If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) (6 page)

‘Which kind did you encounter?’

‘Encounter?’ asked Stark. He’d encountered plenty, seen them disarmed, seen or heard and felt them detonate, witnessed the aftermath from small anti-infantry to massive car-bomb.

‘Okay, which type were you injured by?’

‘Remote-detonation. There was no phone coverage, so it was operated by radio nearby, part of the ambush.’

‘Was this unusual?’

‘Yes and no. In Iraq it was mostly plant-and-forget, and contact was usually just incoming fire from some distant treeline or compound. You hardly ever saw the man shooting at you. We shot back, but even if we made it to their firing point we rarely found bodies. Either we missed or their mates hauled them away. Or we called in an air strike. Either way they were gone. Afghanistan was different. Closer-quarters contact and remote-detonation devices were common. But a close-quarters, three-sixty ambush … that took planning.’

‘You saw faces.’

‘Not really, no. Not that I remember. Too distant. Too … hectic.’ In his dreams they often did have faces – who knew whose? People he’d met, Afghan civilians, just people off the street? ‘It was a determined assault at close quarters. They pursued when we tried to escape, changed location to keep firing on us, never more than two hundred metres or so away, to begin with right over our heads on the rooftops.’

‘More personal, then, than your previous experiences.’

‘There’s nothing impersonal about kinetic contact. Even if the arseholes shooting at you are invisible it’s hard not to take it personally,’ Stark joked ruefully.

Hazel just nodded and made a note. ‘Talk me through it.’

Stark hesitated, reluctant. ‘All right. Well, it’s hot. Your kit’s heavy and starting to rub. You’re standing in the open in clear sight of numerous buildings, any of which may contain people eager to gun you down and, apart from those with you, the only living thing in sight is a skinny dog too stupid to know better. But it’s going well, you’re getting the job done. Then some shit presses his radio trigger. But his timing is off, inexperienced or over-zealous, he’s impatient and fails to get the vehicle broadside.’

‘You were lucky, then.’

Lucky? Another fine choice of word. Luckier than Walker and Smith, certainly. ‘I truly hope that fuck with the trigger didn’t live out the day,’ he said, with sudden ferocity. At least, he felt the ferocity, but it remained inaudible, as if the anger was being stripped from his
words as they left his lips, as if it were somehow remote from him. ‘What does that say about me?’

Hazel seemed unprepared for direct questions. It was almost fun to see that momentary look of panic. Mostly it added to his sense of futility. She made a contemplative face, playing for time. He was starting to spot her tools. ‘I should say it was understandable to focus thoughts of retribution on the man who struck the first blow, killed your colleagues.’

‘Comrades,’ corrected Stark, not for the first time. ‘“Colleagues” whine about wives nine to five, then go home and whine about colleagues.’

‘You’re not married.’

Here we go again, thought Stark.

‘Your girlfriend split up with you while you were in hospital.’ She pretended to read this from his file, as if it was just occurring to her, but to Stark it seemed she was more comfortable pulling this string than the others. ‘And now you’ve moved away from home, family, friends, to start work at a new job in a strange city. Perhaps we could talk about that for a while.’

‘It’s your dime.’ It wasn’t, but she didn’t seem to get that.

She waited.

‘Julie wasn’t my girlfriend. We’d been out a couple of times, shagged a few times more. She came to see me in the hospital because she thought she ought to. I let her off the hook.’

‘Did she say that or did you put the words into her mouth?’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Maybe she wanted to be there. Maybe you pushed her away for your own reasons.’

Maybe he had. Then again, maybe the barely concealed relief on Julie’s face as she left was as real as his relief in watching her go. ‘You think I pushed her away. That I’ve deliberately distanced myself from anyone who might care about me, that I’m fearful of intimacy, friendship, love, that I’m scared of getting close to another human being in case I have to watch them succumb to some invisible IED fallout.’

‘Isn’t that what you’ve done?’

Stark considered telling her about Kelly, but that would further misdirect her. ‘Perhaps I’m just ashamed of my physical disability.’

‘Are you?’

‘Or maybe it’s the mental scars I’m hiding. Perhaps I’m afraid of letting someone love me, lest the monster inside ever slips its leash.’

Hazel frowned. ‘I can’t help you if you don’t take this seriously.’

‘I don’t think you can help me all that much either way.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Look, Doc, I’m tired and tetchy. I’m tetchy because I’m tired. All I want is to be able to sleep at night without waking up screaming. I want to dream about something else.’

