by LJ Ross
“Ah, chief inspector, I have nothing to hide, but I’m curious to know why my movements should interest you, given that I was not one of the firers at the time of the incident?”
Ryan smiled genially.
“It’s purely routine, sir. We like to have a full and complete picture.”
Robson spread his hands again.
“In that case, I’m afraid I was enjoying a terribly unremarkable Friday night here in my quarters, with a good book,” he said. “I believe I nodded off sometime after ten, and was awakened at five-twenty, give or take five minutes, by the Company Sergeant Major, Gwen Davies, who banged on my door around then.”
“Which book was it?” Phillips asked, and Robson turned to face him.
“Which book was what?”
“The one you were reading, last night,” Phillips reminded him.
“It was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” Robson replied. “One of the classic spy novels, in my opinion.”
“After you were alerted to the incident, what happened then?” Ryan asked.
“I got over there, as quickly as I could,” he replied. “The emergency services had already been called, so I drove along with the Company Sergeant Major to the site near Witch Crags and arranged for a transport vehicle to follow, in order to take the section back to the Base. It took around fifteen minutes to reach the same access point via road as you saw, earlier today.”
“At around five forty-five, would you say?”
“Yes, that sounds right.”
“Who did you see, when you arrived by the road access, near Linshiels Lake?”
“The RCO, 2nd Lieutenant Pat Dalgliesh, was there with the Medical Officer, Rupert Sanderson, and Corporal Rhys Evans. They were supervising the casualty, who had by that time been transferred by stretcher to the roadside to enable the emergency services to gain better access. I understand Lieutenant Jones remained with Corporal Huxley and the section troops, who were seated with their backs to the casualty at that time.”
Ryan nodded.
“And, was it your understanding that the victim was dead, or alive, by that time?”
“It was quite clear that she had, most regrettably, died.”
“Did you recognise her, at all?”
Robson was bemused.
“Certainly not, although, it must be said, I was unable to—well, you know. It was hard to distinguish particular features.”
“What was she wearing?” Phillips asked, and Robson was thrown off-guard.
“Wearing? I—goodness, I’m not sure I remember. Let me see, now. I seem to recall being able to see her legs, so she must have been wearing quite a short skirt. I’m sorry, I can’t remember what it looked like. Her injuries were too extensive to discern much in the way of detail, and it was still reasonably dark.”
“Do you have your own theory of what happened?”
Robson cupped his coffee mug between his hands and shook his head.
“It grieves me to say it, but I think we have here a very tragic case of somebody finding themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time. However, and for whatever reason that unfortunate woman happened to find herself in the pathway of a live-fire exercise, it would have been almost impossible for any of our troops to distinguish her from a moving target. They’re designed to simulate a real person, and are thermal to replicate the heat radiating from a human body. In the absence of any external light source, it’s small wonder Private Stephenson mistook the woman for the target.”
“You believe then, that Private Stephenson was probably responsible for firing the first shot?” Malloy asked.
Robson held up his hands.
“I’ve had an opportunity to listen to a recording of last night’s exercise and, although Stephenson was the one to sound the attack, that isn’t to say she was the one to fire the shot that killed the woman; in the army, we’re one for all.”
And all for one, Ryan thought.
“How do you account for the presence of a civilian on the training range?”
“I think it’s clear that the woman was lost, and somehow managed to miss the red flags. Admittedly, they’re harder to see, at night. I can’t say I know what she was doing wandering around at that hour, but perhaps she’d been staying in a shepherd’s bothy, or something of that sort. The territory attracts wanderers and poets, so I’m told.”
“Not all who wander are lost,” Ryan murmured, with the ghost of a smile. “But we’ll bear your theory in mind.”
CHAPTER 10
Beneath the concrete flyover, the soldier huddled into his sleeping bag and pressed the heels of his hands to his ears. The traffic overhead had picked up so there was a constant whirr of engines and, to his addled mind, they sounded like army drones, flying through the sky like giant, angry wasps as they prepared to strike.
“Need a couple of quid, mate?”
He recognised the voice and wished he could curl up even tighter; he wished he could make himself so small, he’d be invisible.
A moment later, a hand reached out to tug the sleeping bag away from his face and he found himself staring up into a pair of friendly blue eyes.
But looks were deceptive.
Alfie Rodgers was a poor excuse for a human being. He was well aware of the fact and had not spent any time mourning, or considering how the situation might be improved; his brain never having developed the crucial components that were required, if one was to feel empathy for one’s fellow man.
“There he is!” Alfie crooned, and the stooge who had accompanied him on his rounds of the city let out the rasping laugh of one who smoked at least twenty fags a day.
The soldier said nothing.
He’d learned, the first time, not to answer back. It was funny, he supposed, that a man of his combat abilities should feel fear in the face of the little runt, but it was just another measure of how far he had fallen. Besides, Alfie didn’t work alone. He had a network of messengers and enforcers, any of whom could come and find him in the long hours of the night, if he wasn’t careful.
