Nothing Sacred (24 page)

‘Okay,' I say. ‘But you don't need me. Any lawyer would tell you that.'

‘That last one I had said he couldn't.'

‘He say why not?'

‘No. Said it was impossible.'

I stop, think. Normally a witness's name is disclosed to the defence team. It gives them a chance to check the witness's background, whether they've got any reason to lie, any axe to grind against the accused. No reason why Blake shouldn't know the name of the witness against him: it's his right under law. Unless his or her identity was protected.

‘Don't know,' I say. ‘I'll look into it.'

‘You'll do more than that,' says Blake. ‘You'll find that name, then tell me what cunt thinks he can testify against me.'

‘Let's be clear,' I say to Blake. I take a deep breath. ‘If I suspect that you will use this information to harm the witness, I cannot give it to you.'

Blake looks at me for a long time and a smile spreads across his handsome face and into his eyes. He just looks at me, does not need to say anything, and I understand. Protesting is pointless. This man, this depraved poster boy, can ask of me anything he wants.

23

I AM GOING
through Blake's files the next morning when my mobile rings. I look at the number and see that it is Gabe. I pick up. I have just read the coroner's report of Karl Reece's death and already I have no wish to read any more, to delve any deeper into this awful story.

‘Gabe.'

‘Morning, Danny. You all right?'

I lie. ‘Yeah.'

‘I need a lawyer.'

‘What've you done?'

Gabe laughs. ‘No, not like that. I've found him. Petroski. Says he's willing to talk.' He sounds energised, excited. A new Gabe. Or back to the old Gabe I once knew.

‘That's good.'

‘It's excellent. Need to get something official.'

‘Right.'

‘Do you do affidavits?'

‘For you, I'll even cut you a deal.'

*

We drive out in Major Strauss's car through a cold, spiteful rain, under low, ragged dirty-white clouds hurrying across the sullen slate sky. In the front, Gabe and Major Strauss swap stories and I sit in the back, try not to think about Blake and what he has asked me to do. As a lawyer, much of the work I do is good and useful; I am about to swear an affidavit from this man Gabe has found, use his testimony to force the army to reopen Lance Corporal Creek's inquest. But what Blake has asked me to do – supply him with the name of a hostile witness so that he can intimidate him or her, or worse – is unethical at best, probably illegal and certainly morally abhorrent. If I do what he asks, I do not believe that I will be able to look in the mirror again. If I refuse, then I expose Maria to the sick acts of Connor Blake's entourage. I do not know how many men he has to do his bidding, no idea of the depth of his resources.

Maria. Her name alone is ineffably precious. Maria. I cannot let anything happen to you. I will not let anything happen to you.

I sit back and watch as we hiss past articulated lorries on the two-laner, their huge wheels churning dirty spray, black water cascading in filthy ribbons off their bellies. There is a killed deer at the side of the road, lying forlornly on its side in the rain. My internal debate is pointless. The reality is that I have no choice. I cannot defy the Blakes. If I do, they will crush me and everybody I love like roadkill beneath a sixteen wheeler.

*

James Petroski lives in an isolated farmhouse on the north Essex coast, a flat region of long grass, marshland and very little else. The only sound is the reluctant suck and sigh of the ocean coming from beyond where the land drops off. The only sign of civilisation, apart from Petroski's farmhouse, are massive wind turbines out at sea like some forgotten alien artefact, their blades pearlescent and indistinct in the afternoon's shabby light.

Gabe leads the way, but before he can knock the door to the farmhouse opens and James Petroski is in the doorway, backlit by his home's interior lighting. The gloom outside means that he is almost in silhouette, but even in the indistinct light I can see that there is something terribly wrong with him. He steps out and I see that his face is badly burned, so much so that one ear is completely gone, melted away; one eye is sightless and the skin on the damaged side of his face is ridged and shiny, like a red plastic bag that has been screwed up and hastily smoothed. He is bald apart from some ragged clumps of hair and his lips are shrunken, exposing his teeth and gums.

