Kelly suggested The Drum at Cockington, a pub in one of Devon’s prettiest thatched villages, which she had always liked in spite of the vast numbers of tourists who flocked to it. And he offered to pick her up in a taxi and take her there.
“You may as well take advantage of me,” he told her. “As an enforced non-driver I don’t have any choice. Let me give you a lift in my cab, then at least you can have a drink.”
Karen agreed with alacrity. So much so that she slightly worried herself. She did seem to be drinking more and more lately. A combination of the ups and downs of the Marshall case and her intense affair with Cooper seemed to be leading into what she knew was increasingly dangerous territory. She had always drunk for fun before. Nowadays she was all too often drinking to forget, or simply because she felt she needed alcohol.
Her anxiety, however, was merely fleeting. She had put it firmly out of her head by the time she and Kelly arrived at the Drum, and she gratefully ordered a large gin and tonic.
It was a fine May evening and she had enjoyed the brief taxi ride to picturesque Cockington which was yet to drown under the sea of another summer’s tourist wave. Things began exactly how she had hoped, with Kelly regaling her with old newspaper stories. Some of them Karen had heard before. It made no difference. Kelly was a great natural storyteller.
They ordered steak-and-kidney puddings, individually cooked so that they arrived with their crusts unbroken, thus giving off a quite mouth-wateringly aromatic burst of steam when you dug your fork in. She drank red wine with the meal. Kelly stuck to mineral water. Karen half-considered joining him. Then she told herself it would be a waste of his chauffeuring offer.
It was only when they had both ordered coffee that Kelly became serious.
“Look, Karen, I’ve got something to tell you,” he began. “I don’t know that it will do any good. But, well, you know I feel every bit as strongly about Marshall and all that has happened as you do, don’t you?”
“I know you’re involved, Kelly, yes, I do.” She looked at him quizzically. “As for who cares most — well, it’s not a competition.”
“Don’t be tricky,” he instructed.
She grinned at him.
He leaned back in his chair, and took a deep swig of his coffee before continuing. Karen knew him well. She guessed he was wishing it was a large Scotch. He had once told her that he didn’t think he would ever stop missing alcohol.
“I was up in London last night for a farewell do for one of my few remaining mates in The Street, Jimmy Finch,” he began. “Ended up having quite a conversation with him...”
He paused, glancing at Karen to see if she registered the significance of what he had just told her. Karen looked blank. She didn’t have a clue who Jimmy Finch was.
“He’s the Sun man who handled the Marshall buy-up.”
Light dawned. Karen was interested now, all right.
“Surprised you didn’t know the name from his byline—”
“Just get on with it, Kelly,” muttered Karen. “Only journalists notice bylines. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.”
Kelly pulled a face at her.
“Anyway, he was full of it,” he began. “It is the crime story of the year, after all, if not the decade, even if the Sun getting it was down to their chequebook rather than the skills of their journos. There was an element of gloating at first, but he’s sound, Jimmy Finch, and a bloody good reporter...”
He told her all of it then. And although in many ways his story merely added weight to what she already believed, it was a whole different ball game to hear that Richard Marshall had actually damn near made a confession. Albeit in a pub after a skinful. There were, however, a number of points which bothered her.
“The man’s not talked in almost thirty years,” she said. “He’s been interviewed again and again by some of the best in the business, he’s been cross-examined in court, and he’s stayed tight as a drum. Why on earth would he put himself at risk like that?”
“I don’t think he saw any risk, and the bastard’s probably right, isn’t he?”
“More than likely.” Karen sighed. “I don’t know if there’s any point, but this Jimmy Finch, if we looked him up would he go on the record with this?”
Kelly shrugged. “I doubt it,” he said. “Finch is a wily old hand. He knows the law inside-out, and unlike prats like me and you, I suspect, he knows better than to ever get personally involved. He’s always just done his job like a sensible fellow. And if he and his newspaper go on record to say that Marshall has confessed, they put themselves in the wrong, don’t they? Newspapers aren’t supposed to pay money to criminals for anything, let alone a pack of lies about a murder. It’s a tightrope, Karen, and the Jimmy Finches of this world know exactly how to walk it.”
Karen nodded. She knew the type well enough. “In any case, there’s no evidence, is there?” she said. “You’ve told me he didn’t tape what Marshall said.”
“No chance. Marshall would never fall into that trap, even out of his brains.”
“No.” She drained her red wine. “I’ll think about it overnight, Kelly,” she went on. “But I really don’t know what we’re going to be able to do about it, if anything.”
The reporter shrugged again. “Neither do I,” he replied flatly. “I just thought you ought to know, that’s all.”
“Thank you.” Karen stared at him hard. “There’s something else I’d like to know, Kelly. Why do you care so much about this one? You must have a reason.”
Kelly smiled. “Not really. I just go back a long way with that bastard Marshall, same as you do.”
He spoke easily enough, but Karen was somehow quite sure there was something he wasn’t telling her. The something that Bill Talbot had hinted at all that time ago in the pub. She made a mental note to call Bill the next day and find out exactly what her old boss had been getting at.
First thing, though, she had another call to make. As soon as she got into her office she phoned the chief constable and passed on everything that Kelly had told her.
“I just wanted you to be aware of this development, sir,” she told him.
She could see no way that any action could sensibly be taken, but apart from anything else she was beginning to learn to play politics. Just a little. And about time, too, she reflected. She had a personal situation which might turn sour on her professionally at any time, and she had already had a very narrow escape over the Marshall affair. It could have ruined her career, and it still promised to do it little good. A good start in her determination not to let anything like it happen again was to try to improve her relationship with the CC, and at least keep him informed of everything, keep him up to speed at all times. That way triumphs and disasters were both at least partially shared and it was a lot less easy for the likes of Harry Tomlinson to make a scapegoat of her at will.
Nonetheless, the chief constable’s response was exactly what she had expected.
“Hardly a development, Karen,” he responded. “Even if this confession is kosher, we have no proof. And we don’t even know if the journalist is prepared to go on record. Isn’t that the sum of it?”
“More or less,” she replied unenthusiastically. Put like that — and Harry Tomlinson would put it like that, of course — it did all sound a bit of a waste of time. She had, however, known that before she began her conversation with him.