Wheel of Fire

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘It’s a very important message,’ he continued. ‘A message that could change everything. Can I come up?’

  A message that could change everything? Bella didn’t think so. But this was a caller she could not turn away, even though she had been taken completely by surprise. And she was, of course, curious. At the very least. What was his involvement exactly?

  She pushed the entry button, then walked across her flat and opened the door into the outer lobby to wait the arrival of the lift. Her caller was wearing a dark grey raincoat, its hood loose on his shoulders, boots, and gloves. He looked both out of place in the smart modern apartment block, and as ill at ease as she felt. However, the heavy rain, which seemed to be as much of a permanent feature in London this October as it had been in Somerset, was still falling heavily.

  She stood back to let him into the flat, and closed the door behind them.

  ‘So what is it? What is this very important message which has brought you all the way to London then?’

  ‘I have to ask you a question first,’ said her caller. ‘I believe you have a meeting with DI Vogel?’

  ‘How the hell do you know that?’ asked Bella.

  Then she answered her own question. ‘Of course. Freddie. As weak and untrustworthy as ever. But why did he contact you?’

  ‘He didn’t. Not directly.’

  ‘Not directly? So …’ Bella paused, trying to make sense of it all. ‘So, you’re in on everything, are you?’ she asked. ‘Am I to assume that things have not been at all how they seemed, and that you have been involved all along? That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Again, her caller ignored the question.

  ‘I have been instructed to ask you if there is any chance that you can be persuaded to cancel that meeting?’ he said.

  ‘Have you indeed, well, the answer is no, I cannot,’ said Bella forcibly.

  ‘Is there nothing that could be said which might persuade you to change your mind?’

  ‘After what has already happened? After three people have died? Been murdered? No. There isn’t.’

  ‘And you are absolutely sure of that?’

  ‘Yes, I most certainly am. And you can report back that I will not be bullied.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said the caller mildly. ‘In that case I have no choice. My orders are to give you this message.’

  He slipped a gloved hand into his raincoat pocket and withdrew a hand-gun. Ironically a Glock 17, the revolver which is standard issue to arms-authorised officers throughout the UK police force. Only Bella didn’t know that. Neither would she have much cared.

  She was numb with shock and disbelief. Yet at the same time her brain was buzzing, as she registered what was happening. She was starkly aware that she had made a catastrophic error of judgement – not for the first time in recent months, but, it seemed, quite probably for the last.

  She hadn’t even considered that morning, when she had told Freddie of her intentions to confess all to DI Vogel, that her brother might report back in the way that he clearly had. Indeed, she’d believed him totally when he’d told her that he would cut his losses and run. After all, he’d done it before. But in any case, even had she considered it, had she suspected that he might have other plans, it still would not have occurred to her that she might be in any danger. And certainly not in danger of her life.

  Even when her unexpected caller had arrived she had not, in any way, been alarmed. Why should she have been? This was not a man she had ever previously had cause to fear.

  She was afraid now. Dreadfully afraid.

  A part of her still could not quite believe what was happening. There she was, in her own apartment, in the middle of London, literally staring down the barrel of a gun. It was levelled at her now, pointed at her head. And there appeared to be some sort of extension fitted to the barrel. A silencer. She registered that in a detached sort of way. After all, this couldn’t be real, could it? If it was, if she was about to die, she knew, without any doubt who was responsible for ordering her death. It couldn’t be, could it?

  ‘No, there must be a mistake,’ she said, in a voice she did not quite recognise as her own. ‘Why are you doing this? Stop. Please. Don’t—’

  But there had, it appeared, been no mistake. These were to be Bella Fairbrother’s last words. Her visitor held the gun steadily, professionally, and his aim was deadly. He pulled the trigger. There followed a dull pop.

  Bella fell backwards onto the floor. She was dead before she hit the ground.

