Хилари Боннер - Death Comes First

There was, of course, an alert out for Joyce’s black Range Rover, as well as for the stolen blue Honda Accord in which it was believed young Fred Mildmay had been transported out of Tarrant Park. This was not something with which Alvin Nightingale was expected to concern himself when off duty. But such was his eagerness to impress, he remained vigilant long after his shift had finished.

He was assisted in this, albeit with little tangible success so far, by his place of residence. Alvin lived with his grandmother in one of the thirties semis lining the Portway at Sea Mills, coincidentally not far from Vogel’s bungalow home. He had a bedroom overlooking the main road. And when he had nothing better to do of an evening, which was often now that he had given up swatting for police entry examinations, he would sit at his window, checking the passing traffic against a list of vehicles he and his colleagues had been looking out for that day on CCTV and ANPR.

When the Mildmay Range Rover passed that evening, Alvin had been at his window, for almost an hour, with binoculars, pen, notebook and mobile phone at the ready.

The make, colour and registration number of Joyce’s vehicle featured in the list jotted on the back of his left hand in marker pen. He had already noted several large dark four-wheel drives which had attracted his attention until they passed directly beneath his gran’s house, where a conveniently placed street lamp revealed them to be of the wrong make or colour.

Joyce’s was the second black Range Rover to pass by in the direction of the city centre. Alvin used his binoculars to check and double-check the registration. It was the vehicle owned by Joyce Mildmay, the woman whose child was missing, and whose own whereabouts was currently unknown. There was no doubt about it.

Alvin stood up in front of his bedroom window and focused his binoculars on the Range Rover’s windows, straining to see inside. The rear windows were tinted. He could see nothing though them. He could, however, see that there was a passenger in the front, and he was sure it was a woman. He could not see the driver.

That was good enough for Alvin. He punched the air delightedly. At last — a result! He couldn’t wait to call in his information. He had found the Mildmay car. He may even have found the whole family. His suspect eyesight had surely proved to be up to speed.

Alvin called the main MCIT number straightaway, and was diverted to a duty officer. The duty officer then called Vogel.

Vogel was sitting in the lounge bar of the Royal Marriott Hotel, where Nobby Clarke was staying. After two hours at Southmead Hospital, they had finally given up hope of extracting any information from Henry Tanner that night. If indeed at all. The man appeared to have suffered a relapse. Or, as Vogel suspected, he was faking it to avoid their questions. But the hospital staff did seem concerned about him, and they were unlikely to allow the police anywhere near him until the morning.

Uniform dispatched a constable, who was put on sentry duty outside Tanner’s room. He was there partly to provide protection, and partly on a watching brief. Clarke and Vogel wanted to know at once if there was any change in Henry Tanner’s condition. The two officers also wanted to know whether or not he had any visitors aside from Felicity, who had returned to her husband’s bedside shortly before they left.

Clarke, with the help of sat-nav, had driven them to College Green, where she parked the CID car illegally right in front of the Royal Marriott.

‘C’mon, Vogel, we need a drink,’ she said.

It wasn’t an invitation. More of an order.

‘What about the car?’ Vogel asked, somewhat tragically he thought, even as he spoke.

‘Vogel, since when have you become a bloody jobsworth? Parking tickets are for making paper airplanes with.’ She sighed at him wearily. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get uniform to send someone to pick it up later on, and they can take you home too.’

Vogel hadn’t thought it politic to remind the DCI that he did not in any case drink.

As they made their way into the hotel through the downpour, he repeated a question he’d already asked during the drive over, one which Clarke had dodged, or so it seemed to Vogel.

‘C’mon, boss, tell me about this Mr Smith,’ he demanded. ‘Who the heck is he?

‘For your information, Vogel, Mr Smith is a woman,’ Clarke corrected, deadpan.

‘You know this is getting ridiculous, boss, don’t you?’

‘A woman at the moment,’ Clarke continued, to Vogel’s greater confusion.

She put him out of his misery then.

‘Mr Smith is the generic code name given to Henry Tanner’s government-level controller,’ she explained. ‘It’s always been Mr Smith, ever since the beginning when Henry’s father and Maxim Schmidt set up Tanner-Max. Apparently the first Mr Smith really was called Mr Smith. So for simplicity they carried on with the name.’

‘For simplicity?’ responded a bemused and irritated Vogel. ‘Boss, I don’t believe this nonsense. Codes and controllers? Smith and Schmidt? It’s the stuff of spy stories.’

‘Well, you’d better believe it, Vogel,’ remonstrated Clarke. ‘Because it’s not a story. It’s real. Now shut up and get me that drink.’

They sat together at a table beneath a window down which raindrops dripped relentlessly. Vogel ordered a soda and lime from a smiling waitress who had no idea what a bad mood he was in. Nobby Clarke ordered a large malt. No ice. Splash of still water.

Vogel paid. The Marriott charged London prices. He was still trying to make sense of the whole Mr Smith thing, whilst idly wondering what chance he had of claiming the drinks back on expenses, when his phone rang.

‘Get uniform on to it,’ he barked. ‘I want that vehicle caught up with and apprehended immediately.’

He ended the call and turned to Clarke.

‘We gotta go, boss,’ he said, already standing up and heading for the door. ‘It’s Joyce Mildmay — her car’s been spotted heading into the city centre along the Portway. That’s just down the hill. If we move fast we should be able to head ’em off. C’mon. Let’s go.’

Normally Clarke would have reminded him that she was the one who gave the orders. But not in this situation. She rose at once and followed Vogel without so much as a backward glance at her abandoned whisky.

The pair of them raced out of the hotel and into the CID car. Clarke set lights flashing and siren wailing, manoeuvring the vehicle at speed around College Green and in the direction of the Portway, as instructed by Vogel.

‘You know, Joyce and Molly could have been diverted for reasons we do not know. They could now be heading for the hospital as originally planned,’ Clarke suggested.

‘And it’s taken ten hours from Tarrant Park, has it?’ snapped Vogel, forgetting she was his superior officer and nearly biting her head off. ‘In any case, they’re going in the wrong bloody direction for Southmead. They were spotted at Sea Mills, where I live. They’ve already gone past the damned turning. Even I know—’

‘That’s enough, Vogel,’ interrupted the DCI.

Vogel was on a knife edge, and he knew it. This wasn’t how he usually behaved.

‘Sorry, boss,’ he muttered. ‘It’s just that we don’t know what’s happen—’

He stopped speaking when his body was flung forward against his seat belt as Nobby Clarke executed a flawless emergency stop.

‘What the fuck?’ began Vogel.

He looked ahead. The traffic was fairly light, but several vehicles in front of them had also stopped suddenly, forcing Clarke to do the same. Some of the passengers were getting out of their vehicles and hurrying towards the waterside. Then Vogel noticed the buckled railings ahead at the harbour edge.