Wheel of Fire

One

Saslow picked up Detective Inspector David Vogel from his home, at Sea Mills on the M5 side of Bristol, at 6.15 a.m. It was still dark on a cold, wet, early-October morning. Pretty typical of the west of England, Vogel thought. He wasn’t looking forward to being driven halfway across Somerset on what could quite probably not be a police matter at all.

Then there was the very slight awkwardness he sometimes felt nowadays with Saslow. The two officers had been working together since soon after Vogel transferred from the Met to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary’s Major Crime Investigation Team. In the beginning Dawn Saslow, small, dark, and clever, had been a uniformed constable. Vogel quickly formed a high opinion of her, and had been instrumental in her promotion to MCIT. But things hadn’t been quite the same between them since their last big case. And neither had Saslow, in Vogel’s opinion. She remained an exceptional officer, but had, he thought, lost more than a little of her raw, almost schoolgirl-like enthusiasm for the job.

He settled into the passenger seat and turned towards the young DC.

‘How are you feeling then, Dawn?’ he asked.

Saslow’s eyes were focused on the steering wheel. Vogel cursed himself as soon as he had spoken. Not so long ago he wouldn’t have bothered to enquire after her welfare, and Saslow would know that.

‘I meant, with such an early start,’ he added quickly.

She answered equably enough.

‘I’m fine, sir,’ she said. ‘Could have done with a couple of hours more kip.’

‘Me too,’ said Vogel, with feeling.

‘You think this could turn out to be a wild goose chase, don’t you, boss?’ Saslow continued, as she eased her pool vehicle away from the kerb.

Londoner Vogel, a true city boy, did not hold a driving licence. Learning to drive had actually been a condition of his transfer to the Avon and Somerset from the Met. But somehow or other he’d still managed to avoid more than a couple of extremely unsatisfactory lessons.

‘Something of the sort,’ muttered Vogel.

‘I thought so,’ continued Saslow. ‘I mean, I was a bit surprised to hear we’d been called out to a house fire. Even a major one.’

‘No ordinary house, and no ordinary householder,’ said Vogel.

He took off his thick-lensed spectacles and rubbed them inadequately against his sleeve.

‘I assume you’ve heard of Sir John Fairbrother?’

‘Vaguely, sir. One of the great and the good, isn’t he?’

Vogel chuckled wryly.

‘One of the greatly rich, that’s for sure,’ said the DI. ‘Chairman and CEO of Fairbrother International. His family still own Fairbrother’s Bank, the second oldest private bank in the UK and the sixth oldest in the world. Sir John is in his early sixties now, but apparently has always continued to run the family business with a rod of iron. And he has a reputation for being something of a maverick. There’s been a rumour that he’s had to step back a bit in recent months because he hasn’t been well. Unsubstantiated, though, and officially denied. But the city seemed to believe it. The shares in Fairbrother International keep dropping.’

‘So how ill do we think he is, boss?’ asked Saslow.

‘Very ill indeed now, Saslow. In fact, it would seem that he’s dead. I thought you knew that?’

‘I knew two people were suspected of having died in this fire, but I wasn’t told who they were, or even if they’d been identified,’ responded Saslow.

‘No, well, of course there’s no question of them having been identified yet,’ said Vogel. ‘And, as we all know, in the case of a fire sometimes formal identification is never possible. But there’s not much doubt that in this case the two casualties are Sir John and his Filipino nurse. It was the nurse who called 999, from inside the house, Blackdown Manor.’

He reached into a pocket for his notebook, and glanced at it before continuing.

‘The call was logged at 1.31 a.m. this morning. The 999 operator reported that the woman, who gave her name as Sophia Santos, sounded anxious but in control. Her English was not perfect, but good enough not to be a problem.

‘She indicated that she was with her employer, Sir John, in his bedroom, and that they had both smelt smoke. The operator asked if Sophia thought they could safely leave the house, and the nurse replied that Sir John was unwell, and that she believed it would be safer to stay in the bedroom which had a fire door. She also said she had spoken to someone called George, whom she described as Sir John’s driver, and that he had said they should stay where they were and he would come to assist them. The operator had begun to ask other questions when Sophia apparently ended the call, in spite of the operator’s request for her to stay on the line, saying that her employer needed her. Repeated attempts by the 999 operator to call her back failed.

‘Then, at 2.05 a.m., Sophia called again. By then she was panicking. The operator tried to calm her down and told her that firefighters had arrived at Blackdown Manor, and she was sure they would soon get to her and her employer.

