Death Comes First

by Hilary Bonner

  Nine

  Vogel read the letter carefully. Joyce sat in silence whilst he did so. When he’d finished he stood up and turned to Dawn Saslow.

  ‘Please stay with Mrs Mildmay, PC Saslow,’ he said. ‘I need to make an urgent phone call.’

  He left the room, and once outside used his mobile to call his senior officer, DCI Hemmings.

  ‘There’s been a development, guv,’ he said. ‘I don’t reckon this is a kidnap. More likely somebody in this family knows darned well what’s happened to Fred Mildmay. I’ll explain later. I’m calling now because I need back-up soonest. If we put some pressure on this lot I reckon we could get an early result. And I could well be bringing at least two of ’em in for formal questioning.’

  Hemmings agreed to do what he could as soon as he could. Vogel returned to the sitting room. He again sat down opposite Joyce Mildmay, and next to Dawn Saslow.

  Joyce Mildmay looked absolutely drained. Vogel didn’t care. He had far from finished with her.

  ‘Who else knows about this?’ he demanded, holding up the letter in one hand.

  ‘Well, Charlie left it with Stephen Hardcastle to be delivered to me only after his death, and Janet must have known about it too,’ Joyce replied. ‘But Stephen claimed neither he nor anyone else knew the contents. The letter came in a sealed envelope. And I certainly haven’t told anyone what it said.’

  She explained how Charlie’s letter hadn’t arrived until two days previously, more than six months after her husband had died, something explained away by Stephen as a clerical error.

  ‘Do you accept that explanation?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose so,’ muttered Joyce. ‘It was only, well, when Stephen came round and I confronted him about it I had this feeling he was hiding something. He didn’t seem quite himself. He’s such a po-faced bloke. It’s hard to know what he’s really feeling or what’s going on inside his head . . .’

  Joyce looked down at her hands. Vogel wondered what she was thinking about. She had just told him that she felt Stephen Hardcastle was hiding something. He felt pretty sure she was also still hiding something.

  ‘But this time, well, he seemed uncomfortable, and didn’t seem able to hide it,’ Joyce continued. ‘The whole thing didn’t feel right somehow. He was definitely on edge.’

  ‘So you thought Stephen had read the letter, that he knew what it said, did you?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘I wasn’t sure,’ Joyce replied again. ‘But I did have the feeling that he might have done.’

  ‘Do you have the envelope?’

  ‘There were two, the one with Charlie’s handwriting on it containing his letter, and then the bigger Tanner-Max envelope that Janet had put it in when she sent the letter on to me.’

  Joyce delved into her pocket again and handed the detective the two envelopes. He examined the one carrying Charlie’s handwriting, reading the inscription on the front first: For my darling Joyce, to be opened only in the event of my death. Then he held the envelope up to the light so that he could study its seal.

  The envelope had clearly been ripped open. Vogel glanced enquiringly at Joyce. She appeared to understand at once what he meant.

  ‘I was so shocked I just tore at it,’ she said.

  Vogel nodded. It was more or less impossible for him to ascertain whether or not the envelope had been opened before its delivery to Joyce. But he was pretty sure forensics would be able to tell him.

  ‘Have you any idea what your husband meant by any of this?’ he asked.

  Joyce shook her head.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  She explained how neither her father nor her husband ever talked about their work, and were both inclined to be secretive about their lives away from the family.

  ‘Or protective, Dad would say, if pressed,’ she said.

  She also told Vogel how her father had always been such a good grandfather, and had been a good father both to her and her dead brother.

  ‘So was there never anything . . .’ Vogel paused, searching for the right words. ‘Never anything inappropriate concerning your father when you were growing up?’

  Joyce uttered a mirthless laugh.

  ‘You mean, did he grope us? Is he a closet paedophile?’

  Vogel inclined his head. He supposed that was exactly what he did mean. He didn’t speak, waiting for Joyce to continue, which she eventually did.

