Joyce nodded. She glanced at the crumpled handful of papers Vogel was holding.
‘Isn’t it there?’ she asked.
Vogel shook his head.
Joyce delved again in her pocket and came up with a folded sheet of A4 paper, which she held out to him.
Printed on Tanner-Max headed stationery, it read:
Dear Mrs Mildmay,
We would like to apologize for failing to forward the enclosed letter from Mr Mildmay until now, due to an error in filing. If there is anything else we can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact this office.
It ended in the way solicitors and other businesses frequently sign off their correspondence, without reference to a specific individuaclass="underline" Yours sincerely, Tanner-Max.
Vogel was puzzled.
‘Bit formal, isn’t it, considering that it came from a man who is one of your oldest friends?’ he enquired.
‘Is it?’ responded Joyce. ‘I barely looked at it. I saw Charlie’s handwriting on the enclosed envelope and that was all I was interested in.’
There was a scratchy signature after the typed sign-off, or was it initials? Vogel couldn’t make it out. He passed the letter back to Joyce.
‘Is that Stephen Hardcastle’s signature?’ he asked.
Joyce glanced down. ‘Oh. No. I don’t think it is. I didn’t notice. It’s Janet’s.’
‘Janet, the PA?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can see you’re surprised,’ Vogel commented. ‘I find that surprising too.’
‘Well, not exactly,’ responded Joyce. ‘More surprised that I hadn’t noticed. Janet does sometimes address the family as Mr and Mrs. She’s quite formal in written correspondence. And she often signs letters on behalf of Stephen, my father, and Charlie too, when he was alive.’
‘Routine correspondence, yes, but surely not something as sensitive as this?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe Stephen was embarrassed about the delay. Maybe that’s why he asked Janet to send the letter on. How do I know what his reasons were? Is it important?’
‘It could be, Mrs Mildmay, it could be very important,’ replied Vogel thoughtfully. ‘I will certainly be taking it up with Stephen Hardcastle and with your father. In the meantime, you can go back to the kitchen and join the others, but I must ask you not to mention anything that we have discussed, particularly the letter. Do you understand?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Joyce. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
Vogel was just emerging from the kitchen, having escorted Joyce back to her family and discreetly instructed PC Saslow to make sure no details of the interview were shared with the family, when the doorbell rang. It was PCs Yardley and Bolton, returning from conducting house-to-house enquiries.
Vogel rapidly brought them up to date on the latest developments:
‘We need information fast, so provided they cooperate I’m hoping it won’t be necessary to caution and formally interview everyone in the house. But there are two people I may need you to transport to the video suite at Lockleaze so that their interviews can be recorded. First let’s see how the preliminary interviews go, then we can take it from there.’
He led the two constables to the kitchen, where PC Saslow was standing by the door like a sentry. Under the circumstances, Vogel rather approved of that.
Joyce Mildmay had returned to the same chair at the kitchen table where she’d been sitting when Vogel had arrived.
‘PC Bolton, please accompany Mr Tanner and Mr Hardcastle into the sitting room, and I’ll join you in a moment,’ the DI instructed.
Vogel wanted them separated from the rest — even though he had PC Saslow on sentry duty and intended to keep her there.
Stephen Hardcastle made his way to the door without demur, but Henry Tanner looked as if he was about to protest. Then he thought better of it and fell in behind Hardcastle as Bolton ushered them both from the room.
Vogel wanted to let them stew for a bit while he gleaned what he could from the others, particularly the PA, Janet. But even though she was the most promising subject, he intended to delay talking to her. He had a feeling he might learn something from the others which would prove useful in persuading her to cooperate.
‘I need to talk to each of you individually,’ Vogel announced. He glanced towards Joyce. ‘Is there another downstairs room I could use?’
She nodded listlessly. ‘The dining room,’ she said.
He thanked her, then asked Monika to join him.
‘You too, Yardley,’ he instructed, leading the way out of the kitchen.
In addition to the kitchen and the sitting room there were two other doors leading off the hallway. Vogel glanced enquiringly at Monika, who gestured to the one which was nearest.
Vogel pushed the door open to reveal a room furnished with a big Georgian dining table, chairs and sideboard — all of it, like the Adam fireplace in the sitting room, reproduction.
He pulled two of the chairs away from the table and gestured for Monika to sit. Yardley was still standing. Vogel invited him to sit too. He wanted these preliminary interviews to be as informal as possible.
The young woman confirmed that she had arrived at the house at eight that morning.
‘During term time I help with the children’s breakfast and getting them ready for school, then when they go I load the dishwasher with the breakfast things, I tidy the kitchen, and I help Mrs Mildmay clear up after them,’ explained Monika.
Vogel, as ever, had done his homework. He knew that she was twenty-four years old and came from Kosovo, Albania. Her English was good, if a tad stilted, with only the occasional grammatical error. Her pronunciation was excellent.
‘They are lovely children, but perhaps not the most tidy,’ said Monika with a half smile.
She was a pretty girl, tall and slim with cropped dark brown hair and pale skin. But Vogel noticed that the smile did not reach her eyes. There remained an emptiness in them.
‘When did you come to the UK, Monika?’ he asked, opening with an easy, unthreatening question to put her at ease.
‘In 1999,’ she replied. ‘At the end of the war. My father, he fight in the Kosovo Liberation Army. We do not know what happened to him...’
Her voice tailed off. She glanced down at her hands, lying on the table before her.
Vogel was aware that the Serbian military had decimated the KLA, amidst widespread allegations of atrocities. So Monika had arrived in the UK as a nine-year-old refugee. The poignant emptiness in her eyes was disturbing; it made Vogel wonder what horrors Monika and her family had experienced.
‘I see,’ said Vogel inadequately. ‘I’m sorry. I interrupted you. You were taking me through your morning here.’
‘Yes. Usually I stay until midday. I clean all the house. I have a routine. A rota. This morning I was to clean bedrooms...’
Monika paused, frowning. Remembering what had happened, Vogel thought.
‘Go on, Monika,’ he prompted.
‘But soon after I arrive today, Mrs Mildmay went upstairs to hurry up Fred and discovered he was not in his room,’ she said, corroborating the account Vogel had been given by Joyce Mildmay.
‘At once we began to look everywhere for him, the three of us: Molly, Mrs Mildmay and I. We couldn’t find him. Not anywhere. Mrs Mildmay called her mother. We all kept looking, and Molly began phoning people. Then Mrs Mildmay called the police. I do not believe this has happened. I just do not believe it. The family, they are like my own family, already they are...’
Now that she’d started, Monika couldn’t seem to stop talking. Maybe it was a kind of nervous reaction, Vogel thought. He let her ramble on for a while, but eventually he ended the interview, thanked Monika, and asked PC Yardley to escort her back to the kitchen.