Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

Robertson was watching the lunchtime regional news bulletin on TV. When he became aware of Kelly watching him his face broke into a wide grin. His eyes sparkled with excitement. Joe Robertson had printers’ ink running through his veins. Just like Kelly. Or like he had once been, anyway, Kelly thought wryly.

‘Great yarn, John,’ Joe roared. He had always been incapable of speaking at anything like a normal volume, particularly when his blood was up on a story. Joe’s voice, like everything about him including his personality, was big. ‘Well done on the stalker angle. Let’s keep it up, shall we? It’s great to beat the nationals at their own game, isn’t it? This is our patch, after all.’

Kelly’s heart lifted. Joe was playing right into his hands. He had known the editor would think the same way as he. Just about the only time Kelly and Robertson had not seen things the same way had been when the editor of the Argus had appointed Kit Hansford as his news editor just over a year previously. Mind you, Kelly understood well enough. Joe had wanted a solid provincial man to news edit his solid provincial newspaper. The comprehensive coverage Hansford had wittered on about earlier was indeed the backbone of the Argus — its structural frame. Robertson had the flair and the originality to make the Argus special on a good day; he didn’t need his own clone running his news team. Kelly supposed reluctantly that Hansford was perfect for the job, an ideal foil to his boss.

‘I have another lead or two, Joe,’ Kelly lied. It came naturally to him to lie to editors and news editors about the progress he was making — or lack of it. You never let the backroom boys get in the way of the story. That was another of Kelly’s golden rules.

‘Yes?’ Joe responded eagerly, his eyebrows raised in query. Expectant.

‘Well, Angel’s the key to it, but we’re not going to get to her for some time, I reckon. I’d like to have a go at her mother. I have a feeling she might be the way to Angel, too.’

‘And she lives where?’

‘London. Clerkenwell. Moved to Essex once when Angel was big as a kid, the obligatory flash showbizzy gaff, but now she’s back in the house where she brought up Angel. Quite poetic, really.’

‘London?’ queried Joe. ‘You need a special pass for that.’ He was still grinning, though, which Kelly found encouraging. ‘What makes you think she’ll talk to you anyway, John?’ the editor continued. ‘The pack will be camped out there, for sure. I don’t really have the staff to send a man up to town on a wasted journey.’

‘It won’t be wasted, I promise you. I’ve got an in with the old lady.’

Robertson shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Have you indeed?’ he murmured. ‘And where’ve I heard that before?’

‘Honestly,’ said Kelly.

Robertson was still grinning. He liked chancers. Kelly knew that. Liked the guys with the extra edge. Even though he promoted machines like Hansford to jobs they should never be given a sniff of in Kelly’s opinion.

‘All right then, off you go. You’ve got a day and a half. I want you back in here at seven a.m. Thursday morning.’

‘Deal,’ said Kelly. ‘And I’ll need a snapper, young Trevor—’

‘Forget it,’ interrupted Robertson. ‘You’ll have to do your own pix. Borrow that digital camera for idiots from the picture desk.’

Kelly shrugged resignedly. He’d already got more of his own way than he’d expected. He turned as if to leave, then hesitated. ‘Just one more thing...’

‘Yes?’

Kelly waved the council minutes which were still in his hand at his editor. ‘I’m supposed to be at County Hall at two p.m., according to Hansford...’

‘You really are a crafty bastard, John, but then you know that, don’t you?’

Kelly didn’t respond.

‘All right, tell Kit you’re off all other duties until I say so. Oh, and don’t score points, John, all right?’

‘Now would I?’ Kelly asked over his shoulder as he opened the door to his editor’s office.

And as he closed it behind him he could still clearly hear Robertson’s bellowed response.

‘Not much!’

At about the same time Karen Meadows was arriving at the chief constable’s office at the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary’s Exeter HQ. She was furious, although she knew better than to show it.

Her previous evening’s meeting with Harry Tomlinson had been cancelled at the last moment, and she had only received the call on her mobile phone when she was already halfway to Middlemore. Then, while she had been with Angel Silver earlier that morning Karen had once more been summoned to his presence, and had had to leave her colleagues at Maythorpe Manor.

As far as Karen was concerned the whole thing had already become a monumental waste of valuable time. She had a shrewd idea of what she was in for, too, which didn’t help her mood at all.

‘A very good day to you, Karen.’ The chief constable was a rather short plump man who all too frequently had an air of forced cheerfulness about him. He had a slightly military manner and Karen could easily imagine him as the sort of commander who would lead his men to certain death with a merry quip.

‘Sorry about yesterday. Got tied up with the Home Office, if you know what I mean.’

Karen knew. She had expected the Home Office to get involved.

‘So, right then, you’d better give me a progress report on the Silver case.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Doing her best not to let her frustration show, Karen gave a full and detailed account.

‘It’s quite difficult to get an accurate picture from Angel Silver’s version of the tragedy, and that is all we have, sir,’ she said in conclusion. ‘But she admits that she killed Terry James after he attacked her husband, so it’s primarily a matter of deciding what steps to take next.’

‘Have you talked to the CPS?’

‘Briefly, sir. I plan to give them a more detailed report later today and talk it through with them fully then.’

‘Well, I’ve had the Crown Bench Prosecutor on to me already, and he’s adamant that we have to charge the woman with manslaughter at least. As you well know, everybody’s a victim nowadays, including thugs who attack innocent householders. We have to play this one strictly by the book. He gave me the public interest line, of course. Is that the word you’ve got?’

‘Yes. I don’t think there is any choice. Unless we charge her with murder, of course.’

Karen was being mischievous with her last remark, and she found the chief constable’s reaction highly gratifying.

‘Good Lord no,’ he countered quickly, his earlier avuncular approach no longer evident. ‘There can be absolutely no question of that. There was enough hullabaloo over the Tony Martin case, and he was an unknown farmer who killed an intruder. God knows how the press and the public would react to Angel Silver being convicted of murder when all she was doing was trying to defend herself and her husband. We’re walking a tightrope here, Karen.’

‘Yes, sir, and don’t I know it. If only detectives could just concentrate on detecting the job would be a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it, sir?’

Karen hadn’t meant to say that. She was aware of the chief constable shooting her a rather sharp look, but he made no direct response.

‘So have you talked to her solicitor?’ he asked instead. ‘What will she plead?’

‘Not guilty on the grounds of self-defence, almost certainly.’

Tomlinson sighed. ‘Well, let’s hope we manage to get a jury with some brains for a change. We really can’t afford to send that bloody woman to jail.’

‘No, sir,’ said Karen as expressionlessly as she could manage.

The case was developing in the way she had feared. It was no longer particularly important, it seemed, to try to find out exactly what had happened at Maythorpe Manor that night and to prosecute accordingly. Instead, the emphasis was on ensuring that the due process of law was seen to operate in a way that gave the least possible cause for public outrage in either direction. And neither justice nor truth seemed to have much relevance.