  ‘No, Mr Vogel. I will admit it did cross my mind that was what Charlie meant in the letter. Particularly when he said I should protect Fred, but Dad wouldn’t be interested in Molly. Then I thought about it, remembering my own childhood. That was one thing I would have had to have known about Dad, surely, if there was any truth in it. I thought about Dad’s behaviour with William. They always appeared to have a pretty wonderful relationship, and Dad was devastated when William died. They were extremely close, but I can’t believe there was ever anything creepy about it. I would have noticed, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘And yet your husband specifically warned you that you needed to protect Fred. And now your son is missing.’

  Joyce stared at him blankly.

  ‘Mrs Mildmay, I do wish you had told us about this letter earlier,’ Vogel continued. ‘It does throw a rather different light on things and could be hugely significant. May I ask you why you didn’t show it at once to the officers who answered your 999 call this morning?’

  Joyce took several seconds to answer.

  ‘I think there may be a culture of secrecy in this family,’ she said eventually, an answer that took Vogel by surprise. ‘I’ve been brought up that way. I knew the letter could have all sorts of unpleasant implications. I thought about giving it to the officers, but then, I didn’t. I somehow couldn’t . . .’

  ‘Mrs Mildmay, you had just discovered that your son was missing. You’d called the emergency services. Isn’t it surprising, and reprehensible, that you didn’t do and say everything in your power to help the officers who responded to that call?’

  Vogel knew he was probably being overly tough on the woman. It was deliberate. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t concealing any more vital evidence, keeping any more secrets.

  ‘I suppose it is, yes,’ admitted Joyce, stifling a sob. ‘But you have to understand I was still thinking Fred might turn up at any moment. Making myself believe that. Hoping it, anyway. A part of me couldn’t accept that something serious was happening. And I didn’t let myself link it with the letter. Not at first. It was when we found the phone, well Molly found it, she kept going round and round the house looking for anything that might help, it was then that I started to get really frantic. And now, well half a day has passed and nobody has any idea where Fred is. Please find him, Mr Vogel. Please find my son.’

  Vogel blinked at her through those thick spectacles as she broke down in floods of tears. He was never comfortable with displays of emotion. For him that was one of the most difficult aspects of cases like this. There was nothing he could do or say that would comfort the woman – and the more he learned about the machinations of this family, the less inclined he felt to offer them comfort. His priority was the welfare of young Fred, the innocent victim in all this.

  ‘I will do everything in my power to find your son, Mrs Mildmay,’ he said. ‘But if I am to do that I will need to confront both Stephen Hardcastle and your father with the contents of this letter. You have already told me that you suspect Stephen of having read the letter. Do you think your father may have read it too?’

  Joyce wiped away her tears. Vogel detected an edge of bitterness in her voice as she told him, ‘If Stephen read the letter then he would definitely have shown it to Dad. Nobody around here does anything without consulting my father.’

  ‘And you believe that they deliberately withheld the letter from you, is that so?’

  ‘Well, yes. My father wouldn’t have wanted me to see the things Charlie said about him and the business. I mean, I know it doesn’t make sense – why keep it from me for six mon
ths and then send it? I’d have expected them to destroy it. I had no idea it existed, so I’d have been none the wiser.’

  ‘That’s a question I also would like the answer to, Mrs Mildmay,’ said Vogel. ‘Now, I must ask you again: are you sure you didn’t tell anyone about the letter, even if you didn’t reveal the contents?’

  ‘No, I was too shocked by it,’ Joyce replied. ‘I decided I would try to find out what lay behind it in a subtle way. That was the idea, anyway. I began by asking Mum. I tried to be casual, but I failed dismally. Mum cottoned on at once that I had an ulterior motive. I denied it. But she knew I wasn’t being straight with her. She kept telling me that she knew something must have happened and demanding I tell her what it was.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No. Half an hour later I had Dad on the phone; Mum had told him as soon as he got home from work.’

  ‘And yet you didn’t challenge your father about the letter, not even after Fred’s disappearance. Why is that, Mrs Mildmay?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was in shock, I suppose. And denial – I kept telling myself that there had to be some simple explanation and clinging to the hope that Fred would walk through the door any minute. That’s how it is in this family: we don’t do confrontation, not with Dad. I just couldn’t. Not then . . .’

