Dreams of Fear

Sixteen

Sam Ferguson was in a total state of shock as he tramped back across the sand and over the pebble ridge onto Northam Burrows.

Sam was a man accustomed to knowing what to do. He would invariably assess a situation quickly, decide upon a course of action, and execute it without hesitation. He was good at making decisions. That was what Sam Ferguson did.

Not this time though. What Gerry Barham had told Sam had shaken him to the very core. He still did not know what it really meant.

He did know that he was afraid. He believed now that his surviving family were under threat. He was sure of it. And whilst what he had told DCI Vogel was absolutely correct, that he felt no grief for the passing of his daughter-in-law, he found himself wishing with all his heart that she were still alive. He glanced at his watch on a kind of autopilot. At almost exactly the same time as Anne Ferguson had looked at hers, and Vogel and Saslow had arrived at the NDYC.

It was a few minutes before six p.m. The two constables who had broken the news of Jane’s death had arrived at his home just before three a.m., around fifteen hours previously.

In the whole of his life Sam Ferguson had not experienced a more devastating fifteen hours. He couldn’t believe what had happened. Not any of it. But particularly not what he had just been told by Gerry Barham.

He was devastated. He did not know whom to turn to or what to do. And Sam was not used to feeling that way.

He unlocked his car, climbed in, and allowed his upper body to slump over the steering wheel for a few seconds, then he sat up and tried to make himself think, to concentrate, to come up with some sort of course of action. Any sort.

He supposed he could just do nothing at all, something he had always found most difficult. In any case he feared that events would overtake themselves. And Felix was so vulnerable. He’d always been like that, charming, not without talent, not without a brain, but weak and rudderless.

Sam had never minded. It had always suited him to have a son whose path he could mould, a young man he could guide and steer who, unlike most sons in Sam’s experience, seemed to welcome that level of interference from his father.

But for a fleeting moment, and for probably the first time ever, he wished Felix were a different sort of man, a young man he could confide in, who might, for once, even be able to support his father in the way Sam had always supported him.

But that was not how things were. And Sam didn’t want Felix, or his grandchildren, ever to have to face the consequences of what he had just been told. Yet he feared that day would come, and sooner rather than later.

He sat there alone in his car for more than half an hour wracking his brains to come up with a workable plan, something that might yet save the day, without any success.

He needed to get home too. He’d told Amelia he’d had to go back to the council offices to deal with some vital issues.

She had echoed Vogel’s thoughts of that morning. Sam didn’t know what Vogel had thought, of course, although he might have guessed.

‘What possible council business could there be to take you away from your family yet again on this day of all days?’ Amelia had asked. ‘It’s a Sunday, too.’

Sam had apologized but insisted that there were pressing matters he needed to attend to before the offices opened for normal business the following day.

‘I’d always intended to go in this afternoon,’ he told Amelia. ‘I didn’t know Jane was going to get herself topped, did I?’

As soon as he spoke he’d regretted his choice of words. Amelia, not a woman known for her sensitivity, looked at him quite aghast.

‘I’m going to forget you said that, Sam,’ she said.

He knew he had been unconvincing in explaining his intentions, and his wife, who was certainly no fool, had clearly not believed a word he said. Indeed, even as he sat in the Burrows car park, momentarily too shocked to move, she was probably calling his direct line at the council offices to see if he was really there.

And if he didn’t pull himself together and get back fast, he was likely to be greeted by an explosion of fury, swiftly followed by an angry cross-examination which he didn’t feel up to.

With a huge effort of will he made himself start the engine and head home, all the while his mind was in turmoil. He had to do something, and he had to do something quickly. There was no one to turn to. There never was. It was down to him. As always.