No Reason To Die

Seventeen

On his way home from Hangridge, Kelly made a detour and stopped off at The Wild Dog. It was interesting to revisit the place where all this had begun. Charlie, the landlord, was his usual taciturn self and if he was aware that a young man had been killed on the road not far from his pub, the last time Kelly had been there, he obviously did not wish to discuss it. And that suited Kelly fine. He wanted to think. He ordered his customary pint of Diet Coke and a pasty. Charlie’s pasties, he knew, were made at a rather good local bakery in Moretonhampstead, and Kelly reckoned they were almost as good cold as hot. Certainly he knew better than to allow Charlie to turn his pasty into a soggy mess by heating it up in the blessed microwave.

Kelly sat on the same bar stool as he had on the night when Alan Connelly had been killed. His head was still buzzing from his meeting with Parker-Brown. His brain was in turmoil. He felt more than a bit peculiar, and it was almost as if he could sense Alan Connelly’s presence, still see him, ghost-like, slumped on the bar stool next to him.

Such a lot had happened since that fateful evening when Alan Connelly really had been sitting there alongside him. The muscles in the back of Kelly’s neck were so tense, they felt as if they had been forged together. It was actually quite painful to move his head. Kelly had to force himself to eat his pasty slowly and to order a second pint of Diet Coke. He suspected that the next few hours of his life were going to feel as if they went on for ever. He was even more eager to see Karen Meadows than he had been the last time they had arranged to meet in her flat. And what he had to tell her was weighing so heavily on his mind, that he had virtually forgotten altogether the potentially tricky development in their personal relationship, and the unexpected feelings which had been aroused in him.

When he eventually hit Torquay around mid-afternoon, he stopped briefly at a news-stand on the outskirts of the town, as he almost always did, to buy a copy of the Evening Argus.

He wasn’t that interested, actually, but it was habit. And habits were always good to cling to when you felt the world was going mad. He had to force himself to make a pot of tea, which he carried to his chair by the sitting-room window. He needed to relax. To gather his thoughts. He knew all too well that the hours were going to drag until his meeting with Karen at 9.30 p.m.

He switched on his radio, tuned in as usual to Classic FM, and started leafing idly through the newspaper, making himself study each page carefully in order to pass the time. Suddenly he stopped turning the pages. His attention had been caught by a piece which was little more than a filler towards the back of the paper, on a section on one of the pages that Kelly knew was reserved for late news.

Not only would the Argus have only been able to compile a sketchy report in the time available, but this particular incident was of a type that was no longer considered to be big news. Unless you knew what Kelly knew, of course.

If Kelly hadn’t been so methodically going through the paper from cover to cover, he may well have missed the relatively insignificant story on page seventeen.

As it was, two facts jumped off the page and hit him straight between the eyes. The first, of course, was that Robert Morgan had been a Devonshire Fusilier stationed at Hangridge, and the second was that he had been murdered in East London.

Kelly found that he was trembling again as he ran upstairs to his office and reached for the copy of a London A — Z on the shelf above his desk, where he kept the books he used regularly in his work lined up in a row — a couple of dictionaries, a thesaurus, a selection of telephone directories, a Who’s Who and a Debrett’s People of Today, a gazetteer and a number of other maps and atlases.

He quickly found the appropriate page and studied it carefully. Yes, his hunch had been right. He felt his pulse quicken. Penton Street was just a couple of streets away from Jimmy Gates’ family home.

Willing himself to stay calm, Kelly picked up his cordless phone and dialled the Gates’ number. He was in luck. Colin Gates answered.

Kelly had no time for small talk, no time to soft-soap the young man, even though he knew that he should really proceed with more care and caution than he was able to muster.

‘Do you know about the murder near you last night?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Colin.

Kelly was mildly surprised. It was quite likely that he wouldn’t have seen an evening paper, but news of the stabbing would have been on the regional TV and local radio news, and surely everyone in the neighbourhood would have been talking about it.

‘How could you not know?’ he asked.

‘All I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours is sit in front of my computer,’ replied Colin. ‘I’ve got this new game, it’s fucking great. I’m already up to level four.’

