Authors: Hilary Bonner
There was a note in her voice that Kelly couldn’t quite make out. He was unable to resist butting in with what was, no doubt, a totally inappropriate quip.
‘Really. Drag queen or something, is she?’
‘Hilarious, Kelly. No, Gerrard Parker-Brown is the acceptable, accessible, personable face of the modern army. Helpful, friendly and highly co-operative. At least, that’s what he appears to be. So why do I think the result of our meeting will be much the same as it would have been had I spent yesterday morning with Colonel Blimp?’
‘Ah.’
‘Look, to tell the truth, Kelly, I am not at all sure there is much else I can do without something hard to go on. The colonel has promised to try to find those two soldiers you encountered. I gave him the E-fits. But, I wouldn’t hold your breath, if I were you.’
‘So, you think he’s hiding something?’
‘Kelly, why do you always take everything in life a step too far? I have absolutely no reason to believe he’s hiding anything. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, he was very open and honest with me. He said he did not recognise the two men from the E-fits, that certainly nobody was sent officially from Hangridge to search for Connelly, and that if they were soldiers they were probably mates of Con—’
‘Oh, no, they bloody well weren’t. I’d stake my life on that.’ Kelly interrupted. He wasn’t going to let that go by.
‘Kelly, I had no reason to argue with the man about anything. And no reason to probe any further into army affairs. I just wanted to call you and tell you that I had tried. Oh, and I also had the SOCOs out at the accident scene again today. Made them go over the ground there with an effing toothcomb. So far, zilch, and I don’t have very high expectations.’
‘There must be something,’ interjected Kelly. ‘There has to be.’
‘No, Kelly, there does not have to be. It is of course possible that there is something in this which we have yet to discover, and it is also possible that you are totally mistaken and that the death of Alan Connelly was merely the tragic accident it appeared to be from the start.’
Just occasionally, Kelly got extremely fed up with the way Karen Meadows was inclined to talk down to him. He knew he’d probably given her good reason to do so over the years, because of his tendency, on occasion, to behave with a recklessness bordering on gross stupidity. None the less, it grated sometimes, and this was one of those times.
‘This isn’t about me, Karen,’ he responded curtly. ‘It’s about a young man who was frightened half out of his wits. You didn’t meet him. I did. Had you done so, I suspect you might have taken this whole matter more seriously.’
‘Don’t get stroppy with me, Kelly,’ she said. ‘I have taken it seriously. And I am still taking it seriously. More so than I should be doing, I suspect, with the caseload of crimes I have on my books right now. That is why I have phoned you.’
Kelly relented slightly.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I appreciate what you’ve done, really I do. Did you get anything at all out of this Colonel Parker-Brown? Alan Connelly said there had been other deaths at the camp. What about that? Did you ask about other deaths? What did he say?’
‘Whoa, Kelly. One question at a time. I was coming to that. Of course I asked.’
She told him then, very briefly, about the recruit who had been killed on a training exercise.
‘Shot?’ Kelly responded eagerly. ‘Did you say shot? So that makes two violent deaths in six months. Jesus, surely that’s enough to warrant taking this further, isn’t it?’
‘No, Kelly, I don’t think it is. And I bloody well know the chief constable wouldn’t think so. There was an inquest of course. Even the military has always been bound by that procedure – in peacetime, anyway. I did a quick check with the coroner’s office and the verdict was, quite properly, accidental death. As I am sure it will be ultimately with Alan Connelly. Yes, there have been two deaths, but both, although tragic, were hardly earth-shattering. A soldier dies in a training incident. Well, when you play with loaded guns, every so often some poor bastard gets shot.’
‘Look, Karen, Connelly said: “Like they killed the others.” It could all fit …’
‘Not really, Kelly. There’s more. Not only was he drunk out of his skull the night he died, but apparently Connelly was considered to be a real Walter Mitty. The colonel says he was always making up unlikely stories …’
‘“The colonel says,”’ repeated Kelly in a mocking voice. ‘Of course he would, Karen. Surely you are not going to be taken in by some sort of military whitewash? You of all people, Karen.’
‘Kelly, don’t be so bloody insulting or I’m going to finish this call.’
