barred from joining the army in the first place.”
“I don’t suppose you’d know what the rest of the tattoo might mean?” Holland handed a piece of paper across. Rutherford pulled on the half- moon specs that hung around his neck. He studied the letters for a few moments and passed it to Spiby.
“They’re initials, clearly, but certainly nothing military springs to mind.”
“Do you have any rec ords of the partic u lar markings that certain soldiers may have had?” Holland asked. “Scars, tattoos, what have you?”
“I’m afraid not.” Spiby looked to Rutherford, who shook his head emphatically. “There are medical records, yes, but nothing that detailed.”
“DNA?”
“Oh, I doubt it.”
“Dental rec ords, perhaps?”
“Yes, I think so. I’d need to check…”
Kitson leaned forward to place her empty cup on Spiby’s desk. “As we only have a name for one of these men, we’re very much hoping we can use it to identify the other. Save for the different blood groups, these tattoos are identical, so we’re assuming they had them done at the same time. That they served together.”
“It sounds a reasonable assumption,” Rutherford said.
“So if we give you this man’s name, we thought you could give us a list of the other soldiers he served with.”
“Ah. Not such a reasonable assumption, I’m afraid. First, we can’t give you anything; you’d need to contact the Rec ords Office. Second, the rec ords just don’t work like that. They don’t group the men together in that fashion. I’d be amazed if the Met’s rec ords worked a great deal differently.”
Kitson sat back in her chair.
“These men who were sleeping rough,” Spiby said, “they had been out of the army for some time, correct?”
There was a pause. The silence was broken only by the sputtering of the ancient gas fire in the corner of the room. Holland cleared his throat. “We think so, yes.”
“They were definitely not AWOL servicemen?”
“Not as far as we know…”
“It would explain why they were sleeping rough. When a soldier is AWOL, they will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being traced through official channels.”
Rutherford chipped in. “I’m sure that Army Personnel could cross-check your name against a list of absent servicemen.”
“I don’t think that’s the case…”
“So how far back are we talking?” Spiby asked.
Kitson looked across to Holland. He looked back at her, gave a small shake of the head. “We’re not sure at this stage,” Kitson said.
“When a soldier leaves the army, his rec ords are sent to the Manning and Record Office at the Army Personnel Centre in Glasgow. Sometime later…” Spiby looked to Rutherford. “Is it ten years, Ken?”
“Something like that.”
“Sometime later, the rec ords are moved to the Services Archive at Hayes. Glasgow would need to recall any file from there if you made an inquiry. You could try that to begin with, but in the first instance they tend to give out only name, date of birth, and a confirmation of service.”
“There are constraints on the release of any other information,” Rutherford said.
Holland had started to feel very warm. He undid the top button of his shirt. “This is a murder investigation, sir. I doubt those constraints would apply.”
Rutherford held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sure you’re right, Detective Sergeant, but with all the cooperation in the world I still don’t think they’ll be able to give you the information you’re after. As far as the soldier whose name you do have goes, you may still need authorization from his next of kin. You have that, correct?”
Now Holland was feeling hot. Thinking about who that next of kin might be…
“Which regiment did our man serve in?” Spiby asked. “That might give us a start, at least.” It was another question Holland couldn’t answer. Kitson snapped her head round to stare at him. He could see that she was thinking about Susan Jago, too.
Kitson waited until she’d reached the end of the corridor and turned to walk down the stairs before she let rip. “They looked at us like we were amateurs. Fuck it, we are amateurs. What the hell went on in there?”
Holland said nothing. He was still trying to put it together, trying to remember a sequence of events.
“I don’t like passing the buck, Dave, but you were given the job of going into CRIS and writing up the notes for this interview.”
“I did, guv…”
Kitson stopped. “So why did we not know the answers to those questions?”
Holland had accessed the Crime Reporting Intelligence System first thing that morning. CRIS was a complete record of the case to date: every name, date, and statement. There had been nothing relating to Christopher Jago’s service in the army-the year of his discharge, the name of his regiment. Holland had presumed that the data had simply not yet been entered, but that Kitson and Brigstocke must already know the relevant facts. He knew now that he’d fucked up; that they’d all fucked up.
“Dave? Where’s the information we got from Jago’s sister?” The moment Kitson had finished asking the question, she knew the answer. “Christ. There isn’t any, is there?”
“That’s the thing, guv. I don’t think Susan Jago has ever told us her brother was a soldier.”
“Hang on, let’s think about this. I know she never bothered to tell us when she came down to ID the body. If the silly cow had mentioned it, we’d have put the whole thing together a bit quicker, wouldn’t we? But we’ve spoken to her since then.”
“DC Stone called with the death message.” It was this phone call Holland had been trying to place in a pattern of what had been known, and when.
“Right. So, she’d have talked about it then, surely. Why the hell wouldn’t she?”
Holland had no idea at all.
Yvonne Kitson was trying to stay calm. It was her team and she was ultimately responsible. She should have made sure. She should have known about this. Then it occurred to her that perhaps Susan Jago had told them about her brother and that they’d simply failed to process the information. “Is it possible that DC Stone did not update the CRIS after he’d spoken to Susan Jago?”
Holland knew it was more than possible. There was no record of the conversation on the system. Stone might well have decided that as Susan Jago was no longer important to the investigation, he could get away without doing the update. But that still didn’t explain it: Stone had spoken to Jago three days earlier, on the Saturday afternoon; that was hours before Thorne had figured out the army connection.
“It doesn’t make sense. When DC Stone spoke to her, we still didn’t know about the army thing. So if she had said anything, he’d have known it was important and would have passed it on verbally.”
They walked the rest of the way down the narrow staircase. Both thinking the same thing. Why the hell wouldn’t Susan Jago have told them?
“Call Stone and double-check…”
Holland took out his mobile, dialed Stone’s number and got a message. He looked at his watch. “It’s lunchtime, guv. He’ll be in a caff somewhere with his phone switched off.” The lie had come easily, despite the anger he felt. Holland knew very well that whatever Andy Stone was eating, it wasn’t lunch.
They emerged into a covered courtyard to find themselves part of a small crowd gathered for the daily mounting of the guard. A row of red-coated Life Guards on horseback stood facing their opposite numbers from the Blues and Royals, identical save for the dark coats.
Kitson and Holland stood with the hushed tourists for a few minutes and watched the ceremony. Cameras clicked furiously as the troops who had ridden down from Hyde Park Corner arrived, the huge horses walking two abreast beneath the arch to Horse Guards.
Holland leaned his head close to Kitson’s. “How come we never get saucy notes stuck in our boots?”
