Authors: Hilary Bonner
Again there was a brief pause.
‘Come to my flat again, if you like,’ she said eventually.
He hesitated. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m bloody sure, Kelly. We are grownups, aren’t we?’
Kelly found that he was smiling as he ended the call. That had been typical Karen Meadows. She had
made him feel much better. Much more normal. And suddenly, John Kelly craved normality like nothing else in the world.
On his way home from Hangridge, Kelly made a detour and stopped off at The Wild Dog. It was interesting to revisit the place where all this had begun. Charlie, the landlord, was his usual taciturn self and if he was aware that a young man had been killed on the road not far from his pub, the last time Kelly had been there, he obviously did not wish to discuss it. And that suited Kelly fine. He wanted to think. He ordered his customary pint of Diet Coke and a pasty. Charlie’s pasties, he knew, were made at a rather good local bakery in Moretonhampstead, and Kelly reckoned they were almost as good cold as hot. Certainly he knew better than to allow Charlie to turn his pasty into a soggy mess by heating it up in the blessed microwave.
Kelly sat on the same bar stool as he had on the night when Alan Connelly had been killed. His head was still buzzing from his meeting with Parker-Brown. His brain was in turmoil. He felt more than a bit peculiar, and it was almost as if he could sense Alan Connelly’s presence, still see him, ghost-like, slumped on the bar stool next to him.
Such a lot had happened since that fateful evening when Alan Connelly really had been sitting there alongside him. The muscles in the back of Kelly’s neck were so tense, they felt as if they had been forged together. It was actually quite painful to move his
head. Kelly had to force himself to eat his pasty slowly and to order a second pint of Diet Coke. He suspected that the next few hours of his life were going to feel as if they went on for ever. He was even more eager to see Karen Meadows than he had been the last time they had arranged to meet in her flat. And what he had to tell her was weighing so heavily on his mind, that he had virtually forgotten altogether the potentially tricky development in their personal relationship, and the unexpected feelings which had been aroused in him.
When he eventually hit Torquay around mid-afternoon, he stopped briefly at a news-stand on the outskirts of the town, as he almost always did, to buy a copy of the
Evening Argus
.
He wasn’t that interested, actually, but it was habit. And habits were always good to cling to when you felt the world was going mad. He had to force himself to make a pot of tea, which he carried to his chair by the sitting-room window. He needed to relax. To gather his thoughts. He knew all too well that the hours were going to drag until his meeting with Karen at 9.30 p.m.
He switched on his radio, tuned in as usual to Classic FM, and started leafing idly through the newspaper, making himself study each page carefully in order to pass the time. Suddenly he stopped turning the pages. His attention had been caught by a piece which was little more than a filler towards the back of the paper, on a section on one of the pages that Kelly knew was reserved for late news.
Not only would the
Argus
have only been able to compile a sketchy report in the time available, but this particular incident was of a type that was no longer
considered to be big news. Unless you knew what Kelly knew, of course.
‘A local soldier on leave has been fatally stabbed as he walked along a street in East London.
‘Police believe that eighteen-year-old Robert Morgan, of the Devonshire Fusiliers, may have been attacked by a gang of youths in a bid to steal his mobile phone, which was missing from the scene. Fusilier Morgan, who was stationed at Hangridge Barracks, his regiment’s Dartmoor headquarters, was stabbed several times in the neck and chest with a long-bladed knife.
‘Detective Inspector Michael Drewe, of the Metropolitan Police, said yesterday: “This was a brutal and, as far as we know, totally unprovoked attack. However, there are indications that Robert fought back valiantly against his attackers and this may have been why he was ultimately stabbed to death so mercilessly.”
‘Robert’s body was discovered in the early hours of this morning in Penton Street, East London, a tough part of the city and not a district where people would be recommended to walk alone at night, particularly strangers.
‘It is not known why the soldier, whose family run a general store in Paignton’s North Road, was in the area.
‘Said DI Drewe: “We are appealing to any witnesses to come forward, and also to anyone, who knew Robert, who may be able to supply us with information concerning his movements on the day he died.”’
