‘You’re safe, really, you’re quite safe,’ said Joe Curry, for the umpteenth time.
Janice Grey looked at him with frightened eyes, but eyes which did at least appear to be finally seeing the young constable. It seemed, however, that she remained unconvinced.
‘Safe?’ she queried. ‘I’m not safe. And I never will be again.’
‘We’re going to look after you,’ continued Joe, oblivious to the somewhat amused looks he was receiving from his more seasoned colleagues. ‘We’re going to get you to hospital and have you checked out, then we’ll take it from there.’
Janice Grey was barely listening. ‘They’ll get me,’ she said. ‘I escaped this time, I won’t again.’
A paramedic team was approaching.
Suddenly the woman stood up, finding strength which totally took young Joe aback.
‘I don’t want them,’ she said, pointing at the paramedics. ‘They can’t help me. I want Detective Inspector Vogel. I want to tell him everything.’
Vogel had already arrived at Blackdown by the time Janice Grey was found. He and Saslow had been awoken in the early hours, and had delayed their trip to London once they learned of the night’s events at Blackdown. They were standing outside The Gatehouse, drinking welcome paper cups of coffee poured from huge thermos flasks provided for the search team, when they learned that Janice had been located. And that she was alive.
‘She wants to talk to you,’ the team leader told him. ‘Now.’
‘C’mon, Saslow,’ said Vogel at once, abandoning his coffee. ‘Let’s get to her before she changes her mind.’
The two officers hurried to their car and Saslow drove as fast as she dared down the driveway, which had at least now been cleared of all remaining debris from the storm.
Mrs Grey, wrapped in a thermal blanket, was being helped from the ruins of the old manor by two women paramedics. She spotted Vogel as soon as he stepped out of his car, and at once attempted to shake herself free of her supporters.
‘Let me go,’ she cried. ‘Let me go. I have to speak to Mr Vogel. Right away.’
The paramedics tried to restrain her. ‘We need to get you to hospital first,’ said the taller of the two women.
‘No, no,’ shouted Janice, who appeared close to hysteria again. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken to Mr Vogel,’ she repeated.
By then, Vogel was at the woman’s side. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Grey,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’
He placed a calming hand on the woman’s arms, then turned slightly to address the paramedics. ‘Why don’t you just give us ten minutes before you take Mrs Grey away?’ he said. ‘In your ambulance or our car. And somebody get her a hot drink or something.’
The paramedics exchanged glances. ‘I don’t like it,’ said the taller one.
Both women looked doubtful.
‘Your car,’ interjected Janice Grey, addressing Vogel with surprising assertiveness. ‘Just you and me.’
This time she successfully shook herself free of the paramedics, and Vogel proceeded to escort her to the vehicle whilst the medics looked uncertainly on.
‘So, what exactly is it you want to tell me, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel, once the pair of them were safely ensconced on the back seat.
The woman no longer seemed quite so sure of herself.
‘I’m frightened half out of my wits, I’ll tell you that,’ she said. ‘It’s all gone wrong, you see. The fire, none of it, none of it was supposed to happen. Not like this. And then my George...’
Her voice tailed off.
‘Mrs Grey, you said that before, what exactly do you mean by “none of it was supposed to happen”?’asked Vogel.
Janice Grey shook her head, very slowly, from side to side. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again, barely more than a whisper. ‘It wasn’t,’ she said. ‘It really wasn’t. Nobody was meant to be harmed. My George wouldn’t hurt a fly, not my George. And now he’s gone. They’ve killed him. Killed my George, that’s what they’ve done.’
‘Who, Mrs Grey? Who has killed George?’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t know. That’s the trouble. But they tried to do me in ’an all last night. I’m damned sure of that.’
‘Mrs Grey, why don’t you try to tell me what you do know,’ encouraged Vogel.
The woman looked confused. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. That’s what I want to do. It’s just, well, it’s all such a mess. And I don’t know where to begin.’
‘You could try to begin at the beginning, Mrs Grey,’ said Vogel.
The woman nodded. ‘I must, I must,’ she said, almost as if she was addressing herself.
‘It began just over a year ago. My George, well, he knows people, doesn’t he? You know, people who do thing others can’t. Or won’t.’
Vogel got the picture. After all, George Grey was a petty criminal with a considerable record of minor offences. Additionally, over the years he had probably been involved in all kinds of nefarious activities which had never come to the attention of the law. He almost certainly did know people able and willing to perform all kinds of undesirable services.
‘I understand,’ said Vogel.
And he did. Only too well.
‘Yes,’ murmured Janice Grey. ‘Anyway, my George knew a man who knew a man who knew Sir John. George was asked if he might be prepared to look after Sir John. That meant coming down here and setting up home here. Driving, working around the place, gardening, odd jobs, that sort of thing, and a bit of security. But the inference was that George may be asked to do things above and beyond the usual call of duty. However, the pay would more than compensate. And I would be employed too. We didn’t know as what exactly at first. We didn’t know Sir John was ill. That was what this was all about. That and the money.’
‘The money?’ queried Vogel.
‘Yes. The money. It’s always about money with people like that, isn’t it? Anyway, George and I talked it over. And it didn’t take much talking about. Things was pretty bad for us, well, my bit of trouble didn’t help...’
The woman paused. ‘It was lies all of it. Like I told you before. And so the court found. But my work, my real work, was gone for good. It’s true enough what they say too. Mud sticks. We managed to get a little house in Stepney, when we got together, but we couldn’t keep up the payments. I still had legal fees to pay, and then George lost ’is market stall. We’d ’ad some good times, as well as the bad, mind. Never a lot of in-between, though, and latterly there’d been only bad times.
‘So, we both agreed, if the deal was as good as was being promised we’d have to go for it. We knew it was a bit dodgy, of course, but we reckoned a man like Sir John Fairbrother would know what he was about, that we wouldn’t be at too much risk. And George, well, he was always a bit of a chancer.
‘It was arranged that George would meet Sir John, and when he came back, well, I could tell he’d been shocked by something, but he never did tell me what it was. He just said he couldn’t believe his luck. The deal was good all right. We’d have The Gatehouse to live in, rent free, and we’d be paid £1,000 a week each. There’d be opportunity for bonuses too. Big bonuses. “What will we have to do for them,” I asked. “You won’t have to do anything,” George said. “It’ll be all down to me.” Of course, it didn’t work out like that. But George said that’s how it would be, and they wanted me too, because I was a nurse, Sir John had Parkinson’s, and he was determined to keep his condition as quiet as possible. So the bank wouldn’t be harmed. “That was all,” said George.
‘Well, I should have realised, even if George didn’t, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. But when we got here, everything did seem all right for a while. Albeit a bit odd. We didn’t see Sir John for a long time. Or I didn’t anyway. By the time I met him for the first time it was obvious he was a very sick man, badly affected by his illness. He needed me then, didn’t he? His speech was the worst. He’d taken the decision to shut himself off from the world, and our job, George and mine, was to look after him and keep the world out.