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‘I think we should have a counsellor here when Harry’s grandmother arrives, sir.’
‘With Malcolm Lawson in the picture, I need a bloody counsellor, Workman,’ Marilyn muttered.
With an upwards roll of her eyes that he wasn’t supposed to have noticed, Workman pressed on: ‘Doctor Butter is on annual leave and time is obviously too short to find a counsellor from a neighbouring force.’
Marilyn sighed. Why was he being so obnoxious? No explanation, except for the fact that everything about this hospital was putting him in a bad mood. The detritus of human life washed up on its shores. Something about his own mortality staring him square in the face.
And the baby?
When DS Workman had first telephoned him about a baby abandoned at Royal Surrey County Hospital, he’d acidly asked her if she had a couple of lost puppies he could reunite with their owners or a kitten stuck in a tree he could shin up and rescue. But now, something about this abandoned baby – Harry Lawson – and the history attached to that child’s surname, was giving him a creeping sense of unease.
‘Leave it with me, Sergeant. We do have a tenuous Army connection, so I’ll call Doctor Flynn. I’m sure she’s back from the Middle East this week.’
MalcolmLawson.
He thought he’d well and truly buried that name six months ago. Buried that family. Buried the whole sorry saga. He forced a laugh, full of fake cheer.
‘Those Army types spend ninety per cent of their time sitting around with their thumbs up their arses, so I’m sure Jessie could spare an hour. Find us a nice quiet room where we can chat to Granny.’
6 (#ulink_d071093b-a94a-502a-82d9-09dd0534c160)
The sun was a blinding ball in an unseasonally cloudless, royal-blue sky when Jessie gunned her daffodil-yellow Mini to life, pleasantly surprised that, after so long un-driven, it started first time. She’d popped in to see Ahmose, had been persuaded to stay for a cup of kahwa, strong Egyptian coffee – a terrible idea in retrospect, layered on top of the two cups she’d already downed at home, the time zone change and the jet lag. She felt as if a hive of hyperactive bees had set up residence in her head. Negotiating a slow three-point turn in the narrow lane, she pressed her foot gingerly on the accelerator, the speedo sliding slowly, jerkily – God,haveIforgottenhowtochangegears? – to twenty, no higher. She’d had a near miss with the farmer and his herd of prize milking Friesians last summer while speeding down the lane towards home after a long day at Bradley Court, windows down, James Blunt full volume, and his threats of death and destruction to her prized Mini at the hands of his tractor had been an effective speed limiter ever since.
Fifteen minutes later, she slowed and turned off the public road into Bradley Court Army Rehabilitation Centre. Holding her pass out to the gate guards, she waited, engine idling, while the ornate metal gates were swung open. The last time she had driven along this drive, in the opposite direction, the stately brick-and-stone outline of Bradley Court receding in her rear-view mirror, it had been mid-December, mind-numbingly cold, slushy sleet invading the sweep of manicured lawns like wedding confetti, the trees bleak skeletons puncturing a slate-grey sky. Early April, and the lawn on either side of the quarter-mile drive was littered with red and blue crocuses, the copper beeches that lined the tarmac ribbon unfurling new leaves, hot- yellow daffodils clustered around their bases. Someone had set a table and chairs out on the lawn in front of an open patio door and a group of young men were sitting around it playing cards. Two others on crutches, each with a thigh-high amputation, were making their way along a gravel path towards the lake, both coatless, their shirt sleeves rolled up.
Parking, she made her way up to the first floor where the Defence Psychology Service was located, sticking her head into office doors as she passed, saying her hellos.
‘The nomad returns. Welcome back, Doctor Flynn.’
Gideon Duursema, head of the Defence Psychology Service and Jessie’s boss, half-rose from behind his desk and held out his hand. It felt strange, to Jessie, shaking it. She couldn’t recall ever shaking Gideon’s hand, with the exception of during her job interview and on her first morning at Bradley Court two and a half years ago, when he had formally welcomed her to the department. Gideon must have felt the same sense of oddness, because he dropped her hand suddenly, skirted around his desk and pulled her into a brief, slightly awkward hug.
‘We’ve missed you,’ he muttered, retreating to safety afforded by the physical barrier of his oak desk, lowering himself into his chair. ‘How was the tour?’ he asked, when she had settled herself into the chair opposite.
