Wheel of Fire Page 6

  ‘But that would have been more than three hours later, wasn’t it, Mrs Grey? You’ve just told us about the explosion. Weren’t you worried about your husband, when he didn’t come back?’

  ‘Of course I was. But there was nothing I could do.’

  Vogel was considering whether or not to press Janice Grey further on her somewhat questionable account of the night’s events, when Saslow’s phone rang and she left the room to take the call.

  He decided he might learn more from a more indirect line of questioning.

  ‘You were both in Sir John’s employ, Mrs Grey, not just your husband, is that right?’ Vogel continued, in Saslow’s absence.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, what exactly were your duties?’

  ‘I was sort of housekeeper. We had a girl from the village come in two mornings a week to do the heavy cleaning, she wasn’t allowed in Sir John’s bedroom though, and he used to stay in his room when she was in the house. I did that, and made sure everything was how Sir John liked it. He was only living in part of the house anyway.’

  ‘Did you do anything else?’

  ‘Well, I helped look after him. Sophia was live-in, of course. I used to do shifts to relieve her, and occasionally we had an agency nurse from Exeter.’

  ‘You did nursing shifts? I’ve been told Sir John was suffering from Parkinson’s. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Well, Parkinson’s is a very serious condition. Are you a qualified nurse, Mrs Grey?’

  ‘Uh, well, um …’ She seemed unable to find appropriate words.

  ‘C’mon, Mrs Grey,’ Vogel persisted. ‘It’s a simple enough question. Are you a nurse?’

  The woman looked curiously alarmed.

  She was ultimately saved from answering the question by the return of Saslow, who held out her phone to Vogel saying, ‘It’s Micky Palmer. You’d better hear this, boss.’

  Vogel took the phone and, in turn, left the room, listening intently.

  Saslow sat down on the sofa again. Janice Grey stared at her for a moment or two then glanced away. Neither woman spoke.

  Vogel was not out of the room for long. Upon his return he got straight to the point. ‘You were a nurse, weren’t you, Mrs Grey?’ he enquired.

  That same expression of resignation which had appeared on her face when she had allowed the two officers into her home reappeared.

  ‘Yes, I was,’ she replied finally. ‘Well, an auxiliary nurse.’

  ‘At the East London Infirmary?’

  ‘Yes. And I was as good as any SRN too. Better, probably. The rest of them didn’t like me, did they? They ganged up on me. I wasn’t to blame for nothing. I didn’t do nothing. Look, it happened nearly ten years ago, but I’m never going to be allowed to move on, am I? Never. It’s pretty obvious you know all about it now.’

  ‘I know that you stood trial for the murder of three elderly patients in the geriatric ward of the East London Infirmary,’ said Vogel. ‘And that you were cleared of all charges. It was the end of any hope of a nursing career for you though, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was. I lost the chance to do the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.’

  ‘You were Jane Farley then, weren’t you?’

  ‘Why are you asking? You know very well.’

  ‘So, you married George, got a new name and a new life. He might have been a petty criminal, but his name was certainly better than yours.’

  ‘It wasn’t fair,’ said Janice Grey. ‘I was found not guilty. They still hounded me. The press. The families of the people who died. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t hurt nobody. But it just went on and on. Even after I married George somebody would always find out. And then, more recently, there was internet trolling too. I couldn’t work at anything, let alone nursing. In my other life, me and my first husband, Jim, we had our own house, and we had two children. I lost it all, Jim, the house, even my kids. He chucked me out on my ear right after the trial, and poisoned the kids against me. They’re grown up now, near enough, and they don’t want anything to do with me. I haven’t seen ’em in years. And I had nothing to fight back with, did I? No money and a ruined reputation. There wasn’t nothing I could do. I was just lucky Georgie took up with me, to tell the truth, and he’s stood by me too. But we were pretty much at the end of our tether when this job turned up. He’d lost his market stall. I didn’t have any work. We were living hand to mouth in one room. All we wanted was a fresh start. Then Sir John came into our lives, and it was like a miracle. This was our fresh start. Or it was supposed to be.’

