Wheel of Fire

Twenty-Six

Vogel asked Saslow to drive straight to Kenneth Steele House. On the way he went over the day’s events again and again in his mind; the shock of Bella Fairbrother’s death, and the almost equally great shock of suspecting that Jack Kivel might be responsible for it.

‘I can’t believe we all missed the possible significance of the military connection,’ he commented to Saslow. ‘It’s not like Micky Palmer, that’s for sure.’

‘Well, we simply didn’t know about Jack Kivel, it isn’t something that ever came up, and he and his background have no Internet presence at all,’ replied the DC reasonably. ‘Also, as far as Sir John’s military career is concerned, there was nothing to flag it. Eton then Sandhurst and the army seem just so predictable for the kind of young man he must have been when he joined up.’

Like Vogel, and presumably Micky, she had known that much about Sir John, it was part of his Wikipedia entry for a start, but not considered it important.

‘I mean, in his sort of family it’s the obvious alternative to Oxford or Cambridge, isn’t it?’ Saslow continued. ‘Often for the not so bright. Although every indication is that Sir John was a very bright man indeed.’

‘Yes, perhaps too bright,’ responded Vogel. ‘Too much of a maverick anyway. And overconfident, probably. We know he played the banking game pretty fast and loose, and that the Fairbrother ship is lying in very troubled waters. Yet his daughter seemed to believe that without him at the helm it would be an even bigger ask to steer it back on course.’

‘She was prepared to take the job on, though, wasn’t she, boss?’ commented Saslow. ‘Almost eager.’

‘Yes, in spite of having walked out of the bank a year or so previously following a row with her father,’ Vogel mused. ‘Or allegedly.’

He was still thoughtful when they arrived at Kenneth Steele. Micky Palmer hurried towards the DI as soon as he and Saslow entered the incident room.

‘Boss, the tech boys have been on. They got a fix on Kivel’s phone. Somewhere around London Victoria Station.’

Vogel whistled long and low. Victoria Station. From there Kivel could be heading almost anywhere, home or abroad.

‘Just the one fix?’ he queried, already pretty sure what the reply would be.

‘Yes. The phone’s not been live since.’

And neither will it be, thought Vogel. He considered Micky Palmer’s choice of words.

‘You said around Victoria Station,’ he queried. ‘Not the station itself?’

‘Apparently not on the concourse, no. Somewhere just outside. They couldn’t be precise. He took a call from Martha’s number, she called just like you said she would, and he was on the phone for a few minutes.’

‘Right, that’s something, but how on earth can we find out where he went next? Assuming he ditched his phone, which he almost certainly would have done after Martha’s call. We know he doesn’t have his own vehicle. He travelled to London by train, according to Martha. Trains from Victoria don’t come this way, but they do go all over, including Gatwick airport, and then there’s the Victoria bus terminus.’

‘If he wasn’t located actually in the station, perhaps he’s hired a vehicle, boss,’ suggested Saslow.

Vogel took a deep breath. ‘Dawn, you’re a genius,’ he said. ‘There aren’t that many hire car pick-up places actually in central London, but most of the big boys operate out of Victoria. It’s worth checking anyway.’

‘Well, yes boss, but even if he has hired a car, would he have used his own driving licence and credit card?’ asked Saslow.

‘I’m hoping he may have done just that, before Martha called him, before he knew we were on to him. Get Polly to check it out straightaway.’

Vogel turned back to Palmer. ‘So, have you got anything else, Micky?’ he asked.

‘Yes, boss. I’ve been focusing on Sir John and Jack Kivel’s military careers. It seems they didn’t just become Paras at the same time, they joined the SAS together in 1982, just before the Falklands War. Kivel was twenty-three, already an NCO, Sir John was a bit older, twenty-six, and a captain. He was promoted to major four years later, aged thirty, young for the rank, in peacetime anyway.

‘Wherever Sir John went, he made sure Kivel did too. The SAS is for elite soldiers, everybody knows that. But apparently Kivel and Fairbrother stood out, even in that company, as shit hot. Tough as old boots, the pair of ’em. They specialised in undercover operations, the least said about the better, which often even other SAS men wouldn’t touch. They quit together too, when Sir John left to take over Fairbrother International, and Kivel’s been in Sir John’s employ ever since. Or he was until a year ago... you know that though, boss.’

‘Yes, but maybe his alleged sacking was camouflage,’ volunteered Saslow, who had returned from briefing Polly Jenkins. ‘Looks like it now, doesn’t it? Kivel was always Fairbrother’s man, and George Grey was hired to take the fall. How’s that for a theory?’

‘It would be a better one if Sir John wasn’t dead,’ commented Micky Palmer.

‘Yes, it would, wouldn’t it,’ responded Vogel. ‘Excuse me a moment. I have a couple of calls to make.’

The first call was to Karen Crow.

The pathologist answered at once. ‘Don’t you ever stop working, Vogel?’ she remarked by way of greeting.

‘Not when I have four murders to solve,’ replied Vogel. ‘Look, you told me you’d formally identified Sir John through his dental records, right?’

‘Yes. There wasn’t enough left of the poor bastard to effectively test for DNA. Not unusual with fire victims, as you know.’

‘But just as indisputable, isn’t that so?’

‘Absolutely. Yes.’

‘OK. All the same, I wouldn’t mind a word with his dentist. Do you have his details handy? A mobile number would be good if you’ve got one. I’d like to talk to him right now, if I can.’

‘Would you indeed? What are you up to, Vogel?’

‘Karen, I’m in a hurry.’

