I felt how I always did after these adventures; even worse than before them.
I told myself I must stop. That I did not need another Tim. That I could even do without the titillation of Grindr browsing. And I must stop now, because the risks were too great.
I told myself I could do it. I could end all this now. I told myself I could make it stop. That it was over. That I would make it be over.
But I was, of course, lying to myself.
SIX
Daisy Wilkins lived on one of those hills at the back of Bath, from which you get spectacular views.
Her home was a small, but rather exceptional, one-bedroomed apartment in a modern block. Virtually the whole of the front wall of the sitting room was glass, with ceiling-to-floor windows and big, double, glass doors leading onto a narrow balcony overlooking the famous Georgian spa town.
Daisy was a small slim woman with good skin and regular features, pleasantly pretty, but Vogel thought she was considerably older than he expected Fisher’s mistress to be. Indeed, rather than the young floozy that the DI had been automatically expecting – a term Vogel would never use in public, but one which his mother had favoured and lurked resolutely inside his head in circumstances such as this – Daisy was a mature, modest-looking woman, who was probably ten or even twelve years older than Fisher.
Her fair hair, only lightly streaked with grey, was neatly styled. Her clothes: pale blue jeans with a crease in them, a pink, silky looking T-shirt and a cardigan just a touch darker pink, were also neat. As was her immaculately-presented and tastefully-furnished home.
Vogel thought about Fisher’s wife and the well-cared-for home they shared. Although not noticeably careful about his personal appearance, Fisher was clearly a man who liked his surroundings and his women to be neat and tidy.
Daisy Wilkins’s voice suggested she was well-educated and, once she’d recovered from the shock of two police officers arriving unexpectedly at her front door, she showed herself to be well-mannered and hospitable. She invited Vogel and Saslow into her sitting room and offered them tea or coffee.
Her expression registered alarm, along with more than a hint of embarrassment, when Vogel told her that they were there to speak to her about Jim Fisher. Her blushing response instantly indicated the respectable sort of woman she was, the DI thought.
‘Is Jim all right?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Has something happened to him?’
Vogel assured her that nothing had happened to Fisher.
‘We need to check on his whereabouts over the last twenty-four hours, that’s all,’ he said. ‘He told us he was with you last night. Is that true?’
‘Why are you checking on his whereabouts?’ the woman responded, a sudden sharpness in her voice. ‘I need to know why.’
‘Could you please just answer the question?’ repeated Vogel quietly.
He already did not think Daisy Wilkins was the sort of woman who would give a man a false alibi and certainly not in a murder inquiry, but Vogel believed in acquiring as much information as possible from interviewees, before giving them any at all.
Daisy Wilkins looked, for just a fleeting moment, as if she might protest further, then she gave a small sigh of resignation.
‘Clearly you know about our …’
She hesitated again.
‘Our relationship,’ she continued, both her manner and her voice suggesting that she might not think it was much of one.
‘Yes, Jim was with me last night. He’s been staying over quite often on Thursday nights over the last few months. He’s working away, so I suppose I’m a stopover on the way home. We don’t talk about that side of things and I have no idea how he arranges it. To tell the truth, I don’t want to know. He’s been doing it for years. The whole thing has been going on for years. Too many years, not much doubt about that …’
Her voice tailed off and she sighed again, rather more heavily.
‘Was Mr Fisher with you all night?’ Vogel asked
‘Yes, but he left suddenly, quite early. I think he checked his phone when he went to the bathroom. I know he does that. He said he had to go and he would explain later. I was still half asleep. Anyway, I’m used to sudden comings and goings. That’s how it is if you have a married man in your life.’
Daisy Wilkins paused, switching her gaze from Vogel to Saslow and back again.
‘Does that have something to do with your visit?’ she asked. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s happened? Please?’
‘We have to ask you some more questions first, I’m afraid, Miss Wilkins,’ said Vogel.
Dawn Saslow chipped in then.