  ‘Did Sir John know about your past?’ Vogel asked.

  ‘I left that to George,’ said Mrs Grey again. ‘George looked after all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to believe that a man like Sir John would have hired people for jobs like yours without checking them out thoroughly, isn’t it?’ Vogel persisted.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘You must know, surely, why he suddenly decided to sack a couple he had employed for many years and take on you and your husband in their place?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Janice Grey. ‘You’d have to ask him. Only you can’t, can you?’

  She uttered a short dry chuckle.

  ‘Is that supposed to be a joke, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel.

  The woman looked down at her hands, clasped on her lap.

  ‘No. I’m sorry. We were both very fond of Sir John. He was good to us. Gave us a chance, didn’t he? Or, at least, he tried to.’

  ‘Do you think he trusted you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure he did. We never gave him no reason not to. Whatever you might think.’

  ‘And you say he even trusted you to nurse him?’ Vogel was watching the woman carefully, assessing her every reaction.

  She looked up at him directly, eye to eye, and her answer was almost aggressive. ‘Yes, he did, and, why wouldn’t he? I am a good nurse.’

  ‘Not everyone would trust someone with your past.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t even know if he knew about it. If he did, then obviously he accepted the “not guilty” verdict. Even if nobody else did. Actually, he used to say I was his favourite. That I had the touch. I always did, you know …’

  Janice Grey’s voice tailed off.

  ‘I’m sorry he’s gone. You can believe what you like of me and George, Mr Vogel. But Sir John Fairbrother was a kind man. A nice gentle man. He didn’t behave posh, the way you might expect from someone in his position, and with all that money. I liked him. He was good to us. I would never have done anything that might hurt him, and I don’t believe my Georgie would have done, either. Not knowingly, anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean by “not knowingly”, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘Nothing, I don’t mean nothing,’ Janice Grey replied quickly.

  Too quickly, Vogel wondered? None the less he thought he could detect the sign of tears in the corner of each of the woman’s eyes.

  She was either an extremely good actress, or she was telling the truth, thought Vogel.

  ‘And what are we going to do now, Georgie and me? Sir John gave us a home as well as jobs,’ Janice continued, the desperation clear in her voice. ‘God knows what will happen to us now.’

  Against his better judgement Vogel found himself feeling some sympathy for Janice Grey. He made himself consider again what he’d just learned on the phone from Micky Palmer about the woman’s Old Bailey trial eight years previously. The case against her had seemed overwhelming. The Crown Prosecution Service and the officers who’d put together the case against her had been convinced she would be found guilty and spend most of the rest of her life in jail.

  But she’d convinced a jury of her innocence. And apparently the way in which she had conducted herself, when called by her barrister to give evidence in her own defence, had evoked grudging admiration even from the prosecution counsel.

  Vogel made a mental note not to underestimate this woman.

&
nbsp; FIVE

  Vogel and Saslow drove back to Bristol later that afternoon and headed for Kenneth Steele House, home of the MCIT unit. The DI wanted to catch up with all that was happening across the board, and collate in his own head the various strands of the murder inquiry which would now occupy his every waking hour. He also needed to see his boss.

  Detective Superintendent Reg Hemmings had appointed himself Senior Investigating Officer, as usual, with Vogel and DI Margot Hartley as his joint deputy SIOs. Hartley, one of the best organisers in British policing, Vogel thought, was, again as usual, office manager. Vogel would take the hands-on-role to which he was invariably considered best suited.

  ‘The temporary Incident Room we’re setting up near the crime scene, at Wellington police station, should be fully operational by tomorrow morning, and I suggest you work out of there until we’ve completed the obvious investigations locally,’ Hemmings told Vogel. ‘I’m hoping to have about fifty officers on board. There won’t be room for them all at Wellington, of course. I’ll keep Micky Palmer and his team here, where they have access to HOLMES, if that suits you.’

  Vogel knew the importance of that. HOLMES was the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, used for sharing and collating information throughout the country by all forty-three British police forces, but installed only in selected police and specialist unit stations.

