The Missing Hours (14 page)

Seth looks at me, frowns. ‘If you like.’

‘What do you think happened? With Selena?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says quietly. ‘I really don’t.’

‘Your wife, she suggested that it could have been some medication. That maybe the antidepressants Selena was taking could have affected her recall …’

‘I guess. I mean,’ says Seth, ‘I really don’t know much about how those things work.’ Then he laughs, an out-of-place sound against the whistling wind. ‘If I didn’t know better, I would say she was burundanguiado.’

‘What?’

He laughs again, waves his hand. ‘Nah, it’s … it’s nothing. It’s this thing in South America. Look up “devil’s breath”. You’ll get a kick out of it.’

Letter from Ed Cole to Selena Cole

What I remember most is the heat. Dense, chewy, the kind of heat that loads up your lungs with clay, so that the few breaths you manage to pull in are thin and useless. I remember the way it sat on top of my eyelids, forcing them downwards. Fifty degrees and change. Those temperatures, they
’
re not meant for humans, they
’
re really not. Or maybe it was just that they weren
’
t meant for these humans, in our flak jackets, helmets that were now just a lid on a boiling pot. Our gear adding up until you could hit forty pounds in weight easy. In those temperatures? Yeah, double that, then you might have some idea how that feels.

I would say that it was a day like any other. But in Basra, there were no days like any other. They were leaden days. Days in which you knew you were about to die. Days in which the night-time that came whilst you were still breathing was a surprise, followed by the thought, well, maybe tomorrow. Basra airport. Home from home. Hell. Its soundtrack the permanent thud, thud, thud of missile strikes, the snap of bullets. We were all going to die. It was inevitable. It was just a matter of when.

Then would come the words. Resupply convoy.

And with that would come this twisted sense of relief, that the day of our death had been marked now, that it would be over soon.

You have to understand how things were, the lie of the land. Basra airport was shit, no doubt. But if you compare it to Basra Palace, we were sitting pretty. The palace, God. I guess it could have been attractive, once. If you’re into huge sandstone walls and pillars, an interior like Liberace’s bedroom. But the way it sits. I mean, you can see why you’d do it, if you’re a dictator and you want to stick two fingers up at your people. It’s set apart from the city, fed into by three routes and three routes alone, a nice view across the Shatt Al-Arab river. That is, if you ignore the war that is carrying on all around you.

So, the guys who were sent there, who used it as their base, they start off thinking that life is going to be pretty sweet. After all, they’re getting to live in a palace. Which is great, right up until you factor in the need to eat and drink and take a dump. Everything they had, we brought them. Everything they needed, they turned to us.

Hence the convoys.

You want to know how bad it was? The civilian drivers, the ones who would do anything for a couple of quid, they would get drunk before a run. Said it was better facing death through the blurry haze of alcohol.

Because there were only three routes in. And when we went, we went big. I mean, sometimes you’re talking a hundred vehicles. That’s one slow-moving beast, moving directly through Basra city centre. A place stuffed with many, many people who really, really did not like us. It was a good way to die.

That day, the day that it happened, we knew we were in trouble. We knew we were in trouble just because we were there. We were wedged into the back of a Warrior, seven men, more kit than you can shake a stick at. And the temperatures, they’re just sky-rocketing. Seth, he’s sitting right next to me, and you could tell he was nervous because he just would not shut the hell up. Ron says to him eventually, ‘Give it a rest, Brit.’ Only, once he did shut up, that was worse, because then all you can hear is the sound of tread on gravel, Seth’s foot bouncing against the floor of the Warrior, and the pock, pock, pock of gunfire.

Jason – Fuzz to his friends – is just sitting there, looking around us like he’s never seen us before, then he says, ‘Well, it’s a good day to die.’

That was when the IED blew.

I could try and describe the moment to you, but to be honest, I really don’t want to. There was just sound, so much of it that you are convinced you’ll never hear again. And after that … I don’t know. All I remember is lying on the street, the remains of the tank tilted on its side beside me, over me. I remember tasting grit in my mouth. People moving, bam, bam, bam, gunfire way closer now. I remember seeing a leg. Nothing else. Just a leg. I remember wondering if it was mine.

Then a figure emerging from the wreckage of the vehicle. Fuzz, dragging Seth behind him. Seth was pretty beaten up, burns down half his body. He was in and out of consciousness through most of it, a blessing when you think of the pain he would have had. I remember feeling for my weapon, firing off some shots. Whether I hit anything or not, I couldn’t tell you. The world was spinning around me and I’d have been surprised if I’d hit a barn door at five paces.

I remember knowing that we were going to die and not being scared. This, you have to remember, was before you. This was before our girls. If it were to happen to me today, I would be terrified. Now I have a lot more to live for.

So we’re crouching there, me, Fuzz, Seth, using what is left of the Warrior for cover, knowing that it can’t last long, knowing that we’re about to die at any minute. An RPG whistles through, taking out the side of a building directly opposite us, Fuzz saying, ‘Thank fuck these guys can’t shoot for shit.’ But we all knew that they only had to get lucky once and that the next missile or the one after that, one of them’s going to have our name on it.

Then this surge of dust, the white horse replaced by a Bulldog, another Warrior, this one in fewer than a thousand pieces. Guys pouring out, bam, bam, bam. Somebody pulled me up. I never did find out who. Just throws me over his shoulder like I’m a side of beef. I remember arguing, saying I could walk, but them not listening.

I remember seeing the leg on the ground. Another guy scooping it up, cradling it. His eyes finding mine.

