Wheel of Fire Page 7

  She didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Miss Fairbrother, will you please answer my question,’ Vogel repeated.

  He had already realised that this woman was never going to be easy to deal with. She was independent, feisty, and clearly a real handful. But none of that indicated that she might have any involvement with the fire at Blackdown Manor, nor indeed necessarily any relevant information to supply. But Vogel intended to make absolutely sure.

  ‘Of course,’ said Bella Fairbrother, although she still sounded a tad reluctant. ‘It was business really. Well, everything with my father was business. That was what he lived for. He made me deputy chair but expected me just to follow his lead and do what he said. He wanted me to be like all the other Fairbrother women throughout history, subservient and totally obedient to their men. He was never interested in my ideas, and rarely inclined to share his. Neither did he allow me to become fully aware of everything that he was doing, and what was being done in the name of Fairbrother International. I found out about certain of our banking investments in Third World countries that made Barclays look like philanthropists. There was also some extremely dubious hedge fund investment. My father wouldn’t discuss anything with me. I was beginning to feel like a puppet. The final straw came when he took it upon himself to make it clear that he had no intention of ever handing Fairbrother’s over to me. I would never get to run the company. It transpired he had drawn up a plan for succession which barely included me. And he told me he didn’t see why I should mind, after all I was a girl, and girls wouldn’t ever be proper bankers.’

  Bella Fairbrother paused and took a deep breath.

  ‘My father was a dinosaur, Mr Vogel,’ she continued. ‘A very ruthless one. Perhaps you understand now why I distanced myself from him, and why I shall not be crying at his funeral.’

  ‘I couldn’t comment on that, Miss Fairbrother,’ said Vogel. ‘But, may I say, even now after his death, you do seem very angry.’

  ‘I am angry, Mr Vogel,’ said Bella. ‘My father kept such a tight rein on the affairs of the bank, it wasn’t just me who was kept in the dark half the time. He never trusted his own board fully. They are now frantically trying to sort out the numerous complex financial arrangements he had unilaterally executed. And if my father were still alive, Mr Vogel, he would tell you that is the way he would always work.’

  ‘I see,’ said Vogel.

  ‘Do you?’ queried Bella Fairbrother. ‘Look, Mr Vogel, I am going to take you into my confidence here. I may as well because, unless there’s a miracle, all this is going to come out sooner or later. I had a meeting with Ben Travis, the company secretary and Jimmy Martins, the deputy chairman, this afternoon. That’s why I didn’t get here until now. Fairbrother’s is a huge and historic business. Millions of people’s livelihoods worldwide depend on our family company, both directly and indirectly. I realise it must be difficult for someone like you to comprehend a concept of this magnitude, but if Fairbrother’s were to go under the repercussions would be catastrophic.’

  Bella Fairbrother paused. Vogel blinked rapidly behind his spectacles. He always did when he felt uncomfortable. But he was actually far more embarrassed for the young woman addressing him, who obviously had no idea how she appeared to others, than he was for himself. Vogel knew well enough when he was being patronised, and he didn’t take to it kindly. Nonetheless, Bella Fairbrother was correct in her clear assumption that he was unfamiliar with international finance, and indeed had little grasp of how the possible collapse of the Fairbrother family bank might affect businesses and individuals across the globe. He was however extremely familiar with the consequences of greed and of misuse of power at all levels of society. Therefore, he did his best to appear both dispassionate and expressionless, apart from the rapid blinking which he felt confident Miss Bella Fairbrother was far too self-obsessed to notice, whilst continuing to concentrate his mind totally on everything she had to say.

