French Leave (28 page)

Derek Beeny, Piercey's friend, intervened before Tom's temper reacted to that bit of baiting. ‘Doctor Mannfried's report gives an approximate period of immersion as two weeks, which certainly ties in with the date of the great storm.'

‘It also states that Carr had received a blow to the side of his skull caused by contact with a smooth, round object, although the cause of death was water in the lungs. In effect, drowning. There could be a sinister interpretation of that injury to his head, but it's perfectly possible it could have been received during an accidental fall, so don't get carried away by thoughts of murder,' Tom warned.

‘So why the phone call saying someone had finally done in Smith, as he was then known?' asked Olly Simpson, doodling as usual.

‘That was received on the day before the storm, and I've a good idea who made it. Jake Morgan has a Brummie accent, and he's a cocky little bastard who's surely tied in with Carr's DVD enterprise.'

Max looked up from the pathologist's report and nodded. ‘I agree there appears to be a significant link between the dead man and the club run by Jake and Co. So far, there's no evidence to link it with Carr's death, however, and I doubt we'll find any to support that.

‘Let's review what we do know. Carr disappeared during the exercise and drowned in the river two days later. There's no indication of where he entered the water but let's say he fell, or was pushed in somewhere around the area just six Ks from the exercise ground. During and after the storm the swollen waters swept the body along until it crossed the weir and lodged in the debris, where I came upon it. One fact is surely unarguable. If Carr had been bludgeoned and shoved unconscious to his watery grave, the perpetrator could not have been a member of the West Wilts. They had returned to base.'

‘It could have been the local racketeer who'd been supplying Carr with pirated goods to sell,' suggested Heather. ‘His outside contact who'd promised to aid his desertion. They fell out, and the dodgy German ensured Carr would never scupper the business.'

‘But all our exhaustive questioning over the past two weeks hasn't produced a single lead to that premise,' Beeny pointed out. ‘We've scoured the pubs and clubs again this weekend and got zilch. All we do know is that Carr made lists in almost every store in town, but bought nothing.'

‘Or stole it,' added Piercey. ‘They watched him carefully, yet no one caught him shoplifting.'

‘So he
must
have had a supplier,' Heather insisted.

‘Must be a very, very shy one, because all our combined efforts didn't uncover even a hint of his identity,' Beeny reminded her.

Tom brought them back to the subject of Jake Morgan's club. ‘Zoe Rogers told Piercey, when she was unaware of his real job, that J.S. had made life exciting. She also said he and Sharon Miller were an item.'

‘And when I mentioned the name John Smith to Sharon she certainly betrayed having knowledge of him,' added Max. ‘Those schoolkids are tied in with Carr's dubious activities. We have to get from
them
clues to what led to his death.'

‘You think Jake Morgan killed him?' asked Connie in surprise.

‘I didn't say that.'

‘But he could've,' reasoned Olly Simpson. ‘A kid like him could get too big for his boots and make demands that Carr wasn't able or prepared to meet. Jake wasn't home exhausted after the exercise. He had every opportunity to rendezvous with Carr by the river and, when Carr wouldn't play along, shove him in.'

Grabbing that theory, Piercey elaborated on it. ‘Jake could have been the outside contact to aid Carr's desertion. That would have given him a hold over Carr and furthered his chances of getting what he wanted.'

Tom shook his head. ‘No, no, that kid is more mouth than motive. He might think himself a big fish in the pond, but it's a very small pond and he has his sights on a career in a much bigger one in the theatre world. I called him a cocky bastard, and that's all he is.'

Connie Bush, who had also encountered Jake Morgan, agreed. ‘Add male chauvinism and you have the complete description of him. He's certainly all for number one, but he's no killer. When he enters the tooth and claw world of theatre he'll soon be cut down to size.'

Tom studied them all, then addressed Beeny. ‘Go and talk to Jake about where he was in the week preceding the West Wilts' departure on exercise. Now we know Carr
did
desert, that lad might provide a clue as to why. Don't go in heavy enough to inflate his self-importance, but make it clear we're aware that he was associated with John Smith through his girlfriend Zoe.'

