Dreams of Fear

Twenty-One

Ultimately Vogel and Saslow began the first formal interview with Felix Ferguson just over an hour after his arrest. DC Perkins was charged with the task of liaising with DI Peters in the Major Incident Room at Bideford in case of any further developments.

Felix had volunteered nothing on the journey from Northam, nor whilst he had been processed through the custody suite, not as lengthy a process as usual as his fingerprints had already been taken and DNA extracted, as a matter of routine, for the purposes of elimination if nothing more. But he appeared, to Vogel’s relief, to be reasonably sober and perfectly lucid, in spite of having clearly already started drinking before his arrest. Vogel had on more than one occasion been forced to attempt to conduct interviews with subjects under the influence of drink and drugs. It was not normally a successful process.

Felix turned down the opportunity of having a solicitor present, which allowed the interview to proceed more quickly than might otherwise have been the case.

‘I don’t need a solicitor because I didn’t do it,’ he said.

Vogel ensured that the video equipment was activated, and recited the names of those present and the time and date, as is standard.

For just a few seconds he studied the man sitting opposite him across the simple table. As always, he asked himself if he really thought this was a human being capable of taking the life of another; not a scientific approach, but something he could never help doing.

In this case his gut instinct told him that Felix Ferguson was probably not a murderer. But there was now significant evidence to the contrary, which couldn’t be ignored. Also, everything about Felix, from his appearance through to his behaviour since his wife was killed, suggested that he was a weak man. And Vogel’s many years of police experience had taught him that weak people were inclined to be the most dangerous.

‘Mr Ferguson, we have arrested you on suspicion of the murder of your wife because, since we last spoke to you, fresh evidence has come to our attention which incriminates you,’ said Vogel stiffly. ‘Do you understand?’

Felix nodded.

‘I understand. But I don’t know what this evidence can be, because I’m innocent. I didn’t kill my wife. I loved my wife.’

‘Well, let me explain.’

Vogel glanced towards the uniformed woman constable standing by the door.

‘Could you bring in the evidence bag, please,’ he asked.

The PC was gone for less than a minute during which nobody spoke in the small interview room. When she returned she was dragging behind her a large clear plastic evidence bag and its clearly heavy contents.

‘Do you recognize the contents of this bag?’ asked Vogel.

Felix leaned towards the bag.

‘Well, it’s a rope, probably a boat line.’

He paused.

‘Oh my God, is that the rope which hanged Jane?’

‘Yes, it is, Mr Ferguson. And you were also correct when you said that it is a rope which has been used as a line on a boat. Do you recognize it?’

‘Recognize it? What do you mean. One boat line is pretty much like another. It looks like it’s quite new, hasn’t been used a lot. There’s no fraying... ’

He stopped in his tracks.

‘I had new lines fitted to the Stevie-Jo this season. Are you saying that is my rope?’

‘We have reason to believe so, Mr Ferguson. The rope is covered in your fingerprints.’

‘Well, that’s absurd nonsense,’ blustered Felix.

‘I’m afraid it’s the truth.’

‘Well, someone must have taken it off the boat. You can’t make them secure, you know. Not on a river mooring.’

‘When did you last take your boat out?’

‘About a week ago.’

‘And did you notice anything missing then?’

‘Well no, but if someone had nicked a line, I wouldn’t necessarily. There’s one at the stern and two aft, port and starboard, and I keep another couple in a locker. There’s no key or anything. Anyway, I suppose it could have been taken after that.’

‘So, you didn’t remove that line from your boat yourself, and take it to your home?’

‘No, of course I didn’t. Why on earth would I?’

It was apparent that Felix was not thinking clearly, or he wouldn’t have needed to ask that question. Vogel did not wish to state the obvious. Nor to lead the interviewee. He made no response.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ continued Felix, as grim realisation slowly dawned. ‘You think I took the rope home in order to use it to hang my Jane, don’t you? Well it’s nonsense, I tell you. I still believe she committed suicide. I’ve always believed that. Look, it makes sense. If she was planning to hang herself, she would certainly know where to find a suitable rope. On my boat. It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid not, Mr Ferguson. There are other fingerprints on the rope, which we would expect to have been handled by people other than yourself, people who may have crewed for you presumably, or the chandler you bought it from, and we are currently running the appropriate tests.’

