‘It’s Craig,’ he said, coming to rest beside one of the chairs.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ The nurse left them, with a smile.

  ‘I appreciate you seeing me,’ Mariner said, sitting down beside Lomax. He was just a kid, Mariner realized, with a jolt. Though pockmarked with scars, his complexion was soft, with a barely established beard line. There were patches of exposed scalp in his short, fair hair and his forearms were bandaged, a thick, waxen swelling peeping out from one, as if his skin had melted.

  He caught Mariner’s gaze. ‘Grafts,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Got them all over, but they’re taking well.’

  Mariner swallowed back the lump that had suddenly constricted his throat. ‘Rory Clarke spent a lot of time at your bedside,’ he said, before clearing it. ‘I’m curious about why that was.’

  ‘He knew I was on to him,’ said Lomax. ‘That IED was meant to have killed me because I’d found out about his nasty little secret.’

  ‘So Grace Clifton wasn’t his first victim?’

  Lomax shook his head. ‘I’d say that was Monique Rousse. You may not know this, but our unit was involved in the rescue of three aid workers.’

  ‘I read about it,’ said Mariner. ‘You were honoured for it.’

  ‘Yeah, well that all makes it sound more dramatic than it was,’ said Lomax. He gazed out of the window, remembering. ‘There were four of us trekked over thirty miles across hostile territory, into the mountains. We could only move under cover of darkness, so it took more than three days. We’d located where we thought the women were being held but we had no idea about the number of captors or how well armed they would be. After a couple of false alarms, we identified the exact place. It was desolate and we thought we must have missed them, that they’d been moved on somewhere else. It can happen. Clarke went in first, leaving the rest of us under cover. He had to go carefully, in case the place was booby-trapped, but it seemed like we waited forever, must have been at least ten minutes. Eventually we got the call. He said: They’re here and they’re OK. You can come in. So in we went.’

  ‘What had taken him so long?’

  ‘The women were in a bad way. They’d been tied up and gagged, and were lying in their own waste. One of them, Monique was practically naked. She’d had half her clothes ripped off. Clarke said he’d been trying to make her decent before we all came in, you know, preserve her dignity. Anyway, it didn’t matter, we were just over the moon that it had been so easy.’

  ‘And Clarke?’

  ‘He was wired. He’d led a mission that had been successfully executed without anyone getting hurt. We all knew there would be commendations in it. The other lads and me, we were all for getting out of there as fast as we could. We had no idea if the militia would come back, but once we’d got the women out Clarke made us wait while he went to get photographic evidence.’

  ‘Was that routine?’

  ‘It wasn’t part of the brief, and we just wanted out, but he insisted. Said we had to finish the job. He was in there ages and he switched off his comms. But when he came out he was different, calm and more in control. It was like the adrenalin rush had passed.’

  ‘Did anyone else notice this?’

  ‘I don’t know. We were all focused on getting out of there as fast as possible.’

  ‘What do you think he was doing when he went back?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘Knowing what I know now? I think he was jacking off. Going in there and finding the women in that state, it did something to him.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we had three days getting the women back to the jeeps. They were pretty weak, so we had to help them. It got obvious then that Clarke had a thing about Monique. He appointed himself her personal bodyguard and at the slightest hint she needed help he was in there first before anyone else got the chance. We all started taking the piss out of him over it.’

  ‘And was it mutual, this relationship?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. The women were in shock; they hardly even spoke. But it was like Clarke took charge of her, so that no one else could. We made it back to base and the women were taken to the aid centre. A few days after, they came to thank us and that was that. Then a couple of weeks on we heard that Monique had disappeared. Her body was eventually found dumped in the river, bound and gagged.’

  ‘The news article I read put it down to revenge killing by the rebels involved in the original kidnap,’ said Mariner.

  ‘At first that made sense,’ said Lomax. ‘I said as much to Clarke. Knowing how he’d been with her I thought he’d be upset, but it was like he didn’t care. It struck me then that I couldn’t remember seeing him at all the night she went missing. It got me thinking about how weird he’d been on the rescue mission. I asked him outright where he was, and he couldn’t tell me. I let it go. I couldn’t prove anything. Then a couple of days after that we were out on foot patrol and I got blown to kingdom come.’

  ‘And when you got brought back to Birmingham he had to come too, to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘He sustained minor injuries, so he got leave.’ He picked up the scrapbook. ‘Looking in here, he was watching over me nearly all the time, those early days.’

  ‘But he wasn’t there on the Wednesday afternoon when you briefly regained consciousness, so he didn’t know what you might have said to Dee Henderson or Leo Hayden. They had to be silenced.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Lomax, momentarily lost in thought. ‘All those people. He might as well have just opened fire in the crowded hospital. What gave him away?’ he asked.

  ‘His watch,’ said Mariner.

  Lomax expelled a laugh of genuine amusement. ‘God, he was so proud of that watch,’ he said. ‘Cost him a couple of grand, so he said.’

  ‘What kind of man was he?’Mariner asked.

  ‘I suppose he was a good soldier,’ said Lomax. ‘He stuck to the rules, to the point of being obsessive, and you knew where you stood all right. But he was always at a distance watching; he never joined in with the banter and that. And some of the sights we saw, he just took it. it was like things didn’t touch him.’

  ‘At the start, I thought he was your dad,’ said Mariner.

  ‘I sometimes wish I’d known my dad,’ said Lomax. ‘But I thank Christ it wasn’t him.’

  ‘And how’s it going, the rehab?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, good days and bad. I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones.’ He seemed to really believe it.

  Mariner returned to the hotel in time for dinner with Suzy. ‘How did it go?’ she asked him as they ate. ‘Did it answer your questions?’

  ‘Some of them,’ said Mariner. ‘And I think I might have met a genuine hero.’ Thinking about the damaged young man, Mariner felt his eyes unaccountably filling up and his head dropped as he blinked them clear again. Suzy reached across the table to touch his hand, while the moment passed. ‘Thanks for coming with me,’ Mariner said, eventually, ‘and for sticking with me.’

  ‘Don’t know why I do,’ she said, pragmatically, taking her napkin from her lap and depositing it on the table. ‘You haven’t got a lot going for you.’

  ‘There must be something that makes it worthwhile,’

  ‘I’ll tell you if I find it. Actually,’ she said, ‘I have a bit of a confession to make.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I wasn’t quite truthful with you that last time I saw you. When I said I’d been at a conference in Coventry, in fact I’d been to have a look around Warwick University. I’ve applied for a job there. I mean, I haven’t got it yet, but …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mariner.

  ‘It would mean relocating, of course. I wouldn’t expect to move in with you, but I would be a bit nearer. What do you think?’

  ‘I could live with that,’ said Mariner, trying hard to sound casual.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Only … I really haven’t been too sure about us. About you.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, picking up the key to their room and dangling the fob suggestively. ‘If we’re all finished here, I think you made me a promise not long ago. Now would seem a good time to keep it.’

 

 

  Chris Collett, Dead of Night

 

 

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