Lifeless tt-5

by Mark Billingham

  “Oh, they love all that carry-on,” the man said.

  The second SPIO, seated behind a desk at a right angle to the first, was eager to agree with his colleague. “Especially if it’s a couple of teenage girls doing the distracting. You’d be amazed how many saucy notes get stuck into those boys’ boots.”

  The office, which overlooked Whitehall, was large enough to have housed more than just the two SPIOs, but was also somewhat dilapidated. Paint was peeling from the green door and eau de Nil walls, and though the brown color hid it, the carpet was probably as thick with dust as the strip lights above. Several large pin boards were covered with curling charts, sun-faded maps, and, on one, a color photograph of the Queen in one of those oversize prams she was so fond of traveling around in.

  Though many who worked in the building were civil servants, the two men who shared this office were actually retired army officers. This had been made clear early on, when each had introduced the other and had prefaced name with former rank.

  Ex- lieutenant col o nel Ken Rutherford was short and stocky, with silver hair that he’d oiled and swept back. Trevor Spiby, a former captain in the Scots Guards, was taller, and balding. A patch of red skin, which might have been a burn or a birthmark, ran from just below his jaw and disappeared under his collar. Each man wore a shirt and tie, but where Spiby had opted for braces, Rutherford sported a multicolored waistcoat. Their contrasting appearances gave them the look of an upmarket double act, and this image was furthered by the way that they bounced off each other verbally.

  “Tea okay?”

  “Be better with a biscuit…”

  “Are you sure we can’t rustle you one up?” Kitson thanked them and passed. Holland did likewise, the cut-glass accents of the ex-officers making him feel as though he belonged on EastEnders. He imagined his polite “Thank you” sounding like he’d said, “Get your lovely ripe bananas… two bunches for a pahnd!”

  “I don’t quite understand why you’ve come to Media Ops,” Spiby said.

  Rutherford nodded. “The Met would normally liaise with the RMP.”

  Russell Brigstocke had considered talking to the Royal Military Police, but all that was really needed at this stage was information. He was also wary of the “can of worms” factor that so often came into play when one force of any kind attempted to make use of another. As far as the meeting itself went, it had been his decision to send Yvonne Kitson along. Most interviews were conducted by officers of DS rank and below, but on this occasion Brigstocke had thought it politic for an inspector to be present.

  “It’s a simple inquiry really,” Kitson said. “I just need straightforward information and I don’t need to waste a lot of anyone’s time. To be frank, it was this office’s contact details that were first on the Web site.”

  “How can we help you?” Rutherford asked.

  Holland gave a brief summary of the case, concentrating on the deaths of the two men with tattoos, whom they now believed to have been ex-army.

  “It sounds more than likely,” Spiby said. “The blood group is often tattooed, along with other things, of course.”

  “Though not too much.” Rutherford was peering over his computer. “Anyone with too many tattoos can be barred from joining the army in the first place.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d know what the rest of the tattoo might mean?” Holland handed a piece of paper across. Rutherford pulled on the half- moon specs that hung around his neck. He studied the letters for a few moments and passed it to Spiby.

  “They’re initials, clearly, but certainly nothing military springs to mind.”

  “Do you have any rec ords of the partic u lar markings that certain soldiers may have had?” Holland asked. “Scars, tattoos, what have you?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Spiby looked to Rutherford, who shook his head emphatically. “There are medical records, yes, but nothing that detailed.”

  “DNA?”

  “Oh, I doubt it.”

  “Dental rec ords, perhaps?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’d need to check…”

  Kitson leaned forward to place her empty cup on Spiby’s desk. “As we only have a name for one of these men, we’re very much hoping we can use it to identify the other. Save for the different blood groups, these tattoos are identical, so we’re assuming they had them done at the same time. That they served together.”

  “It sounds a reasonable assumption,” Rutherford said.

  “So if we give you this man’s name, we thought you could give us a list of the other soldiers he served with.”

