by Chris Ryan
‘Shut up, Sam. You don’t know what you’re talking about. So we argued. Happens all the time. We’re arguing now – doesn’t mean you’ll never come and see me again.’ His breathing was weak and shaky. ‘If your brother was still alive, what’s the one thing he’d do if he knew I was cooped up in this shit hole, pissing into a pipe and wasting away to a fucking skeleton? What’s the one thing he’d do?’
Sam looked at the floor. He knew the answer, of course – argument or no argument, Jacob would come to his father’s bedside. Nothing would stop him. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, because then he’d have to come to the same conclusion Max had arrived at. The conclusion which, in his darkest hours, had always nagged at the edge of his mind. Jacob dead? That didn’t bear thinking about. It would leave a hole in their life too big to be endured.
The silence was strained and uncomfortable. Max stared at the photograph in his hands and for a moment Sam felt as though his father had forgotten he was there.
‘I’d better be going, Dad,’ he muttered quietly. ‘I’m back for a bit. I’ll come again soon.’
Max didn’t answer. He was still looking at the photograph as Sam left the room and closed the door quietly behind him.
THREE
‘You never talk about your family.’
Kelly was fired up, ready for an argument. She’d been acting it out in her head all the way home on the Tube and before that – ever since lunch with Elaine. Ask him all the questions she wanted answers to and if he got shirty, confront him about the missing money from her purse.
‘Nothing to say.’
Jamie was sitting in his preferred position, lounging on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table. The TV was on with the sound down and he was fiddling with his iPod.
‘For God’s sake, Jamie, there must be something to say.’ Kelly stood in the kitchenette area of the room throwing together some supper. She wasn’t a very good cook, but Jamie didn’t appear to mind. He ate anything. ‘What about your mum and dad? Am I ever going to meet them?’
‘Might be a bit difficult, that.’ Jamie avoided her gaze. She noticed, though, that his eyes twitched slightly.
‘Why?’
‘They’re dead.’
He said it quietly, his attention firmly on the screen of his iPod. To Kelly, he looked like someone who was doing his best not to let his emotions show. She let the salad servers fall to the side and hurried over to the sofa where she sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. This wasn’t what she had expected – all of a sudden the road plan of her argument had taken a turn for the worse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Jamie shrugged.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Told you. Nothing to say.’
They sat there in silence for a moment. Kelly felt a creeping sense of guilt about the light-hearted conversation she’d had that lunchtime. She had the urge to be more sensitive now. ‘What did they die of?’ she asked quietly.
‘Mum, cancer.’
‘What sort?’
Still Jamie wouldn’t look her in the eye. But she saw his face twitch as he spoke. Heard the catch in his voice. ‘At the end,’ he said, ‘everywhere. Started in the lungs. Spread to the… Oh, I don’t know. Ask a fucking doctor.’
Kelly’s wide eyes blinked; she felt herself holding back tears. She squeezed his shoulders gently, not knowing quite what to say. Only then did Jamie look at her. Kelly could see the hurt in his eyes.
‘Took her about six months to die. Painful. They put her in one of those places for the last couple of weeks…’
‘A hospice?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘A hospice. Gave her liquid horse on a drip.’
‘You mean morphine?’
‘Same thing. She had this button, you know, to give herself more if she wanted it.’
They sat in silence and for a moment Kelly felt closer to him than she ever had. She too had seen a loved one die in this way – an aunt. She knew something of what he was feeling.
‘How old were you?’ she asked.
Jamie looked down. ‘Seventeen,’ he said.
Seventeen. Barely a man. It all sounded so terribly sad.
‘What about your dad?’ she asked.
Jamie sniffed. ‘Army.’ He stood up, leaving Kelly’s hand to fall to her side. ‘Actually, special forces.’
‘What,’ Kelly asked, ‘like…’
‘SAS,’ he interrupted. He pulled gently on the lobe of one ear. ‘Never really talk about it,’ he added. ‘Dad didn’t. Just got on with the job. Know what I mean?’
Kelly didn’t know, but she nodded anyway.
