by Phil Rickman
‘So the idea,’ Howe said, ‘is to get them believing in themselves again.’
‘And not only in themselves.’ Lockley looked at Merrily. ‘Apparently.’
Merrily felt small and unprepared, like when you arrived in an exam room and your mind had been wiped.
Sometimes, when she looked up, the room would blur. Forgotten how tired she was. God knew what she must look like. She fingered the bulge of the cigarette packet through the fabric of her bag.
‘Some of this is going to sound a bit… loony.’
‘I’d expect nothing less from you, Ms Watkins,’ Annie Howe said. Then lifted a placating palm. ‘I apologize. Go on.’
‘Building a case against people… not what I do, obviously. All I can give you is possibly enough background to shape some questions. Essentially, Mr Jones follows a pagan religion adopted by the Roman invaders of Britain two thousand years ago. A soldiers’ religion, which—’
There was a tapping and a very tall young guy put his head around the door to say that, down in the canteen, Mr Jones was getting a little restive, making noises about having to attend a dinner.
‘What do you want me to do, ma’am?’
Annie Howe lifted a finger.
‘Perhaps I should have reminded you both that Colin Jones came in this afternoon in connection with last night’s break-in at his premises. He’s downstairs and apparently happy to answer any questions we might have for him.’
‘Rather interesting in itself, that,’ Lockley said. ‘I’m guessing you wouldn’t normally expect a man who’s had a minor break-in to visit the police station just to say he doesn’t want to press charges.’
‘Well… says he was coming into town anyway, but my guess would be that he was disconcerted to find quite a large police presence in his backyard last night.’ Annie Howe turned to Lockley. ‘Get him up?’
‘He knows what you want to talk to him about.’
‘He knows it’s about Spicer.’ Howe looked at Merrily. ‘Looks like you get to ask the questions yourself, Ms Watkins.’
Were those contact lenses magnifying an old malice, or what?
The mouthy ones like Carly, he could enjoy the scrap, so Bliss had left Joss to Karen and Darth. Never been as good with the deep and the silent. Karen had more patience, and she was local and so was Darth. They’d get there. Good as cracked, really.
Bliss sat on his own in a corner of the CID room. All falling into place, who’d done what: one sister killed accidentally, the second purely to keep the lid on it. In cold blood, pitiless. Head repeatedly banged on the bricks until she died. In Hereford. Made you shiver. Who’d suddenly cranked up the violence level in this county?
The sexual assault? Probably an afterthought, to make it look like a rapist attack, but who could say? Who was the bloke, how much of it was down to him? It would doubtless come out, when they brought Victoria Buckland in. Which, in theory, should not be difficult. But then, in theory, they should’ve had her already.
Bliss stood up and went to the window. The end of the rush hour, brake lights like snail trails under the purple sky. Maundy Thursday was always purple, Good Friday black. No matter how lapsed a Catholic you were, Good Friday would always be black.
A black Easter, too, this year, in both his professional and private lives. He might leave the city, find a copper’s job on the other side of the country, but there would still be loose ends here, one of them forever sticking out like a fuse awaiting a lighted match.
His kids. The worst of all scenarios was his kids being brought up by hunt hero Sollers Bull.
Bliss wanted to smash a metal chair into the toughened glass, shatter the skyline.
And there was Annie. Images of Annie, his mind filling with one every few minutes. Tousled hair and a stripy sweater. A shadowy areola under a white nightdress.
The longer he left it, the harder it would be to tell her that he – a copper – hadn’t known about Kirsty and Sollers Bull. Too late now. Maybe he’d write her a letter one day, from a bedsit in Gloucester or Swindon or wherever he wound up.
Bliss stood at the window, watching homebound traffic. Couldn’t see himself going home tonight, not with Buckland out there.
He was no longer tired, anyway; his body was burning with blood sugar.
Here came the footsteps on the stairs. Light and unhurried.
