by M. R. Hall
‘In the summer, not much. Underwear. Some guys keep their sandals on. Depends how peaceful things are.’
‘You have sandals?’
He nodded. ‘You’re meant to keep them on at all times – even in the shower. In case you have to run for cover.’
Jenny recalled that Lyons’s body was recovered wearing tightly laced boots.
‘Will anyone have touched that rucksack before today?’
He shook his head. ‘I just fetched it from the crate it flew in on.’
‘What about his weapon?’
‘Rifle, pistol and ammo will be back in the armoury.’
‘I’d like you to check that for me.’
Corporal Harris hesitated.
‘Is there a problem? Is there someone you have to refer to – a senior officer? I am in rather a hurry.’
‘No, I can do that for you.’
‘Thank you.’
They headed on down the row towards the armoury.
Harris said that strictly he shouldn’t let her inside, but if she wanted to take a quick look, he couldn’t see the harm. Jenny said she would like that – she was curious.
The armoury was a small building within a building: a windowless rectangle of concrete and steel accessed through the kind of door she imagined securing the entrance to a bank vault. It took two separate keys and an electronic swipe card to open. Once inside, Harris locked the door again. It closed with an airtight thunk. Jenny tried to ward off a rising sensation of claustrophobia as Corporal Harris flicked on a computer and brought up the inventory lists.
There were guns everywhere: rifles lined upright all along one wall, handguns on rows of smaller shelves and bipod-mounted machine guns and hand-held rocket launchers arranged on the floor. The remaining space was taken up with green plastic boxes loaded with ammunition and cases of rockets and mortar rounds. She became aware of a subtle but potent smell that was new to her: a metallic odour mixed with what she imagined was gunpowder. The weapons looked well used and battle scarred. There was something terrifying but at the same time vaguely thrilling about being in the presence of objects that had so recently seen the heat of battle.
‘OK – looks like we’ve got his rifle, but his sidearm is still entered as not yet returned.’
‘What about Private Green’s weapons?’
He checked the computer again. ‘Both here.’
‘So Lyons had a gun that never came back?’
‘A pistol. Let me make sure that’s right.’ He scribbled down a couple of serial numbers on a message pad and went to check the racks. He found the rifle, but like the computer said, the 9mm Glock pistol which had been issued at the start of the tour in February hadn’t come back.
‘Who would have been responsible for returning his weapons?’ Jenny asked.
‘There’s an official hand-in at Bastion. Doesn’t matter if the weapon’s broken or in pieces, it comes back whatever the condition. If it was lost in theatre, you’d expect a note on the records.’
‘Is there a note?’
‘I don’t see one,’ Harris said. ‘I’ll drop an email to the platoon sergeant, see what he says.’ He flicked off the computer, then stared for a moment at the blank screen before looking back at Jenny. ‘Look, I really don’t want to get involved in any of this. I’m happy in my work here, keeping my head down – if you know what I’m saying.’
‘It’s unusual, isn’t it – not to have a note?’
‘I’m saying nothing more, ma’am. I’m just a corporal who’s grateful to see a salary at the end of the month.’
He unlocked the door and stood aside to let Jenny out.
Jenny dealt with Private Lyons’s kit first. It had been stowed neatly into the three compartments of the rucksack. Down on her office floor on her hands and knees, she removed the items one by one, beginning with the camouflage helmet, and arranged them in rows on the carpet, scattering more of the Helmand dust. The main thing she noticed was how little clothing there was: one pair of trousers, one pair of underwear, spare socks, an undershirt and a tunic-style shirt. Never mind the danger, Jenny thought, the toughest thing had to be surviving six months in the searing heat with only one change of clothes. She found the body armour: a heavy Kevlar waistcoat designed to protect the torso from bullets and shrapnel. It was surprisingly thick and heavy. She examined it for damage, but saw nothing obvious. Down towards the bottom of the pack, she found a pair of open sandals. They looked well used with worn tread and frayed straps. She printed off the kit list Corporal Harris had emailed through and checked off each item. After she had discounted the clothes and boots Lyons was found in, there were seven missing items: pistol, holster, night-vision goggles, bayonet, scabbard, notebook and cigarettes. She took out her phone and took photographs.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
Alison entered. ‘Sorry I went AWOL, Mrs Cooper.’ She glanced at the connecting door and spoke in a whisper. ‘I was trying to get to the bottom of the business at Sarah Tanner’s place.’
