Authors: Hilary Bonner
On the other hand, something that was very real, was the existence of one man within the police force whom she trusted totally to confide in concerning Hangridge and the Devonshire Fusiliers, and of whose support she was confident. However, he was somebody she had had an affair with. And he was a junior officer at that.
‘Damn,’ she said out loud, as once more she cursed herself roundly for creating her own complications.
Phil Cooper had been her sergeant when they had investigated a particularly complex and emotionally draining case, full of twists and turns. And one of the twists had been that somehow along the way she and Phil had begun an affair. No. It had been much more than that. For her, at least. She had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love, although she was no longer quite so sure of his true feelings.
Phil had recently been promoted to detective inspector and had rejoined the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, after a brief spell with the Avon and Somerset. And Karen was well aware that his new job would be right up his street. Phil was now with the force’s Major Crime Incident Team. The unit operated in a clandestine way, from an anonymous warehouse on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Exeter, unmarked and unheralded. Karen knew that the team thought of themselves as the elite, SAS-like, front-line troops of the police force, and there had always been a boy-soldier side to Phil, who was a big, rugby-playing, very physical sort of man. And although solid and reliable on the one hand, he was also the kind of policeman who enjoyed the unorthodox and, like Karen, was unafraid of taking risks – which may have been one of the reasons they had always got on so well.
Anyway, one way and another, in a professional sense she trusted Phil Cooper absolutely, even if personally she had grown to have her doubts.
He had called her not long previously to tell her about his new appointment and he had also made it quite clear that he was still available to her. Indeed, that he would very much like to re-open their relationship.
‘Things would be different, I promise you, Karen,’ he had said.
But she had asked just one question. ‘Are you still married, Phil?’
‘Well, yes, but—’ he had begun.
‘But nothing, Phil,’ she had interrupted. ‘Just fuck off, will you.’
And that had been their last conversation. Karen smiled wryly. Complicated or what? Well, she wasn’t going to let it be. Not as far as the job was concerned, and not as far as Hangridge was concerned either. Resolutely she punched out Phil’s mobile number.
‘Cooper,’ he replied, in that slightly sing-songy way of speaking with which she had once been so familiar.
‘Hi, Phil …’ she began.
‘Hello, Karen, I’m so glad to hear from you,’ he responded at once.
‘Let me say from the start, this call is purely and absolutely professional,’ she told him sternly. She felt rather pompous, but was none the less determined to make her position on that clear at once.
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, backing off instantly. However – and she couldn’t have explained why – she felt that he didn’t entirely believe her. Typical, bloody arrogant man, she told herself.
Out loud she said: ‘Look, Phil, I’ve got something big on. It’s a very hot potato and I need some help. Just you and me, quietly. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone, so I was hoping we could have a meet. Soon as you can.’
Phil asked no questions.
‘I won’t be able to get away this evening because we’ve got a big job on here, and it’s likely to hang over into tomorrow, but what about tomorrow night?’ he
replied, with obvious eagerness, and she hoped it wasn’t just that he was keen to see her. He would know, of course, that Karen must be referring to something very important indeed.
‘I could drive over to the Lansdowne, if you like?’ Phil continued.
Karen opened her mouth to say no. She didn’t want an evening drinking session with Cooper. That was, after all, how their affair had begun in the first place. On the other hand, the quicker she met up with him the better. And as she was absolutely adamant that she never wanted to rekindle their relationship and that she was totally over him, then what possible reason could she have for avoiding an evening meeting with him?
‘That would be ideal,’ she said casually. ‘But let’s make it another pub, shall we?’
She didn’t want the entire station knowing that she had been drinking with Cooper. The word that their affair was on again would be round the nick in about five minutes, if they met in the Lansdowne. And that had caused enough problems first time round. But as Cooper replied, she almost wished she hadn’t made the request for a different pub.
‘Of course,’ he said, sounding quite conspiratorial. ‘How about that quiet little boozer we used to go to out on the Newton Abbot road.’
