When she did eventually speak her remarks were often significant and, not unusually, focused on an aspect of a case Vogel had not yet considered.
‘You said you interviewed the friend, what was she called? Sally? At her school?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘In the head mistress’ office.’
‘So was the head there?’
‘Yes, and Dawn Saslow.’
‘David, a best friend at school would never tell tales in front of the head mistress.’
‘Come on, Mary, it’s a murder investigation. I’m trying to find the bastard who killed the girl’s friend, I’m sure she understood that. It’s got nothing to do with telling tales.’
‘I really don’t think that’s how it would have seemed to Sally,’ Mary persisted gently. ‘Girls of that age are conditioned not to tell their teachers, their parents or anyone in authority, anything. Also, she would have been in shock too. I expect she just shut down, saying nothing and giving nothing away. She probably did it quite automatically, without thinking it through.’
Vogel looked thoughtful.
‘You think she could be holding something back?’
‘I think it’s very possible, particularly if Melanie was doing something all the girls know they shouldn’t — like, as you suspect, planning a date with someone she met on the net.’
Vogel smiled.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I expect you’re right, as usual. I’ll make sure we talk to her again. Away from school and without the head teacher.’
‘And who will you get to do that?’ Mary asked casually.
‘I’ll probably try to get round to her house myself, with Saslow, some time tomorrow,’ said Vogel. ‘She knows us now, after all.’
‘Might you think about sending Saslow on her own, or with another woman officer?’ Mary enquired in her most neutral voice.
Vogel was not fooled.
‘So now you don’t think I should even interview the girl, is that it? Honestly, Mary. I am a trained, senior police officer of many years’ experience, you know.’
‘Exactly,’ said Mary.
‘And what does that mean?’
‘David, you are a sensitive and caring person, you don’t even look like a copper, but you still are one. You’re a middle-aged man in a position of enormous authority. You say yourself you prefer your computer to dealing with the public. You hate outward displays of emotion and you’re well over six feet.’
‘So now I’m too tall?’
Mary raised one eyebrow.
‘Of course not. But if you put all that together, even you have to admit that you might appear more than a little intimidating to a fourteen-year-old girl.’
Vogel grunted. Mary was right of course. She almost always was.
But this time, this day, he did not get the feeling of release that usually came after talking with her. He knew exactly why. He was hiding something from his wife. Something very important. Something, unconnected with his work, which he had so far found himself unable to reveal.
Al
I tried to do what I always did. As soon as it was over, I did my best not to think about it again. I endeavoured to blot it out. I told myself it was already in the past.
I should never have tried to coax that child into my vehicle. It had definitely been in my head that I would drive away with her. Take her somewhere where I could do anything I wished with her.
But is that what I would have done? I no longer knew myself well enough to be sure either way. If I had been rash enough to do that, it could only have led to one end. I couldn’t have just let her go when I had finished with her. Or could I have?
I really didn’t know.
What I did know was that I’d entered into highly dangerous territory. Looking was one thing. Touching was another. And I knew, more than most men, just how different the two were.
I also knew that, in the future, I should content myself with what the internet had to offer.
However, images and videos on the web never quite hit the spot with me. I liked my children in the flesh: laughing, playing and gyrating right in front of me. Sometimes I could smell them, or I thought I could anyway. Celluloid images did not have the same effect.
I told myself they would have to do. I had a life separate from this monstrous side of me. Oh yes, I recognised that side was monstrous, but that made no difference to me. It was part of me, a part I could not deny.
However, I wanted to protect my other everyday life. My job. My friends. Well, I didn’t really have friends, of course. I could never let people close. But there were those, mostly at work, who probably considered themselves my friends. There was family too, although I no longer had much to do with them.
I really would have to stick with the internet in order to satisfy my voyeuristic instincts. I would have to avoid chat rooms too, or any websites which encouraged people to correspond with children and then to meet them.
I couldn’t cope with that. I knew I couldn’t. I’d weaken. I would just have to be strong and stay away from those sort of sites. I had no choice.
But I wasn’t strong, was I? That was the whole point. I was a weak man. The internet was a smorgasbord to someone like me. I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself reaching out for more, not for long.
And that was what happened, I reached out to grasp what I longed for. I meant no harm. I never meant harm, but once a man like me has started on a certain course of action he cannot stop.
Now I had to deal with the consequences.
I am clever though, cleverer than almost anyone I know. Clever without necessarily seeming to be. I still believe that I can cover my tracks. I still believe that life can continue for me, in the way that it always has.
Thirteen
Mary knew, of course. She had probably known from the beginning. She was staring at him, in silence. Sometimes he thought the expression she ‘could read him like a book’ had been invented for his wife.
‘David, something’s wrong isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘A young girl has died, the same age as our Rosamund, I’ve told you all about it…’ Vogel began.
He let his voice tail off. He could see that Mary was not taken in.
‘I know how involved you get in your work, David,’ she said. ‘But I also know what’s going on inside you, even though you give so little away. This is different. You haven’t been right for days. Won’t you tell me what it is? I can’t help you if you don’t.’
Vogel said nothing.
After a few seconds, he reached into the pocket of his old corduroy jacket and withdrew the letter which he’d kept with him constantly since its arrival nine days previously.
Puzzled, Mary took the letter from him. She glanced at the envelope. It was addressed to Vogel, care of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. She looked up at him again. His face bore little expression, as usual. If he were affected by anything, his first instinct was to fight against that emotion. Mary removed the letter and began to read.
When she’d finished she took her husband’s hand.
‘My God, David,’ she said. ‘Is it true?’
‘I have no idea,’ Vogel replied.
‘Well, you could ask your father.’
‘Yes,’ Vogel replied.
‘When did you get this?’