Dreams of Fear

Six

As they stepped outside and into Estuary Vista Close Vogel glanced towards the house he now knew to be the Barham home. The lights were still on even though the day was brightening rapidly. He glanced at his watch. It was six twenty a.m. He doubted the Barhams had been to bed at all that night. They certainly wouldn’t have slept. He knew he wouldn’t have done if he’d inadvertently encountered what they’d been confronted with in the early hours of the morning.

The Barhams’ house was like all the others in Estuary Vista Close. Each was detached and of differing design, but what they had in common was their near immaculate presentation, perfect paintwork and beautifully tended gardens.

Saslow rang the doorbell. The response was almost immediate. Gerry Barham, a trim narrow-shouldered man with thinning grey hair, probably in his early to mid sixties, shorter than average, answered the door. He was fully dressed, weary looking, and in need of a shave. Vogel had been right. Gerry had definitely not seen his bed.

‘Come in, come in,’ the man invited, ushering Vogel and Saslow into a sitting room offering the panoramic sea and river views which were clearly standard in this street. It was, after all, called Estuary Vista Close.

‘I’ll just give Anne a shout,’ he continued, gesturing for Vogel and Saslow to sit, which they did. ‘It was she who first... uh, first saw Jane. Had a terrible shock, poor dear. I insisted she go upstairs to try to get some rest, but I doubt she’s sleeping... ’

Gerry was interrupted by the appearance of his wife in the doorway. She was wearing night clothes and a dressing gown, but did not have the appearance of someone who had been woken from sleep.

‘I heard the doorbell,’ she began, her eyes taking in Vogel and Saslow.

The two officers stood up again as Gerry introduced them to his wife.

‘Oh hello,’ she said just a tad vaguely, followed by, what was surely an automatic response, ‘can I get you something? Tea or coffee?’

Vogel glanced at Saslow. Saslow glanced at Vogel.

It had been a long drive through the night from Bristol, and neither of them had had anything like enough sleep.

‘Coffee would be lovely,’ said Vogel, answering for them both.

‘I won’t be a moment,’ said Anne Barham.

She had a very modern, short-cropped haircut and, although slim, a slightly plump face which was largely unlined and, in spite of her obvious distress, somewhat defied the age Vogel guessed her to be.

Her husband offered to make the coffee. Anne Barham turned him down quite firmly. Vogel thought she might need a further minute or two to try to clear her head. The woman had a look in her eyes which Vogel had seen many times before. It was shock. Total shock.

Once Mrs Barham returned with the coffee, Vogel began his questioning.

‘I wonder if you could tell me exactly how you came to discover Mrs Jane Ferguson’s body?’ he asked.

The Barhams did so, in commendable detail, Vogel thought, beginning with how they had been unexpectedly confronted by six-year-old Joanna Ferguson running along Estuary Vista Close towards them when they were returning from their night out.

‘It was lucky we didn’t hit her, I can tell you,’ said Gerry, who clearly meant every word of that.

‘The little mite was screaming her head off, gave us such a shock,’ contributed Anne Barham. ‘God knows how she got their front door open, she’s only little. But she must have done. Or I suppose she must have done. Unless it had been left open. The security gates were open when we got over there... ’

Mrs Barham’s voice tailed off.

‘Go on,’ prompted Vogel.

‘Well, I jumped out of the car and went to find her. She was in a dreadful state, wet through and sobbing. She could barely speak. Just about all she said was “Mummy, Mummy” really. And she was calling for her daddy, too.’

Mrs Barham paused again.

‘So, what did you do next?’ prompted Saslow gently.

‘I told Joanna I would take her home to Mummy, and I just picked her up in my arms. She tried to tell me about her mother, I think, but she couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t understand. When we got to the house the front door was ajar, and there were lights on. I just walked straight in, with Joanna in my arms. Jane was hanging there right in front of us. Dead that’s for sure. Strangled. What little Joanna had been trying to say made sense then. Terrible sense. But until I saw it before my very eyes... well, I mean, it hadn’t occurred to me.

