No Reason To Die

Ten

Karen had not answered her phone because she was on her way to Totnes with Gerrard Parker-Brown. He had phoned the previous afternoon to ask if she could sneak a morning off work to visit a rather special antiques fair that he had just heard about.

‘I know it’s short notice, but if we get there for the start we could both be back on parade by early afternoon,’ he had said.

To her utter astonishment, she had heard herself agreeing almost without hesitation. And now she was sitting alongside Gerry in his black Range Rover, studiously avoiding all calls. Her excuse for, in effect, bunking off work had been an extremely vague muttering about an important community meeting. She could not remember when she had last done such a thing, if indeed she had ever done such a thing. And she knew perfectly well that it was the opportunity of spending time again with the man, as much as attending the event, which had caused her to behave in such an out of character manner.

He had picked her up, this time without an army driver, promptly at 8.15 a.m., and even at that hour of the morning conversation between them came alarmingly easily, she reckoned.

‘I collect military memorabilia among other things, and this fair is allegedly going to have some really good stuff on sale,’ he told her enthusiastically. He seemed to have an immense capacity for enthusiasm and it was a quality that Karen greatly appreciated.

They spent a couple of hours at the fair, which was in a huge barn on the outskirts of Totnes. Although it turned out to be rather disappointing in terms of the military memorabilia, Gerry did not seem unduly put out and Karen was impressed by the knowledgeable way in which he chatted to dealers.

As ever, she thoroughly enjoyed rummaging around at the various stalls, and while she was negotiating to buy a rather beautiful, nineteenth-century, French candlestick she became aware of him drifting away from her side. But within little more than a couple of minutes he was back, beaming at her and triumphantly brandishing a small, but rather lovely, silver dagger brooch, which he promptly pinned to the lapel of her jacket.

‘I thought a dagger was rather appropriate for a police detective,’ he told her.

‘Oh, Gerry, no, I couldn’t possibly...’ she began.

‘Don’t be silly, it cost nothing. Less than a tenner. And I want you to have it.’

She gave in gracefully, and he had another surprise for her as they prepared to leave the fair.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

‘Ravenous,’ she replied, wishing, as she invariably did, that that were not so often the case. ‘But we haven’t really got time to go and eat somewhere, or I haven’t, anyway.’

He nodded. ‘Nor me. But, well, you see, I knew we were going to be pushed for time, so I took the liberty of preparing a bit of a picnic. Pretty rough and ready, I’m afraid.’

It turned out to be not so rough and ready at all. Back in the Range Rover, parked in a corner of the field allocated as car park for the antiques fair, he produced a Thermos flask of hot coffee and bacon sandwiches, which, made with really crispy bacon and fresh crusty bread, were wonderfully crunchy and quite delicious in spite of being cold.

‘How did you know bacon sandwiches are my absolute favourite food?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t, but they’re mine, particularly when I make an early start.’ He smiled at her. ‘Something else we have in common.’

She smiled back. And it seemed perfectly natural for him to lean across the car and kiss her gently on the lips. It was a very brief kiss, but this time it was much more than merely a kiss of friendship, and she could sense the promise in it with her whole being. He tasted and smelt a little of bacon, but that just seemed to make him all the more attractive. And he had such absolutely beautiful eyes. Feelings she had denied for so long were beginning to make themselves known to her again, and she was not at all sure she could fight them off. Or that she wanted to any more.

He pulled away, touching her lightly on the cheek with the fingers of one hand as he did so, and settled back into the driver’s seat, silently watching her. She did not try to speak. She had no wish to spoil the moment.

‘Well, I suppose I’d better drop you off at Torquay police station or I expect the entire area will be overrun by a major crime wave,’ he said.

She laughed and nodded her assent. She really did have to be back at work. None the less, she felt vaguely disappointed.

‘Tell you what, how about lunch somewhere on Sunday, when we both have more time, hopefully?’

Her spirits rose at once. And she couldn’t be bothered even to pretend to deliberate.

‘That would be great,’ she said.

She was in her office well before one o’clock, still in extremely high spirits. Yet again Gerry had not mentioned the Alan Connelly affair, and this time Karen had not felt inclined to do so either. In fact, rather to her surprise, she had managed to put any vague misgivings she had about either the colonel or his regiment completely out of her mind.

And, in spite of trying to tell herself that she must proceed with caution and remember past mistakes, she was still feeling immensely good-humoured when she finally returned Kelly’s call more than an hour later.

‘So, what have you been up to, you old bugger,’ she enquired cheerily.

Kelly told her at once about the third death at Hangridge. And that was the end of her good humour.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shit!’

‘I assume you weren’t told about Jocelyn Slade.’

‘No, I bloody wasn’t,’ she responded.

‘But I thought you’d checked the records at the coroner’s court.’

