Death Comes First

by Hilary Bonner

  The Vogels were not extravagant. They had saved enough over the years to be able to buy the Sea Mills bungalow with the help of only a modest mortgage.

  Vogel opened the connecting door. The garage had been partially tiled in mock marble and decorated in the style of a Roman bath. Trompe-l’oeil pillars and urns entwined with vines adorned the walls. It never failed to surprise him every time he stepped inside.

  Mary, wearing a big fluffy turquoise dressing gown that matched the colour of the water, was sitting at the edge of the pool, watching her daughter. It took her a moment to realize he was there. She turned, opened her eyes wide in surprise, then smiled.

  Vogel raised one finger to his lips and mouthed, ‘Shhhh.’

  He wanted to watch Rosamund for a bit whilst she was still unaware of his presence. It was wonderful to see her, arms flailing, legs kicking as best she could, throwing all her energies into trying to combat the force of the endless pool’s jet. She was so at home in the water that, at a glance, her disability, although severe, was not apparent.

  After a minute or so Rosamund sensed her father’s presence. She paused and turned to look at him. Her hair was wet and tousled. Her cheeks were flushed from her exertions. She beamed at Vogel. And, even to he who knew better, she looked not only blissfully happy but also a picture of health.

  At moments like this, he thought, the move to Bristol was absolutely worthwhile. And even the prospect of having to deal with some up-himself Whitehall upstart in the morning seemed inconsequential.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Mary. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this early. To what do we owe the pleasure?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Vogel. ‘All I want to do this evening is to enjoy being here with you and Rosamund.’

  Next morning Vogel left for the station an hour later than usual – an unheard-of occurrence. Unable to totally disassociate himself from an investigation into a child’s disappearance, he had phoned Margo Hartley at 7 a.m. for a progress report.

  Only one new lead had come to light. CCTV analysis had revealed a blue Honda Accord arriving and leaving the development on the night Fred Mildmay disappeared. The owner of the vehicle, who had been away in London overnight, had reported it stolen when he arrived at Bristol Parkway the following morning to find it missing from the car park. The footage did not provide a clear view of the car’s occupants, but it was possible to see that in addition to the driver there was a passenger who appeared to be of small stature. A suspect vehicle alert had been put out to police forces nationwide, and the Honda’s details registered on ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras throughout the country.

  Once he was content that Margo had everything in hand, Vogel sat down for breakfast with his family, again surprising both his wife and daughter.

  He wasn’t behaving in this out-of-character manner because he was sulking. It was simply that he didn’t see how he could function under the restrictions now imposed upon him. While he wasn’t ready to conclude that Henry Tanner had abducted his grandchild, he was convinced that the man was withholding vital information. To be forbidden to contact Tanner was not only infuriating, it was potentially catastrophic. The fact that Tanner had friends in high places should never have been allowed to take precedence over the welfare of his grandson.

  He arrived at his desk at Kenneth Steele House shortly before 9 a.m., still early enough for most men and women beginning a long working day, but a positively leisurely hour for Vogel, carrying, as was his habit, a cup of black coffee acquired from the vending machine in the corridor.

  He switched on his computer, and sat for a moment staring at his screen saver, which featured his wife and daughter on a day trip to Torquay. Then he gave himself a bit of a mental shake. A child was missing. He must do what he could until the cavalry arrived. The unwelcome cavalry, in Vogel’s opinion.

  He resumed his covert checks on the Tanner family, focusing on the three aborted investigations into Tanner-Max. The first had taken place in the 1970s, when Edward Tanner had been running the company. There had been a second in the early 1990s, by which time Henry was chief executive. The third and most recent investigation had got underway in 2001. Vogel assumed there would be a box-file in the archives filled with papers detailing the findings of the first investigation. The latter two investigations were on the computer database, but there was a suspicious lack of detail. And each investigation had been closed with no reason given. There were no further references to Tanner-Max on file after the aborted 2001 investigation.

  Vogel decided to instigate checks on every officer whose name featured in connection with the investigations. He had always preferred assimilating data to talking to people, and the events of the previous afternoon had only confirmed to him that his preference was the right one.

  They, that anonymous ‘they’ responsible for giving him orders he considered to be often incomprehensible and occasionally reprehensible, couldn’t stop him using his brain, he thought. Not yet anyway.

  After an hour of searching he had found no links between any of the officers, no common thread connecting the investigations, nor even any clear indication as to what had triggered these three investigations into the affairs of Tanner-Max.

  He was debating his next line of enquiry when there was a knock on his office door. Without waiting for an invitation to enter, in walked a tall blonde woman wearing a sharply tailored black trouser suit. Vogel’s jaw dropped. Literally. He had to make a concerted physical effort to close it.

  Detective Chief Inspector Nobby Clarke looked at him with amused eyes.

  Vogel struggled to his feet, almost knocking over his chair in the process. It was DCI Clarke who had headhunted Vogel, then a humble Met sergeant stationed at Charing Cross, to her Central London Murder and Serious Incident Team.

