Authors: Hilary Bonner
‘On and off. More off than on, I suppose. It’s not easy to find work in Glasgow. But then last year I joined the post office. Postman. I like it. Doesn’t pay great, but I like it.’
‘So you’re not out of work now.’
‘No. I am na.’
Kelly thought about it. Had Parker-Brown been deliberately lying to Karen, he wondered? Or had he merely been misinformed.
‘Look, what’s this all about?’ Connelly asked sharply.
‘There may be things you should know about, Neil,’ Kelly persisted. ‘For a start, there was another alleged accidental death at Hangridge, only a few months ago.’
‘Was there?’ Kelly could detect a definite note of curiosity in Connelly’s voice now.
‘You didn’t know, then?’ Kelly was well aware that he was stating the obvious. He hadn’t for one moment thought that the other man would know about the death of Craig Foster. He just wanted to stress the point.
‘No.’ There was a pause. Kelly waited. He wanted Connelly to be interested enough to come back at him, and was soon to be rewarded for his patience.
‘What happened?’
‘A young soldier was shot on a training exercise on the moors.’
Connelly shrugged. ‘It happens,’ he said. ‘It’s the army.’
‘Yes, but it is another sudden death. And your son indicated that there were more.’
‘My son was drunk. God bless him.’
Kelly had one last card to play.
‘Mr Connelly, would you describe your son as a fantasist?’
‘A what?’
‘Did he live in a fantasy world, make up stories?’
‘You have to be joking. You couldn’t be more down to earth than our Alan. He was always a sensible lad.’
‘So it would surprise you to know that his commanding officer told the police that Alan was a bit of a Walter Mitty?’
‘Surprise me? It would bloody astonish me.’
‘It’s the truth, Mr Connelly.’
Neil Connelly narrowed his eyes, appearing to think hard.
‘So you say,’ he responded eventually. ‘But how do I know that?’
‘I promise you I’m telling the truth, Mr Connelly …’
‘You’re not from the army, are you? You’re nothing to do with the army …’ Connelly rose abruptly to his feet. His wife seemed to hold her daughter even more tightly to her, but did not look up. Kelly thought she must still be totally in shock. Neil Connelly looked angry now. ‘You’re a bloody journalist, aren’t you? A vulture …’
Again Kelly avoided giving any information about himself. Instead he concentrated on trying to make Neil Connelly listen, on trying to convince the bereaved father that he had something to say that was worth listening to.
‘Look, Neil. Colonel Parker-Brown even went so far as to say that Alan’s days in the army were numbered because of his fantasising. He described him as a Walter Mitty.’
Neil Connelly sat down again on the sofa, as abruptly as he had risen from it. Kelly knew that he had at least succeeded in attracting the other man’s attention again. He stared at Kelly long and hard before eventually making a reply.
‘If my boy had been in any sort of trouble, he’d have told me,’ he announced.
‘Mr Connelly, I promise you, I’m telling you the truth,’ Kelly repeated. ‘I just think there are things that need looking into here. At the very least there’s justification for doing a bit of digging, trying to find out if anything amiss did go on at Hangridge. Your son would have wanted that, I’m sure of it. Why else would he have talked to me the way he did? I need your help, Mr Connelly, if I’m going to take this any further. And I really think it should be taken further, don’t you?’
Connelly stared at Kelly for a few moments longer, then he rose from his chair again and this time walked across the room to the mantelpiece, where he stood looking down at the pair of framed photographs taking pride of place. Two young men, proud and straight in the uniform of the Devonshire Fusiliers, looked back at him. One his own image from twenty years earlier, one that of an obviously cherished son.
After a few seconds he swung on his heel to face Kelly. His shoulders were back now, his jaw set and his gaze level and unblinking.
‘This is an army family,’ he announced. ‘My grandfather went right through the Second World War with the Devonshires and was killed in the last push across Europe. My father served at Suez with the Devonshires. I did my fifteen years – Northern Ireland, the Falklands and, finally, the Gulf War. My boy was the fourth generation of Devonshire Fusiliers in this family. He was born to be a soldier, and he would have been a mighty fine one, whatever you or anyone else has to say.