‘You could have called.’
‘I couldn’t, really. I was with one of the lads from the platoon – Danny Marsh. He was a bit upset. Is this Lyons’s kit?’
‘Yes,’ Jenny said impatiently. ‘Upset about what?’
‘He was a good mate of Pete Lyons.’
Now it was Jenny’s turn to glance at the door behind which she couldn’t help but imagine Sergeant Price straining to hear every word.
‘What does he think happened?’
‘He’s as clueless as everyone else. They all bedded down for the night and when they woke up he was gone. He found this with his things, though. He was going to give it to his grandmother.’ From her coat pocket she produced a small, army-issue notebook with plastic camouflage covers. She handed it over to Jenny. Seven missing items had become six. ‘I hope you’re feeling strong.’
Jenny turned through the pages. Most were filled with jottings of what looked like briefing notes for patrols: sets of coordinates, landmarks to look out for, radio call signs, warnings of areas that might be mined or booby-trapped. Here and there he had doodled and drawn sketches of faces – some of them not bad – of what looked like members of the platoon. Then, towards the back, she had found the letter he had written. It was dated exactly ten days before he went missing. He had taken care to write it neatly in carefully joined-up writing.
Jenny read it through, then waited for the lump in her throat to subside.
‘Does Danny Marsh know why he wrote this?’
‘He says a lot of the lads wrote their last letter – just in case. Especially if they’ve had a few close scrapes. He didn’t like to say too much, but I get the feeling Norton was pushing them hard right to the end.’
‘We’ll have to get a copy sent to his grandmother.’
‘I’ll do it straight away.’
Jenny looked again at the notebook and turned over the remaining pages. She noticed that several at the very back – four or five – had been crudely ripped out. On the remaining stubs were the odd pencil mark. Lyons had evidently written more.
‘There are pages missing.’
Alison nodded. She had noticed that, too. Danny had said that’s how he had found it – in amongst his kit.
‘What else did he tell you?’
‘He mentioned the rumours. Doesn’t know where they started. He’s not sure anyone does. It’s like someone’s trying to turn the men against each other.’
‘Then we must be on to something,’ Jenny said. ‘Why else would whoever it is be kicking up so much dust?’
Alison looked troubled. She ran a hand uneasily through her hair.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, really . . . just the atmosphere in the camp. Everything feels so tense . . . The thing is, deep down every last one of them knows they lost this war. They’ve had friends killed, seen others blown up, and for what? It’s human nature, Mrs Cooper – all that anger has to go somewhere.’
>
Jenny set the notebook on her desk and tried to fight off the vertiginous feeling that had suddenly swept through her. In a few short words Alison had captured what she had vaguely sensed but been unable to articulate since she had first arrived at the camp: behind all the buttoned-up stiffness there was a brooding sense of menace and unfinished business. A dirty secret that it was her rotten luck to have to root out.
She pressed on. ‘Let’s get this stuff back in the rucksack. I want to have a look at the other one.’
Five minutes later, Kenny Green’s kit was laid out on the floor. He had been shot wearing his full combat gear, so there were more missing items, but the absence of one in particular troubled Jenny more than the rest. There was no notebook, but in the pocket of the spare pair of trousers there was a well-used pencil.
She now knew where to begin.
