‘To keep an eye on new recruits?’
‘Yeah. Their spiritual health, mental health, all that crap.’
‘What did you talk to him about?’
Another shrug. ‘Stuff.’
‘Can you tell me?’
He shook his head. ‘They’re supposed to be confidential, aren’t they? My discussions with him? I should have known not to talk to him.’ Ryan slumped in the bucket chair, started kicking at the carpet with one of his combat boots, muttered under his breath. ‘Fuckin’ kiddie fiddler.’
Catholic. Kiddie fiddler. The chaplain must get that all the time – an occupational hazard. Jessie continued to look at Ryan, but he didn’t add anything else. She waited, the silence growing heavier.
‘Do you believe in God, Doctor Flynn?’ he asked suddenly.
Jessie took a beat before answering. She had been raised a Catholic, sent to a convent school, but she had never seen any evidence that the people around her lived by God’s word. Had seen no evidence at all of the existence of a just and gentle God. The only God she had experienced persecuted and destroyed.
And God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his kingdom, for which you are suffering.
Persecution without justice.
‘No, Ryan, I don’t believe in God.’
Ryan looked up and their gazes met for a fraction of a second before he looked away again. Minute progress, but progress all the same.
‘My mum spent time in a mental home, you know, when I was younger. Perhaps madness runs in the family.’
‘No one is saying that you’re mad.’
‘But it does run in families, doesn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘Madness?’
‘There is no such thing as madness,’ Jessie said quietly, her gaze finding the window. ‘There are disorders, some caused by physical factors, chemical imbalances in people’s brains, some caused by psychological factors, such as bad experiences in childhood.’ She fought to keep her voice even, feeling the tension rise, the electric suit tingle against her skin. Madness. ‘They can all be treated, but the patient needs to be willing.’
She thought that Ryan would have switched off, be picking at his beret or kicking at the carpet again, but when she looked back from the window, she saw that he was watching her intently.
‘Well, perhaps I am.’
‘Willing?’
‘Mad.’
‘Perhaps we all are.’ Jessie smiled, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘We’re all individuals, Ryan. Don’t feel that you need to be the same as the others to fit in.’
A chill shook Jessie as she closed the door behind Ryan, and she realized that the window was still open. The cloud canopy was back, draping itself over Bradley Court, the leaves on the copper beeches outside lifting and twisting in the wind, rain speckling through the open window. Hauling down the sash, she stood looking out, awed by the ability of the weather to change so suddenly from darkness to light and back to darkness again.
What had she been doing when she was Ryan’s age? She would have been back at school then, trying to get a grip on normality, work for her GCSEs, make up for the time that she had missed, prove to herself – to them – that she could, would, carve a normal life for herself. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head and rested it against the cool glass. The hiss and snap of the electric suit was intensifying with the memories.
She could feel the box of matches in her shaking hand, the rough strip on the side as her fingers felt to slide it open in the dark. It was important that she was quiet, vital that she didn’t wake them. She just needed to show them. Show her.
Her eyes snapped open. The electric suit was tight around her throat.
She had been fourteen, younger even than Ryan. Old enough to face the consequences though. Old enough to pay.
Callan found Blackdown’s commanding officer, Colonel Philip Wallace, in his office. He was in his fifties, a large man, square and solid, both facially and in his build, running to fat around the middle, as were many men of his age, used to spending too much time behind a desk.
‘Come in, Captain Callan. You’re the Senior Investigating Officer on this case?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So where have we got to?’ A clipped, public school accent, the tone controlled but commanding.
‘It’s early days, sir. The autopsy is booked for tomorrow morning, so we should have confirmed cause of death by end of day tomorrow.’ Callan tried to catch his eye, to form the crucial first impression of the man who would, no doubt, be breathing down his neck until the investigation was concluded. But sunlight was cutting obliquely through the window to Wallace’s right, lighting his face, masking his eyes behind the reflection in his frameless square spectacle lenses. ‘But I suspect it’s murder.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the nature of the victim’s injuries. A throat wound. It couldn’t have been accidental and it’s a …’ he paused, searching for the right word ‘… brave way to commit suicide. And also the weapon that was used was found eight metres from his body, the tip stabbed into the ground, at an angle. Thrown, my CSI sergeant said. Long way to throw it when you’re bleeding from a throat wound.’
Sighing, Wallace dipped his head and rubbed his hands over his bald scalp, the sound of his palms grating through the sparse grey stubble, sandpaper on wood.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you how sensitive this death will be. Sixteen-year-old, five months in.’
There was a brusqueness to Wallace’s tone that Callan was well used to: men who were accustomed, over years, to silence and assent. Not conditions that Callan reacted well to, despite his chosen profession. This case was Military Police jurisdiction, but Wallace was commanding officer at Blackdown, and although far above the victim in the Army hierarchy, he was still Foster’s direct superior, which gave him an unalienable right to be informed, involved, omnipresent.
‘We need to get this sorted quickly, Captain.’
‘That is my intention.’
‘Keep a lid on the negative publicity.’ Wallace cleared his throat. ‘Can you do that for me?’
‘That’s not my first priority, sir.’
The sun must have gone behind a cloud, because he met Wallace’s gaze behind his glasses now. His eyes were light grey and shone with an intense, uncompromising gleam.
‘Nevertheless, it is an important one.’ Wallace’s eyes narrowed. ‘Discretion is the better part of valour, as they say. I’ve heard that you know all about valour.’ His gaze found the scar on Callan’s temple. ‘But discretion …?’ He let the sentence hang.
‘I have no intention of speaking to the press,’ Callan replied. ‘And I will ensure that none of my team do either.’
‘That was all I wanted to hear.’