If I Should Die (Joseph Stark)
Read If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) Online
Authors: Matthew Frank
Matthew FrankIF I SHOULD DIE
For Vanessa
Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices – including the ultimate sacrifice – in the service of the Nation. In putting the needs of the Nation and the Army before their own, they forgo some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the Armed Forces. In return, British soldiers must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service … This mutual obligation forms the Military Covenant between the Nation, the Army and each individual soldier; an unbreakable common bond of identity, loyalty and responsibility which has sustained the Army throughout its history. It has perhaps its greatest manifestation in the annual commemoration of Armistice Day, when the Nation keeps covenant with those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives in action.
From Introduction to ‘Soldiering – The Military Covenant’ published by the Ministry of Defence, April 2000
The denizens of Combat Outpost McKay had that end-of-tour look: worn desert-camo, seams bleached and salt-rotten from sweat; dust-ingrained faces staring blankly at the stranger in their midst. The faces of men worn thin with sleep-deprivation and danger. They’d been under sniper and mortar fire day and night for five months, then foot patrols with IEDs on top. Even the major, Collins, looked like a scarecrow, shrunken in his clothing. They had three weeks to go until the next roulement arrived, and they needed a sergeant. Until then Corporal Stark would wear a third stripe.
‘Acting Sergeant Stark?’ demanded the major.
‘Sir.’
The officer looked him up and down. ‘Private Walker here will show you where to bunk down. Get some kip. We’re on foot at zero six hundred sharp. Get yourself dusty – stand out and the snipers will target you for an intelligence officer.’
Walker led him wordlessly through the maze-like compound, the old police station and civic buildings of a tin-pot town linked with Hesco and razorwire, windows re-glazed with sandbag gun slots. Another combat outpost, another Helmand hellhole – surrounded and marooned. Walker showed him the latrine, a chemical loo sheltered on three sides with corrugated iron and sandbags – someone had sprayed ‘SHIT FROM ABOVE SHIT FROM BELOW’ on the olive-drab canvas curtain that stood for a door – then a bare concrete room with bedrolls and belongings strewn in three corners. Walker pointed to the fourth. ‘Doonan’s spot.’ His dull tone said Doonan no longer had need of it; home on a Hercules, wrapped in bandages and blanket or box and flag. ‘Cheer up, Sarge.’ He chuckled. ‘No mortars tonight. Maybe the bastards’ve run out!’
Stark didn’t try to sleep. He stripped and cleaned his weapon,
reloaded magazines, wrote a letter home and tucked it into his bedroll. At 0530 a private led him to the briefing room. Objective: to clear a back road of IEDs. The briefing was short and to the point, same shit, different day – crack on, job done, home in time for tea and medals.
It was still cold as they stepped out. Walker, accompanied by another private, was driving a dusty old Snatch Land Rover at walking pace behind them, two other privates with Vallon metal detectors scanning every inch of road and path as they advanced. It took two hours to reach the objective, by which time it was far from cold. A handful of locals led by a town elder appeared and were greeted by the major. They crouched and conversed awhile in broken phrases, gesticulation and maps scratched in the dust. Their last interpreter had been beheaded and dumped in the local well, a corporal called Gaskin told Stark.
Those were the snippets you didn’t tell your mum. Stark was going to have a hard enough time explaining this little detour when he should’ve been on a transport out of Kandahar today. Scanning the rooftops, he felt the familiar tingle of exhilaration.
Eventually the Afghans led them to the road in question, pointed at various locations and withdrew. The street was eerily abandoned. No wonder, if the locals thought the Taliban had been at work here.
Progress was even slower. Several times the scanners called a halt while the bomb specialist, a sergeant named Tyler, checked out yet another bit of scuffed earth or discarded tin can.
Then the real thing. They all kept watch while Tyler disarmed the device. A simple bent-metal pressure trigger taped to batteries and explosive, all wrapped in a plastic bin liner. Small, aimed at maiming the foot soldier, buried in the verge with dry turf carefully replaced over it. Batteries removed, Tyler carried it back to the Snatch as if he were doing no more than taking out the rubbish, then stripped off his blast helmet and shared water and laughs with Major Collins.
Stark felt himself relax and checked it. They moved forward again, slow, careful. A hundred metres on, another device. Another taut half-hour while Tyler inspected, described aloud, planned and disarmed the bomb; another just like the first.
Onward again, Stark and the others taking up covering positions as
the scanners and vehicle progressed, then moving on past the next covering man. Another halt. Standing beside the vehicle, Stark listened through the open window as Walker cracked up his mate with the filthiest of jokes. The boy noticed Stark chuckling and traded smiles. He passed a plastic bottle out of the window.
