‘I’m forgetting me manners. Martha Kivel, pleased to meet you.’
In turn Vogel and Saslow grasped her hand. Martha then gestured for the two officers to sit down at the scrubbed kitchen table. In this kitchen everything that should gleam did so obediently. Martha poured them tea from a brown earthenware pot without asking whether they wanted it or not, putting the milk in the cups first. There was a sugar bowl on the table next to what was quite clearly a home-made Victoria sponge cake. Vogel’s favourite.
‘You’ll have a slice of my sponge, though, won’t you, Mr Vogel?’ enquired Martha. ‘Only made yesterday.’
Vogel agreed that he would, and tried not to sound too eager. After all, he’d only grabbed a quick bowl of cereal earlier and was actually every bit as hungry as Saslow.
He took a hasty bite before beginning to speak. The sponge was quite delicious. Everything about the Kivels, man and wife, indicated that they would be the perfect people to look after a rich man, in dwindling health, and his home. Everything about them indicated that they were capable, honest and diligent.
‘Obviously, you realise I want to ask you questions about the fire, and your relationship with Sir John,’ Vogel began.
Jack and Martha Kivel nodded in unison.
‘Us don’t know ought about the fire to tell the truth,’ said Martha Kivel. ‘The manor be over t’other side of moor from here, as you’d know. Nothing to alert us yer. I suppose if us had stepped outside in the middle of the night we might have seen a glow in the sky from a blaze big enough to burn that house down. But we was asleep.’
She turned towards her husband. ‘Sleep the sleep of the just, us do, don’t us, Jack.’
Jack Kivel nodded in an abstracted sort of way.
Vogel allowed himself a small smile. ‘So how did you both hear about the fire?’ he asked.
‘Our postman, Colin, he heard about it as soon as he started on his rounds. Called us on his mobile early yesterday morning, oh about a quarter to seven I think it was. Said he didn’t want us to find out on the news or anything like that. He knew it would be a dreadful shock for Jack and me, seeing as how long we worked for the Fairbrothers. Jack, even before we were wed. And it was a dreadful shock too. It may have ended badly, but we still feel like part of the family really. Saw young Bella and Freddie Fairbrother grow up. They played with our kids. Sir John was like an uncle to our boys...’
Martha looked suddenly close to tears. She reached out and grasped her husband’s hand tightly.
‘How long exactly did you work for Sir John, Mrs Kivel?’ enquired Vogel.
‘Well, my Jack’s always worked for him, really, one way and another. And funnily enough it was twenty-nine year ago last Sunday that he asked us if we’d like to live in, be his caretaker and housekeeper like. Well, us was living with Jack’s parents at the time, couldn’t afford nothing other, I was pregnant with our second lad, Andy, and there wasn’t much room apart from anything else. It wasn’t ideal that was for sure. Sir John offered us The Gatehouse as our home. It had three bedrooms, a lovely garden, and we was surrounded by all that wonderful countryside. We were thrilled, weren’t we, Jack?’
‘We were,’ said Jack. ‘And we had a good life up there too. Busy, especially when Sir John was at home, Martha did a lot of the cooking and that. He liked to entertain at weekends. Sometimes he even got me serving the drinks. “C’mon, Jack,” he used to say, “butler duties tonight.”
‘“On your head be it, Sir John,” I’d say. We always had a bit of a laugh together, the boss and me. It’s how Martha says, we felt more like family than staff.’
‘So how did things go wrong?’
‘They didn’t really. Or didn’t seem to. As far as we was concerned anyway. The boss went up to London, like he did most weeks. I drove him to the station as usual, Tiverton Parkway, in his Bentley. He had one of those old Bentleys, said the new ones weren’t proper Bentleys at all. Typical of Sir John, that. Anyway, he seemed in good form. “You know what, Jack,” he said, “I’m thinking of sending you on a course mixing cocktails, then you’ll be a proper butler. What do you think of that?”
‘I said, “Not bleddy likely, the only thing I’m any good at mixing is our Martha’s Christmas puddings.” He laughed, then climbed on board the train, still chuckling. I always went on to the platform to see him off. Like you would with family, you see. That’s how it was. He leaned out the window and waved to me as the train pulled out of the station. Like he always did. And he was still chuckling. I can picture it now. That was the last time I ever saw him.’
‘Really? You’ve never even caught a glimpse of him since?’
‘A glimpse? Well yes, I suppose we both have.’ Martha interrupted. ‘Two or three times, but only in his car. Being driven by that George Grey.’
Martha spat the last words out.
‘I was in Wellington one day in Tim Potter’s, the butchers, the traffic was queued back from the lights, I happened to glance out, and I saw Sir John’s car stopped in the street outside,’ she continued in a more normal tone of voice. ‘It was strange, really. There he was just a few feet away from me. And yet there was this huge distance between us, after all those years. I couldn’t see him clearly, just his shape, because the Bentley’s rear windows be tinted. I could see his white hair though. No mistaking that.’
‘OK, so, Jack, what happened after you put him on the train that last time?’ asked Vogel.
‘Well, it was a Monday morning,’ replied Jack Kivel. ‘He didn’t have a regular routine. He was his own boss after all. Sometimes he’d stay down for a week or two and not go back to London at all, and sometimes he’d stay in London and not make it back here for two or three weeks. But more often than not he spent the working week in London and his weekends here, so he’d travel up on an early train on Monday mornings. Anyway, two or three days later his secretary called and said Sir John wouldn’t be coming back that weekend or the weekend after. Well, that wasn’t particularly unusual, but I kept expecting to hear from him directly. He was always ringing me when he was away, asking me if I’d planted the new potatoes yet, or if the tree man had been, or some such thing. I didn’t hear though, so eventually I thought I’d better give him a ring, find out what was going on, like. I had his mobile number, of course. He just didn’t pick up.’
Jack paused. He seemed uncomfortable, perhaps both moved and saddened by the story he and his wife were telling. His hands lay lightly clasped on his lap now, and every so often he unclasped them and rubbed his palms together. It looked to Vogel like an involuntary nervous gesture. After a few seconds Jack continued to speak.
‘Martha tried, too. He didn’t answer her either. And that was strange, because he’d always picked up to us before. We kept leaving messages. But no response at all. In the end Martha called Bella to ask if her father was all right. It was then that Bella told her they’d had a bust up, she wasn’t speaking to him and she didn’t give a fuck whether he was all right or not—’
‘Jack,’ interrupted Martha reprovingly.
‘I’m only saying what Bella said, dear, so they understand.’ Jack turned to face his wife. ‘Martha don’t hold with language like that, do you, Martha?’
Martha shook her head.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said emphatically. ‘And Bella wasn’t brought up to use it, neither.’
She switched her full attention to Vogel and Saslow again.
‘Anyway, just as us was getting really worried and wondering what the heck was going on, the secretary phones again and says Sir John’s solicitor would be down for the weekend.’ Martha related. ‘We was to get everything ready. Now, I could have sworn she said Sir John and his solicitor were coming. But maybe I just assumed that. It didn’t occur to either me or Jack that Sir John’s solicitor would come without Sir John. But he did. He arrived alone. And as soon as he was settled in, he said he’d like a word with us. He sat us down in the sitting room, poured us drinks, white wine for me, and a whisky for Jack, and said he had some difficult news.