The Black Path (14 page)

Asked if he was implying that Richard Thomas and Ms Johns were involved in some kind of relationship, Mr Roberts replied, ‘I never said that. But it looks a bit odd when a married man starts hanging around with a younger woman. It’s not for me to say if there was anything going on between them or not, but some people might jump to conclusions.’

When asked what he meant by ‘some people’, Mr Roberts replied, ‘Mandy Thomas, for one.’

***

‘Look!’ says Siân. She grabs Helen’s arm and points across the road at the local community centre.

Helen must have driven past the centre hundreds of times without paying too much attention. It’s a small building with arched windows and a pitched roof, suggesting that it had once been a place of worship. Now the windows are covered with chicken wire and the walls are painted pale blue. Outside is a hand-painted sign: ‘A Night of Clairvoyance. Tue. 7.30pm. £5.’

‘What do you reckon?’ Siân asks. ‘Fancy it?’

Helen shrugs. ‘I don’t really believe in any of that stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Clairvoyants. Psychics. Talking to the dead.’

‘No, me neither. You must talk to your dad, though. When you visit his grave, I mean.’

‘Sometimes. But that’s different.’

‘You must miss him.’

‘I do.’

Siân links her arm through Helen’s. ‘What was he like? What do you remember about him?’

‘Lots of things. Sometimes he’d come home really late, but he’d always read me a bedtime story. He always had more time for me than Mum did. Nothing he did ever seemed to please her.’

‘Did they argue a lot?’

‘A fair amount.’

‘What about?’

‘Silly things. She was always so uptight. Still is, in fact.’

‘She sounds a bit of a cow,’ Siân says.

‘She’s not really,’ Helen replies – partly out of a sense of loyalty, and partly because her own mother’s failings pale in comparison to Siân’s mother abandoning her as a child. ‘She’s not perfect. But she did her best. Or what she thought was best.’

An image of her mother and Frank pops into her head. She’s seated at the dining table. Her mother is fretting over the roast dinner, refusing her offers of help. Frank sits with his newspaper and a can of lager, sounding off about something he’s just read, oblivious to the fact that nobody is interested. The air is heavy with the smell of burning fat, the windows wet with steam, the walls closing in.

‘Okay?’ asks Siân.

Helen nods and forces a smile. ‘Never better.’

They walk in silence for a while, past school playing fields and the local sports centre where Owen sometimes works out when he’s home on leave.

‘That’s where I go to the gym,’ Siân says proudly. ‘Four times a week. Weight training. Spin class. Kick boxing.’ She smiles. ‘I’m fighting fit. You should try it.’

‘I don’t think it’s my thing.’

‘It’s okay, really. They’re not all gays and meatheads.’

‘I know. My husband trains there sometimes.’

Siân turns to her.

‘Of course! I thought I recognized him in that photo. That’ll be why.’

‘But he hasn’t been there in months.’

‘I never forget a face. It’s like I said before. I’m sharp.’

Helen pictures Owen returning from the gym – his hair still damp, his face flushed. She forces the thought away.

‘Siân, about your father –’

‘What about him?’

‘You must miss him.’

‘Of course. But it gets easier with time, doesn’t it?’

Helen thinks back to the period after her father died. It had taken her months to adjust to the fact that he was gone. In some ways, she’s still adjusting, even now.

‘Sometimes I have conversations with my dad in my head,’ she says. ‘Do you ever do that?’

‘Oh, I talk to my dad all the time.’ Siân nods knowingly, then looks away. ‘Here we are.’

Straight ahead is a large concrete building, painted in various shades of grey. Next to it is a small car park. A blue sign on the wall boasts ‘Hot food, karaoke and dancing till 2am.’

‘It looks nice,’ Helen says cautiously.

‘
Nice
?’ Siân laughs. ‘It looks like a communist checkpoint! There should be a sign over the door. “Abandon hope all who enter here!”’

She steps forward and holds open the door. ‘Shall we?’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Owen tears the page from his notebook, folds the sheet of paper and tucks it safely into the chest pouch of his body armour. The letter has taken him an hour to write, propped up on his elbows as the night winds howled and Collins lay snoring gently a few feet away.

Now, as he rolls up his sleeping bag, a feeling of unease creeps over him. His stomach clenches.

