Wheel of Fire

by Hilary Bonner

  Freddie was by then in a total panic. His words came tumbling out, until he was finally interrupted by that almost irritatingly calm voice. What would it take to make that man panic, Freddie wondered obliquely.

  ‘Of course, I will tell you what to do. You will have to speak to the police eventually, but not now. You need to calm down, and we should have a meeting so that I can brief you thoroughly. Meanwhile, when we have finished this conversation I want you to destroy your phone, and purchase a pay-as-you-go one as soon as you can. You mustn’t use it again to call anyone. The police have probably put a track on you. We can’t be too careful. You should check out of the Sofitel immediately. Take the Heathrow Express into town, and book yourself into the Paddington Hilton. I will get the briefcase delivered there. It should be waiting for you when you arrive. Then you should take it to head office, as I’ve already told you. And you must pull yourself together. The board have to believe that you are capable of running the show, because they need a figurehead as much as I do …’

  ‘But I can’t. I can’t run the show. I can’t run anything …’

  ‘I just told you. I will be with you every step of the way. You don’t have to run anything, just pretend that you are. You were a promising actor, once, weren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. People said so …’

  ‘Yes, they did. You still have the talent, I’m sure. Now what are you wearing?’

  ‘W-what …?’

  Freddie actually had to look at himself in order to answer. He had finally showered, shaved, and changed into fresh clothes for the first time since his flight over. But he was still similarly clad.

  ‘Jeans, and a shirt, but everything’s clean,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have a suit with you?’

  Freddie did. The only one he owned. His funeral suit. He had, after all, been expecting to attend a funeral, his father’s funeral. Now, with Bella’s death, it looked as if he might be attending two funerals. At least.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘OK, put it on. And a tie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was a black tie. His funeral tie.

  ‘Put that on too. We need you to look like a businessman. If you look the part you will be all the better equipped to play it, right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Freddie.

  ‘Good. Now all you have to do is to believe that we can still pull this off. We can, you do believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Yes. Without any doubt at all. And you know what, dear boy? I think we’re both probably going to be better off without her. Really I do.’

  ‘Right,’ said Freddie. And then to himself, after the call ended, he muttered, ‘You really are quite mad, aren’t you? Quite mad. Why on earth didn’t I see that before?’

  Nonetheless, he proceeded to do exactly what he had been told. He could see no alternative.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Ultimately Freddie checked out of the Sofitel whilst Vogel and Saslow were still ploughing through the heavy late-afternoon traffic on the M4 made even worse than usual by equally heavy rainfall.

  What he didn’t know, however, was that Vogel had put a contingency plan into operation as soon as he’d ended his earlier phone conversation with Freddie. There had been four murders, almost certainly, whatever could or could not be proven in a court of law. Not only did Vogel mistrust everyone who was remotely involved with this case, he mistrusted the perennially illusive Freddie Fairbrother more than most. So he’d taken no chances.

  He’d asked Nobby Clarke to divert a couple of her people from Brentford, less than half an hour away from Heathrow, where they were still conducting door-to-door and other inquiries into the George Grey affair, and dispatch them to the Sofitel on a watching brief.

  They had seen Freddie leave, and followed him onto the Heathrow Express. Vogel and Saslow were still a good twenty minutes away from the Sofitel when Nobby Clarke called with the news.

  ‘Your bird has flown his nest,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, Vogel. We’re on his scent. Right up his arse actually.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Vogel. ‘Only, don’t let your guys approach him, will you? I’d like to see where he leads us and what he gets up to without alerting him, if that’s possible.’

  ‘Teach your grandmother,’ said Clarke, ending the call.

  Vogel was smiling as he related the exchange to Saslow, albeit without including Nobby’s last remark.

  ‘So what do we do now, boss?’ asked Saslow.

  ‘I’m not sure, Saslow,’ replied Vogel. ‘Just give me a moment, will you.’

