by M. R. Hall
TEN
Jenny had trained herself to tolerate the sight of bodies laid out on trolleys packed end to end along the corridors of the overstretched mortuary, but she had never become used to the gut-churning smell or to the high-pitched whine of the buzz saws that emanated from behind the doors of the autopsy room. The foul odour of decay and disinfectant was particularly pungent on this warm August afternoon and she was forced to cover her mouth as she and Alison followed Joe, the senior mortuary technician, to the refrigeration unit.
The cool air on the far side of the insulated doors at the end of the corridor came as relief.
Joe checked the names scribbled on the whiteboard next to the bank of identical steel drawers, then exchanged a glance with Alison – they were both enjoying Jenny’s obvious discomfort.
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Cooper,’ Joe said, in his thick Somerset accent. ‘They cleaned him up pretty good, far as I could tell. Patched up his head, they did.’
He pulled open the drawer and drew back the overlapping flaps of white plastic encasing the corpse to reveal the head and shoulders of a very young man. After the shock of first sight had passed, Jenny observed – as she had done so many times before – that the body looked more like an alabaster statue or a waxwork than an object that had once been animated. There was nothing so dead, so unlifelike, as human remains drained of all colour and chilled to four degrees.
The dead soldier had a military crew cut leaving nothing to disguise the post-mortem scar which ran full-circle from the top of the forehead to the back of the skull. A large exit wound was immediately visible on the left temple. As Joe had said, the technicians at the John Radcliffe had used mortician’s wax to plug the jagged hole that was about three inches in diameter, but the wax was a little pinker than the surrounding skin, giving the impression of a large, strawberry-coloured birthmark. Jenny crouched down to see if she could get sight of where the bullet had entered.
‘You only have to ask, you know.’
Joe used both hands to lift the head up as far from the bed of the drawer as rigor mortis would allow. It took considerable effort. A real corpse, unlike those that featured in films, was about as flexible as a sheet of board.
The bullet hole was, as she would have expected, roughly half an inch wide and situated just below and behind the right ear.
‘Must have got in under his helmet,’ Alison observed.
Jenny noticed the clear polythene bag containing various items of clothing that was stowed at the foot of the drawer.
‘I don’t suppose his helmet’s with his things.’
Joe lifted the bag out and checked the contents that were itemized on a tag attached to it. ‘Boots, socks, underwear, trousers, T-shirt, tunic, wristwatch, dog tag and gold crucifix.’
‘It would’ve been the first thing to come off,’ Alison said. ‘Probably went straight back to stores.’ She leant forward and tugged the plastic back from the rest of the body. ‘Hardly a scratch on him.’
Jenny forced herself to take a long and detailed look. There were, as Dr Langham had said, several lacerations and various cuts and bruises on the upper arms significant enough to have been caused by flying shrapnel. But there were no further bullet wounds. Private Green had indeed, it seemed, been killed by a single shot. He had been unlucky. An inch or two higher and the round would have bounced harmlessly off his Kevlar helmet.
Joe was covering the body back up when Dr Kerr, the Vale’s senior pathologist, joined them. Fresh from conducting a post-mortem, he was dressed in green surgical scrubs and smelled strongly of the medicated soap he had used to sluice down his muscular forearms. Since his recent marriage, the taciturn Ulsterman had taken to smiling occasionally. He greeted Jenny with uncharacteristic warmth, ‘Good to see you, Jenny. But according to my diary, you’re meant to be on leave.’
‘That was the plan. Then this came along.’
‘They want it dealt with yesterday,’ Alison butted in.
Dr Kerr nodded. ‘I’ve already had the call.’
‘From Simon Moreton?’ Jenny asked.
He shook his head. ‘From someone upstairs here. I’m to give this case top priority, apparently. It gets to jump the queue.’
‘Did they give any explanation?’
‘No,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘and I’ve learned not to ask.’
Jenny left it there. She suspected Moreton’s hand, but was beginning to appreciate that he was only a small part of the machine that had swung into operation to ensure her inquiry concluded swiftly and beneath the public’s radar.
