Dreams of Fear

Nine

Karen Crow had fast tracked the post-mortem for eleven a.m. at the North Devon District Hospital. She was just about to start work when Vogel and Saslow arrived at the mortuary.

The body, lain on its back with arms and legs outstretched, was no longer clothed, its nakedness adding to the vulnerability of this small slight woman. That was something else Vogel always found difficult to deal with.

Jane Ferguson had certainly sustained a number of bruises and other injuries of varying degrees of severity, and of varying longevity. There were old bruises on one of her upper legs, and also on one thigh, as well as the scars on her lower arms and wrists which the pathologist had earlier suggested could be signs of self-harming. There was also, of course, the faded bruising and the half-healed cut to Jane’s face which had been apparent when her body was first discovered. Most of these could not have been sustained as she fell from the landing of her home, because they couldn’t be post-mortem. And then there was the injured arm, dislocated at the shoulder according to Karen Crow’s initial examination at the scene.

Vogel leaned closer to examine the body.

The dead woman’s head lay very slightly at an angle. Vogel already knew that her neck had been broken, as he would suspect in the case of someone who had hanged to death. He stared for a moment or two at her distorted features, the swollen discoloured flesh where the rope had tightened around her neck, the protruding tongue. Then he looked away. He had already seen Jane Ferguson’s body once, at first hanging from a rope and then lying on the floor of her home. This was far from the first death by strangulation that he had encountered in his police career, and would almost certainly not be the last. He still found it one of the most disturbing causes of death, and probably always would, whether self-administered or by a third party. Vogel fought to keep his facial expression neutral. He just had to accept that if he continued in police work until the end of his days he still would not get used to it. Nor to what he regarded as the equally horrific mechanics of a forensic post-mortem examination, come to that.

He glanced at Karen Crow. He could see that she was preparing the instruments she would use to saw open the dead woman’s torso and remove the top of her head. He steeled himself. He suspected Karen could already answer most of the questions he needed to ask, but she was notoriously tetchy concerning what she considered to be interruptions whilst she was at work.

Eventually she turned to Vogel.

‘I can see no initial signs of any internal injuries that may have contributed to death,’ she said. ‘There seems little doubt that my initial prognosis was correct and that the victim died of strangulation. The protrusion of the tongue, the bulging eyes, the skin discolouration, all point to that, in addition to the obvious circumstantial evidence of a rope which was tightened around her neck by her own weight when she fell from the bannisters on the landing of her home. Which she quite clearly did. And this is consistent with the fracture of the axis vertebra which she sustained.’

Karen Crow paused again.

‘Hangman’s fracture,’ said Vogel.

Karen nodded.

‘What, boss?’ queried Saslow, who had never encountered a death by this kind of strangulation before.

‘The name given to the fracture commonly sustained by those sentenced to death in a court of law in the days of judicial execution by hanging,’ explained Vogel. ‘Isn’t that right, Karen?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said the pathologist. ‘Although more recent studies have shown that the axis, which is the second spinal vertebra and the one that carries the pivot upon which the head rests, was not actually fractured in judicial hangings as often as used to be supposed. If it is fractured, particularly in circumstances like this, then it certainly serves to confirm that death was by hanging. But... ’

‘But... Karen?’ interjected Vogel eagerly.

‘But,’ Dr Crow went on, ‘there may also be indications of manual strangulation. The deceased’s hyoid bone, that’s the U-shaped bone which supports the tongue, is also fractured. Now, according to what is generally regarded as probably the most authoritative study, in the States in 1990 something, thirty-four per cent of victims of manual strangulation suffer a fractured hyoid bone, but only eight per cent of victims of hanging. So, we have something of a conundrum here.’

‘I see,’ mused Vogel. ‘But couldn’t both these kinds of fracture occur in a suicidal hanging? Is that not possible?’

‘I suppose it must be,’ responded the pathologist. ‘Although I personally have never encountered it. There is another explanation, of course, which at the very least would be equally likely.’

‘That an unknown assailant manually strangled Mrs Ferguson and then staged a hanging so that her death would look like suicide, and she would sustain injuries consistent with suicidal hanging?’ queried Vogel quickly.

‘You’re keeping up, Vogel. Well done. And yes, that has to be a possibility.’

‘But can we prove it?’ asked Vogel, who was too intrigued by what was being suggested to indulge in any banter.

‘Well, I do think there is enough forensic evidence to strongly indicate that Mrs Ferguson has been murdered. And there’s something else, Vogel. If you look closely... ’

She glanced up at the DCI in invitation. Trying not to wince, Vogel obediently leaned forward in order to give himself a better view.