‘Hey,' he says. ‘You found me.' From something so damaged, I hardly expect human sounds to emerge, but James Petroski sounds as genial as if he is welcoming friends round to watch the game. The contrast is so unexpected that I half expect him to pull off his mask, reveal a normal-looking man with a winning smile underneath. ‘No problems?'

‘No problems,' says Gabe, putting out a hand to shake. ‘It's good to meet you.'

Petroski puts his out, but his wrist is just a stump so shiny with scar tissue that it looks as if it is wrapped in cling film. He looks at it ruefully then smiles at Gabe, and although the smile looks ghastly in that wrecked face, there is also a warmth in his eyes that softens the horror of it. He holds out his left hand instead and Gabe swaps hands, shakes.

‘Some pair,' Gabe says. ‘I lost a leg over there.'

Petroski laughs and I can see his molars. ‘Not grown back?'

‘Not yet,' says Gabe. ‘Give it time.'

Petroski looks at the stump of his wrist again. ‘Grow,' he tells it. Then he looks at me, looks at Major Strauss. ‘I'm James Petroski,' he says.

We introduce ourselves and Petroski salutes Major Strauss with his stump before he catches himself, remembers that he is now a civilian, that he no longer has a hand to salute with. He smiles, shakes his head.

‘Old habits.'

‘Once a soldier,' says Major Strauss.

‘Tell me about it,' says Petroski. He steps aside. ‘Go in. I'll make tea. Then we'll talk.'

James Petroski tells us that the military is in his blood: his great-grandfather had escaped Poland and flown Spitfires in the Second World War, claimed to have shot down nine German fighters although Petroski suspects that was an exaggeration, probably an outrageous one. Petroski had decided to go into the army rather than the air force and had been a sergeant posted in Afghanistan when his career had ended.

He tells us that he had been in the back of a Warthog armoured vehicle, crossing a bridge over a river in Helmand Province when the bridge had been blown up by an IED and the vehicle had tipped into the river. It landed upside down and falling equipment and unconscious soldiers had blocked the doors, leaving them trapped and disorientated in the dark as it sank beneath the water.

‘Burning fuel was leaking, I don't know where from, and it was all over me. I couldn't move, couldn't even lift a hand to beat out the flames.'

Soldiers in following vehicles had climbed down the banks of the river to get to the soldiers, to pull them out of the wreckage. But the Taliban had hidden a sniper up in the hills above the river and every time a soldier got close, the sniper shot him.

‘They were doing their best but they couldn't get to us. Inside soldiers were screaming, some were already under water, nobody could move. The smell of burning people…' He shakes his head. ‘The vehicle kept filling up with water, soon it was up to my nose and I couldn't move my head, could only lie there until it covered me.'

Petroski is sitting on an armchair in his living room, Major Strauss and Gabe across from him on a tired yellow sofa that looks as if it was rescued from the side of a road. I am standing, as there are no more chairs. His living room is lit by a bare bulb and there is little else in the room: a low table, a TV on a pile of magazines. Petroski drinks tea and smiles at us.

‘Yep. First I caught fire, then I drowned. Could say I was having a bad day.'

He tells us that it is good for him to talk about what happened; that the more he talks about it, the less it eats away at him. It is something the psychiatrists had suggested: a way to demythologise the events of that day, take away their power.

‘Eventually they located the sniper and put down machine gun fire, dragged us out. Some of the soldiers needed resuscitating but nobody died inside that vehicle. Two were killed trying to get us out.' For the first time the vitality and warmth leaves Petroski. His head lowers in unconscious respect as he remembers their sacrifice. ‘Got to remember that I was one of the lucky ones.'

Looking at him, at what is left of his face, it is hard to believe that luck has shone on him. But I suspect that James Petroski is one of those men to whom every day is a blessing, who deals exclusively in silver linings. I can feel only admiration for him.

‘So,' says Gabe.

