Lifeless Thorne 5

by Mark Billingham

  Holland had begun by taking notes, but had realized fairly quickly that there was little point. Even so, he drew a line on his notepad, as if underscoring something of great importance. “I understand all that, but surely when there’s a conflict, like there was in the Gulf, it’s a good idea to have some … continuity.”

  “It’s certainly a good idea,” Poulter said. He looked vaguely pleased, as if Holland had asked the predictably stupid civilian’s question. “When the regiment’s deployed, that’s when people really start to get switched around. Troops are reorganized all over again in accordance with battle regs.” He stuck the cigarette into his mouth and began to count off these regulations on his fingers: “You can’t go if there are any medical issues, any at all; you’ll get left behind if you’ve got so much as a toothache, right? You can’t go if you’re underage …”

  “I’m not with you,” Kitson said. “How can you be underage?”

  “You can join up when you’re sixteen and a half, right? After basic training and what have you, we get them at around seventeen, but you cannot be sent to war unless you’re eighteen years of age. You’re a gunner on a tank crew and the regiment gets deployed to a combat zone, right? If you’re a week short of your eighteenth birthday, somebody else is going to get brought in to do your job.”

  Kitson nodded. She couldn’t help but wonder if the Iraqi army had been subject to the same regulations …

  “Then, once you’re actually out there, everything can change again. People get injured; that’s the most obvious thing. And I don’t just mean as a result of enemy action.” He pointed out of the window toward the line of tanks that Kitson and Holland had seen earlier. “You take a tumble off the back of one of those wagons and you’re going to know about it. These things have a knock-on effect as well. One tanky breaks his arm, half a dozen crews can get shifted around.”

  In his notebook, Holland circled the full stop beneath a large and elaborately shaded question mark. “What about soldiers who were in the Gulf and are still with the regiment?” he said. “Could we perhaps just talk to them? From what you said before, there should be a list of those people somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I think that would be very useful,” Kitson added.

  Poulter thought for a moment, before rolling his chair back and tossing his cigarette butt out of the open window. “I’ll go and have a quick word with someone about what you’re suggesting,” he said. “If you’d like to wait there, I’m sure I can rustle up some more tea …”

  Holland closed his notebook before Poulter walked past him on his way to the door.

  NINETEEN

  Spike had found him within half an hour of Thorne’s release from custody.

  “Fat Paul, who sells the Issue outside Charing

  Cross, saw you coming out. How was it?”

  “Bailed for a fortnight,” Thorne said. “Gives ’em

  time to decide if they want to go ahead and charge

  me.”

  Spike looked surprised, as Thorne knew he had

  every right to be. “I don’t know how you managed to

  wangle that. Can’t see there’s much to decide, seeing

  as how you decked a copper.”

  “They’re waiting for medical reports or something.”

  “Right …”

  “Plus, if they do me for assault, they know they

  might have to do one or two of their own.” Now Spike thought he understood. “Good thinking, mate. We’ll get one of them disposable cameras,

  make sure we get some photos of your face. It’s a

  right mess, like.”

  Thorne had finally got a good look at himself in

  the gents’ back at the station after Brigstocke had

  finished with him. He looked every bit as worked

  over as he felt. One eye was completely filled with

  blood, while the other was half-closed above a bruise

  that was plum-colored and blackening at its edges. There were scratches down one side of his neck, and a graze, livid against his forehead, from where he’d

  been pressed against the wall.

  “Yeah, well.” Thorne could feel the air, cold on

  his wounds, and the pain that still sang along his

  shoulder blades where his arms had been driven up

  hard behind his back. “There were quite a few of

  them in the end …”

  “What d’you expect? You smack a copper in the

  face and a lot of his mates want to give you something to remember them by. Sounds like they did you

  a right favor, though …”

  Thorne looked at the cut along Spike’s cheekbone

  and the side of his lip that had split and swelled. “I

  thought you’d be a damn sight worse,” he said. Spike shook his head, looking smug. “I kept my

  head covered most of the time, like. Bastard ribs are

  black and blue, mind you. Just sorry I never got a

  chance to stick the fucker.”

  “You carry a knife?”

  With half his lip as swollen as it was, the smile

  was as lopsided as McCabe’s had been. “I’ve always

  got a weapon,” Spike said.

  They were heading north through Soho. The overcast streets were busy with lunchtime shoppers and

  workers hurrying to grab a bite to eat, or a quick

  drink to take the edge off the rest of the day. Thorne

  and Spike walked slowly along in the center of the

  pavement. The state of their faces allowed them to

  cut a swathe through pedestrians a little thicker than

  might normally have been the case.

  “You’re lucky they didn’t pick you up with it,”

  Thorne said. He was thinking that, despite what he’d

  said to McCabe, things could have been a lot worse.

  If he’d been party to an assault with a deadly weapon,

  there’d have been bugger-all Russell Brigstocke could

  have done about it …

  “Sorry I scarpered, by the way,” Spike said. “I had

  stuff on me. You know how it is, right?”

  Thorne knew how it was.