‘Have you had a look?’
‘A quick glance,’ Dr Kerr said. ‘Cause of death seems obvious enough. I haven’t had the Radcliffe’s report yet, but I can’t imagine I’ll be able to add much to it.’
‘Maybe not, but I need you to conduct a second post-mortem – as a matter of principle as much as anything else. And it needs to be thorough – everything you can discern about cause of and circumstances of death.’
The conversation was briefly interrupted by the sound of Alison’s phone ringing. She ducked outside the door to take the call.
‘Circumstances . . . ?’
‘Was he standing up, lying down, inside, outside? Did it really happen when they said it did? Anything you can find.’
He nodded in the inscrutable way he had when he was keeping his thoughts to himself.
‘Treat it as a top priority, and if you come under any pressure, let me know. I’ll happily deal with the hospital management.’
Alison reappeared, her phone cupped in her hands. ‘It’s Sergeant Price. He’s on his way over with Private Green’s parents and fiancée. They’d like to talk to you.’
‘Now?’
‘They’ll be with us in half an hour.’
Jenny had intended to make contact with the family later that afternoon. Meeting bereaved relatives was something she liked to prepare for, and she tried at all costs to avoid meeting for the first time in the emotionally charged surroundings of a mortuary. She couldn’t help feeling that Price had done this deliberately; that, having been left behind, he was trying to muscle his way in on the action.
‘Shall I tell him we’ll wait?’
‘He hasn’t given us much choice.’
There was a small family room off the entrance lobby – the only place in the mortuary you could go without bumping into a body. Jenny ushered Paul and Rachel Green and Kenny’s fiancée, Sarah Tanner, straight inside then promised to join them in a moment. She closed the door after them and turned to Sergeant Price.
‘May I ask why you spoke with them before clearing it with me?’
‘I was acting in my capacity as Notifications Officer, ma’am,’ he answered politely. ‘It’s usual procedure for me to inform relatives of a body’s return as soon as possible. I always offer to accompany them to the mortuary for a viewing. It was a convenient moment for everybody.’
‘Well, it’s less than ideal for me. This is the last place I would choose to meet next-of-kin for the first time.’
‘My apologies, ma’am. Force of habit.’
‘Some of those habits are going to have to change, Sergeant. This is my inquiry, and I determine procedure. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Dreading the meeting she now had to face, Jenny left Price with Alison and went through to join the family.
All three were formally dressed. Paul Green was ashen-faced but able to cope with introductions. Except for a muttered ‘Hello’, Sarah Tanner said nothing more. Unable to meet Jenny’s gaze, she stared at her feet, her hands crossed over her pregnant belly. Rachel Green was by far the most visibly traumatized of the three. Her eyes were glazed and staring with slivers of white visible beneath the pupils. Her grey features were pallid and lifeless. She looked as if, after several days and nights in the full throes of grief, she had collapsed into exhaustion.
Jenny began by explaining that her role as a coroner was to discern precisely when, where
and how Kenny had died. She stressed that although she was being given the assistance of the army in conducting her inquiry, she was completely independent. She would be holding an inquest as soon as she could, and that as matters stood it was unlikely to be reported in the media. Next, she gently inquired what they had already been told about the circumstances of Kenny’s death.
Paul Green told her about the visit from Major Norton. ‘He said he volunteered to help bring back his mate. Sounds like Kenny.’ Paul spoke with pride. Jenny could tell that he had been a soldier.
There was a brief lull in conversation. With no more information to impart, all that remained was for Jenny to arrange for them to make the short walk along the corridor to view the body. The only question in her mind was whether to send all three at once, or to suggest that Sarah go separately. She responded to an instinct which told her that sending Sarah alone was indeed the right thing to do. A mother and a lover’s grief were very different things.
Jenny was on the cusp of making the suggestion when Rachel broke her silence.
