“Is Mags the cleaner?” Titch asked.
“Well, she’s not my fucking wife,” Chalkie replied with a whistling laugh. “But calling her the cleaner might be a stretch. Correct me if I’m wrong, but cleaners are supposed to clean stuff every once in a while. Not just whinge constantly.”
Titch followed Chalkie into a small room at the end of the corridor.
“This is the crew room,” the armourer said as Titch looked around the nasty little room. It obviously hadn’t been painted since before the smoking ban and, from the stale odour in the room, Chalkie had taken the ban as an advisory rather than anything else. “There’re the makings,” Chalkie said as he nodded at a rickety table with a kettle, some cracked mugs, and pots labelled Tea, Coffee, and Sugar. “Best you get cracking. Mine’s a Julie Andrews.” Beneath the table was a small, yellowed fridge. “If you want coffee or sugar, bloody well buy some. And the tea fund for bags and milk is a fiver a week. You’re in charge of it.”
Titch watched as Chalkie made his way to a fire door in the room's corner. As the armourer left, he called over his shoulder that he was going for a smoke and perhaps Titch would like to crack on and make the fucking tea while he was outside.
When the fire door closed behind Chalkie, Titch allowed himself a smile. The armourer was proper old school. A left-over from the Cold War days who had managed to get to flight sergeant by doing nothing more than not getting caught. A chocolate medal warrior, no doubt. Too junior for the first gulf war, too senior for the second. Titch’s smile broadened as he walked to the table and flicked the kettle on.
He quite liked the man.
24
“Sergeant Jarman? There’s a phone call for you on reception.”
Lizzie put down the magazine she was reading and got to her feet. The flight sergeant who had let her know about the phone call was technically her boss, although to be fair to the man, he pretty much left Lizzie to her own devices. When she had come back from her most recent tour in Afghanistan, he had tried to persuade her to have an extended period of time off to recover from what had happened to her out there, but that wasn’t what Lizzie had wanted. At some point, she was going to have to tell him about the sabbatical, but not until she had spoken to Adams properly and in person, not just over the phone.
She walked into the small reception area of the medical centre, the newest building on the base. The previous one had been closed down by the Care Quality Commission for, as the flight sergeant had put it at the time, being absolutely shit. There was a good view over the waiting area from the reception desk, and Lizzie could see a couple of patients idly leafing through magazines, just as she had been doing. The only difference was that the magazines in the staff room were less than six months old, unlike the ones in the waiting room, which were much older. On the desk, Lizzie saw a telephone receiver next to its phone, so she picked it up.
“Sergeant Jarman?” she said into the phone.
“Take your time, Jarman. I’m only the SWO, after all.”
“Mr Fletcher,” Lizzie replied with a smile. “I’m not sure if your repeat prescription for Viagra’s ready just yet.” A junior medic sitting at the reception desk stifled a laugh as she said this.
“Very funny, Lizzie,” Tom said, with no hint of amusement. “What are you up to at the moment?”
“Not much. Why? Are you offering to buy me cake in the coffee shop?”
“Can you come to Station Headquarters, please?” Tom’s voice had changed. He sounded deadly serious. Being summoned to SHQ was not, generally speaking, a good thing.
“Anything I need to know about, Tom?”
“The station commander wants to see you.”
“Will there be coffee?” Liz asked. In the military, there were two types of interviews. Those with coffee, which were good, and those without, which weren’t.
“Yes, you’re not in any bother.” Tom emphasised the word you’re. “But someone else might be. Ten minutes, yes?”
“Absolutely,” Lizzie replied, her heart sinking. “I’m on my way.” She put the receiver back down and turned to the medic. “Could you let the practice manager know I’ve just gone to SHQ, mate?”
“Sure,” the young man replied. “Was that really the SWO? Only the joke about Viagra?”
“I’ve known Mr Fletcher for years,” Lizzie said, “but if you made a joke like that with him, it probably wouldn’t go down too well.”
Lizzie retrieved her beret from the belt loops behind her back, centred the cap badge over her left eye, and smoothed the soft blue material over the contour of her head as she walked across the waiting room. When she passed the full-length mirror by the exit, she checked her appearance out of habit. Adams was right. She was getting thin.
Outside, the sun was shining, but it was still cold, even for May. Lizzie walked slowly, knowing she had plenty of time to get to the SHQ, and enjoyed the fresh air. She walked between the large aircraft hangars, remembering a story about the discovery during their construction of the skeleton of a murderer, still in an 18th century gibbet. Apparently, the murderer had bludgeoned his daughter to death with a stake, and his body was put on display after his execution to stop anyone else getting similar ideas. Lizzie shivered involuntarily as she recalled the story. When she had first heard it, Lizzie had disregarded it as an urban legend, but it had turned out to be true when she looked it up on the internet.
The SHQ at RAF Honington was a red-brick building, two storeys high, with several rows of windows set into the front. Above the white entrance door was a blue sign just in case anyone didn’t realise what the building actually was, although the flagpoles opposite the small parade square made it obvious. She mounted the steps and walked down the corridor to the station commander’s ante room where Tom was waiting for her.
