What saddened Ben most of all was the thought that, perhaps, the tragedy of July 23 had been inevitable. Of the troubled soldiers he’d known — and the extreme physical and psychological demands of the life of an SAS soldier took its toll on a few — Nick had been the one most ravaged by depression. After many years in the army, his problems had finally become too crippling a burden for him, and with drug and alcohol dependency mounting, the trauma of his divorce from Joan tearing him apart, he’d finally hit rock bottom. During an SAS operation in Serbia, Nick had barricaded himself into a room with a bottle of gin and threatened to blow his own brains out. Shortly after that incident, in October 1998, he’d been quietly dismissed from Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
Many months had passed during which Ben had heard nothing from his friend, and often feared the worst. Then, out of the blue, two years ago, a card in the maiclass="underline" Nick was up on his feet, had qualified as a commercial pilot and had set up a successful little air charter business in the Caribbean. He’d found Paradise, he’d said. He’d sounded truly happy, freed from his demons, as if the dark days had finally been put behind him. Ben had fervently wished it would stay that way.
And now this.
Ben didn’t want to judge Chapman for what he’d done. He was trying not to. Trying hard. He could scarcely bring himself to believe his friend had done this. And yet …
Sensing a presence next to him, Ben looked round and recognised the face of McNeill from B Squadron. He smiled sadly. ‘Hello, Mac. I didn’t expect to see anyone else here.’
‘Almost didn’t come,’ McNeill said dourly. ‘Now I’m here I feel like spitting on the grave.’
Ben said nothing.
Afterwards, he was walking slowly back towards his car when he heard footsteps running up behind him and a woman’s voice calling his name. He stopped.
‘You probably don’t even remember me,’ she said, catching up. Her face was flushed behind the dark glasses, her voice husky from weeping.
‘Of course I remember you, Hilary. My deepest condolences.’
She hung her head. ‘Thanks, Ben. Or should I say Major?’
Ben disliked using his title. ‘Just Ben,’ he said.
Hilary glanced quickly to one side, then the other. He could see something was alarming her. ‘Can I talk to you?’ she said abruptly.
He shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Not here. Can we go somewhere?’ She moved towards his BMW. Another glance over her shoulder, as if she thought there was someone else there behind the gravestones and the bushes.
‘What about your car?’ he said.
‘Please, can we just go? I really need to talk to you.’
There was only one road through the village. Quarter of a mile beyond the last house, Ben saw a country pub up ahead on the right. ‘Buy you a drink?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I could use one.’
The gravelled car park was almost empty. It was quarter to twelve and the lunchtime clientele obviously hadn’t turned up yet. Ben pulled up a chair for Hilary at one of the outside tables.
She shook her head. ‘I’d rather not be outside.’ The sunglasses hid much of her expression, but the tone of her voice was edgy.
‘Whatever you want,’ Ben said. He noticed the way she kept glancing back over her shoulder as he led her into the coolness of the building. She walked straight across to a corner alcove by the window. Laid her handbag on the table and sat with her back to the wall so that she could watch the car park and the road. Ben asked her what she wanted to drink. ‘I don’t care, as long as it’s strong,’ she replied.
He came back with a whisky for himself, a gin and tonic for her. She sipped it gratefully, then took off her shades. Her eyes were raw from crying. She kept glancing nervously at the window to her right. Her hands were curled into tight fists on the table. No wedding ring, Ben noticed.
‘You came alone,’ he said diplomatically.
‘You’re referring to Danny?’ Hilary shook her head ruefully, staring into her drink. ‘That was over a long time ago. I should never have married the arsehole.’
Which was pretty much what Nick had confided to Ben at the time, though he’d kept his mouth shut for fear of hurting his daughter’s feelings.
‘Your dad was a good man,’ Ben said softly. He touched her hand, then withdrew his, not sure it was the right thing. ‘I don’t care what anyone says. Whatever he might have been going through …’
Hilary glanced sharply up at him. ‘It’s all lies, Ben.’
‘What’s all lies?’
‘That dad killed himself. All lies.’
Ben looked at her. He could feel her pain. What could he say to her? That he’d been there himself once, after his mother’s own suicide? That back then, in his teens, he’d have done anything to persuade himself that she hadn’t ended her own life — believed almost anything rather than accept the truth?
‘The cops said they found antidepressants at his house,’ she said, shaking her head vehemently. ‘Uh-uh. No way.’
‘You know, maybe they did,’ Ben ventured. ‘It wouldn’t have been the first time, Hilary. Maybe we just need to accept that.’
She shook her head harder, breathing noisily with emotion. Her face was so tight that the muscles of her jaws were bunched up under the skin. ‘No, Ben,’ she insisted. ‘You don’t realise the hell he went through to get away from all that. And anyway, I just know. I know, all right? Don’t you understand?’
‘I understand that you’re in a lot of pain,’ he said gently. ‘But we all need to try to reconcile ourselves with what’s happened. It’s not going to be easy, but I promise you that, in time, it will get better.’
‘No, Ben, you don’t understand. How could you?’ Hilary paused, as if she was struggling with herself over whether to come out with whatever it was she was clearly desperate to say next. She leaned across the table, lowered her voice and came out with it. ‘I have proof that dad didn’t kill himself.’
Ben stared at her.
‘I know. It sounds crazy. But you’ve got to believe me.’
Ben could see the absolute earnestness in her eyes. ‘What kind of proof?’ he asked.
With another furtive glance at the window, Hilary reached into her handbag and took out a mobile phone. ‘This kind,’ she said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hilary thumbed the keys of the phone, held it to her ear for a moment and then passed it to Ben. ‘Listen,’ she hissed.
Not knowing what to say, he took the phone from her, put it to his own ear and heard the robotic voice of the Orange answering service. There was a pause; then the message began.
Ben’s brows knitted at the sound of his old friend’s voice, barely audible above a background of crackling and white noise and a roaring screech that was hard to identify. Nick sounded extremely agitated and frightened, clearly fighting to keep his voice calm.
‘Darling, it’s me, it’s dad … Listen to me … Something’s …’
For a few seconds, Nick’s voice was lost in the noise. Ben thought he could hear other voices, a distorted, incomprehensible pandemonium of yelling and screaming. There was no question that something terrible was happening in the background.
‘The plane …’ Nick Chapman shouted over the chaos. ‘It’s …’ He seemed to pause. When he spoke again, his voice sounded strained to breaking point with sadness. ‘Hilary, I love you. Dad loves you. Remem—’
Whatever last words Nick had spoken after that, they were dissolved in a storm of fuzz and static. Then it was the voice of the answer-phone service in Ben’s ear again: ‘To listen to the message again, press one. To save it, press two …’