Хилари Боннер - Death Comes First

Clarke thanked her, then turned to Vogel.

‘Let’s go grab a coffee,’ she said, steering Vogel out of the ward and along the corridor in the direction of the coffee shop.

‘We need to work out what we’re going to do next to clear up this mess,’ she continued, as they walked. ‘If what Joyce told us is the truth, and we have no reason to doubt her, then both Charlie Mildmay and Henry Tanner have claimed that they believed the other was involved in selling arms to criminals.’

Vogel didn’t reply. Clarke glanced towards him.

‘Vogel, I can see the wheels turning. What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking maybe there was no illicit arms dealing. Maybe neither Mildmay nor Tanner were involved in any such thing.’

‘Vogel, you’re talking in riddles,’ said Clarke.

Vogel stopped in his tracks. ‘Look, boss, there’s one more question I want to ask Henry Tanner. Forget the coffee. Let’s go back and see him.’

Clarke stopped too, and turned to face the DI. She raised that quizzical eyebrow again.

‘I don’t reckon we’ll get much more out of him tonight, nor his wife come to that,’ she said. ‘He’s not superman, you know. Looked in total shock to me. Wiped out, I’d say.’

‘Let’s try, boss, please,’ said Vogel.

But he wasn’t really asking for her permission, or even her approval. Before he’d finished the sentence he had already turned on his heel and was heading back towards Henry Tanner’s room.

DCI Nobby Clarke, shaking her head in resignation, followed.

Henry lay still. He looked wiped out, as Clarke had predicted. Dawn Saslow remained with him. She was sitting, as she had been earlier, on an uncomfortable-looking hard chair by the balcony windows. Uncomfortable or not, Vogel thought she may have been asleep when he opened the door; she had the look about her of a woman who had just woken up. Apart from the police officer, Henry was alone. Felicity Mildmay had left the hospital. Vogel wasn’t altogether surprised. Felicity had made it pretty clear she wanted little more to do with her husband. That might change. But not for some time, Vogel didn’t think.

Henry’s eyes focused blearily on Vogel. He made no attempt, at first, to speak.

‘Mr Tanner, we don’t wish to intrude further at this time, nor to add to your distress, but I’m afraid there is one point I must ask you to clarify,’ Vogel began. ‘Whose idea was it that you check out Charlie’s email after he disappeared from his yacht?’

Henry looked blank. His mind was somewhere else. Probably reflecting not only on his terrible loss but also on the ruin of his whole carefully constructed existence, thought Vogel.

‘Please, Mr Tanner, this is important. Whose idea was it that you check out your son-in-law’s email?’

With tremendous effort Henry hauled himself, at least partially, back to the here and now.

‘I told you, Stephen Hardcastle and I thought it might throw some light on things...’ Henry’s voice drifted off.

‘But which of you first suggested it?’ Vogel continued doggedly.

Tanner looked bewildered. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked, just as his daughter had whenever Vogel persisted in any line of questioning.

‘We are trying to find out what, and who, was behind the chain of events which have engulfed your family,’ Vogel persevered. ‘And, however you feel at the moment, there will probably come a time when you will want to know that too. When it might matter.’

Tanner shook his head slightly. Vogel assumed that the other man could not imagine anything ever mattering again. Like his daughter. But Henry did answer the question.

‘It was Stephen,’ he said. ‘It had to be Stephen. I didn’t even know Charlie had a new laptop, let alone that his old one was in the safe.’

Vogel was aware of that familiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck that told him he was nearing a breakthrough on a case.

‘You didn’t know the laptop even existed,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

‘No,’ responded Henry.

‘Mr Tanner, do you remember if the email exchanges you presumed were between Charlie and his gangland connections were online, or stored on the laptop itself?’ Vogel continued.

Henry looked as if he didn’t understand a word Vogel was saying.

‘I mean, did Charlie use Outlook Express, or similar software, which actually takes emails off the net and downloads them onto a specific computer?’

‘Yes, we both did. Outlook Express.’

‘So those emails weren’t online in his server mail? They were in his Outlook Express?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Henry. ‘Look, I neither know nor care. If you think any of this is important, why don’t you check out the damned laptop? It’s still in Charlie’s safe, as far as I know.’

‘As we speak, that should be happening. I was just hoping—’

‘It’s too late,’ Henry moaned. ‘It’s too damned late now.’

There were tears in Henry’s eyes. Vogel was embarrassed. He so much preferred his interviewees to be feisty. Although he neither liked nor respected Henry Tanner, it gave Vogel no pleasure to see him reduced to this state. Nevertheless he was determined to persevere with his questions until he had the answers he needed.

‘You have told us that you believed Charlie was supplying arms to criminals, Mr Tanner. But are you absolutely sure he did so? Are you sure arms were diverted from their destinations, that they actually went missing whilst in the possession of Tanner-Max, from your bonded warehouses or elsewhere?’

Henry moaned more loudly. The tears were now rolling down his cheeks. However, through those tears he still managed to shoot Vogel what could only be described as a withering look.

‘Of course I am sure. After we found those email exchanges I checked and double-checked everything. Didn’t I make that clear when you asked me about it before? I went back over all the records and contacted our sources overseas. Because of the nature of our transactions, sometimes those sources are not clear on the precise quantity of items they will receive. Nobody had raised the alarm because the paperwork had been altered and everything matched up. But once I knew what I was looking for, I was able to see discrepancies. Over a period of about a year there were several instances. Nothing much — some small arms, a few rifles. Not whole cases of weapons, or anything like that. That would have shown up. This was more at the level of pilfering, except the nature of the goods being pilfered made it a serious matter.’

‘Any specific make of rifle?’

‘The Dragunov SVU — Soviet-developed, widely regarded as the best lightweight sniper rifle in the world. Three of those went astray from three different consignments, one at a time...’

Henry Tanner stopped in mid sentence. He remained a quick-witted man, even in his present condition.

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me I was shot by a Dragunov, are you?’ he enquired.

‘Quite possibly,’ agreed Vogel.

He and Clarke had both received an email a little earlier giving a preliminary list of weapons the bullet removed from Henry Tanner’s shoulder could have come from. The Dragunov was top of the list.

‘Did Charlie shoot me?’ asked Henry.

‘We don’t think so.’

‘His bloody gangster pals then, as I thought all along. Charlie has wiped out half my family though. And my wife holds me responsible. I expect my daughter does too.’ He raised his voice. ‘It’s not my bloody fault! None of it is my fault. I only ever did what I thought was best for my family.’

He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked directly at Vogel. ‘Will you just go,’ he said.

‘One last thing,’ persisted Vogel. ‘It is likely that the third person trapped in the car, now confirmed as drowned, was Monika, the young woman who was working for both you and your wife and your daughter. Joyce has told us that your son-in-law was having an affair with Monika, and that he lived with her following his staged death. Do you know anything about that?’