Scotch Mist (28 page)

Seeing the truth of all Tom said, yet certain there would be a stumbling block somewhere, Max asked, ‘How does Connie know so much about the man?'

‘She's misguidedly started a hot relationship with Colin Carr. It took some guts for her to come to me with this info. She feels she's betraying Carr by repeating what he told her about his boss. Apparently, Knott is like a fuse waiting to blow since their return from Afghanistan last month. They had a pretty rough time of it. Three casualties. Carr told her Knott always takes losses badly, although he works hard to keep up the morale of his boys. They all love him, but think he's in danger of cracking up.'

Max was reminded of his own words to Jeremy Knott about SIB meeting fighting men when they cracked under the strain and acted completely out of character. Was that what was happening here?

‘Let's go, Tom. As you say, it all fits. We'll keep it as low key as possible until we've talked to the man, but the end of this case may be in sight.'

When Max and Tom climbed the steps and trod the long corridor, they found Jeremy Knott's office empty. Tom poked his head around the door of the adjacent room to ask a corporal who was staring in dismay at a blank computer screen if Captain Knott was still off sick.

Glancing up with an ill-disguised lack of interest, he replied, ‘Not ill, sir. Some kind of domestic trouble,' then resumed his bafflement over being unable to log on to whatever it was he was seeking.

The Knott family – wife and two children – lived in married quarters, so Tom drove out to the perimeter road and headed for the far side of the sprawling base with no more than a speculative glance at Max, who was sure his friend was still castigating himself for failing to check Knott's whereabouts on Guy Fawkes night.

Max could understand how it had happened. The focus had been on helping the casualties, and making the base secure after what might have been a terrorist attack. He, himself, had had a stormy meeting with Knott the following afternoon over demands to interview his bomb disposal team, and the idea that Knott had been off base at the relevant time had been firmly lodged in his mind.

In addition, Knott's fierce response to any suggestion that men who risked their lives to defuse explosive devices would ever set one to detonate among a crowd of people, ensured that suspicion of their commander never formulated. The suicide of Eva McTavish had then clouded the issue and brought the Drumdorran Fusiliers into the picture.

He looked across the cab at Tom. ‘Don't wear a hair shirt, man. We're all to blame. Not one member of the team picked up on an assumption that had inadvertently become a fact. I just hope Connie won't be the loser for putting her duty before her personal affairs.'

The response was just a nod, so Max dropped the subject and concentrated on what they would find on reaching Knott's house. Domestic trouble could be anything from a fractured water tank to a seriously ill child.

When Tom drove up to the house there was no sign of an ambulance, or flooding. In fact, the place had a deserted look about it. No toys scattered about the garden, no sound of raised voices, no childish laughter or petty squabbling. They knocked on the door and got no response. Knocked again. Not a sound.

Max nodded at the narrow passageway between the house and the garage which led to the rear garden. ‘He must be out there. This is his vehicle on the driveway.'

They emerged to a deserted garden. No sign that two young children lived there, no washing on the line, no aroma of cooking, although it was lunchtime. Max tried the back door. It opened, and he stepped into the kitchen.

‘Hallo. Anyone there?' He called a second time, but there was still no reply. He leaned from the door. ‘Tom, I think we'd better take a look around. I don't like this.'

They separated to search each room, then returned to the kitchen unsure what to make of what they had seen. Wardrobes and drawers were empty of all but Knott's clothes. In the bathroom were a razor, aftershave, a man's hairbrush, toothbrushes and paste, and a large-sized dark towelling robe. Nothing else.

‘Domestic trouble of the first degree,' said Max thoughtfully. ‘His wife and children seem to have gone. For good, I'd say. Nobody takes all their possessions with them on a short break.'

‘She must have decamped a day or two ago, and must have been planning it over a period of time. You don't just call a taxi on the spur of the moment and load it with three people and half a household.' He frowned. ‘D'you think this is linked with what he did? Your so-called message.'

Max had spotted a small shed at the end of the garden, and he started out through the kitchen door with sudden urgency. ‘I hope to God we're not too late to get an answer to that.'

It was with this fear that he eased open the wooden door and peered into what appeared to be a workshop of some sort, with all manner of equipment covering benches and shelves. Jeremy Knott was slumped across a bench. A row of three whisky bottles stood in front of him. One was empty, and inroads had been made to the second, but when he looked up it was apparent the man in uniform was under the influence of more than alcohol. There was a wildness in his eyes, and his voice reached double volume as he identified them.

‘Ah, the upholders of righteousness! The wearers of the red hats, who have no bloody idea what it's all about.
She
certainly doesn't. Nobody does.' He gave a bitter guffaw. ‘No idea,
any
of you!'

He put the bottle to his mouth and took a long drink, after which Max said, ‘No, we haven't any idea. So why don't you tell us.'

Although Knott appeared to be staring straight at him, Max could tell the man was seeing something quite different. ‘You watch him walk forward and your heart stops beating until he stands up and signals that it's all over. Then it happens again twenty minutes later, and your heart stops once more. The next day is the same. And the next, and the next. Then it happens. You see the earth rise up like a fountain, and he's part of it. He doesn't stand and signal that it's over, but you know it is, and there's an empty bed, and an empty chair at the table, and a silence where there used to be laughter, and warmth, and friendly banter. And you can never get him back.' His gaze shifted to the roof, as if it were the heavens, and his voice broke, ‘Dear God, when it happens a third time you lose all faith in what you're doing. In everything. What's the point of it all? You need an answer; need to know
why
.'