I remember Fuzz, half dragging, half carrying Seth. Another figure detaching himself, going to help, pulling Seth’s arm up over his shoulder, shouting something. I never did find out what. Fuzz, released now, pulling up his weapon, and you could tell that he felt better, that the ability to have hands on his gun had made him feel safer.

I remember the RPG as it hit Fuzz square in the chest.

They said I passed out after that. That not remembering anything else was my brain’s way of protecting itself. I told them that if it was that worried about protection, it would have wiped the whole damn thing away. I don’t remember anything else until Germany. They told me I’d been out for days.

I don’t remember knowing that I’d lost my leg. I don’t ever remember that moment of realisation, that everything would be different from here on in because I was only sporting three good limbs instead of four. But I do remember lying in bed, not wanting to look down, because somehow I already knew that it was gone.

I remember allowing myself a day. To grieve. To know beyond all shadow of a doubt that my life was over, that I might as well have died in the Basra streets alongside Ron and Fuzz.

Then the next day, life began again.

They didn’t kill me. They tried. But they failed. That had to count for something, right?

And then, six months later, there was you.

Ironic, really, that life handed me so much more to live for once I had so much less to live with.

I knew it the moment you walked in. I know you laugh when I say that, that the cynic in you doesn’t believe in love at first sight. But, whatever, I knew. So you’ll just have to deal with that. Okay?

We don’t talk about this. I know that. I know that you have tried and that I have said no, so that is entirely on me. But then I got to thinking. I owe it to you, to my girls, to explain how things were, to tell you what happened. I know you weren’t there, but now it is as much your history as it is mine, because it has shaped what we have become. Ironically, in an incredible, amazing way. I’m writing this for you, so that when I am ready and when you are ready and when the girls are ready, you will know. I don’t know when I’ll show it to you. I have to be honest that I’m a little afraid that you will read it and that, just for a moment, you will look at me with something like pity, and I’m not sure that I can bear that. So, I’m stealing myself. In the meantime, Seth will take care of it for me. And if anything should ever happen, he will know what to do.

All my love, always

Ed

Finding Beck

DS Finn Hale: Wednesday, 1.15 p.m.

I HAVE THE
car keys in my hand. I do not know what I think I can do to find Beck Chambers that the rest of Hereford’s finest can’t, but whatever it is, I’m planning on doing it.

‘Where are you going?’ asks Oliver.

I swear beneath my breath. Arrange my face before looking at him. ‘I’m going to see if I can unearth Beck Chambers.’

He gives me a long look. ‘Course you are.’

My desk phone rings and we both look at it. I’m wondering how far my authority stretches. Can I get this prick to walk over here and answer my phone for me?

Probably not.

‘DS Hale.’

‘Vikki on the front desk here. I have someone to see you.’

I glance around, flailing wildly. ‘Okay, well, ah, Oliver could …’ I see Oliver look up at the mention of his name, his face warning of a protest to come. Ah, stuff it. There must be some perks to this sergeant lark.

‘No.’ Vikki cuts me off before I’ve had a chance to get into my stride. ‘They want you. Sorry, Sarge.’

I sigh, loudly.

‘Look,’ she says, ‘I understand that you’re very important now, but still. Needs must.’

‘Well are you going to tell me who it is, or should I guess?’

‘Beck Chambers.’

For a second it is like I have heard an echo, that the name I have spent the last day thinking about has somehow escaped my head, bouncing back at me from the outside. ‘I’ll be right down.’

I hang up the phone. What the hell is he doing here? Why would he just wander in? My thinking splits, one half clinging to the idea that our main suspect may not be much of a suspect after all. Why would he come here? What could he have to gain?

Then there’s the other half. That half says that this right here is a bluff. That I’m being played. I like this half far better.

‘What was that?’ asks Oliver, his face still dark, like he is waiting for a fight.

I glance at him, try not to look too smug. ‘I found Beck Chambers.’

The reception area is quiet. A middle-aged man is half hidden behind the potted ficus, twisting a scarf around his hands, striped woollen handcuffs. A young woman sits five seats down from him, looks to be out of it, high on more than life with her painted-on jeans, a drowning knitted jumper that reaches to her knees.

And Beck Chambers.

He sits as if in front of a court martial, his hands neatly folded in his lap, his knees steady, eyes hooked on a spot on the floor.

I find my gaze trapped on those hands, palms the size of dinner plates. Looking for cuts, scuffs, the telltale sign that they have recently been used to stab someone to death.

‘Mr Chambers.’ I try to sound pleasant, light. You get more results with honey than with … being an arsehole.

He looks up at me, gauging me. Then nods to himself, pushes himself up to his full height. He has lost weight since his last arrest photo, is leaner although still about twice as wide as I am. The once full cheeks now sink inwards to form crevices, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes.

I reach out, offer him my hand. ‘DS Finn Hale.’

He looks at it like it is going to explode, then reaches out tentatively, an unenthusiastic shake. ‘I heard you were looking for me. Fae, from Dom’s office. She called me. Told me about … about what happened.’

‘Fae called you?’ I remind myself to thank her. Hell, I might deputise her at this point.

‘She thought I should come and see you. That you’d have questions.’ His tone is flat, voice low, although the words themselves are clear enough. I study him. What the hell is he doing here?

I smile, buying myself some more time. ‘We really appreciate you doing that.’

Can I smell alcohol on him? Are his pupils dilated?

It’s only in these moments that you realise how tough it is to check for these things without looking like a lunatic.