Line of Sight

by DEREK THOMPSON

  Thomas felt his face burning and cleared his throat. “We’ll need forensic suits, and I suppose we’re subject to a lockdown?”

  “That’s correct, Mr Bladen. Your things are being brought across now. Lockdown will be in effect for twelve hours. As a courtesy, you have a couple of minutes to attend to any personal business; then I’ll need your phones and keys, etc.” Major Eldridge finished his speech and left the room.

  Thomas didn’t waste any time; he speed-dialled Miranda before the footsteps outside had receded. “Hi, it’s me. Listen, I’m really sorry, but something’s come up,” he sighed in time with Miranda. “I can’t get away tonight.” His eyes rested on Karl. “Yeah, he’s here as well . . . you know I can’t talk about it.” He was still preparing a comeback line when Miranda hung up. He switched the phone off and placed it on the table carefully, as if it were toxic. Karl shrugged, by way of consolation, and copied him.

  The good Major returned so promptly that Thomas wondered if he’d been standing right outside. “If you’d like to follow me.”

  Thomas smarted. As if they had a choice.

  * * *

  Thomas carefully secured the fastening at his neck. In other circumstances this would have been comical — he and Karl kitted out in white romper suits. But behind that door — a very heavy door, he noted — was some unfortunate’s final resting place.

  “I’ll come and collect you in thirty minutes. Be ready.”

  Thomas let Karl lead the way in; he could feel the pit of his stomach extending away as he stepped over the threshold. Flung across the floor on the far side of the room, a starburst of blood and shrapnel. Beyond the bench, fragments of flesh and metal were embedded in the wall, and below it, the remains of a woman lay slumped back. He stared at her — at what was left of her — transfixed by the gaping hole in her skull. She looked like a grotesque sculpture; only partly human, something a twisted adolescent might have sketched on his bedroom wall.

  “Must have been a faulty breach mechanism,” Karl kept the chat to a minimum.

  Which was just as well. Thomas didn’t feel like talking. He stepped carefully around the debris and tried to tell himself that this was just another job. He’d done crash scene photography before, mangled wrecks with limbs poking out. But this was of another order; this was carnage. He fell into the rhythm of the job; get the footage and then get out. There was so much blood though, and an eerie mix of body fluids, smoke, and a trace of perfume hanging in the air like a lament.

  Suddenly he was twelve again, off to see his grandma’s body, in the Chapel of Rest at Scarborough. His mam had said he didn’t have to, but he knew she’d be proud of him for going through with it — his younger sister, Pat, had waited in the car. As soon as they’d gone inside, it was there. Not a smell exactly, more an instinct; a sense of being in the presence of death. The natural urge was to run, far and fast, but he hadn’t run then and he wouldn’t now.

  “Poor wee thing,” Karl’s voice cracked. “She must have been a bright girl to be working here.”

  Thomas’s mouth was parchment dry; he nodded and looked away. The glass in the wall clock was smashed, zigzag lines raging across its surface. The slow ticking seemed to Thomas a travesty — a machine persisting when something more precious had not survived. He heard Karl behind him, clearing his throat, as if to say: let’s get on with it.

  He ignored him and closed his eyes, reciting the Our Father silently for the deceased. Then, remembering where he was — and who he was — he swung the camera round and began framing shots that would likely haunt him forever.

  “Tommo, see that metal casing over there; well, what’s left of it. Unusual magazine.”

  He took the hint and photographed it from different angles, then eased the casing over with a pencil. It slipped and clattered around the floor; for a few seconds it was the only sound in the room. Then he put a foot on it and turned to Karl. “Is all this . . . normal?”

  “Nah,” Karl grimaced. “Totally wrong, like a fucking bomb has gone off.” He clicked his fingers then drew a finger to his lips. Thomas watched, wide-eyed, as Karl produced a mobile phone with a camera, and passed it over. “Get everything you can.”

  Emotion soared in Thomas’s chest; for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He felt the heat radiate across his face. Karl wasn’t prepared to let this go. And neither was he.