‘I can understand that,' Max told him gently.

‘No, you can't. You've no idea. Any of you,' Knott yelled. ‘We come home and you're all carrying on the way you always do, as if it hadn't happened. You're playing snooker and football, flirting with the NAAFI girls, charging into town in souped-up cars just as if it hadn't happened. As if it doesn't
matter
.'

‘So you needed to demonstrate to us that it does?'

Knott tipped the bottle again, then stared at it as he held it so that light came through the window to shimmer it. ‘Bloody Guy Fawkes! Fireworks and a bonfire. For
fun
! You need to know what it's really like. Machine guns sound like fireworks, but you don't get pretty colours in the sky, you get bullets in your guts. A bonfire's like an armoured vehicle burning, except that it makes a bloody great bang when it explodes. It's not
fun
! Why can't any of you see that?

There was a brief silence as Knott seemed to travel again to another place, another time. Then he gave one more brittle laugh. ‘Drinks in the Mess, lads. Let's all get totally pissed and stuff ourselves like pigs at the trough. No empty chairs at
that
table, was there?'

‘Not until we saw the hedge on fire,' said Tom.

‘Put the fear of God in them. For what? Their bloody Range Rovers and Mercs, that's all. They've no
idea
,' he cried with a touch of terrible desperation. ‘They can't tell us what it's all about.
Nobody
knows.'

Max had heard all he needed. Bending his head towards Tom's he murmured, ‘Call an ambulance and a patrol. He'll need to be restrained to get him to the Medical Centre.'

Tom stepped out into the garden to get a stronger signal and walked towards the house as he made the calls. Max stood at the door of the hut, watching him punch in the numbers, so he failed to see Jeremy Knott stretch out his hand and push a button that turned day into night.

Tom sat in the swaying ambulance as it raced through the afternoon, holding a thick pad over a deep cut just above his right eye. The paramedics were busy tending the two serious cases, fixing plasma drips and monitoring the performance of vital organs. If he had not been in the garden when the shed blew what state would he also be in now?

Gazing at the bloodied mask that was Max's face, and at the gaping wound the green-clad men were dealing with, Tom's shocked senses told him he now certainly knew what it was like, but he could not tell Knott that. The medics had been exchanging looks and shaking their heads over the torn and broken body on the other stretcher. Even if the man was still alive when they reached the hospital, there was no hope of his eventual survival. Jeremy Knott had made his last statement.

It was dark outside when Nora walked down the corridor to sit beside him. She saw the large pressure pad above his eye, but made no comment on it. ‘How is he, love?'

‘Still in theatre,' he told her dully. ‘The staff nurse who patched me up said she'd try to find out, but she's been gone forty minutes, so I guess she's forgotten.'

‘If they're operating she can't just walk in and ask,' she reasoned. ‘What about Captain Knott?'

‘Dead on arrival. I know that because they left him and concentrated on Max.'

She took his hand. ‘Have they sent for his wife?'

‘She's possibly in the UK. Signs were she'd left and taken the children. Must have been the last straw for him.'

‘Poor man, to risk death in action so many times, then go out this way.'

Tom shook his head slowly. ‘He
was
killed in action: he was still fighting the war.'

They were still sitting in the corridor three hours and four coffees later when Clare Goodey approached them. Tom thought she looked unusually pale, but she was very composed. Being a doctor allowed her to take these things in her stride, he supposed.

‘I only heard an hour ago, or I'd have been here sooner,' she said without greeting them. ‘How good of you to wait, Tom.'

He got to his feet. ‘A staff nurse promised to give me the situation, but she hasn't. Staff hurry back and forth trying not to let us catch their eyes. It's five hours since we arrived here. What the hell are they doing to him?'

‘He's still in theatre, but they'll be transferring him to the ICU shortly. I contacted a doctor I've dealt with here several times and he gave me the most recent update.'

‘And?'

‘Broken jaw, fractured ulna, two chipped vertebrae. All non life-threatening, of course, but there's a serious chest wound causing some concern. Once that has been successfully closed he'll need at least three months convalescent leave before getting back to work. I know the ideal place for him to relax and regain his strength. I'll take him there when the time comes.'

Tom was still anxious, remembering how Max had looked in the ambulance. ‘He'll make a full recovery then?'

Clare nodded. ‘There's no way he's going to slip away from us. I'll be checking him for the next few days and will keep you updated.' She turned to Nora. ‘Take him home. He looks all in.'

Nora drove them back to the rented house, saying little. Tom sat beside her feeling incredibly weary, with a growing longing to hug his children close, along with this wonderful woman beside him. At times like this having a family made all the difference. Boy or girl, he looked forward to holding the new member of it before long.

He said into the silence, ‘I'll have to inform his father. They've never been close, but he is the next of kin and has the right to be told what's happened.' He thought of what Clare had said. ‘She may well have an acquaintance at the hospital, but no way will they allow her to interfere with their handling of the case. He's not her patient, and she's not even on the hospital staff. I don't know how she imagines she can influence the situation.'

Without taking her eyes from the road, Nora said, ‘By being there when he regains consciousness, of course. That's all it'll take. It would work with you and me, wouldn't it?'

‘That's different. They don't have the same kind of relationship.'

Nora just gave a woman's knowing smile, but Tom was gazing from the window and did not see it. He had spotted a woman wearing a three-quarter coat over a pleated tartan skirt. He sighed. Well, SIB had ensured that the Drumdorran Fusiliers could safely hold their Highland fling on Saturday. With bloody bagpipes!