Death Comes First

by Hilary Bonner

  Mrs Mildmay didn’t know how much money her son had left of his weekly pocket money, but she was certain it couldn’t be more than a few pounds at most. Not enough to get him far, and in any case she was adamant that her son would never run away from home – it was completely out of character.

  Years of experience as a police officer had taught Vogel that parents were rarely willing to believe that their child had left home voluntarily. The fact that there were no signs of an intruder and the boy appeared to have left the house fully clothed and carrying his precious phone would, ordinarily, lead him to conclude that the mother was deluding herself. But as he monitored the reports coming in from officers responding to the missing person alert, he couldn’t help feeling uneasy.

  His senior officer, DCI Reg Hemmings, was of the same opinion. Within the hour a full-scale MCIT investigation was under way with Hemmings at the helm as Senior Investigating Officer, and Vogel working alongside DI Margo Hartley as joint deputy SIOs. Hartley, who was renowned for her organizational skills, was designated operations manager, overseeing the mechanics of the investigation from a dedicated incident room at MCIT headquarters in Kenneth Steele House. This left Vogel free to play a more flexible role.

  In order to create an account on HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, a case name had to be assigned. For the sake of confidentiality, the names of victims or suspects are never used; and ever since the infamous and unfortunately named Operation Swamp in the 1980s, which involved swamping inner-city and predominantly black communities with a zero-tolerance police presence, the names chosen have been as neutral as possible, and unconnected with the case. In the Met, these names are chosen from an approved list that has been decided in advance. Within the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, however, it fell to the senior officer working the case to come up with a name, the only criteria being that it must begin with the initial of the appropriate constabulary district – E for Bath, J for Weston-Super-Mare, F for Yeovil, and B for Bristol. It was Vogel, a devotee of backgammon, who came up with Operation Binache – a backgammon redoubling convention – for the case of missing Fred Mildmay.

  Like most forces, Avon and Somerset had a specialist kidnap and abduction unit. However, it was decided that until conclusive evidence emerged that Fred Mildmay had been taken by persons unknown, the operation would remain in the domain of the MCIT.

  Vogel’s first step was to do a preliminary Internet search on the Mildmays. Which was how he learned of the death of Charlie Mildmay. The yachting accident which claimed his life six months earlier had received considerable local media attention. Such a traumatic loss might well have left the boy upset and disturbed, and therefore liable to do something as drastic as running away from home.

  Then Vogel looked deeper, investigating the family in the way that he did best, through the numerous records now stored online and readily accessible to those who knew their way around the Internet, whether or not they were a police officer. Records of business activities, financial status, property ownership and so on. For Vogel, accessing such records – and more – was child’s play.

  By noon he had assembled quite a dossier on young Fred Mildmay’s family. And the more he learned, the stronger became his gut feeling that all was not as it should be.

  As yet, Vogel still had no idea why or how Fred had gone missing, or whether foul play was involved. But that familiar sensation in his gut was telling him that this case was neither a straightforward domestic crime, nor – as part of him continued to hope, regardless of his misgivings – a small boy running away because he had fallen out with his mother or a sibling, or couldn’t face going to school that day.

  At 12.40 p.m. DCI Hemmings, frustrated at the inability of officers attending the scene to come up with a single sighting or clue to the boy’s disappearance, told Vogel he wanted him to re-interview the family in person. Though they hadn’t been working together long, Hemmings had faith in Vogel’s ability to see things others didn’t. And given Henry Tanner’s status in the community and his influential connections, the DCI was determined there must be no slip-ups in their handling of the case.

  Vogel was happy to comply. He preferred to take a hands-on approach. In fact his biggest flaw as a police officer was that he wasn’t good at delegation. Aside from his old boss, DCI Nobby Clarke, whom he’d left behind at the Met when he’d secured his transfer to Avon and Somerset, there was only one person whose abilities Vogel had complete faith in and that was himself.

