A Moment Of Madness

Eighteen

They went to bed, their activities aided as usual by a heady mixture of dope and coke. Kelly got an almost desperate relief from being in bed with her again. She was as passionate as ever. Not for the first time he told himself she could not give so totally if she didn’t care about him. But he knew really that the sex they indulged in together was not about caring. It was the most torrid he had ever known, and he remained thrilled by it. Yet as he lay back on the bed afterwards he was aware that he felt sated rather than satisfied. Certainly there was no peace.

Then just before midnight Angel suddenly announced that she wanted to go clubbing. Kelly was surprised. They had never gone out anywhere together.

‘I’m bored,’ she said.

Kelly studied her wearily. He should be used to her mood changes by now, he supposed, but she did have the knack of never ceasing to surprise him.

‘I’m tired, Angel,’ he responded.

She pouted at him sulkily. ‘Scott and I used to go out all the time.’

Kelly didn’t think that was true. Not in Torquay, anyway. He’d have heard. In any case he really was tired. Bone tired. He just wanted to go to sleep. He felt emotionally drained, and the soporific aftermath of the whisky he had drunk, not to mention the joint he had shared with Angel, seemed stronger than the rush of nervous energy he would expect to have been generated by the cocaine he had snorted, but he had only taken one small line.

‘Not now, Angel, surely,’ he protested lamely.

‘Why not?’ she enquired, adding mischievously, ‘Are you ashamed to be seen out with me?’

Nothing, of course, could have been further from the truth. He loved the idea of being seen around town with Angel Silver on his arm. She was a widow and he was single — well, not living with anyone. Though that had, until recently anyway, not been true in spirit, as he knew very well. He was aware, even half stoned, that he had betrayed Moira and was continuing to do so.

There was nothing he could do about that now, he told himself. He had blown that relationship for good, and when he was with Angel, of course, he didn’t even care. So far his liaison with Angel had been conducted as if it were a clandestine affair, with him often turning up in the middle of the night, lying to Moira and his friends and colleagues. The prospect of them going public had never been raised. They had never even been to the pub together, never been out for a meal in a restaurant. In fact they hardly ever ate. Kelly pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked disconsolately down over his body. You would have thought that at least one good thing to have come out of all this would have been that he might have lost his paunch. He hadn’t. It didn’t seem to have diminished at all. He supposed that was the booze.

He turned to look at Angel, who was lying naked on the bed beside him. If only he could give her a few of his excess pounds. She remained so painfully thin, and so beautiful, he thought yet again. Even through the haze of the alcohol and assorted drugs which were fighting each other inside his head, he experienced that familiar, almost painful pang of deep tenderness for her, a tenderness he had become resigned to never being returned.

Of course, Kelly realised, life with Angel Silver was always going to be different from anything he had experienced before. And if they started going out together he would have to get used to the likelihood of her being recognised wherever they went. Any kind of outing for him and her was bound to be more than just a night on the town. It would be a statement. He battled with his weariness.

‘Ashamed to be seen out with you? You’ve got to be kidding,’ he replied, then added with a grin, ‘I’m just not sure I have the energy, that’s all. You’re an exhausting woman, you know.’

She smiled her Mona Lisa smile. ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘Do another line.’

Obediently he complied, this time snorting up a much larger amount of the fine white powder through the rolled-up tenner that she passed to him. And this time it hit the spot instantly. The lethargy of the whisky and the joint he had smoked earlier just disappeared.

His brain was buzzing. Suddenly he felt a hundred per cent alive and awake. He could conquer the world probably. He could certainly do the town.

‘Right,’ he said, almost jumping out of bed. ‘What are you waiting for, my darling?’

