Lifeless

EIGHTEEN

“I was pissed,” Thorne said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You broke my sergeant’s nose is what you did…”

The man opposite Thorne wore a blue suit over a white shirt and a tie with golf balls on it. He’d walked into the interview room, told Thorne in very blunt language that he was an idiot, and put two coffees down on the table. He’d identified himself as Inspector John McCabe and then sat back, waiting for Thorne to explain himself.

“How’s he doing?” Thorne asked.

“Britton? His face is about the same as yours.” McCabe slid the coffee across the table. “You look like shit warmed up.”

Thorne felt much worse.

He was starting to realize exactly what had happened. The lack of formality, McCabe’s attitude, the mugs of coffee. It was becoming obvious what he’d done; and even as McCabe spelled it out, moments from the night before zipped through Thorne’s semifunctioning consciousness like a dream sequence in an arty movie. Being pinned against the wall while others scattered; shouting the odds in the van; bleeding onto the smooth counter in the custody suite; making it clear that he could find his own way to the cells, thank you very fucking much. Telling anyone who’d listen that they had to ring this phone number…

Christ, he really hadn’t known what he was doing.

“This is the stuff of legend,” McCabe said. He was somewhere in his late forties, but there was very little gray in the helmet of straight black hair. He was clean-shaven and ruddy, with a smile-much in evidence as he spoke-that was slightly lopsided. “In years to come, the boys at SO10 might well be using this on courses.”

“All right…”

“It’s the perfect example of how not to do things…”

Thorne picked up his coffee and leaned back in his chair. It was probably best to let McCabe get on with it.

“What you do is, you get yourself arrested for something. Something nice and trivial, you know, like assaulting a police officer . Then, when things get a bit tasty, because you’re a total fuckup or maybe because you’re a bit frightened of spending a night in the cells all on your own, you start announcing that you’re actually working undercover and giving out the number of your squad to all and bloody sundry.” A slurp of coffee and the lopsided smile. “Done much undercover work, have you?”

“Are you finished?”

“Only you don’t really seem to have grasped the basic concept.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then…”

They stared at each other for a few moments.

Thorne was finding it hard to dislike McCabe, much as he thought it would be the appropriate thing to do. Maybe he’d start disliking him later, when the hangover had worn off a little. “Let me try and guess why you’re so tetchy,” he said. “You clearly are, smiling or not

…”

McCabe said nothing.

“It might be piles, or money worries, or maybe it’s because your wife has discovered that you’re really a woman trapped in a man’s body. If I had to choose, though, I’d say it was because you haven’t been kept informed. Not about the undercover operation, obviously. That’s need-to-know…”

“Not last night, it wasn’t…”

Thorne nodded, allowing McCabe the point, then carried on. “I’m talking about the rough-sleeper murders generally. Maybe as senior officer on a specialist unit that deals with the homeless, you feel that you should have had some involvement. That you should have been consulted more.”

McCabe’s smile had disappeared.

“I know fuck-all about it,” Thorne said. Decisions about who should be talking to whom had been taken before he was ever involved, but he knew how these things worked. It wasn’t just computers that had problems talking to one another, and much as Brigstocke had been loath to take this case on, once he had, his Major Investigation Team were as territorial as any other. When it came to expertise and information, the idea was to avoid sharing wherever possible. “You know the game. Everyone takes what they can and tries to give sweet FA in return.”

“Like oral sex,” McCabe said. “Right?”

“I’m not sure I can remember back that far…”

McCabe leaned back, ran a finger and thumb up and down the golf-ball tie. “I’ve not been here long, but I’ve made it my business to get to know this area. To forge some kind of relationship with most of the people who bed down around here every night. Your lot were complaining that no one was telling them anything, that they weren’t being trusted, but the dossers know the lads on my team. They might have talked to them. If we’d been invited to the party.”

“You must have been consulted at some point, though?”

“We were liaised with.” He said the word with huge distaste. Like it meant interfered…

“You’re right,” Thorne said. “It’s stupid. Maybe they should have put the two of us together before I went onto the streets.”

McCabe nodded, like he thought that would have been an excellent idea, turning up his palms in weary resignation at other people’s idiocy. “So how’s it going, anyway?” he asked. “It’s all gone a bit quiet since Radio Bob was killed.”

Thorne took a mouthful of coffee. Gave himself a few seconds to formulate a response. As far as his own part in things was concerned, the cat was out of the bag and happily spraying piss anywhere it wasn’t wanted. Nevertheless, he thought it might be best to keep quiet about other matters. He thought that McCabe had every right to feel aggrieved at being marginalized, and that if he were brought up to speed on the case, he might even prove to be of some use.

Still, something told Thorne to say nothing.

McCabe saw the silence for what it was. “And it’s staying quiet, is it?”

“Like I said, you know the game…”

The crooked smile appeared again, but Thorne could see that it contained no warmth. “So you’re happy to suck up a bit when it’s in your interests. When I’m sitting here deciding whether or not to put the complaints paperwork through on your assault.”

