Rhett was in awkward mode. 'No, it's not the sort of place we want to go near.'
I held out my good hand and we shook. 'Thanks, Rhett. If you want to come with me and have a last look, you can.'
'Nah, I want to remember him as a gobby shite.'
He left and I finished dressing. A mirror hung on a bit of string from a section of frame by the side of the bench, and I saw what was left of a large black M that had been written on my forehead in permanent marker. At some stage I would have had a label attached to me too, to make doubly sure everybody further down the chain knew I'd been administered morphine. It affects other treatments.
With greasy, sticking-up hair and already sweating, I pushed aside the green nylon sheet that acted as a door, turned left and walked down a corridor of cubicle walls towards the sound of music. I passed air-conditioning ducts, but they weren't working.
There was another cubicle at the end of the corridor. This one was an office. Two guys in white coats sat on plastic chairs, watching MTV. They had their backs to me but I could see the mugs of brew and a packet of Rich Tea.
'Lads, where's the morgue? I think one of my mates is there – you know, the cameraman who got shot.'
They both looked round, and then at each other. It was hard to interpret their expressions. Either I wasn't allowed access, or neither of them wanted to miss Beyoncé shaking her tits on MTV.
The blond one stood up. 'Next door.' He picked up his armour and helmet. 'Where's yours?'
'Don't know, mate.'
I followed him out into the blinding sunshine. I almost had to close my eyes. We turned right in the sand and headed for a concrete-block building. The guy turned back to me as we walked. 'You ever seen a dead body before, mate?'
I nodded.
Entering the building was like stepping into a fridge. This was where all the air-conditioning lived. Beyond sheets of thick plastic hanging from the ceiling lay five stone slabs like kitchen worktops.
A body lay on one, covered with a sheet. Two clear evidence bags lay on the floor next to him. One was smeared on the inside with wet blood that must have rubbed off his clothes. The other, much smaller, contained his personal effects. His wallet, his watch, his wedding ring. And his precious memory stick.
The guy went over and pulled the sheet back, then stood aside and leant against the next slab along.
Pete's couple of days' stubble would keep growing for a bit longer, but he'd been cleaned up pretty well. I realized this was the first time I'd seen him without a smile on his face.
He had two strike marks in his chest. They'd dried up and looked like big scabs. The rest of his skin was pale.
'What's going to happen now? How's he going to get home?'
'I guess we'll fly him back to Brize. That's what normally happens.'
I looked at Pete again. Something about those strike marks wasn't right.
I walked all the way round him, looking for more strikes, more marks. 'Why wasn't he wearing armour?'
The guy was getting bored now. He'd done his bit. Beyoncé beckoned. 'Don't know, mate. He just got shot and brought here. That's it.'
I lifted Pete's right arm, then pulled it up a bit more until his shoulder lifted and I could see the exit wounds in his back. They were large, as they always are when the rounds are allowed to exit the body. I put his arm down where it belonged.
'I'm going to see you all right, mate . . .' I said quietly.
The medic came towards me with the sheet. 'No need to worry about that.'
'I wasn't talking to you.'
I picked up Pete's personal stuff and left him to it. I walked back out into the sun. Dom and I would take his gear to his family. The least we could do was make sure the stuff that was most important to him got back to the people who were most important to him. Small things in big firms always tended to go missing.
Why wasn't he wearing Osprey? Everyone had to wear it even to go for a dump. Pete was so careful. He would have had it on. Even if those two rounds had pierced his body armour by some sort of miracle, they wouldn't have exited like