And now, she realised, she was on the brink of diving into the deep end yet again. She knew that she should not make another move on this one until she had authorisation from the chief constable to delve further into military matters. However, if that authorisation did not come, Karen also knew, all too well, that she would probably not be able to stop herself taking some kind of action.
Her reflections were interrupted by having to attend a meeting concerning liaison between uniform and CID, and Karen, forcing herself to put Hangridge out of her mind, at least for the time being, made her way over to the main station about half an hour before Kelly had arrived outside.
When her meeting finally ended, shortly after 7.30, she left through the back door next to the custody suite. And only then did she remember that the coroner’s clerk had not returned her call.
Kelly, who wished he was able to compile his novel with half the fluency he had found while attempting to write down the Hangridge story so far, was in mid-sentence when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Karen’s MG pull out of the police station car park and turn left into Lansdowne Lane towards him. How the hell had she got across the road from CID without him noticing, he wondered. Then, with that surprising alacrity he so often displayed for a man of his size, years, and lifestyle he swung open his car door, jumped out and stepped smartly into the road in front of Karen’s car, causing her to break sharply in order to avoid hitting him.
She lurched to a halt with a screeching of tyre rubber, wound down the window of her car and leaned out. Kelly continued to stand stoically in front of the little MG. He expected an earful and he got it.
‘Exactly what the fuck do you think you are doing, you moron?’ she yelled.
‘I had to see you, Karen,’ he began.
‘OK, but is there any particular reason why you also wanted to kill yourself today?’
‘Uh, I was afraid of missing you,’ Kelly responded lamely. ‘I’ve been trying to get you on the phone all afternoon. I thought you were deliberately dodging me …’
‘And so you decided to doorstep me, did you, you arsehole? I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I might just be busy?’
This was a blatant lie, of course. Karen most certainly had been avoiding him. But she was always inclined to be inventive when she was in full flow.
‘I think you’ll forgive me when I tell you everything I’ve found out.’ Kelly gathered his courage, walked round to the side of Karen’s car and leaned against it, looking down at her steadily. But Karen was not, it seemed, in an altogether forgiving mood.
‘Listen, Kelly,’ she countered. ‘I haven’t got time for you in my head, right now. You’ve handed me a potential atomic bomb. There are procedures …’
‘Since when have you wasted time worrying about procedures?’
‘Since I came close to losing my job, the last time I got involved with you and what you were up to, and the time before that.’
‘Oh, come on, Karen …’
‘No, this is serious stuff, Kelly, and this time I’m doing it by the book. We go through the chief constable, we go through the MoD, we go through the proper channels. There is a set procedure for police involvement in an army case, and I intend to stick to it. Now, thank you for drawing my attention to this matter, and please get the fuck out of my way.’
With that, Karen slammed the gearstick of the little MG into first, let go of the clutch with a deliberate jerk, and lurched forwards with another screech of her tyres. Kelly pulled away, stepping swiftly back in the nick of time. However, he still only just managed to avoid his left foot being run over by the rear nearside wheel of Karen’s car. Keeping his balance with some difficulty, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled with all his might.
‘I’ve found out about another one, Karen. There’ve been four deaths. At least, Karen … four deaths, at least.’
The car stopped with a bump again and yet more screeching rubber. Kelly winced. He was very fond of MGs and, although he rarely admitted it, he even had a certain limited affection for a modern imitation like Karen’s.
There was a nasty crunching noise as she changed gear again and suddenly the little car lurched into reverse, roaring back alongside Kelly, only narrowly missing both his feet this time.
The driver’s window was still open.
‘Get in,’ she snapped.
Kelly hurried around the back of Karen’s car and quickly climbed into the passenger side. He wasn’t giving her time to change her mind. No way.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘What have you been up to, you bastard?’
He didn’t prevaricate.
‘I went to see Jocelyn Slade’s mother.’
‘Yeah, I might have guessed it. Even though I asked you not to.’
He shrugged. ‘What did you expect, Karen? We both knew exactly what would happen if you started going down the red tape route, and it’s already happening. You’ve been avoiding my calls all afternoon. Because you didn’t know what to say to me, did you? Your hands are tied, aren’t they, Karen? And if I hadn’t gone to see Mrs Slade neither of us would be any further forward, and you know that’s the truth …’
‘So, thanks to you, we are now further forward, are we? You’re sure of that?’
‘Mrs Slade knows of another alleged suicide,’ he said bluntly. ‘A Hangridge soldier told her of a young male recruit who’d topped himself six months before her daughter died. He was trying to comfort her, to make her not blame herself …’
Kelly was interrupted by the horn of a white Transit van, the path of which was blocked by Karen’s car, still stationary and parked at a crazy angle across the road.
Karen glowered at the driver, passed her left hand briefly across her forehead, slammed the car into first gear again and gunned it suddenly forwards to the main road junction, where she turned towards Kelly in a resigned sort of way.
