Soldier's Daughters (29 page)

‘Anyway, it won’t be for long, ma’am. I expect I’ll be off into the bush soon. Captain Bailey has detailed me to look after some reporter or other who is joining us.’

‘Oh, who’s that?’

Cooper shrugged. ‘Haven’t a clue. Anyway, whoever it is I’m lumbered with, it has to be better than log-keeping on the night shift.’

‘Was that what they had planned for you?’

‘Dunno, but there isn’t much else I can do out here, is there?’

Sam looked at Cooper’s long sleek hair, polished nails and fake tan and thought there probably wasn’t. Escorting a civvy was probably a very suitable job for her.

Corporal Cooper suddenly shrieked and Sam jumped.

‘What?’

‘There.’ Cooper was pointing, with a shaking hand, at a small lizard scuttling up the wall from behind a bed.

‘Aw,’ said Sam. ‘Isn’t it cute?’

‘Cute?’ squealed Cooper. ‘You having a laugh? Ma’am,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘Well, I think so. And, if there are any bugs in here it’ll probably scoff them so we needn’t be worried about them either.’ Sam saw the pallor on her roomie’s face.

Cooper looked as if she might faint. ‘Bugs?’ she whispered. Maybe Cooper wasn’t as interested in the local wildlife as she was.

‘Well, mossies and the odd fly.’ Maybe now wasn’t the time to mention things like praying mantises, termites and soldier ants.

Cooper shuddered. ‘Thank gawd we don’t have a window,’ she said with feeling. ‘One less way for the little sods to get to us.’

Sam didn’t think that her idea to leave the door open for ventilation was going to meet with approval.

Immi was standing at the back of the queue for supper in the huge building that had been designated as the cookhouse. No separate messes for the various ranks here, but one vast roofed space with mesh for windows instead of glass. The mesh let the air pass through but kept the bugs and creatures out, or that was the idea; climate control it wasn’t. In fact, thought Immi, everything here was rubbish and as for the ablutions…! She shuddered. Honestly, she thought, she’d rather dig a hole in the ground. At least she’d know that she was the first to use it. The state of some of the lavs… She felt her flesh crawl.

‘Wotcha, Immi.’

‘Luke.’ She was genuinely pleased to see him. ‘Hey, how was the skiing?’

‘Great snow, nice chalet, plenty to eat. Yeah, it was all OK. What about your leave?’

Immi shrugged. ‘The usual – ate too much, drank too much, had a row with my mum…’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nah, it was blinding. Honest.’

Luke didn’t look convinced. ‘I’m pleased.’

The queue shuffled forward slowly and finally the pair reached the serving counter. Immi surveyed the choices, trying to decide which was the least minging option. In the end she opted for steak pie.

‘Although gawd knows what animal they got this stewing steak off,’ said the cook.

Immi took her meal and a large glass of water over to an empty table. Luke followed and she felt her heart quicken slightly. Being behind her in the queue hadn’t been a matter of choice but luck, but now he was choosing to sit with her. Maybe she was in with a shot. Maybe he did like her a bit. And she so wanted that to be the case because she was as smitten with him as a teenager with a crush on Harry Styles.

They sat next to each other and ate their food. Or rather, Luke ate his, wolfing it down, but Immi spent most of her time trying to find the fibres of meat in amongst gobbets of fat.

‘Can I join you? Only there aren’t a lot of familiar faces here.’

Immi looked up from her plate, her brow still furrowed in concentration, and saw Captain Lewis. ‘Oh, yeah. Of course.’ But inwardly she was sighing with annoyance. Why didn’t Lewis go and sit with someone else instead of playing gooseberry with her and Luke? Bollocks.

Captain Lewis sat down and slid her plate off her tray. ‘I chose the steak pie,’ she announced. Then she looked at the lumps of fat arranged around the edge of Immi’s plate and back at her own plate. ‘Oh well,’ she said, as she tucked in. ‘When you’ve been to boarding school you can eat most things.’

Immi gazed in horror at the first forkful of meat that Captain Lewis put in her mouth. Yuck. How could anyone eat that sort of shit?

Around them the cookhouse was buzzing with conversation and the occasional burst of laughter but the three people at Immi’s table munched in silence. Then Captain Lewis said, ‘So, did you both have a lovely Christmas? And isn’t it strange to go from winter to this glorious sunshine in a few hours.’

‘Brill, thanks,’ said Immi. ‘How about you?’

‘I spent it with friends and then New Year with more friends, so it was good. Quite jolly.’