Oh, God, she thought. That had been one of their regular haunts during their affair. But she was determined not to show him that it meant anything to her one way or the other to go there again.
‘Sure,’ she replied, even more casually. ‘See you there about seven? All right?’
‘All right,’ he replied, with rather more enthusiasm
in his voice than she would have liked. And warning bells were ringing in her head as she ended the call.
But she needed Phil Cooper’s help, she told herself. She really did.
The following morning Kelly spent an hour or so at his computer, checking a few facts on the Internet. Before confronting Colonel Gerrard Parker-Brown, he wanted to familiarise himself with any statistics he could find concerning non-combat deaths in the military, and also to bone up on the history of the Devonshire Fusiliers.
He already knew that this was a long-established regiment, and indeed learned from its website that it had been founded during the Napoleonic Wars, in 1812, just three years before the Battle of Waterloo. Kelly thought for a moment. Of course. The then newly formed regiment had served with distinction at Waterloo, and its part in Wellington’s historic victory was recorded on the towering stone monument to the Iron Duke, which had been built high above the little Somerset town which bore his name. Kelly had several times visited the unique 175-foot phallic tower because its site, on the highest point of the Blackdown Hills, just two or three miles from the Devon border, presented one of the finest views in the West Country. On a clear day, you could see for miles right across the lush Taunton Vale to Exmoor and the Bristol Channel beyond.
He read on. The Devonshire Fusiliers also appeared to have served with distinction in every major war since, and when Britain’s other four
English fusilier regiments – the Royal Northumberland, the Royal Warwickshire, the Royal Fusiliers, City of London, and the Lancashire – had been united in 1968 to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, only the Devonshire had retained its autonomy.
This was one of Britain’s premier fighting units, with the proudest of histories. It was pretty obvious that a regiment with that kind of tradition to look back on would not take kindly to having its affairs scrutinised by any outside agencies.
And, as Kelly logged off the Net, he found himself wondering just how far even the most decent of men within the Devonshire Fusiliers would go to protect their regiment’s hard-won reputation.
He eventually set off at about 10 a.m. to drive across the moors to Hangridge, a journey he reckoned would take around an hour, or maybe a little more depending on the traffic. He had to negotiate the busy market town of Newton Abbot in order to hit the moorland road, and that was rarely easy. But as soon as he pulled away from his parking space, he became aware of a familiar, unhealthy banging sound at the rear of his car. It was, of course, the exhaust, and broken exhaust pipes were the curse of MGs because the cars were built so low. Kelly couldn’t even remember hitting the exhaust, but it was extremely easily done, and, whatever the cause of the problem, the entire system now sounded as if it were about to fall off. He certainly could not drive the car over Dartmoor. Cursing, he took a detour to his regular garage, Torbay Classic Cars, where Wayne, the rather morose young man who ran the place, expressed his dismay with characteristic gloom, said the car wasn’t going anywhere and he
wouldn’t even be able to look at it for two days. But he did, at least, immediately offer Kelly the big old Volvo which passed for Torbay Classic’s courtesy car.
Kelly didn’t like the Volvo, which he thought was slightly less manoeuvrable than your average bulldozer. He was, however, grateful for any transport because he was determined to get out to Hangridge somehow, in order to confront Parker-Brown.
Having visited the barracks once before, as an
Evening Argus
reporter covering its 25th anniversary celebrations, Kelly had the advantage of Karen, in that he knew exactly where Hangridge was. He was pretty sure Colonel Gerrard Parker-Brown had already been in command at the time of the anniversary, but he did not remember the officer at all. However, the press had been safely corralled well away from the top brass, who had been seen only briefly, alongside their visiting minor royal, commander in chief, when assembled for a photocall. Kelly, like the rest of them, had only had direct contact with an army press officer, down from the MoD in London for the day.
