by James Craig
‘From what I’ve seen of Becky Carson, there’s lots of things she doesn’t like.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Harries with feeling. ‘It’s not right that she’s been allowed unlimited access to see ’im. She swans around here like she owns the ruddy place.’
‘I’ll be glad to see the back of both of them.’
‘She spouts the Service Custody rules like she’s learned them off by heart. Marched right into the Commander’s office this morning and demanded that her husband be allowed to practise his religion.’
‘Do what?’
‘He’s to be allowed to go to the chapel to give his confession, would you believe it?’
‘I didn’t know he was a Catholic.’
‘Well, apparently he is. Maybe he found God when he realized he could be facing the rest of his natural behind bars.’
‘I suppose we should be grateful that he hasn’t converted to Islam.’ Smith’s eyes narrowed. ‘The whole thing sounds like a scam to me.’
‘Why would it be a scam?’ Harries objected. ‘It’s not like it’s going to do him much good now, is it?’
‘Mm. Maybe not.’
‘Whether it is or not, Father Thornton is due to hear his confession at four o’clock. We have to present Carson at the chapel at no later than five to.’
‘Why can’t he do it in there?’ Smith gestured over his shoulder.
‘Come again?’
‘Why can’t we just escort Father Thornton to Carson’s cell, rather than have to traipse the bugger all the way over to the other side of the camp?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Harries replied, starting down the corridor, heading towards the canteen, ‘I just do what I’m told.’
‘I bet this is gonna take a while.’ Private Rob Turpin slid along the pew, leaving space for Anastasia Harries to take a seat.
‘Why’s that?’ Not wishing to expose herself to Turpin’s wandering hands, which were almost as legendary as his timekeeping, Private Harries chose to stay on her feet. Placing a hand on the end of a pew, she looked back down the length of the MCTC Ecumenical Chapel. Built in 1964, the low brick structure had been due to be knocked down, until the local council had slapped a preservation order on it, much to everyone’s surprise. This was the first time that Harries, a confirmed agnostic, had ever been inside. She knew, however, that the various services on offer were popular with many of the inmates, keen to exploit any opportunity to get out of their cells.
Staring at the cross-shaped blue glass window at the far end of the building, above the central altar, she wished she hadn’t scoffed that bacon sandwich at speed in the canteen. She hadn’t been really hungry and now the food sat uncomfortably in her stomach, waiting to be properly digested.
‘He’s got a lot to confess, hasn’t he?’ Turpin pointed to the confessional boxes off to his left, underneath the sloping gullwing roof.
‘I suppose.’
‘For sure.’ Turpin pulled a smartphone from the breast pocket of his tunic and began tapping away on the keys.
‘I wouldn’t let Smithy see you playing on that, if I were you.’
‘The sergeant’s probably already on his first pint in the Dog and Duck down the road,’ Turpin grunted.
Harries had to acknowledge that the little scrote had a point. Kelvin Smith liked his ale, whatever time of day it was.
‘And even if he’s not, he’s hardly gonna sneak up on me in here, is he?’ Turpin nodded towards the entrance to the chapel with the back of his head. ‘Keep an eye on the door.’
Harries was miffed that Turpin felt he could tell her what to do, but she complied anyway.
An explosion came from Turpin’s phone. ‘Fuck! I’m outta lives.’
‘Shame.’
‘I’ll have to buy some more credits.’ He looked up from the screen. ‘Do you think he’s guilty?’
‘Carson? He’s certainly guilty of being stupid,’ Harries huffed. ‘Imagine shooting someone when you know you’re being recorded on a bloody helmet cam. That’s not very clever, is it?’ As far as she could see, this was pretty much the consensus view among the ordinary troops when it came to ‘Soldier A’ and his court-martial. No one was particularly bothered by the idea that he had wasted a couple of terrorists. Being dumb enough to allow yourself to be videoed doing so was another matter entirely.
‘No,’ Turpin conceded, ‘I suppose not. Everybody does it these days though, don’t they? It’s the digital age. Cameras are everywhere. Ubiquitous.’
