Home Front: A James Marshal Thriller Omnibus

by Thomas Waugh

  Marshal thought he may watch another season of Dexter, finish off a novel or go for a run. He also had a mind to buy a copy of Thatcher’s Willing Executioners, as much as it might vex the ex-Para to read it. There was also the option to decamp onto a bar stall for part of the afternoon, have a nap and then wait for Grace to return.

  Marshal received the call shortly after midday. It was the police. In a voice which tried to blend sombreness with authoritarianism, the officer asked Marshal to confirm his identity – and if he knew a “Mr John Foster”. A flicker of confusion initially marked his expression. Marshal never knew that his friend’s real name was John. “John” had been found murdered that morning. Marshal gunned out a couple of questions, but the officer remarked that they would give out what information they could when Marshal met his colleague, one Detective Inspector Martin Coulson, at the nearby police station on Manor Place.

  Marshal had paced up and down his living room during his phone call but when he hung-up he fell into a chair, fearing that his legs might give way. He wanted to be sick. Bile, sorrow or something else was lodged in his throat like a cricket ball which he had swallowed but couldn’t digest. If he was sober, he wanted to be drunk. If drunk, he wanted to be sober. He pictured his friend, cackling after telling a ribald story. But the image was, at best, bittersweet. Marshal also recalled the moment when Foster had likely saved his life. They had been serving on a tanker, off the coast of Somalia. A couple of boats, containing a dozen Somali pirates, pulled alongside their vessel. Bullets pinged against the tanker, as Marshal and his fellow PMCs returned fire. A pirate unleashed a volley which crept upwards against the hull and would have cut Marshal in half, but Foster predicted the trajectory of the gunfire and pulled his friend out of the way. The SAS veteran noted the scrawny, khat-chewing young pirate who had nearly killed his friend – and emptied half a magazine into the enemy. Shoot to kill, or don’t shoot at all.

  Marshal’s hand shook as he held the remote control and switched on the news. Details were sketchy or absent. The internet furnished him with a few more details and photographs, which he stared at whilst wishing he could unsee things too. His soul felt like sludge. Marshal poured himself a whisky and lit a cigarette to help calm his nerves, but they felt like placebos.

  Foster’s corpse had been dumped on Herbert Crescent in Knightsbridge, outside the Special Forces Club, during the early hours of the morning. Photos downloaded onto various news and social media outlets, which annoyingly Marshal had to sign-up to, showed how his friend was still dressed in his trousers from yesterday, but his feet and torso were bare and bloody. His face was barely recognisable. Swollen. Slashed. His body was blotchy with contusions. More than one witness attested to seeing three bullet wounds in his chest (the same number which killed Finn Mullen, in the cemetery, Marshal noted). Tears welled in his eyes but, almost stubbornly, refused to stream down his cheeks. Part of him was tempted to call Grace and ask her to come back, but another part of himself judged that as weakness. Anger was sovereign over grief. The dull ache in his stomach became a pang. Molten lava, rather than blood, coursed through his veins. The former soldier and personal protection officer cursed himself for not insisting on accompanying his friend, until he boarded his plane for Portugal. He thought how, if he had not needed to meet Grace, he would have spent the evening with Foster. Maybe he would now be dead as a result of accompanying his friend. Or, more likely he surmised, Foster might be alive. Marshal poured himself another whisky. He recalled a line from Graham Greene, which a fellow soldier, Michael Devlin, had quoted to him one evening: “Whisky – the medicine of despair.”

  It no longer felt like summer. He no longer felt like shopping for an engagement ring.

  Marshal gulped down a bottle of water and popped a breath mint into his mouth. It reminded him of old times – of his routine, before going on a date. Except, instead of now venturing off to a restaurant, Marshal headed towards the local police station.

  The reception area was similar – yet different - to a waiting room at a doctor’s surgery. The podgy desk sergeant, with half a packet of crisps covering his jumper, asked Marshal to be seated. He added that someone would attend to him momentarily.