  ‘As soon as they heard the news of my father’s death early this morning a board meeting was called,’ Bella Fairbrother continued. ‘Martins and Travis set about making provision for trade to continue as usual with Martins as temporary chair until someone could be appointed in the proper way. Jimmy Martins has already made it pretty clear he will not be prepared to take over as chairman on a permanent basis. And I don’t blame him. Being deputy chair to my father was a bit like trying to co-pilot an aircraft whilst wearing a blindfold. It is going to be very difficult indeed for anyone to take over the running of the bank from my father. He wove a tangled web, Mr Vogel. There were accounts and investments worldwide to which only he had access. In some cases, only he knew of their existence. Half the time he didn’t even follow proper Companies House procedure. Of course, most members of the board were aware of this, whatever they might say now, but if you wanted to remain in a senior position at Fairbrother’s you simply did as you were told.

  ‘When they learned that he was seriously ill, about five or six months ago, Travis and Martins and the board found themselves in a pretty pickle. And they still didn’t know what to do about it. In name, at least, my father remained chairman and chief executive, and nobody quite had the balls to overthrow him. Although he eventually stopped coming into the office, he was on the phone all the time, conference calls and so on, making sure things were still done his way. And he continued to control all the fundamental data concerning the business. In spite of his illness, he always remained confident of his own ability to deal with any situation.

  ‘But he was a maverick, Mr Vogel. And, now, well, without the sheer magnitude and extraordinary power of his personality, without his ability to juggle, when others would have no idea how to, nobody knows quite how to get out of the hole he seems to have dug for Fairbrother’s. It is possible that the bank may have to cease trading, or at the very least be subjected to a hostile takeover.’

  ‘You are being very frank, Miss Fairbrother,’ said Vogel, who genuinely had not expected so much information to be so freely offered.

  ‘I am afraid everything I have just shared with you will become public knowledge in the very near future unless I – and I really believe it is going to be down to me – can find a way of sorting out this mess and come up with a plan to save Fairbrother’s,’ responded Bella. ‘And that is going to take some doing, I can tell you, detective inspector.’

  ‘I see,’ said Vogel.

  Bella Fairbrother took in a deep intake of breath and let it out very slowly.

  ‘It’s all just so awful,’ she said eventually, showing the first sign of any emotion since Vogel had met her. ‘I can’t believe that Blackdown Manor has gone. It was such a beautiful house, full of beautiful things. I grew up there, of course. And I had a very happy upbringing too, until my father decided to chuck my mother out and move in that tart he later married. After that it was sheer misery, probably why my brother turned out the way he did, too.’

  Bella Fairbrother sounded bitter. And angry again.

  ‘Miss Fairbrother, you are clearly not sorry that your father is dead, you have made no secret of that,’ said Vogel. ‘I wonder if you actually desired his death.’

  Bella Fairbrother laughed briefly. It was a laugh without mirth.

  ‘Not enough to kill him, or to have him killed, if that’s what you are suggesting, detective inspector,’ she said.

  ‘I would not dream of suggesting any such thing without appropriate evidence,’ said Vogel deadpan.

  ‘No, well, in any case, I had known for some time what a mess he was going to leave behind him. And, I also knew that my father would die sooner rather than later of natural causes. Whether or not I wanted him dead is irrelevant. I only had to wait a few months. In any case, I am a senior executive of a major bank, Mr Vogel, and I have every reason to believe that when the present chief executive takes retirement within the next year or so I shall be offered that position. I am only stepping in to assist Fairbrother’s at this stage because I have been asked to do so by the board
, because I have a greater knowledge of how my father ran things than anyone else And I do not want Fairbrother’s to go under, obviously. It is my family heritage.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ murmured Vogel. ‘I wonder, speaking of heritage. Have you been in touch with your brother at all? We need to speak to him too, of course.’

  ‘I don’t see why, he’s not been near our father for years. Not even been in this country for years either, as far as I know.’

  ‘Miss Fairbrother, I am not at all clear who or what is going to benefit from your father’s death. You paint a picture of possible collapse as far as the bank is concerned. But as a rule, when a wealthy man is murdered, excepting crimes of passion, there is usually a financial motive. That is why I need to speak to your brother, and to any other surviving family members.’

  Bella Fairbrother sighed.

