She smiled wanly, ignoring his sarcasm. This was no time to be petty, either.
‘I had to see you urgently, sir,’ she said.
‘Really? So urgently that you couldn’t make an appointment in the proper manner?’
She had known that would annoy him, of course. To a man like Tomlinson, his diary was a bible.
‘Sorry, sir,’ she persisted. ‘But yes. It is that urgent.’
The chief constable’s small mouth puckered up. His eyes looked even more as if they were likely to pop out of his head than they usually did.
‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘You’d better come into my office, then.’ He checked his watch. ‘I can give you fifteen minutes, maximum. I have a breakfast meeting at eight with the chairman of Exeter Chamber of Commerce.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She followed him meekly. Once inside his office he did not even bother to invite her to sit down, but she did so anyway, automatically choosing the upright chair opposite his desk, in much the same way as she had during her last meeting with Parker-Brown. She didn’t want Tomlinson looking down at her, either. After all, the CC couldn’t be much more than five foot five or six, and the only time he could come close to looking down on her was when he was sitting in a higher chair.
‘Well?’ he enquired tersely.
‘It’s Hangridge, sir,’ she began. ‘There have been some further—’
‘Oh, please, Detective Superintendent,’ Tomlinson interrupted brusquely. ‘Not again!’
‘Sir. Do let me explain. There have been some further incidents, important incidents, the death of another Devonshire Fusilier which could well be connected, and an assault on a member of the public—’
‘A member of the public?’ Tomlinson interrupted. ‘Who exactly?’
Damn, thought Karen. She hadn’t wanted to go into that at this precise moment, but the chief constable had given her no choice.
‘On John Kelly, sir...’
‘John Kelly?’ The words came out like a small explosion. ‘Why am I not surprised. That man is a total loose cannon. He should not be allowed to get involved in something like this. When will you ever learn, Detective Superintendent?’
‘Sir, John Kelly was assaulted, in such a manner that he thought he was about to die, and the incident occurred after he had discovered some rather extraordinary information concerning Hangridge,’ she persisted grimly.
She told him everything quickly then, before he could find an excuse not to listen. She told him about Jimmy Gates and Jimmy Gates’ friend, Robert Morgan, who had been murdered in London, and about how Kelly had recognised Gerrard Parker-Brown as one of the two men who had come looking for Alan Connelly on the night he died.
‘Can Kelly be sure?’ responded the chief constable. ‘I saw those E-fits. I wouldn’t have recognised Parker-Brown from either of them, that’s for certain.’
‘I know, sir. Kelly admits they weren’t a good likeness, but yes, he really is quite sure. And, of course, it was right after he confronted the colonel that he was attacked. It could well be that Parker-Brown also recognised Kelly from The Wild Dog that night and realised what a danger he could be...’
‘Oh, come, come, Detective Superintendent. You are not suggesting, surely, that it was Gerry Parker-Brown who attacked John Kelly last night?’
‘Well, sir, it must be a possibility—’
‘Actually, Superintendent, no, it isn’t a possibility. Gerry and I had a late supper together at my club here in Exeter last night. And it was after midnight when he left. Indeed, it was the clock striking midnight which made us both break up the party. Such good company, Gerry. So I’m afraid you will have to take him off your list of suspects, after all, Miss Meadows.’
Karen winced mentally. She might have known it. What a clever bastard Parker-Brown was. Supper with the chief constable at his club, just when Kelly was being attacked. Obscurely, it went through her mind that she hadn’t been aware that Tomlinson had a club, or even that the kind of club she somehow imagined he was referring to existed in Exeter.
‘Sir, don’t you think that is just a tad convenient?’ she ventured.
‘It was an engagement that has been in my diary for nearly two weeks,’ responded the chief constable, as if that answered everything. Karen waited for him to continue and to clarify exactly what he thought that proved, but obviously Harry Tomlinson didn’t think it necessary, so she decided to try again herself.
‘Look, sir, a man like Parker-Brown is not really likely to do his own dirty work, is he? It is rather more possible, I feel, that someone — a real professional, Kelly thought — was instructed to dispatch Kelly on his behalf.’
‘Really? In which case, if the attacker was so professional, why is John Kelly not dead?’
‘That is one of the many mysteries of this case, sir.’
‘It certainly is.’ The chief constable stood up and walked to the window so that he had his back to Karen.
‘All right, Karen,’ he said eventually, in a resigned sort of voice. ‘I do see that there are now a number of unanswered questions here...’
And at that inappropriate moment, just as Karen began to believe she was about to get the go-ahead she was seeking, the chief constable’s desktop phone rang. Someone else who understood the advantage of getting to the boss early in the day, she thought.
‘Good morning, Detective Inspector,’ said Tomlinson into the phone, peering over it at Karen in a particularly curious manner, she thought.
‘Yes, yes, I see,’ he continued. ‘Well, well. You had an anonymous caller, did you? Well, would you believe, DI Cooper, that I have one Detective Superintendent Meadows here with much the same story to tell, but with a few additional literary details. Different source, of course. Now isn’t that a coincidence?’
Shit, thought Karen. Another most unhappy coincidence was that Phil Cooper had chosen to contact the chief constable just when she was with him. She remembered then that Tomlinson had made comments in the past which had indicated that he had known about her relationship with Cooper. But, of course, it would have been hard for even him to have missed it. After all, she suspected that the whole of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary knew about their ill-advised affair. And now Tomlinson had put two and two together, and quite correctly come to the conclusion that she and Cooper had conspired in their attempts to persuade him that there should be a major police investigation into the Hangridge deaths.
Karen waited for him to finish the call, wondering how he would react. The really annoying thing was that the death of Robert Morgan, combined with Kelly’s additional information concerning Parker-Brown, and indeed the very fact that Kelly had been assaulted, meant that it had probably been quite unnecessary to bring in Phil and his Major Crime Incident Team. But she hadn’t known that last night.
Tomlinson had a broad smile on his face and now looked as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself, thought Karen, who was not actually surprised by the pleasure he seemed to be getting from watching her mounting embarrassment.
‘Right. I’ll need to talk to Detective Superintendent Meadows, and I’ll get back to you in a few minutes,’ were his last words into the phone.
He turned to Karen.
‘Well, well, Karen,’ he began, and as ever when he used her Christian name it made her feel all the more uneasy. ‘It seems that your former b—’
He paused. Karen looked at him in amazement. Had he really been about to say boyfriend?
‘Your former sergeant,’ the chief constable continued eventually, ‘shares your opinion that it is time we staged a full-scale police investigation at Hangridge. And, amazed as I am at the many coincidences between your two, doubtless, totally separate approaches...’ He paused again to peer at her quizzically and she couldn’t help wincing a little. ‘... I must come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to give my authority,’ Tomlinson went on. ‘In view of the serious nature of this investigation, I think it should be a joint operation between you and your team, Detective Superintendent, and the MCIT. I will inform DI Cooper of that at once, and you, of course, will be the senior investigating officer, in view of your rank.’