‘The nurse then said they might be too late, and that the police were also needed because there were armed intruders on the property. “Bad men with guns”, were her exact words apparently. The operator asked how she knew that, if she had seen these “bad men”, and the nurse replied that she hadn’t seen them, that George had told her. She also said she was afraid that these men intended to kill Sir John and her too. The operator asked if this George was now with her and Sir John, and she replied that he hadn’t been able to get through yet, he too was afraid of the men with guns, and she’d only been able to talk to him on the phone. The operator then asked if she could speak to Sir John. The nurse replied that her employer’s speech wasn’t good, and he no longer used a phone.’

Vogel put his notebook down and turned towards Saslow.

‘Apparently, this time the 999 operator managed to keep Sophia on the line for about four minutes, reassuring the nurse about the arrival of the emergency services and so on, until she heard a loud bang down the phone line and Sophia began to scream uncontrollably. The operator tried to calm her and find out what had happened, but Sophia just carried on screaming until the line went dead.’

Vogel closed his notebook and put it back in his pocket. For a moment there was silence in the car. Neither Saslow nor Vogel had any words.

Saslow spoke first. ‘Jesus boss, seems like that 999 operator heard that poor woman dying.’

‘Yes, I think she probably did, Saslow,’ said Vogel quietly.

‘That’s just so terrible,’ said Saslow. ‘I wonder how often that happens, boss?’

‘In the age we live in, where almost everyone has a mobile phone, I suspect it’s not that unusual.’

‘I wouldn’t like that job, boss,’ commented Saslow.

‘No, at least we’re not always totally helpless in the face of death and destruction, eh Saslow?’

Saslow glanced sideways at her senior officer. He did have a disconcerting turn of phrase at times. She decided to take him at face value and made no comment.

‘And that was the last call from anyone in the house,’ Vogel continued. ‘As might be expected. All further attempts to regain contact failed.’

There was another short silence, interrupted again by Saslow.

‘But I presume the reason we are on our way there is because of the armed intruders, not the fire.’

‘Well, yes. That’s the primary reason, at this stage. If there ever were any armed intruders, of course.’

Saslow frowned.

‘So that’s why you said we might be on a wild goose chase, is it, boss? You don’t really believe there were armed men at Blackdown Manor, is that it?’

‘Well, not any longer, that’s for sure,’ Vogel muttered. ‘Of course, once the 999 operator was told there were people with guns on the premises she reported it immediately, and the fire boys were held back until armed response got there. They couldn’t get their engines through anyway because there was a bloody great fallen tree blocking the drive leading to the house, and they had to call USAR out. I don’t know the exact timing yet, but I understand it was gone four a.m., almost three hours after the first 999 call, before armed response declared the area clear. Only then were the emergency services allowed through. They couldn’t get into the house, of course, but, largely because of the explosion, the fire had taken hold so quickly that the place was already pretty damn near burned down and it was accepted that nobody inside, victim or intruder, could have survived. Since then, Saslow, half the available firefighters and appliances in the area have been trampling all over the place fighting the blaze. If there ever were any armed intruders, they are either well gone or well dead.’

‘Right, but you said primary reason, boss. It’s not usual procedure for MCIT be called out of Bristol for a house fire, even when there are fatalities, is it?’

‘No, Saslow. Unless the fire was started deliberately, of course.’

‘And do we believe that is what happened in this case?’

‘I’ve not been told that. Not yet, anyway. There is another reason, though.’

‘Is there, sir?’

‘Think about it, Saslow. Sir John Fairbrother. Friends with the county set, and every darned bigwig in the west of England. This whole thing already stinks of something, though God knows what. Tales of a gang of armed men tramping through the Blackdown Hills in the middle of the night? I mean, for God’s sake. We’re in the heart of twenty-first-century rural Somerset, not Al Capone’s Chicago. The nurse could well have been off her trolley. Or maybe Fairbrother himself. But the chief constable wants nothing left to chance. I’d say they were in the same flippin’ lodge, but I think Sir John may have been above and beyond that sort of thing.’

‘Really, sir?’

Vogel could not fail to detect the note of interest in the DC’s voice.

‘I didn’t say that, Saslow,’ he told her.

Vogel disliked Freemasonry. And he particularly disliked even the idea of senior police officers being Masons. Not so many as had once undoubtedly been the case, but he suspected there remained far more police Masons than might actually admit it. He thought it unhealthy for police officers to be members of a secret society known to protect its own regardless. And he saw no place for Masonry, its funny handshakes and its clandestine medieval rituals, within a modern police service. But neither did he have a scrap of proof that his own chief constable was a Mason. He was merely repeating a rumour, and he should know better.

‘Of course not, sir,’ said Saslow, with only the merest hint of a smile.