Ubiquitous? Who would have thought in a million years that Turpin knew a word like ‘ubiquitous’? Maybe the boy had hidden depths. Very well hidden. Harries giggled at her own joke.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Maybe he just forgot about it.’
‘Forgot about it?’ Harries asked. ‘How does that work? You shoot two guys to death and then just let one of your team wander off with the evidence? Come on.’
‘I heard that the Redcaps only found it by accident,’ Turpin pointed out. ‘They came across it when they were investigating something else entirely. The bloke who shot it tried to erase the video, but the stupid sod made a right pig’s ear of the whole thing. Carson was dead unlucky. It was just Sod’s Law.’
‘All the more reason he should have made sure it had been deleted,’ Anastasia. ‘That way he would have been covered.’
‘Schoolboy error,’ Turpin agreed, returning his attention to the screen.
The door at the far end of the chapel opened. Harries watched as two uniformed men entered and began walking towards them. One of them had a small day sack slung over his shoulder. Turpin quickly shoved the phone back into his pocket and slid out of the aisle. Taking up a position behind Harries, he whispered in her ear: ‘They don’t look like they’re here to light a candle, do they?’
‘Sshh!’ Harries waved him away as she acknowledged the new arrivals. As they got closer, she could see that each man had two pips on his shoulders: lieutenants.
The shorter of the two stepped in front of Harries.
‘Where is the prisoner?’
‘He’s in the confessional, sir,’ Harries said quickly, cursing inwardly that she had forgotten to offer a salute to her superior officers.
Neither man seemed in the slightest perturbed by the breach in etiquette.
‘How long has he been in there?’ said the shorter man. Under his cap, his blond curls reached down dangerously close to the collar of his jacket.
You need a haircut. ‘I don’t know,’ said Harries.
‘There’s no time-limit on these things,’ Turpin tittered, ‘when you are cleansing your immortal soul.’
Bloody idiot. Harries aimed an elbow at his ribs but caught only fresh air. The shorter man glared at Turpin.
‘Stand to attention, Private!’
‘Sir!’ Turpin barked, clicking his heels together.
Not waiting to be told, Harries followed suit. Head back, chin up, she watched out of the corner of her eye as the taller guy shrugged off the backpack and dropped it on to one of the pews. Bending over, he unzipped the bag and rummaged inside. Harries’ eyes grew wide as she saw him pull out a black semiautomatic. Attached to the end of the barrel was a silver silencer.
Disbelieving, Harries watched the man lift the gun and point it at her chest. Instinctively, she took a step backwards, forcing Turpin to jump out of her way.
‘Fuck me!’ He let out a girlish giggle. ‘That’s a Glock 17 Gen 4 with a titanium silencer.’
Harries felt her heart-rate go into overdrive. How do you know this shit? she wondered.
‘Is it?’ The gunman looked at his colleague. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed.’
‘I’ve always wanted one of those,’ Turpin said.
The gunman laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll let you have a go later.’
‘Cool,’ Turpin chirped.
No, Anastasia thought, it’s not cool. It’s not cool at all.
FIVE
; ‘Forgiveness must come from within. You must forgive yourself, so that others may forgive you. Only in that way can we allow the quality of mercy to triumph.’
‘Yes, Father.’ Sitting in the gloom of the confessional, Andy Carson tuned out the gentle drone of the priest coming from the other side of the screen. Tilting his head towards the door, he picked out the sound of a familiar voice in the chapel outside. There was a short discussion, followed by two gentle but distinct thuds. Carson smiled.
Game on.
‘Are you still there, my son?’ Still focused on the quality of mercy, Father Frank Thornton didn’t seem to be aware of the developments beyond the confessional.
‘Sorry, Father, what were you saying?’
‘Is there anything else you wanted to confess, my son?’
Carson rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘No, I don’t think so. What about you?’
There was a pause. Carson imagined the priest frowning on the other side of the screen.
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
More silence.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ These bloody soldiers, smart alecs and chancers the lot of them. What did he have to confess to any of them? The priest stopped just short of letting his irritation show. ‘That’s not actually how this works, Andrew, as I’m sure you know.’
