by M. R. Hall
‘Much,’ Chris said gently.
She slid her fingers between his. ‘You haven’t told me what happens next – after you’ve tidied everything up from the tour. You are going to take some leave?’
‘We’ve got this inquest. Maybe after that.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘They want it done next week.’
‘And you’ll be a witness?’
‘Yes.’ He offered nothing more.
Melanie probed gently, ‘If you want to talk about it? . . . I know you thought highly of Kenny.’
‘I’d rather not,’ he said dismissively. ‘One of those things. Can’t be helped.’
They lapsed into silence. Chris seemed content to stare at the ceiling but Melanie was bursting with questions.
‘Chris . . . ?’
‘What?’
‘We need to talk – about the future.’
‘What about it?’
‘There have been lots of rumours while you were away. Talk of cut-backs. Redundancies. If you believed half of it you’d think there wouldn’t be any infantry left this time next year.’
She felt him tense. He wanted her to change the subject, but she knew there may not be another moment like this for days or even weeks.
‘If the worst were to happen, my brother’s always asking after you.’ She tried to say it casually, as if responding to an idle thought, but Chris wasn’t fooled.
‘Insurance salesman.’ He gave a dismissive grunt.
‘At least we know there’s an option.’
‘You married a soldier, I’m afraid.’ He extracted his hand from hers. ‘I’ve been asked to go to Kenya – training their army in counter-insurgency.’
‘Kenya? When?’
‘In a month or so.’
‘You never said anything. When did this come up?’
‘I was waiting for the right moment. Thought we might all go.’
‘Take the girls to Kenya?’
‘You followed your father abroad. It’s what army families do.’ He climbed out of bed and pulled on a bathrobe.
‘Where are you going now?’
‘Can’t sleep. I’ll be up shortly.’
Melanie listened to him go down the stairs. There was something wrong. Badly wrong. She didn’t know whether to go after him or leave him alone. She pulled on her pyjamas and decided to read for a while before going down to check on him. In the morning she would call Lizzie Hastings and ask her to have a quiet word with Richard. He was bound to know what was troubling him.
Melanie woke suddenly in darkness. The bed next to her was empty. The alarm clock glowed dimly: three forty-five. A jolt of panic shocked her fully awake and propelled her out of bed.
She found Chris lying on his back on the living room floor. For a cold and desolate moment she thought he might be dead, but then she heard him mumbling and groaning beneath his breath. ‘Don’t . . . No. Don’t . . . No. No . . .’
Too nervous to wake him, she stood watching from the doorway hoping his dream would pass, but it continued on and on in a seemingly continuous loop. Eventually, she left him where he lay and went guiltily back to bed. As dawn broke, her sense of foreboding grew deeper and crystallized into a thought she had been trying to hold at bay: the man asleep downstairs on the floor wasn’t the one who had left for Helmand last February. Chris had returned a stranger, and he was frightening her.
Jenny had spent the early evening at her desk making frustratingly little progress. Her encounter with Sarah Tanner and Kenny Green’s parents at the mortuary had left her with an even heavier sense of her responsibility to unearth the whole truth of the young soldier’s death, but she had so little to go on. There would be few documents, the forensic evidence would be limited to whatever Dr Kerr turned up during the post-mortem, and the only witnesses to events would be members of 2 Platoon. She could certainly deliver a swift verdict, but without objective evidence, there was little chance of it being conclusive.
There was nothing more she could do tonight. She decided to go outside and catch the sunset. With a little luck, she might forget about the case for a while.
Jenny stepped out of the back door into warm, sultry air. The sheep grazing the meadows either side of her garden were repeating their daily ritual of calling lazily to one another in the twilight. When, still reeling from her divorce, she had transplanted herself here from Bristol, the timeless landscape of fields and forest had slowly helped to heal her wounds. Her transient problems and all the human crises that occupied her working days faded like the mist amid the steady, unbroken and unyielding rhythms of nature. She kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot over the dewy grass to the millstream that separated her patch of land from the field beyond. There, beneath the ash trees, she paddled, childlike, in the ankle-deep pool, squashing the sandy silt between her toes while she watched the sun dip towards the brow of the hill.
