Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

‘I’d better get my film back to the factory,’ continued Trevor. ‘If you get any leads, you’ll give me a bell, won’t you, Johnno? Leave it to the Picture Desk, and with my luck I’ll be doing a golden wedding this afternoon.’

Trevor looked quite downcast at the thought as he shouldered his cameras and turned to leave.

‘Will do,’ Kelly called after him. He meant it. Given a choice he’d rather work with Trevor Jones than any of the other Argus snappers, in spite of the lad’s inexperience. He liked working with photographers who didn’t clock-watch and would do his bidding without too much argument. At least some of the time.

Trevor glanced back over his shoulder, ginger curls bouncing, flashed a smile of gratitude and gave a thumbs-up sign.

Kelly smiled. As he watched Trevor amble off down the hill he became aware that almost all of the journalists were now starting to leave the scene, believing presumably that there was no more mileage to be got here. A TV news team hurried past him. The cameraman trod heavily on Kelly’s right foot.

‘Watch yourself,’ Kelly yelled. He didn’t like the TV boys. Never had, since his very first days as a young reporter. They believed totally not only in their own superiority but also that it gave them the divine right to shove everyone else out of the way. Or just walk on them, Kelly thought wryly, tentatively wriggling his bruised toes inside his shoe.

‘Fancy an early pint?’ said a voice in his ear. ‘Can’t see much more happening for an hour or two.’

Kelly turned to face Jerry Morris, the Mirror ’s veteran area man, a reporter of the old school, who either never remembered or simply didn’t care that Kelly had quit drinking alcohol years ago.

‘I’ll catch up with you,’ Kelly said. ‘Got a couple of calls I want to make.’

Jerry waved him a careless farewell and set off down the hill in Trevor Jones’s footsteps.

Kelly switched his attention to the fans gathered outside the big house, forty or fifty of them already. Soon only they would remain. In spite of a natural cynicism finely honed by long years in newspapers, Kelly was quite impressed by their early presence.

Scott Silver, Angel’s rock star husband, had died in the early hours of the morning and the first reports of his death, ambiguous and hedging all bets, had broken on radio and TV breakfast news some time between 7 and 8 a.m., just three or four hours earlier. None the less the first wave of mourning fans had swiftly metamorphosed. Many were clutching photographs and posters of their dead idol, others carried flowers. The weeping and wailing, which had earlier reached a peak when their hero’s body had been carried off in the coroner’s van, had subsided now into a kind of low moaning. There was already a row of floral tributes on either side of the big gates. The towering manor house provided an imposing backdrop, and through the trees which surrounded it you could just glimpse the sea, iron grey that morning, a shade darker and even more forbidding than the wintry sky.

Kelly studied the scene idly as he punched just one button on his phone.

‘Meadows.’ Detective Chief Inspector Karen Meadows, already appointed the chief investigating officer on the case, always somehow managed to sound sharp, even if she had been roused from her bed in the middle of the night, as Kelly knew she had been.

‘Thanks again for the early tip,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but you didn’t call to thank me. What do you want?’

‘A few minutes of your time?’

‘You have to be joking. I don’t have any time. Not even a few minutes.’

‘So it is a murder inquiry, is it?’

‘Well, loosely speaking. Two killings. One murder probably, in the strictest sense of the word.’

‘Look, Karen, everybody’s speculating. All I’ve picked up since you tipped me off that Scott Silver was dead is what I’ve heard on the TV and radio news, which was bugger all, and a load of rumours out here at the house. Why don’t you put me straight?’

He heard her sigh.

‘OK. Then you get off my back, John, all right? We found two bodies at Maythorpe Manor. One is Scott Silver and the other is almost certainly an intruder who broke into the house during the night. It looks fairly certain that he murdered Silver and was killed in self-defence.’

‘So you reckon they killed each other in the struggle?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Well, how else do two men kill each other?’

‘I didn’t say that either.’

‘You’re talking in riddles, Karen.’

‘And you don’t listen, Kelly. There was a third person present, wasn’t there?’

‘Good God. Silver’s wife!’

‘At last. Your brain’s not been completely pickled then. Yup. We believe matey killed Scott Silver and that Angel Silver then killed him.’

Kelly’s right hand dropped involuntarily, letting the phone fall away slightly from his ear. He didn’t respond any further for a moment or two.

‘Kelly? Kelly, are you there? Stop mucking me about.’

He raised the phone again. ‘Sorry, Karen. Yes, I’m here. Just thinking, that’s all. You told me they’d both been stabbed, though, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right. The intruder was stabbed over and over again.’

‘And she did that? Angel?’

‘Yup. Looks like it.’

‘What will happen to her?’

Kelly was still adjusting to the idea that the slight, almost frail woman he found so captivating could have killed a man.

‘As long as everything adds up she’ll be charged with manslaughter. We’ve got to charge her with something sooner or later, whatever people may feel about justification, particularly in view of the way in which the second man was killed. I reckon she’ll plead self-defence, though, and get away with it.’

Manslaughter. So with the right judge she would probably end up with a suspended sentence, or even a conditional discharge, even if she pleaded guilty or was found guilty. But with the wrong judge, she could still end up with a custodial sentence. Angel Silver in jail. Now that would be a story.

Kelly reckoned Karen Meadows would probably prove to be right: that Angel would plead not guilty on grounds of self-defence and that almost any British jury would find in her favour. A woman who had watched her husband brutally killed by the man she had then attacked would be bound to get the sympathy vote, after all. Either way, Kelly’s antennae were waggling. Whatever happened it would make a decent change from parish council meetings and magistrates’ court. Kelly had been through the mill, God knows, but he’d never lost the nose for a good yarn. Nor the taste for it.

‘Where are they taking Angel?’ he asked.

‘Torquay Police Station. Where d’ya think? Oh, and I shouldn’t bother. You’ll not get near her. I’ll see to that.’

Kelly chuckled. He was starting to enjoy himself. Karen and he went back a long way.

Back to what for him would always be the good old days. They’d been close, very close. Kelly’s chuckle stretched into a fond smile at that memory. But it was more than that. Karen Meadows owed him. He’d probably saved her career at what might then have been the expense of his own, and she’d never forgotten it, bless her, unlike most of ’em. Hence the tip-off, hence the instant access to her through her mobile. She also understood him, of course, knew his driving force, knew what made him tick, and knew how to play the game too. Kelly wanted this one, and he suddenly became quite determined to get it. It was nice to feel as if he were back in the big time again. And what he wanted more than anything else was to get to Angel Silver. Karen had twigged that at once. Of course. She’d always been exceptionally bright and an astute judge of character. Except once, and that had nearly brought her down. Nearly, but not quite, thanks to Kelly. They’d been friends ever since, and it was a friendship Kelly valued as much as almost anything in his life — and that included his partner, Moira, his son, Nick, and even the job he still loved in spite of everything.