‘Her face... Oh my God. It was the most awful thing I have seen in the whole of my life. I know I cried out. I couldn’t help myself. Then Joanna started wailing again, bless her. I’d taken her back into the house. To see her mother like that again. Poor little thing. I just wanted to be anywhere else but where I was. And get Joanna out of there. But I was rooted to the spot at first. It was as if my feet were nailed down. I couldn’t move. Then little Stevie suddenly appeared on the top landing, looking down at that awful sight. I knew I really must get them both away, and I simply had to pull myself together. We were just at the bottom of the drive when Gerry arrived. He’d been parking the car, you see. I mean, we thought Jane was asleep or something—’

‘But, obviously, it was all very odd,’ Gerry interrupted. ‘And as I was parking up I started to really worry, so I hightailed it next door as quick as I could.’

‘Yes, and thank God,’ said Anne. ‘I’d never been more glad to see him, that’s for sure.’

Mrs Barham turned towards her husband, before continuing.

‘We got the children back here as quick as we could, didn’t we? It was still raining. We were all wet, particularly Joanna and I. I found the night things we keep here for our grandson, he’s only five, but he’s a big boy, and the twins could just get into them. I put theirs in the dryer. Then we just tried to comfort them, until their father and their grandparents got here. It was terrible, really terrible.’

‘I’m sure it was, Mrs Barham,’ Vogel commiserated. ‘I don’t want to upset you further, but I do need to ask you one or two more questions. How well do you know the Fergusons?’

‘Well, we moved here just under seven years ago now, before the twins were born,’ said Anne. ‘So that’s how long we’ve known them. We’ve even babysat occasionally. Not for quite a while though. And we’ve never been friends exactly, but always friendly. I’d say we know them reasonably well, or I would have said so anyway. They always seemed like very nice people. I can’t imagine why Jane would have done what she did. Although, well... ’

She stopped abruptly, as if unsure whether or not she should continue.

‘Although, when you met her out shopping last week, you did say she wasn’t looking well, didn’t you?’ encouraged Gerry. ‘You thought something might be wrong.’

Anne nodded.

‘Well yes, that’s quite true,’ she continued. ‘I bumped into her shopping in Barnstaple. She had bags under her eyes, and her hair needed doing. She was wearing an old track suit. Not at all like the Jane we knew. She was a good-looking young woman, you see, and we were used to always seeing her immaculately turned out. I was a bit shocked, actually. I asked her if she was all right. She said she was, but she just hadn’t been sleeping well. I understood that, of course. It’s terrible, you know, when you can’t sleep. I suffered like that after our Angela was born, didn’t I, Gerry?’

Her husband agreed that she did.

‘Yes. She was a good baby, slept all night most nights. But that was more than I could. I used to lie awake worrying if she didn’t stir at all, and I’d worry myself even more if she did wake up and start to cry.’

‘Was there anything else about Jane Ferguson which concerned you that day?’ Vogel asked, in a bid to get Anne Barham back on track.

‘Well, yes, there was something. I told myself it was nothing, but... Jane had a fresh bruise on one cheek, and a small cut. It looked quite nasty. I asked her about it and she said she’d had a fight with her car door. Then she laughed.’

‘Was that the last time you saw Mrs Ferguson?’ asked Vogel.

‘Yes, to speak to, that is. We’ve waved at each other a couple of times since, like you do, when I was tying back our daffs the other day and she was getting into her car. That sort of thing.’

‘And what about Mr Ferguson?’

‘Only yesterday, just to pass the time of day with. I haven’t seen him to talk to for weeks. Actually, maybe months.’

‘And did you notice anything amiss?’

‘No, everything seemed normal.’

‘I saw Felix at the yacht club last Sunday lunchtime,’ interjected Gerry.