  “Otherwise … you know?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Spike sniffed and spat. He shoved his hands into

  the pockets of a scarred vinyl bomber jacket. “I

  wanted to say thanks for wading in, you know? For

  trying to pull the tosser off me. Not that I was in any

  trouble …”

  Thorne nodded solemnly, sharing the joke. “ ’Course

  not.”

  “So”—Spike grinned as a young couple swerved

  into the street to avoid him, “as a small token of my

  appreciation, I’ve got us both a job …”

  Half an hour later and Thorne was hard at work. The sign he was holding had a bright yellow arrow drawn on it and bore the legend mr. jerk. chicken ‘n’ ribs. The restaurant was situated halfway along Argyll Street, and Thorne and Spike, with their gaudy advertising boards, constituted a cheap and cheerful pincer movement. Spike was at the Oxford Circus end of the street, his sign pointing hungry people one way, with Thorne doing his bit to encourage them in the other direction from a pitch down near Liberty’s. Every half an hour or so the two of them would swap positions; pausing for five minutes’ chat outside the Palladium.

  At a couple of quid an hour, Mr. Jerk was happy, and by the end of the day they would have made enough for Thorne to get a decent dinner and for Spike to get himself fixed up.

  Thorne stood, propping up his sign; letting it prop him up. The features of those who moved past him were anonymous, in sharp contrast to his own, which had been punched into distinction …

  What he’d told Spike had been at least partly true. Brigstocke had done his bit to placate McCabe and the officer whose face Thorne had rearranged, but nothing
had really been decided. There might well be charges to answer, either sooner as a rough sleeper or later, when the operation was all over, as one officer assaulting another. Unlikely as it was that he’d be allowed to walk away from the incident, Thorne was far more concerned with how his stupidity might have compromised the job he was trying to do. McCabe had given assurances that, as far as Thorne’s undercover status was concerned, confidentiality would be maintained. But they were worthless: he could not possibly vouch for the discretion of every one of his own officers, never mind those hundreds of others—the beat officers, the Drugs Squad, the Pickpocket Teams, the Clubs and Vice boys—who moved through Charing Cross Station every day. The Met was no different from any other large organization. There was talk and rumor. There were drunken exchanges and gossipy e-mails. Thorne thought about the man they were trying to catch; the man who might be a police officer. If word did get out, would the killer himself be able to hear those jungle drums?

  Thorne remembered something Brigstocke had said. The mouse doesn’t know there’s cheese on the trap, but we still call it bait …

  When he’d stormed into the interview room at Charing Cross a few hours earlier, Russell Brigstocke was one police officer who certainly had looked like he wanted to kill him. The language of each I told you so had been predictably industrial, and he hadn’t spared himself. He’d also aimed a good deal of invective at his own stupidity for trusting Thorne in the first place …

  “I must have been fucking mental,” he’d said. “Maybe it was that diet you were on …” That hadn’t helped, and it wasn’t until Brigstocke was about to leave that he’d seemed to soften even a little. He’d turned at the doorway, exactly as McCabe had done, and let out a long breath before he spoke. “At least you look the part now …”

  Walking up now toward Oxford Street, Thorne could see Spike on his way toward him, spinning the sign in his hand as he bounced along. He looked twitchy, like his blood was jumping. He’d need paying pretty soon.

  Thorne remembered the look on Brigstocke’s face when he’d spoken; it was somewhere between pity and relief. He’d always been confident that he could look the part. He just hadn’t banked on feeling it.

  The soldier standing at the side of Major Poulter’s desk wore regulation combats over a green T-shirt, and Holland could not help but be struck by how good the uniform looked on her. As part of the Royal Armoured Corps, the 12th King’s Hussars was an all-male regiment. Neither Holland nor Kitson had expected to see any women …

  “This is Lieutenant Sarah Cheshire, our assistant adjutant,” Poulter said. “She’s the administrative wizard round here, maintains all the databases and so on. If you’d like to tell her exactly what it is you’re looking for, I’m sure she’ll do her best to sort you out.”

  Kitson explained that they needed a list of all those soldiers currently serving in the regiment who’d also fought in the first Gulf War.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Cheshire said.

  Holland’s charm was not quite as boyish as it had once been, but he turned it on nevertheless. “That’d be great, thanks …”

  Cheshire nodded and turned to Poulter. “I’ll get on it then, sir.” She was no more than twenty-two or

  -three, with ash-blond hair clipped back above a slender neck, and a Home Counties accent that Holland found a damn sight sexier than the major’s.

  “That’s good of you, Sarah, many thanks. I can’t see it taking you too long, to be honest.”

  “Sir?”

  Poulter looked across his desk at Kitson and Holland. “Aside from myself, I don’t think we’re talking about more than, say, half a dozen men left in the regiment.” He smiled at Cheshire; drew deeply on his cigarette as he watched her leave the room.

  “Why so few?” Kitson asked.

  Holland shook his head. “I thought there’d be a lot more than half a dozen.”