“How you doin’, pal?” Alfie asked, coming down on his haunches so he could speak softly to his next mark. “I’ve gotta be honest, you don’t look so good. You look as if you need a little pick me up.”
Again, the soldier said nothing.
Not even when Alfie scanned both directions of the underpass, and then pulled out a small plastic pouch.
“Look at this, mate. Why don’t you try a bit of spice? It’ll perk you right up, I promise.”
The soldier’s eyes darted to the pouch—just once—and then back into the watchful eyes of the predator who’d been hunting him for weeks, now.
“I’ll do you a deal,” Alfie whispered. “You take an ounce or two, now, and you don’t have to pay me for it just yet. We’re mates, aren’t we? Mates help each other out, don’t they?”
The soldier thought back to the poppy fields in Helmand Province, and of the lives that had been lost, then looked back at the small plastic pouch.
“I’m going to tuck this safely in here,” Alfie said, and reached out to put the pouch inside the sleeping bag.
The soldier’s hand shot out, and caught the teenager’s wrist.
“I don’t want your bloody drugs,” he growled. “Leave me alone.”
Alfie’s expression never wavered. His smooth face continued to smile, and his eyes maintained the same innocent quality that served him so well in his chosen profession. Whilst some of the other kids at school were talking about becoming contestants on Love Island, he’d always known he was destined for greater things. With his business acumen and superlative people skills, he planned to run his own empire, one day.
But, in the meantime, he was building his business, one customer at a time.
“Let’s have a little chat about this tomorrow,” he suggested, and then surprised himself by dropping a handful of loose change in the cracked cup sitting next to the soldier’s cup. “Go on, have a burger, on me.”
The soldier he
ard their footsteps echoing through the underpass and breathed a sigh of relief that, this time, there had been no violence. He was still sore from the kicking he’d received from a crowd of drunken students, the night before, and his body needed time to heal.
Just then, he heard more footsteps approaching; faster than the last, and accompanied by the scratch of claws against the concrete floor.
The dog buried its face in his sleeping bag and sniffed him.
Then, sat back and waited.
“Go away,” the soldier said, half-heartedly this time. “Why do you keep coming back here? I don’t have anything for you.”
The dog continued to look at him with shiny brown eyes, and then it flattened its belly against the floor. After another minute passed, it shuffled closer, nosing its way towards him an inch at a time.
Until he felt the dog’s warm body curving against his own, and the warm puff of its breath against his skin.
“I don’t—” he tried to say, over the hitching of his own breath. “I don’t want you.”
But his hands came around the dog’s warm body and held on, and the animal’s tongue licked the salty tears from his face as they clung together in the shadows of the city.
* * *
In the barracks at Otterburn Training Camp, the mood was sombre.
Conversation stopped when Private Jess Stephenson returned to her bunk, and she saw the awkward looks from her fellow trainees.
They knew it was her fault.
It was her fault.
She lay her head on the pillow and curled up, wishing she had something to cling to through the long hours of the night.
CHAPTER 11
As evening began to draw in, Ryan, Phillips and Malloy decided to conduct one final interview before calling it a day, and went in search of the Medical Officer, Major Rupert Sanderson.
They found him in his office, drafting up his notes from the events of the morning.
“Come in!”
They entered a small, clinical office space very much like the one they might have found at their local GP surgery, with a consulting table, locked supplies cupboard and a corner desk where Sanderson was presently seated. He was a conservative man of around forty, with distinctive, curly salt-and-pepper grey hair and small, myopic eyes. He’d spent the first few years of his professional life as a doctor, with a regular stream of patients as a General Practitioner, before deciding to enlist as an army officer. Since then, he’d completed two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they could be fairly sure he’d seen more than his fair share of human destruction.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Ryan said. “We met earlier; I’m DCI Ryan and this is DS Phillips, from Northumbria CID, and Major Malloy, of the Defence AIB.”
Sanderson turned around in his chair.
“Right, yes. I suppose you’ll need to ask me some questions?”
Ryan nodded.
“Take a seat, if you can find one.”
Ryan offered the only spare seat to Major Malloy, who wondered for a moment whether his chivalry masked a deeper level of male chauvinism, before realising the gesture was gender-neutral; he had the kind of ingrained manners that led him to put others before himself.
And, as it happened, her feet were just starting to ache.
“Thank you,” she said.
Ryan turned back to the doctor.
“We’ll be asking these questions under caution, but that’s entirely normal,” he said. “If you’d like to have a lawyer present, you’re entitled, but it’s not necessary. We’re looking to build up a picture of the sequence of events.”
“I quite understand,” Sanderson said, in the clipped tones Ryan recognised all too well from his days at boarding school. “I’m perfectly happy to answer whatever questions you might have.”
“Could you start by telling us whether you were in attendance throughout the training exercise?”
Sanderson nodded.
“Yes, I was there throughout. It’s protocol, in case of injury—normally, it’s a case of sprained ankles and the occasional broken bone.”
