He began to tell her everything then, deliberately leaving the best bit until last. Even in the sorry state he was in, Kelly retained the tabloid journalist’s sense of the dramatic when it came to a good story. First of all he asked Karen if she had seen the article in the Evening Argus about the death of yet another young Hangridge squaddie, murdered in London on a street close to the family home of key witness James Gates, also dead.
‘No, I didn’t see the Argus yesterday,’ she admitted. ‘I was too busy.’
She thought for a second.
‘That’s shocking enough, but I get the feeling it’s not the half of it, is it, Kelly?’ she enquired. ‘And you’ve yet to tell me how you ended up looking as if you’ve just completed ten rounds with Mike Tyson.’
Kelly tried to smile. It obviously hurt. He told her about his anonymous tip-off and the arranged midnight meeting on Babbacombe beach, which he was now convinced had been a set-up. In graphic detail, he explained how he was attacked by an assailant he was convinced was a professional killer, and how he had been let off but could not begin to explain why.
‘Like John Lee,’ he said. ‘And just as unlikely an escape, I promise you.’
Karen was shocked. Kelly didn’t need to explain the analogy to her. She was, after all, a local girl, and, like almost everyone from the Torbay area, had been brought up on the tale of John Lee, the man they couldn’t hang.
She cupped her chin in her hands and leaned forwards in her chair.
‘Right, Kelly,’ she began. ‘I don’t think we should even go into why you are still alive. I just want to make sure you stay that way. So, let’s get one thing clear, shall we? You must pull back from the Hangridge affair at once. I’ll call the nick straight away and set up an investigation into the attack on you. I don’t need anybody’s authority to do that. On the surface, at least, this is a straightforward case of an innocent civilian being assaulted in a public place, and if that leads into military matters, then all for the better. I’ll get the SOCOs out to Babbacombe straight away, just in case they can pick up on something, and I’m afraid whether you like it—’
‘Karen, please, I haven’t got to the most important bit yet,’ Kelly interrupted.
‘Look, Kelly, we must move as fast as we possibly can in order to protect all remaining evidence. Whether you like it or not, you’ll have to come back to the nick with me now. You mightn’t want to go to casualty, but you do have to be seen by our police doctor, we may be able to get some forensic evidence off you.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Kelly, ‘I’ve had a shower.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I just wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘OK. Well, we can still go over the clothes you were wearing. Or have you destroyed them, too?’
Kelly managed a wan smile, apparently without too much pain, and shook his head.
‘Good,’ she continued. ‘And you said you managed to bite your attacker, so if you made a halfway decent job of it, there may be some fragments of skin in your teeth. You haven’t brushed them, have you?’
Kelly shook his head again.
‘Thank God, for that. We’ll want a statement too, but that can wait until later on in the morning if you don’t feel up to it. I’ll probably ask Chris Tompkins to interview you, because I shall go to Exeter first thing. Or as soon as I recover from this middle of the night assignation, anyway. Whatever comes out of this attack on you—’
‘Look, Karen,’ Kelly interrupted again. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you. There’s something else you should know, before you—’
But Karen still wouldn’t let him finish. She was on a roll, putting an investigation together, planning her next move. It was what she did best. And just knowing that she now had a valid course of action to follow was making her feel so much better.
‘Yeah, yeah, but first, Kelly, let me explain. Whatever comes out of this attack on you, that, coupled with this murder of James Gates’ mate in London, should really get things moving. In fact, if it doesn’t force frigging Harry Tomlinson to give the go-ahead for a full scale CID inquiry into every one of these deaths of Devonshire Fusiliers, I don’t know what the fuck will—’
‘Karen!’ Kelly raised his voice to a shout and Karen could see that he had really made his head hurt. He screwed up his face in pain. She studied him anxiously. In addition, there was something in his voice now that absolutely demanded her attention.
‘Yes?’ she queried quite meekly.
‘Karen, please, please, listen. Do you remember I told you about the two men who came into The Wild Dog looking for Alan Connelly, the night this all began?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’ Karen was mildly irritated. Did he think she had turned into an idiot?
‘Well, one of them, the one who did all the talking. I think I know who he was. Actually, I am quite sure I know who he was.’
‘Really?’ Karen was puzzled. Why the big build-up, she wondered.
Out loud she said: ‘Well, spit it out, then.’
‘I... I met him yesterday,’ Kelly continued. ‘And I recognised him. At once.’
‘What?’ Karen was even more puzzled by the air of mystery Kelly was creating. ‘Not the man who attacked you on the beach? I thought you said you couldn’t see him.’
‘I couldn’t. No, not him. Well, not as far as I know, anyway.’
He paused again. Infuriating man, thought Karen. Even in the state he was in, he was still playing to his audience, going for the biggest possible dramatic effect. She realised the quickest way to be put out of her misery was to play along with him.
‘Well?’ she prompted, expressionlessly.
‘It was Gerrard Parker-Brown. I am absolutely sure of it. Really I am. Colonel Parker-Brown.’
Twenty
Karen felt as if she too had been run over by a truck.
‘Kelly, no,’ she said. ‘It couldn’t have been.’
‘I’m telling you, Karen.’
‘But, for God’s sake, those E-fits you and Janet Farnsby came up with, neither of them looked a bit like him.’
‘You said yourself that they are hit and miss. I did my best, but I knew they were both pretty terrible likenesses. And, anyway, Parker-Brown and the other man were wearing woolly hats and had their coat collars turned up.’
‘So, you couldn’t see his face properly?’
‘Quite enough, I promise you. I could see his eyes, Karen. I didn’t really think about how special they were until I saw him at Hangridge. Then it hit me. Big brown eyes, with long eyelashes. They’re like a woman’s eyes. You must know how distinctive his eyes are.’
Karen knew. She also knew how attractive they were. And that she had very nearly fallen for their appeal and, indeed, for Gerry Parker-Brown’s all-round charm. It seemed that she could have had a very narrow escape, indeed. Thank God, that for once in her life, a degree of common sense had triumphed over her natural impulsiveness. ‘Like a woman’s eyes’, Kelly had said. And that had to be the clincher. She had, after all, thought the same thing herself.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘And when you met him yesterday, do you think he recognised you? You went in as an investigator representing the families of the dead soldiers, didn’t you? Do you think he realised that you had been in The Wild Dog with Alan Connelly? That you were probably the witness I had told him about.’
‘I have no idea. But if he did, he gave absolutely no sign of it, I can tell you. Even though I stared at him all the time. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Well, maybe you gave yourself away, then?’
‘Maybe. I hope not. I tried not to.’
‘But he gave no indication of recognition?’