Dreams of Fear

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘Oh, and we can tell him that we are now officially upgrading the investigation into Jane’s death to a murder enquiry. That should take him out of his comfort zone.’

  ELEVEN

  As Vogel and Saslow had expected, Felix was still at his parents’ house.

  Again, Mrs Ferguson senior answered the door to All Seasons and ushered Saslow and Vogel into the big living room, albeit not with very good grace.

  Felix was lying on the floor, playing with his children. He seemed unaware that anyone had entered the house and was laughing as the two officers entered. His children seemed in surprisingly high spirits. A good game was obviously going on.

  ‘You’re cheating, Daddy, you’re cheating,’ cried little Stevie Ferguson, as his sister attempted to climb on her father’s back.

  ‘No, I’m not, you are,’ countered Felix, still laughing.

  Then he looked up and saw Vogel and Saslow.

  He stopped laughing immediately. The light faded from his eyes.

  ‘What do you want now?’ he asked, his voice gruff.

  ‘I’m afraid we have some more questions for you, sir,’ said Vogel mildly.

  ‘Look, you’ve already given me the third degree once today,’ responded Felix tetchily. ‘Surely you don’t have to do it again. Not now. You can see I’m spending time with my children, and I’m sure you realize how important that is right now. I want to get everything back to normal for them, as soon as possible.’

  Vogel thought there was little chance of life getting back to normal for little Joanna and Stevie Ferguson for a very long while.

  ‘It shouldn’t take too much of your time, sir,’ Vogel continued in the same mild tone.

  Ferguson glared at him. His mother stepped forward.

  ‘I’ll take the children into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Come on, you two, let’s see if we can find any of those special biscuits you like.’

  Stevie jumped to his feet at once and ran eagerly to his gran. Joanna, by then fully astride her father’s back, did not move.

  ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy,’ she said, a tad sulkily.

  ‘You can come back in just a minute,’ said her father. ‘Now off you go with Granny and Stevie.’

  With reluctance the little girl climbed off her father and began to do as she had been told. Very slowly.

  ‘Hey, and don’t forget to bring me one of those special biscuits when you come back,’ Felix called after her, as she finally reached the kitchen door.

  Then, his displeasure still apparent, he hauled himself up from the floor and sat down in the nearest armchair. He did not ask Vogel and Saslow to sit. They did so anyway.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you that we are now treating your wife’s death as murder,’ said Vogel formally. ‘And we are in the process of launching a full-scale murder enquiry.’

  ‘Murder?’ queried Felix, his expression one of total shock. ‘You said this morning you were treating the matter as a suspicious death. I thought that was probably just a formality. Now you suddenly tell me you’ve decided Jane was murdered. I don’t believe that. Not for a moment. I believe Jane took her own life. She must have done.’

  ‘The post-mortem examination on your wife has taken place,’ continued Vogel, almost as if Felix hadn’t spoken. ‘The results have led us to conclude beyond all reasonable doubt that there was a third party involved in your wife’s death, and that she was killed by a person or persons unknown.’

  ‘What results? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I am afraid we cannot go into details yet, sir, but we thought you should be the first to know. And there are matters arising which we need to discuss with you urgently. We have just come from interviewing your wife’s therapist, Dr Thorpe, and she has revealed to us certain information which I would like to ask you about—’

  Felix Ferguson butted in straight away.

  ‘I didn’t give my permission for you to poke around in my wife’s medical records,’ he said. ‘I hope the bloody woman didn’t give you any personal information. I thought that sort of thing was confidential.’

  Ferguson sounded significantly different to the way he had been earlier. Previously his grief and distress had been quite transparent. He had shown every sign of being desperately upset. That was understandable and normal. Now he seemed merely angry and aggrieved. Vogel wondered if the man was nervous. The DCI had had plenty of experience of sudden and violent death, and its effect on all concerned. People dealt with it how they could, and in ways that sometimes seemed unlikely and even disconcerting. He told himself that could well be all it was with Felix Ferguson. He was struggling to come to terms with his grief in his own way. Nonetheless Vogel found himself studying the man more closely than ever.

