Хилари Боннер - Dreams of Fear

‘Could you tell me who you are, please, sir?’ asked PC Docherty politely.

‘Who I bloody am?’ came the reply. ‘Who the bloody hell do you think I am, for God’s sake?’

‘I need you to tell me your name, sir,’ said PC Docherty, enunciating with the exaggerated patience usually reserved by sober adults for the excessively young, the excessively elderly, or, as in this case, the excessively drunk.

‘My name? I’m Felix Ferguson. Thish is my bloody house. My wife and children are in there. Now will you get out of my bloody way.’

He stepped forwards. So did Lake, who was a big lad and a rugby player. He might still have a lot to learn about the niceties of policing, but he was not at all phased by the prospect of a little rough and tumble.

‘Sir, you need to calm down,’ he said in his most authoritative fashion.

The man focused on Phil Lake with some difficulty.

‘Don’t you tell me what to do,’ he began. But he did take a step backwards.

‘Right,’ said Docherty, in an equally authoritative manner. ‘Could you please tell me where you have been until this hour of the morning, Mr Ferguson?’

‘What’sh it got to do with you?’ asked Felix, still belligerent. Then he looked around him, as if trying to make sense out of what was going on.

‘Why are you stopping me going into my own home?’ he asked loudly. ‘I fucking live here. What are you all doing here?’

With the last sentence, Ferguson’s voice rose even higher in pitch.

Lake looked at Docherty, hoping she would take over. Which she did, with only the hint of a weary sigh.

‘Look, Mr Ferguson,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you. Um, perhaps you would come with me and we could sit in the patrol car over there... ’

Ferguson lurched forwards again. He now seemed not only drunk but was also near hysterical.

‘What’sh happening, what’sh going on?’ he screamed. ‘Is it the children? Oh my God, hash something happened to my children?’

The words came out in a torrent, and were not entirely comprehensible.

‘Your children are safe... ’ Docherty began.

‘It’s my wife then? It’s Jane. Tell me, tell me what’sh happened?’

‘I’m trying to, Mr Ferguson,’ responded Docherty quietly. ‘But you really do need to calm down and listen.’

Her calm and restrained manner seemed to infuriate Ferguson even more. Suddenly he let out an animal roar of anger and threw himself at the woman PC, arms flailing as if he were about to attack her. Lake was ready for him. The young officer simply wrapped his big arms right around Felix again, and pulled him away. The man stopped struggling at once.

‘Jusht tell me, tell me what’s happened,’ asked Ferguson again. This time a tad more quietly and with a note of near pleading in his voice. He leant back against Lake, his body suddenly limp. Lake wondered if this was because he was no longer confident of his ability to stand unassisted, or out of fear of what was to follow.

‘I’m trying to, sir,’ said Docherty patiently.

She so hated these moments. In spite of her bravado, and air of having seen it all before, Docherty believed that breaking the news of the death of a loved one was the most difficult thing a police officer ever had to do. Particularly when the circumstances might still be suspicious. Or, equally hard for many to accept, when suicide was the most likely cause of death. None of this was helped, of course, by the imminent recipient of the bad news being drunk as a skunk.

She decided the best thing to do was to get on with it, as quickly as she could.

‘Mr Ferguson, there is no easy way to break this news to you,’ she said. ‘I am afraid your wife is dead.’

Ferguson’s legs buckled. Without Lake’s support he would almost certainly have fallen.

‘Dead?’ he queried in a bemused sort of way. ‘How can she be dead? I was with her jusht a few hours ago.’

‘I am afraid there is no doubt, sir. She will need to be formally identified, of course. But the body of a woman has been found in your home. And we have no reason to assume it might be anyone other than your wife.’

‘Oh my God. How?’

Ferguson still looked bewildered, and was clearly desperately fighting the fog of his inebriation in order to understand.

Docherty braced herself.

‘I’m afraid your wife’s body was found hanging from the bannisters.’

For a moment it seemed Felix Ferguson hadn’t fully grasped what the PC was saying.

‘Hanging? How? What do you mean?’ he asked.

Docherty braced herself further.

‘Hanged, by the neck, sir, I’m afraid,’ she said.

Ferguson again stared at her, for what seemed like a very long time. Then stark light seemed to dawn.

‘Oh my God,’ he said eventually, and for the second time.

Far more calmly this time, he struggled to pull himself away from Lake’s grasp. Lake glanced towards Docherty. She nodded almost imperceptibly. All she could do at this stage was accept Ferguson to be a genuinely grieving husband. Drunk he may be, but he would also be in terrible shock and should not be forced to deal with the news he had just been given whilst being held in an armlock by a rugby playing policeman.

Lake let go. He kept a warning hand on one of Ferguson’s arms, but the man no longer looked so much of a drunken nuisance, nor as if he might be a danger to anyone.

He did, however, still seem to be struggling to take in what had happened. And that was a common enough reaction, in Docherty’s experience.

‘Who-who found her?’ Felix asked, stumbling over his words, but no longer just because he’d been drinking, Docherty reckoned.

‘I am afraid it was your daughter,’ Docherty replied. ‘Little Joanna found her mother.’

Again, Ferguson just stared at the police officer for several seconds.

‘Oh my God,’ he said eventually and for the third time.

Then he leaned forward, and was mightily sick. A rush of vomit hit the concrete driveway directly in front of the porch, splashing over the feet and legs of both officers.

The crime scene, or certainly the approach to it, had been sullied, just as PC Lake had feared, albeit that he wasn’t responsible. Or not directly, anyway.

After that, Ferguson’s recovery from his drunkenness was surprisingly swift. He gave the impression of being very nearly sober almost immediately after emptying the contents of his stomach. Which did not surprise either officer. Lake was not unused to the varied effects of heavy drinking, and its aftermath, experienced on nights out with his rugby mates. Docherty had noted more than once before in her police career how extreme shock can trigger sobriety, even without the assistance of a good old-fashioned vomit. But Ferguson was clearly still quite unable to deal with the situation in a realistic manner.

‘I want to see my wife,’ Ferguson demanded. ‘And I want my children. I want them now. They should be with me.’

Docherty explained that Felix would not be permitted to see his wife’s body until the pathologist had completed her examination.

For just a fleeting moment Ferguson looked as if he might throw up again.

‘And I am afraid you will not be allowed back into your home until the crime scene investigators have finished their work, which won’t be for at least twenty-four hours, probably more,’ Docherty continued.

‘Really, well where do you suggest I go then?’ asked Ferguson, now speaking with considerably more lucidity. ‘And will you please tell me where my children are? You have no right to keep them from me.’

‘We are not keeping your children from you, Mr Ferguson,’ continued Docherty patiently. ‘They are with your neighbours, the Barhams, the people who called us here when they realized what had happened... ’