  A pungent scent of bleach filled his nostrils as Marshal sat down. He considered that the smell was preferable to the various odours the bleach was overpowering. A sullen looking young black man, no older than twenty-one, sat opposite Marshal, tapping away on his phone. His name was Oswald, but he liked to be called “Blade” (he liked to carry a knife and was a fan of the actor Wesley Snipes). The waistband of his tracksuit was sitting halfway down his arse. He was wearing a t-shirt with the word “Gangsta!” emblazoned across his chest. He also wore a cap with the words “Black Lives Matter” on the front, which he had stolen from a pallid sociology student. His beady, bloodshot eyes were as red as a furnace. He gazed at the well-attired Marshal, curling his lip and narrowing his eyes in disdain at the whitey, as the drug dealer and petty thief called him in his mind. Marshal, instead of lowering his eyes in submission, smiled in amusement at the youth. He responded by sucking air through his teeth, rather than offering up a bon mot. Marshal fancied that the youth resembled the Somali pirate that Foster had strafed during the attack on the tanker. The drug dealer called his girlfriend again, to hurry her up to collect him. Marshal couldn’t quite decipher all he said, but he spat the words of “bitch” and “ting” down the phone more than once.

  A busty fifty-something ash-blonde drab, or sex worker, sat in the corner by the door which led into the rest of the station. Ruby. Her eyeliner had run, and her tomato ketchup lipstick was smudged. Her skin was puckered, like old leather, and she was wearing only one black heel. The other, broken, was cradled in her lap. Ruby was wearing a red, skin-tight cocktail dress marked with various faded stains. Rolls of fat hung over the edge of the garment. Meth and gin had aged the once attractive, vivacious woman. A couple of front teeth were now missing. Ruby regularly lowered her prices - and was happy to be paid in drugs of late. She considered every man to be a potential customer, so she duly smiled at Marshal, albeit her expression resembled a rictus more than grin.

  “Do you like the look of these, luv?” Ruby remarked, cupping her large breasts, sounding like she was auditioning for the part Nancy in Oliver Twist.

  “No,” Marshal courteously replied. “But thanks for the mammary.”

  He kept his head down, having little or no interest in the other occupants in the room. Marshal’s thoughts were for the dead, not living. It pained him to think of his brutally slain friend, yet Marshal continued to do so. He closed his eyes and recalled some of the things Foster had said the day before:

  “I don’t want to give the murderous bastard the satisfaction of killing me… I’ve earned my cowardice and right to retreat from this fight. I don’t want to live in London, having to watch my back all the time. I’d rather live in Portugal – and watch the senoritas go by… I want to give you a key to my storage locker. If somehow something happens to me, I want you to remove the contents. You will know what to do.”

  Marshal’s shoes made a comical squeaking sound on the waxed, plastic floor as he was led down the corridor and into a meeting room (as opposed to an interrogation room). Ingots of light slanted through the barred window. The walls were painted a dull beige, the floor a duller grey. Posters marked the walls, warning of the dangers of leaving handbags unattended – and failing to get one’s prostate checked. The menus of half a dozen takeaways were stuck to the door of a small fridge. DI Martin Coulson was waiting for him, a cup of coffee in his hand. The officer was in his late forties and was in good physical condition, having avoided a policeman’s paunch. Marshal thought he looked an accountant – or a mid-level civil servant, caught between working for a promotion and waiting for retirement. His cropped black hair was flecked with grey. Intelligent, brown eyes, behind horn-rimmed glasses, could harden or become good-humoured, depending on the circumstances. A cigarette lighter, notepad and
half-eaten packet of mints sat on the pinewood table in front of him. He wore an ironed white shirt, charcoal grey clip-on tie and a pair of blue corduroy trousers.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Marshal. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Coulson asked, after introducing himself. His voice was firm but not unfriendly. Marshal fancied that the policeman came from or lived in Kent or Essex.

  “No, thank you,” Marshal replied.

  “I don’t blame you,” Coulson remarked, wincing a little after taking a sip from the chipped mug. “If this is coffee, I’d prefer tea. But if this is tea, I want coffee.”

