by James Craig
James Craig has worked as a journalist and consultant for more than thirty years. He lives in London with his family. His previous Inspector Carlyle novels, London Calling; Never Apologise, Never Explain; Buckingham Palace Blues; The Circus; Then We Die; A Man of Sorrows; Shoot to Kill; Sins of the Fathers; Nobody’s Hero and Acts of Violence are also available from Constable & Robinson.
For more information visit www.jamescraig.co.uk, or follow him on Twitter: @byjamescraig
Praise for London Calling
‘A cracking read.’ BBC Radio 4
‘Fast paced and very easy to get quickly lost in.’ Lovereading.com
Praise for Never Apologise, Never Explain
‘Pacy and entertaining.’ The Times
‘Engaging, fast paced . . . a satisfying modern British crime novel.’ Shots
‘Never Apologise, Never Explain is as close as you can get to the heartbeat of London. It may even cause palpitations when reading.’ It’s A Crime! Reviews
Also by James Craig
Novels
London Calling
Never Apologise, Never Explain
Buckingham Palace Blues
The Circus
Then We Die
A Man of Sorrows
Shoot to Kill
Sins of the Fathers
Nobody’s Hero
Acts of Violence
Short Stories
The Enemy Within
What Dies Inside
The Hand of God
All Kinds of Dead
James Craig
Constable • London
CONSTABLE
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Constable Copyright © James Craig, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-47212-219-3
Constable
is an imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company www.hachette.co.uk
www.littlebrown.co.uk
For Catherine and Cate
This is the eleventh Carlyle novel. Thanks for getting it done go to Krystyna Green, Clive Hebard, Joan Deitch and Michael Doggart.
CONTENTS
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
CONFIDENTIAL: Not for onward circulation
The incident took place in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, approximately twenty-three months ago. A group of Taliban fighters were intercepted approaching a settlement on the outskirts of Deh Rawood, an area approximately 400km south-west of Kabul.
The group were engaged by an Apache helicopter gunship before the troops on the ground, members of the Ground Task Force of the Special Operations Expeditionary Force conducted a damage assessment. During that process, six officers discovered two combatants. Both had been hit and seriously wounded by cannon fire from the Apache. The officers are accused of denying the unidentified prisoners first aid. Dragging them under the cover of some trees, the soldiers allegedly waited until the helicopter had left the area before both men were executed.
Soldier A, the commander of the patrol, is accused of having fatally shot both wounded men in the chest.
The incident was recorded with a head-camera worn by another of the accused, Soldier B.
The third accused man, Soldier C, is allegedly heard asking if he can shoot one of the captives in the head.
All three men have begun a court-martial at Upper Moldean Military Court Centre in Northamptonshire. The case hinges on the contents of the helmet-camera video. According to the prosecution, this shows that A, B and C conspired to murder the injured insurgents.
All three men deny murder.
All three have an otherwise unblemished military record. They have received strong testimonials from their Commanding Officer, as well as from other senior military figures, several of whom have spoken out in the press. Each has been awarded the OSM (Operational Service Medal) for the Afghan Campaign. Soldier A is one of only four soldiers to have been awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during the current campaign in Afghanistan. He is the only recipient who currently remains in service.
Three other soldiers – D, E and F – feature in the transcripts. They are not facing trial.
The investigation into the incident was conducted by a team from the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police, led by Captain Daniel Hunter. Judge Desmond Dunne, Judge Advocate General, has ruled that the SIB report, along with the video itself, should not be publicly released, on the grounds that it could be used as propaganda by terrorists, both in the UK and overseas. However, in response to the massive media interest – and to stall the risk of a leak – a heavily edited written transcript of the video (see below) has been made available online at the MoD’s website.
The court-martial is approaching its conclusion. It has been adjourned for further psychological reports to be completed.
Key:
Square brackets [ ] are the speech analyst’s marks.
Round brackets ( ) signify that the analyst has a lower confidence in the words recorded.
Three dots . . . denote unintelligible speech.
?Soldier B – question mark denotes lower confidence in attribution.
Glossary
AH – Apache helicopter.
Browners – dead (as in the rhyming slang, ‘brown bread’).