‘Thanks …?’
‘Private Smith, Sarge,’ announced the boy – what was he? Eighteen, nineteen? ‘No relation to all those other shites. Everyone just calls me Danny.’
‘Joe Stark.’
‘Shite ’ere, innit?’ commented Danny.
Stark chuckled and glugged the blessedly icy water just as the explosion slammed into the far side of the Land Rover.
Part One
Stark sat bolt upright, choking off a scream. Agony gripped him, like a fist tightening around his heart. Then reality shuddered back, the desert heat burning to ice as cold sweat ran down him in the chill bedroom darkness.
The first heartbeat came, then another, and another, and the pain faded, like so much mist in the night air, leaving only grief and the blurs and echoes of unwelcome recollection. Of blood, shouting, explosions and gunfire.
He swept the duvet aside, limped to the bathroom, stiff hip easing with each step, went into the shower and let icy water drive out lingering vestiges of the dream before he turned up the heat. He leant against the wall as the stinging cascade brought mind and body alive, then wiped water from his eyes and looked at his watch. Four forty. Great. Just what he didn’t want for his first day.
Stepping out, he wiped steam from the mirror and ran fingers through his thick whiskers for the last time. Taking up the scissors he began cropping them short, watching the remnants collect in the basin, relic of a former life. His first decision after the stitches were removed was to begin growing back the beard they’d shaved off him somewhere between Bastion and Selly Oak. Vanity, denial or both. His mum would rejoice to see it gone. Massaging in foam he inspected the new razor, its multiple blades glinting in the LED bathroom spotlights. Then, methodically, he scraped off the desert soldier.
Staring at his clean-shaven face for the first time in months, he ran a finger down the longest scar and shivered.
He pulled on some baggies and creaked half-heartedly through his exercises, grimacing and cursing, then hobbled into the tiny kitchen of his tiny flat and drank orange juice straight from the carton while
he whipped up an omelette.
News Twenty-four
was still showing mostly yesterday’s news but he let it drone on in the background. He dressed with the sunrise and paused to assess his reflection. Another day, another uniform. It was almost a year since he’d worn this one and a different man stared back. It looked wrong now, alien. Would he feel the same about the plastic-wrapped regimentals now consigned to the back of the wardrobe? ‘Can you take the man out of the uniform?’ he wondered aloud. He’d find out tomorrow, of course. But for now, for today, this was him. Not British Disruptive Pattern Material but camouflage of a different kind. His gaze lingered on the stranger in the mirror, the damaged doppelganger of the proud fool who’d stared back nine months and a lifetime earlier.
Ready early, he checked the phone but, despite days of promises, the phone company still hadn’t connected the line. At the allotted time he limped down the stairs to wait for his prearranged lift to his first day in his new job; his new life. His letterbox contained the usual barrage of takeaway menus and junk mail, an appointment letter from the hospital and one other. The sight of the Ministry of Defence frank shook him, as had the previous two, the notification and the warning. Would this one contain the verdict? Surely not … The CO had said he’d call first, but with the phone still dead … He ran his thumb over the seal in trepidation. Procrastination costs lives, he reminded himself. He tore it open and scanned the contents, as terse and abrupt as before.
He sat on the stairs and read it again. It didn’t get any better. He dropped his head into his hands, nausea and shame twisting his stomach.
Detective Sergeant Fran Millhaven peered out of the window as a uniform vehicle pulled into the car park. The driver and passenger got out and stood talking briefly, then shook hands; warm, friendly. The car left and the passenger looked up at the building before entering. Chauffeur-driven to work on his first day. In his shiny uniform too, rather predictably. He’d probably been up since four polishing boots and buttons.
Trainee Investigator Constable Joseph Peter Stark. She’d been shown his photo in cuttings from his hometown paper, courtesy of
the super in his old nick. ‘LOCAL BOBBY WAR HERO!’ How the rags loved their hyperbole. As if police work wasn’t public service enough, the idiot had signed up for the Territorial Army. Weekend warrior. Did the regular army look down on the Territorials in the same way regular coppers did on Specials?
He’d been posted to Iraq or Afghanistan and got himself blown up or shot, or both. Fair enough, patriotic exploits and all that, give the man a medal. But there was altogether too much homecoming-hero talk for Fran’s liking. It wasn’t even as though this
was
his home. He was transferring from Hampshire. Glowing reference, apparently, but who’d dare offer less under the circumstances? Why not return to the force on his own turf? There had to be a reason and Fran suspected something was off there. That’s what detective sergeants do after all: suspect.
