‘We arrive on Sunday, and Sundays are the most dangerous. They pray on Friday, plan on Saturday and attack on Sunday. Holy Shit Sundays, we call them. But, you know, people are polite there. People are decent. There is no litter at Camp Bastion. Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen.’

‘Thank you for your time, Captain King,’ Mallory said.

We followed him to the door of the mess.

As King stepped outside into the chill of the October night, every one of his men turned to look at him. Some of them smiled shyly, and I was struck by their youth, the jumble of equipment they all carried, and their obvious love for their commanding officer.

‘Why did James Sutcliffe kill himself?’

King winced at Mallory’s question.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was all a long time ago.’

‘But you must have some thoughts.’

‘Why does anyone kill himself? Because he was weak.’

‘I thought he was your friend.’

‘James Sutcliffe was more than my friend. Far more. And I think about him every day of my life. But James was weak.’

Mallory nodded thoughtfully. ‘My apologies for detaining you, Captain King.’

He shook our hands. ‘I wish I could have been more helpful.’

‘Just one final thing,’ Mallory said.

King waited.

‘What happened to your face?’

King laughed out loud.

‘Ben did it,’ he said. ‘When we were boys. Threw a glass at my head at the breakfast table. Must have said something that annoyed him. Nobody ever asks me that,’ he added cheerfully, his spirits rising now that he was joining his men. ‘They all assume I copped it in the line of duty.’

Mallory shook his head. ‘No, those marks are too old. I know what scars look like.’

Chapter 11

11

SCOUT WAS SILENT over breakfast.

I knew there was a time coming, maybe not that long from now, when she would be able to hide her feelings from me. But at five years old we were not there yet.

I sat down opposite her, moved aside a cereal packet with grinning monkeys on the side, and looked into her eyes.

‘Something’s wrong, Scout,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong, angel?’

Scout glanced down at the milky brown gloop in her bowl, then back at me.

‘You have to make me a costume,’ she said.

I leaned back in my chair, trying to take it in.

‘Why do I have to do that?’

‘A costume for our play. Our Christmas play.’

‘A Nativity play?’

She nodded. ‘The mummies all have to make the costumes for the children.’ A moment of doubt. ‘And the daddies. Miss Davies said so.’

If Miss Davies said something then it was burned into tablets of stone and carried down from the mountain in the trembling hands of Moses.

‘What’s the play?’