Sad bastard, thought Kelly, then remembered his own predilection for computer games when he should be working. It was just that his were inclined to be less sophisticated, that was all, because, apart from backgammon, he had so far avoided loading any further games on to his computer beyond the standard package supplied by Windows.

‘What’s it go to do with me, anyway?’ Colin asked.

‘I just wondered if you knew the victim, or if your brother may have known him. He was a Devonshire Fusilier, a squaddie stationed at Hangridge. His name was Robert Morgan.’

‘Rob?’ Colin sounded shocked. ‘Rob Morgan? I met him once. With Jimmy. They was best mates. Jesus. What was he doing up here?’

‘I wondered if he might have been coming to see you. Or your father?’

‘No. Well, I don’t know. He hadn’t phoned nor nothing.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he would be in your area. I mean, you don’t know of anything, do you? A girl, perhaps?’

‘No. I mean, I wouldn’t. I told you, I only met him once. But I don’t think he’d ever been up here before. He’d never been to ours, anyway. And our Jimmy used to go on about him being a real Devon yokel. He was only having a laugh, though. Jimmy was always talking about Rob. They were really good mates. I met him in Devon. Dad and I took Jimmy back there once, after he’d been home on leave, and we met up with Rob in a boozer.’

‘Could he have wanted to tell you something, you or your dad? Something about Jimmy’s death, perhaps?’

‘Jesus,’ said Colin. ‘And I’m the one who’s supposed to have been watching too many crap movies.’

‘This is serious, Colin. More serious than you can possibly imagine, and more serious probably than even I imagined until today. I think perhaps you should contact your local police and tell them about your connection with Robert Morgan, and, come to that, tell them all that stuff your brother told you about Jocelyn Slade as well.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I don’t have nothing to do with the filth, nothing more than I have to. That’s the way things are around here. Anyway, I thought you were sorting all that out.’

‘There’s been another death, Colin. A young man, who may have had all kinds of knowledge concerning your brother and the death of Jocelyn Slade, has been murdered. That’s no joke.’

Kelly paused.

‘Look, Colin, it is possible that you are in danger, too.’

‘Oh, come off it.’ Colin Gates sounded totally incredulous. ‘How could I possibly be in danger. Are you some kind of nutter or something?’

‘No, Colin. I’m not. It’s just that I don’t like playing games with other people’s lives. I’ve done it before, although I never meant to. I don’t want to do it again. I think the time has probably come for all of us to put our cards on the table, to try to get some official help in all this. To make sure there aren’t any more of these mysterious deaths. And, in your case, that means going to the police.’

‘But I haven’t got anything to tell them. I don’t know nothing about Robert Morgan, not nothing. He could have had all sorts of reasons for being round here. Drugs. That’ll be it. Drugs. I mean, if you’re stationed at some barracks in the middle of Dartmoor, how the hell do you get yourself some gear, eh?’

‘With consummate ease, if he was that way inclined, Colin. What do you think? That drug culture only exists in inner cities? Don’t you believe it. I’m calling from Torquay, an hour’s drive from Hangridge, and I promise you there’s not a drug that’s been invented that you can’t pick up in this town, if you know where to go. No. Drugs wouldn’t have brought Robert Morgan to your part of London, I’m sure of it. And what else would have led to him ending up stabbed to death in Penton Street? The only obvious link is your family, living, as you do, just a stone’s throw away.’

‘Well, I don’t bleeding care what he was doing in our manor, to be honest. And I’m not fucking going to the filth. No fucking way. Anyway, I thought you was going to handle it all. I didn’t think I’d have to do anything.’

‘Please, Colin. I’m worried about your safety.’

‘You really are a nutter, you. My bleeding safety, my arse. You got some imagination, you have. Apart from anything else, I don’t know nothing about nothing.’

‘Is your dad still away?’

‘Till Saturday.’

‘Look, I really, really think you should go to the police?’

