Хилари Боннер - Wheel of Fire

‘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.

Vogel and Saslow drove back to Bristol later that afternoon and headed for Kenneth Steele House, home of the MCIT unit. The DI wanted to catch up with all that was happening across the board, and collate in his own head the various strands of the murder inquiry which would now occupy his every waking hour. He also needed to see his boss.

Detective Superintendent Reg Hemmings had appointed himself Senior Investigating Officer, as usual, with Vogel and DI Margot Hartley as his joint deputy SIOs. Hartley, one of the best organisers in British policing, Vogel thought, was, again as usual, office manager. Vogel would take the hands-on-role to which he was invariably considered best suited.

‘The temporary Incident Room we’re setting up near the crime scene, at Wellington police station, should be fully operational by tomorrow morning, and I suggest you work out of there until we’ve completed the obvious investigations locally,’ Hemmings told Vogel. ‘I’m hoping to have about fifty officers on board. There won’t be room for them all at Wellington, of course. I’ll keep Micky Palmer and his team here, where they have access to HOLMES, if that suits you.’