‘And I want to help you with that.’

‘Then stop changing the subject just because you can’t handle it. I don’t wake up screaming about imaginary girlfriends or my mother’s passive-aggressive cotton-wool act!’

‘Now you’re getting angry.’

‘This isn’t angry. Angry is how I feel about the spiteful fuck with the remote trigger. Angry is how I felt when those fuckers kept shooting at me even when I was running away with a wounded man over my shoulder. This isn’t angry, but it’s starting to get there.’

‘Perhaps we should call it a day.’

‘Perhaps we should.’

Stark stalked back into the station, hungry and vexed.

Fran glanced at the clock. ‘Your manicure and facial overrun again?’

‘Something like that. Is it okay if I grab some lunch?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Go on then, but don’t dawdle.’

Stark brought a sandwich to his desk and went back to his filing. Fran went out and he soon found his concentration wavering. He was half asleep when his phone rang. Switchboard announced a Captain Pierson for Constable Stark and put her through before he could respond.

‘Hello?’ said the voice to Stark’s silence. ‘
Hello?
’

‘Who’s calling, please?’ he asked, stalling.

‘Captain Pierson for Corporal Joseph Stark, is this he?’

Stark hesitated.

‘It’s a simple enough question!’

Her accent was that clipped kind of posh, every word shaved bald,
upper lip genetically inert. That was okay, but the cold, hard certainty in her tone spoke of privilege at its worst. Stark took an instant dislike. ‘We have a Constable Stark,’ he suggested levelly.

‘Put him on, then. I don’t have all day,’ said the voice, frostily.

‘Can I take a message?’

‘He’s not there?’

‘Perhaps I could take a message.’

‘I’ll wait,’ said the voice.

Stark considered putting her on hold for ten minutes but decided he was being childish enough already. Besides, he’d have to talk to her eventually; winding her up further wouldn’t help matters. ‘I shouldn’t like you to waste your time. I’d be happy to take a message.’

‘I’ve left several already, for days in fact.’

‘Perhaps one more will do the trick.’

Cold silence flowed from the receiver but stubbornness trumped impatience. She tutted. ‘Very well. Please tell him, for the umpteenth time, to call me at his
very earliest opportunity
.’ Stark dutifully repeated the number back to her and she hung up without another word. It was a shabby thing to do but Stark was shabby in condition and mood, and with that tone she could wait another day.

The IED explosion and the sight of the Land Rover teetering above him on two wheels before it crashed back down on to four snapped him awake.

Lying on his back, waiting for his heart to slow and the phantom tinnitus to fade, he let the memory roll on in his conscious state. So much confusion, shouting, screaming, and cutting through it a cold, lightning certainty of purpose. He remembered feeling absolutely awake in those minutes, utterly conscious, instantly decisive in a way he’d never imagined possible. It was easy to understand how people became addicted to adrenalin, if that was what it was. It was also easy to understand how dangerous it could be, to you and those around you, to let that intuitive purity take over, caution and restraint be damned. How different that day might have been.

The luminous hands of his watch read 04:10. He swore quietly. So now not only was therapy not suppressing his dreams, it was trawling them up from the foetid depths. He grunted, forcing himself off the bed and away from another round of futile what-if. Save that bollocks for the next show-and-tell with Doc Hazel.

Later that morning Stark and Dixon were sent back to the council offices to speak to a key officer returned from sick leave. Judy was prematurely middle-aged, heavy-set, both chirpy and slightly defensive in the brittle manner Stark thought stress-induced. She’d seen Alf’s face on TV and come in to work to delve back into her files – she was sure, but she wasn’t, she had found him, but it might not be. She opened a worn, faded file and turned it on the desk to face them. A man, perhaps in his sixties, stared out. ‘Is it him?’ she asked tremulously.

Dixon looked at Stark, who nodded. There was no mistake.

‘Alfred Thomas Ladd,’ he read. ‘Born Deptford, 1932. First appeared on Greenwich social-services homeless radar in August 1996. Previous
address unknown. No known living relatives.’ There were several pages of assessment forms filled in by varying hands. He’d been admitted to a care home in 1999 but discharged himself. Hospitalized with pneumonia March 2005, admitted to care again and again refused to stay. A competency assessment at the time described him as fully cognizant and physically able. The scrawl also described him as obdurate, irritable, wilfully independent to the point of irrationality and rude bordering on abusive. Stark smiled.