Now he aspired to be a detective constable. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Ease him in gently,’ she’d been told. Like they had her, she thought sourly. She abandoned the bitter coffee and stalked down to the small meeting room. Groombridge was already in there with the super when she knocked.
‘Francine, have a seat,’ said Superintendent Cox. ‘This is Constable Joseph Stark, our shiny new war hero.’ Stark had the decency to wince. ‘Joe, this is DS Fran Millhaven. She’s recently joined us from the far-flung reaches.’
Croydon, thought Fran, eight miles away. And I’ve been here a year, you arse!
‘DCI Groombridge and DS Millhaven are going to be looking out for you while you ease yourself in. No cotton wool, mind, just keeping a friendly eye out. We’re aware of your rehabilitation needs. We all know what you’ve been through for Queen and country. Your old super said you were a bright spark. Fran will introduce you to the masses. Soon have you up to speed. So, any questions?’
‘Thank you, sir, no.’
‘Good. Good. Well, the door’s always open. Glad to have you. Well done, lad.’
He wasn’t as tall as she’d imagined he’d be, she mused, as they walked to the canteen, the best place for a scattergun introduction, probably only about five-ten. Maybe it was the hero crap: you expected
someone taller, stockier. And older. He was only twenty-five. He’d clocked up some miles in that time. He was good-looking, though. Not aftershave ad, but handsome, or had been before the scars, still livid and ragged. One ran from his neck hairline below his left ear and down behind his collar, another along his left jaw, smaller ones on his right cheek, and there was a nasty one on his right temple. Both his hands showed evidence of burns. The right was missing half of the little finger. He’d been in the wars, all right. He limped too, carrying his left leg slightly. His pink chin looked like he’d shaved three times before parade. His shoes and buttons positively gleamed.
‘I’ll bet you wore uniform to school even on non-uniform days,’ she said, by way of an initial probe. He didn’t rise to it. ‘Didn’t they issue you with a cheapo demob suit when they hoofed you out?’
‘It’s at home with my ration book and moustache,’ he replied, deadpan.
So there was a little bite there. ‘Everyone, this is Constable Stark, joining CID today after a sunshine holiday in Iraq. Got himself a bit blown up and this is his first day back on the job so we’ve all got to be nice to him – to start with, at least.’ Everyone nodded in a friendly way; a few came over and introduced themselves.
‘It was Afghanistan,’ said Stark, as she led him down to the custody desk and control room for more intros.
‘Not Iraq?’
‘Not this time.’
‘But before?’
‘Three years ago.’
‘Didn’t get blown up that time?’
He smiled. ‘No, thanks for asking.’
‘Pleasure.’ A nice smile, wry but genuine, she thought. ‘Right, this is Custody Sergeant Mick Day. Mick, Constable Joseph Stark, new today.’
‘Yeah, I heard. Welcome aboard, Constable. Well on your way to putting a D before your C, I understand. Fancy a peep round the cells? We’ve got a couple of D-and-Ds in but nothing more exciting, I’m afraid. Perhaps you can help collar whoever’s been kicking ten bells out of our local domestically disadvantaged demographic?’
Stark accepted the tour, failing to sense Fran’s impatience. Maybe
he felt it his duty to know his way around, even down here with the drunk and disorderly. Fran didn’t miss uniform.
‘Someone been assaulting the homeless?’ he asked, as she led him to the control room.
‘That’s an understatement. We think we know who – local youths of questionable parentage – but we’ve nothing incriminating. Victims too scared or distrustful to help with enquiries. Morning, Maggie, this is Constable Stark, Joseph, he’s new. Hands off, he’s fragile. Keep away from this one, new boy, you’d be little more than a snack.’
‘Don’t let her put you down, sweetie. I’m sure you’re the full three courses,’ said Maggie, sizing him up and poking her tongue out at Fran. The assorted crowd in the control room greeted him with varying degrees of interest.
Fran always wondered how regular people imagined this room. They probably pictured dimmed lighting, wall-to-wall high-tech, banks of uniformed officers. The reality behind those calm, professional 999 voices was a small room with a tiny window, cluttered with obsolete computers and varying shapes and sizes of civilian, in their navy polo-necks with logo and ‘civilian staff’ stitching. They took fag breaks, left coffee stains, bantered, gossiped and complained, just like anyone else. They did a vital job well. Still, Fran thought, regular people would be horrified.