‘All right, all right, I’m pretty sure he called me back from his mobile when I originally contacted him, so it should be in my phone. I’ll text you.’

Two minutes later Vogel was speaking to a rather surprised Mark Rowland, Sir John Fairbrother’s Exeter-based dentist, who confirmed that he had seen Sir John just three weeks before his death, and that he had been able to supply a full set of dental records to Karen Crow.

‘His teeth were in a very bad state,’ said Rowland. ‘He was in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s, which can have an extremely damaging effect on a patient’s teeth. We’re not entirely sure whether it’s the drugs or the disease which does the most damage. Several of Sir John’s teeth were crumbling away, and he was suffering quite severe pain. To be honest, there wasn’t a lot that could be done. I just tried to make him as comfortable as possible.’

‘I don’t suppose there could be any doubt about these records, could there, Mr Rowland?’ asked Vogel.

‘Doubt? Certainly not. I’d completed the usual charts, and there were also X-rays.’ The dentist paused. ‘Are you suggesting this surgery may have made some sort of mistake, Mr Vogel?’ he asked sharply.

‘No, no, of course not,’ replied Vogel, quickly changing tack. ‘I just wondered, how long had Sir John been your patient?’

‘Oh, not long. Nine or ten months, I think. If that. I understood he had used a London dentist until he became ill. If you want the exact date he registered with us, my receptionist could check for you in the morning—’

‘No, that won’t be necessary, Mr Rowland,’ interrupted Vogel. ‘One more thing, though, had you ever met Sir John Fairbrother before he became your patient?’

‘No. Never.’

Vogel leaned back in his chair. He was following a train of thought which was surely far too wild to seriously consider. Nonetheless, he wasn’t going to stop until he had fully explored it.

He called up the records of data so far gathered, including interviews made by the team temporarily based at Wellington police station, both door-to-door locally and with any persons of interest who may have been in contact with either Sir John or his nurse Sophia Santos.

An interview with Santos’ sister in the Philippines, conducted by local police, ascertained that Sophia had reported that the demands made of her, particularly in terms of working hours, were exceptionally high. But she had taken the post because the salary offered had also been exceptionally high, apparently two to three times what the nurse would have expected in the UK. In addition, there was promise of a bonus, to be paid after Sir John’s death, on condition that she continued to care for him until that eventuality.

Santos had, of course, been the only live-in nurse, assisted by Janice Grey. Three agency nurses who had been occasionally employed, were also interviewed. Each gave an almost identical account. They had been called only to work night shift, and Sir John, on high levels of medication, had been asleep most of the time and uncommunicative for the rest.

Paul Preston Evans, the swimming pool man DC Dawson had told Vogel about, had been interviewed as it seemed he’d been one of the last people, outside of those directly caring for Sir John, to see him alive.

Preston Evans had confirmed that he’d caught Sir John unawares in his swimming pool about a month before the fire and been immediately ushered out by Janice Grey.

‘Sir John looked terrible, I was quite shocked by his appearance,’ Preston Evans had said. ‘He’d always been a strong fit man for his age, and I couldn’t believe how he’d deteriorated. It was as if he’d shrunk. And he looked so weak. A shadow of his former self.’

The interviewing DC had then asked how long it had been since Paul Preston Evans had previously seen Sir John.

‘Oh, it was months, maybe a year, I suppose,’ said Preston Evans.

And yes, he confirmed, Sir John had then looked perfectly well and the same as always.

Vogel recalled that Sir John had been treated privately by Bristol neurologist James Timson, a Parkinson’s specialist, who had also been interviewed early in the proceedings. Vogel called up the interview. It seemed that Sir John’s condition had at first improved slightly under the care of Mr Timson, and his estimated life expectancy had increased accordingly.

The neurologist was unsure exactly how long his patient had suffered from the disease. Then came the information Vogel was looking for. It seemed that Mr Timson had only treated Sir John Fairbrother for about eleven months, and had not seen any earlier medical records.

‘They were always on the way, but never seemed to turn up,’ he said.

Vogel sat for a moment deep in thought. He had so far found nobody who was in any sort of close contact with Sir John at the time of his death who had known him for more than a year. Anyone who did had been sacked, or simply avoided, or in the case of his immediate family, allegedly become estranged.

Vogel was still trying to make sense of what all this might mean, when Polly Jenkins came running across the incident room.

‘I’ve got it, boss,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Jack Kivel hired a car from Hertz at Victoria about two and a half hours ago. It’s a metallic grey Toyota Prius. They’re sending over all the details.’

‘Well done, Polly,’ said Vogel. ‘Put out an alert for that car. Get onto traffic right away. Tell them to forget about speeding violations. I want every traffic officer on the major highways out of London on the lookout for this vehicle. Particularly focusing on the motorways and arterials heading west and south. Kivel didn’t hire a car to stay in the city, and I’m gambling that as he picked it up in Victoria, he wouldn’t be heading north or east out of London. Right, Polly, move.’

Polly moved.

Vogel could feel the adrenalin rushing through him. The news of Kivel had somehow triggered him into action. He’d made his decision.

‘Saslow, with me,’ he called.

Saslow followed briskly. As Vogel strode through the incident room with the young DC hard on his heels, he called out to Micky Palmer.

‘Micky, get Hemmings on the phone. Tell him Saslow and I are on the way over to his house, and there’s been a possible development in the Fairbrother case which I must tell him about face to face.’

Palmer looked slightly askance. Vogel knew what the DC was thinking. It was getting on for midnight. Hemmings was going to be absolutely thrilled to receive the news that Vogel and Saslow were about to arrive at his home.