A Moment Of Madness

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘Uh – I thought it was you who asked me to report back to you,’ Kelly replied down the airwaves, his voice calm, even very slightly amused.

  Christ, thought Karen, so she had. But Kelly didn’t sound too offended. No man with his sort of background would, after all.

  ‘Sorry, I’m up to my ears,’ she continued more mildly, but not all that apologetically. ‘Just make it snappy, will you?’

  ‘OK. First thing, the family are quite adamant that Terry James never went out tooled up, not with a knife, not with anything,’ Kelly remarked.

  ‘They’re almost certainly right,’ Karen replied. ‘We think the knife he used was taken from a set in the kitchen of Maythorpe. Out of character or not, it looks like he picked it up when he broke into the house and when he was challenged by Scott Silver he certainly didn’t hesitate to use the thing.’

  ‘A panic attack,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Something like that.’ Karen chuckled without much humour.

  ‘But you guys obviously know by now what I found out at the house. James had some sort of fixation with Silver. I’ve gone on the stalker angle.’

  ‘Now there’s a surprise. Did you get anything else my lads might have missed?’

  ‘Dunno. Apparently James helped out at Maythorpe doing odd jobs –’

  ‘Yeah, we got that,’ Karen interrupted.

  ‘Still, how the hell did he get into the place in the middle of the night, Karen? It’s like Fort Knox out there.’

  ‘It should be, but not the way the Silvers have operated their security system. There’s a control panel on the wall outside which opens the gates, isn’t there? It seems that half the work force of Torquay had the combination. Angel is vague about whether or not she gave the number to Terry James, but I suspect that she did. And in any case, although there’s an alarm system both around the perimeter walls and at the house, connected with the security firm HQ in Newton Abbot, when they were indoors the Silvers were apparently lax at even setting it.’

  ‘Yes, but surely …’

  Karen Meadows never heard what Kelly had to say. The detective she regarded as her right-hand man walked into her office looking worried and at the same moment her landline rang.

  ‘Can’t get any sense out of her, boss,’ DS Cooper began.

  Karen waved him silent, ended her mobile call from Kelly with an abrupt ‘Got to go’ and picked up her desk phone.

  The call lasted only seconds.

  ‘Right,’ said Karen finally. ‘Seven o’clock it is then.’

  DS Cooper didn’t speak. He knew better. Instead he just looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘The chief constable wants to see me at HQ in Exeter, Phil. This evening. As if we all didn’t have enough to do.’

  ‘Dead right, boss,’ responded Cooper. ‘Predictable, though. Bet all the brass have got their knickers in a twist over this one.’

  ‘Yes, let’s just make sure we guys on the ground don’t, shall we? And as for Angel Silver, well, that was never going to be easy, and we’d better keep our carpet slippers on too. I’ll be along to have a go at her myself in a few minutes, OK?’

  ‘Very OK, boss.’

  Cooper looked relieved, thought Karen, watching him leave the room. Even good officers liked nothing better than to pass the buck upwards, but the higher you got in the pecking order the harder that became. In any case, it wasn’t Karen Meadows’ style.

  She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. If she could catnap for just a few minutes it might clear her head. It seemed the day could become even longer than she had thought it would be.

  Not for the first time Karen was almost glad that there was no one in her life to whom she was answerable, nobody who might be tricky about the crazy demands put upon her by her job. Sometimes she felt lonely returning at night to a home she shared only with her cat, but at least she didn’t have to explain herself.

  With a wry shaking of his head Kelly put his mobile phone in his pocket, climbed out of his car and walked thoughtfully along to the big square building which housed Torquay Police Station. As he joined the group of press, onlookers, and distraught fans who were already waiting on the station steps, he had no idea whether or not Karen Meadows was inside. But clearly Angel Silver was still being detained.

  Angel Silver. An extraordinary name for an extraordinary woman. Yet Kelly knew that ‘Angel’ was not some affectation of the music world, but just a shortening of the name her parents had given her. Angelica. Absurdly grand for the daughter of a Billingsgate fishmonger.

