Lifeless tt-5

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne had done his best to be sympathetic. “We’re all Sherlock Holmes with hindsight, mate. Don’t give yourself a hard time about it.”

  “If we don’t get a result,” Brigstocke had said, “there’ll be plenty ahead of me in the queue…”

  The music from the flat above the shop opposite had stopped. It was replaced by the tuneless singing of a trio of football fans, who came down the street from the side of the Shakespeare’s Head and began to move in Thorne’s direction. He shrank a little farther back into the doorway and watched them pass.

  They didn’t see him. Or, if they did, they didn’t give a toss.. .

  In those few, brief moments of clarity that come before sleep, Thorne thought of someone he could perhaps speak to, a person who might at least provide some insight into what had happened on February 26, nearly fifteen years before. Thorne would have to be careful how he handled it of course, but nobody had come up with anything better.

  He drifted off to sleep, deciding that he’d had worse ideas; thinking that he still had the business card stuffed inside his wallet back at the Lift. Hoping that he’d remember all this in the morning.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  DS Sam Karim, who took responsibility for such things, had almost finished rejigging the layout of the whiteboard for the umpteenth time.

  Still arranged at its center were the photographs recently provided by the Army Personnel Centre: Chris Jago, Ian Hadingham, Ryan Eales, and Alec Bonser. Portraits of four young men, all taken before they’d first been posted to the 12th King’s Hussars.

  Holland stood and watched while the shape of the case as it stood that day was laid out. It was hard to equate the quartet of fresh faces-scrubbed and set square, a hint of a smile on one or two-with those whom he knew had been hidden behind rain-streaked goggles and muddy kerchiefs; sweating, contorted; the eyes tight shut at the moment when the trigger was pulled.

  Elsewhere on the board…

  The list of those victims who had been murdered simply to disguise the true nature of the crime: Hayes, Mannion, Asker.

  Terry Turner: murdered, it would seem, in error; sharing nothing but initials with the man for whom he’d been been mistaken.

  The names of those on the fringes of the investigation: Susan Jago, Shireen Hadingham.

  Those who had provided information, statemented or otherwise: Spiby and Rutherford at Media Ops; Brendan Maxwell; Major Stephen Brereton; Poulter and Cheshire at the 12th King’s. One name had now been removed from this list, and from the contact sheet circulated to all officers: Paul Cochrane. The services of the National Crime Faculty profiler had been dispensed with, now that the motive for the killings had become apparent even to those without letters after their names.

  “Last but not least…”

  Karim drew a thick, black line down to a crudely drawn square that contained the only remaining question mark on the board. It was largely symbolic: a simple representation of their prime suspect; the man behind the video camera whom they now thought to be the reason why they were all there in the first place.

  Karim stepped back and examined his work. It was far from the whole story, of course…

  There was a side to the investigation that could not be encapsulated in crude capital letters or delineated by magnets and felt-tip pens. Thorne’s contribution to the case was missing: information that had originated from him, or from sources close to him, would remain absent. This was also the case with details of the secondary intelligence operation, the small-scale surveillance that had just been mounted on DI John McCabe and several other officers from the Homeless Unit based at Charing Cross. The authorization for such surveillance was need-to-know information that Brigstocke had passed on to none but his core team. As with any “blue-on-blue” operation, there was very good reason.

  Somebody always knew somebody…

  Karim walked away, and Holland approchaed the board. “You’re an artist, Sam.”

  Stone was on his way back from the gents’. “ Piss – artist,” he said.

  Jason Mackillop looked up from his computer and grinned. Stone moved across to join him, laughing at his own joke.

  The whiteboard should have been replaced long ago. Countless murders had been mapped out across its surface over many years. As Holland looked, he could see, in what few white spaces were left, the faintest outline of old markings; the swoops and stabs of the pen just visible beneath the scratched and pitted metal. Death, terrible and tawdry; fury, loss, grief reduced to scribbled lines and letters; to names and numbers now long since wiped away and replaced. Holland licked the tip of a finger and reached over to rub at one of the ghost names. A name that had refused to fade completely…

  “Dave?”

  Holland started slightly and drew his finger quickly away. He hadn’t been aware of Yvonne Kitson moving alongside him. He turned to acknowledge her, then shifted his gaze back to the board.

  They both stared at it for a while.

  They looked at the sweep of it; the way that so many were ensnared by the tendrils that snaked from its poisonous root. The names of all those it had touched: the innocent and the guilty and the dead. But one name was now prominent.

  Coming back again, both of them as they stared, to the same name.

  “How the hell are we going to find Eales?” Kitson asked.

  Holland considered the question. “Does the Home Office have any psychics?”

  If they’d been lucky in tracing Ian Hadingham quickly, it had been more than balanced out by the complete lack of anything even resembling progress in the hunt for Ryan Eales.

  The team had run “full research.” Both the CRIS and CRIM-INT systems had been scanned a number of times but had yielded nothing. Traces had been run via the National Voters Register, the DSS, the DVLC, and every local housing authority in the country. All major store-card and mobile-phone companies had been contacted, while the Equifax system-a software package giving access to a huge number of financial databases-was being run repeatedly without success. Thus far, save for a driving license, a National Insurance number, and a lastknown address that were all equally moribund, full research had come up empty.