  ‘I’ve requested a family liaison officer, too,’ said Hemmings. ‘We’ve no one available here, so Division are sending a uniform over: PC Dawn Saslow. She’s just completed the FLO course. Oh, and she can drive. She’ll be picking you up in a few minutes.’

  Vogel was pleased that he would be accompanied by a woman. There was an old-fashioned side to him. He still reckoned, whether an FLO was assigned or not, that it was best to have a woman present when investigating a delicate family matter, particularly when it was something as serious as a missing child.

  He ignored his senior officer’s heavy-handed reference to PC Saslow’s ability to drive. Vogel, having lived in London all his life, had never learned to drive. Previously stationed in the heart of the West End, he had relied on public transport and the occasional nerve-shattering ride in a squad car driven by some young constable desperate to show off their all-too-often dubiously acquired advanced driver’s skills. This was not an option in the vast rural area covered by the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, and so it had been a condition of Vogel’s transfer that he take driving lessons.

  Thus far, Vogel had managed to complete only three lessons, which had been enough to convince him that it was unlikely he would ever pass his test. He had not, however, confided this in his superiors. Thus he was more than content to be PC Dawn Saslow’s passenger as she navigated Bristol’s nightmare traffic system.

  By the time Saslow arrived in a squad car, squealing to a halt by the front doors to Kenneth Steele House, the early morning sunshine, which Joyce Mildmay had so fleetingly relished, was long gone. Aside from a brief respite during March and early April, it had rained incessantly since Vogel’s arrival in the West Country. And it was pouring down now as he hurried to the waiting car, shoulders hunched and the collar of his inadequate corduroy jacket turned up against the elements.

  If he’d realized how exceptionally wet it was in the West of England, Vogel told himself, he might not have allowed his wife to persuade him to move there. He’d never paid much attention to the weather in London, where tall buildings gave considerable protection. But he’d become obsessed with checking the forecasts since his transfer to the back of beyond. He was aware that most Bristolians would be horrified to hear their thriving and much-regenerated city referred to in such terms, but Vogel had lived and worked in the heart of the capital, and by his criteria Bristol barely qualified as urban. Green dripping stuff everywhere. And no backgammon scene worth mentioning. Or if there was, he had yet to discover it.

  But the move hadn’t been for his benefit, or even his wife’s. They had uprooted themselves from London for their beloved daughter’s sake. And as far as Vogel was concerned, when it came to Rosamund no sacrifice was too great.

  The truth was that he would do anything for his daughter.

  As he folded his long frame into the passenger seat of the standard-issue Ford hatchback, Dawn Saslow flashed a smile in his direction. She was small and dark with big eyes and seemed to be bursting with energy and enthusiasm. Just looking at her made Vogel feel old and weary. She was also impatient to be on her way; before he’d had time to introduce himself the squad car took off with another squeal of tyres and shot into a momentary gap in the city-centre traffic.

  A local girl, Saslow knew her way round all the back-doubles, but even so it wasn’t long before they found themselves caught in a crawling snake of vehicles inching along the Bath Road.

  Saslow glanced at Vogel questioningly.

  ‘Go on then,’ mu
rmured the DI with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Saslow grinned as she switched on the squad car’s system of flashing lights and engaged the siren.

  The procession of vehicles ahead veered to the left, as did the oncoming stream of traffic. Saslow guided the squad car at speed right down the middle.

  ‘Like the parting of the Red Sea,’ said Vogel, hunkering down in his seat.

  ‘Me Moses!’ said Saslow, flooring the accelerator.

  She kept the lights flashing and the siren wailing for the rest of the journey and they seemed to reach Tarrant Park in no time.

