No Reason To Die

Twelve

In the morning Karen left home early again, not something she enjoyed but, none the less, she was actually quite glad to shut the door on her bedroom, which looked rather as if it had suffered a terrorist attack. In spite of her love of expensive designer clothes, she paid them little respect, which was one of the reasons why she preferred low-maintenance items, the sort that were not supposed to look freshly ironed. She was inclined to use the pretty, little, Victorian dressing chair at the foot of her bed as an alternative wardrobe, only when the pile of clothes upon it reached a certain level, they could do nothing other than fall onto the floor. She had not made her bed, either. Which wasn’t entirely her fault, she told herself. Sophie had looked so comfortable curled up on the crumpled duvet that Karen had not had the heart to move her. In any case, the cat would probably have bitten her had she attempted to do so.

Making a mental note to blitz the bedroom at the weekend, she hurried along the corridor to West Beach Heights’ famously rickety, ancient lift. In a nanny state increasingly governed by health and safety regulations, she found the ornate old lift, which moved both up and down only in a series of disconcerting jerks, rather reassuring.

For Karen, it was just another morning. She did think about Kelly and wondered whether she should call him or wait for him to call her, but she still had no idea that Moira was dead when she arrived at her office, in Torquay police station, just before 8 a.m. In any case, in spite of her genuine feelings for the woman and for Kelly, it would have made no difference whatsoever. Karen had a job to do and she just wanted to get on with it.

She was nearly ready to approach the chief constable, to ask for his authorisation to set up a formal police investigation at Hangridge. This was not something she could do of her own volition. And it seemed pretty obvious that, in spite of trying to give every appearance of co-operating, Gerry Parker-Brown was not going to allow any kind of external investigation into the affairs of the Devonshire Fusiliers unless he was given little choice.

In terms of red tape there was a brick wall around Hangridge, Karen reckoned, much more impenetrable than the wire fence which was actually the army base’s only physical perimeter barrier. And she intended to do her damnedest to knock that brick wall down.

But first, she needed all the information she could lay her hands on. Certainly enough to persuade the chief constable that a full police investigation of goings-on at Hangridge was not just advisable but necessary.

It was still too early to ring Mike Collins, the newly appointed clerk to the coroner’s court, who had failed to return her call yesterday, so she decided to re-read the report he had already sent her of the inquest into the death of Craig Foster. This had actually contained few surprises except, perhaps, that the details of the military police investigation, conducted by the Special Investigation Branch of the RMP, the army’s equivalent of the CID, were extremely sketchy. Their evidence had drawn the conclusion that Craig Foster had fallen on his own automatic rifle during a moorland training exercise, and in so doing had caused the gun to fire. He died from gunshot wounds to the chest. And although these did seem consistent with SIB’s conclusions, Karen remained unimpressed. She knew that SIB investigations should be conducted in more or less exactly the same way as by the CID. Indeed, SIB officers, although soldiers, were trained in CID procedure at civilian police college. Yet there appeared not to have been any witness statements taken, even though Foster was on an exercise with the entire training company of around a hundred and twenty men and women. Instead, the SIB report, read out at the inquest by an NCO, had taken the form of little more than an assumption of the obvious. And the coroner had appeared to accept the army version of events without question and simply to declare a verdict of accidental death. In truth, it could well still be the case, she realised, that Craig Foster’s death had been an accident. Everything fitted, after all, and soldiers did die in training accidents of this kind, if not regularly, at least often enough for another one not to initially raise any suspicions. None the less, from the inquest report before her, Karen did not consider that Craig Foster’s death had actually been proven to be an accident at all.

So engrossed was she in the report and her own thoughts that the time passed quickly and Mike Collins finally got back to her on virtually the dot of 9 a.m., before she’d made her planned second call to his office.

‘I’m really sorry, Detective Superintendent,’ he began. ‘Court finished late yesterday and I didn’t get your message until this morning because—’

Karen interrupted him there. She was neither interested in excuses nor incriminations. She just wanted to get on with it.

‘Spare me your life story, please,’ she said curtly. ‘I just want the full report of an inquest into the death of a young soldier — by the name of Jocelyn Slade — about six months ago, and I want it straight away.’