‘I see. He’s the commodore, is he not?’

Gerry agreed that he was.

‘And so he is presumably a pretty frequent visitor.’

‘Well yes.’ Gerry agreed again. ‘But I’m not. I mean I like the place, and I had these romantic ideas when we moved down here. Bought a boat. Just a little motor cruiser with an outboard, you understand. But I don’t seem to get round to taking it out much. Nice bar overlooking the bay, though.’

‘Did you speak to Mr Ferguson at all, last Sunday?’

‘Ummm, yes.’

Gerry Barham seemed hesitant.

‘Can you recall your conversation?’

‘Oh, you know. Just the usual stuff. The weather. It was a terrible day. I sometimes wonder if the weather changes faster anywhere in the world than it does on the North Devon coast. Already looks like it’s going to be a beauty today, after all that rain in the night.’

‘Did you discuss anything else?’

‘Bit of sport. He likes his rugby, does Felix, same as me. And golf. Only... ’

Gerry seemed reluctant to continue.

‘Only what, Mr Ferguson?’ prompted Vogel.

‘Well, shall we just say Felix wasn’t at his most coherent.’

Vogel knew he was blinking rapidly behind his thick-rimmed spectacles. It was pretty obvious what Gerry Ferguson was getting at, but he was too experienced a police officer to put words into the mouth of a potential witness.

‘What exactly do you mean by that, Mr Barham?’ the acting DCI asked levelly.

‘OK. He was pretty drunk.’

As he had apparently been when he returned to his home in the early hours of that morning to find a police presence there, and his wife hanging dead in the hallway; if he hadn’t known about that already, thought Vogel.

‘Do you by any chance know if this is a regular occurrence?’ Vogel asked in a neutral tone of voice. ‘Is Felix Ferguson a particularly heavy drinker?’

‘I don’t really know the answer to that,’ responded Gerry. ‘But he certainly likes a drink—’

‘Yes, and perhaps a bit more than he used to, we’ve been thinking, haven’t we, Gerry?’ interjected Anne Barham. ‘We’ve seen him walking home a bit unsteady on his feet a few times lately.’

‘We have, yes,’ agreed Gerry. ‘But not that often. He is a successful businessman. And he wouldn’t be commodore of the yacht club if he weren’t a capable young man.’

‘So just a social drinker who overdoes it a bit occasionally, is that what you are saying?’ enquired Saslow.

‘I would think so, yes,’ responded Gerry. ‘Always seems to be a very nice chap. Felix. And a devoted family man. We’ve never had any doubt about that, have we, Anne? Well, not really.’

Gerry sounded only very slightly doubtful.

‘Well, no,’ agreed Anne. ‘Not until very recently anyway, when we’ve just had that feeling that things may not be quite right.’

‘You mentioned that before,’ said Saslow. ‘Can you tell us any more about why you both had that feeling.’

‘Well, the drinking, I suppose, Jane looking so bad and her face bruised, and once or twice we’ve heard a bit of a commotion, shouting, that sort of thing,’ continued Anne. ‘One night I woke up to go to the bathroom and I felt a bit hot and uncomfortable, so I opened the bathroom window, which faces towards the Fergusons, and I just stood there for a couple of minutes breathing in the fresh air. Then I thought I heard screaming, coming from their house. But it was over almost as soon as it began. And, in any case, I couldn’t be entirely sure where it came from. I didn’t think any more about it, at the time, to tell the truth. But now, well... ’

‘So what conclusion did you draw?’

Gerry came in swiftly.

‘We didn’t really, I mean, every married couple has rows. Like Anne says, we didn’t think there was anything serious going on. But... ’

Gerry’s voice tailed off.

‘But now, well, you can’t help wondering if there were some real cracks in that marriage, I suppose,’ said Anne. ‘We’ve been talking about it most of the night. Or what was left of it after we found Joanna. I mean, whatever actually happened, something must have been very wrong, mustn’t it?’