‘Sorry, sorry. It’s just that, as you know, I really think there is a strong possibility that that poor little sod was pushed under the lorry which killed him, and
I reckon you must agree with me or you wouldn’t even have got this involved.’
‘Kelly, I did consider that after what you told me, of course I did. But I also considered suicide …’
‘Oh no, oh no. For a start, why would a young chap like Connelly kill himself in that way, even if he did want to take his own life? He was a boy soldier, for goodness sake. He had access to guns …’
‘Maybe he didn’t like guns that much, in spite of his job. I don’t know. I do know we can’t rule out suicide. The lorry driver’s description of the way the accident happened would be totally consistent with someone deliberately throwing themselves into the path of an oncoming vehicle—’
‘Or being pushed,’ Kelly interrupted.
‘Kelly, please, will you listen. Apparently, Connelly was on the brink of being chucked out of the army because of his story-telling, and, rather more seriously, he’d been fantasising about a woman soldier and had been more or less stalking her. He’d been warned about his behaviour and the possible consequences several times. He knew he was on the way out, and yet other than this Walter Mitty side to him he was a good soldier, it seems. He would not have wanted to be made to leave the army. And apparently his family life was pretty terrible. According to the colonel, his father is a drunken bully, who hasn’t worked in years, and a manic depressive. So if you put all that together, suicide has to be a possibility, if we are being sensible about this, which I am desperately trying to be.’
Kelly took on board the note of criticism in her voice and decided he’d better accept it. It was probably justified. Kelly was not noted for being
sensible. Karen didn’t need to spell that one out. He waited for her to continue.
‘There’s something else, Kelly. A witness has come forward, just this morning, after noticing a report of the accident in an old copy of the
Argus
. A passing motorist who saw a young man, almost certainly Connelly, walking along the side of the road a couple of hundred yards or so away from The Wild Dog, just minutes before the accident. He was weaving erratically. The witness said he nearly hit him. And, apparently, Connelly seemed to be quite alone.’
‘All right,’ said Kelly. ‘But if he really was alone, where did those two men go to so suddenly, right after having found someone they had been searching for? And why? Why did they leave him alone? If indeed they did. If I’m right and they were soldiers, they probably know all about keeping themselves out of sight when they want to. Are you sure Parker-Brown doesn’t know a hell of a lot more than he’s telling you, Karen?’
‘Look, I’ve no doubt he’s as reluctant as any other army officer to let the police force meddle in army affairs, in spite of trying to give the opposite impression,’ responded Karen. ‘But I have absolutely no reason to believe that he is hiding anything that is in any way pertinent to this case.’
‘Come on, Karen. How many soldiers are there up at Hangridge? I bet your colonel knows them all. So why can’t he lead you to those two who came to the pub, eh? I bet he knows bloody well who they are.’
‘Kelly, you’re running away with yourself. How many times do we have to go over this ground. We don’t even know that these men were soldiers, for God’s sake. And for your information the total
complement at Hangridge, including the training unit, is well over a thousand men and women. I very much doubt that Parker-Brown could recognise and name all of them.’
‘I bet he’s got a fair idea, from the way you describe him.’
‘Oh, Kelly. In any case, you only saw the two men briefly in the pub. Sometimes E-fit images are terrific and sometimes they’re a bad joke. How the hell do I know how good yours were, when I doubt you do yourself. The two guys you created looked pretty damned peculiar, I know that, especially in those silly hats. Look, closing ranks against the meddling of the civilian police force is one thing, Kelly, but I really don’t think the commanding officer of the Devonshire Fusiliers would tell me a deliberate lie. Come on. Do you, Kelly?’
‘Only if he thought he could get away with it,’ muttered Kelly.
‘What?’ Kelly knew that Karen had heard him perfectly well. You could tell that from the way she had snapped her reply.
‘I don’t know, Karen,’ Kelly replied in a more conversational tone of voice. ‘I expect he would, if he were privy to murders. Most people in that situation don’t find lying too difficult.’
‘Now you’re talking nonsense.’ Karen snapped the words again. For a moment Kelly thought she was going to hang up on him. And he wasn’t going to let her do that until he had extracted all the information he possibly could from her.