Captain Lewis turned towards Luke. ‘And how about you, Corporal Blake?’

He didn’t answer. Instead, he abruptly pushed his plate away from him, despite the fact that he’d only eaten half his meal and stood up. ‘Sorry, things to do,’ he muttered.

Like what? wondered Immi, as he strode off.

Captain Lewis looked bewildered. ‘You wouldn’t think asking someone about their leave was a hanging offence, would you?’

‘He’s just a moody git. It’s nothing personal.’

Captain Lewis looked dumbfounded for a second or two, then she said, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised by his behaviour; he’s hardly the life and soul of the party down at the LAD. He always looks at me like… well, never mind.’

Immi was thrown. Maybe she’d read Luke wrong. Maybe he
didn’t
like Captain Lewis. So much for her previous assumption. ‘Well… I’m only guessing but I don’t think he’s got a great home life. But he can be nice, honest,’ she added. ‘Yesterday I caught him putting out some leftovers for those stray moggies that hang around the back of the cookhouse. He put a bowl of water down for them too.’

‘Almost Saint Francis,’ said Lewis. She returned to eating her lunch. ‘He’s not your average squaddie, is he?’

‘You’ve noticed.’

Captain Lewis took another mouthful, chewed and swallowed. ‘I
am
his boss.’

‘He never talks about his background,’ said Immi. ‘Or he doesn’t to me.’ She looked hopefully at Captain Lewis.

‘A totally closed book.’

Oh well, thought Immi. His mystery was one of the things that made him so attractive.

Maddy felt like a zombie. Quite apart from the fact that she was suffering from sleep deprivation due to the worry about Seb and their future keeping her awake at night, Nathan had chosen to start being difficult about almost everything, squirming and crying when she tried to do the least thing: strap him into his pushchair; dress him; change his nappy; anything. Maddy simply didn’t have the energy for these battles and was horribly aware that she was coming dangerously close to losing her temper with him. Maybe he was reacting to her stress, she thought. She wished she could explain to the little mite that his behaviour was hardly going to make the situation any better.

Still, she thought as she sat on the sofa, feeling sorry for herself wasn’t getting anything done. She had a check-up with the midwife at the surgery and she had to get Nathan ready to go out. Maybe, once she’d got herself into town, she’d take herself for a coffee or do some window-shopping. Perhaps getting out and about, doing normal stuff, would make her feel a bit more human.

Wearily she hauled herself upright, trying to ignore the twinge in her back and the way the baby’s foot seemed to have jammed itself under her ribs. Had pregnancy been this bad with Nate? She scooped Nathan up off the floor and was rewarded with a wail of protest. Maddy sighed as the wail grew louder and Nate started to bang her face with his pudgy fists, yelling, ‘No, no, no.’

She grabbed his hands with her free hand to stop him hitting her. She knew she ought to try and explain to him that what he was doing wasn’t nice or kind but, frankly, she couldn’t be arsed. She took his all-in-one padded suit off the bottom of the banisters and sat on the stairs while she forced her now screaming son into it and did up the zip. By the time she’d finished she felt utterly drained. Sheesh, and now she had to face the next battle – that of strapping him into his car seat.

By the time she’d done that, loaded his buggy and got her own coat on, the last thing she wanted to do was drive to Warminster and spend half an hour sitting in the doctor’s waiting room because the midwife’s clinic always ran late. Oh the joy of not only having her own badly behaved toddler to contend with, but other people’s too.

It seemed to take for ever to get weighed, measured and checked and then receive the inevitable lecture about looking after herself – ‘You look very tired, Maddy, are you getting enough sleep?’ – to which she’d wanted to say, ‘I think my husband is having an affair, I think his mistress might be stalking me, I am out of my mind with worry, so of course I’m not.’ But instead she’d nodded and forced a smile that said she was getting as much as was possible with a wriggly baby that liked nothing better than practising its gymnastic skills at three in the morning.

When she finally escaped she seriously thought about going home, but the weather was nice and Nathan was looking sleepy so she left her car in the now almost-empty surgery car park and headed into Warminster. By the time she was on the High Street her son was out for the count. So what to do now? Browse around the sales for clothes she wouldn’t be able to get into for weeks and weeks, go for a coffee, window-shop…? Clothes shopping was pointless and frankly her back ached. A nice sit-down with a cuppa was what she fancied. She headed for the coffee shop.

‘Coo-ee. Oi, Mads.’

Maddy stopped in her tracks and spun round. ‘Jenna. Lovely to see you.’

