Chapter 24

Thursday 3 October 2013

The only close family of Bill’s was an older brother living in Aberdeen, who he had never really got along with. When I phoned and told him of his younger brother’s death, he grumbled about how difficult the journey would be to attend the funeral, so would I understand if he gave it a miss. It was no skin off my nose, I told him, and as Bill was dead he wouldn’t be aware of his brother’s absence. It was a short conversation, lasting less than two minutes.

But I did get in touch with some of our old ex-army pals, and they showed up for the funeral, as did Bill’s ex-wife from a childless marriage of twenty years ago. Her name was Diana and she made the effort to come down from Sunderland where she lived with her second husband and two children. Although I had never met her until this day, I remembered Bill telling me how much she loved him, would always love him, but said she couldn’t possibly stay with him when she discovered he was a mercenary. He said it was something to do with her socialist-pacifist upbringing, and she regretted their parting but it was inevitable considering he made his living from someone else’s death.

While we hung around in the reception area outside the chapel of rest, waiting to be ushered inside for the short and ill-attended funeral, the polite conversation was strained. Michelle was watchful and suspicious, her eyes sweeping over Nicky and Alice, as if she was assessing their candidacy for attending the funeral of someone they had only known for such a short time. When I introduced her to Alice, she nodded curtly.

‘You can’t have known Bill for very long. Less than a week, was it?’

‘That’s right. But I liked him and thought I would come and pay my respects.’

Michelle nodded. A throat clearing strained silence in the waiting room as everyone was stuck for something to say. I was glad Michelle and I had persuaded Jackie and Olivia not to miss another day at college and school instead of travelling across London to attend Bill’s funeral, a service that would be over in a flash.

A short, slim, attractive woman sidled into our group. She wore a tight black dress, black high-heel shoes, a black fedora worn at a jaunty angle, and a red ribbon around her slender neck, with a medallion of some sort attached to it. The shade of the ribbon matched her lipstick. She looked stylish, as if she might once have been a model. She introduced herself.

‘I’m Diana. You must be Freddie. When Bill and I were married, he talked about you a lot.’

‘We go back a long way,’ I replied, wondering if anyone noticed my use of the present tense. ‘You’ve come all the way from Sunderland, I believe. That’s quite a journey.’

‘Well, I know we were married for only three years but we parted as friends. There were no recriminations.’

She spoke with a curiously attractive Geordie dialect, her statements sounding like questions.

‘As you’ve come all that way, no doubt you’ll join us in the pub afterwards.’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘No, I’m sorry, but I think I’ll have to catch the train back before the rush hour.’

‘It’s a long way to come for a very short service,’ I persisted. ‘The proper send off for someone like Bill would be in the boozer.’

‘Reminiscing about your days in the army?’ She glanced at the huddle of old ex-soldiers and spoke with a trace of bitterness. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll give that one a miss.’

I didn’t know what to say and was relieved when an usher asked us to enter the chapel for the service. I’d arranged for the Dire Straits recording of ‘Brothers in Arms’ to play softly while we waited for the service to begin. It’s quite a lengthy song, so I arranged for a fade out just before the chaplain was due to speak. As the song played I caught the eye of Bill’s ex-wife and she shook her head slightly, probably disapproving of the music choice.

As I was the closest friend of Bill, I had given the chaplain a few details about his background and what little I knew about his childhood for the eulogy, but kept off the subject of his mercenary exploits, although I let it be known that he was a good soldier in the 9th Para Engineers. The chaplain read from the outline I’d given him, talking about the diversity of Bill’s skills, and spoke about how he was also a trained and brilliant paramedic. Then he went on to read about Bill’s love of Shakespeare. I don’t think my old pal ever went to the theatre; he just enjoyed reading Shakespeare, mainly the histories, dipping into passages and memorising quotes, especially relevant passages to do with soldiering, Henry V being one of his favourites. The chaplain paused prior to his conclusion, looking around at the middle-aged ex-military men, before ending the tribute with the quotation ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ We all bowed our heads for ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, followed by a mumbled ‘Amen’, and then the coffin began its journey to the furnace as my appropriately chosen ‘Brothers in Arms’ faded up.

In spite of Michelle’s disapproval of the way I had brought Bill’s misfortune to our doorstep, as we watched the coffin disappearing through the gap in the curtains, she took my hand and squeezed it. The sympathy and understanding was brief and of the moment, and I knew it wouldn’t last.

There were a few sniffles, especially from Bill’s ex-wife, and I noticed one of Bill’s old comrades wiping a tear from his eye. It was over in a trice and we shuffled out into the warm autumn sun.

I saw Diana taking a mobile and a business card out of her handbag and I guessed she was about to ring for a taxi. ‘How are you getting to Kew Gardens station?’ I asked her.

‘The same way as I got here. By cab.’

‘I’ll give you a lift, Diana.’