‘We need to know the time Mr Fisher arrived last night and the time he left this morning, as exactly as you can, Miss Wilkins,’ she said.
‘He got here just after ten. Then we had some late supper. So we didn’t go to bed until after one. I think it was probably about seven when he actually left the flat.’
If that was so Vogel thought, Fisher would have had quite a lot of time to kill before he turned up at his home at 9 a.m. It was only forty-five minutes or so drive away. Presumably, even after learning that his stepdaughter was missing, the man had been protecting his cover story, trying to prevent his wife discovering that he had a mistress.
‘Like I said, I was still half asleep,’ Daisy Wilkins continued. ‘We didn’t get to bed until so late, and …’
She didn’t finish the sentence. Vogel was grateful. He preferred not to contemplate what he suspected she had been about to say. After all, married men did not usually visit their mistresses in order to get a good night’s sleep.
They hadn’t gone out anywhere, Daisy asserted. There was nobody else who could confirm what she was telling Vogel, but it was the truth, she assured the detective.
‘It’s always been just the two of us and it’s always been only ever here, at my flat, for more than six years now, Detective Inspector,’ she said. ‘Jim wouldn’t risk being seen out anywhere with me, you see. It’s ridiculous really, I shouldn’t have put up with it, not for this long. But you get fed up with being alone. I like having a man in my bed now and then and Jim is rather good in bed as it happens, surprisingly so, perhaps.’
She paused. Vogel had to make a conscious effort not to let his embarrassment show. He was a police officer of more than twenty years’ experience yet, all too often, he continued to find himself embarrassed by personal revelation, particularly of a sexual nature. And he really couldn’t come to terms with the picture her words presented, of this slim, rather elegant woman romping in bed with the barrel-shaped, red-faced and somewhat uncouth Jim Fisher.
Of course, few looking on would ever have guessed at Vogel’s disconcertment. Only his rapid blinking, partially concealed by the thick lenses of his spectacles, might have given him away, usually just to those closest to him. The sharply observant Dawn Saslow had, however, already recognised the trait in him, but Vogel had no idea of that. The young DC suppressed a smile with difficulty. Vogel continued to stare at Daisy Wilkins.
‘Well, I’m not going to find anyone else at my age, am I?’ Daisy continued. ‘So I just accept what he has to offer, even if it’s not a lot, and his lies, of course.’
The words were bitter, but the manner of her delivery was merely resigned.
Vogel listened without immediate response.
‘Detective Inspector, won’t you tell me why you are here now? Something has obviously happened. Do you suspect Jim of having committed some sort of crime?’
Vogel still wasn’t ready to answer Daisy’s questions.
‘What kind of lies?’ he asked.
‘The usual in this situation. That he would leave his wife when the kids were older. Isn’t it almost a courtesy for a married man to say that to his mistress? Though I’ve barely been even that.’
She stared at Vogel quizzically.
‘You think he may have lied to me about something more sinister, Detective Inspector, is that it?’
Vogel avoided her questio
n.
‘Just let me confirm again that you are absolutely sure Jim Fisher was with you for all of last night?’ he asked. ‘Was it at all possible that he could have left during the night and returned without you knowing it? Whilst you were asleep, perhaps?’
‘I’m a light sleeper, Mr Vogel. And, in any case, when he is here, Jim doesn’t give me much time to sleep.’
Vogel winced. He felt himself blinking rapidly again. He could do without that sort of detail, even though it was only as he had expected. He didn’t like the thought of someone, especially someone he regarded as an oaf of a man, taking advantage of this woman who was surely far too good for him. He found it hard to believe that Daisy Wilkins had needs that could be so well satisfied by the likes of Jim Fisher. She must be just kidding herself, surely? Although, she had already indicated that she’d come to settle for whatever was on offer.