“Lizzie, thanks for coming,” he said, getting to his feet as she walked into the room and rearranging a trouser leg over his prosthetic limb.
“I didn’t realise I had a choice,” Lizzie muttered under her breath.
“Come on through. The group captain’s expecting you. No need for headdress.” Generally speaking, when entering a senior officer’s office, she would be expected to keep her beret on and salute. Lizzie knew it was Tom’s way of reassuring her, even though he’d been quite clear on the phone that it wasn’t her that was in any bother.
“Sergeant Jarman,” a male voice came from the opposite door. “Please, come in. Mr Fletcher, could you sort Lizzie out with a cup of coffee and then join us?” It was Group Captain Leeson, the station commander. Lizzie glanced up at him as she walked toward his office. The group captain was fairly young for his rank, early to mid-forties, and if the station gossip was to be believed, was destined for great things. He was a good-looking man, wearing the standard RAF uniform of a blue long-sleeved shirt with darker blue trousers and a black tie. His shoes were highly polished, but not quite as well as Tom Fletcher’s.
“Good morning, sir,” Lizzie said as she walked into his office. Leeson waved toward a seating area in the corner with three comfortable chairs surrounding a small circular table. She noticed he had replaced the standard issue buttons on his shirt cuffs with small silver cufflinks in the shape of spitfires.
“Please, Lizzie, have a seat while we wait for Tom to butcher what should be a fairly straightforward task.”
Lizzie smiled as she sat down, looking at the various certificates and photographs on the walls of the station commander’s office. None of them were his, but belonged to the station itself, as did the portrait of the Queen that hung behind his large desk.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Lizzie asked him.
“We’ll wait for Tom, if that’s okay. But I wanted to ask you about your sabbatical? Have you decided yet?”
Lizzie paused before replying. She had needed to get his permission to even think about the sabbatical.
“I wanted to discuss it with my, um…” Her voice trailed away. Lizzie wasn’t sure exactly what to refer to Adams
as just yet. Boyfriend? Partner? Neither of them seemed right. Perhaps sensing she was uncomfortable, the group captain offered a suggestion.
“Significant other?” he said with a smile. Lizzie just nodded. That wasn’t right either, but she had to refer to Adams as something.
“Yes,” she replied. “Yes, my significant other. But to be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m going to take it.”
“And so you should, Lizzie,” the group captain replied, his smile softening. “I’ve read your file, and it’s absolutely the right thing for you to do after what happened to you in Helmand. I’ve already signed the paperwork. We need you at one hundred per cent and if this will help, then I absolutely support it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lizzie replied.
“As do I,” Tom said as he walked into the office carrying a tray. “I hear it could be as soon as next week.”
Lizzie frowned, not remembering telling the SWO that.
“How do you know that, Mr Fowler?” she asked him.
“My daughter was at the same presentation as you were,” he said as he distributed their coffees, “but she’s decided against it. Apparently, some of the bugs in Sierra Leone are enormous, and she screams if she sees an ant.”
Lizzie thought back to the other members of the audience, trying to work out which one might be Tom’s daughter, when the group captain interrupted her train of thought.
“So, Lizzie, I need to ask you a few questions, if I may?”
“Of course, sir,” Lizzie replied, taking a tentative sip of her coffee. Tom certainly had many skills, but operating a coffee machine didn’t appear to be one of them.
“Please could you tell me about Corporal Robert Hunter, and the injuries he received last night?”
Lizzie froze for a few seconds, her coffee cup halfway back toward the table. She set it down before placing her hands on her lap and looking at the group captain.
“No, sir,” she said, watching as his eyebrows shot up. “I can’t tell you anything at all, I’m afraid.”
25
Eleanor’s day had been going fairly well right up to the point when her boss asked her why she was moping around the newsroom with a face like a smacked arse. That was when, to his surprise, she burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she sniffed as she looked through teary eyes at him. Her editor had summoned some female reinforcements in the shape of the newspaper’s maternal administration assistant, who was sitting next to Eleanor with a concerned expression and supply of fresh tissues. “I just had some really bad news about my brother’s girlfriend.”
“What happened to her, my lovely?” the administration assistant, Wendy, asked. Eleanor thought for a moment before replying, conscious of the fact that Wendy was the source of almost all the newspaper’s gossip. But there was no getting away from this one.
“She was murdered,” Eleanor said with a loud sob, which prompted the offer of yet more tissues. Eleanor’s boss looked at her in surprise.
“The Riverside story?” he asked. She just nodded in reply and watched as his eyes started darting from side to side. She knew exactly what he was doing, as she had seen it many times before. Where, he would be thinking, is the angle?
Eleanor remained silent as he worked it out for himself. There wasn’t an angle, not from Eleanor’s perspective. Although she wouldn’t have put it past him to suggest a human-interest piece, featuring Eleanor, about the tragic loss of a young life who happened to be related to a member of the Eastern Daily News team. It would have been too late to go into today’s newspaper—that had gone to print a couple of hours ago with a lurid headline that spanned the top of the page.
SENSELESS.