Hunger probably
, he thinks.
Or guilt
…

Shaking the thoughts away, he grabs his rifle, reaches for his kit bag and hoists it onto his back. Everything will be alright. He has a wife waiting for him at home. That’s where his future lies. That’s who he is. He just needs to get a message to her and let her know he’s safe. It’ll take days for the letter to arrive. He can’t leave it that long, knowing how worried she’ll be. But he can’t risk a phone call. What if she hears it in his voice? An email, then. Yes, if it’s the last thing he does today, he’ll send an email to Helen. Something short and sweet, telling her he loves her and he’s safe and not to worry. The rest can wait until later.

He looks at his watch – 4.47 a.m. The sun is just starting to rise, pale streaks of pink and orange spreading slowly across the horizon. But the moon is still visible and the night winds haven’t died away completely. As he steps up to the vehicle, sand swirls in small circles around his feet.

This is what life’s about, he thinks. Small circles. Routine. Order.

Breakfast will be waiting for them back at the base. He pictures a steaming plate piled high with bacon and eggs, fried tomatoes and buttered toast. Comfort food. Food fit for a soldier.

But still there’s that feeling of unease deep in his stomach.

The lads from combat support arrived during the night and fixed the transmission. It took longer than expected, and it was only afterwards that someone discovered that one of the radios was on the blink. Owen will need to swap vehicles so that the sergeant can be certain that radio contact is maintained with the base.

‘Mount up,’ the sergeant bawls. ‘We’re moving off in five.’ He turns away to consult his map.

‘I’ll take the lead vehicle,’ Owen says. ‘Collins, you join the sergeant in the rear. Jackson, you’re driving me.’

‘Fuck that!’ Jackson replies.

Owen eyeballs him.

‘I hardly slept a wink,’ Jackson says with a knowing smirk. ‘Best if I take the rear, eh?’ He nods towards Collins. ‘Your crow here can drive.’

Owen bristles. ‘Crow’ stands for ‘combat recruit of war’ and is a term applied to a soldier fresh out of training. Prefixing it with ‘your’ is Jackson’s way of adding further insult to an already loaded choice of words. Owen glares at him but says nothing. Now isn’t the time to rise to the bait.

‘Fine,’ Owen says, avoiding eye contact with Collins and keeping his sights firmly on Jackson. ‘Collins can drive.’

‘Don’t forget to buckle up,’ Jackson says as Collins steps forward. ‘And don’t worry, McGrath. I’ve got your back.’ He gives a vicious grin and slouches off to join the sergeant in the second vehicle.

There’s flurry of activity as soldiers gather up their kit and take their positions. The Jackal’s protection system is among the best in the world, with armour plating beneath the crew compartment and on the sides of the vehicle. But the top of the cabin is left open for greater visibility. As Owen jumps in, the sergeant gives the order to move off.

‘Alright, Corporal?’ Collins smiles, adjusting his harness.

Owen keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead. ‘Just drive,’ he grunts.

As the patrol pulls away, he leans forward in his seat and surveys the scene. The desert is beautiful. As the sun rises, the skies seem to go on for ever. Here and there are small settlements, clusters of pomegranate trees and purple rock faces. And far off in the distance are the poppy fields – a symbol of all that’s wrong in this harsh, unforgiving place. The production of opium is officially outlawed, but there’s no rule of law in most of the southern parts of Afghanistan. Even for the locals, life here is governed by fear. Fear of the warlords. Fear of the security forces. Fear of insurgents.

Owen recalls the first time he saw men pinning red paper flowers to their lapels and laying wreaths at the cenotaph back home. He was eight years old and the poppies were for men who’d died in combat before he was born. He remembers thinking then that paper flowers were a strange way to show your respect for men who’d given their lives for their country. But that was all such a long time ago. He’s worn many poppies since, and laid many wreaths.

‘Corporal?’ says Collins.

Owen snaps out of his reverie and stares through the windscreen.

A few hundred yards ahead is a small village – just a few buildings clustered together. As they approach, he reaches instinctively for his radio, forgetting for a moment that the damned thing isn’t working.

