by Damien Boyd
‘Weren’t Maynard and his father marines?’ asked Louise.
‘They were.’
‘Who’s Maynard?’ asked Lewis.
‘The biggest loser when Fletcher’s letting agency went bust,’ replied Dixon. ‘Weymouth Properties. The father served in the Falklands.’
‘It would be interesting if the father was in F Company,’ said Lewis. ‘Wouldn’t it?’
‘It certainly would,’ said Dixon.
‘That’s good work, Nick,’ said Lewis when the others had left meeting room 2.
‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘You’ve made two trips to Pembroke?’
‘Colonel Byrne failed to mention any of this the first time, so I had to jog his memory.’
Lewis shook his head.
‘For the good of the regiment apparently,’ continued Dixon. ‘They didn’t want the scandal then and they don’t want it now.’
‘Well, they’ve bloody well got it,’ said Lewis. ‘Will he complain about you?’
‘Little old me?’ asked Dixon, smiling. ‘If he does, remind him he withheld information in a murder investigation.’
‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ replied Lewis.
‘Not looking good on the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment,’ said Louise. ‘I just googled it. It became part of the Defence Research Agency in 1991, then the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 1995. Then it split in 2001. Half became the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the rest was privatised.’
‘Privatised?’
‘You could always take it up with your local MP,’ said Pearce, grinning.
‘Shut up, Mark.’
‘It’s now part of a company called QinetiQ,’ continued Louise.
‘Well, try the Defence Science and Technology Lab first and see what you can find out. You never know, they may still have the records.’
‘I’ll call them tomorrow.’
Dixon spent the next ten minutes surfing the 42 Commando website, before turning to Louise, who was sitting at the adjacent workstation.
‘See if you can get me a phone number for Bickleigh Barracks, just outside Plymouth. All there is here is an email, and it’s not monitored outside office hours.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
Dixon got back from the canteen, his blood sugar levels restored by a bar of chocolate, to find a scrap of paper with a phone number on it on his keyboard.
‘I got it from the MoD Police in Plymouth. It’s the guardhouse number. They use it when they’ve got drunk and disorderlies and someone comes and fetches them.’
Dixon winced. The idea of meeting a group of drunk and disorderly marines on a night out was too horrible to contemplate. He dialled the number.
‘Bickleigh Barracks, guardhouse.’
‘I’d like to speak to the commanding officer, please.’
‘Who’s calling?’ The voice was just audible over a loud sigh, although the change of tone when Dixon identified himself was immediate. He pictured the person on the other end of the line standing to attention.
‘He’s off duty I’m afraid, Sir. He’ll be in tomorrow.’
‘Are you able to contact him today?’
‘In an emergency, Sir.’
‘Good. Would you be so kind as to ring him now and give him my number. I need to speak to him about a murder investigation. And it is urgent.’
‘I’ll call him straightaway, Sir.’
‘Thank you.’
Dixon rang off.
‘I need to go, Sir, if that’s all right.’ Mark Pearce was standing by his workstation.
‘You carry on. And you, Louise. We’re not going to get much done on a Sunday now, are we?’
‘I’ll just finish this.’
‘Where’s Dave?’
‘Already gone I think.’
‘Be back here at eight tomorrow,’ said Dixon, standing up.
He was halfway along the landing when his mobile phone rang.
‘Dixon.’
‘Lieutenant Colonel Hatfield, Inspector. I gather you wanted to speak to me.’
‘Yes, Sir. Thank you for calling me back. I’m investigating the murder of a Falklands veteran and was hoping to come down to Bickleigh.’
‘Yes, of course. We’re just back from a month’s training in Norway as it happens, but I’m in Whitehall until Tuesday night I’m afraid. Was he one of ours?’
‘The murder victim isn’t a marine, Sir, but I wanted to talk to you about Adrian Kandes.’
Silence.
‘Wednesday at ten?’ asked Dixon.
‘Er, yes, that’ll be fine. I hope I can help.’
‘So do I, Sir.’
Bullets ricocheted off the rocks behind him, sending sparks flying into the air above his head. He followed the phosphorous glow of the tracer rounds high into the night sky, until they fizzled out and fell to earth hundreds of yards away in the sparse covering of heather.
He closed his eyes to preserve his night vision when a flare went up. The man lying next to him was shaking but making no sound. Not that he would have heard much anyway over the noise of the machine guns and the artillery barrage hitting the Argentinian positions further up the hill. First the flash, then the bang. And then the debris landing on him; they were that close.
Away to his right three lads were lying behind a boulder, their faces camouflaged, the whites of their eyes visible in the eerie glow, until the flare fell to earth and they were shrouded in darkness again. If only just for a second, until the next one went up, or until the flash of another shell landing on the hill above them.
Then the barrage stopped. He closed his eyes.
This is what you trained for, for fuck’s sake. No. More. Running.
Breathing hard now.
He glanced to the east and watched a small group of marines moving forward, tracer fire snaking across the hillside towards them.
