According to the Evidence (19 page)

He went on to describe the nature of the procedure, which was a live-fire exercise using real ammunition. Richard knew from gossip in the officers' mess years ago that some of these commando types indulged in very risky training scenarios, like the notorious ‘killing house' used by the SAS near Hereford.

‘What happened was that man-shaped plywood targets were set up in front of the cabin, near the cockpit. This first exercise was to accustom the trainees to the noise and confusion of an assault, with live-weapon firing and thunderflashes being thrown about.'

The colonel in barrister's clothing went on to describe what had happened. The two instructors were WO2 Bulmer and Staff Sergeant Leo Squires, with four local trainees in the first batch. They were to burst in through the cabin door with Bulmer in the lead and Squires behind him, immediately letting fly with their weapons at the targets. The other four followed and, after flinging thunderflashes up the fuselage, would also open up with their automatic weapons.

‘How did they avoid shooting each other?' asked Angela, thinking that this sounded a bit like overgrown boys playing soldiers.

‘Well, they didn't in this case, I'm afraid. The pre-exercise briefing told the trainees to spread out sideways and keep low. Not much room for that, as this old plane was a Douglas DC3, left over from the war.'

‘So what happened that this man ended up dead?' asked Richard.

‘There was the expected God-awful noise of weapons and explosives in that confined space. According to the witnesses, the confusion lasted a minute or so while they riddled the targets, then it was seen that WO2 Bulmer was lying in the aisle. When he failed to get up, it was found that he was dead, with a gunshot wound in the back of his head.'

‘So who was behind him?' asked Angela.

Bannerman explained that the standard ploy was for the leader, Bulmer in this case, to advance up the aisle between the seats, firing as he went, with the second instructor behind him and the trainees spread out on each side of the back row of seats, everyone hammering away at the targets.

‘What about the second trainer, right behind the boss?' asked Richard.

‘He fires around him when he gets the chance and takes over in a real situation if the leader gets hit by the baddies.'

‘God help any passengers!' murmured Angela. She noticed a quickly suppressed smile on the face of the secretary, proving that she was human after all.

Bannerman heard her as well and grinned. ‘I don't think this particular exercise was meant to be a very realistic procedure. It's really to get the new trainees used to a hell of a lot of noise and confusion.'

Pryor wanted to get back to the actual event. ‘So what happened next, when they saw he was dead?'

Bannerman sighed. ‘It was a first-class cock-up, I'm afraid. Naturally they wanted to get Bulmer out in case he needed medical attention, though the staff sergeant said he knew straight away that he was dead. He said he'd seen enough battle casualties after D-Day to know a corpse when he saw one. They lugged the body out of the fuselage, then someone ran for an airport ambulance.'

‘No photographs were taken of the body in situ, though I suppose that would hardly be the first thought in anyone's mind,' said the Crown solicitor. ‘Of course, this was a foreign country. We had no other military presence there to organize things.'

The story unrolled, telling how the ambulance took the dead man to the civilian hospital about five miles away, where Bulmer was pronounced dead and taken to the mortuary. The major in charge of the training unit was called from his office in the British Consulate, a villa in one of the suburbs, and he immediately reported the matter to the civilian police.

‘They don't have a coroners' system there, I presume?' asked Richard.

‘No, the police do it all, in a random sort of way,' said Bannerman. ‘They took statements from everyone, as did the Al Tallah army people. The police eventually ordered a post-mortem, done next day by an Indian doctor at the hospital. I'm not clear whether he was actually a pathologist, but he was the chap who did the work for the police.'

Bannerman turned over a few pages in his folder and pulled out several black and white photographs, each half-plate size.

‘The police took these, but they're not of very good quality, I'm afraid.'

Richard looked at the grainy, underexposed and slightly out-of-focus pictures, then handed them over to Angela. One showed the naked body lying on a mortuary table. From the background surroundings, it looked a fairly primitive place, not unlike some of the ones he was familiar with in rural places in Wales and the west. Two others were of the scalp wound and another one showed the interior of the head, with fracture lines across the back of the skull.

