Scar Tissue

by Ollie Ollerton

  ‘I sort of wondered if you’d ever be in touch,’ she said, when drinks had arrived and the pizzas were on their way.

  A smile drifted about her lips. Her eyes shone. He felt somehow played with and yet didn’t feel offended by the idea. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because of …’

  ‘The pendant. You saw the pendant, didn’t you? Wasn’t that what you said on the phone?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  She grinned now. ‘I wore it that day for the pictures. I wore it just in case you ever came to the page.’

  He was flummoxed. She hadn’t said that on the phone. ‘You really did?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, which to her it probably was.

  ‘But how did you know I’d even go there?’

  ‘Oh, come on. Everybody googles their exes, don’t they? If there’s a picture of you going up online you’re always going to think, “Maybe my ex’ll see this.” God knows I’ve got enough of them.’

  Pictures? Or exes? He thought he knew which but decided not to interrogate the idea, not wanting to think about the men she’d known in between.

  ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘I mean, if you did it knowing I might see it, then why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess because I wanted you to see that I was successful and happy and reconciled to how things were between us. I don’t know.’

  ‘So … what? Were you wearing things as signs to other exes?’

  She looked taken aback. ‘No. Gosh, this got heavy real quick. I wore it because you were the one I knew before I became the person I am now. Pretty much. Mainly you. And you were the one I wanted to speak to, to say, “Look where I got. I got where I wanted to go.” But not in any kind of told you so way. And the pendant represented that. I guess it said “thank you”.’

  He gave a little shrug. ‘You did everything you did despite me, not because of me.’

  She screwed up her face, pretending to give the matter serious thought. ‘Well, yes, I guess you’re right. Yes, I did really, didn’t I? OK, in that case, what it said was, “I don’t bear a grudge. There are no hard feelings.” Oh, I don’t know, do I? I just saw the pendant and thought I’d wear it. And I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t.’ She sounded peeved but was smiling, still being playful, enjoying herself.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,’ he said, leaning into the joke. ‘Actually, it was you who brought it up.’

  ‘OK. Yes. Look, let’s start again shall we?’

  And so they did. They caught up. He told her that things hadn’t worked out between him and Fi, and they managed to negotiate that minefield with the minimum of discomfort, which was either good because it could have been awkward or bad because she didn’t give a shit anymore, he couldn’t decide, and she mentioned her husband, and he thought that he’d ask her a bit more about him – ‘Phil’ was the name—

  ‘How is Nathan?’ she’d asked.

  These, of course, were the days when Nathan had merely been estranged, not missing. ‘I haven’t seen him for a while. We’re not really talking at the moment. Yours are still kids, right? It’s when they get to be adults, that’s when the problems really start.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  They talked, and they ate, and her insistence that she was only going to have one course before leaving to prepare for her following day’s work seemed to go by the wayside.

  Pizza was eaten, and then dessert – a ‘cheeky dessert’, according to Tessa, who made noises about watching her weight, though of course she looked fantastic – and more wine was brought.

  She talked about her husband at last, and Abbott couldn’t sense any particular swing either way. She didn’t sound unhappy in the relationship, but then again, neither did she eulogise it. If she wanted to subtly put Abbott off, then, frankly, it was too subtle. He couldn’t work it out. Was it simply that she had no agenda, and therefore no feelings left for him? He wasn’t sure. She seemed intrigued about his work – he kept it light – interested in his divorce from Fi and concerned about his estrangement from Nathan, but not excessively so.

  And as they talked, he wondered if he was simply being schmoozed, charmed and flattered, as she must have done with her clients. He felt quite a profound hurt at the thought. She’d got more drunk, though, and a little more expansive, and it dawned on him that there wasn’t a guard to go down. There wasn’t a guard at all. When she talked about the past, she seemed to do it as though the past for her was not full of skeletons and demons and dark memories the way it was for him. She talked about it in positive, glowing terms, a past remembered with affection, a past that edited out some of the worst bits, including, thankfully, the very worst of him. The hurt he had caused was never mentioned, not directly nor obliquely. As though it did not exist.