  A second Argus snapper, Ben Wallis, was already on a watching brief and was able to tell Kelly that there had been no developments at the station except the earlier release of a predictable official statement confirming that Angel was helping police with their inquiries.

  Kelly shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his inadequate coat and settled into the waiting game again. As time passed the day became even chillier. By late afternoon he felt that his feet were turning into blocks of ice, particularly his sore right one. His back ached too. He was getting too old for this lark, he thought. That cup of tea and the bun from the seaside caff seemed like ancient history. He managed to persuade a girl reporter from the Western Morning News to nip to a sandwich shop on condition that he both promised to cover for her and paid. She returned with coffee and half a dozen hot pasties in a bag. Kelly attacked the coffee so eagerly he burned his lips. The pasties contained very little meat and the pastry was distinctly stale but Kelly barely noticed, and neither did Ben Wallis, who gratefully accepted one of them.

  As darkness fell and six o’clock came and went, Kelly found himself mildly surprised at how long Angel was being held. He reminded himself that two men had died, and he wondered what the police were asking her and what she was telling them about the high drama that had unfolded in her home during the night.

  Disconsolately he stretched his arms and legs, and hopped about a bit from one foot to the other in a bid to get his distinctly sluggish circulation going again. The bruised toes of his right foot continued to throb dully. Kelly was beginning to feel extremely weary. After all, he’d been on the case since his call from Karen just after 6.30 a.m. For a moment or two he considered giving up and going home. He didn’t suppose anyone at the Argus would notice or even care. They’d merely pick up from the dailies in the morning. But Kelly hated that sort of reporter. He always saw a job through and he’d never liked second-hand information, which he reckoned invariably led to trouble. Kelly liked to make his own mistakes.

  At around eight o’clock it started to rain again. That, Kelly thought, was the final straw. There was no shelter worth mentioning. He had neither hat nor umbrella. Naturally. Icy raindrops cut through his thinning hair and ran down his neck beneath his shirt collar. He began to shiver uncontrollably.

  Then, quite suddenly, there was a flurry of activity. Angel Silver emerged through the police station’s big doors. Several policemen escorted her as she began to walk down the station steps, one of them holding an umbrella over her. The couple of dozen or so assorted press, snappers, reporters, radio journalists, and TV teams pushed forward as one body. The area around the station, lit only by standard streetlamps, was suddenly flooded with film-set-scale illumination as cameras flashed and the lights of the TV teams burst into life.

  Angel walked with a straight back, head held high, looking resolutely ahead, face even paler than before, if that were possible. Once more Kelly was struck by her beauty and the way she seemed able to isolate herself from all that was happening to her. He knew that she must be knocking forty now, but, even under such great stress, she looked years younger. There was an ageless quality about her.

  Kelly was aware that at the rear of the police station there was a police parking area off public limits, where it would have been possible for her to be discreetly bundled into a vehicle and swept away without anyone having a chance to get near her. He suspected that it would have been Angel’s own decision not to sneak out o
f a back door.

  A squad car came roaring around the corner and squealed to a halt as close as it could get to the station steps. One of the policemen escorting Angel stepped ahead to open the near-side rear door. The noise in South Street was every bit as overwhelming as the blazing light. The reporters, TV and written press were all calling out to Angel, desperate to persuade her to tell them what had happened and how she felt. She did not respond and, indeed, gave no indication that she even heard. The snappers and the TV cameramen were hassling each other for the best position for a final shot. Angel bent down to climb into the car and, as she did so, seemed to stumble slightly. A policeman immediately put an arm under her elbow to steady her. She looked round and slightly up at him as if in thanks and then her gaze wandered by him and it seemed almost as if she were taking in the extraordinary scene around her for the first time. It was then, for the second time that day, that Kelly got the impression she was staring straight at him. Certainly their gazes met. Kelly knew all about the Diana factor, but he really felt sure of it. There was something so hypnotic about those violet eyes, their intensity somehow enhanced by the dark shadows beneath them.