She also asked Collins, too new in his job to even have a chance of being able to remember off the top of his head, to search records for an inquest on a soldier called Trevor, who had allegedly committed suicide at Hangridge a further six months or so earlier, and indeed to look for any other deaths connected with the barracks or the Devonshire Fusiliers.

Perhaps anxious now to prove his efficiency, the newly appointed coroner’s clerk emailed her the requested report on Jocelyn Slade’s inquest within minutes, and promised to get back to her as soon as possible on her other request.

The Jocelyn Slade inquest came as a bombshell to Karen. Unlike the inquest into Craig Foster’s death, it did not just raise some procedural points and leave a few doubts hanging in the air. It was a revelation. Slade had allegedly shot herself with her SA80 rifle while on sentry duty at Hangridge main gates. Once again the coroner, now retired, seemed to have accepted the findings of the SIB investigation, that Jocelyn Slade had killed herself, without any discernible further inquiry. He pronounced a verdict of suicide in spite of evidence presented, which Karen, this time, considered to be highly questionable.

As she read, Karen could hardly believe her eyes. Jocelyn had been shot in the head five times. The SA80 was an automatic weapon. Karen had completed the obligatory police firearms courses and was, in fact, not at all a bad shot. She understood that an automatic used in a suicide attempt could continue to fire even after the first shot might well have done its job. But five hits? That was pushing it. And she noted that the investigation did not include any information on the angle of the shots, merely indicating that they had all been fired from close quarters, leading to the suicide verdict.

It was not satisfactory at all. And there was more. The second sentry on duty, at the entrance to the officers’ mess a hundred yards or so away from where Jocelyn Slade had been on duty, Private James Gates, had been called to give evidence. He said that he had heard shots and called the duty sergeant, who ordered a search of the perimeter area of Hangridge. But at first no body had been found, even though more than one soldier had several times passed right by the spot where Jocelyn’s body was eventually discovered.

Incompetence? Panic? All involved had, after all, been young and inexperienced. But Karen was not convinced. She considered the coroner’s verdict to have been, at the very least, highly unsatisfactory.

She had, of course, known Torbay’s former coroner, albeit only vaguely. And she was aware that Reginald Sykes had been an army officer himself, practising law within the military, before moving into civilian life as a solicitor in Torquay and ultimately becoming a coroner. Actually, even someone who did not know that would probably have guessed something of Sykes’ military past. In total contrast to Gerrard Parker-Brown, she remembered Sykes as being something of a cliché on legs. With his small bristly moustache, accent you could cut with a knife and exaggeratedly upright bearing, he really had been a complete stereotype, old-style army officer.

She read the report several times, trying to imagine what could have happened to Jocelyn Slade. She wanted to call the chief constable straight away, but she made herself be patient, at least until she had heard back from the coroner’s clerk concerning any other deaths connected with Hangridge.

Only a couple of hours later Mike Collins called. She didn’t know him, but she knew the type. He had been a police officer, in common with many coroners’ clerks, and he was the sort who liked to demonstrate the failings of others, particularly if he felt that he had been dealt with critically himself, as he might well after the way Karen had spoken to him earlier. One way and another, Mike Collins was not the kind of man Karen liked a bit. But the truth was that she couldn’t have wished for a better person to be trolling through the court’s records.

‘Found him,’ said Collins triumphantly. ‘Fusilier Trevor Parsons, died just over a year ago. Verdict, suicide, like you said. Hard to believe that any coroner could have presided over three cases like this of young people from the same barracks, and not at least passed comment, isn’t it?’

Collins was only voicing Karen’s sentiments, but from him the comment sounded smug and self-satisfied. Quite deliberately, she did not respond. Instead she merely checked if he had unearthed any other Devonshire Fusilier cases. He hadn’t.

‘Fine, thank you,’ she said curtly. ‘So, just email me the report on Parsons, please.’

‘Already done it,’ said Collins, sounding even smugger.

Karen couldn’t wait to hang up and read the records of Parsons’ inquest. The similarities both with the death of Jocelyn Slade and the way in which such investigation as there was had been handled by the SIB, were immediately evident. Karen could feel the excitement coursing through her body.

