by Kim Hughes
‘The complainant said you bullied and belittled him. In front of his peers.’
‘If I did, I was bullying him into not ending up like Nick.’
‘Do you have a problem with authority, Staff Sergeant Riley?’
‘No, not at all.’ Not when the authority is earned.
‘Tell me about the anger you directed at him. The trainee.’
He shook his head. ‘It was just a momentary thing.’
‘I’ve heard the tape that one of the other audience members made. It wasn’t a “moment”. It was more like five minutes. A tirade, I would say.’
He shrugged. ‘A five-minute tirade that might keep him and the rest of them alive.’
She scribbled some notes. ‘You were brought up by your grandparents?’
It took Riley a second to realise she had changed tack. ‘Mostly,’ he admitted. ‘There were spells with my mum, a time in boarding school. But yes, I spent a lot of time with my grandma and grandad.’
‘And that was okay, was it?’
Better than being with his mum. His grandfather had loved rugby, horse racing, cricket, angling and fine wines. He was also a first-class shot and gave Riley his first exposure to weapons. Some of the happiest times of Riley’s life were spent shooting spinning discs out of the sky with a ‘junior’ shotgun. Grandad had tried to introduce him to killing living things, but one rabbit had been enough. If the old man was disappointed with his reaction, he didn’t show it. He went out and bought the young boy bullseye targets instead. When Riley was old enough, he bought him a junior trail bike to ride through the woods.
Those days were rose-tinted by nostalgia, he knew, the sun always shining, waiting in hides for a tiny firecrest to appear or a kingfisher to swoop over the water – it was his grandad who introduced him to birding, too – fishing in the lake and foraging for mushrooms, wild garlic and dandelion leaves, years before it was fashionable in the City.
He wanted his memories to remain focused on those times, not recall the empty months when his grandfather was away or the days that were filled with gloomy rain tapping windows and a sick mother taken to her bed.
‘I enjoyed it,’ he said tersely. ‘Can we move on?’
‘Of course. What about relationships?’
‘With?’
‘The opposite sex. Or the same sex if appropriate.’
‘Opposite is fine.’
‘Do you have a relationship at the moment?’
Well, do you?
Nick again, who always seemed to chip in at just the wrong moment. But Riley wasn’t going to share that with Ms Carver. ‘I hear voices’ wasn’t going to look good on his psych evaluation. It was up there with ‘I see dead people’.
‘I’m sure it says in my file that I am divorced.’
‘It does. So, no meaningful relationship since?’
Define meaningful. ‘No.’
Ms Carver scribbled some more. ‘My aim here is not to judge you, Staff Sergeant. PTSD is caused by a trauma. In order to cope with that trauma, we create a coping mechanism. But sometimes the coping mechanism acts like a blockage. Things build up behind it. We have to find ways either to remove that blockage or put a different, less damaging, coping mechanism in place.’
‘I don’t know about coping mechanisms. I know I made some bad decisions.’
‘That doesn’t make you a bad person.’
‘I feel like that is what I am being accused of here,’ he snapped at her.
‘Not at all.’ Then another change of direction, so fast he almost got whiplash. ‘How do you relax, Staff Sergeant?’
‘Relax?’
‘Yes. How do you take yourself out of the everyday? Sport? Reading?’
‘Not much of a reader,’ he admitted. Everything he knew about literature he owed to his grandmother who had tried her best to make him appreciate everyone from Dickens to John Dickson Carr. ‘I used to fish.’
‘No longer?’
‘Not for a while. I…’ He flashed on the ropes and hooks they used to drag bright yellow palm oil containing HME – Home Made Explosive – out of the ground. It was a different kind of angling altogether. The reason for ropes was that HME was unstable and trying to pull out the charge by hand was risky. As an added bonus in the bad-for-your-health stakes, latterly Terry had discovered anti-lift devices – detonators underneath the explosive, designed to deploy if the pressure on them was released. There was a terrible maths to dealing with HME. A five-kilo device meant the victim losing a leg. Ten meant two legs. Any larger and you were red mist. The few times he had tried fishing since Afghan, the lines and hooks had caused sweaty, unwelcome flashbacks.