  The detective was attempting to be disarmingly friendly, Marshal thought. But he did not want to be disarmed. For his part Marshal wished to give the impression of still being in shock, or dumbstruck. He liked being underestimated. He gave a vague, polite, forced smile in response to the figure opposite him.

  “You have doubtless heard the news. I hope you appreciate that we cannot officially say too much at present. The investigation is ongoing. Rest assured; we are committed to apprehending anyone involved in Mr. Foster’s murder. I read his service record before travelling here. He was a good soldier. I served in the Royal Engineers, more years ago than I care to remember. The army was not for me. My wife complained that I was away from home too much, although I sometimes thought that I was not away enough.”

  Perhaps, on another day, Marshal might have liked the Special Branch officer. He regretted not doing a bit of due diligence on the officer, before their meeting. Marshal was willing to happily lie to the policeman, however, whether he liked him or not – as he proceeded to reply to the routine questions with routine answers.

  “Can you confirm that you had lunch with John Foster at the Albert public house, on Gladstone St, yesterday?”

  “Yes,” Marshal replied, neither rudely nor courteously, adding the approximate time that they arrived and departed. The timings corroborated those that Coulson’s colleague had gleaned from the time stamps on nearby CCTV cameras.

  “What was the purpose of your lunch together?”

  “Every six months or so we have a catch-up.”

  “Can you tell me what his mood was like during your time together?”

  “His mood was fine. He was fine, from what I could tell.”

  “Did he say or do anything out of the ordinary to you?”

  “No,” the interviewee remarked, gently shaking his head, as he clutched the key in his pocket which Foster had passed onto him.

  “Did he mention the name John Mullen to you?”

  “No,” Marshal stated, after pretending to remember. Lying.

  “Do you know who John Mullen is?”

  “He’s an Irish politician, is he not? I apologise. I wish I could be of more help to you.”

  “I understand,” Coulson said, with sympathy, before jotting something down in his pad again. The dogged detective had hoped that the victim’s friend could be of greater assistance in their investigation. The ex-Para, who was clearly intelligent, could indeed be innocent, or ignorant, of Foster’s past and connection to Mullen – but it was doubtful. The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister had faith in Man’s propensity to lie, both to himself and others. Coulson’s Catholic wife considered deception to be Man’s original sin too. It was bound up in his DNA, like lust. The policeman had a justly low opinion of people, partly because he had encountered so many over the years. Coulson could not recall an instance over two decades when he had attended court and a defendant had not perjured himself. Coulson did believe, however, that although Marshal may be committing the crime of bearing false witness – he was not involved in his murder. Marshal had an alibi – and no motive. As much as the ex-soldier had blood on his hands from his time in the army and as a PMC, none of the blood was his friend’s.

  Coulson wanted James Marshal to help incriminate Mullen, not himself. The detective intended to gain as much information as possible, before he interviewed the slippery politician. Coulson and his colleagues would utilise the Terrorism Act to collect what intelligence and evidence they could on Mullen. The Irish statesman would need to be seen to cooperate – and not refuse their request to be informally interviewed – but it was unlikely that their questions would force any answers. His alibi would be even more cast iron than Marshal’s. His hands would be as clean as a bride’s dress on her wedding day. The encounter would largely prove a waste of time. Yet Coulson was keen to conduct the interview himself. He wanted to look the prospective killer in the eye, hear the timbre of his voice. Know his enemy.

  Harvesting potential intelligence was not the only reason why Coulson arranged an interview with Marshal. The detective wanted to, subtly or otherwise, warn the soldier off from interfering with his investigation – to become more of a problem than solution. It was unlikely he would, but the brother-in-arms of the victim owned the means and motivation to confront Mullen, or another suspect, and do more harm than good.

  “You will be having a drink or two at the funeral, when you say goodbye to John?”

  Jack.

  “I imagine I will.”

  “I would like you to do me a favour - when you meet with John’s former colleagues. They will be angry, as well as sad, in response to his death. If you reassure them that we are committed to bringing the perpetrators to justice – and that no one should attempt to take the law into their own hands. You probably know about the old adage that anyone seeking revenge should first dig two graves?” Coulson asked, probingly – forewarningly.