Karen cursed herself. It hadn’t occurred to her that it would be necessary. Not at this stage, anyway. Even before their two social meetings, she hadn’t really believed that the commanding officer of the Devonshire Fusiliers would deliberately mislead her, that he would fail to tell her about a death at his barracks.

Now, particularly since experiencing the closeness she had felt for Gerry Parker-Brown that morning and the promise of that kiss, she felt quite betrayed. She had to force herself to concentrate on her conversation with Kelly.

‘I checked the records specifically on Craig Foster,’ she said. ‘I didn’t ask the court to check for any other deaths at Hangridge.’ She thought for a moment.

‘They have a brand new clerk at the coroner’s court. Old Reggie Lloyd remembered everything and would probably have volunteered the information.’ She paused. Kelly didn’t say anything.

‘Oh shit,’ she said again.

‘Ah,’ said Kelly.

Karen tried to sort out in her mind what she should do next.

‘Look, where are you, Kelly?’

‘I’m at home.’

‘Right. I have to check out officially what you’ve told me, Kelly. It changes everything. Don’t take this any further, will you? Please don’t do anything at all until I get back to you, all right?’

‘Sure,’ said Kelly.

Kelly smiled as he drove slowly along a dull red-bricked street looking for Margaret Slade’s address. He had lied to Karen, of course. He had already arrived in Reading when she called him, and he’d known she would not approve of him seeking out Jocelyn Slade’s mother, so he had decided at once not to tell her. The lie had come quickly and easily enough, and he had absolutely no intention of heeding her plea for him to do nothing until he heard from her further.

Mrs Slade’s home turned out to be a flat above a chip shop in what Kelly reckoned must surely be the most unattractive part of a town, which, with its towering central buildings and lack of any discernible sense of identity, he considered to be altogether thoroughly unappealing.

Kelly rang the bell four times before Margaret Slade finally answered. He had felt it in his bones that she was inside. And he would have stood leaning on the doorbell for the rest of the day, if necessary. He wasn’t giving up. This was getting important.

The woman who eventually answered the door looked wan, pale and shaky, her wispy, obviously dyed, reddish-brown hair framing an unnaturally white face. It took Kelly five seconds to realise that she was drunk, even though it was still quite early in the day, not long after two in the afternoon. But this was not the sort of drunkenness you associate with closing time in a pub or the end of a wild party. This was the drunkenness of a seasoned alcoholic. And Kelly recognised it instantly. He’d had plenty of experience, after all. Alcoholism, he suddenly suspected, had been the mystery illness Craig Foster didn’t tell his parents about, and quite possibly hadn’t been told about himself by Jossy.

Margaret Slade looked at him with unseeing eyes, as he greeted her courteously.

‘I don’t buy or sell anything at the door and you’ve got no chance at all of converting me to any religion that’s ever been invented,’ she said. She stood holding onto the door and swaying very slightly along with it, as it moved on its hinges.

He grinned.

‘I’m not buying or selling, and I’m certainly not preaching,’ he replied.

‘Ah.’ He could see that she was finally focusing on him, albeit with some difficulty, as if considering the situation. She looked puzzled. ‘I must have paid the rent,’ she went on. ‘It goes straight out of my social.’

She frowned at him, in considerable bewilderment, it seemed. Kelly didn’t say anything.

‘And Michael’s just turned seventeen, he doesn’t have to go to school.’

She leaned a little closer to Kelly and he was engulfed in a cloud of stale alcohol. But he didn’t mind much. Kelly was a bit like a reformed smoker who gets at least some kind of kick out of inhaling other people’s smoke. It was sad, he knew, but even old and second-hand alcoholic vapours were not totally repugnant to him.

‘So, who the fuck are you?’ she asked. And then, before giving him the chance to reply, continued with: ‘I don’t know you, do I?’

Kelly shook his head. ‘It’s about you daughter, Mrs Slade.’

‘My daughter?’ The eyes went blank again, her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t have a daughter. Not any more.’

‘I know. I’d like to talk to you about her death—’

‘You’re from the army,’ Margaret Slade interrupted. ‘Well, you can fuck off. I hate the fucking army. I never wanted my Joss to join in the first place, and she’d still be alive too, if she hadn’t. I reckon. So go on, then. I’ve told you, haven’t I? Fuck off.’

She pushed the door as if she were about to shut it in his face.

‘No, Mrs Slade, I’m not from the army.’

Margaret Slade wasn’t listening. The door kept closing on him. Kelly put his foot in it. It was a total myth that journalists were always doing that. Kelly could only remember even attempting to do so just once before in his life, and as this time a small rather frail woman was leaning against the door trying to close it, rather than a large fit man, the process was at least not so painful as he remembered it being on the previous occasion.

He went for broke.

