He nodded. “I heard about it. That kind of thing happens when people get into fights.”
“Do you like getting into fights?” asked Jude with a directness that Carole wouldn’t have been capable of.
He smiled. The scarring on his face meant that only one side of his face turned up. He had the original stiff upper lip. It was also spookily like the smile they had seen from Viggo when he came to Woodside Cottage. “Fights?” the man echoed. “Getting into fights outside a pub? That’s not fighting, not if you’ve done the real thing.”
“By doing ‘the real thing’, do you mean that you’ve been in the army?”
He nodded in appreciation of her logic. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“And is that where you got the injuries?”
He nodded, his hand instinctively going up to the scarred side of his face. “Patrol outside Basra. Roadside bomb. Killed the driver. I got this. Driver was my mucker.”
“I’m sorry.”
The hazel eyes he turned on Jude now didn’t look drunk at all. “Yes, everyone’s sorry. Nobody can do anything about it, though. I was going to train as a chippy when I got out.” He waived the maimed hand from which two and a half fingers were missing. “Not going to be much use with that, am I?”
“But presumably you had good hospital treatment for your injuries?” said Carole.
“Oh, yes. They patched me up all right. I even got some compensation. Not much, though. It doesn’t go far.”
“And you still get benefits, don’t you?”
“Yeah. They’re not much, either. My dad was in the army. Signals.”
“During the Second World War?”
He nodded. “Served out in Egypt. And he came back here and he was treated like a bloody hero. He’d done his bit to save us all from Adolf Shickelgruber. And I come back, and I’ve done my bit to save us all from Saddam Hussein…and does anyone give a shit? No, even here in Portsmouth, where you’d have thought they knew something about the armed forces, I’m treated like some kind of pariah. Oh yes, people say, sure you had a rough time, but the war you were fighting was one we shouldn’t have got involved in in the first place. Illegal war. Turned Iraq into a bigger bloody mess than it was before we went in. Let me tell you, there’s not a lot of sympathy for an Iraq veteran. They want to forget about us, bloody government does too. We’re what’s left, we’re the mess. They want to sweep us under the carpet.”
“Do you live round here?” asked Carole.
He flicked his head back, gesturing in the direction of a shabby sixties tower block they’d noticed as they arrived. “Flat up there.”
“Sorry, we don’t know your name.” said Jude.
“No, you don’t.” He seemed quite happy to let that status quo continue.
“I’m Jude, this is Carole.”
“Carole Seddon,” said her friend, who liked to have the niceties maintained.
He still didn’t seem inclined to give them his name, so Jude persisted, “I knew Ray, the man who died.”
“Oh yes?”
“And we’ve both met Viggo.”
A reaction flicked in his hazel eyes, then he seemed to make a decision and announced, “My name’s Derren Hart.”
“And you know Viggo, don’t you?” For a moment he contemplated denying it. “Or should I call him ‘Chuck’?” Jude went on.
“I’ve met him, yes,” Derren conceded.
“He seems to regard you as a hero,” said Carole tartly, “even if nobody else does.”
“Viggo’s got problems.”
“Apparently he once tried to join the army,” said Jude.
“He told me that. The army may be hard up for recruits, but they still aren’t going to take on someone like him.” The man let out a bark of laughter. “He’s a few bricks short of a load.”
“So was Ray.”
“Yes. You know, I’ve met people who reckon anyone who goes into the forces must have mental problems. You join up with something where you’re trained to obey orders without question. Some people reckon only a lame-brain would do that.”
“And what do you reckon?”
Derren Hart turned his hazel eyes on Carole, and there was a new, appraising look in them. Either he’d never been as drunk as he was pretending to be, or else he had sobered up very quickly. “I reckon…” he said slowly, “that in certain situations – crisis situations, battle situations – making people obey orders without question is the only way of getting things done. If someone stops to make a moral judgement, it’s already too late. They’ll have been blown away before they’ve made their decision.”
“And would you still believe in obeying orders without question?” asked Jude.
“It would depend who the orders came from.”
“Like Viggo said, the orders would have to come from someone you respected?”
“Maybe. There might be other reasons why you’d obey someone.”
“The amount of money they were paying you?” suggested Carole.
He didn’t like that. The look of concentrated malevolence he turned on her made Carole certain that she’d touched a nerve. Derren Hart was in the pay of someone. Maybe he’d been paid to bring the bikers to the Crown and Anchor? And to start the fight there? If so, who was his paymaster?
“Look, why are you asking me these questions? What’s your interest in all this?”
“Oh,” Jude replied with arch fluffiness, “we’re just two little old ladies from Fethering. There’s been a murder on our doorstep and we’re doing our amateur sleuthing best to find out whodunnit.”
In spite of himself, the half-smile again flickered across his face. “Is that what you’re doing? How sweet and charming. But has it possibly occurred to you that you’re asking for trouble? A lot of murders happen because someone has been too curious and they present less of a risk dead.”
“Are you saying that that’s why Ray was murdered?” asked Jude. “He had information someone wanted kept quiet?”
“I’m not saying anything about Ray. I never met the bloke. I know nothing about him. I’m just saying that, though you present yourselves as a couple of harmless old biddies, you could be putting yourselves in serious danger.”
“From whom?”
“Like I said, less curiosity might give you longer lives.” It was clear where Viggo had got his B-movie lines from.
That thought prompted Jude to ask, “You said you know Viggo. How well do you know him?”
“I met him at a pub called the Cat and Fiddle.”
“Is that the one on the Littlehampton Road out of Fedborough?”
“Right. I used to go there with the bikers. Viggo kind of hung on to the group. He is a bit of a hanger-on by nature.”
“Yes. And when you first met him, was he dressed as a biker?”
“No, not the first evening. He’d got all the gear by the next night, though. The real bikers thought he was a joke. They didn’t want him hanging around, but I said he wasn’t doing any harm.”
“You took his side?”
“If you like. Though that makes it sound a bigger deal than it was.”
“You’re not a biker yourself, are you?” Carole observed.
“I’ve got a bike,” Derren responded defensively.
“But you don’t dress like a biker.”
“No, but I’ve got mates who’re bikers. Guys I grew up with from round here.”
“Do they include Matt?” asked Jude suddenly.
“Matt?”
“Delivery driver who lives in Worthing.”
Derren Hart shook his head. “Never heard of a biker called Matt.”
“But the ones you do know,” asked Carole, “you can organize them to go anywhere you want to, can you?”
“What are you on about?”
He looked so angry that Jude thought she’d better leap in before Carole actually accused him of controlling a Rent-a-Mob operation. “Sorry, could we get back to Viggo,” she said soothingly. “Did he ask you about your time in the army?”