by M. R. Hall
For a moment, Jenny felt her heart skip, but then came the sting in the tail: ‘But only those parts which relate directly to the immediate circumstances of Private Kenny Green’s death. All other material may be redacted.’
Something was better than nothing, but the smile on Robert Heaton’s face as they filed out of the courtroom was proof, if any were needed, that it was a hollow victory and not the dangerous precedent the MOD had feared.
Ellen Goodson offered her commiserations but her attention had already moved on to the next hearing in her frantic schedule. Such was the life of a busy barrister: cases came and went like anaesthetized bodies on the surgeon’s table. Jenny threaded her way through the now crowded lobby, envious of the lawyers and judges who could treat their cases like crossword puzzles – mere intellectual challenges with no emotional strings attached. All the years she had struggled as a family lawyer dealing with kids in and out of care, she had longed for just a few days when she wasn’t haunted by visions of suffering and unhappy children. It never came. When she took up her post as a coroner, she had secretly hoped that dead clients wouldn’t pull as strongly at her heart strings. It had been a vain wish. At one time she had considered her tendency to feel deeply about her cases to be a strength. A few years further on, she wondered if it might not be a weakness. The heart of a true professional lies in her head. The little epithet, picked up from her first female boss, sprang into her mind. Care a little less, think a little more, is what she had actually meant.
As she emerged from the court building into the bright morning sunlight, she told herself that she would try to approach her inquest with a level of detachment she had never quite managed in the past. Cool. Objective. Dispassionate. These would be her watch words. She repeated them like a mantra.
Jenny found herself tested less than a minute later. She turned a corner and saw Sarah Tanner standing alone on the pavement. She looked tired and troubled. One hand was supporting her swollen belly, the other was pressed to the painful small of her back. She glanced towards Jenny and inadvertently caught her eye. Jenny could simply have smiled and carried on her way, but Sarah seemed lost and she felt compelled to stop and ask if she was all right.
‘I thought they were giving me a lift home,’ Sarah answered, grateful to see a familiar face, ‘but they said they had to get back to London.’
So much for Claydon White’s overwhelming concern for his client.
‘Oh,’ Jenny said. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I didn’t even know I was meant to be coming till they called this morning.’ She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘Didn’t even bring my bag. How stupid’s that?’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry. It’s not your problem.’ She turned away.
‘Would you like to borrow my phone? Here . . .’
Jenny offered her handset but Sarah just looked at it.
‘I thought you might want to call someone,’ Jenny said.
‘I didn’t tell them I was coming,’ Sarah said guiltily. ‘They don’t trust these lawyers . . .’ She hesitated, a catch in her voice. ‘It’s almost like she blames me, like she’s forgotten that she was the one who was so proud of him being a soldier. I didn’t even want him to go on this tour. Part of me knew this would happen. I should have told him. I should have told him to ignore all her crap and stop trying to be a hero.’ She rubbed away a tear with the heel of her palm. ‘You couldn’t lend me a tenner for the bus? I’ll pay you back.’
‘I’m heading back to Highcliffe. Why don’t I give you a lift? But we can’t discuss Kenny or the case, OK?’
Sarah nodded, grateful to be rescued.
Jenny switched on the car radio in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but as hard as she tried to place her thoughts elsewhere, all she could think of was the quietly sobbing girl in the passenger seat. She would have offered some words of comfort, but it took all of her strength not to cry with her.
SIXTEEN
Alison decided that while Sergeant Price was nice to look at, she couldn’t face another entire day cooped up with him in the office. She was also concerned that as the inquest drew nearer, she had yet to gain a real insight into what had been going on inside 2 Platoon in the hours and days before Kenny Green’s death. Her career in the police force had taught her more than a thing or two about the tensions and rivalries that develop between members of a close-knit team. If the statements they had were to be believed, all the men were the best of friends. The fact that Sergeant Price seemed content with that only added to her sense of suspicion and unease.
She ducked out of the office shortly before eleven with the excuse that she had errands to run in the town. What she didn’t tell him was that she intended to revisit one of their witnesses – the one who had caused her antennae to twitch most violently: Private Danny Marsh. Alison had studied each of the soldiers closely during their interviews. Employing a mixture of instinct and a feeling for body language which she had picked up during her career as a detective, she had concluded that all of them were talking from a script and that the soldier most tempted to veer from it was Private Danny Marsh. Marsh had been among the group who had gone to Shalan-Gar with Major Norton, and was one of the three who had been stationed outside the village gate while Norton led the others in. She wanted to talk to him again. Off the record.
Alison arrived at the front door of the single person’s accommodation block where Marsh was quartered, but there was no reply to his bell. She was reaching for her phone when she spotted Jacqui, the cashier from the camp shop, who had stepped outside for a cigarette. She crossed over the road and joined her.
‘No customers?’
‘Quietest day of the month. Then it’s all change tomorrow – when everyone gets paid.’ She offered Alison a Silk Cut.
‘I’d love to,’ Alison said, ‘but I daren’t. Took me too many years to give up. Thanks all the same.’
‘You look like you’re looking for someone?’
‘Danny Marsh – do you know him?’
