Хилари Боннер - Dreams of Fear

Gerry sounded only very slightly doubtful.

‘Well, no,’ agreed Anne. ‘Not until very recently anyway, when we’ve just had that feeling that things may not be quite right.’

‘You mentioned that before,’ said Saslow. ‘Can you tell us any more about why you both had that feeling.’

‘Well, the drinking, I suppose, Jane looking so bad and her face bruised, and once or twice we’ve heard a bit of a commotion, shouting, that sort of thing,’ continued Anne. ‘One night I woke up to go to the bathroom and I felt a bit hot and uncomfortable, so I opened the bathroom window, which faces towards the Fergusons, and I just stood there for a couple of minutes breathing in the fresh air. Then I thought I heard screaming, coming from their house. But it was over almost as soon as it began. And, in any case, I couldn’t be entirely sure where it came from. I didn’t think any more about it, at the time, to tell the truth. But now, well... ’

‘So what conclusion did you draw?’

Gerry came in swiftly.

‘We didn’t really, I mean, every married couple has rows. Like Anne says, we didn’t think there was anything serious going on. But... ’

Gerry’s voice tailed off.

‘But now, well, you can’t help wondering if there were some real cracks in that marriage, I suppose,’ said Anne. ‘We’ve been talking about it most of the night. Or what was left of it after we found Joanna. I mean, whatever actually happened, something must have been very wrong, mustn’t it?’

Vogel inclined his head very slightly.

‘But until last night, or rather today, you weren’t aware of any obvious problems in their marriage?’

‘Well, like I said, we’re not really friends,’ responded Anne. ‘Although we have been neighbours for a long time, and no, I’m sure they had their ups and downs like all of us, but I would say we both always thought of them as being happily married, didn’t we, Gerry?’

‘Certainly,’ said Gerry.

Anne turned to face Vogel.

‘Mr Vogel, I’m beginning to wonder where you are going with all these questions? I mean, even if the Fergusons had a terrible marriage and that’s why Jane took her own life, suicide isn’t a police matter, is it?’

‘No, Mrs Barham,’ agreed Vogel. ‘Not in itself, that is. But we do need to examine the circumstances.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Anne. ‘I mean, what’s this all about? There can’t be any doubt that Jane killed herself, can there? I saw her. She was hanged. From her own bannisters. And nobody else was in the house except her two poor little children. Are you saying you have some reason to believe her death was not suicide? Is that it?’

‘I’m afraid, Mrs Barham, I am not at liberty to discuss that with you at this time,’ Vogel recited formally.

Gerry Barham suddenly butted in.

‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘You think Jane was murdered, don’t you? And Felix is a suspect.’

Vogel found himself blinking rapidly behind those thick-rimmed spectacles again.

‘I suppose I can tell you, sir, that at the moment we are treating Mrs Ferguson’s death as suspicious,’ he said. ‘Until a post-mortem examination is completed I cannot give you any more information concerning this. Meanwhile I am grateful for your assistance. But you should know that we may need to see you again.’

With that he and Saslow took their leave.

Once outside the house, Saslow turned to her senior officer.

‘He’s about right, boss, isn’t he,’ Saslow remarked. ‘If Jane was murdered, and Karen Crow seems to think that’s pretty likely, then who else would or could have done it apart from her husband?’

‘But could Felix Ferguson have done it?’ countered the DCI. ‘If he was at the yacht club all night playing at being commodore and getting rat-arsed with his mates, then, he may have had motive, something we don’t know about yet, but he sure as heck didn’t have opportunity.’

‘I don’t know what to make of it, boss,’ said Saslow. ‘Perhaps Karen Crow is wrong. Perhaps Jane Ferguson did take her own life, and we’re all wasting our time.’

‘Perhaps,’ responded Vogel. ‘And, like I told the Barhams, we need to know the results of the PM before we can be sure of anything. But in the three years I’ve been working in the west of England I’ve never known Karen Crow’s first impression be proven wrong. Not least because she never shares her opinion unless she’s pretty damn sure of herself.’

‘Doesn’t like to stick her neck out, you mean, boss,’ said Saslow.

Vogel glanced at the young detective, wondering, in the context of the night’s events, if she meant to make a bad joke in even worse taste, or if she had no realisation of what she had said.

Saslow’s face was giving nothing much away and he wasn’t sure. So he decided to carry on as if he had noticed nothing.

‘Something like that, Saslow,’ he remarked casually. ‘Anyway, we’ll hopefully get confirmation one way or another at the post-mortem later today.’

He glanced at his watch. It was just gone seven.

‘We’re booked in to a pub across the estuary in Appledore, The Seagate. ’Fraid we’ve missed out on the best part of a night’s sleep. But we might as well bowl over there, get ourselves checked in, have a shower and maybe some breakfast. By then the world will be awake and we can crack on.’

Saslow smiled weakly. It suited her ill to lose a night’s sleep.

‘A visit to the family Ferguson first, I reckon, after we’ve freshened up,’ Vogel continued.

Saslow managed a little nod. Her smile had faded. It was all right for the DCI, she thought, not for the first time, he hadn’t had to drive for hours as well as doing the job. If her room was ready, she would probably give breakfast a miss and see if she could squeeze in a nap. Even if it were for only an hour or so.

It took less then fifteen minutes for Saslow and Vogel to drive to Appledore, crossing the river over the Torridge Bridge, an impressively tall sweeping concrete structure which by-passes Bideford and is still known locally as the new bridge even though it was built in 1987.

The views, to the left upstream towards Bideford and to the right towards the estuary and out to sea, were spectacular. So much so that even Vogel noticed and was mildly impressed.

The Seagate, an attractively renovated period property, holds an enviably central position right on the front of the one-time fishing village and ship-building centre. There was one room available for immediate occupancy when the two police officers arrived. Vogel offered it to a grateful Saslow, who retreated straightaway to grab some rest, albeit briefly. Vogel wasn’t good at catnapping, and instead preferred to tuck into a plate of scrambled egg washed down with copious quantities of coffee.

After he had eaten, he walked outside and crossed the street to the waterside. The sun was shining now. Instow, the village where they had so recently visited what he now believed to be almost certainly the location of a vicious murder, was immediately across the estuary, looking just like a picture postcard brought to life. It was hard to believe that anything bad or evil could happen in such a place, thought Vogel, who was still rather more used to the underbelly of metropolitan London where you accepted violent crime on a daily basis.

He found a bench, texted Saslow to tell her where he was, and sat there enjoying a few minutes’ peace before immersing himself in the hurly-burly of the investigation again.

A little later the acting DS joined him. Vogel checked his watch. It was just before eight thirty a.m., the time they had agreed they would set off on the next stage of their enquiries, that visit to the Fergusons. Saslow was almost always punctual.