‘Oh, I never leave anything to fantasy, detective. You must know that by now.’
There is something horribly truthful about the statement.
‘You’re going to prison for the rest of your life, Major Tyler. Things happen in prison to people like you. They get changed.’
Gideon smiles. ‘I’m not going to prison, Detective Inspector. Ask him.’ He motions to the military lawyer who doesn’t hold his gaze. ‘I doubt if I’ll even get out of this place. Ever heard the word rendition? Black prisons? Ghost flights?’
The lawyer steps forward. He wants the interview terminated.
Veronica Cray ignores him and keeps talking. ‘You’re a soldier, Tyler, a man who lives by rules. I’m not talking about military regulations or regimental codes of honour. I’m talking about your own rules, what you believe, and hurting children doesn’t come into it.’
‘Don’t tell me what I believe,’ Gideon says, his heels scraping on the floor. ‘Don’t talk about Honour, or Queen and Country. There are no rules.’
‘Just tell me what you’ve done with Mrs O’Loughlin and her daughter.’
‘Let me see the Professor.’ He turns to the mirror. ‘Is he watching? Are you there, Joe?’
‘No. You’ll talk to me,’ says the DI.
Gideon raises his arms above his head, stretching his back until his vertebrae pop and crack. Then he slams his fists into the table. The combination of his strength and the metal cuffs creates a sound like a gunshot and everybody in the room flinches except for the DI. Gideon crosses his wrists, holding them in front of himself as though warding her off. Then he flicks his hands apart and a long splash of blood flies across the table and lands on her shirt.
Using the edge of the handcuffs, Gideon has opened a gash across his left palm. DI Cray says nothing but her face is suddenly pale. She pushes back her chair and stands, looking at the crimson slash of blood on her white shirt. Then she excuses herself from interview while she changes.
With three quick stiff steps she reaches the door. Gideon calls after her. ‘Tell the Professor to come and see me. I’ll tell him how his wife died.’
69
I meet Veronica Cray in the passageway outside the interview suite. She looks at me helplessly and lowers her gaze, sagging under the weight of what she knows and doesn’t know. The bloodstain is drying on her shirt.
‘They’re sending a military chopper. I can’t stop them. They have a warrant signed by the Home Secretary.’
‘What about Charlie and Julianne?’
Her shoulder blades flinch beneath her shirt. ‘There’s nothing more I can do.’
It’s what I feared. The MOD cares more about silencing Gideon Tyler than it does about a missing mother and daughter.
‘Let me talk to him,’ I say. ‘He wants to see me.’
Time shimmers for a moment. The hubbub of the world disappears.
The DI takes a cigarette from a packet in the pocket of her trousers. She rests it between her lips. I notice a tiny tremor in her hand. Anger. Disappointment. Frustration. It could be all of them.
‘I’ll get rid of the military lawyer,’ she says. ‘You might only have twenty minutes. Take Ruiz with you. He’ll know what to do.’
The insinuation in her voice has not been there before. She turns and moves slowly along the passage towards the stairs.
I enter the interview suite. The door swings shut behind me.
We’re alone for a moment. The very air in the room seems to have congregated in distant corners. Gideon can no longer jump to his feet or pace the floor. His handcuffs have been secured on the surface of the table, fixed with bolts and recessed screws. A doctor has bandaged the cut to his palm.
I move closer and take a seat opposite him, placing my hands on the table. My left thumb and forefinger are beating a silent tattoo. I take the hand away and press it between my thighs. Ruiz has slipped into the room behind me, shutting the door softly.
Gideon gazes at me steadily with a formless smile. I can see the ruins of my life reflected in his glasses.
‘Hello, Joe, heard from your wife lately?’
‘Where is she?’
‘Dead.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You killed her the moment I was arrested.’
I can smell the very odour of his insides, the rancid, festering, misogyny and hatred.
‘Tell me where they are.’
‘You can only have one of them. I asked you to choose.’
‘No.’
‘I wasn’t given a choice when I lost my wife and daughter.’
‘You didn’t lose them. They ran away.’
‘The slut betrayed me.’
‘You’re making excuses. You’re obsessed with your own sense of entitlement. You believe because you’ve fought for your country, done terrible things for them, that you are owed something better.’
‘No. Not better. I want what everyone else wants. But what if my dream conflicts with yours? What if my happiness comes at your expense?’
‘We make do.’
‘Not good enough,’ he says, blinking slowly.
‘The war is over, Gideon. Let them come home.’
‘Wars don’t end,’ he laughs. ‘Wars thrive because enough men still love them. You meet people who think they can stop wars, one person at a time, but that’s bullshit. They complain that innocent women and children get killed or wounded, people who don’t choose to fight, but I’m betting a lot of them wave their sons and husbands off to war. Knit them socks. Send them food.
‘You see, Joe, not every enemy combatant carries a gun. Old men in rich countries make wars happen. And so do the people who sit on the sofas watching Sky News and voting for them. So spare me your bullshit homilies. There are no innocent victims. We’re all guilty of something.’
I’m not going to argue the morals of war with Gideon. I don’t want to hear his justifications and excuses, sins of commission and omission.
‘Please tell me where they are.’
‘And what are you going to give me?’
‘Forgiveness.’
‘I don’t want forgiveness for what I’ve done.’
‘I’m forgiving you for who you are.’
The statement seems to shake him for a moment.
‘They’re coming to get me, aren’t they?’
‘A chopper is on its way.’
‘Who did they send?’
‘Lieutenant Greene.’
Gideon looks at the mirror. ‘Greenie! Is he listening? His wife Verity has the sweetest arse. She spends every Tuesday afternoon in a budget hotel in Ladbroke Grove fucking a lieutenant colonel from acquisitions. One of the lads from ops put a bug in the room. What a tape! It’s been passed round the whole regiment.’ He smirks and closes his eyes, as if reliving the good times.
‘Could you adjust my glasses for me, Joe?’ he asks.
They’ve slipped down his nose. I lean forward and place my thumb and forefinger on the curved frame, pushing it up to the bridge of his nose. The fluorescent lights catch in the lenses and turn his eyes white. He tilts his head and his eyes are grey again. There doesn’t seem to be any magnification from the lenses.
He whispers. ‘They’re going to kill me, Joe. And if I die, you’ll never find Julianne and Charlie. The ticking clock- we all have one, but I guess mine is running a little faster than most and so is your wife’s.’
A bubble of saliva forms and bursts on my lips as I open them but no words come out.
‘I used to hate time,’ he says. ‘I counted Sundays. I imagined my daughter growing up without me. That was mechanical time, the stuff of clocks and calendars. I deal in something deeper than that now. I collect time from people. I take it away from them.’
Gideon makes it sound as though years can be traded between individuals. My loss can be his gain.
‘You love your daughter, Gideon. I love mine. I can’t possibly understand what you’ve been through, but you won’t let Charlie die. I know that.’
‘Is that who you want?’