If Kelly hadn’t been so methodically going through the paper from cover to cover, he may well have missed the relatively insignificant story on page seventeen.
As it was, two facts jumped off the page and hit him straight between the eyes. The first, of course, was that Robert Morgan had been a Devonshire Fusilier stationed at Hangridge, and the second was that he had been murdered in East London.
Kelly found that he was trembling again as he ran upstairs to his office and reached for the copy of a London
A–Z
on the shelf above his desk, where he kept the books he used regularly in his work lined up in a row – a couple of dictionaries, a thesaurus, a selection of telephone directories, a
Who’s Who
and a Debrett’s
People of Today
, a gazetteer and a number of other maps and atlases.
He quickly found the appropriate page and studied it carefully. Yes, his hunch had been right. He felt his pulse quicken. Penton Street was just a couple of streets away from Jimmy Gates’ family home.
Willing himself to stay calm, Kelly picked up his cordless phone and dialled the Gates’ number. He was in luck. Colin Gates answered.
Kelly had no time for small talk, no time to soft-soap the young man, even though he knew that he should really proceed with more care and caution than he was able to muster.
‘Do you know about the murder near you last night?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Colin.
Kelly was mildly surprised. It was quite likely that he wouldn’t have seen an evening paper, but news of the stabbing would have been on the regional TV and
local radio news, and surely everyone in the neighbourhood would have been talking about it.
‘How could you not know?’ he asked.
‘All I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours is sit in front of my computer,’ replied Colin. ‘I’ve got this new game, it’s fucking great. I’m already up to level four.’
Sad bastard, thought Kelly, then remembered his own predilection for computer games when he should be working. It was just that his were inclined to be less sophisticated, that was all, because, apart from backgammon, he had so far avoided loading any further games on to his computer beyond the standard package supplied by Windows.
‘What’s it go to do with me, anyway?’ Colin asked.
‘I just wondered if you knew the victim, or if your brother may have known him. He was a Devonshire Fusilier, a squaddie stationed at Hangridge. His name was Robert Morgan.’
‘Rob?’ Colin sounded shocked. ‘Rob Morgan? I met him once. With Jimmy. They was best mates. Jesus. What was he doing up here?’
‘I wondered if he might have been coming to see you. Or your father?’
‘No. Well, I don’t know. He hadn’t phoned nor nothing.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he would be in your area. I mean, you don’t know of anything, do you? A girl, perhaps?’
‘No. I mean, I wouldn’t. I told you, I only met him once. But I don’t think he’d ever been up here before. He’d never been to ours, anyway. And our Jimmy used to go on about him being a real Devon yokel. He was only having a laugh, though. Jimmy was always
talking about Rob. They were really good mates. I met him in Devon. Dad and I took Jimmy back there once, after he’d been home on leave, and we met up with Rob in a boozer.’
‘Could he have wanted to tell you something, you or your dad? Something about Jimmy’s death, perhaps?’
‘Jesus,’ said Colin. ‘And I’m the one who’s supposed to have been watching too many crap movies.’
‘This is serious, Colin. More serious than you can possibly imagine, and more serious probably than even I imagined until today. I think perhaps you should contact your local police and tell them about your connection with Robert Morgan, and, come to that, tell them all that stuff your brother told you about Jocelyn Slade as well.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I don’t have nothing to do with the filth, nothing more than I have to. That’s the way things are around here. Anyway, I thought you were sorting all that out.’
‘There’s been another death, Colin. A young man, who may have had all kinds of knowledge concerning your brother and the death of Jocelyn Slade, has been murdered. That’s no joke.’
Kelly paused.
‘Look, Colin, it is possible that you are in danger, too.’
‘Oh, come off it.’ Colin Gates sounded totally incredulous. ‘How could I possibly be in danger. Are you some kind of nutter or something?’
‘No, Colin. I’m not. It’s just that I don’t like playing games with other people’s lives. I’ve done it before, although I never meant to. I don’t want to do it again. I think the time has probably come for all of
us to put our cards on the table, to try to get some official help in all this. To make sure there aren’t any more of these mysterious deaths. And, in your case, that means going to the police.’