Trevor Parsons, a seventeen-year-old recruit, had allegedly shot himself while on sentry duty at Hangridge and, like Jocelyn Slade, had died from multiple gunshot wounds, in his case three such wounds. The only witness called had been the young soldier he had been standing guard with, who had reported only hearing gunfire and then finding Parsons’ body when he went to investigate.

Karen spent just a few minutes assimilating the information and rehearsing how she was going to present it, before eventually calling the chief constable. As ever, she did not relish any dealings at all with Harry Tomlinson.

He kept her waiting for almost five minutes before eventually coming on the line, something he quite often did with her and which she suspected was quite deliberate.

Telling herself that the most important thing with Tomlinson was never to let him get to you, she explained the events so far as calmly and as succinctly as she could. Tomlinson listened without interrupting, and continued to say nothing even when she deliberately paused to allow him the chance to chip in. He was, she thought, giving nothing away.

And when she finally got to the real aim of her call, she still had no idea at all of how he might react.

‘I really do think we should initiate a police inquiry at Hangridge, now,’ she said finally. ‘I am not at all happy with the way the military investigations have been conducted, nor with at least one of the coroner’s verdicts.’

‘Karen, surely these are military matters, don’t we have enough crime to deal with?’

Karen hesitated. This was the kind of response she had feared, but there was more. Tomlinson’s attitude sounded so like that of Gerrard Parker-Brown, it was uncanny.

‘Look, sir, it seems to me that there is a distinct possibility that these cases could be criminal in some way, and I think, at the very least, we should look into them,’ she persisted. ‘I am convinced there is justification for that. In my opinion, all four investigations should be reopened and this time conducted by the civilian police force.’

‘Indeed, Detective Superintendent? And on what grounds exactly, pray, do you feel that we should take this course of action?’

Karen stifled her irritation with difficulty. The bastard was patronising her again. Surely, she’d given him grounds enough. Four deaths in just over a year, and at least two of them leaving a number of serious questions totally unanswered.

‘I thought I had explained that, sir...’

‘Nothing to warrant us meddling in legitimate army affairs, not as far as I can see. Gerry Parker-Brown is on the case, and he’s going to have another look at it all, just to dot the Is and cross the Ts, you understand. Decent chap, Gerry. Does a job properly. Knows all about making sure we don’t have any misunderstandings. You should be in no doubt, Karen, that I trust him to clear this up in no time. It’s always been our procedure, as you well know, to let the SIB investigate these kind of deaths, which they have always done quite satisfactorily in my opinion, and I see no reason to start interfering now, stirring things up unnecessarily, that kind of thing.’

Karen found that she was becoming seriously irritated. No wonder the chief constable sounded like Gerry Parker-Brown. The Hangridge commander had obviously already got to him and done an excellent job of damage limitation, it would seem. As he would. She took a deep breath and fought to maintain control.

‘It is, of course, quite in order for the civilian police to conduct a new investigation should we deem it necessary, sir,’ she responded mildly.

If nothing else came out of this debacle, Karen reckoned that at least another step or two might be taken towards ensuring that all non-combat, sudden military deaths were subject to a civilian police inquiry as a matter of standard routine, like any other sudden death.

‘I think you mean “if I deem it necessary,” Detective Superintendent,’ replied Tomlinson. Karen could almost see him bristling at the other end of the phone.

‘And quite frankly, I don’t,’ he continued. ‘I thought I had already made that abundantly clear. So now, if there’s nothing else...’

Karen was really angry by the time the call ended — with the chief constable, with Gerry Parker-Brown, and with herself for ever having been taken in by the colonel’s smooth-talking charms in the first place. Parker-Brown may have got the chief constable eating out of his hand, but not her. No way. Not any more.

She had another look at the reports of the two inquests. The home addresses of both the second sentry in the Jocelyn Slade case, James Gates, and the other young soldier to have allegedly committed suicide, Trevor Parsons, were listed in full, which was a result. It meant that with a bit of luck both Gates and members of Parsons’ family could be contacted without going through military sources. On the other hand, assuming Gates was still a serving soldier, he may well already have been gagged.

