photos would not do the job on their own. They were simple head-and-shoulder shots of the four men in uniform, taken shortly after each had enlisted, but enough was likely to have happened since then to change the way each of the men looked.
They studied the information sheets on Hadingham, Bonser, and Eales: dates of birth and of enlistment; potted service histories; basic physical details.
“Blood group doesn’t help us,” Kitson said, reading. “Eales and Hadingham are both O-positive…”
Holland was the one who spotted it. “Found him…”
“Show me.”
Kitson looked over Holland’s shoulder and Holland pointed to the description of Trooper Alec Bonser. The driver.
“He was five feet nine, look, same as our John Doe. Eales and Hadingham were both six-footers. The body in Westminster Morgue has got to be Alec Bonser.”
Kitson carried on staring at the sheet of paper.
“It’s got to be,” Holland said. “I don’t see any other-”
“You’re right, I know.” Kitson pointed to another line of type. “I was looking for something else. This is good news for us, maybe…”
Holland saw that Kitson was pointing to the entry under Next of Kin: Barbara Bonser (Mother).
Holland let out a long, slow breath and looked around. He could see that Andy Stone, Jason Mackillop, and others had been earwigging; that they were hanging on every word. “What about the death message?” Holland asked.
“I’ll sort it.” Kitson gathered up the sheets of paper. “I’ll go and fill the DCI in and get the sayso…”
“So we should start looking for Eales and Hadingham, then?”
“Looks like it.” She pulled out one of the sheets, glanced at it, and thrust it back at Holland. “You can make a start on our tank commander while I’m gone.”
As he watched Kitson walk toward Brigstocke’s office, Holland wondered what he would say to Barbara Bonser if he were in the same position. What his own mother would say if it were his death message that was being delivered. He started to sweat, and to feel like he needed to sit down, when he began to wonder how he would react-how he would really react-were he ever to be told that anything had happened to Chloe…
An hour later the whiteboard had been updated. Blown-up pictures of Jago, Hadingham, Bonser, and Eales had been added. The question marks had been removed. They had the names of the two soldiers who might still be alive and, finally, they had the names of both of those who were dead. Now, well into the locate/trace on Ian Hadingham, Holland had come up with nothing. The usual calls and searches to DSS and the National Voters’ Register had failed to turn his man up, and though he hadn’t expected it to be simple, he was wondering where to go next.
This is good news for us, maybe…
It suddenly struck him that he hadn’t once put Sophie into any of those painful next-of-kin scenarios that had occupied his thoughts earlier. The realization came like a fist in the gut; it winded him, and he knew he would be feeling its effects for a while. But at the same time it gave him an idea. A change of direction.
He looked again at Ian Hadingham’s information sheet and turned back to his computer.
Brigstocke should have known better. All his years of experience should have told him there were only two chances the day would finish up as well as it had started.
Slim and none.
When he answered the phone and the caller introduced himself by stating his rank, Brigstocke presumed it was the Army Personnel Centre, or perhaps someone from the regimental HQ in Somerset. He was about to pass on his gratitude for their sterling work in getting the details sent across so quickly.
But he was not speaking to an ordinary soldier.
The Special Investigations Branch of the Royal Military Police was the army’s equivalent of the CID. It was their job to investigate the more serious offenses committed against army personnel and their families. An elite force of fewer than two hundred plainclothes detectives selected from RMP ranks, they had teams in constant readiness to be deployed anywhere in the world. But they were also there to investigate serious crimes committed by soldiers; policing their own, in much the same way as the bunch who might well be hauling Tom Thorne across the coals when all this was over. In Brigstocke’s mind, this made them spooks; “rubber-heelers,” because you could never hear the buggers coming. If the ordinary squaddie felt the same way about them as the ordinary copper felt about the DPS, Brigstocke guessed they were as popular as turds in a sandpit.
Brigstocke was rarely quick to judge-and was certainly not in Tom Thorne’s league-but the SIB man got up his nose from the off. He was a major, which, as far as Brigstocke knew, may well have equated in army terms with his own rank, but there was no reference to it. And certainly no bloody def erence. He spoke to Brigstocke as if they were colleagues, which, considering he’d never so much as heard of the bloke before, was hugely irritating.
As they were talking-or rather as Brigstocke was listening -he kept wondering if he was on the phone to a copper or a soldier; or some bizarre hybrid of the two. The man certainly had twice the arrogance of either…
And to begin with, at least, he insisted on trying to be jokey. “It’s sod all like they make out on Red Cap, ” he said. “The women aren’t nearly so attractive, for a start…”
“I’ve never watched it,” Brigstocke said.
The major then went round the houses for a while, chatting about this, that, and every other thing: asking Brigstocke how busy he was and comparing caseloads; no rest for the wicked, no thanks for a job well done, and you didn’t have to be mad to work here but…
It took maybe ten minutes before he got to the point: “So, this business with the tank crew…”
Brigstocke repeated what Kitson and Holland had said that first time to Rutherford and Spiby at Media Ops; what they’d said a few days after that when they’d been down to the regiment’s HQ in Somerset. He talked about a complex and consuming murder case: two vagrants who, it transpired, had been exservicemen, and two others whom they’d been trying to trace. They were trying to catch a killer; there was no more to it than that.
“So, how’s it going?”
“We’re getting there, slowly. You know how it is…”
“You’ve traced the crew, though. You’ve got all four names now, yes?”
He’d have got that from the AP Centre. Maybe from Stephen Brereton. It didn’t much matter.
“Yes, they came through this afternoon.” Thinking: You fuckers don’t hang about, do you? “The army’s been very helpful…”
“Well, of course, why wouldn’t we be?”
Brigstocke manufactured a laugh. “No reason,” he said. “But if it’s anything like the Met, sometimes it’s got sod all to do with a desire to help and everything to do with red tape, you know…?”
There was a pause then. Brigstocke thought he could hear, through the faint hiss on the line, the sound of pages being turned.
“So, nothing you think we should know about?”
If Brigstocke were the paranoid kind, he might have heard that as nothing you’re not telling us? If he were really going to town, it might even have been nothing you’re not telling us that we might know already?
“If I think of anything, I’ll get back to you…”
Of course, Brigstocke had said nothing at all about the video. He’d been delighted, if a little surprised, that Jesmond, who was normally circumspect about such things, had backed his judgment and authorized him to keep quiet about it.
“I’m sure we’ll speak again,” the major said, before hanging up.
They would be told about the videotape at some point. Once it ceased being active evidence, it would be handed quietly over, and then it would be up to the Redcaps what they did about it. Then, Brigstocke felt sure, the man he’d just spoken to would be back on the phone. Only this time, he wouldn’t be quite as matey…
He was still thinking about these conversations, past and future, while Holland was speaking. He’d come into Brigstocke’s office and begun to talk about the locate/trace he’d set up on Ian Hadingham.
Brigstocke pushed thoughts of the SIB major to the back of his mind and concentrated on what Dave Holland was telling him.
“… so I went after his wife instead,” Holland said. “Shireen Hadingham was listed as his next of kin. Not