TWENTY-THREE
Jenny and Michael lay with their toes and fingers touching listening to the sound of early-morning birdsong. The dawn chorus was a muted, almost melancholy affair at the end of summer – the odd blackbird, a wood pigeon cooing to its mate – that evoked in Jenny the same feelings that the end of the long school holidays had brought when she was a girl. A sense of things coming to an end, of new and harsher responsibilities about to be loaded onto unwilling shoulders. It was five minutes to seven. Five precious minutes of stillness before the start of a day that carried only the promise of trouble. Her imagination ranged over all the different people and players who would now be rising from their beds to make their way to her courtroom. All of them expecting something of her. She thought of Sarah Tanner, now housed in safe accommodation with a police officer in permanent attendance, and of Paul and Rachel Green and Kathleen Lyons. Each one a human being hollowed out with grief and desperate for answers that she was expected to deliver.
‘You’ll be all right,’ Michael said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘You always are.’
‘I don’t feel like a woman about to hold court. I feel like crawling under the duvet and making it all go away.’
Michael stretched over and gave her a bristly kiss on the cheek.
‘You need a shave.’
‘You need to wake up.’
He reached under the covers and squeezed her knee.
‘Don’t!’ Jenny objected. ‘I’ve still got two minutes.’
She sank into the pillow, closed her eyes, and within moments was drifting back into a comfortable doze.
It lasted all of seconds. The doorbell sounded and jarred her awake.
‘Really? At this time? I swear he gets earlier every day.’
Michael swung out of bed, pulled on his jeans and went down to answer the door to the postman while Jenny forced herself upright a full minute before her alarm was due to sound and staggered to the bathroom. She glanced down the stairs from the landing and saw Michael signing for a registered letter while John, the postman, filled him in on some of the local gossip. There was a newly divorced woman living in a neighbouring hamlet who had set tongues wagging up and down the valley. Jenny could only imagine what rumours had circulated around her when she had first moved in to Melin Bach.
Freshly showered and beginning to feel human again, Jenny chose her most sober outfit – a tailored black suit, black heels, dark tights and a white shirt with a high collar which she wore with a plain silver brooch at her neck. A darker shade than her usual lipstick and a trace of black eyeliner completed the effect of impregnable formality. She stared at her reflection and hardly recognized the figure looking back at her. In her mind’s eye she was a gentle, approachable person who had to work hard to hide her feelings. The woman in the mirror had a heart of ice. It made her uncomfortable, but on this occasion she acknowledged to herself that it might prove a useful disguise. In a professional context, she had learned men only truly respect women who give the impression of having stripped their characters of all inward femininity.
Slightly dreading what pointed remarks or ill-judged jokes Michael might aim at her, Jenny made her way downstairs. She had taken so long getting ready she hadn’t left herself much time for breakfast. She would have to be quick. There was no sound of the radio coming from the kitchen, nor any smell of coffee. She entered to find the room empty and the door to the garden ajar. As she switched on the kettle she spotted a letter on the table and next to it, Michael’s phone. She crossed to the sink and looked out of the window. He was standing at the far end of the lawn, almost hidden in the shadows of the ash trees by the stream. He seemed to be staring out into the meadow beyond.
She went to the table and quickly read through the two terse paragraphs.
Dear Mr Sherman,
Following our recent communication, we have received a formal request from the Foreign Office for all records relating to an incident that took place on Highway 16, thirty miles south-east of the Iraqi city of Amarah on June 8th, 2007. We understand that this is in response to a request made by the government of Denmark.
Having reviewed the video and audio evidence in our possession together with the statements provided by you and other personnel at the time, we have isolated several issues that require urgent clarification. Please telephone the number below on receipt to arrange a meeting with Wing Commander Philip Brammell at your earliest convenience.
Jenny set the letter down and checked Michael’s phone. He had already dialled the number. Michael had never mentioned an incident in Amarah. He had spoken of inadvertently causing civilian casualties in the Balkans while carrying out direct orders, and of an incident in Afghanistan, both of which haunted him, but he hardly ever spoke about his tours in Iraq except to recall the intense heat and equally intense boredom of being confined for months on end in a desert airbase. Jenny had never been a conspiracy theorist, but the timing of this letter and the problem with Michael’s medical felt more than merely coincidental. And the fact that Colonel Hastings had seemed surprised by the information that Jenny lived with a former fighter pilot made her fear that if moves were being made to destabilize her, they were coming from far higher up. A request like this could only have been made by one of a handful of Whitehall mandarins at the very top of the Ministry of Defence.
