Fall From Grace (12 page)

‘I remembered I still had this,’ said Jake, holding up his key to Paul’s front door. He threw it gently at him. ‘I guess you want it back now.’

Paul had never seen Jake in this state before. His eyes were full of trouble and pain and his whole demeanour spoke loudly of being in need. Paul still loved him. What choice did he have?

Paul held his breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. He turned onto his side and propped his head up by bending his elbow. ‘So tell me.’

‘We were out on patrol,’ Jake began as he went all the way back to that day, in a land so many thousands of miles away but which had come right back into his head making him understand that he could never escape, no matter how far he travelled from the reality of what had happened. ‘We were on our way back to base at the time. A bomb had been placed at the roadside which was detonated by remote control as we passed. I watched my two mates, Richie and Errol get literally blown up in front of my eyes. I watched as bits of their bodies scattered across the ground.’

‘Oh Christ, Jake,’ said Paul as he squeezed his arm.

‘I got out with a few minor burns, just some fucking cuts and bruises.’

‘But that wasn’t your fault, Jake,’ said Paul, sensing that Jake was feeling guilty over the loss of his mates. ‘It could easily have been you instead of your mates.’

Jake pressed a finger into his chest and spoke with an emotion that shook Paul a little. ‘Easy to say but not easy to feel in here.’

‘It wasn’t me who got blown up,’ said Jake. ‘The vehicle was a fireball but everything around was quiet. I was lying on the ground and there were people just stood there staring, saying nothing, not doing anything to help me.’

‘They were probably as terrified as you, Jake.’

‘I don’t know how but I still had my rifle in my hand. This local guy stepped forward with something in his hand and I opened fire. He must’ve had half a dozen bullets in him by the time I’d finished. His wife and kids started screaming. They would’ve had me, Paul. The crowd would’ve had me. I saw the hatred in their eyes. And do you know what? All he wanted was to offer me some bread. He sold bread at the roadside and he saw me lying there and wanted to offer me some of it. And I killed him for it. I killed him in cold blood because he tried to show me a bit of humanity with the only thing he had. His wife is a widow and his kids are without their father because of me.’

‘It was war, Jake.’

‘And they were innocents,’ said Jake. ‘I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been in their country, none of us should’ve.’

‘How can I make sense of it? I killed a man for no reason. You don’t have to live with that so please don’t even try and tell me that you can make sense of it.’

‘You were under pressure, you were scared, and you reacted,’ said Paul, who never imagined that the war in Afghanistan would come right into his bedroom in such a vivid and personal way. ‘And so did the crowd.’

‘You don’t think I’m evil then?’

‘No I don’t think you’re evil, Jake,’ said Paul. He’d always supported the country’s involvement in Afghanistan. But it had been ten years since the 9/11 attacks and still there was no sign of defeating either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And young men like Jake were paying the price. He used to think that Britain was far too sentimental about ‘our boys’. They weren’t a conscript army after all. They’d joined up of their own free will. But now he was having his doubts. Were men like Jake out there so that the streets of Britain could be safer? He didn’t know anymore. What he had seen as evidence that it may be worth it, were the millions of Afghanis lining up to vote in the elections there despite the Taliban’s death threats. It had annoyed Paul to compare that with the voting record of those who lived on the Tatton estate. Hardly any of them had bothered to vote in the last general election. The sacrifices of heroic soldiers like Jake were lost on those lazy bastards.

But he was also quickly realising that it wasn’t just the dead bodies being brought home that symbolised the shadow of death. It was the ones who’d come home and who’d gone through a death inside that should be added to the list of fatalities. And they were the hardest kind to deal with.

‘Tiffany thinks I’m working all night,’ said Jake. ‘I thought I was too but it turns out I’m not needed anymore tonight. My boss has stood me down.’

‘You’re the only one I could’ve talked to about what happened over there,’ Jake pleaded as he raised himself up beside Paul. ‘Paul, I really need to be with you tonight.’

‘No, don’t do this to me, Jake! It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you come round here and pour your heart out and then come on to me like this.’

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ said Jake as he caressed Paul’s face with his hand and looked straight into his eyes. ‘Let me stay. Please.’

