“I can do my own guessing. Just tell me what you know.”
Wignall glanced at his watch, and then at the door again, weighing odds. His interview had been the shortest of the bunch. The question was written into the lines that appeared across his forehead and the glances at the door: How much time do I have before the others get suspicious?
“I'm not good at games, Lance Corporal,” I said. “If you have information that could help this inquiry along, you're obligated to provide it. I can guarantee you that you will not be named as an informant.”
After what seemed like an age of eye contact, he responded. “OK.”
The digital recorder was on the table between us. I pressed record.
“Is that necessary?” he asked, glancing back at the door, nervous.
“Don't worry about it. It's just more reliable than my notebook. Mostly, I can't even read my own handwriting.”
Wignall took a deep breath. “In for a penny…” he murmured. He hunched forward, hands clasped between his knees. The overhead fluorescent tube blinked on irregularly like a metronome with a busted spring.
“It was a night drop,” he began. “The skies were clear — a little high cloud above us at twenty thousand feet. Visibility was clear, as good as it gets. Between us and the DIP”—the desired impact point—”it was clean air. We were doing a High Altitude Low Opening jump.”
“Was this your first HALO with Sergeant Wright?”
“No. We'd done six or seven by then. We were in the groove.”
“What was the purpose of the jumps?”
“Training. Nothing special. We're doing more and more work with Special Forces from other countries these days, especially the U.S., of course. We do stuff with Delta, Seals, the CCTs… It's about making sure we do the same things and that we do them right.”
I knew that speech. I'd heard it enough times over the years — even given it myself on a couple of occasions. Without the accent, Wignall sounded like typical Special Forces — full of confidence for “The Mission.” With that Liverpool accent, though, I kept thinking he was going to break into “A Hard Day's Night.”
“Tell me about the last jumps,” I said.
“We were in a C-130, climbing. There was no talk, but only ‘cause you can't hear yourself think in a C-130, let alone hear what anyone's saying, right? The atmos in the plane between the lads was relaxed. It wasn't like what we were doing was anything out of the ordinary, though there was the tension between Sergeant Wright and Staff Sergeant Butler before we took off.”
“What was it about — the tension?”
“The Staff's not the easiest person to get along with. It's his way or the highway.”
That brought back a memory — we used to say it was the Wright way or the highway. But, in this instance, I believed there was more to it than professional ribbing. And she had red hair. “What about Amy McDonough?” I asked.
“Yeah, she was part of it. A big part of it, at least as far as Sergeant Wright was concerned. None of us was sure what sort of relationship he had with her — whether it was on or off between them. But we knew what Butler was up to, ‘cause he likes us all to know how successful he is with the birds. The Staff fancies himself as a bit of a ladies' man, if you know what I mean. He's the type who likes to get the business done quick so he can get down to the pub and brag to his friends about it. He was bonking Amy sideways, and everything else he could get his hands on. It's a thing with Butler, sir. He'd shag the bristles on a hairbrush.”
“You sound a little like you were offended by all this.”
“I'm a Christian. I don't agree with sex before marriage. It's against my religion.”
The words “you're kidding” nearly slipped out. Displays of Christian fervor from anyone other than a priest or a movie star collecting an Oscar always took me by surprise. I cleared my throat. “Do you know whether Sergeant Wright knew about Butler and McDonough?”
“No, but, you know…”
“No. I don't,” I said.
“Staff or Amy might not have told him they were together. Not in as many words, but the vibe was easy to pick up …”
Hmm. Interesting. I said, “So you're in the plane and nearly everyone's having a great time …”
“We jacked out of the aircraft's oxygen system three minutes from the jump, when the red jump lights came on, and switched to our own bottled oxy. The idea was for the stick to come out in a packet — all of us hanging onto each other as we exited the C-130. So we could keep a tight formation on the way down and all land together.”
I knew the routine. I'd done exactly this kind of thing myself before the issue between gravity and me got personal.
“We got ourselves set on the ramp. I remember looking out the back, into the night. It was pitch-black. No moon. We grabbed a handful of each other — a sleeve, webbing — and half walked, half shuffled down to the edge of the ramp. That's where the problem started. As half the packet fell out, Butler tripped and his stumble broke us up. We came out of the plane in dribs and drabs. No big deal, I thought, and it wasn't — not at first. We re-formed in the air, the lads getting themselves into position, making a V as we descended. Below me, I could see the green reflective strips on the back of the guys' helmets and chute bags. The way we rehearsed it, Staff was to be the point of the arrow, the lowest. Above and to his left was supposed to be Mortensen. Over his right shoulder, Billy Dortmund. Above Dortmund, Norris. Above Mortensen, me. Over all of us, in the center of the formation, was Sergeant Wright's station, observing. That's when I knew there was a problem. Below me, I should have been able to see three reflective strips — Mortensen's, Dortmund's, and Butler's. But I could only see two. One of the fluorescent strips was missing. It wasn't because we were dropping through cloud. The night was cloudless. I didn't know who was out of formation until I landed — it could have been Mortensen, Dortmund, or Butler.”
This was a departure from the events relayed by the other guys, and an important one. “So you're on the way down and you can see someone's not in the formation. Are you concerned at this point?” I asked.
“No, not really. I saw Butler stumble. It bugged me because I like these things done proper. But being able to iron out the kinks is why we train. Anyway, I deployed my chute at three thousand feet, and I hit the DIP light as a feather — a perfect drop, except for the fuckup at the beginning. At this stage, I knew it was Butler who was out of formation because I watched him land. If he'd been in formation, he'd have been first on the ground. Also, there was no Sergeant Wright anywhere to be seen. We waited around for a few minutes, but he didn't show. Any minute, I expected him to walk out of the bushes with his chute tucked under his arm, with an offer to buy us all a pint or three, but there was just silence. Something was wrong — we could all sense it, feel it in the air. I pulled my flashlight and started to sweep the area. Perhaps he was down and injured. There were trees on the edge of the DIP; he might have been hung up on one of them, I thought. The rest of the lads did the same, searching with their flashlights. The only one of us who didn't was Butler. He was having difficulty bundling up his chute. The way he was moving I thought he might have hurt his back or a shoulder. I didn't know at the time that his flashlight — the one you got there — was unserviceable, that the lens was broken.”
“Did anything set off any alarm bells at the time?”
“Honestly? No, sir. And not when we found Sergeant Wright's body, either. Accidents aren't unheard of — equipment fails. I could see he'd become separated from his chute harness.”
“Is that when you became suspicious?”
“More confused than suspicious, sir. I wondered how he got separated from his harness and then the concern began when the investigation started. The questions, Butler's evasion, especially then when you asked him about his flashlight. I went looking for it. I found it in our garbage can back at the house. Also, I've noticed that Butler's injuries haven't improved. I reckon he's broken a couple of ribs, though he's trying to hide it. Made me wonder why. And then we heard Sergeant Wright was cut out of his harness on the way down.” He paused and scrutinized me. “Is that what happened, sir?”