Lifeless Thorne 5

by Mark Billingham

  “I’m not sure that’s very likely,” Holland said. He reached across for her jacket and hung it on a coatrack behind the door.

  When Kitson entered the room, Holland took her coat, too. She nodded at Jago. “Thanks for coming down so quickly.”

  Susan Jago looked different from the last time they’d seen her. Her dark hair had been dragged back into a ponytail and there was no makeup to get ruined by tears. She looked more confident, certainly, but also harder. Holland had already gone through the Judges’ Rules with her outside. He’d explained that she was not under arrest, that she was free to leave at any time, and that she was entitled to legal representation. She’d laughed at him as if he were being silly. Now he went over the same ground for the benefit of the tape. The date was stated and the names of those present given for the record.

  Jago glanced up at the camera high in the corner. The hardware had been recently upgraded. Now, as well as being recorded on two audiocassettes, the interview was being simultaneously filmed and burned on to a CD-ROM. She looked back to the racks of shiny, wall-mounted equipment. “I bet that lot cost a fair bit,” she said.

  Kitson didn’t want to hang around any longer than anybody else did. “Miss Jago, did your brother, Christopher David Jago, ever serve in the British army?”

  If there was hesitation, it was only fractional. She answered slowly, and surely and with pride in her voice. “Yes, Chris was a soldier.”

  “So why did you choose not to tell us that?”

  “When?”

  “Let’s start with when you came to London to identify a body that you believed to be that of your brother.”

  “This is going to sound stupid, but nobody asked me.”

  “You’re right,” Kitson said. “It does sound very stupid …”

  “Well, I can’t help that. I didn’t think it was relevant.”

  Holland spoke up. “Surely, if you were looking for your brother, any information about him, about his past, would have been relevant, wouldn’t it?”

  “Look, I just wanted to know if it was him, and when it wasn’t, I just wanted to get the hell out of there and go home. Nothing else seemed very important.”

  Holland stretched out his legs, then withdrew them quickly when his feet made contact with Jago’s. “You had a long chat with Dr. Hendricks on the way to the train station, didn’t you? You were perfectly happy at that time to talk about your brother’s history with drugs, about his mental problems, but, again, you never saw fit to mention his past in the army.”

  She reached toward her handbag. “Can I smoke in here?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Kitson raised a finger casually toward the smoke alarm on the ceiling, neglecting to mention that it never contained any batteries. The no-smoking rule was her own. She hated cigarettes anyway, but also believed that keeping an interviewee on edge would deliver better results more often than not.

  Jago smiled weakly. “What happened to the good cop sliding the fag packet across the table when the bad cop goes out of the room?”

  “We’re both bad cops,” Kitson said.

  “Miss Jago.” Holland tapped a finger on the tabletop. He wanted an answer. “You never mentioned your brother’s army history during the conversation with Dr. Hendricks. Is that correct?”

  She nodded.

  “For the tape, please …”

  “Yes, correct. I never mentioned it, but I don’t see why one’s got anything to do with the other.”

  “Don’t you?” Kitson asked. “How many ex-soldiers do you suppose end up sleeping on the streets, Susan? As opposed to ex-footballers, say? Or ex–bank managers?”

  Jago shrugged.

  “Let’s move on a bit,” Holland said. “A couple of days after that first trip to London, you were contacted by Detective Constable Stone, who told you that we had information about your brother’s death.”

  She shifted suddenly on her chair, as though there were something uncomfortable on the seat beneath her. “Right, like it was good news. A fucking phone call from some smarmy, low-rank moron who’d obviously drawn the short straw, telling me Chris is dead. And now you’re going to sit there and ask me why I didn’t say anything about him being in the army again, aren’t you? Well, I’m sorry if I had other things to worry about, like what I was going to tell my mother. Like how I was going to find out where the council had buried my brother …”

  Holland could see by the look on Kitson’s face that she was in no mood to be messed around. “Let’s not waste any more time with this, all right? I’m going to stop saying ‘forgot to mention’ and ‘neglected to inform’ and I’m going to call it what it is: lying. You lied to us, and you withheld information that might have been important to a murder investigation.”

  Jago slapped her palms against her jeans and raised her voice. “They’re not the same thing. They’re fucking not. You tell me when I lied …”

  “What about the tattoos?”

  The skin around her mouth slackened suddenly, as if the ponytail had been keeping it taut and had suddenly been removed.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.” She held Kitson’s stare, but her voice had lost all of its stridency.

  “You were asked on a number of occasions, by myself, by DS Holland, and by DC Stone during your telephone conversation on seventeen September, if you knew what the significance of the tattoos was. On each of those occasions you said that you did not.”

  “On each of those occasions I was hardly thinking straight, was I?”

  “You lied.”

  “No.”

  “You knew very well they were army tattoos.”

  “I never lied. I’ve already explained that the first time I was messed up. I’d just seen a dead body, for crying out loud, I’d been looking at some poor sod with most of his face kicked to shit. Then, later on, when he asked me about the tattoos on the phone, I was in a complete state, wasn’t I? Because I’d just found out that Chris had been murdered as well. How was I expected to think straight?” She shook her head, kept shaking it, but both Holland and Kitson could see immediately that she knew what she’d just said.

