Fortress

26

The Invicta campus, a decommissioned RAF airfield, looked like a cross between a military base and a country estate. Either side of the gate a line of poplars marked the perimeter and masked the high wire fence behind it. The entrance was discreetly fortified. A metal ramp set into the asphalt would rise to block unwanted traffic. The barriers were quite slim but there was a second, much heavier, gate fifty yards in. The grass was perfectly tended, the brickwork freshly repointed.

Even though the guards would have known the car a mile off, Jackman still brought it to a stop and rolled down the window. The one on duty was not some rotund failed bouncer but a trim, well-turned-out man of Jackman’s age. ‘Wotcher, Jacko. Someone famous?’

He peered into the car at Tom, who gave his name.

‘Could you step out, please, sir?’

Jackman nodded at Tom. ‘Best do as they say. No special treatment here.’

Tom got out of the car. As he straightened up, the hangover he had almost forgotten about met him again, like a low concrete ceiling.

‘Bad night, sir?’ The guard patted him down.

‘Terrible. You?’

The guard looked at him blankly.

‘Zero tolerance,’ Jackman explained, as they drove on. ‘One drink and you’re back in the slammer.’

The administrator of the Invicta campus was a former marine Tom recognized from Iraq. Philips was his name and, though he was professionally civil, he made no reference to the encounter in their previous lives. When Tom casually referred to it, Philips told him it was Invicta policy to ignore past connections. ‘We keep ourselves facing forward. We’re all about today and tomorrow, not yesterday.’

But Philips could see he wasn’t buying this piece of spin. ‘Look. Most folk who come through here, one way or another something’s done them in. Maybe it was during service or maybe before. But whatever it was, it’s driving their behaviour. This place is about getting shot of all that. The day a lad starts here, he draws a line under everything up to that moment. That’s the past. This is now. That’s the deal.’

‘What about families?’

‘If they have a problem there, we teach them how to deal with that. If there’s something we can do for the relatives we’ll do it, but only if it benefits the associate.’

‘Associate?’

‘That’s what we’re all called. Nice and neutral, no ranks or hierarchy. Helps with the sense of kinship.’

As they passed between buildings Tom saw a group of men in full MTPs emerge from a clump of trees and climb into the back of a Land Rover. Even from this distance he could see that they were bent with fatigue.

Philips smiled. ‘They’re Phase Fives. Survival skills, self-preservation. They’ve got to stay out on their own and keep out of each other’s way for five days and nights. Bit of fun, really, but it builds that sense of independence and helps them believe in their ability to survive on their own. After all, they don’t know what they’re going to have to put up with in the future.’

The next building they entered was busy with staff in white coats. ‘Medical area. We pick up where the NHS leaves off.’ He held open a door to a spacious carpeted ward. There were eight beds and each seemed to have at least one nurse nearby.

‘No shortage of staff here, then.’

‘You noticed. That’s a big part of it. Most of these blokes just need attention. A lot of it’s basically physio. We leave the invasive stuff to the hospitals, but recovery can be a long old process, two years, sometimes more. We see them through it.’

Not for the first time that day Tom’s thoughts drifted back to Blakey. ‘How do you get accepted here?’

Philips shrugged. ‘Word-of-mouth, recommendations. All pretty informal and low key.’

‘Is there a long queue?’

‘Yeah, that’s our problem. We need to grow. The boss is onto it, but it can’t come soon enough.’

Back outside, they passed through a screen of trees and headed towards a long, low building that resembled a cattle shed. There were no windows, just a small gap between the walls and the roof. From it came a noise Tom couldn’t decipher at first. As they got closer it became clearer. It was human. Shouts, screams, whimpers.

‘For a lot of us, it started here. Detox — there’s no easy way.’

He gave Tom a look that confirmed he was a graduate of this part of the programme. ‘We make no apology for the conditions. We keep an eye on them medically, in case they try to do something terminal. Otherwise they’re on their own to crack on and get through it. Believe me, when you get out, life never felt so sweet.’

‘Don’t you have Health and Safety or some regulator on your backs?’

Philips smirked. ‘We don’t exactly broadcast our methods.’

‘You’re showing me. I’m a complete stranger.’

‘Mr Rolt’s instructions were that you should see it all.’

Over a roast-beef sandwich and a Coke, Philips opened up.

‘Enlisting was all about getting out of where I came from, a fairly typical scenario.’ He sketched out a family life from hell: Dad in prison most of the time and when he wasn’t, drinking himself comatose or beating up his wife and any of the kids who were in reach. His violence was indiscriminate — everybody got equally fucked up.

‘The Army was my family, so when I left it was like stepping into a void. Now I’ve got that family back — and on twice the pay, plus a master’s in sociology. Here I’ve got five-star accommodation, all the amenities and a job for life. More than I could have dreamed of.’

‘What happens if it doesn’t work out — if you screw up?’

‘Just doesn’t happen. We owe our lives to Invicta, so we just don’t allow failure.’

It’s a bit too good to be true, thought Tom, but there was something about the look on Philips’s face that wasn’t just PR.

‘Bottom line: Invicta delivers. And what with everything that’s going on out there right now, the country going to hell, you value what you’ve got all the more. Frankly, the man’s a saint — he should be running the country.’

It wasn’t the first time Tom had heard that said about Invicta’s founder. Rolt professed to have no political ambition, but after witnessing his BBC interview Tom found that becoming harder to believe.