They laughed.
‘I know I’m a grumpy old sod at times.’
‘Just tell me your version of the events of Tuesday evening and you can get back to your wife.’
‘The two in charge,’ he said. Suddenly, the razor-sharp coherence was back.
‘Tilda Dent and Hank Hampton?’
Melvin nodded. Then he mumbled something incoherent and looked over his shoulder.
‘They stood and watched the whole thing unfold. They didn’t move. I know shock plays a part, but they were about as useful as tits on a fish – excuse me – they just remained rooted to the spot as if Jamie’s death was… inconvenient.’
Kelly watched him. He’d got to know more about some of these delegates in two days than she reckoned they knew about each other over a four-day conference.
‘Anything else?’
‘The lad I was speaking to earlier, Paul.’
‘Paul Burlington?’
‘He came to see what was going on and he had a coat on as if he’d been outside. I expected him to smell of cigarettes, but he didn’t, and he had exactly the same look on his face when he was desperate to get his mouth around this rubbish. Do you know what’s in it?’
Kelly stared at the sachet and back to Melvin. Sandy Cooper had told her she couldn’t see Paul that night either. She felt deep sympathy for his situation and the fact that he was trying to help, but he was hypothesising wildly, and she wished he’d slow down. But more importantly, if Paul was outside, he might have got his boots muddy. Kelly recalled looking at the floor around Jamie’s body on Tuesday night. Somebody had mopped. Badly.
‘They handed out some messed-up shit in Iraq, and I always wondered what it really did to people. I asked young Paul what is in it, and he told me it’s a mood booster apparently, but it doesn’t perhaps work well with testosterone and a diuretic at the same time.’
Melvin spoke technically and took Kelly by surprise. He knew a lot.
‘It sounds like you know what you’re talking about,’ Kelly said. He described it exactly as Paul had done and it struck her that if Melvin suffered from some kind of mental deterioration, then it was normal for him to recall trivia but not be able to explain links.
Melvin turned the sachet over. ‘I’ve read the ingredients,’ he said, proudly.
Kelly nodded, humouring him.
‘They all take weird stuff now, these young ’uns,’ he added.
Melvin looked over his shoulder again and called Acorn, who’d wandered down to the water’s edge.
‘You must be getting back to your wife,’ she said.
‘My wife?’
She stared at him. Then she got up and he did too. As they walked back to the hotel, Kelly looked towards the rear, to the staff carpark, where she knew the back door was concealed. The door which led to the network of private corridors that could take somebody directly to the guest floors.
‘When you first arrived on Tuesday night, did you see anyone upstairs?’
‘Yes. Paul, that lovely fella who drinks this rubbish like it’s going out of fashion, he eventually made an appearance from upstairs about half an hour after I got here. No one else noticed. But I did.’
‘I thought you said he came in from outside with his coat on?’
‘Did I?’
Kelly knew from living with an army man for six years that Johnny saw everything. Even if they were in a toy store, Johnny would clock every person inside, what they were wearing, and if he deemed them a threat. Melvin had just given her some breakthrough information. However, if he was suffering from a progressive loss of mental acuity, then his evidence wouldn’t be worth much to her. Also, he could have imagined it. His recollections were conflicting and unhelpful.
Kelly stretched and took in the wondrous lake air to recharge her batteries.
Perhaps she wouldn’t need to visit Dow Bank House after all. If Tilda Dent was right here at Heron Hall. Also Dan had passed on a message from Carleton Hall police HQ that the bodyguards were protected by diplomatic immunity and if Kelly wanted tointerview them she’d have to get embassy approval, which she knew would never happen.
