by J. S. Law
‘I’ll call them.’
He nodded, seeming to accept he wouldn’t push it any further.
‘That’s not the only reason I’m here,’ he said. ‘Do you remember a sailor called Stewart Walker?’
Dan shrugged again. ‘Not from recently; I knew a Stewart Walker when I was in basic training.’
‘That’s him. You joined up together. Then you both joined HMS Manchester straight after you passed out of Raleigh.’
Dan nodded, her features unchanged. ‘Yeah, “Whisky” Walker, I remember him. I haven’t heard from him in years.’
‘He died the day before yesterday. Hanged by the neck on board HMS Tenacity, one of the nuclear hunter-killer submarines that run out of Devonport. It’s believed he committed suicide.’
Dan turned to look at Blackett for the first time since their conversation had started.
‘Believed?’
He nodded. ‘This is a nasty one, Danny. I know you’ve only just arrived back with Kill, and I won’t hide the fact that I didn’t want this one for you, but I need an investigator to come and work out of Devonport Dockyard for a few weeks.’
He turned and looked out across the water.
He was hesitating; she could see it in the way he looked away from her. The way he focused out to sea as if engrossed by the nothingness between them and the Gosport Peninsula, which looked back at him from barely a mile away. She could still recognise all his mannerisms even though she hadn’t seen him in well over a year; he was a constant.
He reached for his cigarettes; half pulled one out, and then thought better of it. His tongue poked out from between his pursed lips as he took a few moments to thread it back into the nearly new pack.
‘And?’ she prompted, waiting for the rest.
‘And …’ he reached for his cigarettes again and pulled the same one back out, lighting it with his back to the wind. ‘And, I need to know how you are. I know you’ve only just taken over the Portsmouth unit, so I know that you’re back, but I need to know that you’re really ready to come back.’
‘What?’ asked Dan, her voice sharp, incredulous. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘It means you had a tough time, a really tough time, and that affects people.’
‘And I dealt with it.’
‘Some of it.’
She turned on him, faced up to him.
They weren’t at work any more, they weren’t in uniform; they were friends of over twenty years, and Dan was fearless in that knowledge.
‘I dealt with it,’ she said, her eyes boring into him and her teeth gritted.
He looked back at her, not angry as he might well have been, just patiently, waiting.
She turned away and looked out to sea in the same direction that he’d been looking.
A small white boat was being tossed around by the swell a few hundred yards from land. It was completely at the mercy of the waves around it, only held in place by a taut anchor rope that could break at any second.
The wind picked up and was topping the waves, forcing the crests down into small white mounds, like the backs of kneeling worshippers.
Together, the elements battered the hull of the small craft and tested the anchor’s resolve.
‘The Hamilton case took a lot out of all of us,’ he said, his voice low and thoughtful. ‘None of us saw that coming and no one paid the price you did. No one could have predicted it was one of our own—’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘Tell me about Walker.’
‘The way you were treated by the press. The sheer scale of what Hamilton did.’ Blackett seemed to be speaking to himself now, not really looking at Dan, as though he were seeing it all again, reading out the highlights as it played through in his mind.
‘Do we have a timeline for Walker?’ asked Dan. ‘And have interviews begun? Or can I get down there before they do?’
‘What happened afterwards …’ his words trailed off.
Dan stopped and looked at him. He was the one she had turned to after it had happened, the one she had trusted to help her.
They looked at one another and neither spoke for a long time.
‘I’m OK, Roger,’ Dan said. ‘Really I am, and I want this. I’m ready for it.’
Chapter 2
Thursday Evening – 25th September 2014
Returning to the house felt odd. The colours were no longer of her choosing, and her tenants had laid laminate flooring in the hallway but had taken the rug that had covered most of it, leaving grime lines that ran like flower borders a foot from each wall. In the living room, where there was carpet, it looked worn and dusty, with depressed patches dotted around the floor in all the wrong places. Her own house now reminded her of one of the many married quarters that she’d moved into as a child, as she and her sister had followed their dad around the country from military base to married patch. The cheap housing provided by the armed forces always had an air of not being home, but she and her big sister Charlie would still dash inside, ignoring the magnolia walls, worn carpets and mismatched cupboard doors in the kitchen, as they tried to bagsy the best bedroom.
Dan’s furniture and belongings had been delivered a few days before and most were still stacked neatly in the centre of the living room. She placed her workbag in the hallway, outside of the open archway that led to the small kitchen, and looked at what she owned. It was barely recognisable to her after more than eighteen months in storage.
The doorbell rang and Dan turned and paused. She let the time tick by, listening for receding footsteps that would signal that the caller had moved away. Then it rang again and through the frosted glass she saw a small figure waiting, motionless and patient.
The figure stood as still as Dan for a long moment, and then bent forward before small, white and veiny fingers groped to lift up the letter box. Dan knew that she was discovered.
She walked quickly to the door and opened it, taking care not to skin the fingers as she did so.
‘Danielle,’ said the old woman, giving Dan a broad smile as she straightened up. ‘I knew I’d seen you go in there. It’s good to have you back. You’ll have to come around for a barbecue as soon as you’re settled in. Derek can do his special Frikadella that you like; you know the weather doesn’t bother him. We can sit inside and drink warm wine while he freezes and cooks our dinner.’