He then focussed on Olly Simpson. ‘You can tackle the girl. Take Heather along to satisfy regulations, but do all the talking yourself and make no secret of your authority in investigating the suspicious death of a man we know she had dealings with.'

As these three prepared to leave, Tom detailed Piercey to seek out and question the other two sixth-form lads running the club with Jake. ‘I'd say they're simply basking in his shadow, but they might have something useful to contribute towards Carr's behaviour leading up to the exercise. You
can
go in heavy with them, impressing on them the seriousness of our investigation.'

Piercey left, relishing these instructions, and Tom turned to find Max talking intently, to Connie Bush. She nodded and went to collect her bag and car keys, before also going on her way. As Tom cast an interrogatory look, he was invited to Max's office for a cup of coffee.

‘Where've you sent Connie?' he asked, as Max switched on the kettle.

‘The hospital.' He turned. ‘We need info from Sharon Miller. I swear she holds the key to all this, Tom. It's tricky. She's a minor and recovering from a dangerous fall. She's also in a volatile emotional state. That's all ranged against us, but that girl needs to pour out her troubles to someone she senses she can trust. Connie's good in such cases. She empathizes, people respond to her.'

‘But you said she's hiding behind imagined amnesia,' Tom reminded him, spooning coffee into two mugs.

‘Because she doesn't want to be sent home to face a blowsy stepmother and two lewd, pubescent boys. She fears her father's reaction to discovering her relationship with Carr, and she's shattered by what she sees as rejection by a man she believed had some love for her. Her so-called friends are blaming her for spoiling whatever they had going. Who can she unload her burden on?'

Stirring the coffee as Max poured boiling water, Tom gave the official answer. ‘A professional woman trained to deal with such cases.'

‘And I consider our Connie to be such a person. OK, she's not an accredited member of a child protection group, but she's experienced enough to approach Sharon correctly.' Max poured milk in the mugs, took one, then perched on the corner of the desk to look Tom in the eye. ‘I'm not ignoring protocol. When I visited Sharon she began to respond, but I guess I haven't Connie's finesse and the girl became so distressed that her nurse sent me away. I told Connie not to conduct an interview, just to coax Sharon to talk. About anything. It might produce the evidence we want, it might not, but once Sharon finds relief in being listened to with understanding, it'll all come out.'

Tom saw the sense in that and began to drink his coffee, lost in thought. Although Nora was the mainstay of his daughters' lives, when any one of them had what they considered to be a serious problem it was to him they turned. Unless it was a ‘woman's' problem. They, of course, were in a stable family group. The Miller girl was not. Where she might feel her father was there to deal with her usual difficulties, this was one instance when she was actually afraid to approach him.

‘I spent yesterday collating evidence in the Carr case and these are what I believe to be the facts,' Max said, breaking into Tom's introspection. ‘Carr has a psychologically-flawed personality. He has a history of stealing in order to buy acceptance and friendship. He joined the West Wilts to escape police prosecution, having stolen his cousin's identity. When he failed to find the comradeship he expected, he reverted to his habit of trying to buy friends, to the extent of being persuaded to steal from the Armoury to gain inclusion in White and Corkhill's activities. I'd rate him as big a pest as a stalker. Lance Corporal Mason told me he felt Carr was trying to climb into the skin of his dead friend. Creepy, or what?

‘Then Carr meets Sharon Miller. At a disco on the base, perhaps. The unhappy, unlovely Sharon is also desperate for affection and acceptance by her peers; desperate for what's essential when you're sixteen – a boyfriend. The unbelievable happens. J.S somehow makes life exciting for Zoe Rogers, the girl next door, and for Zoe's little gang. Sharon is suddenly accepted by them; becomes the bright star in their firmament. She has sex with Carr to show her gratitude.'

Taking a couple of biscuits from the tin beside the kettle, Max bit into one as his brow furrowed. ‘Then she falls from a bridge and everything changes. She's hurt and frightened. Her new friends accuse her of spoiling everything and, worst of all, her trophy lover disappears, leaving no message for her or any indication of where he's gone. She feels betrayed, senses that Carr had just used her for his own ends, and yet she clings to the dream she had been living for a short while.'