Here was a man who kept quiet as a comrade plunged to his death in the Brecon Beacons. Here was a man who calmly dismantled his marriage. Here was a man who raped his friend’s wife in the grounds of a hotel in Buckinghamshire and then said goodnight.
‘Mr Jones, ma’am,’ the tall detective said.
William Lockley did the introductions. Knowing him from the old days, brothers in arms, all that.
‘Byron, this is Detective Chief Inspector Howe. Senior Investigating Officer in the Mansel Bull murder case.’
Byron Jones nodded. He wore a dark suit and a mid-blue silk tie to match his eyes. He was guided to the foot of the table, facing the door. The optimum no-threat comfort seat, Merrily thought, as Lockley moved to sit opposite her, next to Byron.
‘And this is Mrs Merrily Watkins,’ Lockley said, ‘whom I think we could describe as an investigator with the Hereford Diocese.’
‘Really.’ Byron turned his bright blue eyes briefly on Merrily. ‘What does the Diocese investigate?’
‘Overdue books from the Chained Library,’ Merrily said. ‘That kind of thing.’
Byron didn’t smile, by then looking away. He was not what she’d expected. But then, what had she expected? Cropped hair, multiple scars?
‘Byron,’ Lockley said, ‘I think I should say at this point that this is just a discussion… a chat. Without prejudice. It will not be recorded, it will not be used in evidence. This began as a routine police inquiry, which seems to have crossed over into our territory, and, frankly, we’re all a bit confused and hoping you can help us.’
Merrily wondered if this sounded as phoney and patronizing to Byron as it did to her. Byron said nothing.
‘As you know,’ Lockley said, ‘the Regiment lost its new chaplain this week. You’ll also know the circumstances. And that it was a bit of a shock for all of us who knew Syd.’
‘Myself included,’ Byron said.
‘Though none of us, I’d guess, knew him quite as well as you did, Byron.’
‘He was a mate.’
‘But not recently.’
‘No. Not recently.’
Another knock on the door. Two uniformed male cops came in, ostensibly with coffee, but possibly, Merrily was thinking, to familiarize themselves with the layout and seating positions of the people in the room. It had been William Lockley’s idea that they should place Byron Jones near the door, where you’d never seat a suspect.
Annie Howe took the chair next to Merrily, opposite the two men. The first lights were coming on in the city below them. You could see the greying steeple of St Peter’s, where the late Frank Collins had been a curate.
Byron shook his head at Annie Howe’s offer of sugar for his coffee, turned to William Lockley.
‘Is there any suggestion that Syd’s death was suspicious?’
Before Lockley could reply, Howe said quickly that nothing had been ruled out, and Byron appraised her, thoughtful.
‘You think somebody might have killed him, Chief Inspector?’
‘We’re still examining the evidence.’
‘Or did he kill himself?’
Merrily said, ‘If he had killed himself, would that be a surprise to you, Mr Jones?’
Byron looked at her properly for the first time, and she felt able to study him. Older than she’d imagined. Older than Syd, although Syd had been the first to retire so he actually might be a little younger. He looked like… maybe like a cathedral canon, ascetically lean, with thick white hair. He looked… above all, he looked calm and distinguished.
‘Suicide’s hardly unprecedented among men who served in my former regiment,’ Byron said. ‘P
ost-traumatic stress disorder is far from fully understood.’
His teeth, unexpectedly, were jagged, with thin black lines down the front ones as if they’d been scored by a pencil. It made him look as if he had more teeth, as if he was smiling when he wasn’t. It made Merrily think of SAS men who were caught and tortured. Teeth and pliers.
She said, ‘Can you think of any good reason why Syd would be particularly stressed?’
‘How long you got?’
‘I was thinking, since leaving the army.’
‘We didn’t see much of one another.’
‘Any particular reason for that?’
‘Mrs… I’m sorry…?’
‘Watkins.’