There was no further record. Judy’s orbit stabilized once hunch became fact. She happily copied the whole file while they waited and waved them off cheerily. They returned to the station well pleased with their morning’s work.

Their smiles shattered against Fran’s icy reception. She scanned the name beneath the photo. ‘Alfred Ladd. Well, at least we’ll have a name for the death certificate if he doesn’t survive surgery.’

Alf’s condition had worsened sharply and the doctors feared internal bleeding. He’d been rushed into theatre.

Stark felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. If Fran noticed she made no sign, unless, perhaps, there was a softening in her tone. ‘Get yourself up there and wait. Call me when he gets out.’

He almost thanked her, taken off-guard by the strength of his reaction. He rushed off and found Maggie, who dropped the play-acting and found him a car. Twenty minutes later he stood at the operating-theatre department reception desk being told he’d have to wait up on the ward. His response was short and to the point. The nurse yielded.

He had plenty of time to reflect on the irrational investment he felt in a stranger’s well-being. This was just the kind of thing he should probably discuss with Doc Hazel, dread the thought. It was more than three hours before a grey-haired man in scrubs emerged at speed through the theatre doors. Stark jumped to his feet, startling him. ‘Nurse Adams, why is this person loitering here?’ demanded the doctor.

Stark held up his warrant card. ‘Are you the surgeon operating on Alfred Ladd?’

‘Finally came up with a name, did you?’

‘Yes or no?’

‘I am the chief of surgery. Mr Ladd, if that’s his name, is alive and not well. He’s being closed as we speak and will likely remain in
post-op recovery for an hour or so before returning to Intensive Care. If you wish to speak with him you’re in for a long wait, possibly still a futile one. Now, please step aside.’

‘I’m not here to interview him.’

Maybe something in Stark’s voice betrayed him. The surgeon contemplated him for a moment, weighing him up, or weighing his words. ‘We’ve had to remove a kidney. The other is damaged but salvageable. We’ve realigned the right posterior tenth rib but there was local damage to be patched up. We nearly lost him on the table but he rallied.’

‘Will he live?’

‘For now. Whether he recovers is out of my hands. I suggest you leave your number with ICU and get some sleep, in which you appear deficient. Now step aside, young man. I have work to do.’

When he got back, Fran said, ‘Maggie’s looking for you. I do believe she’s moved from huff to strop.’

Before Stark could wonder why, Maggie stuck her head round the door. ‘Constable, there’s a
woman
loitering downstairs for you.’

‘I’m not “sweetie” today, then?’

‘Not while you’re entertaining
other women
. I’ve had it with your sort,’ said Maggie, suppressing her grin with limited success. ‘She’s been waiting ages. Won’t leave. You must’ve been a very bad man.’

Stark reddened. The smirks of his colleagues didn’t help, especially Fran’s. He went quickly downstairs to the public entrance.

Maggie’s ‘other woman’ was wearing a uniform. It wasn’t blue.

‘Corporal Stark,’ she said, without preamble or pleasantry.

‘It’s “Constable” now,’ he said flatly.

‘Captain Pierson.’

‘I’d guessed.’

‘Dial down the attitude, Corporal. The only reason I’m not standing here with a pair of Red Caps is out of courtesy to our civilian counterparts.’

Perhaps she’d recognized his voice from the phone. Too bad. Stark was happy to match her spiky for spiky. ‘I don’t work for you any more.’

‘You’re not discharged
yet
, Corporal. Now, I trust you’ve kept this matter confidential.’

‘I
can
read.’

‘Have you, or have you not?’

‘I have.’

‘You still know how to follow
some
orders then. So, are you going to co-operate, as ordered, or not?’

Her voice carried and the desk officers were paying far too much casual attention for Stark’s liking. He glanced at the cameras too. ‘Can we talk outside?’ he asked.

‘“Can we talk at all?” should be the question, given your obstinate refusal to return my calls.’

‘Please,’ said Stark, desperately, conscious that the desk officer was now grinning.

‘If you insist.’

Peering between the canteen window’s vertical blinds Fran waited. As expected, Stark and his visitor emerged into view … The public lobby was altogether too public for a private conversation. So this was Captain Pierson. Stark’s lady friend was trim, attractive and possibly not Stark’s friend at all. Fran watched the conversation below grow more and more animated, heated, even. Right now she’d kill for one of those pointy dish microphones they always had conveniently to hand on TV cop shows. What was really going on here? Not a lovers’ tiff, surely nothing so banal. She could imagine Stark throwing taboo to the devil in some sordid affair with a senior officer, but she could equally imagine him stubbornly resisting advances. The problem was, she didn’t understand him. His momentary distress on hearing of the old boy’s decline was probably the first emotion of significance he’d manifested. It was good to care, but in a man so dammed-up, cracks might be evidence of worrying pressure.