  Thanks to his morning’s research, Vogel knew that Tarrant Park was the brainchild of a Bristol-based architect who had wanted to recreate the rarefied atmosphere of the famous St George’s Hill development in Weybridge, where wealthy residents were closeted within a 900-acre estate with its own tennis club and golf course. The name, Tarrant Park, was a tribute to the man who created St George’s Hill in the early twentieth century: Surrey builder Walter George Tarrant. Mansions were built in painstaking parody of the past – mock-Tudor, Georgian, art deco, arts and crafts – each in a minimum of an acre of land, and loosely grouped together, according to their style, along leafy lanes, drawing their names from their periods of architectural inspiration. And so the Mildmay home, The Firs, stood in Palladian Close, whilst the faux-Tudor home of Henry and Felicity Tanner dominated the corner of Drake Road and Raleigh Way. The prices might be a fraction of its Thames Valley counterpart, where properties frequently changed hands for sums in excess of ten million pounds, but Tarrant Park had become the natural habitat of the Somerset nouveau riche, who believed that just living there gave them kudos.

  Vogel, who had once attended the wedding reception of an old chum of his wife’s at St Georges Hill, knew what to expect.

  He checked his watch: 1.06 p.m. Fred Mildmay had been reported missing four hours and one minute earlier. But despite continuing house-to-house enquiries, the investigation was no further forward. No one had seen Fred since he climbed the stairs to bed at eight thirty the previous evening.

  A uniformed security guard opened the electronic security gates to let them in. Vogel wondered whether PCs Yardley and Bolton had managed to track down the guard who’d been on duty last night. Apparently he’d gone fishing straight after his shift. CCTV coverage of the gate area was also already being studied by the specialist unit back at Kenneth Steele House. In the meantime Vogel had little interest in the guard on duty that morning, who it seemed had little interest in Vogel. He didn’t bother to approach the vehicle, let alone check their identities. The rain, which was still falling heavily, may have been responsible for his reluctance to leave the shelter of the gatehouse. Vogel supposed it was fair enough that he would merely wave them through, but all the same he couldn’t help wondering about the diligence of the estate’s security operatives. Tarrant Park was a relatively trouble-free place. Professional burglars were inclined to pick easier targets, and the gated community would not be remotely on the radar of casual thieves or vandals. It was possible that the security guards who worked there were not as alert as they should be. They might also have been distracted by the big wedding reception which had been held at the tennis club the previous evening, resulting in a considerable number of strangers entering and leaving Tarrant Park throughout the day and evening.

  PC Saslow motored slowly through the gates and Vogel began to look around him. Even though he thought he had known what to expect, he found his jaw dropping.

  This was another world, an unreal world displaying little semblance to any sort of reality. Or to any sort of reality that Vogel had ever encountered. The houses were massive and imposing, each one set within a considerable expanse of land; some were not even visible from the leafy lanes which ran through the estate. Vogel felt no envy. Indeed, the thought of trying to make a home in such a closeted place filled him with horror.

  ‘Did you ever see that movie Stepford Wives?’ he enquired of PC Saslow, unknowingly echoing Joyce Mildmay’s opinion of the place.

  ‘No, sir,’ replied the PC.

  ‘No. Of course not. You’re too young.’

  ‘I like old movies, sir.’

  ‘Ummm, you should watch out for it on TV then.’

  ‘What’s it about, sir?’

  ‘It’s about a place where all the women are programmed to do as they’re told without question and to feel no emotion,’ said Vogel.

  PC Saslow considered this for a moment.

  ‘Bit like your average police station, then,’ she said, flashing him a toothy grin.

  Vogel was busy peering morosely through the rain at the street and house names. He wondered how Saslow could see to drive in the torrential downpour. The windscreen wipers could barely cope, and even though the air-conditioning was going full blast the windows were misting over.

  He was just making a mental note to check whether it had been raining heavily all night, which would make it less likely that young Fred Mildmay would have run away from home voluntarily, when he spotted the sign.

  ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing back at the turning they had just driven past. ‘Palladian Close.’

  Saslow reversed. Far too quickly, Vogel thought. Visibility was even worse through the rear window. He had become far more aware of the difficulties driving presented since he’d started taking lessons, and more and more convinced that every journey he took was likely to end in disaster. And that he would never learn to drive.

