Out of Mind (15 page)

As I hung up, I realized I’d failed to ask him all the questions a producer should ask: What is your schedule? Could you make
some time to answer some questions on film for me? I didn’t beat myself up about it. I knew Edwin would have said no anyway.
Trying to get any journalist on the receiving end of an interview is like persuading a pig to fly. They’re not attracted by
the moment of fame: They know that what goes up comes down.

Finney called me to say he’d passed on my message about Mike’s return.

“Did you know, incidentally,” he asked, “that Veronica Mann is now working down there?”

Veronica Mann had worked with Finney when he was investigating the death of Adam. I had seen them both as the enemy then,
but Finney had become my lover and Veronica my friend. Not that we had seen much of each other in the past year.

“You told me she got transferred. What was that about?”

“Some jerk making trouble for her. I dealt with him. But she wanted a change of air.”

“Will she have anything to do with the investigation of Mike Darling?”

“I don’t even know if there’s going to be an investigation of Mike Darling,” he warned me. “Don’t hold your breath.”

I hung up, frustrated and in need of coffee. So I took a walk to the canteen and then to thank Henry in the picture library.
He reached under the counter and brought out a buff envelope full of still photographs taken by Edwin Rochester in Afghanistan.
I thanked him again and took the photos back to the office.

Edwin Rochester operated on that spot where journalism meets art and history. I thumbed through the black-and-white prints.
I was familiar with news photographs. But the play of light and the careful composition of the frame lent these photographs
an almost spiritual dimension in Edwin’s hands. This is what still photography can do that the movie camera rarely achieves.
The movie camera appears to offer more, a continuous flow of images, no danger of boredom, nothing missing, no gaps; there
is the energy, the flow of real life. Yet it is the still photograph that forces the viewer’s eye to dwell and examine life
minutely, to confront the expression on the face, the twist of a limb, the stance of victor or defeated.

Mostly these were pictures of combatants and civilians caught in the crossfire. But there were pictures of village boys leading
jeeps through the shallows of a river, and of donkey convoys. There were photographs of Melanie, too, in cafés, in hotel rooms,
on her own, with other journalists. Two pictures were of a picnic on an unidentified hillside in an unidentified country,
a blanket spread on the ground, Melanie smiling with a hunk of bread and cheese in her hand, and then, presumably having eaten
her fill, lying on her back in the deep grass, eyes closed in sleep. I don’t know why they were there, in the envelope with
the other pictures. They were surely of no use to the Corporation. I rang up Henry and asked him why these photographs were
stored in the photo archive, but all he could suggest was that Edwin Rochester had forgotten they were in the envelope, and
that tallied with what Edwin had told me on the phone.

In several of these images, Melanie looked exhausted. Typically, she had a slight smile on her face, and she was holding a
cigarette between her fingers. She dressed for comfort—T-shirts and jeans—and her hair was loose over her shoulders. She allowed
the gray to show in among the brown. She was tall and strong, born to carry a camera. In one photograph she wore a sleeveless
shirt, and the muscles on her arms were defined and powerful.

I flicked through the collection, and it occurred to me how very many photographs there were and how sympathetic they were,
catching her in different lights, in different moods, her eyes always distant, watching, full of knowledge.

That night I went back to the videotapes, and I went straight to the Afghanistan film, fast-forwarding, stopping only to check
faces. At last I found it, a nighttime scene in a narrow street of mud houses, four men who had adopted local dress, gathering
together. I recognized Mike Darling, his face partially swathed in a scarf.

I froze the image.

I had discounted Afghanistan after reading the account of Sean Howie’s death. The whole story there was something and nothing,
Melanie’s involvement so minimal that I couldn’t believe it had anything to do with her death. But now I knew something else
had happened in Afghanistan.

I gazed at the screen, and slowly, out of context, I thought I recognized two other faces. There was Alan Hudder, whom I hadn’t
seen since we’d met in Cambodia. In Afghanistan he had looked less fleshy, more focused. The other face I recognized was that
of Kes. He stood talking with the group in a low voice, apparently giving instructions. He was gesturing with his hands. The
fourth face was so heavily swathed in cloth I could not see it. The screen went blank. I frowned, suspecting mischief, then
I glanced at the digital readout, which had stopped at forty-two minutes, and I realized that this at least was not a mystery.
Melanie had simply run out of tape.

