The five minutes or so that it took to reach his home were just about the longest of his life. His little terraced house, high above Torquay’s town centre, suddenly seemed like the most desirable place in the world. He desperately wanted some time there alone, to change his clothes, perhaps to have a shower, and to rest and recuperate a little before doing anything else. He knew he should probably drive straight to the casualty department of Torbay Hospital, but he didn’t intend to do that, either. For a start, he wasn’t yet ready to even attempt to explain what had happened to him.
Gratefully, he pulled up outside his house, vaguely aware that he seemed to have parked at an acute angle to the pavement but totally incapable of doing anything about it. At his first attempt to step out of the Volvo, he almost fell over. His knees gave way. It seemed that his legs were still not fully capable of supporting him. He leaned against the car for a minute or two, before taking a cautious step across the pavement and grabbing hold of the gate post. He realised that he was trembling from head to foot.
Once safely inside, he peeled off his soiled clothes as soon as he had closed the door behind him, dropping them in an untidy pile on the tiled floor of the hall, and made his way uncertainly upstairs to the bathroom, being careful to hold on to the banister.
He stepped into the shower and turned on the water to very hot and full power. His head was beginning to ache unpleasantly, but no longer seemed quite so strange. In fact, the shower helped even more than he had expected, and when he stepped out of it onto the bathmat, he was already a little less shaky than he had been when he had arrived home. He wrapped a couple of towels around his dripping body, and rummaged in the bathroom cabinet for the packet of Nurofen he knew was in there somewhere. As he closed the cabinet’s mirrored door, he caught a glimpse of his reflected face. It was not a pretty sight. He was white as a sheet, apart from the swollen, multicoloured bruise on his forehead. And it also looked as if at least one black eye was beginning to form. Wincing — as much at his own sorry image as because of his headache — he struggled to control trembling fingers in order to remove three of the small white pills from their foil container. He put them in his mouth and washed them down with tap water which he brought clumsily to his lips in cupped hands, spilling half the water over his front as he did so.
Thankfully, his legs felt much steadier. He made his way along the landing to the bedroom he used as an office and settled into his big leather swivel chair, where he sat perfectly still, breathing as deeply and as rhythmically as he could manage. He was only just beginning to realise fully how terrified he had been on that beach. He had been frightened, quite literally, out of his wits, and it was going to be some time before he would function normally again.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which proved to be something of a mistake, because it brought about a return of the dancing lights. Swiftly he opened his eyes again, and sat waiting for the lights to disappear and, hopefully, for the Nurofen to start working on his splitting headache.
Eventually the pain in his head did begin to lessen and he started to think about what he should do next. He had a feeling he should tell Karen Meadows about what had happened as soon as possible. He did not yet have any idea exactly what he might have stumbled on at Hangridge, but he had certainly learned that he was now personally involved in a highly dangerous situation. There had been a string of deaths of young soldiers, almost all of which were at the very least highly suspicious, and now he too had almost died. Almost been murdered, in fact. Even Kelly knew that the time had come to step back and hand over everything he knew to those who, hopefully, were professionally qualified to deal with the consequences.
Impulsively he reached for the telephone to call Karen Meadows, but his vision was still suspect and his hands were still trembling so much that he realised it would be difficult for him to dial the number. He decided to wait a little longer. He would very much like a cigarette, but doubted he was capable of rolling one.
Then, just as he was desperately trying to remember if there was a packet of ready-made cigarettes secreted anywhere in the house, his mobile rang. In the hall downstairs. He remembered that it had been in the pocket of his suede jacket, which he had so unceremoniously dropped onto the floor just inside the front door. He had earlier dodged the calls that he knew Karen would be bound to try to make to him, but now he desperately wanted to know who could be calling him at such an hour.
Cursing under his breath, he jumped quickly to his feet, without thinking, in order to hurry to retrieve the phone. But the sudden movement set his head whirling again and he had to promptly sit down once more.
By the time he had managed to make his way downstairs and then delve in all the wrong pockets, his mobile had long since stopped ringing. When he finally found it, he at once checked the display panel, half expecting his caller to have been Karen again. After all, he had stood her up.
Nick’s mobile number showed up on the little screen. Kelly was mildly surprised. He peered at the clock on the wall to the left of the hallstand. As he had thought, it was nearly 1.30 a.m. A little anxiously, he checked the message service. There was one message from Karen asking him where the hell he was, but nothing from his son. What could Nick possibly want at this time of night, he wondered.
While he was contemplating this and trying to gather the strength to return the call, the phone rang again and again the number of Nick’s mobile flashed up on the display panel. Kelly answered at once.
‘Oh, hi, Dad, sorry to be so late, but I know you rarely go to bed much earlier than this, in spite of pretending to be an early-bird writer.’
‘Yeah, well, you’re probably right, and don’t worry, it’s always nice to hear from you.’ Kelly realised as he spoke that his words were very slightly slurred. His head was not yet completely clear. It was actually quite an effort to speak.
Nick seemed to pick up on that too, which was probably not surprising, thought Kelly.
‘Are you all right, Dad?’ he asked. And Kelly could detect the note of anxiety in his voice.
‘Yes, of course, I just fell asleep in the armchair, that’s all,’ lied Kelly, concentrating hard on his diction. He might well choose very soon to tell his son what had happened that night and would probably have already discussed the Hangridge affair with him, had he had opportunity. But Moira’s funeral had certainly not been the occasion. He had not seen Nick since and neither had he wished to discuss any of it on the phone. Now this, once more, was certainly not the moment. After his brush with death that night, Kelly was even less likely to discuss any aspect of Hangridge on the phone, and in any case he still couldn’t think clearly.
‘Oh, I did wake you, then. I’m sorry.’ Nick responded.
‘That’s OK. It’s fine.’ It was Kelly’s turn, in spite of his fuzzy-headedness, to feel anxious. ‘But what about you? I’m bloody sure you must have a good reason for calling me at this hour.’
‘Yes, sorry, Dad. I just wanted to pick your brains actually...’
Not a good moment for that, either, thought Kelly, whose brain still felt as if it were coated in thick gooey mud, but he did not interrupt, preferring to preserve what little energy he had left.
‘I’m working on something big,’ Nick continued. ‘I’ve been at my computer all night. There’s a bug that’s got into the system at the MoD and it’s causing mayhem, hence the urgency. I’ve traced the source to Washington D.C. and I’ve just found an article on the Net — about exactly the same bug — written by that mate of yours over there who you often talk about. You know, Terry Wallis, the Times man in Washington, isn’t he? Apparently, it nearly brought down the entire Pentagon network and Terry seems to know an awful lot about it. I desperately need to compare notes with him, and if I have to wait until morning it will be the middle of the night over there. I wondered if you had a phone number for him?’