When the Dead Cry Out

Chapter Sixteen

Karen was, of course, completely wrong. It wasn’t over at all.

Five weeks later, Richard Marshall was found dead in the apartment he still owned at Heron View Marina, Poole. He had been shot through the head with a single bullet from a revolver. No attempt had been made to conceal his body.

Karen received the news by telephone from Dorset CID. It seemed that the alarm had been raised by the local postman, delivering a package, who had noticed that the front door to the flat was standing very slightly ajar. And when there was no reply from inside, after he had knocked several times and called out, he attempted to push the door fully open. It moved only three or four inches before he could push it no further. Something heavy seemed to be preventing it from opening. Peering through the gap, the postman had seen the body of a man lying just inside the hallway.

“Oh, fuck,” muttered Karen to herself. And afterwards she sat very quietly and all alone in her office for several minutes. Her first reaction was shock. Pure shock. Her second, hard as she tried to prevent it, involved a certain sense of pleasure. She was glad Richard Marshall was dead. She couldn’t help it. She experienced a very strong feeling that a kind of justice had been done at last.

For just a moment she indulged herself, allowed herself to revel in the knowledge of his sudden violent death. She hoped also that whoever had killed him had made sure that Marshall was quite aware that he was about to die, and why. She hoped he had known fear, just as his victims must have done. She hoped that when he had looked death in the eye he had been absolutely one hundred percent aware that his end had finally come.

Karen sat with her fists clenched and her eyes closed, savouring the thought. After all this time, after all this heartache, she just couldn’t help it.

Then, abruptly, her mind switched track. The police detective in her swung into action. “Whoever had killed him.” That was the rub. It was now her job and that of the Dorset police to find Marshall’s killer. And that thought brought her firmly back down to earth. She was suddenly acutely aware that Richard Marshall’s death could only be welcome if it did not create another victim. And there was little doubt that was exactly what it would do. Indeed, Marshall’s murderer was almost certainly a victim already, and probably about to become an even greater one.

She turned her attention then to the question of the identity of Marshall’s killer. It just had to be someone who had suffered because of the crimes they all believed he had committed. It would stretch credibility even to consider any other motive.

Top of the list, Karen was well aware, had to be Sean MacDonald. Karen knew that. And she didn’t like the idea one little bit. Sean MacDonald, of whom she had become so fond. Sean MacDonald, who had made it quite clear that he’d had enough of British justice, and had virtually threatened to take the law into his own hands.

She reminded herself again that Sean MacDonald was eighty-three years old. Nonetheless he was a fit man and a volatile one. And a man who felt deeply aggrieved on behalf of a daughter whose killer had never paid the price for his crime. Until now, perhaps.

She picked up the phone again and called Inverness. Mac’s answerphone clicked in. She tried twice more and on the third attempt left a brief message. Then she called Inverness police and asked them to go around to Sean MacDonald’s address. After that she gathered her troops around her.

By the time she walked into the incident room it was obvious that the whole of CID and quite probably the whole of the nick knew that Richard Marshall had been murdered. Tompkins and Smiley were giving each other five in one corner. Everybody in the room seemed to be on their feet, laughing and talking. A bottle of whisky was hastily stowed in a drawer as she entered. She pretended not to notice that, but the rest of it had to be attended to.

“Right, that’s enough,” she called. “We’re going to a funeral here, not a bloody wedding.”

“Yeah, but it couldn’t be a better funeral, could it, boss?” responded Tompkins, to a general muttering of approval. He was looking almost cheerful, which was actually quite difficult for him.

“You think not, Chris?” Karen enquired icily. “Between us and Dorset we have to find out who murdered Richard Marshall. And that’s where this all goes pear-shaped.”

There was more muttering, of a different kind.

“I’ve got Inverness checking out Sean MacDonald,” she went on.

“Oh, fuck,” interrupted Tompkins, no longer appearing at all cheery.

Karen smiled grimly. “Oh, fuck, is dead bloody right, Chris,” she said. “Mac has to be our number-one suspect and I don’t like it any more than I know any of you will.”

She paused, aware that they were all quietening down now, growing thoughtful, which was exactly what she wanted. She was after as much thinking as she could get. She wanted to jerk their brains into action every bit as much as her own.

“Right,” she said. “We need to get to Poole and check out for ourselves what’s happened. Chris, I want you and Ron with me on that.” She nodded towards Smiley. “You came before, you know the set-up, and you, too, Phil.” She waved one hand at Cooper who had been resolutely keeping an extremely low profile. “And we’ll take two cars.”

As she said that she was aware of somebody giggling but she wasn’t able to identify who it was. In any case, she was in no position to do anything about it. Instead she headed for the door, but she didn’t shut it before overhearing a whispered: “And no guesses who’s riding with who,” again from someone unidentifiable, followed by a louder: “Fuck off, wanker,” from Cooper.

Outside in the corridor she leaned briefly against the wall. “Damn,” she muttered to herself. She’d already had quite enough to worry about even before the discovery of Richard Marshall’s body. Her affair with Cooper was now an open secret. And she didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t give him up. She just couldn’t. And yet she feared that she was courting disaster by continuing with such a potentially dangerous relationship.

She travelled with Cooper in his car, which was exactly what everybody expected her to do. But she couldn’t help herself.

“No point in disappointing the troops,” said Phil with a grin as he opened the passenger door for her. She grinned back. Just the prospect of being alone with him in his car for the best part of three hours made her feel warm inside. At least he seemed not quite as troubled by the part he had played in Marshall’s conviction being overturned as he had a while ago. She suspected that knowing that Marshall was dead had made him feel better, even if he was concerned, like her, about who had killed the man.

He drove with one hand on the wheel, and the other, for most of the time, on her knee. It was companionable. It was easy. That was how it was between them. As if they were joined at the hip. She glanced at him as they made their way out of Torquay and headed towards Exeter. He seemed to feel her eyes on him and turned and smiled. She loved him. She really loved him. And she knew he felt the same. How could she walk away from him?

She was indulging herself, just enjoying the feel of being with him, relishing his company, when their brief few minutes of peace were shattered by the insistent ring of her mobile phone. She answered promptly. This was not a time when she could expect peace.

“Sergeant Craig Brown, Inverness,” said a distinctly Scottish voice. “I have some information for you concerning Mr. Sean MacDonald.”

“Yes?” Karen could not stop an anxious note creeping into her voice. She really was fond of MacDonald, and there was something about the Scots policeman’s words which made her think she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her.

“We have so far been unable to contact Mr. MacDonald,” continued Sergeant Brown. “But we have talked to neighbours who said that they last saw him three days ago loading a suitcase into his car and nobody seems to have seen or heard from him since.”

“I see.” Karen had been right. This was not what she wanted to hear.

“There’s more,” said Sergeant Brown. “On the grounds that he is being sought in connection with a murder enquiry we gained a warrant to enter Mr. MacDonald’s home. It seems that he must somehow or other have managed to acquire a gun. We found empty ammunition packets in the dustbin, of the type that would contain bullets for a 45-calibre handgun. We are still searching the house but so far have not found the gun itself. I’m afraid, Detective Superintendent Meadows, that it seems reasonable to assume that Sean MacDonald took the gun with him wherever he may have gone to.”

“I see,” said Karen again. She wasn’t surprised. Mac was an old military man. She had suspected he might still have contacts who could supply him with hardware if necessary.

She ended the call and briefly told Cooper the news, then she called back to Torquay Police Station.

“Get on to Dorset and tell them MacDonald is now definitely the number-one suspect,” she instructed. “And put out an alert nationwide. I want him found, and I want him found fast.”

As she ended the call she turned to Cooper.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I really don’t want to put Sean MacDonald in jail.”

The crime scene had been more or less dealt with by the time they got to Poole. Richard Marshall’s body was on its way to the morgue in the nearby hospital for a post-mortem. The scenes-of-crime officers had already done their stuff.

The officer in charge, Detective Inspector Gordon Crawley, reported fully to Karen.

“Marshall was shot point-blank in the forehead,” he said. “Classic entry-and-exit scenario. Small hole in the front of his head and the back of it damned near blown off. We found the bullet lodged in the plaster of the wall just behind the spot where Marshall would have been standing.” Crawley gestured with one hand to an indentation in the cream-painted wall. “One of our guys is a bit of a weapons expert. Was able to tell right away that the bullet was from a 45-calibre handgun, a Browning or something like that.”