‘But I haven’t got anything to tell them. I don’t know nothing about Robert Morgan, not nothing. He could have had all sorts of reasons for being round here. Drugs. That’ll be it. Drugs. I mean, if you’re stationed at some barracks in the middle of Dartmoor, how the hell do you get yourself some gear, eh?’
‘With consummate ease, if he was that way inclined, Colin. What do you think? That drug culture only exists in inner cities? Don’t you believe it. I’m calling from Torquay, an hour’s drive from Hangridge, and I promise you there’s not a drug that’s been invented that you can’t pick up in this town, if you know where to go. No. Drugs wouldn’t have brought Robert Morgan to your part of London, I’m sure of it. And what else would have led to him ending up stabbed to death in Penton Street? The only obvious link is your family, living, as you do, just a stone’s throw away.’
‘Well, I don’t bleeding care what he was doing in our manor, to be honest. And I’m not fucking going to the filth. No fucking way. Anyway, I thought you was going to handle it all. I didn’t think I’d have to do anything.’
‘Please, Colin. I’m worried about your safety.’
‘You really are a nutter, you. My bleeding safety, my arse. You got some imagination, you have. Apart from anything else, I don’t know nothing about nothing.’
‘Is your dad still away?’
‘Till Saturday.’
‘Look, I really, really think you should go to the police?’
‘For what? So they can have a good laugh at me too. You can take on the British army if you like, Mr John Kelly, I’m not fucking doing it. I don’t want to know whatever crazy conspiracy theory you’ve got into your head. I’m staying out of it. I shouldn’t have talked to you in the first place, should I? I ain’t got nothing else to say. I don’t want ever to talk to you again.’
The line went dead. Kelly sighed. Perhaps he should tip off the Met about Colin Gates. Karen had indicated to him that she thought as much pressure as possible, from as many different angles as possible, would be the way to open up the whole affair. On the other hand, Gates was probably right about one thing. It seemed highly likely that the Met really would do little more than have a good laugh.
Kelly pondered his next move. He wondered if he should talk to Margaret Slade and the other relatives of the various dead soldiers, and suggest that they all get together to help him cobble up a story straight away, thereby rocketing the whole shenanigans into the public domain once and for all.
Kelly found that he really didn’t know what to do, and that he was extremely worried. He knew that he was meddling yet again with matters he did not fully understand, and he was beginning to fear the consequences. Already, a sequence of events was unravelling in all sorts of unexpected directions.
Whether or not the death of Robert Morgan was connected with all the other deaths, it was at the very least highly disconcerting. Kelly didn’t want any
more blood on his hands. He had hoped to keep everything under wraps a little longer, and indeed to be able to delve into the mystery considerably more before hitting the printing presses with it.
But he was now beginning to feel that maybe he could not wait. That none of them could wait. And he was beginning to think that when he told Karen Meadows all that he knew, and, even more, all that he suspected, she would agree. Indeed, this latest development might play into her hands. After all, she believed that a formal police investigation into the Hangridge deaths should be the next step, and the death of another Hangridge soldier, however unconnected it might at first sight seem to be with anything military, would surely have to be regarded as a significant factor in her campaign to be allowed to launch such an operation.
Kelly checked his watch for the umpteenth time. It was still not quite six o’clock. The hours really were dragging. But less than four hours to go now before his meeting with Karen, and maybe they could then reach a decision together about their next move. He would just have to be patient. Meanwhile, he amused himself by thinking about how Karen would react to the most important piece of information he had to give her. Something that he had yet to come properly to terms with himself. She would, he thought, be even more amazed than he had been.
He wandered downstairs again to make a fresh pot of tea, which he once more carried into the living room and set, with the sugar bowl, of course, on the little table next to his chair in the bay window. As he did so, his telephone rang. He answered quickly, half expecting it to be Karen. Automatically, he checked
the display panel on his phone, registering that it was indicating that his caller’s number was not available, which meant that it could well be her, phoning from her office in Torquay police station.