‘For what? So they can have a good laugh at me too. You can take on the British army if you like, Mr John Kelly, I’m not fucking doing it. I don’t want to know whatever crazy conspiracy theory you’ve got into your head. I’m staying out of it. I shouldn’t have talked to you in the first place, should I? I ain’t got nothing else to say. I don’t want ever to talk to you again.’

The line went dead. Kelly sighed. Perhaps he should tip off the Met about Colin Gates. Karen had indicated to him that she thought as much pressure as possible, from as many different angles as possible, would be the way to open up the whole affair. On the other hand, Gates was probably right about one thing. It seemed highly likely that the Met really would do little more than have a good laugh.

Kelly pondered his next move. He wondered if he should talk to Margaret Slade and the other relatives of the various dead soldiers, and suggest that they all get together to help him cobble up a story straight away, thereby rocketing the whole shenanigans into the public domain once and for all.

Kelly found that he really didn’t know what to do, and that he was extremely worried. He knew that he was meddling yet again with matters he did not fully understand, and he was beginning to fear the consequences. Already, a sequence of events was unravelling in all sorts of unexpected directions.

Whether or not the death of Robert Morgan was connected with all the other deaths, it was at the very least highly disconcerting. Kelly didn’t want any more blood on his hands. He had hoped to keep everything under wraps a little longer, and indeed to be able to delve into the mystery considerably more before hitting the printing presses with it.

But he was now beginning to feel that maybe he could not wait. That none of them could wait. And he was beginning to think that when he told Karen Meadows all that he knew, and, even more, all that he suspected, she would agree. Indeed, this latest development might play into her hands. After all, she believed that a formal police investigation into the Hangridge deaths should be the next step, and the death of another Hangridge soldier, however unconnected it might at first sight seem to be with anything military, would surely have to be regarded as a significant factor in her campaign to be allowed to launch such an operation.

Kelly checked his watch for the umpteenth time. It was still not quite six o’clock. The hours really were dragging. But less than four hours to go now before his meeting with Karen, and maybe they could then reach a decision together about their next move. He would just have to be patient. Meanwhile, he amused himself by thinking about how Karen would react to the most important piece of information he had to give her. Something that he had yet to come properly to terms with himself. She would, he thought, be even more amazed than he had been.

He wandered downstairs again to make a fresh pot of tea, which he once more carried into the living room and set, with the sugar bowl, of course, on the little table next to his chair in the bay window. As he did so, his telephone rang. He answered quickly, half expecting it to be Karen. Automatically, he checked the display panel on his phone, registering that it was indicating that his caller’s number was not available, which meant that it could well be her, phoning from her office in Torquay police station.

‘Hello,’ he said tentatively.

‘I understand you’re investigating the deaths of soldiers up at Hangridge,’ responded a muffled voice. It was so distorted, no doubt deliberately, that Kelly could not even tell if his caller was a man or a woman.

‘Well, I have been looking into various incidents at the barracks,’ he replied cautiously.

‘I have information that I believe could be of interest to you.’

‘I see.’ Kelly could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. This was far from the first time in his life that he had received a call like this. Sometimes they were from total nutters. More often than not, they were from people who thought they knew something important, but actually didn’t. And once in a blue moon they were dynamite.

One thing Kelly knew for sure, this was the kind of investigation that was crying out for a deep throat. Because if he was honest, without something of that nature — some anonymous source of crucial inside information — Kelly did not see the truth ever being fully revealed.

On the other hand, there had now been yet another death which could be connected to the others. And there were other disturbing factors, notably the most important and the most potentially explosive aspect of his meeting with Colonel Parker-Brown earlier that day, when he had been confronted by something totally unexpected, something only he could possibly know about, and something he really could not wait to share with Karen. The sensible part of Kelly urged him to tell his caller to contact Karen Meadows and then to hang up. He was getting into extremely deep water. He should merely put together the best story he could from the information he already had, and then step back from the whole affair. After all, obsessive though he might be when embroiled in an investigation, he was not a totally stupid man. And he was becoming aware that even he could be in some danger, if he continued to delve into the affairs of the Devonshire Fusiliers. However, he quickly dismissed the thought from his mind. Of course, he wasn’t in any danger. And even if he was, well, there was absolutely no chance of him stepping back from this investigation. If this caller had information for him, then Kelly wanted it, and Kelly would probably do almost anything to get it. So, he wasn’t going to back off. Not now. Not yet. No way.