‘That’s most of the usual suspects,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch up with everyone else as you go along. They’ve all been told your sob story.’ He looked at her sharply and she regretted her tone. ‘Right. Well, come on, you owe me a coffee.’
Stark had hardly taken a sip when the interrogation began. ‘So, Joseph or Joe?’ Fran demanded.
He blinked. A perfectly normal question, yet one he’d not been asked in a while. For the last few years his superiors in both careers had almost only ever addressed him by rank and surname, from ‘Constable’ to ‘Private’ to ‘Lance Corporal’ to ‘Corporal’. In military hospital he’d remained ‘Corporal’, in the NHS he’d reverted to ‘Mr’, and when he’d begun his CID training he’d become Trainee Investigator Constable Stark. His mum called him Joseph. A smattering of
old friends called him JP. Everyone else called him Joe, but that sounded overly intimate from strangers now. ‘I don’t really mind.’
She didn’t accept this. ‘You must have a view. What do mates call you?’
‘Either.’
‘Okay, why transfer?’ She’d changed her angle of attack. ‘Surely your old nick would’ve been easier. And family, friends? Don’t you need the love and support and all that crap?’
‘All that crap wears thin,’ he replied, watching her carefully.
She seemed to consider this, perhaps waiting for him to expand. ‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Hmph,’ she said, evidently dissatisfied. His new sergeant seemed to think asking personal questions wasn’t rude but refusing to answer them was. Maybe it was a CID thing. Maybe she thought she was being tough, establishing superiority. Either way he quite liked it. Rule number one, after all: no fucking sympathy.
Despite her frown she had a pretty face, attractive, an everyday lived-in face, mid-tone brown skin, flattish nose, high forehead, hair scraped back into a frizzy ponytail. Caribbean, maybe. Her skin suggested thirtyish but her dark-brown eyes said more. Average height, a little overweight, smart in her charcoal trouser-suit and white blouse. Flat shoes. No wedding ring. She gave the distinct impression of not liking him much but he couldn’t decide if that was personal or simply her default position. Time would tell, he supposed. Fending off her questions, however politely, only served to bolster this impression. Giving up, she showed him around the Territorial Policing areas, introducing him to the senior uniformed officers and the attached CID team, led by DI Graham. Then up to the CID floor and the MIT.
‘And this is our little nerve centre, for our sins. DCI Groombridge’s office is through there. He’s not bad. DS Harper is off with flu.’ She rattled off names of the DCs present but most fled Stark’s memory instantly. ‘Everyone else is out and about somewhere.’
‘No detective inspector?’
‘Early retirement and not replaced. Cutbacks,’ she answered, without rancour, though it must’ve added significantly to her and DS Harper’s workload: promotion and responsibility without rank or
reward. ‘That’s yours.’ She stabbed a finger towards a tiny desk wedged uncomfortably into a corner between filing cabinets and a photocopier. Stark considered asking which poor sod had occupied it before him but thought better of it. She’d probably give him some bollocks about the last trainee resting in a shallow grave for giving her cheek.
So, this was to be his home. The Major Investigation Team, often called the Murder Investigation Team or Murder Squad.
‘The DCI suggested you start by familiarizing yourself with the happy-slappings.’
Stark frowned. ‘What makes them MIT? No one’s been killed. Has intent been established?’
‘No, but the sodding risk assessment suggested substantive risk to life so uniform punted it upstairs to us. It’s as good a place as any to cut your teeth and I don’t want you underfoot with anything serious. DC Dixon will show you where to find the files.’
‘Yes, Detective Sergeant.’
‘“Sarge” will do. Any questions?’
‘No, thanks.’ This didn’t seem the right time to ask after the mobile phone he’d been told to expect. He’d cancelled his own in anticipation, prematurely as it turned out, with his landline still not connected. It might have given him a nice break from his family but he was still an army reservist, if pending discharge, and required to provide a valid number.
‘Good. Read those files. There’ll be questions later. And stay out of everyone’s way.’ And that was that, his introduction. No cotton wool.
The DCs all said hello and asked a few polite questions. Stark carried the files to his excuse for a desk and got stuck in. They didn’t make pretty reading. There had been four assaults reported in the last three months, though there might have been more. Homeless folk weren’t always in a hurry to report things to the police. Stark felt rising anger prickle his skin as he read on. All the attacks had taken place late at night in secluded places, always on a single victim, outnumbered and defenceless. Broken bones, cuts, contusions, concussion – helpless middle-aged men and women, beaten and humiliated, and for what? The level of despicable cruelty was only matched by the cowardice.