  There were just good times and fun memories. Smiles and wine knocked back with relish until, suddenly, it was there, as though she had reached down, retrieved it from the depths of that leather briefcase and plonked it on the table: ‘You really hurt me, you know.’

  The words had changed her face, which had dropped a little. Her eyes shone and he knew that it was more than just the wine. And while part of him already mourned the great time they’d been having, another part of him felt relief that it was in there, at least – that things ran deep with her. In a way it was what he had wanted, what he had come here for, and now here it was.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘It took me a while to get over it.’

  She looked thoughtful. Was chewing her lip.

  But you did get over it, he thought, which is more than I was ever able to do.

  And then, somehow, they had ended up in a taxi, and they were going back to his hotel.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was the fountain.

  Cuckoo had the fountain to thank for being alive. For just as Kind’s bullets had rained down around him, one of them clipping the back of his leg, he had tripped over the fountain’s low retaining wall and dropped back into the water.

  For a moment or so – probably no more than a second – he blacked out. By the time he had recovered his senses, the shooting seemed to have stopped, although the screaming and pandemonium was still in full flow.

  Cuckoo had left the scene before any emergency services arrived, wanting to avoid an investigation but mostly wanting to avoid a repeat encounter with Mr Kind. No doubt they would catch up with him at his hotel sooner or later. Questions would be asked, especially if they had CCTV that put him at the same table as Foxhole.

  For now, however, his instinct was to take himself away from the epicentre of the activity.

  On his way back, he checked in with Fiona, who asked him if he’d been anywhere near the terrible shooting incident she’d seen on the news. They were saying it was a likely terrorist attack. Or maybe some nut job.

  No, he said, denying all knowledge of what, by a comfortable distance, had been the most terrifying experience of his life. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, and then moved swiftly on. ‘And have you heard from Alex?’

  ‘No,’ he told her, he hadn’t heard from Alex. All he knew was that Alex was still in Baghdad, still putting the feelers out in search of Nathan. He didn’t tell her about the death of Abbott’s team member, Stone, or ‘Fingers’, or whatever his name was. Didn’t see the point in worrying her.

  Arriving back at the hotel, he had cleaned himself up, washed and dressed his cut and put on the news. Foxhole had been killed, two others injured. Other casualties were mostly like him, cuts and bruises, and most of those incurred in the panic.

  He had been very lucky, he knew. Luckier than Foxhole. He chucked his suitcase on the bed and began neatly folding things into it.

  Next, he opened his laptop, checked his emails.

  Oh fuck.

  With a sharp intake of breath, he reached for his phone.

  CHAPTER 35

  ‘Hello?’ Abbott had been making his way across Baghdad on foot. He was on h
is way to the Kadhimiya address that Nathan had been given, intending to arrive there at midday in order to meet the translator provided by Potter.

  Why?

  Why not? He was swiftly running out of leads. And, after all, this was something he could actually do while he waited for info, either from Potter or from Cuckoo.

  And then the phone had rung.

  ‘Abbott?’

  ‘Cuckoo.’

  ‘Alan.’

  ‘Sorry. Alan. Tell me you have something for me,’ said Abbott. ‘Some information. Something. Any fucking thing.’

  ‘Well, did you hear about the shooting in Singapore yesterday?’

  ‘Um …’ Abbott screwed his eyes shut momentarily. He had a vague splintered memory of seeing something on the television, and that in itself was a reminder that every minute, every second he spent in blackout was more time spent failing his loved ones. ‘No … I heard something. Why? Was that …?’

  ‘It was Foxhole,’ continued Cuckoo, going on to tell Abbott the whole story, finishing by saying, ‘you left quite a mess behind you, Abbott.’

  ‘Mess is my middle name. This guy. The one who phoned you at the table. Kind, did you say?’ He thought of the white-haired guy he’d seen on the street in Singapore. Him, maybe?

  ‘Kind in name if not in action.’