‘I may be wrong here,’ Byron said, ‘but I think when a clergyman rejoins the army he’s no longer under the authority of the Diocese.’
‘He was a mate, Byron,’ Merrily said.
He turned his blue eyes on her again – an emptiness – a hole where love and humanity should be – and she fought against a blink. Instinctively putting a hand to her chest, where a pectoral cross would lie. Nothing; she’d left the vicarage too quickly this morning. She heard Annie Howe’s voice, flat and formal.
‘Mr Jones, perhaps you could tell us how you came to develop what we can only call a pagan sect inside the Special Air Service.’
63
Syd’s Candle
BYRON SCOWLED.
‘Then how would you describe it?’ Annie Howe said.
‘I would call it,’ Byron said, ‘a discipline.’
Of course he would. Merrily was feeling hollow with fatigue, yet nursing a need to smoke this man out.
‘A discipline based on worship of a Roman god?’ she said.
‘I dislike the word worship,’ Byron said. ‘In the army we did not worship our officers.’
Merrily recalled that in the SAS only senior officers were addressed as sir. No lack of respect. The Regiment was informal; it was about mutual trust and reliance, practicalities.
‘You saw Mithras as your mate?’
If Byron was surprised that she knew about Mithras, he wasn’t showing it.
‘I would call him a device.’
‘Is it possible you could explain that for us?’
Byron said nothing. William Lockley pushed his chair back.
‘Not as if paganism’s against the law, Byron. We’ve moved on since witch-burning.’
‘In that case, why’s the Hereford Diocese here?’
Neat.
‘She’s here because neither Annie nor I would know what the hell you were talking about, Byron,’ Lockley said.
‘Oh, I think you would, William. I think you’d have a better idea, to be honest. This is my business. My living. I’m hardly the first veteran to use what he learned in the Regiment as the basis for a new career. But carry on, Mrs Watson.’
‘Erm… all this started back at the old Stirling Lines in Hereford, I think. When some Roman remains were discovered within the precincts?’
‘Coins, pottery. Not much.’
‘But enough to get you thinking.’
‘A few of us had an interest in military history. We’d be spotting things when we were out and about. Roman roads, Celtic forts. Having a bit of Welsh in the background, I thought I identified with the Celts. But the Celts were a bunch of drunken hooligans compared with the Romans. The Romans had a commitment which even today is unequalled.’
‘Except possibly by you,’ Merrily said. ‘By the Regiment.’
‘If you like.’
‘The last all-male corner of the army.’
Byron leaned back, stretching his legs under the table so that Merrily instinctively moved hers out of the way.
‘You know much about Mithraism, Mrs Watson? Or maybe think you do. Maybe you’re someone who’s looked at it from the Christian perspective, thinks she knows what it represents and misses the whole point.’
‘Mithraism was a soldiers’ religion. You could see parallels.’
‘For a start, I dislike the word religion. But yeah, we were young men. Full of energy. You’d have to be dull not to recognize some of it.’
‘You mean like initiation rites. Out of darkness into light. Through barriers. Skirting the boundaries of death.’
‘Mind games. William knows.’
Lockley said, ‘If I’m getting this right, I suppose the best and most widely known example would be the one where the chaps are taken up in a helicopter, blindfolded and ordered to jump out without a parachute. Not realizing the chopper’s only a few metres above the ground. Is that what you mean?’
‘Mind games. The Romans didn’t have that kind of terminology, but they understood.’
‘The twelve tortures?’ Merrily said.
‘Yeah, we found good parallels there. In physical and mental endurance of hardship. I could give you names of historians and psychologists that we consulted. The aim being to develop a progression of exercises, linked to the Mithraic grades, that would lead to a level of… resilience. Courage, essentially. Attributes of manhood which some people think have been allowed to lapse.’
Lockley was nodding, encouragingly.
‘My students come out of this fundamentally altered,’ Byron said. ‘Better men. More successful men, in every respect. If they’ve got the balls to see it through.’
