Authors: Hilary Bonner
‘Like John Lee,’ he said. ‘And just as unlikely an escape, I promise you.’
Karen was shocked. Kelly didn’t need to explain the analogy to her. She was, after all, a local girl, and, like almost everyone from the Torbay area, had been brought up on the tale of John Lee, the man they couldn’t hang.
She cupped her chin in her hands and leaned forwards in her chair.
‘Right, Kelly,’ she began. ‘I don’t think we should even go into why you are still alive. I just want to make sure you stay that way. So, let’s get one thing clear, shall we? You must pull back from the Hangridge affair at once. I’ll call the nick straight away and set up an investigation into the attack on you. I don’t need anybody’s authority to do that. On the surface, at least, this is a straightforward case of an innocent civilian being assaulted in a public place, and if that leads into military matters, then all for the better. I’ll get the SOCOs out to Babbacombe straight away, just in case they can pick up on something, and I’m afraid whether you like it—’
‘Karen, please, I haven’t got to the most important bit yet,’ Kelly interrupted.
‘Look, Kelly, we must move as fast as we possibly can in order to protect all remaining evidence. Whether you like it or not, you’ll have to come back
to the nick with me now. You mightn’t want to go to casualty, but you do have to be seen by our police doctor, we may be able to get some forensic evidence off you.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Kelly, ‘I’ve had a shower.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I just wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘OK. Well, we can still go over the clothes you were wearing. Or have you destroyed them, too?’
Kelly managed a wan smile, apparently without too much pain, and shook his head.
‘Good,’ she continued. ‘And you said you managed to bite your attacker, so if you made a halfway decent job of it, there may be some fragments of skin in your teeth. You haven’t brushed them, have you?’
Kelly shook his head again.
‘Thank God, for that. We’ll want a statement too, but that can wait until later on in the morning if you don’t feel up to it. I’ll probably ask Chris Tompkins to interview you, because I shall go to Exeter first thing. Or as soon as I recover from this middle of the night assignation, anyway. Whatever comes out of this attack on you—’
‘Look, Karen,’ Kelly interrupted again. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you. There’s something else you should know, before you—’
But Karen still wouldn’t let him finish. She was on a roll, putting an investigation together, planning her next move. It was what she did best. And just knowing that she now had a valid course of action to follow was making her feel so much better.
‘Yeah, yeah, but first, Kelly, let me explain. Whatever comes out of this attack on you, that, coupled with this murder of James Gates’ mate in
London, should really get things moving. In fact, if it doesn’t force frigging Harry Tomlinson to give the go-ahead for a full scale CID inquiry into every one of these deaths of Devonshire Fusiliers, I don’t know what the fuck will—’
‘Karen!’ Kelly raised his voice to a shout and Karen could see that he had really made his head hurt. He screwed up his face in pain. She studied him anxiously. In addition, there was something in his voice now that absolutely demanded her attention.
‘Yes?’ she queried quite meekly.
‘Karen, please, please, listen. Do you remember I told you about the two men who came into The Wild Dog looking for Alan Connelly, the night this all began?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’ Karen was mildly irritated. Did he think she had turned into an idiot?
‘Well, one of them, the one who did all the talking. I think I know who he was. Actually, I am quite sure I know who he was.’
‘Really?’ Karen was puzzled. Why the big build-up, she wondered.
Out loud she said: ‘Well, spit it out, then.’
‘I-I met him yesterday,’ Kelly continued. ‘And I recognised him. At once.’
‘What?’ Karen was even more puzzled by the air of mystery Kelly was creating. ‘Not the man who attacked you on the beach? I thought you said you couldn’t see him.’
‘I couldn’t. No, not him. Well, not as far as I know, anyway.’
He paused again. Infuriating man, thought Karen. Even in the state he was in, he was still playing to his audience, going for the biggest possible dramatic
effect. She realised the quickest way to be put out of her misery was to play along with him.
‘Well?’ she prompted, expressionlessly.
‘It was Gerrard Parker-Brown. I am absolutely sure of it. Really I am. Colonel Parker-Brown.’
Karen felt as if she too had been run over by a truck.
‘Kelly, no,’ she said. ‘It couldn’t have been.’
