A few minutes later she received a second text:
Sorry. Already aboard. Signal bad. Don’t worry. I shan’t be long Gx.
Anne didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all. But she told herself the best thing she could do was to keep as calm as possible and continue to busy herself about the house. Gerry hated being fussed over. Particularly by his wife. All the while she kept her eye on the weather, both through the windows, and on the BBC weather app. By two o’clock the gentle sea breeze of earlier was approaching gale force. Rain was falling heavily, and the sky was leaden. The BBC was now predicting a force nine gale with coastal winds in excess of fifty miles per hour. And there had been no further contact from Gerry.
Anne could not wait any longer. First she phoned the yacht club. The barman answered. No, Gerry wasn’t in the bar, and he hadn’t seen him all morning. He had no idea whether or not Gerry had taken his boat out. He would see if he could get somebody to find out and call her back.
Anne paced the floors waiting to hear. She was quite sure now that something terrible had happened to Gerry. What other explanation could there be? Just as she was going to call the club again, her phone rang.
‘Hello, Mrs Barham,’ said a voice she did not recognize. ‘I’m Sid Merton, mate of Gerry’s at the yacht club. I’m the chef at The Boathouse, on the front. When I arrived at work about seven thirty this morning, I saw him heading out towards the estuary. I didn’t think much of it. I thought he was just taking an early turn while the weather was good. But we’ve checked, and the boat isn’t back. No sign of Gerry either. I don’t want to worry you, Mrs Barham, but we’ve already phoned the coastguard and the RNLI. He shouldn’t be on the water in that vessel of his in this weather.’
Anne could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘Are you sure you saw Gerry?’ she asked lamely.
‘Oh yes, Mrs Barham, I’m really sorry to be giving you such disturbing news, but it was Gerry all right. I know the boat. And we waved to each other. Look, try not to worry. He may have put in somewhere, and be riding out the storm. We’ll be in touch as soon as we hear anything.’
She ended the call and took another look out of the window. The wind was howling now.
Could Gerry really be at sea in his little boat in this weather? It made no sense. And if Sid Merton was correct in what he said he’d seen – and Anne had little doubt that he was, he said they’d waved to each other, for goodness sake – Gerry had been aboard his boat for at least seven hours. He must have left the house far earlier than she’d thought, probably before six, and had surely already decided that he was taking his boat out.
As for putting in somewhere to ride out the storm, well, Anne knew even less about boats and sailing than her husband did, but she had learned a little about the coast where they lived. There wasn’t anywhere to put in once a vessel had left the estuary of the Torridge and the Tor. Not within range of Gerry’s boat, that was for sure. Which led Anne onto yet another frightening train of thought. The boat would surely have run out of fuel by now. In fact, probably some time ago.
Anne started to weep. What was happening? she wondered. Until the night before last she and her husband had been living happily in quiet retirement in a beautiful part of the world. Then came the shock of finding the body of a neighbour who had died in the most awful way. And already their lives seemed to have been turned upside down.
Now Gerry was missing. There seemed little doubt about that. He could be in trouble. He could have drowned. Gerry could be dead.
Anne was distraught. She didn’t know what to do or who to turn to.
TWENTY
Earlier that day Saslow and Vogel had arrived at Bideford police station to find the place heaving. Nobby’s Major Crimes Team was still in the process of setting up the incident room.
The forbidding red-brick building, built on higher ground opposite and above the river, has been closed to the public for years, but local CID and uniform still operate on a day-to-day basis behind its closed doors. The only access road is a steep ramp leading up from New Road, and parking is limited. In addition to MCT, extra officers from other stations in the region had been brought in to form a suitably sized team for a murder investigation.
Everyone was squashed into a station ill-equipped for the scale of the operation now underway, as is all too often the case with murder investigations deemed to require a Major Incident Room away from base.