‘Now I know what living in prison feels like, except that prisoners get better food and their own television set.’
Gideon laughed. ‘Did they chain you up in the bowels of the boat 24/7?’
‘Ship.’ She half-smiled. ‘Ship is the technical naval term. Type 45 Destroyer, if I’m being really pedantic.’
‘Pedantic is good in this job. I like pedantic, but not when it’s directed at me. Type 45 Destroyer. Did they chain you up in the bowels of the destroyer 24/7?’
‘I must have been away from other lunatic psychologists for too long – you’ve lost me completely.’
Holding up a paint brochure, squares of bland off-whites, insipid greys and beiges lined down the page, he squinted at her through one eye.
‘Farrow and Ball colour trends, 2016. Tallow – a perfect match, I’d say. You mustn’t have seen the light of day. Certainly not the light of any Middle Eastern sun, anyway.’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘My skin colour is on trend, if nothing else.’ She waved a hand back over her shoulder towards the door. ‘Should we try this again, perhaps? I’ll go out, come back in and you can attempt to avoid the insults. We don’t all have the benefit of a year-round tan.’
Gideon smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve missed you. It’s been dull around here without your chippy attitude to keep me on my toes.’
Originally from Zimbabwe, these days he was almost more English than the English with his tweed jackets, faux Tudor semi-detached on the outskirts of Farnham, Land Rover Discovery, solid middle-class wife and two boys. Jessie had met his sons once, had felt gauche and awkward beside them even though she was five years older than the eldest – both boys a stunning, olive-skinned mix of their black father and English rose mother, both following their father to Oxford.
‘Has Mrs D roped you into doing some DIY?’
‘Sadly, yes, as my pitiful government salary doesn’t run to the eye-watering sums charged by Home Counties building firms.’ Flipping over the brochure, he read in a desiccated monotone: ‘“Is your kitchen looking tired and dated? We can simply resurface your current cabinets in a colour and finish of your choice.”’ He tossed the brochure on the desktop. ‘Various shades of battleship, sorry, destroyer grey are all the rage these days, evidently, though why Fiona can’t continue residing with the browns we have lived with happily for the past twenty years, I have no idea. Never mind the damn kitchen, it’s me who’s tired and dated. Maybe Farrow and Ball can resurface me while they’re at it, two for the price of one.’ Reaching for his bifocals, sliding them on to the bridge of his nose, he fixed Jessie with a searching gaze. ‘Ready to get back to work?’
‘I assume from your tone that my answer needs to be an emphatic “yes”.’
Gideon patted a stack of files on the corner of his desk, ten centimetres high. ‘Preferably accompanied with a beatific smile and boundless energy.’ Sliding a thin cardboard file from the top of the stack, he held it out to her. ‘Here’s your number one. Ryan Jones: sixteen-year-old male trainee, Royal Logistic Corps, Blackdown Barracks. Referred by Blackdown’s commanding officer, Colonel Philip Wallace.’
Jessie flipped open the file. One typed sheet inside. ‘Why was he referred?’
Gideon shrugged. ‘An open-ended “we’re concerned with his mental state”.’
‘Isn’t the CO a bit high up to be referring trainees?’
Another shrug. ‘From what I know of Philip Wallace, he likes to have his finger in every pie on that base.’
Jessie nodded, taking a moment, eyes grazing down the first page to digest the key details of the referral. Gideon was right – there was little more information than he had just told her. The referral was a triumph of saying nothing in one page of tight black type.
Ryan Thomas Jones
Sixteen and five months
Joined the Army on 2 November last year, the day of his sixteenth birthday
Keen.
Keen or running away from something. In Jessie’s experience, people joined the Army for one of three reasons: patriotism, financial necessity, or to escape. There was a fourth, she privately suspected, though had never voiced: the opportunity to kill people legally. That last one was reserved for the nutters. Which one was Ryan Jones? Probably not the fourth, as Loggies weren’t frontline fighting troops.
Looking up, she met Gideon’s gaze. ‘When is he coming in?’
‘Two p.m.’
‘Oh, OK. So I get the morning to organize my office, drink coffee, chillax. That’s unexpectedly generous of you—’ She broke off, catching his expression. ‘No … I don’t get the morning to chillax. Instead, I get to …’ She let the sentence hang.
‘You get to go to Royal Surrey County Hospital.’
