‘Of course, I am being honest,’ Ferguson responded quickly. ‘There was nothing that caused me concern last night. Jane seemed perfectly normal when I left the house. Really, she did.’
‘I see, sir,’ said Vogel. ‘And what do you mean by normal, exactly?’
‘Well, normal’s normal, isn’t it. She got the twins’ tea. I left as soon as we’d put them to bed. She seemed fine. Really.’
‘Are you quite sure of that?’
‘Yes, yes... ’
Ferguson paused abruptly.
‘You’ve been talking to Mother, haven’t you?’ he blurted out. ‘What’s she said? What’s she said about Jane?’
Vogel had absolutely no intention of sharing anything Amelia Ferguson had said about her daughter-in-law.
‘Mr Ferguson, for the umpteenth time, if there was anything about your wife which was giving you or any of your family cause for concern I need to hear it. Now. From you.’
Felix sighed, in a resigned sort of way.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘There were the dreams, of course.’
‘The dreams, sir?’ Vogel queried, again experiencing that small frisson of excitement he always did when he felt that he might be about to learn something highly significant to a major investigation.
He gave no indication that he already knew at least something of Jane Ferguson’s history of bad dreams. Even if Felix did already suspect his mother of some sort of indiscretion. He wanted to hear this man’s version uninfluenced by anything he may already have learned.
‘Well, yes. Jane had been having bad dreams. Full blown nightmares, really. Sometimes they were worse than others. She would have periods of them not being too bad, nor all that frequent. But, well, she’d been going through a bad patch these last few weeks. She would wake screaming and hysterical. It had got so bad that she was afraid to go to sleep half the time. And, uh, that’s another reason she was quite happy to stay home with the twins last night. She’d barely been sleeping, you see. She was tired, terribly tired.’
‘But that didn’t give you cause for concern?’
‘Well no, not in the way you mean. You asked what I meant by normal. Well, I suppose it had become normal. A part of our life. Jane would have these dreams. Either not be able to sleep, or not allow herself to sleep. Then, as a consequence of that, she was always tired. Dead tired.’
He paused, as if suddenly realising the nature of the words he had used.
‘I didn’t mean to say that,’ he murmured.
‘Of course not, sir,’ said Vogel.
‘She was still a good wife, though, I need to tell you that,’ Ferguson continued. ‘In spite of everything. And a wonderful mother.’
Vogel studied the other man carefully. He reckoned Felix Ferguson’s last remark was just a tad trite.
‘I’m sure she was, sir,’ the detective remarked mildly, at the same time changing tack a little. ‘And her death must be an enormous loss to you.’
‘Yes, it is. Just terrible. I can’t quite believe she’s gone. That we will never see her again... ’
Ferguson looked and sounded vaguely surprised by the DCI’s sympathetic tone. As well he might, thought Vogel, in view of the somewhat aggressive nature of his previous questioning.
‘I’m sure, sir,’ he continued as gently as possible. ‘The nightmares must have disrupted both your lives though, didn’t they?’
‘Well yes. But we didn’t think about it that way; I didn’t anyway. I just wanted Jane to get better. She was an incredible woman you know, just incredible... ’
‘I’m sure, sir,’ said Vogel again. ‘May I ask, were you doing anything about these dreams? Was your wife having any treatment at all?’
‘Yes, of course. We had to try to do something. I guess you kind of deny these things at first. We did for years. But eventually, well, Jane first went to her GP about it around two years ago. She’d had bad dreams occasionally ever since we were married, and before, I think. But they got progressively worse after the twins were born. Even then we managed to cope most of the time. It was very stressful, obviously. The GP tried to help, mainly by putting Jane on various courses of medication. But things just continued to get worse. Ultimately, he referred Jane for psychiatric help. He tried to arrange for her to see a consultant who specialized in sleep disorders. There was a three-month waiting list, would you believe?’
‘So, had she actually seen a psychiatrist at all?’
‘Oh yes. We decided to arrange something privately.’
‘I see. Could you tell me the name of this psychiatrist, and how often your wife saw him or her?’
‘Yes. Dr Miriam Thorpe. She’s in Exeter. Jane saw her every week.’
‘Did the therapy seem to be doing any good?’
‘I’m not so sure now. It would seem not, wouldn’t it? But I thought it was. We both thought it was. The nightmares had become not quite so bad and seemed to be getting less frequent. Until, like I said, a few weeks ago when she went into a really bad patch.’
‘Was this bad patch still going on?’
‘Actually, I don’t think Jane had had a nightmare for more than a week before... before she... ’
Ferguson seemed unable to complete his sentence.
‘So she was feeling better, again, was she?’ Vogel encouraged him.
Felix shook his head.
‘It wasn’t like that really. Not right after a bad patch anyway. The tiredness alone was terrible for her. But we were used to it, Mr Vogel. And I swear to you, on my children’s life, that there was nothing about Jane when I last saw her that made me think for one second that... that... something like this would happen.’
‘Did you or your wife have any idea what caused these nightmares?’ asked Vogel.
‘No. Neither of us did. We hoped Dr Thorpe might be able to shed some light on that. But she was as puzzled as the rest of us, apparently.’
‘Could Jane ever remember her nightmares when she woke up?’
‘No, Mr Vogel. She always said she had no idea what they were about.’
‘And yet they frightened her to the extent that she would scream out loud and become quite hysterical?’ interjected Saslow.
‘I’m afraid so. The worst ones anyway. She said it was as if there was something there in front of her, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. She said she felt as if her brain was being torn apart, that one half of her wanted to confront her dreams and the other half was holding her back.’
‘Presumably these dreams were violent in some way?’ Saslow continued. ‘Did she know where they took place?’
‘I don’t know about violent. But it was terrible to see the state she got in. As for where they took place, we never really talked about that. I don’t think she knew, though, or she would have mentioned it.’
‘Did she know if they were dreams about people, or events, disturbing and frightening happenings, maybe a disaster, like a plane crash, or something natural, like an avalanche or a tsunami, or perhaps something smaller and more personal?’ asked Vogel.
‘She had absolutely no idea, Mr Vogel. That was the worst of it. She didn’t know what these terrible dreams were about and she didn’t know why she had them, nor when they were going to strike. It used to drive her mad... ’
Felix stopped abruptly. Once again, thought Vogel, he had inadvertently chosen words which were chillingly appropriate.
Felix Ferguson was clearly under great strain, and had not really had time to fully absorb the grim reality of what had occurred. Sometimes that was of advantage to a police interviewer. In this case, Vogel thought it was probably a mixed blessing, and that he’d leave Felix Ferguson to cogitate a little before interviewing him further.
He had one last line of questioning.