  He nodded his agreement, gave Hemmings a brief report of his own investigations so far, in particular his interviews with the Greys, and then headed for the MCIT’s permanent incident room.

  Micky, whom Hemmings had poached from Gloucestershire police a few months earlier, convincing the detective constable to make the move on the grounds that MCIT would make far better use of his considerable talents, and of him, was engrossed in his computer. He was a quiet man, with deceptively sleepy eyes and a mischievous sense of humour which lurked just below the surface, who liked to work independently and could only function when permitted to do things his way. He’d been immersed in a destructive personality clash with Gloucester’s head of CID, and had jumped at the chance of joining Hemmings’ team. Brain like a bacon slicer, Hemmings had murmured when he’d introduced Vogel to Micky Palmer several months earlier. And in the time Palmer had been on board Vogel had already seen plenty of evidence to back up his superior’s assessment.

  DC Polly Jenkins, recently promoted from uniform, and a young officer for whom Vogel had gained considerable respect when they had worked together the previous year on what had turned out to be one of the biggest and, arguably, the most disturbing murder enquiries of his career, was also one of the newer members of MCIT.

  She made a beeline for Vogel as soon as he entered the incident room.

  ‘I’ve tracked down Bella Fairbrother,’ said Polly. ‘She’s on her way down here. I spoke to her on her mobile. But only briefly. She said she was on the motorway and would call us when she arrived.’

  ‘Do we know where she’s staying?’

  ‘Uh no, she didn’t want to talk because she was driving …’ Polly sounded apologetic.

  ‘It’s OK, Polly,’ said Vogel quickly. ‘Just get back to her and ask her. Tell her we need to meet her as soon as she reaches her destination.’

  Micky Palmer had by then looked up from his computer and noticed Vogel’s presence. The DI walked across to his desk.

  ‘Anything more?’ Vogel asked.

  Micky nodded. ‘Just been checking out the errant eldest boy. Typical spoiled rich kid, apparently. He was a bit of a lad and regarded by his father as a wastrel. Unlike his kid sister, no work ethic at all. Played at being an actor, and was allegedly quite talented, but made little effort. In his teens and into his early twenties he was known to us as trouble. Had a community service order against him, spent a couple of nights in jail when he got in a pub brawl, done for drink driving, cautioned for possession of marijuana, that sort of thing. When he was twenty-two he took off on some sort of round-the-world trip. Word is his father was glad to see the back of him. And apparently, he’s never been back. Supposed to be in Australia, sir. We’re trying to get in touch, and I’ve been on to our friends down under. But he seems to have cleaned up his act, certainly no record of him being in any trouble.’

  ‘Do we know who inherits?’

  ‘I’ve been on to the company secretary and Fairbrother’s lawyers, but everyone’s being a bit cagey, boss,’ said Micky. ‘I suppose you can understand it up to a point. Solicitors are conditioned to be secretive about things like wills. But I’ve certainly learned that this is going to be a very complicated matter. Pretty obviously with one of the most famous banks in the world involved, I suppose. Traditionally, ever since the bank was founded in the seventeenth century it’s been handed down from son to son. Seems unlikely Sir John’s son is going to be involved, though neither would he want to be, from all accounts, and the daughter walked out of the place for reasons yet to be learned. Plus, she’s a woman. And a mother. A single mother, it seems, just to make matters worse.’

  ‘Come on, Micky, you sound like some terrible old chauvinist.’

  ‘Not me, boss, them. There’s never been a woman at the top of Fairbrother’s and it seems unlikely the board would accept one.’

  ‘Not even Sir John’s clearly extremely able daughter?’ queried Vogel.

  ‘Well, the word is a lot of the old guard weren’t happy having her on the board at all, let alone as deputy chair. There have been one or two women in the past. Sir John’s first wife, Bella’s mother, before he divorced her and kicked her out; and his mother, I think. But it seems they were regarded only as token women really, and not allowed to take much of an active part in anything. Whenever they were given opportunity to vote, which was not often, it would have been only to support the family position. They were always expected to vote with the chair – that is Sir John and his father before him.’

