Wheel of Fire Page 8

  George was beginning to feel increasingly woozier. Nonetheless he wanted that money. He was owed it after all. And he needed reassurance and instructions. He needed to know what he should do next. George Grey had never been very good at making his own decisions in life. Most of the trouble he’d got into over the years had been down to unwisely following the lead of others. Even in severe pain and half out of his head on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol he was starkly aware of that. But, as ever, he was unable to do anything other than acquiesce to someone, almost anyone, stronger than himself.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Uh, just one thing, George, you are sure you haven’t been followed, aren’t you?’

  ‘Now you’re being paranoid,’ said George. ‘Of course, I haven’t been followed. The filth wouldn’t even have known I’d left the hospital before I got the London train.’

  ‘You can never be sure,’ said the voice. ‘Just be careful, George.’

  ‘I was being careful,’ muttered George into his phone. Then he realised nobody was listening any more.

  EIGHT

  ‘Right, Saslow, I think we’d better interview the Kivels tomorrow, don’t you,’ said Vogel, as they were about to head back to Bristol after leaving Bella Fairbrother at the Mount Somerset.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ said Saslow.

  ‘OK, get on to Kenneth Steele and ask someone to find a phone number for them. Arrange a meet for us as early as possible in the morning, will you?’

  Saslow winced. She didn’t fancy another early start.

  ‘Don’t you think we should stay over in the Blackdowns, boss?’ she asked hopefully. ‘I mean, the Wellington incident room will be fully operational by tomorrow. Shouldn’t we be on the spot.’

  ‘We are on the spot, Dawn, not much more than an hour’s drive away anyway,’ said Vogel.

  Depending on the traffic, it could easily be an hour and a half in the holiday season and at peak times considerably more, thought Saslow. It had actually taken an hour and a quarter from Sea Mills that day, and only that because they’d left in the middle of the night. Or it had felt like the middle of night to her anyway. Saslow was not naturally an early riser, and in order to pick Vogel up at whatever time he decreed she had to rise considerably earlier than him. But she said nothing.

  ‘Anyway, don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend an hour less in my own bed any time than two hours more in a bed in some darned hotel,’ Vogel continued.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ said Saslow resignedly.

  Everybody knew that David Vogel was a devoted family man. His family was even more important to him than the job with which he was also obsessed, something Saslow suspected not to be the case with a number of the gnarled old detectives she had already encountered in her short career. Rumour even had it that Vogel had resigned from his top job as a senior officer with the Met’s prestigious Major Investigation Team, and asked for a transfer to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, entirely for the sake of his fourteen-year-old daughter Rosamund.

  Rosamund, whom Saslow knew Vogel adored, had cerebral palsy. Swimming was her great love, and, Vogel had confided in Saslow, although he rarely spoke about his private life, that when his daughter was swimming she seemed able to forget the limits her condition inflicted on her body and revelled in the freedom of movement the support of water gave her. The otherwise very ordinary and quite small bungalow which was the Vogel home, had one rather extraordinary feature. The previous owner had built a fairly luxurious mini spa, equipped with an endless pool, in the overly large garage, and Rosamund was able to swim whenever she wanted. Vogel would never have been able to afford anything like that in the London area.

  The two officers didn’t speak much for the rest of the journey. Saslow could sense that Vogel was deep in thought. He was the kind of detective who believed that the solving of a crime lay as much inside the head as in the work done on the road. Evidence-, intelligence- and information-driven, of course; but then dependent on the dissection and analysis of the smallest detail of all collated material by the investigating officers.

  Just as they were pulling up outside Vogel’s bungalow his phone rang.

  ‘The Kivels will see you at 8.30 in the morning,’ said Polly Jenkins, who clearly was still at work at Kenneth Steele House. ‘Martha Kivel says there’ll be a decent breakfast if you want it.’

  Polly chuckled.

  ‘Thank you, Polly,’ said Vogel. ‘Never mind breakfast, what’s the address?’

  Polly chuckled again, then duly recited the address of the Kivel cottage in Wrangway.