‘OK, Kelly. You can tell me everything over a fish supper. I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘Fine,’ said Kelly, reflecting that this was just the way things always were between him and Karen Meadows. Naturally, she hadn’t asked him if he wanted to eat. But, as it happened, the prospect was quite an appealing one. He suddenly remembered that he, too, had eaten little all day except a packet of plastic-wrapped sandwiches from a motorway service station and a couple of chocolate bars. And now he was heading for a fried fish supper, just to complete his healthy eating programme, he reflected wryly.
They ate cod and chips, accompanied by bread and butter and washed down with numerous cups of tea, in what both considered to be their favourite chippy, tucked away in a little backstreet not far from the railway station. Kelly told Karen all he knew.
Karen had lost her combative abrasiveness even before they reached the chip shop. She’d really, only been putting on an act, anyway. She sat quietly listening until Kelly had finished.
‘Another death,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘And not only that, but another death bloody Gerry Parker-Brown avoided telling me about.’
‘It’s only second-hand so far, but we have an approximate date, and I assume it happened either at the barracks or thereabouts,’ said Kelly. ‘So I was hoping you could check it out with the coroner’s court. The families of the dead soldiers have been the best leads so far. If this young man, Trevor, does turn out to have died under suspicious circumstances, then we need to get to his family.’
Karen looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, well, let’s see if he ever existed first, shall we?’
‘Well, of course, but—’
‘And if so,’ Karen interrupted. ‘What I want to do now is to put a formal investigation in place. Only that’s easier said than done when the army is involved. However, I would hope that if we have four deaths like this, even our chief constable would be convinced.’
‘Surely, he would be.’
‘You never know with Harry Tomlinson.’ Karen did not look happy. ‘You should know that I went back to see Gerrard Parker-Brown this afternoon,�
�� she continued, carefully avoiding mentioning that she had also spent the morning with the colonel.
‘And?’
‘And he was much the same as he was before, on the surface at any rate. Appearing to be helpful and co-operative and actually giving very little away. Denied having deliberately misled me, naturally.’
She then gave him a summary of her conversation with the colonel at Hangridge, still omitting, however, her personal relationship with the soldier, such as it was, and the way in which she felt that he had been deliberately trying to manipulate her. After all, that was none of Kelly’s business.
It was Kelly’s turn to listen quietly.
‘And he didn’t mention a dead soldier called Trevor, obviously?’ he enquired eventually.
‘Of course not. The more I find out, via you, mostly, it has to be said, the more aware I am of the wall Parker-Brown has put up around himself and his beloved Devonshire Fusiliers. Certainly, he does not seem willing to admit to any suicides out at Hangridge, nor anything else much, come to that, unless he has absolutely no alternative.’
‘So what happens next from your point of view?’ Kelly asked.
‘I’ve told you what I want to do, but I really have to do it by the book this time,’ said Karen. ‘I have no choice. This could be a very hot potato, you know, Kelly. I’m going to have to be extremely careful with any information that comes my way from now on, too. I’m afraid I really am going to have to stick to the rules. And I know you’ll find this unfair, but even if what Margaret Slade told you does check out, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to give you a full ID on this chap, Trevor, let alone an address for his family …’
‘Hmm.’ Kelly grunted disapprovingly, through a large mouthful of cod. ‘Damn right, I think it’s unfair. I put you onto this in the first place and right along the line I’ve given you all the information I have. But you’re not prepared to give me anything.’
Kelly was his usual animated self. He spoke so forcefully that he seemed to be having difficulty keeping the food he was trying at the same time to chew, inside his mouth. A flake or two of fish fell from his lips onto the plate before him. Impatiently, he took a big gulp of tea and swallowed. He then lapsed into baleful silence and sat glowering at her.
Karen sighed. However, Kelly was only reacting as she would have expected him to, and pretty much the same way she would have reacted in his place. They had always been kindred spirits, much as she tried to deny it to herself most of the time.
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you anything, Kelly,’ she told him. ‘I said I would have to be careful, and go by the book for once, that’s all.’
‘Much the same thing,’ muttered Kelly, through a further mouthful of fish. He took another gulp of tea in order to wash down the food so that he could speak more easily.
‘Oh, come on, Karen. If Margaret Slade’s story checks out, then not only will there have been an inquest on this young chap, Trevor, but it will also have been reported in the press. So I can always get Sal at the Argus to troll through cuts, which is exactly what I did to find Craig Foster’s address. It would be tricky and time-consuming without a full name, but basically all you would do, would be to save me time.’
His mobile phone rang then, before Karen had the chance to reply, which was actually something of a relief to her. She was getting into deep water again with Kelly, and she knew it. She concentrated on her meal, while Kelly answered the phone with a belligerence which totally fitted the mood he seemed to have fallen into.
‘Yes,’ he snapped abruptly.
But almost at once his manner changed.
‘I’ll be there straight away,’ he said, and his voice was quite shaky. ‘I shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes.’
Karen studied him enquiringly as he finished the call. All the colour seemed to have drained from his face. She could not imagine what news he had just been given which would have had such an effect on him.
‘It’s Moira,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s in the hospice at Newton Abbot. I-I have to go. Apparently she … she’s very poorly. That was Jennifer. She said her mother … well …’
His voice tailed off.
