Still breathing with difficulty, Vogel hoisted himself to his feet.
‘All right, Saslow, I’ll take it from here,’ he said. ‘You go take care of Sam Ferguson.’
From the lane, again just out of his limited field of vision, he could now hear the sound of a male voice, amplified by a megaphone.
‘Stop. Armed police. Stop. And put your hands on your head. Stop.’
Vogel made his way as fast as he could to the doorway of the shed, where he paused before stepping outside, instead peering cautiously around the door.
The darkly clad figure was now standing quite still about twenty yards away, to Vogel’s left. The DCI watched with some satisfaction as he obediently put his hands on his head.
Two armed officers moved forward, grabbed his arms, frisked him, and cuffed him, very nearly in one practiced movement.
Vogel approached at once.
‘Well done, lads,’ he remarked.
The darkly clad figure was wearing a balaclava type hood. Vogel realized he wouldn’t have been able to see his head even if there had been proper light in the chapel.
‘Get that hood off,’ instructed Vogel. ‘Let’s see who we’ve got here then, shall we?’
One of the armed officers promptly ripped off the balaclava hood, revealing the lightly tanned face of a man probably in his early forties, with a full head of dark blonde hair and striking blue eyes. He was a tall, rangy looking character, immediately familiar to Vogel. But the DCI couldn’t quite place him, at first.
Then he got it.
‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I know who you are. We met at the yacht club yesterday.’
The man did not respond. He stared straight ahead, his facial expression giving nothing away.
Vogel thought for a few seconds. He had a good memory for both faces and names. In fact, Vogel had a good memory for almost everything.
‘You’re Jimmy Granger, the graphic designer from Instow and new member of the club,’ he announced just a little triumphantly. ‘Only you’re no more a graphic designer than I am, are you?’
‘No comment,’ said the man.
Twenty-Nine
Vogel arrested and cautioned Jimmy Granger and asked for him to be delivered to Barnstaple police station.
A shaken looking Sam Ferguson was by then standing in front of the chapel watching the arrest. Saslow was with him, one hand tucked supportively beneath his right elbow.
Sam seemed to be favouring his right leg, and his right hand was bleeding.
Vogel walked across the yard to join them.
‘You all right, Mr Ferguson?’ he enquired, well aware that the older man clearly wasn’t. He was trembling, and his face was ashen.
‘Hurt my knee when I fell to the ground, and grazed my hand when I tried to save myself,’ Sam replied. ‘Other than that, I think I’m OK.’
‘Good,’ said Vogel.
He wanted some straight talking from Sam Ferguson at last, so he decided to strike whilst the other man was in obvious shock.
‘You do realize you were very nearly killed in there, don’t you?’ he asked.
Ferguson nodded.
‘Yes, and I think I would have been if it hadn’t been for you two,’ he said. ‘You saved my life.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Vogel. ‘You can do something for me now. You can start telling me what you know, as you clearly know much more than you have revealed so far, about the murder of your daughter-in-law, and a lot else besides, I reckon. I want the truth, all of it.’
Ferguson nodded again.
‘Yes, of course, absolutely everything, I promise you,’ he said, with what Vogel was sure was rare subservience. ‘Gerry told me I didn’t know what I was getting into. And he was certainly right about that. I came here to meet Gerry... ’ Ferguson paused, looking puzzled.
‘Where is Gerry? Did he tell you I was here?’
‘No, Mr Ferguson, he did not,’ said Vogel bluntly. ‘I am afraid Mr Barham is dead.’
‘G-Gerry, d-dead?’ Sam stumbled. ‘No. H-how? He wasn’t murdered too, w-was he?’
‘We think so, yes.’
‘And someone... someone came after me, too. A complete stranger, I think. I saw his face just then, when he was arrested. I have no idea who... ’
Ferguson broke off in mid-sentence. There was suddenly real fear in his eyes.
‘Mr Vogel, my family. Amelia. The twins. Oh, what have I done?’
His voice grew louder, and there was a note of near hysteria in it.
‘Are they in danger too?’
‘I think the danger might be over, certainly for the time being, now we’ve made this arrest,’ replied Vogel. ‘But in any case, I have arranged for a police presence at your home twenty-four seven. Your family are safe, Mr Ferguson.’
‘T-thank you, thank you.’
He’d lowered his voice to a more normal level, but, as he spoke, Sam Ferguson’s knees began to buckle. Saslow gripped his elbow more firmly. Vogel stepped forward to take his other arm.
‘An ambulance is on its way, we need to get you checked out in hospital,’ said the DCI. ‘But first, I really want to speak to you before we interview your assailant, and indeed before we talk to your son again. Do you think you might feel up to that? We can sit in our car.’
‘Yes, of course, anything I can do, anything,’ said Ferguson. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.’
‘Thank you,’ said Vogel, who couldn’t wait to hear exactly what it was that Sam Ferguson had done which he now regretted so much.
Together with Saslow he helped Sam to the car. Vogel didn’t think the other man was badly hurt physically, although his knee looked sore, but he was clearly badly shaken. The DCI remained determined to take full advantage of that.
He sat in the front with Ferguson. Saslow installed herself in the back.
‘Right, Mr Ferguson, I want you to begin at the beginning,’ instructed Vogel. ‘It is becoming clear that you have been afraid of something, or at least that you probably had certain knowledge which was causing you concern, ever since the death of your daughter-in-law. Could you tell me about that, please?’
‘Well, we were always suspicious of Jane,’ replied Ferguson. ‘We didn’t like her, Amelia and I, neither of us liked her, I told you that before. But it was more than that. There was something about her. We were suspicious of her past, which seemed... so... so mysterious. Felix, well, Felix is loyal by nature, always has been, and he loved Jane so much... Look, he couldn’t have killed Jane, you’ve got to believe that, Mr Vogel. Perhaps you do believe that now?’
The man had switched to another train of thought. He was obviously desperate to save his son, and Vogel didn’t blame him. Vogel had, of course, never been entirely convinced of Felix’s guilt. But he wasn’t telling Sam Ferguson that yet.
‘Clearly we have new strands of enquiry, which I promise you we will investigate thoroughly,’ he said. ‘Now, please continue with what you were starting to tell me.’
Sam nodded.
‘Yes, well, as I was saying, Felix is loyal by nature, and he told us very little, and Jane nothing at all,’ he continued. ‘When it became apparent there were problems, he just said Jane kept having bad dreams and wasn’t sleeping well. He made fairly light of it, but we could tell he was worried, and he’s not a worrier. Not normally. Not Felix.
‘Then something happened. And I did something I now regret with all my heart. It was about six weeks ago. A weekend. We had the kids on Friday evening as usual. Felix told us he and Jane were going out, to the cinema and for a meal. Something they didn’t do very often. In spite of how we felt about Jane we were glad they were doing something normal together. For the sake of the children. About seven o’clock, I think it was, Felix called. He sounded quite stressed. He said Jane had convinced herself she’d left the iron on and the house was going to burn down. Now, she was a worrier. And she could be quite neurotic. We always thought that. She wanted to go home and check, call off their night out, which Felix had been looking forward to. He asked if I would drive over and check everything was all right and text him back, so he could put her mind at rest.