  Her visitor stood for a moment looking down at the body. He stood very still, almost as if he were paying his last respects. Perhaps even regretting, for a moment, the course of action he had presumably agreed to take. Then, being careful not to touch anything, he moved across the room to the window where the briefcase Bella had been given by her brother earlier that day still lay open on the table. Using one gloved hand he replaced the papers Bella had removed from the case, closed it, picked it up, and left the apartment.

  As he pushed the front door shut behind him he could hear Bella Fairbrother’s phone ringing. She would never answer it again.

  TWENTY

  Vogel and Saslow arrived at Chelsea Harbour at 3.23 p.m. Patricia Fitzwarren was still completing her examination of George Grey’s body in the post-mortem examination room at the West Middlesex hospital’s mortuary. But her initial findings had been inconclusive, and, by the time Vogel had decided to leave her to it, she’d already confessed that she could not see much chance of that changing.

  Considerable quantities of alcohol, heavy-duty pain killers and other medication had been found in the stomach of the deceased, more than enough to have caused him to be dazed and unsteady on his feet as he made his way, for whatever reason, along the side of Thames Lock. In addition to the wounds received on the night of the fire, it became apparent that George Grey had more recently received a blow to the side of the head, probably simultaneous with falling into the lock. But Dr Fitzwarren was unable to ascertain whether this blow had been caused by George hitting his head as he entered the lock, or whether the blow had been the cause of him falling, executed by a third party hitting him on the side of the head with a blunt object.

  There would naturally be a coroner’s inquest. But unless new evidence presented itself, both Dr Fitzwarren and Vogel assumed that the coroner would have little choice but to deliver an open verdict.

  On the drive in from Brentford, Vogel had made several attempts to call Bella Fairbrother in order to confirm his estimated arrival time.

  He did not, of course, receive any reply.

  It was Saslow who attempted to use the entry phone system of the apartment block. When there was repeatedly no response, Vogel again called Bella’s mobile, to no avail.

  After an abortive couple of minutes the two officers began to discuss what they should do next.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Vogel. ‘Bella Fairbrother doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would fail to keep an appointment. And certainly not one she had been so eager to make in the first place.’

  ‘Could she have been summoned in to Fairbrother’s head office?’ asked Saslow. ‘She made it quite clear to you that there was a considerable crisis.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe. But I would have expected her to at least call to cancel. Anyway, she’s not even on the board is she?’

  ‘Well, no but …’

  ‘Look this place must have some sort of concierge service. There have been three deaths already, Saslow, connected with the Fairbrothers and the fire at the manor, I think we should try to gain entry.’

  ‘Right, boss …’ Saslow began.

  At that moment the front door of the apartment block opened, and a woman resident emerged. Vogel stepped forwards, but Saslow was faster. She grabbed the door just in time to stop it closing. The woman, her face registering alarm, looked as if she didn’t know whether to block the doorway or get out of the way.

  ‘Police, on an urgent inquiry,’ Vogel said by way of e
xplanation, flashing his warrant card at the woman, who nodded nervously and stepped aside.

  The two officers took the lift to the penthouse.

  ‘We could be wasting our time,’ commented Vogel. ‘We have no way of gaining entry to the flat if Bella doesn’t open the door, whether she’s inside or not.’

  ‘You could shoulder it, boss,’ commented Saslow, deadpan.

  ‘You’ve been watching too much TV,’ said Vogel.

  ‘No way, boss, not with the hours you make me keep,’ replied Saslow.

  They were both smiling as they stepped out of the lift into the small lobby area which served Bella’s penthouse apartment. In spite of the entry phone system, there was a second doorbell.

  Saslow pushed it. Three times. No reply.

  ‘What now, boss?’ asked Saslow.

  Vogel glanced around him. There was clearly no sign of a forced entry or any sort of disturbance. He really wasn’t sure now what he had expected to achieve by pushing his way into the building.

  ‘We’ll have another go at tracking Bella down, and if we can’t find her then we should consider seeking out a key holder and having a look around,’ he said.