  ‘Thanks, Polly,’ said Vogel. ‘You should go home now. I think we’ve all had enough for one day. Get over to Wellington police station in the morning. We’ll be running the investigation out of there for the next two or three days at least.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ said Polly.

  Saslow glanced across at her senior officer. His face was impassive. Vogel was by and large a quiet, self-contained man. He was also known for his powerful intellect. With his diffident manner, his thick-lensed spectacles, and his very slight stoop, he rather more resembled a university professor than a police detective at the cutting edge of major crime. In his spare time, he had played backgammon at the highest level and his principal hobby was compiling crosswords.

  Saslow knew he would have at once memorised the Kivels’ address and would have no need to write it down or tap it into his phone.

  Vogel opened the passenger door, glanced sideways at Saslow, and said, ‘Pick me up at 7.15 then, Dawn.’

  Saslow muttered assent. She would have to leave her flat nearer to the centre of Bristol before seven. At least this was, however, an hour later than they had left that morning.

  She watched Vogel walk up his garden path. The family dog started to bark, then whimper. The front door opened. Vogel’s wife Mary appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright light of the hallway behind her. Timmy the Border collie squeezed past in order to more quickly reach his master.

  Vogel’s pace seemed to quicken, his stride lengthen. Timmy bounded by his side as he hurried towards his wife. Saslow could only see the back of her senior officer’s head, but she had no doubt that he was smiling.

  Meanwhile, to the mild alarm of the landlord, George Grey had arrived at Brentford’s Brewery Tap pub. George looked pale and wan. He was limping heavily, and his clothes were dishevelled and didn’t seem to fit him. There was a suspicious looking dark stain on the left leg of his blue jeans.

  He staggered very slightly on his way to the bar. Peter Forest wondered if he was already drunk, and also if he might be a vagrant.

  But he sounded reasonably lucid when he ordered a large Scotch, so Forest served him. It was possible, thought Forest, that his customer was merely unwell. And, although he was definitely not a regular, there was something vaguely familiar about him, too.

  George made his way to a table by the window, where he was almost immediately joined by a second man, heavily bearded and of indeterminate years, wearing a baseball hat and an expensive looking leather jacket. The landlord watched as the man put what seemed to be a solicitous arm around George’s thin shoulders, before approaching the bar and ordering two more large whiskies.

  Forest hesitated very slightly.

  ‘Is your friend all right?’ he asked. ‘Looks a bit rough.’

  ‘Bad trip to the dentist,’ came the reply, accompanied by a reassuring smile.

  Forest served the whiskies. The second man was certainly well capable of caring for the first, and the landlord considered that his presence absolved him of any responsibility. It was a busy time of day. There were other people in the pub waiting to be served. Forest proceeded to give them his full attention.

  ‘This isn’t what was supposed to have happened,’ muttered George half to himself, for the umpteenth time that day, as his companion sat down beside him.

  ‘Nobody was supposed to have got hurt. I was supposed to rescue them. Then everything was go
ing to be all right. That’s what you said.’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ replied the man in the leather jacket calmly.

  George downed the remains of his first double whisky, and started on the second.

  ‘Some mistake. Two deaths, and I’m the one’s going to get the blame. You told me to start the fire. You had it all arranged, you said. I was careful. I really was careful. Then that bloody tank exploded. Like a bomb, it was. How did that happen? It wasn’t close to the house, and I started the fire at the front, like you told me to.’

  George Grey began to cry. Leather jacket manoeuvred himself so that, should the landlord be watching still, his view would be at least partially obstructed. Then he again put an arm around one of George’s shoulders. But it was not the caring sympathetic gesture which he hoped it would be taken for, if anyone noticed. Instead he dug hard fingers into George’s flesh and hissed threateningly into his ear.

  ‘Pull yourself together, George,’ he said. ‘If anybody gets it in the neck for this it’s going to be you, like you said. If you keep your cool everything will be all right.’