Karen was beginning to go through conspiracy theories in her head. She told herself it was early days for that, and that she was getting as bad as John Kelly.

She also had to remind herself that she was still head of Torquay CID and, as such, had her normal heavy workload of cases to deal with — including a suspected major fraud, involving a well-known local councillor and former mayor, which promised to send shock waves around the entire West of England.

But throughout the day, whatever she was working on, she found her thoughts returning to Hangridge, and her feelings of anger and outrage mounting. She wasn’t totally naive. She knew that there were those who believed that military secrets should sometimes be kept at the expense of justice. She understood that protecting national security could be a dirty business. She knew that cover-ups happened, and that occasionally they happened for the best of reasons. But she was damned if she was going to be part of one.

She was a police detective. And if she believed that crimes may have been committed, it was her job to investigate, regardless of the consequences.

It could be that she didn’t dare to become directly involved herself, at least for the time being, but she did know a man who could do the job for her. If he chose.

Indeed, she had always suspected that she might have to rely on John Kelly, in the initial stages, at any rate. And knowing Kelly, as she did, she was quietly confident that he would effectively blow the whole thing wide open with or without her help.

Kelly was with his partner who, it seemed, was terminally ill. Perhaps dead. And Karen knew that even Kelly would need some time before launching himself again into the Hangridge mystery. But Karen could wait. For a few days, anyway.

She was, however, quite determined that the establishment was not going to cover this one up. No way.

They held the funeral five days later. Kelly helped the girls make the arrangements, and found during those four days that his mind was entirely taken up with that and with his grief. For once he did not seek a displacement activity. Moira was dead, so he was no longer looking for any excuse to do anything other than deal with her being sick. The grim reality of her death had focused his feelings in a way which he sincerely wished could have happened much earlier.

He spent long hours walking alone along the beach, just gazing out to sea and thinking about his life, and about the life he had shared with Moira.

He did not attempt to contact any of the bereaved Hangridge families again. Neither did he contact Karen Meadows concerning Hangridge. And when she eventually called him to enquire after Moira, he told her the news briefly, gave her the funeral arrangements, and made it quite clear that he did not want to talk about anything else. Only very occasionally did he give Hangridge even a fleeting thought.

He did call Nick, of course, on the day of Moira’s death.

‘Oh shit, dad, I’m so bloody sorry,’ Nick had responded. ‘And I did want to see her. Damn it. Why didn’t I just drop everything?’

‘You weren’t to know, son,’ said Kelly. ‘We didn’t think it would be so quick.’

He had no idea whether that was true or not. He didn’t remember at any stage ever discussing with anyone just how long Moira might have left. That had been one of those topics never to be broached.

‘I’d just like to have seen her one more time, Dad, that’s all...’

‘I know, son.’ Kelly did know too. Nick was another one who had always been extremely fond of Moira. She was a woman who had had in abundance the gift of making friends.

On the day, there must have been well over a hundred people, Kelly thought, crammed into the little crematorium chapel for the brief funeral service. It had been Moira’s wish to be cremated. Kelly didn’t like the idea of human bodies being burned, but, although he had known that her wish to be cremated was in her will, he had never tried to dissuade her. After all, if he was honest, neither did he much like the idea of human bodies rotting in a cemetery. At best, the way in which humans were disposed of, or laid to rest — the euphemism invariably preferred by those involved with the process — could only be the lesser of various evils in Kelly’s opinion.

It was, however, gratifying to see such a good turnout. Moira had been a gregarious woman at heart and Kelly knew she would have liked to think that so many people would attend her funeral.

Nick drove down from London to be there, as Kelly had known that he would, in his new, distinctively customised, silver Aston Martin, which on any other occasion Kelly would have demanded to be allowed to take for a drive. He and Nick shared a love of sports cars, particularly British sports cars in Kelly’s case, and Kelly unashamedly envied his son for being in a position to buy himself almost any car he wanted.