  ‘Angel, what happened in the police station?’ he called out as loudly as he could, aware of his own voice rising above the commotion. ‘Are you being charged with anything?’

  Her gaze remained steady. Then she smiled. Well, it was almost a smile. Just an enigmatic lifting of her lips at the corners. A Mona Lisa smile. Slight, yet deep. Unfathomable. But it brightened her whole face.

  Then she was gone. Into the car and sandwiched on the rear seat between two extremely large police officers.

  Some of the pack ran to their motor cars in order to attempt to give chase. Kelly took his time. Thoughtful. It seemed more than likely that Angel was simply being returned home to Maythorpe, and, in any case, he knew from long hard experience that you could almost never successfully follow a police car.

  He started back towards his MG, picking up a bag of chips, which he ate with one hand while he drove out to Maythorpe Manor. No wonder he was growing a paunch, he thought to himself.

  Around the gates of the big old mansion probably upwards of a thousand fans of the dead rock star were now gathered in silent vigil, almost every one of them carrying a lit candle. The whole area was bathed in a kind of ethereal light.

  Kelly had expected many more fans than had been gathered in the morning. None the less, he was amazed at the sight which confronted him as he approached the house on foot from the car park down in Maidencombe village. Involuntarily he slowed his pace, taking in every detail of the scene. Then suddenly the rather eerie silence was abruptly broken. The gathered fans burst almost as if by pre-arrangement into a song – probably Scott Silver’s most celebrated recording, certainly so well known that even Kelly, not a man with a great knowledge of contemporary music, recognised it at once.

  It was a ballad, a hauntingly poignant number made all the more so by the circumstances in which it was being sung.

  Gone but not forgotten

  Like fallen blossom

  In the springtime,

  Gone but not forgotten

  Safe in my heart

  For all time,

  Gone but not forgotten …

  The haunting strains dripped like liquid through the night air. Kelly couldn’t make out all the words, but did remember that the song was a typical Silver number that had actually been about lost love rather than death. On this night, sung by this particular choir, it was a moving funeral dirge.

  Kelly moved forward into the throng. People of all ages seemed to be gathered now. Scott Silver’s appeal spanned the generations. Many of the women and even a few of the men were weeping copiously. Kelly had never quite understood, even as a young man, the adulation many people feel for distant heroes, public figures and celebrities they don’t know – film stars, rock icons, royalty. He had never understood it but sometimes he envied its simplicity.

  Certainly this was an extraordinary night. Those gathered seemed united in their sorrow. Kelly pressed his way further forward, almost bumping into Trevor Jones who greeted him warmly.

  ‘I knew Ben was at the police station so I thought I’d come straight out here just in case,’ the photographer explained. ‘Got a great shot of her arriving, Johnno. What a stunner, eh!’

  ‘She’s here then,’ Kelly murmured, almost to himself.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ nodded Trevor. ‘Arrived about fifteen minutes ago in a police car, which left almost straight away. We think there’s still a police presence in the house, though.’

  Kelly nodded. There was sure to be, he thought. They’d never leave Angel alone there. After all, the whole place was still a crime scene. He reckoned she’d only be allowed to use the rooms they’d already cleared, and neither she nor anyone else except the scene-of-crime boys – the SOCOs – would be allowed near the area where the two men had died.

  ‘Well done, mate,’ he remarked absently to Trevor, as he moved on through the crowd. He didn’t really want to talk. He preferred to look, to listen, and to drink in the atmosphere. With some difficulty he pushed his way through to the front and found himself once again right up against the iron railings of the gateway where the smattering of floral tributes of the morning had now grown into a mountain of multicoloured blooms.

  He crouched down beside them to read some of the messages. The candles and the bright security lights around Maythorpe, although they cast their own deep shadows, meant that he could do so quite easily.

  ‘We always loved you, Scott.’ ‘We will mourn you for ever.’ And some even more melodramatic: ‘Life without you will not be worth living.’ ‘My life is over now, as yours is.’

