Poppy Day (14 page)

Still the grin didn’t falter.

Martin pointed at the wall. ‘More David Beckham soldiers? Here or here?’ He used his finger to indicate different parts of the building.

The lad smiled at Martin. ‘Ah!’ as though a penny had dropped. He nodded furiously.

Martin felt a surge of anticipation.

Man U bent low towards his face and paused, concentrating on his next words, which were almost a whisper, ‘Alex Ferguson!’

Martin’s frustration and disappointment were so acute that he wanted to punch him. He smiled and whispered back, ‘No, you dickhead, not Alex Ferguson or anyone else in your sodding team. You are a moron; I hate you.’

The young guard smiled and patted Martin’s shoulder.

It was to be a long day; he was left feeling low by the whole encounter.

He hoped that things were going on in the background to get him back, of course he did. He had to believe that there would be some sort of diplomatic activity, or at the very least that the army bigwigs were wading in, using local intelligence to find him and negotiate his handover. He knew it was a race against time. Would the army get him back before his captors decided to kill him? That had been the recognised pattern with all other hostages. Hostage. It was difficult to think of himself in that way. It never occurred to Martin that he might be
newsworthy
or that anyone at home might know what had happened.

He knew by that stage Poppy would have been informed by the family liaison team. They had been briefed on the process before being deployed. He had digested it at some level before putting it to the back of his mind. He and all others deployed had to believe that the chances of you, or your family, needing this service were very, very slim. The sort of occurrences that would require their intervention were the very things that only happened to other people, or so he thought.

Martin hated the fact Poppy would be worried sick, but he never thought for one minute that his mates in the pub would have the chance to read about his capture, fellow Spurs fans, people in his city, in his country. He couldn’t picture his story pinned up in the garage where he used to work, or a banner up on his old school gates, but this was exactly what was about to happen.

Martin, like every other human, could only see himself as the ordinary person that he was. Someone’s husband,
someone
’s son and someone’s neighbour; he never considered that he, or anything about him, might be of interest to anyone outside a small group. It was a strange and unnatural
situation
; he was an ordinary bloke, living an ordinary life, who found himself caught up in something extraordinary. Martin reasoned logically, that if it could happen to anyone and his selection had been random, then he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Had he?

He, like Poppy, hadn’t given much thought to God and heaven, but his situation forced him to reflect on things outside the normal. He considered the reasons why he was fighting there at all and it came full circle back to religion. Martin
marvelled
at the fact that, in the name of God and faith, man would happily blow each other up, maim and kill; he concluded that it was a funny kind of religion that endorsed this.

He tried to understand what the people who lived in this harsh terrain were willing to sacrifice in the name of their belief. They had so little and without the poppy crop and support of a terrorist organisation, they had absolutely nothing. For them to fight and potentially die, meant they were risking their families’ livelihoods and futures.

Martin thought about his own death. He wondered where he would go next, if anywhere, and began to ask for help. He confided his fears. Martin’s ideas of God were sketchy, but he reasoned that if he was praying, he must have believed that there was someone or something to pray to. He couldn’t say with any certainty that his prayers were answered, but it
certainly
made him feel better. It could have been self-soothing, but equally it might have been an all-powerful being, sending him messages of peace and hope. Who knows, maybe they were.

Martin used to imagine talking to Poppy. Her voice would be clear, as was the image of her flicking the fringe from her eyes, rubbing away her tears with the back of her hand…

If that’s not prayers being answered, communicating with his wife thousands of miles and a whole lifetime away, then what is?

P
OPPY PACED THE
flat, eager for Rob and the major to arrive. It was important to her that the place looked nice, she wanted them to see her calm and in control. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Major Helm felt superior to her. He wasn’t and she wanted to show him that. He’d been successful in his chosen career, so what? It was that luck thing again. Rob smiled at her when she opened the front door. Anthony Helm stood slightly behind him, hovering, as if trying to delay his entry.

