No Reason To Die

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘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.

  He forced his thoughts back to the present. Well, Nick was in London now, he mused. But what did that prove? As far as Kelly could work it out, Nick had built a whole career, both in the army and outside of it, around his ability to move fast and to think on his feet. He could easily have been in Torquay the previous night and back in London by now. Kelly may just have dragged himself out of bed, but it was mid-afternoon. In any case, Nick thought nothing of driving for several hours when other people were sleeping. He was that sort of young man.

  Or, at least, that was the sort of young man Kelly thought he was. But, and not for the first time, he was beginning to wonder if he really knew anything much about his only son.

  Twenty-one

  As soon as she left Middlemoor, Karen’s first impulse had been to drive straight to Hangridge and to confront Gerrard Parker-Brown face to face. But she also knew that this was now the time for consolidation. So instead she headed back to Torquay in order to assemble her troops and to study fully every jot of the potential evidence gathered so far.

  In addi
tion there was just a chance, in spite of Kelly’s conviction otherwise, that there might be some evidence gleaned from the Babbacombe crime scene, or at least some meaningful forensic evidence gathered from Kelly’s clothing.

  She already knew that the doctor had found some tiny fragments of what appeared to be alien skin in Kelly’s teeth, but it would be several days before she would receive a DNA profile from the scraps of skin, and even then, unless Kelly’s attacker had a criminal record, it would not be much use to her without a suspect to compare the DNA with. And whatever part Gerrard Parker-Brown may or may not have played in the deaths of Hangridge soldiers, it appeared that he could not have been guilty of attacking Kelly. Not personally, anyway.

  There were other lines of inquiry to be followed up. She managed to acquire a photograph of Parker-Brown from the chief constable’s commendations ceremony the previous year, and dispatched an officer to The Wild Dog to see if the landlord might also be able to identify him as having visited the pub on the night that Alan Connelly died.

  Then she spent the rest of the day making sure that she was up to speed on every development, while at the same time sending off teams of detectives to interview the families of the various dead soldiers. In cases where the families lived out of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary’s area, in particular Alan Connelly’s family in Scotland, Jimmy Gates’ brother, Colin, in London and Jocelyn Slade’s mother in Reading, she liaised with the various regional forces so that statements could be taken as soon as possible by officers already on the spot.

  She also rang Phil Cooper and suggested that they stage a joint blitz on Hangridge the following morning, by which time, hopefully, several other lines of inquiry would have been followed up.

  ‘I suggest we get there early, about seven a.m., and hopefully take them by surprise,’ she told him. ‘And we’ll go mob-handed, Phil. I don’t know quite how you put the fear of God into the arrogant, bloody British army, but let’s give it a damned good try, shall we?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ Cooper’s response was short and sweet. He really was a good man to have on your side, and she was glad that she was no longer troubled by confusing personal feelings about him.

  ‘You and I will confront Parker-Brown first of all, and then we will systematically work through the whole damn camp, if necessary,’ she continued. ‘The place is no doubt a hotbed of gossip, and I intend to make the most of that. It must be full of people in the know. And I want to know what they know, even if we have to talk to the lot of them.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ No nonsense. No arguing.

  She ended the call swiftly, as soon as she had said all she needed to. There was still a lot of work to be done that day. Then she had to make sure she got a good night’s sleep, in order to be fresh for that early-morning confrontation with the commanding officer of the Devonshire Fusiliers.

  And for once in her life she couldn’t wait for dawn to break.

  Kelly knew that he should phone Margaret Slade to keep her in touch with developments. Or at least those developments which he was prepared to share with her. But somehow he just didn’t seem to have the heart or the energy to do it.

  He still didn’t feel at all well. There was something he desperately wanted to do, something which involved a long journey, and he still didn’t feel capable of driving, or indeed embarking on a journey of any kind, by any mode of transport.

  He decided that he may as well return to bed and was just about to make a move, when his phone rang again. He checked the display panel and saw that this time his caller was Margaret Slade. He still didn’t want to speak to her, but reckoned he owed her that much, at least. She sounded extremely excited.

  ‘John, I’ve had two local CID round, sent on behalf of your mob down in Devon, apparently. They wanted to know everything about my Jossy and how she died and about what people said to me at her funeral, absolutely everything. They’ve launched a full-scale police investigation. Isn’t that great, Kelly? Isn’t that great?’

  Kelly was so preoccupied, and so worried by his preoccupation, that he just couldn’t keep up with her enthusiasm.

  ‘It certainly is, Margaret,’ he said eventually, as warmly as he could, ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a real result,’ she went on. ‘They also told me about that other soldier who’s been killed in London. I’m dreadfully sorry for him and his family, of course, but it’s another reason why the authorities can’t pretend any more that there isn’t something very wrong at Hangridge. And we haven’t even had to use our people power yet. You must have really stirred things up, John, you really must have.’

  ‘Yes, I think you can say that safely enough,’ responded Kelly, with absolute honesty.