‘Go on,’ she prompted.
‘I like birds.’ He was hesitating because of the response of the average squaddie to such an admission. The ribbing could be unrelenting. And rarely funny. ‘Hey, Riley. I just saw a Greater Spotted Arse in the showers.’ She showed no reaction, of course, to his revelation. ‘I sometimes go birding. It takes me out into the countryside.’
‘And you enjoy that?’
‘Yes.’ Not just the birds; in fact, they acted more as an excuse to get out into the fields and woods, a landscape totally different to that of Afghan. The love of English nature had been there before Helmand, of course, a legacy from his grandfather who taught him to identify not just birds and the telltale signs of fox, deer or badger in an area, but plants such as blackthorn, fleabane, dogwood and figwort. But the smells and sounds of a stroll in the country helped remind him he was no longer in that benighted country and, God or Allah willing, never would be again. Its rugged beauty failed to compensate for the dead and the maimed that populated his image of it.
‘It’s a very solitary activity. Birding,’ said Ms Carver, looking up from her notepad. Her head was tilted to one side and Riley could tell she thought he was an unsuitable candidate for birdwatching.
‘Not always. You get something like a Pallas’s grasshopper warbler show up on its way to India and there’ll be coachloads.’ These were hardcore ‘twitchers’ of course, the sort of birders who chase around the country at the mere whiff of a rare sighting. That wasn’t Riley. He just liked walking the footpaths with a pair of binoculars in his pack, just in case. The army gave him enough lists to tick without doing it as a hobby.
‘It’s a very male pursuit. Or so I understand.’
‘What does that mean?’
She made a note without answering. ‘And isn’t it usually older people who take it up?’
You ought to get out more, he thought. There were millennials with binocs and bivouacs out there these days. ‘Not so much now.’
‘Can you tell me about your marriage?’
Back into the minefields of his past. ‘There’s not much to tell. It was just like the song. “Too Much Too Young”.’ Too many months away from home, leaving a wife to get lonely and often scared. Too many fraught reunions, when you drop back into a world where you have to shop and put out the rubbish and worry about schooling and reading the electricity meter. Too many two-week leaves where you have just maybe started to adjust to Civvie Street, at which point you were whisked back to a combat zone. Too many drunken rows. It has a name, apparently. ISS: Intermittent Spouse Syndrome.
‘You know what EOD stands for?’ he asked.
‘I know. It’s in your notes. Explosive Ordnance Disposal,’ the therapist translated.
‘Nope. Every One’s Divorced. It’s an occupational hazard.’
‘But you have a daughter.’
He smiled for the first time, as if on safer ground. ‘Yes, I have a daughter.’
‘Let’s talk about her.’
‘There’s not much to say. Ruby. Thirteen. She lives with her mother. Lived.’
‘Why past tense?’
‘She’s at boarding school most of the time.’
‘You sound like you don’t approve.’
‘Well, I tried it once. Didn’t like it. To be fair, Ruby seems to be getting on with it.’
<
br /> ‘And how often do you see her?’
Not often enough was the answer, not since Izzy, her mother, had upped sticks to run an art gallery in Padstow. It wasn’t hard to see why Izzy enjoyed school. Thirteen-year-olds might prefer boarding in the Cotswolds to a Cornish tourist trap. ‘I’m seeing her tomorrow, as it goes, Ruby. Last day of school. We’ll spend a night together.’ Along with her mother, unfortunately.
It was at that moment that both his phones rang, work and personal. He could ignore the latter, not the former. Although he was not on the active list, he still received alerts from HQ.
‘Excuse me. I have to take this.’
‘Of course.’ She checked her watch. They were almost done anyway.
He scrolled down the alert. It was what they called a ten-liner, telling him there had been a bomb and detailing where and when. It was the ‘where’ that brought him up short.
‘Fuck,’ he said to the phone, then to Ms Carver: ‘Sorry.’
‘What is it?’
‘A bomb.’ Not only that, a bomb in a town he knew well. Riley got to his feet, looking for his things.