Vogel rather liked to put women on pedestals. That sort of woman anyway. A woman who he could not imagine would deliberately give anyone a false alibi. If she was sure that Jim Fisher had not left her, at any time between his arrival around 10.00 p.m. and his departure at around 7.00 a.m., then the man seemed to be in the clear. Karen Crow, the pathologist, had yet to confirm time of death, but it was already believed to have been after ten, at the earliest.
Although the DNA results would not come through for several days, Vogel now felt pretty confident of the results. He didn’t think Jim Fisher would be incriminated. This case was not going to be that simple.
He heard Daisy Wilkins’s voice almost in the distance, it was pleading now.
‘What is going on, Mr Vogel? Why are you asking me all this? Please, please, tell me.’
Vogel considered for just a split second. He could not see any advantage in further concealing the reason for his visit. Indeed, it might be counterproductive to do so. Vogel really didn’t think Daisy was protecting Fisher from anything, nor that she was the type of person who would lie to the police. He was even more certain that she would not do so, once she knew about Melanie.
‘I am afraid Mr Fisher’s stepdaughter has been found dead,’ he said bluntly, all the while watching Daisy carefully. ‘She was murdered in Bristol last night.’
The woman gasped. Her hand went to her throat. Her jaw dropped.
‘And you suspect Jim?’ she blurted out eventually.
‘We just need to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ Vogel said in his most unexpressive voice.
‘Well, you can certainly do that,’ Daisy Wilkins responded swiftly. ‘Even if he hadn’t been with me all night, you could do that. Jim Fisher is a lying, manipulative bastard, but he doesn’t have a violent bone in his body. He never speaks of his wife to me, but I know all about the children. He adored Melanie. Loved her as much as his own. I’m sure of it. Always telling me so. I find it rather irritating, actually. I have such a small slice of him, yet even when he’s with me he talks about the children, their achievements, what they’ve been up to. Doesn’t seem able to stop himself.’
‘I see.’
Vogel was as satisfied as he could be with Daisy Wilkins’s response to all of his questions. He had just one more for her. And he was honest enough to himself to be aware that, as he voiced it, his reason for asking was as much personal as professional.
‘How did you meet Jim Fisher?’ he asked.
Daisy smiled. Was it because she – quite rightly – suspected the motive behind Vogel’s new line of questioning, or was she smiling at the memory of her first meeting with her secret lover? Her answer, when it came, rather indicated the former. It caused Vogel to once again blink; he hoped he looked disinterested rather than flustered.
‘Yes, most of the people I have ever known would think we were an unlikely pair,’ she said. ‘He was involved in a renovation project on the old building next door. One afternoon, he carried in my shopping for me from the car. He was younger then, slimmer and fitter too. And so was I, of course. Well, younger anyway. I’d just been made redundant from the library. I’d been a librarian all my life. I’d never married. I thought I had good friends, but they were all connected with my job. When I lost that, I gradually began to lose them too. My mother had died the year before. She’d have called Jim my “bit of rough”, not that I would ever have let her meet him, of course.’
Daisy smiled again, a wry, self deprecating sort of smile.
‘Anyway, I was suddenly, dreadfully lonely. Vulnerable, some might say. Jim made it clear immediately that he found me attractive and, I am afraid, I allowed him into my bed and my life with indecent haste. So, there you have it, Mr Vogel.’
‘I see,’ said Vogel, voice and face as expressionless ever.
Daisy smiled for the third time. A wider, easier smile this time. It lit up her face.
‘Are you shocked, Mr Vogel?’ she asked, almost mischievously.
‘Certainly not, madam,’ replied Vogel, blinking away.
He took his leave and led Dawn Saslow to the door. Walking towards the squad car parked by the curb outside, Vogel was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness.
Saslow had been watching him carefully.
‘Everything all right, sir?’ she asked.
Vogel grunted. ‘Life can be so damned futile, Saslow,’ he muttered.
It was about as close to an emotional outburst as Vogel would ever get. To a police colleague, at any rate.