Kelly had worked on a lot of army stories and, by and large, got on well with soldiers. Journalists usually did, in Kelly’s experience, as they did on an individual basis with police officers. All three of these tough professions had a lot in common, Kelly reckoned. They provided more than a measure of excitement, tinged on occasions with fear, they involved crazy hours and confrontation with sides of life most people living in a halfway civilised society were fortunate enough never to have to face. And all three were run in a thoroughly autocratic
way. Indeed, Kelly sometimes suspected that the unquestioned, absolute control an editor had over his newspaper and its staff probably made the newspaper world the most autocratically governed of the three. One way and another, soldiers, journalists and police officers routinely faced their own individual kinds of firing line at the discretion of their top brass. It was, perhaps, not surprising that the individuals concerned were inclined to be extremely comfortable in each other’s company, sometimes even those who rather thought they should not be.
A light drizzle was falling as Kelly approached Hangridge. The headquarters of the Devonshire Fusiliers loomed on the hillside, a sprawling development of low angular buildings within a wire perimeter fence that snaked over the rolling terrain almost as if it had been drawn on in pen and ink. And, even when you were expecting it, the barracks, with its curiously suburban aura, still came as a surprise in the remote heart of one of Britain’s wildest moorlands.
Kelly motored slowly to the sentry point, taking careful note of every possible detail as he did so. After all, this was where at least two of the young people involved had allegedly killed themselves. Wide verges of springy moorland grass flanked the big gateway. It occurred to Kelly that there was no cover of any kind. Anything going on in that area could be clearly seen from most parts of the camp.
He drew the big Volvo to a halt alongside the open gates to Hangridge, and handed his letter from Margaret Slade to the sentry who had immediately approached the car.
‘I wonder if you could pass this to Colonel Parker-Brown and ask him if he has a few minutes to spare to see me,’ he said.
The sentry nodded his assent and directed Kelly to park to one side, clearing the gateway for other traffic. There was not another vehicle moving anywhere in sight, but presumably this was the correct procedure. Kelly found himself smiling as he watched the young soldier then use the phone in his sentry box. Within a minute or two another soldier, a corporal judging from the stripe on the uniform sweater he wore over his khaki trousers, hurried out of the main administrative building and across the quadrangle, hunching his shoulders against the drizzle. Glancing curiously towards Kelly, he took the letter from the sentry and began to make his way back.
Would Parker-Brown call to a higher authority for guidance, or might he simply refuse to see Kelly? Kelly didn’t think the colonel would do either. Everything that he had learned about the CO of the Devonshire Fusiliers indicated a man who made his own decisions, a high-flier who was not afraid of responsibility and taking control. Kelly could picture clearly in his mind the officer reading his letter and pondering what to do. He settled more comfortably into his seat as he waited, but he somehow didn’t think he would have to wait long. Parker-Brown was, after all, trained to make fast decisions under pressure.
After just a minute or two more, Kelly was proven right. The sentry answered his phone and then beckoned Kelly forward, telling him that the colonel would see him shortly, and directing him to the visitors’ parking bays just to the right of the main administrative building.
A sergeant, sternly uncommunicative, was waiting to escort Kelly into the CO’s office. The Devonshire Fusiliers were taking no chances with him, he thought. He found his heart was pumping in his chest. He felt that a lot rested on this meeting.
Parker-Brown was sitting at his desk when Kelly entered. He rose to his feet at once, greeted Kelly warmly and invited him to sit in one of the room’s two armchairs, as he lowered himself into the other, just as he had done when Karen had made her first visit only a couple of weeks or so earlier.
‘Anything I can do to help, I will,’ the colonel said at once. ‘I do feel for these families, you know. I’m a father myself.’
It was an innocent enough remark, but for once in his life Kelly was rendered speechless. It was not the words, but just meeting the man which had had a devastating effect on Kelly. Parker-Brown did not seem to realise, but he had already shocked Kelly rigid. Still standing, Kelly found that he could not stop staring at the commanding officer of the Devonshire Fusiliers.
Parker-Brown’s soft brown eyes, which gave so little away, returned Kelly’s gaze steadily. Kelly remained standing. The colonel, looking puzzled, glanced at him enquiringly.