  “That’s a strange way of putting it, don’t you think, Susan? Your brother was the victim of a hitand-run driver, wasn’t he? You’d been given no other information than that. You were told it was an accident. Yet you just said ‘Chris had been murdered as well.’ Like the first victim had been murdered …”

  Outside on the street a car was being revved up, and somewhere along the corridor a telephone was going unanswered.

  Kitson leaned forward. “Why did you lie to us?”

  It hadn’t taken very long. Susan Jago had been prepared, certainly, had been gearing herself up to front it out, but no amount of hard-faced posturing could mask the agony she felt inside. Once she started talking, it came quickly, like poison from a boil that’s been lanced.

  “I didn’t think it mattered, I swear I didn’t. It’s like I told that pathologist bloke in the car, I just thought Chris had gone walkabout—you know?—and that he’d come waltzing back when he was ready. So why would knowing what he’d done before matter to anyone except me and him? I just wanted to forget all of it. I managed to convince myself that I didn’t know much about his past and that it wasn’t hurting anybody to leave it like that.” She looked from Holland to Kitson and back again. “Then I found out he was dead, and I knew there were two of them. When I knew they’d both been murdered, I wanted to come clean about it all. I wanted to tell, honestly I did, but it was like I’d got so caught up in the lie that I couldn’t figure out a way to make it right again …”

  “Did you recognize the man you saw in the mortuary?” Kitson asked.

  She raised her eyes, every trace of bravado long gone. “I could really murder that fag now.”

  “Did you recognize him, Susan?”

  “Yes. He was in the crew with Chris. But on my children’s lives, I never knew his name. I just saw a photo of the four of them together once, that’s all.
”

  “What crew?” Holland said.

  “Chris was a Tanky. He was in the Twelfth King’s Hussars. That’s a cavalry regiment—”

  Kitson raised a hand, needing to slow things down a little. “Four of them, you said. Why four?”

  “There’s four in a Challenger crew. That’s the tank Chris and his mates were on. It was the four of them that went out and got those tattoos done just before they were flown out. The blood groups and those letters, which is just a piss-take, by the way, because they all hated the Royal Tank Regiment. There was some stupid rivalry, because they thought the Royals were posh, and the Royals’ motto is ‘Fear Nought,’ right? So Chris and the others got their own mottos done, as a joke: S.O.F.A.—Scared Of Fuck All …”

  Holland was struggling to take all of it in, but he could sense its importance. The room seemed to constrict suddenly and grow warmer. It felt as though his ears were popping. “We’ve got plenty of time to get all this down, Susan. Can you just tell us why you wanted to keep it a secret?”

  Jago reached down and lifted her handbag onto her lap.

  “You can have that fag in a minute, Susan,” Kitson said.

  But it wasn’t a cigarette packet Jago took out. It was a videotape. She placed a hand flat on top of it; then, after a few seconds, she pushed it across the table.

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” she said. “Anything I can. But I will not watch it …” 1991

  There are two groups of men, four in each …

  Now all of them are gathered together. Those who were previously tied up are sitting much closer together, with the others squashed in around them, squatting or stooping. Though only four of these eight men are dead, the entire group is momentarily still.

  Posed and posing.

  Behind this bizarre tableau, for the first time the hulking figure of the tank is visible. Its side and its muddy track, streaked with petrol rain, provide the perfect backdrop. It also offers something to lean the dead men against.

  After a few seconds we hear the voice from close by. Shouted this time. The words are just discernible above the relentless pop and spatter of the rain: “Put your arms around them … Give the fuckers a cuddle.”

  Two of the soldiers do as they’ve been told. They lean forward and each throws an arm around the shoulder of a corpse. The other two soldiers remain still, with their heads lowered.

  “I can’t see faces … Lift their heads up.”

  One of the soldiers is down on his haunches between two bodies, an arm now around each one. He looks across to one of those who has not moved. “A bit late to pussy out now.”

  After a few moments, the soldier who has been challenged stoops to grab the hair of the dead man and pull back his head. Close up, we see that the corpse’s eyes are half-closed and the jaw is hanging slack. Rain pours into the open mouth, spills from the side.

  “Uh-oh … losing one …”

  The body on the far right starts to tip to one side and slowly fall. The soldier behind, who has still not joined in, half reaches out a hand, then pulls it away at the last moment and allows the dead man to drop to the ground.

  “For fuck’s sake …”

  It isn’t clear at first. The rain and the shadows, the dark sand and hair make it hard to distinguish. Then, on the body of the fallen man, we see the patch that is wetter, blacker; high on the side of the head, and just starting to spread an inch or two across the sand.

  “Watch …”

  A soldier has pressed his face against that of a dead man. He raises a hand and wraps it around the neck. He swivels the head around, one way and then another.

  “Gottle of geer, gottle … geer …”

  His friend laughs, pulling off a glove. He leans across and presses a finger to the back of the corpse’s head. He looks at the stained fingertip, rubs it against his thumb for a second or two, then dabs it against the dead man’s forehead.