‘Look, I think there is a possibility that your daughter was murdered, Mrs Slade,’ he told her through the fast-closing gap between the door and its frame.

He knew he had no right to say that. Not yet, anyway. He had no hard evidence, just a hunch. But he was quite determined to get to talk to Mrs Slade properly. Or, as properly as her condition would allow. And he suspected that only shock tactics would work with her.

He felt the pressure on the door lessen. Margaret Slade eased away a little, releasing her hold on the door, and he took the opportunity to step inside, closing the door behind him.

‘So who are you, then?’ she asked.

‘I’m just a man who doesn’t like lies and cover-ups,’ he said, realising that he sounded rather trite and pretentious, but he couldn’t help it. And, strangely enough, it was pretty much the truth.

He explained to her straight away, and as best he could, exactly who he was and how he’d got involved.

‘This Alan Connelly, when did you say he died?’

‘Just four days ago.’

‘Four days ago,’ she repeated carefully.

‘That’s three, then,’ she went on, after a small pause.

‘I didn’t realise that you knew about Craig Foster,’ responded Kelly.

‘Craig Foster, the lad Jossy was going out with? I don’t know anything about him at all. What’s happened to him, then?’

‘He was killed just weeks after your Jocelyn. A training accident, allegedly. He died of gunshot wounds.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Margaret Slade sounded genuinely upset. ‘He was ever such a nice kid. He and Jossy had only just started going out together. I never met him before... before she died. But he came to the funeral, you know. And he seemed ever so cut up.’

‘Mrs Slade, if you didn’t know about Craig, then what did you mean when you said: “That’s three, then.”’

‘What?’ Now, Margaret Slade just seemed bewildered. Kelly could almost see her brain cells fighting their way through the alcohol. ‘Three? Yes. There was a lad who died at Hangridge a few months before Jossy, I think.’

She paused. Kelly was practically on the edge of his chair, but he said nothing. The news he had given Mrs Slade seemed to have sobered the woman up somewhat. But Kelly didn’t dare push her.

‘Neither Jossy nor Craig would have been there when it happened,’ she continued. ‘And, as far as I’m aware, neither of them even knew about it. The army tend to forget things like that, don’t they? They’re not likely to tell the new recruits about the ones who’ve come to a sticky end, are they?’

Kelly found himself sitting ever closer to the edge of his chair.

‘So what happened to this boy, then?’

‘He killed himself too. Or so they said. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but you begin to wonder...’

‘And how exactly did he allegedly kill himself?’

‘I don’t know. Do you know, I don’t think I ever asked. Now isn’t that extraordinary.’

Kelly didn’t think it was that extraordinary. He reckoned Mrs Slade’s brain would turn on and off according to the amount of alcohol swimming around in her system. She had appeared to be surprisingly lucid through most of their conversation, but then, so did a lot of alcoholics. He doubted she was very often capable of stringing facts together and coming to a conclusion.

‘Who are they? Who told you about him?’

She looked completely blank.

‘I don’t know, really I don’t,’ she said. ‘It was after the funeral. Another soldier, I think. Not Craig. No, not Craig. Like I said, I doubt he ever knew. An older man. I made a bit of a fool of myself, you see. I’d had a couple, of course. But it wasn’t that. I just broke down that day. I blamed myself...’

She gestured around the flat. Kelly had been so caught up in what she was saying that he had barely taken anything else in. She seemed to be inviting him to look around, so he did.

The place was a tip. The floors were covered in stained carpeting, the walls were so murky it was hard to see what colour they had started out, and there was very little furniture. Instead, boxes were piled against every wall alongside tottering heaps of old newspapers and magazines.

‘I didn’t give Jossy much of a childhood, nor much of a home either,’ Margaret Slade continued. ‘We always seemed to be in a mess. Mind you, I defy anyone married to my old man not to have got themselves into a mess. That bastard. But when they told me that my Joss had killed herself, well, I just blamed myself, you see. I thought it was all my fault.’

‘You didn’t question it?’

‘No. I didn’t.’ She looked confused. ‘Why would I have done? This officer came round and I just believed everything he said. He was that sort. And I felt so dreadful. I just wanted to kill myself, too.’

She picked up a glass from the top of one of the boxes. It looked as if it contained whisky. She drained most of it in one.

‘And, in a way, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since,’ she said.

‘But when you learned there’d been another suicide, did that really not make you think at all?’

Margaret Slade laughed in a dry, humourless sort of way.

‘I don’t do a lot of thinking, really,’ she said. ‘I prefer to have a drink. You may have noticed.’

She had a self-awareness, a knowledge of her own behaviour, which was unusual among alcoholics, who were more often than not in total denial, Kelly thought. He had been, anyway.

Kelly decided to ignore her response.

‘Mrs Slade, did your daughter leave a suicide note of any kind?’