‘Who are you?’ he asked instead.

‘Never mind that,’ said the voice. ‘I’m just somebody who has a great deal of information that you might want. You and the families of those dead soldiers. I know what happened to them all, you see. What happened and why. I know the truth.’

‘I see.’ Kelly didn’t know what else to say.

‘So, do you want to know the truth too?’

Kelly sat down in his window armchair with a bump. His knees had suddenly seemed in danger of giving out, and he realised that he was sweating.

‘Of course I do,’ he said.

‘Right.’

‘Well, go on...’

‘Are you off your trolley, man?’ The remark sounded so incongruous when delivered by someone who appeared to be speaking through a thick wedge of cotton wool that Kelly found he was smiling in spite of himself.

‘I’m sorry...’ he began.

‘Yes. You should be. I’m not telling you any of this on the phone.’

‘Right.’

‘No. We’ll have to meet. And somewhere we won’t be seen.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you know Babbacombe beach?’

‘Yes.’ How strange, thought Kelly. It was one of his favourite haunts, that and The Cary Arms. He had been up there — well, on the road above the small secluded beach, anyway — on the day of Moira’s funeral. It had been a refuge for him then, and he didn’t really regard it as quite the place for a clandestine meeting. But he wasn’t going to argue.

‘I’ll see you there at midnight tonight. And come alone.’

‘Yes. Of course. Right. Where exactly?’

‘You just start to walk along the beach, from the direction of the pub. I’ll be there. You won’t see me at first. I’ll find you. Don’t worry. Just walk up and down the beach, until I do. Oh, and no torch. You don’t need to see me, you just need to listen.’

‘OK. But, tell me. Why are you doing this?’

‘They were mates of mine. Alan Connelly, Jimmy Gates, Robbie Morgan. They were all my mates.’

The caller hung up then. Straight away. Leaving Kelly looking at a buzzing handset.

Shit, he thought. Connelly, Gates and Morgan. His mysterious caller was indicating a link between those three deaths at least, already backing up Kelly’s own suspicions. And the most significant aspect of that was that he had included Morgan in it. Morgan, whose involvement had remained something of a long-shot until that moment. Morgan, a local lad whose death probably hardly anybody in Torbay knew about yet. But Kelly’s anonymous informant knew. Less than twenty-four hours after Morgan had been murdered, he knew. He could have seen it in the evening paper, of course, just as Kelly had. And, indeed, maybe it was that which had prompted him to contact Kelly.

Kelly took his tobacco and skins out of his pocket and began to roll himself a cigarette. He was both excited and thoughtful. He had no idea how his caller even knew that he was investigating the deaths at Hangridge, but, apart from his dealings with the various families involved, he had now actually visited the barracks of the Devonshire Fusiliers and done his best to interview the regiment’s commanding officer. He suspected that gossip in an army barracks was probably every bit as rampant as he knew it to be in newspaper offices and police stations. And he was in the phone book. A lot of journalists, Kelly knew, were ex-directory. But Kelly thought that was nonsense. If you want to gather in information, you need to make it as easy as possible for anyone who wishes to supply you with some to be able to do so. Whatever inconvenience that might cause on occasions.

Anyway, one way and another, his unexpected phone call changed everything. Absolutely everything. No way would he now be making any sort of move at all, and certainly there would be no question of breaking the story to the press, not until after he had met his mysterious deep throat.

He lit up and took a deep drag, forcing himself to remain calm. He was at a crucial stage in an investigation which was beginning to pull in all sorts of unexpected directions, and it was essential that he kept as cool a head as possible.

So much now hinged on whatever he might learn that night from his anonymous caller who, he was quite aware, of course, could still turn out to be a nutter. But somehow, and maybe it had been something in that muffled voice which had already convinced him, Kelly didn’t think so.

