Scared to Death: A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down

‘Captain.’

Callan paused, his hand on the door, but didn’t turn. ‘Chaplain.’

‘I will be around, Captain Callan. The welfare of the living in this case is as important – more so, I would venture – than the welfare of the dead.’

Don’ttellme.YourGodwilllookafterthedead.

‘And it is my job to ensure that these teenagers’ welfare is not compromised.’

Callan’s hard gaze met the chaplain’s insipid green one.

‘Of course, Chaplain, I would expect nothing less. Just as it’s my job to find out what happened.’ He paused. ‘Did you know him, Chaplain?’

‘The victim?’

‘Stephen Foster. He was called Stephen Foster.’

‘My conversations are entirely confidential, Captain, you know that.’ His soft voice didn’t rise. ‘I cannot divulge the names of those that I give counsel to. I need to be indisputably trustworthy, above reproach. No names, no comebacks, as they say.’

Callan’s jaw tightened. ‘This is potentially a murder investigation.’

‘Potentially.’

‘Whichever way you look at it, Foster is dead. Surely your professional and ecclesiastical responsibility are discharged on death.’

‘The dead leave behind families, they leave behind loved ones and they leave behind their reputations.’

‘And they need justice,’ Callan snapped. ‘He needs justice.’

‘If this is found to be murder, Captain Callan, unequivocally murder, feel free to come and speak with me again.’ His gaze slid from Callan’s and found the low cloud ceiling above them, his brow creasing into a frown as if he had finally noticed that he was getting wet.

Callan gave a grim nod. ‘The autopsy will be tomorrow morning. Don’t go anywhere, Chaplain, and don’t discuss this case with anyone. I will see you again soon, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’

Yanking the door open, Callan pushed through, leaving the chaplain standing outside in the rain, his mouth puckered into a moue of distaste. At the rain? At him? Callan couldn’t tell and couldn’t care less either way.

13 (#ulink_ca4f5f9c-bf5d-52e2-9ff1-1f4e8e409677)

From her office window, Jessie watched the opaque curtain of another spring storm barrel across the lake at the bottom of the wide sweep of Bradley Court’s lawn, turning the glassy water to froth. The leaves on the copper beech trees lining the pathway by the manor house twisted and bowed before they were engulfed, flattened under the weight of the downpour, and suddenly her view was misted, the glass opaque.

A knock on the door. The blond teenager standing in the corridor was barely taller than Jessie’s five foot six, narrow-shouldered and thin. His soft hazel eyes looked huge in a pale face, framed as they were by the dark rings of insomnia. He looked very young.

‘Private Jones, I’m Doctor Jessie Flynn.’ She held out her hand. ‘Please come in.’

Ryan Jones slid through the door, glancing sideways at her, a look of suspicion etched on his face. He didn’t move to take her proffered hand. Jessie recognized that reaction, had come across it before with young soldiers a few months in who spent every day being drilled: woken up at first light and run for miles in their platoons, publicly belittled for every minor misdemeanour, their rooms swept with eagle eyes for dust specks, clothes checked for razor-sharp creases, even the shine on their boots studied forensically for signs that they weren’t measuring up. And even if they were, imaginary holes picked in order to break down their confidence. Everything about Army basic training was designed to remove individuality and mould a team in its place. These recruits often found their initial visit to Bradley Court a destabilizing experience, no longer accustomed to being treated as an equal, a unique individual.

Closing the door behind him, Jessie indicated one of the two leather bucket chairs, separated only by a low coffee table that she used for her sessions. The chairs were deliberately placed underneath one of her office’s two sash windows so that patients could relieve the pressure, if only momentarily, by looking at the view of nature beyond the glass. Ryan sat down, crossing his legs and folding his arms across his chest, nothing open or accommodating about his posture.

‘Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee, water?’

Without making eye contact, he shook his head. Jessie grabbed his file and a pen from her desk and took the seat opposite. She had re-read the single typed sheet the file contained shortly before he arrived.

Ryan Thomas Jones

Sixteen and five months

Joined the Army on 2 November last year, the day of his sixteenth birthday

Phase 2 trainee, Royal Logistic Corps

Referred by Blackdown’s commanding officer, Colonel Philip Wallace, because of concerns about his mental health

Nothing more than that: a vague, unspecific brief. She looked up from the file. It felt strange to be back in her consulting room, facing another patient who, from his body language and the shuttered look on his face, would give a lot to be somewhere else.

‘Can I call you Ryan?’

A tiny lift of his shoulders, which Jessie translated as a teenager’s ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for coming in to see me.’

Another weary shrug. ‘I wasn’t given a choice.’ A soft regional accent that Jessie couldn’t place. She ploughed on. ‘You’ve been in the Army five months?’

‘Yes.’

‘With the Royal Logistic Corps?’

‘Yes.’

‘How is it going?’

‘OK.’

‘Are you enjoying it?’

‘It’s not an exciting choice, is it, logistics? Not brave.’ There was sneer in his voice.

‘Don’t knock it. An Army runs on good logistics.’ Jessie racked her brains for the famous quote – something about wars being won or lost on the contents of soldiers’ stomachs – but try as she might she couldn’t summon it, or its author, to mind. She still felt vague and headachy, half her brain mid-flight somewhere over the Persian Gulf, the other half in that small, depressing hospital room, hoping with all her heart that Joan Lawson was right when she said her son would never commit suicide, all her professional knowledge, her gut feeling, telling her that the old lady was wrong, the parallels with her own past deeply unsettling.

‘An Army marches on its stomach, Napoleon Bonaparte.’

Ryan’s face remained impassive.

‘Logistics. The importance of logistics. Napoleon Bonaparte?’ Logistics,catering,nearenough. ‘Military general, the first Emperor of France, Battle of Waterloo?’

Still no reaction.

‘Never mind. So why did you choose the Logistic Corps then?’