  ‘All I have is a mobile phone number for Freddie,’ she said. ‘He does call me occasionally, and me him. But at the moment it’s just ringing out. I’ll give you the number.’

  Bella reached into her bag for her phone.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Vogel. ‘Of course, your father’s death, and the fact that it’s a suspicious death, is already in the press and on the net. Your brother is bound to hear of it, so he will surely get in touch with you then. Or even the police.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Bella Fairbrother. ‘My brother is not like other men.’

  SEVEN

  George Grey arrived at London’s Paddington station at about the same time Bella Fairbrother reached the Mount Somerset Hotel.

  He’d bided his time at Musgrove Park hospital until a moment when there seemed to be little going on in his ward, and few medical staff around, before making his move.

  His clothes, which were in a bag in his bedside locker, were steeped in blood and had been partially shredded during the repeated stabbing he had sustained. They were of little use to him. Not if he wished to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  His shoes were also in the cabinet, spattered with blood, but otherwise undamaged. He had removed them and, carrying them in one hand behind his back, along with his wallet and phone, made his way along the central corridor dividing the rows of individual rooms which now made up the bulk of the patient accommodation at the Musgrove.

  There was a nursing station at one end of the corridor, but the sole nurse sitting there had been busy at her computer, and in any case, even if she had seen George, he’d hoped she would merely assume he was on his way to the toilet.

  The doors to most of the rooms stood open. George peered inside two or three before seeing what he wanted to see. The male patient inside was hooked up to a drip and to a PCA – a patient-controlled analgesia, probably morphine – pump, and he looked as if he’d been making good use of it. He lay on his back, eyes shut, mouth open, snoring heavily. George entered the room quietly, opened the patient’s bedside cabinet as softly as he could, and inside found exactly what he was hoping for: the man’s clothes, neatly folded. There was a pair of jeans, a polo shirt, a V-necked sweater and a lightweight jacket made of some kind of shiny beige material. George wrinkled his nose in distaste. He was, by nature and when he could afford it, quite a natty dresser. Normally he wouldn’t be seen dead in a jacket like that. Under these circumstances, he was phenomenally grateful for it.

  He’d bundled up the clothes, tucked them under his arm and continued along the corridor to the toilet. His luck held. The nurse he’d noticed earlier still did not look up. In any case, he reminded himself, she had no reason to be suspicious. He didn’t think she’d been on duty for long. She probably had no idea that the police had just visited him, and that he didn’t have any clothes of his own that were even remotely wearable.

  Once in the toilet he had removed his hospital issue gown, which he stuffed into the waste bin, in case its early discovery might attract unwanted attention, and dressed in the other man’s clothes. He’d discarded the underpants – he really couldn’t wear another man’s underpants – and pulled on the jeans carefully over his wounded and bandaged legs. George Grey was a small man. The patient whose clothes he had stolen was clearly much bigger. Better that way than the other, thought George. Fortuitously there was a belt in the jeans. George pulled it tight and then rolled up the bottoms. The shirt and the jumper were a good two sizes too big. The unattractive jacket hung loosely from his thin shoulders. George was grateful for anything. He put his wallet in the hip pockets of the jeans, and his phone in the top pocket of the jacket, and exited the toilet carefully, looking to the left and to the right, before concluding that the coast was clear, and heading for the stairs at the far end of the corridor to the nurse’s station.

  Two doctors, talking animatedly, had emerged from one of the rooms right in front of George, who had looked down at the floor, avoiding the slightest chance of eye contact. He needn’t have worried. The doctors took no notice of him at all.

