Authors: Hilary Bonner
She smiled wanly, ignoring his sarcasm. This was no time to be petty, either.
‘I had to see you urgently, sir,’ she said.
‘Really? So urgently that you couldn’t make an appointment in the proper manner?’
She had known that would annoy him, of course. To a man like Tomlinson, his diary was a bible.
‘Sorry, sir,’ she persisted. ‘But yes. It is that urgent.’
The chief constable’s small mouth puckered up. His eyes looked even more as if they were likely to pop out of his head than they usually did.
‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘You’d better come into my office, then.’ He checked his watch. ‘I can give you fifteen minutes, maximum. I have a breakfast meeting at eight with the chairman of Exeter Chamber of Commerce.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She followed him meekly. Once inside his office he did not even bother to invite her to sit down, but
she did so anyway, automatically choosing the upright chair opposite his desk, in much the same way as she had during her last meeting with Parker-Brown. She didn’t want Tomlinson looking down at her, either. After all, the CC couldn’t be much more than five foot five or six, and the only time he could come close to looking down on her was when he was sitting in a higher chair.
‘Well?’ he enquired tersely.
‘It’s Hangridge, sir,’ she began. ‘There have been some further—’
‘Oh, please, Detective Superintendent,’ Tomlinson interrupted brusquely. ‘Not again!’
‘Sir. Do let me explain. There have been some further incidents, important incidents, the death of another Devonshire Fusilier which could well be connected, and an assault on a member of the public—’
‘A member of the public?’ Tomlinson interrupted. ‘Who exactly?’
Damn, thought Karen. She hadn’t wanted to go into that at this precise moment, but the chief constable had given her no choice.
‘On John Kelly, sir …’
‘John Kelly?’ The words came out like a small explosion. ‘Why am I not surprised. That man is a total loose cannon. He should not be allowed to get involved in something like this. When will you ever learn, Detective Superintendent?’
‘Sir, John Kelly was assaulted, in such a manner that he thought he was about to die, and the incident occurred after he had discovered some rather extraordinary information concerning Hangridge,’ she persisted grimly.
She told him everything quickly then, before he
could find an excuse not to listen. She told him about Jimmy Gates and Jimmy Gates’ friend, Robert Morgan, who had been murdered in London, and about how Kelly had recognised Gerrard Parker-Brown as one of the two men who had come looking for Alan Connelly on the night he died.
‘Can Kelly be sure?’ responded the chief constable. ‘I saw those E-fits. I wouldn’t have recognised Parker-Brown from either of them, that’s for certain.’
‘I know, sir. Kelly admits they weren’t a good likeness, but yes, he really is quite sure. And, of course, it was right after he confronted the colonel that he was attacked. It could well be that Parker-Brown also recognised Kelly from The Wild Dog that night and realised what a danger he could be …’
‘Oh, come, come, Detective Superintendent. You are not suggesting, surely, that it was Gerry Parker-Brown who attacked John Kelly last night?’
‘Well, sir, it must be a possibility—’
‘Actually, Superintendent, no, it isn’t a possibility. Gerry and I had a late supper together at my club here in Exeter last night. And it was after midnight when he left. Indeed, it was the clock striking midnight which made us both break up the party. Such good company, Gerry. So I’m afraid you will have to take him off your list of suspects, after all, Miss Meadows.’
Karen winced mentally. She might have known it. What a clever bastard Parker-Brown was. Supper with the chief constable at his club, just when Kelly was being attacked. Obscurely, it went through her mind that she hadn’t been aware that Tomlinson had a club, or even that the kind of club she somehow imagined he was referring to existed in Exeter.
‘Sir, don’t you think that is just a tad convenient?’ she ventured.
‘It was an engagement that has been in my diary for nearly two weeks,’ responded the chief constable, as if that answered everything. Karen waited for him to continue and to clarify exactly what he thought that proved, but obviously Harry Tomlinson didn’t think it necessary, so she decided to try again herself.
‘Look, sir, a man like Parker-Brown is not really likely to do his own dirty work, is he? It is rather more possible, I feel, that someone – a real professional, Kelly thought – was instructed to dispatch Kelly on his behalf.’