  “Ah. Not such a reasonable assumption, I’m afraid. First, we can’t give you anything; you’d need to contact the Rec ords Office. Second, the rec ords just don’t work like that. They don’t group the men together in that fashion. I’d be amazed if the Met’s rec ords worked a great deal differently.”

  Kitson sat back in her chair.

  “These men who were sleeping rough,” Spiby said, “they had been out of the army for some time, correct?”

  There was a pause. The silence was broken only by the sputtering of the ancient gas fire in the corner of the room. Holland cleared his throat. “We think so, yes.”

  “They were definitely not AWOL servicemen?”

  “Not as far as we know…”

  “It would explain why they were sleeping rough. When a soldier is AWOL, they will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being traced through official channels.”

  Rutherford chipped in. “I’m sure that Army Personnel could cross-check your name against a list of absent servicemen.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case…”

  “So how far back are we talking?” Spiby asked.

  Kitson looked across to Holland. He looked back at her, gave a small shake of the head. “We’re not sure at this stage,” Kitson said.

  “When a soldier leaves the army, his rec ords are sent to the Manning and Record Office at the Army Personnel Centre in Glasgow. Sometime later…” Spiby looked to Rutherford. “Is it ten years, Ken?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sometime later, the rec ords are moved to the Services Archive at Hayes. Glasgow would need to recall any file from there if you made an inquiry. You could try that to begin with, but in the first instance they tend to give out only name, date of birth, and a confirmation of service.”

  “There are constraints on the release of any other information,” Rutherford said.

  Holland had started to feel very warm. He undid the top button of his shirt. “This is a murder investigation, sir. I doubt those constraints would apply.”

  Rutherford held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sure you’re right, Detective Sergeant, but with all the cooperation in the world I still don’t think they’ll be able to give you the information you’re after. As far as the soldier whose name you do have goes, you may still need authorization from his next of kin. You have that, correct?”

  Now Holland was feeling hot. Thinking about who that next of kin might be…

  “Which regiment did our man serve in?” Spiby asked. “That might give us a start, at least.” It was another question Holland couldn’t answer. Kitson snapped her head round to stare at him. He could see that she was thinking about Susan Jago, too.

  Kitson waited until she’d reached the end of the corridor and turned to walk down the stairs before she let rip. “They looked at us like we were amateurs. Fuck it, we are amateurs. What the hell went on in there?”

  Holland said nothing. He was still trying to put it together, trying to remember a sequence of events.

  “I don’t like passing the buck, Dave, but you were given the job of going into CRIS and writing up the notes for this interview.”

  “I did, guv…”

  Kitson stopped. “So why did we not know the answers to those questions?”

  Holland had accessed the Crime Reporting Intelligence System first thing that morning. CRIS was a complete record of the case to date: eve
ry name, date, and statement. There had been nothing relating to Christopher Jago’s service in the army-the year of his discharge, the name of his regiment. Holland had presumed that the data had simply not yet been entered, but that Kitson and Brigstocke must already know the relevant facts. He knew now that he’d fucked up; that they’d all fucked up.

  “Dave? Where’s the information we got from Jago’s sister?” The moment Kitson had finished asking the question, she knew the answer. “Christ. There isn’t any, is there?”

  “That’s the thing, guv. I don’t think Susan Jago has ever told us her brother was a soldier.”

  “Hang on, let’s think about this. I know she never bothered to tell us when she came down to ID the body. If the silly cow had mentioned it, we’d have put the whole thing together a bit quicker, wouldn’t we? But we’ve spoken to her since then.”

  “DC Stone called with the death message.” It was this phone call Holland had been trying to place in a pattern of what had been known, and when.

  “Right. So, she’d have talked about it then, surely. Why the hell wouldn’t she?”

  Holland had no idea at all.