  ‘I have just told you, we are conducting a murder investigation now, Mr Ferguson,’ he said in the same level tone. ‘That overrides matters of medical confidentiality, as I am sure you must realize.’

  ‘Look, this whole thing is nonsense,’ Felix countered, still sounding angry. ‘Jane committed suicide. I have no idea why, but what else could it be? Who on earth would want to kill Jane? Everyone loved Jane.’

  Apart from your mother, that’s for sure, thought Vogel. He said nothing. He kept his gaze expressionless and focused coolly on Fergus.

  Suddenly the man jumped to his feet and took a step towards Vogel.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he cried. ‘You really do think I killed my Jane, don’t you? That’s bullshit. Total bullshit. I loved her, for God’s sake. I adored her. She was the mother of my children. And anyway, I wasn’t even there.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ responded Vogel, standing his ground and continuing to keep his voice level. ‘And, in fact, whilst as the husband of the deceased, you are what we call a person of interest, as I pointed out to you this morning, I have no evidence that you killed your wife, and would not at this stage suggest any such thing.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Ferguson, his voice still raised. ‘And of course you haven’t got any evidence. Because there damned well isn’t any. Because I didn’t damned well do it.’

  ‘It would be helpful if you would calm down, sir. All I want at this stage is for you to help us with our enquiries. Presumably you would like us to find your wife’s killer?’

  Ferguson stepped away from Vogel and sat down again as abruptly as he had stood up.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he muttered.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Ferguson,’ said Vogel evenly. ‘Now, we are trying to put together a picture of your wife. There was no sign of a burglary or forced entry at your house. This indicates that her killer knew her. Was she expecting a visitor last night perhaps?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘And you were not aware of anyone in her life who might have wished to harm her?’

  ‘No, of course I wasn’t. There wasn’t anyone.’

  ‘Somebody harmed Jane, Mr Ferguson, somebody killed her. Was there anyone from her past, possibly someone you didn’t know, who had recently come back into her life?’

  Felix looked puzzled.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘No. Definitely not. Jane would have told me. Anyway …’

  Felix looked as if he was about to say more, but stopped himself.

  ‘Anyway what?’ persisted Vogel.

  ‘Uh, nothing, only that she didn’t keep secrets from me,’ said Felix.

  Vogel wasn’t at all sure about that. He did not push the point. Instead he asked Felix how and when he had met Jane.

  The young man answered fully, telling him the story of how Jane moved to Bideford after the death of her mother and then applied for a job as a waitress at Cleverdon’s.

  ‘It was love at first sight, Mr Vogel, for me anyway,’ he said, smiling very slightly at the memory. ‘That was eight years ago, and we were married the year after.’

  ‘I understand Jane’s mother had died not long before you met?’ queried Vogel.

  Felix nodded.

  ‘Yes. The year befo
re. That was when Jane moved to Bideford. She and her mother had been very close. Jane was only twenty-one, and she took her mum’s death very hard. They’d lived together in a little flat in Essex, Chelmsford. Jane had been at college, studying to be a primary school teacher, but she just chucked it all in, sold the flat and took off. Always said she was desperate to make a fresh start. She wanted to live by the sea, and she and her mother had been down this way on holiday a couple of times. I was secretly not altogether sorry about all of that, otherwise I would never have met Jane, but I didn’t tell her that, of course.’

  Felix managed another small smile.

  ‘Was it after the death of her mother that Jane self-harmed?’ asked Vogel.

  Felix stopped smiling.

  ‘Yes. I think so. That was when she was in the “dark place” I told you about this morning.’

  ‘Obviously you never met her mother, but did you meet any other relatives or friends from her previous life?’

  ‘There weren’t any relatives. Jane’s mother was an only child, and she never knew her father. Never even knew who he was. I expect my mother has already told you that?’

