Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain (24 page)

‘Barry, nobody’s saying
that
. Probably natural causes, maybe an accident.’

‘Accidents like that don’t happen to men like Syd. Besides, that would hardly’ve caused what you might call a small tremor in the ranks.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Merrily instinctively pulled the cigarettes from her bag, then shoved the packet back. Barry waved a hand.

‘Nah, light one, you want. This ain’t public space.’

‘It’s OK.’ She closed her bag. ‘Who told you?’

‘These things get round. You were with Fiona?’

‘Yes.’

‘One in a million, that woman. She understands. Better than both mine did, anyway.’

He stood over her, waiting. Merrily lowered her bag to the floor.

‘All right, what happened, I was asked to talk to a group of clergy on a deliverance training course last Friday night, and Syd turned up, with something on his mind. Which he wouldn’t talk about. Not to us, so we assumed it was SAS-related.’

‘Who’s us?’

‘Huw Owen. My spiritual director.’ Looking steadily up at
him. ‘You knew Syd well, didn’t you? Well enough to know his wife, obviously.’

‘I served with him.’

‘He was a friend?’

‘For a time, yeah.’

‘For a time?’

‘We didn’t fall out or nothing. I saw him a couple of years ago. He seemed OK. You can usually tell when they’re not. I heard he was in full kit when they found him.’

‘He had a Bergen, that’s all. A lot of weight in there, including a very big family Bible. This… has kind of knocked me sideways, Barry.’

Merrily’s right hand was shaking and she placed her left hand over it. Barry pulled out the other chair, sat down opposite her.

‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like I was interrogating you.’

‘Huw was convinced Syd needed help.’

‘Kind of help?’

‘He didn’t
tell
us, did he? Some people are embarrassed by the… anomalous. Especially the clergy. He sat in the shadows and he listened to what we had to say in the chapel. Like he had to deal with it himself, get it out of the way.’

‘You had dealings with him before though.’

‘Yeah. He consulted me about something he either didn’t believe or wanted nothing to do with. He told me, more than once, that he didn’t like that kind of thing. He wanted
me
to deal with it. This time… I can only assume this was something he
did
believe in, however reluctantly. Or that it was personal.’

Even in here, you could hear the
plink, plink
of the pool table in the public bar. No voices, no laughter, just cue on ball. It sounded random, directionless. Lonely, somehow.

‘Frank Collins,’ Barry said, ‘not long before he died, he became chaplain to twenty-three SAS – the reservists. So not as close as Syd. Only, when his book came out, it hadn’t been cleared by the MoD, and he had to resign. Got very depressed about that. Looking at it from the other side, maybe it was the Church what done for Frank Collins.’

‘It’s true that when things get difficult you don’t always get the support you might expect from the Church. The Church can be… strangely cold.’

‘Could be none of this applies. Regiment suicides are mainly blokes who only ever went inside a church for a mate’s funeral. Some of it’s post-traumatic stress, some of it’s because you get altered, and normal life don’t seem like life at all and ain’t worth holding on to.’

Merrily thought for a moment, listening to the pool game.

‘Barry, can I hang a name on you?’ And then, before he could reply, she came out with it. ‘Byron Jones?’

His eyes went blank.

‘Like the poet,’ he said.

Merrily had quickly Googled Byron Jones before she came out. Not much at all, really. He was certainly an author, but not exactly a best-seller. Or not any more – the most recent reference was 2007.

‘Actually,’ Barry said, ‘he
was
a poet.’

He sat waiting for a reason to continue.

‘Syd had one of his books on the shelf,’ Merrily said. ‘
Caradog
, a novel for older kids about the Roman invasion of Britain.’

‘Yeah. I did hear he was writing books. A number of them have a go at that, as you may’ve noticed. But there was only one
Bravo Two Zero
. Not many millionaires among the rest.’

‘
You
ever read anything by Byron Jones, Barry?’

‘Lost interest when I heard they weren’t about the Regiment. Anything about the Regiment we tend to collect, for various reasons. It was for kids, anyway.’