There were various members of Moira’s family present whom Kelly hadn’t met before and there were all her friends from Torbay Hospital where she had worked on and off for most of her adult life, and where she had remained as a night sister in the children’s ward until she had finally, just three months or so ago, become too ill to continue. One of the senior doctors, a long-time close friend, had given the address at the crematorium chapel, and he had done so with great warmth and affection. Kelly had been grateful for the way he had so accurately presented Moira’s character, for the stories he told about her, and how he had praised her for her humour and practicality, for her kindness and generosity, and above all for her humanity.

Kelly’s head was filled with his own memories. How he and Moira had first met, introduced by his matchmaking editor, and how they had first made love and he had been so nervous, after a long period of celibacy, and in such haste to remove his trousers, that he had actually fallen over because he had got them in such a tangle around his ankles. Like something out of a Brian Rix farce, Moira had said, and after that, all that followed had seemed totally natural.

He remembered as well her sense of humour, her willingness to laugh at even his most pathetic jokes, and, most of all, that great, big, rollicking roaring laugh of hers.

He also remembered Moira crying over the death of a child she and her colleagues at Torbay Hospital had fought so hard to save.

She had been a fine human being, and Kelly wished he had told her how much he had valued and appreciated her far more often. Indeed, he wished he had told her at all, other than when he had done something crass and offensive, which was about the only time he remembered doing so.

He sat in the little chapel next to Jennifer. She held onto his hand tightly throughout the brief service. Nick was sitting behind them. Kelly reckoned they were both rather exceptional young people.

He had looked around as he had walked into the chapel behind Moira’s coffin, but had somehow not been able to take a lot in. Certainly, he had recognised few faces that he knew among the congregation, but he had spotted Karen Meadows, sitting at the back near the door, and was glad to see her. She had been a good friend to Moira once, at a time when he had been anything but.

Moira’s daughters had invited everyone back to their mother’s house for a drink and a snack after the funeral was over; a tradition Kelly had never liked, but he did not even consider opting out because he knew that would upset the girls.

As they all made their way out into the crematorium car park, Karen Meadows approached Kelly and touched him lightly on the arm.

‘I really am so very sorry, Kelly,’ she said quietly.

‘I know,’ he said.

‘Yes. She’s going to be much missed, your Moira.’

‘Yes.’ These were just the usual platitudes, but Kelly knew she meant every word.

‘Look, I won’t be able to come back to the house, I’m up to my eyes, but I’ll be thinking of you, OK?’

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you.’ Kelly turned quickly away. He hated people to see him being emotional. For that very reason, he had chosen to drive his own car rather than travel with Moira’s daughters and other close family in the undertaker’s limos, and as he headed for his car he was glad of that.

On the way back to Moira’s house, he detoured to Babbacombe, and pulled off the coast road into a lay-by, where he sat quietly for a few minutes, looking out to sea, relieved to be alone. It was a beautiful day for the time of year. The sea sparkled. He thought about driving down the steep winding hill that led to The Cary Arms, one of his favourite pubs, right by Babbacombe beach. But he didn’t really have the time. Had he still been drinking he would have found the time, of course. And, by God, he fancied a stiff drink. But that would have been the final insult to Moira, who had given him such support when he had last kicked the habit. So instead he settled for a roll-up, which he smoked gratefully as he sat in his little MG, looking out through the open window at the luminous navy blue of the Atlantic Ocean to his right and the rows of seaside hotels to his left, barely thinking, barely functioning, barely seeing. He did not break down and cry. It felt almost as if he was beyond that. He just wanted to be on his own for a bit, before rejoining the rest of the mourners.

By the time he arrived at Moira’s house, just a few streets away from his own in St Marychurch, the place was packed solid with people. Kelly had no idea how many had turned up, as they were all in different rooms. A group of women, whom he vaguely recognised as nursing colleagues of Moira’s, were giggling together over glasses of white wine. There was already that kind of hubbub you always get when large groups gather over a drink, regardless of the circumstances.

Kelly reflected not for the first time how strange it was that so many people seemed to have such a good time at funerals.

He struggled through the hall and living room, exchanging greetings and accepting condolences — mostly from folk he didn’t know from Adam — until he reached the kitchen at the back of the house.

The girls had hired caterers for the occasion. None the less, all three of them were in the kitchen supervising the arrangements, as Kelly would have expected them to be. They took after their mother. Born organisers who liked to be in control. Poor Moira, thought Kelly for the umpteenth time. She had never been in control of him, not really. Not the way she would have liked to have been.