T
HE next morning, before I left for work, I dug out the business card that Alan Hudder had given me shortly before Justin stepped
on a mine and blew his leg off. I rang his number, and a woman answered.

“Yes, yes, I’m Alan’s wife, Kay,” she introduced herself cheerfully. “I’m afraid he’s abroad still, who is this?”

I introduced myself then told her that I’d filmed an interview with her husband in Pursat and that I just wanted to follow
up on a couple of things he’d said. She did not appear to have heard of me.

“I’m sure he’d be delighted to speak to you,” she said, “but he is actually in Saudi, and will be for some time.”

“Would it be possible for me to speak to him on the phone, do you think?”

“Well . . .” There was the first indication of hesitation.

“Or, I don’t know if you could help me with this. I know that Alan was in Afghanistan with Kes Laver and Mike Darling, and
there was one other man, and I wonder if you know how I can get in touch with him.”

For a moment there was complete silence on the line.

“Oh dear, no, that would be Ray Jackson,” she told me. “He died out there.”

“Oh. I see.” Soldiers die in wartime, of course, and now that she had said it I remembered Justin saying something about Ray
Jackson and how his death had galvanized his father to leave the army. “What happened?”

“Well, it was sniper fire, I think. Alan’s never really said what sort of mission they were on.” In the background, I heard
a door bell. “I’m sorry, I have people coming round, so I’ll have to get off the phone now. But let me give you the number
for Ray’s wife. Her name’s Alice, and she lives in London. She’ll be able to tell you more than I can.”

Alice Jackson sounded harried and unenthusiastic about meeting with me.

“Look,” she said, “I work in Boots at Piccadilly Circus. Come to the pharmacy counter at twelve-thirty, and I’ll try to take
my lunch then.”

I thanked her and at half-past twelve made my way through aisles of shampoo and toothpaste and found a small, solid blond
woman with shoulder-length hair clipped back behind her ears, wearing a badge on her chest that identified her as Alice Jackson.
She had a wide mouth, large eyes, and a polite but weary look about her that was tried to its limit as she attempted to answer
a series of questions from an obese woman who was asking for a tonic for her daughter.

Eventually the woman heaved herself off to look at the shelves of alternative medicines, and Alice turned to me with a sigh.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ve got an hour for you.”

“Can I take you to lunch?”

Alice looked me up and down. I was wearing a skirt, and for once my T-shirt was of the tailored, expensive kind rather than
the baggy, food-stained kind.

“You know,” she said, “I really don’t want to sit in some crowded restaurant, and if it’s not crowded, then I’m not dressed
for it. Would it be all right if we bought some sandwiches and took them to the park?”

She went to take off her white coat and pick up her bag, and we went to the food section and waited on line to pay for sandwiches
and bottles of water. We headed out of the store and into throngs of shoppers. Eros balanced on top of his plinth. With the
best will in the world, he’d have hit the wrong man and woman if he’d tried to take aim on a pair of lovers in that crowd.
We elbowed our way toward Green Park.

“You must get tired of hearing everyone’s problems,” I said.

“Oh, it’s all right,” she said. “It takes my mind off my own problems. And it makes me thankful for my good health, and for
Olivia’s.”

“Olivia’s your daughter?”

“Yes, she’s ten now. She was seven when her father died. Look, I don’t know what you want to know. I try not to dwell on Ray’s
death; it upsets me too much, and I don’t have time to be upset.”

Ahead of us, a Japanese couple vacated a park bench, and as we sat down, a fat gray squirrel immediately approached to sniff
around us. We unwrapped our sandwiches.

“Did you hear about Melanie Jacobs, the camerawoman who disappeared?” I asked.

She didn’t remember the details, but anyway they weren’t the most important thing. I explained that I was tracing Melanie’s
life back through the film that she’d taken and that I’d seen her husband’s face on the tape from Afghanistan, along with
the faces of Alan, Mike and Kes. I described the scene to her, the small group of men in local dress, about to enter a small
town of earthen dwellings at night. She asked me about the date on the tape, and I told her October three years earlier.