‘And why would I want to do that?’
‘I got a call from Detective Inspector Simmons ten minutes ago. He needs your help.’
‘Since when did we provide psychologists to Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes?’
‘Since DI Simmons asked me nicely. It seems austerity is pinching them as hard as it’s pinching us.’
‘Why does he need a psychologist’s help at the hospital?’
‘He’ll fill you in.’
‘Cryptic.’
‘Not deliberately so. There is an Army connection, he said.’
Jessie’s eyebrows rose in query, but Gideon didn’t provide her with any more information. Stretching his arms above his head, waving one hand vaguely towards the window as he did so, he added, ‘I was in a meeting when Simmons called, so our conversation was brief. You’d better get going. He’s there now, waiting for you at the entrance to A & E, and I have another meeting starting’ – he glanced at his watch – ‘five minutes ago.’ He began searching around under the piles of files, books and papers on his desk, continuing to talk as he did so. ‘Welcome back, Jessie. As I said, I’ve missed you.’ A fleeting, wry smile. ‘And so, as you can see, has my desk. It has felt your absence most keenly. You can’t see my mobile anywhere, can you?’
Ducking down, she retrieved Gideon’s mobile from the floor and handed it to him. ‘Here.’
‘Ah. Thank you.’
‘But that’s it. No more Mrs Doubtfire from me.’ Rising, she tucked Ryan Thomas Jones’s file under her arm. ‘Your desk is going to have to make its own way in the big wide world without my help. Sink or swim. Eat or be eaten.’
Gideon’s eyebrow rose, but he didn’t reply. As she left the room, Jessie glanced back. He was still watching her, the expression on his face conflicted: a part of him hoping that she was right; the other part knowing, from thirty years’ experience as a clinical psychologist, that such deep-seated psychological disorders as hers were far from simple to cure. Jessie hoped that she was right too. She had navigated this morning without so much as a tingle from the electric suit; had navigated her time abroad with only three mild episodes. She’d even managed to leave the house with the kettle handle crooked and an unwashed coffee cup in the sink. Progress. Real progress.
She hoped that settling back into her normal routine would do nothing to disturb the delicate balance of her recovery.
7 (#ulink_9222bb14-8259-551c-9f8c-1d3288f3c034)
Lieutenant Gold was already at the crime scene when Captain Ben Callan, Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch, parked his red Golf GTI in the car park at Blackdown Barracks. Climbing out of the driver’s seat, he stood – too quickly – swayed and grabbed the top of the door to steady himself. Fuck. He still felt sick and shaky, as if he was coming down off a drinking spree, which he wasn’t. A hangover would, though, provide a plausible excuse for his wrecked physical and mental state. Nothing unexpected in soldiers getting drunk off-duty; it was virtually compulsory.
He’d had some warning of the fit this time: the car in front of him in the fast lane on the A3 starting to jump around as if it was on springs, the central reservation fuzzy, as though his windscreen was suddenly frosted glass. Swerving straight across both lanes, he cut on to the hard shoulder, narrowly missing an elderly couple in an ancient Nissan Micra; the glimpse he’d had of the driver’s whitened face and wide eyes in his rear-view mirror still etched in his mind.
The ground fell away steeply from the hard shoulder into a deep ditch of tangled undergrowth and he slithered down it, making it only halfway before his knees buckled. Falling, rolling, he reached blindly for something to slow his descent, felt reed grass slice through his fingers. His body was writhing, slamming from side to side, legs cycling in the muddy soil and he was freezing cold, shaking uncontrollably, his brain feeling as if it would explode from the pressure inside his skull. Slowly, the fit receded. He lay on the damp ground, sweating and shaking, feeling the muddy ditch water seeping through his clothing, chilling his skin. Pushing himself on to his knees, he reached for the trunk of a sapling, hauled himself to his feet, wincing as the cuts on his fingers met the rough bark. On unsteady legs, he made his way slowly back up the embankment. A Surrey Police patrol car was parked behind his Golf, flashing blue lights washing the uniformed traffic officer standing in front of it neon blue.
‘You do know that it is illegal to stop on the hard shoulder for any reason other than an emergency, don’t you, sir?’
Sir. The policeman’s tone entirely at odds with his words. JustwhatIneedrightnow. Reaching into his back pocket, Callan fished out his military police ID, held it up. The traffic cop studied it, his gaze narrowing.
