Wheel of Fire

Four

At first nobody answered the door at The Gatehouse.

Vogel knocked loudly three times.

‘She might be out, boss,’ said Saslow.

Vogel glanced upwards at the bedroom window which overlooked the front door. The curtains were drawn. But there was a little chink open in the middle. He noticed, as had Tom Withey when he and the other Wellington firefighters had arrived at Blackdown Manor in the early hours, that one of the curtains seemed to move slightly.

‘I don’t think so, Saslow,’ replied Vogel. ‘I think she’s watching us from upstairs.’

He opened the letterbox, bent forwards and shouted through it at the top of his voice. ‘Mrs Grey, I am DI David Vogel of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, and I need to speak to you urgently regarding your husband.’

Vogel stood back and waited. There was still no response from inside. He waited a minute or so, then stepped forwards again and once more shouted through the letterbox. ‘Mrs Grey, please open the door. I really have to speak to you.’

Again, there was no response. Again, Vogel waited for a minute or so.

Then he called through the letterbox for the third time. This time he meant business. ‘Mrs Grey, if you don’t open this door I shall obtain a warrant to enter and search your property. Then I shall return with uniformed officers, and, your husband having alleged there were armed intruders on the premises last night, possibly an armed response unit. If you do not open this door I shall be compelled to follow these procedures, not least out of concern for your safety.’

Vogel stepped back again. This time the door opened.

A small bird-like woman stood in the doorway. Vogel thought she was probably in her early forties, about the same age as her husband, but she looked older. Her hair was grey and unkempt. Vogel reflected obliquely on how unusual it had become for women to allow their hair to go naturally grey, even when they were in their seventies and eighties. His Mary was not a vain woman, nor in any way preoccupied with physical appearance, but she had immediately chosen to have her hair highlighted as soon as the first streaks of grey began to show in her natural light brown.

Janice Grey’s opening remark was not promising.

‘I can’t help you,’ she said, standing full square in the middle of the doorway, her body language making it quite clear she had no intention of inviting the two officers in. Vogel thought she looked as if she may have been crying. Which he supposed was not surprising. In spite of that, and her small stature, she was clearly no pushover.

‘I don’t know where my George is,’ Janice Grey continued. ‘I have no idea why he walked out of hospital or where he’s gone to. So, it’s no good asking me. I didn’t know nothing about it until this woman copper from Taunton phoned me. I told her that then, and now I am telling you.’

She made a move to shut the front door. Vogel stepped forward and thrust his foot in the doorjamb. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, and found he rather enjoyed it.

He pushed against the door forcing Janice Grey back into the hall.

‘We need to come in, Mrs Grey,’ said Vogel authoritatively, stepping forward as he spoke.

With an air of resignation, the woman made way for him and Saslow to enter, and led them into the sitting room. It was a predominantly pink room, and chintzy, the soft furnishings and the floral curtains distinctly cottagey in style. Vogel wondered whether the Greys had been responsible for the décor, or the Kivels. He somehow suspected the latter. Nonetheless the place remained well cared for. Everything was neat and tidy. The restful, homely atmosphere thus created at once seemed incongruous considering the recent events at Blackdown Manor; which included arson leading to two violent deaths, a possible invasion of armed intruders, and now the disappearance of the principal witness who was also the prime suspect.

‘Look, Mrs Grey,’ Vogel began. ‘What I would like to know from you first, before we move on to the events of the last twenty-four hours, is how you and your husband came to be in the employment of Sir John Fairbrother in the first place?’

The woman sat down abruptly on an upright chair by the fireplace. She did not ask Saslow and Vogel to sit. Saslow did so anyway, perching herself on the edge of the chintzy sofa. Vogel kept standing. If he had sat on any other of the available chairs in the room he would have found himself at a lower level than Janice Grey. And Vogel would never allow that. When he was working, and particularly when conducting something as serious as a murder inquiry, Vogel was always conscious of the necessity of preventing almost anyone he encountered from taking even the hint of psychological advantage — and of never inadvertently putting himself at a disadvantage.

‘George arranged everything, I don’t know nothing about it,’ Janice Grey replied.

‘Oh, come on, Mrs Grey, I don’t believe that,’ persisted Vogel. ‘You don’t seem to me to be the sort of woman who would meekly uproot herself and move halfways across the country on the say so of her husband. Or any man, come to that. You and George are Londoners, city people. Not likely candidates at all. Leaving aside any other considerations, how did you both get this job?’

‘We applied for it,’ said Mrs Grey abruptly.

