Хилари Боннер - A Moment Of Madness

And if what Karen sincerely believed now to be the truth — that Angel Silver murdered her husband and then Terry James — was never publicly revealed, then both Karen and her chief constable would probably keep their heads after all. As she had inferred to Harry Tomlinson as directly as she had dared.

Of course, Karen would always have bet on Tomlinson keeping his head. Her own had been another matter. She’d felt sure from the moment things started to go pear-shaped that she was the most likely scapegoat.

‘But do you really think James did it, boss?’ asked DS Cooper. He still thought like a proper policeman, Karen reflected wryly. He’d never get on in the modern force.

However, all she said was, ‘I think I do, Phil.’ And she just hoped she was telling the truth. ‘Either that or there’s been some seriously elaborate frame-up. It’s James’s style, isn’t it, anyway? To be honest, I’m kicking myself. We should have searched his gaff before charging Kelly, confession or no confession. That was a mistake.’

Phil was less self-admonitory. ‘I guess so. But what with the taxi driver and everything why should we have doubted Kelly? You can’t just dismiss a confession. It all added up. Why on earth should we have doubted anything?’

The DCI grunted, unconvinced, dissatisfied with herself. ‘Check every angle. That’s always been my rule of policing. We fell down on it. Crazy thing is, I was somehow never quite convinced about John Kelly, even without the new angle, and I’m not at all sure I didn’t compensate for my own feelings of friendship towards him when I had him charged so quickly. Tomlinson was down on us, but I’ve fended him off before; I should have done so this time.’

DS Cooper shook his head. ‘You’re beating yourself up, boss. Look, we even had DNA evidence which we were damned sure from the start was going to match up. In fact, if you want to know, I reckon there still has to be doubt about Ken James. How the fuck did Kenny get in and out of Maythorpe, for a start?’

Karen shrugged. ‘They’re a bunch of Houdinis, that James lot. In any case, Terry James and God knows who else seem to have had the security code. Maybe Terry passed it on to his brother. Or maybe Ken got it from someone else.’

‘But didn’t Angel change it? She must have been advised to, surely.’

‘Who knows what that woman did. If Kelly’s theory is right, and I bet it is, she knew she wasn’t in any danger, didn’t she? And she was, in any case, a law unto herself, that one. Anyway, there’s bugger all we can do about any of it now.’

‘So it’s over, boss?’

‘I guess so, Phil,’ responded Karen Meadows. ‘Fucking frustrating, though, isn’t it?’

Later that day Karen called Rachel Hobbs. She had, after all, promised to keep Angel’s mother informed.

Rachel listened carefully as Karen gave her a précised account of events, deliberately leaving out her own feelings on the matter and, of course, everything that Kelly had told her about Angel’s confession to him.

‘So it really looks as if Ken James killed Angel simply in revenge for his brother’s death?’ Mrs Hobbs enquired.

‘That’s right.’

‘And how long is he likely to be in a coma for?’

‘Hard to say. It’s quite possible he may never come out of it, I understand.’

Karen considered again the implications of her last few words. She really was becoming more and more convinced that it would be all for the best if Ken James didn’t come round. She didn’t like herself for that, but it wasn’t only the chief constable who understood about damage limitation.

Karen’s imminent promotion to detective superintendent was still on course, she had been told, and that was a real result under the circumstances.

There was all too much in this case that nobody involved wanted to become public knowledge. Including her, she now had to admit. And she hadn’t just been spinning the chief constable a yarn when she had set him thinking that way.

Karen had once believed unfalteringly that a police officer should always seek the truth, regardless of the consequences. But the more senior she became in the force, the more she had learned to accept grim reality. All too often the discovery of truth was neither wise nor desirable.

And there were some cases it was actually preferable never to solve.

When Kelly arrived home in a police squad car Moira opened his own front door to him.

‘God, I’m glad to see you,’ he said, and he meant it.

Kelly was completely washed out. At one point he had quite convinced himself that he really was a murderer. He was now beginning to realise that, at least as far as Angel Silver’s violent death was concerned, he had merely been a victim of circumstances and of coincidence. But it took a bit of getting used to.

His own company had not been an inviting prospect.

Kelly could smell cooking in the kitchen, and he could hardly believe his luck.

He sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘I know I don’t deserve this,’ he said. ‘And I certainly don’t deserve you.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Moira.

Kelly reached out a hand tentatively and stroked her hair.

‘Love is nothing to do with what people deserve, is it?’ she continued. ‘You can’t just switch it off. I tried and it didn’t work.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ said Kelly, reflecting on the madness of his feelings for Angel, and what it had led to.

Suddenly he leaned forward and pecked Moira on the cheek. He half expected her to resist even that, but she didn’t, although neither did she respond.

‘At least I know I’m not a murderer now,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could have lived with that under any circumstances.

‘I really did think I’d done it, you know, Moira. I was so confused when I heard Angel was dead, and I’d been so bloody angry. My head just wasn’t working. I didn’t know what I might have done for a bit. But all I did was push her, it seems. I’m not even sure I ever hit her properly. Apparently her nose was shot to hell, that’s why it bled so quickly and so much.’

Moira didn’t know any of what Angel had told him about the night that her husband and Terry James had died, about how she had murdered both of them in cold blood. And Kelly didn’t intend to tell her. Not unless he ever thought she might learn about it from some other source.

But, like Karen Meadows, he reckoned the whole thing might stay under wraps now. And like the DCI, although for very different reasons, he thought that would be, by and large, the best thing.

Kelly’s folly was already great enough in Moira’s eyes, he was sure, as it indeed was in his own. He didn’t see the need to reveal that the woman he had been so obsessed with, the woman with whom he had so recklessly joined on the road to self-destruction, was also a double murderer.

Abruptly, Moira stepped away from him, held him at arm’s length and studied him quizzically.

‘You were a bloody fool, weren’t you?’ she remarked.

‘I certainly was,’ he agreed.

‘You do know that now, don’t you?’

‘I do. Yes.’

Moira nodded. And there was real aggression in her voice when she spoke again. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ she said. ‘Whatever you say, I wouldn’t have blamed you for killing that bitch. I could have done so myself, for two pins.’

‘No you couldn’t,’ said Kelly mildly. ‘Oh no, you couldn’t.’

But Angel Silver could kill, he thought. Just like that. He would carry the terrible truth about her around with him for the rest of his life, and it would be a burden like no other he had ever had experience of. There was another terrible truth too. He hadn’t attacked Angel because she’d told him about the murders she’d committed, as much as because of the contempt she’d shown him. He had still been in love with her in spite of everything. Maybe a bit of him always would be. He had just no longer been able to stand the way she had tormented him.