No Reason To Die

by Hilary Bonner

  He switched on his radio, tuned in as usual to Classic FM, and started leafing idly through the newspaper, making himself study each page carefully in order to pass the time. Suddenly he stopped turning the pages. His attention had been caught by a piece which was little more than a filler towards the back of the paper, on a section on one of the pages that Kelly knew was reserved for late news.

  Not only would the Argus have only been able to compile a sketchy report in the time available, but this particular incident was of a type that was no longer considered to be big news. Unless you knew what Kelly knew, of course.

  ‘A local soldier on leave has been fatally stabbed as he walked along a street in East London.

  ‘Police believe that eighteen-year-old Robert Morgan, of the Devonshire Fusiliers, may have been attacked by a gang of youths in a bid to steal his mobile phone, which was missing from the scene. Fusilier Morgan, who was stationed at Hangridge Barracks, his regiment’s Dartmoor headquarters, was stabbed several times in the neck and chest with a long-bladed knife.

  ‘Detective Inspector Michael Drewe, of the Metropolitan Police, said yesterday: “This was a brutal and, as far as we know, totally unprovoked attack. However, there are indications that Robert fought back valiantly against his attackers and this may have been why he was ultimately stabbed to death so mercilessly.”

  ‘Robert’s body was discovered in the early hours of this morning in Penton Street, East London, a tough part of the city and not a district where people would be recommended to walk alone at night, particularly strangers.

  ‘It is not known why the soldier, whose family run a general store in Paignton’s North Road, was in the area.

  ‘Said DI Drewe: “We are appealing to any witnesses to come forward, and also to anyone, who knew Robert, who may be able to supply us with information concerning his movements on the day he died.”’

  If Kelly hadn’t been so methodically going through the paper from cover to cover, he may well have missed the relatively insignificant story on page seventeen.

  As it was, two facts jumped off the page and hit him straight between the eyes. The first, of course, was that Robert Morgan had been a Devonshire Fusilier stationed at Hangridge, and the second was that he had been murdered in East London.

  Kelly found that he was trembling again as he ran upstairs to his office and reached for the copy of a London A–Z on the shelf above his desk, where he kept the books he used regularly in his work lined up in a row – a couple of dictionaries, a thesaurus, a selection of telephone directories, a Who’s Who and a Debrett’s People of Today, a gazetteer and a number of other maps and atlases.

  He quickly found the appropriate page and studied it carefully. Yes, his hunch had been right. He felt his pulse quicken. Penton Street was just a couple of streets away from Jimmy Gates’ family home.

  Willing himself to stay calm, Kelly picked up his cordless phone and dialled the Gates’ number. He was in luck. Colin Gates answered.

  Kelly had no time for small talk, no time to soft-soap the young man, even though he knew that he should really proceed with more care and caution than he was able to muster.

  ‘Do you know about the murder near you last night?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Colin.

  Kelly was mildly surprised. It was quite likely that he wouldn’t have seen an evening paper, but news of the stabbing would have been on the regional TV and local radio news, and surely everyone in the neighbourhood would have been talking about it.

  ‘How could you not know?’ he asked.

  ‘All I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours is sit in front of my computer,’ replied Colin. ‘I’ve got this new game, it’s fucking great. I’m already up to level four.’

  Sad bastard, thought Kelly, then remembered his own predilection for computer games when he should be working. It was just that his were inclined to be less sophisticated, that was all, because, apart from backgammon, he had so far avoided loading any further games on to his computer beyond the standard package supplied by Windows.

  ‘What’s it go to do with me, anyway?’ Colin asked.

  ‘I just wondered if you knew the victim, or if your brother may have known him. He was a Devonshire Fusilier, a squaddie stationed at Hangridge. His name was Robert Morgan.’

  ‘Rob?’ Colin sounded shocked. ‘Rob Morgan? I met him once. With Jimmy. They was best mates. Jesus. What was he doing up here?’

  ‘I wondered if he might have been coming to see you. Or your father?’

  ‘No. Well, I don’t know. He hadn’t phoned nor nothing.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he would be in your area. I mean, you don’t know of anything, do you? A girl, perhaps?’

  ‘No. I mean, I wouldn’t. I told you, I only met him once. But I don’t think he’d ever been up here before. He’d never been to ours, anyway. And our Jimmy used to go on about him being a real Devon yokel. He was only having a laugh, though. Jimmy was always talking about Rob. They were really good mates. I met him in Devon. Dad and I took Jimmy back there once, after he’d been home on leave, and we met up with Rob in a boozer.’

  ‘Could he have wanted to tell you something, you or your dad? Something about Jimmy’s death, perhaps?’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Colin. ‘And I’m the one who’s supposed to have been watching too many crap movies.’

  ‘This is serious, Colin. More serious than you can possibly imagine, and more serious probably than even I imagined until today. I think perhaps you should contact your local police and tell them about your connection with Robert Morgan, and, come to that, tell them all that stuff your brother told you about Jocelyn Slade as well.’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I don’t have nothing to do with the filth, nothing more than I have to. That’s the way things are around here. Anyway, I thought you were sorting all that out.’