‘Moira?’ queried Karen, who was genuinely shocked. ‘I didn’t even know she was ill.’
‘No, well …’
His voice trailed away again.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you daft bugger. I like Moira a lot, you know how fond I am of her—’
‘Yes,’ Kelly interrupted. As ever, he didn’t want to talk about emotions, didn’t want to give anything away about his own feelings or learn about anybody else’s, and neither did he want to talk about his partner’s terminal illness to anyone apart from her and her family. And maybe he would not be able to talk about it to any of them either, even if they had been willing to do so. Maybe he was just kidding himself that he could ever have done that.
He rose abruptly and headed for the door.
‘Kelly,’ Karen called after him.
He turned in the doorway. He looked terrible. His head was down, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. Karen felt for him.
‘I’m fond of you, too, Kelly,’ she said with a softness that surprised even her. And then, with as much of her usual, edgy forcefulness in her voice as she could muster, she added: ‘And don’t you forget it.’
Kelly stared at her, as if not really seeing her, for several seconds. Then he managed a very small, very weak smile.
‘You’re the boss,’ he said.
‘Yeah, and don’t you forget that, either,’ she called after him.
*
All three of Moira’s daughters were with her in her room at the hospice. They turned to look at Kelly as he made his entrance much more noisily than he had intended.
He had run all the way from the car park, through the front hall, right along the corridor on the first floor to the staircase at the far end, and then up three flights, much too anxious and impatient to take the lift. He was breathing heavily as he burst through the doorway, and he suspected that he looked red-faced and dishevelled.
‘Uh, sorry,’ he said automatically, realising as he spoke that his voice sounded high-pitched and squeaky.
He focused his gaze on the sick woman lying motionless on the bed. Her face was ashen, her eyes were shut tightly, and he could see no sign that she was even breathing.
‘Is she … is she?’ he began. And he could not, just could not get the words out, could not formulate the question. He could not even ask the girls if Moira was dead, and yet he had actually thought he had wanted to talk to them about their mother’s impending death. Jesus! Why was he such a waste of space sometimes.
‘She’s unconscious, John,’ responded Jennifer quietly. ‘Why don’t you pull up a chair. Come and sit with her.’
Not for the first time Kelly was amazed at the nineteen-year-old’s composure and dignity. He thought she was one hell of a kid, and vowed to tell her so one day. But not now. It was neither the time nor the place. And, anyway, he didn’t have the words. Again.
There was an orange plastic chair just to his left by the door. He carried it over to the bed and sat down, as Jennifer had suggested, alongside. There was a clock above Moira’s bed. It said 9.23 p.m. He had left the hospice at half past seven that morning and he had not called once since then to find out how Moira was.
And yet – and yet – he loved her so. He touched Moira gently on one cheek. Her skin felt cool and clammy. He hoped she knew how much he had cared for her, really cared, even though he had not always shown it and had sometimes behaved very badly towards her. Now that it was too late, far too late, he wished he had behaved differently on so many occasions, looked after her better throughout their relationship, and been a much better all-round partner to her.
His mind began to wander over their time together. He felt the burden not only of grief but of guilt. He tried to concentrate on what was happening in the little room, tried to think of anything he could do that might help. But
his eyelids seemed to be made of lead. It had, of course, been a long day and a short night previously. He blinked and shook his head furiously, glancing around him at Moira’s three daughters – Jennifer on one side of the bed, her two sisters on the other, sitting quietly watching their mother. Jennifer was holding Moira’s left hand, Paula her right, while Lynne every so often stroked her hair. Nobody was saying anything. Well, now there really was nothing to say. Kelly shifted on the hard plastic chair in an attempt to make himself more comfortable. It didn’t seem to help much. The minutes ticked slowly by. The silence continued. Kelly’s mouth felt dry. He licked his lips and thought about suggesting that he went in search of tea or coffee. He shifted on the chair again. He was very uncomfortable and extremely ill at ease. However, after a bit, his eyelids began to feel heavy, and then he had no further conscious memory until he felt his arm being gently shaken. He opened his eyes at once. It hurt to do so. They felt sore and were slightly stuck together. He must have fallen asleep again, and he had no idea how he had managed to do so under such circumstances, and seated so uncomfortably. Neither did he have any idea how long he had been asleep. Automatically, he checked the clock above the bed. It said 2 a.m. He must have slept, somehow, for at least three hours.
It was Jennifer who was shaking his arm. Calm, composed, dignified, wonderful Jennifer, who suddenly did not look calm at all. There were tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘She’s gone, John,’ she cried. ‘She’s dead. Mum’s dead.’
Kelly tried to stand up. It took more than one attempt. His left leg had gone to sleep and his spine seemed to have locked itself into a sitting position.
Eventually, if a little unsteadily, he struggled upright. He stared at Moira, lying on the bed before him. She actually looked much the same as she had the last time he had seen her, when she had still been desperately hanging on to life. But now she had let go. Kelly’s first reaction took him by surprise and rather shocked him. He immediately felt a terrific sense of relief. For Moira. For her daughters. And, of course, for himself. Then he was overwhelmed by a dreadful emptiness.
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