Karen looked around the hallway of the small neat apartment and through open doors to the bedroom, living room and kitchen beyond. Nothing seemed out of place. But then Marshall had been a very organized man, you had to be organized to get away with what he had got away with for so long.

“There’s no sign of a struggle at all,” Crawley continued, as if reading her mind. “It looks as if chummy opened his front door and got it straight in the head, of which there is not a lot left, as you will see if you stay on for the post-mortem tomorrow.”

Karen winced. Partly at the news that it was a 45-calibre handgun that had been used, the same specification as the ammunition found in Sean MacDonald’s house, and partly at the thought of attending an autopsy on a body with most of its head blown off. She had done it before. She had learned long ago to toughen up and deal with such gory situations. That did not mean, though, that she liked it.

At the same time the thought occurred to her that she would be able to stay overnight with Cooper, and they didn’t get many opportunities to spend the whole night together.

Then she promptly gave herself a mental telling-off. This was too serious a matter to allow herself to start thinking about her sex life. And she suddenly remembered that nobody had mentioned Jennifer Roth at any stage.

“She’s not here anymore,” explained Crawley. “She and Marshall lost their jobs at the marina when he was first arrested, but of course he owned this flat. And he would have made enough money from that newspaper article to keep everything going, I imagine.”

He glanced towards Karen as if looking for confirmation. She nodded briefly.

“We understand Jennifer — or Janine, I suppose I should say — recently took off to London looking for work,” Crawley continued. “She may even have lined up a job to go to. Certainly she’s not been seen around here for weeks, not since quite soon after the appeal, in fact. But we’re on the case, ma’am, I can assure you.”

Karen then gave Tompkins and Smiley instructions to cooperate with the Dorset police in their search for Jennifer and anything else that they could help with which might speed up the investigation.

“I don’t want any cock-ups caused by lack of communication,” she told them. “DI Crawley is willing to let you have the run of his incident room, and before you head off back home I expect you to know the Dorset operation inside-out. No more mistakes, got it?”

Together with Cooper she left the flat then. They stood for a while looking out over Poole Harbour. It was a very different kind of day from the one the previous August when they had come to the marina to arrest Marshall. Different in every way. A light drizzle was falling. The sky was leaden and grey. It wasn’t cold but Karen found that she was shivering a bit.

Abruptly she turned to Cooper. “Got your toothbrush?” she asked.

“Always keep one in the car,” he responded.

“Good, ’cause I haven’t got mine,” she said. “I’ll need to borrow yours.”

“I can think of nothing I’d like more, Detective Superintendent,” he replied.

Using Cooper’s name they booked into the Hilton in nearby Bournemouth, a hotel Karen had rather liked when she had stayed there once before while on an antique-hunting weekend, with a former boyfriend and fellow enthusiast, around the many antique shops of nearby Boscombe.

She and Cooper treated themselves to a double room with a big balcony overlooking the sea. And as usual there were things they did because of the illicit nature of their relationship which Karen didn’t like to think about much and which they avoided discussing. Using Cooper’s name was one of these. She knew all too well that he needed to tell his wife where he was staying. He needed an address, even for one night away from home. She didn’t need to tell anyone anything. All Karen had to do in order to free herself for the night was to call her neighbour, Ethel, and ask her to feed Sophie the cat. Everyone she worked with had her mobile number and that was the only method of contact necessary.

Cooper did briefly express anxiety about the cost of the room, which was considerably more than he was likely to be able to reclaim on expenses. Karen would have none of it. She knew he spent very little on himself, and had no wish to increase his guilt by insisting that he spend money he would normally spend on his family — which was something else she didn’t want to discuss with him, not when they could be together all night in what turned out to be a rather good hotel with twenty-four-hour room service.

“It’s on me,” she told him shortly.

He didn’t argue. Instead, as soon as they had shut their bedroom door he took her by the hand and led her to the bed where they lay together, fully clothed, for almost an hour, just savouring their closeness.

“I can’t get over how good this feels,” she murmured.

“I know.” And he kissed her hair and her eyes and her nose in that unique way he had which almost turned her from lover into child.

They ordered steak and champagne on room service. The earlier drizzle had cleared completely and, although it was now mid-June, it turned out to be an unusually warm night for England in early summer, so they took the opportunity to eat outside, sitting on the big balcony watching the stars and the lights of Bournemouth. The town’s two theatres, the Pavilion and the Pier Theatre beyond, blinked at them. The Isle of Wight ferry, which looked a bit like another theatre floating in the sea, was moving slowly across the horizon. It was a magical view.

Karen had had an idea in the back of her head that, with so much more time than usual to be together, this might be their opportunity to talk about their relationship, about where it was going, if indeed it could ever go anywhere. But, as she and Cooper sat together hand in hand, looking out over the seaside town to the ocean, she found that all she wanted to do was enjoy the moment and preserve its memory intact. She didn’t want to talk about their problems or what the future might hold for them. She wanted to concentrate on the present. She wanted to be an ostrich. She was head-over-heels in love. She wanted to pretend that everything was perfect, as, just for one night, in this seaside hotel, it was. Absolutely perfect.

After they had eaten their meal and drunk their champagne they went back to bed and this time they undressed and made love. Their lovemaking was at the stage where it seemed to get better every time. As far as Karen was concerned, she believed that it was simply because she had never cared so much about anybody.

“It’s the same,” he said suddenly. “It’s the same for me.”

She hadn’t even spoken. She knew he was right, though. That’s how it was between them. They thought and felt the same things at the same time. Often they didn’t need to speak at all. She considered it to be quite remarkable.

She reached out for him and drew him to her. He felt so good. He smelt so good. He tasted so good. She realized she was becoming aroused again. Naturally he was, too. At the same time, at the same pace. And they were just beginning again, in a very leisurely fashion, when there was a loud knock on the door.

Automatically they pulled apart.

“Who the hell’s that?” Cooper asked.

Karen checked her watch. It was almost midnight.

“Could be room service wanting our tray,” she suggested. “The waiter did ask us to put it outside.”

“At this hour?”

“Well, I don’t know. Just stay here, they’ll go away.”

She pulled him close again, and as she did so there was another equally loud and rather more insistent knock.

“Oh, fuck,” he said. “I don’t think we double-locked the door. I’d better have a look.”

He climbed out of bed, ambled over to the door, still naked, and peered through the security peephole. At once he recoiled, almost as if he had been attacked.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Karen sat upright in bed, sensing his alarm.

He turned to her.

“It’s... It’s...”

He was interrupted by another insistent hammering. Then a voice called out.

“Phil, Phil, I know you’re in there with that bloody cow. Open this door, Phil.”

“Oh, my God,” repeated Cooper.

Karen realized at once that it must be Cooper’s wife who was out there in the Hilton’s fifth-floor corridor. She had no doubt at all, even though Cooper seemed incapable of putting a coherent sentence together. She jumped out of bed, reaching to pick up her clothes which she had unceremoniously dropped on the floor.

“Phil, Phil, open the door!” came another shout from outside. “Now!”

It was a command. And to Karen’s horror Phil appeared to be about to obey. He reached for the door handle.

“Don’t!” Karen shouted. “Don’t open it. Tell her you’ll meet her downstairs. Tell her anything. Just don’t open it!”

It was too late. Meekly, Phil Cooper, the husband who had never cheated before, opened the door. His wife pushed past him into the room. Karen watched it all happen as if it were a movie being screened in slow motion. Automatically, she tried to cover herself with the bundle of clothes she now had in her arms. Her shirt and trousers were both in a tangle. She couldn’t sort them out. She felt both pathetic and vulnerable and was quite sure she looked it, too.

Phil Cooper just stood there, still holding the door open, also still stark naked. He seemed to be completely in shock. So was Karen — they were, after all almost always in sync. Sarah Cooper walked towards her. Karen had only seen photographs of Cooper’s wife before. She had never met her. She was as pretty as she looked in the pictures Cooper had shown her, before they had begun what now seemed to be their ill-fated affair. But her red hair was dishevelled and you could see from her eyes that she had been crying. Her face was contorted with hatred as she approached Karen.

“You bitch!” she screamed. “You bitch! I know exactly who you are and I’ll get you for this. I’ll ruin you. You’ll see.”

For a moment Karen thought the other woman was going to hit her, and she wouldn’t have altogether blamed her had she done so. Involuntarily, she took a step backwards. Her nakedness made her feel quite defenceless.

But Sarah Cooper was not that interested in Karen, it seemed. Instead she swung around to face her husband.

