by Andy McNab
Tourists came and went. Then a figure blocked out the sunlight pouring through the doorway. All I could see to start with was a monster silhouette. This lad had a torso like a wrecking ball. I hoped I was right in thinking he was on our side. As he stepped out of the shadows I got a clearer picture: a younger – mid to late thirties, maybe – blonder version of Trev. I spotted the image on the T-shirt beneath his partly zipped jacket. A smiley emoticon. Either this was the world’s greatest coincidence, or I’d been reading Trev’s signals right.
He wandered around the body of the church, then found himself in need of a moment of reflection alongside me. He asked if I minded. His English had the combination of fluidity and precision that all Scandinavians seem to bring to it. Less musical than the Norwegians, but not as flat as the Danes, I guessed he must be Swedish.
He glanced at the freshly applied plaster on my head and raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘I’ve been bashing my head against a brick wall.’
He smiled. ‘I know that feeling.’
He didn’t rush it. It wasn’t that kind of place. We both tuned into the whole meditative vibe. We didn’t look at each other, but kept an eye out for hostiles. Eventually he spoke again.
‘I’ve been coming here every couple of days since our friend passed away. He wasn’t a religious man, but I know that’s what he would have wanted.’
‘I’m sorry I kept you waiting. It took me a while to get the message.’
He chuckled quietly to himself. ‘He didn’t have a lot to laugh about after he found the MRUD, but he was very amused by the method he chose to pass it on to you. He said that you haven’t always been the world’s greatest dog lover.’
‘He’s not wrong.’ Without making it too obvious, I peeled back my right sleeve so he could see the pattern of canine tooth-marks on my forearm. ‘But it’s the big ones I have a problem with, not the ankle-biters.’
He nodded to himself. ‘How is Icarus?’
‘Still smiling.’
‘Excellent. I’ll be glad to stop wearing this T-shirt. It’s not really my style.’ He turned towards me and held out his hand. ‘Good to meet you, Mr Jones. I just wish it had been under different circumstances. My name is Jesper.’
‘Ex-SSG?’
The Särskilda Skyddsgruppen was effectively Sweden’s version of the Regiment. These boys were good news. Their special operator training took more than a year, and included HAHO and HALO parachuting, explosives, sniper and special weapons, and VIP protection. Trev’s babysitter wasn’t going to fuck about if everything went to rat shit.
‘And ex-Arctic Rangers.’ Jesper grinned. ‘But I first met Trevor a long way from the snow, in what we used to call Zaïre.’
‘Bet he couldn’t wait to show off his Swedish.’
‘It was very impressive, actually. But really designed for people he wanted to sleep with. We were both extremely pleased to discover that I wasn’t one of them.’
‘Lucky you were available at such short notice.’
‘Trev didn’t believe in luck, as you well know. He had me on standby before Christmas.’
We turned like a couple of synchronized swimmers as another bunch of people came through the entrance. I recognized the Canadian family I’d followed into the Palace of the Lions. But I was paying less attention to potential observers than I was to Trev’s timeline. I’d made the mistake of assuming that the shit hadn’t hit the fan big-time until the gangfuck in the CQB Rooms, but that hadn’t been until 11 January. I now knew that Trev and Sam had prepared the groundwork for Ella’s disappearance three or four weeks earlier.
‘So what happens next?’
He interlaced his surprisingly delicate fingers and cracked his knuckles. ‘What would you like to happen?’
That was an easy one to answer. ‘I’d like to find a way of getting my young friend out of the shit, and I don’t have a whole lot of time. I was hoping his girlfriend might be able to help.’
‘Come to the Generalife Gardens at five o’clock this evening. The path at the back, among the trees, leading away from the palace.’
He eased himself out of the pew, nodded to the priest and left.
7
I got back to the Alhambra complex at four and bimbled around the Patio de la Acequia and the palace colonnade with the other sightseers before finding a sheltered bench with its back against the east wall and a drop-dead view through the trees to the citadel and the city and the Sierra Nevada.