  However, Vogel had learned never to overlook the obvious, when, as a young bobby, he’d been entrusted to seek out a deposed European royal, by then a UK resident, whom his superiors had wanted to interview in connection with a quite serious fraud. The Princess of somewhere or other. He’d spent two fruitless days looking for the woman, until an older and wiser colleague asked him if he’d checked the phone book. He hadn’t. And there she’d been, fully listed. Not even ex-D.

  So, before walking away, Vogel leaned forward and tried the door handle. It turned easily. He pushed the door open gently, automatically noticing as he did so that it was fitted with the kind of lock which is operated by a flick switch from the inside, but requires a key from the outside.

  He stepped into the inner lobby, Saslow at his heels. The door to the big open-plan living room was open.

  ‘It’s David Vogel, Miss Fairbrother, are you there?’ the DI called out. ‘Your door was unlocked. We are just making sure you are all right—’

  He stopped abruptly. Saslow was at his elbow by then. He heard her gasp, and out of the corner of his eyes saw her sway slightly. Saslow was still not back to her best. This was the kind of shock she didn’t need.

  ‘Hold on, Dawn,’ muttered Vogel.

  The body of Bella Fairbrother lay almost exactly in the middle of the room. She had fallen flat on her back with her head pointing towards the big picture windows at the river end of the room, and her feet pointing towards the door.

  It seemed most likely to Vogel that she had been facing somebody standing just inside the room, somebody who had probably only recently entered the apartment.

  There was no doubt at all that she was dead. She appeared to have been shot in the centre of her forehead, just above her eyes, and part of the top of her head had been blown away exposing grey matter. Her brain. Her eyes were wide open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

  Death was never pretty. The sight of Bella Fairbrother, who had always seemed so exceptionally alive to Vogel, after such a sudden and violent death, was particularly disturbing. It had been only that morning that the DI had spoken to her on the phone. She had told him she was still in Somerset and would drive back a little later. She couldn’t have been in her flat for long before she was killed. Vogel wondered, of course, if she would still be alive had he somehow or other arranged to meet her earlier, as she’d clearly wanted.

  He was vaguely aware of a choking sound from Saslow. He turned in time to see her hurrying out of the apartment. He hoped she wouldn’t be sick in the lobby, there might be evidence there, but he wouldn’t blame her if she was.

  He made himself return his attention to the dead woman. A woman he had not entirely trusted in life, but nonetheless a bright and vibrant human being. And she was the mother of a teenage girl. Now there was a death call Vogel hoped he didn’t get to make.

  He looked again at the entry point of the bullet. It would undoubtedly have killed Bella instantly. The human brain will normally continue to function for ten to fifteen seconds after a direct shot to the heart. But a direct shot to the brain destroys the nervous system at once, and the body shuts down straightaway. Death is immediate.

  Vogel was glad that Bella would have had no time in which to suffer. But there was something disturbingly clinical about such an accurate shot, through the central forehead and into the brain. It smacked of assassination, military style. Either the perpetrator had been exceedingly lucky, or he was some kind of professional. Vogel favoured the latter.

  He would have liked to check out the body himself, and have a look around the flat for any further indication of what had occurred, and any clues that might suggest a possible motive, or even point to the identity of the perpetrator – although that would probably be hoping for far too much – but, like all modern police officers, Vogel didn’t dare do or touch anything which might muddy the crime scene. He must wait for CSI to do their job.

  He stood looking at Bella Fairbrother’s body for a few seconds more. He regarded her death as primarily his responsibility. No logical argument would ever change his mind on that. And, whilst suspecting that Bella was far from innocent of at least a certain degree of nefarious involvement in the sequence of events which had led to her own passing, Vogel was overwhelmed with a sense of deep sadness. And guilt. Vogel’s wife always said that, in that regard, he was better suited to being a Roman Catholic than a Jew; at least he would be able to say a few Hail Mary’s and gain some absolution. As it was, Vogel carried his guilt around with him like notches etched into his soul. The wanton murder of Bella Fairbrother – which, taking into account the logistics of her journey from Somerset, must have occurred within a maximum of a couple of hours before his and Saslow’s arrival at her apartment, probably less – threatened to carve a very deep notch indeed.