Rob walked through into the lounge, leaving her to face the major. ‘Hello, Poppy. It’s good to see you.’

Poppy knew it was mean, but the instant he opened his gob with his falsely rounded vowels and over-familiar expression, she wanted to sock him one. She tried to overlook the way he shook her hand, whilst trying not to survey the poverty in which she lived. Poppy held a fascination for beautiful voices; with Major Helm it was different. He sounded arrogant,
condescending
, especially since this was the voice that he had cultivated. Poppy didn’t like it one bit.

The trouble was, the more he spoke the more irritated she felt, the less she warmed to him and the colder she became. Meaning the more uncomfortable he became and the more he spoke. The two were locked in a downward spiral of awkwardness that left her wanting to shout at him, ‘For God’s sake shut your trap!’

‘Come through,’ she managed, holding the door wide for him to pass.

He removed his hat and trotted into the lounge, sitting where he had before. Poppy recognised him as a human that sought out the comfort of the familiar.

‘Can I get anyone a cup of tea?’

‘Not for me thanks.’

Poppy suspected that Major Helm didn’t want to risk
drinking
from her catalogue-bought, budget cups with possible hairline cracks and the abomination of cheap, supermarket own-label tea bags. It didn’t occur to her that he might not want to put her to any trouble. He had set the tone; Rob shook his head in decline. Poppy could tell by the set of his mouth that, whether he wanted one or not, he wasn’t about to buck the trend. This made her smile. She took up her seat on the sofa, all present and correct.

Poppy noted how, before they could get down to anything interesting, Major Helm needed to go through his set piece. God forbid he might actually go off script. He feared
spontaneity
like any good soldier should. Ask Martin; spontaneous meant without a plan and that meant all kinds of trouble.

‘So Poppy, how are you bearing up?’

She bit the inside of her cheek, reminding herself to be nice. He had come all this way and might have something of interest to tell her. ‘I’m fine. It’s difficult, obviously.’

He nodded and simultaneously interrupted, ‘Obviously.’

‘… the most difficult thing is that I feel so useless. I wish that there was something that I could do to help, instead of sitting here watching the clock go around.’

‘Absolutely, Poppy. I understand, but you must realise that you are doing a fantastic job, waiting for Martin and staying strong for Martin. It’s exactly what the chaps on the frontline need, to know that they are supported, that they have
something
to come home to, someone waiting…’

She looked to Rob for guidance; he had conveniently averted his gaze towards the ceiling, unable to look at her. Under
different
circumstances she was sure that there would have been the suggestion of a smile playing around his lips. She was still hearing the words in her head. Had he really said ‘fantastic job’ and ‘chaps’? His language was more Jeeves and Wooster than MoD-speak.

‘I am sure that you are right, Anthony, the trouble is that my chap isn’t on the front line or performing a fantastic job, is he? He’s banged up in some godforsaken place that I can almost guarantee doesn’t have room service and what I really want to talk about is what you are doing to get him back.’

‘Of course, of course.’

Poppy noticed the stain of scarlet that started at his neck and swept up to his forehead. She misconstrued it as
embarrassment
. Anthony Helm, however, was not embarrassed, he was angry. Did this girl have no manners?

‘There have been measures taken, Poppy, to ensure Martin’s safe return.’

‘I’m very glad to hear that, Anthony. What measures?’

‘I’m sorry?’

She knew that he had heard and was going to use the repeated question as thinking time. She answered slowly, giving him a chance to formulate his response, ‘What measures? What exact measures have been taken to ensure Martin’s safe return?’ An earlier question sat at the front of her mind… they wouldn’t just leave him there, would they?

‘Right, yes.’ He touched his fingers into a pyramid at chest height, only separating them to emphasise a point, after which they would go back to their anchor position. ‘We have people within the unit who are trained in negotiation and are using local intelligence. These people are working tirelessly to gather information which will allow us to formulate a plan.’

