Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

‘Prehistory, my thing. We know too much about the Romans. Anyway, Coops is your man, he’s well into the Romans. What were you going to ask me?’

‘Credenhill?’

‘Not Roman.’

‘No, but there was a Roman town below it.’

‘Magnis.’

‘All under farmland now, right?’

‘Yeah, but probably more extensive than they imagined. Credenhill? Is this something to do with Syd Spicer?’

‘Possibly.’

Merrily gazed into the inglenook, where the fire was in, just, the logs smoky grey and not apple. OK, here they were, mother and daughter, in the pub. Adults. Not much, if anything, she couldn’t discuss with Jane any more.

‘Syd was at Huw’s chapel last week, genning himself up on aspects of deliverance. We never found out what he was looking for. I need to find out whether that had any relevance to his death.’

‘Need to?’

‘Don’t ask.’

Jane shook her head.

‘You lead a very weird life, Mum.’

‘I know.’

‘What’s up with Barry? Why’s he keep looking at you?’

‘I think he wants to talk.’

‘But not with me here, right?’

‘He can wait.’

‘No, it’s OK.’ Jane sank the last of her cider, slid to the end of the bench. ‘I need to call Eirion again. He’s coming over at the weekend. Staying tonight with his dad and his step-mum and then coming over to Hereford to see some mates from school, and then…’

‘He wants to stay with us?’

‘If that’s OK. I said I’d meet him in Hereford tomorrow afternoon.’

‘It’s always OK. But are you OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m OK. I’m glad we…’

‘Always remember we’re on the same side,’ Merrily said. ‘You know that.’

‘Yeah. I do. Thanks for the drink, Mum. And like… thanks for… you know… not biting my head off.’

And she was gone, leaving Merrily deeply unsettled. Thanks for not biting my head off? Had she really said that? Jane?

A new glass and a bottle of Brecon spring water arrived on the table. Barry slipped into Jane’s seat.

‘Didn’t think you’d want another cider, but I can go back.’

‘No, that’s fine. Thank you. How much do I-?’

‘On the house.’ Barry nodded towards the fire door, through which Jane had left. ‘Problems there?’

‘Jane’s a bit… overwrought about proposals for the village. Can’t help thinking she’s heard something about Savitch and the Swan. Not from me.’

‘Nice when a kid bothers about heritage.’

‘Yes. I suppose it is. Never felt part of anywhere before, and so if she thinks anyone’s trying to damage it…’ Merrily poured out some water. ‘I suppose you want to know how I got on with Liz. Put it this way, I’ve learned more than enough in the course of the day to support your opinion that Byron Jones is a man to be avoided if at all possible.’

‘Good.’

‘Unfortunately, it may not be possible, so I’d quite like you to tell me everything you were keeping quiet about last night. “They’re dead,” Barry. “All dead now.” What’s that mean?’

Barry wasn’t drinking tonight. He glanced over his shoulder.

‘Could mean a lot of things.’

‘I could go and ask James Bull-Davies, and he’d ask William Lockley, and Lockley would feed it back up the line.’

‘And five weeks later James would come back and tell you your question was inappropriate.’ Barry looked down into his cupped hands on the tabletop. ‘Remind me which of us started all this, Merrily, and then tell me how necessary it is to go on with it.’

Merrily moistened her lips with spring water.

‘Can we go back to when you said Byron had changed. Last night, you suggested he’d become abnormally ruthless. When did that happen?’

Barry looked around again. Nobody was close.

‘I’d say there was a change in him after the Iranian Embassy operation.’

‘But I thought he wasn’t-’

‘I know he wasn’t. But he thought he should ’ve been. Missed out on all the acclaim. No kiss from Maggie Thatcher.’ Barry shrugged. ‘Luck of the draw, but he didn’t see it that way.’

Merrily remembered watching it live on TV. A sunny early evening in London, a very public operation. Normal TV programmes cancelled for the final act of the big news story of the week. Half the nation gathered round the box as cameras tracked the masked men abseiling down from the roof, into the embassy where six terrorists were holding twenty-six hostages. Smoke bombs going off. All but one of the hostages rescued, all but one of the terrorists killed. Shot dead, with practised efficiency, by the boys from Hereford, some of whom, even now, were only ever filmed in silhouette. James Bond for real, and it had turned soldiers into superstars.

‘When you say the luck of the draw…?’

‘They just pulled the boys from the Killing House. It’s all in the public domain now. There’s this training building they call the Killing House, where we practised how not to shoot the good guys by mistake. Word comes through there’s a job in London, they pick the boys who’ve just completed that aspect of their counter-terrorism training. Driven out of Hereford, down to London in the white Range Rovers.’

‘Frank Collins was one, wasn’t he?’

‘Did the smoke bombs.’

‘Why did Byron think he’d been passed over?’

‘Because maybe he was. I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t there, but he might’ve made some small error of judgement in the Killing House or elsewhere. Situation like that, you can’t afford the smallest mistake. A guy who was closer to him than me, he reckoned Byron was convinced he’d been dropped because they thought he didn’t have the bottle for it. That was how he seemed to have translated it.’

‘I thought you weren’t even selected for the SAS unless your courage-’

‘He’s the kind of guy gets fixations. Even the Regiment can’t alter your personality. Something drove him further into himself and into his training. Personal training. He never stopped. No more social life for Byron. When he got married, we’re thinking, where’d she come from?’

‘Syd wasn’t in the embassy operation, was he? Even peripherally?’

‘No, he wasn’t. And, before you ask, most of the embassy boys are still alive.’

‘Can you think why Byron might have wanted to live near Credenhill?’

‘Don’t make much sense to me. He never served there.’

Merrily poured out more spring water.

‘Barry, what are you not telling me?’

‘Blimey, vicar… Look… all right… it would be silly to say no psycho ever got into the Regiment… although selection does weed them out.’

‘You think he’s psychotic?’

‘I’m not qualified to make a mental-health assessment. It’s my understanding – and for Christ’s sake, keep this totally to yourself – he was later seen by army psychiatrists.’

‘You know why?’

‘Um… yeah, I do, more or less. Same rules?’

‘Of course.’

‘I wasn’t there when this happened, either, but it was an exercise in the Beacons, where you’re divided into two opposing sides. It’s about fitness and tactics and ingenuity – thinking on your feet. In reality you’re on the same side. You know where it stops. Or you should do.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothing. That was the point. Thick fog. Young guy falls some distance down a slope, bangs his head on a rock, dies a week or so later in hospital. Byron was lying in the bracken, watching, when it happened. It was suggested he could’ve warned the boy he was close to the edge. He didn’t.’

‘They were on opposite sides?’

‘For the day. And it would’ve drawn attention to his position.’

‘Byron didn’t know when to stop?’