Chapter 4

Although Andrew exercised he neither ran nor swam when he got up at noon. He needed the sleep and unless Brodie was dead set on doing something that night he was going to have an early night and catch up on more. That at least was his plan. Not that he was complaining about the reason for his sleep deprivation. One look at Brodie told Andrew that he was in the same boat. He was nursing a softie and they ordered some lunch.

“Waste of a week so far. No further forward then when we left.”

Andrew chose to stay quiet. It was totally true but he didn’t think Brodie wanted his agreement as well.

“I phoned the office on Friday afternoon, got my head handed to me by the Super. We need to move this forward somehow. Of course the reason he was so fucking arsey with me is our hands are being tied by head office.”

Brodie just wanted to have a moan so Andrew listened and nodded where appropriate but even Brodie ran out of steam eventually.

“Do you have anything planned this afternoon?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Let’s go and see Chambers. There must be something we can do.”

Brodie called Chambers, who unlike them was staying at Dhekelia, to check that he was around. 40 minutes later they were in the MP station and suddenly it could have been Thursday or Friday all over again.

“Kid, you are sitting there quietly not saying anything. What do you think?”

Thanks to Chambers Andrew was back to ‘kid’. He had also been dismissive of Andrew the first week. Maybe it was because Chambers called him kid, maybe he was bored, maybe Andrew just didn’t know when to shut up.

“You are thinking like soldiers. You need to think like accountants. You are thinking about all the things he is supposed to be doing and how can he fiddle it. Sit down with a pay clerk from a regiment, maybe the one from the Royal Irish Rangers and get him to tell you when he handled cash, when he made payments. Think about the money first then work back to the crime.”

Andrew was pretty sure that neither of them were expecting him to be so blunt but the endless circles were driving him bonkers. But rather than shout at him they looked thoughtful.

“Do you have any thoughts?”

“Who does the books for the NAAFI, who banks all the cash? Same with all the mess bills. There is a lot of cash sloshing around the regiment. Sure the blokes get paid out and everyone checks to make sure that is right but then they spend a chunk of it on base. So the money never leaves the base, it just moves around. Where do the notes and coins go?”

Houghton turned up at that moment and the three of them went through the various places on base where the squaddies were parted from their cash. Andrew listened to the list, which was surprisingly long. They were going to be back at Dhekelia on Monday to start to get some answers. At least something had changed. Brodie was pleased on the drive back.

“Glad you spoke up there Jock. We needed a kick to the head to stop us going round in circles. And I could tell Chambers was grating on you with the whole ‘kid’ stuff. Let’s see if this throws up anything new.”

They got back to the hotel and agreed to meet for lunch the following day at the same time. That was the good thing about Brodie, there was no fake hanging out with each of them getting bored or annoyed with the other. They arranged to meet at a certain time and then they did their own thing in their own time. Now if Andrew had been in Dhekelia he would have put a thousand miles on the car by now but being in the resort it had been ideal.

Andrew napped in his room as the heat of the day bled off and woke up feeling definitely the better for the snooze. Sitting in the corner of the bar he nursed a beer, ate a moderately healthy dinner, and people watched. And it was this that derailed his plan for a quiet night. There were lots of groups of people, with significant numbers of all female and all male groups, all clearly sizing each other up. It felt like the first night of Fresher’s Week all over again. Everybody was away from home and self-medicating heavily. He listened into a few of the conversations, not obviously eavesdropping, but the volume was such that he could do it without any effort. Andrew had assumed that Saturday was the changeover day, and that this was the first night of holiday for a lot of people. But there were several groups where in fact it was the last night of their holiday. If anything these people were drinking more than the new arrivals.

The group was Dutch, all female, enjoying their last night, while getting chatted up by a cosmopolitan hodgepodge of blokes, British, German and Irish among the more obvious. When he first saw her the woman reminded Andrew of himself. She seemed shy and quiet and was at the back of the group. But she was also a big woman. Not fat, she was in great shape, like Aino or Lilja. She was just tall and solid with quite broad shoulders. She kept reminding him of someone and it took him a while to connect the dots in his mind. The woman reminded him of Enfys Williams from his stair at Cambridge. Enfys was incredibly fit but was a big woman. This woman there at the bar reminded him of her. But he had been guilty of staring as he tried to make the connection. Suddenly she was walking over to him.