‘That’s wonderful. So you are saying that there are people within the unit who are able to talk to the locals to gather information about who took him and where he might be held?’

‘Correct.’

‘And at what point will they all stop talking and start “going and getting” because, by my reckoning, he has been held for nearly four days now and I should imagine that each hour is a lifetime for Martin. Do we have a timescale?’

‘A timescale?’

‘For the “going and getting”?’

‘Not exactly a timescale, no. I’m afraid it’s not that simple,’ he laughed with his tongue poking out, stuck to the centre of his top lip. Silly girl.

‘Forgive me, Anthony, but I need it in simple terms, treat me as if I’m a bit thick. Talk me through EXACTLY what is being done to get my husband back to a place of safety, because I think we both know that the first seventy-two hours are
absolutely
crucial with the percentage of live hostage retrievals slipping by five per cent after each day in captivity. This doesn’t make Mart’s odds very good and we don’t want a “pass it on” case on our hands, do we? Where he is sold on and on until the chain of capture is so weakened, the demands so vague, that it’s almost not worth bothering to go and get him back.’

Rob put his hand over his mouth; this time she knew it was to suppress a smile. Poppy was aware that her confident stance was almost certainly in part to impress him. The three were silent for some seconds.

Anthony Helm, in the face of Poppy’s questioning, decided to cut the crap. He pinched the top of his nose and pushed an invisible point on his forehead. ‘Right, Poppy. I am going to be blunt with you.’

It was her turn to interrupt. ‘Please do, Anthony. I just want to know what’s going on.’

‘They know where he is being held, or at least they did. There was an operation, covert of course, in the early hours of yesterday morning. But I am sorry to have to tell you that it wasn’t successful.’

Poppy’s heart swelled in her ribcage, her poise collapsed. Despair sat on her chest, a physical block to stem the rising panic. Mart… Mart… Mart… The major’s words swirled inside her head, jumbled like a foreign language; words she recognised but whose meaning refused to sink in. Her vision blurred, a breath caught in her throat as a fresh bout of grief sucked at her ability to function. ‘Was Mart hurt? Is he all right? Did anyone see him?’

‘No. No one saw him, it was the wrong building. We were misinformed, or there’s a chance that the information was correct but that he’s been moved.’

‘When are they going to go again? Now that they know where he isn’t, does that mean that they are closer to finding out where he is?’ Her voice was tainted by the creep of hysteria.

The major exhaled loudly. ‘Poppy, it is not that easy.’ He considered his next choice of phrase, his tone now more direct, for which Poppy was grateful. ‘We’re pretty sure that he is being held in the Garmsir area. We are confident of this because we have the whole area patrolled and our sources on the ground say that he hasn’t been moved out. We also have a fair idea of who has taken him…’

Poppy looked at Rob. There was an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She received the message loud and clear.

‘The trouble is that it’s a tight-knit community and these people are intimidated by and indebted to the tribal warlords that run the province. Getting them to give us the information that we need is very tricky, especially after one failure. It’s made everyone more than a little edgy.’

She thought about what he’d said. The whole problem suddenly felt enormous and insolvable. ‘I don’t know what to do next.’ The admission of her weakness and confusion slipped out.

Rob held her gaze. ‘You don’t have to do anything, Poppy, it’s not your job to fix things; it’s ours.’

Poppy realised how much she had come to like Rob, he was a kind man.

‘Thank you for that,
Sergeant
.’ The major emphasised his rank.

Poppy fought the desire to tell him not to talk to her friend in that way. Instead, she found another way to break the tension. ‘How about that cup of tea?’

Major Helm flashed a tight smile. ‘Not for me. In fact I’ll be off.’ He barely registered the fact that Rob had stood. ‘See you soon, Poppy.’ His mouth once again twitched in a reluctant smirk.

Poppy and Rob faced each other, each feeling the gap that the major’s exit had left.

‘Was that “yes” or “no” for a cuppa?’

