Wheel of Fire

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘Did he no longer have contact with anybody locally?’

  ‘Only the absolute minimum. From the moment he got rid of the Kivels and moved in the Greys. That’s when everything changed. He was seen every so often being driven about by George Grey. And there were still one or two indispensables who were required for occasional visits. So he did have some contact.’

  Dawson glanced towards the ruined house with a sorrowful shake of his head.

  ‘Or he did, until the early hours of this morning. But apparently, he did his best to avoid it. Paul the Pool, as he’s known around here, Paul Preston Evans, was one of the last to see him alive. He goes there every month to look after the swimming pool …’ Dawson paused. ‘Used to go there, I should say. The pool was in the basement. Ton of charcoal in it now, I should think. Anyway, Paul likes nothing better than passing on a good yarn. Sir John was in the pool when Paul arrived. Paul got a bollocking from Janice Grey. Apparently neither of them knew he was in the house. He’d just walked in through the back door, like he always did, he told ’em up the Blue Ball. And Mrs Grey sent him packing so she could help Sir John out of the pool room. But Paul said he’d been shocked to see how frail Sir John had looked. And it backed up the rumours. He was a proud man, of course, he wouldn’t have wanted people to see him looking infirm. Everyone understood that, but nobody understood why he got rid of the Kivels. They would have protected him with their lives, would Jack and Martha.’

  ‘What about Sir John’s family? There are children, aren’t there? Maybe he planned to rely on them for help as his condition deteriorated.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ responded Dawson. ‘He had two kids, girl and a boy, who grew up here at Blackdown Manor, alongside Jack and Martha’s boys, like I said, but the word is Sir John was estranged from both of them. The lad was a bit on the wild side and buggered off abroad years ago. Not been seen around these parts since. The daughter and her father used to be close, I understand, but not anymore, allegedly.’

  The DI looked around him, again taking in the whole dreadful scene. Just a skeleton of the outer structure of the house remained. It was impossible to imagine that it would ever be rebuilt. He may not have visited Blackdown Manor before, but he had that morning looked at pictures of the place. It had been a stunningly beautiful old house, steeped in history, one of the finest examples in the country of a medieval manor, dating back to the fifteenth century and the reign of Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England. An even greater loss, of course, was that of two lives. Two people who had no doubt suffered awful deaths.

  Vogel didn’t like to think about that, but couldn’t help himself. He glanced up at the sky, seeking diversion. The storm might be over, but it remained a thoroughly unpleasant morning. He felt sure he’d just felt a drop of rain. Unless he’d attracted the attention of a passing bird. All those years in central London, mostly based in a police station adjacent to Trafalgar Square, and he didn’t remember once being hit by the excrement of a pigeon. In the country, and to Vogel even the thoroughly modern and cosmopolitan city of Bristol counted as country because it wasn’t London, he seemed to be regularly wiping chalky droppings from his head and shoulders. That’s how it seemed to him, anyway.

  He took his phone from his pocket and called his senior officer, Detective Superintendent Reg Hemmings, the head of the Brunel MCIT.

  ‘We almost certainly have a case of arson on our hands,’ said Vogel, before giving Hemmings a brief rundown of everything he had so far learned concerning the fire.

  Hemmings listened carefully.

  ‘There’s little doubt then, we need to set up a murder inquiry,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Yes boss,’ responded Vogel. ‘And we need a full rundown on the Fairbrother family and the family business, as soon as possible; everything that’s known about Sir John’s children, and everything we can find out about the bank, its financial history, its status today, and so on. Can we get a team to give this top priority? Two people have died in mysterious circumstances, boss. If we can work out why they were killed, then, with a bit of luck, we’ll be well on the way towards identifying those responsible.’

  Only when the call ended did Vogel realise how much more confident he must have sounded than he felt. This was not going to be a straightforward investigation. All he could do was take it stage by stage.

  He turned to Saslow.

  ‘Right, Dawn,’ he said. ‘We’d better get ourselves over to the Musgrove and see if we can have a word with George Grey.’