“Listen-”

“But when it comes to talking about your case, you’ve suddenly got nothing to say. Shame you weren’t so fucking tight-lipped last night.”

“Don’t I know it.”

McCabe pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Whatever else happens, I hope Dan Britton presses charges. You can take your chances with the DPS…”

The Directorate of Professional Standards. The people that investigated corruption, racism, blueon-blue violence. They’d made headlines a few months earlier after prosecuting a pair of budding entrepreneurs from the Flying Squad who’d been caught trying to sell footage of car and helicopter chases to TV companies. Thorne had been subjected to DPS attention a few times before. He’d made his fair share of work for those who handed out smacked wrists. But the way things stood now, in his career- in his life -there were plenty of things he was more afraid of.

“I was in enough shit before I took this job,” Thorne said. “A bit extra isn’t really here or there…”

McCabe picked up his mug, and took Thorne’s half-drunk cup as well. “We’ll see.”

“Listen, I was taken off the world’s most tedious desk job to do this, for fuck’s sake, so it’s not like I’m committing career suicide, is it?” Thorne turned, spoke at McCabe as the inspector walked across the room. “You can do what you like, but I’ve got to tell you, I could have ripped your sergeant’s head off and things wouldn’t be much worse than they were already…”

McCabe paused at the door. “Things can always get worse, mate.”

“What happens now?” Thorne asked.

“You sit there and wait. Your guvnor’s on his way over.”

Thorne turned back to the table as the door slammed shut. He leaned down to the tabletop and lowered his head onto his arms. He felt wiped out by the exchange with McCabe and hoped he might be able to get a bit of sleep before Brigstocke arrived. Even ten minutes would be fucking great…

He closed his eyes. He could hazard a pretty good guess at what sort of mood Russell Brigstocke would be in when he arrived. Thorne was fairly certain he wouldn’t be bringing coffee.

From what Kitson and Holland had seen on the cab ride from the station, the army had built on, or fenced off, vast tracts of land in and around the lush river valley a few miles from Taunton that was now home to the 12th King’s Hussars.

Standing at the main gate, as they’d waited to be escorted to the admin block, they’d been able to hear the boom of guns from ranges a long way distant and see sheep and cows grazing, unconcerned, on the hills that swept away on either side. Such incongruities were everywhere: a fully outfitted soldier in face paint and camouflage coming toward the barrier on a rickety bicycle; a car park full of Lagunas, Volvos, and Passats, while fifty yards away, on a rutted patch of tarmac as wide as a football pitch, rows of tanks and other armored vehicles stood in lines, some grumbling and belching out plumes of black smoke as they were repaired.

Major Stuart Poulter’s office was small, but predictably neat and organized: a series of drawings illustrating the development of the modern tank was arranged along one wall; wooden “in,” “out,” and “pending” trays were lined up along the front of his desk; and kit bags of various sizes were laid out in one corner, as if he were expecting to be called away at any moment. Poulter was in his early forties, a little under average height, and with a thick head of dark hair worn relatively long. A full mouth and ruddy cheeks gave him an oddly girlish expression, but his body looked hard and compact under his uniform. He was immaculate in gleaming, brown oxfords, light trousers, and a green sweater with leather epauletes over regulation shirt and khaki tie.

As they waited for their tea to be delivered, Holland explained just how confused he’d already become by the terminology; by the unfathomable series of initials and numbers on the signs that hung outside every office on the corridor. He wondered why an RSM was a WO1 while a CSM was a WO2, and even when he’d been told what OC and CO stood for, he wasn’t certain what made commanding officer any different from officer commanding. Poulter, who chain-smoked, and smiled rather too much, explained patiently that anyone unfamiliar with the military was bound to find it all terribly bewildering at first.

Then, even though they knew that Poulter had been comprehensively briefed, Holland and Kitson were obliged to spend five minutes or so going over their reasons for being there.

“Just so we’re singing from the same hymn sheet,” the major said.

The visit had, of course, been agreed between the army and the Met well in advance; the details hashed out in a series of telephone conversations between officers far senior to both Detective Inspector Yvonne Kitson and Major Stuart Poulter.

Poulter used a brass Zippo to fire up his second cigarette since the interview had begun and leaned back in his chair. “I still think it would make more sense for the Met to liaise with the RMP on this.” He had a soft, comforting voice, like someone who might read out a weather forecast on the radio. “But, ours is not to reason why. Correct?”

Once tea had been delivered and they’d got down to business, it became apparent that the system of tracking regimental personnel was every bit as complicated, every bit as arcane, as the command structure itself.

“We only keep any sort of record on soldiers who are still serving,” Poulter said. “That’s the first thing, and it’s purely practical. Once they leave here, they’re no longer my concern, and I can’t really care anymore. You should really talk to the AP Centre at Glasgow…”

Kitson told him that they knew all about the AP Centre. She explained that they simply needed the names of those who had served alongside Christopher Jago. She gave a brief and relatively vague outline of exactly why those names were so important. The existence of the videotape was not so much as hinted at.