Carson listened to the approaching footsteps on the stone floor. ‘I just thought that you might want to take advantage of this last chance to unburden yourself.’
‘Last chance? But—’ The door to the compartment flew open before he could finish his sentence. Looking up, Frank Thornton barely had time to cross himself before setting off to meet his Maker.
Stepping out of the booth, Carson allowed himself a stretch as he watched the men in the lieutenants’ uniforms drag the bodies of the guards between the pews.
Job done, the taller of the two men picked up a rucksack from one of the benches and looked over at Carson. ‘You okay, Andy?’
Carson took a quick peek inside the confessional. The late Father Thornton was still sitting on the bench, with his head slumped against the latticework of the screen, as if he had been caught listening to a particularly lengthy and boring confession. The expression on the priest’s face betrayed neither surprise nor dismay. A trickle of blood ran from his temple all the way down to his jaw. It had already begun to dry.
Carson crossed himself. ‘Remember,’ he muttered, ‘you must forgive yourself, so that others may forgive you.’
‘Andy?’
Stepping away from the confessional, he closed the door with the toe of his boot. ‘You were a bit quick on the trigger there, Ryan.’
Ryan Fortune dropped the Glock into the day sack. Zipping up the bag, he asked: ‘How do you reckon that?’
‘You shot him too quick.’ Carson turned to his liberator and grinned. ‘He didn’t get the chance to give me my penance.’
‘You’ll definitely need to do a few more Hail Marys and How’s Your Fathers now.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time for all that later.’ Hoisting the bag over his shoulder, Fortune turned and headed towards the door. ‘After all, I know how important your faith is to you.’
‘Bless you, my son,’ Carson cooed, echoing the sarcasm in Fortune’s voice.
‘Save it for later, Andy,’ Fortune repeated. He turned and headed towards the door. ‘C’mon. We need to get going.’
Sitting on the sofa, Helen flicked through the Mega-Dams catalogue. ‘This stuff is really good.’
Carlyle, trying to veg out in front of Sky Sports News, struggled to muster a response.
‘I might go and have a look at the exhibition.’
‘Dom will be happy to see you. Just don’t let him sell you one. The prices are eye-watering. Even the bloody catalogue cost forty quid.’
His wife raised an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t buy it, did you?’
‘Nah. Dom gave it to me.’
‘That was nice of him.’
‘Mm.’ With the TV on mute, the inspector focused on the SSN ticker, sighing as an update on Fulham’s latest injury worries rolled across the bottom of the screen. The football club was having a particularly poor season and relegation was a real possibility. Carlyle felt torn between a sense of guilt at not going to more games and relief that he didn’t have to endure the torture of watching ninety minutes of failure, regularly repeated, leading to an inevitable, painful conclusion. He felt physically unable to subject himself to such masochism any more. A line from The Wire bounced around in his brain: You can’t lose if you do not play. The older he got, the more he tried to make that his mantra.
Alice wandered in from the kitchen, mobile phone glued to her ear. ‘That sounds very nice,’ she was saying blandly, ‘but I just can’t make it. I’m going out with Edward that night.’ Without acknowledging her parents, she continued her conversation, slipping out of the opposite door into the hallway. Carlyle waited until he heard her bedroom door slam shut.
‘Edward? Who’s Edward?’ He could just about make out the strains of the Ramones’ ‘Pet Sematary’ coming from behind Alice’s door. ‘I thought she was supposed to be going out with a kid called . . .’
‘Oliver,’ Helen reminded him. ‘Yes, she is.’
‘So who is Edward?’
‘Edward,’ Helen explained, turning a page, ‘is her imaginary boyfriend.’ She looked at her husband, to see if he understood. However, the concept was beyond him. ‘Alice is stepping out with Oliver, but she wants to keep it low-key. When another boy asks her out, she uses this Edward as an excuse. He goes to Magwitch Secondary in Islington, by the way, and is a black belt in karate.’
‘Who? Oliver or Edward?’
‘Edward.’
