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

He shrugged, a careless movement that brought to Jessie’s mind a teenaged schoolboy sitting at the back of the class, thinking about smoking behind the bike shed and sticking his hand up girls’ skirts rather than whatever subject the teacher was wittering on about at the front of the classroom.

‘Do you want to be brave, Ryan?’ Jessie asked softly, tilting forward, trying, and failing, to catch his eye.

Kids of this age should be still at school. She didn’t believe that they had the emotional maturity, the mental robustness to handle rigid institutions like the Army, even in relatively soft options like logistics. The Army could be tough and isolating, the necessity of fitting in, of being accepted as one of the lads, stressful, particularly for people who were not natural team players. She suspected that Ryan was not a natural team player.

‘Ryan.’

He had started to fidget, fingers picking at a thread that had come loose from the stitching of his navy-blue beret. His nails had been bitten to the quick, the cuticles raw, Jessie noticed.

‘No.’ His voice so low that it was almost inaudible. ‘Not particularly.’

‘So why the Army? Why did you join?’

He sighed, like a teenager whose mother was hassling him. ‘Because people like me don’t have choices. The Army seemed like a good way of getting out.’

‘Getting out from where? Where did you grow up?’

‘Birmingham.’ The soft accent. Midlands – of course. She should have recognized it.

‘Do you have family?’

‘A mother.’

‘Father?’

‘He died when I was three.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It didn’t affect me. I never really knew him.’

Jessie knew that wasn’t true. Abandonment always affected children, however it happened. She knew that well enough from her own childhood.

‘Does your mother still live in Birmingham?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you close to her?’

The first sign of warmth and light that Jessie had seen in his soft hazel eyes, but the words thrown out insouciantly, entirely at odds with his expression. ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

She felt as if she was butting her head up against a wall. A smooth, featureless, wall, plain white, no finger-holds, nothing to get a grip on. Her office felt oppressive suddenly, a room shut up for too long over winter, which it had been. The shower had passed, sunlight breaking through the bank of grey clouds outside. Standing, Jessie unlocked the window and hauled up the lower sash. Cool, damp air eddied through the gap.

‘Can I go now?’ Ryan asked, narrowing his gaze against the sunlight.

‘Not yet.’

‘Why not?’ he hissed.

The sudden flare of aggression surprised Jessie, gone almost as soon as she’d registered it. He had seemed too distant, too closed down for aggression. She made a mental note.

‘Don’t I get a choice?’ he finished.

‘Unfortunately you gave up your right to choose when you joined the Army.’

His mouth tightened as if she had unwittingly put her finger on a nerve.

‘Ryan, Blackdown’s commanding officer, Colonel Philip Wallace, referred you to the Defence Psychology Service. As you can see, there’s not much information in your file.’ She held up the single page. ‘So why don’t you tell me why you think he sent you.’

Jaw muscles clenched under his skin.

‘I’ve never even talked to him.’ He stretched his arm straight above his head. ‘He’s God isn’t he? And I’m down here somewhere.’ The hand moved to graze the carpet. ‘Pond life.’

If he’d had no verbal contact with Wallace, had he talked to someone else about his feelings, or had his behaviour been noticed? ‘Did you talk to someone else at Blackdown about how you’re feeling?’

‘I’m not feeling anything.’

‘There must be a reason that you’re here, that you were referred.’

Ryan’s arms tightened around his torso, but he didn’t reply. Everything about his posture telegraphed intense feelings of discomfort at Jessie’s questions.

‘Who did you talk to, Ryan?’

‘No one.’ His gaze found the window. Jessie let him stare. After a moment, his gaze still fixed on the outside, he murmured, ‘He approached me.’

‘Who approached you?’

‘The chaplain.’

That wasn’t in the file. She made a mental note.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said that it’s his job.’

‘To keep an eye on new recruits?’

‘Yeah. Their spiritual health, mental health, all that crap.’

‘What did you talk to him about?’

Another shrug. ‘Stuff.’

‘Can you tell me?’

He shook his head. ‘They’re supposed to be confidential, aren’t they? My discussions with him? I should have known not to talk to him.’ Ryan slumped in the bucket chair, started kicking at the carpet with one of his combat boots, muttered under his breath. ‘Fuckin’ kiddie fiddler.’

Catholic.Kiddiefiddler. The chaplain must get that all the time – an occupational hazard. Jessie continued to look at Ryan, but he didn’t add anything else. She waited, the silence growing heavier.