‘Most of them are written under pseudonyms… Andy McNab, et cetera. Is he…?’

‘His name
is
Jones. Byron – I was actually there the night he got that. We were due to fly out to… somewhere or other. About a dozen of us in the Paludrin.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The social club at the camp. Valentine’s Day coming up and
one of the boys, he’s got a card for his girlfriend what he’s leaving for a mate to post, and he’s trying to compose a verse to write in it. We’re all helping. As you do. He’s sitting there, this boy, with his notepad, getting nowhere – specially with our suggestions. “Some men sniff their armpits, others tubes of glue”… I won’t go on, but you get the level. Then this person we’re discussing…’

‘Byron.’

‘He looks up from his
Sun
, and he goes – never forgotten this, it was so unexpected. He looks up, very slowly, and he goes, in this dreamy sort of voice, “
Some men win at snooker and some at poker, too… but only one who dares can really win a girl like you
”.’

Merrily smiled.

‘Get it?’ Barry said. ‘Who Dares Wins? Big cheer goes up, and somebody goes, This lad’s a regular Byron. And so, for ever after… He still didn’t look the type, but how many of us did?’

‘What type
was
he?’

‘Spare one for me?’ Barry nodding at Merrily’s bag. ‘Fag?’

She pulled the bag onto her knees, found the packet and the Zippo. Barry extracted a Silk Cut and lit up.

‘So Syd was back in touch with Byron, was he?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just telling you his book was on the shelf.’

‘And you just happened to notice it.’

She said nothing.

‘Byron Jones.’ Barry blew out smoke, thoughtful. ‘I dunno about this, Merrily.’

‘Is he a real writer? I mean, some of these guys, they have somebody to do it for them. But I suppose he’d need to be famous for that.’

‘He’s not famous.’

‘And the poetry…’

‘Like I said, that was a joke.’

‘I mean was he
interested
in poetry? Or was Syd? Wordsworth, that kind of thing? Byron Jones’s book was next to a book of Wordsworth’s poetry.’

‘Not that I know of. Byron was into history. He joined a local history club, and they’d do these field trips.’

‘What… with local people?’

‘Maybe. I dunno.’

‘What did they do?’

‘You know, just… poking round. Looking for bits of history. Archaeological remains. In the countryside. Around Stirling Lines back then, in Hereford.’

‘Was Syd in this history club?’

‘Probably.’

‘So he and Byron
were
mates.’

‘
Mates
…’ Barry’s smile was tight ‘… I have to say is not a word you’d readily apply to Byron.’

‘He wasn’t friendly?’

‘Not being funny…’ Barry straightened his black tie, folded his arms. ‘Look, I never knew him well enough to say too much. He was very single-minded. On exercises, very competitive. I put this down to him being a bit nearer the end of his army career than the rest of us and no promotion. Like he had something to prove. I… I really don’t know about this.’

‘Not going to be filing a report on it, Barry. It’s just I can’t help feeling I let Syd down. Even though he didn’t want to talk to me.’

Barry inspected his cigarette like he couldn’t believe he’d already smoked half of it.

‘Byron was… I mean,
ruthless
was not a word we used, seeing as how we all needed to live there sometimes. But Byron was less inclined to take prisoners, you know what I mean? You’re aware that I’m telling you this…’

‘In total confidence.’

‘And if there
are
defence issues?’

‘Doesn’t worry me a lot.’

‘Blimey.’

‘You think, if I get too close to something embarrassing, I might get waterboarded?’

‘I think you should not take the piss out of these people, frankly. And you didn’t just see Byron’s book on the shelf, did you?’

‘It… was pointed out to me. But no explanation was given. I didn’t know anything about Byron Jones until now. Is he still around? I mean here?’

‘He was. I know where he
was
, ’cause his wife’s there. Ex-wife. Ran into her on a tourist-board beano last year. She’s doing B and B in the Golden Valley.’

‘Another failed marriage, then.’

