Хилари Боннер - No Reason To Die

This call, however, was more than that, and, in addition to being merely unexpected, was also, she had to admit to herself, surprisingly welcome.

‘Good afternoon, Karen, it’s Gerry Parker-Brown here.’

Good Lord, she thought. It had not really occurred to her that he would contact her. Indeed she had automatically assumed, under the circumstances, that she would have to chase him if she considered it necessary to follow up their meeting at Hangridge. Out loud she merely said: ‘Oh, hello.’

‘I just called to tell you that I’m afraid the results of my preliminary inquiries at the camp have not so far been helpful at all,’ the colonel continued. ‘Nobody I’ve shown your pictures to has recognised either of the chaps from the pub, not from those images anyway, and neither have any of my men come forward to say that they were there.’

Now that was not a surprise, thought Karen. She did wonder, however, why the colonel was calling to tell her nothing at all, and so soon.

‘It won’t stop here, though, I can assure you, Karen,’ Parker-Brown went on. ‘I will set up an internal inquiry and I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something...’

Karen remained unconvinced, but said nothing.

‘Even if they were soldiers, they could have been friends of young Connelly from another regiment, who knows? But I haven’t given up yet, Karen, and as soon as we get anything, anything at all, I’ll be right on to you, I promise.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Karen. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Indeed, she didn’t think there was much else to say. And she was still wondering what had motivated Gerry Parker-Brown to call her so quickly in order to give her no information. She did not think, somehow, that he was the kind of man to do anything much without a reason.

‘Meanwhile, I wondered how you felt about a drink and a spot of dinner,’ Parker-Brown went on smoothly.

Karen nearly fell off her chair. Whatever had been flitting through her mind concerning this call, Colonel Gerrard Parker-Brown asking her out on a date had not figured at all. But that did seem to be what was happening. And she was so confused that she found herself unable to respond properly.

‘Um, well... I’m not sure... uh...’

He interrupted her stumblings. ‘I know it’s a frightful cheek, but all too many of my evenings seem to get filled up with army business of one kind or another, and tonight I happen to be free. So I just wondered how you were fixed? I’m sick and tired of spending my free time on my own, if you want the truth.’

The last bit was not particularly flattering, but the colonel — or Gerry, as Karen supposed she really must start thinking of him after this approach — had also managed to indicate pretty clearly that he was unattached. And she suspected that he had done so quite deliberately.

‘Well, I don’t know...’ she continued hesitantly, while at the same time feeling quite angry with herself. What on earth was the matter with her? Why was she so thrown at being asked out by a man? She knew the answer to that, of course. Her last thoroughly unwise love affair, which had been so important to her, had been with a married junior police officer, Detective Sergeant Phil Cooper, and it had left her totally disillusioned with men generally. When Cooper’s wife had found out, he had ended the affair at once. He had later tried to start it all again, of course, but Karen’s heart had by then been broken. It really had. And since that sorry episode, which apart from anything else had threatened to wreck her career, Karen had totally shut down her emotions. For almost a year now, both her head and heart had been closed to even the notion of romance. She had also shut down sexually, too. When Cooper had stepped out of her life, so her libido had also departed, and she had not felt so much as a flicker in that direction since.

Parker-Brown interrupted her again, for which she was grateful, as she suspected that he may have stopped her causing both of them considerable embarrassment with her dithering.

‘Look, nothing special,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Just two people, who I suspect may have a great deal in common and who I hope may become friends, sharing a drink and a spot of supper. That’s all.’

He had a pretty good turn of phrase, Karen had to give him that.

‘Well, I am free tonight...’ she began. She was free, in fact, virtually every night. Except when she was working. And that, at least, she suspected, might be one thing they had in common.

‘And?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’d be delighted,’ she heard herself saying. And she realised that she meant it too. Which was yet another surprise.

He called for her at her flat at eight-thirty, just as he had said he would. He was wearing blue jeans, a black jacket and a bright white T-shirt. It was an extremely classy black jacket. Karen knew about clothes. She thought it was probably Paul Smith. And she was glad he had dressed casually. Karen only did casual. She spent a disproportionate part of her salary on very special designer numbers, but she preferred a DKNY track suit or an Armani bomber jacket to more formal wear.

She was wearing khaki combat trousers from Replay, and a big, loose, white cotton Comme des Garçons shirt with an elaborately embroidered red abstract relief down one side of its front. She thought their styles matched rather well.

He looked good, she had to admit it. And very young. She had already guessed that he was probably four or five years younger than her forty-three years, but out of uniform he appeared even more youthful. And rather more dishy, Karen thought. But then she had never been into uniforms. In her opinion, they were a necessary evil in certain professions, and she had been delighted to discard her own permanently when she had moved into CID.

Covertly, she looked him up and down. With his shock of sandy hair, those crinkly eyes and that ready smile, he was an extremely attractive man. She would just have to overlook the fact that he looked so much like a square-jawed hero out of the Eagle or Boys’ Own , that was all.

He was carrying a bunch of white roses which he handed over with a small bow.

‘Sorry to be so old-fashioned, it’s the way I was brought up,’ he said with a wide grin.

He both looked and sounded as if he was trying to make a weak joke, but she suspected he was probably just telling the truth. After all, if ever a man had public school and Sandhurst written all over him, it was Gerrard Parker-Brown. Even his name spoke for itself. Karen could only imagine what sort of family he came from.

‘I thought this was just a drink between friends,’ she said, but softened the words by smiling back at him.

‘It is, but we passed a stall selling those roses and I couldn’t resist.’

‘Ah. You like flowers?’

‘I do. Gardening is my passion. Or it used to be...’

He seemed about to tell her something, then stopped. Which was reasonable. They were, after all, standing in the doorway to her flat, and it was not quite the place for exchanging confidences.

‘Funny sort of hobby for a soldier, isn’t it?’ she enquired casually, as she gestured for him to step inside.

‘Not so much as you may think,’ he replied. ‘Some of the greatest generals in history were gardeners.’

‘Name two,’ she said.

‘Do you know, my mind has gone completely blank and I can’t think of one,’ he responded. ‘But it is true, honestly.’

Laughing, she reached for her white mackintosh cape. The weather had improved dramatically during the last couple of days, but Karen didn’t trust it. It was still November. And she really did absolutely hate getting her hair wet. It went frizzy at the front and stuck out at an angle at the back and sides.