The drive to Blackdown Manor took just over an hour and a quarter. Two uniforms were on sentry duty. Vogel flashed his warrant card, and he and Saslow were ushered past. Both officers let out an involuntary gasp as Saslow steered their vehicle through the big iron gates and on to the drive. She drove slowly past the fallen tree that had been cleared to one side by USAR, and Vogel was sure she was as transfixed by the sight which lay before them as he was. Neither Vogel nor Saslow had ever seen the house before the fire. But the horror of what had happened was starkly apparent. The building had been almost totally destroyed. The roof was entirely gone. Only a few sections of wall still stood, in ragged defiance, silhouetted against the morning sky. There were no longer any visible flames, but the building was clearly still burning. Smoke continued to drift above the ruins, creating a haze over the entire scene ahead. Several fire appliances were still in action, pouring huge arcs of gushing water onto the remains of the old house. Vogel counted at least five in attendance. And he could see two ambulances standing by. He did not think there was going to be much call for the attentions of any of the medics who had been summoned to the scene. As he had already told Saslow, it was not believed possible for there to be any survivors of the terrible fire which had engulfed the old manor house. But saying it, and seeing it, were two different things. Vogel felt a cold shiver run up and down his spine. His chosen career demanded frequent, and all too close, confrontation with death and destruction. He would never get used to it, not for as long as he lived.

He fleetingly reflected on the other consequences of the fire, in addition to the loss of human life. Vogel loved dogs. He wondered if there had been any dogs in the house, or any other animals, cats perhaps, and whether or not they had managed to escape, or if they too had suffered the unspeakable horror of burning to death. Vogel also had a love of beautiful things. He wondered what treasures might have been lost that night in the old house, which had apparently been in the Fairbrother family for centuries. Almost certainly there would have been irreplaceable antique furniture, fine paintings and other works of art, that had been handed down from generation to generation.

Saslow drove as near as she was allowed to the burned down house. The ambulances, one of the fire appliances, and a smattering of other less immediately identifiable vehicles, effectively blocked the latter part of the driveway. The two officers still had to walk a hundred yards or so over a lawn turned into a bog by the earlier rain and the attentions of the fire service, which had doubtless already pumped thousands of gallons of water onto the house and the area immediately surrounding it.

Vogel picked his way carefully, his feet inadequately clad as usual. Saslow, wearing suitably protective clothing and footwear, of course, was striding ahead. Vogel found himself having to hurry to keep up with her.

The fire, although still burning, seemed to be just about under control. But, close up, the destruction of the old house appeared even more devastating. Glassless windows, in those portions of wall which remained precariously upright, revealed nothing behind, as if the mighty old house were a flimsy film set.

Vogel had been told that a detective constable from Taunton and a local police community support officer were already in attendance, in addition to the uniforms by the gate. He could see no sign of an armed response team, and assumed they had probably left having declared the scene clear.

Vogel looked around for whoever might be the senior fire officer.

‘Where’s your gaffer?’ asked Vogel of the nearest firefighter.

‘That’s him,’ replied the firefighter, pointing towards a tall man, wearing the distinctive white helmet of a Fire and Rescue Service station manager, standing a little apart, staring at the ruins of the old house.

‘Hey, Bob,’ he called out. ‘You’re wanted.’

Bob Parsons turned at once and walked over.

Vogel introduced himself and Saslow.

‘I understand there are at least two dead, is that right?’ Vogel asked.

‘Must be, from what we’ve been told,’ replied Parsons. ‘The woman who called in the fire, and her employer, Sir John Fairbrother. Both trapped in his bedroom, we understand. But we’ve no way of telling for sure, obviously, and won’t for some time.’

He waved an arm at the still burning house.

‘Twenty-four hours at least before even my men will stand a chance of getting in there,’ he continued. ‘There’s also talk of the possibility of armed intruders having been trapped inside. But I expect you know that?’

Vogel nodded his assent.

‘How long after the first call to the emergency services did you guys arrive here?’ asked Vogel.

‘We were here within just over half an hour. We’re based in Wellington, pretty close and we weren’t out on another call. So we came straight away. Only problem was, we couldn’t get our vehicle through because of the fallen tree across the drive. Then, after the second 999 call, we were told to stand down as there might be armed intruders on the premises. In any case, by then there’d been that huge explosion...’

Bob Parsons stopped abruptly, turning away slightly to stare at the remains of the old house again. Vogel prompted him to continue.

‘So what actually happened? What did you see?’