  ‘So, what should we do? You must be itching to get some stories into the press. It speaks for itself now, doesn’t it? Devon and Cornwall police yesterday launched a major inquiry into the suspicious deaths of a number of soldiers, all stationed at Hangridge barracks, HQ of the Devonshire Fusiliers. It writes itself. I think even I could do it.’

  ‘I think you could too,’ said Kelly, managing a small smile. She was right. The story would write itself. But at that moment, possibly for the first time in his life when confronted with such a thoroughly cracking yarn, Kelly couldn’t bring himself to write it.

  ‘But I still think we should hold off on the publicity front,’ he continued, sounding pretty pathetic, he thought. ‘Let’s see what the next few days bring, eh? We don’t want to screw things up after such a grand start, do we?’

  ‘Well, OK, if you say so.’ Margaret Slade sounded both disappointed and surprised. Kelly understood that. He supposed it must be a little surprising to listen to a journalist trying to justify why he didn’t want to publish a story.

  ‘But the whole thing could break at any moment now, couldn’t it?’ she continued. ‘I thought you’d want to make sure you got your story in first. After all, you’ve done a good job for us, John, really you have.’

  ‘Thank you very much. But I still think we should hold back for a day or two.’

  ‘Right.’

  Margaret Slade rang off sounding much less excited and somewhat bewildered. Kelly’s head was swimming again, and still aching for England. He was relieved that Margaret hadn’t asked him if he knew of any fresh developments, other than the murder of Robert Morgan, because he didn’t want to go into all that with her. Not at the moment, anyway.

  He made his way into the bedroom and took two more of the police doctor’s blockbuster painkillers. He couldn’t even think straight, and he certainly could take no action of any kind until he felt a whole lot better. But he hadn’t wanted to discuss any of that with Margaret Slade, either. There were, in fact, a number of aspects to this investigation that he intended to keep entirely to himself – at least until he was able to draw some conclusions of his own. And he thought that the only constructive thing he could do was to crash out again and hope that he woke up considerably recovered.

  He checked his watch. It was nearly five o’clock now. Time for bed again, he thought. His beleaguered brain was buzzing and once more he did not think he would sleep easily. Yet, within seconds he was deeply asleep.

  *

  Karen was not so fortunate. In spite of being exhausted, and in spite of her determination to be rested for her early-morning raid on Hangridge, when she finally went to bed just before 11 p.m., she was barely able to sleep at all. She had arranged to meet the three officers she had decided to take with her out to the barracks, Detective Sergeant Chris Tompkins, Detective Constable Janet Farnsby, and Micky Turner, a young uniformed constable, at the station at 5.30 a.m., but she actually got there herself before five. She really hadn’t been able to wait.

  Just before six, the four police officers set off in a marked squad car driven by Constable Turner, and met up with Phil Cooper and his team, as arranged, at a crossroads on the top of the moor, a couple of miles from Hangridge. There were two cars already parked at the designated spot. Karen recog
nised Phil Cooper’s own four-wheel drive, and there was also a second police squad car parked just off the road.

  Phil had brought with him an MCIT detective constable, a huge man who made his tall and well-built inspector look a bit on the small side, and, travelling in the squad car, two uniformed constables, whose services he had apparently obtained from Exeter’s Heavitree Road police station.

  ‘Well, it’s the army, isn’t it, boss?’ Cooper remarked laconically. ‘All they understand is muscle and uniforms, right?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you might be right,’ she responded wryly.

  The three vehicles set off in convoy for Hangridge, with Karen in the lead car. She instructed PC Turner to approach the gates to the barracks as fast as he could, an order the young constable was more than happy to obey with enthusiasm, and, with a satisfying squeal of tyre rubber, the squad car jerked to a fairly dramatic halt alongside the sentries.

  Karen wound down the window and flashed her warrant card at the young soldier peering in at her with an air of considerable bewilderment.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows, Devon and Cornwall Constabulary,’ she announced with deliberate formality. ‘I am here to see your commanding officer. Now!’

  With that, she instructed PC Turner to drive on, without even waiting for any kind of reply, and all three vehicles swept through the gates past the sentries, who patently did not know what to do. They were doubtless all too aware that they should not let civilians pass like that, but on the other hand, what were they supposed to do when confronted with three carloads of police officers? Shoot them? Karen watched in the wing mirror, with some amusement, as both sentries ran into their sentry boxes and picked up phones.

  She directed PC Turner to park right outside the front door of the main administrative building, ignoring the designated parking area beyond.

  A sergeant, doubtless alerted by the sentries, opened the door to the admin building as Karen and her team climbed out of their cars.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he enquired, his face giving nothing away. But then, soldiers were trained to give nothing away in their facial expressions, weren’t they, reflected Karen, thinking obscurely of the troops of the Household Cavalry sitting on their beautiful horses, staring straight ahead, in spite of suffering all manner of indignities from tourists, while on guard duty in London.