  ‘Very good, mate.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well, look, obviously he was planning on tagging you at the same time. You’d better watch out. Leave that hotel, find another one. See if you can get accommodation with the consulate. Anywhere that he can’t find you is the important thing.’

  ‘I’m way ahead of you. I’m leaving now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ said Abbott. ‘I’m sorry all this shit is on you. Look, let me know if—’

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Something else, apart from you nearly dying and there being a killer after me?’

  ‘You know you seem remarkably relaxed about that.’ ‘I’m in Baghdad, Cuckoo.’

  ‘Alan.’

  ‘I’m in Baghdad, Alan. My son is missing and one of my ex-teammates has just died in mysterious circs. So the guy trying to kill me will just have to take his place at the bottom of my in-tray.’

  ‘He’s a dangerous guy.’

  ‘Dangerous? This geezer who opened fire in the middle of Singapore. You don’t say. Look, let’s get on with it. What have you got to tell me?’

  ‘You asked me to look out for Burton and Mowles. I put the feelers out. Burton—’

  ‘Most likely still in Baghdad, yes. I heard from Potter. Mowles?’

  ‘Dead.’

  Abbott stopped. He was close to the prison. ‘Mowles is dead?’ he said. ‘Mowles and Stone both dead.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Skydiving accident. Two weeks ago.’

  ‘Before Stone.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And another accident,’ said Abbott, more to himself. He was reeling now. Feeling wrong that his thoughts were not for Mowles, whom he had never known well, and nor for his family – a wife and two boys – but for the current implications of his death.

  ‘Yup. This one in Mexico, where they’ve ruled it as death by misadventure. Not enough attention paid to the equipment. You know what this means, Abbott, don’t you?’

  ‘I know what I think it might mean,’ replied Abbott, making his way along the street. ‘How about you tell me what you think it means.’

  ‘OK, how about this? How about somebody is killing members of your team one by one. Maybe.’

  ‘It’s a theory. Why do you think they might be doing that?’

  ‘Reprisals, perhaps.’

  ‘Reprisals? As in revenge? As in for something we did back in the day? Some terrible deed that we’re now paying for?’

  ‘Well, maybe.’

  ‘It’s a good thought. It’d make a nice story to tell my biographer. The trouble is, there is no terrible deed. We were just a bunch of squaddies serving our country and trying to make a bit of dough.’

  Which wasn’t quite the truth, he thought, but still. It would have to do for the time being.

  ‘Fact remains, Abbott,’ pressed Cuckoo, ‘two of your team are dead in weird accidents. I mean, I’m guessing that Mowles wasn’t in the habit of jumping out of planes without triple-checking his equipment?’

  ‘It’s hardwired, mate,’ agreed Abbott.

  ‘There you go. Anyway, a motive is in the eye of the beholder. All we know right now is that two guys are dead, and Nathan is missing. And that means that you could be walking into a trap.’

  ‘Fine trap. If you know it’s laid.’

  ‘But what if the trap is one you can’t avoid?’

  ‘Like what if your son is the bait?’

  ‘Exactly. What do you do then?’

  ‘Ain’t nothing you can do, mate, apart from keep your wits about you.’

  ‘What do we do in the meantime?’ asked Cuckoo.

  ‘You’re OK, are you?’ checked Abbott. ‘You’re not so wounded that you can’t do a little bit more digging for me?’

  Cuckoo sighed. ‘No, I’m not that wounded, no. Let me know where X marks the spot and I’ll keep on doing your digging for you.’

  ‘OK, where Burton is. We need to find out. Could it be that he’s still working for Mahlouthi in some capacity?’

  Something came to Abbott, a memory that flitted in and out of his head as silvery as an eel, so that, for a second, he thought it might slip away as quickly as it had arrived. It was a little kid with a cheeky grin and …

  Oh, Christ. The envoy from Mahlouthi. The one he’d told to piss off. With a cringe of guilt and shame, Abbott knew that he’d missed a golden opportunity. At the same time, the mere thought of Mahlouthi hardened his heart a little.