Either way, Kelly certainly didn’t want Karen Meadows to know about his deep throat, at least not until after he had met up with him. Assuming it was a him. For a start, she would only interfere, and Kelly wanted to handle this alone. Dealing with informants was always, in his opinion, a one-person job. However, Karen Meadows would be sure to try to stop him keeping his lone midnight assignation. She would never take on board any responsibly for something like that. She was, after all, a policewoman. At the very least, she would insist on some kind of police back-up, and Kelly somehow felt absolutely certain that his caller would know if he did not turn up alone as promised. After all, he was probably military and probably trained in surveillance. Kelly reckoned he had no choice but to find some excuse for avoiding this evening’s meeting with Karen, because she knew him too well not to glean at once that there was something big going on that he wasn’t sharing with her. He did not even want to speak to her on the phone. Not now. Not until after that midnight assignation.

Instead, he decided to email her. And he used Moira’s daughters as his excuse, telling Karen that they had arranged a special supper on their last evening together, before Paula returned to her home in London and Lynne went back to university in Bristol. The girls had wanted Kelly to be there, and he had naturally accepted their invitation, he wrote. However, he had totally forgotten his commitment to join them when he’d made his appointment with Karen, which he would now like to put off until the following day. He was very sorry, but he couldn’t let the girls down, could he?

He read the message through several times, tweaking the odd word. It was good, he thought. Nothing at all in it to rouse Karen’s suspicions.

He pressed ‘send’ and made himself another roll-up. He felt a complete rat for using the girls as an excuse in this way, so soon after their mother’s death, but he told himself they would understand. The truth, of course, was that whether or not they would understand actually made no difference. Any kind of commitment to Moira’s daughters was currently the best excuse available to Kelly. And Kelly was a very determined man. When he had an aim in his life, he was inclined to use any means at his disposal to see it through.

When she arrived, Phil Cooper was already sitting in what had been his and Karen Meadow’s favourite corner table in the quiet little pub on the Newton Abbot road, that they had so often visited together. There was a pint of bitter in front of him. He beamed at her as she walked across the bar to him, and rose to his feet, his arms open in a welcoming gesture. Not for the first time, Karen marvelled at his cheek. What was it with men, she wondered? However badly they behaved, they just expected to be allowed to bounce back into your life.

‘God, Karen, it’s good to see you,’ he said warmly.

‘Phil.’ She manoeuvred her way past him with some care, avoiding the physical contact he seemed to be inviting, and sat down. She intended to keep the entire evening strictly businesslike and to be as brief and to the point as possible. She very nearly started to remind him again that their meeting really was business and no more than that. But she stopped herself just in time, reckoning that even to make the comment raised the possibility that she might be considering an alternative.

Instead she looked Cooper directly in the eye without smiling, and asked for a Diet Coke when he offered her a drink.

He looked at her questioningly.

‘I am driving,’ she said.

‘So am I,’ he responded. ‘One glass of something won’t do you any harm, Karen.’

‘Diet Coke, please, Phil,’ she repeated. She wasn’t sure enough of herself to take any chances with this man. She watched him amble to the bar in that gangly way of his. It felt strange to be with him again. He had been so very important to her.

‘And dinner,’ he said, when he returned from the bar, dropping a couple of packets of crisps onto the table alongside their drinks. ‘Smoky bacon flavour,’ he said, grinning his familiar crooked grin.

She felt very slightly irritated. Smoky bacon was her favourite, in fact the only crisp-flavouring that she liked. Had Cooper deliberately set out to remind her of how well he knew her? She wasn’t sure. And, in any case, she had neither the time nor the inclination to waste on such considerations. She made herself concentrate on the job in hand.

‘Look, Phil, like I told you, I think I might have stumbled across something very big indeed,’ she began. ‘And Harry Tomlinson certainly thinks it’s too hot to handle. It’s military, and it’s sensitive, and if we don’t do something about it pretty smartish, I reckon the whole thing is going to blow up in our faces and we’re going to look extremely stupid. A number of deaths are involved. At least some of them could be murder. And all but one, that I know about so far, has happened on our patch, albeit mostly on army premises.’