  He still remembered with embarrassment his gauche behaviour when he had discovered that Nobby Clarke was not some wizened old male detective but an attractive woman. It was the name which had thrown him, of course. Nobody in the Met had ever managed to discover her real first name – assuming that she hadn’t been christened Nobby. Even the DCI’s driving licence, temporarily removed from her handbag one day by a pair of determined and devious detectives, gave her name as Nobby Clarke.

  Vogel and Clarke liked and respected each other. Indeed Clarke had not been best pleased when Vogel requested a transfer to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary so soon after she had secured his MIT appointment, but he knew that she understood his reasons.

  He was aware that Clarke too had a new job. He’d heard through the grapevine only a couple of weeks previously that she had been appointed to the recently reformed National Crime Squad, operating out of Scotland Yard, and primarily dealing with matters of importance to the state, and acts of terrorism. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be the London ‘brass’ sent to take over his operation. Why would it? How could the disappearance of an eleven-year-old child in Bristol merit the attention of the National Crime Squad? All the same, he was inordinately pleased to see Nobby Clarke.

  ‘Bloody hell, boss,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘All right, Vogel, take it easy. Am I that great a shock?’

  Vogel smiled. ‘Yep, but you’ve no idea how glad I am to see you, boss. I hadn’t a clue who was going to be sent here, and nobody’s told me what’s going on. I’ve been trying to run an investigation with both hands cuffed behind my back and a blindfold on.’

  Clarke raised one eyebrow. Vogel had never been able to do that.

  ‘Run an investigation?’ she queried. ‘I thought DCI Hemmings was SIO?’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘I sure do, Vogel.’

  ‘I just need to know what’s going on, so that I can do my job, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t expect me to be able to tell you much – not yet, anyway,’ said the DCI, sitting down in the chair opposite Vogel’s desk. ‘In the meantime, we have a child to find. So let’s get on wi
th it, shall we?’

  ‘Right boss,’ said Vogel, his spirits rising even though he was still none the wiser as to why Henry Tanner’s family should command special treatment.

  Fourteen

  Henry Tanner felt lower than ever. He was the strongest of men. His complex way of life, his predilection for keeping so much of himself and his activities secret from most of his family and those around him, or at the very least compartmentalized, had made him so. But any sort of rejection from his family, not to mention an accusation as terrible as the one his daughter had made against him, was more than he could bear.

  Also he had spent the night alone in his bed, because Felicity had decided to stay over at The Firs with her daughter. Henry was used to travelling alone; Felicity never accompanied him to London or on his occasional working trips abroad. He did not believe in mixing his family life and business. So throughout his marriage he had, sometimes for a night or two, sometimes a week or more, been accustomed to sleeping alone. Because Henry never shared his bed with anyone else. He was the most faithful of husbands.

  But at his family home, the Corner House, he had never spent a single night without Felicity by his side. Until now.

  It felt strange. Very strange indeed.

  His alarm clock went off as usual at 6.30 a.m. It didn’t wake him. He was already awake. He had hardly slept all night. As soon as the alarm bleeped, he rose, went downstairs, put the kettle on and picked up the kitchen phone to call his wife on her mobile. Even at that hour he was sure everyone at The Firs would be up and about. In fact he doubted any of them would have had much more sleep than he’d managed. But he had no intention of calling the house phone at The Firs. He didn’t know what he would say if Joyce answered the phone. And on present form he feared she could even hang up on him.

  When his daughter had launched her attack on him the previous evening Henry had felt his legs buckle. His head went cold, as if his life’s blood were draining from him. He suspected he’d turned quite grey. He’d been so shocked by Joyce’s tirade that he hadn’t even tried to defend himself when she had accused him of abducting Fred.

  Afterwards he’d gone to the kitchen to join the rest of his family, along with Stephen, Janet, Monika, and Jim Grant.

  Felicity had told him that Stephen had left in a taxi. Henry suspected he’d left because he was embarrassed. Henry was embarrassed too. He hated the thought of anyone seeing signs of weakness in him, so he asked Geoff to drive him home to the Corner House. He could have walked the hundred metres that separated the two houses, but he was afraid there might be reporters hovering at the end of the drive, and he didn’t want to have to walk past them. On the way in he’d noticed a dark Mercedes estate car with tinted windows parked opposite the gates to The Firs. As Geoff had used his remote to open the gates and begun to steer the Bentley through, a young woman had leapt out of the estate car. Henry was sure he had guessed correctly, that this was a lurking news team, and that a photographer was hiding behind those tinted windows with camera focused on the entrance to The Firs. He’d wondered how they had got into Tarrant Park, and made a mental note to call security, give them a bollocking and tell them to sort out the press presence. But he just didn’t have the energy.

  He had felt numb. He still felt numb.

  Felicity answered on the third ring.

  ‘How are things, my dear? Any news?’ he asked. He had no intention of letting his wife know that he, too, was suffering. Henry equated distress with weakness, and it would never do for him to admit to such a thing.