‘How old were you when he…?’
‘Thirteen.’ He spoke quickly, as though he were trying to get it over with. ‘Out on operations. Northern Ireland. They never told us exactly where or how.’
‘Jamie, that’s awful.’
Jamie shrugged for a second time. ‘It’s the life, isn’t it?’ he said, as though he were talking to someone who had undergone the same experiences. ‘You know the risks when you take it on.’
‘But you were just thirteen. A little boy.’
‘No point crying about it.’ All of a sudden he seemed to have closed up. Kelly stood and stepped towards her boyfriend, wanting to give him a hug. But as she approached, Jamie walked into the bedroom. When he returned he was carrying his coat. ‘Where are you going?’ Kelly asked with concern.
‘Out.’
‘What, now?’
‘Yeah,’ Jamie replied. ‘Now.’
‘Oh, Jamie. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘I’m not upset. Just want to be by myself.’
‘But I’m cooking dinner.’
‘Not hungry.’ He headed towards the door.
‘Don’t go out, Jamie. Please. I want to talk.’
Jamie Spillane turned to look at her. ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Well I don’t. I’ll be back later, all right?’
Kelly looked at him, her eyes full of sympathy and confusion. ‘All right,’ she replied weakly.
And with that, Jamie walked out of the flat. Kelly sat on the sofa for a good long while after that, staring blandly at the silent TV screen. The supper she was cooking went uneaten; all she could do was think about what Jamie had told her.
His mum.
His dad.
And how alone he really was.
*
The Lamb and Flag had an old-fashioned pub sign swinging outside. That was its only concession to tradition, however. Inside it lacked any of the trappings of comfort to be expected from a more appealing hostelry: this was a place designed for drinking, not socialising, and the few punters were mostly on their own doing just that. There was a bar with three pumps of lager – one weak, one strong and one cheap – and five optics of spirits on the wall behind it. You’d need to drink the lot, Sam reflected as he approached the bar, in order to start harbouring romantic thoughts about the barmaid. She had a thicker neck than most of the boys back at base and a smile that made the Taliban look like Blue Peter presenters. The best that could be said of her was that she didn’t share the fanatics’ taste in facial hair.
Sam tapped one of the beer pumps at random. ‘Pint,’ he said shortly.
The barmaid poured his drink wordlessly and unenthusiastically, before accepting his twenty-pound note in a chubby hand and plonking the change back down on the beer-stained bar. Sam drank half the pint in two gulps, closing his eyes as the warmth of the alcohol immediately seemed to radiate from his chest. After drinking warm water out of a pouch for the best part of two months he enjoyed a proper drink. He finished the whole pint in less than a minute and, having ordered another one, carried it to a corner table by a window that had a scenic view on to the car park. That way he could keep an eye on his black Audi – the smartest car out there by a pretty large margin and no doubt an object of envy for the shitkickers who frequented this place.
The Lamb and Flag was out of the way and tha
t was why Sam had chosen it. The guys would have converged on one of the regular Regiment haunts in the middle of Hereford, but at the moment he didn’t feel like joining them. They’d be drinking themselves into post-mission raucousness. Good on them. If he hadn’t spent time in the company of his father that afternoon, he’d be doing the same, but now he wasn’t in the mood. He’d even ignored the two messages that had come through on his mobile phone. Both from girls he’d been with before he left for Helmand. Normally on his return from an operation, he’d be pretty much indiscriminate about who he took to bed. The sex was all that mattered and the well-used springs of his double bed would take another battering. But not tonight. He took another large gulp of his pint and ignored the curious looks of the locals.
Sam couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known that Jacob was the favourite. Growing up it hadn’t seemed a problem. He had admired his older brother just as much as his mum and dad had. But looking back he couldn’t help wondering if he’d been such a waster as a kid precisely because he knew he could never live up to Jacob’s example. When his brother was a smart young recruit in a neatly pressed uniform, Sam was hanging on street corners and enjoying petty theft. By the time he was fifteen he’d lost count of the occasions he’d been collared for playing truant, hotwiring cars and joyriding. There were never less than three girlfriends on the go, simply for the thrill. There were brushes with the law, of course; the occasional night in the local police cells. Some of them he kept a secret from his family; some he couldn’t. Everyone knew what he was up to, though. He was, as his dad had told him a million times, ‘on a hiding to nothing’.