Neither of them appeared to have much game, the small talk took a while to warm up. Her name was Malou, and she was Dutch. She was a court stenographer which seemed incongruous. But then Andrew hardly looked like a computer geek so he parked his assumptions. She was an ice skater, long track rather than figure skating, Andrew could see it in her wonderful solid thighs. And it was the last night of her holiday. Her friends left to head to the club but Malou instead accepted the offer of a drink in Andrew’s room.

At one level it was too easy again, yet at the same time Andrew was one of the few men in the resort, never mind the bar, that was both taller and heavier than her. Andrew remembered that one dance with Enfys had become three. Their chat as they sipped their drinks on his balcony reflected Malou’s frustration.

“You haven’t enjoyed your holiday?”

She was honest.

“I have to deal with the others all hooking up. When you are my size it is much more difficult, so the holiday has been fine but compared to the others I feel like.”

She shrugged.

“Like I am missing out or something.”

She sighed.

“They are all good friends, from university, but it gets tiring watching them hook up so easily.”

“So you thought you would approach the quiet Scottish student?”

“Ha. I was practically shoved over. When you stood up to get your wallet out I was elbowed in the ribs from both sides.”

Malou laughed.

“At least they were looking out for me.”

She nervously finished her glass of wine and Andrew put it down on the table. He leaned against the balcony and let Malou lean back against him. His long arms reached down and played with the hem of her short summer dress. But really he was caressing those marvelous thighs. When Malou turned round their first kiss evoked a wonderful long sigh, as if the doubt about the evening disappeared. Malou was a wonderful combination of shy and horny. Andrew got the sense in Holland in the winter she would have preferred the evening to be in the dark under the covers. But it was Cyprus in August and although there wasn’t much moonlight, there was sufficient to see her body as Andrew undressed her. Despite being nearly six feet tall and not weighing much less than him, Malou wasn’t fat. She was just big and solid, everything was big but she had no spare tyre or anything like that. After Annie and then the three Finns, Andrew was very taken with her full figure and let her be in no doubt about it. They fucked three times, each one better than the last. Missionary was fine, but Malou liked it when Andrew leaned against the headboard while she straddled him, there was lots of kissing. But their last fuck was just epic. Malou had wider hips and a bigger arse than Suzanne but she had the same perfect spot for his hands. The fuck was wild and spirited, their passion was almost violent the way they slammed together but Malou wailed her release and Andrew jerked spasmodically as he pulsed the final last drops from his balls. He managed to tie off the condom and slumped down on the bed beside her. Malou had fallen flat on her stomach and looked over at him.

“I might have had to wait until the last night but boy was it worth it. I am going to have to take up swimming lessons.”

She giggled and Andrew laughed with her.

“What time do you have to check out?”

“10.00. The bus to the airport leaves at 10.30. Why?”

“I think you should sleep here. Do the walk of shame through the lobby at 9.30, turn up, throw everything in a case and look smug all day.”

“How about 8.30 so that I can pack properly?”

“Deal, but you will have just fucked hair. Okay?”

Malou was still smiling when she fell asleep 10 minutes later. And the next morning she did saunter through the lobby looking freshly fucked. But that had been a gentle coupling after the ferocity of the night before.

Sunday was another beautiful morning and after his usual run Andrew swam for a nice long time, turning too many times for his liking in the shorter pool but still pleased to relax and enjoy the morning. The swim eased his aches from the week of debauchery and after showering and having a big breakfast Andrew found a shaded table at the very back of the beach, well away from the early risers staking out positions near the sea. He had one of his notebooks with him but as he sat there he thought about the previous week. It was the sluttiest he had ever been, nothing came close. But as in previous moments of introspection in the last six months, Andrew was not too bothered. It had been mutual, effortless, very satisfying and after a steady diet of regular sex at College he had needed it. Abi was being distant, Helena was all loved up again, Rupashi was moving on, and who the hell knew what was happening with him and Ara. Oh and he and Suzanne were trying to get back to the closeness of the previous years. How’s that for rationalising five different women in five nights?

He went over to the hotel shop and selected a bunch of postcards as well as some notepaper and envelopes. It was a great way to spend the morning, looking out at the view in front of him and writing to all his usual correspondents about his trip to Cyprus, most of which was a severely edited version of the truth. But he wrote to his Grandma, Nikki and Fran, Suzanne, Maggie and Tony, Helena, Heloise, Mandy Brown, and Jim and Freya. Pete, Justin, Pedro, Chiara, Matt, and (separately) Navya, Abi and Manon all got postcards. He also wrote a short note to Lilja knowing that it would be more than a month before she even had a chance to read it. They were all variations on the same thing. ‘I am in Cyprus, you are not, it is gorgeous here, see you soon.’ On the postcards it was literally that, the letters got fractionally more. His communication and good deeds done for another couple of weeks Andrew sat and immersed myself back into his potential project.