‘That’s OK. I don’t want to keep you from your booze-up.’

I wanted to tell her that according to the online details of the crematorium it was only a ten minute walk to the station, but her high heels looked precarious and weren’t designed for anything more distant than crossing a wine bar.

Michelle placed a hand on Diana’s to stop her dialling. ‘I’ll run you Diana. Freddie can get a lift with one of his old comrades. Kew Gardens station’s not far.’ Michelle saw Diana about to protest, and added, ‘I insist. It’s no trouble at all.’

‘Thank you.’

I shook hands with her, thanked he for coming, and watched as Michelle walked her to the car, thinking how sad it was that she had made the hefty journey for such a brief farewell. I wondered if it was closure and she could now get on with life and no longer indulge in thoughts of how things might have been had Bill not been a mercenary. I also wondered what her husband and children had been told was the reason for this trip. Then I freed it from my mind. What did it matter? I was never going to know.

Alice gave Nicky and me a lift to the pub, The Botanist Brewery on Kew Green. I had reserved an area for us, and put in an order for a the first round of drinks. I decided to put off ordering any food until Michelle turned up, but when my mobile bleeped, I saw that it was a text message from her, saying she didn’t feel like drinking, had gone home, and would I mind using public transport to get back.

Bad enough that I felt guilty and responsible for Bill’s death, without Michelle rubbing my nose in it. And as if to compound the way I was being swallowed up by the insatiable monster of death and gloom, Jeremy Wallbank, an old comrade from the 9th Para regiment, cornered me, demanding to know the truth about how Bill died. He clearly didn’t believe my story about the faulty vehicle catching fire.

‘Knowing Bill,’ he said, ‘he’d have been out of the driving seat in a flash. The car wouldn’t have exploded immediately. That was a fucking car bomb, Freddie, and don’t try to tell me any different. What the fuck’s going on?’

His voice had risen, and I noticed one of the bar staff staring at us, a worried look on his face. He knew we would spend lavishly, but equally he didn’t want customers in attendance who might lower the tone of the place.

‘Please, Jem, keep your voice down. I can’t tell you at this stage. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want it to get out.’

‘Don’t want what to get out? That’s not good enough, Freddie. I want to know what really happened to Bill. And what the police are doing about it? Don’t give me any more of your bullshit, Freddie. I’m not fucking stupid. I want t know what happened to our old mate.’

Jimmy Gresham, a corporal from our time in Northern Ireland in the mid-seventies, attracted by the intensity of his harangue, stood at his side, nodding fervently. He was soon joined by the four others: Clive ‘Squirrel’ Nutkin, Jack Bradley, Ken ‘Gunner’ Thomson and Dick Russell. Their eyes bored into me as I was forced into the focus of their enclosing circle. Surrounded. Clearing my throat nervously, I racked my brains for something I could tell them that wouldn’t compromise our investigation, upsetting my client.

But it was Alice who came to my rescue.

‘I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ she said, as she pushed her way into the circle and stood next to me.

Some of them exchanged puzzled looks as she paused, and I could see her working out just how much of the story to give them.

‘Before I married, my name was Alice Bayne. If some of you cast your minds back, you might remember me from the media.’ She stared at them, waiting for one of them to recognise her.

Dick Russell was the first. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped. ‘You’re the young girl whose family was wiped out in Scotland.’

Some of them exchanged looks and muttered that they remembered the dreadful incident.

‘Well,’ Alice went on, ‘for eleven years the police got nowhere. So I came to meet Freddie and Bill to see if they were prepared to take the case on. Then, when they agreed to represent me, they did something the police were unable to do: they discovered the false identity of the killer, who it turns out is or was an undercover cop.’ She paused, looking at each of them in turn, waiting for a response. It was Jem who provided it.

‘Is that why the police have kept the car bomb incident quiet?’

She shrugged. ‘It could be. But we don’t really know.’

‘So what happens now?’ Jimmy Gresham asked.

‘The killer’s been getting careless,’ I said. ‘I think he’s running scared. So we think we have a plan to flush him out.’

The circle of six ex-soldiers stared at me with mixed expressions of admiration and envy. They had all settled for a safe but humdrum existence and clearly missed the danger and excitement of their younger days.

I smiled at Alice, grateful for her assistance in getting me off the hook with my old army pals and giving them as much information as she dared.

‘Is there anything we can do to assist in tracking down this bastard?’ Jem said.

I stifled a smile as I looked at the old soldier, who was now at least six stone overweight, and hadn’t aged well, looking more like a man of seventy than someone in his mid-fifties.

‘Thanks, Jem, but all we ask is total silence. And I promise I’ll give you the full story after it’s all over.’

An uncomfortable silence. I could tell they were all thinking that we might end up the same way as Bill, and often it’s the bad guys who triumph.

It was Nicky who broke the spell of doom. ‘Shall we order some food now?’