I smoked a couple of cigarettes. At nine-thirty Colonel Hall arrived to take me to Bracknell to clear out my room. Before we reached the car he stopped, looked around and said in a low voice, ‘Look, I’m breaking the rules by saying this … don’t feel as though you’re on your own in this. You’re not. A lot of people are backing you on this but they can’t tell you. People like Rose and Smith cast long shadows.’ It was something to cling to.
When we arrived at Bracknell the students were in a lecture. Just as well because I didn’t want to see any of them. Plod had gutted my room – laptop, printer, keyboard, monitor, books, books, books – all issued – gone. Gone also one copy of Playboy, my Service Dress jacket and my medals. They’d even unpicked my miniatures from my Mess Dress jacket.
It took me less than half an hour to pack up my room. We then drove back to Farnham in convoy. I dumped my stuff without bothering to unpack it and jumped in with Colonel Dennis. Next stop Regimental Headquarters, The Parachute Regiment in Aldershot to see my new Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Joe Poraj-Wilczynski, the Regimental Colonel. We’re old friends. He was shocked, didn’t really know what it was all about. All he’d heard was that I’d been arrested, kicked out of Staff College and that I was to be under him for welfare matters. Joe gave me a cup of coffee and Colonel Dennis returned to Bracknell saying he’d send his driver back for me. I still had to collect the motorbike.
Joe and I chatted for about an hour. He explained that, as my CO, he couldn’t be privy to any details about the case and that we’d have to confine our conversations to other matters. This was a blow. I was rapidly running out of people to talk to.
The driver took me back to Bracknell. When we arrived I discovered that I had to go and see my Divisional Colonel, Colonel Hamish Fletcher, also a Para and an old acquaintance. As I walked into his office he stood up and just stared at me. It looked as though he’d been crying, but he hadn’t – bad flu. Concern and worry were etched across his face.
‘Has someone stitched you up, Milos?’
‘Don’t know, Colonel.’ Really I didn’t.
He continued, ‘I’m not supposed to say this to you or talk to you about it but, when you were arrested we had a meeting with them and I told him in no uncertain terms. I told the spook that …’
‘Spook? Y’sure, Colonel? It was MoD Police who arrested me.’
‘No, this guy was definitely a spook and I told him, “You better make sure you’ve got this right. He’s thirty-four, last chance at Staff College, and you’ve just blown his career apart. If you’ve got this wrong he could just turn round, resign and sue the MoD!”’
I blanched. Thanks for the support, but I wish you hadn’t said that. Now they’ll be under added pressure to prove a case, to fabricate something.
‘Your posting order’s being sorted out now. I’m popping over to Aldershot this afternoon with it. Where will you be?’ I told him I’d wait in Joe’s office and with that I went, collected the bike and sped off to Aldershot.
Colonel Joe had some more unpleasant news for me. He produced a long secret signal which he’d received from someone in the MoD. It was a set of Draconian instructions detailing what I could and couldn’t do. I was forbidden from having any contact with anyone in the Services and discussing the case. If I did they’d be obliged instantly to record the details of the conversation and report them to the MoD Plod. But I was free to organise my own defence!
Colonel Hamish arrived at five with the paperwork. He told me that General Rupert Smith had phoned him from Northern Ireland and that his first question had been, ‘Has he been spying for the Serbs?’ Colonel Hamish had told him ‘no’.
‘Well, you told him right, Colonel. I haven’t been spying for the Serbs!’
Before I left for Farnham, Joe asked me if there was anything he could do for me on the welfare front. I’d thought about it long and hard in the cell and throughout the day.
‘There’s only one thing I want right now, Colonel. I want to see a doctor, and not just any doctor.’ I told him about Ian. Joe wanted to see me on Monday. Till then I was free to do my own thing.
I arrived home at five-thirty with a splitting headache. I hadn’t eaten for forty-eight hours but I wasn’t in the least bit hungry. I tried to turn the key but the front door was already unlocked. Niki was lying on the sofa with Frankie, her dog. She’d come down from London for the night. She had a christening in Camberley the next day and we’d made the arrangement the previous weekend. She smiled brightly at me. ‘I’m bored with this revision. How’s your day been?’ She had an Open University exam to sit on the following Wednesday.
I sat down heavily in the armchair, loosened my tie and just stared at her. She frowned.
‘Notice anything different about the house, Niki?’
Her frown deepened. ‘No, not really. Well, sort of cleaner, less junk. Come to think of it, have you had a clearout?’
‘Sort of …’ I closed my eyes and took a deep breath – here goes! – ‘Nix, I was arrested for espionage on Thursday … I’m on police bail …’
She stared back at me uncomprehendingly. The next four days were a nightmare, so bad that I can’t recall them.
And now I’m sitting in front of this bloke Ian, who’s asking me why I’m here. I’m staring out of the window wondering why there are no yachts out there on the sea. Must be at least a force six – perfect perfect day for a sail … Why am I here?
‘Why am I here, Ian? … I’ll tell you why. I’m here because I’ve got nothing left, nothing. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘That’s right, nothing!’ I struggle to control my voice. ‘Look! The Army’s a great life-support machine. It provides you with all sorts of crutches … well, life-jackets really. They keep you afloat and everything looks fine to the casual observer …’
‘Life-jackets?’
‘Precisely that. The uniform is a life-jacket, so is the job. They prop you up and keep you going … you know, you stick on the uniform and the beret and bingo! You’re a company commander. But when you take off the uniform, when you get home in the evenings or at the weekend and you step through the front door – alone – you step back into the museum and the pause button on the machine in your head gets pressed. The tape starts running again, and you’re back there. You’re somebody else and you’re back there. Everything else is irrelevant because being back there is more real.’
‘Where’s there, Milos?’
‘The Dark Side, Ian. You’re back on the Dark Side. That’s what we called Serb-held territory. That’s it then, by day or during the week you’re a major, Parachute Regiment, MBE, company commander or student. But at night or during the weekends you’re somebody else, you’re Stanley again … Mike Stanley, fixer, useful tool. You won’t believe this, Ian, but people still ring me up and call me “Mike”. Geordie does all the time. And I still get letters dropping onto the carpet addressed to this person called Mike Stanley … there are still people out there who don’t know me as anything other than Mike Stanley!’
‘And now? Who are you now?’ he asks gently.
I think hard. I’m not sure of the answer. ‘I’m both, Ian. Or maybe I’m nothing … a hybrid, a monster.’
I lapse into silence. I’m fiddling with the bezel of my watch – round and round and round, click, click, click, click, click, click. Ian’s waiting for me to say something. A thought enters my head and makes me instantly furious. I look directly at Ian.
‘I still can’t believe it, really, I can’t … I mean,