Alice went pale. She placed the sandwich on its plastic wrapper and stared down at it.

“I think the film was taken in a village somewhere south of Mazar-e-Sharif,” I said, “and that small special forces patrols
like Ray’s were being sent on missions to make contact with local militia chiefs.”

“So that was her, then, the camerawoman who was with them that night. She’s the one who’s disappeared?” She frowned. “The
film must have been taken the night Ray died.”

I didn’t want to press her, so I sat and waited, sipping from my water bottle. The sun beat down on us.

“The night Ray died,” she repeated her own words slowly, “well, it’s all supposed to be secret, but I can’t see how it matters
now. I don’t know all the details myself. But from what I’ve been told, the men were going behind enemy lines on a routine
reconnaissance patrol. That’s one of the things they were trained to do, to go in small groups behind enemy lines and see
what’s there, so everyone knows what they’re getting themselves into. Anyway, the way I know that it must be the night Ray
died is because I know there was a camerawoman there when he died. And that was the only time they had a journalist with them.
I know it was a bit controversial.” She glanced at me, as though I would object to her describing Melanie’s presence as controversial.

“Of course they never recovered his body; he was officially missing in action. So there was a lot of investigation into what
went wrong. They couldn’t get it straight for a long time, at least, they couldn’t tell me exactly how he died, or why. In
the end, I was told they were ambushed, and Ray was shot in the eye at short range by a sniper, and he died instantly. End,”
she said slowly and deliberately, “of story. I’m sorry, I know that sounds heartless, but it nearly destroyed me to have everything
picked over. I have Olivia. I have to move on. I told—”

She stopped short, picked up her sandwich, and took a bite.

“Who did you tell?”

She gave me a look, chewed, and swallowed. “I told the others, Mike and Kes and Alan.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I can’t keep going over it. I have to move on. The men were all so close, and Sheryl and Anita and Kay, they were so
supportive. Sheryl and Kes took such good care of me after Ray’s death. Sheryl especially, she used to bring me food, and
help with Olivia’s homework, and oh, she was so kind. Kes too. So kind.”

She chewed her lip, her eyes fixed on some distant point in the past, then shook her head.

“I know they were only trying to help, but it wasn’t helpful to have any of them going over everything time and time again.
What had gone wrong, and so on, reliving that night, how so and so shouldn’t have done this and that and maybe this, and if
only that, on and on and on. I dropped a few hints that we couldn’t keep living in the past, and . . . Anyway, after a while,
I suppose we really did move on, because I haven’t seen much of anyone recently. I mean, we all keep in contact, we speak
on the phone now and again.”

We sat and ate in silence.

“How about Anita?” I asked eventually.

“I used to talk to Anita all the time”—she nodded—“and we used to meet up sometimes and go for a meal. But I haven’t spoken
to her for months. Well, it must be nearly a year now because the last time I saw her she was about six months gone, and the
baby must be nine months.”

“Ten,” I told her, and she smiled.

“Anita’s got a lot on her plate,” she said. “When the husbands are gone, when you’ve got a baby, it’s just awful, such hard
work, and no one to back you up. Anita never coped well. She was always so eaten up with anxiety about Mike, it was like she
lived on another planet. She just lived for word from him. She used to paint beautifully in the early days, but she let that
slide. She didn’t join in with us. We used to joke about it, but if she didn’t have a nervous breakdown, she came very close
to it. Still, look at her. She’s got her husband, and it’s me who lost mine. Maybe I should have worried more.” She shook
her head. “I don’t mean to be unsympathetic. And Anita’s mum and sisters are in Sri Lanka, so she’s got no support network
except her daughter, who’s got her own life to lead.”

She looked at her watch. “Look,” she said, “I don’t know if I’ve been any help, but I’ve got to go.”

I walked back with her to Boots, and when I said good-bye, I gave her one of my cards and asked her to call me if I could
help her with anything. She nodded and smiled briefly and said she doubted that she would need anything. I watched her make
her way through the sea of customers. I did not expect to see her or hear from her again.