‘His death was a tragic accident. That’s all. I’ll not make trouble for the Devonshires. I’ll not do it.
‘I think you’d better leave, Mr Kelly.’
Kelly didn’t wait to be told twice. He left at once. He had always known when to quit. Or, more exactly, when to back off. He didn’t think somehow that his business with the Connellys was finished. His meeting with the father had in some ways not been as fruitful as he might have hoped, but, at the very least, he had learned that Colonel Parker-Brown may well have been deliberately misleading Karen.
He set off through the Belle View estate on foot until he spotted a pub which he thought it might just be possible for him to visit without having a broken glass thrust into his face, and then called the station taxi firm to come and pick him up.
Over a pint of his usual Diet Coke, he reflected on what he should do next. As he saw it, he had two choices. He could back off now. Dismiss Hangridge and young Alan Connelly from his mind and return to Torquay and to that novel. Or he could try to find Craig Foster’s family and have one last crack at finding out if soldiers from the moorland barracks really were dying in mysterious circumstances.
Kelly had no doubt about what he should do. He told himself that he had no time to waste chasing fire engines any more. Not at his age and in his financial circumstances. He told himself that he could not afford a displacement activity on the scale that this one had already developed into.
In the taxi on the way back into the city centre, he reflected further. He ought to hightail it home and throw himself one hundred per cent into what passed for his work. Indeed, if he didn’t do so, he dreaded to think what the future was likely to hold for him. He had taken a big gamble when he had decided to throw in his job at the
Argus
and take his chance as a novelist. And so far it was a gamble that didn’t seem to be paying off.
He checked his watch. It was almost 10.30 p.m. He could not, however, go home that night – unless he took the sleeper, which he couldn’t afford. Kelly reckoned he had been quite extravagant enough for one day. When he had finished the great novel and flogged it to a leading publisher for a cool half-million or so, everything would be different. Well, a man could dream. Only Kelly’s dream was becoming less and less likely to become reality with every day that passed.
He booked into a cheap, downmarket but fairly clean-looking bed and breakfast establishment, about all he deserved, he thought, as he sat on the small divan bed with its once-white plastic headboard, and reflected on just how much he would like to visit the pub next door and have a real drink. No. Not
a
drink. Kelly would actually rather have liked to get blind drunk. The only problem was that he knew for certain, from thoroughly unpleasant past experience, that if he went out and got drunk that night, indeed if he went out and had just one alcoholic drink that night, then the next day he would do it again. And the next day. And the day after.
He settled for fish and chips from the still-open chippy he had noticed across the street, and, back in
his room, tucked into the greasy contents of his paper-wrapped parcel which, as ever, smelled far more appetising than it tasted. He whiled away the rest of the evening watching repeats of old favourites like
Columbo
on Plus and
Absolutely Fabulous
on UK Gold. He congratulated himself on at least having managed to find a b & b with digital satellite TV. One way and another, Kelly, what with his near-addiction to computer games as well as spending more and more time, both day and night, watching TV, was in danger of growing square eyes, he reckoned.
It was gone midnight before he finally switched off the television. And he only did so then, because
The Vicar of Dibley
came on Gold after
Ab Fab
, and it reminded him of Moira and that he had yet again failed to contact her. It was too late now, and he had not even told her he was going away. In addition, if either she or the girls had tried to call him on his mobile, they would have found that it been switched off all day. It remained switched off. Kelly did not like, any more, having his life interrupted by something in his pocket ringing – even if he did find it difficult to recall what his life was exactly, at that point in time. And he knew he was playing an unpleasant sort of Russian roulette by not ensuring that Moira or the girls could always contact him, but there was no point, in even checking his messages now, he told himself, as he could do nothing constructive about anything until the morning.
He stripped off his clothes, crawled into the narrow bed and lay there awake for at least another couple of hours contemplating the mess he yet again seemed to be making of his life, and wondering what on earth had possessed him to travel the length of England on
an off-chance, before finally, weighed down with his own inadequacies and troubled as ever by nagging guilt, he fell into a fitful sleep.
