Karen nodded again, suddenly vaguely remembering seeing reports of the death of a soldier in an army training accident on Dartmoor. But it hadn’t been a major story. As the colonel had said, accidents like that happen in military training, and, having occurred on army land and been summarily investigated by the SIB, neither did it ever become a police matter. So she had taken little notice. She had no recollection of even taking the details on board. Certainly, she hadn’t registered that the soldier concerned had been stationed at Hangridge.
‘And that has been the only other accidental death here at the camp in recent years.’
The colonel nodded back. ‘Since I’ve been here, definitely, which is coming up to two years now. And I did study the records for several years before that.’
‘How old was this soldier?’
‘He was eighteen. Promising lad, too.’
‘Can you supply me with a file on the incident, including all the young man’s personal details? Family address, and so on?’
‘Of course. Although I don’t see the relevance.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, but I do need to be sure.’
Karen thought for a moment.
‘We need to look at every aspect of this, Colonel. I am particularly interested in tracing these two men who went looking for Connelly?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. After all, those men were definitely not figments of Connelly’s imagination. As I think I have already explained, our witness saw them in the pub, The Wild Dog, just half a mile or so from the scene of the accident, Colonel—’
‘Gerry,’ he interrupted.
She studied him curiously. He gave the impression of being so eager to please and so anxious to be liked. What was going on behind those warm brown eyes, she wondered? Karen had had enough dealings with the military to know that you didn’t become a colonel of a crack infantry regiment through being an ingenuous nice guy. And she thought that Gerrard Parker-Brown, whom she reckoned to be in his late thirties, was considerably younger than usual to be holding such a senior rank. In peacetime, at any rate.
‘So, have you any idea who these two men might be, Gerry?’ she enquired, putting only a light emphasis on his name.
He shrugged. ‘I have no idea at all, Karen. We don’t even know for certain that they were soldiers, do we? Let alone stationed at Hangridge. If they were army chaps, I would imagine they were mates of Connelly’s who went looking for him to try to stop him getting himself into more trouble …’
‘A logical conclusion, and the same one our witness made. But I thought I’d explained that the witness also said Connelly didn’t react as if they were mates. Just the opposite. In fact, he seemed terrified of them.’
Gerry Parker-Brown shrugged. ‘I can’t comment on that, Karen. I wasn’t there. But if they were his army mates and they were determined to bring him back to camp, and he didn’t want to come back, well, he wouldn’t have been pleased to see them exactly, would he? Even though they were almost certainly trying to do him a good turn.’
‘Are you sure of that, Gerry?’
He flashed the easy grin again. ‘How can I be? But I’d bet a month’s pay on it. Soldiers look after their comrades, Karen. Indeed, it is part of their training that they do so.’
‘So nobody at Hangridge officially sent anyone out looking for Connelly—’
‘We didn’t even know he was missing until we were contacted by the police after his death,’ interrupted Parker-Brown. ‘I’m more than a little embarrassed about that, to tell you the truth, Karen, but apparently his mates had been covering up for him. Again, that’s what soldiers do.’
‘All right. So, just assuming for a moment that your assumption is correct, and if these two men were soldiers that they were Connelly’s mates, how easy would it be for you to find out who they are? I mean, would you know if Connelly had any special friends who would have wanted to bail him out from any trouble he’d got himself into?’
‘I’m not sure, but most squaddies do have mates like that.’ For the first time Karen thought that Gerry Parker-Brown looked a little wary. ‘I’d have to make enquiries.’
‘I wish you would, Gerry.’ She paused. ‘There’s something else. Our witness reckoned that both men were quite a bit older than Connelly. That indicates to me either that they are instructors or more senior soldiers from another company here at Hangridge, rather than the training unit. And if so, they aren’t likely to have been mates of Alan Connelly’s, are they?’
Gerry smiled. ‘I really wouldn’t know, Karen, and as we have already established that you have no real idea whether or not these men even were soldiers, I wouldn’t like to guess.’