‘Well, when we arrived the house was barely ablaze. We could see smoke, but that was all. We’d been told that Sir John and his nurse were still inside, and, from what we could see, we couldn’t work out why they didn’t just walk out, when they had the chance. We didn’t know at that stage about the possibility of armed intruders, of course. My lads are used to danger, but they’re not trained to face guns. And they’d have told me and headquarters where to go if they’d been asked to. But as it was, well, we decided to go ahead on foot, to at least see if we could get the people we’d been told were inside to safety. We were lugging our portable pump over the tree trunk when the whole shooting match went up. One minute barely any sign of a fire, then this huge explosion and an eruption of flames. Almost certainly a BLEVY. And quite a sight I can tell you—’

‘What’s a BLEVY?’ interrupted Vogel.

‘Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion,’ replied Parsons. ‘Goes off like a bloody great bomb. The propane gas tank out the back went up, no longer much doubt about that. We were nearly a quarter of a mile away, but I swear you could feel the force of it in the air.’

Parsons wiped a gloved hand across his face, leaving a broad stroke of soot. Vogel noticed how drawn he looked, and could see the pain in his eyes.

‘There was nothing we could do,’ Parsons continued. ‘Absolutely nothing. If only our path hadn’t been blocked, we may have got there just in time to prevent the explosion. As long as we hadn’t been confronted by any armed intruders, of course. There’s no way of telling now. As it was, we were helpless. We could do nothing for those poor people. Then we were told to stand down, and in any case, after the place blew I don’t think we would have had a hope in hell of getting anyone out. As it was, all we could do was watch.’

‘That must have been tough,’ said Vogel, whose heart went out to the man.

‘It never gets any easier,’ said Parsons.

Then he almost visually shook himself out of his reverie.

‘There’s something else you should know.’

‘Yes?’ enquired Vogel.

‘We can’t be sure, of course.’ Parsons continued, slightly hesitantly. ‘But we do already have reason to suspect this fire may have been started deliberately.’

Vogel pursed his lips together and breathed slowly out in a silent whistle.

‘You suspect arson?’ he queried. ‘This soon?’

‘Two seats of fire,’ responded Parsons. ‘Classic first indication. Like I told you, we could see smoke coming from the front of the house when we arrived. Big house though. Nowhere near the gas tank at the back which exploded a few minutes later causing a second and calamitous fire. As I said, boy, did it blow, and you got a job to make one of those tanks go off, particularly if its properly situated away from the house, as this one was. You’d generally need there to be a leak, and for the gas leaking to come directly in contact with flame. In view, like I said, of there being two seats of fire, I’d guess that the tank had been tampered with. It’s only a hunch. So far. However, what we clearly do already know pretty much for sure is that there were two separate sources of fire. One from somewhere near the tank causing it to explode, combined with a probable leak, which may have been a coincidence but because of the other, and almost certainly the initial, source of fire, we’re inclined to think it isn’t. That was somewhere near the front door, effectively blocking what would be the natural exit path if you were trying to get out of the house. We’ll have to wait for the fire investigators to finish their work to be sure, and that could take several days but, if you want my opinion, it’s all highly suspicious, at the very least.’

‘Does that lead us back to those mysterious armed intruders?’ asked Vogel.

‘I really don’t know. Possibly. Although we never saw any signs of intruders, and neither did the armed response boys. They came back in with us when they allowed us through and stayed until after daybreak when they double-checked the area. You only just missed them actually. All the same, and although it’s just guesswork so far, it has to be a possibility, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, like you said, there could be intruders dead in there as well as the two victims we know about,’ said Vogel. ‘And you can’t search the place yet?’

‘No way,’ said Bob Parsons. ‘The house is still burning as you can see, and the few bits of it that remain standing are likely to collapse at any moment. All we can do is pour water on it. But, bizarrely, because of the size of the explosion, the speed with which the fire took hold and its ferocity, we may be able to put the fire out sufficiently to gain entry more quickly than is often the case when a big old place like this goes up—’

Parsons was interrupted by a fire officer calling out from closer to the house.

‘Bob, sorry, but you’re needed round the back.’

‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Parsons to Vogel.

‘Of course, you get on,’ Vogel responded. ‘Thank you for your time.’

Parsons began to walk towards the house. After a few steps he stopped and turned back to face Vogel.

‘Just one more thing I should tell you,’ he said. ‘Do you know about this gardener, odd-job-man, driver chap?’

‘I was going to ask about him,’ replied Vogel. ‘George something, isn’t it? All I know is that he’s the one who apparently started this armed intruder business. Obviously, we need to speak to him. Is he here?’

‘Not any more. We and the medics found him outside the house when we were finally allowed through. Armed response had already helped him to relative safety and made him as comfortable as they could, but he was in quite a state. Bleeding from wounds to his shoulder and one leg. Couldn’t stop sobbing, either. Kept saying this wasn’t meant to happen.’