Jesper appeared at the end of the path to my left, at the southern corner of the garden. He’d changed his T-shirt. The new one featured Mick Jagger’s freshly detonated lips and celebrated the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang tour. I wondered if it was another of Trev’s jokes.
The girl beside him was in jeans and a plain crimson Puffa jacket. I didn’t recognize her immediately, even though I’d studied the Mathieson family photographs. Her hair was short, spiky and black as a raven’s wing. She wore no makeup, and the lack of Vitamin D and the strain of the last few weeks were etched on her face.
Jesper stayed on stag at the corner and motioned Ella towards me.
‘Dr Mathieson.’ I stood up and gripped her hand.
‘Hello, Nick.’
Her voice was melodic and slightly husky.
We sat down and did our best to look like we were doing nothing more than watching the sun dip towards the Comares Tower. I waited for her to start talking. I didn’t want to crowd her. And it wasn’t long before she did.
‘You knew Sam’s dad, didn’t you?’
‘We did a lot of stuff together. I guess me and Trev and Harry were best mates when we were younger.’ I didn’t tell her I was probably responsible for Harry’s death.
‘Trev has been killed, hasn’t he? Jesper is trying to shield me from how bad things have got, but I knew, even before you appeared.’ She gave a soft smile. ‘Bless him, he’s just like Sam. They both forget that GPs sometimes have to be grown-ups too.’
I nodded.
‘Were you there?’
I nodded again.
She gripped her denim-covered knees. ‘Was it horrible?’
‘It wasn’t good. But it was quick.’
She shifted for a moment into doctor mode and reached up to touch the plaster beneath my hairline.
I gave her a wry grin. ‘We can save that story for another time.’ I paused. ‘I met your friend Grace. You’ll be pleased to hear she was no help at all.’
‘Have you seen Sam?’
I told her I hadn’t. ‘Trev thought it might do more harm than good. I’ve made contact with the lawyer, though. A guy called Blackwood. Serious player. But he seems to be getting some quite strange signals from your boy. I wondered if you could shed any light on that.’
She frowned. ‘What sort of strange?’
‘He doesn’t seem to want to help his legal people – or anyone else – get him off the hook.’
She gave a deep sigh. ‘This may sound like an odd thing to say about one of you Special Forces heroes, but Sam was really, really scared. Scared for both of us – scared enough to ask Trevor to arrange for me to disappear. I don’t know why. But given what’s happened to Trevor, I guess he was right to be …’
I asked her to tell me when things had started falling apart. ‘It was before the CQB mess, wasn’t it?’
The pain sprang into her eyes like I’d flicked a switch. ‘Oh, way before … Chris and Guy died in Afghanistan, but in one way or another that last tour went a long way towards destroying them all.’
Her jaw clenched. I told her to take her time.
‘Sam had nightmares from the moment he came back. He refused to tell me any of the details, said it wasn’t my problem. But of course it was, wasn’t it? You can’t be in love with someone and stand back and watch as they shrivel up in front of you without it becoming your problem too.’
She gazed out through the trees, but she wasn’t even noticing the view. ‘Have you ever had the night sweats, Nick?’
>
She didn’t need an answer.
‘We’ve got this lovely place in our garden back home, a kind of Ralph Lauren version of a shepherd’s hut, with a chimney and steps and wheels so you can tow it around. I hoped it might be somewhere Sam could find some peace and quiet.
‘It seemed to work, some days. Other days he’d draw down the shutters and lock himself away in there to grapple with his demons. Sometimes I’d manage to persuade him to stay with me, or I’d sit by his bed and watch over him, the way some parents watch their new-born babies to make sure they’re still breathing.
‘When he got the sweats, he’d repeat one word, over and over, like a mantra. A name. It sounded like an Afghan name. To start with, I couldn’t hear it clearly – I assumed it was the place Guy had won his Victoria Cross. But it wasn’t.’
‘Kajaki, maybe?’
