The Secrets of Pain

28

With Jane, it was always more than body language. She could give off fury like smoke.

When Merrily ran into her, where Church Street met the square, she was still in the school clothes she normally couldn’t wait to shed, and she looked starkly monochrome against the vivid pink sky.

Or maybe everyone would look like that tonight. Merrily shook herself.

‘Sorry, flower, had to go to Jim’s. We were clean out of bread. You weren’t looking for me, were you?’

‘No, I… yeah.’

No, there was something wrong. But Jane turned it around.

‘What’s happened? You OK?’

‘Bit of a shock, that’s all. Syd Spicer, who was vicar of Wychehill, in the Malverns?’

‘OK.’

‘He’s dead. He was found this afternoon on the side of Credenhill. Where the earth-steps are. Where we walked that time. Apparently he’d gone for a run on the hill. Might’ve fallen, hit his head. I don’t know.’

‘I’m sorry. That’s awful. Was he still a mate?’

‘Kind of.’

They walked out onto the square under a brushing of rain.

‘Life’s very often crap,’ Jane said. ‘Have you noticed?’

And she might well have gone on to explain if Barry, in his black suit, with his polished shoes, hadn’t come briskly down the steps of the Swan, striding across the cobbles, asking Merrily if she could spare him a minute.

If you could call that asking.

Barry’s office was behind the reception desk, a small, woody, windowless space with nothing at all to say about the Swan’s Jacobean origins. It had a strip light that turned Barry’s face blue-white.

‘Now I’m nervous.’ He shut the door, pointed Merrily to his leather chair. ‘You come in here last night, asking me what might frighten a man trained not to be frightened of anything, and next day he’s bleedin’ topped himself.’

‘Barry, nobody’s saying that. Probably natural causes, maybe an accident.’

‘Accidents like that don’t happen to men like Syd. Besides, that would hardly’ve caused what you might call a small tremor in the ranks.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Merrily instinctively pulled the cigarettes from her bag, then shoved the packet back. Barry waved a hand.

‘Nah, light one, you want. This ain’t public space.’

‘It’s OK.’ She closed her bag. ‘Who told you?’

‘These things get round. You were with Fiona?’

‘Yes.’

‘One in a million, that woman. She understands. Better than both mine did, anyway.’

He stood over her, waiting. Merrily lowered her bag to the floor.

‘All right, what happened, I was asked to talk to a group of clergy on a deliverance training course last Friday night, and Syd turned up, with something on his mind. Which he wouldn’t talk about. Not to us, so we assumed it was SAS-related.’

‘Who’s us?’

‘Huw Owen. My spiritual director.’ Looking steadily up at him. ‘You knew Syd well, didn’t you? Well enough to know his wife, obviously.’

‘I served with him.’

‘He was a friend?’

‘For a time, yeah.’

‘For a time?’

‘We didn’t fall out or nothing. I saw him a couple of years ago. He seemed OK. You can usually tell when they’re not. I heard he was in full kit when they found him.’

‘He had a Bergen, that’s all. A lot of weight in there, including a very big family Bible. This… has kind of knocked me sideways, Barry.’

Merrily’s right hand was shaking and she placed her left hand over it. Barry pulled out the other chair, sat down opposite her.

‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like I was interrogating you.’

‘Huw was convinced Syd needed help.’

‘Kind of help?’

‘He didn’t tell us, did he? Some people are embarrassed by the… anomalous. Especially the clergy. He sat in the shadows and he listened to what we had to say in the chapel. Like he had to deal with it himself, get it out of the way.’

‘You had dealings with him before though.’

‘Yeah. He consulted me about something he either didn’t believe or wanted nothing to do with. He told me, more than once, that he didn’t like that kind of thing. He wanted me to deal with it. This time… I can only assume this was something he did believe in, however reluctantly. Or that it was personal.’

Even in here, you could hear the plink, plink of the pool table in the public bar. No voices, no laughter, just cue on ball. It sounded random, directionless. Lonely, somehow.

‘Frank Collins,’ Barry said, ‘not long before he died, he became chaplain to twenty-three SAS – the reservists. So not as close as Syd. Only, when his book came out, it hadn’t been cleared by the MoD, and he had to resign. Got very depressed about that. Looking at it from the other side, maybe it was the Church what done for Frank Collins.’

‘It’s true that when things get difficult you don’t always get the support you might expect from the Church. The Church can be… strangely cold.’

‘Could be none of this applies. Regiment suicides are mainly blokes who only ever went inside a church for a mate’s funeral. Some of it’s post-traumatic stress, some of it’s because you get altered, and normal life don’t seem like life at all and ain’t worth holding on to.’

Merrily thought for a moment, listening to the pool game.

‘Barry, can I hang a name on you?’ And then, before he could reply, she came out with it. ‘Byron Jones?’

His eyes went blank.

‘Like the poet,’ he said.

Merrily had quickly Googled Byron Jones before she came out. Not much at all, really. He was certainly an author, but not exactly a best-seller. Or not any more – the most recent reference was 2007.

‘Actually,’ Barry said, ‘he was a poet.’

He sat waiting for a reason to continue.

‘Syd had one of his books on the shelf,’ Merrily said. ‘ Caradog, a novel for older kids about the Roman invasion of Britain.’

