell them what Stone said about Iraq. Give me a chance to speak to Fletcher first. It might be the only way we ever find out what happened to Kyle Hopkins.’

  ‘No more lies, Blake,’ said Parkes, putting the phone to her ear. ‘I won’t be part of it.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Blake emerged from the police station into a cool, cloudy day. In the square, market traders were putting the final touches to their stalls under stripy blue gazebos as a steady stream of traffic poured into the town. Blake crossed the road towards a queue of taxis outside the parish church, jumped in the first car and had the driver take him straight to the army training school, hoping time was still on his side.

  Throughout the night, Hubbard had asked the same questions over and over, until finally satisfied Blake was telling the truth, released him without charge, exhausted and wired. As the evening had worn on, the detective had become increasingly frustrated by the lack of explanation for Jake Stone’s spontaneous and violent death in Blake’s hotel room. Parkes had been adamant she was going to confess to luring Stone back to the hotel as a honeytrap for Blake but had agreed reluctantly to stick to their story that Stone’s sudden death had been inexplicable and had come without warning. Hubbard had been furious, accusing Blake of withholding evidence, but with no proof of any criminality, he had no excuse to hold him.

  Parkes, he said, was being suspended from duty pending a full internal inquiry. An independent investigation would also have to be carried out by another force into the contact the police had had with Stone in the moments leading up to his death. It was a regrettable turn of events, but if Blake was able to find out the truth from Ryan Fletcher, he was confident Parkes would be vindicated in due course.

  In a mirror performance of Blake’s first visit to the training school, a young soldier disappeared inside the guard hut to make a phone call to announce his arrival, while another kept him under keen observation. A few minutes later, Sean van Dijk appeared from one of the nearby Nissen huts, just like before, and greeted Blake with a stiff handshake and a half-hearted smile.

  ‘Everything all right?’ asked Blake, testing whether news had reached them yet of Stone’s death. He was hoping the element of surprise would strengthen his hand. God knows, he was going to need every advantage confronting Fletcher.

  ‘What? Yes, I’m fine,’ said van Dijk. ‘You?’

  Fletcher was sitting behind his desk and jumped up from his chair when van Dijk knocked and threw open the door. ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ he said, full of bonhomie.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. Sergeant Stone died last night. He took his own life.’

  Fletcher half-smiled, as if he suspected he was the subject of an inappropriate joke. ‘What?’

  ‘He cut his own throat,’ said Blake, studying Fletcher’s reaction.

  ‘Fuck.’ Fletcher collapsed into his chair, shaking his head.

  ‘I think the guilt got to him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Shall we stop playing games? I was there when he died,’ said Blake. ‘We’d been talking about Iraq.’ Fletcher blinked rapidly. Three times. His only tell. ‘He told me about the children.’

  Fletcher stroked his beard as he looked Blake up and down, like he was weighing up an opponent before a fight.

  ‘Tell me, what did they do to deserve to die?’ Blake continued.

  Fletcher sniffed, crossed his legs and clasped his hands in his lap.

  ‘Stone gave me more than enough information to put you away for a very long time,’ Blake lied.

  ‘In which case, why aren’t the police here? You have nothing.’

  ‘I have a dying man’s confession that you ordered your men to execute innocent children. It’s more than enough to open a full inquiry and put you in jail.’

  ‘You have no idea,’ said Fletcher. ‘You see the problem with your lot, spooks or spies or whatever you call yourselves, is you see a conspiracy in e
verything.’

  ‘Is that what this is?’ said Blake. Fletcher smiled through thin lips. ‘And what about Kyle Hopkins. How does he fit in?’

  ‘Jake Stone was under a lot of stress and was prone to flights of fantasy. I’m sorry for what happened to him, but you can’t believe anything he said. I told you, none of us were in Iraq.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t need you to believe me.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ Blake steepled his fingers under his chin.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Fletcher, with a self-satisfied grin that was begging to be wiped off his face.

  ‘I think Kyle Hopkins was threatening to expose whatever it was that happened in Iraq. Maybe he said he was going to the police or the press and tell them everything, so you killed him, or had him killed. It doesn’t matter either way. Am I close?’

  Fletcher sat still while he listened, his eyes narrowing. ‘That’s some allegation. I hope you have proof.’

  ‘You told me Hopkins was depressed and had tried to take his own life. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? Otherwise you would have told the police. The truth is you were worried I was getting close to finding out what really happened and had to think of a way to put me off the scent. And I almost believed you, except I kept thinking back to what Claire Hopkins told me about Iraq. She wasn’t supposed to have said anything, was she? But you couldn’t stop her. It was ludicrous to suggest she’d been mistaken. She even had a picture of Kyle taken on the tour on display next to the family portraits, although that had disappeared the last time I was at the house. I presume Jamie Dobson was tasked with removing it as he had unrestricted access to their home.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘And when Dobson discovered Claire was having an affair, he saw an opportunity. I think partly motivated by jealously, he saw it as a chance to lay the finger of blame on Claire and decided to frame her for Kyle’s murder.’

  The grin on Fletcher’s face had grown wider and wider. He leaned forward and clapped slowly.

  Blake checked his watch. ‘I suspect it won’t be long until the police arrive. They’re a bit behind the curve at the moment, but it won’t take them long to get up to speed. It’s falling apart, Lieutenant. Time to throw in the towel.’