It took Angel only seconds to pull on a skimpy black dress. All he had was the jeans and sweater he had arrived in earlier, plus his trusty leather jacket. She didn’t seem to mind. Neither of them had showered. He guessed they must both smell of sex. He pulled her close to him, buried his face in her neck, in her hair, in the tantalising cleavage at the low-cut neckline of her dress. He was right, she did smell of sex. Strongly. And how he liked that. He felt his cock stir, pulled her still closer to him. God, he felt good. He was sure he could fuck her all night. Maybe he wouldn’t let her persuade him to take her out after all.

She pushed him gently away. ‘Later,’ she said, brushing her right hand lightly over his crotch, then grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the door.

‘Oh, all right,’ he responded grudgingly. Then a thought occurred to him. He hadn’t a clue where to take her. Late-night clubs were hardly his scene.

‘Where are we going anyway?’ he asked.

‘Valbonnes, of course,’ she said.

He’d heard of it, and knew where the place was in Upper Union Street, close to the town centre, but had never been there. It was hardly Tramp or Annabel’s, but, knowing Angel, probably the nearest Torquay got to either of those.

He tripped over the first wide step outside the house, and was only prevented from falling by Angel’s grip on his hand. They started to giggle. They were still giggling when they climbed unsteadily into the MG.

Afterwards Kelly had no idea why they hadn’t called a taxi. No idea why he had not even considered whether he was fit to drive. That, of course, was what coke did to you — made you believe you were indestructible, above the law, above pain, superior, sharper, invincible.

They never got to Valbonnes. They never even got to Torquay. At the road junction between Rock Lane and the main road into town, Kelly drove straight out without pausing to look. Or at least he attempted to. Inside his coked-up head he had seen no reason to stop. It was partly as if he believed the rest of the world would get out of his way. Partly that he no longer knew what he was doing. He smashed straight into the side of small saloon car travelling law-abidingly along the road at right angles to him.

Kelly couldn’t get out of the car. His first coherent thought after the accident was that he was trapped. The driver’s door wouldn’t open. It had been buckled by the force of the collision. His second realisation was of a sharp stabbing pain in his abdomen and that his head felt seriously woozy now. In fact, it felt rather as if it didn’t belong to him at all. He was vaguely aware that he had been drinking and that he taken coke, so it could just be that which was making his head feel so strange. He reached up a hand. There was already a swelling forming on his right temple. Somehow or other he’d managed to bump his head, it seemed, although, miraculously, he was wearing a seat belt. He had a vague feeling that he might have been knocked unconscious for a minute or two. He wasn’t sure. His brain just wouldn’t work properly. He wasn’t sure of anything.

The front of the MG had caved in. The bonnet was buckled and the remains of the engine was spouting steam. There seemed to be a lot of noise in the road around Kelly, mostly screaming and shouting. He realised that the screaming came from the car with which he’d obviously collided. The MG’s windscreen had smashed and he could see very little of anything that might be happening in front of him. He became aware of someone tugging on the handle of the driver’s door from the outside. It still wouldn’t budge.

He felt terrible. He really had no comprehension of what had happened. Angel. Angel was with him. Was she all right? He turned towards her anxiously. She wasn’t there.

He tried to look out of the driver’s side window, peering into the darkness, which was punctuated now by the lights of other vehicles and one much smaller light which was moving erratically. For a moment he was puzzled by that and then a brief flash of clarity entered his spinning head. It was a torch, of course. He could see figures moving but they were just black shapes. He had no idea whether or not one of them was Angel.

The soft top of the little car had snapped open like a big gaping black mouth. Kelly tried to push it further back so that he could climb out, over the boot or the bonnet perhaps, but it too had jammed somehow. As he pushed, though, he strained himself upwards and over the MG’s shattered windscreen and could see the car he had hit. The near side of it had caved right in and the force of the impact had jammed the car against a wall on the far side of the main road. Kelly’s headlights no longer even existed, but there was a motel on the other side of the road, and its lights cast enough illumination for him to make out two figures trapped inside and to see that the one nearest him, in the remains of the passenger seat, a woman he was almost sure, was slumped back, unmoving, with blood pouring out of the side of her head. He could also see the mouth of the figure in the driver’s seat opening and shutting. That was the person doing the screaming, the quite awful nerve-shattering screaming, he realised. It was like a horror movie unfolding before his eyes.

