The Bungalow-16

Continued from Chapter 15: The Bungalow-15 | ABCtales

“Do you normally buy your milk in, er…” Detective Rees looked down at his tablet – “Capple Kurrig?”

“No, not normally. This was a one-off.”

“A one-off?”

“Yes. Doing a bit of cycle training. I’m going to ride the Karakoram Highway before she died.”

“You promised her what?”

“That I’d ride the Karakoram Highway. It goes between Pakistan and China. We were going to do it together. But then she died.”

“Died?”

“Yes. Cancer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“So was I.”

“You do realise that we expressly requested that you report any trips into London…”

“I didn’t go into London. I went through London.”

“Or beyond London.”

“It was a spontaneous decision.”

“Next time you’re going to have a spontaneous decision, you tell us – right?”

“I’ll try to remember.”

Hawke put the letter on Auntie Hilda’s coffee table. Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, 32-36 Great Victoria Street, Belfast.

“I’m in two minds, Auntie. Maybe I ought to. It could set some peoples’ minds at rest a bit. But there might be…repercussions.”

“You’d like me to post if for you?”

“On one of your trips to London. Not round here.”

“Like to tell me what it says?”

To the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, Belfast – to whom it may concern:

On about 15 August 1983, three privates from one of the regiments serving in Belfast were ordered to report to their Colour Sergeant at 20.00 hours. They were driven out of the city in an army landrover down the M1 to Portadown. The vehicle then proceed to a point about two miles south of the town in the countryside. It then turned off the road into a field and continued for about 200 yards.

The three soldiers were then ordered out of the vehicle and instructed by the Colour Sergeant to dig a hole in the corner of the field, adjacent to an iron gate. The hole was about four and a half feet long and three feet wide. This they proceeded to do until the hole was about four feet deep. When the digging was completed, the Sergeant then removed an object that was wrapped in a standard army body bag and placed it in the hold. In my opinion, it did not look large enough to be an intact adult human body. The three soldiers were then ordered to replace the soil in the hole, on top of the body.

On the way back to Belfast, the Colour Sergeant impressed upon the three privates the importance of secrecy, on pain of court-martial.

I have reason to believe that the site was excavated on 20 July 2026 and that any remains were removed, The attached sketch map show the location…

Continued in Chapter 17: The Bungalow-17 | ABCtales