  ‘There’s been another death, Colin. A young man, who may have had all kinds of knowledge concerning your brother and the death of Jocelyn Slade, has been murdered. That’s no joke.’

  Kelly paused.

  ‘Look, Colin, it is possible that you are in danger, too.’

  ‘Oh, come off it.’ Colin Gates sounded totally incredulous. ‘How could I possibly be in danger. Are you some kind of nutter or something?’

  ‘No, Colin. I’m not. It’s just that I don’t like playing games with other people’s lives. I’ve done it before, although I never meant to. I don’t want to do it again. I think the time has probably come for all of us to put our cards on the table, to try to get some official help in all this. To make sure there aren’t any more of these mysterious deaths. And, in your case, that means going to the police.’

  ‘But I haven’t got anything to tell them. I don’t know nothing about Robert Morgan, not nothing. He could have had all sorts of reasons for being round here. Drugs. That’ll be it. Drugs. I mean, if you’re stationed at some barracks in the middle of Dartmoor, how the hell do you get yourself some gear, eh?’

  ‘With consummate ease, if he was that way inclined, Colin. What do you think? That drug culture only exists in inner cities? Don’t you believe it. I’m calling from Torquay, an hour’s drive from Hangridge, and I promise you there’s not a drug that’s been invented that you can’t pick up in this town, if you know where to go. No. Drugs wouldn’t have brought Robert Morgan to your part of London, I’m sure of it. And what else would have led to him ending up stabbed to death in Penton Street? The only obvious link is your family, living, as you do, just a stone’s throw away.’

  ‘Well, I don’t bleeding care what he was doing in our manor, to be honest. And I’m not fucking going to the filth. No fucking way. Anyway, I thought you was going to handle it all. I didn’t think I’d have to do anything.’

  ‘Please, Colin. I’m worried about your safety.’

  ‘You really are a nutter, you. My bleeding safety, my arse. You got some imagination, you have. Apart from anything else, I don’t know not
hing about nothing.’

  ‘Is your dad still away?’

  ‘Till Saturday.’

  ‘Look, I really, really think you should go to the police?’

  ‘For what? So they can have a good laugh at me too. You can take on the British army if you like, Mr John Kelly, I’m not fucking doing it. I don’t want to know whatever crazy conspiracy theory you’ve got into your head. I’m staying out of it. I shouldn’t have talked to you in the first place, should I? I ain’t got nothing else to say. I don’t want ever to talk to you again.’

  The line went dead. Kelly sighed. Perhaps he should tip off the Met about Colin Gates. Karen had indicated to him that she thought as much pressure as possible, from as many different angles as possible, would be the way to open up the whole affair. On the other hand, Gates was probably right about one thing. It seemed highly likely that the Met really would do little more than have a good laugh.

  Kelly pondered his next move. He wondered if he should talk to Margaret Slade and the other relatives of the various dead soldiers, and suggest that they all get together to help him cobble up a story straight away, thereby rocketing the whole shenanigans into the public domain once and for all.

  Kelly found that he really didn’t know what to do, and that he was extremely worried. He knew that he was meddling yet again with matters he did not fully understand, and he was beginning to fear the consequences. Already, a sequence of events was unravelling in all sorts of unexpected directions.

  Whether or not the death of Robert Morgan was connected with all the other deaths, it was at the very least highly disconcerting. Kelly didn’t want any more blood on his hands. He had hoped to keep everything under wraps a little longer, and indeed to be able to delve into the mystery considerably more before hitting the printing presses with it.

  But he was now beginning to feel that maybe he could not wait. That none of them could wait. And he was beginning to think that when he told Karen Meadows all that he knew, and, even more, all that he suspected, she would agree. Indeed, this latest development might play into her hands. After all, she believed that a formal police investigation into the Hangridge deaths should be the next step, and the death of another Hangridge soldier, however unconnected it might at first sight seem to be with anything military, would surely have to be regarded as a significant factor in her campaign to be allowed to launch such an operation.

  Kelly checked his watch for the umpteenth time. It was still not quite six o’clock. The hours really were dragging. But less than four hours to go now before his meeting with Karen, and maybe they could then reach a decision together about their next move. He would just have to be patient. Meanwhile, he amused himself by thinking about how Karen would react to the most important piece of information he had to give her. Something that he had yet to come properly to terms with himself. She would, he thought, be even more amazed than he had been.

  He wandered downstairs again to make a fresh pot of tea, which he once more carried into the living room and set, with the sugar bowl, of course, on the little table next to his chair in the bay window. As he did so, his telephone rang. He answered quickly, half expecting it to be Karen. Automatically, he checked the display panel on his phone, registering that it was indicating that his caller’s number was not available, which meant that it could well be her, phoning from her office in Torquay police station.

  ‘Hello,’ he said tentatively.

  ‘I understand you’re investigating the deaths of soldiers up at Hangridge,’ responded a muffled voice. It was so distorted, no doubt deliberately, that Kelly could not even tell if his caller was a man or a woman.

  ‘Well, I have been looking into various incidents at the barracks,’ he replied cautiously.

