Almost immediately after ending her call to Kelly, she dialled the number of Hangridge. Gerry would be sure to have arrived back there by now. But just as an anonymous male voice answered, she replaced the receiver. No. The telephone wasn’t good enough.
Impulsively, she switched off her computer, grabbed her coat and left the office, without explaining to anyone where she was going.
Her mind was racing as she embarked on the drive across the moors. And Gerry Parker-Brown and how fond she had been becoming of him figured all too much in her thoughts. She was both angry and upset. But she knew that she must do her best to dismiss any personal feelings, and smartish. So far, it seemed Kelly had run rings round both her and the colonel, which, she had to admit, was pretty typical when he got his investigating boots on, and she didn’t like it. She felt she had been made to look like a fool. More specifically, she felt that Gerry Parker-Brown had been making a fool of her all along. It was not the first time in her life that she had been taken in by a personable and attractive man, and she hated that weakness in herself.
Karen got the impression that unannounced visitors at Hangridge were a rarity. This time, she barely glanced at the young man on sentry duty. She just about registered that this was not the same good-looking young soldier she had admired on her previous visit. But she wasn’t interested either way. She was in a hurry to get on with it. She sat in her car, impatiently tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, while he retreated into his sentry box and made what seemed to be a series of phone calls.
He kept her waiting for an irritating four or five minutes before he eventually returned to the car and leaned down to speak to her through the open window.
‘They say to go on through,’ he told her, looking vaguely surprised. ‘You’re to head for the central admin building,’ he went on, pointing in the appropriate direction.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the soldier, continuing as if she had not spoken at all. ‘Visitors’ car parking is to the right...’
‘I know,’ she said again, and jerked the car forward away from the jobsworth sentry who was beginning to annoy her. She wasn’t in the mood for military red tape this afternoon.
She parked quickly and headed for the main entrance to the admin building. Another sentry gestured her straight in, and as she opened the door she saw a smiling Gerry Parker-Brown step out of his office and move forward to greet her.
‘What a lovely surprise, my favourite policewoman twice in one day,’ he began. ‘Why don’t we pop across to the mess—’
She interrupted abruptly.
‘Cut it out, Gerry,’ she fired at him. ‘You’ve not been straight with me, have you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied.
‘I think you do. And if jolly little outings together are supposed to soften me up, I can assure you they do not.’
‘What are you talking about, Karen?’ he asked calmly, his expression slightly quizzical.
‘I’m talking about whatever game it is you think you are playing. It stops. Now. This minute. All I want from you is the truth about what’s going on here, at Hangridge.’
‘So do I, Karen,’ he replied lightly. ‘Every day I tell myself, this will be the day when I get to grips with what each one of the little bastards is up to, but...’
‘No, Gerry. I’ve told you. The game is over. No more feeble jokes. Please. I now know about the death of Jocelyn Slade. You lied to me, Gerry, and I would like to know exactly why?’
She was aware that the sergeant sitting at a desk, just inside the reception area, had stopped typing into his computer and was staring at her.
Gerry put his hand on her arm with a firmer than normal pressure, she thought, and ushered her towards his office.
‘You’d better come in, then, hadn’t you?’ he said.
Once inside, he closed the door firmly and bade her sit down. She did so, choosing the only upright chair in the room except the one behind his desk. She did not intend to give him the psychological advantage of looking down at her, and she somehow suspected that had she chosen one of his two comfortably low armchairs, he would not have sat next to her as he had done the first time she visited Hangridge. Certainly, he headed straight for his swivel desk-chair and sat very upright. And, there was no banter at all in his voice, when he finally responded.
‘I didn’t lie to you, Karen,’ he replied very quietly. ‘As I recall, you asked me if any other of our soldiers had died in accidents at the camp. I told you about Craig Foster. And I believe I was perfectly frank about his death, and the manner of it, was I not? Jocelyn Slade’s death was not an accident. Do you really regard suicide as an accident? I most certainly do not. Slade chose to take her own life. That was a private tragedy, which I did not see the need to share with you. I can only apologise if you felt that I misled you, because I can assure you that was not my intention.’
Smooth as ever, thought Karen. She could feel the anger rising in her and battled to keep control.
‘Come off it, Gerry,’ she snapped. ‘You knew perfectly well that I was interested in any sudden death at Hangridge. I may have interviewed you informally but I did come to you in an official capacity, and you chose to keep information from me which would be vital to a police investigation. Apart from anything else, Colonel, that is an offence.’
Karen knew that she was pretty good at tough talking when the occasion called for it. After all, she’d had enough practice at deflating the bubble of arrogance all too often present in members of certain strata of society, who were inclined to give the impression that they thought they were above the law. And this time, her genuine anger and sense of personal outrage probably gave her an extra edge.
However, Gerry Parker-Brown did not seem much abashed.
‘Oh, come on, Karen, we’re a long way from a formal police investigation, surely,’ he said, his voice calm and reassuring.
‘As a matter of fact, Gerry, I think we’re very close to a formal investigation, starting pretty much right now, unless you can find a way of reassuring me that there is no need, and I doubt that very much. You will recall that Alan Connelly’s death occurred on a public road and I am perfectly within my rights to instigate an inquiry into that, which would then be sure to involve any other deaths of young people at Hangridge.’
‘I thought you and I had a better relationship than that, Karen,’ responded Parker-Brown. ‘And just because we’ve had a minor misunderstanding, it doesn’t mean we can’t sort things out between us...’
Karen had the nasty feeling that their whole ‘relationship’, such as it was, may well have been based on nothing more than Gerry Parker-Brown soft-soaping her so that she would not delve any further into the affairs of the Devonshire Fusiliers. But she didn’t want to go into that.
‘I don’t regard this as a minor misunderstanding, Gerry,’ she said. ‘And neither do I consider that you and I have any relationship at all worth mentioning, and certainly not one which is going to stand in the way of me launching a full-scale police investigation into these deaths, if I feel that is necessary, which I am increasingly beginning to do.
‘So, do you have anything at all to say to me that might make me change my mind?’
‘Well, I certainly know where I stand now, don’t I, Detective Superintendent...’ There was still a twinkle in his eye. Gerry Parker-Brown patently believed he could charm the world, and most certainly that he could charm a woman police officer from a seaside police force.
Karen really wasn’t having it.
‘Look, if you’re absolutely determined not to take me seriously, then I shall have to ask you to accompany me to Torquay police station where we can conduct this interview formally,’ she snapped.