Hilary Bonner: When the Dead Cry Out

“So it looks like Mac’s in the clear, boss, whatever he may or may not have intended. Of course, it was illegal for him even to have the gun in his possession, but Inverness have indicated that, taking all the circumstances into account, including Mac’s age, they’ll probably settle for a formal caution on that.”

“Thanks, Chris.”

Karen felt relief wash over her as she climbed into her hire-car. Having to arrest Sean MacDonald might well have proved one thing too much for her to cope with, she thought.

She started the engine and switched on Classic FM. It was her favourite driving and thinking station. She wanted to concentrate hard on where this latest development left the new murder investigation. If Sean MacDonald was no longer the main suspect, then who was next on the list?

Suddenly another thought struck her. She was still in the hospital car park, heading for the exit. Abruptly she pulled in to her left on to a wide section of pavement and stopped the car. Then she fished in her handbag for her phone again.

There was somebody she hadn’t heard from. She dialled another mobile phone number. The phone was switched off. All she got was a message service. She didn’t leave a message. Not yet. Instead she dialled the number of the Evening Argus back in Torquay.

The news desk told her Kelly wasn’t there. He was off sick.

“Was he in the office yesterday?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” responded the young news-desk assistant helpfully, apparently finding nothing curious in such a query. “Well, he was in first thing but then he went home because he said his tummy bug was back. He’d been off the day before, you see...”

Karen felt her heart start to beat faster. She made another call then, to Kelly’s home. His partner, Moira, answered on the fifth ring. She sounded sleepy. Karen remembered then that Moira was a nursing sister who worked nights at Torquay Hospital. She didn’t feel guilty about waking her, though. This was far too important.

“Is John there?” she asked.

“Uh, no, he’s working.”

The warning bells rang at once. His office had said he was off sick. Moira said he was working. This didn’t look good. Unless Kelly, a man with a bad track record with both women and wine, was up to his old tricks, of course. Karen didn’t think so.

“You don’t know where he’s gone, do you?” she asked as casually as she could.

“He’s working on the Marshall story. I’m surprised you haven’t caught up with him. I would have thought he’d have been chasing you, actually.”

“He has,” Karen lied swiftly. “I missed his calls. Now his mobile’s switched off. Between you and me, I’ve got something for him. Something we can help each other over. But I need to get to him fast. Do you know exactly where he is?”

“Well, no. He left in a hurry yesterday morning. He woke me up halfway through my day’s sleep, too, phoning to say there’d been a development and he had people he needed to see on the Marshall case and he didn’t know when he’d be back. I guessed he was going to Bournemouth, and then, well, when I heard on the news later about Richard Marshall I just assumed he’d had one of his tips...”

For a moment Karen felt hope rising. “So was he at home the previous day, then?”

Her hope was swiftly squashed. “Oh, no. He was out on the story all that day as well, Bournemouth then, too, I assumed. I think he told me so. Oh, I’m not sure...”

Moira Simmons’ voice trailed off. Karen could sense the other woman’s sleepy brain beginning to turn over. She was not quite as ingenuous as the Argus ’s young news-desk assistant, who must surely, Karen thought, be very new to his job.

Nonetheless, she persisted a little more. “Have you heard from him since he left yesterday morning?” she asked.

“Yes, he called late afternoon to say he would be away overnight...”

Moira Simmons sounded really concerned now. Karen ended the call abruptly before Moira could start to question her. She realized that she must have put all kinds of thoughts into the woman’s mind, but that wasn’t important. All that really mattered was to find out where Kelly had been for the last two days and what he had been up to.

Karen had that sinking feeling again. First Sean MacDonald, now Kelly. What was it with this case? It was just too close to home, it really was.

She fiddled in her handbag again and fished out a cigarette. She really needed one. Again. Tomorrow she would definitely give up. Then she made another call. This time to Bill Talbot. To her relief her old boss was at home and answered his phone straight away.

She didn’t waste time with small talk.

“Bill, do you remember you mentioned to me in the pub once that John Kelly had a special reason for being so interested in the Richard Marshall case? Can you tell me all about it, please?”

“Sure.” Bill sounded puzzled. “Hey, what about the news, though? That bastard Marshall’s got his at last. Couldn’t believe it when I heard. You won’t find it necessary to look too hard for whoever took him out, I hope.”

Karen had neither time nor inclination for those sort of sentiments. She ignored him totally on that issue. Instead she persevered with the purpose of her call.

“Bill, please, tell me about Kelly.”

“Oh, yes.” Talbot sounded disappointed. He’d wanted to enjoy the moment, no doubt, to share it with a kindred spirit.

“Well, it’s all about Kelly’s mother, really,” he went on. “Angela Kelly taught Marshall’s girls at primary school. Well, actually, she was the headmistress, and a bloody good one at that, I’m told. It seems that the day after Clara Marshall was last seen the eldest Marshall girl, Lorraine, told Kelly’s mother that her father had got rid of her mother—”

Karen interrupted there. Light had suddenly dawned. “I knew about the headmistress, it’s in the files, and I’m not at all sure I didn’t hear it gossipped about at the time. But I had no idea she was John Kelly’s mother. I’d missed that completely.”

Karen cursed herself. She felt she really should have known.

“Do you know the rest?” Talbot asked.

“Well, I know that the headmistress always blamed herself, thought that if she’d reported to the police what the little girl had said that she might have saved both children. She had no reason to blame herself, of course — what Lorraine Marshall said was just the sort of thing kids do say when their parents’ marriage is on the rocks.”

“Indeed,” Talbot continued. “But that was not the end of it, I’m afraid. It played on Angela Kelly’s mind. I talked to her myself, you know, when the shit finally hit the fan the year after Clara and the girls disappeared and when we first arrested Marshall. She kept saying over and over again: ‘Lorraine told me her father had got rid of her mother, she told me her father had got rid of her mother. She told me that and I should have understood. I should have done something.’”

“Mrs. Kelly always believed that it was because she had confronted Richard Marshall and told him what his daughter had said that he then killed his children as well as his wife. And she couldn’t forgive herself for having been taken in by him, for believing him when he said that Clara had first left him, then returned for the girls. I remember that I couldn’t console the woman at all. And neither, it seems, could anyone else. Six months later she killed herself. She took an overdose. And her family, John included, never had any doubts at all over why she did it...”

Talbot paused there. Karen felt a chill in her spine.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Talbot began to speak again. “Well, as it’s turned out Marshall certainly didn’t kill both children. That’s one thing we do know, because at least one of those girls is still alive. Ironic really, isn’t it, Karen?”