He took a sip from the glass of water before him, hoping to increase the dramatic effect of what he was about to say by making Felix wait.

‘There was one set of fingerprints highly significant in their absence. Your wife’s, Mr Ferguson. There was not a single fingerprint from Jane. And she most certainly was not wearing gloves when her body was found!’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Felix again.

‘Indeed. Therefore, your wife had never touched that rope. So, could you explain to me, please, how she could have used it to hang herself?’

‘I can’t. I just know I didn’t do anything to her. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I mean — I wouldn’t even know how to go about it.’

In different circumstances, and if it wasn’t for the weight of evidence, and the lack of any other suspects, Vogel would have been inclined to believe Felix. How many people would know how to set about hanging another human being, in the way that Jane Ferguson had been hanged, and be physically able to do it. Felix was a tall man and looked strong enough. But there was a tad more to it than that. And in this case, it seemed almost certain that the victim had been strangled even before the rope was put around her neck. Something rather easier said than done, unless the victim had been knocked unconscious first of course.

‘All right, Mr Ferguson, let’s move on. You told us you were at the yacht club on the night your wife was killed, is that not so?’

‘Yes, I was. Everyone will vouch for me. Ronnie. Any of the other members. Of course, I was there.’

‘All night?’

‘Yes. Until nearly three in the morning. But you know this.’

‘I’m afraid not, Mr Ferguson. A witness has come forward who can place you near your house, near the scene of the crime, at around the time your wife died. Can you explain that, please?’

‘What? No. That’s not true. I was at the club all night. Whoever’s said that has got it wrong. Made a mistake. That must be it.’

Vogel told Felix about John Willis the dog walker, and how sure he had been, both of seeing Felix and the time that he did so.

Felix didn’t respond at first.

‘Look, Mr Ferguson, John Willis is a neighbour of yours, he knows you,’ persisted Vogel. ‘He could even accurately describe what you were wearing. A dinner suit. And I presume you know him, do you not?’

‘I know who he is, yes,’ muttered Felix with some reluctance.

‘So, would you recognize him?’

‘Yes, I suppose so... ’

A thought seemed suddenly to strike Felix.

‘But it’s dark at ten thirty, pitch black in the close, the houses are set too far back for their lights to shine into the street,’ he said, sounding suddenly hopeful. ‘How could John Willis have recognized me, or anyone else, for that matter?’

Vogel explained exactly where Felix had been when John Willis said that he had seen him.

‘There’s street lighting there, as you know,’ he pointed out.

‘I... it’s not very good lighting though,’ stumbled Felix, not even sounding as if he was convincing himself.

‘Good enough for Mr Willis to be able to see what you were wearing,’ the DCI remarked levelly.

‘W-well, I just can’t explain it, that’s all, it d-doesn’t make any sense... ’

‘I think it does, Mr Ferguson, and I think you can explain it perfectly well if you choose too,’ interjected Vogel. ‘Come on. What were you doing returning to your home in the middle of a dinner in your honour? Were you going back to kill your wife? Is that what you were doing?’

‘No, no, it wasn’t.’

For the first time Ferguson raised his voice, and Vogel could see desperation in his eyes. The DCI continued to apply all the pressure he could muster.

‘I think you were,’ he persisted. ‘And I think you planned it all along. I think you slipped away from the dinner at the yacht club, which gave you an apparently cast-iron alibi, went home, strangled your wife and then did your best to make it look as if she had committed suicide. That’s what you did, isn’t it?’

‘No. It isn’t. Really it isn’t. I didn’t touch Jane. She was alive when I left, when I went back to the club. I swear it.’

Vogel felt the familiar frisson of excitement run down his spine. Was this it? Was this the breakthrough he had been seeking?