  ‘I have information that I believe could be of interest to you.’

  ‘I see.’ Kelly could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. This was far from the first time in his life that he had received a call like this. Sometimes they were from total nutters. More often than not, they were from people who thought they knew something important, but actually didn’t. And once in a blue moon they were dynamite.

  One thing Kelly knew for sure, this was the kind of investigation that was crying out for a deep throat. Because if he was honest, without something of that nature – some anonymous source of crucial inside information – Kelly did not see the truth ever being fully revealed.

  On the other hand, there had now been yet another death which could be connected to the others. And there were other disturbing factors, notably the most important and the most potentially explosive aspect of his meeting with Colonel Parker-Brown earlier that day, when he had been confronted by something totally unexpected, something only he could possibly know about, and something he really could not wait to share with Karen. The sensible part of Kelly urged him to tell his caller to contact Karen Meadows and then to hang up. He was getting into extremely deep water. He should merely put together the best story he could from the information he already had, and then step back from the whole affair. After all, obsessive though he might be when embroiled in an investigation, he was not a totally stupid man. And he was becoming aware that even he could be in some danger, if he continued to delve into the affairs of the Devonshire Fusiliers. However, he quickly dismissed the thought from his mind. Of course, he wasn’t in any danger. And even if he was, well, there was absolutely no chance of him stepping back from this investigation. If this caller had information for him, then Kelly wanted it, and Kelly would probably do almost anything to get it. So, he wasn’t going to back off. Not now. Not yet. No way.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the voice. ‘I’m just somebody who has a great deal of information that you might want. You and the families of those dead soldiers. I know what happened to them all, you see. What happened and why. I know the truth.’

  ‘I see.’ Kelly didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘So, do you want to know the truth too?’

  Kelly sat down in his window armchair with a bump. His knees had suddenly seemed in danger of giving out, and he realised that he was sweating.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, go on …’

  ‘Are you off your trolley, man?’ The remark sounded so incongruous when delivered by someone who appeared to be speaking through a thick wedge of cotton wool that Kelly found he was smiling in spite of himself.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ he began.

  ‘Yes. You should be. I’m not telling you any of this on the phone.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘No. We’ll have to meet. And somewhere we won’t be seen.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Do you know Babbacombe beach?’

  ‘Yes.’ How strange, thought Kelly. It was one of his favourite haunts, that and The Cary Arms. He had been up there – well, on the road above the small secluded beach, anyway – on the day of Moira’s funeral. It had been a refuge for him then, and he didn’t really regard it as quite the place for a clandestine meeting. But he wasn’t going to argue.

  ‘I’ll see you there at midnight tonight. And come alone.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Right. Where exactly?’

  ‘You just start to walk along the beach, from the direction of the pub. I’ll be there. You won’t see me at first. I’ll find you. Don’t worry. Just walk up and down the beach, until I do. Oh, and no torch. You don’t need to see me, you just need to listen.’

  ‘OK. But, tell me. Why are you doing this?’

  ‘They were mates of mine. Alan Connelly, Jimmy Gates, Robbie Morgan. They were all my mates.’

  The caller hung up then. Straight away. Leaving Kelly looking at a buzzing handset.

  Shit, he thought. Connelly, Gates and Morgan. His mysterious caller was indicating a link between those three deaths at least, already backing up Kelly’s own suspicions. And the most significant aspect of that was that he had included
Morgan in it. Morgan, whose involvement had remained something of a long-shot until that moment. Morgan, a local lad whose death probably hardly anybody in Torbay knew about yet. But Kelly’s anonymous informant knew. Less than twenty-four hours after Morgan had been murdered, he knew. He could have seen it in the evening paper, of course, just as Kelly had. And, indeed, maybe it was that which had prompted him to contact Kelly.

  Kelly took his tobacco and skins out of his pocket and began to roll himself a cigarette. He was both excited and thoughtful. He had no idea how his caller even knew that he was investigating the deaths at Hangridge, but, apart from his dealings with the various families involved, he had now actually visited the barracks of the Devonshire Fusiliers and done his best to interview the regiment’s commanding officer. He suspected that gossip in an army barracks was probably every bit as rampant as he knew it to be in newspaper offices and police stations. And he was in the phone book. A lot of journalists, Kelly knew, were ex-directory. But Kelly thought that was nonsense. If you want to gather in information, you need to make it as easy as possible for anyone who wishes to supply you with some to be able to do so. Whatever inconvenience that might cause on occasions.

  Anyway, one way and another, his unexpected phone call changed everything. Absolutely everything. No way would he now be making any sort of move at all, and certainly there would be no question of breaking the story to the press, not until after he had met his mysterious deep throat.

  He lit up and took a deep drag, forcing himself to remain calm. He was at a crucial stage in an investigation which was beginning to pull in all sorts of unexpected directions, and it was essential that he kept as cool a head as possible.

  So much now hinged on whatever he might learn that night from his anonymous caller who, he was quite aware, of course, could still turn out to be a nutter. But somehow, and maybe it had been something in that muffled voice which had already convinced him, Kelly didn’t think so.