Death Comes First

Twenty-nine

Henry lay still. He looked wiped out, as Clarke had predicted. Dawn Saslow remained with him. She was sitting, as she had been earlier, on an uncomfortable-looking hard chair by the balcony windows. Uncomfortable or not, Vogel thought she may have been asleep when he opened the door; she had the look about her of a woman who had just woken up. Apart from the police officer, Henry was alone. Felicity Mildmay had left the hospital. Vogel wasn’t altogether surprised. Felicity had made it pretty clear she wanted little more to do with her husband. That might change. But not for some time, Vogel didn’t think.

Henry’s eyes focused blearily on Vogel. He made no attempt, at first, to speak.

‘Mr Tanner, we don’t wish to intrude further at this time, nor to add to your distress, but I’m afraid there is one point I must ask you to clarify,’ Vogel began. ‘Whose idea was it that you check out Charlie’s email after he disappeared from his yacht?’

Henry looked blank. His mind was somewhere else. Probably reflecting not only on his terrible loss but also on the ruin of his whole carefully constructed existence, thought Vogel.

‘Please, Mr Tanner, this is important. Whose idea was it that you check out your son-in-law’s email?’

With tremendous effort Henry hauled himself, at least partially, back to the here and now.

‘I told you, Stephen Hardcastle and I thought it might throw some light on things...’ Henry’s voice drifted off.

‘But which of you first suggested it?’ Vogel continued doggedly.

Tanner looked bewildered. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked, just as his daughter had whenever Vogel persisted in any line of questioning.

‘We are trying to find out what, and who, was behind the chain of events which have engulfed your family,’ Vogel persevered. ‘And, however you feel at the moment, there will probably come a time when you will want to know that too. When it might matter.’

Tanner shook his head slightly. Vogel assumed that the other man could not imagine anything ever mattering again. Like his daughter. But Henry did answer the question.

‘It was Stephen,’ he said. ‘It had to be Stephen. I didn’t even know Charlie had a new laptop, let alone that his old one was in the safe.’

Vogel was aware of that familiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck that told him he was nearing a breakthrough on a case.

‘You didn’t know the laptop even existed,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

‘No,’ responded Henry.

‘Mr Tanner, do you remember if the email exchanges you presumed were between Charlie and his gangland connections were online, or stored on the laptop itself?’ Vogel continued.

Henry looked as if he didn’t understand a word Vogel was saying.

‘I mean, did Charlie use Outlook Express, or similar software, which actually takes emails off the net and downloads them onto a specific computer?’

‘Yes, we both did. Outlook Express.’

‘So those emails weren’t online in his server mail? They were in his Outlook Express?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Henry. ‘Look, I neither know nor care. If you think any of this is important, why don’t you check out the damned laptop? It’s still in Charlie’s safe, as far as I know.’

‘As we speak, that should be happening. I was just hoping—’

‘It’s too late,’ Henry moaned. ‘It’s too damned late now.’

There were tears in Henry’s eyes. Vogel was embarrassed. He so much preferred his interviewees to be feisty. Although he neither liked nor respected Henry Tanner, it gave Vogel no pleasure to see him reduced to this state. Nevertheless he was determined to persevere with his questions until he had the answers he needed.

‘You have told us that you believed Charlie was supplying arms to criminals, Mr Tanner. But are you absolutely sure he did so? Are you sure arms were diverted from their destinations, that they actually went missing whilst in the possession of Tanner-Max, from your bonded warehouses or elsewhere?’

Henry moaned more loudly. The tears were now rolling down his cheeks. However, through those tears he still managed to shoot Vogel what could only be described as a withering look.

‘Of course I am sure. After we found those email exchanges I checked and double-checked everything. Didn’t I make that clear when you asked me about it before? I went back over all the records and contacted our sources overseas. Because of the nature of our transactions, sometimes those sources are not clear on the precise quantity of items they will receive. Nobody had raised the alarm because the paperwork had been altered and everything matched up. But once I knew what I was looking for, I was able to see discrepancies. Over a period of about a year there were several instances. Nothing much — some small arms, a few rifles. Not whole cases of weapons, or anything like that. That would have shown up. This was more at the level of pilfering, except the nature of the goods being pilfered made it a serious matter.’