FFD – First Field Dressing.
HIIDE – A HIIDE camera takes images of fingerprints, irises and other details.
Nine-liner – request for helicopter casualty evacuation.
PGSS (Persistent Ground Surveillance System) – British observation balloon.
Ugly – Apache helicopter.
The footage starts with the patrol waiting at the edge of a field of tall crops. An Apache helicopter is audible overhead. The soldiers are heard complaining about being ordered to carry out a damage assessment after the helicopter attack on a group of insurgents who had been spotted approaching a village through a partially cultivated field.
The wounded insurgents had been shot at with 139 30mm anti-tank rounds. Lying on the ground, covered in blood, the
y were seriously injured but still alive when discovered by the patrol. The patrol dragged the two men across the field and into a wooded area nearby before the alleged executions took place.
The figures record the elapsed time from the beginning of the recording. The transcript begins with unintelligible speech and radio traffic before a man, thought to be Soldier B, begins to talk.
00:00:03
?Soldier B: Come on.
D: . . .
B: Bollocks.
E: . . .
00:00:09
D: . . .
F: . . . shit . . .
D: . . .
00:00:11
A: . . . any more of this?
E: [coughs].
C: . . . cunt.
00:00:18
D: Fucking bastard.
E: [coughs].
00:00:19
A: That, ladies and gentlemen, is what a direct hit looks like.
F: [laughs] You know when you’ve been Tangoed.
A: An FFD ain’t gonna help them.
E: You are fucked, boys.
D: Fucking browners, the pair of them.
00:00:32
B: How long will we have to wait for these fuckers to die?
A: We’ve got time.
E: . . .
[Vocalizations, probably from insurgents].
00:00:40 D:
Fucking whining bastard. Not much of a fucking suicide bomber, are you?
[Laughter]
B: Dickhead.
00:00:47
C: We got a PGSS on us?
A: Move them both over there.
E: Come on.
00:01:05
D: . . .
E: That’ll do. That’ll do.
F: Mm.
00:01:18
D: . . .
E: . . . waste of fucking time.
00:01:32
C: Anybody wanna offer first aid?
D: No.
00:01:34
B: No.
E: . . .
00:01:36
C: I’ll put one in his head, if you want.
D: [laughs]
E: [laughs]
00:01:40
A: Like that wouldn’t be fucking obvious.
F: You’d have to give back your OSM.
D: [Laughs]. They might give you another one.
00:01:54
D: Want me to send a nine-liner?
B: . . .
[Radio].
00:02:02
B: We’re waiting for [name of comrade] to er – . . . may well be dead. [Speaking on radio].
C: . . .
00:02:05
F: . . . stopped breathing.
B: For fuck’s sake.
D: Don’t. Yeah.
00:02:08
E: . . . just . . . him.
[Laughter]
F:
Yeah. That might . . .
?E: Yeah.
00:02:13
A: Fuck it, he’s done.
D: Yeah.
C: You’re dead, son.
00:02:19
A: Hello, one zero, one four. [Speaking on radio].
B: . . .
00:02:25
B: Cunt shooting at us.
00:02:28
D: Twats.
00:02:33
A: Administering first aid to these er – individuals, they’re er – passed on from this er world, over. [Speaking on radio].
00:02:46
A: . . . Okay, er we’ll try to biometrically enrol these guys as best we can and we’ll gather what er – intelligence we can before moving back. [Speaking on radio].
?E: [Clears throat].
D: . . .
00:03:12
A: Right, get the – get the HIIDE camera out, see if you can get a picture of him, minus all the – stuff.
00:03:16
C: Where’s the Ugly?
B: Headed north.
?A: Yeah?
B: Deffo.
00:03:28
[GUNSHOT #1 – This is the moment when A allegedly shoots the first prisoner].
F: Fuck. [Distant voice].
E: (What was that?) [Distant voice].
D: (Don’t know) [Distant voice].
00:03:29
F: . . .
00:03:35
E: . . .
00:03:59
[GUNSHOT #2 – This is the moment when A allegedly shoots the second prisoner].
00:04:05
A: Shuffle off this mortal coil, you cunts.
D: . . .
E: Fuck.