Panic as well as pain engulfed him. He had to get out, had to get away. Even above the clamour and the dreadful screaming he could hear the beat of his own heart, pumping, pumping, far too fast. He was hyperventilating. He felt as if no breath at all was getting into his lungs. He had to free himself from the smashed vehicle. He just had to. Suddenly he noticed that the MG’s passenger door was slightly ajar. He had no idea why he had not seen that before, but then he was barely functioning. He felt very peculiar and it occurred to him obliquely that he might be quite badly hurt. He began to manoeuvre himself over the arm rest and gear lever system between the car’s two seats, pushing himself upwards with his feet and trying to crawl across towards the open door. But the shooting pains in his abdomen immediately became agonising. It felt as if he was being stabbed repeatedly by something jagged like a piece of broken glass — and that thought brought unwelcome images into his mind too. He cried out with the pain and collapsed across the seats, unable to push himself any further. For a few seconds the stabbing sensation, the unnerving thump thump thump of his heart and his inability to breathe properly were all he was aware of. Then the door of the MG opened fully, strong arms reached through it, and he was half pulled, half lifted out on to the street.

There was a powerful smell of oil and petrol. Kelly’s car was still hissing steam. He could feel his legs buckling beneath him. The arms lowered him gently to the ground at the roadside. For a moment he just slumped there, only vaguely aware of the commotion which now seemed to be all around him. Then he hoisted himself on to one elbow.

‘Angel,’ he called. ‘Angel, where are you?’

He tried to stand up, but he just fell down again.

Someone, he had no idea who, put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

‘Steady, now, mate. Take it easy...’

He could hear the words clearly enough, but it was as if they were somewhere in the distance.

‘Where’s Angel?’ he asked. ‘Where’s... where’s...’

He couldn’t quite get the words out, even though he knew exactly what he was trying to say. Eventually he managed it.

‘The woman I was with, w-where is she? Is she all right?’

‘I didn’t see no one with you, mate.’ It was the same voice, a man’s voice. The man who had pulled him out of the car and then tried to reassure him. ‘And I was first on the scene...’

‘But she was there. What’s happened to her?’

‘Anybody see a woman in the MG?’ The man raised his voice. There seemed to be a number of people around now, mostly surrounding the other vehicle, and there were a few mumbled responses, but Kelly couldn’t quite make them out. He could hear the wail of sirens. Vehicles with flashing lights were approaching at speed. He realised, even in his befuddled state, that these were ambulances and police cars arriving. It occurred to him vaguely that he might be in serious trouble as well as injured.

‘No, mate, nobody’s seen no woman,’ the same male voice continued. ‘You was on your tod in the car, time I got here. Maybe you’re just mixed up, aye?’

Kelly tried again to get to his feet. Where the hell was Angel? Had she just gone off and left him to face the music, just walked away, not even bothering to find out how badly hurt he was? Surely she wouldn’t have done that. The thoughts were all jumbled up inside his head, which was really starting to swim.

The man who had been talking to him came closer, and put his hands on Kelly’s shoulders in an attempt to stop him from trying to move. Kelly couldn’t even see him. There was only blackness in front of his eyes now. He realised he was about to pass out. Maybe for the second time.

The last words he heard before he did so, were: ‘Jesus Christ, he’s drunk. That’s what’s wrong with the bastard. He’s drunk as a skunk.’

Kelly came to in Torbay Hospital to find Moira sitting by his bedside. Instinctively he raised a hand to his forehead, which was throbbing for England, and as he did so the movement caused shooting pains in his abdomen. He grunted involuntarily.