Then he noticed Lieutenant Burton in front of him, lips moving, shouting, but there was no sound. Burton crawled across to the others and began shouting at them too, his fist clenched.
‘Let’s go. Let’s fucking go!’ No one needed to hear it to get the message.
They stood up as one and followed Burton, weaving up through the boulders, the last of the heather brushing against their legs and clawing at their feet. Then it was out on to open hillside.
Two machine guns opened up on them from the base of the rocks just below the summit.
‘They must have NV.’
Night vision – that’s all we fucking need.
On the ground now, he crawled across to Lieutenant Burton.
Dead.
Blood seeping from a gaping wound in his neck.
‘Where’s the fucking radio?’
The shout came from his left.
‘What do we do, Sarge? We’re pinned down.’ The marine was lying in front of him, shaking him. And shouting. He looked down at the marine’s hand on his arm, blood soaking into his sergeant’s stripes. Less than an hour ago this same marine had whacked that woodentop too. And he’d done it for him.
‘What’ve we got?’
‘Two geeps at the base of the rocks,’ came the reply.
He reached over and pulled Burton’s sub-machine gun from his lifeless hand. Then he waved at the marine carrying the 66 mm anti-tank launcher, who crawled over to him.
‘Give it to me.’
A shallow gully led diagonally up to the base of the summit rocks, perhaps eighty yards away. A boulder halfway along would offer some cover from which to fire the AT. Then it was open ground all the way.
Fuck it.
He closed his eyes while he waited for the flare that was floating down to hit the ground. He thought about his family and hoped they would understand. Then he was up and running for the base of the gully, bullets kicking at the ground behind him.
Crawling now, AT in his left hand, rifle in his right, bayonet fixed, SMG slung over his shoulder, he made it to t
he comparative safety of the boulder. The enemy machine guns would be trained on it, waiting for the slightest movement, so he crawled past it, only a yard or two, then sat up and fired the AT at the first geep to open up at him.
Direct hit.
He dropped the empty rocket launcher and picked up his rifle. Then he jumped up and ran towards the remaining machine gun, straight across the open ground below the summit of Mount Harriet.
The first bullet hit him in the left shoulder, the second in his right thigh.
He fell twenty yards short of the enemy machine gun post and lay still, searing pain in his leg. He reached down and felt blood, but not that much. Artery missed. That gave him another few minutes.
The bones in his shoulder grated when he moved his arm, but it moved, and he was beyond feeling pain now.
He waited until the machine gun began firing again before he took the pin out of a grenade, ever so slowly. Then he threw it and scrambled to his feet, lurching forward, dragging his right leg. The grenade detonated as the machine gun was swinging towards him, killing the gunner.
Firing from the hip, he killed one enemy soldier as he came round the base of the rocks, two shots to the face; then another ran at him, bayonet fixed. He shot him in the legs and lunged at him with his bayonet. The serrated blade stuck in the man’s eye socket, so he dropped the rifle and reached for the sub-machine gun that was still over his shoulder.
He felt a hammer blow to his chest. Then another. He pulled the trigger as he dropped to his knees and watched the two remaining enemy soldiers fall backwards in slow motion. Others above him on the summit had their arms in the air.
Silence.
Either he was beyond hearing or the battle was over.
He tried to focus on a man kneeling over him, silhouetted against a flare lighting up the night, a green beret and a dog collar just visible in the light that was fading fast, despite more flares going up.
Redemption.
Chapter Eleven
The snow was settling on Monty’s red coat and on the line of seaweed left along the high tide mark, but not on the sand. It had last settled on the beach in 2010, although back then even the seawater puddles had frozen, and it had to be pretty damn cold for that.
Dixon thought about his days ice climbing with Jake, turning back from the summit of Ben Nevis, their tracks in the snow being covered over as fast as they made them. And the summit of Mont Blanc. The sky had been clear that day, which had made the long slog worth the effort.
He had parked on the beach and was walking towards Brean Down. He had until the sun came up; then it would be home to drop Monty off and down to Express Park for 8 a.m. Jane didn’t have to be there until 9 a.m., so they had agreed to go in separate cars to be on the safe side.
Sergeant Adrian Kandes VC. Dixon shook his head. It had a certain ring to it.
Colonel Byrne had been adamant that the other marines had gone after him when he left the battlefield to bring him back, which meant they must have been identified and spoken to at some point and by someone. Five of them, he had said. It would be very interesting to find out where Maynard’s father had been during the battle as well, but too good to be true perhaps, if he was one of the five. Dixon was never that lucky.
And what of the bitterness Tom Cuthbert talked about? On both sides. From the Welsh Guards that a marine had struck one of their officers no doubt. But if that was the case, why would one of them kill Fletcher?
No, the greater anger would have come from the marines, surely. That one of their number had been denied the Victoria Cross. Even Lieutenant Colonel Hatfield was familiar with the story, judging by his reaction on the phone, and he would have been no more than a boy in 1982. But would the anger and bitterness fester this long?