  TWO

  Grey was awake and sitting propped up against the pillows of his curtained hospital bed when Vogel and Saslow were shown into his ward at Taunton’s Musgrove Park hospital. His eyes were red rimmed, and his distress obvious. His right shoulder bore a heavy dressing and there was a cradle keeping the bedding from resting on his left leg.

  But Grey was in a far better condition than Vogel had expected, given the description of his condition by senior fire officer Bob Parsons, a man obviously not unfamiliar with serious injury.

  The ward sister who escorted Vogel and Saslow to Grey’s bed had confirmed that his injuries were stab wounds of some sort, but that they had not turned out to be as severe as at first feared.

  She also promised to find the casualty doctor who had treated Grey. He might, she suggested, be able to explain further.

  Vogel introduced himself to the injured man and sat down on a chair to the left of his bed. Saslow remained standing, to the right.

  George Grey was probably in his early forties, Vogel judged. He had dark curly hair, vibrant blue eyes, and full sensual lips – an unusual looking man who might have been considered classically handsome were it not for a somewhat sallow complexion and a crooked nose that had probably been rather badly broken at some stage.

  ‘The old man, he’s dead, isn’t he?’ queried Grey at once.

  Vogel nodded. ‘We believe so,’ he said. ‘His body has yet to be retrieved, but we know that both Sir John and his nurse were inside the house when the fire broke out, and that there have not been any survivors.’

  Grey’s narrow shoulders slumped. His full lower lip trembled.

  ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grey?’ queried Vogel.

  Grey said nothing more, his expression indicating that he might regret what he’d already said.

  ‘What wasn’t supposed to happen, Mr Grey?’ Vogel persisted.

  ‘I’m just sorry, that’s all,’ said Grey. ‘I tried to help, you see. I tried to get to him. But I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Mr Grey, I need you to tell me exactly what happened, and what you witnessed in the early hours of this morning,’ Vogel began.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ responded Grey, in what Vogel, himself a Londoner, considered to be an unusually strong Cockney accent nowadays.

  Vogel waited. But Grey failed to continue. Instead he slumped further back against his pillows and closed his eyes. Clearly, he was not going to volunteer any information if he could help it.

  ‘Mr Grey,’ Vogel prompted, raising his voice. ‘I realise you must be feeling unwell, but I am conducting a murder inquiry. You can either answer my questions here or at Taunton police station. But you really have to cooperate.’

  There was no way, of course, that Vogel could insist on taking George Grey anywhere in his present condition. However, his empty threat seemed to do the trick.

  Very slowly, Grey opened his eyes. ‘A-all right,’ he muttered falteringly. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘For a start, when were you first aware that fire had broken out at the manor?’ asked Vogel.

  ‘Not until Sophia, the nurse, phoned me,’ Grey replied. ‘I had no idea until then. It was the middle of the night, or it felt like it anyway. I was at home, in bed with the wife. Anyway, there wasn’t much to see before the gas tank blew.’

  ‘And I understand you told Sophia that she and Sir John should stay where they were, in
his bedroom, because it was fire proofed. Is that so?’

  Grey nodded. ‘Yes. And Sir John wasn’t good on his feet. I thought they would be safer.’

  ‘You also told her that you would try to get to them, to assist them?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you didn’t dial 999, did you?’ Vogel enquired.

  ‘Well no, I knew Sophia was going to do that.’

  ‘And did you set off immediately to go to their rescue?’

  ‘Pretty much, yes.’

  ‘Yet, there is another 999 call from Sophia, logged thirty-four minutes later, at 2.05, in which she says you had yet to get to them.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t get through, could I? There were intruders, with guns I’m almost sure, proper big guns, rifles, or maybe shotguns. I told Sophia that.’

  ‘When she called you a second time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, why didn’t you call her as soon as you thought there were armed intruders on the premises?’

  ‘I was watching, wasn’t I, waiting for an opportunity to get into the house. I hid in that clump of rhododendrons by the side of the pond.’

