Dreams of Fear

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘And it seems likely that nobody at the dinner noticed your return, because nobody had been aware of you leaving. Is that what you believed to be the case?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I, you’d have to ask them.’

  ‘We are doing so, I can assure you, Mr Ferguson, but so far we have drawn a complete blank.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fergus, sounding a tad desperate, ‘if nobody noticed that I was gone, doesn’t that indicate that I wasn’t gone for very long, not nearly long enough to commit murder and then try to cover it up?’

  ‘The trouble is it seems that very few of your fellow members were likely to have been sober enough to notice.’

  ‘I was sober,’ remarked Felix obliquely.

  ‘Yes, indeed, you were, in spite of the fact that, by your own admission, you have been drinking heavily lately.’

  ‘I had a speech to make, I always watch my drinking before I have to make a speech. And I wanted to nip home. So I kept sober.’

  ‘That doesn’t really help your case, Mr Ferguson,’ remarked Vogel. ‘Neither does the fact that upon your return to the club you drank so much that by the time you returned home for the second time, at three o’clock in the morning, you were so drunk you couldn’t walk straight, and were promptly sick over my crime scene. Now you tell me, would you have behaved like that if you were still worried about your wife and children? Indeed, would you have behaved like that if you hadn’t known that your wife was already dead?’

  Felix lowered his head into his hands again. Vogel waited patiently. Eventually Felix straightened up. His face was ashen.

  ‘I can see how it looks,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t like that. Honestly it wasn’t. Jane had seemed so positive about everything, so in control of it all, and she insisted that I go back and enjoy myself. As I had hoped she would, I suppose. I’d never intended to stay home, if I could possibly avoid it. I’d been enjoying myself too much. And, to tell the truth, I wanted a proper drink. I, well, I suppose I have been developing a bit of a drink problem lately. Jane did point it out once or twice, but I always turned it around on her, told her that if it wasn’t for her and her damned stupid dreams I wouldn’t need to drink. Not very nice, Mr Vogel, but then drunks aren’t very nice, are they? And most of us take a damned long time and have to sink pretty low before we admit that we are drunks. You know what, I think this is the first time I’ve ever admitted it. But you don’t sink much lower than being arrested for murdering your wife, do you?’

  Felix gave a short bitter laugh.

  Vogel decided to ignore the confession of habitual drunkenness, for the moment.

  Instead he merely said, ‘You haven’t explained why, if you were so worried about Jane, and her bad dreams, you then stayed out until three a.m., have you, Mr Ferguson?’

  ‘Yes, I have actually,’ replied Felix. ‘When I get drunk I do the job properly, you see. Sober, I am a responsible and loving father and husband. And yes, I do worry about my family. Drunk, I barely remember I have a wife and children. And that’s what happened on Saturday night. I went back to the club, relieved that Jane and the twins seemed fine, found myself some drinking mates, and got stuck in. I was out of my skull, Mr Vogel, and I think your officers would vouch for that. I didn’t have any idea how long I’d been drinking for. I didn’t have a clue it was three o’clock in the morning, and I wouldn’t have given a damn if I had known. That is the gospel truth, Mr Vogel.’

  ‘I see,’ responded Vogel. ‘So why didn’t you tell us before about your little trip home in the middle of the club dinner?’

  ‘Would you, if your wife was found dead in suspicious circumstances? Everybody knows the spouse or the partner is always the first suspect.’

  ‘You lied to a police officer, Mr Ferguson, which is a very serious matter under any circumstances. And you told us you were convinced your wife had taken her own life. If that was the case why would you feel the need to lie?’

  ‘Look, when I got back from the club and those officers told me Jane had been found hanged, of course I thought it was suicide. In fact, I could swear they told me it was suicide. But I was drunk. Very drunk. When you came round, well, it was only six or seven hours later, wasn’t it? I was probably still drunk. And Mum had given me that damned stupid sleeping pill. I can’t believe she gave it to me considering the condition I was in. And I can’t believe I took it either. As soon as you said Jane’s death was being treated as suspicious, I thought, they’re probably going to think I did it. And if I tell them that I went home, left the dinner and went home, around the time she must have died, they are definitely going to think I did it.’

  Vogel had to admit there was some truth in that.

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that lying to the police was a highly dangerous thing to do? That sooner or later you would be found out.’

  ‘I told you, Mr Vogel, I wasn’t thinking straight. Then when my head cleared a bit, well, I’d already done it, hadn’t I? In any case, I honestly thought the only person who knew that I’d gone home was my poor Jane. And she was dead. So, I had the alibi I knew I needed. I would have been right too, wouldn’t I? If it hadn’t been for bloody John Willis walking his bloody dog.’

  ‘There is almost always a John Willis,’ remarked Vogel mildly. ‘That is why every year the police solve between seventy-five and ninety per cent of murders across the country.’

  ‘Look, Mr Vogel,’ Ferguson continued almost as if Vogel hadn’t spoken. ‘You have to believe me, I didn’t kill my wife.’