Jennifer pushed a tray of sausage rolls and sandwiches towards Kelly. He shook his head. He felt as if he would never eat again. Instead he touched Jennifer’s hand, holding on to the rim of the tray, and forced a small smile. She still looked unnaturally pale, and dreadfully tired. He felt a great pang of compassion for her. She had carried the burden of the last few months so magnificently. And she was so very young. It had been bound to take its toll.

‘You should get some rest,’ he told her.

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘I know. Neither can I.’

She put the tray down then and came to him for a hug.

‘You’ve been wonderful, you know,’ he told her. ‘Maybe you should get the doctor to give you something to make you sleep.’

‘Maybe.’

She pulled away from him and picked up the tray of food again.

‘I was just going to hand these around in the other room,’ she said.

He watched her go, head high, back straight, and wished, as ever, that he could have found more words. The right words. Any that weren’t trite and condescending, any that might make it all just a little easier. But then, there was no way to make it easier.

He decided to go out into the garden for another smoke, and had to push his way through yet more mourners to get to the back door. Once safely outside, he leaned against the wall of the house, swiftly made himself a roll-up and took a long drag, pulling at it as if it had been days or weeks since he’d had a cigarette rather than just minutes, holding the smoke in his lungs and closing his eyes tightly on the world.

The sun had shone brightly all day, but Moira’s back garden faced north and the November air was crisp and chilly. However, Kelly barely noticed. He inhaled the nicotine gratefully and tried not to think about anything.

‘Great minds, eh, Dad?’

Kelly opened his eyes abruptly. Nick, holding the collar of his suit jacket closed against the cold with one hand and a cigarette in the other, was standing alongside him. His son was about the only person in the world, Kelly thought, whom he could possibly have been pleased to see at that moment.

‘Hello, Nick.’

‘How are you doing, Dad?’

‘Oh, you know. About how you’d expect, I suppose.’

Nick merely nodded and leaned against the wall alongside his father. For at least a minute they smoked together in companionable silence. Nick finished his cigarette first, threw the butt on the ground, pressed it into the concrete, then took the packet from his pocket and withdrew another one. When he had lit up, he passed the pack to his father who was now reaching the end of his roll-up. Kelly gratefully took one of the ready-made sort for a change, and lit it from his roll-up’s glowing end.

‘Not given up, then?’ queried Nick with a smile.

‘No bloody fear,’ said Kelly. ‘Anyway, you’re supposed to be the fit one.’

He glanced towards his son, who still looked every bit as much in shape as he had done during his time in the army.

Nick grinned, flashing even white teeth. He really was a handsome bugger, thought Kelly, reflecting that he certainly didn’t get his looks from his father.

‘There is a limit,’ said Nick. He stopped grinning and glanced at his father appraisingly.

‘You sure you’re OK, Dad?’

‘Oh, yeah. Course I am.’

There was so much Kelly would like to say to Nick. He would like to tell him how much it meant to have his only son there that day, and, indeed, how much it meant to him to have found again this young man whose childhood he had almost totally missed, both when he was still married to Nick’s mother, because he had been too busy playing newspapers — and playing around with other women too, if he was honest — and then later, after his marriage had ended, because he dared not look back. And he was so grateful to Nick for seeking him out after years of estrangement and making it so clear that he wanted to build a new relationship with him. The two men were now closer, Kelly sometimes thought, than many fathers and sons who had never had to deal with the disruption of families torn apart and trust destroyed. And Kelly couldn’t believe his luck.

He thought Nick understood what he felt, but he was much the same with his son as he had been with his partner. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Nick all that. Not properly, anyway. And neither could he bring himself to talk about Moira and just how totally devastated he felt. He had lost his greatest supporter, his rock, and he couldn’t tell anyone how it felt, how it really felt, not even Nick.

‘Perhaps you might like to come up to London and stay for a couple of days, in a week or two’s time, maybe,’ Nick began. ‘We could take the Aston out for a proper test run somewhere. I’m sure you’d like to put her through her paces.’

