‘These things get round. You were with Fiona?’
‘Yes.’
‘One in a million, that woman. She understands. Better than both mine did, anyway.’
He stood over her, waiting. Merrily lowered her bag to the floor.
‘All right, what happened, I was asked to talk to a group of clergy on a deliverance training course last Friday night, and Syd turned up, with something on his mind. Which he wouldn’t talk about. Not to us, so we assumed it was SAS-related.’
‘Who’s us?’
‘Huw Owen. My spiritual director.’ Looking steadily up at him. ‘You knew Syd well, didn’t you? Well enough to know his wife, obviously.’
‘I served with him.’
‘He was a friend?’
‘For a time, yeah.’
‘For a time?’
‘We didn’t fall out or nothing. I saw him a couple of years ago. He seemed OK. You can usually tell when they’re not. I heard he was in full kit when they found him.’
‘He had a Bergen, that’s all. A lot of weight in there, including a very big family Bible. This… has kind of knocked me sideways, Barry.’
Merrily’s right hand was shaking and she placed her left hand over it. Barry pulled out the other chair, sat down opposite her.
‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like I was interrogating you.’
‘Huw was convinced Syd needed help.’
‘Kind of help?’
‘He didn’t tell us, did he? Some people are embarrassed by the… anomalous. Especially the clergy. He sat in the shadows and he listened to what we had to say in the chapel. Like he had to deal with it himself, get it out of the way.’
‘You had dealings with him before though.’
‘Yeah. He consulted me about something he either didn’t believe or wanted nothing to do with. He told me, more than once, that he didn’t like that kind of thing. He wanted me to deal with it. This time… I can only assume this was something he did believe in, however reluctantly. Or that it was personal.’
Even in here, you could hear the plink, plink of the pool table in the public bar. No voices, no laughter, just cue on ball. It sounded random, directionless. Lonely, somehow.
‘Frank Collins,’ Barry said, ‘not long before he died, he became chaplain to twenty-three SAS – the reservists. So not as close as Syd. Only, when his book came out, it hadn’t been cleared by the MoD, and he had to resign. Got very depressed about that. Looking at it from the other side, maybe it was the Church what done for Frank Collins.’
‘It’s true that when things get difficult you don’t always get the support you might expect from the Church. The Church can be… strangely cold.’
‘Could be none of this applies. Regiment suicides are mainly blokes who only ever went inside a church for a mate’s funeral. Some of it’s post-traumatic stress, some of it’s because you get altered, and normal life don’t seem like life at all and ain’t worth holding on to.’
Merrily thought for a moment, listening to the pool game.
‘Barry, can I hang a name on you?’ And then, before he could reply, she came out with it. ‘Byron Jones?’
His eyes went blank.
‘Like the poet,’ he said.
Merrily had quickly Googled Byron Jones before she came out. Not much at all, really. He was certainly an author, but not exactly a best-seller. Or not any more – the most recent reference was 2007.
‘Actually,’ Barry said, ‘he was a poet.’
He sat waiting for a reason to continue.
‘Syd had one of his books on the shelf,’ Merrily said. ‘ Caradog, a novel for older kids about the Roman invasion of Britain.’
‘Yeah. I did hear he was writing books. A number of them have a go at that, as you may’ve noticed. But there was only one Bravo Two Zero . Not many millionaires among the rest.’
‘ You ever read anything by Byron Jones, Barry?’
‘Lost interest when I heard they weren’t about the Regiment. Anything about the Regiment we tend to collect, for various reasons. It was for kids, anyway.’
‘Most of them are written under pseudonyms… Andy McNab, et cetera. Is he…?’
‘His name is Jones. Byron – I was actually there the night he got that. We were due to fly out to… somewhere or other. About a dozen of us in the Paludrin.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The social club at the camp. Valentine’s Day coming up and one of the boys, he’s got a card for his girlfriend what he’s leaving for a mate to post, and he’s trying to compose a verse to write in it. We’re all helping. As you do. He’s sitting there, this boy, with his notepad, getting nowhere – specially with our suggestions. “Some men sniff their armpits, others tubes of glue”… I won’t go on, but you get the level. Then this person we’re discussing…’
‘Byron.’
‘He looks up from his Sun, and he goes – never forgotten this, it was so unexpected. He looks up, very slowly, and he goes, in this dreamy sort of voice, “ Some men win at snooker and some at poker, too… but only one who dares can really win a girl like you ”.’
Merrily smiled.
‘Get it?’ Barry said. ‘Who Dares Wins? Big cheer goes up, and somebody goes, This lad’s a regular Byron. And so, for ever after… He still didn’t look the type, but how many of us did?’
‘What type was he?’
‘Spare one for me?’ Barry nodding at Merrily’s bag. ‘Fag?’
She pulled the bag onto her knees, found the packet and the Zippo. Barry extracted a Silk Cut and lit up.
‘So Syd was back in touch with Byron, was he?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just telling you his book was on the shelf.’
‘And you just happened to notice it.’
She said nothing.
‘Byron Jones.’ Barry blew out smoke, thoughtful. ‘I dunno about this, Merrily.’
‘Is he a real writer? I mean, some of these guys, they have somebody to do it for them. But I suppose he’d need to be famous for that.’
‘He’s not famous.’
‘And the poetry…’
‘Like I said, that was a joke.’
‘I mean was he interested in poetry? Or was Syd? Wordsworth, that kind of thing? Byron Jones’s book was next to a book of Wordsworth’s poetry.’
‘Not that I know of. Byron was into history. He joined a local history club, and they’d do these field trips.’
‘What… with local people?’
‘Maybe. I dunno.’
‘What did they do?’
‘You know, just… poking round. Looking for bits of history. Archaeological remains. In the countryside. Around Stirling Lines back then, in Hereford.’
‘Was Syd in this history club?’
‘Probably.’
‘So he and Byron were mates.’
‘ Mates…’ Barry’s smile was tight ‘… I have to say is not a word you’d readily apply to Byron.’
‘He wasn’t friendly?’
‘Not being funny…’ Barry straightened his black tie, folded his arms. ‘Look, I never knew him well enough to