  Quite quickly the muscles in Kelly’s calves started to ache and one of his ankles locked. With some difficulty he got to his feet and, forgetting that his right one was bruised and sore, he put rather too much weight on it. The pain caused him to stumble and he reached out desperately with his right arm in the general direction of the iron fencing, seeking support. In doing so he lurched against a figure, dressed in what appeared to be a long dark robe, pressed against the bars.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered automatically when he regained his footing.

  There was no response. Kelly took a closer look. He only had a back view but he somehow guessed from what he could see of the figure’s build that this was a young woman. Certainly her nearly black hair, much the same colour that Kelly’s had once been, hung long and straight almost to her waist – not that hairstyles always told you anything. Her face must be shoved right into the railings, Kelly thought. She was standing completely still, apart from the rest of the crowd and without what seemed to be the almost obligatory candle. Her black hair and dark robe caused her to half disappear into the quite confusing shadows and rendered her almost invisible from even a short distance away. Kelly had not noticed her until he had bumped into her.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again, a little louder. Still no response.

  He shrugged and backed off, turning his attention once more to the rest of the gathered throng. They were singing another Scott Silver number now: ‘Why I’ll Always Love You’.

  Kelly stood amongst them for several more minutes, silently listening. Somewhat to his surprise he found himself quite moved.

  He glanced across to the big house safely cocooned behind its security gates and a ten-foot-high wall. Only it hadn’t proved to be quite so safe, had it? Terry James had breached the defences of Maythorpe Manor, albeit, it seemed, with the unwitting assistance of its owners, broken into Scott Silver’s home and killed him.

  Kelly was desperate now to know exactly what had happened during the previous night. He stared steadily at the old grey mansion. Maythorpe, he knew, dated back to Tudor times but, following a fire, had been almost totally rebuilt during the Georgian era, hence its geometric design, which doubtless enclosed big high-ceilinged and well-proportioned rooms. What tragic secrets did the ancient manor hold within its lofty w
alls, he wondered.

  A light behind one of the house’s ground-floor windows suddenly snapped out. Somewhere else another flicked on. Seconds later elsewhere on the first floor there was a flash of light and then just a little chink remained.

  Kelly concentrated hard on that narrow slice of light. Then, after just a minute or so, that too disappeared. Inside the house someone had pulled back a curtain in order to look outside, he was sure of it. Then, to get a better view and in order to remain unseen, the light inside the room had been switched off.

  Was that person still there, looking out, taking in the scene Kelly had just been marvelling at?

  Angel Silver was inside there. Was it her at the window? How was she feeling? What was she thinking?

  Kelly tried to put himself inside that beautiful porcelain head, convinced she was watching. He shut his eyes to concentrate. He could see her pale face quite clearly. But it told him absolutely nothing at all.

  Three

  Moira Simmons retreated gratefully into the little office at the rear of Torbay Hospital’s children’s ward. It had been a busy and distressing night. In the early hours little Timmy Jordan, just seven years old, had finally lost his battle against leukaemia. Timmy had been ill on and off for almost two years and, like so many of the staff at the hospital, Moira had got to know him and his family well. Though the boy’s death had been inevitable for weeks, it was a bitter blow.

  Moira felt drained. She had spent some time comforting Timmy’s devastated parents, whom she had come to regard as friends and whose grief she genuinely shared. They too had known that their son could not survive, but it had not made his eventual loss any easier for them to bear, and neither would Moira have expected it to.

  She sank wearily into a chair and closed her eyes. Moira was small and blonde and had never even been threatened by the weight problems which affect most people in middle years. She had retained both a girlish figure and a youthful zest for life, the latter maintained in part at least by an ability to find humour in almost all that life had thrown at her. Which had been quite a bellyful over the years. That morning, though, Moira was leaning far more towards tears than laughter. Only her innate resilience, combined with the professional discipline of her many years in nursing, made it possible for her to stop herself breaking down.