Authors: Hilary Bonner
‘Are you, indeed?’
Mrs Slade’s control, rather admirable considering what she had drunk, Kelly thought, seemed to have slipped. She slurred the words, her period of concentration and lucidity over, it seemed. Then she drained the dregs of her whisky in one.
‘I don’t know how you’ve got the strength,’ she said, closing her eyes and slumping back in her seat.
Kelly reckoned he didn’t have a chance of getting any more out of her that day, even if she knew anything more, which he doubted.
‘Look, perhaps I could take your phone number?’ he ventured.
Margaret Slade’s eyes remained closed. For a moment or two Kelly did not think he was going to get a reply.
‘I’m in the book,’ she muttered eventually, still without opening her eyes.
Kelly rose to his feet, delved into his jacket pocket for a business card, which he propped against the whisky bottle, and headed for the door.
*
Karen had been left reeling by Kelly’s news. It had shaken her rigid. And she just had to do something about it.
Almost immediately after ending her call to Kelly, she dialled the number of Hangridge. Gerry would be sure to have arrived back there by now. But just as an anonymous male voice answered, she replaced the receiver. No. The telephone wasn’t good enough.
Impulsively, she switched off her computer, grabbed her coat and left the office, without explaining to anyone where she was going.
Her mind was racing as she embarked on the drive across the moors. And Gerry Parker-Brown and how fond she had been becoming of him figured all too much in her thoughts. She was both angry and upset. But she knew that she must do her best to dismiss any personal feelings, and smartish. So far, it seemed Kelly had run rings round both her and the colonel, which, she had to admit, was pretty typical when he got his investigating boots on, and she didn’t like it. She felt she had been made to look like a fool. More specifically, she felt that Gerry Parker-Brown had been making a fool of her all along. It was not the first time in her life that she had been taken in by a personable and attractive man, and she hated that weakness in herself.
Karen got the impression that unannounced visitors at Hangridge were a rarity. This time, she barely glanced at the young man on sentry duty. She just about registered that this was not the same good-looking young soldier she had admired on her previous visit. But she wasn’t interested either way. She was in a hurry to get on with it. She sat in her car,
impatiently tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, while he retreated into his sentry box and made what seemed to be a series of phone calls.
He kept her waiting for an irritating four or five minutes before he eventually returned to the car and leaned down to speak to her through the open window.
‘They say to go on through,’ he told her, looking vaguely surprised. ‘You’re to head for the central admin building,’ he went on, pointing in the appropriate direction.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the soldier, continuing as if she had not spoken at all. ‘Visitors’ car parking is to the right …’
‘I know,’ she said again, and jerked the car forward away from the jobsworth sentry who was beginning to annoy her. She wasn’t in the mood for military red tape this afternoon.
She parked quickly and headed for the main entrance to the admin building. Another sentry gestured her straight in, and as she opened the door she saw a smiling Gerry Parker-Brown step out of his office and move forward to greet her.
‘What a lovely surprise, my favourite policewoman twice in one day,’ he began. ‘Why don’t we pop across to the mess—’
She interrupted abruptly.
‘Cut it out, Gerry,’ she fired at him. ‘You’ve not been straight with me, have you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied.
‘I think you do. And if jolly little outings together are supposed to soften me up, I can assure you they do not.’
‘What are you talking about, Karen?’ he asked calmly, his expression slightly quizzical.
‘I’m talking about whatever game it is you think you are playing. It stops. Now. This minute. All I want from you is the truth about what’s going on here, at Hangridge.’
‘So do I, Karen,’ he replied lightly. ‘Every day I tell myself, this will be the day when I get to grips with what each one of the little bastards is up to, but …’
‘No, Gerry. I’ve told you. The game is over. No more feeble jokes. Please. I now know about the death of Jocelyn Slade. You lied to me, Gerry, and I would like to know exactly why?’
She was aware that the sergeant sitting at a desk, just inside the reception area, had stopped typing into his computer and was staring at her.
