Death Comes First

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘Yes, boss,’ he muttered resignedly.

  Clarke gestured for the paramedic nearest the open ambulance doors to shut them in the DI’s face.

  Vogel stood back and watched as the ambulance trundled off. He doubted he was going to learn much more from Nobby Clarke. Not for the time being anyway. Even if she did fulfil her promise to brief him later, he had a feeling she might still be economical with the truth.

  Clarke had always been open with information in the past. Whatever lay behind this curious business, it had to be something at government level; that was the world Nobby Clarke moved in nowadays. Vogel was beginning to suspect a cover-up, the sort of thing that allowed criminals to get away with their crimes. He had no time for that sort of thing. He was a copper, not some latter-day George Smiley.

  But despite his reservations he did what he always did and got on with his job. As Nobby Clarke had told him to.

  When he’d finished coordinating the search and forensic teams who would investigate the shooting, Vogel asked PC Bolton to drive him to Tarrant Park. He didn’t know for certain that the family would be there, but he deemed it unlikely they would leave The Firs empty whilst young Fred Mildmay was still missing. On the way he called PC Saslow to tell her he was en route. She told him the family had not wanted her to stay the night, even though she had offered to do so, but that she was heading back there now.

  ‘I’m only about five minutes away, boss,’ she said. ‘Do you have some news.’

  ‘Not about the boy,’ Vogel replied. He told her about the shooting.

  ‘Shit,’ said Saslow.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Vogel.

  He asked her not to say anything about the incident to Joyce Mildmay or anybody else until he got there.

  It was midday by the time he arrived at Tarrant Park. Vogel had had only limited experience of missing persons cases, but he knew that no matter how remote the possibility, families continued to cling to the hope that their loved one might walk in unharmed at any second.

  He was not to be disappointed. Joyce Mildmay’s first words when she opened the door were: ‘Have you got news of Fred?’

  Vogel thought that was normal enough behaviour for a woman in her situation. Even though it quickly became apparent that she already knew her father had been shot.

  Once she had ascertained that the DI’s visit was not directly linked to Fred’s disappearance, she told Vogel that her elder son and her mother had gone to the scene of the shooting, arriving soon after the ambulance conveying Henry Tanner to A & E had left, and presumably not long after Vogel had departed.

  ‘Mum called a few minutes ago,’ Joyce explained. ‘They’ve gone on to the hospital.’

  She went on to say that her mother had been told by one of the police constables on duty at the scene that Henry had been unconscious but had appeared to be coming round when he was being loaded into the ambulance. Vogel made a mental note to find out which officer and give him a bollocking. It wasn’t a policeman’s place to give medical reports.

  Joyce then led Vogel into the sitting room instead of the kitchen, where he assumed Molly and PC Saslow were.

  ‘I’d like to speak to you alone first, Mr Vogel,’ she said, closing the door firmly behind them.

  He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘When Dad comes to, I bloody well want him to tell us why all this has happened. Because one thing’s certain, Mr Vogel: my father knows the answer. He has the answer to everything that happens in this bloody family.’

  Joyce spat the words out. She seemed more angry than anything else. Vogel didn’t blame her. He too was angry at being kept in the dark; as deputy SIO he felt he had a right to know what was going on. And like Joyce, he suspected that Henry Tanner knew what had triggered the sequence of events culminating in his shooting.

  Before he could compose a response to Joyce’s outburst, she spoke again.

  ‘They decided I should be the one to wait here, just in case there was news of Fred. But I must admit I’m beginning to question everything now. Maybe the real reason they don’t want me to go to the hospital is because they don’t want me near my father.’

  ‘Who do you mean by “they” Mrs Mildmay?’ asked Vogel.