  The first conclusion, based on the fact that the recently deceased are often fairly easy to locate, was that Ryan Eales was probably still alive. The second conclusion was not quite so comforting.

  “He doesn’t want to be found,” Kitson said.

  Holland knew she was right. He also knew that if Eales was lying low, he had very good reason for doing so. “He’s hiding from the killer.”

  Kitson wasn’t arguing. “There’s every chance. If he reads the papers, if he’s been in any sort of contact in recent years with the rest of them, or their families, it’s odds on he knows at least a couple of the other three are already dead. If so, he’d be justified in thinking he might be next.”

  “And he might well have worked out that we know why…”

  If Eales knew that the police were looking for him, he could guess that they had seen the videotape, so he would not be in any great hurry to step forward; to face the music for what had happened in

  1991.

  “It’s another thing they’re going to be good at,” Holland said.

  “What?”

  “They’re ex-soldiers. The training means that they’re better equipped to survive life on the streets, like Bonser and Jago, but it also means they’re good at making themselves invisible, if they need to.”

  “Like being behind enemy lines,” Kitson said.

  Holland thought of something. He walked to the board and pointed to the name Poulter. “Remember what he was saying when we went down to Taunton? If Eales ever served with the SAS, or one of those other intelligence units, he’d be even better at all that undercover stuff. And it would explain why we can’t find any half-decent records on him

  …”

  They looked again at the photograph of Lance Corporal Ryan Eales.

  His was one of those faces whose expressi
on had been softened by a smile. He was square-jawed, with wide, blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across a flattish nose. Sandy hair dropped into precisely trimmed sideburns; perfect rectangles below the maroon beret.

  “He doesn’t look all there to me,” Kitson said.

  “They all look a bit weird,” Holland said. “But maybe that’s because we’re looking at it after the fact. Because we know what happened later on.”

  “I think you’ve got to be slightly odd to join up in the first place.”

  “Not a lot of choice for some people,” Holland said.

  Kitson shrugged, conceding the point. “No stranger than wanting to become a copper, I suppose.”

  “At least they get to travel…”

  “Why did you join up, Dave?”

  Behind them, Stone finished telling Mackillop the same, vaguely offensive joke he’d been telling everyone for days. The TDC laughed on cue.

  “The mental stimulation, I think,” Holland said.***

  “Don’t tell me. It’s the Spurs-Arsenal game.”

  “Well, as you mention it…”

  “You want tickets for the match next weekend.” Alan Ward sounded amused rather than pissed off at the imagined imposition. “I seem to remember I told you I could get them.”

  “It’s not the tickets,” Thorne said. “Actually, I just wanted to pick your brains about something. Have you got a minute?”

  “Glad to get out of this bloody edit, tell you the truth. Hang on

  …”

  Thorne could hear Ward’s own voice being broadcast in the background. Then he heard the man himself talking to someone: telling them he wouldn’t be long, that he’d be outside if there was any problem.

  Thorne had walked east to Holborn and then kept going toward the City. Past Smithfield Meat Market and into the ossified heart of the Barbican. This was the only residential estate in the City. Almost as free from pedestrians as it was from traffic, its looming tower blocks were connected by a series of elevated walkways. Despite the arts center, the museums, and the smattering of trendy shops and restaurants, there was a strangely hostile feel to the place; something humming in the endless walls of concrete that rose up at every turn.

  “Right, I’m all yours,” Ward said.

  Thorne stepped into shadow, pooled with water beneath an overhang. Pressed the phone to his ear. The small talk was about as small, and over about as quickly, as it could be. Both said they were very busy without going into any detail. Ward said he’d seen Steve Norman quite recently and asked if Thorne had. Thorne told him that he hadn’t, and they chatted about football for another minute or two.

  “I wanted to ask you about the Gulf,” Thorne said. “Did you go over? The first time…”

  “Yeah, I was there. I was a baby reporter back in ’91.”

  “Right, good.”

  “I wasn’t a baby by the time I came back, mind you…”

  “No, I bet.”

  “It was fairly heavy,” Ward said. “You know? I’d not been involved in anything remotely like that until then. Not that I was doing a great deal other than poncing around in front of the camera. But you still see stuff…”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, really. Not about things you might have seen necessarily, but things you might have heard about.”

  There was a pause. “Is this connected to the roughsleeper murders?”

  Thorne had been right when he’d thought this would need careful handling. Ward was sharp; worse, he was a journalist. It hadn’t taken much to pique his professional interest. Thorne guessed that Ward had got a sniff of something straightaway; the minute he’d answered his phone, and a copper he’d met once, for five minutes, had reintroduced himself.

  “What makes you say that?” Thorne asked.

  “Nothing particularly. It’s the case I’d presumed you were working on, bearing in mind that we met after the press conference.”

  It was Thorne’s turn to be professional: “I’m sure you understand that I can’t comment on an active investigation.”

  “Of course. But I’m seriously intrigued…”

  Ward laughed then, and so did Thorne.