Her reverie was short-lived. A brilliant orange crescent was still hovering above the tree tops when she heard the familiar sound of Michael’s ageing Saab climbing up the lane. She stepped out of the water and went to meet him.
Michael had accepted the postponement of their holiday with more grace than Jenny had a right to expect. Stoically, he had gone straight back to work and had spent the day flying a round-trip to Geneva. He was weary but relaxed, and after dinner they sprawled on the sofa, Jenny with her legs resting across his lap. If he was thinking that they should now be having dinner on a Venetian piazza, he was hiding it well. He sipped from a bottle of beer and listened patiently as Jenny regaled him with the events of the day.
Almost without realizing she was doing it, Jenny soon found herself talking about the details of the case. ‘I asked Colonel Hastings about his lessons-learned inquiry . . .’ Jenny said. ‘He insisted it was a strictly internal matter.’
‘He would.’ Michael shrugged. ‘It is.’
‘You must have been involved in a few – what does it amount to?’
‘Could be anything from a quick heads-together to a full board of inquiry with evidence taken from all those involved.’
‘He won’t have had time for anything detailed.’
‘I’d be surprised if your colonel didn’t want all the facts – given the circumstances.’
‘How do you think that would work?’
‘He probably had the major and relevant members of the platoon into his office at Bastion before they left for home.’
‘Would he have kept a record?’
‘Oh, there’ll be a record. Whether he’ll admit to it is something else. And whether you’ll ever get to see it, well . . .’ he paused for another sip of beer, ‘that’s a matter of politics. And military politics is something I spent twenty long years of my life failing to get my head round.’
Jenny thought back to her training course in the spring and tried to recall if they had discussed the disclosure of the results of informal inquiries. It didn’t ring any bells, and if the subject had been mentioned, it had been passed over quickly.
‘I can’t not ask for it,’ Jenny said. ‘If there’s a record, it’s a relevant document. Perhaps the most relevant document there’ll be.’
Michael looked at her in a kindly, concerned way. ‘I know you have to ask, but if you want my advice, Jenny, pin your hopes on the squaddies telling the truth. They’ll be good lads. You don’t want to go to war with a colonel unless you have to, still less with the MOD. It’s not an outfit that forgives.’
‘Meaning?’
Michael let out a sigh – the first sign he had shown of impatience. ‘Ask yourself why you took this on, Jenny. Was it really to make trouble for yourself? Or was it to show them you could be trusted?’ He waited for her to answer, but the question had hit her in a vulnerable spot. ‘Anyway, the boy’s gone. He knew the risks. And he certainly wasn’t going to war for the money. You’ve got to accept this isn’t like your other cases. No one’s interested in the truth. What if he disgraced himself? What if he was a coward? His family want to
know he died like a man so they can look at his picture with pride, that’s all.’
An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Jenny lifted her feet from Michael’s lap and sat upright. The room felt suddenly colder.
‘I think I’m ready for bed,’ Michael said, and got up from the sofa. ‘I might be flying to Hamburg tomorrow. I’m expecting an early call.’
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ Jenny said, and retreated to her study.
For several minutes she sat in front of her laptop with the feeling that she was at a crossroads. Michael’s words had struck home, but she was a coroner, and her duty was to the truth, not to the feelings of a handful of relatives. And if she failed to seek it, what would that make her?
Twice she began an email, and twice she deleted it. On the third attempt she completed it, flagged it as urgent, and pressed send. It was to Colonel Hastings, requesting that he disclose all records of his lessons-learned inquiry to her immediately. So that he was not left in any doubt, she stressed that it was evidence vital to her inquiry which she would take all necessary steps to obtain.
