‘Syd wasn’t in the embassy operation, was he? Even peripherally?’
‘No, he wasn’t. And, before you ask, most of the embassy boys are still alive.’
‘Can you think why Byron might have wanted to live near Credenhill?’
‘Don’t make much sense to me. He never served there.’
Merrily poured out more spring water.
‘Barry, what are you not telling me?’
‘Blimey, vicar… Look… all right… it would be silly to say no psycho ever got into the Regiment… although selection does weed them out.’
‘You think he’s psychotic?’
‘I’m not qualified to make a mental-health assessment. It’s my understanding – and for Christ’s sake, keep this totally to yourself – he was later seen by army psychiatrists.’
‘You know why?’
‘Um… yeah, I do, more or less. Same rules?’
‘Of course.’
‘I wasn’t there when this happened, either, but it was an exercise in the Beacons, where you’re divided into two opposing sides. It’s about fitness and tactics and ingenuity – thinking on your feet. In reality you’re on the same side. You know where it stops. Or you should do.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Nothing. That was the point. Thick fog. Young guy falls some distance down a slope, bangs his head on a rock, dies a week or so later in hospital. Byron was lying in the bracken, watching, when it happened. It was suggested he could’ve warned the boy he was close to the edge. He didn’t.’
‘They were on opposite sides?’
‘For the day. And it would’ve drawn attention to his position.’
‘Byron didn’t know when to stop?’
‘It was… according to what we heard, it was like he’d forgotten you had to stop. Couldn’t understand why anybody was even questioning his attitude. I believe there were other occasions when his… common humanity was called into question.’
‘How?’
‘Not going any further down that road. The guys on the end of it, they’re mainly still around. And it wasn’t like he was the only one.’
‘Can you explain that a bit more?’
‘I can’t explain it at all, Merrily.’
‘You said before that even the Regiment couldn’t alter a man’s personality. Something did.’
‘Yeah,’ Barry said. ‘Something did. What it meant, of course, was that nobody in his right mind wanted to be in Byron’s gang any more. Which was causing a bit of upset so, in the end, he had to go. He was given an admin post. And then he went.’
‘Where did Syd come into this?’
‘He didn’t. Syd had gone before it got tense.’
‘Because I’m wondering if this could be a reason for the rift between Syd and Byron. Liz and Fiona both think it was something to do with Syd getting ordained, but they could be wrong.’
‘All I can tell you, Merrily, is Byron wasn’t popular, the last years.’
A wary stillness around him now. Merrily had the feeling that while he’d been talking he’d worked something out. Something he was still unsure about. It was becoming clear that anything she pulled from this was going to have to be worked for. She looked around the bar. James Bull-Davies had come in, with Alison. Amanda Rubens and her partner, Gus. Still no sign of Lol.
‘In view of all this,’ she said, ‘it seems more than a bit odd that Byron should want to come back and live near the new camp at Credenhill.’
‘You asking me if he had a grievance to work out? No way. That don’t happen. More likely it’s just business. If he’s running an adventure centre for SAS-fantasists, nowhere better to put it than near the SAS.’
Merrily shook her head, had a drink of water.
‘He seems to have virtually cleaned out his bank account just buying the land.’
‘Well, it’s paid off if he’s bringing in the punters.’
‘Syd was in this history club that Byron started, right?’
‘Was he?’
‘Do you know any of the others – who might be prepared to talk to me?’
‘No.’
Too quick, too casual.
‘But you must know a bit about the history club, Barry, because it was you who first told me about it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you know who was in it – at least some of them.’
Barry took a long resigned breath.
‘I knew them, yeah.’
‘ Knew them.’
‘Yeah,’ Barry said. ‘ Knew. You satisfied now?’
45
The clouds had sunk to the horizon in layers of brown, like the sediment in cough mixture. An early yellow moon was floating free, very close to full. The night was saying, just do it.
Lol had driven slowly along what the map had identified as a Roman road, right through the centre of Magnis, where you turned right for Kenchester and then back towards Brinsop Common. He’d reversed the truck tight up against a field gate, the kind of place you’d never leave a vehicle in the daytime, but at least it was out of sight.
Bax was right, you couldn’t see the place from the road, only the recently planted woodland, a black cake of conifers at the top of a slow rise, Credenhill hard behind it like a prison wall.
There was an entrance with a cattle grid but no barrier except, about thirty paces in, a galvanized gate, ordinary farm-issue, closed, with a padlock hanging loose. Nothing to suggest private land.
Except the sign. Quite a modest sign, black on white, mud around the edges.
THE COMPOUND TRAINING CENTRE TRESPASSERS UNWELCOME
The night that had said just do it went quiet.
Lol stood and looked around.
He’d put on his walking boots. He had the mini-Maglite in his jeans, but there was still enough light to see where you were going, so he left it there. He didn’t have a jacket. His sweatshirt was worn thin; he had to push up the sleeves because he could feel the cold through a hole in one elbow.
He climbed over the gate, but left the track, stepping into a thicket of low spruce. There was a caravan at the side of the track. Derelict, long abandoned, a coating of mould, rags at the windows. Further along, an old cattle trailer, its tyres long gone, was held up on concrete blocks.
A little scared? Maybe. But fear wasn’t the worst of emotions. Fear could be a stimulant, while shame and regret could destroy you. Letting things slide, forgetting what was important.
Lol walked close to the hedge. Couldn’t see far ahead now, and then something splintered under his boot. He patted his pockets in case he’d dropped the torch, but no, it was there. He turned the top to switch it on, shielding the beam with a hand. Something made of grey metal lay between his boots. He bent down. A grey panel, the words Digital Interface printed along it.
Part of a CCTV camera, smashed. He looked up and saw a pole from which it might have fallen. He picked up the camera. Metal. Sturdy, professional. Industrial-quality. No need to worry about showing up on a monitor in Byron Jones’s study, then. Lol carried on up the side of the track. Wasn’t going to be stupid about this. He’d go as far the wire fence and just…
‘ Uh…! ’
The pain had come from several places almost simultaneously.
It ripped up through both legs, and Lol stumbled to his knees, then lost his balance, fell over, threw out a hand to push himself up, and it was snatched and stabbed all over.
He tried to roll away, and dragged his hand free and made it to his pocket and the Maglite. Its light showed rusting metal tendrils wound around his lower legs like a manacle of thorns. Oh God, this was the fence.
Had been. He looked up and saw double strands of barbed wire stretched between poles like arched lamp-posts. Between the strands he could see where a hole, man-sized, had been cut. Where he’d walked into the wire cuttings coiled on the ground, brutal metal brambles.
Someone had done this. Someone had been and smashed the CCTV cameras and then taken wire-cutters to the fence. Someone had broken into Jones’s training facility.