  “While you were out in the Gulf, did you ever hear anything about war crimes or atrocities?”

  “Atrocities?”

  “On our side…”

  Another pause.

  “There was some stuff that came out a few years ago,” Ward said. “In an American magazine- The New Yorker, I think. There was an incident, an alleged incident, on the road from Kuwait to Basra a few days after the cease-fire, when retreating Iraqi columns were attacked by Apaches and tanks. They called it the Battle of Rumailah, but it was just a massacre, by all accounts. A ‘turkey shoot,’ the magazine said. There were civilians in trucks, there was supposedly a bus filled with schoolkids…”

  “Jesus…”

  “There was another one just before the cease-fire, when four hundred Iraqi troops surrendered to a U.S. scout platoon. Some of them were wounded, bandaged up, in clearly marked hospital trucks. They were gathered together, fed and what have you, then, according to reports, another unit turned up in Bradley Armored Vehicles and just shot the lot of them. Opened up with machine guns. This is supposedly based on evidence given by soldiers who were there at the time, but having said all that, I don’t think anybody’s ever been prosecuted.”

  Thorne moved into sunlight again. He looked up as a jet roared overhead. From where he was standing, the plane appeared and disappeared between the tower blocks before emerging into a muddy sky and banking toward City Airport.

  “What about U.K. troops?” Thorne asked.

  “In terms of war crimes, you mean?”

  “Did you ever hear anything?”

  “Stuff goes on,” Ward said. “It always does. Some of the troops were based in Dubai for a lot of the time. I was there myself later on. You could buy sets of photos in corner shops, you know? Soldiers posing with bodies; with arms and legs. Trophies…”

  “But you were never aware of any specific incidents?”

  Ward suddenly sounded a little wary. There was an amused caution in his voice, as if Thorne had changed the steps to the dance they were performing. “I think you’re going to have to be a bit more specific yourself…”

  Thorne had known he might have to venture into this kind of territory, and he wondered for a second or two if it was worth plunging into the murk. He hardly knew Alan Ward, and couldn’t be certain that anything valuable would be gained from talking to him.

  But he was equally unsure there was a great deal to lose…

  “Did you ever hear of anything involving a British tank crew?” Thorne said. While he waited Thorne watched a couple on a walkway ahead of him. They seemed to be arguing.

  When Ward finally answered, his voice was close to a whisper, and Thorne could hear the excitement in it.

  “What have you found?”

  “Like I said before, I can’t-”

  “Okay, I get it. Look, there were one or two rumors about something. No more than that, as far as I can remember.”

  “About a tank crew?”

  “Yeah… I think so.”

  “So, here’s the thing,” Thorne said. “If someone else was involved, someone apart from the four men in a tank crew, who might it be?” He glanced up again. The couple on the walkway were now embracing.

  “I’m not with you,” Ward said. “It could be virtually anybody. You’re not really giving me a great deal to go on.”

  “Another individual. A fifth man, present when this incident took place.”

  “A fifth soldier, you mean?”

  “I suppose so…”

  “Where precisely are we talking about?”

  “I don’t really know. We have to presume it’s somewhere off the beaten track.”

  “ Everywhere was off the beaten track, mate,” Ward said. “You just mean that geographically, the incident happened in isolation, right?”

  T
hat much, Thorne could be fairly certain of. “Yes.”

  “So we’re talking about someone with access to a vehicle, then. An officer, perhaps?”

  Perhaps, thought Thorne. They were certainly talking about someone who’d had no problem telling the four crewmen what to do. Someone whose orders had been followed.

  Perhaps…

  It was as positive as they were going to get.

  “I have to make a small professional plea at this point,” Ward said. “Can you make sure I’m first in line if this ever comes out?”

  Thorne was slightly nonplussed. Ward was clearly every bit as ambitious as he was sharp. Still, bearing in mind that Thorne had called him, it was a reasonable enough request. “I’m not sure I’ll have a lot of say in it, to be honest…”

  “This is what I do, Tom. Seriously, if there does come a time when whatever this is can be made public, I hope to hell you’ll come to me. Like I said before, I’m seriously bloody intrigued.”

  “Right…”

  “Whenever you like, Tom. And it goes without saying that my sources always remain confidential. No names, no pack drill.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “And there are perks, of course.”

  “Are there?”

  “Do you want to see the game next week or not?”

  Thorne could think of nothing he’d like more. Cursing bad luck and worse timing, he explained to Ward that, much as he’d love the tickets, he’d be far too busy to use them.

  Russell Brigstocke viewed the prospect of a conversation with Steve Norman in much the same way as a trip to the dentist: it was something necessary but usually unpleasant. You could put it off and put it off, but you always had to go through with the bloody thing in the end.

  And you had to wash your mouth out afterward…

  The nature of the investigation meant Brigstocke had been forced to endure a good deal more contact with the Press Office than would normally have been the case. The media had been all over them since Jesmond’s first press conference, and Norman-whatever anyone thought of him personally-had proved extremely adept at his job. He’d kept the media’s appetite for information sated, and had called in favors from reporters when they were needed. And one was very definitely needed now.