He sat gazing off into the distance, seeing the 18 small shoebox-sized models he had constructed for his school physics project on a windswept Scottish hillside. He thought about the different outcomes to the explosions. He also thought about the materials science that had been part of his course at Cambridge so far. Concrete was the one model that was an obvious omission but Andrew hadn’t realised it at the time. But his mind was jumping all over the place. Windows were a huge vulnerability and one of the major sources of injuries especially at a distance from an explosion. He sat there thinking about materials and materials science, chemistry, fluid dynamics. His mind was all over the place. Forcing himself to calm down Andrew started to think of it in the same terms of what they had achieved with computers. Not perfect but an immediate improvement available now. But buildings didn’t work that way, although it would be fascinating to listen to the discussions around replacement buildings in Northern Ireland. From watching the evening news you could see that checkpoints were at a greater distance from the buildings, to keep any blast from destroying the building. Part of his challenge was systematising his thoughts. He found himself wandering off on too many mental tangents, he needed to stay more focused. Andrew shook his head, closed his notebook and looked up to discover Rob Brodie leaning against a tree watching him. He came over and sat down.

“I went by an hour ago and saw you there although you had your head down in that notebook. For the last ten minutes I have been standing watching you but who knows where you were. Three topless women walked by and you didn’t even notice, even although they all noticed you, with that ridiculous hat. What on earth were you doing?”

Andrew showed Brodie his notebook and Brodie’s face was just priceless to watch. Andrew didn’t know whether it was the seven dwarves or the seven deadly sins but Brodie went through a shitload of expressions as he flipped the pages. He almost threw it down on the table as if it was burning his hands.

“You might have warned me. I wouldn’t leave that lying around. If I didn’t know you and found this in your bag it would be a long afternoon at the station before I would let you go. It is also fascinating and fucking frightening at the same time that there are so many different aspects to an explosion, and how a building reacts to that explosion. And that you have them all in that notebook. That is some pretty heavy shit there Jock.”

Andrew explained to him about the challenges of his passion and that this was him starting to figure out what he was going to do the in his fourth year.

“When I see all the things to think about I can understand wanting to consider everything carefully but a year in advance? Come on, let’s go and grab some lunch.”

That afternoon they did some old fashioned reconnaissance. Andrew and Brodie drove the Green Line, the UN Buffer Zone, starting at the east coast, then past Dhekelia all the way up and through Nicosia, and then west before ending up on the north coast of the island. Neither of them could explain why they did it but it was something drummed into them, situational awareness. According to their map of the various UN sectors they passed the Austrian, Swedish, Canadian, British and Danish sectors. They saw several UN patrols and noted, without saying anything or writing anything down, the numbers, the disposition, how switched on the troops seemed to be. The British and Canadians seemed to be the most aware, but they were in the capital rather than out in the country. It passed the afternoon and by the time they got back they had a new appreciation of how long the buffer zone was. Andrew did a quick call to London to get his results. He had been awarded a First again which was not a surprise but he was pleased to get the confirmation. He was top at Trinity again and second across the whole university. He could live with the disappointment. Other than that it was quiet.

They paired up on the Monday morning in Dhekelia. Andrew was with Houghton and Brodie was with Chambers. For the first time he actually got to do something. Okay that was to stand around and not say anything but hey, he got to do it outside the office for a change. It was an interesting dynamic to watch, and to be part of. Now Andrew was 20 and looked it. There was no disguising the fact that he was not a grizzled old-timer. Houghton was probably Vestie’s age, mid to late 30s and just had this air of ‘I am going to have to listen to a load of shit before getting anywhere close to the truth’ about him. 15 years of dealing with squaddies had given him a PhD in cynicism. What was also interesting to observe was when anyone, and it included senior officers, found out that he was there as part of a SIB investigation, everyone got really tense. It reminded Andrew of his teenage years but this time he and Houghton were cast in the role of accusatory fathers. ‘I know you are guilty of something I just haven’t found it yet’. For the most part everyone was happy to tell them what they wanted just so that they left. Apparently coming to the attention of the SIB in the Army was not seen as a good thing. But running through the interactions was a sense of dislike. Most people hid it well but there were one or two who made no secret of the fact they thought Houghton was something unfortunate that they had trodden in. Andrew was never introduced, the most Houghton ever said was ‘he’s with me’ and nobody questioned it. They talked about it between interviews.