‘She was alive when you left?’ he queried. ‘So are you now admitting that you returned to your home on the night of your wife’s death whilst she was still alive, at around the time our witness reported?’

Felix nodded. Then he lowered his head into his hands.

‘Mr Ferguson, don’t you the think it’s time you started telling us the truth?’

Felix raised his head and nodded again. Almost imperceptibly.

‘OK, so can you first of all tell me what time you left the club in order to return to your home?’ Vogel continued.

‘Well, y-yes, I suppose so,’ Felix responded hesitantly. ‘Uh, the speeches, the awards and all the formal stuff, ended about a quarter past ten, I think, and I slipped away just after, when everyone was using the toilets, that sort of thing, or making their way to the bar, when I thought I probably wouldn’t be missed. Most people had had a few drinks by then, too... ’

‘I see, and how long were you gone?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s a good ten-minute walk, about thirty-five minutes, I suppose, I’m not sure.’

‘So how long were you in your house with Jane?’

‘No more than fifteen minutes, I’m certain of it. Maybe a minute or two less. Not nearly long enough to kill someone and string them up over the bannisters, for God’s sake. Even if I’d wanted to, which, you have to believe me, Mr Vogel, I didn’t. It had never crossed my mind to harm Jane, and never would have done.’

‘All right, Mr Ferguson, so why did you return to your home in the middle of this so important dinner?’

‘I, uh, wanted to make sure that Jane and the twins were all right. That’s all.’

‘Did you have some reason to think they wouldn’t be all right?’

‘No. No. Of course not. I just wanted to check.’

‘Couldn’t you have done that by phone? And, indeed, if your wife had any sort of problem, wouldn’t she have phoned you?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But, um, I’m a worrier... ’

‘You don’t look like the sort of man who worries unnecessarily,’ commented Vogel.

‘Maybe not, but appearances can be deceptive, Mr Vogel. I have always worried about Jane. She was... could be, fragile. I told you about her dreams.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, she’d been going through a bad patch. I hadn’t left her alone with the children for weeks. Not in the evening, I mean. She urged me to go to the commodore’s dinner, said it was my dinner, and I really shouldn’t miss it on her account. That she would be fine. But I knew how tired she was. She was worn out. I just wanted to see with my own eyes that everything was all right.’

‘Mr Ferguson, you just said you hadn’t left your wife alone with the children for weeks. Were you worried that she might not look after them properly, or even harm them?’

‘No, certainly not.’

Felix answered quickly. Vogel wasn’t quite sure whether he was looking directly at him or not. Because of the other man’s slightly wonky eye it was sometimes difficult to tell. He thought he saw a flicker of something he could not quite define in Felix’s facial expression. Nervousness perhaps? Fear even? Or just distress?

‘I still see no reason why you couldn’t merely have phoned your wife,’ Vogel continued. ‘I don’t understand why you felt it necessary to rush home.’

‘I didn’t rush,’ replied Felix pedantically. ‘You never knew Jane. She would have fibbed. She would have told me she was all right, even if she wasn’t. I told you. I needed to see for myself.’

‘All right, so you say you were in your house with Jane for about fifteen minutes. What did you do during that time?’

‘Do? Well, I asked her how she was. She said she was fine and wanted to know what I was doing there. She said I had nothing to worry about. The children were in bed, sound asleep. But she would stay up until I got home.’

‘Why wouldn’t she go to bed?’

‘Well, she didn’t want to have a bad dream without me there to comfort her. Neither of us wanted that.’

‘And so, after about fifteen minutes you headed back for the club.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you meet anyone on the way, see anyone at all?’

‘No. I don’t think so. There was nobody about on the hill, I don’t think. I crossed the main road and then cut through Bridge Lane to get down to the parade, like I always do. There may have been cars on the main drag, I didn’t see anyone on foot though. But then, I didn’t see John Willis and his bloody dog on the way up, either.’

‘And it seems likely that nobody at the dinner noticed your return, because nobody had been aware of you leaving. Is that what you believed to be the case?’