For a moment Karen thought there might be a slightly patronising note in Gerry Parker-Brown’s voice. But only for a moment. When the colonel continued to speak, he still appeared to be trying to be as helpful as ever.
‘I will tell you this, though, Karen. Our instructor NCOs are inclined to be extremely protective towards their charges. Any one of them, knowing that Connelly was already in trouble with his career, could have taken it upon himself to seek him out and make one last attempt to get him back on the straight and narrow.’
‘The straight and narrow?’ queried Karen. ‘At best, they left the lad to wander blind drunk along a dangerous road. At worst, I dread to think. I would really appreciate it, Gerry, if you would work on the assumption that these two mystery men are soldiers and do your best to seek them out.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll put out an appeal for them to come forward. And as it is highly unlikely that they have done anything wrong or untoward, if they are soldiers stationed at Hangridge, I’m sure they will do so.’
‘Maybe, Gerry, but we don’t actually have to rely on them doing the right thing, as it were. Not entirely, anyway.’ Karen felt in charge again now. ‘I have computer images of them, compiled with the help of our witness.’
Parker-Brown passed no comment. Karen opened her bag and removed a cardboard-backed envelope. She dropped the contents onto the colonel’s desk right in front of him. One E-fit landed the right way up, the other she had to turn over, and as she did so, she arranged both so that they were properly facing him.
‘Do you recognise either of these two men?’ she asked quietly.
He looked down then at the images before him. She had no idea how closely they resembled the men Kelly had seen, and doubted that Kelly did either. Certainly, the waterproof clothing they had both been wearing and their woolly hats pulled down almost to their eyes had not helped.
With his left hand Parker-Brown rubbed the back of his neck, and with his right he moved the E-fits slightly closer to him as if to make it easier for him to see them.
‘Not from these, I don’t,’ he said casually. He was still looking down, and for a moment Karen thought he was not going to meet her eyes. But after a few seconds more of what appeared to be careful study, he suddenly looked up, leaned back in his chair and flashed her that grin again.
‘Actually, they look a bit like Ant and Dec going skiing to me,’ he said, and the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes crinkled, etching themselves even more deeply into his skin.
‘This isn’t a joke, Colonel,’ said Karen. She was beginning to feel a little irritated now, and her reversion to addressing him by his rank was just part of her sudden determination to make it clear to Gerrard Parker-Brown that his boyish charm was not going to bowl her over. Absolutely not.
He changed his attitude at once. ‘You’re absolutely right, Detective Superintendent Meadows,’ he responded with such elaborate correctness, that she once more wondered fleetingly if he were patronising her. But when he spoke again there was no such inflection in his voice and he seemed absolutely sincere and straightforward.
‘A young soldier has died and it was quite wrong of me even to appear to be making light of it,’ he continued. ‘I do, however, assure you that I do not recognise either of these men. Certainly not from the pictures you have
shown me, anyway. However, I also realise that this does not rule out their being part of our complement here. And I assure you that I will take this immensely seriously and that I will commence inquiries immediately. If these are our chaps, Karen,’ he tapped the two computer images before him, ‘we’ll find them, have no fear.’
‘Thank you,’ said Karen. And she couldn’t have begun to explain why she was so convinced that Colonel Gerrard Parker-Brown’s inquiries would be of no help to her whatsoever.
Six
Kelly was sitting in front of his computer when she called around lunchtime the following day. He had been in front of his computer all morning. Since six. He had just checked the machine’s memory and it seemed that he had so far played ten games of backgammon and eleven games of hearts.
The bleep of his telephone was a welcome displacement activity. At least it would relieve him, albeit briefly, from even having to pretend that he was writing.
‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
Karen Meadows rarely had time for life’s niceties, Kelly reflected. He saw no point in speaking further until she had told him whatever it was she wanted to tell him. Karen was not the sort of person who used the telephone for small talk.
‘I’ve been out to Hangridge,’ she began. ‘Had a long talk with the CO. It has to be said that he did give me a rather better reception than I expected.’