Below it was a photograph of Fiona that Eleanor recognised from her Facebook page. In the photo, Fiona was laughing as she looked at the camera, her eyes sparkling with life. Eleanor recognised the arm draped over Fiona’s shoulder as Liam’s, his distinctive tattoos obvious, and she wondered if it was him who had made Fiona laugh just before the picture had been taken.
“Eleanor,” her boss said softly. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
She glanced at her watch. Eleanor had just been given the grand total of two hours off. It was just after three in the afternoon. She was about to mumble a half-hearted thank you when he continued.
“In fact, why not take a few days off. I saw your leave totals on the HR system the other day. You’ve got plenty. Five weeks or so. Take the rest of the week and we’ll see you on Monday.”
“I’ve got almost seven weeks when last year’s is carried forward.”
Her boss smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“There you go, then. Stacks of time to get yourself sorted.” That was her boss all over, Eleanor thought. No matter whatever happened, a couple of days off and everything was expected to be back to normal.
Eleanor felt bad for feeling so upset. She’d not known Fiona particularly well. Well enough to go for a drink with, but not well enough to share a secret with. But Fiona had shared some secrets with her. It was Liam that Eleanor really felt sorry for. She’d seen him with many girlfriends, but she’d never seen him the way he was with Fiona. It was as if they fit together like pieces of a jigsaw. But now Liam would always have a piece of that jigsaw missing.
“Would that be okay?” Eleanor asked, knowing full well that her editor couldn’t take the offer back. Not with Wendy sitting there, lapping up the conversation.
“Of course it is,” Eleanor’s boss replied with an insincere expression. “You take as long as you need.” As long as I’m back on Monday morning and ready to go, Eleanor thought.
It took Eleanor almost an hour to get across Norwich to Liam’s flat, although calling it a flat was only something that an estate agent would do with any sincerity. He lived in a pokey basement studio flat off the Yarmouth Road. The most positive thing that had been in the advert he’d showed her when he was thinking about buying the place was it was within walking distance of Carrow Road, the home of Norwich City Football Club. That, and the fact it came with a dedicated parking space.
“Liam?” Eleanor called out as she banged her hand on the front door. “It’s me, Eleanor. You in there?” When Liam eventually opened the door a moment later, Eleanor was horrified. He looked awful. His hair was greasy, he stunk of body odour and cannabis, and his eyes were as red as they had been back at the hospital. “Jesus, Liam,” Eleanor said, forgetting for a moment that he was grieving. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Eleanor,” he mumbled in reply. “You look fucking perfect, as always.” Eleanor grimaced as she realised what she had said.
“Liam, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling him into a hug that only concentrated the smell coming off her brother. She held him tight for a moment, not wanting to let him go but, at the same time, desperate to. “I am so, so, sorry.” She wasn’t surprised when she felt his chest rack and the sobs start.
A few moments later, after Eleanor had been through the studio flat and opened both the curtains and the windows, she was watching Liam carefully construct a joint. As he rolled a torn piece of cardboard to go into the end—he had told her at some point that it was called a roach although she had no idea why—she was about to ask him if he really needed it when she realised that he did.
“Have you heard anything?” Eleanor asked Liam while he rolled the joint between his fingers, examining it carefully for something that was beyond her. “About what happened?”
“The police were round here earlier,” Liam said. Eleanor’s eyebrows went up. He was lucky to have not been arrested for possession. “Some detective superintendent or other. Griffith or Griffiths, something like that. Nice enough bloke.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t get nicked, Liam,” Eleanor said. “With all this lot lying around.” Liam smiled as he picked up a Zippo lighter from the table in front of him.
“He didn’t look that impressed,” he said, “but this wasn’t lying around then.”
&nb
sp; “What did he say?” As Liam lit the twirled paper end of the joint, it flared up for a few seconds when he took a deep breath on the end. Eleanor waited as Liam inhaled the smoke and held it before tilting his head toward the ceiling and blowing it out.
“Not much,” he replied. “That they were treating it as a mugging that got out of control, but had some promising leads.”
“What sort of leads?” Eleanor was still a journalist at heart and, despite the circumstances, she wanted to know as much as she could.
“He wouldn’t say,” Liam replied. “Want some?” He extended his arm and held the joint toward Eleanor.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m good.”
“The main reason he came to see me, that copper,” Liam said as he took another deep drag on the joint, “was to tell me they couldn’t discuss anything with me. They’ve been in touch with Fiona’s parents, and they’re next of kin. So I’m now persona non grata, so to speak.”
“How d’you mean?”
“I’m out of the loop, Eleanor,” Liam replied, and Eleanor saw more tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Fiona’s dead, but they won’t talk to me about what happened to her.”
“I can help,” Eleanor said, even though she knew she was on thin ice as she said it. “I’m a journalist. I can help.”
Liam sucked hard on the joint, and Eleanor saw some sparks fall down from the end onto Liam’s T-shirt. Either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care that they were burning small holes in the material.
“I don’t think you can, Eleanor,” he said as he took another deep hit. “I don’t think you can.”
Enemy Within: A heart-wrenching medical mystery (British Military Thriller Series Book 3) Page 10