  ‘OK, I’ll do my best,’ Cuckoo was saying.

  ‘And another thing, while you’re on the case. Find out who Mowles was jumping with that day.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And one more thing. I need a recent picture of Nathan. Are you able to send me one right away? Something I can just show on my phone.’

  There was a moment of awkward silence that Abbott didn’t have a recent photograph of his own son.

  ‘Sure. Would you like that in civvies or uniform?’

  ‘How about both, just to be on the safe side? And Alan—’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Thank you, mate.’

  Shortly afterwards, the pictures arrived with a ping.

  Abbott let them marinade on his phone a while, and when at last he came to open them he did so with a mounting sense of trepidation. Why? Because from baby to toddler to kid to teenager, Nathan had been a handsome, happy lad with an open face and a mop of unruly fair hair. As Abbott knew, though, the army had a habit of smoothing off those rough edges. In his own case, that was for the better. He was far better off without those rough edges. Would have been in prison otherwise. But if you were a kid like Nathan? ‘The army will change him,’ he’d said to Fi during the time of the great Army Arguments.

  ‘Yeah, well, let’s hope it changes his mind,’ she’d shot back.

  But it hadn’t. Or not yet, at least, for it was still early days. And Abbott felt his heart sink to his boots as he looked at the pictures. Gone were the nearly blond curls. Gone was the ready smile. In its place, the same shaven-headed, number-two-all-over, tough-guy look sported by every other squaddie, every other grunt. Give him the shades, plop a helmet on his head, and you couldn’t pick him out of a line-up; he’d look like every other coalition soldier on the streets of Baghdad.

  Funny, thought Abbott, looking at the pictures. He wanted to find Nathan, but he also wanted to reclaim him from a life that would likely corrupt him unless he bailed out now. Corrupt him in the way it had corrupted Abbott.

  Because that’s what good fathers did. They saved their sons.

  CHAPTER 36

  Once again, Abbott found himself back on the stree
t with the walls of the prison scowling down upon him. However, there was a marked difference between now and last night. Then, he’d been practically the only person on the street. Now, he was one of many – the area was teeming with activity – and yet he was the only Westerner around.

  Even so, the Iraqis who passed or manned the stalls in the shadows of the prison walls paid him little mind, no doubt bracketing him with every other member of the occupying forces: American grunts keeping the peace, British squaddies passing through Baghdad on their way to help provide stability in other, further-flung regions of the country, members of the security forces – it didn’t matter to them. They were all the same.

  Abbott found himself scanning faces around him, looking for something. What? Anything. Anything that might give him a clue as to why Nathan had been summoned here.

  And then he saw something – a shock of white hair, a glimpse of a Western face in the crowd. A guy wearing smart jeans – jeans like they’d been ironed – and a suede jacket.

  And then it was gone, leaving him wondering if he’d imagined it. It had been a day since Cuckoo’s contact in Singapore, more than enough time for the white-haired guy – this ‘Mr Kind’, presumably? – to have made his way to Baghdad. Well, Cuckoo was right about one thing. Whoever he was, he didn’t worry Abbott. Just one more thing to add to the list. Take a place at the back of the queue, mate. And either way, when Abbott looked again, he had gone. Perhaps a figment of his imagination. Then again, he wasn’t sure his imagination could conjure such a figure.

  Who on earth irons their fucking jeans?

  ‘Mr Abbott?’

  He turned. Standing before him was a guy of around his own age with a close-cropped beard. He wore a light-coloured linen suit and looked as cool as the other side of the pillow, practically the Arab version of Potter.

  ‘My name is Ibrahim. I understand you need some help with translation?’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ said Abbott. He explained his mission and the two of them wandered over to the stalls that lined the street, going to the first one, where a woman was trying to keep the dust from her crisp linen.

  Ibrahim gave a short bow. Next, he held up Abbott’s phone in order to display first one picture of Nathan and then another, asking the woman whether she had been here the day that Nathan was due to be here. Whether she had seen Nathan.