She paused. Kelly continued to wait.
‘In fact, Colonel Parker-Brown was not what I expected in any way at all.’
There was a note in her voice that Kelly couldn’t quite make out. He was unable to resist butting in with what was, no doubt, a totally inappropriate quip.
‘Really. Drag queen or something, is she?’
‘Hilarious, Kelly. No, Gerrard Parker-Brown is the acceptable, accessible, personable face of the modern army. Helpful, friendly and highly co-operative. At least, that’s what he appears to be. So why do I think the result of our meeting will be much the same as it would have been had I spent yesterday morning with Colonel Blimp?’
‘Ah.’
‘Look, to tell the truth, Kelly, I am not at all sure there is much else I can do without something hard to go on. The colonel has promised to try to find those two soldiers you encountered. I gave him the E-fits. But, I wouldn’t hold your breath, if I were you.’
‘So, you think he’s hiding something?’
‘Kelly, why do you always take everything in life a step too far? I have absolutely no reason to believe he’s hiding anything. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, he was very open and honest with me. He said he did not recognise the two men from the E-fits, that certainly nobody was sent officially from Hangridge to search for Connelly, and that if they were soldiers they were probably mates of Con—’
‘Oh, no, they bloody well weren’t. I’d stake my life on that.’ Kelly interrupted. He wasn’t going to let that go by.
‘Kelly, I had no reason to argue with the man about anything. And no reason to probe any further into army affairs. I just wanted to call you and tell you that I had tried. Oh, and I also had the SOCOs out at the accident scene again today. Made them go over the ground there with an effing toothcomb. So far, zilch, and I don’t have very high expectations.’
‘There must be something,’ interjected Kelly. ‘There has to be.’
‘No, Kelly, there does not have to be. It is of course possible that there is something in this which we have yet to discover, and it is also possible that you are totally mistaken and that the death of Alan Connelly was merely the tragic accident it appeared to be from the start.’
Just occasionally, Kelly got extremely fed up with the way Karen Meadows was inclined to talk down to him. He knew he’d probably given her good reason to do so over the years, because of his tendency, on occasion, to behave with a recklessness bordering on gross stupidity. None the less, it grated sometimes, and this was one of those times.
‘This isn’t about me, Karen,’ he responded curtly. ‘It’s about a young man who was frightened half out of his wits. You didn’t meet him. I did. Had you done so, I suspect you might have taken this whole matter more seriously.’
‘Don’t get stroppy with me, Kelly,’ she said. ‘I have taken it seriously. And I am still taking it seriously. More so than I should be doing, I suspect, with the caseload of crimes I have on my books right now. That is why I have phoned you.’
Kelly relented slightly.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I appreciate what you’ve done, really I do. Did you get anything at all out of this Colonel Parker-Brown? Alan Connelly said there had been other deaths at the camp. What about that? Did you ask about other deaths? What did he say?’
‘Whoa, Kelly. One question at a time. I was coming to that. Of course I asked.’
She told him then, very briefly, about the recruit who had been killed on a training exercise.
‘Shot?’ Kelly responded eagerly. ‘Did you say shot? So that makes two violent deaths in six months. Jesus, surely that’s enough to warrant taking this further, isn’t it?’
‘No, Kelly, I don’t think it is. And I bloody well know the chief constable wouldn’t think so. There was an inquest of course. Even the military has always been bound by that procedure – in peacetime, anyway. I did a quick check with the coroner’s office and the verdict was, quite properly, accidental death. As I am sure it will be ultimately with Alan Connelly. Yes, there have been two deaths, but both, although tragic, were hardly earth-shattering. A soldier dies in a training incident. Well, when you play with loaded guns, every so often some poor bastard gets shot.’