  ‘So aren’t there any other women on the board now? Was Bella Fairbrother the only one?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘Sounds like quite a can of worms,’ commented Vogel.

  ‘It certainly is, boss,’ said Micky.

  Polly approached Vogel again. She was of West Indian descent, dressed streetwise, and had an enviable knack of getting on with almost everyone she encountered. Vogel was glad she was now permanently part of MCIT.

  ‘I spoke to Bella Fairbrother again,’ said Polly. ‘She’s staying at the Mount Somerset, just outside Taunton. Says she’ll be there in half an hour.’

  ‘Right.’

  Vogel turned to Saslow.

  ‘C’mon then, Dawn, what are you waiting for?’ he asked. ‘Let’s get over there.’

  ‘But boss, we’ve only just come from Taunton …’ began Saslow lamely.

  ‘The goal posts have moved,’ said Vogel. ‘Now we are going back.’

  SIX

  Bella Fairbrother was elegant, assured, well dressed, and bristled with self-confidence. Vogel knew her to be thirty-nine years old. He thought she probably looked younger, and in some ways behaved as if she was older. She had only very recently heard of her father’s violent death in a fire, but was certainly displaying little or no sign of distress. Her expression was entirely non-committal. Everything about her indicated cool containment. Almost certainly she was accustomed to giving little away of her inner feelings. Superficially, her manner reminded Vogel of his old boss when he’d been in the Met. Only, the preposterously named Nobby Clarke was a tall blonde woman. Bella Fairbrother was of average height, with a full head of tumbling brunette hair which fell over her shoulders in a style Vogel thought would probably be considered rather old fashioned. It suited her though, and Vogel felt sure it would prove to be the only remotely old-fashioned thing about the thoroughly modern Miss Fairbrother.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you, detective inspector,’ said Bella, offering a perfectly manicured hand, in a manner which seemed almost to suggest that he should kiss it. Now that would be old fashioned, thought Vogel. And in the current c
limate could land him in jail, too.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ said Vogel, taking the extended hand in his firmest handshake.

  ‘Don’t be, detective inspector,’ responded Bella. ‘As far as I am concerned, my father was a bigot and totally set in his ways. He and I have always had a difficult relationship, and for some time now, since I resigned as his deputy at Fairbrother International, we’ve had hardly any contact at all, which has suited both of us.’

  Vogel was surprised, both by her frankness and her vehement manner.

  ‘That sounds quite harsh, Miss Fairbrother,’ Vogel responded mildly.

  ‘Does it? Yes, well, nothing to how harsh he could be. Nonetheless, I am, of course, shocked by what happened. I wouldn’t wish death in a fire on anyone. Obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ replied Vogel. ‘Could I ask you please when you last saw your father?’

  ‘Of course. It must have been a couple of months after I resigned. We were both invited to the same drinks reception in the City. We passed the time of day in a civilised manner; you have to keep appearances up if you’re a Fairbrother. But that was all. In effect, we barely spoke.’

  ‘Might I also ask what caused your estrangement from your father, Miss Fairbrother, and why you quit the family bank.’

  ‘I’m sorry, DI Vogel, I really don’t see what that has to do with the matter in hand.’

  ‘Miss Fairbrother,’ said Vogel firmly, ‘the fire officers called to Blackdown Manor last night strongly suspect that the blaze which destroyed the house and killed your father was started deliberately. Arson is being investigated. Therefore, I am conducting a murder inquiry. Actually, an inquiry into a double murder. As far as I am concerned at the moment, everything concerning anybody close to or related to either of the deceased could have a bearing on the case. Now, will you please answer the question.’

  Bella Fairbrother looked genuinely shocked. ‘Murder?’ she said, turning the one word into a question. ‘The two officers who came to tell me the news this morning did say that investigations into the cause of the fire were on-going. But well, I suppose I didn’t take it in really. I mean, arson? Oh my God. I guess I just thought that was procedure in the event of deaths in a fire. I didn’t realise …’