‘No.’ She lowered her head. ‘I know about Kajaki. Well, I know as much as Sam and Scott were prepared to tell me. I could never work out whether they were trying to protect me from the most disturbing details or couldn’t bear to revisit the experience. But it was somewhere else. Sounded like Cushty, except that it definitely wasn’t. Koshty, maybe?’
‘Koshtay.’
‘Is that a place?’
‘Yup. And you’re right. It isn’t where Guy won his VC. But it’s not too far away from it.’
8
I was still grappling with the timeline.
‘Ella, Jesper told me he was on standby before Christmas. I knew things had gone pear-shaped at Kajaki, but I didn’t know that Trev and Sam felt under serious external threat even before the CQB incident.’
She raised her hands helplessly. ‘I had no idea either. Not really. As far as I was concerned, when Sam wasn’t battling with his own nightmares, he was trying his best to stop his friend unravelling.
‘The Chastains very sweetly invited the three of us to Guy’s medal ceremony in November. They’re so determined to build something positive from it. Admirable, really, but it seemed to tip Scott right over the edge.
‘He was in a really bad place during the run-up to Christmas. You know how emotional that time of year can be. His girlfriend left him quite soon after they got back from Helmand and his mum was completely out of her depth.
‘That whole period was utterly miserable. But it wasn’t until the weekend after Twelfth Night that Trev and Sam sent me away.’
‘They didn’t tell you why?’
She shook her head. ‘I asked, of course. They said it was safer if they didn’t go into any detail. “Need to know” – isn’t that the phrase you all use? And though I was worried about Sam’s equilibrium, I’d spent enough time with Trev to take his advice very seriously indeed.
‘Something happened on that Saturday night, Nick. Sam and Scott went out on the town together. The Spreadeagle, the Barrels, the Vaults – you know, the usual places. They ended up at the Green Dragon. I don’t know what happened along the way, but it was serious enough for them to put me on a ferry to Esbjerg with Jesper the following afternoon. We took a week to get down here on his motorbike. They thought it would be best to take the scenic route.’
‘I take that one all the time.’
So she’d left before Scott’s note arrived. Mate, sorry about last night. Pissed again. Story of my life, these days. Not good. I can’t promise not to repeat, but I’ll do my best. It’s a fucker, isn’t it? It would have come through Sam’s door on the Tuesday, and twenty-four hours later his best mate got a round through the back of the head.
I swivelled towards her. ‘Do you mind me asking some more questions?’
She told me to go ahead. A smile flickered across her lips. ‘My schedule’s pretty clear today …’
‘Why didn’t Sam come with you?’
‘He asked for leave, but they refused it. He didn’t want to risk going absent without leave. And he reckoned that Scott needed his help more than I did. How ironic is that?’
‘Do your parents know where you are?’
Her smile broadened. ‘You wouldn’t ask that if you knew them. How can I put this? My father is a high-ranking cavalry officer. He doesn’t do naked emotion, even at the Cenotaph. He’s a lovely man, but the last time I confided in him was when I got chucked out of prep school – and that was only because I knew there was a letter on the way to them from the headmistress. So when Trev and Sam said it would be better not to, I didn’t have a problem with that.’
I didn’t either. It made no sense to set up a hide, then broadcast its co-ordinates over pink gins at the Cavalry Club.
‘Did you spend much time with Scott?’
‘As much as we could manage. His dad’s dead, his mum’s got Alzheimer’s, so when Sophie – his girlfriend – left, he was more dependent on us than ever. He was a really great guy, but what happened to Chris completely ripped him apart. They should have put him in the psych ward for some proper counselling and pastoral care, not sent him to the Killing House.’
A young couple appeared on the path to our right. They looked for a moment as if they were aiming for the bench alongside ours, then realized that me and Ella were in a full-on conversation, not trying to decide where we might go for dinner. They gave us a friendly wave and walked on by.
I knew there was no diplomatic way of asking the next question, so when their footsteps had receded I just dived in. ‘Ella, is there any possibility at all that Sam could have fired that round? I mean, accidentally. He was obviously pretty strung out too …’ I didn’t mention the fact that I’d poked around in her medicine cabinet and his drawers and found the sertraline.