‘I’m telling you, Karen.’
‘But, for God’s sake, those E-fits you and Janet Farnsby came up with, neither of them looked a bit like him.’
‘You said yourself that they are hit and miss. I did my best, but I knew they were both pretty terrible likenesses. And, anyway, Parker-Brown and the other man were wearing woolly hats and had their coat collars turned up.’
‘So, you couldn’t see his face properly?’
‘Quite enough, I promise you. I could see his eyes, Karen. I didn’t really think about how special they were until I saw him at Hangridge. Then it hit me. Big brown eyes, with long eyelashes. They’re like a woman’s eyes. You must know how distinctive his eyes are.’
Karen knew. She also knew how attractive they were. And that she had very nearly fallen for their appeal and, indeed, for Gerry Parker-Brown’s all-round charm. It seemed that she could have had a very narrow escape, indeed. Thank God, that for once in her life, a degree of common sense had triumphed over her natural impulsiveness. ‘Like a woman’s eyes’, Kelly had said. And that had to be the clincher. She had, after all, thought the same thing herself.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘And when you met him yesterday, do you think he recognised you? You went in as an investigator representing the families of the dead soldiers, didn’t you? Do you think he realised that you had been in The Wild Dog with Alan Connelly? That you were probably the witness I had told him about.’
‘I have no idea. But if he did, he gave absolutely no sign of it, I can tell you. Even though I stared at him all the time. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Well, maybe you gave yourself away, then?’
‘Maybe. I hope not. I tried not to.’
‘But he gave no indication of recognition?’
‘Not at all. I mean, for whatever reason, he and his sidekick were obviously extremely relieved to find Connelly that night. It’s quite possible he barely noticed who else was in the pub.’
‘Maybe. I’ll tell you one thing, Kelly, I’ve had enough to do with Gerrard Parker-Brown to come to the conclusion that he is some performer in every sense of the word. He’s a devious manipulative bastard, actually, and more than likely, I’m beginning to have to accept, quite an actor. A much better actor than either you or I, that’s for certain.’
‘You could be right.’
‘And if I am, if he did recognise you from The Wild Dog, well, then, he would consider you to be one hell of a threat to him, wouldn’t he? Do you think it could have been Parker-Brown out there on the beach? Don’t tell me the thought hasn’t occurred to you?’
‘Of course it has.’
‘And?’
‘I just don’t know. Anyway, do senior army officers like Parker-Brown do their own dirty work?’
‘No idea. But, if you’re right, Parker-Brown was
doing his own dirty work, and very possibly murderous dirty work at that, the night Connelly died, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘So, could it have been Parker-Brown who attacked you?’
‘Yes, it could. But I have no way of telling. I told you. The bastard approached me from the back, half strangled me. Then he shone a torch in my face. I never got a look at him. It was pitch-black …’
‘Think, Kelly, think. Why did whoever attacked you shine a torch at you? Why did he back off like he did, run off into the woods?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been trying to work it out ever since …’
‘Think, Kelly. I know you’ve been bashed over the head, but you’ve got a really good brain when you choose to put it into operation …’
‘Good God, a compliment to my brain? Have you been knocked over the head too, Karen?’
‘Get on with it, Kelly. Think!’
‘Well, it was like he was taking a look at me when he shone the torch at me. But why would he do that? After all, presumably he damned well knew who I was.’
‘None the less, your attacker shone a torch at you, full in your face, presumably took a look, and then he hit you with the torch. How did you describe it? Carefully. He hit you carefully. And then he buggered off.’
‘Yes. That’s it, exactly. And no, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.’
‘OK, let’s go back over it all. I mean, for a start, are you absolutely sure it was a man who attacked you?’
‘Yes, well, I think so.’ Kelly was initially slightly hesitant, but sounded quite decisive when he spoke again. ‘Yes. I am sure. I couldn’t imagine any woman being that strong, and I’m also pretty sure, somehow, that it was a male arm I bit. Muscle tone, that sort of thing. And I have a vague memory of body hair, too.’
‘Right. Good. So, again, could it have been Parker-Brown? I mean, how tall was he? At that close quarters you must at least have got some sense of your assailant’s height and build, surely? Concentrate, Kelly.’