‘I know Danny. I know where you’ll find him, too – either in the bookies’ or next door in the King’s Head. He’s a gambler, that boy. Love him, but he’s always coming in asking for credit.’
‘He seemed quite a serious lad, when I spoke to him.’
Jacqui looked astonished. ‘Are we talking about the same one?’
‘Maybe I made him nervous,’ Alison joked, ‘I tend to have that effect on young men.’
Jacqui smiled and dobbed her ash carefully into an open matchbox. ‘Shall I tell him you were looking for him?’
‘Better not – he might get the wrong idea. I’ll find him.’
She left Jacqui chuckling and hurried to her car.
The Broadway sported a mixture of betting shops, fast-food outlets and pound stores. The ironmongers, grocers and family owned department stores, some of whose names were still ghosted on the brickwork of the grand Victorian buildings, were a distant memory. At some point in recent decades, someone had thought it a good idea to pave the entire street over, with the result that it had become a place for kids to skateboard and bored and unemployed youths to congregate in menacing groups and drink cheap cider. A typical British seaside town. The sole survivor from Highcliffe’s heyday, it seemed, was the King’s Head – a wide-fronted, Jacobean building that had been a social hub for centuries. Having drawn a blank in all the betting shops, this was where Alison finally spotted Danny Marsh pumping coins into a fruit machine.
Pretending not to have seen him, she made her way to the bar and ordered a coffee. While she waited, she heard him curse colourfully as the machine gleefully swallowed the last of his money. He turned and slouched over to the bar, where he sipped at the dregs of his beer. Alison waited for him to notice her. Eventually, he glanced her way with a look of dim recognition.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said brightly.
He took a moment to place her.
‘We met the other day. I’m the coroner’s officer. Alison Trent. I remember now – you�
��re Danny. Danny Marsh – is that right?’
‘Yeah.’ He didn’t seem anxious to talk.
‘Can I get you another drink?’
He hesitated, but not for long. ‘Thanks. Lager.’
He made his way towards her as she placed the order, the promise of a drink overcoming his reserve.
‘On leave, are you?’
‘Supposed to be. With all this business going on, we’ve been told to stick close to camp.’
Alison cast her eyes around the bar. ‘Are you on your own?’
‘Yeah,’ Danny said with a shrug.
They fell into silence while the barman finished pulling his pint and handed it across the bar.
‘Don’t feel you have to stay and talk to me if there’s somewhere you’d rather be,’ Alison said.
‘It’s all right. All my mates are off with their other halves. I’m the only saddo with no one to go to.’
He lifted his glass and spilt a drop on the shiny wooden counter. His hand was trembling. He noticed Alison spot it.
‘Post-tour shakes,’ he said, a little embarrassed. ‘It’ll go after a couple of days and a few more beers. It’s like some part of your brain still thinks someone’s going to loose a round off at you.’
‘I know the feeling. See that?’ She pushed her hair back from her temple to reveal the flattened area of skull. ‘Two years ago. A bloke in a Range Rover drove at me. Tried to kill me. I should be dead.’
‘Yeah? What was he trying to kill you for?’
‘It’s a long story – one of our inquiries. We ran into some dangerous people. Still, we bagged them in the end.’
‘Wow.’ Danny was impressed.
‘They gave me some pills and a bit of therapy. It all helped. Does the army do anything for you?’
‘No.’ Danny shook his head. ‘I can handle it, though. This was my third tour.’
‘You’ve been lucky.’
He nodded. ‘I guess 2 Platoon’s had more than its share. Had a few mates killed or had lumps blown off them.’
‘Is that usual? For one platoon to have so many casualties, I mean?’
‘Some officers keep their heads down and stay out of harm’s way, others like to get out there and show them who’s boss. Mine was the kind who liked to keep busy. We dealt with a lot of Tali, but we paid for it.’ He took a large gulp of lager, clenching his fist hard around the glass to stop it shaking. ‘Still, no point being out there if you’re sitting in the post all day.’
‘You’re going to need another. Go on – drink up. Don’t tell anyone – I’ll put it through expenses.’
She smiled and Danny smiled back. He looked lonely, poor lad, and far too thin. She felt like taking him home and giving him a proper meal.
The alcohol soon brought him out of his shell. He joked about the way in which his mates in the platoon had changed from macho warriors to cooing dads in the few days since they’d been home. He couldn’t switch on his phone or look at his laptop without being bombarded with pictures of snotty-nosed kids. Alison guessed that behind the bravado there was more than a hint of envy.
‘It seems funny, such young lads having kids. Most of you don’t look old enough.’
‘Human instinct, isn’t it? Have them while you can. You never know what’s coming.’ His mood took a sudden dip. He stared sullenly into his glass.
‘It must have been tough coming home without Lyons?’
Danny looked up. His blue eyes, clouded with drink, nevertheless saw straight through her.
‘What are you after?’
‘Nothing. I just—’
‘No one knows what happened to Skip. Little fucker just vanished.’
‘You sound angry with him.’