‘Right,' says Petroski. ‘7 Platoon.'

‘I've brought Daniel so that he can witness what you say. Make it official. Are you okay with that?'

Petroski nods.

‘That way, they've got less room to manoeuvre. Can't really refuse to reopen the inquest.'

‘7 Platoon,' says Petroski. ‘I never served with soldiers I didn't like before. But that mob, I hated being under fire with them.'

‘Didn't trust them?' says Major Strauss.

‘I'll be honest,' says Petroski. ‘Most of them, they fucking terrified me. Sir.'

‘You don't need to sir me,' says Major Strauss.

‘Sorry,' Petroski says, nearly adds ‘sir' again, swallows it in time. ‘I don't know what it was. What they'd seen, what they'd done. But they'd lost that humanity that any decent soldier needs.'

He tells us some of the stories he'd heard from them; an Afghani interpreter who had travelled with them and they'd befriended, who was later kidnapped, beheaded and left at their base's perimeter. Members of their platoon who had been killed or injured by IEDs, always the IEDs, placed on roads and made with low metal content so that they were almost impossible to detect. The daily gamble they all took as they patrolled booby-trapped streets, death always just a step away, meted out by an enemy that rarely showed its face.

‘But we all faced the same dangers,' said Gabe. ‘All of us. They didn't have it any different.'

Petroski nods. ‘I know. Sometimes I think you just get a bad bunch. All the wrong people together. They feed off each other. Spent too much time on their own and…' He runs out of words.

‘Went bad,' says Gabe. ‘I know. Felt the same thing.'

‘Just hardness. Killing was all they cared about.'

‘So you heard them talk about Creek?' says Major Strauss.

‘Right,' says Petroski. ‘Yeah. Overheard them talking about killing him. Creek shouldn't have been mixed up with that lot. He was a good man, an intelligent soldier, stubborn like you wouldn't believe.'

‘Yes,' says Gabe. ‘Wouldn't be told.'

‘Like a dog with a bone, that boy,' says Petroski. ‘They hated him.'

‘Tell us what happened,' I say. ‘Keep it simple. Just the relevant details.'

Petroski nods, silent as he goes back over what he heard, organises it in his head. ‘I wasn't with them long,' he says. ‘But I was with them when Lance Corporal Creek was killed. We'd been out on a patrol and got into contact just outside a village. Half of us were behind a wall, the other half were taking cover a few hundred metres away in the trees. Returning fire, nothing unusual. It was all over in minutes; the enemy just took off. Probably only been four or five of them, saw us, thought they'd have a pop.'

Petroski pauses, drinks tea. ‘They didn't seem concerned, 7 Platoon. About Creek. He'd been with the group in the trees and he was dead, shot through the head. Nobody said much. A couple of them carried him back to base, but there was no atmosphere. Usually with that lot, one of them got hurt and they'd want revenge. There wasn't any of that.'

‘Okay,' I say. ‘But was there anything specific you saw or heard?'

‘When we got back to base, I heard Banyan talking to a couple of others.'

‘Who?'

‘Shine and Burgess. They were laughing. Banyan said, “Yeah, I gave Creek the good news.” Shine said to him, “Got to the front of the queue?” and Banyan said, “Man had it coming,” and Shine and Burgess both agreed.'

‘That's it?' says Major Strauss.

‘That's enough,' says Gabe. ‘If he's prepared to swear to it.'

Petroski nods. ‘Course, sir.'

‘One thing,' I say. ‘A credibility issue. How come you've never said anything before?'

‘I had an appointment with the colonel in charge of the company,' says Petroski. ‘It's not like I wasn't going to say anything. Then, next day…' He shrugs, puts his spread fingers up to his ruined face. ‘Never got to see him.'

We are ready to leave, standing in Petroski's hall. The wallpaper is peeling off the ceiling and there is mould in the corners; it looks like a ninety-year-old man recently died here. The place needs work, a lot of it.