‘Really? In which case, if the attacker was so professional, why is John Kelly not dead?’
‘That is one of the many mysteries of this case, sir.’
‘It certainly is.’ The chief constable stood up and walked to the window so that he had his back to Karen.
‘All right, Karen,’ he said eventually, in a resigned sort of voice. ‘I do see that there are now a number of unanswered questions here …’
And at that inappropriate moment, just as Karen began to believe she was about to get the go-ahead she was seeking, the chief constable’s desktop phone rang. Someone else who understood the advantage of getting to the boss early in the day, she thought.
‘Good morning, Detective Inspector,’ said Tomlinson into the phone, peering over it at Karen in a particularly curious manner, she thought.
‘Yes, yes, I see,’ he continued. ‘Well, well. You had an anonymous caller, did you? Well, would you believe, DI Cooper, that I have one Detective Superintendent Meadows here with much the same story to
tell, but with a few additional literary details. Different source, of course. Now isn’t that a coincidence?’
Shit, thought Karen. Another most unhappy coincidence was that Phil Cooper had chosen to contact the chief constable just when she was with him. She remembered then that Tomlinson had made comments in the past which had indicated that he had known about her relationship with Cooper. But, of course, it would have been hard for even him to have missed it. After all, she suspected that the whole of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary knew about their ill-advised affair. And now Tomlinson had put two and two together, and quite correctly come to the conclusion that she and Cooper had conspired in their attempts to persuade him that there should be a major police investigation into the Hangridge deaths.
Karen waited for him to finish the call, wondering how he would react. The really annoying thing was that the death of Robert Morgan, combined with Kelly’s additional information concerning Parker-Brown, and indeed the very fact that Kelly had been assaulted, meant that it had probably been quite unnecessary to bring in Phil and his Major Crime Incident Team. But she hadn’t known that last night.
Tomlinson had a broad smile on his face and now looked as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself, thought Karen, who was not actually surprised by the pleasure he seemed to be getting from watching her mounting embarrassment.
‘Right. I’ll need to talk to Detective Superintendent Meadows, and I’ll get back to you in a few minutes,’ were his last words into the phone.
He turned to Karen.
‘Well, well, Karen,’ he began, and as ever when he used her Christian name it made her feel all the more uneasy. ‘It seems that your former b—’
He paused. Karen looked at him in amazement. Had he really been about to say boyfriend?
‘Your former sergeant,’ the chief constable continued eventually, ‘shares your opinion that it is time we staged a full-scale police investigation at Hangridge. And, amazed as I am at the many coincidences between your two, doubtless, totally separate approaches …’ He paused again to peer at her quizzically and she couldn’t help wincing a little. ‘… I must come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to give my authority,’ Tomlinson went on. ‘In view of the serious nature of this investigation, I think it should be a joint operation between you and your team, Detective Superintendent, and the MCIT. I will inform DI Cooper of that at once, and you, of course, will be the senior investigating officer, in view of your rank.’
There was something in Tomlinson’s voice that left Karen in no doubt whatsoever that he had only put her in charge with some reluctance. But then, what was new about that? She really didn’t care. She had got her own way, more or less, and that was all that mattered.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Karen jumped to her feet at once and headed for the door. She was buzzing now. She had work to do, and at last her hands were no longer tied.
‘Just one moment.’
Karen stopped in her tracks and looked back over her shoulder.
‘Don’t make a balls of it, will you, Karen? And do keep John Kelly out of all of this, if you can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Karen out loud. Under her breath she muttered to herself something entirely different. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
Kelly was taken home in a police car just before 6 a.m., little more than half an hour before Karen set off for Exeter. She had wanted to provide him with protection.
‘Somebody has tried to kill you once, Kelly, it could happen again,’ she told him.
He had declined quite forcibly. He needed time to himself to think. He was horrified by the very thought of a police minder.
‘I’m not going anywhere except bed, I promise, and I’ll keep all the doors and windows locked,’ he said.
They had compromised. No minder, but a police patrol car would call round periodically to check on him.
