Vera Willis laughed, more genuinely this time, albeit with some irony.
‘I can’t remember when I last saw John, Mr Vogel,’ she replied. ‘He’s not visited the kids in years, rarely bothered since we parted. I doubt he’d turn up, even if one of them was rushed to hospital. I doubt it very much. He pays his child maintenance regularly on a direct debit, always has done. But he made it pretty clear, years ago, that was it as far as he was concerned. He would do his legal duty until they were eighteen, but he wanted nothing to do with any of us.’ She paused. ‘What’s he done, Mr Vogel? What’s that bastard done?’
Vogel was surprised at the bitterness in her voice and the note of resignation.
She spoke again, before he had chance to.
‘Nothing would surprise me,’ she said. ‘You should know that. I’ve always thought there was no limit to what he might be capable of.’
‘Why do you say that, Mrs Court?’
‘I lived with him didn’t I? I had his children. I’m not sure John has ever allowed anyone to get to know him, really get to know him, but if there is anyone in the world who does, then that would be me.’
Vogel felt his nerves jangle as the woman spoke.
‘Come on, Mr Vogel,’ she continued. ‘Anyone who’s lived with a copper knows DCIs don’t check on attendance records.’
She was right there, thought Vogel, but he couldn’t tell her any more, not yet.
‘Look Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I’ll not insult your intelligence. It is possible that John may be involved in something very serious. But I’m not sure yet, so, for the time being, I can’t discuss it with you and certainly not on the phone. I wonder, you couldn’t pop along to Kenneth Steele House later on today, could you? I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t important. Also, by the time you get here I should know more.’
‘You’re beginning to frighten me, Mr Vogel.’
‘I’m sorry. I can assure that’s not my intention. Indeed, it is still quite possible that I might be wasting your time.’ Vogel paused and took a deep breath. He no longer believed what he was saying. It was both extraordinary and terrifying, but everything was leading to Willis. ‘Could you make it in about an hour?’ Vogel continued. ‘I could send a squad car to pick you up, if that would help.’
‘No. I’ll drive myself. The last thing I want is a cop car pulling up around here. I’m fairly free during the day, as the kids are at school, but I shall have to be back well before three, when they get home.’
‘We shouldn’t keep you long,’ said Vogel, who actually had no idea at all whether that was true or not.
‘All right. I’ll see you in an hour or so.’
‘I’m most grateful, Mrs Willis,’ responded Vogel. ‘There’s just one thing more. Please make no attempt to contact John directly. This whole matter is highly delicate and highly confidential. So please don’t try to phone him.’
‘Phone him?’ queried the woman. ‘I couldn’t damned well phone him, even if I wanted to. Bastard changed all his phone numbers years ago and he’s certainly never given me the new ones. He doesn’t want me in his life and I can assure you, Mr Vogel, I certainly don’t want him in mine.’
Vogel put the phone down with Vera Court’s voice ringing in his ears. What she had told him made it even more likely that Sonia had been right and that her online suitor had been a disguised Willis. Or, if Vogel’s Aeolus theory was correct, a Willis alter ego, which was far more frightening. Not only was there evidence that Willis had lied about his whereabouts at the time of Tim Southey’s death, but Vera Court’s view of him, of a man who she thought had “no limit to what he might be capable of,” shed a disturbing new light on Willis’s character. Vogel reminded himself that husbands and wives often had low opinions of each other after an acrimonious break-up. None the less, this, on top of the accumulating evidence against Willis, led him to accept that an urgent investigation into the detective sergeant was now called for. And the time had come to make a full report to DCI Hemmings.
Vogel just hoped he had done the right thing, in attempting to quietly recall Saslow and Willis. But perhaps he should have had Saslow’s phone tracked and sent an armed response unit straightaway to intercept the two officers. He had chosen what he had considered to be the course of action least likely to bring about a violent outcome. If Willis had been confronted by armed officers, he would have known at once that he was a suspect. Dawn Saslow was with him and if he really were Aeolus, which was beginning to seem more and more likely, then God knows what he might do to her before he was apprehended.
Aeolus was totally ruthless.
He was supremely arrogant, too. The manner of his killings made that quite clear. Aeolus believed he was cleverer than anyone else and that he could do just what he wanted, that he was untouchable.
He was also totally mad.
Was Willis mad? Vogel couldn’t get his head around it. Could he be that mad and none of them aware of it? He remembered how closed up Willis had always been, how he’d rarely smiled or engaged in conversation about anything other than police business. Willis made Vogel look outgoing and open.
Professor Freda Heath had told him about people suffering from multiple personality disorders being totally convincing, but could anyone be that convincing? Vogel was still clinging to the hope that nobody could, that his suspicions were unfounded and that Willis was the socially awkward but professionally excellent copper he had always been, nothing more or less.
That could still be, yet Vogel’s every instinct was beginning to tell him it wasn’t and that, however extraordinary, Willis was Aeolus.
He checked his watch as he walked along the corridor towards Hemmings’s office. When he’d asked her and Willis to return to base, Saslow had said they’d been nearly at Avonmouth. They could not possibly have got back yet, but there was increasingly less and less doubt in his mind that Dawn Saslow was in very great danger. He was going to be right on edge, until she and Willis returned. If they returned. He preferred not to think about that.
All he could do was to continue to hope that his decision to make a softly, softly approach had been the right one and that Willis/Aeolus was arrogant enough not to be alerted to impending danger.
Aeolus
How dare they insult my intelligence like this? Did David Vogel really think for a moment that I wouldn’t realise what his urgent new development was? Did he really think I wouldn’t act to protect myself? I have always had a contingency plan. A number of contingency plans, actually. I have always been ready to deal with any eventuality. After all, I am Aeolus.
People like Vogel and the Saslow girl are just minor inconveniences to me. I knew what I had to do as soon as Saslow received that call. It wasn’t going to be difficult for me. I, more than anybody, know how to make myself disappear.
First, I had to deal with the Saslow girl. Then, I would give my orders to Vogel. He would have no choice but to obey me. The wind obeyed me. I am the ruler of the wind. I have the power of the wind. I can raise a hurricane with a blink of an eyelid. Saslow was still unconscious from the second blow I dealt her. I made sure she would be under my control when she came around. Her upper body was restrained by the seat belt. Her wrists were still cuffed. I used her own handcuffs on her legs, clamping them around her ankles. She would not kick me again.
Saslow was a small girl. Nonetheless the cuffs were not quite big enough, when I pressed them shut they dug into her flesh. I didn’t care about that. I never deliberately set out to hurt anybody. But when people challenge me, I must eliminate them. I always triumph. I am Aeolus. I must never allow such paltry outside forces to try and threaten me.