‘Do you own a bicycle yourself, by any chance, Mr Bertorelli?’ he asked.
‘Do I look like the sort of chap who owns a bike?’ retorted Alfonso.
Vogel had to admit that the man had a point. But an elderly woman had been seriously hurt. He reminded Alfonso of that.
‘OK, I’m sorry,’ said Alfonso. ‘I do not own, and never have owned, a bicycle.’
‘Thank you, sir. And, by the way, where in town do you stay when you don’t go back to Dagenham?’
Vogel saw Alfonso flush.
‘Oh, here and there,’ the Italian muttered.
‘I am afraid you need to be more precise than that, sir. This is now a very serious inquiry and I need to know the whereabouts of everyone involved. As you are in full-time employ, I believe, at the Vine, and working variable hours, I presume you would need a regular place to stay in central London.’
Alfonso didn’t answer. Vogel knew nothing of the likely habits of a man like this, but he decided to speculate in the hope of provoking an answer.
‘Some sort of club, perhaps? Or a friend whose name you can give me? Or a girlfriend?’
Alfonso looked askance. It was Vogel’s turn to flush slightly.
‘O-or a boyfriend?’ he concluded boldly, wondering if it was politically correct to make such a suggestion.
‘No, no, absolutely not, I’m not effing gay, for Christ’s sake!’ Alfonso looked flustered. ‘Listen, I stay with my nan. She has one of the last council places standing up by King’s Cross. Near all those flash new developments. I stay with her. I can walk there from the Vine. Anyway, Mamma likes me to keep an eye on me nan...’
Alfonso looked thoroughly uncomfortable now.
Vogel decided he wasn’t going to get much more out of the man. And in any case he didn’t think he had any more questions. Not any consequential ones anyway.
He told Alfonso he was free to return to work. Then made his way home to the pretty little flat in Pimlico which he shared with his wife and daughter. On the bus.
Vogel’s daughter, Rosamund, was already tucked up in bed and sound asleep by the time he unlocked his front door and stepped into the pink-and-white hallway dotted with prints and water-colours of old London. His wife collected them — from markets and car boot sales and jumble sales. She couldn’t afford dealers and art galleries on her husband’s salary. He, however, thought her collection quite splendid. Indeed, he thought everything about his wife was splendid. Mary Vogel was the sole homemaker. She was designer and decorator, shopper and cook. She even sewed the floral-printed curtains and cushion covers. Mary filled the window boxes with plants and the flat itself with flowers. Mary did everything. The result was that Vogel lived in an intensely feminine home. Partly because he was so tidy, and because he hadn’t any hobbies apart from backgammon, which required no clutter, just one folded board, there was little sign of his presence in the place. Vogel didn’t mind. In fact he loved the home his wife had created for them, and thought it quite beautiful. When he thought about it at all, which was only rarely.
The family dog, border collie Timmy, wrapped himself delightedly around his master’s legs.
Mary, ever-patient with both Vogel’s obsessive attitude to his work and the hours he kept, greeted her husband with a kiss then swiftly produced scrambled eggs on toast followed by a cup of hot chocolate, while he made an effort to talk, for just an hour or two, about anything and everything other than his job.
Vogel had, however, over the years developed the knack of chatting to his wife while his mind remained deployed elsewhere. In this instance, firmly focused on the case which was beginning to enthral him.
Alfonso Bertorelli, who’d seemed at first to be a straightforward dandy of a man, whom Vogel still thought was possibly gay although he had so vehemently denied it, had turned out to be anything but straightforward. Vogel wondered why he was considerably more at ease talking about the traumatic event he had witnessed, or nearly witnessed, than giving details about his personal life.
His place of residence seemed to be a matter of particular sensitivity. Could it be that he was embarrassed to be still living with his mum? Vogel recalled the waiter’s vehement protests that Mrs Bertorelli’s Dagenham address wasn’t really his home. And he’d been equally embarrassed to admit that, when he couldn’t make it back to Dagenham, instead of staying in a trendy club, or with a girl or boyfriend, or even with one the group of friends in their central London pad, Alfonso Bertorelli stayed with his nan.
By the time Vogel had finished his bedtime chocolate he’d reviewed the interview with Alfonso over and over again in his mind. It had taken only cursory inquiries about his living arrangements to establish that, beneath the smooth, personable facade, the man was something of an oddball.
But did that increase the likelihood that he was the prankster targeting Sunday Club? Was he capable of a series of attacks that had escalated from harmless practical jokes to violence with shades of sadistic brutality?
Vogel continued to ponder the question as he climbed into his small but comfortable double bed alongside the wife he loved so dearly in his own rather detached way. He sank his head into a pillow delicately scented with lavender and pulled up the duvet in its pink-and-lilac floral cover, until it reached over his ears.
No, nothing about Bertorelli indicated any such thing. Yet still Vogel could not get over just how convenient his arrival on the scene of the Marlena incident had been. But there was no evidence to suggest that Alfonso was guilty of anything other than witnessing a nasty crime.
Evidence. Irrefutable evidence. That was what was needed. Vogel, who didn’t much care for hunches, drifted off to sleep muttering the word like a mantra: Evidence, evidence...
Eleven
By the time she finished her stint on point duty, Michelle’s anger and irritation had evolved into full-blown fury. She couldn’t believe the way Vogel had cross-examined her. She had no doubt whatsoever that he’d deliberately orchestrated their ‘chance’ meeting by the coffee machine in order to grill her. And it had been a tremendous shock to her to realize that he considered her a suspect — which he most definitely did, however much he might protest.
She decided to walk from Charing Cross police station to her home at the top end of Holborn in order to calm herself down a bit. But it didn’t work. Taking a sickie for her own personal reasons might be an unwise career move, but it had nothing to do with Vogel. Similarly if she chose not to reveal to her friends the true reason for her absence from town, that was entirely her own business. How dare Vogel poke about in her life.
Michelle was still fuming as she unlocked the door to her studio flat in an ugly purpose-built 1960s block just off Lamb’s Conduit Street. It seemed very cold inside. She shivered as she began to take off her coat. She put it back on again and then checked the heating system thermostat. Everything seemed to be in order, but the place was definitely extremely chilly.
Surely it couldn’t be the damned communal boiler again? She phoned the part-time caretaker. The boiler was indeed on the blink, for the third time that year — and it was only March.
Michelle shouted at the caretaker, which she knew was small of her. It wasn’t his fault. Well, not exactly. Then, roundly cursing the world in general, she made her way into the tiny kitchen off the far end of her bedsit. She wanted a drink. But she’d finished her last bottle of wine the previous evening. She remembered that she was also hungry, having skipped lunch, and opened the door of her fridge. It contained only the dubious remains of a carton of milk, a piece of cheese tinged with green and some bread so hard you’d need an axe to break into it.