She realised from the way the expression on his face changed that she’d caught his attention. But then, whatever else he was, Phil Cooper was a good copper, and that little build-up would have had any good police officer on the edge of his seat. Phil’s manner had been vaguely flirtatious before, she thought. But not any more.

‘Army, eh?’ he remarked, the curiosity strong in his voice.

She nodded. ‘Yes. And I can’t handle it alone.’

He raised both eyebrows.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard you admit that before, Karen,’ he said.

‘I’m not sure it’s ever been true before,’ she said. ‘Well, not about the job, anyway.’

As she spoke, she realised that the latter part of her remark could be taken in all kinds of ways she would prefer it not to be, and certainly not by Phil Cooper, of all people. But he appeared to be far too intrigued by what she was telling him to have even noticed.

She continued then, with the whole story, grateful that probably the one good result of her otherwise disastrous affair with Cooper was that she had become close enough to him to really learn the kind of man he was, and the kind of police officer he was. She knew absolutely that she could trust him, at least in a professional sense.

‘Shit,’ he said, when she had finished. ‘That’s big, all right. And how like Kelly to be involved.’

‘Could you imagine him not being? A story like that breaking on his patch. He’s not supposed even to be a journalist any more, but his nose started twitching before he even had a clue what it was twitching about.’

Phil giggled. He had always been a giggler.

‘So, what do you want from me?’ he asked.

‘I’d like MCIT to get involved, but I want you guys to come in from a different direction. I don’t want the information coming from me. Hopefully, we’ll have double the impact that way.’

‘I think I see.’

‘I’m sure you do, Phil. If someone from your team were to call on the chief constable to get a police investigation authorised, based on information that has come his way from sources totally independent to mine, then I think it would add an immense amount of weight. Even Harry Tomlinson can’t take us all on.’

‘That’s the trouble, though, isn’t it?’ remarked Phil. ‘He doesn’t take anyone on, does he? He just sort of wriggles until it all goes away.’

Karen laughed. Phil had always made her laugh.

‘With this one, though, what we have to do is to make sure it doesn’t go away,’ she said. ‘It’s too important, I’m sure of it.’

‘Yes.’ Phil was thoughtful. ‘I’m not usually a great one for conspiracy theories. All too often the truth is something quite simple and straightforward. But you might have begun to uncover something quite extraordinary here, Karen, and I must admit I’d really like to have a crack at solving it. It’s intriguing, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘Yeah, well, you know something, Karen, I reckon I’ll probably get an anonymous call tomorrow, from some frightened young soldier giving me almost all the information on Hangridge and the Devonshire Fusiliers that you’ve just given me.’

‘Really, Phil? Now wouldn’t that be an amazing coincidence?’

‘Absolutely amazing, Karen.’

‘Thanks, Phil.’

‘My pleasure.’ His eyes were fixed on hers and there was no mistaking the look in them.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

‘And I’ve missed you too,’ she replied honestly. ‘But that’s life, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I suppose so, but...’

‘Look, Phil, I’m sorry. But I do have to go.’

‘Right.’ He finished his drink and stood up. ‘I’ll call you, then, as soon as I have any news.’

‘Do that.’ She stood up too. ‘And thanks again.’

They left the pub together and it wasn’t until she was back behind the wheel of her car that she was able to reflect on the personal implications of her meeting with her former lover.

Something extraordinary had happened. Something she found she was extremely glad about. She hadn’t felt anything. She really hadn’t felt anything.

She realised then that when she had arranged to meet Phil, she had actually been much more worried about her reaction to him than his to her. She had not only fancied him rotten, she had loved him to bits. But she doubted he had ever really considered making the kind of commitment to her that she had wanted.

And now she didn’t want it any more. She took a deep breath. She felt a huge sense of relief. It was over. She neither loved not lusted after him any more.

And she supposed she’d had to see him again to know that.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by the feeling of being at peace with herself for the first time in a long while. She so wanted her life back. And in a strangely insidious sort of way, her affair with Phil Cooper had taken it from her.