‘Not around either, according to his mother, anyway. She claims he took off up north several days ago to work on some building job. That is what he does, boss. Kips in his van most of the time, I understand, and picks up a whole bundle of black money.’
Karen grunted, unconvinced. ‘And no doubt his mother has no idea of his exact whereabouts?’
‘Naturally not,’ said Cooper.
‘Keep the guys on to that, Phil.’
‘Sure, boss.’
‘They’re a vengeful lot, you know, those Jameses.’
‘I know. There’s never really been much doubt that it was Ken James who chucked that brick through Kelly’s window, has there?’
‘Nope. And then when Angel was charged with his brother’s murder Ken’s anger was redirected at her. We know well enough how he was in court and then out at the house after Angel was cleared.’
‘So perhaps young Kenny’s managed to do for both Angel and Kelly as well in a way. Is that what you’re getting at, boss?’
‘God knows, Phil. I just don’t want anything left to chance, that’s all.’
However, during the next twenty-four hours little progress was made. The team seeking Bridget Summers found out that she was in America at the Kansas headquarters of the One God, One People sect, and were able to confirm that she had been there for almost two months. That put her beyond suspicion.
Further inquiries failed to unearth Ken James, against whom there was in any case no evidence.
Meanwhile, Karen, as well as everything else under orders from her chief constable to charge Kelly, ultimately had no choice but to do so.
She didn’t like pressure from above, but even without that she knew that there really wasn’t an alternative. Logic dictated that Kelly was guilty of the murder he had indeed confessed to.
The post mortem showed almost beyond doubt that Angel had been killed by a single blow to the back of the head administered by a blunt instrument. A police search of Kelly’s home unearthed no further evidence and there was no sign of a murder weapon, but Kelly’s fingerprints were found all over Maythorpe Manor, as DS Cooper had predicted. Also particles of skin were discovered lodged behind Angel’s fingernails, which the police confidently expected DNA tests to later prove to be Kelly’s, probably gouged from his injured cheek by a frantic Angel fighting for her life. In addition, tiny drops of blood, almost certainly from Angel, and spattered when her nose had bled, were found on Kelly’s clothing.
Based on all of that, his own confession, and the evidence of the taxi driver who had driven him to Maythorpe Manor, John Kelly was duly charged with the murder of Angel Silver and remanded in custody.
The call came two days later. ‘Check out Kenny James before you make fools of yourself again,’ said a husky, slightly distorted voice.
‘Who’s that?’ the DCI asked quickly.
‘Never mind who I am. Just check James out. He wanted revenge for his brother, didn’t he? Have a look in the back of his van.’
‘Who is that?’ the DCI repeated. But the line just went dead.
Karen immediately dialled 1471 and was mildly surprised to be given a number at all. But it turned out merely to be a call box in Exeter, a result unlikely to take the inquiries any further.
Karen hated anonymous tips, but once again had little choice. She knew she must follow this one through. It was time to go heavy on the James family, she reckoned. First she obtained a search warrant and then, along with DS Cooper and a couple of uniformed boys, set off to Paignton.
Ken James’s mother answered the door of number 24 Fore Street none too enthusiastically and stood forbiddingly in the doorway.
‘Are you going to do this the hard way or the easy way?’ enquired Karen mildly, holding up the search warrant in one hand.
With obvious reluctance Mrs James stood aside then.
‘Why don’t you leave us alone?’ she snapped as she escorted them into her living room. ‘You’re persecuting us, that’s what you’re doing. My Terry was murdered, that’s what happened to my Terry, and you lot did nothing about that at all.’
It now seemed that Mrs James might be absolutely right, thought Karen glumly, but this was not the moment to share that with the woman.
‘I just want to talk to Ken,’ she told her instead.
‘Well, you can’t. I told you, I’ve no idea where he is.’
‘I think you have, Mrs James.’ Karen looked around the plushly appointed room. ‘And if you don’t start remembering pretty darned fast I’m going to throw the book at you.’