‘I see,’ said Vogel. ‘Do you know how he sustained his injuries? Was he caught up in the fire? Was he burned? I thought nobody else was supposed to be in the house.’

‘That’s quite right,’ said Bob Parsons. ‘Though Grey claimed he tried to get into the house, but was too late. No. He said he’d been attacked by the armed men he’d alerted Sir John and his nurse to. Didn’t look like anything to do with the fire, actually. Not burns anyway. More like stab wounds, though I was too busy tackling the fire to take a lot of notice. You’ll have to ask the medics. They’ve taken him to hospital, the Musgrove in Taunton.’

‘Well, that complicates the issue a bit doesn’t it,’ murmured Vogel.

He shivered. It really was a horrible morning. His feet were like blocks of ice. He looked down. His suede slip-ons were sodden already and caked in mud. He had a penchant for Hush Puppies, and this, he suspected, would be the ruination of yet another pair. His wife, Mary, would not be pleased. He did now possess a pair of wellington boots — purchased for him by Mary, of course, within the first few weeks of his transfer to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary — but he had a terrible habit of forgetting to take them with him. After all, he was a police officer, not a farm worker. Although sometimes nowadays he was beginning to wonder.

He turned up the collar of his honourable old corduroy jacket and wrapped his arms around his body. He was aware of Saslow shaking her head, almost imperceptibly. And probably disapprovingly. Rather like Mary. She was always trying to get him into all-weather gear, or at least to persuade him to buy himself a heavy-duty country coat. Something suitable for the rural areas and moorland which covered a hefty slice of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary’s territory.

Vogel sniffed. He hoped he wasn’t catching another cold. And if he were, he would get little sympathy from Mary. She seemed to think he developed them deliberately since moving out of the capital, as if to demonstrate how unsuited he was to life away from inner-city London — even though he’d been absolutely in agreement with his wife that it was worth making such a move, for the sake of their daughter. Vogel would do anything for Rosamund.

‘Sir, would you like my scarf?’ asked Saslow, interrupting his thoughts.

Vogel blinked rapidly behind his thick spectacles. This was extremely embarrassing. Was the DC taking the mickey? Or had he reached the stage in life where a young woman offered him part of her clothing merely to keep him warm? Vogel had never been a lady’s man, there’d not really been anyone in his life other than Mary. But he did have his pride.

‘No thank you, Saslow,’ he said, his manner mild, as usual, and his voice giving nothing away. He hoped.

‘I don’t need it, sir,’ said Saslow.

She didn’t either. Her coat was a hooded puffer jacket of some sort, or Vogel thought that’s what they were called, and she’d changed out of her shoes upon arrival at Blackdown Manor into the wellington boots she somehow always seemed to manage to have with her. Unlike Vogel.

‘It’s fine, Saslow,’ said Vogel, trying to look as if it was.

He was rescued somewhat by the arrival at his side of a tall lean man, with thinning grey-brown hair, who swiftly introduced himself as Detective Constable Ted Dawson from Taunton nick.

‘Sorry sir, I was on the phone to my sarge when you arrived,’ Dawson apologised.

Vogel muttered a good morning and shook the man’s hand.

‘Fill me in then, Dawson,’ he said. ‘If the fire boys are right, and my guess is they probably are, then we might have a case of arson here.’

‘Looks like it, sir,’ replied Dawson.

‘And at least two people have died,’ Vogel continued. ‘So, if it is arson we are looking at double murder. Question is, did the arsonist intend to kill?’

‘Well, whether he did or not, he made a pretty good job of it, didn’t he, sir?’ commented Dawson.

‘You could say that, Dawson. I’ve just been hearing about this driver gardener character. George something?’

‘Yes sir. George Grey. Lives in The Gatehouse with his wife.’

‘Did you see him before he was carted off to hospital?’ asked Vogel.

‘No sir, the paramedics took him away as soon as they were allowed through. I only got here an hour or so before you. Sounds like he’d have been in no condition to talk, anyway. They called me out to assist you with local knowledge, boss. I live in Wellington, you see. That’s the market town ten miles or so away.’

Vogel nodded.

‘I know,’ he said confidently.

Although, in fact, the only knowledge he had of this part of the world had come from going online that morning.

‘We’re expecting a fire investigator later today, and CSI are here, boss, if you want to talk to them,’ Dawson continued. ‘They’ve had a snoop around the grounds, I understand, but, of course, they haven’t been able to get near the house, and it’s going to be a while before it’s cooled down enough for anybody to do much. The structure will need checking, too.’

