Kate Medina - Fire Damage - A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

‘Dressed like that?’

He smiled, an easy smile that lit his amber eyes the colour of warm honey. Despite the watchfulness, he seemed relatively comfortable in his own skin, a state that three months ago she would have happily bet a sizeable sum he was too far gone ever to reach.

‘I’ve been in the gym. I’m on call. I can work out and I can turn up to a crime scene looking like shit, but I can’t drink. I’d love a coffee.’

While she put the kettle on, he wandered into the sitting room. Jessie poured herself a large glass of wine, returned the bottle to the fridge with the label facing outward, replaced the kettle on its stand, angling the handle so that it was parallel with the wall, wiped down the work surface, picked up his coffee and her glass and followed him.

He was standing by the fireplace, studying the pictures on her mantelpiece. Just two. The only personal things on display in her sitting room, the only clutter. One of her brother, the other of Jessie, Jamie and their mother at London Zoo, all three of them happy and healthy looking, an image of her family that seemed so unlikely given what followed, that sometimes she felt as if the photographs had been mocked up on Photoshop.

‘Who’s this?’ He picked up the photograph of Jamie.

‘My brother,’ she said curtly. She willed him to put it back, leave it.

‘Younger or older?’

‘Younger by seven years.’

‘A lot.’

She shrugged. ‘He was a late addition.’ A Band-Aid baby. She didn’t say it.

‘So he’s … how old now?’

‘Nothing.’ She fought to keep her voice even, feeling the tension rise, the electric suit tingle against her skin. ‘He’s nothing. No age.’

Taking the picture from Callan, she put it back on the mantelpiece. It was her favourite picture of Jamie, taken when he was four, his mouth, ringed by a telltale brown smear of chocolate ice cream, wide open in a beautiful, innocent grin, his eyes clamped shut in the way that small children have of smiling with the whole of their faces. All teeth and gums. She remembered the occasion well. She had taken him down to watch the tourists queuing for entrance to Wimbledon tennis championships, the queue five thick and a kilometre long. Day 1. Back when Andre Agassi was limping out the last of his career. It had been punishingly hot and the atmosphere had felt like a street party, people handing around bottles of wine and juice, sharing golf umbrellas for shade.

She steadied herself against the mantelpiece, unprepared for the emotional vertigo of Jamie being so close, but not being there, feeling exposed in front of this virtual stranger.

The picture wasn’t straight. The electric suit was hissing and snapping against her skin. Realigning the picture, she checked the distance between the two photographs. She could sense Callan watching her, knew she should move away and straighten things once he had gone, but couldn’t. Just couldn’t .

She spun around to face him.

‘The case.’ It came out more roughly than she had meant. ‘Did you come to interfere with my things or did you come about a case?’

He held up his hands in a mock defensive gesture, but the expression on his face held no apology. Only query.

‘Can I sit?’

‘Sure.’

She indicated the sofa, curled herself into the chair opposite, folding her legs underneath her, wrapping her arms around her torso. Defensive body language, she knew, but too stressed now to unwrap herself. In the confined space of her living room his presence, those bright amber eyes fixed on her face, his easy confidence, so unexpected, made her feel gauche and claustrophobic in equal measures. The shift in the balance of confidence palpable, to her at least.

‘Last week, one of our Intelligence Corps non-commissioned officers, a Sergeant Andy Jackson, died in Afghanistan.’

‘He’s not the first and I’m sure he won’t be the last,’ she replied.

‘This was different. He was …’ he paused, as if trying to find the right words. ‘Being beasted, I suppose you’d call it, by one of the other Intelligence Corps sergeants, Colin Starkey. They were based at TAAC-South, headquartered in Kandahar Airfield, doing whatever secret squirrel stuff Intelligence Corps soldiers do. They went for a run in the desert around the airfield.’ He paused. ‘You’ve been to Afghanistan, haven’t you?’

‘Twice. The first time January to April 2014, to Camp Bastion, before our combat mission in Afghanistan ended and most of our troops were pulled out. The second time was for four weeks in February of this year. I was working with TAAC-Capital at Camp KAIA – Kabul International Airport.’

‘So as you know, we still have a few troops out there training, advising and assisting the Afghan Army and Security Forces.’

Jessie nodded.

‘What Starkey and Jackson did was insane given the security situation out there, more so given that it was the hottest time of the day, and even though it’s autumn the temperature would have been hitting the mid-thirties, with fifty per cent humidity. They were both dressed in combat kit and had no water with them.’ He sighed. ‘Jackson ended up dead.’

‘Dehydration?’

He shook his head. ‘A bullet wound to the stomach.’

‘From whose gun?’

‘Starkey’s.’

Jessie’s eyes widened. ‘And it isn’t cut and dried? Murder or manslaughter?’

‘The only viable print that was lifted from Starkey’s gun was a partial of Jackson’s on the trigger.’

‘And Starkey’s? There weren’t any of his?’

‘No. The gun was well oiled. It’s almost impossible to lift prints from a well-oiled gun. Forensics said that they were lucky to get the sliver of Jackson’s on the trigger.’

‘What about Jackson’s sidearm?’

‘It was holstered when he was found. It had recently been cleaned and oiled. No prints.’

Jessie took a sip of wine, rolled the stem of the glass between her fingers, thinking. ‘Who said that Jackson was being beasted? He could have gone voluntarily. There’s not much else to do out there during downtime and many of the lads are obsessed with fitness.’

Callan nodded. ‘So that’s where the picture gets muddy. A corporal who shared their quarters said that he walked in on them having an argument.’

‘What about?’

‘He didn’t catch the subject, just the raised voices. They stopped when he came in and left straight after, to go for the run. But he said that Jackson looked …’ He fell silent, searching for the right words. ‘… off . But not enough so as to make him step in.’

Jessie frowned. ‘And he was a corporal, so he would have had to feel on very solid ground to question two sergeants.’ Her legs were deadening, pins and needles. She shuffled them from under her, stretched out and put her feet on the coffee table. She saw Callan cast a quick look at her legs. Smoothing her skirt down below her knees, she continued: ‘Starkey and Jackson were the same rank.’

He looked up and met her gaze, unembarrassed. ‘Yes.’

‘So … what’s the psychology behind that?’

He shrugged. ‘You’re the shrink.’

Silence, which, after a moment, Callan broke. ‘Starkey had a black eye forming when he was found and bruising to his torso when he was stripped and searched back at camp.’

‘And Jackson?’

‘His autopsy is booked for the day after tomorrow.’

‘How did Starkey explain the black eye and bruising?’

‘He didn’t.’

‘But he radioed the medics after Jackson was shot?’

Callan nodded. ‘The shot was heard by the camp guards. Starkey radioed for help straight after.’

‘Is Starkey under arrest?’

‘He’s back in the UK, relieved of duties and confined to barracks for the moment, but he hasn’t been charged with anything. We don’t have enough evidence either way. I need to work out whether it’s murder, manslaughter, suicide or an accident borne of plain fucking stupidity. As well as collecting physical evidence, I need to understand what Colin Starkey was thinking – what they were both thinking.’