‘Later, our major took a few pictures of the inside of the aircraft with his own camera – in fact they are much better than the police photos, as he had a Leica.'

He handed over a couple of smaller prints, which were indeed much sharper than the others. They showed the interior of a battered fuselage, with all the lining stripped out down to the bare metal. Many windows were smashed, and most of the remaining seat frames were devoid of upholstery. At the front, three crude silhouettes of men were leaning drunkenly, punctured by bullet holes.

‘What happened to the body?' asked Angela.

‘After the post-mortem, it was embalmed for transit and flown home to be buried with military honours in a cemetery near his home in Lewisham.'

‘Was there a further post-mortem here?' queried Richard.

Bannerman shook his head. ‘No, it was reported to the coroner on arrival, but he accepted the War Office account and declined to hold an inquest, allowing the death to be registered in the normal way.'

‘So what went wrong, to bring you here today?' asked Pryor rather bluntly.

Gordon Lane leaned forward to explain. ‘Naturally, the widow was awarded his full pension entitlement, and the War Office paid all expenses related to the death. She seemed resigned to the situation, as she was aware of other deaths these days among servicemen in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. But a month ago we had a writ served on us for a large negligence claim – and subsequently her solicitor has demanded that Staff Sergeant Leonard Squires be charged with murder.'

Richard's face showed his astonishment. ‘Murder! I could understand some sort of negligent manslaughter, but murder's bit steep, isn't it?'

Bannerman agreed. ‘We think it's nonsense, added to bolster up their civil claim for large damages. This solicitor is what the Americans would call an ambulance-chaser. He's got hold of this poor woman and brainwashed her into thinking there's a pot of money to be made, including him.'

‘But how on earth can they sustain a murder charge?' asked Angela. ‘The whole affair seems very risky, but I suppose that's what being in the army can mean. And why should it even be negligence, if that training routine is an accepted part of military practice?'

‘Well said, Dr Bray,' replied Bannerman. ‘We are naturally contesting the allegations, which is why we've come to you to see if there's anything in the medical aspects that are relevant.'

‘The allegation of murder is based on undoubted bad blood between Herbert Bulmer and Staff Sergeant Squires,' said the solicitor. ‘The wife has letters to show that her husband wrote home to her several times complaining about Squires.'

He went on to describe how the warrant officer had claimed that Squires was insubordinate and aggressive, even to the point that they came to blows in the accommodation provided for them by the Al Tallah military.

‘It seems that the antagonism began even before they went out to the Gulf, as several of the unit members we interviewed back at their depot near Salisbury said it was well known that the two men didn't get on, to say the least.'

‘What does Squires say about this?' asked Richard out of sheer curiosity, as it was no part of his medical brief.

‘He readily admits that he couldn't stand Bulmer, who he claims was officious and overbearing, treating him as if he was a raw recruit rather than an experienced NCO who was only one rank below him.'

Bannerman added to this litany of dispute. ‘Squires reckoned that Bulmer treated him with contempt in front of the trainees and often countermanded Squires' orders to the men. We couldn't get any confirmation from any of the officers, but a sergeants' mess is well known to be adept at keeping their own affairs under wraps.'

‘So the allegation is that Squires took the opportunity of the firefight in the plane to put one in the back of Bulmer's head?' suggested Richard. When he was in the army himself, he had heard rumours of similar ‘accidents' to junior officers or senior NCOs, when they were up at the head of a patrol.

He picked up the photographs again and studied them, even fishing a small lens from his pocket to look closely at the ones showing the head injury.

‘A pity they're such lousy photos,' he muttered.

‘Can you tell anything from them?' asked Bannerman.

‘It's a big wound, slightly ragged around the edges, as far as one can tell. What weapons were being used?'

‘Bulmer and the trainees had standard-issue Sterlings, but Squires used a Thompson sub-machine gun. God knows where he got it from, but some of these Special Forces types insist on having their favourite weapons.'