‘If you look closely you can see certain indentations in the flesh around the victim’s neck and throat which may not be directly related to the effects of the rope when she fell,’ Karen Crow continued.

‘So, are you saying that you think these indentations might be caused by fingers pressing into the flesh?’ asked Saslow.

The pathologist nodded absently.

‘You’re keeping up too, Saslow,’ she remarked. ‘Yes. I do think these marks could have been made by fingers. And the victim suffered a quite severe blow to the head, probably around the time of her death. Difficult to be sure which. Do you see? There’s a small but distinct dent in the cranium. Now, assuming for a moment that this is suicide, that injury could obviously have been caused by the deceased knocking her head against the bannisters, or perhaps a wall, when she fell. But it does also arouse suspicions that it was caused by a third party, perhaps using some sort of blunt instrument, and that it actually contributed to her death.’

‘Well, in that case, and this time assuming Jane Ferguson was murdered, if the killer knocked her unconscious why did he need to manually strangle her?’ asked Vogel. ‘I can understand the difficulty in staging a hanging with a fit conscious young woman to deal with. But not too difficult if she’s unconscious, surely.’

‘Maybe not,’ replied Dr Crow. ‘But I am unsure if this particular blow to the head would have been sufficient to render the victim unconscious, or not for a long enough period of time, anyway. The assailant would almost certainly have known, or at least suspected, that there were children sleeping in the house too. He would have wanted to be able to move with maximum speed and minimum noise—’

‘OK,’ interrupted Vogel, who could not quite control his eagerness to grasp every possible option. ‘But neither can you rule out the possibility of the blow to the head having been sustained when the victim fell from the upper landing with a rope around her neck — either of her own volition or at the hand of her killer, can you?’

‘No, I can’t,’ agreed Karen Crow.

‘What about the old bruising?’ continued Vogel.

‘Well, it’s quite extensive. You know what I am going to say, don’t you?’

‘I think you are going to say that the pattern of the bruising is in keeping with domestic violence, as we have all suspected from the beginning. Not least because the bruising is primarily in areas which would probably normally be covered by clothing and therefore not seen.’

‘I am indeed.’

‘And so, the finger points even more at the husband. As usual.’

‘That’s your territory, Vogel.’

‘Yes. And my enquiries so far have revealed that whatever personal suspicions I may have, the husband, our principle person of interest, appears to have a cast-iron alibi. In addition, your evidence is not conclusive, is it?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Therefore, whilst there may well be reasons to suspect otherwise, Mrs Ferguson could still have taken her own life, as was initially suspected. Is that not so?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ agreed the pathologist. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes,’ echoed Vogel. ‘Nonetheless, I think we have enough here for me to get the brass to agree to stepping up this operation to a murder investigation. Nobby Clarke is halfway there anyway. But I’m going to have to do a lot more digging before I take any action against Felix Ferguson, that’s for sure.’

Vogel turned to Saslow.

‘Come on, Dawn. Let’s leave Karen to get on with her work and head for Exeter.’

He glanced at his watch. It was just noon. He had agreed to meet Nobby Clarke at one p.m., and he had no idea whether they would get to the restaurant on time. If not Nobby would have to wait. Knowing her, she wouldn’t mind as long as she had a drink in her hand.

‘First, lunch with the boss, then we’ll see what Dr Miriam Thorpe has to say for herself,’ he told Saslow as they headed for the hospital car park.

Nobby Clarke was already sitting at a window table at the restaurant, overlooking the city’s lovely old Cathedral Yard, when Saslow and Vogel arrived. As usual Vogel barely noticed his surroundings.

‘So,’ Nobby said by way of greeting, ‘I’ve just more or less got booted out of the Met because I took a moral stand on a contentious issue, or I thought that’s what I was doing, anyway, and within days of arriving here I’m stuck with the son of a local bigwig as number one suspect in the murder of his wife... ’

‘I’ve just been telling Mr Ferguson junior that he isn’t the number one suspect,’ muttered Vogel, as he sat down.

‘Of course, you have, Vogel, and we both know what a load of bollocks that is.’

‘Whatever you say, boss, I mean Nobby. And it’s not a murder enquiry yet, is it? Not officially anyway. But I think it should be.’

‘Ummm. From one pile of horseshit to another. Apparently, Mr Ferguson senior, the mayor of Bideford, is a bloody tin god around here. More than likely I’m about to wreck yet another career move. Particularly with you on board, Vogel.’

‘You asked for me, Nobby.’