Moira passed no comment on his obvious discomfort. Her face looked pinched and sad.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ she said. She looked fed up, totally exasperated, angry, perhaps as much at herself as at him. ‘I spend quite enough time in this place without coming back in when I’m off duty to see someone who’s behaved like a raving lunatic.’

‘Well, thanks anyway.’ Kelly was desperately trying to remember through the pain what had put him in hospital in the first place, what his latest felony had been. But when he did begin to remember he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

Moira was continuing to speak. ‘They called me from casualty soon after you were brought in. But to be perfectly honest, John, I’m inclined to wish they hadn’t. And I really wish they hadn’t known that you were the man I shared my life with. Or used to!’

She put a sharp emphasis on the last three words. Kelly winced.

‘You know what gossip’s like in this place. Everyone knows the state you were in and what you’ve done, which is really absolutely terrific.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kelly.

‘You’re going to be,’ said Moira feistily. ‘You know you’re going to be done, don’t you? Drink driving at the very least. Quite probably something much more serious...’

Her voice tailed off. Kelly thought, in as much as he could think, that he already knew well enough what she was getting at. He could suddenly see all over again the awful tableau that had unfolded in front of him when he had peered out of the battered MG.

‘The people in the other car...?’ he began, afraid to finish the query.

She knew what he meant. ‘The passenger was badly hurt, a woman, I have no idea how badly.’

‘B-but she’ll be all right, will she?’

‘I’ve no idea, John. You’ll have to ask the police. There were a couple of constables here earlier. No doubt they’ll be back.’

Kelly nodded his head, which was a mistake. It ached dreadfully. Not the dull ache caused by getting stoned and having too little sleep, which he had been becoming used to, but a quite viciously acute ache. No doubt they would, he thought, gritting his teeth and trying not to show how much pain he was in.

‘I was afraid somebody might have died...’ His voice tailed off again.

‘They might still, for all I know,’ said Moira. She was angry, and it showed. She was certainly making no attempt to be gentle with him, and he didn’t blame her.

Kelly started to imagine himself facing prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving as well as a drink driving charge. He supposed there could be drug charges too. Christ, they’d lock him up and throw away the key, he thought. Then fleetingly he was ashamed of himself. Not only had he almost certainly caused a terrible accident but he was already more concerned about what would happen to him than the state of the people in the other car.

Then another thought overcame him.

‘Angel?’ he queried. ‘Is she all right? Has anyone seen her?’

Moira stiffened. She brushed her blonde fringe back off her forehead, not once but several times. It was a gesture Kelly had seen her make before, invariably when she was upset or angry.

‘What has that woman got to do with anything?’

‘She was in the car with me. I d-don’t know what happened to her.’

Moira gave a little sigh. ‘Well, if she was in the car with you that’s the first I’ve heard of it. The police certainly don’t think there was anyone else in the car.’

Kelly really wasn’t thinking straight. ‘She was, I’m sure she was...’

Only suddenly he wasn’t quite so sure any more — not of anything except that he knew his head was in a mess. And his gut. Just the effort of talking caused his abdomen to remind him of its injuries, whatever they might be. He didn’t even know what damage he had done to himself yet. He tried desperately to concentrate. Maybe Angel hadn’t been in the car. She had, though, hadn’t she? And in that case, she really must just have run off...

Moira was studying him, looking as if she could read his mind. She shook her head.

‘I was hoping this might have brought you to your senses, John,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t, though, has it? I can see that in you.’

He did not reply.

Moira was right, of course. As she all too often was.

As soon as he was told he could leave hospital Kelly had two aims in mind. He wanted a drink — he knew that was asking for further even bigger trouble but he couldn’t help it any more — and he wanted to find Angel. The first was easily accomplished at a pub just around the corner from the hospital. A pint of bitter and two large whisky chasers made him feel slightly better. He had giving up even kidding himself about drinking. His alcohol dependency had returned with a vengeance, and he knew it.