‘Any specific make of rifle?’

‘The Dragunov SVU — Soviet-developed, widely regarded as the best lightweight sniper rifle in the world. Three of those went astray from three different consignments, one at a time...’

Henry Tanner stopped in mid sentence. He remained a quick-witted man, even in his present condition.

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me I was shot by a Dragunov, are you?’ he enquired.

‘Quite possibly,’ agreed Vogel.

He and Clarke had both received an email a little earlier giving a preliminary list of weapons the bullet removed from Henry Tanner’s shoulder could have come from. The Dragunov was top of the list.

‘Did Charlie shoot me?’ asked Henry.

‘We don’t think so.’

‘His bloody gangster pals then, as I thought all along. Charlie has wiped out half my family though. And my wife holds me responsible. I expect my daughter does too.’ He raised his voice. ‘It’s not my bloody fault! None of it is my fault. I only ever did what I thought was best for my family.’

He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked directly at Vogel. ‘Will you just go,’ he said.

‘One last thing,’ persisted Vogel. ‘It is likely that the third person trapped in the car, now confirmed as drowned, was Monika, the young woman who was working for both you and your wife and your daughter. Joyce has told us that your son-in-law was having an affair with Monika, and that he lived with her following his staged death. Do you know anything about that?’

Henry shook his head. He looked stunned.

‘Of course I don’t,’ he shouted. ‘I don’t know anything about any of that. Look, I have nothing more to say. You must go. And I don’t need your damned nursemaid, either. You can’t insist she stays, can you? I haven’t been accused of anything. I’m not a bloody criminal. Leave me alone will you, all of you.’

The outburst seemed to weaken him.

‘OK, Mr Tanner, we will all leave you alone,’ said DCI Clarke. ‘We may need to speak to you again soon, but for the moment that’s it, and thank you for your help.’

The DCI put her hand on Vogel’s shoulder. ‘C’mon,’ she hissed at him as she turned and headed for the door.

This time it was Vogel’s turn to follow, along with Saslow, whom Clarke instructed to take up sentry duty outside Henry’s room. Just in case.

The young woman PC did not look particularly enthusiastic. She was tired, thought Vogel. They were all tired. And he was also frustrated.

‘Boss, I think you’re going soft,’ he said, once he and Clarke were both outside the room and out of earshot of PC Saslow.

‘That’s as maybe,’ muttered the DCI. ‘At risk of sounding sanctimonious, Vogel, that old bastard in there is as near as you’re going to get to a bloody patriot nowadays, and I doubt any of this stuff would have happened if he hadn’t spent his life doing what he has for our bloody government.’

Vogel wasn’t impressed.

‘Feathered his own nest too, from what I’ve seen,’ he said.

‘It’s none of your dammed business, Vogel. Just tell me what’s going on in that devious mind of yours.’ She fixed him with a shrewd gaze. ‘You think there’s been a set-up, don’t you?’

‘It’s the only thing that makes any sense, boss.’

‘And who, might I ask, do you think is behind this setup?’

‘There’s only one person, as far as I can make out, in a position to play Henry Tanner and Charlie Mildmay against each other. One person with the knowledge of both the business and the men. And the motive.’

‘Which is?’

‘The motive? Why, money and power of course.’

‘And the guilty one?’

‘Who do you think, boss?’

Clarke smiled. ‘I think, Vogel, that you reckon Stephen Hardcastle’s our man. He’s the one who suggested to Tanner that they check out Charlie Mildmay’s email account, where they conveniently found so much incriminating information. The one who was best placed to manipulate the family — including Tanner, who probably thought nobody would ever dare take him on at his own game. The one Charlie Mildmay thought was his best friend. Yep, it’s Hardcastle, isn’t it? That’s what you think.’

‘I sure do, boss,’ said Vogel.