  ‘I see.’

  In truth, Vogel did not begin to see. But then a thought occurred to him. If he hadn’t been so caught up with the implications of Charlie Mildmay’s message from the dead, he would have thought of it earlier.

  ‘Mrs Mildmay, was there an accompanying letter from Stephen Hardcastle, along with the one left for you by your husband?’

  Joyce nodded. She glanced at the crumpled handful of papers Vogel was holding.

  ‘Isn’t it there?’ she asked.

  Vogel shook his head.

  Joyce delved again in her pocket and came up with a folded sheet of A4 paper, which she held out to him.

  Printed on Tanner-Max headed stationery, it read:

  Dear Mrs Mildmay,

  We would like to apologize for failing to forward the enclosed letter from Mr Mildmay until now, due to an error in filing. If there is anything else we can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact this office.

  It ended in the way solicitors and other businesses frequently sign off their correspondence, without reference to a specific individual: Yours sincerely, Tanner-Max.

  Vogel was puzzled.

  ‘Bit formal, isn’t it, considering that it came from a man who is one of your oldest friends?’ he enquired.

  ‘Is it?’ responded Joyce. ‘I barely looked at it. I saw Charlie’s handwriting on the enclosed envelope and that was all I was interested in.’

  There was a scratchy signature after the typed sign-off, or was it initials? Vogel couldn’t make it out. He passed the letter back to Joyce.

  ‘Is that Stephen Hardcastle’s signature?’ he asked.

  Joyce glanced down. ‘Oh. No. I don’t think it is. I didn’t notice. It’s Janet’s.’

  ‘Janet, the PA?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can see you’re surprised,’ Vogel commented. ‘I find that surprising too.’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ responded Joyce. ‘More surprised that I hadn’t noticed. Janet does sometimes address the family as Mr and Mrs. She’s quite formal in written correspondence. And she often signs letters on behalf of Stephen, my father, and Charlie too, when he was alive.’

  ‘Routine correspondence, yes, but surely not something as sensitive as this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Stephen was embarrassed about the delay. Maybe that’s why he asked Janet to send the letter on. How do I know what his reasons were? Is it important?’

  ‘It could be, Mrs Mildmay, it could be very important,’ replied Vogel thoughtfully. ‘I will certainly be taking it up with Stephen Hardcastle and with your father. In the meantime, you can go back to the kitchen and join the others, but I must ask you not to mention anything that we have discussed, particularly the letter. Do you understand?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Joyce. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  Vogel was just emerging from the kitchen, having escorted Joyce back to her family and discreetly instructed PC Saslow to make sure no details of the interview were shared with the family, when the doorbell rang. It was PCs Yardley and Bolton, returning from conducting house-to-house enquiries.

  Vogel rapidly brought them up to date on the latest developments:

  ‘We need information fast, so provided they cooperate I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to caution and formally interview everyone in the house. But there are two people I may need you to transport to the video suite at Lockleaze so that their interviews can be recorded. First let’s see how the preliminary interviews go, then we can take it from there.’

  He led the two constables to the kitchen, where PC Saslow was standing by the door like a sentry. Under the circumstances, Vogel rather approved of that.

  Joyce Mildmay had returned to the same chair at the kitchen table where she’d been sitting when Vogel had arrived.

  ‘PC Bolton, please accompany Mr Tanner and Mr Hardcastle into the sitting room, and I’ll join you in a moment,’ the DI instructed.

  Vogel wanted them separated from the rest – even though he had PC Saslow on sentry duty and intended to keep her there.

  Stephen Hardcastle made his way to the door without demur, but Henry Tanner looked as if he was about to protest. Then he thought better of it and fell in behind Hardcastle as Bolton ushered them both from the room.

  Vogel wanted to let them stew for a bit while he gleaned what he could from the others, particularly the PA, Janet. But even though she was the most promising subject, he intended to delay talking to her. He had a feeling he might learn something from the others which would prove useful in persuading her to cooperate.

  ‘I need to talk to each of you individually,’ Vogel announced. He glanced towards Joyce. ‘Is there another downstairs room I could use?’