Vogel nodded. He had noticed a Crime Scene Investigators van parked just back from the fire appliances and a few officers milling around, a couple leaning against the van smoking.

‘What about pathology?’

‘Karen Crow was called first thing and arrived about half an hour before you, boss,’ said Dawson, referring to the District Home Office Pathologist, a woman Vogel had already worked with several times since his move to the West Country.

‘It was really just protocol at this stage, though. She left pretty much straightaway when she had ascertained that there was nothing she could do yet. And to tell the truth, it’s doubtful she will be able to do an awful lot at any stage. You know how hard it is with fire cases, certainly a blaze as major as this. You’re lucky to find anything much at all resembling a human body.’

Vogel tried not to visibly wince.

‘Yes, of course,’ he muttered thoughtfully.

Dawson was also appropriately dressed, in a cap, Barbour jacket, and the obligatory wellington boots. But then he would be. Vogel had guessed at once, just from his appearance and his manner, that this was the sort of career DC you didn’t come across much anymore; approaching retirement, diligent, but content with his lot and unwilling to seek promotion, as that would mean change. Almost certainly Dawson had rarely allowed his police career to get in the way of his lifestyle. And so he had stayed put in the place where he’d been born and brought up, choosing a settled family life over career prospects.

Vogel didn’t know any of that, of course. It was just guesswork. All he really knew was that Dawson had been co-opted to work with MCIT because of his local knowledge. He decided to make the most of it.

‘All right, DC Dawson, I’m going to pick your brains,’ he said. ‘Any idea who might want to kill Sir John Fairbrother? I’ve done a bit of homework this morning. Surprisingly little about him online. Nothing derogatory. A rumour that he might have been unwell, which seems to have now been backed up by the 999 calls from a woman who said she was his nurse, a woman who appears to have died with him. One or two question marks about how well the family bank is doing, but that would almost be expected in the present climate, I should imagine. He was a bit of a philanthropist too, wasn’t he? Known for helping with local causes around here? Is that right?’

‘Well yes, he put up the rest of the money last year so that the restoration of the Wellington Monument could begin.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Vogel. ‘I saw an item on the regional news a while back. Been fenced off amid rumours it might have to come down for safety reasons for years, hasn’t it?’

Dawson nodded, and, although it was clear the question was rhetorical, replied.

‘Yes. Work is now supposed to start next year. Though I’ll believe it when I see it myself.’

Dawson smiled wryly.

A cynic, eh, thought Vogel. But he didn’t object to that in a police officer, because it generally indicated a questioning mind.

‘So, do I assume that Sir John was popular locally, then?’

‘Well, he certainly used to be,’ said Dawson in a non-committal sort of way.

‘Come on, Dawson, is there any background you can give me that Google doesn’t know?’ Vogel persisted. ‘That’s what I want.’

‘I can tell you what they say down the Culm Valley and up the Blue Ball, boss. I doubt Google’s ever reached those two boozers.’

Dawson smiled.

So, the DC also showed signs, however limp, of a sense of humour. That was promising. Vogel and Saslow had been through a lot together the last year or so. The need for a copper who took his work seriously but not himself was greater than ever.

‘Born and bred in the place, there’s not much goes on in this neck of the woods I don’t know about,’ Dawson continued chattily, just as Vogel had already surmised.

‘Right, spit it out then, man,’ said Vogel.

‘Well, boss, one of Sir John’s ancestors, Edwin Fairbrother, acquired the place in seventeen something or other. He allegedly won it in a game of cards. Quite a swashbuckler, it seems. Not quite what you expect from a banker. But I suppose banking was different in those days. It’s been the principal Fairbrother home ever since, and the family have always considered themselves to be proper Somerset people, involved in the community and so on. Sir John was known for that, even when he was away in London most of the time.

‘Anything going on locally, particularly the Wellesley Theatre in Wellington, and even the little panto they put on in Culmstock every year, Sir John would turn up now and again. There was always a big donation for any local charitable cause, and he was a fair employer locally. Used to boast about always employing local people. The Kivel family, from over Wrangway, they were in his employ for generations. Jack and Martha lived in. Or in The Gatehouse to be precise, where the Greys were put. They looked after the whole manor, Martha was housekeeper; Jack was Sir John’s right-hand man, did the garden and drove Sir John everywhere. Sir John used local builders and other tradesmen when he needed any work done. Simon Crockett always did the roofing, said it was like the flippin’ Forth Bridge. Half of Wellie was in and out of Blackdown Manor doing jobs. Big old house. Lot of work.

