with what had just happened, and what Jack was telling him now.
‘And?’
‘Well, you know that he served in the Royal Marines, don’t you?’
‘Sure, he was in the first Gulf War, then he was dismissed on medical grounds.’
‘Ah, well, that was the official line, I gather.’
‘And you know differently?’
‘Remember that this all comes from the staff room, so it has to be taken with a whole mountain of salt, but one of the other teachers had heard that there was a lot more to it than that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘A number of the lads came back unwell, suffering from both physical and mental problems. I believe they refer to it as Gulf War Syndrome.’
‘I thought that was never proven.’
‘It’s still open to debate in the courts.’
‘And you’re telling me that Neil had Gulf War Syndrome?’
‘One of the teachers’ cousins was a nurse at Ninewells, and a number of squaddies came in with complaints.’
‘Wait a minute, wouldn’t they have gone to a military doctor with this?’
‘I understand they didn’t trust someone on the military payroll to look into it properly.’
‘OK, so he had Gulf War Syndrome,’ said David. ‘That’s still medical grounds, so that’s presumably why he was given his discharge, yeah?’
‘I’m sorry, I seem to have misled you,’ said Jack, finishing his pint and looking at David. David got the hint and quickly got the pints in, irritated at Jack for stringing this out.
‘As I was saying,’ continued Jack as David sat back down, ‘he claimed to be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, but that wasn’t why he was discharged.’
‘Well why the hell was he discharged?’
‘It seems there was a fight, at the Condor base, between two commandos. One of them ended up in a coma. The other was Neil.’
‘And you know this how?’
‘The nurse again. Apparently it was a matter of life and death, and they had to go to Ninewells for the sake of the other squaddie, to give him a chance of survival. The guys that brought him in told our friendly nurse off the record what had happened.’
‘Which was?’
‘Neil beat him half to death over next to nothing. It started as an argument over something trivial, I don’t know what, but escalated until half a dozen military police had to drag Neil off the other fellow.’
‘And what happened to this other guy? Was he OK?’
‘Afraid not. He didn’t die, but he never fully recovered. Brain damage. When his condition didn’t improve, they moved him to Sunnyside after a few weeks.’
David felt his stomach drop and tighten, like he’d been punched himself. Neil had half-killed someone, a fellow marine. Beat the shit out of him so badly he’d ended up in the local mental home. He took a few seconds to digest the whole thing.
‘Surely this would’ve been in the news,’ he said. ‘Weren’t the police involved?’
‘The police were given the brush-off, apparently,’ said Jack, obviously revelling in his role of gossip spreader. ‘The military police took over the whole situation. And you know what the army’s like for sweeping stuff under the carpet. They just covered their tracks, acted like nothing had happened. Gave Neil a medical discharge to get him off their hands and avoid any scandal. I mean, they couldn’t have him stay at Condor after what had happened, the other squaddies would’ve killed him.’
‘But didn’t this other guy have any family? Didn’t they kick up a stink?’
‘According to our nurse, there was no immediate family. There were a couple of cousins, but it’s not always easy to get anyone to listen to you, especially when you’re up against the muscle of the army. They probably figured there was no way they could get this fully investigated, so they gave up trying. Remember, all this could be absolute rubbish, you know what small-town rumours are like. It’s always easier to think the worst of people, and bad news spreads fastest of all. I haven’t heard of anyone corroborating this story, and it was over ten years ago.’
‘So, you think Neil became a recluse after what happened?’ Something didn’t quite click in David’s mind. There was something missing here. ‘Wait a minute, someone told me that Neil joined the police after the Marines. How the fuck could that happen, if he had this cloud hanging over him?’
‘Maybe no one knew at the time,’ said Jack, his second pint finished already.
‘Come on, everyone seems to know everything about everyone else in this place. And anyway, wouldn’t he need a reference from the Marines when he applied to