  Yvonne Kitson was trying to stay calm. It was her team and she was ultimately responsible. She should have made sure. She should have known about this. Then it occurred to her that perhaps Susan Jago had told them about her brother and that they’d simply failed to process the information. “Is it possible that DC Stone did not update the CRIS after he’d spoken to Susan Jago?”

  Holland knew it was more than possible. There was no record of the conversation on the system. Stone might well have decided that as Susan Jago was no longer important to the investigation, he could get away without doing the update. But that still didn’t explain it: Stone had spoken to Jago three days earlier, on the Saturday afternoon; that was hours before Thorne had figured out the army connection.

  “It doesn’t make sense. When DC Stone spoke to her, we still didn’t know about the army thing. So if she had said anything, he’d have known it was important and would have passed it on verbally.”

  They walked the rest of the way down the narrow staircase. Both thinking the same thing. Why the hell wouldn’t Susan Jago have told them?

  “Call Stone and double-check…”

  Holland took out his mobile, dialed Stone’s number and got a message. He looked at his watch. “It’s lunchtime, guv. He’ll be in a caff somewhere with his phone switched off.” The lie had come easily, despite the anger he felt. Holland knew very well that whatever Andy Stone was eating, it wasn’t lunch.

  They emerged into a covered courtyard to find themselves part of a small crowd gathered for the daily mounting of the guard. A row of red-coated Life Guards on horseback stood facing their opposite numbers from the Blues and Royals, identical save for the dark coats.

  Kitson and Holland stood with the hushed tourists for a few minutes and watched the ceremony. Cameras clicked furiously as the troops who had ridden down from Hyde Park Corner arrived, the huge horses walking two abreast beneath the arch to Horse Guards.

  Holland leaned his head close to Kitson’s. “How come we never get saucy notes stuck in our boots?”

  But Kitson was in no mood to laugh.

  The place smelled of piss and hospital food.

  As soon as Thorne had walked through the door he’d remembered what Spike had told him when they’d been talking about the facilities at the Lift; how most places were a lot different. He’d been putting it mildly.

  The Aquarius day center in Covent Garden catered purely for those over twenty-five, but they could easily have upped the lower limit by fifteen years. Thorne hadn’t seen a single person younger than himself since he’d got there, and as he looked around, it was hardly surprising. The few people he had encountered were old-before their time or otherwise-and he couldn’t imagine a twenty-five- or thirty-year-old feeling anything other than deeply uncomfortable in the poky, dismal rooms and bare- brick corridors. Where the London Lift was light and well cared for, everything about the Aquarius Centre reeked of neglect, and a lack of the funding necessary to get rid of the stench.

  In the closest thing he could find to a lounge, Thorne sat and tried not to breathe too deeply.

  It felt like a doctor’s waiting room. A windowless box with a dozen chairs pushed back against its flaking walls, and a table in the center with old magazines and overflowing ashtrays scattered across it like litter.

  Ever since he’d worked out how Jago and the other man might have been connected, Thorne had been absorbed in considering why someone who’d served and possibly fought for their country might return to Civvy Street only to wind up sleeping on it. Might end up spending their days in a place like this. The figures were alarming. Some sources claimed that one in every four rough sleepers was ex-armed forces, with the figure even higher for those who had been on the streets long-term. Ironically, squaddies were given the skills that might help sustain them outdoors. They were trained to sleep rough. But what led so many of them to end up doing just that?

  There would be the same risk factors that applied to anyone else, of course; the same triggers. And it wasn’t hard to work out that there would be others, too, unique to a history in the services: post- traumatic stress; difficulties with readjustment; drug and alcohol dependen cy arising from either of those two things. But these were just chapter headings from a caseworker’s textbook. Thorne knew that if he wanted to understand, he would have to find some of these people, and talk to them…

  A man poked his head around the door, stared at Thorne for a few seconds, and backed out again. The room’s only other occupant had not even looked up. He sat opposite Thorne in a ratty green armchair, the floor around his feet littered with bits of foam stuffing that had leaked from its cushion. He gripped the wooden arms as though they were keeping him from rising up into the air, and stared at the front of a Daily Star that had sat unthumbed on his knees for the past fifteen minutes.