‘Then about a year ago everything changed. Sir John seemed to step back from everything locally. He’d had racehorses in training with the Pipes up at Nicholashayne for decades; out of the blue, David Pipe was told to sell the lot of ’em. The tradesmen Sir John had always relied on stopped getting called out. He no longer wanted goose eggs from Barry Byrant and Colin Sully; gardening help from Rob and David Crow; and suddenly he was never in for neighbours he had always made welcome, like John McCarten, the Childs or the Flahertys. He just didn’t seem to be around much, or even very interested in the manor any more. Or so it was said. Then Jack and Martha were given notice to quit. Just like that after nearly thirty years. And not personally, either. Sir John’s solicitor did the deed, apparently. Word is severance pay was typically generous. But that was all that was typical. Sir John was away somewhere when the Kivels were sacked, and neither Jack nor Martha ever saw him again, they say. That upset the whole Kivel clan. They’d thought of themselves as extended family, and believed that Sir John felt the same. So the whole thing was a terrible shock. Especially when almost immediately Sir John brought in George and Janice Grey from London and installed them in The Gatehouse to take over the roles of Jack and Martha.’

Vogel thought for a moment, considering what Ted Dawson had said. Then he swung on his heels to face the older man.

‘Do you have any theories about what may have caused John Fairbrother to have changed so dramatically, sacked all his local staff and so on? You must have, surely. C’mon man. Not much happens around these parts that you don’t know about, you said.’

‘There’s been a lot of talk, but probably not a lot of substance. More about Sir John’s health than anything else—’

‘We know pretty much for certain that the man wasn’t well,’ Vogel interrupted. ‘He employed a nurse. At least one nurse. Possibly more. Do you have any idea what was wrong with him?’

‘I know what the rumour was...’

Vogel waited. Ted Dawson remained silent.

‘Get on with it,’ the DI prompted.

‘Folk said he had Parkinson’s.’

‘Really?’

There’d been no mention of that online. Vogel had a basic knowledge of Parkinson’s, of course, and was aware that it was a degenerative disease which ultimately destroyed the human nervous system, but he had never had personal experience of the condition. He knew enough to realise, however, that if it became public knowledge that the chairman and chief executive of an international company and a major private bank was suffering from the condition, the results in the world of business could be disastrous. Way beyond just a bit of a fall in the share prices. He addressed both Dawson and Saslow.

‘The nurse, Sophia, told the emergency services that Sir John had difficulties with speaking, and indicated that he certainly couldn’t talk on the phone,’ he said. ‘Do either of you know if that might be a symptom of Parkinson’s?’

It was Saslow who answered, and straight away Vogel got the impression that she knew what she was talking about.

‘It can do, boss,’ she said. ‘But usually not until the latter stages. The voice can become very soft and a bit shaky. Also, sometimes people get so they can’t find the right words any more. My grandfather had Parkinson’s, and that happened to him. It was awful to watch it happen. It’s a cruel, cruel disease. My grandad, he’d always talked the hind leg off a donkey, you see...’

Saslow stopped abruptly.

‘Thank you, Dawn,’ responded Vogel gently. He turned again to Ted Dawson.

‘Anything else you can tell us?’ the DI enquired.

‘Not a lot, really, boss,’ said Dawson. ‘It’s all gossip, anyway. The gossip capital of the world, this corner of England. Specially the pubs. But that’s what they’re for, isn’t it? Fiona up at the Blue Ball heard that the old man had got Parkinson’s before anybody else. Always got her ear to the ground, that one. And Sir John used to be an occasional regular at the Blue Ball. Would even have a game of pool with the lads now and then. But it didn’t explain why he cut himself off from everybody round here, not to me anyways. And as for sacking the Kivels! Well, you’d think he’d want a couple like that — who’d been with him for so long, living at his home — all the more once he was ill.’

‘Yes, but he was Chair and CEO of Fairbrother International, for God’s sake, so he had good reason to try to hide his illness for as long as possible, didn’t he? Perhaps Jack and Martha got a little too close, do you think? Started to take things for granted, maybe?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Dawson. ‘But it was always said they more or less ran the manor, and that nothing went on there without their say so.’

‘Is it possible that maybe Sir John got rid of them because he didn’t want anybody knowing so much about his affairs?’ asked Saslow.

‘If that’s so then it’s odd that it seemed to suit him so well for so long, isn’t it?’ commented Dawson. ‘The Kivels and the Fairbrothers were always considered to be joined at the hip. The kids grew up together. I can only think that something must have happened. Something to make Sir John no longer want that. Something more than being ill, I reckon. You see, from what I know of the set up with the two families, Sir John would have trusted the Kivels to keep his illness a secret. None more, I’d have thought.’

