The colonel’s reaction surprised Karen. He burst out laughing. She observed in silence, more than a little thrown. Then he stopped laughing as abruptly as he had begun.
‘I’m so sorry, Detective Superintendent,’ he said. ‘That was absolutely appalling of me. A young man has lost his life in a tragic accident and I really shouldn’t have laughed. It’s just that, well, of course, you didn’t know Alan Connelly...’
He paused and it seemed some sort of response was called for. Karen obliged with a slight shake of her head.
‘No,’ continued Colonel Parker-Brown. ‘Well, to put it short, sharp and sweet, Connelly was a complete Walter Mitty. He damned near lived in a fantasy world. He was always making up stories. It was as if he couldn’t stop himself.’
‘What sort of stories, Colonel?’
The colonel flashed her the quickest of smiles. ‘Gerry, please.’ he said.
She nodded.
‘They varied. Some were quite funny, and the majority pretty harmless, but some were disruptive. Most were absurd, like saying he had a date with Kylie Minogue, and not just mentioning it in passing, you understand, but giving the lads an allegedly detailed account when he came back from a weekend pass. Oh, and he would claim that his father was a millionaire and he’d only joined the army because it was a condition of his inheritance.’
The colonel paused again.
‘No truth in that either, I don’t suppose,’ commented Karen.
‘Indeed not, Detective Superintendent.’ Parker-Brown flashed her yet another of his grins. ‘Or may I call you Karen?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she responded automatically, while reflecting that this meeting was not going quite the way she had planned. One way or another the colonel seemed to be taking control. She supposed he was trained to do just that, and made a mental note to watch him in future. If indeed she ever had cause to meet with him again, she reminded herself.
‘No,’ continued Parker-Brown. ‘Connelly’s father was a shipbuilder in Glasgow, who lost his job some years ago when so many of the shipyards on the Clyde were closed down. He has never worked since and is apparently a manic depressive and an alcoholic, inclined to take out his own disappointment with life on his family. Violently, sometimes, I’m told. No wonder the boy took to fantasy—’
‘You’re extremely well informed,’ interrupted Karen.
‘We operate a major training programme here, with upwards of two hundred young people going through our infantry course at any given time. We take in soldiers from other regiments for specialist infantry training, and some of it is pretty demanding stuff. My staff give me a weekly report in writing on every young man and woman we have here. Our job is to train soldiers, and an intrinsic part of that, I’m afraid, is to weed out those who should not be in the army, or certainly not attached to infantry units. Therefore, all of us in charge need to know about our young people. And that includes as much as possible about their backgrounds, as that can have considerable bearing on their behaviour and progress. I’m the boss. I need to be aware of everything, Karen. Past and present.’
He held out both hands in a gesture that could have been supplication or maybe just resignation. ‘I’m not, of course, but I do my best. And naturally, as soon as I heard about Fusilier Connelly’s death, I not only studied his file thoroughly but also went over everything with his training sergeant.’
‘You said Alan Connelly’s fantasies were sometimes disruptive, Colonel?’ Karen was determined to regain a little of the high ground and quite deliberately avoided addressing the Hangridge commandant by his Christian name as he had requested, even though he was now using hers.
‘Yes. We have young women undergoing infantry training here as well as young men. There are a lot of senior people in the army who still disapprove of mixing the sexes in this way, and I have to say that my tour of duty here has, on occasions, made me think they might sometimes be right.’ He shot her a sideways look. ‘I don’t really mean that, Karen. I do believe in a thoroughly modern integrated army. But, by God, it brings its problems along with it. Particularly when you have a young man like Connelly aboard. He used to invent relationships with the female soldiers—’
‘I didn’t actually realise that you had women in infantry regiments,’ Karen interrupted.
‘We don’t, not as such,’ Parker-Brown replied. ‘But women from other regiments are stationed here for infantry training if they are going into certain situations, in particular in preparation for a posting to Northern Ireland, for example. Anyway, there was one young woman, in particular, whom Alan Connelly focused his attentions on in ways which were quite unacceptable. He referred to her as his girlfriend, even though she patently wasn’t, he plagued her with thoroughly inappropriate love letters and followed her around the place...’
The colonel took a cigarette from a packet on his desk and offered Karen one. She shook her head. Karen had been a heavy smoker for most of her life since her late teens. She had given up for the umpteenth time just a couple of weeks earlier and this time she was determined to stick it out.
Parker-Brown nodded. ‘Filthy habit,’ he muttered, in a manner which left little doubt that the remark itself was also a habit and not something he gave any thought to whatsoever.
‘You have probably gathered, Karen, that Alan Connelly was one of those chaps who was just not going to make it here. Strangely enough, he wasn’t actually bad at the job — I think it was like another fantasy game to him, really, playing soldiers.’
Parker-Brown tapped a file on his desk. ‘It’s all here. I’ve had the computer data printed out and final reports put together by the training staff.
‘Connelly was a fit, athletic young man who was quite organised and able in his work, and certainly extremely willing. But his state of mind gave us a great deal of concern and there was little doubt that we were going to have to let him go. He had actually been disciplined only a couple of days before his death for pestering the young woman recruit I told you about. He knew his days were numbered here. He’d been warned often enough. To be honest, Karen, I imagine that is why he took off from here and went on such a God-almighty bender.’
‘So your opinion is that when Alan Connelly told our witness that he feared he would be killed, that this was a figment of his imagination?’
‘Most definitely.’ Parker-Brown made the openhanded gesture again. ‘That would have been Connelly all over. He watched too many bad action movies, then made up his own script as he went along.’
‘What about his claim that there had been other deaths at Hangridge? “They killed the others, now they’ll kill me,” he told our witness. Have there been any other deaths here recently?’
Parker-Brown looked thoughtful, as if he was trying desperately to help but didn’t quite know how to.
‘Well, we did have a tragedy earlier in the year, about six months ago it would have been. One of our recruits died in a training accident on the firing range. They happen, I’m afraid. The first thing we try to teach them when we give them guns is elementary safety. And still they manage to shoot themselves.’
‘This soldier shot himself?’
‘Yes. Accidentally, of course. We have our own range about a mile away from the barracks. The recruits were simulating an attack on an enemy position, running forwards, throwing themselves on the ground, that sort of thing, and this young soldier had his gun cocked, fell awkwardly and blew a hole in his chest. Our standard issue automatic, the SA80, is a formidable weapon and the results were not pretty. Got a bit of press coverage, particularly locally, you may have seen it. But these things do happen when you are training military personnel, however hard you try to avoid it.’