She raised her eyes to mine. ‘Sam isn’t in great shape, Nick, but he’s dealing with it. Everyone, apart from Trev and me, still thinks he’s Superman. He’s not chewing the carpet. He hasn’t lost his marbles or forgotten how to work a safety catch.
‘He called me after the live firing exercise …’ She caught the expression on my face. ‘Don’t worry. We were in Salzburg on a pay-as-you-go. Jesper took it apart immediately afterwards and threw all the bits into the Salzach River.
‘Anyway, we talked. He was gutted about Scott, obviously, but he was very, very lucid. Sam doesn’t know what happened in that room, and for one very good reason. He wasn’t there.’
‘So why is he facing a potential manslaughter charge, and why isn’t he levelling with Blackwood?’
She turned away from me again and tried to focus on the sunset. I looked over her shoulder at Jesper. He was cool, but tapped his watch. I nodded.
‘I don’t know why Sam hasn’t confided in Blackwood, Nick. I’m not au fait with how these proceedings work. But I’m absolutely certain he didn’t kill Scott. He only told DSF or whoever that he’d been responsible for a negligent discharge because he figured that the detention facility at the Military Court Centre, under lock and key, was the safest place he could be right now.’
9
I watched Jesper and Ella join the queue of punters filtering out of the main gate, hanging back so that I could keep an eye out for interested observers, and to minimize the chances of us being connected in plain sight.
They crossed the main and made their way to the Alhambra Palace Hotel car park, where Jesper took a couple of helmets out of the side boxes of a black BMW R1200GS Adventure. Good choice. It was one of my favourite machines, and not just because Ewan McGregor and the Hairy Bikers gave it their vote. The double overhead camshaft the Berlin boffins had introduced on the 2010 model had given it some extra kick and increased its redline limit to 8500 r.p.m. It had a top speed of around 130 m.p.h. and wasn’t shy of going off-road.
Jesper threw his leg over the saddle and Ella climbed on behind him. They disappeared downhill with a low growl and a flash of tail lights. I threaded back to the Cuesta de Gomérez, the tree-lined walkway that led towards the city centre, as the street lamps sparked up.
Granada Cathedral was a giant brown baroque wedding cake. If it didn’t have a hunchback in its bell tower, it should hav
e done. The three grand arches at the front were floodlit – I could see their glow as I approached them from the side, down an alley that was in the middle of a facelift. It was lined with sheets of wriggly tin suspended at head height on metal poles, beneath which were either locked, graffiti-covered roller shutters, or open souvenir shops that weren’t yet doing a roaring trade.
A crumpled figure sat hunched at the corner, in the shadow of the hoarding. Taking refuge behind a grubby black ninja niqab, she could have been anywhere between eighteen and eighty. As I approached her, all I could hear was the echo of my footsteps and her low moaning, punctuated by the occasional rattle of a few coins in the bottom of a paper cup.
I thrust my hand into my jeans pocket for a couple of euros. She struggled to her feet as I moved forward to add them to her collection and muttered something I couldn’t quite make out. I leaned in closer and cocked my ear. I still couldn’t understand what she was saying, but by then I didn’t need to.
She peeled her equally grubby cloak far enough back to let me see what she was carrying in her right hand. I got the message. From now on her fully cocked and silenced Llama Mini-Max .45 sub-compact was going to do most of the talking. These things were small enough to put in a clutch bag, but they had a ten-round, double-stack magazine, which was more than enough to turn this into a very bad day out.
Now we were breathing each other’s oxygen, I also couldn’t help noticing that she had three days’ stubble beneath her niqab, and a very steady aim. I thought about asking whether a five-euro note would settle it, but the glint in the eyes told me not to.
The cup disappeared, and the Llama said I should follow its owner as he reversed into the darkened passageway that I could now see over his shoulder. I followed its instructions.
I was on full alert, hopefully better late than never. I could hear a bunch of kids playing football in the square I’d been aiming for. I could hear the click-clack of stiletto heels about ten metres behind Niqab. And the heavy-breathing presence at my back.