“And you...!” she began, still screaming. “As for you, I never want to see you again as long as you live. You are not my husband anymore, you bastard. You are no longer the father of my children.”

She ran back across the room, then, to Cooper and slapped him just once across the face. He flinched, and still seemed unable to find any words.

“I am going to make absolutely sure that you never see the children again,” she stormed. Then she pushed past him and out through the door he was still holding open. He let go of it at once and lurched across the room to pick up his clothes, which were also all over the floor.

“I have to go after her, I have to go after her,” he gasped, his voice sounding strangulated, as he struggled into his trousers and shirt.

Karen just watched in silence. There was nothing much she could say and it was pretty obvious she was not in any case going to be given a chance to say it. Cooper seemed almost to have forgotten she was there.

Once he was dressed, after a fashion, he picked up his car keys from the bedside table and took off at a run. In fact, he was in so much of a hurry that he actually opened the door and left the room without speaking to her again. She stood trembling with shock. She had a pain in her stomach. She felt as if she had been abandoned in another universe. This was Phil, the man she loved more than she had thought possible. And, now that he had been confronted by his wife, he did not even have time to give her one small word of comfort.

Just before closing the door, however, he put his head back around it.

“You’ll cover for me tomorrow, won’t you, Karen?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied glumly. She had tried to put irony into her voice, but he didn’t even notice.

He was gone almost at once. She stood for a few seconds more, the events of the last few minutes racing through her brain. She feared that she was well enough aware of what it all meant. Phil’s reaction had spoken for itself. He was a family man. She had known that. His family had been everything to him until she came along.

And if it came to a choice between her and his children, there was going to be no contest at all. She supposed she had always known that, really. Now she was absolutely certain of it.

She let her clothes fall to the floor again and threw herself onto the bed where so recently she and he had made love so splendidly. And so lovingly.

“You really are a bloody fool, Karen Meadows,” she muttered to herself.

Then, not for the first time during her brief relationship with DS Phil Cooper, she buried her head in the pillows and sobbed her heart out.

Chapter Seventeen

In the morning Karen made herself rise early. She showered, brushed her teeth and scrubbed at her red swollen face. She ordered breakfast and she asked reception to arrange a hire-car. She had, after all, been abandoned without transport. But her job now was to forget the ordeal she had been through.

She had an important post-mortem examination to attend. She had a murder enquiry to run. She was Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows. She was not destined to have a man in her life, to have a family, to have a relationship that meant everything to her — unlike, it seemed to her, just about everyone else that she knew. It was as simple as that. Her destiny was her work and nothing else, she told herself. And that was a mess now, too.

She found she couldn’t eat the scrambled egg and bacon she had made herself order. The tea, however, was welcome. She was on the second cup when her mobile phone rang for the first time that day. She guessed who it was even before checking the display panel.

“Hello, Phil,” she said flatly.

“Karen, I’m so sorry about everything,” he said. Cooper’s voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched and had a definite quaver in it.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he went on.

“I think you’ve done it, Phil.”

“Karen, I didn’t have any choice. I had to go after her. Sarah’s my wife. She’s the mother of my children. I can’t lose my children. I really can’t.”

“Fine.” Karen didn’t really want to hear any of this. She had, in any case, already known it.

“How did it happen, anyway?” she asked. “Why did she come to Bournemouth?”

“She told me she’d had suspicions about you and me for some time. I thought I was being so bloody clever, but apparently I wasn’t at all. She said that it was the way I was behaving, the hours I was keeping, even the way I spoke about you, that made her start wondering. Sarah and I have been together a long time. She knows me very well. When I called and told her I was staying overnight at the Bournemouth Hilton she told me she somehow immediately guessed that I was sharing a room with you. So she simply phoned the hotel and asked if Mr. and Mrs. Cooper had checked in. The reply was all the confirmation she needed.”

“And she came all the way to Bournemouth just to check it out?”

“I suppose so. She said she still couldn’t quite believe it, she had to see for herself. So she took the kids round to her mother’s and drove straight here.”

“Well, she certainly saw for herself, all right. What now?”

“God knows. I was in too much of a state to do or say anything sensible last night. And she was in a state, too. But she’s not having any so far, that’s for sure. She made me sleep out in the car last night.”

“Right.” Karen took note of the self-pity in his voice. He had yet to even ask how she was feeling, what she might be going through. Apart from anything else, Sarah Cooper, with or without justification, had threatened to ruin Karen, and Karen had taken that threat absolutely seriously. It would be extremely easy to carry out. All the woman had to do was contact the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary top brass and let them know what had been going on, that a detective superintendent had been having an affair with a married junior officer, and Karen would be in very serious trouble indeed. This was not, however, what was foremost in her mind. She felt as if her emotions had been hit by a bulldozer, and the bulldozer just kept crashing on and on.

“Look, I can’t work today, I really can’t,” Phil continued. “I’ve got to try to sort this mess out.”

So that’s what I am, thought Karen, a mess.

Aloud she said: “OK, don’t worry. I’ll say you were called home urgently because of family sickness. All right?”

“You’re a brick, Karen.”

“Aren’t I, though?” Her sarcasm was actually directed at herself rather than him.

“Well, thanks anyway. Look, as soon as I’ve got to grips with this I’ll get back to you, OK?”

“Of course.” She couldn’t believe it. He sounded as if he were in a business meeting. Get back to her? Good God!

“Oh, and Karen, I think I left my watch behind. Could you bring it with you?”

“Sure.” She’d noticed it on the bedside table earlier, and his tie was still lying on the floor.

He rang off then, barely saying goodbye. Karen sat looking at her phone for a moment or two. Her hands were trembling. It had been like talking to a stranger. Phil was now going to attempt a reconciliation with his wife, she assumed. And he seemed to just take it for granted that she would accept that. She would accept it, too, of course. In any case, what choice did she have?

She gathered up her briefcase, shoved her phone in her pocket, and hurried out of the room. All she could do was switch her mind off Phil Cooper. She didn’t have time to think about her feelings anymore. And in any case she was too frightened to do so.

The post-mortem examination brought no surprises. Richard Marshall’s estimated time of death was between ten and twelve hours before his body was found. So he had been killed the previous evening, and his condition indicated that the handgun with which he had been shot had been fired at close range. His body showed no signs of any other injury.

Karen found that she was completely dispassionate as she watched the proceedings. The truth was, she had grudgingly to admit, that although it was, of course, useful to exchange views with the Dorset policemen present, and to know at first hand the thoughts of the pathologist, she might not have bothered to stay over for the inquest at all had it not been for the opportunity to spend a night with Cooper. And look how that had turned out, she reflected wryly.

Not even the gory sight of the decimated remains of Richard Marshall’s head moved her. Although she had become extremely good at steeling herself at postmortems, Karen didn’t think anyone ever got completely used to the sight of mutilated or decayed bodies. However, on this occasion she was completely unmoved. Whether or not this was due to her complete lack of any kind of compassion for Marshall or whether it was simply that she was still numb from the events of the previous night, she was not sure. A bit of both, she supposed.

As she walked to her car she received a second call on her mobile, this time from DC Tompkins back in Torquay.

“We’ve found Sean MacDonald, boss,” said Tompkins, sounding almost excited. “He was on a fishing trip, staying in some remote Highlands hotel. Apparently he saw on breakfast news this morning that Richard Marshall had been found dead and immediately phoned here for you.”

“Inverness are checking it out but the hotel have already confirmed that he’s been there for four nights. He admits that he did buy a handgun, from some old army pal apparently, though he won’t say how, of course, and that he did consider seeking his own revenge on Marshall. But he says he couldn’t go through with it. The gun was in the boot of his car. He said he was planning to throw it into some deep water somewhere. If you ask me, boss, he still hadn’t quite made up his mind whether to have a poke at Marshall or not. He was still hedging his bets. There was ammunition with the gun, but the Inverness boys say that if Mac had tried to fire the thing he may well have ended up killing himself. It turned out to be an old Second World War Smith and Wesson, would you believe? They’re having it checked out by forensic, but they don’t reckon it’s been fired in twenty years, let alone two days ago.”

“So it looks like Mac’s in the clear, boss, whatever he may or may not have intended. Of course, it was illegal for him even to have the gun in his possession, but Inverness have indicated that, taking all the circumstances into account, including Mac’s age, they’ll probably settle for a formal caution on that.”

“Thanks, Chris.”

