Kelly found that there were more old friends at the bash than he might have expected, and enjoyed the evening in spite of not being able to drink himself. He did not, however, forget his hidden agenda.
Quite deliberately he waited until the early hours of the following morning before contriving to get himself involved in a conversation with the by then extremely well oiled Finch about the Marshall buy-up. The other man had a selection of the usual kind of tales, ranging from the machinations of extracting every jot of the story from Marshall to how the opposition were shaken off, and naturally Jimmy Finch was the hero of every one.
Kelly gave him his full attention, chuckling appreciatively in all the right places, before asking casually: “So what do you think then, Finchy, did he do it or not?”
“Completely innocent, old boy,” replied the veteran crime man. “As told to the Currant Bun, and you’d never doubt Britain’s greatest newspaper, would you?”
Kelly grinned. “There speaks one of the few men in Fleet Street to work to full retirement age and be looking forward to a hefty News International pension,” he said.
“Dead right, Johnno.” Finch was on the whisky now. His diction remained surprisingly clear — he was, after all, well practised in the arts of coping with copious quantities of alcohol — but his flushed features had turned almost purple. Although the temperature in the air-conditioned wine bar was still pleasant enough there was a film of sweat on his forehead and cheeks. He was breathing heavily. Kelly wondered obliquely how long Finch would actually live to enjoy his generous pension. And as he gently returned the other man to the question he so wanted to hear answered, he reflected that there were some advantages to not drinking, like having a brain still in working order at the end of a night like this one, for a start. Kelly’s history of alcoholism had nearly destroyed him twice, and he was absolutely sure that he wouldn’t survive a third time. It was actually plain blind fear that kept him sober while all around him drank. He ordered himself a Diet Coke and Jimmy Finch another large whisky without asking him whether he wanted it, lining the glass up on the bar alongside the two already waiting there. Flattery, Kelly thought, might be the answer.
“Come on, Finchy,” he coaxed. “Don’t forget I first worked on the Marshall affair back in the seventies. I’m dying to hear what you think. Knowing you, you’ve got an opinion. And you’re not often wrong, mate, either. If the police had just a handful of guys as sharp as you, we wouldn’t have half the cock-ups.”
“You’re right, you’re absolutely right, Johnno,” responded Finch with a gravity that suggested that Kelly had imparted some extraordinary truth rather than indulged in a buttering-up process which the sober Finch would at once have recognized for what it was.
“So go on, then, waddya think?” Kelly persisted. “Has justice been done or not? C’mon, Solomon. Let’s have your wisdom.”
Finch puffed up his chest self-importantly. It was that time of night. That time in his career, too. He leaned close to Kelly, everything about him conspiratorial. His breath stank of beer and Scotch. Kelly, born-again teetotal, albeit only because he had no choice, had to force himself not to recoil.
“Actually, the bastard more or less told me he’d done it,” he said.
Kelly felt a numbness that began in his belly and spread slowly throughout his body. It was a bit like a morphine injection except that it did nothing to relieve the tension in his neck and shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
Finch leaned even closer. “Well, you know how smug he is. I asked him if he really didn’t know where his other daughter was. He just sort of leered at me. ‘Oh, I know all right,’ he said. So I asked him if he was still in touch, in spite of what he’d said in court.”
“‘Don’t be stupid, Jimmy,’ he replied. I could see it then, in his eyes. He’d had a few, you understand, we both had. But I was holding it better than him. More practice.”
Kelly didn’t doubt it. Finch paused to take a deep swallow of his whisky. His hand was steady and he swayed only slightly as he lifted the glass. Kelly had no idea how much Scotch he’d drunk but he knew the old crime reporter had previously been on champagne for most of the day — and he was still functioning, although admittedly a little sluggishly.
“Then I just asked him, outright, just like that, straight.”
Finch took yet another drink.
“Asked him what, Finchy?” prompted Kelly.
“‘Did you do it, Richard? Did you kill her then, after all, her and her mother?’ Just like that I asked him.”
Finch looked even more pleased with himself, nodded his head sagely and seemed disinclined to say any more.
“So what did he reply, Finchy?” Kelly prompted again.
“He said: ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’”
“He said what?”
“‘Is the Pope Catholic?’” Finch repeated. “‘Is the Pope fucking Catholic?’” And he smiled. “You gotta hand it to him, Johnno. That man has balls. Whatever else he is, by God, he’s got balls.”
And with that Finch threw back his head and roared with laughter. It seemed a very long time before he stopped. This was one man who was completely untroubled by his involvement, albeit briefly, in the Marshall affair. Typical bloody tabloid hack, thought Kelly, conveniently forgetting for a moment his own turbulent tabloid past.
“So did you tell anyone about this, Finchy?” he asked, trying to sound casual. “Did you tell the police?”
“Are you frigging joking, Johnno? You’ve been out in the sticks too long, mate. We had a major story running.”
“Yes, of course,” replied Kelly very seriously. “But we are talking murder here—”
“Bollocks,” interrupted Finch. “None of my bleedin’ business.”
“The murder of a young woman and her child, Finchy,” Kelly persisted. “The solving of a twenty-eight-year-old mystery. Wouldn’t that be an even bigger triumph for the old Soaraway?”
“It’s in the too-difficult file, mate,” responded Finch. “Richard Marshall’s been up before the appeal court, for God’s sake, and the three wise men said that he’d been unjustly convicted and was innocent. Who am I to argue? Anyway, I didn’t have a tape on, it was late at night in the boozer. Who’d believe it?”
Kelly looked the other man up and down. Drunk or sober, like him or loathe him, Jimmy Finch was a pro through and through.
“I do, mate,” he said. “I believe it.”
Midmorning the following day Karen received a phone call from John Kelly, who told her that he was calling from the train on his way home from London.
“Wondered if you fancied a bite to eat tonight?” he enquired. “It’s been a while. It would be good to catch up. Anyway, I’ve something to tell you.”
Karen accepted promptly. She was almost grateful. She knew Phil would not be able to see her at all that night. He had muttered something apologetic about a play at his daughter’s school. She didn’t like to think about those aspects of her lover’s life. It was enough that he could not be with her.
It would be good, she thought, to spend time with Kelly. Their long friendship meant that they were easy with each other. He was one of the few people in the world she didn’t have to put on an act with. In addition, Kelly had said he had something to tell her. Kelly wasn’t a time-waster. Kelly knew how to give as well as how to take. And although his approach had been very casual, there had been something in his voice that had set her antennae waggling. Immediately she wondered if it had anything to do with the Richard Marshall case. It still weighed heavily on her mind, and she knew that it was important to Kelly, too. She might even find out why it was so important to him. There was certainly no doubt that Kelly cared. That had always been one of his problems, she thought wryly. He probably cared too much.