‘I think I need a little more detail than that,’ said Vogel. ‘How did you apply for it? Did you go through an agency?’

‘No, my Georgie saw an ad in the paper.’

‘Which paper?’

‘I dunno. The Standard I expect. He always used to get the Standard, did my Georgie.’

‘So, why did he apply for this job?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Mrs Grey, I’ll say it again, you and your husband are Londoners, through and through. What made George apply for a job which involved looking after a country house, miles from anywhere?’

Janice Grey shrugged. ‘We both wanted a change, didn’t we?’ she said.

Vogel assumed it was a rhetorical question.

‘And what on earth does your Georgie know about gardening?’ he continued.

Janice Grey shrugged again. ‘’E only has to mow the lawns, more or less. ’E ’as one of those bloody great mowers you sit on, don’t he? He likes that. Otherwise, he would just drive the boss about, not that he ever went out much, and do little jobs around the house when he could.’

She paused.

‘He’s quite handy about the house, my George you know,’ she said somewhat defensively.

I’ll bet he is, thought Vogel, particularly when it comes to breaking into them.

‘Mrs Grey, your husband has a criminal record,’ he continued. ‘Was Sir John aware of that?’

Janice Grey frowned. ‘Might ’ave known you’d get onto that,’ she muttered.

‘Well yes, Mrs Grey, obviously we are checking out everyone close to Sir John. Two people have died and now your husband appears to have gone missing. Doesn’t look very good, does it?’

‘Not to you, I don’t suppose,’ said the woman, still muttering.

‘I’m going to ask you again, Mrs Grey,’ said Vogel. ‘Was Sir John Fairbrother aware of your husband’s criminal record?’

‘I dunno,’ replied the woman, this time a tad belligerently. ‘I told you, my Georgie dealt with all that sort of stuff.’

‘All right, Mrs Grey, moving on to last night, when were you first aware that there was a fire at the manor?’

‘When Sophia called George. Woke us both up. He told me straight away, before he went over to try to help.’

‘And you just stayed here, in The Gatehouse, is that correct?’

‘Yes. Until the explosion. Frightened the life out of me, I can tell you. I went outside then, and what a terrible sight it was. That beautiful house, just a ball of fire. One of the fireman said I should get back in, so I did. And I stayed here until a policeman came and said my George had been injured and they were taking him to hospital.’

‘But that would have been more than three hours later, wasn’t it, Mrs Grey? You’ve just told us about the explosion. Weren’t you worried about your husband, when he didn’t come back?’

‘Of course I was. But there was nothing I could do.’

Vogel was considering whether or not to press Janice Grey further on her somewhat questionable account of the night’s events, when Saslow’s phone rang and she left the room to take the call.

He decided he might learn more from a more indirect line of questioning.

‘You were both in Sir John’s employ, Mrs Grey, not just your husband, is that right?’ Vogel continued, in Saslow’s absence.

‘Yes.’

‘So, what exactly were your duties?’

‘I was sort of housekeeper. We had a girl from the village come in two mornings a week to do the heavy cleaning, she wasn’t allowed in Sir John’s bedroom though, and he used to stay in his room when she was in the house. I did that, and made sure everything was how Sir John liked it. He was only living in part of the house anyway.’

‘Did you do anything else?’

‘Well, I helped look after him. Sophia was live-in, of course. I used to do shifts to relieve her, and occasionally we had an agency nurse from Exeter.’

‘You did nursing shifts? I’ve been told Sir John was suffering from Parkinson’s. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘Well, Parkinson’s is a very serious condition. Are you a qualified nurse, Mrs Grey?’

‘Uh, well, um...’ She seemed unable to find appropriate words.

‘C’mon, Mrs Grey,’ Vogel persisted. ‘It’s a simple enough question. Are you a nurse?’

The woman looked curiously alarmed.

She was ultimately saved from answering the question by the return of Saslow, who held out her phone to Vogel saying, ‘It’s Micky Palmer. You’d better hear this, boss.’

Vogel took the phone and, in turn, left the room, listening intently.

Saslow sat down on the sofa again. Janice Grey stared at her for a moment or two then glanced away. Neither woman spoke.

Vogel was not out of the room for long. Upon his return he got straight to the point. ‘You were a nurse, weren’t you, Mrs Grey?’ he enquired.

That same expression of resignation which had appeared on her face when she had allowed the two officers into her home reappeared.

‘Yes, I was,’ she replied finally. ‘Well, an auxiliary nurse.’

‘At the East London Infirmary?’