Gerry put his hand on her arm with a firmer than normal pressure, she thought, and ushered her towards his office.
‘You’d better come in, then, hadn’t you?’ he said.
Once inside, he closed the door firmly and bade her sit down. She did so, choosing the only upright chair in the room except the one behind his desk. She did not intend to give him the psychological advantage of looking down at her, and she somehow suspected that had she chosen one of his two comfortably low armchairs, he would not have sat next to her as he had done the first time she visited Hangridge. Certainly, he headed straight for his swivel desk-chair and sat very upright. And, there was no banter at all in his voice, when he finally responded.
‘I didn’t lie to you, Karen,’ he replied very quietly. ‘As I recall, you asked me if any other of our soldiers had died in accidents at the camp. I told you about
Craig Foster. And I believe I was perfectly frank about his death, and the manner of it, was I not? Jocelyn Slade’s death was not an accident. Do you really regard suicide as an accident? I most certainly do not. Slade chose to take her own life. That was a private tragedy, which I did not see the need to share with you. I can only apologise if you felt that I misled you, because I can assure you that was not my intention.’
Smooth as ever, thought Karen. She could feel the anger rising in her and battled to keep control.
‘Come off it, Gerry,’ she snapped. ‘You knew perfectly well that I was interested in any sudden death at Hangridge. I may have interviewed you informally but I did come to you in an official capacity, and you chose to keep information from me which would be vital to a police investigation. Apart from anything else, Colonel, that is an offence.’
Karen knew that she was pretty good at tough talking when the occasion called for it. After all, she’d had enough practice at deflating the bubble of arrogance all too often present in members of certain strata of society, who were inclined to give the impression that they thought they were above the law. And this time, her genuine anger and sense of personal outrage probably gave her an extra edge.
However, Gerry Parker-Brown did not seem much abashed.
‘Oh, come on, Karen, we’re a long way from a formal police investigation, surely,’ he said, his voice calm and reassuring.
‘As a matter of fact, Gerry, I think we’re very close to a formal investigation, starting pretty much right now, unless you can find a way of reassuring me that
there is no need, and I doubt that very much. You will recall that Alan Connelly’s death occurred on a public road and I am perfectly within my rights to instigate an inquiry into that, which would then be sure to involve any other deaths of young people at Hangridge.’
‘I thought you and I had a better relationship than that, Karen,’ responded Parker-Brown. ‘And just because we’ve had a minor misunderstanding, it doesn’t mean we can’t sort things out between us …’
Karen had the nasty feeling that their whole ‘relationship’, such as it was, may well have been based on nothing more than Gerry Parker-Brown soft-soaping her so that she would not delve any further into the affairs of the Devonshire Fusiliers. But she didn’t want to go into that.
‘I don’t regard this as a minor misunderstanding, Gerry,’ she said. ‘And neither do I consider that you and I have any relationship at all worth mentioning, and certainly not one which is going to stand in the way of me launching a full-scale police investigation into these deaths, if I feel that is necessary, which I am increasingly beginning to do.
‘So, do you have anything at all to say to me that might make me change my mind?’
‘Well, I certainly know where I stand now, don’t I, Detective Superintendent …’ There was still a twinkle in his eye. Gerry Parker-Brown patently believed he could charm the world, and most certainly that he could charm a woman police officer from a seaside police force.
Karen really wasn’t having it.
‘Look, if you’re absolutely determined not to take me seriously, then I shall have to ask you to
accompany me to Torquay police station where we can conduct this interview formally,’ she snapped.
‘You don’t really mean that …’
‘I mean it, absolutely. To start with, and this is really your last chance to do things the easy way, Gerry, I want to know exactly why you didn’t tell me about Jocelyn Slade.’
Parker-Brown held out both hands, palms upwards, in what appeared to be a gesture of supplication.