‘Look, Karen, Connelly said: “Like they killed the others.” It could all fit …’
‘Not really, Kelly. There’s more. Not only was he drunk out of his skull the night he died, but apparently Connelly was considered to be a real Walter Mitty. The colonel says he was always making up unlikely stories …’
‘“The colonel says,”’ repeated Kelly in a mocking voice. ‘Of course he would, Karen. Surely you are not going to be taken in by some sort of military whitewash? You of all people, Karen.’
‘Kelly, don’t be so bloody insulting or I’m going to finish this call.’
‘Sorry, sorry. It’s just that, as you know, I really think there is a strong possibility that that poor little sod was pushed under the lorry which killed him, and I reckon you must agree with me or you wouldn’t even have got this involved.’
‘Kelly, I did consider that after what you told me, of course I did. But I also considered suicide …’
‘Oh no, oh no. For a start, why would a young chap like Connelly kill himself in that way, even if he did want to take his own life? He was a boy soldier, for goodness sake. He had access to guns …’
‘Maybe he didn’t like guns that much, in spite of his job. I don’t know. I do know we can’t rule out suicide. The lorry driver’s description of the way the accident happened would be totally consistent with someone deliberately throwing themselves into the path of an oncoming vehicle—’
‘Or being pushed,’ Kelly interrupted.
‘Kelly, please, will you listen. Apparently, Connelly was on the brink of being chucked out of the army because of his story-telling, and, rather more seriously, he’d been fantasising about a woman soldier and had been more or less stalking her. He’d been warned about his behaviour and the possible consequences several times. He knew he was on the way out, and yet other than this Walter Mitty side to him he was a good soldier, it seems. He would not have wanted to be made to leave the army. And apparently his family life was pretty terrible. According to the colonel, his father is a drunken bully, who hasn’t worked in years, and a manic depressive. So if you put all that together, suicide has to be a possibility, if we are being sensible about this, which I am desperately trying to be.’
Kelly took on board the note of criticism in her voice and decided he’d better accept it. It was probably justified. Kelly was
not noted for being sensible. Karen didn’t need to spell that one out. He waited for her to continue.
‘There’s something else, Kelly. A witness has come forward, just this morning, after noticing a report of the accident in an old copy of the Argus. A passing motorist who saw a young man, almost certainly Connelly, walking along the side of the road a couple of hundred yards or so away from The Wild Dog, just minutes before the accident. He was weaving erratically. The witness said he nearly hit him. And, apparently, Connelly seemed to be quite alone.’
‘All right,’ said Kelly. ‘But if he really was alone, where did those two men go to so suddenly, right after having found someone they had been searching for? And why? Why did they leave him alone? If indeed they did. If I’m right and they were soldiers, they probably know all about keeping themselves out of sight when they want to. Are you sure Parker-Brown doesn’t know a hell of a lot more than he’s telling you, Karen?’
‘Look, I’ve no doubt he’s as reluctant as any other army officer to let the police force meddle in army affairs, in spite of trying to give the opposite impression,’ responded Karen. ‘But I have absolutely no reason to believe that he is hiding anything that is in any way pertinent to this case.’
‘Come on, Karen. How many soldiers are there up at Hangridge? I bet your colonel knows them all. So why can’t he lead you to those two who came to the pub, eh? I bet he knows bloody well who they are.’
‘Kelly, you’re running away with yourself. How many times do we have to go over this ground. We don’t even know that these men were soldiers, for God’s sake. And for your information the total complement at Hangridge, including the training unit, is well over a thousand men and women. I very much doubt that Parker-Brown could recognise and name all of them.’
‘I bet he’s got a fair idea, from the way you describe him.’
‘Oh, Kelly. In any case, you only saw the two men briefly in the pub. Sometimes E-fit images are terrific and sometimes they’re a bad joke. How the hell do I know how good yours were, when I doubt you do yourself. The two guys you created looked pretty damned peculiar, I know that, especially in those silly hats. Look, closing ranks against the meddling of the civilian police force is one thing, Kelly, but I really don’t think the commanding officer of the Devonshire Fusiliers would tell me a deliberate lie. Come on. Do you, Kelly?’
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