It had all stopped on one particular day. Sam remembered it as clearly as if it were a week ago. He was in with a bad crowd. Not criminals exactly. Just chancers. Chancers with a plan to mug some office worker. His mates had been watching the guy for a week, making note of what time he left the office with his bag full of cash. On the day in question they were to hold him at knife point. Sam’s job was to borrow his dad’s car for the afternoon and wait on the street corner to pick him up. The hapless victim probably wasn’t carrying more than a few hundred pounds, but Sam’s mates had spoken of the winnings they hoped to receive as if it were all the riches in the world. Sam himself wasn’t that interested in the money. It sounded exciting, that was all. It made his mouth dry to think about it. His blood warm.
To this day Sam didn’t know how Jacob had got wind of it. Maybe he’d seen him take his father’s motor and followed him; maybe it was just fluke. All he did know was that as he was sitting in the car waiting for the job to go off, his brother had climbed into the passenger seat.
‘Fuck off, Jacob,’ Sam had said.
Jacob shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied, his dark eyes more intense than Sam had ever seen them. ‘Don’t think I’ll be doing that.’
There was a silence. A silence that Sam remembered well. It put him on edge and caused a hotness at the back of his neck. Embarrassment.
‘I think you should drive home, Sam,’ Jacob said. ‘Now.’
Sam looked into the rear-view mirror. No sign of his mates. Not yet.
‘You think you’re the big man. You think you’re the brave mister soldier. You think I’m too yellow to do this.’
Jacob’s expression barely changed. If he was insulted by Sam’s words, it didn’t show.
‘I don’t think you’re too yellow to do it,’ he replied calmly.
They sat there in silence for a moment. Jacob did not take his gaze away from Sam’s eyes.
And then Sam had started the car. As he pulled out into the traffic he saw his mates arrive, but he didn’t stop. He drove home with his brother, neither of them saying a word.
It was months later that Sam heard what happened to his accomplices. Three years, each of them. Out in eighteen months if they were lucky. But by then, Sam’s life had changed. On Jacob’s insistence he had already been recruited into the Paras; by the time his mates were back on the streets, Sam had his sights set on the Regiment. As his brother was so fond of saying, you’re a long time looking at the lid.
He drained his pint and walked back up to the bar. The barmaid’s face spread fatly into a toad-like smile. Jesus, Sam thought to himself. Is she giving me the come-on? It was enough to put him off his beer. For a split second he considered fleeing to another pub, but that thought was interrupted by his mobile phone buzzing in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. Number withheld. His instinct was to leave it: it was probably one of the girls calling to give him his welcome-home present. But as his eyes flickered up again at the barmaid, the prospect suddenly didn’t seem so bad. He flicked the phone open and walked out of the pub to answer the call.
‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘Evening, Sam,’ a voice replied. ‘Jack Whitely.’
Sam’s brow furrowed. Jack Whitely was the Ops Sergeant back at base. What the hell was he doing calling him now?
‘What is it, Jack?’ He knew he didn’t sound very friendly, and he didn’t much care.
‘You’re called in. Squadron briefing. 07.00.’
‘What are you talking about? We only got back this morning. We’re not standby squadron.’
‘07.00, Sam. CO’s orders. I’m calling in the rest of the squadron now.’
‘Good luck,’ Sam snapped. ‘It’ll go down like a pork chop at a fucking bar mitzvah.’
‘They’ll get over it. Go and get your beauty sleep, Sam. Or sleep with whichever beauty you’ve got lined up. I’ll see you in the morning.’
There was a click as the Ops Sergeant hung up.