“It’s basically about tracing the other three on the crew,” Holland said. “We just need to know how we can get that information.”

“Which crew are we talking about, though?” Poulter asked.

“Like we said, it’s the Gulf, 1991…”

“I’m clear about that, but this Jago might have been part of any number of crews. Do you understand? Just in that single campaign.”

“Right…” Kitson was starting to sense that this wouldn’t be straightforward. That even though, this time, they’d come armed with all the relevant information, they were as far out of their depth as they had been when they’d interviewed Rutherford and Spiby at the Media Ops Office.

“I’ve been all over the U.K.,” Poulter said, “and to most parts of Europe, right? I’ve been to Malaysia and Hong Kong and Belize; to Bosnia, the U.S.A. and Australia. And I’ve been to the Gulf. All in just the last ten years. Do you see what I’m driving at? Soldiers move around, all the time. Not only do they change location, but they also get shifted from troop to troop and from squadron to squadron.”

“What gets done with their records if that happens?” Kitson asked.

“It’s fairly standard… unless, of course, the soldier in question has served at any time with one of the intelligence-based units. The SAS, the Special Boat Service, 14 Int, or what have you.. .”

“What happens then?”

“Well, those records can have a habit of disappearing, or at the very least of a few chunks going missing. Normally, though, each man has a P-File, which is confidential and contains all the basic info: the courses he’s been on, names and dates, his disciplinary record, that kind of thing. That file goes with him if he switches squadrons. There’s also his Troop Bible, which gives admin details-passport number and so forth-but, again, that travels with the soldier.”

“So the paperwork is as mobile as they are,” Holland said.

Poulter turned, blew smoke out of the window he’d opened behind him. “That’s about right. And again, it’s purely practical. We’d be swamped with the stuff otherwise. I guess you lot have got much the same problem, right? Filling every bloody form in three times.”

Kitson smiled politely, acknowledging the moment of levity. “Why might a soldier move?”

“Any number of reasons. Troops go where they’re needed, basically. You might be going to assist another regiment, right? To backfill wherever it’s necessary. On a tank crew, say, you might have trained as a driver, and if a driver on another crew falls ill or whatever, you get shunted across and someone else is moved into your crew and trained up. You work as crew and you also work as engineering support for crew, and if that expertise is required elsewhere, you go to plug that hole. Some commanders like to move their crews around as a matter of course and some don’t, but either way it’s all change once the ORBAT comes through.” Poulter saw the confusion on Holland’s and Kitson’s faces and explained: “Order of Battle. That’s any troop movement order, peacetime or wartime, right? Once that comes through, you go. Simple as that.”

Holland had begun by taking notes, but had realized fairly quickly that there was little point. Even so, he drew a line on his notepad, as if underscoring something of great importance. “I understand all that, but surely when there’s a conflict, like there was in the Gulf, it’s a good idea to have some… continuity.”

“It’s certainly a good idea, ” Poulter said. He looked vaguely pleased, as if Holland had asked the predictably stupid civilian’s question. “When the regiment’s deployed, that’s when people really start to get switched around. Troops are reorganized all over again in accordance with battle regs.” He stuck the cigarette into his mouth and began to count off these regulations on his fingers: “You can’t go if there are any medical issues, any at all; you’ll get left behind if you’ve got so much as a toothache, right? You can’t go if you’re underage…”

“I’m not with you,” Kitson said. “How can you be underage?”

“You can join up when you’re sixteen and a half, right? After basic training and what have you, we get them at around seventeen, but you cannot be sent to war unless you’re eighteen years of age. You’re a gunner on a tank crew and the regiment gets deployed to a combat zone, right? If you’re a week short of your eighteenth birthday, somebody else is going to get brought in to do your job.”

Kitson nodded. She couldn’t help but wonder if the Iraqi army had been subject to the same regulations…

“Then, once you’re actually out there, everything can change again. People get injured; that’s the most obvious thing. And I don’t just mean as a result of enemy action.” He pointed out of the window toward the line of tanks that Kitson and Holland had seen earlier. “You take a tumble off the back of one of those wagons and you’re going to know about it. These things have a knock-on effect as well. One tanky breaks his arm, half a dozen crews can get shifted around.”

In his notebook, Holland circled the full stop beneath a large and elaborately shaded question mark. “What about soldiers who were in the Gulf and are still with the regiment?” he said. “Could we perhaps just talk to them? From what you said before, there should be a list of those people somewhere.”

“Yeah, I think that would be very useful,” Kitson added.

Poulter thought for a moment, before rolling his chair back and tossing his cigarette butt out of the open window. “I’ll go and have a quick word with someone about what you’re suggesting,” he said. “If you’d like to wait there, I’m sure I can rustle up some more tea.. .”

Holland closed his notebook before Poulter walked past him on his way to the door.