‘No. Well, nothing was found, anyway, that’s what they told me.’

‘Umm.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘Actually, no, it’s not. The police would tell you that only around twenty-five per cent of suicides leave notes. But, obviously, it would make a huge difference if she had done.’ Kelly thought for a moment. ‘Tell me more about how you learned of the earlier suicide,’ he said.

Mrs Slade put her glass down and sat upright. She was obviously concentrating hard. Kelly thought that somewhere beyond the alcoholic stupor she actually had rather intelligent eyes.

‘It was strange, really,’ she said. ‘I do remember that the chap who told me, did so as if he was doing me a favour. Trying to reassure me, weird really. Like I said, I was in a dreadful state on the day of the funeral. I’d been a lousy mother, and Jossy didn’t have a father worth mentioning. But I hadn’t seen it coming or anything. And that made it worse. I didn’t even know that my daughter was so unhappy that she had decided to do away with herself. And on the day of the funeral, it just got too much for me. Then this chap started trying to tell me that it wasn’t my fault. At first I thought, what does he know? But he kept saying the army did that to people, that it wasn’t so unusual for youngsters just not to be able to cope. He was older, like I said, several years older than Jossy. At the time, I sort of assumed that he was one of the instructors at Hangridge, I think. He said that he’d known this boy who’d been in the intake before Jossy’s, who’d done the same thing.’

Mrs Slade paused. Kelly expected her to pick up her whisky glass again, but she didn’t. She just sat looking at him in silence for several seconds. Kelly could see that she was concentrating, trying to sort things out in a mind more or less permanently addled by alcohol, but a mind which Kelly somehow suspected was actually pretty sharp in the rare moments when she was completely sober. If you caught her that day.

‘It made me feel better,’ she said suddenly. ‘Him telling me that, made me feel better. But I never saw a link with Jossy’s death. Never. Never thought, that’s odd, two young people at the same barracks killing themselves like that. I never questioned it.’

She picked up the whisky then, but didn’t take a drink, just held the glass in her hand and stared at the remaining contents.

‘Not surprising, really. Alcohol stops you questioning things, you see. I guess that’s what so good about it...’

Her voice tailed off.

‘I know,’ said Kelly gently.

She looked him in the eye properly for the first time. ‘Ah,’ she said.

He changed the subject then. He was there for a purpose, after all. And, as ever, he preferred not to talk about himself.

‘Mrs Slade, did Jocelyn ever say anything to you about being bullied, or perhaps being sexually harassed. You do hear of that in the army. I just wondered?’

‘No, she didn’t. But then, looking back, she didn’t say much to me about anything. And I can’t say I blame her...’

Kelly thought for a moment.

‘The soldier who told you about the other suicide, at Jocelyn’s funeral,’ he went on. ‘I don’t suppose he gave you a name, by any chance, did he?’

‘He told me the lad’s first name, yes, he did.’

‘And do you remember it?’

She smiled wanly. ‘Oh yes, I remember it all right. Same name as my bloody ex-husband, Jossy’s rat of a father. Trevor. Young Trevor, he called him.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kelly. ‘You’ve been a great help.’

He meant it too.

‘What are you going to do next?’ asked Mrs Slade.

‘I’m going to do my level best to break through the red tape of the military and find out exactly why four presumably fit and healthy young people, stationed at Hangridge, have died in little more than a year, Mrs Slade, that’s what I’m going to do,’ said Kelly.

‘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.

He shrugged. ‘Just a figure of speech, Karen, that’s all. I was only trying to convince you that you really have no need to investigate Hangridge. We’re the British army, Karen, and that puts us on the same side as you. The Devonshire Fusiliers is a wonderful regiment, with a proud history of defending queen and country, dating back to the Napoleonic wars. We’re the good guys. And you’d surely be much better off chasing criminals, rather than wasting your time and the taxpayer’s money here. That’s my advice and I really do suggest you take it.’

He grinned to soften his words, and there was nothing at all in his voice to suggest a threat. And yet, she felt threatened. Or, at the very least, she felt that she was being warned off.

‘I never stop chasing criminals, Gerry,’ she said, rising abruptly from her chair.

As she did so she removed the little silver dagger brooch from her jacket lapel, where he had pinned it earlier, and tossed it casually onto the desk before him.

‘Yours, I think.’

‘But Karen, we had such fun this morning.’ He picked the brooch up and held it out to her. ‘Surely you can keep this small memento?’

She ignored him and turned to leave. At the door she twisted around.

‘And you can forget Sunday,’ she told him over her shoulder. ‘I don’t think I’d better risk compromising myself any further, do you?’

His face was a picture of wide-eyed innocence.

‘Oh, come on, Karen...’

She left the room quickly, opening the door and closing it with a bang. It gave her some satisfaction just to cut off the sound of his voice.