“You have?” In spite of herself, Karen could feel the excitement welling up in her.
“Yup. I did an in-depth interview with her at her flat the day before yesterday. Then afterwards I went back home to decide what to do with it, what to do next, what I could do next. It was pretty tricky stuff, as you can imagine. Then I heard the news yesterday morning that Richard Marshall had been killed. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t expected her to do anything like that. I really hadn’t.”
Kelly covered his face with his hands.
“Anything like what, exactly?” Karen was being very careful.
“Well, I just knew at once that she’d killed him. That she’d killed Richard Marshall. I just knew it. I mean, if he’d been my father I’d have killed him.”
Yes, but not everyone is quite such a hothead as you, thank God, thought Karen. Aloud she said nothing. Instead she waited again for him to resume speaking.
“I knew she’d done it so I just got myself to the station and caught a train straight back here. I didn’t know what to do when I couldn’t raise her. It was during the night that I began to think she was probably dead, too. That was why I broke into her flat this morning.”
“And I was proved right, unfortunately. She was dead. Stone-dead. Half her bloody head blown off. And I’ll bet you, I’ll bet you everything I’ve got, that you’ll find the gun that killed her also killed Richard Marshall in Poole.”
By late afternoon the next day the Met were satisfied that Jennifer Roth had indeed almost certainly killed herself. The regional Home Office pathologist reported that the angle of the gun indicated a self-inflicted wound. Initial forensic evidence also backed up the suicide theory. And the gun used, a Browning 45, was also almost certainly the weapon used to kill Richard Marshall in Poole.
Kelly, who had been held overnight at Hammersmith Police Station, was released into Karen’s custody, enabling her to take him back to Torquay. She couldn’t wait to hear that tape which, for reasons that defied her, he had left in the drawer of his desk at home. His explanation was that he thought the content so explosive that he didn’t want to carry the tape around with him.
In the car on the way down the M5, Karen’s mobile phone rang and a familiar number flashed on to the screen. It was Cooper. For a moment she considered not answering it. She glanced at Tompkins. It was a filthy day again for the time of year. The rain was tipping down and the detective constable was frowning in concentration as he peered through the curtains of misty water being formed by the heavy traffic all around him. In the back seat Kelly, who had earlier grumbled that he had not slept for one minute during his night spent in a police cell, was snoring gently.
Karen let the phone ring several times before finally pressing the receive button.
“Yes,” she said curtly.
“Karen, I’ve got to talk to you—”
“This isn’t a good moment. I am in the middle of a murder investigation.”
“Look, Sarah has said she’ll give me another chance if I apply for a transfer. It’s not what I want, but I’m just terrified of losing the kids—”
Karen interrupted again. “I think it is what you want, actually.”
Something in her voice attracted Tompkins’ attention. She was aware of him briefly shifting his attention from the busy motorway and glancing at her curiously.
“I’m sorry, Karen. Look, it needn’t be permanent. I don’t want to lose you, honestly. But for the moment I think it would be for the best. She’s also said that if I do that she won’t take any action about you.”
“That’s big of her.” The words slipped out. Tompkins looked around again. Like most of his colleagues Tompkins, in spite of his taciturn appearance and manner, was a natural-born gossip. Karen knew that all his inner antennae would be waggling by now.
Cooper was still speaking. “I just don’t know what else to do, it’s all such a mess...”
His voice trailed off.
“That’s absolutely fine,” said Karen. And she ended the call.
Tompkins said nothing, as usual, but Karen had a small bet with herself that he had guessed who was on the end of the phone and was currently speculating colourfully about what might be going on. No doubt the incident would be reported fully back to Torquay nick ASAP.
By the time they reached Kelly’s house Moira had left for night duty at the hospital and the three of them had the place to themselves. Without preamble the reporter produced an audio cassette which he began to play on the big living-room stereo system.
Karen sat on a hard chair by the window. She didn’t feel like making herself comfortable.
Jennifer Roth’s voice filled the room. It was a good sound system. The result was extremely eerie. It was surreal. This was a voice from the dead. A voice Karen remembered so well and already associated with dropping bombshells. But never before a bombshell on this scale.
Kelly stood, leaning against the wall, over by the kitchen door. His head was bowed and he was stroking his forehead with the fingers of one hand. Tompkins perched on the edge of the sofa, hands on his knees, all ears, more alert than Karen had ever seen him before, she thought.
“I just wanted to tell you what happened, John, because I know now, beyond any doubt. I really know. And I’m talking to you like this because I want to put the truth on record,” said Jennifer’s voice on the tape. She was speaking very deliberately.
“Thank you for trusting me,” replied Kelly.
Karen shot him a mildly disgusted look across the room. Kelly had the grace to look ashamed. He had been using his “I’m a nice journalist, you can tell me anything” approach, and Karen was all too familiar with it.
“I have now completed six therapy sessions with the psychiatrist, Dr. Huxtable, who you recommended me to,” continued Jennifer. She was speaking almost without expression, the tone of her voice very flat, her public-school accent less noticeable perhaps than usual.
“I was more inclined to go to him than you may have realized. I’d been having these dreams. I had them as a child. As a very young child. They were never clear. They were shadowy. I had a vision of being in another house, of a lot of shouting and screaming. Of dreadful things happening but I somehow wasn’t sure exactly what. All the while I was being brought up in Cheshire I knew perfectly well that I’d had another life. But I shut everything out because I wanted to escape from the things that happened in my head whenever I tried to sleep. My adoptive mother told me that I was just having nightmares. They were such good people, my new parents, Carol and Michael, they looked after me and loved me and they helped me blot out the past. I have no idea what they knew, more than likely the same story Richard Marshall was to tell me later, after Carol and Michael died.
“>It was then, when I was sorting through all their papers, that I came across letters from my real father. From Richard. He had obviously been keeping in touch with Carol and Michael, wanting to know about me. It was wonderful for me to find that I still had a father, my natural father, and that he had cared about me all these years.
“I wrote to him and he wrote back to me at once. He came to see me in Cheshire and talked to me about it all and explained what had happened when I was five, how our mother had tried to kill us all, he told me what had led him to give me away. And my sister Lorraine, he said. Suddenly it all made sense, the violent dreams, all of it, and I suppose what he told me was what I wanted to hear. Or as near as was possible, anyway, given that my mother was dead and I’d lost my sister. He seemed so kind and gentle and everything he said expressed concern for me.