Bella did not bother to call after the woman. In any case she was too busy trying to recover from the shock of what Janice had told her. George Grey was dead, and his widow clearly appeared to think he had been murdered. She’d also indicated that she knew who those responsible were, and that she felt she was in danger, and that Bella might also be in danger.
It was a lot to take in. Bella was thoughtful as she returned to her car. Mrs Grey had more to tell, if she wished to, that was for sure. But Bella wasn’t going to get any further with her, certainly not at the moment. She, at least, had another way of finding out what had happened to George Grey. She reached for her mobile and called Vogel. The DI, on his way back to Kenneth Steele House, answered at once. Bella wasn’t surprised. After all, he had told her to call at any time, and she was, she supposed, one of the key figures in a murder investigation.
After the briefest of pleasantries, Bella cut straight to the chase. ‘Look, Mr Vogel, I understand that George Grey is dead. I hope you don’t mind me calling, however, I know Mr Grey was a suspect, but as he worked for my father and this is another death following the fire at Blackdown, I do feel a kind of responsibility. I wondered if you would tell me what happened to him, how he died?’
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if Vogel was considering how to respond to Bella’s question. ‘Miss Fairbrother, no information of that nature concerning Mr Grey has been made public yet,’ said the DI eventually. ‘I have to ask you why and how you have come to believe that Mr Grey is dead?’
‘His wife told me,’ said Bella bluntly. ‘I’ve just left The Gatehouse.’
‘Miss Fairbrother, we have a very serious ongoing investigation here. Clearly you have an involvement, if only by default, as does Mrs Grey. But I must ask you not to interfere again.’
‘I only visited Mrs Grey because I thought it was my duty as my father’s daughter, to say how sorry I was that her husband had been injured,’ lied Bella. ‘Then she told me he was dead. It is right, isn’t it? George Grey is dead.’
There was another pause before Vogel answered. ‘I cannot officially confirm that George Grey is dead because he has yet to be formally identified,’ he said.
‘But you know, don’t you? I want to know what happened to him. Did he die of his injuries?’
Again, she had to wait for the answer.
‘All right, Miss Fairbrother, I can tell you that the body of a man we believe to be George Grey was found earlier today in a West London canal. And that it does not appear that he died from the injuries he received on the night of the fire at Blackdown.’
‘My God,’ uttered Bella. ‘What happened? Did he drown? I mean are you saying he jumped in? Killed himself? Could he just have fallen? Or... or—’
This time Vogel spoke quickly, interrupting her. ‘I can only say that investigations are continuing,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell you more. I’m sorry.’
After ending the call Bella sat for a moment wondering what to do next. The news of George Grey’s death and the manner of it was yet another shock. One half of her just wanted to go back to her hotel room and bury her head in the pillows. But she was a Fairbrother. And she was on a mission. Nothing she had heard should deter her from that. After all she was seeking knowledge, and she had been brought up to believe that knowledge was strength. Knowledge was power. She would carry on with the task she had set herself.
The special constable was not in sight. Presumably sitting in his car outside the gates. She started the engine and drove slowly down the drive towards the manor in order to check out the crime scene security arrangements there. It was almost quarter past six. As she had suspected there appeared to be no further presence. The fire investigators and the CSIs had probably not finished altogether yet, but certainly packed up for the day. Nonetheless she didn’t stop. For whatever reason, and even under the circumstances of having so recently heard that her husband was dead, or maybe because of that, Janice Grey seemed to be keeping a close watch on the comings and goings along the drive that led to the ruins of Blackdown Manor. Then there was the special constable. And Bella didn’t want to arouse his suspicions. She turned the car in a tight circle and left the estate along the main drive by which she had entered, shooting a last glance at The Gatehouse as she passed.
The special constable was no longer outside the gate, neither standing nor sitting in his vehicle. Bella assumed that it had been considered unnecessary to keep a night-time scene-guard on duty, not when the crime scene was so remote, and also little more than a pile of cinders and charcoal. There was still Janice Grey to consider, however, and it was possible that patrol cars would stop by during the night. She would take no chances. She decided to stick to the plan she had already formulated.
Bella knew the territory well. She had, after all, been born in the old manor, and spent a substantial part of her growing up there. Instead of turning left towards the road back to Taunton, she swung right along a winding lane leading deeper into the Blackdowns, and after three miles or so took another right along what was little more than a track through a wood, first checking ahead and in her rear-view mirror to ensure that not only were there no other cars about, but nobody at all who might notice her leaving the main drag.
The track was not made for low-slung sports cars; indeed, it was the track which the firemen had dismissed as a possible route to Blackdown Manor when their way along the drive had been blocked by that fallen oak. But Bella Fairbrother knew what she was doing. She proceeded slowly only a couple of hundred yards along the first and more accessible part of the track until turning into a partially cleared area where her car would not be seen, even in the unlikely event of anyone else making their way along the track at that time of day. She parked and switched off the ignition. Silence engulfed her. Bella had always rather liked woodlands. Dusk was falling. She sat in the little car for a few minutes drinking in the atmosphere, allowing the heavy still greenness to bring her some peace, or as much peace as was possible that day. In spite of Mrs Grey’s warnings of danger, which may have been hysterically delivered, but none the less, could not be casually dismissed, Bella felt no fear. Not even a sense of unease. This was her land.
She stepped out onto the leafy soil and manoeuvred herself into the over-trousers she had bought, slipping them on over her designer jeans. Then she swapped the suede fashion boots for her newly acquired wellies, her light leather jacket for the Barbour, pulled on the newly bought woolly hat, and slung over her shoulder a bag containing the tools she had acquired at Perry’s. By then it was almost totally dark. With her torch trained carefully down on the track, just a couple of feet ahead of her, she set off along a path through the woods which she remembered quite clearly from her childhood. It led directly to the manor house. There was a hedge or two to scramble through and a locked gate to climb over, but Bella Fairbrother was fit and agile.
She arrived at the ruined house within twenty minutes. Then came the difficult bit. Most of the house had collapsed and was little more than charred rubble. It was difficult at first even to recognise the layout of the old place, although portions of wall remained jutting up into the night sky, and she just hoped there were no hot spots remaining.
Still keeping the beam of her torch low, she made her way with difficulty towards the area of the house where the storeroom had been located. The swimming pool appeared to no longer exist. It looked as if much of the structure of the old house had collapsed on top of it. None the less she skirted around it in case of a further structural collapse.
Everywhere there were piles of blackened rubble, and puddles of water. She picked her way carefully through. Now that she was inside the remains of the manor, she could see what the fire investigator had meant. But she had one advantage over him, the CSI, and all the rest of the experts. She knew Blackdown Manor like the back of her hand. She shone her torch around to where she thought the stone steps leading down to the basement area must be. And there they were clearly illuminated in the beam, just off to her right. Or rather, there were the remains of them, leading merely into a pile of collapsed stone and charred wood where, she was quite sure, the storeroom had once been located. If the door still stood, which Bella thought highly unlikely, it was buried. And clearly, the storeroom no longer had a roof.