Karen felt relief wash over her as she climbed into her hire-car. Having to arrest Sean MacDonald might well have proved one thing too much for her to cope with, she thought.

She started the engine and switched on Classic FM. It was her favourite driving and thinking station. She wanted to concentrate hard on where this latest development left the new murder investigation. If Sean MacDonald was no longer the main suspect, then who was next on the list?

Suddenly another thought struck her. She was still in the hospital car park, heading for the exit. Abruptly she pulled in to her left on to a wide section of pavement and stopped the car. Then she fished in her handbag for her phone again.

There was somebody she hadn’t heard from. She dialled another mobile phone number. The phone was switched off. All she got was a message service. She didn’t leave a message. Not yet. Instead she dialled the number of the Evening Argus back in Torquay.

The news desk told her Kelly wasn’t there. He was off sick.

“Was he in the office yesterday?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” responded the young news-desk assistant helpfully, apparently finding nothing curious in such a query. “Well, he was in first thing but then he went home because he said his tummy bug was back. He’d been off the day before, you see...”

Karen felt her heart start to beat faster. She made another call then, to Kelly’s home. His partner, Moira, answered on the fifth ring. She sounded sleepy. Karen remembered then that Moira was a nursing sister who worked nights at Torquay Hospital. She didn’t feel guilty about waking her, though. This was far too important.

“Is John there?” she asked.

“Uh, no, he’s working.”

The warning bells rang at once. His office had said he was off sick. Moira said he was working. This didn’t look good. Unless Kelly, a man with a bad track record with both women and wine, was up to his old tricks, of course. Karen didn’t think so.

“You don’t know where he’s gone, do you?” she asked as casually as she could.

“He’s working on the Marshall story. I’m surprised you haven’t caught up with him. I would have thought he’d have been chasing you, actually.”

“He has,” Karen lied swiftly. “I missed his calls. Now his mobile’s switched off. Between you and me, I’ve got something for him. Something we can help each other over. But I need to get to him fast. Do you know exactly where he is?”

“Well, no. He left in a hurry yesterday morning. He woke me up halfway through my day’s sleep, too, phoning to say there’d been a development and he had people he needed to see on the Marshall case and he didn’t know when he’d be back. I guessed he was going to Bournemouth, and then, well, when I heard on the news later about Richard Marshall I just assumed he’d had one of his tips...”

For a moment Karen felt hope rising. “So was he at home the previous day, then?”

Her hope was swiftly squashed. “Oh, no. He was out on the story all that day as well, Bournemouth then, too, I assumed. I think he told me so. Oh, I’m not sure...”

Moira Simmons’ voice trailed off. Karen could sense the other woman’s sleepy brain beginning to turn over. She was not quite as ingenuous as the Argus’s young news-desk assistant, who must surely, Karen thought, be very new to his job.

Nonetheless, she persisted a little more. “Have you heard from him since he left yesterday morning?” she asked.

“Yes, he called late afternoon to say he would be away overnight...”

Moira Simmons sounded really concerned now. Karen ended the call abruptly before Moira could start to question her. She realized that she must have put all kinds of thoughts into the woman’s mind, but that wasn’t important. All that really mattered was to find out where Kelly had been for the last two days and what he had been up to.

Karen had that sinking feeling again. First Sean MacDonald, now Kelly. What was it with this case? It was just too close to home, it really was.

She fiddled in her handbag again and fished out a cigarette. She really needed one. Again. Tomorrow she would definitely give up. Then she made another call. This time to Bill Talbot. To her relief her old boss was at home and answered his phone straight away.

She didn’t waste time with small talk.

“Bill, do you remember you mentioned to me in the pub once that John Kelly had a special reason for being so interested in the Richard Marshall case? Can you tell me all about it, please?”

“Sure.” Bill sounded puzzled. “Hey, what about the news, though? That bastard Marshall’s got his at last. Couldn’t believe it when I heard. You won’t find it necessary to look too hard for whoever took him out, I hope.”

Karen had neither time nor inclination for those sort of sentiments. She ignored him totally on that issue. Instead she persevered with the purpose of her call.

“Bill, please, tell me about Kelly.”

“Oh, yes.” Talbot sounded disappointed. He’d wanted to enjoy the moment, no doubt, to share it with a kindred spirit.

“Well, it’s all about Kelly’s mother, really,” he went on. “Angela Kelly taught Marshall’s girls at primary school. Well, actually, she was the headmistress, and a bloody good one at that, I’m told. It seems that the day after Clara Marshall was last seen the eldest Marshall girl, Lorraine, told Kelly’s mother that her father had got rid of her mother—”

Karen interrupted there. Light had suddenly dawned. “I knew about the headmistress, it’s in the files, and I’m not at all sure I didn’t hear it gossipped about at the time. But I had no idea she was John Kelly’s mother. I’d missed that completely.”

Karen cursed herself. She felt she really should have known.

“Do you know the rest?” Talbot asked.

“Well, I know that the headmistress always blamed herself, thought that if she’d reported to the police what the little girl had said that she might have saved both children. She had no reason to blame herself, of course — what Lorraine Marshall said was just the sort of thing kids do say when their parents’ marriage is on the rocks.”

“Indeed,” Talbot continued. “But that was not the end of it, I’m afraid. It played on Angela Kelly’s mind. I talked to her myself, you know, when the shit finally hit the fan the year after Clara and the girls disappeared and when we first arrested Marshall. She kept saying over and over again: ‘Lorraine told me her father had got rid of her mother, she told me her father had got rid of her mother. She told me that and I should have understood. I should have done something.’”

“Mrs. Kelly always believed that it was because she had confronted Richard Marshall and told him what his daughter had said that he then killed his children as well as his wife. And she couldn’t forgive herself for having been taken in by him, for believing him when he said that Clara had first left him, then returned for the girls. I remember that I couldn’t console the woman at all. And neither, it seems, could anyone else. Six months later she killed herself. She took an overdose. And her family, John included, never had any doubts at all over why she did it...”

Talbot paused there. Karen felt a chill in her spine.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Talbot began to speak again. “Well, as it’s turned out Marshall certainly didn’t kill both children. That’s one thing we do know, because at least one of those girls is still alive. Ironic really, isn’t it, Karen?”

Karen did not reply. She was lost in her own thoughts, and they were extremely disturbing ones.

“Karen?” There was both curiosity and anxiety in Talbot’s voice now. He had started thinking too, it seemed. “Karen? Are you there? You don’t think Kelly had anything to do with it, do you? Surely not...”

Karen interrupted him then. She wasn’t going down that road. Not yet. Not with anyone. Not even with Bill Talbot.

“For God’s sake, Bill. I’ve had people going through all the files on this case over and over again. How could they have missed the headmistress’s suicide? Was it there? Was it properly recorded?”

“Well...” Bill sounded disconcertingly unsure of himself. “Yes, it must have been. Everything was. It’s just that the enquiry was so disjointed. After we launched the initial investigation, and then had to let Marshall go because we didn’t have enough on him, well, everything went pear-shaped really. People kept coming up with theories, with their slant on things, you know how it is... you’ve moved on to something else by then—”

She interrupted again. “Bill, are you trying to tell me that Mrs. Kelly’s suicide and its probable cause wasn’t properly recorded?”

“No, of course not. It must have been. It’s just that there was so much, and so much after the event, if you see what I mean—”

“No, I don’t bloody see what you mean, Bill,” Karen stormed. “No wonder this fucking investigation has made the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary a laughingstock. Problem is, I just got the tail end of it and now I’m the one taking all the shit full in my face.”

She pushed the end button then. She knew she’d been unfair, really, but she couldn’t help it. The whole investigation had been a series of disasters from the very beginning, at least one of which she shared the blame for, and nothing seemed to be changing. But this was another development which hit her hard personally. She cared about Kelly. Not only that, she had to admit to herself, too many people knew of her close friendship with him. In fact, before her relationship with Phil became the focus of station gossip, she knew there had always been talk of her and Kelly having an affair. That had actually never been the case. Nonetheless Kelly was already a suspect character.

Not that long previously Karen had been instrumental in arresting John Kelly and of actually charging him with a murder during the investigation of another case, which she had always considered never to have been satisfactorily resolved. And that had been the case which had at one stage threatened to scupper her promotion to detective superintendent, or worst, at least partly because of her association with Kelly. Kelly had fallen under the spell of the mesmerizing Angel Silver, the high-profile widow of a rock star. And although he had been proven innocent before the case had even got to court and all charges had been dropped, he had only got himself into such a situation because of his tendency towards allowing his emotions to take control of him. It was true that his behaviour then had probably been accentuated by excessive use of drink and drugs, and, as far as Karen knew, Kelly was now clean, but nonetheless he had shown little self-control over anything much over the years.