‘Hold on. You’re not on duty,’ she reminded him.
An ATO is always on duty, he almost said. ‘I know the location well, though.’ He slipped on his jacket. He was leaving no matter what, but he knew enough not to storm out. Not unless she got difficult. ‘They might need me.’
She only hesitated for a heartbeat, then, ‘We’ll schedule the next session later. Go, if you have to.’
Riley didn’t need telling twice.
FIVE
Riley gave thanks that he had signed out a car-pool Audi rather than bringing his own VW. The A3 was nippier and came with superior comms. It also smelled better. Before he had set off, Riley had checked his personal phone, which had rung at the same time as his army one. It had been Ruby. Probably checking he was still coming to the concert tomorrow. Who knew, now the EOD boys had deployed? Rather than ring her back, he had texted that he would call her later. He wasn’t entirely certain that would be the case.
Driving north in a manner best described as controlled recklessness, Riley managed to get hold of Spike after a half-dozen attempts. Spike was the new him. That is, he had the job Riley should be doing rather than unzipping his emotions in some godforsaken office. Graham ‘Spike’ Denman was still a working ATO, not parked on some shelf. Riley was already a third of the way back to the barracks when the ATO finally picked up.
‘All right, mate,’ Riley said. ‘I got the alert. I know there’s a shout on.’ Thank God they hadn’t taken him off the Intel list when he was moved from active service. ‘What’s the score?’
Spike knew he would know what the incident entailed, so didn’t bother repeating the details. ‘We’re deployed at the request of East Midlands CTU.’ This was the regional Counter Terrorism Unit. ‘We’re in the truck. We’ll be out the gate in five. Fuckers, eh?’
‘Yeah. Fuckers.’
The ‘we’ Spike spoke of was the EOD response team. Spike was the sergeant in charge, and his number two, probably a corporal, was responsible for all the kit, including the explosives, the robots, the electronic jamming gear, the metal detectors, and Kevlar bomb suits. There would be a private or lance-corporal along, too.
‘Wait for me,’ said Riley. ‘I’ll jump on board. Give you a hand unloading and setting up the ICP.’
A pause. ‘Can’t do that, pal,’ Spike said flatly. It wasn’t unfriendly, just a fact.
‘Come on, for fuck’s sake, Spike. You need as many hands as you can get.’ He could already picture the scene, the devastating aftermath of a bomb in a public space. He had seen it in Afghan, the flattened, blood-soaked market place, police station, polling booth. And now the UK again. How fucking dare they.
Stay focused, he told himself.
‘I need all the operational hands I can get,’ said Spike eventually. ‘But you’re not operational, mate.’
‘Hold on.’ Riley floored the pedal on the Audi, flashing his lights as he overtook a string of caravans, which had emerged like mayflies at the first sign of good weather. The lead driver in the caravan convoy leaned on his horn as Riley pulled in just in time to avoid headbutting a Tesco lorry. He gave the caravanner the finger, even though he knew the driver wouldn’t see it through the tinted windows of the A3. It made him feel better though. Bloody civilians. They had no fucking idea.
‘Who is the duty officer?’ Riley asked once he had a clear road in front of him once more.
‘Nichols.’
Riley nodded to himself. Captain Nichols. Plum in his mouth and a metal rod up his arse. No, that was unfair. He wasn’t a bad Rupert, but he was a typical freshly minted Sandhurst boy, in that he liked to do things by the book. But they rubbed along okay, as much as an NCO and an officer ever did. Nichols would have overall command of the team’s deployment. But the ultimate way of dealing with the device, be it robot, human or controlled explosion, that was the ATO’s call.
‘Dom,’ said Spike. ‘I gotta go. Got comms coming in re the scene. I’ll call you. But don’t come. Too many cooks.’
‘What do you mean by too many—?’
But he’d gone. Too many cooks indeed. Or, put another way, don’t come here telling me how to do my job. He understood that. Nothing worse than a second ATO going: Oh, I wouldn’t cut that wire. Especially one who had been stood down. Riley turned off the hands-free and the radio kicked back in.