He drops the radio onto the seat next to him and lifts his binoculars to his eyes. Everything is sandy brown, from the narrow paths to the mud-brick houses with their weather-beaten wooden doors and flat roofs. So far, so ordinary. Clothes dangle from branches overhead. Is someone still living here, or has the place been abandoned? Owen scours the scene for signs of life but all he sees is a rotting dog corpse, buzzing with flies. Someone’s pet, perhaps? Or a guard dog with nobody and nothing left to guard?

Then his eyes are drawn to a large bank of poppies to the left of the village, the familiar pink buds turning red on long green stalks. Something isn’t right. The poppy harvest is supposed to be over. His pulse quickens. The feeling of unease he felt earlier returns, more pronounced this time. Collins senses it too. His body is rigid.

Owen lowers his binoculars and scans the road ahead.

What’s wrong with this picture
?

Barely has the thought formed when there’s a sudden blinding flash. The force of the explosion blasts his body high into the air. There’s a ringing noise in his ears as his world melts away into a scorching white nothingness. He smells burning flesh and wonders if it’s his own. The stench of petrol fumes fills his nostrils and catches the back of his throat. As he hits the ground, he feels the crunch of bone as his arm snaps.

Then the white turns to black. The ringing sound fades. And somewhere in the darkness he hears a distant voice shout. ‘Man down! Man down!’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Helen can’t believe the time. Had she known that Siân intended to stay out so late, she’d have cried off hours ago. She’s in no fit state for another marathon drinking session. But one hour became two and two became four and still there’s no indication that Siân is ready to call it a night. Helen has tried several times to make her excuses and leave, but each time Siân came back at her with another reason to stay: ‘I’ve just ordered us a meal.’ ‘The karaoke’s on later.’ ‘Just one more drink.’ ‘But it’s Saturday night!’

The food was awful. Helen can feel the greasy chicken and chips sitting heavily in her stomach. She has no interest in the karaoke, and no desire to repeat last night’s performance and get completely plastered. But to complain now would seem ungracious. There’s also the unspoken understanding that Siân had cut short her own Friday night out in order to take care of her. She hasn’t said as much, but Helen can’t help feeling that she owes Siân. And really, where’s the harm? Siân does have a point. It is Saturday night. What would she be doing at home? Having nightmares in her empty bed or watching a late-night film and waiting for the phone to ring.

It’s now close to midnight and Siân has gone to the bar for another round of drinks. ‘Just a Diet Coke for me,’ Helen insisted. She’s been trying to pace herself, alternating between soft drinks and white wine spritzers. She wonders how much wine they put in the spritzers. She’s only had a few but is feeling surprisingly light-headed. Still, it’ll be time to go home soon, surely?

She looks around. She’s not sure what time this place closes, but nobody appears to be leaving just yet. At the next table, a bunch of lads in tight-fitting T-shirts are downing pints like there’s no tomorrow. She overhears one of them say something about a birthday party, though it isn’t clear whose birthday it is, whether the party is taking place at some other venue or is already in full swing. At another table, a couple of women her mother’s age are sharing a bottle of wine. The bar area is crowded with an assortment of people in jeans and sportswear. A few of the older men keep leering over at her. Others are kept in check by women with pinched expressions and plunging necklines.

Helen looks for Siân but there’s still no sign of her. She checks her phone and sees that the signal is weak and the battery is low. Damn. She should have charged it before leaving the house. There’s a missed call from an unknown number. Funny, she thinks. She didn’t hear it ring. There’s no voicemail and still no word from Owen. Telling herself not to worry, she turns up the volume on the phone and slides it back into her pocket.

A hand grabs her shoulder. ‘Here we go,’ says Siân.

Relieved that it isn’t one of the men hitting on her, Helen smiles up, before spotting the two glasses and bottle of wine she’s carrying. ‘I thought you were getting me a Diet Coke?’

‘I was,’ Siân replies, placing the glasses on the table. ‘But the queue for the bar was so long and by the time they finally served me I thought, “Fuck it, it’s Saturday night!” You don’t mind, do you? I can go back if you like.’ She shrugs guiltily and gestures towards the bar.

‘It’s okay,’ Helen says. ‘I’m fine with wine.’ She giggles as the words trip off her tongue. Those spritzers must have been stronger than she thought.

‘Fine with wine.’ Siân smiles and takes her seat. ‘Listen to you. Very refined.’ She fills the glasses. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘Missed call. Unknown number.’