Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

Kelly grinned. Trevor too would earn a few bob out of this, but what the younger man really wanted, more than cash, Kelly knew, was to see his by-line on a major exclusive in a big daily.

He checked his watch for the umpteenth time as he settled into the driver’s seat of his MG: 1.30 p.m. Bags of time. Kelly opened the glove compartment and pulled out the hands-free kit for his phone. He’d start filing on the run. It was second nature to him. First the Argus , in plenty of time for its final deadline, and then the nationals. That small-minded prick of a news editor wouldn’t like it, but that was tough. Kelly would do his duty, give all he had to the Argus first, but he wasn’t going to miss the chance of a major crack at the nationals. No way. Hansford would just have to put up with it. Nobody else would object to him making a few bob for a change. It could be quite a few bob too, he reflected cheerily, for him and young Jones. This story was getting better and better.

Kelly headed into Torquay town centre while he talked into his phone and drove around until he found a convenient parking space as close as possible to the police station on the corner of South Street. When he had finished filing he phoned Karen Meadows to give her a full report on his visit to the Jameses’ house, as promised.

‘And what the fuck do you want now?’ Karen yelled into her mobile. It had been a long day already and it was far from over. Karen had been called out at 3 a.m. and had been on the go ever since. Not only that, but she couldn’t quite get her head around the double killing. Angel Silver was still being interviewed by two of Karen’s team, but the rock star’s widow, understandably enough, Karen supposed, seemed unable to tell her story in a lucid way. She remained in shock, of course, and Karen was unsure how much longer she should hold her. Since that darned Human Rights Act had become law the previous year, police officers had to be even more careful than ever how they dealt with suspects — particularly one as high profile as Angel Silver, who also looked so frail you couldn’t help thinking she might fall over at any moment.

This was the kind of case which could turn round and bite you really hard unless you took great care. Scott Silver had been an icon, the circumstances of his death were unusual and highly dramatic to say the least. The eyes of the world were going to be focused on the way the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary handled this one, and Karen knew it.

She was alone in her office at Torquay Police Station, desperately trying to collect all her various thoughts together into a manageable package. At the very least it was vital in a situation like this to stick to correct procedure and ensure that no corners were cut. A senior police officer’s career could be all too easily terminated nowadays by an ill-considered move or lack of attention to detail. And Karen knew how high the stakes could be in an investigation as big as this one. She had been going over and over in her mind every course of action she had so far instigated as SIO, and attempting to assimilate everything she should do next.

Karen was an experienced detective with a reputation for being cool under pressure, but the exhilaration at being handed such a hot potato, which had so far carried her through the day, had temporarily evaporated. She was experiencing that energy slump most high fliers are prone to at some stage following an adrenalin rush. She felt tense and on edge, and the last thing she wanted to do was to talk to a journalist. Even to one she genuinely regarded as a friend.

‘Uh — I thought it was you who asked me to report back to you,’ Kelly replied down the airwaves, his voice calm, even very slightly amused.

Christ, thought Karen, so she had. But Kelly didn’t sound too offended. No man with his sort of background would, after all.

‘Sorry, I’m up to my ears,’ she continued more mildly, but not all that apologetically. ‘Just make it snappy, will you?’

‘OK. First thing, the family are quite adamant that Terry James never went out tooled up, not with a knife, not with anything,’ Kelly remarked.

‘They’re almost certainly right,’ Karen replied. ‘We think the knife he used was taken from a set in the kitchen of Maythorpe. Out of character or not, it looks like he picked it up when he broke into the house and when he was challenged by Scott Silver he certainly didn’t hesitate to use the thing.’

‘A panic attack,’ said Kelly.

‘Something like that.’ Karen chuckled without much humour.

‘But you guys obviously know by now what I found out at the house. James had some sort of fixation with Silver. I’ve gone on the stalker angle.’

‘Now there’s a surprise. Did you get anything else my lads might have missed?’

‘Dunno. Apparently James helped out at Maythorpe doing odd jobs—’

‘Yeah, we got that,’ Karen interrupted.

‘Still, how the hell did he get into the place in the middle of the night, Karen? It’s like Fort Knox out there.’

‘It should be, but not the way the Silvers have operated their security system. There’s a control panel on the wall outside which opens the gates, isn’t there? It seems that half the work force of Torquay had the combination. Angel is vague about whether or not she gave the number to Terry James, but I suspect that she did. And in any case, although there’s an alarm system both around the perimeter walls and at the house, connected with the security firm HQ in Newton Abbot, when they were indoors the Silvers were apparently lax at even setting it.’

‘Yes, but surely...’

Karen Meadows never heard what Kelly had to say. The detective she regarded as her right-hand man walked into her office looking worried and at the same moment her landline rang.

‘Can’t get any sense out of her, boss,’ DS Cooper began.

Karen waved him silent, ended her mobile call from Kelly with an abrupt ‘Got to go’ and picked up her desk phone.

The call lasted only seconds.

‘Right,’ said Karen finally. ‘Seven o’clock it is then.’

DS Cooper didn’t speak. He knew better. Instead he just looked at her enquiringly.

‘The chief constable wants to see me at HQ in Exeter, Phil. This evening. As if we all didn’t have enough to do.’

‘Dead right, boss,’ responded Cooper. ‘Predictable, though. Bet all the brass have got their knickers in a twist over this one.’

‘Yes, let’s just make sure we guys on the ground don’t, shall we? And as for Angel Silver, well, that was never going to be easy, and we’d better keep our carpet slippers on too. I’ll be along to have a go at her myself in a few minutes, OK?’

‘Very OK, boss.’

Cooper looked relieved, thought Karen, watching him leave the room. Even good officers liked nothing better than to pass the buck upwards, but the higher you got in the pecking order the harder that became. In any case, it wasn’t Karen Meadows’ style.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. If she could catnap for just a few minutes it might clear her head. It seemed the day could become even longer than she had thought it would be.

Not for the first time Karen was almost glad that there was no one in her life to whom she was answerable, nobody who might be tricky about the crazy demands put upon her by her job. Sometimes she felt lonely returning at night to a home she shared only with her cat, but at least she didn’t have to explain herself.

With a wry shaking of his head Kelly put his mobile phone in his pocket, climbed out of his car and walked thoughtfully along to the big square building which housed Torquay Police Station. As he joined the group of press, onlookers, and distraught fans who were already waiting on the station steps, he had no idea whether or not Karen Meadows was inside. But clearly Angel Silver was still being detained.