‘I don’t know, do I, you’d have to ask them.’

‘We are doing so, I can assure you, Mr Ferguson, but so far we have drawn a complete blank.’

‘Well,’ said Fergus, sounding a tad desperate, ‘if nobody noticed that I was gone, doesn’t that indicate that I wasn’t gone for very long, not nearly long enough to commit murder and then try to cover it up?’

‘The trouble is it seems that very few of your fellow members were likely to have been sober enough to notice.’

‘I was sober,’ remarked Felix obliquely.

‘Yes, indeed, you were, in spite of the fact that, by your own admission, you have been drinking heavily lately.’

‘I had a speech to make, I always watch my drinking before I have to make a speech. And I wanted to nip home. So I kept sober.’

‘That doesn’t really help your case, Mr Ferguson,’ remarked Vogel. ‘Neither does the fact that upon your return to the club you drank so much that by the time you returned home for the second time, at three o’clock in the morning, you were so drunk you couldn’t walk straight, and were promptly sick over my crime scene. Now you tell me, would you have behaved like that if you were still worried about your wife and children? Indeed, would you have behaved like that if you hadn’t known that your wife was already dead?’

Felix lowered his head into his hands again. Vogel waited patiently. Eventually Felix straightened up. His face was ashen.

‘I can see how it looks,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t like that. Honestly it wasn’t. Jane had seemed so positive about everything, so in control of it all, and she insisted that I go back and enjoy myself. As I had hoped she would, I suppose. I’d never intended to stay home, if I could possibly avoid it. I’d been enjoying myself too much. And, to tell the truth, I wanted a proper drink. I, well, I suppose I have been developing a bit of a drink problem lately. Jane did point it out once or twice, but I always turned it around on her, told her that if it wasn’t for her and her damned stupid dreams I wouldn’t need to drink. Not very nice, Mr Vogel, but then drunks aren’t very nice, are they? And most of us take a damned long time and have to sink pretty low before we admit that we are drunks. You know what, I think this is the first time I’ve ever admitted it. But you don’t sink much lower than being arrested for murdering your wife, do you?’

Felix gave a short bitter laugh.

Vogel decided to ignore the confession of habitual drunkenness, for the moment.

Instead he merely said, ‘You haven’t explained why, if you were so worried about Jane, and her bad dreams, you then stayed out until three a.m., have you, Mr Ferguson?’

‘Yes, I have actually,’ replied Felix. ‘When I get drunk I do the job properly, you see. Sober, I am a responsible and loving father and husband. And yes, I do worry about my family. Drunk, I barely remember I have a wife and children. And that’s what happened on Saturday night. I went back to the club, relieved that Jane and the twins seemed fine, found myself some drinking mates, and got stuck in. I was out of my skull, Mr Vogel, and I think your officers would vouch for that. I didn’t have any idea how long I’d been drinking for. I didn’t have a clue it was three o’clock in the morning, and I wouldn’t have given a damn if I had known. That is the gospel truth, Mr Vogel.’

‘I see,’ responded Vogel. ‘So why didn’t you tell us before about your little trip home in the middle of the club dinner?’

‘Would you, if your wife was found dead in suspicious circumstances? Everybody knows the spouse or the partner is always the first suspect.’

‘You lied to a police officer, Mr Ferguson, which is a very serious matter under any circumstances. And you told us you were convinced your wife had taken her own life. If that was the case why would you feel the need to lie?’

‘Look, when I got back from the club and those officers told me Jane had been found hanged, of course I thought it was suicide. In fact, I could swear they told me it was suicide. But I was drunk. Very drunk. When you came round, well, it was only six or seven hours later, wasn’t it? I was probably still drunk. And Mum had given me that damned stupid sleeping pill. I can’t believe she gave it to me considering the condition I was in. And I can’t believe I took it either. As soon as you said Jane’s death was being treated as suspicious, I thought, they’re probably going to think I did it. And if I tell them that I went home, left the dinner and went home, around the time she must have died, they are definitely going to think I did it.’

