Kate Medina - Scared to Death - A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down

Jessie flipped open the file. One typed sheet inside. ‘Why was he referred?’

Gideon shrugged. ‘An open-ended “we’re concerned with his mental state”.’

‘Isn’t the CO a bit high up to be referring trainees?’

Another shrug. ‘From what I know of Philip Wallace, he likes to have his finger in every pie on that base.’

Jessie nodded, taking a moment, eyes grazing down the first page to digest the key details of the referral. Gideon was right – there was little more information than he had just told her. The referral was a triumph of saying nothing in one page of tight black type.

Ryan Thomas Jones

Sixteen and five months

Joined the Army on 2 November last year, the day of his sixteenth birthday

Keen.

Keen or running away from something. In Jessie’s experience, people joined the Army for one of three reasons: patriotism, financial necessity, or to escape. There was a fourth, she privately suspected, though had never voiced: the opportunity to kill people legally. That last one was reserved for the nutters. Which one was Ryan Jones? Probably not the fourth, as Loggies weren’t frontline fighting troops.

Looking up, she met Gideon’s gaze. ‘When is he coming in?’

‘Two p.m.’

‘Oh, OK. So I get the morning to organize my office, drink coffee, chillax. That’s unexpectedly generous of you—’ She broke off, catching his expression. ‘No … I don’t get the morning to chillax. Instead, I get to …’ She let the sentence hang.

‘You get to go to Royal Surrey County Hospital.’

‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘I got a call from Detective Inspector Simmons ten minutes ago. He needs your help.’

‘Since when did we provide psychologists to Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes?’

‘Since DI Simmons asked me nicely. It seems austerity is pinching them as hard as it’s pinching us.’

‘Why does he need a psychologist’s help at the hospital?’

‘He’ll fill you in.’

‘Cryptic.’

‘Not deliberately so. There is an Army connection, he said.’

Jessie’s eyebrows rose in query, but Gideon didn’t provide her with any more information. Stretching his arms above his head, waving one hand vaguely towards the window as he did so, he added, ‘I was in a meeting when Simmons called, so our conversation was brief. You’d better get going. He’s there now, waiting for you at the entrance to A & E, and I have another meeting starting’ – he glanced at his watch – ‘five minutes ago.’ He began searching around under the piles of files, books and papers on his desk, continuing to talk as he did so. ‘Welcome back, Jessie. As I said, I’ve missed you.’ A fleeting, wry smile. ‘And so, as you can see, has my desk. It has felt your absence most keenly. You can’t see my mobile anywhere, can you?’

Ducking down, she retrieved Gideon’s mobile from the floor and handed it to him. ‘Here.’

‘Ah. Thank you.’

‘But that’s it. No more Mrs Doubtfire from me.’ Rising, she tucked Ryan Thomas Jones’s file under her arm. ‘Your desk is going to have to make its own way in the big wide world without my help. Sink or swim. Eat or be eaten.’

Gideon’s eyebrow rose, but he didn’t reply. As she left the room, Jessie glanced back. He was still watching her, the expression on his face conflicted: a part of him hoping that she was right; the other part knowing, from thirty years’ experience as a clinical psychologist, that such deep-seated psychological disorders as hers were far from simple to cure. Jessie hoped that she was right too. She had navigated this morning without so much as a tingle from the electric suit; had navigated her time abroad with only three mild episodes. She’d even managed to leave the house with the kettle handle crooked and an unwashed coffee cup in the sink. Progress. Real progress.

She hoped that settling back into her normal routine would do nothing to disturb the delicate balance of her recovery.

Lieutenant Gold was already at the crime scene when Captain Ben Callan, Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch, parked his red Golf GTI in the car park at Blackdown Barracks. Climbing out of the driver’s seat, he stood – too quickly – swayed and grabbed the top of the door to steady himself. Fuck. He still felt sick and shaky, as if he was coming down off a drinking spree, which he wasn’t. A hangover would, though, provide a plausible excuse for his wrecked physical and mental state. Nothing unexpected in soldiers getting drunk off-duty; it was virtually compulsory.

He’d had some warning of the fit this time: the car in front of him in the fast lane on the A3 starting to jump around as if it was on springs, the central reservation fuzzy, as though his windscreen was suddenly frosted glass. Swerving straight across both lanes, he cut on to the hard shoulder, narrowly missing an elderly couple in an ancient Nissan Micra; the glimpse he’d had of the driver’s whitened face and wide eyes in his rear-view mirror still etched in his mind.

The ground fell away steeply from the hard shoulder into a deep ditch of tangled undergrowth and he slithered down it, making it only halfway before his knees buckled. Falling, rolling, he reached blindly for something to slow his descent, felt reed grass slice through his fingers. His body was writhing, slamming from side to side, legs cycling in the muddy soil and he was freezing cold, shaking uncontrollably, his brain feeling as if it would explode from the pressure inside his skull. Slowly, the fit receded. He lay on the damp ground, sweating and shaking, feeling the muddy ditch water seeping through his clothing, chilling his skin. Pushing himself on to his knees, he reached for the trunk of a sapling, hauled himself to his feet, wincing as the cuts on his fingers met the rough bark. On unsteady legs, he made his way slowly back up the embankment. A Surrey Police patrol car was parked behind his Golf, flashing blue lights washing the uniformed traffic officer standing in front of it neon blue.

‘You do know that it is illegal to stop on the hard shoulder for any reason other than an emergency, don’t you, sir?’

Sir. The policeman’s tone entirely at odds with his words. Just what I need right now. Reaching into his back pocket, Callan fished out his military police ID, held it up. The traffic cop studied it, his gaze narrowing.

‘What were you doing, sir?’

Which story was the more convincing? Having a piss? Answering a vital phone call? The truth, not an option. As an epileptic, he shouldn’t hold a driving licence, but if his condition was made public, losing his licence would be the least of his problems. He would lose his job, his livelihood, his future. His tenuous clutch on normality.

‘I was answering a call on my mobile. There’s been a suspicious death at an Army training base near Camberley. I’m on my way there now.’

The policeman’s gaze tracked from Callan’s face to his feet, taking in the sweaty, greyish-pale complexion, the hands jammed in his pockets to stop them from trembling, the mud caked on his white shirt and jeans.

‘If you weren’t an MP, I’d breathalyse you.’

‘I’m not over the limit, Constable.’

‘You don’t look great, sir.’

‘I don’t feel great, but it’s not alcohol. It’s lack of sleep, too much work … You know how it is.’ Callan lifted his shoulders, looking the constable straight in the eye, the lie sliding smoothly off his tongue.

Silence, which Callan had the confidence not to break. He maintained eye contact, an easy smile on his face, posture relaxed, hoping the constable didn’t notice that his legs were shaking.