00:04:20
A: Obviously, gents, this doesn’t go anywhere.
B: Roger that.
A: I’ve just broke the Geneva Convention, big time.
C: What happens in Vegas.
D: . . .
B: Their numbers came up.
F: . . .
D: . . .
00:05:08
A: Yeah, they’re, er – fully dead now [Speaking on radio].
A: (Yeah, roger.) . . . [Response from radio].
00:05:14
B: [laughs] All kinds of dead.
E: Stupid fuckers.
F: Dead, dead, dead.
ONE
‘Why is that dog trying to shag the grass?’
‘Huh?’ Dominic Silver made a point of finishing his newspaper article before looking up. A group of soldiers were being court-martialled, accused of killing a couple of Taliban terrorists. Wasn’t that what they were supposed to do? Frowning, he struggled to make sense of the story.
‘That dog . . .’ John Carlyle, Metropolitan Police Inspector and all-round animal-phobe, took off his glasses and began wiping the lenses with a paper napkin.
Looking over the top of the Daily Mail, Silver took a moment to locate the mongrel in question. The sorry-looking animal appeared to be some kind of terrier. Whatever its lineage, the mutt was squatting down on the tattered lawn, ten yards or so from where they were sitting, and was vigorously thrusting its private parts into the ground, with what looked like a cheery grin on its face.
‘You gotta get it where you can,’ Dom reflected, quickly returning to his newspaper. ‘One more reason why you should never sit on the grass. Fuck knows what you might catch.’
Carlyle finished cleaning his specs and placed them back on his nose. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed,’ he harrumphed.
‘Maybe,’ Dom casually suggested, ‘you should go over there and arrest the dog for public indecency.’
‘Ha fucking ha.’ Retrieving the paper cup sitting next to him on the bench, Carlyle poured the last of his green tea on to the ground. Careful not to get any drops on his coat, he tossed the cup towards the rubbish bin situated at the end of the bench. For once, his aim was true. However, the bin was full to overflowing so the cup simply bounced off a discarded 2-litre Coke bottle and landed on the tarmac. With an exaggerated sigh, Carlyle struggled to his feet, picked up the cup and stuffed it as far into the mound of waste as it would go. Returning to his seat, he eyed the dog, which still appeared to be pleasuring itself. ‘Maybe I should call the RSPCA.’
‘And what would they do?’ Dom asked, hiding his grin behind the pages of his paper. ‘Send a dog-catcher?’
‘It’s his sunburn,’ said a voice.
‘Eh?’ The inspector looked round to see an elderly-looking bloke trundling towards them on a chestnut-brown mobility scooter. The guy was wearing a bush hat and a pair of outsized sunglasses. His grubby yellow T-shirt bore the legend Stop the War.
Which particular war are we talking about? Carlyle wondered as he clocked the two large bottles of Strongbow cider bouncing about in the wire basket perched on the front of the scooter.
The man came to a halt three feet in front of the bench. His sunburned knees stuck out from the bottom of baggy green Bermuda shorts. A pair of red Crocs finished off the ensemble nicely.
Taking one hand off the scooter handle, the man gestured towards the rutting dog. ‘Joey was lying out in the sun too l
ong, last week,’ he explained, ‘and got badly burned; he’s in quite a bit of discomfort.’ One cue, the dog finished whatever he was doing and wandered over to inspect the newly planted flowerbeds.
‘He looked like he was enjoying himself,’ Dom pointed out.
The man shook his head. ‘He’s in pain. His skin underneath, it’s really sensitive.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.’
‘You should keep him under control,’ Carlyle muttered, sounding a bit like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. ‘Grumpy old man’ was not a very appealing persona but one that he was effortlessly growing into. ‘Someone’s bound to complain about such lewd behaviour.’
Lewd behaviour? Dom stifled a titter.
‘He’s only a dog,’ the man objected.
‘You,’ Carlyle said, ‘are responsible, as his owner.’
The man frowned. ‘He’s in pain.’
‘This is Berkeley Square, not . . .’ Carlyle tried to think of a more appropriate venue for Joey’s performance. Nowhere came to mind. ‘It’s Berkeley Square,’ he repeated.