  Vogel nodded.

  ‘Yes. She rarely misses an opportunity to mention Jane’s lack of breeding.’

  This time Felix’s smile was more of a grimace.

  ‘There was a couple from Chelmsford, neighbours, and two old college friends, that I knew vaguely, and they all came to our wedding,’ Felix continued. ‘But I don’t think Jane kept in touch with them.’

  ‘Do you know where Jane was born?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘Yes. She was born in Chelmsford, and lived there all her life until she came down here.’

  ‘Have you ever seen her birth certificate?’ asked Vogel as casually as he could.

  Felix looked at him quizzically.

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like my mother,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course I’ve seen Jane’s birth certificate, when we got married for a start. And it’s still in the safe at home. What are you getting at, Mr Vogel?’

  ‘Just routine,’ murmured Vogel. ‘We do need to look into your wife’s early life, though, not least to try and find out the cause of those extreme nightmares she suffered.’

  ‘I told you, she and I went over it again and again. There was nothing. In any case, what could there possibly be that might be relevant to her death?’

  ‘That’s what I keep asking myself, Mr Ferguson,’ said the DCI. ‘Meanwhile, do you know when your wife last attended a therapy session with Dr Thorpe in Exeter?’

  ‘Uh, what?’

  Ferguson seemed momentarily nonplussed by Vogel’s abrupt switch in his line of questioning.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said eventually. ‘She was going weekly. Tuesdays. Every Tuesday. I would take the twins to Mum’s in the morning in the holidays, or to school in term time, and she would drive to Exeter. Been doing it for about a year. So last Tuesday, I suppose.’

  ‘You never went with her?’

  ‘The first couple of times I did. Just to suss it out really. But after that she said she was quite happy going on her own. I do have two businesses to run, you know.’

  Vogel noted the tetchiness in the other man’s voice again, but did not comment on it.

  ‘Mr Ferguson, your wife hadn’t been to see Dr Thorpe for over a month before she died,’ he said instead. ‘Were you not aware of that?’

  Felix looked genuinely surprised.

  ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘She went somewhere every Tuesday. Sometimes I would go back to the house. She was never there …’

  ‘I see. Well, I can assure you she didn’t visit Dr Thorpe. Were you aware that Dr Thorpe had embarked, or tried to embark on, a series of regression therapy sessions with your wife in order to try to find the cause of her nightmares?’

  ‘Yes. Jane told me so. She told me she’d had regression sessions, in fact. Was that not so?’

  ‘She had one session with Dr Thorpe. It ended with your wife becoming extremely distressed. Did she tell you about that?’

  ‘No. She didn’t mention anything like that.’

  ‘According to Dr Thorpe, Jane became hysterical and had to be brought around from hypnosis prematurely. She then vomited on the floor of Dr Thorpe’s consulting room. And that is a matter of medical record.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Felix.

  ‘Dr Thorpe suspected that she may have relived something which caused her so much distress,’ Vogel continued. ‘Do you really have no idea at all what that could have been? Something extreme enough to cause Jane to vomit?’

  ‘No, I don’t. She said that she remembered nothing under hypnosis about her childhood that she wasn’t already aware of, and that I didn’t know about. Everything you are saying is news to me, detective chief inspector.’

  Felix looked thoughtful.

  ‘Of course, it might explain why she became suicidal,’ he remarked suddenly. ‘Or have you completely ruled out that possibility, Mr Vogel?’

  Vogel blinked rapidly behind his spectacles. Felix had sounded disingenuous enough, but Vogel was not oblivious to the barb which undoubtedly lay behind his remark.

  ‘I haven’t ruled anything out, Mr Ferguson, not totally, anyway. But I have already explained that unless further evidence is revealed indicating the contrary, we are treating your wife’s death as murder.’

  Ferguson lowered his head into his hands, wrapping long fingers around his forehead. Vogel watched. After a few seconds the man looked up.

  When he spoke his voice was surprisingly calm.