  Vogel’s expression was grim as he stepped out into the lobby and prepared to call in the crime.

  A case which had started off as quite possibly no more than a tragic accidental fire had now led, directly or indirectly, to the death of four people. And with this fourth death, the murder of a young woman, a mother, whom he believed may well have been trying to put herself under his protection, the case had just got personal for Vogel. It was as if a metaphorical gauntlet had been thrown down before him.

  Vogel felt as if he was accepting a challenge to combat, from which he would not back away until everyone responsible for this series of terrible violent crimes had been brought to justice.

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was an MIT case, of course. Nobby Clarke arrived at Chelsea Harbour little more than an hour after the first response team. The crime scene had been cordoned off and a smattering of uniformed officers were making sure that nobody contaminated the scene. CSI and Dr Patricia Fitzwarren were already there. As was an MIT unit under the command of DCI James Pearson, who was also leading the London end of the investigation into the death of George Grey, and already familiar with the various strings to the Blackdown Manor case.

  He didn’t look overjoyed at the arrival of his detective superintendent. Nobby was quite sure he felt that she should be safely behind her desk, where she belonged. And she sympathised absolutely with him. That was exactly how she’d always felt about MIT brass interfering when she’d been a detective chief inspector leading her own team.

  ‘It’s all right, Pearson,’ she said curtly. ‘Only a fleeting visit. I’ll be out of your way soon enough.’

  Pearson coloured slightly. He had reddish hair and that sort of pale pink-white skin which tended to turn a deeper shade of pink very easily. Nobby might have felt sympathy for him if he hadn’t been a senior police officer. As it was, she was vaguely amused. But she tried not to show it. This was hardly the occasion.

  ‘I want to see Vogel,’ she continued. ‘This case is beginning to have huge ramificat
ions. We need to work out a strategy between our two forces. As far as I’m concerned, this murder is an MIT job, and you are the senior investigating officer, but clearly it’s entangled with the cases Vogel and his Avon and Somerset MCIT team are already investigating. So I’m putting myself up as liaison, all right?’

  ‘Of course, Nobby,’ Pearson replied smartly.

  Unlike Vogel, Pearson didn’t have a problem addressing Clarke in the informal manner that she preferred. He still looked as if he would have preferred her not to be there, though.

  ‘And don’t worry,’ added Clarke, knowing full well she was accurately putting his thoughts into words. ‘I’ll soon be back where I belong.’

  After the arrival of Pearson and his team, Vogel had taken Saslow to a nearby coffee shop. She’d managed to refrain from being sick, as far as he knew. She’d certainly avoided vomiting in public. But only with difficulty, Vogel suspected. She still looked shaken.

  Nonetheless Saslow stood up at once when Det. Supt. Clarke entered the coffee shop. With a mildly impatient wave, Nobby gestured for her to sit.

  ‘Well, this is turning into a right old mess, isn’t it, Vogel?’ she commented by way of greeting.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ the DI muttered.

  ‘Right,’ continued Clarke, pausing only to order a double espresso. ‘This is Pearson’s case, right? It’s MIT. Unlike George Grey, Bella Fairbrother was neither an Avon and Somerset suspect, nor on the run …’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that, boss, I mean Nobby—’ began Vogel.

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Vogel,’ interrupted Clarke. ‘My boys and girls are already on the case. It would be hours before you could set up your lot here, even in the unlikely event of your brass letting you even attempt to run a murder investigation in Met territory.’

  Vogel knew she was totally correct about that. But he said nothing.

  ‘However, this is clearly going to overlap with the investigation you are already running,’ Nobby Clarke continued. ‘So, you obviously should continue to handle the West Country end concerning this latest murder too. I’ve told Pearson that. And you’ll both liaise through me. Four people, all connected in some way, have died following your fire, Vogel. I know one of those deaths is not yet proven to be murder, but I damned well suspect it was, as I’m sure you do. So, I’m not having any inter-force rivalry from anybody, is that clear?’