  He’d left the hospital without a problem and picked up a taxi from the hospital rank to take him into Taunton town centre. He found a cash point and took out £400, which just about emptied his current account. He’d been given the obvious instruction not to leave a paper trail, so he wouldn’t be able to use his credit cards for a bit. The police would know he had started off in Taunton, obviously, so he was giving nothing away by drawing cash there. He then bought a pay-as-you-go phone in the Vodafone shop. His injured leg and shoulder were throbbing consistently. He knew he wasn’t well enough to be out and about, far from it, but he had no choice. There was a chemist in the high street, where he acquired co-codamol, the mixture of codeine and paracetamol which he thought was the strongest pain killer you could buy over the counter, and a bottle of Night Nurse, the knock-out cold remedy he reckoned would help him to sleep that night. If he got a chance to sleep.

  There was a Marks and Spencer up the road, and he was just thinking about buying himself some clothes which fitted, when he spotted two police officers on the corner. He suddenly became convinced that one of them was staring at him. He was, of course, being paranoid, wasn’t he? Surely it was unlikely that any sort of alert would have been put out for him yet. On the other hand, he must look bad enough to attract attention. He had noticed in the mirror in the hospital toilet that his face seemed drained of all colour, and, however hard he tried, he could not help walking with a limp.

  He decided to forego the opportunity to buy some new clothes and to get out of Taunton as quickly as he could.

  The journey had not been a comfortable one. Every jolt the train made reverberated right through George’s body. From the buffet car he bought a bottle of water and a couple of miniature bottles of whisky with which he washed down the co-codamol. First two of the small white pills, then another two. He read the label. Mostly paracetamol. Just eight grams of codeine. The pills didn’t touch the sides. He took a couple more, and, by the time he reached Paddington, wasn’t entirely sure how many he’d taken. They still didn’t seem to have helped much, though. As he stepped off the train he could feel the stitches in his thigh pulling and a sharp pain darted up and down his leg.

  He winced as his feet hit the platform, then he made his way towards the underground still trying, without success, not to limp. He was sweating, even though it was a cool day, and he felt quite faint.

  In spite of his continuing efforts not to draw attention to himself, he was sure people were staring at him. He could feel a wetness around the injured area of his leg. He glanced down. To his dismay there was a growing blackish-red patch on the pale blue jeans. His thigh was bleeding again.

  As quickly as he could manage, he took the escalator down to the Tube station. He leaned against the wall next to the ticket office for a few seconds, struggling to maintain control and keep calm.

  It wasn’t just his physical discomfort and the combined effects of painkillers and alcohol which were causing George Grey to sweat. He was becoming more and more frightened by the minute. He could see no way out of the situation he had foun
d himself in.

  ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen, nobody was supposed to die,’ he repeated under his breath for the umpteenth time. ‘Nobody was supposed to die.’

  He shook his head in a desperate attempt to clear it, before approaching the ticket office, acquiring an Oyster card and putting twenty pounds on it. He didn’t know how long he would be in London, nor how much he would need to use public transport.

  He took the District line to Earls Court, then changed onto the Piccadilly line. He alighted at Boston Manor, the nearest Tube station to Brentford, a West London suburb he had only ever visited once before, for much the same purpose as on this occasion. As instructed, he made a call from his new pay-as-you-go phone.

  ‘I’ve just got out of the Tube,’ he said. ‘I’m calling like you said. Look, I’m not feeling all that hot. Can you come and get me? Or send somebody.’

  ‘What makes you think I have anyone to send,’ said the voice at the other end of the phone sharply. ‘No. Make your own way to the pub, like we said.’

  ‘I can’t walk very far,’ said George. ‘I should be in hospital, remember? I’m afraid I might pass out.’

  ‘Try not to. There’s a taxi office next to the Tube station. Get a cab.’

  ‘I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I, uh, I think I’m bleeding.’

  ‘For God’s sake, George,’ said the voice. ‘Get a grip. It’s dark. Don’t be paranoid. As long as you hold yourself together no taxi driver is going to take any notice of you. You’re just a fare.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that—’

  The interruption was loud and authoritative. ‘George. Have you got money?’

  ‘Yes, well, some …’

  ‘Right, that’s OK then. And you’re soon going to have an awful lot more. Just get in a cab.’