  ‘The thing is, Felix, if you didn’t kill Jane, then someone else certainly did, and they did so within a very tight timescale – between just before eleven p.m. when you say you left your house to return to the club, and just before one a.m. when the Barhams returned and found Joanna out in the road. Now how likely is that?’

  Felix looked down at the table.

  ‘It doesn’t sound likely at all, I know that,’ he replied quietly. ‘But I promise you I’m telling you the truth now.’

  ‘All right, let’s say for the moment that I accept that. When you went home did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary at all? Did you see anyone hanging around outside your home for instance? In your garden even? Or think you did?’

  Felix shook his head.

  ‘No, nothing. Certainly not in the garden. The lights at the front of the house go on automatically as you approach. I used the torch on my phone to make my way along the pavement, like I always do, so I was shining it in front of me, and looking down, I suppose. Even if there had been anyone there, I doubt I’d have seen them. I was just concentrating on getting home as quickly as I could, making sure everything was all right, and then getting back to the do.’

  Felix sat back in his chair, letting his head fall backwards in a gesture of exasperation.

  ‘I didn’t even see John Willis, for goodness sake,’ he said again.

  ‘So, there was nothing that gave you any cause for concern, nothing at all that wasn’t quite as it should be?’

  ‘No. Nothing …’

  Ferguson paused abruptly, raising one hand to his mouth, frowning in concentration.

  ‘Well, there was just one thing, our gate at the end of the driveway is electric and operated by a remote control, as you know. You can use a key to open and shut it, but we keep it locked all the time because of the children. Well, when I went back to the house I noticed that the gate wasn’t closed properly, it was very slightly ajar. Certainly not locked.’

  ‘And you’d locked it when you’d left to go to the club? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, yes. Or I certainly thought I had. I pointed the gizmo at it as soon as I’d gone through, like I always do. It’s happened before that it’s got stuck, usually if there’s been something jamming it, a stone or something. But not very often.’

  ‘And you assumed you’d been the last person through the gate?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘Did you ask your wife if she had opened the gate for some reason
?’

  ‘No. I mean, she wouldn’t have done. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it. Not at the time. Just reckoned it was one of those things …’

  ‘When you left the second time to return to the club, did you lock the gates again?’

  ‘Of course, I did. And I looked around to see if there was any obvious obstruction. There wasn’t. They seemed to close OK.’

  ‘Are you aware that when Anne Barham took Joanna back to your house and found Jane’s body, the security gate was open and the front door was ajar?’

  ‘Uh, no, I don’t think I was.’

  ‘Also, there was no sign of a break-in. That indicates that it is reasonable to assume that anyone who entered your house had a set of keys, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘And who has keys to your house, apart from you and your wife?’

  ‘My parents.’

  ‘Nobody else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, your parents have alibied each other. But, in any case, I don’t expect you think either of them killed Jane, do you, Felix?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Of course not.’

  ‘You see, then, that there really is nobody else in the frame. I must warn you, Mr Ferguson, I am now on the verge of formally charging you.’

  ‘Do what you like,’ said Felix in a resigned sort of way.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It seemed to Amelia Ferguson that her entire life had fallen apart. The daughter-in-law she’d never liked had died a horrible violent death. Her beloved only son had been arrested for her murder. And the husband who had always been her rock was behaving more like a piece of drifting flotsam.

  She stood for a moment in the doorway of her home, watching the little convoy of police cars disappear up Bay View Road. Two or three neighbours had stepped out of their houses to see what was going on. Amelia was the sort of woman who put considerable importance on appearances, and would normally have been horrified to think that her neighbours had seen the police take her son away in a squad car.

  Today she did not even notice.

  Sam was standing right behind her. She turned to him, looking for, and still half expecting, the comfort and support he had always given her.

  She took a step towards him, reaching out to him. He just turned around and walked back into the house. She knew he must be in shock, as she was. But ever since the previous afternoon he had been behaving so strangely.

  She followed him slowly indoors, aware that tears were falling down her cheeks, and into the kitchen. Sam was over by the window, with his back to her, and seemed to be gazing out to sea. Then she noticed his shoulders start to heave. He, too, was weeping.

  She went to him at once. And to her immense relief he wrapped his arms around her. For a little while they clung to each other in silence.

  ‘Oh Melia, Melia,’ he eventually whispered through his tears. ‘What is happening to us? I thought we had everything. Suddenly we have nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she murmured as soothingly as she could manage. ‘But we will get through it, won’t we? We can get through everything as long as we have each other. And we know Felix is innocent, we know that, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  Amelia stood back from him then.

  ‘Come on, Sam,’ she said. ‘You are always the strong one. You always know what to do. We have to help our boy.’

  Sam wiped the tears from his eyes with one trembling hand.

  ‘You’re right, of course, you’re right,’ he said. ‘Look, first thing, we must get Felix a solicitor. Trevor Hardwick is the best round here. I’ll get on to him straight away.’

  ‘That’s better, Sam,’ said Amelia. ‘You see, you always know what to do, and you always know the right person to do it.’

  ‘If anyone can get Felix home it will be Trevor,’ said Sam, sounding just a little more like his old self.

  Amelia thought she had read somewhere that people arrested for murder in the UK were remanded in custody as a matter of course, and only got bail in very rare and exceptional circumstances.