“Unfortunately, not in this instance,” Ryan said. “When did you first become aware that the section had engaged a live target, as opposed to the mechanised one they intended to find?”
Sanderson removed his glasses, and began to polish them on the edge of his trousers.
“I was actually just drafting my own notes on this topic,” he admitted. “I believe I first became aware at around quarter past five this morning. That’s when I first heard one of the firers shouting ‘TARGET CENTRE’, or something similar. I was already privy to the planned exercise, and I knew that the target was located at least another half a mile or so further north of that position.”
“What happened when you heard the firer giving the battle cry?”
“Myself and 2nd Lieutenant Dalgliesh were located on higher ground to the east of the firers, and Pat—as RCO on the exercise—called out the order for them to stop.”
“And did they?”
“Yes, but not immediately. They responded incredibly quickly to a perceived target, and immediately engaged in a ‘fire and move’ formation.”
“What’s that, when it’s at home?” Phillips asked, and drew a reluctant smile from the doctor.
“It’s a standard attack strategy, where soldiers walking in a horizontal line formation split into three to confront the target. Firers from each end of the line peel away and move at speed, around the sides of the target, while those in the centre of the line maintain a forward advance position and continue to fire.”
“And you’re saying they’d already engaged the target, before the RCO was able to call them off?”
“That’s correct. As I say, they acted very swiftly.”
“What happened, once the section ceased firing?” Ryan asked.
“We could see through our own thermal vision that a live target had been hit. We were around a hundred yards away, on the sloping edge of the hillside on the western edge of the valley. Amanda—that’s Corporal Huxley—was the security officer on the ground, following around fifty yards behind the firers in the section. She ran across, while we hurried down the hill. I believe Huxley and Dalgliesh told the firers to lock their weapons and place them on the ground, alongside their packs. I went straight across to attend to the casualty, where I found Private Stephenson standing nearby.”
Ryan looked up at that.
“She wasn’t with the others?”
“No. She seemed extremely distressed, but I’m afraid I had no opportunity to tend to her. I can’t remember whether it was Dalgliesh or Huxley, but one of them told her to return to the rest of her section, whilst we called the emergency services and assessed the casualty.”
“And, turning now to the casualty, how did you find her?” Ryan asked.
Sanderson spoke in the detached voice that many clinicians developed in the early days of their careers when dealing with, and speaking of, severe trauma. Ryan recognised it instantly, having cultivated something very similar, himself.
“Whilst the lighting was very poor, I can tell you the casualty appeared to be a young woman, somewhere between the ages of eighteen and thirty, or thereabouts. She had sustained a gunshot wound to the head. Although we reached her no more than a couple of minutes after she fell, I could find no pulse.”
He paused to collect his thoughts.
“In accordance with procedure, I administered CPR until the decision was taken to move her closer to the road, by stretcher, which I had with me.”
He paused to take a sip of water.
“In your view, is there anything that could have prevented the incident from occurring?” Malloy asked. “Any measures the Army could put in place, that were lacking on the field last night and into this morning?”
Sanderson gave the question proper consideration, and then shook his head.
“It was a perfect storm,” he said, sadly. “I don’t think there’s any way we could have prevented it. Th
e woman just seemed to appear from nowhere. Perhaps, if it had been a daytime exercise…”
He trailed off.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ryan murmured, and thought that the victim’s family would be glad to know that, even when all hope appeared to be lost, this man had still tried to save her.
CHAPTER 12
It was after six by the time Ryan and Phillips departed Otterburn Training Camp; Phillips to return to his family in Wooler, and Ryan to make the short journey back to Elsdon. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, a thin veil of mist began to descend over the moors, curling its way over the tufts of heather and gorse, lending a sepia hue to the landscape that might have come straight out of a postcard.
Ryan was dimly aware of the passing scenery, but his mind was occupied elsewhere as he ruminated on one interesting point that had come out of their interviews with the officers who attended the exercise the night before.
Why had Private Stephenson approached what she believed to be a mechanical target—unless she was already aware it was a live target?
And, if she was aware, why had she not called off the attack, or put down her weapon before firing?
These were questions worth thinking about, because they went to motive. There was a great deal of difference between an ‘accidental’ death, where a soldier acting in the line of his or her duty accidentally kills a civilian, and a ‘suspicious’ death, where there is some element of premeditation, or what the law liked to call mens rea. It would be all too easy for him to sign off the death as accidental without properly considering the alternative, because his natural presumption was that soldiers killed only in the line of duty.
But that was not always the case.
There had been ample opportunity to begin gathering evidence about the camp and its inhabitants, but considerably less opportunity to learn about the victim. In Ryan’s experience, that was infinitely more valuable to a police investigation; for instance, they might just find that, contrary to their statements, the unknown woman was known to one of those brandishing a weapon that morning.
On the other hand, the remorse of each of the six firers had seemed genuine; in particular, Private Stephenson, who was convinced she was responsible for the woman’s death.