Max drained his mug and began on the second biscuit. ‘Now let's get back to Carr. Prior to the exercise the situation is this. He has something going with a group of schoolkids; he's having sex with Sharon. Yet day-to-day life with 3 Platoon is as lonely and restrictive as ever. Unlike other jobs he's had, he can't walk away and find something he'd like better. Then Sharon falls from the bridge and he's deprived of the one pleasure he hasn't had to buy. In some way this adversely affects the scheme he had with Zoe Rogers and Co. In addition, Corkhill and White constantly taunt him with the threat of reporting his theft of a rifle and ammo, a crime that would earn him a really long stretch.

‘He participates in the exercise, which is more arduous and demanding than previous ones because of the debilitating heatwave. He's told he'll be operating in similar temperatures in Afghanistan. 3 Platoon gang up and exceed each other with horror stories of what the Taliban will do to little creeps like him. That's when Carr decides it's time to move on. He can't go home, where he's wanted by police in several counties, but he has the whole of Europe to get lost in.

‘I think it's safe to assume he planned to return to base and slip away fully prepared, but on that last morning Miller yells a threat to sort him out at the end of the day. Carr reads into it his fear of Miller discovering what he'd been up to with Sharon becoming reality. He knows Miller hates his guts, so he's terrified of being beaten up while everyone turns a blind eye. As he has run from everything unpleasant in his life, so he runs from Miller.'

While Tom considered all those points, further conversation was made impossible by a pair of Lynx helicopters flying overhead to the Army Air Corps hangars on the far side of the base. When the roar faded, it was possible to hear the tramp of boots and loud chaffing between soldiers passing on their way to the NAAFI for their mid-morning break. Military routine continuing as usual.

Putting his empty mug beside the kettle, Tom said, ‘We'll never know what went through Carr's mind on the day he scarpered, but I'll go along with the probability that he'd grown shit-scared of deployment to Afghanistan, fearing he'd get no back-up from the rest of the platoon. He's friendless and his girl is in a bad way in hospital. Things aren't going right for him, and his usual reaction is to run away and begin again.

‘I agree, have maintained all along, that it was something that occurred that morning that made it imperative for him to leave immediately. Everything points to sudden urgency. Whether it was Miller's threat is pure conjecture, in my opinion. Sergeants threaten squaddies as part of their daily routine. You know as well as I do that it's no more than blasphemous tongue-lashing designed to send the lads to the latrines in a hurry.'

Seeing Max's expression, he gave a faint smile. ‘OK, when I suggested a sexual relationship between Carr and his daughter, Miller vowed to kill the bastard, but he hadn't heard rumours of it before that last morning. He bawled Carr out for always hanging back on leaving the Warrior, that's all.'

‘Carr wasn't to know that.'

‘But we have no
proof
that he'd been shagging Sharon, only Zoe Rogers's comments to Piercey. Knowing her histrionic tendency I wouldn't convict a man on anything she said. And another thing, we have no
proof
that Carr stole a rifle and ammo to buy Corkhill and White's friendship, so we can't accept that Carr was burdened by their taunts on that subject.'

‘Private Ryan told me they had some hold over Carr,' Max pointed out. ‘And they both admitted to coercing him into getting those items, which he later produced.'

Tom nodded. ‘Fair enough. I guess those two wouldn't expose themselves to the possibility of criminal charges unless there was a basis of truth there. Carr's death has let them off the hook. He can't defend the charge, and we haven't got the items to prove they came from the Armoury. No case!'

‘Any more input?' asked Max.

‘We have no
proof
that the J.S. who made life exciting for Zoe was John Smith, as he was known. Could be anyone with those same initials. We're basing our premise on the fact that Carr's locker was full of DVDs etcetera, and Jake Morgan's club is selling such items.'

‘That's why I said Sharon Miller holds the key to this entire case.' He grinned. ‘Know why I enjoy working with you? You question my wild theories.'