  He now had the footage on his phone of the mystery man arriving at Bella Fairbrother’s apartment block. Almost certainly her killer. And he’d been playing it repeatedly ever since leaving Chelsea.

  The niggle at the back of his mind was growing more and more insistent. There really was something, something about the mystery man’s body language which was sending him a signal, a signal that this was somebody he knew, or at the very least had met. He just couldn’t quite get there. Vogel, however, was the most dogged and determined of policemen. His mild manner and equable personality gave little indication of just how stubborn and intractable he could be. He was like a Canadian Mounty, or the Canadian Mounty legend, anyway. He worked on the principle that he would always get his man. And, eventually, he nearly always did. Because no case was ever closed without a result, as far as Vogel was concerned, whatever his superiors might say.

  He played the short piece of film again and again. Each time telling himself it would be for the last time. Then he played it again.

  And suddenly, suddenly, he remembered what had been bugging him.

  ‘Oh my God, Saslow,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve got it.’

  ‘Got what, boss.’

  ‘I think I know who Bella Fairbrother’s mystery caller was. I may just have identified her killer. And, I have to tell you, Saslow, it defies belief.’

  He paused. ‘I could still be wrong. I’ve finally realised what was bothering me. But it could be coincidence, or my memory might be playing tricks on me. Either way, Saslow, we have people to see and questions to ask. Nobby and her lot are all over Freddie Fairbrother. I think we can safely leave that end to them now. You and I need to get ourselves back to West Somerset, smartish.’

  ‘C’mon boss, put me out of my misery,’ said Saslow. ‘Where exactly are we going and why?’

  ‘We’re going to the home of the man we saw in that CCTV footage,’ said Vogel. ‘At least, I hope we are.’

  ‘But he was unidentifiable, boss. You couldn’t see anything really except a shape in a bloody great hooded raincoat. You couldn’t even see his hands because he was wearing gloves. Even the Met’s tech boys have already said there’s little or nothing they can do to make him identifiable.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true. Thing is, though, from the start there was something that was bugging me about his body language, something that made me feel he was familiar to me. Did you notice what he was doing with his hands in that CCTV footage?’

  ‘Not really, boss. They were just loose in front of him, most of the time, from what I recall.’

  ‘Absolutely spot on, Saslow. But when he was speaking into the entry phone he began to repeatedly rub his hands together, palm to palm. It looked like a kind of nervous mannerism. You know, some people, when they’re under stress rub their chin, or bite their lip, or tap their fingers on something. Whatever. This character, even with gloves on, rubs his hands together. And I reckon he probably always does it. I was sure from the start that I had seen someone do that recently, exactly the same way. But I couldn’t remember who, or under what circumstances. And now, finally, it’s come to me.’

  Vogel treated Saslow to a big, somewhat self-satisfied, grin.

  ‘Oh come on, for God’s sake, boss,’ said Saslow.

  ‘I think it’s Jack Kivel,’ said Vogel. ‘Kivel rubbed his hands together that way when we first went to
his house and quizzed him about the fire and Sir John. Exactly that way. I’m sure of it. I think Jack Kivel killed Bella Fairbrother.’

  Saslow whistled long and low. ‘Wow, boss, that’s a heck of a big assumption to make based on someone rubbing their hands together.’

  ‘Yes. Which is why we’re heading to the Kivel home before alerting anyone else. If Jack’s there, and can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he’s not been out of the area all day, then he’s in the clear and I’m wrong. But, well, I can just see him in my mind’s eye, at his cottage, rubbing his hands together, perhaps a tad nervously, uncomfortable anyway. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because clearly the loss of Blackdown Manor and Sir John’s death had been a big shock to the Kivels, even after the way they’d apparently been treated. But our Joe in the CCTV footage does exactly the same thing. And you know how pedantic I am about those sort of details, Saslow.’

  Saslow knew. ‘I’d call it anal, boss,’ she said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Freddie destroyed his phone straight away, as instructed. He took out the SIM card and put it in his pocket. Then he drowned the phone in the washbasin in his hotel bathroom and wrapped its remains in an old newspaper which he dropped into a bin in the hotel lobby.