  At the far end of the testing range, a single target waited. He pressed the retrieval button; the whirring mechanism took its time, drawing the paper towards them like a spectre. There were holes — lots of holes — and several different sizes. He was no mastermind where ammunition was concerned — he relied on Karl for that. But even he could see that someone had re-used the target.

  He summoned Karl over and continued taking both official and unofficial pictures. Then he pointed to a scattering of different-sized shell casings, but Karl didn’t say anything. Finally, when Thomas thought he couldn’t stand another minute in that claustrophobic hellhole, Karl banged on the door. “I think we’re done here.”

  Major Eldridge was waiting on the other side. “We’ve put you in a secure area for the night — I’ll get some food sent over, not that you’ll feel like it. I realise you’ve got exhibition footage that needs to get to your liaison team so perhaps you could burn that to discs and then let me have your data-card.”

  Thomas blinked hard at the apparent slip of the tongue: data-card, singular.

  * * *

  “So, this is us,” Karl shouldered the door of the shared quarters; two beds, micro wardrobes, a table and chairs, a TV and the usual facilities.

  “May as well sort out the laptops now.” Thomas dropped his stuff on the bed and opened his laptop bag methodically. He set both machines up and cabled them together, quickly shuffling the Army Demo footage between screens before burning it to a DVD. Once he was satisfied that the disc worked, he wiped the original material from both their data cards. Karl seemed happy to let him get on with it, opting for a shower and a shave.

  Checking that the room door was locked, he went through the test lab photos, for quality and clarity. But each photo took longer than the one before, and he began to feel more like a voyeur than a technician. Those images marked the end of a woman’s life, the moment the lights went out for good. He stared at the collection filling his screen; it was only the sound of the shower cutting off that brought him out of it. He rubbed his face and finished the job, burning all the footage to a single DVD, for the major. God only knew what Karl wanted done with the pictures on the mobile.

  Karl emerged, half dressed — thankfully his lower half — with a towel around his shoulders. As Thomas looked over, he saw the silvery scars of a bar brawl etched on Karl’s torso. Karl brushed his hand over them for comedic effect, as if they were crumbs. “All done, Tommo?”

  He nodded, and offered up the mobile that he wasn’t supposed to have.

  “Nah, you keep it for now, just in case.” Karl slumped on one of the beds.

  Thomas left the laptops powered up for the major’s scrutiny and flicked on the TV to drown out his own thoughts. It wasn’t helping. “Tell me, Karl, what are we really doing here?”

  Chapter 3

  Thomas stood at the window, staring blankly at lights in the distance and tracking the occasional plane as it blinked across the sky. Normally, he’d have checked out the view through a lens, but he wasn’t in the mood tonight. Neither he nor Karl had spoken for at least twenty minutes. Karl had raided the drawers to unearth a soft porn flick, a duff comedy and a slasher horror — none of them had stayed on long. Even Karl’s quip about the porn film containing extras had failed to warm things up.

  It was a relief when someone knocked on the door, bearing room service, even if Major Eldridge was right behind the squaddie. Once the Catering Corps had departed, the major loitered over the open laptops. The two discs lay side by side; one labelled up as exhibition footage and stills, the other left untitled. He picked them both up as if weighing them, and
then put them down again.

  “Just the one copy of each?”

  Karl nodded curtly. “Sir.”

  The major opened his mouth to speak, and then sighed, delivering his next words with precision. “I’ll check your laptop logs now.”

  Thomas watched him closely as he performed all the cursory checks before lifting just the test lab DVD, so that the strip light rippled against the casing. “Now your laptops are clear, I won’t need to see them again. I . . . er . . . I think I’ll go and rustle us up a bottle of scotch.” He turned to face Thomas and Karl; his face gave nothing away. “I’ll be no more than ten minutes.” He gave the accident footage DVD back to Thomas. “When I return, I expect to see the laptops stored away. Do we all understand one another?” The door closed.

  “What the bloody hell’s going on?” Thomas leapt over to lock the door.

  But Karl didn’t answer; he was too busy breaking another blank DVD from the packet to make a copy.