  Joyce Mildmay looked startled. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m saying. Ever since Fred disappeared I’ve been thinking Charlie was right, that there’s some sort of conspiracy. And I don’t know who’s behind it, do I? It’s got to the point where I don’t know if I can trust my own mother. Or my son – my lovely son Mark, who took charge of everything this morning. And then there’s my father. I’m damned sure I can’t trust my father. Charlie was obviously right about him. I mean, he’s got to have been mixed up in something, else he wouldn’t have been shot.’ The desperation was evident in her voice as she added, ‘I want to know what he has to say for himself.’

  And that makes two of us, thought Vogel. Only he had been effectively banned from Henry Tanner’s bedside. Perhaps Joyce Mildmay was right, and they were both being prevented from hearing what Henry had to say.

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ he said.

  ‘I am going to see Dad, Mr Vogel,’ Joyce continued. ‘Whether the rest of them like it or not.’

  ‘Maybe we can talk again after you have done so,’ responded Vogel, a tad lamely, he thought. What he wanted to do was to go with her. But that wasn’t in his brief.

  If Joyce heard what he said she showed no sign of it. She seemed to have her own agenda now.

  ‘I’m not waiting here any longer,’ she said. ‘If Fred comes back, he isn’t going to disappear again because I’m not here. I’m going to the hospital, and I’m taking Molly with me. I’m not letting my daughter out of my sight.’

  Vogel was on the brink of offering to take her there, but even he drew the line at so blatantly disobeying the direct order of a senior officer.

  Joyce stormed out of the sitting room and headed for the kitchen. Vogel followed her. Molly and PC Saslow were sitting at the table. Vogel had an idea.

  ‘Saslow could go with you to the hospital – you shouldn’t be on your own,’ he told Joyce.

  He was thinking that, even if he were not allowed near Henry Tanner, it might be possible that he could glean something second-hand from PC Saslow. Nobby Clarke might be less guarded with the young PC than she was with an experienced DI with legendary antennae.

  Joyce glowered at him. ‘I don’t want or need a bloody nursemaid in blue. And I won’t be alone. I shall have my daughter with me.’

  Vogel was in no position to insist. No family member had been accused of any crime. And that included Henry Tanner. He could only watch as Joyce led a distraught Molly out of the house and installed her in the passenger seat of the family Range Rover before climbing behind the wheel.

  Meanwhile, Henry Tanner was lying in a private room in the spanking new Brunel building at Southmead Hospital. It even had a balcony. He’d been moved there from A & E as soon as the bullet lodged in his shoulder had been removed. He would require further surgery on his shattered bones, but had been told that was unlikely to be thought advisable until at least the following day.

  Henry hadn’t had the strength to arrange the move himself, and he doubted that any of his family would have had the presence of mind to do so at such a time. The innovative design of the new Brunel building, and a budget unusually high for the NHS in the current climate, meant that the majority of patients at Southmead would soon be given private rooms with en suite facilities. And Henry was merely one of a number already installed in such rooms. But he didn’t know that. He was convinced that he was being given privileged treatment because of who he was. And he was also convinced that he knew who had arranged it. There were people in high places whom he believed would not want him to remain in A & E in a state of delirium any longer than necessary, nor to be placed in a ward alongside other patients.

  For the first time in his life, Henry was afraid, truly afraid, as he lay there, wondering
who in the world he could trust, and how he was going to get the remains of his family out of this mess.

  There was one person, he supposed. There always had been. He’d alerted Mr Smith as soon as Fred disappeared, and then again when he and Stephen Hardcastle had been taken to Lockleaze police station. And Mr Smith, whose weighty presence from afar had been part of his life for so long that Henry could barely remember a time without it, had delivered. Stephen’s interview had been brought to a close in the nick of time and the hounds, in the form of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, had been called off. Mr Smith had not, however, been able to throw any light on the matter of Fred’s disappearance. Neither, Henry feared, would Mr Smith be of much assistance in apprehending the sniper who had shot Henry that morning.

  Henry suspected that the person responsible was not someone he had come into contact with due to his dealings with Mr Smith. It remained a possibility that the Mr Smith connection was at the root of it all, of course. But Henry didn’t think so.

