‘Who are you?’ he asked instead.
‘Never mind that,’ said the voice. ‘I’m just somebody who has a great deal of information that you might want. You and the families of those dead soldiers. I know what happened to them all, you see. What happened and why. I know the truth.’
‘I see.’ Kelly didn’t know what else to say.
‘So, do you want to know the truth too?’
Kelly sat down in his window armchair with a bump. His knees had suddenly seemed in danger of giving out, and he realised that he was sweating.
‘Of course I do,’ he said.
‘Right.’
‘Well, go on...’
‘Are you off your trolley, man?’ The remark sounded so incongruous when delivered by someone who appeared to be speaking through a thick wedge of cotton wool that Kelly found he was smiling in spite of himself.
‘I’m sorry...’ he began.
‘Yes. You should be. I’m not telling you any of this on the phone.’
‘Right.’
‘No. We’ll have to meet. And somewhere we won’t be seen.’
‘Right.’
‘Do you know Babbacombe beach?’
‘Yes.’ How strange, thought Kelly. It was one of his favourite haunts, that and The Cary Arms. He had been up there — well, on the road above the small secluded beach, anyway — on the day of Moira’s funeral. It had been a refuge for him then, and he didn’t really regard it as quite the place for a clandestine meeting. But he wasn’t going to argue.
‘I’ll see you there at midnight tonight. And come alone.’
‘Yes. Of course. Right. Where exactly?’
‘You just start to walk along the beach, from the direction of the pub. I’ll be there. You won’t see me at first. I’ll find you. Don’t worry. Just walk up and down the beach, until I do. Oh, and no torch. You don’t need to see me, you just need to listen.’
‘OK. But, tell me. Why are you doing this?’
‘They were mates of mine. Alan Connelly, Jimmy Gates, Robbie Morgan. They were all my mates.’
The caller hung up then. Straight away. Leaving Kelly looking at a buzzing handset.
Shit, he thought. Connelly, Gates and Morgan. His mysterious caller was indicating a link between those three deaths at least, already backing up Kelly’s own suspicions. And the most significant aspect of that was that he had included Morgan in it. Morgan, whose involvement had remained something of a long-shot until that moment. Morgan, a local lad whose death probably hardly anybody in Torbay knew about yet. But Kelly’s anonymous informant knew. Less than twenty-four hours after Morgan had been murdered, he knew. He could have seen it in the evening paper, of course, just as Kelly had. And, indeed, maybe it was that which had prompted him to contact Kelly.
Kelly took his tobacco and skins out of his pocket and began to roll himself a cigarette. He was both excited and thoughtful. He had no idea how his caller even knew that he was investigating the deaths at Hangridge, but, apart from his dealings with the various families involved, he had now actually visited the barracks of the Devonshire Fusiliers and done his best to interview the regiment’s commanding officer. He suspected that gossip in an army barracks was probably every bit as rampant as he knew it to be in newspaper offices and police stations. And he was in the phone book. A lot of journalists, Kelly knew, were ex-directory. But Kelly thought that was nonsense. If you want to gather in information, you need to make it as easy as possible for anyone who wishes to supply you with some to be able to do so. Whatever inconvenience that might cause on occasions.
Anyway, one way and another, his unexpected phone call changed everything. Absolutely everything. No way would he now be making any sort of move at all, and certainly there would be no question of breaking the story to the press, not until after he had met his mysterious deep throat.
He lit up and took a deep drag, forcing himself to remain calm. He was at a crucial stage in an investigation which was beginning to pull in all sorts of unexpected directions, and it was essential that he kept as cool a head as possible.
So much now hinged on whatever he might learn that night from his anonymous caller who, he was quite aware, of course, could still turn out to be a nutter. But somehow, and maybe it had been something in that muffled voice which had already convinced him, Kelly didn’t think so.
Either way, Kelly certainly didn’t want Karen Meadows to know about his deep throat, at least not until after he had met up with him. Assuming it was a him. For a start, she would only interfere, and Kelly wanted to handle this alone. Dealing with informants was always, in his opinion, a one-person job. However, Karen Meadows would be sure to try to stop him keeping his lone midnight assignation. She would never take on board any responsibly for something like that. She was, after all, a policewoman. At the very least, she would insist on some kind of police back-up, and Kelly somehow felt absolutely certain that his caller would know if he did not turn up alone as promised. After all, he was probably military and probably trained in surveillance. Kelly reckoned he had no choice but to find some excuse for avoiding this evening’s meeting with Karen, because she knew him too well not to glean at once that there was something big going on that he wasn’t sharing with her. He did not even want to speak to her on the phone. Not now. Not until after that midnight assignation.
Instead, he decided to email her. And he used Moira’s daughters as his excuse, telling Karen that they had arranged a special supper on their last evening together, before Paula returned to her home in London and Lynne went back to university in Bristol. The girls had wanted Kelly to be there, and he had naturally accepted their invitation, he wrote. However, he had totally forgotten his commitment to join them when he’d made his appointment with Karen, which he would now like to put off until the following day. He was very sorry, but he couldn’t let the girls down, could he?
He read the message through several times, tweaking the odd word. It was good, he thought. Nothing at all in it to rouse Karen’s suspicions.
He pressed ‘send’ and made himself another roll-up. He felt a complete rat for using the girls as an excuse in this way, so soon after their mother’s death, but he told himself they would understand. The truth, of course, was that whether or not they would understand actually made no difference. Any kind of commitment to Moira’s daughters was currently the best excuse available to Kelly. And Kelly was a very determined man. When he had an aim in his life, he was inclined to use any means at his disposal to see it through.
When she arrived, Phil Cooper was already sitting in what had been his and Karen Meadow’s favourite corner table in the quiet little pub on the Newton Abbot road, that they had so often visited together. There was a pint of bitter in front of him. He beamed at her as she walked across the bar to him, and rose to his feet, his arms open in a welcoming gesture. Not for the first time, Karen marvelled at his cheek. What was it with men, she wondered? However badly they behaved, they just expected to be allowed to bounce back into your life.
‘God, Karen, it’s good to see you,’ he said warmly.
‘Phil.’ She manoeuvred her way past him with some care, avoiding the physical contact he seemed to be inviting, and sat down. She intended to keep the entire evening strictly businesslike and to be as brief and to the point as possible. She very nearly started to remind him again that their meeting really was business and no more than that. But she stopped herself just in time, reckoning that even to make the comment raised the possibility that she might be considering an alternative.