  ‘How many intruders were there?’

  ‘I don’t know, I saw at least three. Maybe four.’

  ‘The manor is protected by large electrically operated gates, Mr Grey. How did these people get in?’

  ‘The storm, it damaged the electrics. I managed to open the gates yesterday, but I couldn’t close them again. In any case, there was a bloody great oak tree across the drive, nobody could drive in. They must have been on foot.’

  ‘But you didn’t notice the arrival of these intruders, even though you say you were at home in The Gatehouse at the time we can assume they arrived at the manor. Is that right?’

  ‘I told you, I was in bed asleep. With my wife.’

  Vogel glanced at Saslow. It was her invitation to join in.

  ‘You are in hospital suffering from what appear to be quite serious injuries, Mr Grey,’ she said. ‘Would you please tell us how you came by these injuries?’

  ‘Yes, I was attacked, by the men with guns I told you about. The armed intruders, as you call them.’

  ‘And would that have been before or after you received the second call from Sophia, Mr Grey?’ asked Saslow.

  ‘After. I wasn’t in no condition to be having telephone conversations afterwards, I can tell you. In fact, even though I had my phone on silent, and I barely spoke above a whisper, I think it might have been that call that alerted them to me being close by.’

  ‘It would seem that, during that last call, you still told Sophia that she and Sir John shouldn’t move, this time because there were armed intruders on the property. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, he’s an important man, Sir John. I mean was. His sort always has enemies. He always said he felt secure at Blackdown. But I was afraid they may be after him. That they’d started the fire in order to smoke him out so that they could kill him. That’s what I thought, anyway …’

  Greys voice tailed away.

  ‘Any idea who they might have been, Mr Grey?’

  The injured man shook his head.

  ‘Right. So you continued to advise Sir John’s nurse that they should both stay where they were, in his bedroom, knowing, surely, there was a fair chance the fire would kill them. Is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said Grey. ‘No. Of course not. Like I said, the fire still didn’t look like much. I said they should stay where they were until either I or the emergency services got through. And I was hoping they’d get here pretty quick after what I’d seen, I can tell you.’

  ‘But you didn’t even dial 999 then?’

  ‘No. I didn’t get the chance, to tell the truth. I was attacked almost straightaway. Two, or maybe three of them, I think. Overpowered me and stabbed me. After that I didn’t have any hope at all of getting through to Sir John. Then the tank blew. It was awful. Horrible. But I couldn’t do nothing about it.’

  ‘Look,’ Vogel interjected. ‘You realise none of this seems quite right, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I can’t help that, it’s what happened,’ said Grey stubbornly.

  ‘After you were attacked, what did your attackers do next?’

  ‘They ran off.’

  ‘Did they speak to you at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not a word?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Do you think they knew who you were?’

  ‘No. Why should they?’

  ‘I have no idea, Mr Grey,’ said Vogel. ‘But you are telling me that they didn’t know you and you didn’t know them, is that it?’

  ‘Yes. Anyway, like I said, it was dark.’

  ‘You feel you were attacked simply because you were getting in the way, is that it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. That’s it.’

  At that moment a nurse arrived. Vogel turned to face her, enquiringly.

  ‘Dr Carlisle will speak to you now, detective inspector,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ said Vogel. He turned back to the man in bed. ‘We will need you to give a formal statement, and we will want to talk to you again, very soon,’ he said.

  Grey nodded. His complexion seemed to have grown even more pallid.

  ‘And we will need to speak to your wife too, I understand she has visited you here already?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grey. ‘She came as soon as she realised I’d been hurt and brought here. But she’s gone back home now … She can’t tell you nothing, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Vogel.

  As they left the ward, following in the wake of the nurse, Vogel spoke quietly to Saslow. ‘Did you notice his hands?’ he asked.

  Saslow shook her head, surprised.

  ‘Smoother than yours, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said the DI smiling. ‘God knows, I don’t know a lot about gardening, but I’ve never seen a gardener with hands like that.’