Sam stood for a moment looking out into the darkness, with the phone still pressed to his ear. When he finally clicked it shut, it was with a sigh of pure irritation. After eight long, dry weeks in the field the beer was going to his head. He was knackered and he needed to lay up for a bit. A squadron briefing first thing in the morning was the last thing in the world he wanted. He glanced over his shoulder through the frosted glass window of the pub door. There was a warm glow from inside that belied the spit-and-sawdust nature of the place and he wanted to go back in. Then he looked back out towards the car park.
‘Fucking hell,’ he whispered to himself as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket, pulled out his keys, walked to the car and headed for home.
*
It was midnight and the pubs were chucking out. Jamie Spillane had tried to get drunk, but without much success. It wasn’t lack of money – earlier on he had withdrawn cash on the card Kelly kept hidden at the back of one of her dressing-table drawers; it was just that the booze wasn’t doing its job. He wasn’t feeling woozy and pleasant; he was feeling lairy and on-edge. The bar staff had lowered the lights in a last attempt to get the punters out, but Jamie was sitting in the corner, his half-drunk pint on the table in front of him.
‘Drink up please now, sir.’
Jamie looked up. The guy standing in front of him wore a suit and tie, had a shiny, shaved head and was built like a brick shithouse. Jamie vaguely recognised him as one of the bouncers that had let him into this place a couple of hours earlier.
‘Now, please, sir,’ the bouncer repeated.
Jamie picked up his glass. Slowly he put it to his lips and took the most minute of sips before placing it down on the table. He looked up at the bouncer and gave him a smug smile.
‘All right, sunshine,’ the bouncer growled. ‘Out you get.’
Jamie stayed where he was, his chin jutting out with arrogance. He felt a frisson of excitement at the confrontation to come and took a perverse pleasure in sipping once more from his drink.
The bouncer looked over his shoulder and gestured at his colleague. A second man approached. He was taller, his bright blue eyes small and aggressive, his nose long and aquiline. ‘Playing silly buggers, is he?’ the man asked in a quiet Cockney accent.
The broad-shouldered man nodded.
‘Look, son,’ the new arrival continued. ‘Piss off home, eh? We
’ve had a nice quiet night and I don’t want to spoil my lovely manicure on your jaw.’
Jamie took another sip. ‘Tell you what,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t you two homos go back to the gents where you belong and…’
He never finished the sentence. With a flick of his big hand the broad-shouldered man swiped Jamie’s pint away then leaned over and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, before pulling him over the table towards him. Jamie was thrown to the floor at the feet of the two men. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, then pushed himself upright again.
The tall man was standing in front of him now, the broad-shouldered one behind him. Jamie staggered from one foot to the other, a leering smile obstinately on his face, then held up both hands palm outwards.
‘All right!’ he said. ‘All right! I’m going.’
The tall man physically relaxed. His shoulders lowered and his jaw loosened. It was then that Jamie made his move. With a sharp, upward movement he jerked his knee sharply into the man’s bollocks. Instantly he doubled over with a groan like a collapsed lung, giving Jamie the opportunity to hit him round the side of his face with a clenched fist. It stung his knuckles and barely seemed to make his victim move, but his smile broadened as he did it anyway.
He was half-expecting to be walloped from behind, so when it came it was no surprise. It knocked the wind out of him, though, so that he was bent double. And when the tall man returned the punch, it was with interest. Jamie felt his neck cricking and a spatter of blood spray from his nose. Seconds later he was lifted from his feet, taken to the pub door and unceremoniously flung on to the pavement.
A group of lads on the other side of the road jeered as Jamie scrambled to his feet, flicked a V sign at the bouncers still standing threateningly at the doorway to the pub and stumbled off into the Soho night.
As he walked, Jamie used the back of his hand to wipe away the blood that oozed from his nose. People were glancing at him and he quite liked that; and even though his face hurt, he was flushed from the excitement of the encounter. He wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, waiting for the blood to stop flowing and his head to stop ringing. When finally it did, he stopped and looked around. Soho was still busy at this late hour. Cafés were open, so were clubs; and on the other side of the road was a seedy-looking entrance with a fat, overly made-up woman behind a counter and a neon sign over the top. It flashed its message in big, bright letters: GIRLS.