Snow Storm

25

Jones phoned the barracks of 42 Commando in Plymouth before lunch and received a swift return call in the way on the military knew how. In the time it took her to check her texts (totally dissatisfying), check her emails (too many) and scoff a cheese sandwich she had an officer on the line.

Captain Saville was well spoken; clipped in the way the military liked their officers to be she supposed. She wondered if that was something they trained into them directly, if it was merely a by-product of their environment or actually something they selected for at interview stage. She also wondered if he had a moustache, but then reminded herself that as this wasn’t 1956 that was fairly unlikely. He could have been a hipster she thought, but they all worked in marketing and lived in whatever part of whatever city was about to become up and coming, not a military base just outside Plymouth.

“So, you wanted to know about Leon Williams?” he asked.

“I do indeed,” she replied. “Obviously we got his name from University Hospitals Birmingham in relation to some reconstructive surgery he had done.”

“Yes. Nasty business that,” Saville confirmed. “Don’t know the ins and outs of it myself if I’m totally honest. Can’t pretend I was out there in the thick of it so to speak, but by all accounts they were just going about their business. Routine journey and they had to stop for whatever reason. IED; that’s what got them. So often is of course.”

“Yes,” she agreed, before realising she hadn’t a clue and only went by what she heard on the news. They could be battling wild turkeys for all she knew. It all depended on what the main stream media were fed or in some cases cared to divulge. “Not that I’d know,” she added swiftly, a slight twinge of guilt reflecting in her voice as she did.

“You don’t want to either,” Saville said. “And really, nor do I. Not something I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.”

“Did you know Marine Williams, Captain Saville?” she asked, trying to move the conversation on before she put her foot in it again.

“Not personally, no. Obviously I was aware of the incident when it happened. We’re a fairly tight unit. News does rather tend to travel fast and bad news really hits home when it comes.”

“I’m sure.”

“Anyway, I’ve asked around and he does seem to have been very well liked. Apparently he did quite a lot to help those less fortunate than himself when he was a patient at UHB. Kept their morale up, that kind of thing. Not a talent to be underestimated I can tell you.”

“Did he have any history of problems? Anything to do with drugs say?”

“No, model of discipline as far as his record goes. That’s not to say he wasn’t involved with anything untoward. You can never really know what goes on off-base, but with random testing you’d have to be a bit of a fool. As far as I am aware though, he was a good egg both on and off-base.”

“He didn’t leave under a cloud then?”

“No, not at all. He was honourably discharged having done his service to Queen and country.”

“Do you know where he went to next?”

“I really couldn’t say but he certainly has family according to his record or he did five years ago. We’re sending his dental records. I suppose the hard part will be informing whoever he left behind, especially if he did go off the rails a bit.”

“Yes well, all part and parcel of the job.”

“I bet. Can’t be easy though. It can be very common as well, this sort of thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Ex-servicemen losing their way somewhat, especially after the kind of things they can go through with modern warfare. You know we lost at least three men in that explosion? Another two badly injured, Williams and another chap who wasn’t quite so lucky, lost one leg just above the knee and the other just below. Not surprising some of our lads get PTSD. How are you supposed to readjust to normal life when you get a rude awakening to the fact that just sitting in a traffic jam can be the prelude to a bloody ambush? Part of one’s brain must always stay tuned in to that.”

She thanked him for his time and he assured her that the dental, medical and any other relevant records would be with her shortly.

Now all she had to do was tell Burke and hopefully manage to avoid the part where someone had to tell the family.

Simon Watson was not having a good day. In the dictionary definition of good day, assuming he slipped into a parallel universe where there were dictionaries that contained phrases, this would be the opposite of the definition, the anti-good day.

First of all he was in here, surrounded by the joys of decay, disease and death. Maybe last night had been the tail end of the worst day and this was merely the aftermath, but it hadn’t started that way. They had been going for it, having handed in the final essay due before the Christmas holidays, one he’d spent literally ages on owing to the marks he’d received for that last one, presumably for contradicting that blasted hippy lecturer in a tutorial the week before. Bloody communist. Who was he to say he knew all about the ins and outs of Proust? He’d only tried to inject a bit of personality into the thing, and now he was getting a hard time for not giving a balanced enough viewpoint.

Give it time, Simon would have a column in one of the broadsheets. They’d feel the full weight of his personality then. Where would the lecturer be when he was snorting his way round The Groucho Club of a Friday night? Fuck him. Jobsworth.

The nurses weren’t much better. He’d thought he could at least while away some time by giving them some of his diamond chat, but real life, it seemed, was not like a carry-on film, even if one of the nurses was a dead ringer for Kenneth Williams.

They’d been celebrating their arses off the previous afternoon. They’d all agreed to head to The Alexander Graham Bell to get some cheap Wetherspoons booze. He’d thrown up on arrival. He could remember that but everything else was a bit hazy. He remembered getting confused talking to a girl who said she was from Irvine but who he thought had said she was from Girvan, or was it the other way round?

That was about the time the short chavy guy had started on Alistair. Had he done the gallant thing and stood in between them and the girl from Irvine? Was that why he was here? It seemed likely the more he thought about it, on the off chance she’d thought him chivalrous and wanted to take him home.

Everything had escalated quickly after that. Punches were thrown and then the fat guy appeared, like some kind of Tasmanian devil, just whirling around, a ball of chaos catching everything in his path. He thought that was what had happened. He’d got sucked in by the gravity of that ball and now he was busy trying not to throw up or see everything in duplicate. Kenneth Williams had told him it would all be fine, before dishing out a breakfast that would have had most people checking out early possibly literally and metaphorically, regardless of their symptoms.

When the suited and booted guy stood before him his task was much easier than expected. He introduced himself as Giles Herriot-Watt and at first Simon thought he must be taking the piss.