He had been lucky in one respect, at any rate. The injuries to the woman passenger in the car he had hit were not quite as severe as he had feared. She had a broken leg, but the gash on her head, which had looked so awful to Kelly and had spouted so much blood, had proved to be merely superficial.

None the less, he had been charged with dangerous driving in addition to the drink driving charge. As was routine with drink driving offences, it would be fast-tracked through the local magistrates’ court within a couple of weeks. His beloved MG, not surprisingly, was a write-off.

Kelly’s own injuries, although painful, had also proven not to be too serious. He had three cracked ribs in addition to the bump on his head which had caused him to black out. He looked terrible, however. His head injury had resulted in two black eyes and the pain from his damaged ribs meant that he could not stand fully upright, instead walking with a pronounced stoop. In the pub he was aware of people staring at him curiously.

Predictably enough, Kelly’s second aim, to find Angel, proved more difficult. He took a taxi out to Maidencombe but he somehow knew as soon as he arrived at Maythorpe Manor that Angel was not there. It was strange how he could tell just from looking at the house that it was empty. The sun was shining brightly over the sea, which you could just glimpse through the trees beyond the big house. It was a beautiful day. Kelly didn’t even notice.

He asked the taxi driver to park outside the gates. Then he pumped the security code into the electronic system. Nothing happened. Had she changed the code? For a dreadful moment he thought that she must have done, and that she was shutting him out. He had driven his car while stoned half out of his mind and he had nearly killed innocent people. Yet all he could think about was Angel. Could she really have been so uncaring not only to have left him at the scene of the crash, but just to have disappeared? He tried the code again. There was a beep and a click. The big gates opened soundlessly. He must have keyed in the numbers wrongly. He glanced down at his hands. They were trembling.

He tried the front door. Locked. Which was probably another indication that Angel was not inside as she continued hardly ever to seem to bother to lock the door when she was. In his pocket he still had the stolen key she had never demanded back. The door unlocked as smoothly as ever, though the small amount of physical effort required caused him to double up slightly with the pain from his damaged ribs. As he stepped into the hallway he called her name. He knew it was pointless but did so all the same. There was no reply. He walked slowly through the house, checking every room. There was no sign of her.

Disconsolately he left the mansion, slamming the door shut behind him, and made his way out through the gates and back in the taxi. He gave the driver his home address. On the way he tried Angel’s mobile number yet again. One last time, he told himself. He would walk away from her, he really would. He would rebuild his life yet again. He would patch things up with Moira. He really would.

He expected to receive no reply from Angel’s mobile, but on the second ring she answered. He was momentarily taken aback. He had got used to having virtually no contact with her except when she orchestrated it.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, Angel?’

‘No, my mobile is public property. I rent it out, didn’t you know?’

Sarcasm again. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism with her, he didn’t know. He did know he was tired of it, but he decided not to allow himself the luxury of reacting.

‘I–I’ve been looking for you,’ he stumbled.

‘I thought it might be a good idea to go away for a bit.’ She sounded unhurried, languid — no, beyond languid, sleepy. As if she were in bed, he thought suddenly, and had just been awakened by the call. He checked his watch: 5 p.m. Why should she be in bed at 5 p.m.? His heart sank. His imagination began to run riot. This was ridiculous. He struggled to get a grip.

‘So you just left me in the car? Just like that? I’ve been charged with dangerous driving. I was three times over the alcohol limit. I could go to jail.’

He sensed a shrug at the other end of the phone.

‘It would have been even worse if I’d stayed around. Think of the publicity.’

‘I can’t believe you just went.’

‘You were driving, John.’

‘And whose idea was it to go clubbing in the first place?’

‘Don’t be a baby, John. If you play with fire sometimes you get burned.’

‘God, you can be a bitch, Angel.’

‘Really?’ She sounded cool, amused even. ‘In that case you won’t want to talk to me, will you? I’ll just say goodbye then.’