‘Well, as you’re making…’ he smiled. The two breathed easily for the first time since he had entered the flat. They filled the tiny kitchen. Rob leant on the work surface while she topped up the kettle and wiped up the cups.

Poppy wondered what Martin would say if he could see her, making tea and chatting to the sergeant as though he was one of their mates. ‘How could they have messed it up, Rob?’

He shook his head and swallowed his biscuit. ‘We don’t know that they did mess it up, Poppy. The major was right, it could have been false intelligence or just that their intelligence was better than ours. It is far more complicated out there than we realise, every move is a delicate balancing act.’

She liked the way he used the words, ‘than
we
realise’; it made her feel for the first time like she and he were a team.

‘When will they try again?’ Poppy needed the comfort of knowledge.

‘I honestly don’t know. There are so many factors, reliability of information, availability of specialists, cost.’

‘Cost?’ She was dumbstruck, nearly. ‘What about cost? This is Martin’s life we are talking about, how much is that worth to the British Army? To the bloody MoD? It’s not like I’m asking them to pay a contractor’s salary or order a new bloody plane. It’s a life! It’s my husband’s life!’ Poppy snapped the lid of the kettle into place. Countless newspaper headlines slipped into her focus,
Desert soldiers forced to buy their own boots; Not enough helicopters contributed to our son’s death; Lack of radios killed soldier in Iraqi police station siege.

Her stomach flipped as two things occurred to her. The first was that if maybe Martin’s life wasn’t considered valuable enough, how much would they spend on trying to get him back? Secondly, newspapers, publicity, that was what she needed. Jenna, bless her, even Jenna knew a bit about Terry Waite; OK the facts were slightly skewed but she had the gist and why? Because of newspapers! Poppy decided to keep this revelation to herself.

‘They have to consider cost, Poppy. I know it sounds cold and distant but every conflict has its cost.’

‘Oh I know that, Rob. I’m just not prepared for the price to be my husband’s life.’

The two stood in silence and listened to the hiss of the kettle.

‘Do your parents live nearby?’ Rob obviously hadn’t read the background on Poppy Day’s file.

‘No. My mum and I aren’t really in contact. She’s living with some bloke in Lanzarote or Tenerife, and, as for my dad, he might live next door or he might live in Timbuktu. I’ve never met him. I have my nan though, Dorothea, who has always been a bit bonkers, but is now suffering with dementia, bless her. Apart from Mart, she is all I’ve got. I kind of look after myself, Rob, I always have.’

Rob contemplated the information while the kettle hurtled towards its goal. ‘It sounds quite lonely, Poppy.’

‘What does?’

‘I don’t know, looking after yourself, having the
responsibility
of your nan, Martin being away…’

She resisted the temptation to say, ‘Oh Rob, it’s just peachy!’

‘Do you take sugar?’ Sometimes it was easier not to have those conversations.

After another restless night, Poppy stood bleary-eyed in the middle of the lift. Someone had recently taken a black marker pen to the floor level buttons, successfully making them
identical
. A nightmare for novice lift users, but for Poppy and most of its occupants, their fingers instinctively went to the button that meant home or bread, milk and fags. The lift shuddered the four floors down. As she stepped gingerly to avoid the
discarded
Chinese takeaway that spewed from its container across the floor, a man rushed over to her. He wasn’t threatening or running, but with his tan brogues clip-clopping on the
pavement
, his walk was brisk.

He was tall. Poppy noted that he was wearing too many layers, either to try and bulk out his wiry frame or because he felt the cold, possibly both. His jeans were dark, almost the same colour as his short waxed jacket, under which a green V-necked jersey, checked shirt and grey scarf were visible. His hair was collar length, curly and needed a wash. He wore black framed glasses that she suspected were designer and pricey but looked identical to the free NHS goggles that in another era would have invited
Thunderbird
-related ridicule. A large satchel was slung over his shoulder, making him look even more like head boy. She stood still, holding her coat closed at the neck.

‘Mrs Cricket?’