  He checked out and took the walkway to the Heathrow Express terminal five station, where he boarded the next train to Paddington.

  All the time he was fighting to remain calm and in control, and not entirely succeeding. He was certainly in no state to notice the two MCIT officers, DCs Jarvis Jones and Pamela Bright, who took photographs of him in the hotel lobby and then followed him onto the train, even if they had not been highly trained architects of surveillance.

  Jones and Bright boarded the same carriage as Freddie. They were both in their twenties, each dressed in their personal choice of the anonymous uniform of modern youth: hoody, tracksuit bottoms and trainers for Jones; leather jacket, torn skinny jeans and boots for Bright.

  They sat holding hands and appeared to have eyes only for each other. They were the epitome of a young couple in love. If it had occurred to Freddie that he might be followed, he would have been highly unlikely to have them as his most probable tail from amongst the diverse group of passengers on the Express.

  At Paddington Freddie went straight to the Vodafone shop where, as instructed, he acquired a new pay-as-you-go phone. Jones and Bright disappeared into the entrance of the Tube station. Not that Freddie had noticed. Their part of the surveillance operation was over.

  A second team was waiting on the station, also male and female DCs, Ali Patel and Marsha McKay, this time dressed and behaving like city business colleagues. As soon as Freddie exited the Vodafone shop, Ali Patel made his way in. Patel showed his warrant card and was able to obtain details of Freddie’s transaction, including the number of the new phone he had acquired, thus allowing his future movements to be tracked should he at any stage give those following him the slip, which, as yet, he displayed no signs of attempting. It was abundantly clear that Freddie Fairbrother remained blissfully unaware of the surveillance operation focused on him.

  Meanwhile DC McKay, pretending all the while to be speaking into her mobile, followed Freddie into the Paddington Hilton, through its entrance on the station concourse. In the lobby she sat down at once on a conveniently situated couch, and whilst continuing to appear to be talking into her phone, watched Freddie check in. Freddie was then directed across the lobby to the concierge’s desk, where he was handed a brown leather briefcase, which he carried with him to the elevator leading to the rooms.

  As soon as the elevator doors closed behind him, McKay approached reception, showed her warrant card, confirmed that Freddie had indeed checked in for the night, and obtained the number of his room. She sat down again on one of the lobby couches and prepared to wait.

  A few minutes later a black cab pulled up outside. It was actually a police surveillance vehicle, with another MIT officer, DC Joe Parker, at the wheel. Almost immediately Ali Patel appeared and climbed into the back. The cab did not move.

  A few minutes after that Freddie Fairbrother stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby. He was carrying the same brown leather briefcase, but other than that he was a man transformed. Indeed, McKay wondered if she might almost have missed him, were it not for the briefcase.

  His unruly bleached blond hair had been slicked straight back. He was wearing a slightly stiff looking, but well-tailored, charcoal grey suit, a bright white shirt and a carefully knotted black tie.

  He dropped off his room key at reception and left through the revolving doors onto Praed Street. McKay made no attempt to follow him. Her job was also done, for the time being, although she might be asked to wait at the Hilton for Fairbrother’s return; or take part in a room search, should her superiors request this and succeed in obtaining a warrant.

  Patel and Parker spotted Freddie as soon as he stepped onto the pavement. He hailed a cab from the rank right outside the hotel. Parker immediately took off in cautious pursuit. Following another vehicle through congested London streets is never easy, and even though Parker was something of an expert – and the apparently properly registered cab he was driving gave him not only a certain invisibility, but also access to bus lanes and other restricted areas – he was reassured by the knowledge that the tech boys would soon be tracking Freddie Fairbrother’s shiny new phone, if they weren’t already.

  As it happened, tailing Freddie’s cab as it headed east along the Marylebone Road, with its bus and taxi lane, was relatively easy to begin with. But when they reached the City, the build-up of evening traffic in the narrower streets made Parker’s job far more difficult.