  ‘I don’t see how, I’m a murderer now, aren’t I? And it wasn’t my fault. I walked out of hospital, too. I’m not sure I should have done that. Perhaps I should go to the police and explain. Tell them what happened. Tell them I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Now, George, you don’t want to do anything stupid, do you,’ murmured leather jacket.

  George continued to snivel. The man in the leather jacket glanced around the pub. There were several other drinkers propping up the bar, who seemed to be keeping the landlord busy. And they were all watching a football match on TV.

  ‘Look, George, I want to help you,’ he said, sounding suddenly encouraging, perhaps even caring. ‘Why don’t you have another drink – it will calm your nerves.’

  He pushed his own whisky, which had stood untouched before him, along the table towards George.

  ‘We need to perk you up,’ leather jacket continued. ‘I bet you’ve not eaten anything since you left the hospital, have you?’

  George shook his head, as he reached out for the proffered whisky. It was his third in the pub, on top of the two he had consumed earlier on the train, and then there were the painkillers.

  ‘Well, you should come back with me then. I’ll feed you. And you need to get some rest, too. You can stay the night. And if you’re still feeling rough, I’ve a tame doctor I could get over.’

  George was beginning to feel very light headed indeed, but he hadn’t forgotten the principal purpose of his journey to London.

  ‘I want my money,’ he said. ‘Then I can get away. You said you would arrange that, if it came to it, and it has come to it. The police are after me for murder, for God’s sake. I can’t think of anything else to do. I need you to help me get away.’

  ‘Of course,’ said leather jacket soothingly. ‘Of course, I will help you.’

  George looked relieved. ‘As long as you don’t let me down,’ he said,

  ‘I won’t, I promise you I won’t.’

  ‘All right, I believe you, but I want my money,’ said George.

  ‘Not here,’ said leather jacket. ‘I can’t pass that amount of cash over to you here. I haven’t even brought it with me. Come back with me, and I’ll give it you. In cash. Straight away. Then we can plan what you are going to do next, you and Janice, of course.’

  George sighed heavily, but he no longer had the strength to argue. In any case, this was an argument he clearly could not win. If leather jacket didn’t have the cash with him, then George had to do what he said to get it. And neither did he have a hope of evading the forces of law and order without the assistance of the man he held responsible for the trouble he was in. It was Catch-22.

  ‘I can’t walk far,’ said George. ‘You must be able to see that. I’ve pretty much had it.’

  ‘It’s not far. You know that. Just a few steps. I’ll get you another drink first. Do you good.’

  George swallowed the rest of his third double, and accepted the fourth. He had hoped the whisky might make him feel better. But, like so much in his life, he hadn’t thought it through at all. He felt worse than before. Considerably worse. His head was spinning uncontrollably.

  He tried to stand up, but couldn’t quite make it.

  ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ he said.

  Leather jacket glanced back at the bar again. This time he couldn’t see the landlord at all. He stood up quickly and more or less lifted George out of his seat.

  ‘I should never have left hoshpital,’ muttered George, who had begun to seriously slur his words. ‘Too shoon. I feel bad, real bad.’

  ‘C’mon George, you can do it,’ responded leather jacket, as he wrapped an arm around George’s middle and half carried him out of the pub into the shadows of Catherine Wheel Road.

  It was dark by then and there seemed to be nobody else around in the quiet cul de sac, off Brentford High Street, which led only to the Grand Union Canal, and on to the River Thames, via a network of paths and footbridges.

  NINE

  In the morning, it seemed Saslow was so anxious not to be late that she actually arrived at Vogel’s house ten minutes early. Nonetheless, by the time Vogel and Saslow reached Taunton the local commuters were making their way to work in droves, and they hit heavy motorway traffic. But by and large they had a pretty good run and arrived at the Kivels’ cottage, several miles closer than Blackdown Manor, at just gone quarter past eight.

  Moorview Cottage was one of a pair tucked away at the foot of Sampford Moor just out of sight of the motorway. You could hear the steady hum of the M5, though, Vogel noticed as he stepped out of the car, but only just. The place still seemed very peaceful.