In the morning he woke feeling fresh enough, in spite of everything, which was one advantage, possibly the only advantage Kelly reckoned on a bad day, of not drinking.
He caught the first direct train to Newton Abbot, and once aboard, correctly seated in a second-class compartment this time, he tried not to think about Hangridge and the untimely death of Fusilier Connelly. It was, however, an extremely long journey back to Newton Abbot, even if this time the trip were to pass without any massive delay-causing incidents at all.
Kelly tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Once upon a time he would have wandered along to the buffet bar and downed a few large Scotches. That would have solved the problem. As it was, the prospect of yet another pint of Diet Coke left him cold.
He had bought several newspapers at the station and he made himself read them from cover to cover, even though he found them unusually uninteresting that day. He held out until just past Birmingham.
Then he switched on his mobile to make a call. Just the one call, he promised himself. He did not have any kind of address for Craig Foster, and he did not think he ought to push his luck with George Salt. So he decided that he would make one quick call to the
Evening Argus
, and ask Sally, the editor’s secretary, with whom he had always had a good jokey relationship, to check out Craig Foster in the paper’s cuttings library. He had no idea where Craig Foster came
from – although he did hope that his home would turn out to be somewhere in the west rather than at the other end of the country – or how long he had been stationed at Hangridge. But Karen had said there had been stories written about the young man’s death, and, at the very least, the
Argus
should have an inquest report on record.
Just as he started to dial the number, his mobile called him with a message from the previous day. It was Moira’s daughter Jennifer, yet again wanting to know where he was. He promised himself he would phone to apologise as soon as he had made that call to the
Argus
.
Sally seemed genuinely pleased to hear from him.
‘So, how are you, you old bugger,’ she asked affectionately. Sally was a genuine Devon maid, born and bred in the South Hams, and, like all true Devonians, was inclined to use the word ‘bugger’ as a term of endearment.
Kelly had also been born and brought up in Devon, in Torquay, and he knew the form well enough, though he had often been amused by the reactions of foreigners.
‘I’m fine, me lover,’ he responded warmly. ‘All the better for hearing your voice.’
‘Yeah, yeah, me dear,’ replied Sally sweetly. ‘So, what do you want?’
‘How do you know I want anything, me ’andsome?’
‘Oh, I’ve always been able to read your mind, you bugger,’ remarked Sally pleasantly. ‘In any case, leopards don’t change their spots. And, by the way, Kelly, I’ve got the afternoon off, so if you don’t spit it out smartish you won’t be getting it, whatever it is.’
Kelly grinned. He told her then about Craig Foster.
‘As well as looking for him by name, you could try any cuts on the Devonshire Fusiliers, and Hangridge, too. It’s some sort of address I’m after, most of all, or at least a town or a district. I do know there were stories, and there’s bound to have been an inquest report, but goodness knows whether it would all have been filed or not, the way the library’s been run down …’
They exchanged a few mutually comforting grumbles about how comprehensive the
Argus’
cuttings library had once been, and how, like most newspaper libraries, the culling of staff combined with switching to a computer database, without first loading it with back information, had caused standards to drop alarmingly. In spite of all that, Sally agreed to do the check as soon as she could and promised to call Kelly back when she had done so.
He settled into his seat. The sun was shining directly into his side of the train, which this time was mercifully only half full, and he suddenly felt extremely warm and comfortable. He would call Moira later, he decided, when he was a little nearer home. Within minutes the warmth and the gentle rocking movement of the train, combined perhaps with the satisfaction of having put something in motion, had lulled him off to sleep. And he woke with a start when his mobile rang half an hour or so later.
‘I’ve found a few bits, Kelly,’ came Sally’s voice over the air waves. ‘A page lead, back of the book, when Craig Foster died, the inquest report like you said, and a death notice. You’re lucky. Deaths,
marriages, and births, they still cut all of those. And he was a local lad, it seems—’