Karen took yet another cigarette from her packet and lit it with the glowing end of the first. She inhaled deeply.

She had to admit to herself that if there was one man in the world who she knew was capable of acting in a thoroughly out-of-character way because he had allowed his feelings to run out of control, it was John Kelly. Fond as she was of him, she had believed before that under certain circumstances he could be capable of murder. She still believed it. And with his healthy list of criminal contacts Kelly was another man who would have no trouble at all getting hold of a gun if he wanted one.

She picked up her phone again and called Torquay Police Station.

“I want a national alert put out on John Kelly,” she said. “I want him found. And I want him found fast.”

“And if he won’t cooperate, if he won’t come quietly, I want him arrested on suspicion of murder.”

Chapter Eighteen

It did not prove necessary to arrest John Kelly after all.

Karen arrived back at Torquay Police Station just as the call came through from the Met. Kelly had turned up at Hammersmith Police Station less than an hour earlier. He had wanted to report the discovery of a body. The body of a young woman believed to be Jennifer Roth.

Karen felt yet again as if she’d been punched in the stomach. What was going on here? The whole scenario was becoming more and more complex and confusing by the second. What on earth had happened to Jennifer Roth? How had she died? And why had John Kelly of all people, a Torquay-based reporter, found her body in West London? She and the entire might of two police forces hadn’t even had a clue where to find Jennifer Roth.

She grabbed the phone from the hand of the detective sergeant who had taken the call.

“Detective Superintendent Meadows,” she announced in a loud clear voice which she hoped would indicate to whoever was on the end of the line that she was in charge and which, as ever, totally belied the way she was feeling.

“DS Farthing, Hammersmith,” came the response.

“Right, DS Farthing,” commanded Karen, “I want you to start at the beginning and tell me everything that has happened.”

“Well, it’s a bit confused still, ma’am,” began the detective sergeant. “But one thing that is straightforward is that a young woman, whom it seems is almost certainly Jennifer Roth, was found lying in a pool of blood in her own flat with half her head blown off and a handgun by her side.”

“This chap John Kelly came in here to say he’d found her. He was in a dreadful state, and he still is. Could hardly get the words out. He kept saying: ‘She’s topped herself, she’s topped herself.’ Now that could be the case, but we just don’t know for sure yet what happened.”

“Anyway, one of our lads, who recently transferred to the Met from down your way, remembered Kelly at once from that big case you had a couple of years back involving that rock star’s widow, Angel Silver. He also remembered that John Kelly had actually been charged with murder at one point, so we reckoned we could at the very least have a suspect character on our hands. Then we realized who Jennifer Roth was, and who her father was — and, well, we thought we’d better get in touch with you guys at once.”

Karen took a deep breath and did battle with herself to stay calm.

“I’m grateful for that,” she said. “You still have Kelly, I presume?”

“You bet, ma’am. We’re holding him for questioning. That man’s going nowhere till we are quite sure we know how Jennifer Roth died. For a start it looks pretty certain that he broke into her flat this morning. Or if he didn’t somebody else did. A window’s been smashed round the back. We’ve got the SOCOs there, of course, and our pathologist, so we should be getting some basic facts soon. Meanwhile we’re getting a doctor in for Kelly. Whatever he may or may not have done, he’s in total shock and we just can’t get any sense out of him.”

“Right,” said Karen. “I’d really like to talk to John Kelly myself, if that’s all right. I have a history with Kelly; I think I’d stand a better chance than most. Can you square it with your governor?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, ma’am. He knew I was calling you guys and agreed it was the best thing. To tell the truth, this John Kelly has actually been asking to speak to you, and he doesn’t seem willing to even attempt to talk to anyone else. You’d better fax over a request in writing, for the record, but I can promise you that’ll just be a formality. Any help you can give with sorting this lot out would be greatly appreciated. You can move the crime scene down to Torquay if you want.”

Karen chuckled. “We have quite enough crime scenes of our own, thank you very much, Sergeant,” she replied. She glanced at her watch. “I’ll get the fax organized, then I’ll be on my way. Should be with you by about six, I’d hope.”

She rang off then and turned to Tompkins.

“Right, Chris,” she said. “You’re with me again and you’re driving. I’ve done enough of that already today. And by the time this day’s over I’m going to be out on my feet, I reckon.”

They arrived at Hammersmith Police Station, just off the main shopping street, at ten past six. Pretty good timing, Karen thought. She’d been just ten minutes out. But then she had been pushing Tompkins to drive to the limit all the way.

DS Farthing came to meet her almost as soon as she walked into the front office. She immediately expressed her gratitude to him for the speed with which he had contacted the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary and for the way in which he had arranged for her to join in the operation. That kind of cooperation between the Met and a county force was rare indeed. Under the present happy circumstances, Karen didn’t make a point of that, of course. But then she didn’t need to. She and DS Farthing were both experienced long-serving police officers. They knew the score.

Karen didn’t feel she had time for any preamble. “I’d like to see Kelly straight away if I can,” she said.

“No problem, he’s in an interview room already, waiting for you.”

Karen raised both eyebrows. This was cooperation of an unprecedented level. She could only assume that the Met in Hammersmith had more work than they could cope with, because they were certainly content to unload all they could of this case.

Kelly was sitting at a table in a small windowless interview room, looking much the same as he had when she had last seen him in a similar situation. Rather disconcertingly, his eyes seemed to be somewhat glazed. She did not treat him to the courtesy of any preliminary greetings. Instead she sat down smartly opposite him, gestured for the uniformed constable already in attendance to switch on the tape recorder, and began.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s start at the beginning. How did you come to find the body of Jennifer Roth?”

Kelly looked startled, as if he had expected a different, more sympathetic approach, perhaps, from his old friend. Well, that was tough, thought Karen, because he certainly wasn’t going to get it. Kelly seemed to be beginning to make a habit of this kind of thing. He had put her at risk professionally before, and she wasn’t going to let him do it again. He may have done her a big favour once, but that was a very long time ago, and it was a favour which she felt had been called in on more than one occasion already.

She noticed that Kelly had not shaved that day, that his eyes were red-rimmed, and that his hands on the table before him were trembling. He was staring hard at her. For a moment she thought he was going to ask her for some sort of favour. Then he just seemed to slump in his chair, and at the same time he began to speak.

“I travelled up to London yesterday as soon as I heard the news of Marshall’s death,” he said. “I had to see Jennifer straight away. I took the train to Paddington and then the tube back to Hammersmith. I went to her flat but there was no reply. I tried a few times, then I booked myself into a pub round the corner that does B and B. I had her phone number and I kept calling. I even called in the middle of the night. Still no reply.”

“So this morning I went around to the flat again and when I still couldn’t raise her I decided to break in and have a look. I was worried, and I was right to be, it seems. I felt responsible, you see, I had a dreadful feeling that I knew what might have happened. And I also had a dreadful feeling it was down to me.”

Kelly paused and wiped the back of one hand wearily across his eyes. Karen did not speak. She had no intention of putting him out of his misery.

“As you probably know now, it’s a basement flat in one of those big old terraced houses just off the North End Road,” Kelly continued. “I went round the back and broke a pane of glass in the kitchen door. It only had a Yale lock so once I could get my hand inside all I had to do was open it. Some security, eh?”

“Get on with it, Kelly.” Karen had no more time for diversions than she had for social niceties. She was deliberately brusque even though she knew it was only nervousness which had made him make the remark about security in the first place.

“Well, I went into the flat and I called out for her and then I just went through the rooms. I found her in the bedroom...”

His voice tailed off. He looked as if he might be about to be sick. He ran his tongue around his lips.

“Can I have a glass of water?” he asked.

Karen nodded and gestured to the uniformed constable to do the honours. She was, however, not in the mood to show a great deal of compassion for Kelly. God knows what mess he had managed to get himself in yet again, but this time she was determined she was not going to join him in it.

“She was spreadeagled across the bed. That damned gun beside her. I can’t remember when I last saw so much blood...”

Kelly stopped again.

Karen was not going to give him an inch.

“Go on,” she instructed.

“She’d blown her fucking head off, hadn’t she?” Kelly leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and grasped his head with both hands, covering his face. For a moment Karen thought he was going to pass out. She still showed him no mercy, gave him no encouragement. Instead, once again, she waited in silence for him to continue to speak.