Jenna peered at Maddy. ‘You all right?’

Maddy nodded, trying to look bright and chipper. ‘Yeah, of course. You know, big with child.’

‘You’re certainly that,’ said Jenna, eyeing her bump. ‘When did you say you’re due?’

‘March.’

‘Not long now.’

‘No.’

‘Your old man involved with this exercise?’

Maddy nodded again. ‘Yes, he went out with the advance party so, assuming it all goes according to plan, he’ll be back in time for this one’s appearance.’ She patted the bump and was rewarded with a sharp kick that made her catch her breath.

‘Something the matter?’ asked Jenna with genuine concern.

‘Just the baby being boisterous.’

Jenna wrinkled her nose. ‘I have to say, I’m not sold on this pregnancy lark. Can’t say I’m planning on trying it.’

‘No? You don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘I think I do. Anyway, you got time for a coffee?’

Maddy nodded. ‘You must be a mind reader. I was on my way for one – thought I’d treat myself to a cappu and a muffin while Nate is asleep.’

‘Then it’s my treat – payback for last time.’

The two women strolled towards the coffee shop and while Maddy parked Nathan and settled herself, as comfortably as her bump allowed, Jenna queued.

‘There we go,’ she said as she put the laden tray down on the table a couple of minutes later. ‘So, how’s tricks?’

Maddy stared into space for a second or two and then made her mind up. ‘Shit.’

‘Shit?’ squawked Jenna, loudly.

An old biddy with a tight blue perm shot Jenna a filthy look as the swear word reverberated around their end of the café. Jenna returned the glare but then, much more quietly, she said, ‘What do you mean, shit?’

‘I mean shit.’ Maddy sighed. ‘I don’t know where to start… I think my husband might be having an affair.’

Jenna’s eyes widened. ‘Blimey. So what makes you think that? All those weekends away?’

Maddy nodded.

‘You sure?’ asked Jenna. ‘Just because I said that all that time he spent away might mean he was up to something – well, I didn’t mean to go and put ideas in your head. It was only a throwaway line, honest.’

‘And, when you said it, I really, really thought that his rowing weekends were exactly that, rowing, right up until the moment when I started getting texts from his girlfriend.’

Jenna choked and hurriedly put her cup down. ‘No! She never. What a cow!’

‘Hmm,’ said Maddy, nodding. ‘A total cow. And I think she might have come to the house a couple of times. My neighbour saw her hanging around and then someone called when I was busy with Nate. Whoever it was, it was pretty scary – lots of banging on the door and leaning on the doorbell.’

‘Oh, that’s creepy. She sounds like a bit of a psycho.’

Maddy sighed. ‘Thanks, Jenna. I really don’t need to hear that.’

Jenna shrugged and raised her eyebrows. ‘You not wanting to hear it doesn’t change things, does it? Who is this woman, then?’

‘I’ve got my suspicions.’

‘Someone from the battalion?’

‘No, but I think she’s army. She’s a mate of Sam Lewis’s. Or she is if it’s who I think it is.’

‘You mean Captain Lewis, Dan’s boss?’

Maddy nodded.

Jenna took a sip of her latte. ‘Do you think Captain Lewis knows? I mean, she’s nice, I really like her. She wouldn’t have mates who are nutty, surely?’

‘I dunno, she might. Let’s face it, neither of us know her well.’

Jenna leaned forward and put her hand over Maddy’s. ‘Look, I know that I’m probably not the most suitable person to offer help – not if you consider what I’ve done in the past – but if there’s anything,
anything
, I can do and if you want to talk about stuff, anything, call me. Promise.’

Maddy nodded. ‘That’s really kind. I appreciate it.’

Sam walked out to the vehicle park at the Laikipia base and surveyed what was parked there. Superficially all the Land Rovers and trucks looked fairly reasonable; newish, in one piece, not too many dinks and dents… However, she wasn’t taken in. She’d been warned that everything had been thrashed by a succession of battle groups who had exercised here since these vehicles had replaced the old ones – the ones that simply couldn’t be repaired or bodged together any more. Not that these vehicles were her worry for the moment. As long as the engines worked, the tyres were legal, the signals equipment functioned, as did the other bits and bobs of bolted-on kit, they remained the responsibility of the transport officer. However, the minute things began to go wrong then her team would have to step in and either repair or recover them. She hoped that the assessment was horribly pessimistic; she knew she wasn’t in Africa to enjoy herself but getting some time off and some sleep would be nice.