Private London (Private 4)

‘Hope is the feathered thing.’

‘Emily Dickinson.’

‘You are a man full of surprises, Mister Carter.’

I let the mister ride and held my hand out. ‘It’s Dan, remember?’ I said.

‘I certainly do,’ she replied, shaking my hand and meeting my eyes this time and holding the grin. I smiled back at her myself. I was ahead of schedule.

‘I shouldn’t have told you my dad was a scientist,’ she said.

‘That’s okay. I know how to keep a secret. Kind of goes with the job.’

‘I guess so. I didn’t know they had private detectives in England. I thought it was all bobbies and police boxes.’

‘And some of us.’

‘Are you ex-police?’

‘Royal Military Police. Redcaps, we call them.’

‘You served overseas, then?’

‘I did.’

‘Like Jack Morgan?’

‘Jack was in Afghanistan. I was in Iraq.’

‘So what made you leave the military?’

I looked at Hannah for a moment or two before replying.

‘It’s too long a story for this flight,’ I said. She seemed to accept that and returned to her novel.

I closed my eyes and leaned back, the memory of that day flashing into my mind as clearly as though it had been yesterday.

The pain every bit as fresh. Remembering.

I didn’t know it at the time but it turned out that Hannah and I had a lot more in common than I thought.

Chapter 7

9 April 2003. Baghdad City, Iraq.

THERE WERE FOUR of us in the jeep that afternoon.

Three men, one woman. One mission accomplished. Operation Telic. Signed, sealed, delivered. The end of the war.

At least, it felt like that. We were on our way to check into some reported post-conflict celebrations that were maybe getting a little rowdy. We couldn’t blame the boys – and had no intention of any strong-arm stuff. Enough people had been hurt as it was. Enough bodies sent home to be buried way before their time.

You couldn’t blame the lads for having a drink or two. Letting off a little steam. If you couldn’t celebrate today – then when could you?

The sun was shining as it had been every day since I’d started this tour of duty. But even that seemed different somehow. A brighter, cleaner, excoriating light. I knew that was nonsense but it felt that way.

The excitement in the air was certainly palpable. I hadn’t felt anything like it since I’d been a very small child and my whole street had turned out for a party to celebrate the Queen’s silver jubilee. That had been a hot, glorious day too.

The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote some lines: ‘The world is charged with the wonder of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.’