She turned to DS Cooper and gestured at the state-of-the-art music system in one corner. ‘Get the serial number of that and all the other electrical goods in this house,’ she ordered. ‘I have reason to believe that Mrs James is guilty of receiving stolen goods.’
The older woman paled visibly. The James family matriarch had, somehow or other, so far avoided ever being charged with a criminal offence of any kind, which was something of a miracle for anyone in that household, Karen reckoned.
‘They were all gifts,’ Mrs James blurted out. ‘I don’t know where they came from, do I?’
‘Tough,’ said Karen, and then, lowering her voice, she added, ‘You should know that this is not just a very serious murder inquiry, it’s my arse on the line. I don’t intend to stop at anything in order to get to the truth.’
Mrs James’s face puckered up into an expression of peeved resignation. She was a woman who instinctively understood how this kind of game was played.
‘Oh, all right, all right. Kenny’s holed up in our caravan on that site over by the holiday camp. When we heard that Angel Silver’d been killed I knew you lot would come looking for him, so I told him to lie low for a bit. Keep out the way.’
Karen nodded. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs James,’ she said in her most charming way.
The older woman scowled.
‘He didn’t do it, not that you lot care, and, anyway, you’ll waste your time going over there now,’ she said, sounding almost triumphant. ‘He’s gone to Birmingham for that football match tonight. God knows why he still supports Torquay after the way they’ve performed lately, but he does. He’s a loyal boy, my Kenny. All my kids are loyal.’
Yes, thought Karen, that was probably true and was also half the point. The James family did not rest easily until they had avenged any perceived grievances against members of their clan. And murder was a very big grievance indeed.
‘Has he taken his van?’
Mrs James nodded. ‘Course he has. Who can afford train fares nowadays? Even if the bloody things are running.’
They searched the house then.
Ken James’s bedroom was almost as interesting as Terry James’s room had been all that time before. The walls were pasted with newspaper cuttings of the killing of Scott Silver and Terry James at Maythorpe Manor, and of Angel’s trial for the manslaughter of Terry. There were also a selection of photographs of Angel, some with Scott, which Karen thought may have earlier adorned Terry James’s bedroom. All the pictures of Angel had something in common. They had each been grossly defaced. In some her face had merely been obliterated with what looked like marker pen in various colours, primarily black or red. Others had been drawn over obscenely, with the addition of unpleasantly distorted breasts and sexual organs. Several had ‘Die, you bitch’ written across them.
The DCI and DS Cooper exchanged glances.
‘Right,’ said Karen. ‘Let’s get on to Birmingham. We need to find Kenny James and that van of his, smartish.’
Less than a couple of hours later the West Midland Constabulary called to say that they’d found Ken James, a quicker result than anybody had realistically expected. But it seemed that his details had already been logged when the West Midlands received the call for help from Torquay.
Ken had apparently been involved in a pre-match pub brawl. His neck had been broken and he was in hospital in a coma. His van had been parked outside the pub and a preliminary search had revealed a lump hammer wrap
ped in a pair of bloodstained combat trousers.
Twenty-three
Eventually even the Chief Constable agreed that the murder charge against Kelly had to be dropped in view of the fresh evidence. He didn’t like it, though.
‘Basically, Karen, you’re telling me now we haven’t got enough on Kelly, even with his confession, and yet we haven’t got anyone else realistically in the frame either,’ he told the DCI irritably.
Karen, summoned yet again to Harry Tomlinson’s office at headquarters in Exeter, forced herself to remain cool.
‘We now have the murder weapon, there’s little doubt about that, sir,’ she began. ‘Kelly confessed to attacking Angel Silver but he absolutely denies using any kind of weapon. The PPS reckon there are too many grey areas and that any defence brief worth his salt would have a field day with the weapon line. It was found in Ken James’s van, and Ken James had motive in spades. He has made no secret of the bitter grudge he holds against Angel. Manslaughter or murder, it’s never made much difference to Ken. Angel killed his brother. Circumstantial stuff, I know, but the PPS reckon we’ve little or no chance of getting the charge against Kelly to stick.