‘There's no doubt, I suppose, that the fatal shot came from his gun?' hazarded Richard.

Bannerman shook his head. ‘None at all! The Al Tallah police have virtually no forensic facilities, but they didn't need to. A Sten gun uses nine-millimetre ammunition, but the Thompson fires forty-fives.'

‘So there was no microscopic matching of the bullet to the weapon?' asked Angela. Although she was not a firearms examiner, a lot of knowledge had rubbed off on her during her years at the Metropolitan Police laboratory.

‘No point, even if Al Tallah were able to get it done,' said Paul Bannerman. ‘No one else there had a weapon of that calibre.'

‘Did they keep the bullet after the investigation was over?' asked Pryor.

‘It's still available in Al Tallah, as far as I know. Did you want to see it?'

Richard rubbed his chin, still staring at the photographs. ‘It's possible, so perhaps you could make sure that they don't chuck it away. What about his clothing? Did they keep that?'

Bannerman looked nonplussed. ‘Clothing? I've no idea. Gordon, do you know anything about that?'

The solicitor shook his head. ‘We can find out from the major out there. He's still in Al Tallah. We sent a pair of NCOs out to replace Bulmer and Squires.'

The show must go on, thought Angela cynically – especially if the War Office is getting a nice fat fee for the training.

‘So we don't know if he was wearing a hat of any sort,' continued Richard.

Bannerman pursed his lips. ‘Again, I don't know. The usual kit for that part of the world is a khaki tunic and shorts and a bush hat with a floppy brim. Does it matter, doctor?'

‘It might if the shot went through the hat. For a start, it might help with determining the range, if there was burning or propellant soiling from a close discharge.' He looked again at the photos. ‘There's no chance of seeing anything like that on these fuzzy pictures.'

‘Why do think it might have been a close discharge?' asked Gordon Lane.

‘The wound is large and split, as far as can be made out. A direct distant shot wouldn't do that, but a near-contact one could. The gases from the muzzle can be forced under the scalp and, because there is unyielding skull underneath, it causes a blowback which can split the skin.'

The prim Mrs Wright paled a little at the description she had to scribble on her notepad.

‘Is there any eyewitness evidence as to how close the two men were when the shooting started?' asked Angela.

The two War Office men looked at each other uncertainly.

‘Not really. There are fairly sparse statements from the trainees. Some of them hardly speak any English and, given the hectic turmoil of the moment, I doubt their testimony would be of much help.'

‘It's only now that these issues have blown up into such importance,' said Lane. ‘Before, it was a tragic accident three thousand miles away. Squires was put through the grinder when he was brought back to the depot, but of course he would quite naturally avoid saying anything that was to his disadvantage.'

‘It's only since the wife and her stroppy lawyer came on the scene that we've had to sit up and take notice,' confessed Bannerman. ‘Is there anything you can do or suggest that might take us further forward?'

‘Have you got the post-mortem report from Al Tallah there?' asked Richard. The colonel delved into his black bag again and brought out a single sheet of paper. When he handed it to Richard, he saw it was poorly typed on a printed pro forma with ‘Al Tallah Police Department' at the top.

‘Pretty skimpy, but we get them just as bad in this country,' he commented as he began reading.

The brief report described a well-built man six feet in height. There was no mention of clothing or a hat. A fulsome description of rigor mortis and lividity was unhelpful, given that the time of death was known to the minute, but the actual head wound was given scant attention. It was described as being on the ‘back of the head', and its dimensions were stated as ‘about one and a half inches by one half-inch'. There was no mention of burning of hairs or the blackening of surrounding skin.

The rest of the body was dismissed in a few repetitions of ‘NAD', an overworked acronym meaning ‘nothing abnormal detected'. At the end was a terse summary: ‘Death was due to skull fracture and brain damage due to a gunshot wound to the back of the head.' At the bottom, it was signed ‘Dr Pradash Rao'.