‘Yeah, I did, didn’t I? I must be barking mad. What any intelligent copper in my position would try to do is brush this shit into a very dark corner, not heap it into a bloody great pile and sift through it.’

‘Very lyrical,’ said Vogel. ‘When did you start worrying about career moves, anyway?’

‘About the time I began to wonder what I’d do when they ran out,’ growled Nobby.

‘Ah.’

Vogel thought for a moment.

‘So you didn’t exactly choose to move to this very beautiful part of the world then?’

‘Like you hadn’t bloody guessed that, Vogel,’ muttered Clarke.

‘The thought did cross my mind.’

‘I bet it did. The alternative seemed to be a demotion and back to uniform. I only hung on to my rank by the skin of my teeth as it was. The top brass at the Met were so desperate to get shot of me that when the MCT job down here became vacant they pushed like hell for me to be drafted in. God knows what lies got told. But, I didn’t bring you here to talk about my career prospects, or lack of them.’

There was a glass of white wine on the table in front of Nobby Clarke. She raised it and took a deep drink.

Vogel watched in silence.

‘It’s my first,’ offered the detective superintendent.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ responded Vogel.

‘You didn’t have to,’ growled Nobby. ‘You sanctimonious born-again, vegan, ginger-ale drinker.’

‘I’m not vegan, just vegetarian,’ muttered Vogel, turning towards Dawn Saslow.

‘What would you like to drink, Saslow?’ he asked quietly.

‘Think I’ll stick to coffee, thanks,’ said Saslow. ‘I haven’t had my caffeine quota yet today.’

‘It’s on the way,’ said Clarke, without enthusiasm. ‘And a ginger ale. In case you need a fix, Vogel.’

Saslow failed to react visibly in any way to the banter between her two superior officers. She’d heard it all before. If the exchange had been between anyone except Vogel and Clarke, it would have surprised and even embarrassed her. Neither, Vogel was quite sure, would she be fazed by Clarke’s frank revelations concerning her career in front of a junior officer she didn’t know that well. Nobby was that sort of person. She always treated everyone on her team as her equal. Albeit superficially. There was never any doubt about who was in charge.

‘You all right, Dawn?’ Clarke enquired conversationally. ‘Still keeping the old bugger in check.’

‘I don’t know about that, boss,’ Saslow murmured.

‘No. Far too much to expect.’

Clarke picked up two menus and handed them to Saslow and Vogel.

‘Let’s order first,’ she said. ‘I’m having a veal escalope Milanese. With spaghetti.’

Vogel winced. Clarke laughed.

‘Got you!’ she said. ‘Even I don’t eat veal. It’s a chicken escalope. All right, Vogel?’

‘I am not your conscience,’ said Vogel, aware that he probably sounded even more sanctimonious than he had intended.

Saslow said she would have the same. A waiter brought the coffee and ginger ale. Clarke ordered chicken escalope for them both. Vogel chose mushroom risotto.

Clarke leaned back in her seat, her hands behind her head.

‘So, we have forensic evidence indicating that Jane Ferguson was murdered,’ she began.

‘Yes, but not irrefutable,’ said Vogel.

‘And yet you want me to officially launch a murder investigation?’

‘It’s as near as dammit if you ask me, Nobby,’ said Vogel. ‘However, we have to put a full-scale murder investigation in place in order to widen the scope of our enquiries. We need more evidence, and then there’s the little matter of our number one suspect appearing to have a pretty good alibi.’

The obligatory Vogel-Clarke banter was over, apparently. For the moment anyway.

‘Yes, our grieving husband, doubtless expressing his undying love for the deceased to anyone who will listen,’ Clarke mused. ‘Are we absolutely sure of his alibi?’

‘Well, he was at this big night at the yacht club, and as the new commodore he was guest of honour,’ responded Vogel. ‘Gave a speech. Hoovered up the booze. It looks cast iron. At first sight anyway. Although we’ll go along there later and double check it out.’

‘Nobody else in the frame?’

‘Not really. Not yet anyway. Felix Ferguson’s mother clearly loathed her daughter-in-law and makes no bones about it. Thinks she wasn’t good enough for her precious son. Same with Ferguson senior. Neither made any secret of their feelings when we interviewed them earlier. But it’s hard to believe either of them would go as far as to whack our Jane on the head, strangle her, then hang her over the bannisters. Indeed, hard to believe Mrs Ferguson would have had the physical strength. Not on her own, anyway. Same for Sam really, even though he looks like a reasonably fit man for his age. They’re both well into their sixties.’

