Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

Karen did not reply. She was lost in her own thoughts, and they were extremely disturbing ones.

“Karen?” There was both curiosity and anxiety in Talbot’s voice now. He had started thinking too, it seemed. “Karen? Are you there? You don’t think Kelly had anything to do with it, do you? Surely not...”

Karen interrupted him then. She wasn’t going down that road. Not yet. Not with anyone. Not even with Bill Talbot.

“For God’s sake, Bill. I’ve had people going through all the files on this case over and over again. How could they have missed the headmistress’s suicide? Was it there? Was it properly recorded?”

“Well...” Bill sounded disconcertingly unsure of himself. “Yes, it must have been. Everything was. It’s just that the enquiry was so disjointed. After we launched the initial investigation, and then had to let Marshall go because we didn’t have enough on him, well, everything went pear-shaped really. People kept coming up with theories, with their slant on things, you know how it is... you’ve moved on to something else by then—”

She interrupted again. “Bill, are you trying to tell me that Mrs. Kelly’s suicide and its probable cause wasn’t properly recorded?”

“No, of course not. It must have been. It’s just that there was so much, and so much after the event, if you see what I mean—”

“No, I don’t bloody see what you mean, Bill,” Karen stormed. “No wonder this fucking investigation has made the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary a laughingstock. Problem is, I just got the tail end of it and now I’m the one taking all the shit full in my face.”

She pushed the end button then. She knew she’d been unfair, really, but she couldn’t help it. The whole investigation had been a series of disasters from the very beginning, at least one of which she shared the blame for, and nothing seemed to be changing. But this was another development which hit her hard personally. She cared about Kelly. Not only that, she had to admit to herself, too many people knew of her close friendship with him. In fact, before her relationship with Phil became the focus of station gossip, she knew there had always been talk of her and Kelly having an affair. That had actually never been the case. Nonetheless Kelly was already a suspect character.

Not that long previously Karen had been instrumental in arresting John Kelly and of actually charging him with a murder during the investigation of another case, which she had always considered never to have been satisfactorily resolved. And that had been the case which had at one stage threatened to scupper her promotion to detective superintendent, or worst, at least partly because of her association with Kelly. Kelly had fallen under the spell of the mesmerizing Angel Silver, the high-profile widow of a rock star. And although he had been proven innocent before the case had even got to court and all charges had been dropped, he had only got himself into such a situation because of his tendency towards allowing his emotions to take control of him. It was true that his behaviour then had probably been accentuated by excessive use of drink and drugs, and, as far as Karen knew, Kelly was now clean, but nonetheless he had shown little self-control over anything much over the years.

Karen took yet another cigarette from her packet and lit it with the glowing end of the first. She inhaled deeply.

She had to admit to herself that if there was one man in the world who she knew was capable of acting in a thoroughly out-of-character way because he had allowed his feelings to run out of control, it was John Kelly. Fond as she was of him, she had believed before that under certain circumstances he could be capable of murder. She still believed it. And with his healthy list of criminal contacts Kelly was another man who would have no trouble at all getting hold of a gun if he wanted one.

She picked up her phone again and called Torquay Police Station.

“I want a national alert put out on John Kelly,” she said. “I want him found. And I want him found fast.”

“And if he won’t cooperate, if he won’t come quietly, I want him arrested on suspicion of murder.”

It did not prove necessary to arrest John Kelly after all.

Karen arrived back at Torquay Police Station just as the call came through from the Met. Kelly had turned up at Hammersmith Police Station less than an hour earlier. He had wanted to report the discovery of a body. The body of a young woman believed to be Jennifer Roth.

Karen felt yet again as if she’d been punched in the stomach. What was going on here? The whole scenario was becoming more and more complex and confusing by the second. What on earth had happened to Jennifer Roth? How had she died? And why had John Kelly of all people, a Torquay-based reporter, found her body in West London? She and the entire might of two police forces hadn’t even had a clue where to find Jennifer Roth.

She grabbed the phone from the hand of the detective sergeant who had taken the call.

“Detective Superintendent Meadows,” she announced in a loud clear voice which she hoped would indicate to whoever was on the end of the line that she was in charge and which, as ever, totally belied the way she was feeling.

“DS Farthing, Hammersmith,” came the response.

“Right, DS Farthing,” commanded Karen, “I want you to start at the beginning and tell me everything that has happened.”

“Well, it’s a bit confused still, ma’am,” began the detective sergeant. “But one thing that is straightforward is that a young woman, whom it seems is almost certainly Jennifer Roth, was found lying in a pool of blood in her own flat with half her head blown off and a handgun by her side.”

“This chap John Kelly came in here to say he’d found her. He was in a dreadful state, and he still is. Could hardly get the words out. He kept saying: ‘She’s topped herself, she’s topped herself.’ Now that could be the case, but we just don’t know for sure yet what happened.”

“Anyway, one of our lads, who recently transferred to the Met from down your way, remembered Kelly at once from that big case you had a couple of years back involving that rock star’s widow, Angel Silver. He also remembered that John Kelly had actually been charged with murder at one point, so we reckoned we could at the very least have a suspect character on our hands. Then we realized who Jennifer Roth was, and who her father was — and, well, we thought we’d better get in touch with you guys at once.”

Karen took a deep breath and did battle with herself to stay calm.

“I’m grateful for that,” she said. “You still have Kelly, I presume?”

“You bet, ma’am. We’re holding him for questioning. That man’s going nowhere till we are quite sure we know how Jennifer Roth died. For a start it looks pretty certain that he broke into her flat this morning. Or if he didn’t somebody else did. A window’s been smashed round the back. We’ve got the SOCOs there, of course, and our pathologist, so we should be getting some basic facts soon. Meanwhile we’re getting a doctor in for Kelly. Whatever he may or may not have done, he’s in total shock and we just can’t get any sense out of him.”

“Right,” said Karen. “I’d really like to talk to John Kelly myself, if that’s all right. I have a history with Kelly; I think I’d stand a better chance than most. Can you square it with your governor?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, ma’am. He knew I was calling you guys and agreed it was the best thing. To tell the truth, this John Kelly has actually been asking to speak to you, and he doesn’t seem willing to even attempt to talk to anyone else. You’d better fax over a request in writing, for the record, but I can promise you that’ll just be a formality. Any help you can give with sorting this lot out would be greatly appreciated. You can move the crime scene down to Torquay if you want.”