“I didn’t need a doctor to tell me she was dead, that’s for sure,” he said eventually. “I dialled 999, and the rest you know, I expect.”

“The rest I most certainly do not know. You are aware that the Met regard you as a suspect, I suppose?”

“Yes, and they’re dead right to,” responded Kelly instantly. “I am responsible for her death, I reckon.”

Karen sighed wearily. “Not again, Kelly,” she said. “We seem to have been down this road once before, I recall. Will you please stop playing games with me, and tell me in plain English what exactly you mean by that remark.”

Kelly leaned forward and bowed his head over the table. Karen could see the tension in him. His hands were trembling even more. Under different circumstances Karen might have felt sorry for him, but the way things were she had neither time nor inclination for any sympathy at all.

“Well, if it hadn’t been for me, if I hadn’t done what I did, I reckon she’d still be alive—”

“For Christ’s sake, Kelly,” Karen interrupted in a stentorian roar that caused both Chris Tompkins, and the young Met constable who had just returned with the requested glass of water, to look extremely startled. She was aware that she was conducting this interview in a far-from-textbook way, but she couldn’t help it. This was John Kelly, after all.

“All right. All right.” Kelly knew perfectly well what was required of him, Karen suspected, and from his demeanour it seemed that he might at last be prepared to give.

“I’ve been in touch with Jennifer Roth for some weeks, well, since just after I went to Jimmy Finch’s retirement do, actually,” he said, glancing at Karen rather sheepishly. She feared that she could guess what was coming next, and she also had a dreadful idea that she knew exactly where it was leading.

“Go on,” she prompted for what seemed the umpteenth time.

“Well, she’d already moved from Poole to Hammersmith. I tracked her down through the marina office. She’d left a forwarding address, simple as that.”

Karen shut her eyes briefly, then opened them again. She wondered how long it would have taken Dorset CID to think of that. And she should have arranged for such a simple enquiry herself, too.

“She’d found herself a job in an office,” Kelly went on. “A surprisingly good job, she said, but I think she also wanted to get away from her father, at least for a bit.”

“Anyway.” He stopped and glanced at Karen. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” he asked.

Karen thought that she might. She wondered if Kelly was ever going to stop playing games. And she also wondered if it was really just nerves that was making him behave like this or if he was covering something up. Mind you, she reckoned, if he was, then it was probably only his own thoughtless behaviour.

“Kelly, for Christ’s sake,” she said yet again.

He continued straight away then. “Well, I sought her out because I wanted to tell her what Jimmy Finch had said about Marshall confessing to him.”

“You did what?”

“I told her that Marshall had more or less confessed to killing her mother,” Kelly repeated a little sheepishly. “Not just about her mother’s death, but also implying that he’d killed her sister, too.”

“Terrific,” said Karen. “Absolutely terrific. And how did she respond to that, as if I couldn’t guess?”

“Look, I actually had a purpose in telling her what I did.” Kelly was on the defensive now. “I’d got the name of this doctor who was an expert on Recovered Memory Syndrome. You know about it?”

“Of course.” There’d actually been a conviction based on the highly controversial condition the previous year up in Merseyside which involved a young girl witnessing her father kill her mother in 1978. The girl, by then a twenty-nine-year-old woman, underwent intensive counselling sessions including hypnotherapy which had allegedly caused her to recall scenes that she had previously blanked out of her mind.

“Well, I suggested to Jennifer that she should see this doctor and undergo therapy, so that if she had any doubts at all about her memory of what happened she could at least be reassured. Well, that was the way I put it to her...”

Kelly paused. Karen smiled tightly. “Reassured” was a word that slipped rather too easily off the tongue of a one-time tabloid hack, she thought to herself. This time she waited a little more patiently for Kelly to start talking again.

“She listened to me but she didn’t seem all that keen; then she called me to say that she had made an appointment. I think she just wanted to talk to someone. Also, when you and the prosecuting counsel had all gone on about how she could have been disturbed as a child and that her memory, prompted by Marshall, might not be one hundred percent, I think something did seep through even though she wouldn’t have it at the time. I think she already had her doubts and I provided her with a way of putting them to rest. Or at least that’s what she hoped would happen.”

He paused and glanced at Karen as if he was looking for reassurance now.

“If you ask me, she so desperately wanted a father, a real father, that she willed herself to believe in Marshall, and that meant that she had to believe everything he told her about what happened with her mother and her sister. Marshall played daddy to her from the moment she rediscovered him, and she didn’t want it to end. By God, she didn’t.”

He stopped again. Karen studied him appraisingly. Sometimes she just could not believe the way Kelly behaved, the way he meddled.

“Psychiatrist yourself now, are you?” As she spoke she realized this was not the first time she had made that remark to him. But she had never been so serious before.

“Obviously not,” he replied very quietly. “I made a real balls-up of it. It’s true what I said before, all right, whatever you make of it. She’s dead because of me. I am responsible.”

“Two days ago now she phoned again and she said that she’d had several sessions with the shrink I’d recommended and that she had successfully recovered her memory, and that this time she was absolutely certain that she remembered everything correctly. She said she wanted to tell me all of it. But she wouldn’t talk on the phone. Said she wanted to meet me face-to-face. So I dropped everything and took the train to London.”

Kelly coughed dryly and reached for his glass of water. Karen was intrigued now.

“Why you, do you think?” she asked more gently.

“She said I’d provided the key to her memory and maybe I could tell her how to use it.” Kelly smiled. “Those were her exact words, come to think of it. Quite poetic really. I don’t think she knew who to turn to, actually. She had no friends worth mentioning and no family apart from Marshall.”

“What about going to the police?”

“Under the circumstances she didn’t think the police could help. Not this time round, as she put it.”

“Under what circumstances?”

Kelly smiled grimly. “Look, you don’t have to listen to me telling you anything secondhand,” he said. “I’ve got it all on tape.”

“You have?” In spite of herself, Karen could feel the excitement welling up in her.

“Yup. I did an in-depth interview with her at her flat the day before yesterday. Then afterwards I went back home to decide what to do with it, what to do next, what I could do next. It was pretty tricky stuff, as you can imagine. Then I heard the news yesterday morning that Richard Marshall had been killed. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t expected her to do anything like that. I really hadn’t.”

Kelly covered his face with his hands.

“Anything like what, exactly?” Karen was being very careful.

“Well, I just knew at once that she’d killed him. That she’d killed Richard Marshall. I just knew it. I mean, if he’d been my father I’d have killed him.”

Yes, but not everyone is quite such a hothead as you, thank God, thought Karen. Aloud she said nothing. Instead she waited again for him to resume speaking.

“I knew she’d done it so I just got myself to the station and caught a train straight back here. I didn’t know what to do when I couldn’t raise her. It was during the night that I began to think she was probably dead, too. That was why I broke into her flat this morning.”

“And I was proved right, unfortunately. She was dead. Stone-dead. Half her bloody head blown off. And I’ll bet you, I’ll bet you everything I’ve got, that you’ll find the gun that killed her also killed Richard Marshall in Poole.”

By late afternoon the next day the Met were satisfied that Jennifer Roth had indeed almost certainly killed herself. The regional Home Office pathologist reported that the angle of the gun indicated a self-inflicted wound. Initial forensic evidence also backed up the suicide theory. And the gun used, a Browning 45, was also almost certainly the weapon used to kill Richard Marshall in Poole.

Kelly, who had been held overnight at Hammersmith Police Station, was released into Karen’s custody, enabling her to take him back to Torquay. She couldn’t wait to hear that tape which, for reasons that defied her, he had left in the drawer of his desk at home. His explanation was that he thought the content so explosive that he didn’t want to carry the tape around with him.

In the car on the way down the M5, Karen’s mobile phone rang and a familiar number flashed on to the screen. It was Cooper. For a moment she considered not answering it. She glanced at Tompkins. It was a filthy day again for the time of year. The rain was tipping down and the detective constable was frowning in concentration as he peered through the curtains of misty water being formed by the heavy traffic all around him. In the back seat Kelly, who had earlier grumbled that he had not slept for one minute during his night spent in a police cell, was snoring gently.

Karen let the phone ring several times before finally pressing the receive button.

“Yes,” she said curtly.

“Karen, I’ve got to talk to you—”

“This isn’t a good moment. I am in the middle of a murder investigation.”