  ‘And I’m your number one suspect, however much you deny it, isn’t that right?’ he queried.

  ‘That is not right, Mr Ferguson,’ responded Vogel levelly. ‘You are a person of interest, obviously. I have already told you that—’

  ‘And what other “persons of interest” do you have?’ interrupted Ferguson, his voice still calm.

  ‘Mr Ferguson, our investigation has only just begun. But I can promise you that it will continue until we have found out exactly what happened to your wife, and apprehended her killer. Whoever that might be.’

  TWELVE

  After Vogel and Saslow left the Bay View Road house, Felix asked his mother if she would look after the twins whilst he took the dogs for a walk.

  He told her he needed to clear his head.

  And that, thought Felix, as he set off along Abbotsham Cliffs, the dramatic coastal heathland which stretches for miles to the west of Westward Ho!, could be the single most true thing he had said since his wife’s death.

  He so needed to clear his head.

  Through all the years of their marriage, until very recently, Felix had managed to cope with his wife’s nightmares. He and Jane had both coped. Or he’d thought so, anyway. The nightmares had been the sole blot on a bright horizon. And only in the last months had the dreams which, in spite of what he had told Vogel, had grown more and more frequent and extreme, gradually become his nightmare too.

  He realized he’d probably been naïve in thinking that Jane’s death would bring them both release. The horror of it all seemed even bigger now. And the fear too. How could he have even hoped for anything else, he wondered.

  He had been kidding himself to ever allow the possibility that everything would turn out all right. In any case, he’d never really believed it, had he? After all, his excessive drinking bore testament to that.

  Felix didn’t think he was a bad man. He knew, however, that he was lazy, and that he was a coward.

  Two thriving businesses with trusted staff had been offered him on a plate. Felix had never had any ambition for anything else. Why would he? He’d led a privileged childhood, and sailed through a minor public school where little or no pressure was put on him to succeed academically, certainly not beyond a pretty lowly average.

  Felix knew that he did have his talents. His easy manner and generally relaxed demeanour meant that, both in business and in his personal life, he was often able to deal success
fully with tricky people and situations where a more focused and driven man would probably fail.

  Felix’s father had always recognized this. In addition, the self-made Sam Ferguson was a control freak. And this suited equally well both father and son. There was none of the friction between them, common amongst successful fathers and their sons. Felix had never been competition to his father nor had any desire to be. He had remained content to run his side of the business according to his father’s wishes, and to reap the considerable rewards for so doing. And his father was content to let him do so, leaving him alone in the areas in which he was able, whilst stepping in when a firmer hand was needed at the helm. Felix never minded. Why would he? That was how he had been brought up. A privileged unstressful childhood had drifted into a privileged unstressful adulthood.

  He was also protected. If stress threatened, in almost any form, his mother clacked and his father acted. Again, both father and son exhibited complementary characteristics. Both accepting, and indeed actively enjoying, their roles as protected and protector.

  But marriage proved different. Sam Ferguson could not reasonably be his son’s protector within that institution. In any case, one of Felix’s stronger and better characteristics was loyalty. When he’d married Jane he’d fully intended to be loyal to her for the rest of his life. In every way. Which for him went way beyond mere sexual fidelity.

  And for the first time in his life, when the cracks began to show in this union, which he had been so sure would be perfect, Felix had not run to his parents to share his misery and seek their assistance. Although he knew they had guessed all was not well. He had not turned to his father and stood aside whilst Sam made everything all right again. Like he usually did.

  Upon reflection, it may have been better if he had confided more in his parents.

  As it was, he was not at all sure what they did and did not know. He suspected that his mother was, as usual, sticking rigidly to her own vision of her son’s life – which varied from day to day in many aspects but never much swayed from adoration and a total conviction of his lack of blame in anything. In other words, Mrs Ferguson senior’s head remained firmly buried in the sand. If she had suspected anything beyond the ordinary in her son and daughter-in-law’s affairs, she would probably have pretended not to notice.