The office manager’s job was not going to be an easy one. Saslow’s first thought was that DI Janet Peters, the deputy SIO whom she knew Nobby had selected, had to be competent and experienced or she wouldn’t have been appointed to the task. But it quickly became apparent that Janet Peters wasn’t Margot Hartley. Saslow was used to working with Hartley and Vogel as deputy SIOs. Their set-up was simple, and had become comfortably familiar. Hemmings held the investigation together at the top. But Hartley held it together at ground level, as an office manager capable of solving seemingly impossible problems of manpower and logistics and making it all look easy. It was as if she never felt the stress and weariness that at some stage or other inevitably overwhelmed all the rest of them during a tough investigation. In addition, she had the enviable knack of bending people to her will without them always noticing it. At Bristol MCIT she was known as ‘bloody superwoman’, by the mere mortals around her, sometimes in exasperation, but invariably in admiration.
It quickly became apparent to Saslow that DI Janet Peters had probably never even heard of superwoman.
As she and Vogel walked into the station lobby they were immediately confronted by the spectacle of a mildly dishevelled looking woman locked in a loud argument with a tall red-headed man whose temper seemed to be in keeping with that traditionally attributed to people of his hair colour. Both were in plain clothes.
‘I need more office space for our team, Detective Sergeant Pearce, and that’s that,’ she demanded.
‘You come in here shouting the odds, and then you expect us to cooperate,’ countered the DS forcibly. ‘Well, you’ve got another think coming, I’ll tell you that.’
Saslow realized the slightly dishevelled looking woman shouting the odds must be DI Peters, even though they had yet to meet, because she could not be anyone else. And she guessed that the detective sergeant, clearly highly frustrated at the invasion of his territory, was probably the senior permanent CID officer at Bideford.
Vogel walked straight up to the quarrelling pair and introduced himself.
‘Can I help?’ he asked casually.
DI Peters coloured slightly. Both officers looked embarrassed.
‘Just a few teething problems,’ said the DI, forcing a smile. ‘I’m sure we’ll sort them soon.’
‘I’m sure you will too,’ said Vogel. ‘And I’ll let you get on with it. DS Saslow and I just need a corner where we can get ourselves up to speed and check through all the data that’s been accumulated so far.’
‘Of course, I’ll see to it, just give me a moment,’ said the DI, heading off into the heart of the station.
DS Pearce made as if he were about to follow her. Vogel called him back.
‘Just a minute, detective sergeant,’ he said, his voice conversational. ‘I’d like to know who you thought you were talking to a minute ago?’
The DS didn’t seem to know quite what to say.
‘Umm, I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he stumbled.
‘Yes, you do, DS Pearce,’ said Vogel, who now sounded thoroughly steely. ‘And if I ever again hear you speaking to a senior officer like that, particularly a senior officer who is a key member of my team, I will have you back in uniform in a thrice. And as a PC. Do we understand each other?’
‘Uh, yes, sir, s-sorry sir,’ stumbled Pearce.
‘Good,’ said Vogel, turning his back on the man and addressing Saslow directly. ‘Right, let’s get stuck in then, shall we?’ he said.
‘You bet, boss,’ responded Saslow, aware that she must sound like a schoolg
irl.
Vogel had surprised her yet again, just when she’d worked with him so long and in so many varied and stressful situations that she really thought he could no longer do that. She had yet to hear him ever pull rank on his own behalf. He was the kind of man who didn’t need to. And she’d never before heard him pull rank on anyone else’s behalf either. It had been a salutary experience.
She was just glad she hadn’t been on the receiving end.
Just before noon a young DC, with a mop of very black hair and a thin pale face rather well suited to his worried expression, which somehow looked as if it might be permanent, approached Vogel.
‘Ricky Perkins, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s been a development you should know about.’
Vogel glanced up from his laptop.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Yes, boss. Forensics have been on. They’ve checked out the rope Jane Ferguson was found hanged from and it’s a line off her husband’s boat. Almost certainly, they say. Covered in his prints. Few others, as well, but …’
‘But no prints from Jane Ferguson, is that what you’re about to tell me?’ queried Vogel.
