Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

Bliss stood up and went to the window. The end of the rush hour, brake lights like snail trails under the purple sky. Maundy Thursday was always purple, Good Friday black. No matter how lapsed a Catholic you were, Good Friday would always be black.

A black Easter, too, this year, in both his professional and private lives. He might leave the city, find a copper’s job on the other side of the country, but there would still be loose ends here, one of them forever sticking out like a fuse awaiting a lighted match.

His kids. The worst of all scenarios was his kids being brought up by hunt hero Sollers Bull.

Bliss wanted to smash a metal chair into the toughened glass, shatter the skyline.

And there was Annie. Images of Annie, his mind filling with one every few minutes. Tousled hair and a stripy sweater. A shadowy areola under a white nightdress.

The longer he left it, the harder it would be to tell her that he – a copper – hadn’t known about Kirsty and Sollers Bull. Too late now. Maybe he’d write her a letter one day, from a bedsit in Gloucester or Swindon or wherever he wound up.

Bliss stood at the window, watching homebound traffic. Couldn’t see himself going home tonight, not with Buckland out there.

He was no longer tired, anyway; his body was burning with blood sugar.

Here came the footsteps on the stairs. Light and unhurried.

Here was a man who kept quiet as a comrade plunged to his death in the Brecon Beacons. Here was a man who calmly dismantled his marriage. Here was a man who raped his friend’s wife in the grounds of a hotel in Buckinghamshire and then said goodnight.

‘Mr Jones, ma’am,’ the tall detective said.

William Lockley did the introductions. Knowing him from the old days, brothers in arms, all that.

‘Byron, this is Detective Chief Inspector Howe. Senior Investigating Officer in the Mansel Bull murder case.’

Byron Jones nodded. He wore a dark suit and a mid-blue silk tie to match his eyes. He was guided to the foot of the table, facing the door. The optimum no-threat comfort seat, Merrily thought, as Lockley moved to sit opposite her, next to Byron.

‘And this is Mrs Merrily Watkins,’ Lockley said, ‘whom I think we could describe as an investigator with the Hereford Diocese.’

‘Really.’ Byron turned his bright blue eyes briefly on Merrily. ‘What does the Diocese investigate?’

‘Overdue books from the Chained Library,’ Merrily said. ‘That kind of thing.’

Byron didn’t smile, by then looking away. He was not what she’d expected. But then, what had she expected? Cropped hair, multiple scars?

‘Byron,’ Lockley said, ‘I think I should say at this point that this is just a discussion… a chat. Without prejudice. It will not be recorded, it will not be used in evidence. This began as a routine police inquiry, which seems to have crossed over into our territory, and, frankly, we’re all a bit confused and hoping you can help us.’

Merrily wondered if this sounded as phoney and patronizing to Byron as it did to her. Byron said nothing.

‘As you know,’ Lockley said, ‘the Regiment lost its new chaplain this week. You’ll also know the circumstances. And that it was a bit of a shock for all of us who knew Syd.’

‘Myself included,’ Byron said.

‘Though none of us, I’d guess, knew him quite as well as you did, Byron.’

‘He was a mate.’

‘But not recently.’

‘No. Not recently.’

Another knock on the door. Two uniformed male cops came in, ostensibly with coffee, but possibly, Merrily was thinking, to familiarize themselves with the layout and seating positions of the people in the room. It had been William Lockley’s idea that they should place Byron Jones near the door, where you’d never seat a suspect.

Annie Howe took the chair next to Merrily, opposite the two men. The first lights were coming on in the city below them. You could see the greying steeple of St Peter’s, where the late Frank Collins had been a curate.

Byron shook his head at Annie Howe’s offer of sugar for his coffee, turned to William Lockley.

‘Is there any suggestion that Syd’s death was suspicious?’

Before Lockley could reply, Howe said quickly that nothing had been ruled out, and Byron appraised her, thoughtful.

‘You think somebody might have killed him, Chief Inspector?’

‘We’re still examining the evidence.’

‘Or did he kill himself?’

Merrily said, ‘If he had killed himself, would that be a surprise to you, Mr Jones?’

Byron looked at her properly for the first time, and she felt able to study him. Older than she’d imagined. Older than Syd, although Syd had been the first to retire so he actually might be a little younger. He looked like… maybe like a cathedral canon, ascetically lean, with thick white hair. He looked… above all, he looked calm and distinguished.

‘Suicide’s hardly unprecedented among men who served in my former regiment,’ Byron said. ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder is far from fully understood.’

His teeth, unexpectedly, were jagged, with thin black lines down the front ones as if they’d been scored by a pencil. It made him look as if he had more teeth, as if he was smiling when he wasn’t. It made Merrily think of SAS men who were caught and tortured. Teeth and pliers.

She said, ‘Can you think of any good reason why Syd would be particularly stressed?’

‘How long you got?’

‘I was thinking, since leaving the army.’

‘We didn’t see much of one another.’

‘Any particular reason for that?’

‘Mrs… I’m sorry…?’

‘Watkins.’

‘I may be wrong here,’ Byron said, ‘but I think when a clergyman rejoins the army he’s no longer under the authority of the Diocese.’

‘He was a mate, Byron,’ Merrily said.

He turned his blue eyes on her again – an emptiness – a hole where love and humanity should be – and she fought against a blink. Instinctively putting a hand to her chest, where a pectoral cross would lie. Nothing; she’d left the vicarage too quickly this morning. She heard Annie Howe’s voice, flat and formal.

‘Mr Jones, perhaps you could tell us how you came to develop what we can only call a pagan sect inside the Special Air Service.’

Byron scowled.

‘Then how would you describe it?’ Annie Howe said.

‘I would call it,’ Byron said, ‘a discipline.’

Of course he would. Merrily was feeling hollow with fatigue, yet nursing a need to smoke this man out.

‘A discipline based on worship of a Roman god?’ she said.

‘I dislike the word worship,’ Byron said. ‘In the army we did not worship our officers.’

Merrily recalled that in the SAS only senior officers were addressed as sir. No lack of respect. The Regiment was informal; it was about mutual trust and reliance, practicalities.

‘You saw Mithras as your mate?’

If Byron was surprised that she knew about Mithras, he wasn’t showing it.

‘I would call him a device.’

‘Is it possible you could explain that for us?’

Byron said nothing. William Lockley pushed his chair back.

‘Not as if paganism’s against the law, Byron. We’ve moved on since witch-burning.’

‘In that case, why’s the Hereford Diocese here?’

Neat.

‘She’s here because neither Annie nor I would know what the hell you were talking about, Byron,’ Lockley said.

‘Oh, I think you would, William. I think you’d have a better idea, to be honest. This is my business. My living. I’m hardly the first veteran to use what he learned in the Regiment as the basis for a new career. But carry on, Mrs Watson.’