Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

‘Any press here?’ he yelled. His voice had a mellow quality in spite of its high volume.

Kelly pushed forward. So did the others. There was a second TV crew now, and a smattering of print reporters and cameramen, together with a young woman from Radio Devon.

‘I’m Jimmy Rudge, Scott’s business manager,’ announced the tall man. He was very thin and had a nervous tick in one eye, which somewhat belied his bold stride and loud confident voice. As soon as he introduced himself Kelly remembered him. He had, of course, seen Rudge in countless press photographs with Scott and being interviewed on TV. From what Kelly could recall, Jimmy Rudge had always been rather more than a business manager. He had certainly been a public spokesman for the rock star on many occasions, and it seemed that role was going to continue even after Silver’s death.

‘Angel has asked me to come out and talk to you,’ Rudge began. ‘She is devastated, of course, by the tragedy that has happened here and is far too distraught to make any statement herself. In any case, as you know, the police are still investigating the two deaths which occurred here at Maythorpe Manor, and she is unable to comment for legal reasons.’

Rudge paused and continued in an even louder voice as if trying to project himself to the whole crowd of people: ‘However, Angel has asked me to thank all Scott’s fans who have come here to pay their respects. She watched you last night, saw the candles, listened to the singing, and she was very moved. She feels you paid a fine tribute to Scott.’

There was a kind of murmur of approval. So, thought Kelly, almost certainly he had been right. Angel Silver had been peeping through the curtains last night, watching, listening. He had felt it. He really had.

Rudge started to speak again, this time in a more normal tone of voice.

‘Angel would also like to thank the ladies and gentlemen of the press for your interest and for the kind things you have written about Scott...’

Half true, thought Kelly. The obituaries of the rock star, already in almost all of the papers that morning, had without exception spoken of his immense talent and charisma, and they could do no other. Scott Silver had been a legend on legs. But Kelly couldn’t believe Angel really wanted what Rudge had somewhat euphemistically described as ‘the interest’ of the press in her present situation. He rightly guessed what was coming next.

‘... But as for legal reasons she is unable to co-operate with you in any way, and indeed her shock and distress is such that she would in any event not be capable of doing so, she would really appreciate it if you would respect her privacy at this terrible time.’ Rudge looked around appealingly. ‘So please, guys, go home, go back to your offices,’ he pleaded. ‘There really is no point in hanging around here, there honestly isn’t.’

Kelly had been half looking over Rudge’s shoulder as he talked, studying the big house behind the business manager. Suddenly he saw a curtain twitch in the same window from which he believed Angel had been looking out the night before.

She was there again. He could feel those eyes, he really could.

On an impulse he stretched out an arm and shook a rather surprised Jimmy Rudge by the hand.

‘Of course, Mr Rudge, I quite understand, as I’m sure do my colleagues,’ he said. ‘I’m John Kelly of the Evening Argus and I will gladly co-operate with you and leave Mrs Silver alone until she wishes to make some kind of public statement.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Kelly,’ replied Rudge, but, being a man not unfamiliar with dealing with the press, he did regard Kelly with some astonishment. Not nearly as much, however, as the other newsmen and women gathered outside Maythorpe Manor. Most of them knew Kelly — he’d been around a long time in all sorts of different guises — and were completely bewildered by this display of obedient cooperation that was quite out of character.

Kelly didn’t give them time to start questioning him. Leaving them looking uncertain and muttering to each other, he merely turned on his heel and began to stride purposefully back down the hill. With his back safely turned his face broke into a broad grin.

Kelly knew all about giving the right impression. He had planned to leave the house by eleven anyway. It was already twenty minutes to, and it suited his purposes well to be able to create the impression of being one of the good guys.

But while he knew the gates to Maythorpe were still in sight, Kelly turned around for one last look. Rudge had already retreated into the grounds. Swiftly Kelly produced his binoculars and lifted them to his eyes in order to study the grand old manor house for a final time while he still had the chance. He focused on that window. Yes, he could just make out a figure standing there. And he was almost certain that it was Angel Silver. He was also pretty sure that she was studying the scene outside her home through a pair of binoculars.

Did suddenly bereaved women who had been involved in an horrifically violent crime in which they had almost certainly killed a man, albeit in self-defence, usually behave like that? Kelly had no idea. But he had the feeling that Angel Silver was a uniquely cool customer.

Kelly was thoughtful as he drove back towards Torquay and the industrial estate near the hospital which housed the offices of the Evening Argus . Coincidentally his first job as a boy reporter thirty-odd years ago, before he graduated to Fleet Street, had been on the Torquay Times , a weekly newspaper with offices right in the centre of town. Those had been the days, he reflected a little sorrowfully. Nowadays virtually all newspapers, from most of the nationals down to the few non-freebie weeklies that still existed, had been relegated to bunkers somewhere soulless.

The Torquay Times had gloried in the address of Upper Fleet Street, and the town’s evening newspaper back then had been right next door. Kelly had no idea whether the term Upper Fleet Street had been an invention, not to mention an affectation, of the two newspapers. Certainly the grandly named piece of road, a suspended terrace just off and above the town’s main shopping street of Fleet Street, was really just the bottom bit of Braddons Hill Road. Now the Times ’s rather splendid old building had become the curiously named Bondi Beach Bar, and the only glory that remained was apparently represented by a load of surfers painted on its once-proud façade. The Torquay Times itself was long gone too — as was the glorious career Kelly had once seemed destined for.

He opened his car window and lit a cigarette. He kept trying to give up, and, indeed, had not smoked for several days again, but a man had to have some vices. The idea of a completely viceless John Kelly was rather awful, he considered. He’d given up the drinking — out of necessity, of course, not choice. They’d told him he’d die if he carried on. Not maybe. Or within a few years. But inevitably. And soon. So he’d knocked it on the head. And he’d quit gambling too. Well, almost. He allowed himself a few quid on the horses on Saturdays only, and limited the stakes to what he could afford to lose. Which was not much, that was for certain, and therefore deeply tedious, because it also meant that what he won was barely worth winning.

He had given up the women too. Apart from Moira. For many years after he and his wife had parted company Kelly had lurched from one short-lived relationship to another, sometimes managing to keep more than one going at a time and fit in the odd one-night stand as well. He had, of course, in those days been drinking for England and gambling constantly. No wonder his career and his marriage had both hit the skids. But now at least he had regular employment again, doing the job he had always wanted to do, albeit at a comparatively low level, but in a lovely part of the world.