catching each other's eyes. One was staring into his pint glass, the other had found a fascinating snag of lint on his jacket sleeve.
Porton Down! That's on Salisbury Plain where… Where Steven was killed. 'Training accident,' they had told Tom. When pressed, they gave a few more details, and he had always wished that he had not asked. And yet … there was that ever-present doubt. 'Cover-up,' Tom's own father had muttered at the funeral, but he was long lost to Alzheimer's by then, and Tom did not pursue the matter.
There came one of those rare moments of silence that haunt bars waiting to manifest, a brief second or two when conversations falter at the same time, the fruit machine falls silent between turns, the bar staff pause for a drink or go to change a barrel, and the juke box takes a breather between tracks. And into that silence—still so quiet that probably only Tom could hear it—one of the men whispered, 'They kept monsters.'
Later, Tom would spend some time musing on destiny, and what cruel fate had deigned that he hear those three whispered words. If he had gone home after his second pint he would have never heard, and life would have gone on, and perhaps he and Jo would have grown old together, their love doing its best to fill the void where Steven and his family could have been.
But by the time he thought that, he already knew the monsters of which the man had spoken. And in the face of their ferocity, regret had no place at all.
'Excuse me!'
Tom had watched the men finish their drinks, leave the pub, glancing around as if their final comment hung in the air for all to hear. And it was the look in their eyes-scared, defensive—that made him put down his unfinished drink and follow them out.
'Excuse me!'
They were walking quickly, and he had to jog to catch up.
'Excuse me, gents. Hey!'
They paused and turned around. Neither of them looked very welcoming. This close, Tom realised how big they both were. He guessed that they were no longer in the army; one had long hair, the other sported a beer gut that testified to apathy and lack of exercise.
Tom came to a halt, panting, and wondered what the hell he was going to ask.
'Help you?' Long-Hair asked.
'Yes,' Tom said, looking from one to the other. Beer-Gut seemed merely dismissive, as opposed to aggressive, so he concentrated on him. 'I couldn't help overhearing some of what you were saying in there—'
'Ear-wigging, were you?' Long-Hair asked.
'No,' Tom said. 'But I heard you mention Porton Down. My son was killed on Salisbury Plain ten years ago, and I was just wondering …' I won't mention their 'monster' comment, Tom thought. That's what drove them out, the thought someone might have heard that word. Monster.
'Sorry to hear that,' Beer-Gut said, though he sounded indifferent.
'I was just wondering, if you were at Porton Down maybe—'
'We weren't there,' Long-Hair said. 'You must have misheard us.'
'How long ago did you say he was killed?' Beer-Gut asked.
'Leave it!' his friend cut in, but Tom was quick with his answer.
'Ten years next month.'
Beer-Gut's eyes widened slightly, he took his hands from his pockets, stood taller.
Long-Hair looked from his friend to Tom, then back again. 'I said leave it!' he said, and he went for Tom. He grabbed his jacket and shoved him against the wall, not hard, but there was certainly nothing friendly in the gesture. His breath stank of fear. Tom had never smelled anything like it before, but he knew exactly what it was. This man was terrified. 'We just came for a drink,' he said. 'We don't like people listening in on our conversation, and we don't want to be bothered by stuff we know nothing about.'
'So you weren't there?' Tom asked, keeping his eye on Beer-Gut. The big man frowned and refused to meet his gaze.
'Where?' Long-Hair said. 'And even if we were, didn't your son tell you anything about the Official Secrets Act? Now fuck off before I get angry.' He let go of Tom and retreated, wringing his hands as if embarrassed at his show of aggression.
'If that wasn't you angry, I'd hate to piss you off,' Tom said. But Long-Hair did not avert his gaze or apologise. He simply stared, and soon Tom was unnerved enough to back down. 'Okay, I must have misheard,' he said. 'Sorry. I thought I heard you talking about monsters.'
Beer-Gut turned and started walking away. Long-Hair smiled, shook his head. 'Too much ale, old man,' he said. Then he too turned away, and the two men left Tom standing alone. Neither of them looked back.
Too much ale, old man. And for every minute of his walk home, Tom wondered how true that statement could be.
'It's almost ten years, now,' Jo said the following Monday morning at breakfast.
Tom nodded. He had just finished his cereal, and his thoughts kept returning to the two men from the pub. One of them aggressive, one of them quiet, but both uncomfortably aware of what he had been asking them. He had not been hearing things, and he had not imagined their comments in the pub. The palpable fear in their reaction made a mockery of their denial.
'You think we should mark the occasion somehow?' she said.
'How?'
She shrugged, twirling a strand of hair. She had always done this when thinking deeply, and Tom loved it. It gave him a glimpse of the vivacious woman he had known before their lives had been blown apart. 'Maybe we could visit the Plain again.'
They had gone to Salisbury Plain once since Steven's death, on its first anniversary. It was still a military firing range back then, and they had not been able to get anywhere near to where the accident had happened. They had to imagine from a distance; the RAF Tornado swooping in across the hills, unleashing the air-to-surface missile, its pilot pulling up when he realised his mistake. He thought he was firing at a target vehicle, they had been told, not an actual troop carrier. Steven was one of fifteen men killed. They had been returned to their families in sealed coffins with Union Jacks splayed across the lids, a yearly pension payment to the next-of-kin, and no real answers. Accident, they were told. It was an accident.
'We could,' Tom said, 'if you really want to.' Jo shrugged. 'I'm not sure what I want.' 'I'd like to go,' Tom said. He nodded. The men's talk in the pub had reignited a deep-felt skepticism about what he and Jo had been told concerning their son's death. Much as Tom realised how ridiculous it was to link the two—the men's strange conversation could have nothing to do with Steven, not after so long–there was always that doubt in his mind to play on. Any small mention of military accidents, mistaken identity, friendly fire, always set his mind running again, turning over the few facts they had been given and creating whole new truths to fill in the gaping blanks.
The inquest had been long. The media had covered it intensively, and following the 'misadventure' verdict, newspapers had run interviews with relatives and pressure groups. There had been several TV programmes about the incident, and two investigative journalists had spent a year trying to discover the 'real truth.' They had come away smug and victorious with what they had found: a few obscure facts about live weapons training policy, and a closet full of skeletons connected to the inquest's presiding officer's sexual preferences. But nothing concrete. After a year in which the fact of Steven's death had been hammered home to them each and every day, Tom and Jo knew little more than they had the day he died.
Tom had no faith in the inquest's findings, and even less in the papers and TV programmes that used it to promote their own sales and ratings. He had no doubt whatsoever that the story they were told was nowhere near the truth, but the glare in which the inquiry took place had swayed many people into believing that the real story was being fully uncovered. What was actually revealed at the end of that long, painful year was yet another skewed version of the same account. More names to blame, rules to change, heads to roll, many apologies made to hungry TV cameras and a public so used to being deceived that they no longer recognised the self-satisfied smiles of their deceivers.
Cover-up, Tom's father had whispered at the funeral.
Tom had always been angry, but the anger was tempered by a grief so all-consuming that he had barely known it himself. For that year he was a stranger living in his own body, existing purely to suffer the memories of his only son. He recalled many occasions that he had not thought about for years, random moments in time, as if