‘Not with him . . .’ He sighed. ‘Six months out there would mess anyone up. Especially the way Norton runs the show.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Trigger-happy bastard, isn’t he? Never happier than shooting some raggy’s head off. I’ll tell you, when you wake up every day thinking it might be your last, it does things to you. Sounds crazy, but you end up almost wanting it to happen. It’s like, let’s get it over with. It’s the waiting, not knowing what’s coming at you – that’s the hardest part.’
Alison saw that his hand was now shaking so violently that beer was spilling over the edges of his glass. She dipped into her handbag and reached out her purse.
‘Enjoy the rest of your leave, love.’ She placed a ten-pound note on the bar. ‘Have another couple on me.’
Jenny entered her office in Highcliffe less than two hours after Mrs Justice Talbot had delivered her judgment. Already waiting in her email inbox was a message from Colonel Hastings marked ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’. A brief, curt message announced that a copy of the requested item was enclosed. The attachment amounted to a two-page document headed simply, Fatal Incident, Shalan-Gar. It was dated 23 August, the day after the skirmish, but there was no way of proving that was in fact the date when it was written – the judge’s order had not included the requirement that all relevant electronic trails be revealed.
It took Jenny less than a minute to read. In now familiar terse, military prose, Hastings set out the barest facts:
06.00 Pte Lyons reported missing. Post searched. Neighbouring platoons contacted by radio.
06.45 Local interpreter Yusuf Sarabi reported Pte Lyons held by Taliban and relayed ransom request of $100,000.
07.30 Mjr Norton led detail to Shalan-Gar. Objective: negotiate Pte Lyons’s release.
07.45 Mjr Norton led detail into Shalan-Gar village: Sgt Bryant, Lnce Crpl Warman, Roberts, Carter, Green. Ptes Marsh, Allerton, Paget posted at gate. Objective: negotiate with hostage takers through village elder, Musa Sarabi.
07.46 Detail came under fire from surrounding rooftops. Pte Green shot in head (died at scene), Ptes Carter and Roberts injured in grenade blast.
Est. 4 Taliban killed in exchange. Village searched – Pte Lyons not found
08.15 Medevac to Bastion – 1x fatality, 2x casualty
At the foot of the document was a short concluding paragraph:
Reason for Private Lyons’s absence from post remain unclear. Abduction by enemy unlikely, not impossible. Guards on sangars claim nothing suspicious observed and ‘alert at all times’. Possible lapse in vigilance and/or concentration, though no similar incidents reported during tour. Mjr Norton’s decision to negotiate release face-to-face reasonable in circumstances – Musa Sarabi an established conduit to Taliban; relations well-established. Risks to Pte Lyons judged serious and requiring immediate action. Conclusion: fatality and injuries incurred in proper exercise of operational duties.
In other words, no lessons learned, Jenny said to herself. She sat back in her chair and wondered if she’d been played for a fool; whether Hastings had skilfully sold her a dummy with the express intention of sucking up her precious time and energy in the few days available to her before the inquest. The most frustrating thing about the cursory document was how little it said about what was shaping up as the most critical issue of all, yet one that was technically beyond the scope of her inquest: how on earth Private Lyons could have gone missing from the post with no one noticing? Possible lapse in vigilance. Was that code for everyone being asleep on the job? The fact that Hastings’s observations went no further was baffling. One way or another it was a question she was going to have to probe.
Her train of thought was interrupted by her phone. She retrieved it from the depths of her handbag and saw that it was Dr Andy Kerr calling from the mortuary.
‘Andy. How’s it going?’
‘I’ve had a look at your soldier. Alison mentioned you weren’t getting much in the way of privacy out there in Highcliffe. I wasn’t sure how you’d want my report delivered.’
‘You’ve got my private email?’
‘I’ll send it right over.’
Jenny lowered her voice, unsure if Sergeant Price was still the other side of the connecting door or if he
was still out at lunch. ‘What have you found?’
‘Well, for one thing he had traces of alcohol in his system. He’d also been struck by at least three other rounds which were repelled by his Kevlar vest – all of them hit his chest.’
‘How much alcohol?’ Jenny said.
‘Not a lot. I’d say it was residual from the night before. I’m guessing booze was strictly off-limits?’
‘I’ll say. Do you know what kind?’
‘Afraid not. Could have been anything from Dom Pérignon to scrumpy. No telling.’
‘Champagne in Helmand – I doubt it. You’ve certainly given me something to think about.’
‘There’s more . . .’
‘Oh?’ Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like good news.
‘You asked for the full suite – that’s what you’ve got. I requested hair analysis and it registered a positive for cannabinoid THC. A tiny amount, probably some weeks in the past.’
Cannabis. The implications were huge.
‘On the upside, it was only three picograms per microgram. Almost negligible, and right at the margins of reliability.’
Jenny read in his tone the unspoken offer to omit this finding from his report. It was tempting, but she didn’t succumb. The truth was always ugly at first sight.
‘Thanks, Andy. I’ll look forward to reading it. See you in court.’
‘Always an experience.’
Alcohol and cannabis. Jenny wondered whether, if he had known what his soldiers had consumed, Colonel Hastings would have included it in his lessons-learned exercise. Somehow she doubted it.