‘Well, maybe not entirely sure,’ he said. The nearest to an honest answer he was prepared to give.
‘Indeed. Have you looked around you at all whilst you’ve been here, Vogel?’
Vogel glanced at Saslow. He had been aware of her taking in the sea views, and generally enjoying the scenic quality of the place they had been sent to. Aspects of life that meant very little to Vogel. Was that what Clarke was getting at? If so, she was, in his opinion, moving from mild eccentricity into weirdo territory.
‘It’s a very beautiful part of the world, Nobby,’ he remarked tentatively.
Nobby Clarke clicked her teeth impatiently.
‘Anything else you noticed?’
‘Uh, well, we only got here a few hours ago and I’ve been concentrating on the case—’
‘This is about the case,’ Clarke interrupted. ‘This chunk of North Devon by the sea has something of a boom town about it. Recession and even Brexit haven’t really touched it. Not to the degree that they have most of the rest of the country, anyway. The holiday trade is booming. It’s quite a sophisticated trade nowadays too.
‘Look at that lovely little boozer, where you’re staying. Everything about it is high end, from the furnishings to the food. And consider the location. You’ve got the river right in front of you, and Instow across the water, the pretty little white village which we believe is now the scene of a major and not yet explicable crime. It doesn’t fit, Vogel. That’s for sure. But when does crime fit? Nonetheless, another thing that’s for sure, is that the people who live on the North Devon coast aren’t seaside Worzel Gummidges. Neither are they inbred idiots desperate to protect an insular way of life. There is nothing insular about North Devon anymore.’
‘I still don’t get exactly where you’re going with this, boss,’ said Vogel again.
‘Don’t you?’ the detective superintendent replied. ‘Thing is, Vogel, you’re actually not here because the local mayor’s family are at the heart of a murder enquiry, and I want someone in charge who will dig his way to the truth regardless of any pressure from those on high.’
‘I’m not?’
‘No, Vogel, you’re not. Neither you nor Saslow. You’re here because I don’t believe one jot of this hick town nonsense. The Barnstaple super might be old fashioned but he’s a thoroughly decent police officer, and I think every instinct in his body would lead him to conduct a thorough investigation into any serious crime on his patch. By the book to the nth degree, maybe. But he’d do it. And the fact that a local mayor is involved would probably make him more determined to conduct a proper investigation rather than less. Yet he would still like nothing more than to find a way to shut this enquiry down and dismiss Jane Ferguson’s death as a tragic suicide.
‘That’s why I wanted to meet you today, Vogel. To make my thoughts on this clear. And that’s why I wanted you leading the investigation. Because I believe there is something far bigger going on than the possibility of some small-town scandal, which those who pass for the great and the good round here want brushed under the carpet in order to protect reputations and civic status.
‘In fact, I think all that is a load of old bollocks, Vogel. You are here to find out what really lies behind this desire for a cover-up. Because there’s no doubt something is going on. There remains considerable pressure from on high, and I don’t think for one moment that it is confined to within Devon and Cornwall Police, for the case of Jane Ferguson to be buried as quickly as possible.’
Nobby Clarke paused.
‘If you’ll excuse the pun,’ she said.
Vogel allowed his lips to twitch.
‘Saslow and our number one suspect have already beaten you to it in that area, Nobby,’ he murmured.
The detective super ignored him. She looked and sounded like a woman on a mission. Vogel had seen her in that mode before. It almost always led to trouble. For all concerned. She never learned, of course, and neither, he supposed, did he.
‘I’m not sure exactly who is applying this pressure, in fact I’ve no bloody idea,’ Clarke continued. ‘But it comes from the very top. I’m quite sure of that. Trust me.’
Vogel took a sip of his ginger ale.
‘You really are determined to run out of career moves, aren’t you, boss?’ he commented.
‘Do you mind?’ queried the detective super. ‘If I go down again, I could well take you with me.’
‘Naw, I’m Met. You said so yourself. I’m slippery. I’ll blame it all on you.’
‘Vogel, you are all kinds of things. Slippery is not one of them. And neither have you ever been any better than me at keeping out of trouble.’
Vogel knew he couldn’t argue with that. He smiled and changed the subject.
‘One thing though, I don’t get, boss,’ he said. ‘If the D and C brass want a cover-up so badly, why did they take this case away from the local boys and girls, authorize you to bring in Saslow and me. Chief constable to chief constable too.’
‘It’s all changed, Vogel, from when this death was called in not much more than twelve hours ago, and it really was just about local politics,’ she said. ‘The brass are now regretting your appointment big time, I suspect. They are under some sort of mega pressure from on high, seriously on high, and I don’t know why, what, or bloody whom. I will bloody well find out, though.’
For a while the three officers concentrated on their food. Saslow was clearly hungry, she had missed breakfast, and she demolished her chicken escalope at appropriate speed. As usual Nobby Clarke was more interested in the wine and only picked at her escalope. Vogel only picked at his risotto. He’d eaten a hearty breakfast and hadn’t wanted lunch in the first place.
When they rose to leave the restaurant, Clarke placed a hand on Vogel’s arm.
‘Sod it, you’ve officially got your murder enquiry,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell the CC. He’ll be thrilled.’
With a new spring in his step, Vogel headed for the door. He couldn’t wait to get on with it.
That was one of the things he liked best about working with Detective Superintendent Nobby Clarke. She didn’t ask the chief constable, even the CC of a force she was new to, at which she had arrived under something of a cloud. Even under the increasingly bewildering circumstances which seemed to be developing.
She told him.
Ten
Dr Miriam Thorpe’s consulting rooms were in a narrow street of tall Georgian houses situated, rather conveniently for Vogel and Saslow, just a few minutes’ walk from Exeter’s Cathedral Yard.
The doctor was an unusually tall woman, probably in her late thirties. Her wavy dark hair was attractively untidy, and she was casually dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting sweater. Vogel assumed this kind of style was probably the norm nowadays for someone in her profession — on the basis that in the twenty-first century it was the sort of look required to encourage patients to relax and talk about themselves without feeling intimidated.
Dr Thorpe ushered Vogel and Saslow into a spacious high-ceilinged room, bade them sit on a sofa facing the window, and lowered herself into the armchair alongside. No formal seating arrangement for this one, and certainly no question of her sitting behind a desk while her visitors were forced into low seating accommodation, thought Vogel. Even when in this case the visitors were not patients but police officers, Dr Thorpe was careful to ensure that no party enjoyed a physical advantage over another.
She looked suitably shocked when Vogel explained that he was investigating the death of Jane Ferguson.
‘I h-had no idea,’ she said, somewhat obviously, stumbling very slightly over her words. ‘Jane is dead? My God. Wh-what happened?’