Wheel of Fire

Twenty-One

It was an MIT case, of course. Nobby Clarke arrived at Chelsea Harbour little more than an hour after the first response team. The crime scene had been cordoned off and a smattering of uniformed officers were making sure that nobody contaminated the scene. CSI and Dr Patricia Fitzwarren were already there. As was an MIT unit under the command of DCI James Pearson, who was also leading the London end of the investigation into the death of George Grey, and already familiar with the various strings to the Blackdown Manor case.

He didn’t look overjoyed at the arrival of his detective superintendent. Nobby was quite sure he felt that she should be safely behind her desk, where she belonged. And she sympathised absolutely with him. That was exactly how she’d always felt about MIT brass interfering when she’d been a detective chief inspector leading her own team.

‘It’s all right, Pearson,’ she said curtly. ‘Only a fleeting visit. I’ll be out of your way soon enough.’

Pearson coloured slightly. He had reddish hair and that sort of pale pink-white skin which tended to turn a deeper shade of pink very easily. Nobby might have felt sympathy for him if he hadn’t been a senior police officer. As it was, she was vaguely amused. But she tried not to show it. This was hardly the occasion.

‘I want to see Vogel,’ she continued. ‘This case is beginning to have huge ramifications. We need to work out a strategy between our two forces. As far as I’m concerned, this murder is an MIT job, and you are the senior investigating officer, but clearly it’s entangled with the cases Vogel and his Avon and Somerset MCIT team are already investigating. So I’m putting myself up as liaison, all right?’

‘Of course, Nobby,’ Pearson replied smartly.

Unlike Vogel, Pearson didn’t have a problem addressing Clarke in the informal manner that she preferred. He still looked as if he would have preferred her not to be there, though.

‘And don’t worry,’ added Clarke, knowing full well she was accurately putting his thoughts into words. ‘I’ll soon be back where I belong.’

After the arrival of Pearson and his team, Vogel had taken Saslow to a nearby coffee shop. She’d managed to refrain from being sick, as far as he knew. She’d certainly avoided vomiting in public. But only with difficulty, Vogel suspected. She still looked shaken.

Nonetheless Saslow stood up at once when Det. Supt. Clarke entered the coffee shop. With a mildly impatient wave, Nobby gestured for her to sit.

‘Well, this is turning into a right old mess, isn’t it, Vogel?’ she commented by way of greeting.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ the DI muttered.

‘Right,’ continued Clarke, pausing only to order a double espresso. ‘This is Pearson’s case, right? It’s MIT. Unlike George Grey, Bella Fairbrother was neither an Avon and Somerset suspect, nor on the run...’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, boss, I mean Nobby—’ began Vogel.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Vogel,’ interrupted Clarke. ‘My boys and girls are already on the case. It would be hours before you could set up your lot here, even in the unlikely event of your brass letting you even attempt to run a murder investigation in Met territory.’

Vogel knew she was totally correct about that. But he said nothing.

‘However, this is clearly going to overlap with the investigation you are already running,’ Nobby Clarke continued. ‘So, you obviously should continue to handle the West Country end concerning this latest murder too. I’ve told Pearson that. And you’ll both liaise through me. Four people, all connected in some way, have died following your fire, Vogel. I know one of those deaths is not yet proven to be murder, but I damned well suspect it was, as I’m sure you do. So, I’m not having any inter-force rivalry from anybody, is that clear?’

Vogel nodded. ‘Yes, boss,’ he said.

He actually quite liked it when Nobby Clarke was in full flow, although, of course, he would never admit it to her.

‘Right, so we have a team on door-to-door, and we’re getting the closed-circuit TV footage. The security here is pretty good, as you would expect. It would be damned difficult to break in, and, in any case, there is no indication of forced entry. Almost certainly Bella Fairbrother let her murderer into her apartment of her own free will, which indicates that she knew him — or her.’

Vogel nodded, a tad impatiently. He had worked that out straight away.

‘Now, concerning the CCTV, as soon as we’ve found any shots of our man, or woman, I’ll let you know,’ Clarke continued. ‘There must surely be something, and we should get to it fairly quickly. We already have a fix on the time Bella Fairbrother entered the underground car park here, and we know what time you and Saslow arrived, so that narrows things down nicely. We have only a relatively short window during which our killer must have made his appearance.’