  By the time Major Eldridge returned, with a serious bottle of single malt whisky, Thomas had the additional copy of the DVD safely stored in his jacket. Karl and Major Eldridge conducted a decent assault on the whisky, while Thomas watched from the sidelines. Around 11 pm, when, despite all the army reminiscing, Thomas had learned nothing new about Karl at all, Major Eldridge stirred from his chair. He shook hands with them and pocketed his two single DVDs, but lingered by the door.

  “I wanted you to see this.”

  Karl took the photograph and passed it to Thomas. It was a passport-sized, first day at work picture with short, dark hair framing her face and brown eyes staring out on the world. A hint of a smile played on her lips. He burned the picture into memory and returned it.

  “I appreciate your efforts today, gentlemen. And I suggest you leave the base at first light.” His voice had the quiet authority of a man who was used to giving orders. Karl saluted and even Thomas felt a stiffening of his shoulders. Whatever terribleness had gone down in the lab, this was a man of honour. Either that, Thomas mused, or he was a man with something to hide.

  After giving the comedy film a second try, they turned in for the night. Karl rolled over on his mattress, creaking the springs. “Tommo, you awake? Can I ask you something?”

  “If you must,” he huffed. Maybe Karl could talk him to sleep.

  “What do you think the major wants us to do with the copied DVD?”

  Thomas wriggled about to try and get comfortable. “Could be he’s just thinking on his feet — a little insurance policy for the future.”

  “Nah, you don’t get to be a major without being able to think strategically. He wants us to have it, but why?”

  Outside, unfamiliar sounds speckled the vacant landscape. It could have been a distant owl, but more likely a car horn — some lucky bastard with a less complicated life, off to see his girlfriend. Thomas’s thoughts flew to Miranda, and then back again to the base. “I can’t help wondering what we’re not being told.”

  Karl shifted again on the mattress of a thousand squeaks. “Aye, some wee girl is on the slab tonight and I reckon her family will get everything but the truth. I think she — and they — deserve better than that. Maybe that’s where we come in. Nighty night, amigo.”

  * * *

  Thomas was already awake when some joker banged on the door at stupid o'clock. By the time he got it open, the only thing greeting him was their mobiles and keys in a cardboard box on the floor — very hospitable. He gave Karl a nudge and got himself together.

  It was still dark outside; their Land Rover was ready by the door. “You better drive, Tommo, I’m not feeling too clever today.”

  He passed up the chance for a comeback line and took the helm, taking pity on Karl’s head and opting for something light and classical on the radio.

  Karl didn’t stir until the motorway services, apart from sporadic bouts of snoring and sleep chewing. He finally opened his eyes as they pulled up, yawning and stretching, like Belfast’s answer to Bagpuss.

  “Coffee?” Thomas was already half out the door.

  “I’ll sit here if it’s all the same to you; a large coffee, a copy of Private Eye and a packet of biscuits. Thank you very much.” Then he switched radio stations, as if to declare that he’d officially regained consciousness.

  Past the plastic double-doors, Thomas called Miranda. She was her usual razor-sharp self.

  “They’ve let you out then!”

  He waited a few seconds in case another gem was coming; turned out there wasn’t. “Yeah, all done and dusted. On my way back to civilisation now.”

  “And should I ask?”

  He grimaced — a fingernails-on-blackboard face. She knew better than to ask. “Industrial accident — with a fatality.”

  “Oh,” she gulped. “I’m sorry.”

  “Look, let me make last night up to you — what’re you doing later?”

  “Is that an offer, Mr Bladen? Saturday night at Mum and Dad’s.”

  He grinned, anticipating her next line.

  “You’re welcome to join me . . .” Somehow she managed to turn the word join — even at Mum and Dad’s — into something salacious. “. . . If you’re not too busy saving the world, that is.”

  He shifted away from the wall as a woman struggled past, baby in her arms. It struck him then that this was something the girl from the test lab would never get to do, and he felt a chill go down his spine.

  “You still there?” Miranda’s tone was insistent.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’ll be home in about three hours, once I’ve dropped off laughing boy. I’ll sort out some clean clothes and head over.”

  “I can pick some stuff up for you to save time. Then you can drive straight over to Mum and Dad’s . . . if you like.”