  Nonetheless she tried to muster an encouraging smile.

  Sam left the kitchen and made his way to his home office, telling his wife that he didn’t have Trevor Hardwick’s number in his phone. Which wasn’t actually true. But he desperately needed time alone to think. He was aware that he should also be phoning DCI Vogel. The detective had given him his mobile number. Now that Felix had been arrested, he really should tell Vogel what he had learned from Gerry Barham the previous afternoon.

  But he could not quite bring himself to do so.

  He sat for a few minutes struggling to compose himself before finally phoning Hardwick.

  The solicitor sounded stunned when Sam told him about his son’s arrest. As well he might, thought Sam. Hardwick recovered quickly though, asked Sam a number of salient questions, and then said he would make his way at once to Barnstaple police station and offer his services to Felix.

  Sam thanked him and ended the call. He supposed Hardwick was bound by some kind of code of confidentiality concerning his clients, but he could only imagine the tsunami of gossip which was about to wash over the North Devon peninsular. He was the mayor of Bideford. He was a highly successful businessman. He thought he was a respected local figure. He hoped he was, anyway. But not for much longer, in any case, he suspected.

  Amelia had no idea what was going to hit them. If Felix was brought to trial it would all come out. It would have to. And what would it do to the children? Sam couldn’t bear to think.

  He would like to share his burden with his wife. She would at least understand his behaviour then, understand why ‘her rock’, as she called him, was finding it difficult to hold himself together. But Amelia wasn’t as strong as she made out, and he wondered if either of them was strong enough to survive this.

  He knew he should go back to the kitchen, or find his wife wherever she may have gone in the house, try to reassure her. But how could he, when he feared the worst in every direction?

  Almost on cue, the office door opened and in walked Amelia. She had dried her tears, styled her hair and put on fresh make-up. At least she was behaving according to type, thought Sam. She always gave optimum importance to how things appeared.

  One of her favourite sayings was ‘never let the act drop’.

  She asked Sam if he had called Trevor Hardwick, and he was at least able to reassure her that the solicitor was on his way to be at their son’s side.

  ‘It’s gone half past two,’ she said then. ‘One of us needs to go and fetch the twins from school.’

  Sam knew Joanna and Stevie finished school at three. From the way Amelia had worded her remark it was obvious to him that she was hoping he would offer to pick them up.

  He did so willingly. It would get him out of the house, this time for a thoroughly legitimate reason, and give him something to do.

  ‘If anyone comes to the door, don’t answer it,’ he instructed. ‘I’m afraid it’s not going to take the press long to get hold of this. It never does.’

  He met a couple of teachers outside the school, and a parent whom he knew a little, all of whom expressed only slightly embarrassed regret and condolences over Jane’s death. Sam thanked them and made no further comment. They would know that a murder investigation was underway, of course, but the news of Felix’s arrest had yet to break. That’s when things would turn really grim.

  Meanwhile, the twins’ form teacher brought Joanna and Stevie to him, holding each of them by the hand. The children ran to their grandfather pretty much as they normally did, but he was aware that they lacked their usual exuberance. He wasn’t surprised. And things were going to get so much worse.

  ‘How’ve they been?’ he asked.

  ‘A little quiet,’ responded Miss Wakefield. She turned to the twins. ‘But you’re such brave little soldiers, aren’t you?’

  The twins nodded. Stevie managed a small smile.
Sam did not like to think about how brave these two six-year-olds were going to have to be.

  He just wanted to get them home. He probably wouldn’t have sent them to school that day. But he hadn’t been around to make the decision, had he? And in the event, it was a good thing that they hadn’t been in the house when their father was arrested. They were quiet on the journey. Selfishly, Sam was quite glad they didn’t want him to talk to them, because, frankly, he no longer knew what to say.

  As they pulled into Bay View Road, he was quickly aware that his worst fears had already been realized. A woman photographer was standing by the gate of All Seasons, aiming her camera through the Range Rover windows as he swung his vehicle into the driveway. A young man he vaguely recognized to be a reporter from the Western Morning News, known for being particularly quick off the mark, was standing by the porch.

  Sam parked the Range Rover in front of the garage, and, ushering the children before him, headed smartly for the scant protection of the porch, aware of the photographer snapping away all the while.

  ‘Could you confirm that your son has been arrested for the murder of his wife,’ called out the reporter, who was doing his best to obstruct Sam’s path.

  Sam only just resisted the urge to push him out of the way. He just hoped neither of the twins had properly understood what the reporter had said. He sidestepped around the young man then turned to face him, drawing himself up to his full six foot two inches. The photographer was still snapping.

  ‘I have only one thing to say to you,’ he announced, hopefully with an authority he most certainly did not feel. ‘My grandchildren are six years old. If their picture appears in your paper, any other publication, or anywhere on the internet including social media, I shall not just sue, I shall bring the wrath of God on all your heads.’

  Sam wasn’t sure quite what he meant by the last remark, but he had the satisfaction of seeing the reporter take a step backwards and the photographer lower her camera. It made him feel very slightly better, although he suspected that feeling would not last for long.