‘It shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t be here.’ She spoke not to Jenny but as if in casual conversation with a disembodied presence. ‘He told us he was in Bastion.’
‘The major explained that, love,’ Paul said patiently. ‘Lots of the boys say that to their folks. They don’t like to scare them.’ He turned to Jenny: ‘He emailed back in February to say that he would be spending the tour in Bastion. It was the last we heard from him. The moment he went two weeks without being in touch it was obvious where he was. The major told us – they all knew where they were going before they left home.’
Jenny turned her gaze to Sarah. ‘What did you think, Miss Tanner?’
She shrugged. ‘Same as Paul, I suppose.’ She spoke quietly, but evenly. ‘You try not to think about it. You put it out of your mind.’
‘They knew it was the last tour. They knew they were leaving no matter what. Why do you put boys like that in harm’s way when there’s no need?’ Rachel said, continuing her dialogue with thin air. ‘Boys. That’s all they were. Young lads who didn’t know any better. The major came home, didn’t he? And his sergeant. They aren’t lying dead. Too cute for that. They had all those boys to take the flak.’
Paul glanced at Jenny with sad, apologetic eyes. His despairing expression said that he feared that his wife had come apart at the seams.
‘It’s my job to make sure that we all learn exactly what happened, Mrs Green,’ Jenny said gently. She left it there, aware that Rachel was barely hearing her. ‘Would now be a good moment for you to go through? I was going to suggest that you might not all want to go at once—’
Rachel cut across her. ‘You know what I want to know? What was it for? What was it all bloody for? Can anyone tell me?’
Caught off guard, Jenny found herself at a loss for an answer.
‘That’s not the issue here, love.’ Paul patted the back of her wrist. ‘Come on, now.’
Rachel snatched her hand away and plunged it into her lap. ‘I asked Kenny that. He couldn’t tell me. You know why? They don’t want soldiers thinking. They just want them obeying orders. They’re not human beings to them, they’re just . . . they’re just things.’
Paul took a deep breath. Jenny could see that his patience was wearing thin. ‘When I was in uniform, I knew exactly what I was doing. So did Kenny.’
Rachel shook her head. ‘They’re taking us for fools. What about Pete Lyons? A man can’t get snatched from inside his own camp. Not without someone knowing. Even I know that.’
Paul shrugged, but seemed in his expression to acknowledge that she had a point. ‘That’s what all this business is about,’ he said, as if to convince himself. ‘To find out.’
Rachel turned to address Jenny directly for the first time. Her eyes had come alive with fury. ‘It’s not though, is it, Mrs Cooper? The army didn’t have to send a car and driver to the family of a private soldier for me to smell a rat. I knew as soon as I heard their story.’ She pushed up from her chair and turned her back on her husband. ‘I’d like to see him now, please. Alone.’
Paul Green shrugged, relieved to be spared the ordeal of going with her.
Jenny took Rachel to the door and handed her over to the care of Sergeant Price. He led her away with the minimum of fuss.
‘How about you, Miss Tanner?’ Jenny asked.
‘I’ll go with Paul.’
Jenny wondered what it must be like to be nineteen, pregnant and widowed. Sarah seemed bewildered and overwhelmed, unsure how to behave or even how to feel. Jenny sensed that having been cooped up with Rachel, she had had few opportunities to express her own grief.
‘Do you have anyone to talk to?’ Jenny knew the question crossed the invisible line that marked the boundary of appropriateness, but couldn’t help herself. She didn’t like to think of this young woman suffering in silence.
Sarah looked up, and for a moment seemed to react as if she had been offered a lifeline, but then a wail – a dreadful, primal, rending howl of grief – sounded along the corridor and travelled through the door. It cut through them all and sent Sarah’s eyes plunging back to the floor. It carried on and on, and Jenny knew that they were all sharing the same thought: Please, God, make it stop.