‘Actually, the marriage survived quite a long time. Mostly through absence, I suspect. Yeah, OK, that’s not a bad idea. If you want to know about Byron, you should to talk to Liz. Big Liz. I expect there’s things she could tell you. If she was minded to. And I never said that.’

‘Why wouldn’t I just talk to Byron himself?’

‘Not advisable.’

Merrily raised her eyebrows. Barry leaned back.

‘I could give her a call, if you like, tell her you’re all right.’

‘That sounds like you
want
me to talk to her.’

‘I don’t
want
you to talk to anybody, but if you’re determined to open this can of worms…’

‘I’m trying to work this out. You think there’s something I should know, but you don’t think you should be the one to tell me? Or you
can’t
tell me?’

Barry looked worried. He didn’t often look worried.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to toss Byron Jones into the mix. If you get an approach from anybody, we haven’t had this chat and it wasn’t me put you on to Liz. All right?’

‘Sure.’

‘And Byron, I might’ve made him sound funny – the poetry and everything. He wasn’t, do you know what I mean? He isn’t.’

Merrily searched for anything in Barry’s eyes, but it was like they’d been switched off, and she wondered if the evil from Syd’s past finally had a name.

T
HERE WERE SECURITY
lights on stockade poles at either side of the entrance. The sign had a Roman helmet on it.

Karen Dowell was sitting in the passenger seat, arms folded over her seat belt. Apprehensive.

‘You haven’t told her, have you?’

‘No reason to,’ Bliss said. ‘This is my inquiry.’

‘Which just happens to overlap
her
inquiry.’

‘Norra problem.’

Occasionally, he wished he could come clean to Karen about him and Annie. She’d be shocked rigid, but no way would she blab. And if she ever found out some other way she’d never trust him again, and that would be
very
bad. But he couldn’t. There wasn’t anybody in or outside of Gaol Street he could tell, and it was hard to imagine a situation where there ever would be.

‘Was there really a Roman town here, Karen?’

‘I think the actual site’s about half a mile away. I remember we had this school outing there once. Of course, absolutely nothing to see but empty fields. One kid burst into tears. He was expecting something like the Colosseum. Always remember that.’

Bliss drove between the lights. Almost immediately, you could see newly covered polytunnels, like big white worms. Nobody about at all. In summer the tunnels would be like wasp nests.

‘I’m not even on overtime for this, am I?’ Karen said.

‘I’ll make it up to you, kid. One day.’

Needed her local knowledge, this was what it came down to.
There were details he might miss on his own. He parked near the top of a low hill, in front of a long shed with a poorly lit glass porch.

‘We should really be in town,’ Karen said. ‘If even Rich Ford is predicting trouble…’

‘Rich Ford’s an old woman.’

‘Been around a long time, boss, and he’s got a nose for under-currents. If there’s some underlying migrant issue here we know nothing about… I think he could be right – spot the retaliation and you’re there.’

‘Yeh, well, this won’t take long.’

The manager, Roger Hitchin, was waiting for them. A vague-looking feller who said straight off that he was no use to them. Didn’t deal much with the migrant workers, not being much of a linguist, just a man who knew about the business of growing strawberries. Which was why he wanted to introduce them to the firm’s Personnel Liaison Officer.

Vasile Bocean. A Romanian whose halfway-good English had apparently lifted him out of the ranks, putting him into a permanent caravan with electricity. Vasile told them that, proud of his caravan. Couldn’t be more than twenty-four. Spiky hair with gold highlights.

Hitchin left them alone with Vasile and they talked outside the office, under a metal awning. Vasile seemed to be a permanent resident now, going out with a local girl and, yes, he certainly remembered the Marinescu sisters.

He beamed.

‘From village near Sighi
oara.’

Bliss nodded. He knew that much. Confirmation had come in late this afternoon from the Romanian police. The parents already contacted, photos exchanged, talk of family members coming over to take the girls’ bodies home. Elly Clatter had finally put out the sisters’ names in time for the six o’clock news.