  ‘No news,’ she said, then added: ‘Look, Henry, I’ve talked to Joyce. Is it true what she’s saying? Did you know about this letter from Charlie before Joyce did, and did you know what it contained?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I had no idea that the letter existed until Stephen told me. You must believe me.’

  ‘I always believe you, Henry.’

  For a moment it seemed to Henry there was an inflection in his wife’s voice that he didn’t recognize. Then he told himself he was imagining things.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘Look, we can’t have this going on between you and Joyce,’ Felicity continued. ‘We need all our strength. Perhaps you should pop round before you go to work . . . I assume you are going to work?’

  Henry grunted.

  ‘Thought so,’ said Felicity. ‘Right. Hang on a minute and I’ll check with Joyce. Then I’ll call you back.’

  Henry had little choice but to agree, but he felt hard done by. Didn’t anyone realize that he was upset too? He had enough self-knowledge to realize that was a damn silly question, given the effort he’d always put into concealing the fact he was capable of being upset. He was, however, annoyed. And he reckoned he had a right to be. His daughter owed it to him to trust him no matter what anybody said. Including his son-in-law.

  All right, so he’d known about the letter. But he had his reasons for not wanting Joyce so see it. Reasons that had nothing to do with Charlie’s diatribe against him.

  Henry had been looking out for his family, like he always did.

  He made himself tea, strong and sweet, dropping two Miles English Breakfast bags into a big china mug, adding boiling water, three sugars and a splash of milk. Then he paced up and down the kitchen, taking hurried sips of the hot liquid while waiting for his wife to call back.

  He had to wait just over ten minutes. It seemed longer to Henry.

  ‘Joyce says it’s OK for you to call round,’ said Felicity.

  Her voice sounded flat. Henry was disappointed with the tone of the message. It was OK for him to call around – what was he, a passing insurance rep? He was even more disappointed that his daughter hadn’t called herself. He assumed that meant she was still angry with him, still questioning his integrity.

  He also found himself thinking how big it was of Joyce to allow her father to visit the house he had bought and presented to her as a gift.

  Nonetheless he abandoned his up-market builder’s tea, pulled on an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, somehow in too much of a hurry to get dressed for work before joining his family again, and hurried down the road.

  He had totally forgotten the news team waiting outside The Firs, and had failed to call security as he’d intended. There’d been other things on his mind. The press were still there. He cursed silently. He didn’t know whether the same team had waited all night. There were two more of them now, four altogether, and a second car he didn’t recognize was parked a little further down Palladian Road. Two reporters and two photographers, it seemed. Henry had instructed Geoff the previous evening that he wanted to be picked up at 7.30 a.m. as usual to be driven to work. He wished he’d waited for his driver to arrive so that he could have dropped him at The Firs. It would have been so much easier to pass the gathered press in a vehicle than to walk through them. But that was what he had to do. Either that or turn back, which he had no intention of doing. In any case they would probably follow him.

  Even though he was unshaven and out of sorts, Henry marched through the vultures with his customary composure, remaining expressionless, saying nothing except to ask them coldly if they realized they were on private property.

  As he walked up the drive he used his mobile to call the head of security and deliver the bollocking he had planned the previous night. The man promised to sort the matter straight away. He sounded nervous. Well, so he should. Not only had two carloads of press managed to blag their way into the allegedly protected gated development, but security had also allowed Fred to slip through their extremely suspect net. It now seemed impossible that the boy remained anywhere within Tarrant Park.

  Inside the house Joyce was polite, but cool. Henry greeted his daughter warmly, attempting to behave as if nothing untoward had occurred between them. Which, of course, was the Henry Tanner way. He stepped towards Joyce, arms out-stretched. She dodged his embrace and merely murmured a good morning.

  Confrontation was not Henry’s way. Neither was he
any good at talking things through. He only hoped his daughter would come round. People did, in his experience. If you left them alone. And that suited him. It was his natural inclination.

  He made a huge fuss of his granddaughter, who, unlike her mother, fell into his arms, seeking the reassurance he invariably gave, but on this occasion could not. Although he did his best.

  Henry held Molly close so that she could not see his face and muttered platitudes which sounded, even to him, to be just that.

  ‘It will be all right, sweetheart. The police will find Fred very soon now. Granddad will see to that. Granddad will look after you.’

  And so on.

  Felicity, he pecked on the cheek. As always. And she gave him a peck back. As always.

  Monika had left the previous night to sleep in her own home, a one-bedroomed council flat on the old sixties tower-block development near the airport. But, to the surprise of the appreciative family, she had already returned. At least Monika had good wheels. Because Tarrant Park was not served by public transport, Henry had decreed that Mark’s old Mini, which was no longer needed now that he’d been presented with a Porsche to mark his induction into the family business, should be put at her disposal. And Monika had seemed to accept that there was no such thing as a free lunch, let alone a rather good motorcar. She was invariably available when needed, and not only in a time of crisis such as that currently engulfing the family. Not that there had ever been anything like that before.

  Monika offered Henry coffee and toast. Realizing suddenly that he had eaten nothing the evening before and little the previous day, Henry accepted gratefully.