Kelly felt absolutely terrible. His brain hurt, his face hurt, his eyes ached, and the whole of his head still felt as if it belonged to someone else. He was also totally exhausted. He took himself off to bed straight away, and yet he feared he would not be able to sleep at all. However, after taking another two of the blockbuster painkillers the police doctor had given him, he went out like a light, and was astonished to find when he eventually woke up that it was gone three in the afternoon and that he must have slept for nearly nine hours.
However, the long sleep did not seem to have helped that much. His head ached for England, the
bump on his forehead was now truly multicoloured and he had two rather splendid black eyes – the left one, directly beneath his bump, only marginally more spectacular than the right.
Everything he did upon waking up, like making his tea, dressing, brushing his teeth and shaving, seemed to take much longer than normal. It wasn’t just his head which was causing him pain. His whole body seemed to be aching in sympathy.
He was just wondering whether he might as well write off the rest of the day and return to bed, when his phone rang. He glanced at the display panel. If it had been anyone but Jennifer, he may well not have answered. But he couldn’t ignore Moira’s younger daughter.
‘John, I just called to say hello and check you were OK,’ she began.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied. Kelly was sometimes disconcerted by the ease with which lying came to him.
‘It was only that Karen Meadows called last night. She’d been trying to get hold of you. I was afraid you might have shut yourself away and be moping. You’re always welcome to come over here if you’re down, you know that, don’t you? It’s what Mum would have wanted.’
Kelly felt his bruised eyes moisten. Jennifer had a knack of tugging on his heartstrings, and he knew that she did it totally unwittingly too. He felt ashamed, though, that the truth was that he had barely thought about Jennifer’s mother at all since the day of the funeral.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll pop over tonight. Or tomorrow.’
As he spoke, he realised that might not be a good
idea even if he did feel so inclined, because he would be forced to come up with some kind of explanation for his damaged face.
‘That would be great,’ responded Jennifer warmly. ‘Oh, by the way, John. How’s Nick? You didn’t tell me he was down again.’
‘What?’ Kelly was completely taken aback. His astonishment must surely have sounded in his voice, but Jennifer did not seem to notice it. Unlike him, she probably was still preoccupied with her mother’s death, he thought.
‘I was in town yesterday evening, for the late shopping, and I saw his car parked just off Fleet Street,’ Jennifer continued. ‘You didn’t tell me he was here. It’s always nice to see him,’ she said somewhat accusingly.
‘Uh, no. Sorry.’ Kelly stumbled for words, automatically seeking refuge in another lie. ‘It was only a fleeting visit. He was on a business trip and just stopped over. He didn’t have time to see anyone.’
‘Right. He’s gone back to London already, then?’
‘Yes,’ replied Kelly promptly. The truth, of course, was that he didn’t have a clue, but that seemed the only appropriate answer. He strove for a way to find out more from Jennifer without giving himself away.
‘Didn’t know you were such an expert on cars,’ he commented lamely.
‘I’m not. But you can’t mistake that special silver Aston Martin of his, can you? Even at Mum’s funeral, you could see everybody was admiring it.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said.
‘Well, give him my love when you speak to him, anyway,’ concluded Jennifer.
Kelly’s hands were shaking again when he hung up.
He told himself that Jennifer may have been mistaken. Nick’s customised Aston Martin was indeed very special and it was a limited edition, but there was sure to be a number of others not unlike it around, and there could well be at least one other currently in the West of England.
None the less Kelly was experiencing a horrible feeling of dread, as if some unspeakable monster was being hatched in the pit of his stomach. Once before he’d found himself doubting his only son, wondering what he might be capable of, but then had at once dismissed the thought. Now the doubts were back.
On impulse he picked up his phone again and dialled Nick’s home number. The reply was almost instant.
‘Nick Carter.’ Kelly, grateful for having had the call-identification feature removed from his line, hung up straight away. As he did so, the thought fleetingly crossed his mind how often over the years he had regretted allowing his ex-wife, justifiably bitter at the way Kelly had treated her, to change their son’s surname from Kelly to her own maiden name. He hated to think that there was even a chance that he might one day cease to regret that his son did not bear his name.