Vogel had to admit there was some truth in that.

‘Didn’t it occur to you that lying to the police was a highly dangerous thing to do? That sooner or later you would be found out.’

‘I told you, Mr Vogel, I wasn’t thinking straight. Then when my head cleared a bit, well, I’d already done it, hadn’t I? In any case, I honestly thought the only person who knew that I’d gone home was my poor Jane. And she was dead. So, I had the alibi I knew I needed. I would have been right too, wouldn’t I? If it hadn’t been for bloody John Willis walking his bloody dog.’

‘There is almost always a John Willis,’ remarked Vogel mildly. ‘That is why every year the police solve between seventy-five and ninety per cent of murders across the country.’

‘Look, Mr Vogel,’ Ferguson continued almost as if Vogel hadn’t spoken. ‘You have to believe me, I didn’t kill my wife.’

‘The thing is, Felix, if you didn’t kill Jane, then someone else certainly did, and they did so within a very tight timescale — between just before eleven p.m. when you say you left your house to return to the club, and just before one a.m. when the Barhams returned and found Joanna out in the road. Now how likely is that?’

Felix looked down at the table.

‘It doesn’t sound likely at all, I know that,’ he replied quietly. ‘But I promise you I’m telling you the truth now.’

‘All right, let’s say for the moment that I accept that. When you went home did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary at all? Did you see anyone hanging around outside your home for instance? In your garden even? Or think you did?’

Felix shook his head.

‘No, nothing. Certainly not in the garden. The lights at the front of the house go on automatically as you approach. I used the torch on my phone to make my way along the pavement, like I always do, so I was shining it in front of me, and looking down, I suppose. Even if there had been anyone there, I doubt I’d have seen them. I was just concentrating on getting home as quickly as I could, making sure everything was all right, and then getting back to the do.’

Felix sat back in his chair, letting his head fall backwards in a gesture of exasperation.

‘I didn’t even see John Willis, for goodness sake,’ he said again.

‘So, there was nothing that gave you any cause for concern, nothing at all that wasn’t quite as it should be?’

‘No. Nothing... ’

Ferguson paused abruptly, raising one hand to his mouth, frowning in concentration.

‘Well, there was just one thing, our gate at the end of the driveway is electric and operated by a remote control, as you know. You can use a key to open and shut it, but we keep it locked all the time because of the children. Well, when I went back to the house I noticed that the gate wasn’t closed properly, it was very slightly ajar. Certainly not locked.’

‘And you’d locked it when you’d left to go to the club? Are you sure?’

‘Well, yes. Or I certainly thought I had. I pointed the gizmo at it as soon as I’d gone through, like I always do. It’s happened before that it’s got stuck, usually if there’s been something jamming it, a stone or something. But not very often.’

‘And you assumed you’d been the last person through the gate?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Did you ask your wife if she had opened the gate for some reason?’

‘No. I mean, she wouldn’t have done. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it. Not at the time. Just reckoned it was one of those things... ’

‘When you left the second time to return to the club, did you lock the gates again?’

‘Of course, I did. And I looked around to see if there was any obvious obstruction. There wasn’t. They seemed to close OK.’

‘Are you aware that when Anne Barham took Joanna back to your house and found Jane’s body, the security gate was open and the front door was ajar?’

‘Uh, no, I don’t think I was.’

‘Also, there was no sign of a break-in. That indicates that it is reasonable to assume that anyone who entered your house had a set of keys, don’t you agree?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And who has keys to your house, apart from you and your wife?’

‘My parents.’

‘Nobody else?’

‘No.’

‘Well, your parents have alibied each other. But, in any case, I don’t expect you think either of them killed Jane, do you, Felix?’

‘No, I don’t. Of course not.’

‘You see, then, that there really is nobody else in the frame. I must warn you, Mr Ferguson, I am now on the verge of formally charging you.’

‘Do what you like,’ said Felix in a resigned sort of way.