‘This isn’t fair, Jake,’ said Paul who wanted Jake so badly at that moment. He breathed in the smell of him, the taste of him, his touch and the strength of his body.

Paul gripped Jake’s shoulders and pushed him back slightly so he could stare into his tear-stained eyes for a moment. He felt himself fall deeper and deeper into somewhere he wanted to go but knew that he shouldn’t. Then he began to undo the buttons on Jake’s shirt and switched off the light.

*

Sara and Joe decided to bring Naumann into the station for his latest interview under caution. It was time to up the stakes on both him and Lady Eleanor.

‘I’m afraid she got it all a little wrong,’ said Naumann who’d agreed with Eleanor that he would now admit to being there when Peter Jenkins died. They concluded that the more they tied these buffoons up the less likely his extradition deadline would be met and the more time they’d give the relevant authorities to rescue them both from this nightmare.

‘Now that’s enough, Mr. Naumann,’ said Joe who noted that Naumann’s face was still full of disgust. ‘Just answer DCI Hoyland’s question, please. Tell us what happened that night, Mr. Naumann, now that you’ve admitted to having witnessed Peter Jenkins death.’

Naumann paused whilst he calmed down.

‘In your own time, sir,’ said Sara.

Naumann glared at Sara before continuing. ‘Well now, as I recall, Eleanor and I were in the swimming pool. We were being desperately intimate. Well we were young and had just fallen madly in love…’

…Oh spare us, thought Sara. She didn’t want to bring her breakfast back up. She’d thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful of that sausage and bacon barm. It’s not often she treated herself to something as deliciously bad as that these days and she wanted to savour the memory until she treated herself again…

‘…and we wanted to spend as much time as possible together. But as far as Peter Jenkins was concerned my presence had created a love triangle. He was as madly in love with Eleanor as I was but the difference was that in my case it was returned. In Peter’s case it was just sex for Eleanor. That’s how she looked at it. Peter came in, he was very drunk, he saw Eleanor and I together and he went berserk. He threw himself into the pool and attacked me. He had me by the throat when his father came rushing in, jumped into the pool and pulled him off me. In the struggle that followed Wilfred Jenkins threw his son against the side of the pool and both Eleanor and I heard the neck crack. Blood then started to pour out of his mouth and his ears. He slid down under the water. He was clearly dead. Wilfred Jenkins had killed his own son and because of my status in this country poor Eleanor had to carry the burden on her own.’

This was very interesting, thought Sara. Naumann and Lady Eleanor had obviously talked about getting their stories right but why had they changed their minds about admitting that Naumann was there when Peter Jenkins died? Presumably it was to make it look like Naumann was a witness to a murder and not the murderer himself.

‘Wilfred Jenkins protested his innocence right up until the end, Mr. Naumann,’ said Joe.

‘Oh Detectives,’ said Naumann in a voice as if he was having to chastise recalcitrant children. ‘Every condemned prisoner protests their innocence and in my experience, they all beg like little babies crying out for their mother when faced with an execution.’

‘You’d know about that, Mr. Naumann,’ said Sara, gravely. She’d like to slice that appalling look right off his face with a blunt carving knife.

‘Wilfred Jenkins was sent to the gallows solely on the word of Lady Eleanor,’ said Sara, ‘she would’ve done anything to protect you, wouldn’t she.’

‘Are you two on some sort of crusade to kick me when I’m down?’

Sara noted the touch of anger coming into the self-controlled tone. She was confident that they were finally beginning to crack the veneer that had sustained Dieter Naumann for the best part of a lifetime.

‘No,’ said Sara, ‘but you’re just another war criminal who may have also committed other crimes since. We’re just doing our job, sir, and being as thorough as I’m sure you were when you were serving in the German army.’

‘You drag me all the way down here to play your little games,’ said Naumann, his voice dripping with a chill that made both Sara and Joe shiver, ‘but you won’t succeed in re-writing my history to suit your purposes.’

*

Paul changed the sheets on his father’s bed and settled him back down. His Dad’s condition was deteriorating rapidly and he no longer had the strength to make any kind of movement without help.

‘I’ll make you comfortable for the night, Dad,’ said Paul. ‘Then Mum won’t have to do it. Wouldn’t you be better off in hospital, Dad?’