“Look, Sarah has said she’ll give me another chance if I apply for a transfer. It’s not what I want, but I’m just terrified of losing the kids—”

Karen interrupted again. “I think it is what you want, actually.”

Something in her voice attracted Tompkins’ attention. She was aware of him briefly shifting his attention from the busy motorway and glancing at her curiously.

“I’m sorry, Karen. Look, it needn’t be permanent. I don’t want to lose you, honestly. But for the moment I think it would be for the best. She’s also said that if I do that she won’t take any action about you.”

“That’s big of her.” The words slipped out. Tompkins looked around again. Like most of his colleagues Tompkins, in spite of his taciturn appearance and manner, was a natural-born gossip. Karen knew that all his inner antennae would be waggling by now.

Cooper was still speaking. “I just don’t know what else to do, it’s all such a mess...”

His voice trailed off.

“That’s absolutely fine,” said Karen. And she ended the call.

Tompkins said nothing, as usual, but Karen had a small bet with herself that he had guessed who was on the end of the phone and was currently speculating colourfully about what might be going on. No doubt the incident would be reported fully back to Torquay nick ASAP.

By the time they reached Kelly’s house Moira had left for night duty at the hospital and the three of them had the place to themselves. Without preamble the reporter produced an audio cassette which he began to play on the big living-room stereo system.

Karen sat on a hard chair by the window. She didn’t feel like making herself comfortable.

Jennifer Roth’s voice filled the room. It was a good sound system. The result was extremely eerie. It was surreal. This was a voice from the dead. A voice Karen remembered so well and already associated with dropping bombshells. But never before a bombshell on this scale.

Kelly stood, leaning against the wall, over by the kitchen door. His head was bowed and he was stroking his forehead with the fingers of one hand. Tompkins perched on the edge of the sofa, hands on his knees, all ears, more alert than Karen had ever seen him before, she thought.

“I just wanted to tell you what happened, John, because I know now, beyond any doubt. I really know. And I’m talking to you like this because I want to put the truth on record,” said Jennifer’s voice on the tape. She was speaking very deliberately.

“Thank you for trusting me,” replied Kelly.

Karen shot him a mildly disgusted look across the room. Kelly had the grace to look ashamed. He had been using his “I’m a nice journalist, you can tell me anything” approach, and Karen was all too familiar with it.

“I have now completed six therapy sessions with the psychiatrist, Dr. Huxtable, who you recommended me to,” continued Jennifer. She was speaking almost without expression, the tone of her voice very flat, her public-school accent less noticeable perhaps than usual.

“I was more inclined to go to him than you may have realized. I’d been having these dreams. I had them as a child. As a very young child. They were never clear. They were shadowy. I had a vision of being in another house, of a lot of shouting and screaming. Of dreadful things happening but I somehow wasn’t sure exactly what. All the while I was being brought up in Cheshire I knew perfectly well that I’d had another life. But I shut everything out because I wanted to escape from the things that happened in my head whenever I tried to sleep. My adoptive mother told me that I was just having nightmares. They were such good people, my new parents, Carol and Michael, they looked after me and loved me and they helped me blot out the past. I have no idea what they knew, more than likely the same story Richard Marshall was to tell me later, after Carol and Michael died.

“>It was then, when I was sorting through all their papers, that I came across letters from my real father. From Richard. He had obviously been keeping in touch with Carol and Michael, wanting to know about me. It was wonderful for me to find that I still had a father, my natural father, and that he had cared about me all these years.

“I wrote to him and he wrote back to me at once. He came to see me in Cheshire and talked to me about it all and explained what had happened when I was five, how our mother had tried to kill us all, he told me what had led him to give me away. And my sister Lorraine, he said. Suddenly it all made sense, the violent dreams, all of it, and I suppose what he told me was what I wanted to hear. Or as near as was possible, anyway, given that my mother was dead and I’d lost my sister. He seemed so kind and gentle and everything he said expressed concern for me.

“I believed him wholeheartedly. And then he told me about this new job he had in Poole and the flat and everything and asked me if I wanted to live with him there. It was like another dream to me, but a good dream for a change. He said the police had never stopped hounding him, that he wanted to protect me from all that, so it was better just to let people think I was his girlfriend.

“We were happy together. He was rebuilding his life, I think, after breaking up with his latest woman. He was honest enough about that side of himself, too. He said he had a weakness for the ladies. He said that had caused all of his troubles. He even told me about his fraud conviction, and he said he’d only done what he’d done then because he’d got into financial trouble when he’d been trying to run two families. I suppose I believed what I wanted to believe. Because I had always wanted something like that, to find my real father or mother again, to get to know them.

“I thought I did know him, too. When he was arrested I believed in him absolutely, and when I came forward after he was convicted I still believed in him. A lot of what the police and the lawyers said, though, about my being disturbed by what had happened to me as a child, did get through to me. Because I knew that none of it was clear, whatever I said, none of my memories were clear. They were all hazy around the edges.

“Then, after my father won his appeal, I began to get the dreams again. The dreams I couldn’t understand. That’s why I thought it might be best to move away from him for a while. I started looking for work elsewhere. I had been an office manager before, and I was rather good at it. I found a new job quite easily and moved here to Hammersmith. I didn’t tell my father about the dreams. I didn’t want to face up to them, I suppose. But they began to get worse and worse.

“So when you told me that my father had confessed more or less, to that crime reporter on the Sun, it really got through to me. And then when you explained about Recovered Memory Syndrome and suggested I see Dr. Huxtable, well, I wanted to do it at once even though I didn’t admit it either to myself or to you, John. I hadn’t talked to any other journalists. I’d never heard of RMS. I don’t read the papers a lot. I just wasn’t aware of it. For the first time in my life I could see how it might be possible to open a window into my past.”

Jennifer paused, and Karen could hear a swallowing sound as if perhaps she was taking a drink of something. When she started to talk again there was a definite catch in that flat well-educated voice.

“Dr. Huxtable just talked to me at first and then put me into hypnotherapy. We started to have results almost at once. I began to remember things in bits. It was like the dreams but this time I knew, just knew, it was what had really happened. I didn’t have any doubts at all.

“Suddenly I remembered it all so clearly as if it was yesterday. It was like I was five again, like I was there again.

“Our mother hadn’t tried to kill us in the car in the garage, neither had she killed herself. No...”

Jennifer’s voice broke completely. Karen could hear muffled sobs, and the young woman was still crying when she continued to tell her story.

“There was a terrible row. Lorraine and I were playing in our room upstairs but there was so much noise that we crept out onto the landing and then downstairs to see what was happening. We lived in a hotel, of course, and there were guests, but they wouldn’t have heard anything because the guest bedrooms were all in the new extension. Mummy and Daddy were in the kitchen. They were shouting at each other, screaming. Then Daddy caught hold of Mummy around the neck and started shaking her. She made this awful sound. This gurgling noise. I can hear it now, I can still hear it. I just turned and fled upstairs, but Lorraine was always braver than me. She ran into the room and I could hear her shouting at Daddy to stop.

“Then after a bit Daddy came upstairs with Lorraine in his arms. She was still in tears but she was fairly calm. Daddy said everything was all right and Mummy was fine. Lorraine and I just huddled together because we were frightened. Then a little later he came back and said that Mummy had been very cross with him and she’d gone away and he was going to take us next door to the neighbours because he wanted to go after her and find her.

“Even Lorraine was too frightened to say much that night but at school the next day she kept telling the teacher that Daddy had got rid of Mummy. I think that’s what she said. I think those were her exact words.

“We went back to the neighbours’ house after school that day but early the next morning Daddy came to fetch us. He said that Granny would be coming to look after us. I couldn’t take any of it in, really. Then he said we could have the day off school as a special treat. I still don’t remember much about that day. We stayed indoors, I think, until bedtime. And I do remember that when he put us to bed Lorraine kept asking him what he’d done to Mummy. Why had he hurt Mummy? Where had he put Mummy? I just clung to him, though. I don’t think I even wanted to know what was going on. I sensed that I had lost one parent, I suppose. I really didn’t want to lose another.

“Eventually I fell asleep. And I have no idea what else happened that night. But in the morning Lorraine wasn’t there. Her bed was empty and I never saw her again.

“Daddy said he was taking me to live with some kind people for a while who would look after me until he’d found Mummy and Lorraine. He kind of suggested that Lorraine was with Mummy, I think. I was too young to understand, to question anything.