If her suspicion was correct, it was intended to send her a message: harm us and we’ll harm not you, but the man you love. And it will lie on your conscience.
Her heels sank into the damp grass as she made her way across the lawn, all thought of breakfast now abandoned.
‘Michael? I saw the letter.’
He half-turned and made an effort at a smile.
‘Do you want to tell me what it’s about?’
‘Just one of those things.’ He shrugged. ‘One of many.’
‘Denmark?’
‘As far as I recall, I was called in to fire on a group of vehicles containing insurgents who’d just shot up a village and were heading for an army checkpoint. The intel was that the lead vehicle was jammed full of explosives. There was another vehicle coming in the opposite direction. It was left to my discretion. There were six guys at a checkpoint half a mile down the road. What do you do? I thought I’d judged it OK, but the blast turned the other vehicle over. We later learned there were two civilian medical staff inside: one British, one Danish.’
‘Surely it was investigated at the time?’ Jenny said.
‘Thoroughly.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was reprimanded – not officially. These things happened all the time. I never heard another thing about it.’
‘You seem very calm.’
‘Stamping my feet isn’t going to make it go away.’
‘If this is anything to do with me, I’m really sorry. I can make some calls, see if I can find out who—’
‘No. It’ll only aggravate matters. Let it play out. I’m seeing him today. What’s the worst that can happen?’
Jenny didn’t like to answer that question. She could imagine it only too well: a long drawn-out inquiry; revenge exacted slowly over many years. An ex
ercise in soul-crushing conducted under the guise of due process.
‘You’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you later.’ He stepped forward as if to kiss her, but stopped himself. ‘I daren’t. You look too perfect.’ He stroked her arm. ‘We’re not going to let my past affect your present, OK? Don’t give it a moment’s thought.’
She nodded, grateful for his understanding, but at the same time disconcerted by how unruffled he seemed.
They parted with smiles and a press of hands, but Michael’s eyes told a different story. He didn’t have to say a word, Jenny knew exactly what he was thinking. They had intended their life together to be a peaceful one; her home, now their home, was to be the place where they finally found the equilibrium that had always eluded them both. It had been a nice dream, but that’s all it had ever been, and all it was ever likely to be.
Jenny intended the preliminary hearing to be as short as possible. Alison and Sergeant Price had worked late into the previous evening to finish typing up witness statements and had emailed them out to both sets of lawyers along with copies of Dr Kerr’s post-mortem reports. On the face of it, the evidence was straightforward and there would be little to argue about. The aim of the exercise was to conduct the basic housekeeping: to make sure that all parties were in possession of the evidence that would be explored in the main hearing and to settle any disputes over its admissibility. Jenny had never relished technical legal argument and prayed the lawyers felt the same way.
Any hope of a quiet and straightforward morning’s work were dashed the moment she turned into the staff car park at the side of the old magistrates’ court. A cluster of news vans sprouting aerials and satellite dishes were parked in the street. Several reporters with microphones were talking to camera outside the ornate curving stone steps leading up to the main entrance. Others were stopping the soldiers and their family members who were already arriving in a steady trickle a full hour before proceedings were due to commence.
Hoping to avoid being spotted and pursued by the reporters, Jenny kept her head down as she made her way from her car to the side entrance. A sudden flurry of excited voices made her glance up. Claydon White’s limousine was sweeping up followed by a police squad car. It came to a halt and White and his colleague, Carrie Rhodes, climbed out. A bemused Sarah Tanner and a female police officer emerged from the car behind as the reporters abandoned what they were doing and headed for the star attractions.
