An hour later, Nick found himself standing on another range, outdoor this time, watching a dozen camouflage-clad figures decimate their wood and paper enemy.
They were firing the standard British Army assault rifle, the SA80, from the prone position. The air was harsh with the rip and clatter of semiautomatic weapons, the smell of burned powder. Nick jammed his fingers in his ears and tried not to remember his own skills in that direction. Back before his broken hands had healed without the delicacy of touch he’d once enjoyed.
He’d been delivered up to the range by a taciturn female corporal who introduced herself as the CO’s aide. She waited until the burst was over, then pointed out a man at the far end of the squad, just in case Nick missed the insignia, and left him to it. As the khaki Land Rover Defender disappeared back down the hill towards the main camp, he hoped Frederickson was going to be amenable or he was in for a long walk.
A short bulldog of a man, with spit-shined combat boots and a weather-beaten face like a local sheep farmer, intercepted him, bristling. He was barely placated by the sight of Nick’s warrant card.
Giles Frederickson got to his feet, meanwhile, took his time about pinching out his ear defenders, giving Nick a thorough stare. Seeing him now, in uniform, made Nick wonder how he could have missed the man’s military bearing. He’d rarely seen someone look so at home in fatigues.
“Well, sar’nt-major?” Frederickson said, not taking his eyes off Nick.
“Nice grouping, sir.” The bulldog man turned to glare at the soldiers who were eyeing Nick with undisguised curiosity. “All right, you lot! Show’s over,” he bellowed. “Here, you, private. Make yourself useful and go paste up the holes in the major’s target. And make sure you take plenty of paper squares, laddie, because you can bank on it there’ll be plenty to cover.”
The rest scattered, wary of a worse assignment.
Frederickson straightened his battledress tunic. “So, what can I do for you, Mr Weston?”
Interesting, thought Nick. Angela Inglis had tried to intimidate him by emphasising his rank. Frederickson’s approach was not to give him the courtesy of a rank at all.
“Just a follow-up to yesterday’s incident, sir,” he said blandly, reaching for his notebook. “Sometimes we find things occur to people when they’ve slept on it.” He paused inquiringly, contained his disappointment when Frederickson did not leap straight into a confession.
Instead, the major slid his gaze across the hovering warrant officer. “If you wouldn’t mind ensuring my rifle gets back to the armoury safely, sarn’t-major?”
“Yessir.” The other man eyed Nick as though in favour of capital punishment for impertinence. He snapped briefly to attention and spun on his heel.
Frederickson watched him leave before he remarked, “Taking all this rather seriously, aren’t you, Mr Weston?”
“Would you rather we shrugged our shoulders and said, ‘ah well, he got what was coming to him’?” Nick asked. “Besides, after the whole Derrick Bird thing a few years back we take all incidents involving firearms very seriously, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”
“Naturally.” Frederickson had the grace to look chastened. He didn’t need the reference explaining further, even if it was before his time. It was before Nick’s time too, come to that, but it had made the national news for days when a Cumbrian taxi driver had gone on an armed rampage, killing twelve people and injuring another eleven.
The major began to move, forcing Nick into step alongside. They walked in silence until Frederickson halted by another ubiquitous Land Rover Defender, leaned on the front wing and stared into the distance as if fascinated by the swathes of yellow gorse.
“Got up this morning and was halfway down the stairs to let Ben out before it hit me he wasn’t there,” he said, reflective. “I’ll miss him.”
“You hadn’t had the dog long, though, had you, sir?”
Frederickson flicked him a wary glance, straightened and jerked his head.
“Hop in. I’ll run you back down to camp.”
Nick just had time to scramble into the rudimentary seat before the major fired up the engine and threw the Defender into a wide circular turn, as if hoping to distract him by reckless driving alone.
“Not long,” he said then. “He wasn’t much more than a pup, after all.”
“Can I offer you some advice, major? When you leave the army don’t turn to crime—you’re a lousy liar.”
Frederickson’s head turned sharply in his direction, just as the Defender went airborne over a particularly nasty yump. Nick grabbed at the dashboard to brace himself. “You might have a future as a getaway driver, though.”
When that gained him no response, Nick sighed.