And why now?
Then there was Kandes’s family. A father’s bitterness that his son had missed out on a VC? Kandes would have been nearly seventy now, making his father over ninety perhaps. Wife and children then, brothers and sisters possibly. It would be interesting to see what Mark Pearce came up with.
Dixon kicked Monty’s ball along the sand and watched him tear off after it in the first light of dawn. He had found his motive at last. The only problem was that it fitted God knows how many people.
Dixon sat down at a workstation and switched the computer on.
‘Adrian Kandes was single,’ said Pearce, craning his neck over his monitor. He was sitting at the workstation in front of Dixon.
‘No girlfriend?’
‘There was one, but they broke up just before he went to the Falklands.’
‘Find her.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Parents?’
‘Neither alive. There’s a sister though. Living in Guildford.’
‘What about the CO?’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘I’ve been on to the Defence Lab,’ said Louise, ‘and they’ve got a radar cabin in storage still.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Dixon through a mouthful of bacon and egg sandwich.
‘Porton Down. That’s Wiltshire, isn’t it?’
‘Can we go and see it?’
‘It’s in an old hangar apparently,’ said Louise. ‘I’ve spoken to the site manager, and he can take us out there at midday if that’s any good.’
‘That’ll do,’ replied Dixon. ‘Let me have the sister’s address, Mark. We’ll be halfway there already, so we’ll pay her a visit.’
‘D’you want me to ring her?’
‘No.’
‘What’d he say we should do?’ asked Dixon.
‘He said he’d meet us at the gate,’ replied Louise.
They had gone in Dixon’s Land Rover on the assumption that a four wheel drive might be more useful if it didn’t stop snowing, and he had stopped in the middle of the road opposite the police control point at the entrance to Porton Down. Both barriers were down either side of the guardhouse, and they had already attracted the attention of the officers inside, who were watching their every move.
‘What do they think we’re going to do?’ asked Louise.
‘We could be terrorists,’ replied Dixon. ‘Or animal rights activists.’
‘They do animal testing here?’
‘Amongst other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Chemical and biological weapons testing.’
‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known,’ muttered Louise.
‘I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’ve got a job to do. All right?’
Louise nodded.
Dixon drove up to the barrier and wound down the window.
‘Can I help you?’
Dixon was relieved that the officer armed with the machine pistol had stayed in the guardhouse.
‘We’re here to see the site manager,’ he said, passing his warrant card to the officer standing by the driver’s door.
‘Wait here.’
Dixon watched him walk back into the guardhouse and pick up the telephone.
‘Can you wind the window up?’ asked Louise, shivering.
The officer came back out and lifted the barrier.
‘Park over there,’ he said, gesturing to a small car park just inside the entrance. ‘He’s on his way.’
Dixon reversed into a parking space and left the engine running.
‘What’s his name, this fellow?’
‘Keith Draper,’ replied Louise.
Dixon took his phone out of his pocket, intending to send Jane a text message while he waited.
‘No signal,’ he muttered. ‘You got one?’
‘No. Maybe there’s a blocker on it.’
‘You’ve been watching too many James Bond films.’
‘Is this him?’ asked Louise, pointing to a dark green Land Rover coming down the access road.
‘Good taste in cars if it is.’
The Land Rover pulled up next to them, and the driver wound down the window.
‘You here to see the radar cabin?’
‘Yes. We’re—’
‘Hop in then.’
Dixon switched off the engine and climbed out of his Land Rover.
‘It’s in an old hangar on the other side of the complex,’ continued the driver, watching Dixon and Louise climb into his Land Rover and slide across the bench seat.
‘Are you Mr Draper?’
‘No. I’m just maintenance. He took one look out of the window and sent me I’m afraid. Tosser.’
Dixon looked at Louise and raised his eyebrows.
‘What’s your name?’
‘John.’
The driver was wearing blue overalls underneath a parka, one of the old blue ones with the orange lining and fake fur around the hood. He was in his early sixties, with fingerless gloves and grey hair poking out from under a black bobble hat.
‘How long have you been here?’ asked Dixon.
‘Forty-two years. Retiring next year, and I can’t bloody wait.’
‘Were you here when the cabin arrived?’
‘Yes. It came over from Malvern when RSRE was closed down.’
Dixon looked out of the window as they drove past various buildings, all with large and full car parks in front of them. It reminded him of the police HQ at Portishead, the original buildings of red brick with the old metal windows, and the newer ones all concrete and glass.
‘Where are the biological warfare labs?’ asked Dixon.
‘Over the other side. You’re quite safe.’
Then they were out into the country on an old concrete road.
‘There are the hangars,’ said John. ‘Left over from the days when we had aircraft here. Now they’re just used for storage.’
John turned the Land Rover into the empty car park in front of the first hangar. There were three, two large ones and a smaller one at the far end.
‘As you can see, not many people come out here these days.’
Theirs were the first tyre tracks in the fresh snow.