She quickly told him that the second interview of Sid Merton, the witness who claimed to have seen Gerry sailing towards the estuary on the morning of his death, had produced highly significant results.
‘When pushed he admitted that the person at the helm of the Lady Anne had been wearing a woolly hat pulled down over his ears and sunglasses, that the boat had been right in the middle of the river, and that he couldn’t be absolutely sure it was Gerry, but had just assumed it was because it was Gerry’s boat.
‘He also said that, upon reflection, there had been something a little unusual. He’d noticed that the Lady Anne was towing one of the rubber dinghies the NDYC members use as tenders to get out to their boats on their river moorings. Apparently, they usually leave them on the moorings.’
‘Do we know if those dinghies have outboards?’ asked Vogel.
‘Only small ones, boss, about two hp, but yes they do,’ replied DI Peters.
‘Do we know if one of those dinghies could get someone ashore from way out in the estuary? Particularly in the weather we had yesterday.’
‘I’ve already had it checked out, boss. Apparently the answer is yes. It could do the job. And don’t forget the weather didn’t kick up until three or four hours after Barham set off.’
‘Well, well,’ said Vogel. ‘That might solve one mystery, mightn’t it?’
He then asked Peters if there was any news from CSI at Granger’s flat.
She replied that she wasn’t sure if they’d even got there yet. HQ at Exeter had diverted the team she’d allocated to a major road traffic accident on the Devon link road, involving more than one fatal casualty.
‘They said that as Granger was in custody he couldn’t hide any evidence there might be at his home, so there was no urgency,’ Peters reported.
Vogel cursed silently. He remained unable to contact Nobby Clarke. Peters’ CSI news added to his unease. He feared he might no longer be entirely in charge of his own investigation.
‘What about Granger’s keys?’ he asked.
Peters replied that CSI had the keys, which they would be checking out as part of their further investigations.
When they finally got to any of the crime scenes, thought Vogel.
Peters also told him that all attempts to trace the London number stored on Granger’s burner phone had failed. As Vogel had more or less expected.
‘It’s unlisted,’ she said.
Vogel had blue-toothed his phone through the car’s speakers so Saslow could hear the conversation. She’d been unimpressed.
‘How the heck can a number like that be unlisted?’ she asked Vogel irritably, after he’d ended the call. ‘I didn’t think there was any such thing. It’s an 0207 number isn’t it?’
‘Was,’ said Vogel. ‘I’d take a bet it no longer even rings out. I’ll try it again later just to make sure. With the people we are dealing with anything is possible. They play by different rules to the rest of us.’
‘And since when did teams on a murder enquiry get diverted to an RTA?’ Saslow continued.
‘I’m not sure I know the answer to that, but I do know I’m not happy about it,’ said Vogel.
‘Surely, we’ve got Granger bang to rights, anyway, though, haven’t we, boss?’ continued Saslow.
‘I do hope so, Dawn,’ said Vogel. ‘And I think we now know how he staged Gerry Barham’s death too. I reckon it was Granger that Sid Merton saw at the helm of the Lady Anne, and Gerry Barham was already dead and hidden from view. Then, when he was far enough away from shore, Granger rigged up the rudder so that the boat would carry on going out to sea until it ran out of petrol, whilst he decamped into the dinghy to get himself home. Once the storm got up, the helpless Lady Anne was swept in on the next tide and smashed to pieces — as the RNLI reported, and just as Granger had planned. The North Devon coast must be one of the most unforgiving in the country, too. We’ve seen that for ourselves, Saslow.’
‘Yes, boss,’ agreed Saslow. ‘Simple, when you say it quickly, boss.’
‘In as much as anything is simple about this case, Dawn,’ said Vogel.
Yet again he tried to call Nobby Clarke.
‘She’s still not picking up,’ he muttered, after being diverted once more to voicemail. ‘And I don’t like it, not at all.’
Thirty-One
Vogel was woken by a phone call from DC Perkins just before six a.m.
‘Boss, I’ve got something to tell you and you’re not going to be happy,’ he began. ‘The custody sergeant at Barnstaple’s just rung me. He’s a mate. Seems Jimmy Granger’s been released from custody. Insufficient evidence to detain him.’
‘What?’
Vogel sat bolt upright in bed, instantly wide awake.
‘What d’you mean released? When? On who’s authority?’
‘About half an hour ago apparently. Orders from MCT HQ at Exeter.’
Vogel felt his heart sink.
‘The big chief herself, boss,’ Perkins replied. ‘Detective Superintendent Nobby Clarke.’
Vogel ended the call almost straight away. Immediately, and for the umpteenth time, he tried to call Nobby.
For the umpteenth time he got her message service. This time he didn’t bother to leave another message.
She would know what he was calling about, for sure. As she would have known all damned night that he was desperate to speak to her. And now he knew why she wasn’t picking up. Vogel leaned back in his bed and closed his eyes. His mind was in turmoil. For once in his life he really didn’t know what to do next.
It looked like Nobby Clarke, too, had allowed herself to become embroiled in some sort of high-level conspiracy.
Apart from his wife, and perhaps Saslow, Nobby was the only person in the world whom Vogel trusted absolutely. He considered her to be a copper with heart and integrity, and had always admired her independent spirit, her passion for justice, and her near compulsion to always question authority.
Secretly, she was the copper he aspired to be. Or she had been until now.
If he couldn’t trust Nobby he wasn’t sure there was any point in continuing to be a policeman.
Nonetheless, he determined to carry on going through the motions. He called DI Peters. She was in the incident room, and answered straight away. Vogel suspected she had been there all night. That sort of work ethic was something which she did have in common with Margot Hartley.
‘I was just going to call you, boss,’ she said. ‘CSI finally got to Granger’s flat. They’re still at it, but their first impression is that it’s been cleaned up and cleared out. There are some clothes, presumably his, there, but virtually nothing else. No paperwork of any kind, not even an electricity bill, no laptop. Nothing personal at all.’
Vogel was not surprised. Granger himself could not have cleared out his flat as he’d been in jail until half an hour earlier. But it seemed there had been people to do the job for him, and the delay in the arrival of a CSI team had given them the time.
‘I see,’ he commented non-committedly. ‘Any news on that RTA the CSIs were diverted to, by the way?’
If Peters followed his train of thought, her voice gave no indication of it.
‘Yep, seems some wires got crossed and the first report was way off,’ she replied evenly. ‘No fatalities at all, and nobody seriously injured either.’
Once again Vogel wasn’t surprised. He told Peters then that Granger had been released, trying not to let his anger show.
Peters muttered something he didn’t quite hear. She sounded vaguely uncomfortable. He had the feeling she might already have known, and also knew that the man had been released without the knowledge of her SIO.
‘I still want us to keep an eye on him,’ he said. ‘Let’s find out where he’s going. He obviously hasn’t gone back to his Instow flat, if he ever really lived there. He’s probably in his car, heading out of the area. That Defender we have on file. Get a call out to Traffic. Devon and Cornwall, and Avon and Somerset. We should be able to pick him up on the North Devon link road or the M5 with a bit of luck.’