Maggie’s love rival turned and marched away. Stark just stood and watched her go. Intriguing. Of course the public lobby had CCTV, with audio. Perhaps she’d saunter down there later and find out whether the pair had said anything … 
important
that a dutiful supervisor should know.

Stark stormed into the office, steaming. No one said anything, but to avoid the sideways glances and smirking he flipped through the forensic
reports. Something struck him and he opened the CCTV footage on DC Dixon’s computer. His jaw tightened.

He found Fran nursing a coffee in the canteen. ‘Who decided what clothes and shoes to take from Gibbs’s house?’ he asked.

‘SOCO, why?’

‘The only trainers listed are the cheap white Asda two-stripe he was wearing when he was picked up. But correlating the confiscated clothing with CCTV, the figure we think to be Gibbs is wearing dark with three stripes.’

‘Adidas?’

‘Looks like. And I’m not sure but I think Gibbs was wearing blue with yellow stripes when we saw him last week.’

‘Bugger!’ Fran looked pained. ‘You’re right! I can picture the little thug. If SOCO didn’t find them …’

‘Perhaps he couldn’t get the blood off.’

‘Come on, Smarty Pants.’ She sighed. ‘Looks like we’ve got bins to rummage through.’

An hour later Fran was placating Kyle’s mother with decreasing patience while a uniformed constable was placing two bulging bin bags on a plastic tarp outside the front of her ground-floor flat. Neighbours were gathering to gawp and Kyle’s mum moved from remonstration to abuse until Fran stepped smartly into the woman’s personal space and said something Stark couldn’t hear. The woman shut up immediately.

‘All yours, Trainee Investigator.’ Fran smiled darkly and tossed Stark a box. Disposable gloves. ‘The council, in their infinite wisdom, dropped the collections to every other week. I expect they’re a bit ripe.’ The uniforms chuckled. Without a word, Stark pulled on a pair of gloves; it couldn’t be worse than latrine duty.

There were no trainers. It had been too much to hope for, of course, but that was police work for you. He pored over the contents anyway, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, just the predictable poverty of freezer-food, ready meals and takeaways. He noticed a cutting from a magazine, about ten centimetres square, clearly once folded geometrically in on itself. Then he found four more. ‘Sarge,’ he
said, holding them up. They were classic drug wraps, grams of cocaine most probably.

Fran turned to Kyle’s mother. ‘Tina, Tina, Tina … Yours? Or Kyle’s?’ Tina scowled, tight-lipped. ‘Five wraps in under a fortnight, and that’s just the ones we’ve found!’ Fran shook her head. ‘And you with nothing but income support to feed you.’

One of the onlookers laughed. Tina Gibbs stabbed a murderous glance at them.

Fran nodded to Stark. ‘Bag those up, Constable. They may be of interest to Tina’s parole officer.’

Tina looked sick. Fran turned to her and said quietly, ‘Right, Tina, how about you let me have another look round upstairs? And while I’m doing that, you can have another think about what might have happened to Kyle’s nice blue-and-yellow Adidas Gazelles.’

It was a good effort but, anxious as she was, Tina either knew nothing about them or wasn’t ready to tell. And there was no sign of the shoes inside. Stark was left to re-bag the rubbish and the uniforms helped him carry it back through the flat to the bin.

‘Foot search, Sarge?’ asked one of the constables.

Fran’s lips twisted in frustration. ‘We can ask, but this isn’t a murder case.’

‘What did you say to calm her down?’ asked Stark.

‘I reminded her that the oldest profession is still illegal in this country,’ replied Fran. Stark detected no judgement or cynicism, just a sort of world-weary sadness. She didn’t say much on the way back to the station. The only good news for the rest of the day was that Alfred Ladd was back in ICU, stable and being kept unconscious for now. Tension that Stark had not noticed in himself eased.

That night, however, he woke in the darkness to the faint ringing of the living room phone. Disoriented, he grappled the silent handset from his nightstand. It was Fran. ‘Sarge?’

‘The old boy died at three fifteen this morning.’