Kelly smiled. He didn’t think Nick had any idea quite how proud his father was of him. Kelly not only liked and respected Nick, but also admired him for the success he had made of his life, both as a career soldier and now as a business and IT consultant, even though he had never understood exactly what Nick did, except that his son was frequently employed by government departments and that his areas of expertise, particularly involving computers, came directly from his army training. Armies no long marched on their stomachs, but on their keyboards, Nick had once told him. And the secret of success in the modern world was to be multi-skilled, his son also maintained.

Kelly did understand that Nick’s work earned him bucketloads of money. He had actually helped Nick choose that special Aston he had only recently acquired, and the prospect of driving the Aston, coupled with the delight he always found in sharing Nick’s company, would normally have caused Kelly to become boyishly excited. But that day he could manage little enthusiasm.

‘Thanks, lad, I’ll see,’ he said.

As ever, Nick seemed to understand his feelings absolutely.

‘Of course, Dad,’ he said. ‘You’ve got other things on your mind today. I’ll call you from London. It’s just that, well, I wanted you to know the offer was there, because I’m afraid I have to leave to drive back to town very soon. I’m really sorry, Dad. I had been hoping to stay over, at least for tonight, but I’m in the middle of this big project. I have to be at a meeting in the City first thing tomorrow morning and I just couldn’t alter it.’

‘That’s all right son, don’t worry about it. I do understand. I’m just so grateful to you for coming all this way, and I know Moira would have been too.’

‘I couldn’t do any other,’ said Nick simply.

‘I know.’ Kelly studied him for a moment, so together and capable. Then, before he had really considered what he was going to say, he began to speak again.

‘It’s a pity, though, because there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’

Nick’s eyes softened. Kelly realised at once that his son thought he wanted to touch on those areas he usually avoided, to talk about something concerning Moira, or maybe even about him. What Kelly actually wanted to talk about was Hangridge. Nick was a military man through and through, an ex-soldier who still had plenty of military contacts. He might be able to help considerably. After all, he had been at the cutting edge of the army and had even served with the SAS, possibly the most elite fighting regiment in the world.

Kelly reckoned that Nick might be able to shed all kinds of light on what could have been happening at the Dartmoor barracks. He was more than a little surprised at himself, however, for allowing his thoughts to wander along that road on the day of Moira’s funeral. And he had the grace to feel ashamed. He hadn’t intended to do this today, but now that the thought had suddenly shot into his mind, demanding his immediate attention, he couldn’t quite stop himself, and he was about to launch into an account of the Hangridge affair and to start asking his son questions, when he was interrupted by Jennifer.

‘John, Nick, will you come in?’ she began. ‘We thought we’d ask anyone who wanted to share their memories of Mum to say a few words. John, we wondered if you’d like to start?’

‘Of course,’ said Kelly automatically, even though his mind had immediately gone a complete blank.

He tossed his second cigarette onto the ground, and Nick did the same. He turned in silence to follow Jennifer, but Nick placed a big hand on his shoulder, momentarily restraining him.

‘Look, Dad, I don’t have to go straight away,’ he said gently. ‘I can stay at least another hour, maybe two. We can talk later.’

Kelly felt even more ashamed. He knew that to attempt to talk to Nick about Hangridge that day would be quite wrong, and he could hardly believe he had been about to do so. Nick, who was being so kind and considerate, and obviously making himself ready to hear emotional outpourings from his father, would be more than a little shocked to learn what had been going on in his father’s head on such a day.

‘Thanks, son, you’re a good man,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think this is the time or the place.’

Nick did not even slacken his grip on his father’s shoulder. My God, he had strong hands, Kelly thought obliquely.

‘It’s all right to talk, you know, Dad,’ said Nick, and in stark contrast to the steel in his fingers his voice was very soft.

Kelly really did feel embarrassed then. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with himself. He was genuinely overwhelmed with grief for a woman he really had loved, in his way, probably more than anyone else in his life, except his son, and yet Hangridge, his latest obsession, had, albeit briefly, taken over his head again.

He managed a small smile, one which he hoped was both appreciative and vaguely reassuring.

‘Maybe when I come to visit you in London, OK?’ he said.