Dan smiled.
‘Hey, Martha, I’m going away again already, down to Plymouth this time. I’m actually right in the middle of packing now, though, so I really need to get on – sorry. I’ll call in when I’m back, though, and a barbecue, even in September, sounds great.’ She began to slowly shut the door.
‘That’s OK,’ Martha continued unperturbed as she strained to look past Dan and along the hallway into the house.
‘OK then,’ said Dan, inching the door closed a little bit more. ‘Thanks for popping round and send my love to Derek.’
‘Don’t forget this,’ Martha handed over a red plastic Royal Mail bag, full to bursting with redirected mail. ‘Postie delivered it today while you were out, all from your old address in Scotland.’
Dan took the package, having to release the door and use both hands as she did. The markings showed the address of the Faslane naval base where she had worked for the past eight months or so, since returning from her sabbatical.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
She stood for a moment looking at the package which contained several smaller bags – weeks of mail that had managed to catch up with her in one go. She smiled and thanked Martha again, pushing the door slowly closed, like she had as a young navy policewoman clearing back rubberneckers from a fresh crime scene. The door finally shut, she sighed and tossed the redirected mail onto the floor next to her rucksack; there was nothing that needed to be opened now.
She turned and headed slowly up the stairs, past the clean patches on the walls where pictures had protected the paintwork.
Her black, navy issue holdall was open on the floor n
ext to her bed. It looked like a disembowelled slug. Clothes were spilling out, their arms and legs entwined, and her laptop was resting against it on one side.
The phone began to ring.
She waited, frozen again, as if the caller might be able to slip their fingers through the handset and see her hiding. It rang and rang as Dan pondered that she had no food in the house, no furniture she could really use, save the bed, no clothes beyond those clawing their way out of her holdall, but she did have a working phone and broadband internet; the priorities of the modern world.
The answering machine took the call.
Dan waited.
‘Hey, Sister-bear. It’s me with my one-way monthly check-up call. Roger told Dad you’re back down in Portsmouth and I feel like we haven’t spoken for way too long. I also have some very exciting news to tell you. A few of us are heading out for a few drinks next Saturday, nothing special, just a girly night, but it would be really great if you would come home for it. Dad and Mimmy Jean would really love that too,’ there was a pause and maybe a little sigh before Charlie continued. ‘We all really miss you. Dad thinks he’s done something wrong, but I told him you’re just taking some time—’ The machine beeped and cut her sister off.
Dan waited in silence, looking at the wall and making sure that any tears that had formed in her eyes were fully clear, and until she was sure that her sister wouldn’t call back to finish the message. Then she sat down on her bed, the only piece of furniture that was in a usable state, and listened to the message again, twice.
On the bedside table she looked at the photograph she always kept there. She and Charlie, and their stepmother ‘Mimmy’ Jean, were gathered around her dad, Taz Lewis, in the centre of the shot. They were at an armed forces family sports day and Charlie had just won a prize, a cartoon character Tasmanian devil that was the genesis of her father’s nickname. He was a force of nature, unstoppable and wild, and Team Lewis were unbeatable, simply because the girls believed that having Taz Lewis on your side meant you were halfway to victory already. There was no ‘just enjoy yourself, honey’ for the Lewis girls; second place was the first placed loser, and anything short of victory just meant trying harder, working harder and pushing forward, always pushing forward.
‘If you always aim for the stars, then you might just hit them,’ he would say as he held their hands.
‘But what if you miss?’ Dan had once asked.
‘If you try hard enough, really give it everything you’ve got again and again, then you won’t miss.’
‘But what if you do miss?’ she had pressed.
‘Then you’ll have spent your whole life looking at the stars, and I’ll be there to give you a push,’ he had replied.
Dan’s fingers played across the handset’s buttons until she began to dial her sister’s number. She was quick at typing it, one of the few she bothered to remember these days; all others just anonymous access codes stored on her mobile. All that was left to do now was push the green button, listen to the ringing for a few seconds, and then lie to her sister.
Time passed as she stared down at the digits displayed on the illuminated screen. Then, not sure why, she pushed the red button, cleared away the number and lay down, resting her head against her pillows.
‘It’s all about control, Danny.’
She sat bolt upright, her pillow twisted, contorted into submission and gripped tight in her clenched fists. Her arm flailed for the bedside lamp, groping along the cable and searching for the switch, but not finding it. The lamp crashed to the floor and she leaped out of her bed, heading for the door. Her shaking hand found the main bedroom switch and light filled the room instantly, allowing her to look around and take in the markers, the things around her that she recognised, that told her she was safe; it was just the dream.
Her back was pressed against the door so tight she could have been lying down on it. Her breathing was laboured, she was panting, drawing in breaths as though she had just finished another run, one that was harder, more demanding than any before. It was a few moments before she sat back on the bed, letting her breathing settle and looking around at the chaos.
Her eyes were heavy and her mouth dry as she glanced at the clock: 4:54 a.m. There would be no more sleep tonight.