‘What were you doing, sir?’
Which story was the more convincing? Having a piss? Answering a vital phone call? The truth, not an option. As an epileptic, he shouldn’t hold a driving licence, but if his condition was made public, losing his licence would be the least of his problems. He would lose his job, his livelihood, his future. His tenuous clutch on normality.
‘I was answering a call on my mobile. There’s been a suspicious death at an Army training base near Camberley. I’m on my way there now.’
The policeman’s gaze tracked from Callan’s face to his feet, taking in the sweaty, greyish-pale complexion, the hands jammed in his pockets to stop them from trembling, the mud caked on his white shirt and jeans.
‘If you weren’t an MP, I’d breathalyse you.’
‘I’m not over the limit, Constable.’
‘You don’t look great, sir.’
‘I don’t feel great, but it’s not alcohol. It’s lack of sleep, too much work … You know how it is.’ Callan lifted his shoulders, looking the constable straight in the eye, the lie sliding smoothly off his tongue.
Silence, which Callan had the confidence not to break. He maintained eye contact, an easy smile on his face, posture relaxed, hoping the constable didn’t notice that his legs were shaking.
‘Drive slowly, mate. My shift ends in two hours and I don’t fancy spending it scraping anybody off the central reservation. Even a bloody MP.’
Callan held out his hand; the constable didn’t take it.
‘You’ve had your one favour,’ he muttered. ‘Next time, I throw the book at you.’
Callan stood by his Golf and watched the patrol car pull back into the flow of traffic and accelerate away. Twisting sideways, he retched on the grass. Retched and retched until only his stomach lining remained.
8 (#ulink_1d13c5a6-3499-5f8c-a9bd-8afbb9cb0030)
Squeezing her Mini on to the grass verge, the only spare inch of space available in the hospital car park, ignoring the dirty looks thrown her way by people in huge four-by-fours who were still circling, trying to find a space, Jessie jogged down the stone stairs and across the service road to A & E. Holding her breath as she ducked through the cigarette smoke fogging the entrance, she found Marilyn waiting for her inside. He was propping up the wall by the reception desk, one sole tapping impatiently against the skirting, thumbs skipping across the keys of his mobile. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced up, his lined face creasing into a smile.
‘Thank you for coming, Jessie.’ A glance towards the packed A & E waiting room. ‘To the asylum.’
‘I won’t say that it’s a pleasure, but Gideon didn’t leave me much choice. For some reason your request shot straight to the top of my day’s admittedly short to-do list.’
‘I must have forgotten to tell you that Gideon and I play golf together every Sunday.’
Her gaze tracked from the black bed-hair to the sallow, ravaged face that made Mick Jagger look a picture of clean living, to those disconcerting eyes hiding the sharp, enquiring mind she’d got to know. He had bowed to pressure from above and replaced his beloved black biker jacket with a black suit which hung from his scarecrow frame, only the suit’s drainpipe trousers hinting that he was anything more than a straight-off-the-production-line policeman.
‘Funnily enough, I don’t see you in checked plus-fours.’
He grinned. ‘Masons?’
‘Ditto.
‘Yacht club?’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘Shall we get started? I need to be back at Bradley Court by lunchtime. I have work to do. Proper work.’
As they walked side by side down the corridor that cut from A & E to the main hospital, their rubber soles whispering in unison as they gripped and released the lino, Marilyn brought her up to date.
‘We’re not sure how long the baby has been here, but we know that he was left some time before midnight.’
‘Midnight? As in midnight ten hours—’
He held up a hand, cutting her off. ‘Don’t get me started.’
‘He was left by his father?’
‘That’s our working theory. DS Workman and a couple of constables are going through last night’s CCTV footage of the A & E entrance to confirm.’
‘Why would a father abandon his baby?’
‘He abandoned him in a hospital, safe.’
Jessie frowned. ‘A busy A & E department, all sorts coming and going? It’s hardly secure. The fact that the poor kid wasn’t noticed for … what …’ She glanced at her watch, mentally calculating. ‘Seven hours minimum suggests to me that it’s not the first place a caring parent in their right mind would look to deposit their baby for safekeeping.’
‘Right. So the rest of our working theory is that he wasn’t entirely compos mentis at the time.’
Jessie glanced over. ‘Why do you think that?’