‘Wait, wait. Angel, when are you coming back here? Or can I come to you? I need to see you.’

After a bit he realised he was talking to an empty phone. He kicked himself mentally. Even with all that had happened, the way she continued to treat him, he had ended up begging to see her, or damned near. And what he had said was absolutely right: he did need her. Yet, knowing as she must that he had been injured in the smash, she hadn’t even asked how he was.

The taxi driver was very quiet. Kelly realised he would have been listening to every word. He knew he should care, but he didn’t. He wrapped his arms round his damaged ribcage. All he wanted to do now was to kill the pain, both emotionally and physically.

‘Change of plan, mate,’ he said. ‘Take me to the Fitzroy Arms.’

They found him three days later slumped in the middle of Castle Circus roundabout. Unshaven and filthy, he was lying in his own urine and vomit. As well as the bump on his forehead, which he had received in the car crash, Kelly now had a bloodied nose and a cut on one cheek. The black eyes that had resulted from the earlier incident had started to fade, but one of them at least appeared to have received a further blow. It was badly swollen and the lids looked as if they were glued together. Kelly was lying awkwardly and his breathing was shallow.

PC Perkins, the young constable who found him, also noticed that his lower left arm looked twisted and wondered if it had been broken. He thought that Kelly might have other, unseen injuries too. There was little doubt that he had been badly beaten up.

It was early morning, about 5.30 a.m., and it seemed obvious to PC Perkins that Kelly had spent the night at Castle Circus in a more or less unconscious state. It was only mid-April but, luckily for Kelly, the night had been dry and unseasonably warm. His wallet and two empty bottles of whisky were by his side. PC Perkins carefully checked the wallet and was unsurprised to find that it contained no money. Not any more, he thought. He did, however, find Kelly’s press card, which he reported as soon as he called in.

The duty sergeant, Stanley Smith, was a long-serving officer who always liked to cover his back. He called DCI Meadows as soon as he had spoken to PC Perkins. Like almost every police officer in the region Stan Smith knew of Karen Meadows’ friendship with the reporter, which was a constant topic of station banter with much ribald speculation about how it had all started.

The DCI was just stepping out of the shower when she took the call. For two or three minutes she listened in weary silence while Sergeant Smith related the night’s events.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I thought you’d like to know.’

Karen wrapped an inadequate towel tightly round herself. She was still wet and she was shivering with the cold. She was also upset and angered by the news she had heard. What was Kelly thinking about? As if she didn’t have a bloody good idea.

‘I’m not sure that like is quite the right word, Stan,’ she said. ‘But thanks anyway.’

Karen rubbed herself dry and dressed quickly. She moved into the kitchen, made a cup of tea and sat at the table by the window, looking out over the bay. Sophie immediately jumped on her lap. Absently she scratched the cat’s head. The early morning had been bright and sunny, but the sky had darkened and it was just starting to rain. The sea was getting up too. Kelly really had been lucky, with the weather at least, she thought. As for anything else, Karen was not sure that she wanted to know any more. Kelly was becoming an embarrassment, professionally and personally, and Karen still had this niggling feeling that the Scott Silver case, in which she had reason to believe Kelly had become deeply embroiled, was far from over. The sensible thing would be for her to end her friendship with Kelly once and for all. She had always known that he was potentially a loose cannon, but she had never thought he would get himself into this mess. Not again.

He was not only facing a serious criminal charge, he seemed to have pushed the familiar old self-destruct button in all directions. She had been well aware that he was drinking again even before the accident, and she had known him before when his drinking had got out of control. She was also familiar with the rumours about Angel Silver. If they were true, and she believed that they were, she still found the concept of some kind of affair between the rock star’s widow and the veteran journalist extremely puzzling. Perhaps disloyally she was unable to grasp why Angel would get involved with Kelly. He really didn’t seem to be the type who would hold much attraction for the likes of her. The DCI could see clearly enough the attraction Angel would have for Kelly. Every man who came into contact with the bloody woman seemed to fall under her spell. But Karen really would have thought that Kelly, soft touch though she knew he could be, was old enough and streetwise enough to have avoided getting entangled. He had got entangled, though, there was no doubt about that. And he had allowed himself to become involved in the murky word of mind-altering drugs, which she had always suspected Angel Silver was into.