  Felicity and Mark were at Henry’s bedside. Though he had a terrible headache and his right shoulder was in agony, Henry was fully conscious. But he chose to continue to keep his eyes shut most of the time, and to feign confusion when he did open them, because it suited him. Henry Tanner always did what suited him. Being shot wasn’t about to change that.

  He wasn’t ready to answer questions from his wife or any of his family, come to that. And he certainly wasn’t ready to answer questions from the police.

  Henry had taken over every aspect of Tanner-Max from his father, and had long ago come to the conclusion that only he could keep all aspects of the company’s activities operational. Charlie had turned out to be a grave disappointment; he was every bit as weak as he had described himself in that damned letter. And Henry despised weak men. Weak men had their uses, but they were dangerous. It was thanks to Charlie that cracks had begun to appear within the Tanner business and family, cracks that over the last few days had split into huge chasms. It was thanks to Charlie that Henry had been shot. And it was probably thanks to Charlie that young Fred had disappeared.

  Henry had suspected from the start that Charlie had taken his own life. He’d been an experienced sailor, and the weather conditions when he’d disappeared had been favourable for the time of year.

  Then there was the letter. That letter. Stephen Hardcastle had assured Henry it was not an uncommon occurrence for someone to write a letter to their nearest and dearest to be opened only after their death, even when the writer was a healthy and relatively young man. Henry was not so sure.

  He had kept his suspicions to himself, but he knew things about Charlie, things of which nobody else in the family was aware. Least of all Joyce.

  The pain emanating from Henry’s shoulder and coursing through the entire right side of his body was excruciating. He had been injected with morphine earlier. The effects seemed to be wearing off with a vengeance. Henry Tanner had always been both physically and mentally an extremely strong man. However, he was almost seventy and he knew that this injury was sapping his strength. Not only physically. He didn’t have his usual mental strength either.

  He opened one eye a crack. There was a third person in the room. A tall, striking woman, well dressed, confident. He had been aware of her presence in the ambulance too. Probably some sort of plainclothes police officer. Henry needed to know exactly what sort before he said anything. He needed help. But it had to be specialist help. And he thought this woman might be the person to give him that help. She wasn’t just some local plod, that much he was certain of.

  Felicity and Mark were talking non-stop. He wondered if they’d been told that was what they should do to keep him alert.

  Felicity was chatting away in a falsely cheerful voice about nothing of consequence. Mark was holding his phone in his hand and had an earpiece in one ear. He was listening to the News Quiz and giving his grandfather a running commentary, explaining the questions and repeating the jokes.

  Their babbling was getting on his nerves and Henry desperately wanted Felicity and Mark to shut up. In the end he decided that the only way to achieve that would be to respond. So he opened his eyes fully and spoke.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. But I need some peace.’

  Felicity reached out to touch his face, her eyes full of joy and hope, in spite of everything.

  ‘Oh, Henry, you’ve come back to us,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he snapped, pulling away from her touch. ‘But everything hurts. I’m in the most awful pain. Will you please go away and give me some peace.’

  Felicity looked offended. Hurt even. Henry was sorry about that, but he didn’t know how else to play this. Mark merely looked puzzled. Until recent events, even before Charlie’s death, Henry had been hoping that his grandson might be the person to eventually take over Tanner-Max, to handle all aspects of the business, including the undisclosed side involving Mr Smith. Henry had been quite sure that Charlie would never be able to do so. Stephen Hardcastle could not even be considered: he wasn’t family. Tanner-Max was a family business, always had been and, Henry still hoped, always would be.

  But Mark was young and new to the business. There could be no question of him taking over the reins for several years at least. Right now Mark knew no more than his grandmother about Tanner-Max. Indeed, Henry suspected that Mark knew a great deal less than his grandmother. Like Henry, Felicity was prone to keep her thoughts to herself, but there had been times he could have sworn she knew exactly what was going on in his mind.