The young DC knew better than to probe for more.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
AL
I suppose nothing lasts for ever. I’d always got away with it, so never felt in any danger of being caught before. I’d been visiting schools – primary schools – on and off, for years. I’d not been to this one before, though. I liked to ring the changes. It was safer and more exciting too.
I looked at my watch. 12.20 p.m. It wouldn’t be long now. Very soon, the little dears would be leaving their classrooms for their dinner break. Some would go home. Almost all would be in the playground at some stage and that was right by the road, with just a wire netting fence for protection. You could see through wire netting well enough.
A few days earlier, I had driven by, as slowly as I dared in my own car, to suss out whether or not this was a good venue for my purposes. It was. I figured that, if I parked a little way off and on the other side of the road from the school gates, I would not be that conspicuous. It was where some of the teachers left their cars and where all the mothers parked, when they came to pick up their children at the end of the day. With the help of a pair of powerful binoculars, I had a pretty damned good view.
I wasn’t in my own car now, of course. It would only take one eagle-eyed observer to decide that I was acting suspiciously and jot down my car registration number, then I’d be for it.
Oh no. I was cleverer than that, far cleverer than anybody who knew me realised.
As a lad I’d run with a wild crowd. So I’d learned early on how to open a vehicle door without drawing attention to myself through the noise of breaking glass; I could use a wire and a hook. Then I’d hot-wire the engine. It only worked with old vehicles, of course, where the windows didn’t quite close or could be forced a fraction or two. Any sort of alarm system, let alone the sophisticated modern sort, certainly deterred the likes of me. It just made things too difficult.
These school-watching visits of mine were very important to me. I told myself that they stopped me seeking out more active encounters and, up to a point, that was true.
So I feared the day when I could no longer find vehicles old and shoddy enough for my burglary skills. Fortunately, there were still quite a few about if you knew where to look, more often than not there were vans. Your average man with a van is unlikely to want to spend a fortune on his transport, even if he was actually successful enough to do so.
I’d been encouraged to read a newspaper report indicating that modern, state-of-the-art, keyless vehicles were proving to be not as secure as had been assumed. Indeed, one British police force, Essex, so ala
rmed by the rise in theft of such vehicles, recently advised keyless owners to install a crook lock, just in case.
Anyway, on this particular day, I procured my transport, as usual, from a location as close as possible to my target school. There was always a risk in what I got up to, but I tried to keep it to the minimum. Therefore, I also did my stealing right before I intended to do my watching. This limited the time I needed to be on the road in my stolen vehicle and how long I would be in it after it was reported missing by its rightful owner, if at all. I didn’t push my luck. Or I tried not to, anyway.
So that’s how I came to be sitting outside Moorcroft Primary School in my stolen van of choice: an elderly, white, Ford Transit. It’s not only the commercial van driver’s favourite, but also the car thief’s favourite. The Transit is by far the most frequently stolen vehicle in the UK. There are so many of them about that they are curiously inconspicuous in spite of their size. Most people would assume that there was work being done somewhere close by or a delivery being made. That’s what I hoped for anyway.
As always, I parked carefully. The conveniently available front slot of the row lining the far pavement from the school meant that I could make a quick getaway, if necessary. I’d been lucky to find a space right by the white zigzags, which forbade parking any closer to the school gates.
I wound the window down and I could just hear the sound of the bell that signified the end of morning lessons. After a couple of minutes, a group of boys and girls came out and started to walk in the direction of the council estate, which bordered the school to the right.
It was an exceptionally warm April day. Most of the girls were wearing their summer uniform: striped dresses, in the school colours of blue and yellow, and little white socks. This was a traditional sort of school, requiring traditional school attire.
I liked that. I liked it a lot.
I let my left hand drop to my crotch and began to massage myself there through my trousers. I started to swell. I unzipped my fly. I was already hard. I felt the excitement rising in me.
Deadly Dance Page 6
