Hilary Bonner: When the Dead Cry Out

She let her clothes fall to the floor again and threw herself onto the bed where so recently she and he had made love so splendidly. And so lovingly.

“You really are a bloody fool, Karen Meadows,” she muttered to herself.

Then, not for the first time during her brief relationship with DS Phil Cooper, she buried her head in the pillows and sobbed her heart out.

In the morning Karen made herself rise early. She showered, brushed her teeth and scrubbed at her red swollen face. She ordered breakfast and she asked reception to arrange a hire-car. She had, after all, been abandoned without transport. But her job now was to forget the ordeal she had been through.

She had an important post-mortem examination to attend. She had a murder enquiry to run. She was Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows. She was not destined to have a man in her life, to have a family, to have a relationship that meant everything to her — unlike, it seemed to her, just about everyone else that she knew. It was as simple as that. Her destiny was her work and nothing else, she told herself. And that was a mess now, too.

She found she couldn’t eat the scrambled egg and bacon she had made herself order. The tea, however, was welcome. She was on the second cup when her mobile phone rang for the first time that day. She guessed who it was even before checking the display panel.

“Hello, Phil,” she said flatly.

“Karen, I’m so sorry about everything,” he said. Cooper’s voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched and had a definite quaver in it.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he went on.

“I think you’ve done it, Phil.”

“Karen, I didn’t have any choice. I had to go after her. Sarah’s my wife. She’s the mother of my children. I can’t lose my children. I really can’t.”

“Fine.” Karen didn’t really want to hear any of this. She had, in any case, already known it.

“How did it happen, anyway?” she asked. “Why did she come to Bournemouth?”

“She told me she’d had suspicions about you and me for some time. I thought I was being so bloody clever, but apparently I wasn’t at all. She said that it was the way I was behaving, the hours I was keeping, even the way I spoke about you, that made her start wondering. Sarah and I have been together a long time. She knows me very well. When I called and told her I was staying overnight at the Bournemouth Hilton she told me she somehow immediately guessed that I was sharing a room with you. So she simply phoned the hotel and asked if Mr. and Mrs. Cooper had checked in. The reply was all the confirmation she needed.”

“And she came all the way to Bournemouth just to check it out?”

“I suppose so. She said she still couldn’t quite believe it, she had to see for herself. So she took the kids round to her mother’s and drove straight here.”

“Well, she certainly saw for herself, all right. What now?”

“God knows. I was in too much of a state to do or say anything sensible last night. And she was in a state, too. But she’s not having any so far, that’s for sure. She made me sleep out in the car last night.”

“Right.” Karen took note of the self-pity in his voice. He had yet to even ask how she was feeling, what she might be going through. Apart from anything else, Sarah Cooper, with or without justification, had threatened to ruin Karen, and Karen had taken that threat absolutely seriously. It would be extremely easy to carry out. All the woman had to do was contact the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary top brass and let them know what had been going on, that a detective superintendent had been having an affair with a married junior officer, and Karen would be in very serious trouble indeed. This was not, however, what was foremost in her mind. She felt as if her emotions had been hit by a bulldozer, and the bulldozer just kept crashing on and on.

“Look, I can’t work today, I really can’t,” Phil continued. “I’ve got to try to sort this mess out.”

So that’s what I am , thought Karen, a mess.

Aloud she said: “OK, don’t worry. I’ll say you were called home urgently because of family sickness. All right?”

“You’re a brick, Karen.”

“Aren’t I, though?” Her sarcasm was actually directed at herself rather than him.

“Well, thanks anyway. Look, as soon as I’ve got to grips with this I’ll get back to you, OK?”

“Of course.” She couldn’t believe it. He sounded as if he were in a business meeting. Get back to her? Good God!

“Oh, and Karen, I think I left my watch behind. Could you bring it with you?”

“Sure.” She’d noticed it on the bedside table earlier, and his tie was still lying on the floor.

He rang off then, barely saying goodbye. Karen sat looking at her phone for a moment or two. Her hands were trembling. It had been like talking to a stranger. Phil was now going to attempt a reconciliation with his wife, she assumed. And he seemed to just take it for granted that she would accept that. She would accept it, too, of course. In any case, what choice did she have?

She gathered up her briefcase, shoved her phone in her pocket, and hurried out of the room. All she could do was switch her mind off Phil Cooper. She didn’t have time to think about her feelings anymore. And in any case she was too frightened to do so.

The post-mortem examination brought no surprises. Richard Marshall’s estimated time of death was between ten and twelve hours before his body was found. So he had been killed the previous evening, and his condition indicated that the handgun with which he had been shot had been fired at close range. His body showed no signs of any other injury.

Karen found that she was completely dispassionate as she watched the proceedings. The truth was, she had grudgingly to admit, that although it was, of course, useful to exchange views with the Dorset policemen present, and to know at first hand the thoughts of the pathologist, she might not have bothered to stay over for the inquest at all had it not been for the opportunity to spend a night with Cooper. And look how that had turned out, she reflected wryly.

Not even the gory sight of the decimated remains of Richard Marshall’s head moved her. Although she had become extremely good at steeling herself at postmortems, Karen didn’t think anyone ever got completely used to the sight of mutilated or decayed bodies. However, on this occasion she was completely unmoved. Whether or not this was due to her complete lack of any kind of compassion for Marshall or whether it was simply that she was still numb from the events of the previous night, she was not sure. A bit of both, she supposed.

As she walked to her car she received a second call on her mobile, this time from DC Tompkins back in Torquay.

“We’ve found Sean MacDonald, boss,” said Tompkins, sounding almost excited. “He was on a fishing trip, staying in some remote Highlands hotel. Apparently he saw on breakfast news this morning that Richard Marshall had been found dead and immediately phoned here for you.”

“Inverness are checking it out but the hotel have already confirmed that he’s been there for four nights. He admits that he did buy a handgun, from some old army pal apparently, though he won’t say how, of course, and that he did consider seeking his own revenge on Marshall. But he says he couldn’t go through with it. The gun was in the boot of his car. He said he was planning to throw it into some deep water somewhere. If you ask me, boss, he still hadn’t quite made up his mind whether to have a poke at Marshall or not. He was still hedging his bets. There was ammunition with the gun, but the Inverness boys say that if Mac had tried to fire the thing he may well have ended up killing himself. It turned out to be an old Second World War Smith and Wesson, would you believe? They’re having it checked out by forensic, but they don’t reckon it’s been fired in twenty years, let alone two days ago.”