Kelly sat on the same bar stool as he had on the night when Alan Connelly had been killed. His head was still buzzing from his meeting with Parker-Brown. His brain was in turmoil. He felt more than a bit peculiar, and it was almost as if he could sense Alan Connelly’s presence, still see him, ghost-like, slumped on the bar stool next to him.
Such a lot had happened since that fateful evening when Alan Connelly really had been sitting there alongside him. The muscles in the back of Kelly’s neck were so tense, they felt as if they had been forged together. It was actually quite painful to move his head. Kelly had to force himself to eat his pasty slowly and to order a second pint of Diet Coke. He suspected that the next few hours of his life were going to feel as if they went on for ever. He was even more eager to see Karen Meadows than he had been the last time they had arranged to meet in her flat. And what he had to tell her was weighing so heavily on his mind, that he had virtually forgotten altogether the potentially tricky development in their personal relationship, and the unexpected feelings which had been aroused in him.
When he eventually hit Torquay around mid-afternoon, he stopped briefly at a news-stand on the outskirts of the town, as he almost always did, to buy a copy of the Evening Argus.
He wasn’t that interested, actually, but it was habit. And habits were always good to cling to when you felt the world was going mad. He had to force himself to make a pot of tea, which he carried to his chair by the sitting-room window. He needed to relax. To gather his thoughts. He knew all too well that the hours were going to drag until his meeting with Karen at 9.30 p.m.
He switched on his radio, tuned in as usual to Classic FM, and started leafing idly through the newspaper, making himself study each page carefully in order to pass the time. Suddenly he stopped turning the pages. His attention had been caught by a piece which was little more than a filler towards the back of the paper, on a section on one of the pages that Kelly knew was reserved for late news.
Not only would the Argus have only been able to compile a sketchy report in the time available, but this particular incident was of a type that was no longer considered to be big news. Unless you knew what Kelly knew, of course.
‘A local soldier on leave has been fatally stabbed as he walked along a street in East London.
‘Police believe that eighteen-year-old Robert Morgan, of the Devonshire Fusiliers, may have been attacked by a gang of youths in a bid to steal his mobile phone, which was missing from the scene. Fusilier Morgan, who was stationed at Hangridge Barracks, his regiment’s Dartmoor headquarters, was stabbed several times in the neck and chest with a long-bladed knife.
‘Detective Inspector Michael Drewe, of the Metropolitan Police, said yesterday: “This was a brutal and, as far as we know, totally unprovoked attack. However, there are indications that Robert fought back valiantly against his attackers and this may have been why he was ultimately stabbed to death so mercilessly.”
‘Robert’s body was discovered in the early hours of this morning in Penton Street, East London, a tough part of the city and not a district where people would be recommended to walk alone at night, particularly strangers.
‘It is not known why the soldier, whose family run a general store in Paignton’s North Road, was in the area.
‘Said DI Drewe: “We are appealing to any witnesses to come forward, and also to anyone, who knew Robert, who may be able to supply us with information concerning his movements on the day he died.”’
If Kelly hadn’t been so methodically going through the paper from cover to cover, he may well have missed the relatively insignificant story on page seventeen.
As it was, two facts jumped off the page and hit him straight between the eyes. The first, of course, was that Robert Morgan had been a Devonshire Fusilier stationed at Hangridge, and the second was that he had been murdered in East London.
Kelly found that he was trembling again as he ran upstairs to his office and reached for the copy of a London A — Z on the shelf above his desk, where he kept the books he used regularly in his work lined up in a row — a couple of dictionaries, a thesaurus, a selection of telephone directories, a Who’s Who and a Debrett’s People of Today, a gazetteer and a number of other maps and atlases.
He quickly found the appropriate page and studied it carefully. Yes, his hunch had been right. He felt his pulse quicken. Penton Street was just a couple of streets away from Jimmy Gates’ family home.
Willing himself to stay calm, Kelly picked up his cordless phone and dialled the Gates’ number. He was in luck. Colin Gates answered.
Kelly had no time for small talk, no time to soft-soap the young man, even though he knew that he should really proceed with more care and caution than he was able to muster.
‘Do you know about the murder near you last night?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Colin.
Kelly was mildly surprised. It was quite likely that he wouldn’t have seen an evening paper, but news of the stabbing would have been on the regional TV and local radio news, and surely everyone in the neighbourhood would have been talking about it.
‘How could you not know?’ he asked.
‘All I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours is sit in front of my computer,’ replied Colin. ‘I’ve got this new game, it’s fucking great. I’m already up to level four.’
Sad bastard, thought Kelly, then remembered his own predilection for computer games when he should be working. It was just that his were inclined to be less sophisticated, that was all, because, apart from backgammon, he had so far avoided loading any further games on to his computer beyond the standard package supplied by Windows.
‘What’s it go to do with me, anyway?’ Colin asked.
‘I just wondered if you knew the victim, or if your brother may have known him. He was a Devonshire Fusilier, a squaddie stationed at Hangridge. His name was Robert Morgan.’
‘Rob?’ Colin sounded shocked. ‘Rob Morgan? I met him once. With Jimmy. They was best mates. Jesus. What was he doing up here?’
‘I wondered if he might have been coming to see you. Or your father?’
‘No. Well, I don’t know. He hadn’t phoned nor nothing.’
‘There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he would be in your area. I mean, you don’t know of anything, do you? A girl, perhaps?’
‘No. I mean, I wouldn’t. I told you, I only met him once. But I don’t think he’d ever been up here before. He’d never been to ours, anyway. And our Jimmy used to go on about him being a real Devon yokel. He was only having a laugh, though. Jimmy was always talking about Rob. They were really good mates. I met him in Devon. Dad and I took Jimmy back there once, after he’d been home on leave, and we met up with Rob in a boozer.’
‘Could he have wanted to tell you something, you or your dad? Something about Jimmy’s death, perhaps?’
‘Jesus,’ said Colin. ‘And I’m the one who’s supposed to have been watching too many crap movies.’
‘This is serious, Colin. More serious than you can possibly imagine, and more serious probably than even I imagined until today. I think perhaps you should contact your local police and tell them about your connection with Robert Morgan, and, come to that, tell them all that stuff your brother told you about Jocelyn Slade as well.’