‘How short?’ asked Vogel abruptly.

‘Ah yes,’ responded the superintendent. ‘Bella arrived in the car park at 1.37 p.m., less than two hours before you and Saslow got there, so—’

Clarke was interrupted by the ring of her phone. She took the call at once, without apology.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Ummm. Well, I would have expected that. But at least we’ve got him on film. Yes, please send the footage to my phone straightaway.’

She turned her attention back to Vogel and Saslow. ‘We have footage of a male who used the intercom system to gain entry to Bella Fairbrother’s flat at 2.25 p.m.,’ she said.

Vogel felt his stomach lurch. That almost certainly meant that Bella was still alive less than an hour before he and Saslow arrived at her apartment, and only fifteen minutes or so before he first called her to say they were on the way. His assessment of the situation, whilst still standing in her apartment looking down at her dead body, had been quite correct. If he had somehow managed to arrange his meeting with Bella earlier in the day he may well have saved her life. But he hadn’t done so. Bella Fairbrother was dead. And he might never know now what she had been planning to tell him. That could easily have died with her.

Nobby Clarke glanced up at Vogel. ‘You weren’t to know, David, you couldn’t possibly have known,’ she said, seemingly aware of his thoughts without him even having to voice them.

‘No, of course not, boss,’ Vogel replied quickly.

But they were empty words. He felt he had let Bella Fairbrother down, and he knew that he always would. The likelihood of Bella herself being involved in whatever skulduggery had now led to four deaths, including her own, made no difference at all to his feelings on the matter.

‘Right,’ Clarke continued, as if that brief exchange hadn’t happened. ‘That’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s made sure its damned near impossible to identify him. No surprise there, though...’

Nobby’s phone pinged.

‘That’ll be the CCTV footage,’ she said.

The three of them poured over the screen. A figure wearing a dark-coloured, hooded raincoat stood in the doorway of Bella’s apartment block. The hood was up, and he kept his head down. He was wearing gloves. There was no clear shot of his face. He’d made sure of that. He had clearly worked out where the cameras were situated and ensured that his face was turned away throughout.

Nobby played the thirty seconds or so of film twice. It was Saslow who spoke first.

‘You know what,’ she said. ‘We can’t even be absolutely sure it’s a man. Not from that.’

‘Well, if it’s a woman she’s unusually broadly built,’ said Nobby. ‘Anyway, it just looks like a man, doesn’t it? I can’t quite explain...’

‘I know, I agree absolutely,’ said Saslow. ‘Moves like a man, too. I only meant, well, the footage is so inconclusive—’

‘Would you play it one more time, Nobby?’ Vogel interrupted, remembering for once to address the superintendent in her preferred way, even though she’d so far been too focused on the case that afternoon to correct him.

Clarke played it.

Vogel watched carefully. There was something familiar about the body language of the visitor who had almost certainly been Bella Fairbrother’s killer, but Vogel couldn’t quite place it.

‘I’ll send it on to you, Vogel,’ said Nobby. ‘And unless there’s anything else you want to do here, I reckon you should get back to Somerset and follow up on any leads from down there.’

‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with Bella’s brother, Freddie Fairbrother, he was supposed to be calling me, but he hasn’t, and no answer from his mobile,’ said Vogel. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s in the country by now. He has to be told, obviously. But he also needs to be interviewed, which is something I would like to do personally, wherever he is. I don’t even know if he and Bella have met at all since their father’s death. He could have all kinds of relevant information. And he might or might not know that he does.’

‘Yes, I’d go along with that,’ said Clarke. ‘We can’t take anything at face value right now. Certainly not if the name Fairbrother is involved.’

She downed the remains of her double espresso in one.

‘OK. I’ll let Pearson know that’s your line of inquiry. Now, I’ve got to get back to base. But I’m your liaison, yes?’

‘Yes, boss,’ agreed Vogel, who actually always wanted to pursue every line of inquiry himself. But then, so did Nobby Clarke, in spite of her seniority. Which was probably one of the reasons they understood each other so well.