  She sounded like a carer. It still hurt, however unintended. Miranda had been the one held hostage, just months ago, but people were still treating him like an invalid, tiptoeing around him in conversation. As if everyone else but he was adult enough to deal with it. Jesus, he was drifting again.

  “Er, yeah, thanks Miranda — that’d be great. See you when I see you.” He picked up the supplies and trudged back, taking pains to keep out of everyone’s way.

  “You took your time — were you grinding the beans?”

  He managed a half-smile and got back in. Karl looked him up and down. Thomas hated that. Karl was a master of deduction.

  “Tommo, do you call out in your sleep?” Karl asked.

  He closed his eyes momentarily. “Let’s not do this.”

  Karl was still gaping at him.

  Jesus. “Alright. On those rare occasions when someone else is around, I’ve been told I do sometimes call out in my sleep.”

  Karl nodded at him, aha style, and slurped at his coffee.

  “I was like that after my first tour. . .”

  Thomas watched him ease back into his seat and waited. Karl seemed to breathe by osmosis, to avoid interrupting his own delivery.

  “. . . So you see, Tommo, in the end there’s nothing to be ashamed of in seeking help. Talking it through is the best way of getting to grips with your feelings and dealing with them.”

  Thomas put his coffee cup down. He’d had ten minutes of this and they were still in the bloody car park. He tried breathing slowly to stay calm; fat chance.

  “You really wanna know how I feel, Karl? I feel like I should have killed that bastard Yorgi, the second he uttered Miranda’s name. And I wish to God I had. I dream about that time on the moors, over and over. Sometimes I get him first and sometimes he gets me. And sometimes he shoots Miranda, and that’s when I wake up screaming. I ought to have protected her from the consequences of my job, but I didn’t — I fucked up. And now, half the time I can barely look her in the face.”

  Karl seized the first opening. “You have to be able to move on, Tommo.”

  “Bollocks.” He nearly said, ‘you weren’t there,’ but Karl had been there. Matter of fact, Karl had been the one who’d protected Miranda
after Thomas took a bullet. By his reckoning, that made Karl twice the man he was.

  Karl munched on a biscuit theatrically. “Right. Hear me out,” he pleaded, spraying digestive crumbs across the dashboard, “and I’ll not interfere again — I promise.” Karl’s face bore all the sincerity of an insurance salesman, but Thomas was eager to be convinced. “Look, I know a person who can help you; someone like her helped me when I needed it.”

  Thomas felt his back muscles relaxing. “You?”

  “I haven’t always been the calm and composed man-about-town you see before you today. When you see your oppos slotted, or you find yourself doing things you despise, well, it takes its toll. But a good medic can ease you through that — help you get it all into perspective.”

  Thomas started the ignition. Karl put down what was left of his biscuit.

  “Christine Gerrard asked me to keep an eye on you, to let her know whether you’re fit for duty. She’d arrange a referral, no questions asked.”

  Thomas gripped the wheel. When did everyone become so interested in his wellbeing? A better question might have been when did he stop caring? He huffed in time with the revved engine. Karl was right, no change there.

  “Fine. Book me an appointment with the nut doctor; anything for a quiet life.”

  Karl smiled beatifically, and retrieved his biscuit remnant from the dashboard.

  * * *

  The radio formed the only soundtrack for the rest of the journey. He dropped Karl off at Holloway Road tube, the pick-up point where Thomas used to join him on their visits to the gun club. But guns were a completely different prospect once you’d seen what they could do to flesh and bone. Once you’d seen a dead body, all that intellectual reasoning and hand-eye coordination practice was just so much play. He waved Karl away and didn’t stop until he reached that part of the urban sprawl he knew and loved as Dagenham.

  Chapter 4

  Although it was a work vehicle, Thomas still felt slightly sheepish rolling up to John and Diane Wright’s place in a 4 x 4. The house was a working class des res, large and imposing. It screamed two things: a) we made it here the hard way and b) if you don’t like it, you can fuck off. John Wright reckoned there were more business people — as he liked to refer to the better-heeled criminals about town — around Dagenham and Hornchurch than there were in Parkhurst and Wormwood Scrubs prisons combined. Which reminded Thomas to take all his bags out before he locked the car.