The house was silent and not even the murmur of a neighbour’s television, or the scavenging of a hungry fox outside, permeated the walls as she started to pack. It wouldn’t take long; she hadn’t really unpacked.
Dan hesitated. She became aware of her own breathing. It was the only thing she could hear and it was getting louder and faster again. The urge to speak, to shatter the silence, grew inside her like a tumour. She thought of calling her sister, to hear Charlie’s voice if nothing else, but to say what? Dan could hide what happened to her from almost everybody; she could function daily and deal with it, as long as nobody knew. But any of the people in the photograph – Charlie, Jean, her dad – would see it as clearly as if she were still covered in the blood and bruises, as if her clothes were still torn and her back still raw.
Dan reached for the handset, ran her fingers over the keypad as though she were admiring jewellery she knew she couldn’t afford.
It was late now, though, too late, and Dan checked the clock and put the phone back on its stand. She knelt down, reaching underneath the bed and pulling out a portable document safe. It was heavy and she needed both hands to get it onto the bed and place it next to where she wanted to sit. She used her thumb to make sure that the four combination dials were thoroughly mixed up. But instead of dialling random numbers, Dan looked down and saw that she had set the combination perfectly, had unlocked the safe.
The lid opened without a sound and she looked at the picture on top, the one she always kept there, stared at it, her vision narrowing as though blinkers had appeared suddenly either side of her eyes, cutting out all else around her. She shook her head and shut the safe quickly, spinning the dials properly this time, as though, if she did it quickly enough, she might forget the combination and be unable to open it ever again.
‘Not today,’ she said quietly.
She stood and carried the document safe and her holdall down the stairs, loaded all of her gear into her car, and padlocked the safe to the vehicle security point.
The red package of redirected mail caught her eye as she began to pull the door to. She stopped and leaned in to collect it, before drawing the door tight shut behind her. She tossed the package into the boot, before shutting that too and preparing for the early morning drive down to Devonport.
Chapter 3
Friday Morning – 26th September 2014
Dan showed her warrant card to the armed guards at the entrance to the Royal Dockyard, Devonport, the Devon naval base that was home to the Royal Navy’s ‘hunter-killer’ nuclear submarines.
They cradled their Heckler and Koch MP7s in their arms as they watched her drive past.
The view out to sea looked unfamiliar and it took a few seconds for Dan to realise that it was the absence of grey warships, which only a few years ago would have dominated every seaward glance, that jarred against her recollection as she drove towards the submarine squadron building.
The interior of the drab, grey-stone submarine complex still featured the dull blue linoleum and filthy magnolia paint that had been there the last time she’d entered. The pictures on the walls that escorted her up the stairs – similar-looking photographs of indistinguishable submarines in varying colours of choppy water – looked brand new, though, and she glanced at each one, guessing at its location as she climbed the stairs towards Roger Blackett’s new office.
A large lady, her long flowery skirt flowing out behind her like Batman’s cape, was skipping down the stairs at a rapid rate of knots. Her cheerful humming sounded the alarm too late and she ploughed into Dan, knocking her and immediately catching her again by the arm only a second before Dan would have tumbled back down the stairs.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ the woman yelled, stea
dying Dan and dusting her down. ‘It was my fault, I always take the stairs.’ She pointed at a small gadget on the belt of her dress. ‘It’s for the step count.’ The woman smiled and waited.
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ said Dan, trying to take a step back to create some space between them. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Lieutenant Lewis?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes.’ Dan couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
The woman replied with an even bigger smile. ‘Good. Commander Blackett said you’d be here shortly. He’s got someone in with him right now but said he wouldn’t be long. Grab a seat upstairs in the outer office and I’ll let him know you’re here as soon as I get back. I’m just going to collect the mail, and bag a hundred steps on the way.’
Dan nodded and tried to smile as she navigated around the woman, unable to suppress the thought that she was unlikely to be quite so chirpy as she bagged her steps on the way back up the four flights.
Dan saw herself enter Blackett’s outer office, her reflection matching her actions in a long mirror that hung on the wall facing the door. She looked tired, she looked drawn and then she looked away and took a seat.
‘She’s been on the bench for too bloody long, Roger,’ sounded an unfamiliar voice through Blackett’s office door. The voice was raised but not shouting, its upper-class accent suggesting that Blackett’s companion was almost certainly an officer at least as senior as Blackett himself. ‘You packed her up and let her swan off on sabbatical, and none of us were sad to see her go, but she’s back now, she draws her wages, and she needs to be put to use.’
Dan checked that she was still alone and moved to a seat that was closer to the door. She picked up a copy of the Navy News, or ‘Dockyard Dandy’ as it was known around the fleet, and opened it to roughly halfway.
‘There is no reason at all that she should not pursue this, none at all. It works for everyone and we can soon see if she’s even half as good as you say,’ continued the unknown voice.
‘And if it goes public? After Hamilton?’ Roger Blackett’s words carried less clearly through his office door. He didn’t normally raise his voice, not outside of a bar anyway, and both he and the person who had replied to him had paused, silenced; even four years later, Hamilton could still hush all who remembered him.
