Ben Traynor

Who they are

Sean Donovan’s second: younger, quieter, the lieutenant who served under him. He was engaged to Alison Dunn, the woman Donovan killed, and he carries her photograph in his breast pocket through every scene he is in. He speaks, as a rule, only to vouch for Donovan’s word.

The cost the book builds into him is that his loyalty runs towards the man who killed his fiancée, and he has arranged his life so as not to look at that directly. Where Donovan drinks and apologises, Traynor barricades a door with his belt and a filing cabinet, keeps a promise about a nine o’clock release, and waits. He is the steadier half of a pair that is not steady at all, and staying put is what kills him.

What they want

The same folder Donovan wants, for a different reason: not a sentence re-read but a record that says Alison Dunn was murdered. He says almost nothing about it. His one stated aim is that the woman in the attic be let go unharmed at nine, and he treats that promise as a piece of military administration rather than a kindness.

Book 3 — Real Tigers

• C04 — Holds the farmhouse by telephone, reports the boy Bailey posted out front, and takes Donovan’s order to frighten the prisoner.
• C08 — Hears that Donovan killed Monteith with a single punch, says Monteith was no great loss, and refuses to walk away.
• C10 — Stands in the shell of an office block and speaks only to vouch for Donovan’s promise to release Catherine.
• C11 — Guards River and Louisa at gunpoint; his record shows the discharge, the shared service with Donovan, and the engagement.
• C12 — Identifies the intruders as Black Arrow, gives Louisa the nine o’clock promise, then barricades the warehouse and waits.
• C14 — Is cut free under covering fire, then killed by a shot to the head as he rises.

Tells

The photograph, taken out or simply carried. The bald head and the flat delivery. He lets Donovan do the talking and then supplies the one sentence that makes it true. He fortifies rather than attacks — belt, cabinet, door held while somebody else searches — and he is polite in a way that reads as a decision not to feel anything.

Open questions

How much he knew about Diana Taverner’s use of the pair, and whether he believed Donovan’s account of the crash. What he would have done with the folder if the room had not been gassed. Whether he ever raised the crash with Donovan at all, or only ever the next move.