  A small red spot that starts to run.

  “That’s better. Want to make sure they let him into heaven.”

  The soldier who’d let the body drop stands suddenly and reaches over. He grabs the soldier who is still putting his glove back on and drags him to his feet. Screams into his face.

  “That’s Hindus, you ignorant prick. Not Muslims.”

  “All right …”

  “Not fucking Muslims!” He pushes him away and the two soldiers stand and look at each other. The horizon is a glowing strip behind them.

  Then, the camera drifts away, and down.

  And white noise …

  SEVENTEEN

  Holland jabbed at the remote and stopped the tape. After something close to half a minute, during

  which nobody spoke, Holland got up and moved

  across to the television. He crouched down by the

  VCR and ejected the cassette.

  Brigstocke turned to the man sitting next to him.

  “What d’you reckon?”

  “I reckon it’s something worth killing for,” Thorne

  said. “Worth killing to keep hidden.”

  “It’s fucking horrible.” Holland stuffed the cassette back into a large Jiffy bag and sat down again.

  “That’s the fourth time I’ve seen it and I’m still glad

  I haven’t eaten anything today.”

  The three of them were sitting in beige armchairs,

  gathered around a coffee table in the TV room at the

  London Lift. Though he’d moaned initially, complaining that he’d be in the shit if Lawrence Healey

  ever found out, Brendan Maxwell had eventually

  agreed to open the place up for them out of hours. It

  was just after seven on a Thursday night. Nearly

  thirty-six hours since Susan Jago had handed over

  the videotape.

  “What about the sound?” Thorne asked. “You

  can’t make out a lot of what’s being said. One voice

  is completely distorted early on, when they’re doing

  that shit with the bacon.”

  Holland grimaced. “That’s really hideous …” “We’re sending it to the lab at Newlands Park,”

  Brigstocke said. “Having heard some of the things

  they’ve done with 999 recordings, I reckon they can

  enhance the dialogue for us. We might find out what

  everyone was saying.”

  “So what do we know?” Thorne asked.

  Holland took out a notebook, though he didn’t really need it. “It’s the first Gulf War. Chris Jago was

  posted there from Bremenhaven in northern Germany in October 1990. The date on the tape tells us

  that what we saw took place on February 26, 1991.

  As to exactly where—”

  “I’m not sure it really matters,” Brigstocke said. Thorne scratched at what had become a pretty

  decent beard. “What does Susan Jago say?” “She says her brother didn’t want to go along with

  any of it,” Holland said. “She says that he was the

  one at the end doing the shouting.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “It’s impossible to tell who’s who, so I doubt we’ll

  ever know.”

  “Like I said before, I’m not sure it really matters,”

  Brigstocke said.

  Thorne shook his head, let it drop back against his

  chair. “Nobody tried very hard to stop it. They were

  all involved on some level.”

  “We do know one of the others is our mystery man

  in Westminster Morgue.” Holland picked up his briefcase and took out a grainy ten-by-eight photograph: a

  still from the video showing the four British soldiers;

  the moment before one of them moved forward from

  the group and checked his gun; just before the killing

  began. Holland laid the photo on the table, tapped at

  it with a fingernail. “With a bit
of luck, we’ll have

  names for all of them by this time tomorrow.” Brigstocke looked at Thorne. “Holland and Kitson are going to pay the Twelfth King’s Hussars a

  visit tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to Germany?” Thorne asked. Holland’s expression soured. “Bloody regiment

  got shifted back here five years ago, didn’t it? They’re

  based near Taunton now, so I get to go to Somerset

  instead. Shame. I could have done with a new overcoat.” Officers were given allowances of a few hundred pounds, usually in Marks & Spencer vouchers,

  if they were traveling to countries that would be

  warmer, or in this case cooler than they might be

  used to …

  “Nice to see you’ve still got your priorities sorted,

  Dave,” Thorne said.

  Holland stood and walked toward a varnishedpine bookcase in the corner. He laid a hand on top of

  the Jiffy bag as he passed the table. “God knows

  what they’re going to make of that, mind you.” He

  sank down to his haunches in front of the bookcase

  and peered through the locked glass doors at the

  rows of videotapes and DVDs inside.

  “It’s going to be interesting, all right,” Thorne

  said.

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “How are you going to play it?” Thorne looked

  across at Brigstocke and received a small shake of

  the head in return.

  “You’ve got some good stuff in here,” Holland

  said. “All the Scream movies. A lot of Jim Carrey

  stuff …”

  Thorne pointed to the Jiffy bag. “I think I’d rather

  watch that again.”

  They all laughed, but nobody’s heart was really in

  it. Least of all Thorne’s.

  “Why don’t you find us a caff, Dave?” Brigstocke

  said. “Bring us some teas back.”

  Thorne had eaten no more than Holland, but for different reasons. Now he wanted a variety of cakes and sandwiches with his tea, and in the end Holland had to write it all down. When he’d gone, Thorne turned to Brigstocke. “What was all that about?” He mimicked the strange shaking of the head that had