‘His solicitor has already told me that he has advised Kelly to plead not guilty, in spite of his confession, and I’ve no doubt he’ll just do that. Kelly confessed on the spur of the moment because he was frightened and confused. And we all know how those kind of confessions go down in court. He’ll have plenty of time to think things through, too, before his case comes up at Crown Court, and his brief’s going to be able to drive a truck through our case. That’s what the PPS say, anyway.’
Harry Tomlinson grunted. ‘But we don’t have any chance of getting a charge against James to stick either,’ he responded.
‘Well, no, certainly not as long as Ken James is unconscious.’
‘And if he comes round? You reckon he’d confess?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir,’ said Karen non-comittally, although she actually thought it was about as likely as James emerging from his coma and announcing he wanted to join the Salvation Army.
‘So, we’ve no result, nor likely to get one, Detective Chief Inspector. Is that what you’re telling me?’
Karen winced at that dangerously formal use of her rank again. She decided to attempt the political card.
‘Not at the moment, sir. But, don’t forget, if Kelly had gone to trial all that stuff about Angel allegedly telling him she had killed both men and planned to do so would have been bound to come out. It was what caused Kelly to strike at her, after all. So we may have got a result of sorts, sir, within the force, anyway. This way that won’t happen, and the public may never know how wrong we got the original investigation.’
As she spoke Karen realised that her final remark was a mistake.
‘How wrong you got it, Detective Chief Inspector,’ snapped Tomlinson.
But then he appeared to think about the rest of what she had said.
‘Mind you, I suppose you’re right up to a point,’ he remarked eventually. ‘Some things are better kept away from public knowledge.’
Karen arrived back in Torquay just in time to see Kelly, whose reprieve had come before his planned transfer to the County Jail, off the station premises.
‘Thanks for everything, Karen,’ he said when the DCI told him he was free to go.
‘If you want to thank me, John, just stay away from me for the foreseeable future,’ Karen replied tetchily. ‘This case has come very close to bringing me down, and not least of that has been your involvement in it and our so-called friendship.’
Kelly merely shrugged an apology. ‘Don’t worry, all I want to do is keep out of trouble from now on,’ he said.
Karen sighed wearily. Well, there was a first time for everything, she supposed.
In her office she went over and over it all in her mind for the umpteenth time. The new evidence was certainly circumstantial, and there were no fingerprints on the hammer – but Karen and her team had never been very optimistic on that score. Ken James was far too streetwise to leave prints anywhere. But also the combat trousers were virtually brand new and seemed to have been worn over leggings so there was little chance of coming up with any hair or skin particles which could provide DNA confirmation that they had been worn by James.
The chief constable was right enough, she thought. Unless James confessed there was probably even less likelihood of getting a conviction against him than there would be against Kelly.
‘I’d still like to know who made that anonymous phone call, though, boss,’ remarked DS Cooper a little later.
‘And I’d like to talk to Ken James,’ responded DCI Meadows. ‘But who knows if we will ever get the chance.’
‘Even if he does come out of his coma OK, he’ll deny all knowledge,’ said the detective sergeant echoing Karen’s own thoughts on the matter. ‘I’ve never known a James confess to anything yet.’
Karen Meadows pulled a long-suffering face. ‘So unless something else new, and something bloody good, turns up again, we’ve had it, Phil,’ she said. ‘The only evidence we have against anyone is conflicting and insubstantial and we’ve got little or no chance of any sort of result, as our own dear chief constable has already pointed out to me.’
The DS muttered his agreement. Angel Silver was dead and could not in any case have been tried for Terry James’s murder, having already been cleared of his manslaughter. And there was no evidence to point to that either, nor to prove that she had murdered her husband in the way Kelly had described.
Kelly had destroyed the videotape. All Karen could do was put the case on file. Along with a pending assault case against Kelly, which would almost certainly never be proceeded with, either.