‘Yes. And I was as good as any SRN too. Better, probably. The rest of them didn’t like me, did they? They ganged up on me. I wasn’t to blame for nothing. I didn’t do nothing. Look, it happened nearly ten years ago, but I’m never going to be allowed to move on, am I? Never. It’s pretty obvious you know all about it now.’

‘I know that you stood trial for the murder of three elderly patients in the geriatric ward of the East London Infirmary,’ said Vogel. ‘And that you were cleared of all charges. It was the end of any hope of a nursing career for you though, wasn’t it?’

‘It was. I lost the chance to do the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.’

‘You were Jane Farley then, weren’t you?’

‘Why are you asking? You know very well.’

‘So, you married George, got a new name and a new life. He might have been a petty criminal, but his name was certainly better than yours.’

‘It wasn’t fair,’ said Janice Grey. ‘I was found not guilty. They still hounded me. The press. The families of the people who died. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t hurt nobody. But it just went on and on. Even after I married George somebody would always find out. And then, more recently, there was internet trolling too. I couldn’t work at anything, let alone nursing. In my other life, me and my first husband, Jim, we had our own house, and we had two children. I lost it all, Jim, the house, even my kids. He chucked me out on my ear right after the trial, and poisoned the kids against me. They’re grown up now, near enough, and they don’t want anything to do with me. I haven’t seen ’em in years. And I had nothing to fight back with, did I? No money and a ruined reputation. There wasn’t nothing I could do. I was just lucky Georgie took up with me, to tell the truth, and he’s stood by me too. But we were pretty much at the end of our tether when this job turned up. He’d lost his market stall. I didn’t have any work. We were living hand to mouth in one room. All we wanted was a fresh start. Then Sir John came into our lives, and it was like a miracle. This was our fresh start. Or it was supposed to be.’

‘Did Sir John know about your past?’ Vogel asked.

‘I left that to George,’ said Mrs Grey again. ‘George looked after all that sort of thing.’

‘Well, it’s hard to believe that a man like Sir John would have hired people for jobs like yours without checking them out thoroughly, isn’t it?’ Vogel persisted.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You must know, surely, why he suddenly decided to sack a couple he had employed for many years and take on you and your husband in their place?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Janice Grey. ‘You’d have to ask him. Only you can’t, can you?’

She uttered a short dry chuckle.

‘Is that supposed to be a joke, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel.

The woman looked down at her hands, clasped on her lap.

‘No. I’m sorry. We were both very fond of Sir John. He was good to us. Gave us a chance, didn’t he? Or, at least, he tried to.’

‘Do you think he trusted you?’

‘Yes. I’m sure he did. We never gave him no reason not to. Whatever you might think.’

‘And you say he even trusted you to nurse him?’ Vogel was watching the woman carefully, assessing her every reaction.

She looked up at him directly, eye to eye, and her answer was almost aggressive. ‘Yes, he did, and, why wouldn’t he? I am a good nurse.’

‘Not everyone would trust someone with your past.’

‘I told you, I don’t even know if he knew about it. If he did, then obviously he accepted the “not guilty” verdict. Even if nobody else did. Actually, he used to say I was his favourite. That I had the touch. I always did, you know...’

Janice Grey’s voice tailed off.

‘I’m sorry he’s gone. You can believe what you like of me and George, Mr Vogel. But Sir John Fairbrother was a kind man. A nice gentle man. He didn’t behave posh, the way you might expect from someone in his position, and with all that money. I liked him. He was good to us. I would never have done anything that might hurt him, and I don’t believe my Georgie would have done, either. Not knowingly, anyway.’

‘What do you mean by “not knowingly”, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel.

‘Nothing, I don’t mean nothing,’ Janice Grey replied quickly.

Too quickly, Vogel wondered? None the less he thought he could detect the sign of tears in the corner of each of the woman’s eyes.

She was either an extremely good actress, or she was telling the truth, thought Vogel.

‘And what are we going to do now, Georgie and me? Sir John gave us a home as well as jobs,’ Janice continued, the desperation clear in her voice. ‘God knows what will happen to us now.’

Against his better judgement Vogel found himself feeling some sympathy for Janice Grey. He made himself consider again what he’d just learned on the phone from Micky Palmer about the woman’s Old Bailey trial eight years previously. The case against her had seemed overwhelming. The Crown Prosecution Service and the officers who’d put together the case against her had been convinced she would be found guilty and spend most of the rest of her life in jail.

But she’d convinced a jury of her innocence. And apparently the way in which she had conducted herself, when called by her barrister to give evidence in her own defence, had evoked grudging admiration even from the prosecution counsel.

Vogel made a mental note not to underestimate this woman.