  It was a cool morning, yet the sun shone brightly. In stark contrast to the previous day.

  The cottage was tiny, but very pretty, the render freshly painted cream and the woodwork pale blue, the front garden neat and tidy.

  Vogel suspected there would be a bigger garden at the back which would almost certainly contain a vegetable patch, and perhaps a chicken run in one corner. Vogel remained a city boy who had little interest in rural life, but as a committed vegetarian he did fantasise about the joys of growing his own vegetables; as long as he didn’t have to do any digging, planting, or any of the other – to him totally mysterious – tasks that would presumably be necessary. He also liked the idea of being able to walk on to his own patch of land and gather free range eggs, but the thought of having to look after hens, feed them, clean up after them, and perhaps even touch them on occasions, appalled him.

  Jack Kivel answered the door, smiling in welcome. He was of average height, but broad shouldered and fit looking, and with a decent head of dark brown hair; barely any grey to be seen in spite of almost certainly being nearer to sixty than fifty. And Vogel didn’t think for one moment that he had been using colour.

  He introduced himself and Saslow.

  Kivel nodded by way of response. ‘Happy to help any way we can,’ he said. ‘Dreadful business. Sir John dead. That beautiful house gone. And there surely can’t be a worse way to die than in a fire.’

  He shook his head sorrowfully as he led Vogel and Saslow into a glowingly warm and unexpectedly spacious kitchen. It had a low-beamed ceiling, a flag-stoned floor, and a window almost right along the back wall with a wide ledge which doubled as a seat. Vogel’s Mary would have said it was her idea of a storybook country kitchen. An Aga took pride of place. Martha Kivel was bending over it, attending to the open oven. She stood up and pushed the door shut.

  ‘There’s a tray of bacon in there,’ she said almost by way of greeting. ‘It’ll be ready in five minutes. Bacon baps, I thought. Nice and quick, and you can take one with you if you like. I know you people, always in a hurry.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ said Saslow, with genuine enthusiasm, shooting a glance at the strictly vegetarian Vogel.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Kivel,’ sai
d Vogel quickly. ‘But I had breakfast before I left home.’

  ‘You’m an early riser, then,’ remarked Martha Kivel approvingly. She stepped forward towards the two officers, stretching out her right hand.

  ‘I’m forgetting me manners. Martha Kivel, pleased to meet you.’

  In turn Vogel and Saslow grasped her hand. Martha then gestured for the two officers to sit down at the scrubbed kitchen table. In this kitchen everything that should gleam did so obediently. Martha poured them tea from a brown earthenware pot without asking whether they wanted it or not, putting the milk in the cups first. There was a sugar bowl on the table next to what was quite clearly a home-made Victoria sponge cake. Vogel’s favourite.

  ‘You’ll have a slice of my sponge, though, won’t you, Mr Vogel?’ enquired Martha. ‘Only made yesterday.’

  Vogel agreed that he would, and tried not to sound too eager. After all, he’d only grabbed a quick bowl of cereal earlier and was actually every bit as hungry as Saslow.

  He took a hasty bite before beginning to speak. The sponge was quite delicious. Everything about the Kivels, man and wife, indicated that they would be the perfect people to look after a rich man, in dwindling health, and his home. Everything about them indicated that they were capable, honest and diligent.

  ‘Obviously, you realise I want to ask you questions about the fire, and your relationship with Sir John,’ Vogel began.

  Jack and Martha Kivel nodded in unison.

  ‘Us don’t know ought about the fire to tell the truth,’ said Martha Kivel. ‘The manor be over t’other side of moor from here, as you’d know. Nothing to alert us yer. I suppose if us had stepped outside in the middle of the night we might have seen a glow in the sky from a blaze big enough to burn that house down. But we was asleep.’

  She turned towards her husband. ‘Sleep the sleep of the just, us do, don’t us, Jack.’

  Jack Kivel nodded in an abstracted sort of way.

  Vogel allowed himself a small smile. ‘So how did you both hear about the fire?’ he asked.