  Marshal shrugged his shoulders, nonchalantly, in reply, as though revenge was the last thing on his mind. The innocent expression masked contrary thoughts, however. He gripped the key in his pocket even tighter.

  They will need to dig more than two graves once I’ve finished with them.

  7.

  Two weeks passed. Two weeks of sleepless nights. Of stinging heat and grief. Two weeks of retreating into himself and feigning interest in what Grace was saying. Two weeks of working his way through ten bottles of whisky. He smoked twice as much as usual. He spent two weeks waiting for someone to start a fight in some of the pubs he holed himself up in. He wanted someone to try and mug him again, so he could explode into action once more, like a blunderbuss. After two weeks Grace stopped coming over. His mood was as black as Erebus. Regret ate into his time and soul, like rust. The only thing which his regret didn’t eat into was itself. Marshal reached out to the family of his friend to offer his condolences (and he even offered to cover the funeral expenses, mindful of Foster’s preference to be buried). But Foster’s first wife tersely asserted how she had already decided to cremate the body. It was the cheaper option.

  Most things - even reading and eating - faded into the background. The only thing Marshal could focus on was his research into Foster’s murder. The police could neither confirm nor deny any sectarian involvement in the killing. No group claimed responsibility for the murder. A timeline was created for Foster’s movements. After leaving Marshal he had travelled across Waterloo Bridge, stopping off at a pub on the Strand. Foster then hailed a black taxi, to take him to the Cleaver Arms, ten minutes from his home in Walthamstow. But the former soldier never reached his flat. At some point between the Cleaver Arms and his property, he was abducted. The media initially decamped itself on the street where Foster’s body was found. They then doorstepped the family and friends of the victim (Marshal was content to ignore any journalist who tried to call or accost him). It was the crime of the year, for a few days. The police arranged more than one press conference. Witnesses were called upon to report on any suspicious persons or vehicles. Marshal noted Coulson sitting on the end of one of the conferences, headed up by senior officers from the Met. His jaw jutted out in grim determination, as he fidgeted with a pen in front of him.

  The grisly murder soon became old news, however, as the front pages were replaced by the stories of a popstar changing his pronouns, some mild flooding in Surrey and a Tory politician, who had been an ad
vocate for Brexit, having an affair with a married woman who lived next door to the junior minister. “Love Thy Neighbour,” was one of the headlines.

  A day before the funeral Marshal decided to finally visit the storage unit which Foster had paid for (using cash, under a false name). The building, which resembled a run-down Ikea warehouse, was situated in Leytonstone. There was little security or due diligence from the staff when Marshal entered. His key served as his identification and authority. The unit was neither the largest nor smallest in the building. It measured the size of a snooker table. The walls were a dirty eggshell white. Cobwebs hung from a naked bulb. Marshal noticed a charcoal grey suit in the corner, covered in cellophane from where it had come back from the dry cleaners, which Foster had worn to his second wedding.

  “I only wore it once,” Foster had remarked to his friend, gruffly. “Once was one too many times though… She took me to the cleaners in the end.”

  Marshal suddenly felt hot, observing a large black holdall at the back of the room, and removed his jacket.

  He turned his attention to a metal desk, with an accompanying two-drawer cabinet, which ran along one wall. On top were a few pieces of African and Arab sculpture – gifts from satisfied clients from when Foster worked as a PMC. The drawers of the cabinet contained dog-eared copies of invoices, receipts and accounts. He also found a padded brown envelope, filled with a brick of twenty-pound notes. Marshal thought how he would pass the money on to one of the widows, depending on who needed it most. He would lie and say that the sum was an outstanding debt which he owed to his friend. A bag of golf clubs and collection of fishing rods were also propped up against the wall.

  Marshal sneezed, from the dust proliferating the room, and felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It was a message from Grace:

  I can still free myself up if you change your mind and want me to attend the funeral tomorrow. xx