‘I really have no idea whether it is curious or not, Mr Kelly. To begin with, perhaps you could tell me how you could possibly know this? After all, as you point out, Fusilier Gates is dead.’
‘I was given this information by someone Gates talked to about it before he died, someone very close to him.’
‘Then it’s hearsay, Mr Kelly. Nothing more than hearsay. And it gets you nowhere. I do remember, now I come to think of it, that we had some civilian building contractors on site at the time and I believe a couple of them were Irish. We can all make a mystery out of almost anything, if we choose, Mr Kelly. And it is upon hearsay and rumour, and nothing else, that this whole matter hinges, is it not?’
‘Colonel, I am told that Fusilier Gates faithfully related all this to the military police during the initial inquiry, in which case it should be on record somewhere. And that is not hearsay, is it?’
Abruptly, the colonel rose to his feet, and when he replied, his voice was much louder.
‘Mr Kelly, I have repeatedly told you that I have agreed to talk to you today merely out of respect for the families you are representing, and that I cannot and will not go into details concerning events which are not only military matters and quite probably classified, but also involve loss of life...’
At that moment Kelly, who was sitting with his back to the door of the colonel’s office, heard it open behind him. Parker-Brown, still standing and directly facing the door, almost imperceptibly shook his head. Instinctively, Kelly turned around and glanced over his shoulder but saw no one, just the door closing again.
The colonel barely paused.
‘I can only repeat that yet again,’ he continued equally loudly. ‘And as you seem unable or unwilling to accept it, then I must ask you to leave now and request that you make any further approaches to me or to anyone else connected with the Devonshire Fusiliers through the proper channels.’
Kelly stood up at once. He was almost exactly the same height as the colonel, albeit in comparatively pretty dreadful shape, and he didn’t want the man looking down at him. No way.
‘Colonel, I too will repeat what I said earlier. Five young soldiers serving in your regiment and stationed at this barracks have died in questionable circumstances. Their families are demanding to know the truth about their deaths, and if you won’t talk to me, then, frankly, they and I will move forward to the next step. They are demanding that a civilian police investigation should be put into operation and that a public inquiry should be held. And they are planning to march on Parliament, within the next few days, to make their demands in public. If you think that by refusing to discuss this matter with me you are going to make it go away, then you are very much mistaken, Colonel.’
There was no longer any sign of Parker-Brown’s big grin. His charm offensive had failed and he was now every inch the soldier. Stern, and more than a little forbidding. Kelly, however, had never been particularly impressed by authority in any form. And he had his own reasons for being even less impressed by Gerrard Parker-Brown than he might have been by any other army officer trying to browbeat him. As the colonel began to reply, Kelly glared at him defiantly.
‘Mr Kelly, all I am trying to do is to make it quite clear to you that I prefer to accept coroners’ verdicts based on information provided by the SIB, to this mishmash of regurgitated hearsay which you have brought to me today,’ Parker-Brown countered, the note of anger clear in his voice. ‘And I’m pretty damned sure that every agency of law in this country, right up to government level, would back me up on that. These deaths have all been properly investigated by the correct authorities. There is absolutely no need either for a civilian police investigation or any kind of public inquiry.
‘Now, I have told you once. I really think you had better leave, Mr Kelly.’
Kelly glared at him for a second more. There was something different in Parker-Brown’s eyes, which no longer looked warm at all. Kelly suspected that he had really shaken the army officer. And he liked the thought of that. He liked it a lot. But he had no idea whether it was what he had actually told the colonel concerning the families’ plans, or if it was something else. None the less, he was sure that the real reason Parker-Brown had agreed to see him was exactly what he would have expected it to be. The colonel had wanted to find out what Kelly knew. Well, Kelly had been deliberately frank in many respects. But he had not revealed everything. Not by a long way.
Certainly, he could see no benefit in attempting to prolong the interview. Instead, and without saying anything further, not even goodbye — after all, the time had passed, he reckoned, for any pretence of pleasantries between him and the colonel — Kelly merely swung round and headed for the door. But as he reached for the handle, Parker-Brown spoke again.
‘Who told you about what Fusilier Gates allegedly claimed to have seen, anyway?’ he enquired with a kind of studied nonchalance.
Kelly looked back over his shoulder. He was beginning to like Gerrard Parker-Brown less and less, and to distrust him more and more.
It was Kelly’s turn to force a big grin. After all, it wasn’t only Parker-Brown who could pretend to turn on the charm.
‘You have to be joking,’ he said.
But as soon as he was outside the door, he stopped grinning at once. His legs felt shaky and he realised that he was trembling from head to toe. He could not wait to get away from Hangridge, to assimilate his thoughts.
‘Shit,’ he thought. ‘What is going on?’
Once in his car, Kelly drove as fast as he could along the Hangridge approach road, right through the valley and up on to the moor at the other side. He swung off into a tourists’ parking area, empty at this time of year, and drew the borrowed Volvo to a halt.
He switched off the engine and jumped quickly out, drawing in big gulps of the heady moorland air. It was several minutes before he felt he was breathing normally again, and only then did he remove his mobile phone from his pocket and dial Karen’s number.
She answered at once. But then he didn’t think she would be playing call-dodging games with him for some time to come, or at least until some significant progress had been made in solving the mystery of the Hangridge deaths.
‘I’ve seen Parker-Brown,’ he announced. ‘And I have something extraordinary to tell you. I can’t get over it, to be honest.’
‘What?’
‘No. You were right before. Not on the phone. Can we meet tonight?’
There was the briefest of pauses.
‘Later on. I’ve already got a meeting at seven. How about 9.30-ish?’
‘Great. Where?’ Kelly didn’t know what venue to suggest. He would much prefer their liaison to be private, but wasn’t sure that he dared suggest that after what had happened the other night.
Again there was a brief pause.
‘Come to my flat again, if you like,’ she said eventually.
He hesitated. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m bloody sure, Kelly. We are grownups, aren’t we?’
Kelly found that he was smiling as he ended the call. That had been typical Karen Meadows. She had made him feel much better. Much more normal. And suddenly, John Kelly craved normality like nothing else in the world.
Seventeen
On his way home from Hangridge, Kelly made a detour and stopped off at The Wild Dog. It was interesting to revisit the place where all this had begun. Charlie, the landlord, was his usual taciturn self and if he was aware that a young man had been killed on the road not far from his pub, the last time Kelly had been there, he obviously did not wish to discuss it. And that suited Kelly fine. He wanted to think. He ordered his customary pint of Diet Coke and a pasty. Charlie’s pasties, he knew, were made at a rather good local bakery in Moretonhampstead, and Kelly reckoned they were almost as good cold as hot. Certainly he knew better than to allow Charlie to turn his pasty into a soggy mess by heating it up in the blessed microwave.