  Dr Carlisle was young, thin, and bespectacled. He wore a white coat and a harassed expression. He was a stereotypical junior hospital doctor. Straight out of central casting, thought Vogel, who had met a number of junior hospital doctors in his time but didn’t think he had ever encountered one who so fitted the part.

  ‘Phillip Carlisle,’ said the young man thrusting out a bony, long-fingered hand. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I’d appreciate your professional opinion on Mr Grey’s injuries,’ said Vogel, taking the doctor’s hand in his. He noticed that, in spite of his harassed air, the young man’s skin was cool and his handshake firm.

  ‘Well, he has suffered multiple wounds, incisions, to different parts of his body, four to his right shoulder and upper arm, and three to his left thigh,’ replied Dr Carlisle. ‘They are clearly consistent with stab wounds, probably inflicted by a knife of some sort.’

  ‘And how serious are these wounds?’

  ‘Not nearly as serious as we thought at first. Mr Grey was bleeding profusely when he was brought in. But he was extremely lucky. The wounds were not that deep, they may have been inflicted by a knife with a short blade, like a penknife, or even a Stanley knife, and certainly none of them were in any way life threatening. They had to be stitched, of course, and I’m sure are painful and debilitating. But they were all in areas of the body where there are no vital organs. Nonetheless, with as many stab wounds as were sustained, I would have expected at least one of them to have hit a major artery. They didn’t. They missed.’

  ‘So your prognosis is that Mr Grey will make a full recovery?’

  ‘Oh yes. We will keep him in tonight, but he will probably be discharged tomorrow.’

  Vogel was thoughtful as he left the hospital with Saslow.

  ‘We need to check out the Greys, Saslow. See if you can get hold of Micky Palmer, will you? Never misses anything, Micky. I want to know all we can about them before we talk to Grey’s missus, and before we take a formal statement from George Grey.’

  ‘Right, boss,’ said Saslow.


  ‘Meanwhile I’ll call Taunton nick and get them to send somebody here to stand guard over George. As a matter of urgency. I don’t trust that man.’

  ‘I know what you mean, boss. What will our next move be?’

  ‘Looks like it might be a bit of a pub crawl, Dawn,’ Vogel replied.

  The DC smiled. These were words she never expected to hear from DI David Vogel. After all, everyone knew that Vogel never touched alcohol.

  ‘Shall we start with lunch at the Blue Ball?’ the DI asked.

  As soon as the two police officers had left his bedside, Grey reached for his mobile phone, which was on the bedside cabinet, alongside his wallet. He dialled the number of a pay-as-you-go mobile.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what your plan is now, but this isn’t what I signed up for,’ he said. ‘Nobody was supposed to die.’

  The voice at the other end of the phone was cool and assured.

  ‘He wouldn’t have lived long anyway,’ said the voice. ‘The Parkinson’s would have got him sooner or later. We probably did him a favour. Saved him a lot of suffering.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that makes it all right, does it? What about that poor cow of a nurse?’

  ‘She was trouble from the beginning. Asked too many questions. And she couldn’t be trusted. We got lucky there.’

  ‘She didn’t seem like trouble to me. In any case, what the hell do you mean “lucky”?’

  Involuntarily Grey raised his voice. He realised he had more or less shouted the word. He hunched himself even more closely over his phone and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘Is that what you call it?’ he hissed.

  ‘In this case, yes,’ said the voice.

  ‘Look, I’m fucking furious,’ said George, trying hard not to raise his voice again. ‘I could get done for fucking murder.’

  ‘No.’ The voice was still cool, controlled. ‘You’ll be fine as long as you keep your head. You didn’t do anything wrong, after all, did you? That fire was down to our mysterious intruders, wasn’t it?’

  George grunted. ‘You know what,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had the filth round. Two of the Avon and Somerset’s finest. And I don’t think they believe a word of my story about armed intruders. Not a word of it.’