‘Yes, I suppose I did.’ Kelly’s voice was thoughtful. Karen could tell he was really concentrating. ‘Yes. He was a tall man. Probably about my height, six two. But thinner than me. Definitely thinner, and much fitter. Does it sound crazy that I’m so sure of that? It was the way he moved – the stealth, the power. The way he grabbed hold of me. He was strong and fit and he knew what he was doing. I was convinced, somehow, as soon as he got hold of me that he was a pro. Somebody military, I’d bet anything you like on that. So yes, I suppose it could well have been Parker-Brown.’
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Then let’s get the bastard, shall we?’
Karen took Kelly with her back to the station, just as she had said she would before Kelly had dropped his bombshell, and arranged for him to be seen by a police doctor.
By around half past three in the morning, she decided there was little point in bothering to go home to bed. Often, when her night’s sleep was interrupted, she fared better dosing herself with coffee and staying
up than returning to her bed for a further snatched two or three hours.
Instead, she began straight away to set up the initial investigation into Kelly’s attack. She organised a SOCO team to go out to Babbacombe, and when Kelly decided, after his medical examination, that he’d rather carry on and give his formal statement then, Karen interviewed him herself, along with a young, uniformed, woman constable on night duty. By the time she had done that and finished setting up the rest of the investigation, it was getting on for 6 a.m. In view of having had her entire night’s rest disrupted, she allowed herself the rare treat of a full fried breakfast in the canteen, and, shortly after 6.30 a.m., set off for headquarters in Exeter to confront the chief constable.
She knew that Harry Tomlinson was an early bird, who was often at his desk at Middlemoor by around 7.30. She had also been told that he was frequently in a better mood at that hour than he was inclined to be later in the day, although it had always seemed to Karen that Tomlinson was never in anything remotely resembling a good mood when he had to deal with her, whatever time of day she chose. The two of them were like chalk and cheese – Karen, the sometimes reckless maverick, who knew that she could be inspired on occasions but whose police career was not without a smattering of perhaps unnecessary errors, and Tomlinson, a neat, dapper, by-the-book, little man with a bristly manner that matched his bristly moustache, a jobsworth and a paper-shuffler, in Karen’s opinion. And a police officer promoted way beyond his station. She also had a pretty good idea what Tomlinson thought of
her. Indeed, she reckoned it was something of a miracle that, with him in charge of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, she had ever made detective superintendent.
None the less she had no choice but to deal with Harry Tomlinson, and certainly, if she was going to get the result she was looking for from him, on such a sensitive matter as Hangridge, she had to tread with extreme care.
She did not see, however, how Tomlinson could have any choice now but to authorise a full-scale investigation into Hangridge. And, as she drove herself to Exeter, she was cautiously optimistic that at last she would be able to do something really positive towards finding out what had happened to all those young soldiers.
Her mind was racing. Ever since Kelly had dropped his bombshell, she had been trying not to think about Gerry Parker-Brown and what a narrow escape she had had. She would not have needed many more dates with him to have willingly jumped into bed with him, she suspected. After all, he was extremely attractive, and he had, quite calculatedly, she was absolutely sure now, set out to charm her. It had been, of course, a highly sensible decision to back off almost as soon as she had any doubts about him, but that could be regarded as having been somewhat out of character for Karen. When it came to matters of the heart, let alone of the flesh, she had rarely shown much sense before.
At least one half of her still couldn’t believe that Parker-Brown really was involved in the mysterious deaths connected with the barracks, but he was now certainly a prime suspect.
Karen arrived at Middlemoor at almost exactly 7.30 a.m., and, just as she was locking her car, she saw the chief constable’s black Rover saloon, driven by a uniformed PC, pull up outside the main doors.
She hurried across the car park, calling out to him as she did so. This was no time to stand on dignity.
‘Sir! Sir!’ she cried.
He turned at once, eyes wide with what she thought was probably ninety per cent affected surprise.
‘Good God! What on earth are you doing here at this hour in the morning, DS Meadows? I always had you down as a night owl, going by the trouble you usually seem to have keeping early morning appointments, anyway. Couldn’t you sleep?’