  She nodded listlessly. ‘The dining room,’ she said.

  He thanked her, then asked Monika to join him.

  ‘You too, Yardley,’ he instructed, leading the way out of the kitchen.

  In addition to the kitchen and the sitting room there were two other doors leading off the hallway. Vogel glanced enquiringly at Monika, who gestured to the one which was nearest.

  Vogel pushed the door open to reveal a room furnished with a big Georgian dining table, chairs and sideboard – all of it, like the Adam fireplace in the sitting room, reproduction.

  He pulled two of the chairs away from the table and gestured for Monika to sit. Yardley was still standing. Vogel invited him to sit too. He wanted these preliminary interviews to be as informal as possible.

  The young woman confirmed that she had arrived at the house at eight that morning.

  ‘During term time I help with the children’s breakfast and getting them ready for school, then when they go I load the dishwasher with the breakfast things, I tidy the kitchen, and I help Mrs Mildmay clear up after them,’ explained Monika.

  Vogel, as ever, had done his homework. He knew that she was twenty-four years old and came from Kosovo, Albania. Her English was good, if a tad stilted, with only the occasional grammatical error. Her pronunciation was excellent.

  ‘They are lovely children, but perhaps not the most tidy,’ said Monika with a half smile.

  She was a pretty girl, tall and slim with cropped dark brown hair and pale skin. But Vogel noticed that the smile did not reach her eyes. There remained an emptiness in them.

  ‘When did you come to the UK, Monika?’ he asked, opening with an easy, unthreatening question to put her at ease.

  ‘In 1999,’ she replied. ‘At the end of the war. My father, he fight in the Kosovo Liberation Army. We do not know what happened to him . . .’

  Her voice tailed off. She glanced down at her hands, lying on the table before her.

  Vo
gel was aware that the Serbian military had decimated the KLA, amidst widespread allegations of atrocities. So Monika had arrived in the UK as a nine-year-old refugee. The poignant emptiness in her eyes was disturbing; it made Vogel wonder what horrors Monika and her family had experienced.

  ‘I see,’ said Vogel inadequately. ‘I’m sorry. I interrupted you. You were taking me through your morning here.’

  ‘Yes. Usually I stay until midday. I clean all the house. I have a routine. A rota. This morning I was to clean bedrooms . . .’

  Monika paused, frowning. Remembering what had happened, Vogel thought.

  ‘Go on, Monika,’ he prompted.

  ‘But soon after I arrive today, Mrs Mildmay went upstairs to hurry up Fred and discovered he was not in his room,’ she said, corroborating the account Vogel had been given by Joyce Mildmay.

  ‘At once we began to look everywhere for him, the three of us: Molly, Mrs Mildmay and I. We couldn’t find him. Not anywhere. Mrs Mildmay called her mother. We all kept looking, and Molly began phoning people. Then Mrs Mildmay called the police. I do not believe this has happened. I just do not believe it. The family, they are like my own family, already they are . . .’

  Now that she’d started, Monika couldn’t seem to stop talking. Maybe it was a kind of nervous reaction, Vogel thought. He let her ramble on for a while, but eventually he ended the interview, thanked Monika, and asked PC Yardley to escort her back to the kitchen.

  Next to be interviewed was Dr Grant. The GP confirmed that he had been called by Henry Tanner some hours after Fred’s disappearance, and had not seen the boy, his mother or his siblings for at least a month previously. Jim Grant seemed to have no information that might assist the investigation, so Vogel quickly moved on to his next subject: Mark Mildmay, whom Vogel felt to be far more likely to be of interest. The DI already knew that Fred’s older brother worked with his grandfather in the family business, and the letter had implied that he was already embroiled in whatever it was Charlie Mildmay had tried to warn his wife about. Vogel did not propose to question him in that regard, yet. For the time being, he did not wish to reveal the existence of Charlie’s letter, let alone its contents, to anyone who was not already aware of it. Instead he set about trying to ascertain the kind of man Mark was, and to study his reactions to the disturbing events of the day.