  Neither Thorne nor anyone else knew whether Jago and the other man had been killed because of their army background, or because they were homeless, or because of whatever events had led them from one to the other. Brigstocke had contacted the Ex-Ser vice Action Group in hope of guidance. Meanwhile, Thorne knew that his role gave him an opportunity to talk to those who found themselves where Chris Jago and the other victim had once been.

  That said, if Thorne had learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that reaching out to someone was never straightforward.

  “This place is a shithole,” Thorne said. “Isn’t it? They should just lob a fucking grenade in and be done with it…”

  The man sitting opposite rose from his chair-letting the newspaper slide onto the floor among the foam debris-and walked out of the room.

  Thorne got up and retrieved the paper. He turned to the sports pages and saw that, despite the draw they had scraped with Liverpool the previous Saturday, Spurs were still flirting dangerously with the bottom three.

  Then he followed the man out.

  Walking fast toward the exit, he thought about his father’s war stories. Jim Thorne had been no more than nine or ten when the Second World War had broken out, and his army experience had taken him no farther than Salisbury Plain. But he’d been happy to pass on the fact that he hadn’t seen a pineapple until he was eighteen, and recalled nights spent belowground while the bombs fell on north London with a clarity that remained undimmed even at the end. Thorne knew this sort of thing was not uncommon, but still he marveled at how his dad could describe every inch of an air-raid shelter, then forget to put on any underwear.

  “For pity’s sake, Dad…”

  “I forgot. I fucking forgot the bastard things!”

  Thorne’s father had told him, often, that he’d enjoyed his time as a soldier; that he’d needed the discipline and the routine. Thorne wondered if the problems of many of those who left the army each year stemmed from an inability to deal with the chaos, with the lack of any pattern to their liv
es in the real world. It would certainly explain why so many regained the order they craved in another way, by moving quickly from army to prison.

  He wondered if Jago or the other man might ever have done time.. .

  Approaching the exit, he saw the man from the lounge, and something in the stance reminded Thorne of his father’s friend Victor. He had a few years on Jim Thorne, had seen active service, and Thorne wondered what a soldier of Victor’s generation would make of all this. He knew about how men with shell shock had been mistreated after the Great War, but did that compare with the fate that awaited so many who’d returned from Sarajevo, Belfast, Goose Green?

  Thorne remembered reading somewhere that more British soldiers had committed suicide since returning from the Falklands than had been killed during the entire conflict.

  The man from the lounge was standing at the door, arguing with someone who looked like a caseworker. Thorne hovered, pretending to study the row of tatty paperbacks on a shelf, not wanting to push past the men in the doorway.

  “We were supposed to fill those forms in together,” the caseworker said. “It’s important, Gerry. You promised me you’d bring them in today.”

  Gerry was clearly agitated. “I forgot. I fucking forgot the bastard things…”

  Back at Becke House, Holland made sure he got to Andy Stone first.

  “Guess how many ways you’re in the shit?” The smile slid off Stone’s face.

  “I’ve tried to call you half a dozen times since midday.”

  “The phone was off for an hour at the most, I swear,” Stone said.

  “That’s only one of the ways. Why didn’t you update the CRIS after you spoke to Susan Jago?” “When?”

  “After you rang with the death message. Last Saturday afternoon.”

  Stone opened and closed his mouth, looked at the ceiling.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” Holland said. And he knew that he was, too, and that Kitson felt much the same way. She was already in with Russell Brigstocke, and Holland wasn’t so sure that the DCI would be quite so ready to blame himself. “I walked into a meeting this morning, unable to answer the simplest question, because we hadn’t got any of the information about Chris Jago that we should have been given by his sister.”