Vogel inclined his head very slightly.

‘But until last night, or rather today, you weren’t aware of any obvious problems in their marriage?’

‘Well, like I said, we’re not really friends,’ responded Anne. ‘Although we have been neighbours for a long time, and no, I’m sure they had their ups and downs like all of us, but I would say we both always thought of them as being happily married, didn’t we, Gerry?’

‘Certainly,’ said Gerry.

Anne turned to face Vogel.

‘Mr Vogel, I’m beginning to wonder where you are going with all these questions? I mean, even if the Fergusons had a terrible marriage and that’s why Jane took her own life, suicide isn’t a police matter, is it?’

‘No, Mrs Barham,’ agreed Vogel. ‘Not in itself, that is. But we do need to examine the circumstances.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Anne. ‘I mean, what’s this all about? There can’t be any doubt that Jane killed herself, can there? I saw her. She was hanged. From her own bannisters. And nobody else was in the house except her two poor little children. Are you saying you have some reason to believe her death was not suicide? Is that it?’

‘I’m afraid, Mrs Barham, I am not at liberty to discuss that with you at this time,’ Vogel recited formally.

Gerry Barham suddenly butted in.

‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘You think Jane was murdered, don’t you? And Felix is a suspect.’

Vogel found himself blinking rapidly behind those thick-rimmed spectacles again.

‘I suppose I can tell you, sir, that at the moment we are treating Mrs Ferguson’s death as suspicious,’ he said. ‘Until a post-mortem examination is completed I cannot give you any more information concerning this. Meanwhile I am grateful for your assistance. But you should know that we may need to see you again.’

With that he and Saslow took their leave.

Once outside the house, Saslow turned to her senior officer.

‘He’s about right, boss, isn’t he,’ Saslow remarked. ‘If Jane was murdered, and Karen Crow seems to think that’s pretty likely, then who else would or could have done it apart from her husband?’

‘But could Felix Ferguson have done it?’ countered the DCI. ‘If he was at the yacht club all night playing at being commodore and getting rat-arsed with his mates, then, he may have had motive, something we don’t know about yet, but he sure as heck didn’t have opportunity.’

‘I don’t know what to make of it, boss,’ said Saslow. ‘Perhaps Karen Crow is wrong. Perhaps Jane Ferguson did take her own life, and we’re all wasting our time.’

‘Perhaps,’ responded Vogel. ‘And, like I told the Barhams, we need to know the results of the PM before we can be sure of anything. But in the three years I’ve been working in the west of England I’ve never known Karen Crow’s first impression be proven wrong. Not least because she never shares her opinion unless she’s pretty damn sure of herself.’

‘Doesn’t like to stick her neck out, you mean, boss,’ said Saslow.

Vogel glanced at the young detective, wondering, in the context of the night’s events, if she meant to make a bad joke in even worse taste, or if she had no realisation of what she had said.

Saslow’s face was giving nothing much away and he wasn’t sure. So he decided to carry on as if he had noticed nothing.

‘Something like that, Saslow,’ he remarked casually. ‘Anyway, we’ll hopefully get confirmation one way or another at the post-mortem later today.’

He glanced at his watch. It was just gone seven.

‘We’re booked in to a pub across the estuary in Appledore, The Seagate. ’Fraid we’ve missed out on the best part of a night’s sleep. But we might as well bowl over there, get ourselves checked in, have a shower and maybe some breakfast. By then the world will be awake and we can crack on.’

Saslow smiled weakly. It suited her ill to lose a night’s sleep.

‘A visit to the family Ferguson first, I reckon, after we’ve freshened up,’ Vogel continued.

Saslow managed a little nod. Her smile had faded. It was all right for the DCI, she thought, not for the first time, he hadn’t had to drive for hours as well as doing the job. If her room was ready, she would probably give breakfast a miss and see if she could squeeze in a nap. Even if it were for only an hour or so.