‘Reports are coming in of a possible bomb explosion in a suburb of Nottingham…’
It was like winding back the clock. Knife and machete attacks, using trucks and cars as weapons; they were the current preferred methods of jihad, if that was what this was. Bombs were old school. Bombs were Afghan. Bombs were him.
* * *
The EOD truck had already left for Nottingham by the time Riley made it to the Loughborough barracks. But Nichols was still there, just putting his gear into an unmarked BMW 5 Series estate. Riley parked the Audi at an angle that wouldn’t have been out of place on the streets of Rome and jogged over.
‘Sir. Captain Nichols, sir. Wait.’
‘Ah, Staff,’ Nichols said by way of greeting. Nichols was about the same height as Riley, but bulkier and with a thick neck. His face was fleshy, with a prominent nose that had been broken at some point. His blue eyes were clouded with suspicion. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Permission to accompany you, sir?’
‘To where?’
‘The site of the explosion, sir.’
‘We have our ATO, Staff Sergeant Riley,’ the captain said stiffly. ‘Graham Denman is in charge. But I’m sure you can make yourself useful here.’ The words were clipped and stern, designed to brook no argument. ‘There’ll be Intel to be distributed.’
So he was to be a messenger boy now? Fuck that. He had defused more bombs than they’d collectively had hot dinners. Leaving him behind made no sense at all. He pulled back from giving the officer a piece of his mind. Softly, softly. ‘Sir, listen. Spike is a good guy, but he doesn’t have my experience. Nobody here does. You know that. I won’t get in the way.’ He didn’t want to sound desperate, even though he was. This was a chance to get back into the thick of it.
‘Too many cooks.’
Christ, was that the thought of the bloody day? ‘How do you mean, sir?’
‘There can only be one ATO, Staff. You have a tendency—’
‘I won’t,’ he blurted. ‘Have a tendency. No tendencies. Promise.’
‘I’m sorry, Dom, but until you are signed off by the PAS people, my hands are tied.’ He didn’t sound particularly sorry to Riley.
Riley was aware that one misplaced word would blow his chances. He did have a trump card to play. ‘The thing is, sir, it’s my hometown.’
‘What is?’
‘Nottingham.’
Some of the wind went out of Nichols’s intractable sails. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ Riley nodded to emphasise the point. His memories
of Nottingham weren’t always fond, but that wouldn’t stop him exploiting its misfortune for all it was worth. ‘It is. I grew up there. My mum still lives there.’ Well, it was a kind of living. ‘I know those streets like the back of my hand.’
‘You know this Sillitoe Circus?’
‘Not exactly. That complex is after my time. But I know the area. What’s left of my family are there.’
‘And they might well have been caught in the blast, which will put an emotional strain on you—’
That book again. He was quoting chapter and verse. If there is a personal dimension to any case, stand your man down.
‘That is very unlikely. My mum lives in a care home.’ It was a little more complicated than that, but it would do. ‘She won’t have gone walkabout. Sir, think about it. You are leaving your most experienced EOD guy back at base.’
Nichols grimaced. ‘It’s my operational decision.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘I can’t risk you upsetting the chain of command.’
‘I understand. But you’ll be taking a peashooter and leaving the bazooka behind.’
Shit, had he just called Spike or Nichols or both a peashooter? That wasn’t what he had meant.
Despite that blunder, Riley could see doubt spreading across Nichols’s face now. The man knew it made sense. He simply didn’t like to admit it. ‘All right, get in. But you are to be present in an assistance capacity only. Understood? You are assisting me.’
Riley felt an unfamiliar burst of warmth in his chest, a little detonation of pleasure and relief, a welcome change from the corrosive anger that so easily took up residence in there. ‘Sir. Thank you, Boss.’ He risked the informality, hoping it would better convey his gratitude, and climbed into the passenger seat before the captain could change his mind.
* * *
Although the BMW was unmarked, it was equipped with blue lights and siren and Nichols turned both on for the drive north up the A60. Most of the traffic in front melted away as the BMW approached. They would catch up with the truck well before Nottingham. Riley was watching a red kite hovering over the edge of the road, when the captain interrupted his thoughts.