‘What about if they did it together? Do they have alibis?’

‘Only each other. But, like I say, disliking your son’s wife and doing her in are two different things. We’d have a load more corpses on our hands if they weren’t! I don’t see it, Nobby, really I don’t.’

‘Neither do I, to tell the truth. So, we don’t have a lot to go on, yet, do we? As things stand, Vogel, what sort of chance do you see of us getting to the bottom of this thing, finding out beyond reasonable doubt who did what and why?’

Vogel glanced curiously at his senior officer.

‘That’s an odd sort of question to ask,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s very early days. We’ve teams doing door-to-door in Instow, Estuary Vista Close and thereabouts. See if anyone suspicious was seen hanging about, and so on. We’ll do all the routine grinding police work, like we always do, and see where it takes us. I won’t give up, boss. I never do. You know that.’

‘Of course, I know that. It’s why you’re here.’

Vogel noticed that she hadn’t picked up on his calling her ‘boss’. She always picked up on that. Unless she had something more important on her mind, of course.

‘What is it?’ he said. ‘You know something, don’t you? Something I haven’t been told.’

Clarke’s second glass of wine arrived, along with the food they’d all ordered. She allowed herself to be momentarily distracted, and took a sip from the new glass before replying to Vogel, who was waiting more than a tad impatiently.

‘Actually, Vogel, I don’t know anything,’ she said, with emphasis firmly on ‘know’.

‘It’s just that the old super in Barnstaple, who’s been in charge for ever, turned quite green when I told him we were looking at a suspicious death which might possibly turn into a murder enquiry. Kept asking me if I was absolutely sure and so on.’

She paused.

‘Well yes,’ said Vogel. ‘But you would expect that, wouldn’t you? I mean, you said from the beginning, the mayor of Bideford is like a little tin god in this part of North Devon. And your old super has been here since the year dot. Barnstaple’s his home town. I’d guess?’

Vogel raised his eyebrows quizzically. Clarke nodded briefly.

‘Bideford actually.’

‘Ah, even worse, then,’ Vogel continued. ‘He wouldn’t want to rock the boat of any local political bigwig, would he? And particularly not the mayor of his old home town. He probably also has retirement closing in on the horizon, and really doesn’t want his own boat rocked either?’

Another query. Another nod from Clarke.

‘Then what’s bothering you, Nobby?’ asked Vogel. ‘Everything’s panning out how we’d have expected so far, isn’t it? That’s how it seems to me, anyhow.’

‘Yes, but you’re a city creature, and as a copper you’re Met through and through. Always will be. You know what they say. They can take the boy out of the Met, but you can’t take the Met out of the boy.’

‘I don’t quite see where this is going,’ responded Vogel.

‘Oh, come on, yes you do,’ replied Clarke. ‘You have that awful Met thing in you, of assuming that anyone out in the sticks is at the very least inferior to, and quite probably considerably less intelligent than, you, and indeed most people in the metropolis.’

‘I dunno about that, Nobby,’ replied Vogel mildly. ‘I’ve been down west for a couple of years now. I may have thought that way to begin with, but I don’t reckon I do any more.’

‘Really,’ said Clarke, sounding totally unconvinced. ‘Sure of that, are you, Vogel?’

He opened his mouth to tell the detective superintendent she was a damned sight more likely to be guilty of Met superiority than he was. Then a certain aspect of his last big case for Avon and Somerset Police flitted across his mind. He had very nearly missed vital indications of criminal activity because of a lurking inclination to regard people with broad West Country accents as being not quite as bright as those without. Even though he would never admit it.

‘Well, maybe not entirely sure,’ he said. The nearest to an honest answer he was prepared to give.

‘Indeed. Have you looked around you at all whilst you’ve been here, Vogel?’

Vogel glanced at Saslow. He had been aware of her taking in the sea views, and generally enjoying the scenic quality of the place they had been sent to. Aspects of life that meant very little to Vogel. Was that what Clarke was getting at? If so, she was, in his opinion, moving from mild eccentricity into weirdo territory.

‘It’s a very beautiful part of the world, Nobby,’ he remarked tentatively.

Nobby Clarke clicked her teeth impatiently.

‘Anything else you noticed?’

‘Uh, well, we only got here a few hours ago and I’ve been concentrating on the case—’

‘This is about the case,’ Clarke interrupted. ‘This chunk of North Devon by the sea has something of a boom town about it. Recession and even Brexit haven’t really touched it. Not to the degree that they have most of the rest of the country, anyway. The holiday trade is booming. It’s quite a sophisticated trade nowadays too.