As Karen finished her tea and prepared to leave for the station her phone rang again. It was Moira, calling from the hospital.

‘Look, do you know about John?’ she asked bluntly.

Karen said that she did.

‘They brought him in an hour ago,’ Moira related. ‘I was still on duty. The word got to me in no time. Typical of this place...’

Her voice tailed off. Karen didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t even known that Moira had her home phone number. She’d certainly never called before.

‘I can’t believe the state he’s in,’ Moira continued. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me what happened.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Karen. ‘Well, as much as we know, anyway, which I’m sure isn’t everything.’

She liked Moira a lot. And she still liked John Kelly, in spite of everything. Half of her wanted to help all she could. The other half wanted to keep out of it. Protect herself. She did have her career to think about, after all. And the part Kelly had played in her past was now a very long time ago.

Moira picked up on her lack of enthusiasm.

‘Look, I’m sorry to call you at home like this. I got your number from John’s diary. He still had that in his trouser pocket. It’s just that I’ve been trying to find him for days, you see. I knew he hadn’t been in to work and I didn’t think he’d been home either. I was planning to report him missing today. If only I could find out exactly what’s been going on maybe I could make some sense of things. I try not to care, I really do. But, well, you know how it is...’

Karen relented, as she might have known she would. She did know how it was. There was something about Kelly that had always drawn Karen towards him. There had been times, in her mind anyway, when their friendship could perhaps have developed into something else. She certainly understood Moira’s feelings for him. She also had a pretty good idea of how Kelly had been behaving lately, how he must have been treating Moira, who really did not deserve the shit she was having to deal with.

And so Karen told Moira all about how and where Kelly had been found, and how he had apparently been beaten up and robbed.

‘But what happened before that?’ asked Moira. ‘Where was he for all that time and who would do such a thing to him?’

Karen sighed. This was just the sort of area she didn’t want to enter into.

‘It seems likely that he’d been on a bender more or less since he came out of hospital the last time,’ she said. ‘We don’t know who beat him up. It could just have been a chance thing, thugs having a go at a drunk to get his wallet. Or it could have been something else, we just don’t know yet.’

‘What do you mean, something else?’ Moira asked sharply. ‘Something to do with Angel Silver, I suppose.’

‘Well, indirectly, yes,’ replied Karen cautiously.

The thought had occurred to her, of course, that Ken James or other members of the James family could well have been responsible for giving Kelly a hiding. But she had no proof. She also had little doubt from Moira’s tone of voice that the other woman was well aware of Kelly’s liaison with Angel Silver, and that was something she really didn’t want to discuss either. She was relieved when Moira didn’t push her on that issue.

Instead Moira merely enquired, ‘Was John alone when he was found?’

But Karen immediately knew what she was getting at. However, the very thought of Angel Silver spending the night on the Castle Circus roundabout was so ludicrously wonderful that it actually made Karen Meadows smile in spite of everything. Although Karen was well aware of Angel’s turbulent past, and was growing increasingly uneasy, following the albeit unsubstantiated rantings of Bridget Summers, about the events of the night when Scott Silver and Terry James had died, she remained quite sure that Angel Silver was the type who hardly ever lost control. Unlike Kelly. Karen Meadows could still remember very clearly the first time John Kelly had pushed the self-destruct button. It saddened her that he had done so again, but did not particularly surprise her. He had always been that kind of man.

It also saddened her that she really could not help him any more.

‘He was quite alone apart from two empty bottles,’ she told Moira.