MINETTE WALTERS
The Chameleon’s
Shadow
By the same author
THE ICE HOUSE THE SCULPTRESS THE SCOLD’S BRIDLE THE DARK ROOM THE ECHO THE BREAKER THE SHAPE OF SNAKES ACID ROW FOX EVIL DISORDERED MINDS THE DEVIL’S FEATHER
and
THE TINDER BOX
CHICKENFEED (Winner of the Quick Reads Readers’ Choice)
First published in Australia in 2007
Copyright © Minette Walters 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Walters, Minette. The chameleon’s shadow.
ISBN 978 1 74175 229 8 (pbk.). ISBN 978 1 74175 350 9 (hbk).
I. Title.
823.914
Typeset by SetSystems Ltd, Essex, United Kingdom. Printed by Griffi n Press, South Australia. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Marie and Sarah
Shadow – In the theory of C. G. Jung (1875–1961) the dark aspect of personality formed by those fears and unpleasant emotions which, being rejected by the self or persona of which an individual is conscious, exist in the personal unconscious.
-Oxford English Dictionary
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) – Some common disabilities include problems with . . . behaviour and mental health (depression, anxiety, personality changes, aggression, acting out and social inappropriateness).
-Wikipedia
Southwark Echo, Friday, 29 September 2006
Murder victim ‘beaten to death’
THE BODY OF A MAN, discovered year. Det Supt Jones said Mr Britton two days ago when police were may have known his attacker. called to a house in south London, ‘There was no sign of forced entry,’ has been identified as that of Martin he added. Britton, a 71-yr-old retired civil ser-The Superintendent refused to vant who worked for the Ministry of confirm whether this murder is Defence. Friends and neighbours being linked to the death of Harry said Mr Britton hadn’t been seen for Peel, a 57-yr-old taxi driver who several days. The decision to enter died from extensive head injuries the house was taken after police two weeks ago. Mr Peel lived less used a ladder to check the bedroom than two miles from Greenham windows. Road and was found in his bedroom
A post-mortem examination car-by his estranged wife after she ried out yesterday revealed that became concerned that he wasn’t Martin Britton died from head injur-answering his mobile. ies. ‘He was beaten to death in a The police have enlisted the help violent attack,’ said Det Supt Brian of the gay community in the search Jones, who is leading the inquiry. for Harry Peel’s killer. A one-time ‘We believe it happened on Satur-soldier in an armoured regiment, he day, 23 September, and we are ask-worked for several years in the ing for anyone who was in docks before becoming a cab driver Greenham Road on that date to seven years ago. He was a regular come forward.’ visitor to the bars and clubs in his
Neighbours describe Martin Brit-area. ton as a ‘charming and courteous’ Searches by scenes of crime offiman who became ‘something of a cers are continuing at the Greenham recluse’ after his partner died last Road house.
Eight weeks later
THE CONVOY OF armoured trucks, led by a Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle, had been visible for some time to the four Iraqis who crouched in what remained of the upper storey of an abandoned roadside building. The road – part of the highway that linked Basra to Baghdad – cut a straight path across the flat desert landscape, and the group’s elevated position and long-range binoculars had allowed them to track the convoy from the moment the lead vehicle breasted the distant horizon.
The heat was intense. Shimmering mirages produced trompe-l’oeil reflections in the tarmac, and one of the insurgents captured the effect on a DVD camera before zooming in on the turret of the Scimitar. He could make out the helmeted heads of the two soldiers on either side of the 30mm cannon, and of the driver below it, but the vehicle was still too far away to identify their faces. Another insurgent pointed to a telegraph pole in the long line that marched beside the road and said there would be two good minutes between the Scimitar passing the pole and the explosion. Time enough to capture British soldiers on film before the home-made culvert bombs on either side of the highway obliterated them forever.
The cameraman expected to see complacency, even arrogance, on the faces of the coalition oppressors, but the close-up footage of the three men showed only concentration. There was even a suggestion, in the way the commander, a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant, suddenly shouted an order, that he had spotted something amiss in the dust beside the highway. It was too late.
The roadside bombs, a collection of anti-tank mines rigged to produce a blast that was powerful enough to rip the guts out of a Bradley tank, detonated simultaneously as the vehicle passed between them.
The film clip of a British Scimitar rising into the air before turning over in flames received considerable airtime across the Muslim world. In the Iraq bazaars, it became a ‘must-have’ DVD for anyone whose electricity supply was intermittent or whose satellite dish had been pushed out of alignment by coalition bombing. The propaganda coup of a small Iraqi cell taking out a coalition vehicle with home-made bombs was irresistible, particularly as viewers and experts alike claimed to see fear, not concentration, on the faces of the three Western soldiers. It was taken as an indication that morale in the coalition forces was crumbling and that an end to the occupation was near.
With a different set of ethics governing the coverage of war in Britain, news editors decided against screening the close-up footage for fear of generating complaints about insensitivity. Only one of the men had survived, albeit with disfiguring injuries, and in such circumstances even the most hardened broadcasters felt the line between reportage and exploitation was here too thin to be tested.