There was a glass of white wine on the table in front of Nobby Clarke. She raised it and took a deep drink.
Vogel watched in silence.
‘It’s my first,’ offered the detective superintendent.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ responded Vogel.
‘You didn’t have to,’ growled Nobby. ‘You sanctimonious born-again, vegan, ginger-ale drinker.’
‘I’m not vegan, just vegetarian,’ muttered Vogel, turning towards Dawn Saslow.
‘What would you like to drink, Saslow?’ he asked quietly.
‘Think I’ll stick to coffee, thanks,’ said Saslow. ‘I haven’t had my caffeine quota yet today.’
‘It’s on the way,’ said Clarke, without enthusiasm. ‘And a ginger ale. In case you need a fix, Vogel.’
Saslow failed to react visibly in any way to the banter between her two superior officers. She’d heard it all before. If the exchange had been between anyone except Vogel and Clarke, it would have surprised and even embarrassed her. Neither, Vogel was quite sure, would she be fazed by Clarke’s frank revelations concerning her career in front of a junior officer she didn’t know that well. Nobby was that sort of person. She always treated everyone on her team as her equal. Albeit superficially. There was never any doubt about who was in charge.
‘You all right, Dawn?’ Clarke enquired conversationally. ‘Still keeping the old bugger in check.’
‘I don’t know about that, boss,’ Saslow murmured.
‘No. Far too much to expect.’
Clarke picked up two menus and handed them to Saslow and Vogel.
‘Let’s order first,’ she said. ‘I’m having a veal escalope Milanese. With spaghetti.’
Vogel winced. Clarke laughed.
‘Got you!’ she said. ‘Even I don’t eat veal. It’s a chicken escalope. All right, Vogel?’
‘I am not your conscience,’ said Vogel, aware that he probably sounded even more sanctimonious than he had intended.
Saslow said she would have the same. A waiter brought the coffee and ginger ale. Clarke ordered chicken escalope for them both. Vogel chose mushroom risotto.
Clarke leaned back in her seat, her hands behind her head.
‘So, we have forensic evidence indicating that Jane Ferguson was murdered,’ she began.
‘Yes, but not irrefutable,’ said Vogel.
‘And yet you want me to officially launch a murder investigation?’
‘It’s as near as dammit if you ask me, Nobby,’ said Vogel. ‘However, we have to put a full-scale murder investigation in place in order to widen the scope of our enquiries. We need more evidence, and then there’s the little matter of our number one suspect appearing to have a pretty good alibi.’
The obligatory Vogel-Clarke banter was over, apparently. For the moment anyway.
‘Yes, our grieving husband, doubtless expressing his undying love for the deceased to anyone who will listen,’ Clarke mused. ‘Are we absolutely sure of his alibi?’
‘Well, he was at this big night at the yacht club, and as the new commodore he was guest of honour,’ responded Vogel. ‘Gave a speech. Hoovered up the booze. It looks cast iron. At first sight anyway. Although we’ll go along there later and double check it out.’
‘Nobody else in the frame?’
‘Not really. Not yet anyway. Felix Ferguson’s mother clearly loathed her daughter-in-law and makes no bones about it. Thinks she wasn’t good enough for her precious son. Same with Ferguson senior. Neither made any secret of their feelings when we interviewed them earlier. But it’s hard to believe either of them would go as far as to whack our Jane on the head, strangle her, then hang her over the bannisters. Indeed, hard to believe Mrs Ferguson would have had the physical strength. Not on her own, anyway. Same for Sam really, even though he looks like a reasonably fit man for his age. They’re both well into their sixties.’
‘What about if they did it together? Do they have alibis?’
‘Only each other. But, like I say, disliking your son’s wife and doing her in are two different things. We’d have a load more corpses on our hands if they weren’t! I don’t see it, Nobby, really I don’t.’
‘Neither do I, to tell the truth. So, we don’t have a lot to go on, yet, do we? As things stand, Vogel, what sort of chance do you see of us getting to the bottom of this thing, finding out beyond reasonable doubt who did what and why?’
Vogel glanced curiously at his senior officer.
‘That’s an odd sort of question to ask,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s very early days. We’ve teams doing door-to-door in Instow, Estuary Vista Close and thereabouts. See if anyone suspicious was seen hanging about, and so on. We’ll do all the routine grinding police work, like we always do, and see where it takes us. I won’t give up, boss. I never do. You know that.’
‘Of course, I know that. It’s why you’re here.’
Vogel noticed that she hadn’t picked up on his calling her ‘boss’. She always picked up on that. Unless she had something more important on her mind, of course.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘You know something, don’t you? Something I haven’t been told.’
Clarke’s second glass of wine arrived, along with the food they’d all ordered. She allowed herself to be momentarily distracted, and took a sip from the new glass before replying to Vogel, who was waiting more than a tad impatiently.
‘Actually, Vogel, I don’t know anything,’ she said, with emphasis firmly on ‘know’.
‘It’s just that the old super in Barnstaple, who’s been in charge for ever, turned quite green when I told him we were looking at a suspicious death which might possibly turn into a murder enquiry. Kept asking me if I was absolutely sure and so on.’
She paused.
‘Well yes,’ said Vogel. ‘But you would expect that, wouldn’t you? I mean, you said from the beginning, the mayor of Bideford is like a little tin god in this part of North Devon. And your old super has been here since the year dot. Barnstaple’s his home town. I’d guess?’
Vogel raised his eyebrows quizzically. Clarke nodded briefly.
‘Bideford actually.’
‘Ah, even worse, then,’ Vogel continued. ‘He wouldn’t want to rock the boat of any local political bigwig, would he? And particularly not the mayor of his old home town. He probably also has retirement closing in on the horizon, and really doesn’t want his own boat rocked either?’
Another query. Another nod from Clarke.
‘Then what’s bothering you, Nobby?’ asked Vogel. ‘Everything’s panning out how we’d have expected so far, isn’t it? That’s how it seems to me, anyhow.’
‘Yes, but you’re a city creature, and as a copper you’re Met through and through. Always will be. You know what they say. They can take the boy out of the Met, but you can’t take the Met out of the boy.’
‘I don’t quite see where this is going,’ responded Vogel.
‘Oh, come on, yes you do,’ replied Clarke. ‘You have that awful Met thing in you, of assuming that anyone out in the sticks is at the very least inferior to, and quite probably considerably less intelligent than, you, and indeed most people in the metropolis.’
‘I dunno about that, Nobby,’ replied Vogel mildly. ‘I’ve been down west for a couple of years now. I may have thought that way to begin with, but I don’t reckon I do any more.’
‘Really,’ said Clarke, sounding totally unconvinced. ‘Sure of that, are you, Vogel?’
He opened his mouth to tell the detective superintendent she was a damned sight more likely to be guilty of Met superiority than he was. Then a certain aspect of his last big case for Avon and Somerset Police flitted across his mind. He had very nearly missed vital indications of criminal activity because of a lurking inclination to regard people with broad West Country accents as being not quite as bright as those without. Even though he would never admit it.