  “Soldiers leave,” Poulter said. “For many reasons. We lose a lot of men after a major conflict, a lot of them. It’s all about pressure, at the end of the day. Pressure from others and pressure inside your own head. If you’re lucky enough to have a family, then nine times out of ten they’ll want you out. You’ve been and done your bit, you’ve been out there and risked your neck, so why the hell go back and do it again? If you were lucky enough to make it back in one piece, the attitude of your nearest and dearest is ‘Why push your luck? Get out while the going’s good.’ ”

  “Understandable,” Kitson said.

  “Of course it is, but that’s the easy pressure. And having that kind of support system makes it easy to readjust afterward. For those without that system, and even for many who do have loving families, it’s not quite so cut-and-dried. You come back, your head’s still buzzing, you’re in constant turmoil, and I’m not necessarily talking about men who’ve fought hand to hand or anything like that. Any length of time spent in a combat situation, or spent in constant readiness for such a situation, is going to leave a good number of men in a fragile mental state.”

  “Like post-traumatic stress disorder?”

  “In some cases yes, but for many others it takes a different form. Some just crave the adrenaline high they experienced during combat. Back here, they just can’t get it, can they? You can see the signs. Silly buggers signing up for parachute jumps and what have you. Anything to get the rush. These guys have got ten, maybe fifteen years of skills and drills, then they come back from combat and they’ve got sod-all to do with them. That’s why so many go wild, land themselves in trouble, and end up in prison. It’s why they end up on the street, like with this case of yours …”

  The office door was held open by a tank shell. Kitson watched the smoke from Poulter’s cigarette drift upward, and then out into the corridor. “You must have to do a lot of recruiting after a war, then,” she said.

  Poulter barked out a smoky laugh. “Quite the opposite. The numbers go through the bloody roof for some reason. Good job as well.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?” Holland asked. “If you don’t mind me asking …”

  Major Poulter took a moment, then leaned forward to grind out his cigarette into a tarnished metal ashtray. “ ‘Mind’ is putting it a tad strongly. But I can’t see that it’s strictly relevant.” He was trying to smile, but his eyes seemed to have grown smaller suddenly. “I’m more than happy to answer what I understand to be the important question, which is whether I remember your man Jago, or any of the men in his tank crew. I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Fine,” Holland said. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve already explained how things worked out there.”

  “You made it very clear.”

  “I may not have come within fifty miles of that crew, and even if I did, it was rather a long time ago …”

  Holland grimaced and saw Kitson do the same as an engine was cranked up to a deafening roar just outside the window. Poulter said something Holland couldn’t hear, but he nodded anyway. The noise explained why so many of the soldiers he’d seen had been carrying ear protectors, which they kept tucked into the belts of their blue coveralls.

  It had become obvious that there was little to do but wait for the list of men who’d been in the Gulf, however small that turned out to be. They weren’t likely to get any more useful information out of Poulter, but Holland decided to ask a question or two anyway, just for himself. They had time to kill, after all …

  “It strikes me that the army does precious little to help these men after they leave.” Holland cleared his throat, spoke up over the noise that was dying as the vehicle moved away. “It’s like they fight for their country, then you wash your hands of them, just when they need the most help.”

  “There’s a comprehensive army pension system.”

  The major had spoken as if it were the end of the conversation, but Holland saw no reason to let it lie. Besides, he’d been doing a little reading up. “Not if you leave too early, there isn’t,” he said. “Unless you’ve been wounded, you only ge
t a pension if you do twelve years. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Poulter reached for another Silk Cut. “Look, I can’t say I completely disagree with you, but I do think the army does its level best in difficult circumstances. No, at the end of the day, pastoral care is probably not top priority, but you have to understand that the army has been doing things the same way for an awfully long time.” He summoned up a smile again as he leaned across the desk for something, then waved it around for them to look at. “I still carry a bloody riding crop around, you see? We wear black tie at dinner and we still get issued with mess kits.” He lit his cigarette. “Basically, we’re still Victorian …”

  Holland returned the smile. “Well, the system for keeping records certainly is.”

  The lid of the Zippo was snapped shut. “Some would say that we’ve got rather more important things to do.”

  The slightly awkward pause might well have gone on much longer if Sarah Cheshire had not appeared in the doorway brandishing a piece of paper.

  “Come on in, Sarah,” Poulter said.

  She walked over to the desk. “It’s not a long list, I’m afraid. There are seven men who served in Gulf War One who are still with the regiment.”

  Poulter looked pleased with himself. “I was more or less spot on, then …”

  “Three of these are presently away on attachment elsewhere, leaving four, including Major Poulter, on site at this moment.”

  Cheshire handed the list to Poulter, who looked at it, then passed it across the desk to Kitson.

  “Thanks for that,” Holland said. He was pleased when Lieutenant Cheshire held his gaze a little longer than was necessary; then embarrassed when he felt himself start to redden.

  “You already know that I can’t help you,” Poulter said, “but you’re more than welcome to talk to the others on the list. You might be able to cross-reference any useful memories, but I have to say I think you’ll be very lucky …”

  “We haven’t had a lot of luck so far,” Kitson said.