‘Jocelyn Slade shot herself while on sentry duty,’ he began. ‘It was a dreadful shock for all concerned. As far as I and my staff knew, she had no problems within the army at all. She was a good, young soldier with a promising career ahead of her. But I do understand that her personal life was not so good. There were certain family difficulties – a sick mother, I believe – although I don’t know the details …’
‘Gerry, Jocelyn Slade’s family life is another matter entirely, and although, of course, it is most likely now that we will need sooner or later to involve her family in our inquiries, at this stage all I am interested in, and all I want to know from you, concerns the military,’ said Karen firmly. ‘And you have not answered my question, have you? You are obviously well aware of what happened to Jocelyn Slade. I do not accept that you did not think I would want to know about her death. So why didn’t you tell me, Gerry?’
‘I honestly didn’t think it was relevant—’
‘Please,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘Credit me with at least a modicum of intelligence.’
‘Very well.’ He leaned back in his chair, opened the top drawer of his desk and produced a large cigar.
‘You don’t mind?’ he asked.
She shook her head impatiently and watched while he lit up, puffing perfectly formed balls of smoke into the air. When he started to speak again, his voice was conciliatory and his manner patient, bordering on condescending, she thought.
‘Karen, you must remember that the army is a family,’ he began. ‘And, like most families, we do not like to display our dirty washing in public. Indeed, we owe that to all the splendid young men and women here, at Hangridge, who will no doubt go on to have wonderful careers serving their country. I genuinely did not think that you were asking me about suicides, and I genuinely do not believe that anything has happened at Hangridge, certainly not in my time here, which could possibly warrant a police investigation. In the army, we do like to put our own house in order, you know.’
He paused, puffing quite ferociously on the cigar, which did not seem to want to burn properly. Karen realised that she had never seen him smoke before and couldn’t help wondering if that was in any way significant. He did seem different, or rather, perhaps, he had become different since she had gone into the attack. Before that, he had been his usual, affable, nonchalant self.
‘I think you will find that your superiors already understand that,’ he murmured casually, in between puffs.
She was startled. What was Parker-Brown inferring? That had not been a throwaway remark, she was quite sure. Indeed, she didn’t think Gerry Parker-Brown went in for throwaway remarks. Could he possibly be suggesting some kind of cosy deal with the civilian law-enforcing agencies, a deal that would
probably have been agreed in an oak-panelled gentlemen’s club in Mayfair? Karen had encountered that sort of thing before, everybody halfway senior in the police force had at some time or other, and she had always hated it. All boys together, and, whatever happens, let’s keep the hoi polloi at bay.
Karen felt her anger growing. She did not like being manipulated, and she rather felt that that last remark had been yet another attempt by Gerry Parker-Brown to manage her – something she increasingly felt he had been doing his best to do from the moment they first met. And that was a depressing thought. However, if that was what he was trying to do, then he was going the wrong way about it. Karen thoroughly disapproved of the old boys’ network which she knew, damn well, from personal experience, operated not only within the police force and the military, but also in almost all corridors of power ranging from national government to the church.
She studied Gerry Parker-Brown carefully as he leaned back in his chair, drawing deeply on his fat cigar, which had begun to glow rather more healthily since his frantic puffing session. He still did not look at all like a traditional army officer, and she had, to her absolute fury now, thoroughly enjoyed his company. Indeed, she had been on the verge of allowing things to develop into much more than that. As well as being extremely attractive, the man was relaxed, funny and easy-going. Or that was how he appeared. But she was beginning to think it might all be an act, underneath which he was army brass through and through, and that he would do anything, absolutely anything at all, to prevent his particular military boat from being rocked.
He returned her stare without blinking. An old actor’s trick. More and more she was beginning to think that he was probably rather a good actor. He might even be a bloody Freemason, she thought. Like so many of them. He didn’t look the part, of course, not one little bit, but she was beginning to believe that was what Gerry Parker-Brown was all about. The acceptable face of the modern army on top, but, beneath the façade a dedicated career officer whose true attitudes had barely changed since the time of Wellington.
‘And what makes you think that my superiors already understand what you are up to?’ she inquired, struggling to keep her face expressionless.