‘Look, just tell me one thing,’ he asked quickly. ‘Do you have the name of the recruit who was killed on the range.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well?’
‘C’mon, Kelly. I know you. You’re always bloody trouble. I’ve made further inquiries and, to be honest, I’m pretty well satisfied now that Alan Connelly’s death was a tragic accident and no more.’
‘No you’re not, Karen, or you wouldn’t even have phoned me today.’
Kelly was quite certain he was right. He knew Karen Meadows every bit as well as she knew him.
‘Apart from anything else, Kelly, I’m not sure that you of all people should be getting any further involved. You’ll start poking around and causing mayhem as usual. It’s not even your territory any more, is it? You’re supposed to be a novelist now.’
‘Yeah, and Hangridge is just a displacement activity, that’s all. And maybe a way of earning a bit of linage which I could certainly do with. Look, if everything is as above board as you say it is, what harm can there be in giving me that name?’
He could hear Karen sigh.
‘I know I’m going to regret this …’ she muttered.
Kelly waited. He still wasn’t sure whether or not Karen was going to give him the information he had asked for, but he knew well enough when to stop pushing her.
‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s Foster. Fusilier Craig Foster. Actually, I’m a bit surprised you don’t remember anything about his death. Though I must admit, I didn’t. But apparently it did get some press coverage, and you were actually working for the
Argus
at the time.’
‘Six months ago? I think I probably had other things on my mind.’
Six months previously, Kelly had still been deeply involved with another case. And as always with him, his involvement had bordered on obsession and he had taken little notice of anything much else happening in the world.
Karen didn’t respond. But he knew she would be well enough aware of what he was referring to.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ he asked.
‘No, Kelly. No doubt I’ve told you too much already. Situation normal.’
She hung up then without saying goodbye. Situation normal, indeed, thought Kelly.
He replaced the receiver slowly and forced himself to turn his attention back to his computer screen.
The phone rang again almost at once. It was Moira’s daughter Jennifer.
‘I just thought I’d call, John, to remind you that Mum’s expecting you over tonight.’
Kelly knew what she meant. Could hear the unspoken words inside his head. Please don’t forget, or pretend to forget, or whatever it is that you do to avoid seeing Mum. Please don’t let her down again.
The awful truth was that he didn’t want to visit Moira ever again. Not for as long as she was ill. And it was a tragic fact that she was not going to get better. Even if nobody was ever allowed to say the words. But he knew that this time he would visit, if only to make some amends for his many shortcomings.
‘I’ll be there,’ he promised. ‘You just give her all my love and tell her I’ll see if I can’t find a couple of hot new videos for her.’
He put the phone down again, held his head in his hands for a few minutes, and then, with a great effort of will, reverted his attention yet again to the
computer screen and made himself exit his games programme.
‘Right,’ he said, as he resolutely clicked on ‘My Documents’ and called up that empty document ‘Untitled Chapter Three’. For a good ten minutes he stared at the blank white screen, moving barely a muscle. Then, very suddenly he grabbed his mouse, quit Word and called up his games programme again.
Halfway through being beaten rotten in his third backgammon game, he accepted that he was unable even to concentrate on that, let alone on writing. His thoughts were somewhere else. On a moorland road, late on a wet foggy night. And within the confines of an isolated barracks where young soldiers learned their trade well away from prying eyes. A place where almost anything could happen, and yet, even in the high-tech communications era of the twenty-first century, in a country which retained an allegedly free and probing press, it remained quite likely that nobody outside its sentry-posted perimeters would ever know.
‘Damn,’ Kelly muttered to himself. ‘There’s something going on up there, something big. I can just feel it.’
Just an hour or so later, Karen Meadows received a totally unexpected phone call. Her head was buried in the inevitable piles of paper on her desk when it came, and Karen welcomed distractions from her paperwork every bit as much as Kelly did from his alleged writing.
This call, however, was more than that, and, in addition to being merely unexpected, was also, she had to admit to herself, surprisingly welcome.
‘Good afternoon, Karen, it’s Gerry Parker-Brown here.’