Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

Karen listened in some amazement. This was not what she had expected at all. She studied Rachel Hobbs carefully.

Karen had, of course, absolutely no intention of revealing to her what Kelly had told her about her daughter, and how she now believed that Angel Silver had not killed an intruder in self-defence, but was, instead, a double murderer. Deep in thought, she let Mrs Hobbs’ words wash over her.

‘Have you any reason to think that Angel’s name will be tarnished?’ she asked eventually.

Rachel Hobbs looked startled. ‘No, of course not. But you never know what will come out of something like this, do you?’

‘A funeral perhaps?’ Karen hadn’t meant to be so sharp, but Rachel Hobbs had thrown her off kilter and she was always inclined to speak her mind.

Mrs Hobbs stared at her for fully half a minute before reacting, then she seemed to slump a little in her chair.

‘You think I don’t care...’ The words faded away.

‘No. I don’t think about that at all. My job is to find out what happened at Maythorpe Manor and to bring your daughter’s killer to justice.’

Karen could see Mrs Hobbs making a conscious effort to pull herself together again. ‘So, do you think you have found him? Is it really John Kelly? And if so, why? Why on earth would John Kelly harm Angel? He always adored her.’

Karen wondered if the woman had any idea that her daughter had been having a torrid affair with Kelly. She thought not.

‘I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, Mrs Hobbs,’ she said. ‘But I do intend to find out.’

During the next twenty minutes or so she gave Rachel Hobbs all the information she was prepared to about Angel’s death, which wasn’t actually that much, and also asked a few questions of her own. But it quickly became apparent that Mrs Hobbs could be of little help in the investigation.

‘I only saw Angel a couple of times after Scott was killed, and that was quite early on,’ she said. ‘We hardly talked about that night at all. Angel didn’t want to. To be honest, I didn’t think she could. She had always visited me quite often, but after Scott’s death she seemed to pull away. There were phone calls, but that’s not the same, is it? And she made it quite clear that she didn’t want me to come to Maythorpe. I was hurt, to tell the truth. I wanted to support her, and she wouldn’t let me. But that was my Angel. You could never second-guess how she would react to anything.’

That, certainly, was true enough, thought Karen. And another certainty seemed to be that Mrs Hobbs knew virtually nothing at all about anything that might have led to Angel’s death.

Karen found herself relieved when she was finally able to show the woman out of her office.

But at the door Rachel Hobbs turned round to face her again. ‘Don’t think I’m not devastated by my daughter’s death, Detective Chief Inspector,’ Mrs Hobbs announced. ‘She was my only child and I loved her to bits.’

Now, finally, Karen saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her lips trembled when she spoke.

‘I try not to think about what I’ve lost, that’s how I cope,’ she said very quietly. ‘That and by carrying on doing what I’ve always done, I suppose. Trying to fix things for Angel... trying to look after her, even though she’s not here any more...’

Mrs Hobbs abruptly swung away and hurried off down the corridor. Karen could see that her shoulders were shaking. Even the likes of Rachel Hobbs can’t always keep the act up, she thought.

Alone in her office later, Karen went over in her mind for the umpteenth time the events of the last week. She had genuine doubts about Kelly’s guilt, in spite of his confession, but she needed to be able to convince herself that these had nothing to do with their shared history and her personal feelings for him. She needed to seriously think it through.

There was no doubt that Kelly had gone to Maythorpe that night and that he had physically attacked Angel, hitting her in the face and causing her nose to bleed — something which had not called for a huge blow exactly, reflected Karen. None the less, Kelly’s version of events to that extent was backed up by almost irrefutable evidence. But Kelly still denied any recollection of having used a weapon on Angel, although he was so uncertain and vague it was difficult to judge the credibility of some of his evidence, even if you accepted that he was being as honest as he could be. His return to drink and drugs might seriously have addled his brain this time, Karen feared. That and an unhealthy obsession which seemed to have totally blinded him to reality.

On an impulse she put in a call to Audley Richards, even though she suspected that the Home Office pathologist might not be overjoyed to hear from her again. And she was right about that.

‘Look, Audley, I just wanted to go over it again. Are you sure the blow to Angel’s head couldn’t have been caused by her hitting the back of her head either on the worktop or on the floor after she’d been hit in the face?’

‘Karen, this is the third time you’ve phoned on this. I can’t tell you any more than I have already. I am ninety-nine per cent certain that Angel Silver’s fatal injury was caused by a blow to the head administered by a blunt instrument. However many more times you call me, nothing will change that.’

Karen ended the call, leaned back in her chair and tried to sort it out inside her head. The logical solution was that Kelly had used some sort of weapon on Angel and had either blanked it out or was deliberately denying it, knowing that his lawyers would probably attempt to have his charge reduced to manslaughter.

Audley Richards said ninety-nine per cent. That one per cent doubt, plus no murder weapon having been found, made it likely that a manslaughter plea would be accepted. Kelly would plead guilty to that and probably end up with just a few years in a low-grade prison.

Yet there were enough unanswered questions to make the DCI feel extremely uneasy. Then, just as she was contemplating attempting another interview with Kelly, her telephone rang. It was the chief constable. She had known she could not avoid him indefinitely. The call was, however, extremely unwelcome.

Harry Tomlinson didn’t even attempt his cheerful act.

‘I have been trying to get to speak to you for almost half a day, Detective Chief Inspector. Have you been deliberately avoiding me?’

Karen took a deep breath. She knew that it was a very bad sign when the chief constable addressed you by your rank. The bloody man prided himself on his chumminess.

‘Of course not, sir. It’s been a very busy day, that’s all. I’ve been in the interview room most of the time.’

Tomlinson grunted unenthusiastically. ‘And with any constructive results, may I ask?’

‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure, sir—’

‘Are you not, DCI Meadows? Well, you should know I have managed to obtain reports from other officers less elusive than yourself.’ He paused to allow that one to sink in. Karen refused to let herself rise to the bait.

‘I understand that there is a clear-cut case against John Kelly, that he has confessed and that forensic and DNA evidence is likely to back up that confession. Is that not so, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it, sir—’

‘One way of looking at it?’ Tomlinson’s voice had risen several octaves. He was virtually shouting down the phone. ‘I’ll have you know, DCI Meadows, that it’s my way of looking at it, and I have little doubt the way of any decent police officer. I just hope you are not allowing any personal prejudices to get in the way of your judgement on Kelly.’

The chief constable had put extra emphasis on his last remark. Oh shit, thought Karen. So he too thought she’d had an affair with John Kelly. Well, there was nothing she could do about that. She certainly wasn’t going to deny something Harry Tomlinson would never dare put into words.