ELEVEN
Rachel Green’s cries continued to echo inside Jenny’s head throughout the forty-minute drive back to Highcliffe. Just as firmly imprinted were images of the pregnant Sarah’s pale, slender features and the grave, resigned expression with which Paul Green went with her to view his son’s body. Jenny had felt their grief seep inside her until she carried the full, dull weight of their loss coupled with their sense of impotent rage at Kenny being among the unlucky few. Similarly affected, Alison sat unmoving in the passenger seat, her usual flow of chatter replaced by silence.
They arrived at the entrance to the camp. The guard checked their passes and waved them through. Moments later they came to a halt as two ranks of young soldiers marched across the road in front of them on their way to the parade ground. Straight-backed, clear-eyed young men. Jenny tried to imagine holding responsibility for their young lives. What must it be like to be an officer tasked with ordering the fathers of infants and unborn babies into the line of fire? Try as she might, she couldn’t conceive of it. All she could summon was the hollow, uncomprehending sensation she experienced whenever she stood at a cenotaph on a cold November morning struggling to comprehend the paradox of sacrifice. Professional soldiers offered their lives willingly, but with the complicity of loved ones and the encouragement of those who knew far better than they the horrors that awaited them. Death and loss and the yearning for honour and glory, all tangled hopelessly together. The waste of unlived lives as inevitable as the setting of the sun.
‘You just want to mother them, don’t you?’ Alison said.
Jenny had to agree.
Jenny left Alison to set up operations in her shared office and went through to her own room to find a handwritten note from Colonel Hastings inviting her to tea in the officers’ mess. No doubt it was kindly meant, but it placed her in a dilemma. How far should she allow herself to be drawn in? Would shunning all social contact raise hackles and prove counter-productive? No doubt it would. But engaging on a personal level carried the risk of being drawn into the heart of an establishment that would demand her loyalty; one in which comfortable compromises were arrived at against the civilized sound of tinkling tea cups.
There were six messages on her voicemail. The first five were from journalists requesting interviews about the circumstances of Kenny Green’s death. Despite the communications blackout, several had heard rumours about Private Lyons’s abduction and were asking her to confirm that Kenny died in a failed rescue mission. They phrased their questions so as to give themselves a guaranteed headline if Jenny were to be foolish enough to offer an answer: Coroner Denies British Soldier Killed in Botched Rescue, or Soldier, 21, Killed in Botched Rescue, Coroner Confirms. She couldn’t win. Th
e sixth was from Simon Moreton: ‘Jenny, call me. Pronto. I’ve been trying to get you on your mobile. I suppose you’re hiding out in darkest Wales?’
What was it about a certain type of Englishman who thought civilization ended at the Severn Bridge, she wondered. The Celtic half of her railed against his casual prejudice. She pulled the phone from her pocket and saw that she had failed to switch it on. Just as well. She had needed the quiet time in the car to process the morning’s events and clear her head. She told herself to remain calm and dialled his number.
‘Jenny – at last. I thought you’d gone to ground,’ Moreton said, as if he possessed the authority to dictate her every movement.
‘I was with the bereaved family. And before that with Colonel Hastings. I hear the two of you have been chatting.’
‘Briefly,’ Moreton said dismissively. ‘Only to let him know what you were up to.’
‘And the post-mortem at the John Radcliffe . . . ?’
Moreton stalled for a moment. ‘What of it?’
‘It happened without my say-so.’
‘You know what the army’s like – it runs on rails.’ He pressed on. ‘Now listen – the hope was there’d be a DA-notice on this. The last thing any of us wants is the press piling innuendo on top of rumour, but I’m afraid it didn’t clear the hurdle. The committee weren’t satisfied that news silence would help the missing soldier. Quite the opposite, in fact. They seemed to think a bit of brouhaha might satisfy his captors enough to let him go. They’ve got what they wanted, after all – we’re off their patch.’
‘And the British don’t pay ransom . . .’
‘We most certainly do not. We leave that sort of grubbiness to the garlic-loving nations.’
Jenny experienced another wave of the feeling that had consumed her in the car: the chill reality of sacrifice. A boy soldier abandoned to his fate.