The bedroom lights were already off when she pushed open the door. The sound of steady breathing told her that Michael was deeply asleep. A glance at the alarm clock told her that she had been at her desk for more than an hour. She slipped under the duvet and lay awake in the darkness with her mind churning and her heart pounding. It was a feeling she had experienced before when she’d chosen the difficult path: she was afraid. Of what and of whom she couldn’t say, but she was in no doubt that she would find out soon.
FOURTEEN
Jenny woke in an empty bed to the sound of heavy rain drumming on the roof. She plodded downstairs, still half-asleep, and found Michael’s hastily scribbled note on the kitchen table. He’d been asked to make the Hamburg trip followed by a hop to Stockholm before flying home, but weather reports weren’t good and there was a chance his return would be delayed until the following morning. He had signed off simply ‘M’. No kiss. He’d left toast crumbs scattered over the counter as well as his dirty dishes and last night’s empty beer bottle. The T-shirt and boxers he’d slept in lay on the floor by the washing machine, which he had failed to empty. On rare occasions she felt a hint of nostalgia for her ex-husband’s meticulous cleanliness. This was one of them. David had kept their smart suburban home as spotless and ordered as his operating theatre. He never left so much as a stray sock on the bedroom floor; the hangers in his wardrobe were positioned precisely three finger widths apart.
Jenny dealt with the laundry, dosed herself with strong coffee, wiped up the crumbs and was left with no time to do anything else but to bolt a piece of toast, hastily shower and run for the car.
Jenny arrived at the administration block in Highcliffe only a few minutes after nine, but already the corridors were busy with uniformed staff who looked as if they’d been hard at work for hours. She found herself climbing the stairs alongside Lieutenant Gallagher. He was carrying an armful of files and, in marked contrast to his colleagues, couldn’t have looked less enthusiastic about his day.
‘You look busy,’ Jenny said, feeling obliged to make small talk.
‘Shit rolls downhill,’ was his dry response. ‘Have a good one.’ He continued on up to the second floor.
Jenny turned to her office and saw that there were four or five young soldiers waiting on a row of chairs. Sergeant Price appeared through the door to his office.
‘Private Davies, please.’
One of the young men answered with a smart, ‘Sir’, and followed him inside.
Jenny glanced at them as she passed, realizing that these were Kenny Green’s comrades, the men who less than a week before had been in a bloody firefight in a dusty corner of far-off Helmand. She smelt their sweat mixed with the scent of cheap deodorant. They were tense and nervous, their wiry, undernourished bodies taut and alert. She smiled and offered a cheerful good morning. They mumbled greetings in return, their eyes feral and suspicious. She entered her office feeling strangely affected by the fleeting encounter, as if she had absorbed something of the violence still coiled inside them.
The voices of Sergeant Price and Alison travelled through the connecting door with sufficient clarity for her to make out the gist of their questions, but Private Davies’ muttered replies were inaudible. It was evident that he was a less than forthcoming witness. Every answer was having to be dragged out of him.
Jenny flicked on her computer and checked her emails. There was no reply yet from Colonel Hastings. There was, however, a message from Simon Moreton asking her to call him as soon as possible. Could news of her request for the results of the lessons-learned inquiry have reached him so quickly? It was possible. She took a deep breath and dialled the number she knew by heart. He answered on the first ring, which was never a good sign.
‘Good morning, Jenny. Keeping country hours, I see.’
‘I make it nine fifteen. Why, what time did you get in?’
‘Seen the papers?’ he said, dodging the question.
‘No . . .’
‘I should start with the Telegraph – at least they’ve found a flattering photograph.’