‘Absolutely right, boss, none at all, apparently.’
Vogel turned to Saslow.
‘Which effectively rules out suicide once and for all, and points the finger even more at our Felix. Doesn’t sort out the little matter of his cast-iron alibi, though, does it?’
‘Ah, but there’s something else, boss,’ the DC continued, sounding just a tad triumphalist. ‘The team doing door-to-door in the area all around the crime scene came across this man who was out walking his dog on Saturday night.’
Perkins looked down at his notebook.
‘A John Willis. He saw Felix turning into Estuary Vista Close just after ten thirty p.m.—’
‘He did what?’ interrupted Vogel, who felt as if an electric shock had just passed through his body. ‘Is he sure of that?’
‘Apparently so, boss.’
‘Did he speak to Felix?’
‘No. He said he was on the other side of the road and seemed to be in a hurry, walking fast, looking straight ahead. But he knows Felix quite well by sight, lives just up the hill.’
‘It would have been dark, though, and there’s no street lighting in Estuary Vista Close.’
‘Not in the close itself, but there are lights on the road it turns off. New Road it’s called. And it was there that this Willis saw him. On the corner.’
‘And is Mr Willis also sure of the time?’
‘Yes, boss, says he always takes his dog out for a few minutes at half past ten, just before going to bed. And the team who talked to him said he seemed a reliable sort, too.’
Vogel looked at Saslow.
‘Well, that little lot seems to point to our principle person of interest right enough, doesn’t it, Dawn?’ he began.
Then his mobile rang. Vogel glanced at the screen before answering.
‘Yes, Nobby,’ he said. ‘I think I know why you’re calling.’
‘You’ve heard about the latest forensics report and the new witness, I presume?’
For once the detective super clearly had no time for banter or small talk.
‘Indeed I have,’ said Vogel.
‘Right. So what are you planning to do about it?’
‘Well, I’ve not really had time to formulate a plan yet,’ admitted Vogel. ‘But I definitely think, first off, Saslow and I should now interview Felix Ferguson formally.’
There was a brief pause at the other end of the line.
‘You need to do a bit more than that, Vogel,’ responded Clarke eventually. ‘I want Ferguson arrested on suspicion of the murder of his wife. Straight away.’
‘You do?’
Vogel was not entirely surprised, all the evidence pointed that way, and it was pretty much the result he had expected when first on the case. Or it would have been had it not been for Nobby Clarke herself suggesting that there could be some sort of mysterious conspiracy, and putting all kinds of doubts in his mind.
He moved away from DC Perkins and Saslow, turning his back on them and lowering his voice. He didn’t want Perkins to overhear the next part of his conversation with Clarke.
‘I thought you didn’t believe this was a standard domestic, Nobby,’ he said. ‘I thought that was why you had Saslow and me drafted in, to delve deeper.’
‘That’s quite right, Vogel, but I do believe in evidence, and it’s pretty hard to argue against the weight of evidence we now have.’
‘You’re under pressure to do this, aren’t you, boss?’ Vogel whispered into the phone. He didn’t even want Saslow to hear him saying that.
‘Of course, I’m under bloody pressure, Vogel,’ responded Clarke vigorously. ‘The brass want this all sorted ASAP. I told you that yesterday. And if I hadn’t told you what I did yesterday, this morning’s new information – the forensics report and a witness placing a prime suspect at the scene of the crime at the right time – would have led you to arrest Ferguson without any hesitation at all, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose it would, boss, yes,’ Vogel admitted reluctantly.
‘Yes, and the suspect is the husband of the victim, which we would normally regard as the clincher, would we not?’
‘Yes, boss,’ agreed Vogel.
‘So bloody get on with it then. Arrest the bloody man.’
‘Yes, boss,’ said Vogel again.