“Look, we already know the dog belonged to Mrs Inglis, and if you think you’re protecting her by claiming—”
“Ben used to belong to Angela,” Frederickson said quickly. He paused, added with dignity. “She gave him to me some months ago. I wasn’t lying yesterday, Mr Weston, when I told you that Ben was my dog, my responsibility. He was.”
Nick digested this in momentary silence. “When, exactly, did she give you the dog?”
“Shortly after Christmas.” He gave a brief rusty smile. “As I mentioned to you yesterday, Angela has two Siamese and Ben was an inveterate cat-chaser. Her husband’s choice, but completely unsuitable, in my opinion. Wanted her to have something of a guard dog while he was away.” He flicked his eyes sideways again, as if to see how Nick was taking all this. “I offered to take Ben off her hands. Felt sorry for the poor beggar, if you must know.” He let out a quick breath, more of a snort, as he braked hard for the junction with the main A66 that divided the ranges from the rest of the camp. “Not much of a reprieve, as it turned out.”
Nick took advantage of the momentary calm to make a note before the Defender lurched forwards again, heading for a gap in traffic.
“And you didn’t think to mention any of this yesterday?”
“Frankly, I didn’t see what relevance it had.” They were alongside the football field now, which doubled as a helo landing site, its faded orange windsock billowing in the lazy wind. The major bent his head to peer at a group of cadets who were building what seemed to be a showjumping wall on the touchline.
“Military training exercise?” Nick asked drily.
“Hardly.” Frederickson gave another of those austere smiles. “My lads are providing the main arena crew for the agricultural show next Saturday. I believe I did mention that yesterday.”
He slowed to a crawl as they turned in towards the main gate, where two armed guards waved them to a halt and checked their ID. Nick had been through the same procedure on his arrival and he was pretty sure they must recognise their own CO by now.
“Bit jumpy, aren’t they?”
“Standard operating procedure, Mr Weston,” Frederickson said severely. “No point in doing a sloppy job.”
After another couple of turns, he braked alongside Nick’s Subaru, in front of the main office building. They went in, past the same corporal, who barely glanced up from her keyboard.
“See if you can rustle up some coffee, would you, Parrish?” Frederickson said over his shoulder as he strode through.
The major’s office was hardly the plush command centre Nick had expected. The furniture wouldn’t have looked out of place back at the station; an old desk, a line of grey filing cabinets that leaned slightly away from the wall as though the floor tilted towards the centre, and a pair of upright visitors’ chairs that were not designed to be welcoming.
The only personal touch Nick saw was a line of framed photographs on the wall behind the major’s chair, showing the man himself in various foreign locations going back probably twenty years. In all of them he was surrounded by sun- or wind-burned men in uniform, brandishing a selection of impressively fearsome weaponry.
Nick expected Frederickson to sit, but he moved to the window instead, gazing out with his back to the room.
“So, you can’t think of any reason why someone might want to shoot your dog, sir?”
The major’s back stiffened in irritation.
“Apart from the obvious—that he’d been running amok in a field of sheep, you mean? No.”
“What about Mrs Inglis, sir?” Nick persisted. “Has she mentioned anything to you? Do you know if anyone would want to hurt her? Send a warning, a threat, perhaps?”
Frederickson turned then, his face mildly insulted. “Apart from the Airey girl? No.” For the first time, there was snap to his voice. “Why don’t you ask her yourself, Mr Weston?”
“I intend to, sir. Thank you for your time.” He got to his feet, folded the notebook away into his inside pocket, nodding to the photographs. “You’ve done some travelling.”
“A fair bit.”
“That first one—Falklands, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Frederickson followed his gaze, surprised. “It was taken just after Goose Green.”
“And that next one…Iraq, at a guess?”
That tiny smile again. “Close. Liberation of Kuwait City. I served in both Gulf wars, Mr Weston. South Atlantic, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Northern Ireland. All the favourite holiday destinations.”
“Quite a career.” Nick met the major’s eyes. “So, what did you do to end up in a backwater like this?”
Frederickson stiffened, colour threading through the veins of his gaunt cheeks. “Perhaps it was simply time this old warhorse was finally put out to grass.” He paused, treated Nick to another assessing stare. “Why, what did you do?”