She tapped on her keyboard and brought up the paper’s website. Kenny Green’s face and that of the still-missing Pete Lyons stared straight back at her. The headline read, One Dead, One Missing: The Mystery of the Last Post. She clicked on the link and opened the full article. Halfway down the page was a photograph of her taken outside the Small Street Courts earlier that summer. No doubt it had been chosen because she wasn’t wearing a jacket and her open-necked shirt inadvertently revealed rather more cleavage than was seemly. The caption beneath described her as Maverick, anti-establishment coroner, Jenny Cooper. Even from a quick scan she could see that someone had been briefing in detail, and not from within the army. One paragraph in particular instantly leapt off the page:
Sources close to the inquiry describe the official explanation for Private Lyons’s suspected abduction as being incredible. They also point out that the appointment of Mrs Cooper, a coroner with a long track record of unearthing inconvenient truths, to conduct the hastily convened inquest, indicates that unease with the army’s account is being shared at the highest levels.
‘Who are these sources?’ Jenny said. ‘I can’t think of anyone involved with this case who would know a thing about me.’
‘How’s Alison doing these days? Still taking the tablets?’
‘No . . . She wouldn’t. I’m sure. She hates all journalists . . .’
‘Hmm.’ Simon didn’t sound all together convinced. ‘Well, my next best guess is that it’s a lawyer. Anyone on the record yet?’
‘No . . .’ Jenny ran her eye down her list of unread emails. ‘Oh. Hold on . . .’
The subject line of the message read: Notice of instruction. She opened it and found a brief message from a London-based firm of solicitors whose name she vaguely recognized: Sampson, Masters and White.
‘Yes. It seems Private Green’s next-of-kin is being represented by someone named Claydon White.’
‘Claydon White . . .’ Simon pronounced the name as if it were that of some ancient nemesis. ‘Well, that explains it. You’ve got to admire him – straight into the minds of the jury before you’ve even begun. You do know who he is?’
‘I think I may already have met him,’ Jenny said. She had already searched his name and was looking at a photograph on her computer screen of the senior lawyer who had appeared alongside Kelly Bradford on the final afternoon of her recent inquest into the post-operative death of Diana Thompson. Listed below were numerous news stories reporting on a string of high-profile negligence actions of the sort that provoked popular outrage.
Claydon White wasn’t picky about his causes. Among his past clients there numbered a radical Islamist preacher who had exploited every legal loophole to successfully avoid deportation, a prisoner who had sued the Prison Service for denying him access to pornography, and a morbidly obese woman who ha
d been awarded £500,000 damages against the fast-food chain she blamed for her predicament. There had been worthy causes, too: a group action against a pharmacy chain that had supplied toxic, grey-market drugs, and a case against a former government minister accused of conspiring in the illegal rendition of innocent terrorist suspects. But above all else, Claydon White’s CV was testament to the fact that he was principally a lawyer who sought the limelight.
Simon was going through the same exercise at the other end of the line. ‘Looks like you’ve got your hands full, Jenny. A man like him only turns up when he smells money, and lots of it.’
‘Fortunately, I don’t award damages.’
‘But you deliver verdicts. He’s going to move heaven and earth to prove the army negligent or worse. And if he succeeds, any civil action he mounts on the back of it will be a formality.’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’ll allow myself to be compromised, Simon?’
‘Of course not. I’m just thinking aloud.’ He sighed. ‘Claydon White,’ he repeated the words as if the name itself held the key. ‘What a shark like him likes is cases that open the floodgates, ones that cut new ground and bring him a whole slew of work. That’s why he’s here. We’ve already got the European courts saying that the Human Rights Act applies on the battlefield. OK, our courts have tried to limit its scope, but after the Smith case we’re in uncharted waters. An injured soldier or a dead soldier’s family can technically bring an action for negligence or for violation of the right to life. But there are no rules established. The Supreme Court left it all hanging. It’s all down to individual circumstances – was this or that decision grossly negligent? Did the officer take reasonable steps in all the circumstances to ensure his men weren’t heading into certain death? What White’s after is a clear precedent. He wants to be the man who knocks out the doctrine of combat immunity and makes every life and decision taken on the battlefield one with a potential price tag attached.’
‘Simon – are you genuinely having these thoughts for the first time, because something tells me you must have anticipated just this scenario. In which case, my involvement makes even less sense. I am the “maverick”, after all.’