‘For God’s sake, Vogel, you know I can’t stand you calling me “boss”. And it’s particularly damned annoying because I know perfectly well you always do it when you’re pissed off with me.’
‘Sorry, boss,’ said Vogel.
Vogel and Saslow reached the Ferguson home in Bay View Road just before one p.m. The DCI was confident that Felix Ferguson would still be there. Where else would he be? He had two children, and his home was still a crime scene. And unlike his father he wasn’t the sort who would rush back to work regardless.
Vogel was about to make an arrest for an extremely serious crime. The most serious of all. Murder. So he’d brought DC Perkins along, and the three detectives were accompanied by four uniformed officers travelling at considerable speed in two patrol cars, which were rather dramatically pulled to a halt with a screech of brakes and a squeal of tyre rubber outside All Seasons.
Vogel knocked on the door considerably more loudly and aggressively than he would if he were making a routine call.
Mrs Ferguson senior answered the door at once. Vogel suspected she had already been alerted by the commotion of the patrol cars outside.
‘Is your son at home, Mrs Ferguson?’ he demanded, at the same time pushing past her into the house without waiting to be invited in. This was an arrest. He didn’t think Felix Ferguson was the type to try to do a runner, but he knew better than to take any chances.
‘He’s in the s-sitting room,’ stammered Amelia Ferguson. ‘W-whatever is going on?’
Vogel didn’t bother to answer. He just kept on walking. Saslow and Perkins were right behind him, closely followed by two of the uniforms. The other two remained outside the house on watch.
Vogel paused at the sitting-room door and turned back towards Amelia Ferguson. A thought had just occurred to him. He really didn’t want to add to the horrors Felix and Jane’s children had experienced over the last thirty-six hours.
‘Are the twins with your son?’ he asked.
Amelia shook her head.
‘No, we sent them to school as usual, we thought that was for the best,’ she said.
Vogel was relieved. Although, even in the heat of the moment, it crossed his mind that not many people would think it ‘for the best’ to send two six-year-olds to school on the day after they had seen their mother hanging dead with a rope around her neck.
He pushed the door open without making any comment. Felix was slumped on the big chair by the window. The TV was on and a football match filled the screen. Felix was drinking already, it seemed. He had a glass in his hand which
looked as if it contained whisky.
When he saw Vogel, accompanied by his small entourage, his face took on an expression first of surprise and then of dismay.
He rose to his feet at once, still clutching the glass in his left hand, and took a couple of steps towards the police officers.
‘Wh-what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘What do you want now?’
‘Felix Ferguson, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your wife, Jane Ferguson,’ Vogel announced.
Felix’s lower jaw dropped. Other than that he barely moved a muscle.
The two uniformed officers in the room stepped forward and were quickly at Felix’s side, one removing the glass and grasping Felix’s left hand, the other grasping his right.
Felix let them do so without making any protest. He seemed to have been quite literally struck dumb, remaining in stunned silence as Vogel recited the formal caution.
‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
However, Felix’s mother made up for her son’s involuntary silence.
‘How dare you, how dare you arrest my boy,’ she yelled. ‘Are you all mad? You must all be mad.’
As the two uniforms began to lead a still unprotesting, but now whimpering, Felix from the room, Amelia lurched towards them.
‘Let him go, let my boy go,’ she cried hysterically, her voice at screaming pitch.
DC Perkins took a step towards her. Saslow was quicker. She half threw herself in front of Amelia, grabbing the older woman in an arm lock in order to prevent her reaching either her son or the two officers escorting him.
Felix spoke then, for the first time since his arrest.
‘Just stop it, Mother,’ he hissed at her. ‘Stop it. You’re only making matters worse. As usual.’
Amelia Ferguson had been struggling, albeit hopelessly, in Saslow’s practiced grasp. She stopped at once. Her face fell. She looked almost as if she had been hit. Then she started to weep.
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