‘Look at that lovely little boozer, where you’re staying. Everything about it is high end, from the furnishings to the food. And consider the location. You’ve got the river right in front of you, and Instow across the water, the pretty little white village which we believe is now the scene of a major and not yet explicable crime. It doesn’t fit, Vogel. That’s for sure. But when does crime fit? Nonetheless, another thing that’s for sure, is that the people who live on the North Devon coast aren’t seaside Worzel Gummidges. Neither are they inbred idiots desperate to protect an insular way of life. There is nothing insular about North Devon anymore.’

‘I still don’t get exactly where you’re going with this, boss,’ said Vogel again.

‘Don’t you?’ the detective superintendent replied. ‘Thing is, Vogel, you’re actually not here because the local mayor’s family are at the heart of a murder enquiry, and I want someone in charge who will dig his way to the truth regardless of any pressure from those on high.’

‘I’m not?’

‘No, Vogel, you’re not. Neither you nor Saslow. You’re here because I don’t believe one jot of this hick town nonsense. The Barnstaple super might be old fashioned but he’s a thoroughly decent police officer, and I think every instinct in his body would lead him to conduct a thorough investigation into any serious crime on his patch. By the book to the nth degree, maybe. But he’d do it. And the fact that a local mayor is involved would probably make him more determined to conduct a proper investigation rather than less. Yet he would still like nothing more than to find a way to shut this enquiry down and dismiss Jane Ferguson’s death as a tragic suicide.

‘That’s why I wanted to meet you today, Vogel. To make my thoughts on this clear. And that’s why I wanted you leading the investigation. Because I believe there is something far bigger going on than the possibility of some small-town scandal, which those who pass for the great and the good round here want brushed under the carpet in order to protect reputations and civic status.

‘In fact, I think all that is a load of old bollocks, Vogel. You are here to find out what really lies behind this desire for a cover-up. Because there’s no doubt something is going on. There remains considerable pressure from on high, and I don’t think for one moment that it is confined to within Devon and Cornwall Police, for the case of Jane Ferguson to be buried as quickly as possible.’

Nobby Clarke paused.

‘If you’ll excuse the pun,’ she said.

Vogel allowed his lips to twitch.

‘Saslow and our number one suspect have already beaten you to it in that area, Nobby,’ he murmured.

The detective super ignored him. She looked and sounded like a woman on a mission. Vogel had seen her in that mode before. It almost always led to trouble. For all concerned. She never learned, of course, and neither, he supposed, did he.

‘I’m not sure exactly who is applying this pressure, in fact I’ve no bloody idea,’ Clarke continued. ‘But it comes from the very top. I’m quite sure of that. Trust me.’

Vogel took a sip of his ginger ale.

‘You really are determined to run out of career moves, aren’t you, boss?’ he commented.

‘Do you mind?’ queried the detective super. ‘If I go down again, I could well take you with me.’

‘Naw, I’m Met. You said so yourself. I’m slippery. I’ll blame it all on you.’

‘Vogel, you are all kinds of things. Slippery is not one of them. And neither have you ever been any better than me at keeping out of trouble.’

Vogel knew he couldn’t argue with that. He smiled and changed the subject.

‘One thing though, I don’t get, boss,’ he said. ‘If the D and C brass want a cover-up so badly, why did they take this case away from the local boys and girls, authorize you to bring in Saslow and me. Chief constable to chief constable too.’

‘It’s all changed, Vogel, from when this death was called in not much more than twelve hours ago, and it really was just about local politics,’ she said. ‘The brass are now regretting your appointment big time, I suspect. They are under some sort of mega pressure from on high, seriously on high, and I don’t know why, what, or bloody whom. I will bloody well find out, though.’

For a while the three officers concentrated on their food. Saslow was clearly hungry, she had missed breakfast, and she demolished her chicken escalope at appropriate speed. As usual Nobby Clarke was more interested in the wine and only picked at her escalope. Vogel only picked at his risotto. He’d eaten a hearty breakfast and hadn’t wanted lunch in the first place.

When they rose to leave the restaurant, Clarke placed a hand on Vogel’s arm.

‘Sod it, you’ve officially got your murder enquiry,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell the CC. He’ll be thrilled.’

With a new spring in his step, Vogel headed for the door. He couldn’t wait to get on with it.

That was one of the things he liked best about working with Detective Superintendent Nobby Clarke. She didn’t ask the chief constable, even the CC of a force she was new to, at which she had arrived under something of a cloud. Even under the increasingly bewildering circumstances which seemed to be developing.

She told him.