ABIMBOLA OSHODI, 72, was recovering in hospital last night after being kicked and punched by two assailants when she refused to hand over her mobile telephone. The assault is the latest in a spate of similar violent muggings in the south London area in the last few months.
Police are warning everyone to be aware of the danger of displaying mobiles too obviously. A spokesman said, ‘Carrying a cell phone in your hand is a green light to anyone intent on theft.’
Abimbola’s assailants are described as a young white male, slim, approximately 5' 10' tall, with blond or ginger hair, and a young white female, approximately 5' 4' tall, with dark hair. Both wore hoodies and Doc Martens-style boots.
Eight weeks later
Seven
DR WILLIS HAD BEEN a good reader of minds. When Acland’s request to return to active service was finally denied at the end of June, the last person he wanted to confide in was the psychiatrist. He was convinced, on little justification, that Willis’s first words would be ‘I told you so’. Certainly, most of Willis’s predictions had come true, leaving Acland to brood over his own naivety in believing there was a place for a disabled officer in a modern fighting force.
The medical board’s findings were crushingly negative. Recognition was given to Lieutenant Charles D. B. Acland’s clear desire to return to duty, but his ambition was at odds with the severity of his disabilities. His blind side would make him a liability in action, and his tinnitus and increasingly frequent migraines would reduce his competence to make decisions. As the first duty of the board was to consider the safety of all service personnel, it was the opinion of the members that Lieutenant Acland would pose a risk to others if he were allowed to resume his command in the field.
Even in his own mind, Acland drew a veil over his departure from his regiment. He handled his disappointment badly, rejecting any suggestion of a desk job and freezing out anyone who tried to help him. He persuaded himself he’d become an embarrassment – a hanger-on to a group rather than a member of it – and, when he packed his bags on the day of his departure, he knew he’d never see any of his colleagues again. He exited the barrack gates without ceremony or farewell, a lonely and embittered man with deep-set fears about himself and his future.
After the comments he’d made to Robert Willis about his stay with Susan Campbell – ‘too many people . . . and they all gape like idiots...’ – Acland’s choice to live in London might have seemed a strange one. Yet, despite his distinctive appearance, he knew he could be anonymous in the capital city. Passers-by might stare but he wouldn’t attract the same attention as he would in a smaller community. The gossiping curiosity in his parents’ village would have driven him mad. He craved obscurity. The chance to rethink his life without interference or pressure from outside.
With no dependants, an unspent salary while he’d been in hospital and a deposit account swollen by compensation from the MOD for injuries sustained on the battlefield, Acland had no incentive to find a job. Instead, he took a six-month lease on a ground-floor flat in the Waterloo area and lived like a pauper, eating frugally and only spending money on the rare times he stopped at a pub for a lager.
He spent his days running, telling anyone who tried to strike up a conversation with him that he was in training for the London marathon to raise money for wounded ex-servicemen. He even believed at times that the point of the exercise was a charitable one instead of a way to shut down his brain and keep him apart from the rest of humanity. He became increasingly reluctant to make eye contact, preferring wary retreat to well-meaning interest about who he was and what he was doing.
He developed a physical revulsion against anyone wearing Arab or Muslim dress. Willis hadn’t prepared him for the hatred he’d feel. Or the fear. His body was shocked with a surge of adrenalin every time he saw a bearded face above a white dishdash, and he crossed roads or turned down side streets to avoid contact. His dislike grew to encompass anyone who wasn’t white. Part of him recognized that this response was irrational, but he made no attempt to control it. He felt better when he could shift the blame for what had happened on to people he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to understand.
Willis had warned him that some of his reactions might surprise him. The psychiatrist had talked in general terms about the consequences of trauma, and how grief, particularly for oneself, could skew perspective. He encouraged Acland not to dwell on the aspects of the tragedy that had been outside his control. Guilt was a powerful and confusing emotion, made worse when all memory of the incident was lost. As ever, Acland had steered him away from discussing the deaths of his men.
‘It’s not guilt I feel,’ he’d said.
‘What do you feel?’
‘Anger. They shouldn’t be dead. They had wives and children.’
‘Are you saying you should have died instead?’
‘No. I’m saying the Iraqis should have died.’
‘I think we should discuss that, Charles.’
‘No need, Doc. You asked for an answer and I gave you one. I’m not planning to wage war on Muslims in the UK just because I wish we’d got to the ragheads before they got to us.’
But he wanted to wage war on someone. He had dreams of pressing a pistol barrel to the side of a head and watching the white cotton keffiah bloom with blood. And other dreams about turning his Minimi LMG on an ululating crowd of women in burkhas and mowing them down at the rate of eight hundred rounds per minute. He would burst out of sleep, drenched in sweat, believing he’d done it, and his heart would pound uncontrollably. But whether from guilt or exultation, he couldn’t tell.
He knew he was in trouble – his migraines grew worse as his dreams grew darker – but, in a perverse way, he welcomed the pain as a form of punishment. It was natural justice that