‘And the money,’ Lockley said. ‘Presumably.’
‘We’re not a charity, William. It costs. A lot. But you ask the guys we’ve trained if they think it was worth it.’
‘We? That’s you and Mostyn?’
‘He mainly provides and maintains the hardware.’
‘And has he been initiated?’ Merrily asked.
‘Not one of my words. We don’t even use the term Mithraism to the students. Not until they’re able to understand what it means.’
‘But Mr Mostyn would’ve been your first civilian… whatever the word is – neophyte?’
Byron winced.
‘I’d also like to stress that the students choose how far to take it. Some will drop out. Most of them will drop out at some stage. But a small number will cross a threshold and begin to revel in it.’
‘An elite.’
‘I’ve no quarrel with that word. We encourage levels of excellence.’ Byron looked up, narrowing his eyes. ‘Do we need all these lights? It’s not very green, is it? Also a bit like an interrogation. That what this is, William? An interrogation?’
An edge of impatience, now. William Lockley looked at Annie Howe. She stood up, went to the switches on the wall and killed all the lights except for two at the top of the room. The reflections of the conference table vanished from the window and the early glow of the city came up under the long beach of the evening sky.
‘Thank you,’ Byron said. ‘I find light pollution offensive.’
Annie Howe sat down again, next to Merrily.
‘You seem to be saying this is all pure psychology rather than religion.’
‘Finally sinking in, is it?’ Byron looked pained. ‘I mean, do I look like a fantasist? We analysed Mithraism, took it apart, found out how it worked, then reconstructed it for our purposes. The Romans weren’t hippy-dippy spiritual types. They were practical and pragmatic. This is a system for self-development. The only one of us who ever talked about religion was Syd Spicer.’
Merrily said, ‘For confirmation, Syd was a member of the original history club?’
‘Oh, yeah. You could say that.’
‘Along with, erm… Jocko and Greg. And Nasal.’
Annie Howe pushed her chair back, curious. The names would mean nothing to her, but Lockley would know.
‘All dead,’ Merrily said. ‘Like Syd.’
‘What’s your point?’ Byron looked irritated, nothing more. ‘What conclusion could you possibly be drawing from that?’
‘What conclusions was Syd drawing?’
They were all looking at her now, Byron smiling, but not really.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘To the extent of our knowledge. We were learning about the use of meditation and visualization to achieve focus.’
‘And it carried on when Syd left.’
‘Sure.’
‘Sometime after you’d both left the army and gone your separate ways, Syd possibly had reason to think it had… escalated? And the other guys, Jocko, Greg… and finally Nasal… had all died. Which he thought—’
‘You baffle me, Mrs Watson. One was a drink-driving smash, one a drunken brawl and the third topped himself in the wake of a distressing domestic incident. What’s your point?’
‘I think Syd was suggesting – to you – that the regime they’d been following had made them… reckless… prone to seeking out violent situations.’
Byron’s expression conveyed an element of pity. Merrily struggled on.
‘Maybe he felt they’d let in something they couldn’t control. Nothing gained without sacrifice, and in this case the sacrifice was their humanity.’
Byron looked at Lockley. How long do I have to suffer this shit?
Merrily looked away and tried again.
‘You never wondered why Syd left the Regiment and immediately threw himself into Christianity?’
‘Syd was religious. He had to think that what we were doing was spiritual, and when he realized it wasn’t he went cold on it.’ Byron smiled. ‘Or did he?’ He sat looking at Merrily. The lines in his lean face were like hieroglyphics in sandstone.
‘Syd was fascinated by all the places where Mithraism overlaps with Christianity. How you could appear to be practising one religion but it was really the other. And nobody would ever know. We used to talk about that.’
‘Oh no.’ Merrily shaking her head, too quickly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t, eh? You claim to have known him. You never think there were times when his behaviour wasn’t strictly priestlike? I heard he once beat the living shit out of a street dealer who sold his daughter pills.’
