‘Meet the enemy, Sergeant DeWitt,’ said August. She nodded into the rear-view mirror. Even in a partial reflection Dryden could tell she was a woman of impressive credentials. Her uniform tried but failed to encompass a heart-stopping bust. August squirmed slightly in his seat in a way which answered all the questions Dryden hadn’t asked.
‘Right,’ said August, gunning the Jeep past two green lights and crossing the runway to a group of post-war three-storey dormitory buildings. Over them a water tower stood on stilts like an alien invader from the War of the Worlds. Behind a wire enclosure a bunch of GIs in blotched sweatshirts played a languid game of basketball.
They drove past a ‘Shopette’, a 24-hour laundromat, a K-Mart and a drive-in McDonald’s.
‘Makes ya proud,’ said Dryden. August grinned but the woman in fatigues bristled. Through the distant perimeter wire Dryden could see the tall pines which marked Mons Wood and the edge of Black Bank Fen.
‘We have a problem,’ said August, pulling up outside one of the dormitory blocks. ‘Lyndon Koskinski has gone AWOL.’
‘I thought he was on leave.’ Dryden got out and, deserting the air conditioning in the US-built Jeep, felt the heat from the tarmac slap him in the face. Now he knew why August had agreed to his interview request: he needed help.
‘He was. But if you live on base you have to report; daily. If you leave base you have to sign out. He’s done neither for more than a week. The police – civilian at Ely – want to talk to him about his mother’s death. More precisely about his own – reported – death. Procedure, nothing suspicious, but they want him and I ain’t got him. There is also the issue of his passport. Clearly, alterations need to be made. Red tape again, I’m afraid. He’s fought for America – nobody is going to block an application for citizenship, but he needs to make it. His current passport is invalid. And a British one would take months to issue.’
‘What would happen if he tried to leave the country?’ asked Dryden.
August adjusted the forage cap held beneath his epaulette: ‘Well, technically they’d have to refuse exit permission. But he might get through – we haven’t put a stop on the passport number. But we’ll have to if we can’t talk to him soon.’
‘Have you tried out at Black Bank?’
‘Ms Beck? She says she hasn’t seen him since her mother’s funeral.’
‘So you want me to interview the roommate. Run the story with an appeal for Lyndon to come forward and help the police clear up loose ends. Bit of a heart-sob piece. That it?’
August didn’t answer, but led the way. The block smelt of carbolic and old trainers, an oddly reminiscent aroma which made Dryden uneasy. A pilot sat on the stairs, his head between his legs, breathing deeply. A pool of sweat was spreading on the concrete step. He didn’t look up as they climbed to the top floor.
‘Exercise,’ said Dryden: ‘Why do people do it?’
August stopped in front of one of the dried-blood-red dormitory doors marked:
R145
Major Lyndon Koskinski
Capt Freeman White
Base Fire Team
August knocked smartly like he owned the place. Lyndon’s roommate was black, with grey curly hair and watery brown eyes. He was a big man, heavily built, with the manner of someone who finds it tiresome to carry around their own bones. Dryden and August sat on one bunk, White opposite. His bed was covered in several layers of newspaper in the middle of which was a jumble of oily machinery: cogs, cables and bolts. His fingers showed the grease where he’d been working.
And there was the wound. Lyndon Koskinski had said he’d been injured ejecting from their plane over Iraq. A welt about six inches long had healed on White’s skull but could still be traced from his right cheekbone up into the hairline. The right eye was cloudy and Dryden guessed from the way he held his head to one side that it was blind.
‘Mechanic, eh?’ asked Dryden.
‘I ain’t seen Lyndon for days,’ he said, ignoring the question. His face was a smooth ebony black, polished like a banister, and impossible to date.
Dryden tried to recall the stature of the motorcyclist who had vandalized Humph’s cab. The height was right. The shoulders maybe.
‘We weren’t that close, you know…’ He spread two huge hands on his knees. ‘Guy’s got a life to lead, yeah? He wanted time. Space.’
August folded a knee flat over the other. ‘But you were in Iraq together. You had to ditch. That’s right, isn’t it?’
White glanced up at a picture pinned above Lyndon’s pillow. An F-111 on a hot white runway somewhere sandy where the tide never came in. He had a hi-tech flying helmet under his arm. White was next to him and they wore the expansive smiles people often affect just before they think they might get killed.
Dryden flipped open a notebook
‘Yeah. Lyndon was the pilot that day – I was navigating. We bailed out, got separated…’
‘How come?’ said Dryden standing and looking at the snapshots pinned to a cork board.
‘We parachuted down a few miles from each other. I got picked up right off by a field patrol. Republican Guard. I’d hit the canopy on the way out when we ejected. Made a mess of my head. I don’t remember that much about it. They was happy guys though, you know? Jumpin’. Lyndon came down over the horizon. They sent a squad of the local militia after him – took ‘em a week to find him. We both ended up in Al Rasheid. Some cell. It was grim, you can guess.’
‘So you had that in common,’ said August. ‘Eight weeks together in that cell. That was a bond. You must feel close, no?’
‘Sure,’ said White, beginning to rearrange the cogs and bolts on the newspaper. ‘Lyndon saved my life in there. Fed me, gave me his water, kept the wounds clean. I really don’t remember a lot – but I’d be dead otherwise.’ Dryden sensed he hadn’t wanted to say this, but couldn’t help himself.
‘So you owe him your life. That’s a big debt,’ said Dryden, probing.
White ignored him again. ‘Three months ago he was great, when we got back. He was going Stateside once he’d got his weight back. Then he went out to the farm – Black Bank. You know…?’ Dryden and August nodded.
‘That seemed to go OK. He was kinda pleased. He loves his grandparents. That’s dem.’ He pointed at a colour snap of Lyndon on a beach. The grandparents stood stiffly on either side. She’d been beautiful once, he looked distinguished now, but nobody touched anybody else. ‘Maggie was really pleased to see him. I went out too, a coupla times. I guess she wanted to get close.’
‘He saw a lot of them?’ asked Dryden, looking through the small barred window. A platoon of junior airmen were drilling while an orderly with a ladder was painting a white line down the side of a Nissen hut.
‘Yeah. He stayed out there – they gave him a room. Food was good, that’s what he wanted. It got him off the base. He looked great. Got a tan, this summer of yours is unreal.’
Dryden sat on the bunk beside him. ‘It’s a one-off. Even we don’t believe it. So – then Maggie died.’
‘Yeah. Then she died and, well, he kinda collapsed.’ They left the silence for him to fill. ‘He came back the next morning. Brought his stuff.’
‘Stuff?’ August leant back against the wall. Dryden appreciated the classic interview technique. Relax when things get interesting.
‘Clothes. Books. Everything he’d taken. I asked him what was up. He said Maggie had died, that everything was different. Then he shut up. Packed a kit-bag with his washing stuff and fresh clothes and went. Didn’t say goodbye, didn’t say anything.’
Dryden spoke from the window: ‘Did he leave anything valuable – anything that you knew was precious to him?’