  Ultimately the inevitable happened. Freddie’s cab slipped through traffic lights at a road junction, the lights changed, and Parker was forced to stop. He might well have risked jumping the lights, but a double decker bus was blocking his way.

  ‘Shit,’ said Parker.

  ‘Don’t worry, I think our man’s reaching his destination,’ said Patel. ‘Look what’s ahead.’

  Parker did so. Less than half a mile or so in front, slightly off to the right, he could see a towering, distinctively angled shape, a building so tall it stood several storeys above the others in that part of the City.

  ‘Fort Fairbrother,’ said Patel, using the popular colloquial name for the head office of Fairbrother International. ‘And I’ll bet that’s where Freddie’s going. He’s dressed for the part, isn’t he?’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Parker, who took it as a personal insult when a mark escaped him, however close the probable destination.

  Both men noticed that the next set of lights were changing to red.

  ‘I’m off,’ said Patel opening the door. ‘I reckon I can get there quicker on foot. Let Pearson know.’

  And he took off at a run down the street.

  Freddie was indeed heading for Fort Fairbrother. His advisor had been quite correct concerning the apparent extension of normal working hours. There were lights on throughout the building, and the front office remained open.

  His arrival caused quite a stir. The news of Bella Fairbrother’s death had preceded him to the headquarters of his family’s business empire by only an hour or so. And by osmosis had leaked to most of the rest of the City soon after that, even though a public announcement of her death had yet to be made.

  The shares of Fairbrother International threatened to fall to a whole new low.

  Acting chairman Jimmy Martins, who had still been anxiously waiting for Bella to arrive for a meeting crucial to the future of the bank when he heard that she’d been killed, was locked away in his office with the company secretary, Ben Travis. Both men were already in shock, and more than anything else, although neither admitted it to the other, they were determining how to save their own skins. Should they jump ship? If so, that might hasten what now seemed to be the inevitable collapse of Fairbrother’s. But if they stayed on, would they be seen as continuing to be complici
t in the undoubtedly dubious activities of their late boss, the company’s former chairman and chief executive officer Sir John Fairbrother.

  Each had more or less come to the conclusion that the lesser of the evils confronting them would be to cut their losses and run, when the front-office receptionist called to say that Mr Freddie Fairbrother was in the lobby and was requesting to see Mr Martins as a matter of urgency.

  An astonished Martins told her to send Freddie up at once.

  ‘What on earth can he want?’ asked Ben Travis, when Prentis told him who was about to join them. ‘I thought he was devoted to lotus eating on an Aussie beach.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ muttered Martins, whose peptic ulcer was playing up almost unbearably. Whatever the modern theory about ulcers, he was in little doubt that the burning gnawing sensation which engulfed his abdomen occurred most frequently and most extremely in direct relation to the degree of stress he was under.

  ‘You don’t think he’s come to claim his inheritance, do you?’ Travis continued. ‘If so, he’s damned well welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned anyway—’

  He was interrupted by a brief tap on the chairman’s office door. In walked Freddie. He’d been a teenager when Martins had last seen him. Ben Travis, a newer Fairbrother’s executive, had clearly heard the stories but never actually met Freddie before.

  Just as DC Patel had remarked to DC Parker, Jimmy Martin’s first impression was that, all of a sudden, Freddie at least looked the part of a banker.

  Pleasantries and introductions between the three men were cursory. Martins did not move from behind his desk. Instead he sat back in his chair and waited for Freddie to explain the purpose of his visit.

  Freddie looked totally at ease. He stepped forward, set down the brown briefcase on the acting chairman’s desk, and opened it.

  ‘My father’s will is in there,’ he announced.

  His voice was firm and surprisingly authoritative, not entirely unlike his father’s, thought Martins.

  ‘The case also contains papers concerning the various trust funds and investments which will, as I am sure you know, release substantial funds into the bank, following my father’s death.’