“He took me to Carol and Michael. They had wanted children all their lives. They looked after me and cared for me and helped me forget, I suppose. So I blocked it out. That’s what kids do. Sounds incredible but it’s very common with small children faced with something terrible, Dr. Huxtable told me. They just shut everything out.

“Without his help, without learning about Recovered Memory Syndrome from you, I would never have remembered all this. Never have known the difference between my nightmares and the truth.”

Kelly’s voice broke in. “Are you quite sure of this, Jennifer?”

He sounded stunned, as indeed he might, thought Karen. Whatever he may have suspected, whatever any of them may always have believed, hearing it first-hand after all these years was something none of them would have thought possible. It was a total shock to Karen, too.

“Oh, yes, I’m quite sure. I can see it so clearly. It’s absolutely real to me. I can see our father bringing Lorraine upstairs and trying to tell us everything is all right. I can even see the scratches on his face, angry weals down both cheeks. Mummy must have tried to fight him off, but he was always such a strong man...”

Jennifer completely broke down in tears then. Karen found that her own hands were trembling, just as Kelly’s had been in Hammersmith Police Station. She remembered what her mother had said. “Scratches, he had scratches on his face.” The tape was silent for almost a minute before Jennifer’s voice filled the room once more.

“Lorraine wouldn’t stop accusing him. I have no doubt at all that he killed Lorraine, too. But not me. I survived because I didn’t really question our father, I think. Didn’t question him at all, in fact. Also, I think I’d always been his favourite. I was a complete daddy’s girl. I didn’t want to believe he’d done what he’d done, so I just didn’t accept it. And I was only five.”

Kelly’s voice came on the tape. “What now, Jennifer?” he asked. “What are you going to do? What do you want me to do? We should go to the police, you know.”

Kelly no longer sounded like a journalist doing an interview. It was as if he had been overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he had just learned. And Karen could understand that well enough.

“There isn’t any point in going to the police, is there?” It was a rhetorical question from Jennifer. “My father has successfully appealed against his conviction. He cannot be tried again. I know the law might change one day, but that’s how it is at the moment. In any case, would I be believed? It was my evidence, the evidence of my alleged memory, which let him walk away a free man, wasn’t it? I doubt what I have told you would ever stand up in a court of law. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, Kelly. But I want you to take this tape away with you, so that the truth is on record. And I want you to get it published if you can.”

Kelly had said something about doubting that any paper would dare publish such stuff about a man who had been declared innocent by the Court of Appeal, and Jennifer had simply responded: “You’ll do your best, though, won’t you? I know you’ll do your best.”

Then the tape ended. Karen realized she had been holding her breath for the last couple of minutes. She let it out in a whoosh.

“Jennifer did know what she was going to do though, didn’t she, Kelly?” she said.

Kelly nodded and smiled grimly. “She knew, all right. I’m sure of it. She’d already decided that she was going to kill Richard Marshall. And right after I left her she drove to Poole and shot him. God knows how she managed to get hold of a gun, but she was a lot more resourceful and together than she looked, that young woman. She was, after all, her father’s daughter.”

“When I got the tip the next day that Marshall was dead I just knew at once what she’d done. So I took off back to London again to confront her, to make sure, I suppose. But... but, she was dead.”

Karen stood up with a jump. “You’ll never learn not to interfere, Kelly, will you?” she asked.

“I might after this,” said the reporter. “I can’t say I’m sorry that Marshall’s dead, but I am sorry about Jennifer Roth.”

“Too late,” said Karen. “It’s too late for that. Dead bodies follow you around, don’t they, Kelly?”

The reporter stared hard at her. He looked despairing.

“This was the last thing I wanted,” he said. “I feel as if I am to blame.”

“You are to blame, Kelly,” Karen said flatly. “You bloody well are to blame.”

Epilogue

Four months later, on a crisp clear autumn day, Karen stood on a Scottish cliff-side looking out over the sea to the Isle of Skye. They were just outside the little Scottish coastal town of Plockton, known both for its palm trees, an unlikely vegetation in the Highlands made possible only by the presence of the Gulf Stream, and as the setting for the TV series Hamish Macbeth, about a dope-smoking copper.

It was a long time since Karen Meadows had smoked a joint. As she surveyed the scene being quietly played out before her, its melancholy made her head long for the escape that would bring.

Sean MacDonald, wearing a big iron-grey overcoat, was standing on the edge of the cliff, surrounded by a small group of dark-clad friends and relatives. In his hands he held a small cast-iron urn which Karen knew contained the ashes of the granddaughter he had never known. Not since she had been a very small child, anyway.

Months earlier Mac had tossed the cremated ashes of all that had remained of his beloved only daughter out over the water in the same place. It was where the old man so often came to fish, where he found peace. Now he was going to throw his granddaughter’s ashes to the winds.

A loan piper began to play, the notes of his bagpipes wafting eerily into the air, as Mac slowly removed the lid of the little urn with one hand and lifted it up high in front of him. The wind caught the ashes even as he began to tip the urn. A little cloud drifted out over the sea.

There was a lump in Karen’s throat. And when Mac turned around to face the small group standing behind him, she saw that there were tears coursing down his face. Throughout all the heartache of almost thirty years it was only the second time she had ever seen the Scotsman cry.

The big bearded man standing to her left, a fishing chum of Mac’s, touched her arm lightly and passed her a small silver flask. It contained a fine single malt, rich with the peaty taste for which the malts of that area of the Scottish Highlands are famous.

Gratefully, Karen took a deep drink. It didn’t change the world in quite the way that a joint would have done, but it sent a glow into her belly and somehow made her feel alive again.

This was one case she was not sure she would ever entirely get over. And she was not the only one. A week after finding Jennifer Roth dead, Kelly had resigned from the Evening Argus. He had been vague about what he was going to do with his life, and neither did he seem to know what he was going to live on.

“I do know that I don’t want to have anything to do with journalism anymore,” he’d told her. “I’m just too bloody good at it, that’s the problem. Always have been.”

He hadn’t been boasting. Far from it. Just stating a fact. And Karen knew exactly what he meant. Kelly was too good. That was why he was always getting entangled, that was why he was always getting sucked into other people’s lives. He couldn’t resist taking that one step further, like telling Jennifer Roth that Richard Marshall had confessed to murder.

Karen could barely imagine just how desperate Jennifer Roth must have been to do what she had done. DNA and forensic evidence had now proved beyond doubt that she had indeed killed her father and then taken her own life. Karen thought Jennifer had probably already been deeply disturbed by the traumas of her childhood and the half-formed memories which had always floated around her head. Then, when she finally came to know the truth, thanks largely to the interference of John Kelly, she had cracked.

Karen turned her attention back to the present as Mac began to walk towards the cars parked on the cliff road. The rest of the group automatically stood back to let him pass by. When he drew level with Karen he paused and looked directly at her.

“If only I hadn’t been so bitter,” he said. “If only I’d gone to her. I blamed her for speaking up for her father. I didn’t understand. I could have saved her, at least. But now I’ve lost them all.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mac,” she said, instinctively grasping the old man’s hand. “You weren’t to know.”

“I wanted Marshall dead.” Mac spat the words out. “I’ve wanted Marshall dead for so long. But I never imagined this. Never imagined her killing him. I just wish I’d found the courage to do it myself. I should have killed him. I should have done it myself.”

Mac spat out the last few sentences.

“At least it’s over,” Karen said, desperately seeking words of comfort, any words of comfort. “At least it’s finally over.”

Mac snatched his hand away. “No,” he said. “It’ll never be over for me. Not until I’m dead myself.”

He strode away from her, his powerful steps belying his age. The tears pricked at the back of Karen’s eyes.

Her mobile phone rang, cruelly breaking into the moment, as she watched him go. She hadn’t realized it was still switched on. Automatically she answered it.

The caller was Phil Cooper, who had recently been transferred to the Avon and Somerset force at Bristol — a transfer he had requested himself, just as he had indicated to Karen that he might. They had not been alone together since that ill-fated night in Bournemouth.

“Look, Karen, it’s no good, I can’t go on like this. It just isn’t working. I can’t carry on without you. I really have to see you...”

She dropped the mobile away from her ear, and as she held it loosely against her hip she could still hear his voice, but not what he was saying. After a few seconds she pushed the off button.

Then she turned to the big bearded fisherman still standing alongside her.

“Have you got any more of that malt?” she asked.

He passed her the flask. She took a deep long pull, relishing the burning sensation as the fine whisky trickled down her throat, and trying desperately to shut everything else out of her head.