Karen was, however, not quite as unhappy as she maybe felt she should be. There was that one advantage of this lack of action against Kelly – that Angel’s confession to the reporter so shortly before her own death might well not ever come to light now. Karen supposed Kelly could still write the story, but she had a feeling it was the last thing he would want to do. Even if he did, she wondered if anyone would print it. John Kelly had been pretty well discredited, after all, particularly as far as the Silver case was concerned.
And if what Karen sincerely believed now to be the truth – that Angel Silver murdered her husband and then Terry James – was never publicly revealed, then both Karen and her chief constable would probably keep their heads after all. As she had inferred to Harry Tomlinson as directly as she had dared.
Of course, Karen would always have bet on Tomlinson keeping his head. Her own had been another matter. She’d felt sure from the moment things started to go pear-shaped that she was the most likely scapegoat.
‘But do you really think James did it, boss?’ asked DS Cooper. He still thought like a proper policeman, Karen reflected wryly. He’d never get on in the modern force.
However, all she said was, ‘I think I do, Phil.’ And she just hoped she was telling the truth. ‘Either that or there’s been some seriously elaborate frame-up. It’s James’s style, isn’t it, anyway? To be honest, I’m kicking myself. We should have searched his gaff before charging Kelly, confession or no confession. That was a mistake.’
Phil was less self-admonitory. ‘I guess so. But what with the taxi driver and everything why should we have doubted Kelly? You can’t just dismiss a confession. It all added up. Why on earth should we have doubted anything?’
The DCI grunted, unconvinced, dissatisfied with herself. ‘Check every angle. That’s always been my rule of policing. We fell down on it. Crazy thing is, I was somehow never quite convinced about John Kelly, even without the new angle, and I’m not at all sure I didn’t compensate for my own feelings of friendship towards him when I had him charged so quickly. Tomlinson was down on us, but I’ve fended him off before; I should have done so this time.’
DS Cooper shook his head. ‘You’re beating yourself up, boss. Look, we even had DNA evidence which we were damned sure from the st
art was going to match up. In fact, if you want to know, I reckon there still has to be doubt about Ken James. How the fuck did Kenny get in and out of Maythorpe, for a start?’
Karen shrugged. ‘They’re a bunch of Houdinis, that James lot. In any case, Terry James and God knows who else seem to have had the security code. Maybe Terry passed it on to his brother. Or maybe Ken got it from someone else.’
‘But didn’t Angel change it? She must have been advised to, surely.’
‘Who knows what that woman did. If Kelly’s theory is right, and I bet it is, she knew she wasn’t in any danger, didn’t she? And she was, in any case, a law unto herself, that one. Anyway, there’s bugger all we can do about any of it now.’
‘So it’s over, boss?’
‘I guess so, Phil,’ responded Karen Meadows. ‘Fucking frustrating, though, isn’t it?’
Later that day Karen called Rachel Hobbs. She had, after all, promised to keep Angel’s mother informed.
Rachel listened carefully as Karen gave her a précised account of events, deliberately leaving out her own feelings on the matter and, of course, everything that Kelly had told her about Angel’s confession to him.
‘So it really looks as if Ken James killed Angel simply in revenge for his brother’s death?’ Mrs Hobbs enquired.
‘That’s right.’
‘And how long is he likely to be in a coma for?’
‘Hard to say. It’s quite possible he may never come out of it, I understand.’
Karen considered again the implications of her last few words. She really was becoming more and more convinced that it would be all for the best if Ken James didn’t come round. She didn’t like herself for that, but it wasn’t only the chief constable who understood about damage limitation.
Karen’s imminent promotion to detective superintendent was still on course, she had been told, and that was a real result under the circumstances.
There was all too much in this case that nobody involved wanted to become public knowledge. Including her, she now had to admit. And she hadn’t just been spinning the chief constable a yarn when she had set him thinking that way.
A Moment Of Madness Page 36