‘Yeah. I did hear he was writing books. A number of them have a go at that, as you may’ve noticed. But there was only one Bravo Two Zero . Not many millionaires among the rest.’

‘ You ever read anything by Byron Jones, Barry?’

‘Lost interest when I heard they weren’t about the Regiment. Anything about the Regiment we tend to collect, for various reasons. It was for kids, anyway.’

‘Most of them are written under pseudonyms… Andy McNab, et cetera. Is he…?’

‘His name is Jones. Byron – I was actually there the night he got that. We were due to fly out to… somewhere or other. About a dozen of us in the Paludrin.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The social club at the camp. Valentine’s Day coming up and one of the boys, he’s got a card for his girlfriend what he’s leaving for a mate to post, and he’s trying to compose a verse to write in it. We’re all helping. As you do. He’s sitting there, this boy, with his notepad, getting nowhere – specially with our suggestions. “Some men sniff their armpits, others tubes of glue”… I won’t go on, but you get the level. Then this person we’re discussing…’

‘Byron.’

‘He looks up from his Sun, and he goes – never forgotten this, it was so unexpected. He looks up, very slowly, and he goes, in this dreamy sort of voice, “ Some men win at snooker and some at poker, too… but only one who dares can really win a girl like you ”.’

Merrily smiled.

‘Get it?’ Barry said. ‘Who Dares Wins? Big cheer goes up, and somebody goes, This lad’s a regular Byron. And so, for ever after… He still didn’t look the type, but how many of us did?’

‘What type was he?’

‘Spare one for me?’ Barry nodding at Merrily’s bag. ‘Fag?’

She pulled the bag onto her knees, found the packet and the Zippo. Barry extracted a Silk Cut and lit up.

‘So Syd was back in touch with Byron, was he?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just telling you his book was on the shelf.’

‘And you just happened to notice it.’

She said nothing.

‘Byron Jones.’ Barry blew out smoke, thoughtful. ‘I dunno about this, Merrily.’

‘Is he a real writer? I mean, some of these guys, they have somebody to do it for them. But I suppose he’d need to be famous for that.’

‘He’s not famous.’

‘And the poetry…’

‘Like I said, that was a joke.’

‘I mean was he interested in poetry? Or was Syd? Wordsworth, that kind of thing? Byron Jones’s book was next to a book of Wordsworth’s poetry.’

‘Not that I know of. Byron was into history. He joined a local history club, and they’d do these field trips.’

‘What… with local people?’

‘Maybe. I dunno.’

‘What did they do?’

‘You know, just… poking round. Looking for bits of history. Archaeological remains. In the countryside. Around Stirling Lines back then, in Hereford.’

‘Was Syd in this history club?’

‘Probably.’

‘So he and Byron were mates.’

‘ Mates…’ Barry’s smile was tight ‘… I have to say is not a word you’d readily apply to Byron.’

‘He wasn’t friendly?’

‘Not being funny…’ Barry straightened his black tie, folded his arms. ‘Look, I never knew him well enough to say too much. He was very single-minded. On exercises, very competitive. I put this down to him being a bit nearer the end of his army career than the rest of us and no promotion. Like he had something to prove. I… I really don’t know about this.’

‘Not going to be filing a report on it, Barry. It’s just I can’t help feeling I let Syd down. Even though he didn’t want to talk to me.’

Barry inspected his cigarette like he couldn’t believe he’d already smoked half of it.

‘Byron was… I mean, ruthless was not a word we used, seeing as how we all needed to live there sometimes. But Byron was less inclined to take prisoners, you know what I mean? You’re aware that I’m telling you this…’

‘In total confidence.’

‘And if there are defence issues?’

‘Doesn’t worry me a lot.’

‘Blimey.’

‘You think, if I get too close to something embarrassing, I might get waterboarded?’

‘I think you should not take the piss out of these people, frankly. And you didn’t just see Byron’s book on the shelf, did you?’

‘It… was pointed out to me. But no explanation was given. I didn’t know anything about Byron Jones until now. Is he still around? I mean here?’

‘He was. I know where he was, ’cause his wife’s there. Ex-wife. Ran into her on a tourist-board beano last year. She’s doing B and B in the Golden Valley.’

‘Another failed marriage, then.’

‘Actually, the marriage survived quite a long time. Mostly through absence, I suspect. Yeah, OK, that’s not a bad idea. If you want to know about Byron, you should to talk to Liz. Big Liz. I expect there’s things she could tell you. If she was minded to. And I never said that.’

‘Why wouldn’t I just talk to Byron himself?’

‘Not advisable.’

Merrily raised her eyebrows. Barry leaned back.

‘I could give her a call, if you like, tell her you’re all right.’

‘That sounds like you want me to talk to her.’

‘I don’t want you to talk to anybody, but if you’re determined to open this can of worms…’

‘I’m trying to work this out. You think there’s something I should know, but you don’t think you should be the one to tell me? Or you can’t tell me?’

Barry looked worried. He didn’t often look worried.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to toss Byron Jones into the mix. If you get an approach from anybody, we haven’t had this chat and it wasn’t me put you on to Liz. All right?’

‘Sure.’

‘And Byron, I might’ve made him sound funny – the poetry and everything. He wasn’t, do you know what I mean? He isn’t.’

Merrily searched for anything in Barry’s eyes, but it was like they’d been switched off, and she wondered if the evil from Syd’s past finally had a name.