‘So, we have a bit of a mystery then, don’t we,’ remarked Vogel. ‘A mystery that’s been the subject of local gossip in the pubs of this corner of Devon and Somerset for the best part of a year now.’

‘Yes, that’s about the size of it,’ agreed Dawson. ‘But everyone likes a nice conspiracy theory, don’t they?’

Vogel walked a little closer to the still burning house, his inadequate footwear making squelching noises in the sodden ground. Dawson and Saslow followed.

‘Anything of any substance other than the rumours about Sir John’s health?’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘Well, there was always the inevitable theory that financial skulduggery is at the root of it all. But that wouldn’t explain why Sir John cut himself off from the community here, and everyone who had previously been close to him, would it?’

‘Did he no longer have contact with anybody locally?’

‘Only the absolute minimum. From the moment he got rid of the Kivels and moved in the Greys. That’s when everything changed. He was seen every so often being driven about by George Grey. And there were still one or two indispensables who were required for occasional visits. So he did have some contact.’

Dawson glanced towards the ruined house with a sorrowful shake of his head.

‘Or he did, until the early hours of this morning. But apparently, he did his best to avoid it. Paul the Pool, as he’s known around here, Paul Preston Evans, was one of the last to see him alive. He goes there every month to look after the swimming pool...’ Dawson paused. ‘Used to go there, I should say. The pool was in the basement. Ton of charcoal in it now, I should think. Anyway, Paul likes nothing better than passing on a good yarn. Sir John was in the pool when Paul arrived. Paul got a bollocking from Janice Grey. Apparently neither of them knew he was in the house. He’d just walked in through the back door, like he always did, he told ’em up the Blue Ball. And Mrs Grey sent him packing so she could help Sir John out of the pool room. But Paul said he’d been shocked to see how frail Sir John had looked. And it backed up the rumours. He was a proud man, of course, he wouldn’t have wanted people to see him looking infirm. Everyone understood that, but nobody understood why he got rid of the Kivels. They would have protected him with their lives, would Jack and Martha.’

‘What about Sir John’s family? There are children, aren’t there? Maybe he planned to rely on them for help as his condition deteriorated.’

‘I doubt it,’ responded Dawson. ‘He had two kids, girl and a boy, who grew up here at Blackdown Manor, alongside Jack and Martha’s boys, like I said, but the word is Sir John was estranged from both of them. The lad was a bit on the wild side and buggered off abroad years ago. Not been seen around these parts since. The daughter and her father used to be close, I understand, but not anymore, allegedly.’

The DI looked around him, again taking in the whole dreadful scene. Just a skeleton of the outer structure of the house remained. It was impossible to imagine that it would ever be rebuilt. He may not have visited Blackdown Manor before, but he had that morning looked at pictures of the place. It had been a stunningly beautiful old house, steeped in history, one of the finest examples in the country of a medieval manor, dating back to the fifteenth century and the reign of Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England. An even greater loss, of course, was that of two lives. Two people who had no doubt suffered awful deaths.

Vogel didn’t like to think about that, but couldn’t help himself. He glanced up at the sky, seeking diversion. The storm might be over, but it remained a thoroughly unpleasant morning. He felt sure he’d just felt a drop of rain. Unless he’d attracted the attention of a passing bird. All those years in central London, mostly based in a police station adjacent to Trafalgar Square, and he didn’t remember once being hit by the excrement of a pigeon. In the country, and to Vogel even the thoroughly modern and cosmopolitan city of Bristol counted as country because it wasn’t London, he seemed to be regularly wiping chalky droppings from his head and shoulders. That’s how it seemed to him, anyway.

He took his phone from his pocket and called his senior officer, Detective Superintendent Reg Hemmings, the head of the Brunel MCIT.

‘We almost certainly have a case of arson on our hands,’ said Vogel, before giving Hemmings a brief rundown of everything he had so far learned concerning the fire.

Hemmings listened carefully.

‘There’s little doubt then, we need to set up a murder inquiry,’ he said eventually.

‘Yes boss,’ responded Vogel. ‘And we need a full rundown on the Fairbrother family and the family business, as soon as possible; everything that’s known about Sir John’s children, and everything we can find out about the bank, its financial history, its status today, and so on. Can we get a team to give this top priority? Two people have died in mysterious circumstances, boss. If we can work out why they were killed, then, with a bit of luck, we’ll be well on the way towards identifying those responsible.’

Only when the call ended did Vogel realise how much more confident he must have sounded than he felt. This was not going to be a straightforward investigation. All he could do was take it stage by stage.

He turned to Saslow.

‘Right, Dawn,’ he said. ‘We’d better get ourselves over to the Musgrove and see if we can have a word with George Grey.’