  Henry reached out with his good arm and took his wife’s hand. He saw her face light up. He knew that she loved him, regardless of the secrets and lack of communication. It warmed him to see her react in that way.

  ‘Listen, darling, I need a bit of time, that’s all,’ he said, managing a strained smile. ‘Why don’t you and Mark leave me to sleep for a couple of hours. I’ll be stronger then.’

  ‘But we want to know what happened, Granddad,’ began Mark. ‘I mean, who would want to shoot you? And why? What’s going on, Granddad?’

  Henry didn’t look at Mark. He continued to stare at his wife.

  Felicity was well aware what was expected of her. She and Henry had been sweethearts since they were teenagers. She knew that her husband required her to do his bidding, as she had done for the last fifty years. In return he’d given her an enviable lifestyle and a wonderful family. True, that family was now a shadow of its former self. Their only son was dead. Their son-in-law was dead. Their grandson was missing. Their daughter was in a state of anguish. And now Henry had been shot.

  Nonetheless, Felicity knew what was required of her, and that Henry was confident she would comply with his wishes, as always.

  She did, too.

  ‘C’mon, Mark,’ she instructed. ‘Let’s leave your granddad alone. Let’s do what he wants. We need him well again. All of us.’

  Mark began to protest, but Felicity got to her feet and put a hand on her grandson’s shoulder, soothing, quietening.

  Henry’s attention had already left his wife and grandson. They had been dealt with. His gaze was fixed on the woman sitting by the door.

  DCI Nobby Clarke stood up, stepped forward, and introduced herself.

  ‘I’m from the National Serious Crime Squad,’ she said.

  Henry nodded.

  ‘I hope you feel well enough to give me a few minutes,’ Clarke continued.

  ‘If granddad isn’t well enough to talk to his family then he isn’t well enough to talk to the police,’ Mark protested.

  Henry raised one hand, effectively silencing him.

  ‘It’s all right, Mark,’ he said. ‘I can do a few minutes. Fred is still missing. I must help if I can.’

  Mark looked ready to protest further, but his grandmother ushered him out of the room.

  ‘We’ll be back in a couple of hours,’ she said.

  Henry waited until she and Mark had closed the door behind the
m.

  ‘Tell me who’s sent you,’ Henry commanded.

  ‘Um, uh, Mr Smith,’ Nobby replied, her voice little more than a murmur.

  She looked and sounded somewhat self-conscious. But her answer was the one Henry had hoped for.

  ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I need your help, DCI Clarke. It’s possible that Mr Smith will be able to ascertain why this has happened to my family, and who is responsible. Then again, it may not be possible, because these events may be unconnected to my work for Mr Smith.’

  ‘That sounds like a riddle,’ responded Nobby Clarke. ‘And I can’t help unless you are honest with me, Mr Tanner. I reckon I only know half the story.’

  Henry nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I will tell you everything. Everything I know, anyway. I don’t have any alternative.’

  Clarke moved closer to the bed.

  With some difficulty because of the pain he was in, Henry hoisted himself up into a sitting position. He had no intention of embarking on any sort of serious conversation whilst lying flat on his back.

  But the movement dislodged a splinter of shattered bone in his injured shoulder. He was later to be told that this did no serious damage. However, the excruciating agony which seemed to be attacking his every nerve end was such that Henry fell back on to his pillow with a blood-curdling scream.

  A nurse arrived in the room at once. The Brunel wing at Southmead was that sort of medical establishment. Or, at least, it was in May 2014, with as yet only 150 patients installed, way below its projected capacity of 800.

  Henry was gasping for breath. He seemed incapable of further speech. In any case Nobby Clarke was asked to leave the room at once.

  Cursing under her breath, she did as she was told.

  Seventeen

  Joyce and Molly were a mile from Southmead when Molly’s phone bleeped to signal an incoming text message.

  She opened the message, gasped, then emitted a little cry, which caused Joyce to take her eyes from the road and glance anxiously at her daughter.