  The Firs was the second property on the right. Later, when the media got wind of the boy’s disappearance, there would no doubt be crowds of reporters standing around in the rain, brandishing notebooks, microphones and cameras. For now though there was no one in sight.

  The wrought-iron gates – which in Vogel’s estimation rivalled the Queen Mother memorial gates at the Park Lane entrance to Hyde Park both in size and vulgarity – opened as if by magic as they approached. The missing boy’s mother had known Vogel was on his way. She or someone in the house must have been looking out for his arrival.

  The paved drive was fifty metres long and lined on either side by narrow flower beds planted with daffodils, now in the process of dying down at the end of their season. Each plant had been neatly tied. Vogel suspected that everything about this property, and more than likely the lifestyle of its occupants, would be similarly ordered. At the top of the drive was a circular turning area, mainly gravelled, with a shrub-surrounded ornamental fountain in the middle. To the left, just off the drive before the circular area was reached, was a covered parking area in which several cars were already parked. Saslow slowed down, but Vogel gestured for her to carry on and park in front of the porticoed mock-Georgian front entrance. As they climbed out of the car Vogel noticed that the door already stood open.

  A tall, good-looking black man in a well-tailored grey business suit stepped through the doorway. Ignoring the rain, he loped down the wide marble-tiled steps towards them, confidently offering an outstretched right hand to Vogel. The detective inspector, suddenly aware that his elderly corduroy jacket was so damp that it was sticking to his shoulders, shook the hand and introduced himself and PC Saslow.

  ‘I’m Stephen Hardcastle,’ said the man. ‘I’m the family’s solicitor.’

  Vogel shot Hardcastle an enquiring glance. ‘They thought they needed a solicitor?’

  Hardcastle looked momentarily startled but recovered quickly. He would, thought Vogel. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I’m also an old family friend. I was at university with Joyce, Fred’s mother, and her late husband Charlie. We’ve always been extremely close. And I’m godfather to their eldest son, Mark.’ His accent was upper-class English. His manners and easy style had clearly been public-school honed.

  ‘I see,’ said Vogel, who was wondering why Hardcastle felt the need to explain himself in so much detail.

  ‘We are all so pleased to see you, Detective Inspector,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It’s imperative that we find Fred quick
ly. His mother is near breaking point, I fear. Please, come on in, come on in.’

  The three of them hurried up the steps together. Vogel’s feet, clad in unfamiliar leather-soled shoes because he had yet to replace his recently deceased Hush Puppies, slipped on wet marble as he glanced up at the burglar alarm just below the eaves. More security which would have to have been evaded, had the Mildmay boy indeed been abducted.

  At the top of the steps Stephen Hardcastle stepped aside and ushered Vogel and Saslow through the door into a large hallway, then down a black-and-white tiled corridor towards a door at the far end, which was standing ajar. Vogel paused when he reached it and glanced enquiringly at the solicitor.

  ‘Everybody’s in there, in the kitchen,’ said Hardcastle. He pushed the door open and waved Vogel in.

  ‘Major Crime Investigation Team,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps something will bloody well happen now.’ Then he glanced guiltily at Vogel and muttered an apology: ‘It’s the waiting, Detective Inspector, it’s been terribly stressful for all of us.’

  Vogel inclined his head in acknowledgement. He understood. Waiting for news of a lost loved one was torment of the worst kind. Even the dreadful confirmation that there was no longer hope, the knowledge of death and the closure of learning the manner of it, could be less painful.

  But it was far too early to be harbouring thoughts of that nature. Step by step, that was Vogel’s mantra. No matter how impatient, how wealthy, how influential the next of kin, he would take each step at his own pace.

  Eight

  Vogel strode purposefully into the kitchen. At least he hoped he looked purposeful. And authoritative. Although he never thought he did authoritative terribly well.

  He again introduced himself, and PC Saslow, explaining that she was a family liaison officer who had been assigned to assist the anxious family in any way she could.