‘Good for him,’ Carlyle responded, still more than a little confused. ‘And how often does this imaginary squeeze get wheeled out to fob off real live boys?’
‘About once a week, as far as I can see.’ Helen placed the catalogue on the arm of the sofa and snuggled up to him. ‘Alice is a good-looking girl. And very popular. She has quite a few suitors.’
‘Mm.’ Keeping one eye on SSN, Carlyle placed an arm around her shoulders.
Helen dropped a hand on his chest. ‘I would have thought you would approve.’
‘I do . . . I think.’ An uncomfortable idea popped into his head. ‘Did you ever have an imaginary boyfriend?’
‘Me?’ Helen chuckled. ‘Sadly not. I wish I’d thought of it, back in the day.’ Sensing Carlyle’s discomfort, she mimed conjuring up a distant nirvana in her imagination. ‘Paolo. A Vespa-driving fashion design student from Milan.’
‘A bit less credible than a kid from Magwitch Secondary,’ Carlyle scoffed.
Helen gave him a gentle poke in the stomach. ‘A girl can dream. Anyway, I think Paolo would have been very handy . . . especially when you came sniffing around.’
‘Ha bloody ha.’
Squirming round, she gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Only joking, sweetie. No imaginary boyfriend could ever hope to be a match for you.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Carlyle mumbled, only partially mollified.
‘Anyway,’ said Helen, moving the conversation smartly on, ‘it’s good that Dom can help Alexander out.’
‘He’s going to try. We’ll have to see if he actually delivers.’
‘Still, it’s good of him to make the effort.’
‘I suppose so.’ An advert appeared on the TV. Grabbing the remote, Carlyle found the BBC’s News Channel. A young female reporter was standing in the road, in front of a large metal gate, grinning away as she talked into the camera at a rapid rate. Behind her was a sign that said MCTC: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The strapline on the story read: MILITARY DEATHS. ‘What’s all that about?’
‘Dunno,’ Helen yawned. ‘More bad news.’ She pointed to the reporter, still gabbling away on the screen. ‘I just don’t understand why they are always so cheery about it.’
<
br /> ‘It is a bit ghoulish,’ Carlyle agreed.
‘So why do we watch it?’ Releasing herself from his embrace, Helen struggled to her feet. ‘I think I’ll have a bath. Want to join me?’
Carlyle smiled. ‘Why not?’ Switching the off button, he watched the screen go black before getting up and following her out of the room.
Mel switched off the TV as Daniel walked into the room. ‘Are the kids asleep?’
‘Just about,’ Daniel nodded. ‘At last.’
‘They’re just excited to see you.’
‘I know.’ His heart soared and sank at the same time. ‘But it’s a school night, and—’
She shuffled along the sofa to make some space. ‘Come and sit down.’
The living room was dark, save for the light from the lava lamp Mel had bought from the market at Brick Lane when they’d first arrived in London. While he was distracted by the red blobs floating around inside, she picked up his wine glass from the coffee table. ‘Here, have another drink.’
‘Thanks.’ Taking the glass, he saw that she had refilled it almost to the brim. ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’
Grinning, Mel said, ‘It’s always worked in the past.’
‘It’s like that, is it?’ He carefully lowered himself down beside her. Outside, the omnipresent background hum of traffic noise was interrupted by the harsh sound of a siren. The noise got louder until the emergency vehicle stopped somewhere on the street outside. Daniel made to get up, but his wife placed a hand on his arm.
‘Leave it, Dan. That’s someone else’s drama.’
‘Good point.’ He settled back into his seat and took a sip of the wine. ‘Ahh! Not bad. What is that?’
‘Some Chilean red or other. It was on special offer at Tesco.’
‘Nice.’ A couple of glasses of wine, on top of two beers in Giraffe, meant that he was nicely relaxed. The central heating had made the room over-warm and he was beginning to feel a little drowsy. Laying his head back on a cushion, he closed his eyes. ‘The kids did well in the restaurant.’
‘They’re always good.’ Mel lifted her feet and draped her legs across his lap. ‘Even when you’re not here.’
‘Mm. Do you think they miss me? When I’m not here?’
