Her words were overtaken by sobs.
‘But you didn’t mean that, did you, Molly?’ Vogel’s question was rhetorical, and he murmured it softly.
Molly shook her head.
‘No. And your brother knew that, didn’t he?’
Molly nodded again, more of a half nod this time. ‘I suppose so,’ she managed.
Vogel leaned towards Molly, careful not to touch her or to do anything that might intimidate her, but leaning so that his face was quite close to hers.
‘You love your little brother very much, don’t you, Molly?’ he said.
She nodded weakly.
‘And you know that he knows that, too, don’t you?’
She nodded again.
Vogel dropped his voice even lower.
‘So don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘I’m going to bring him back for you, darling, I promise you.’
Molly looked at him with hope in her eyes.
‘Th-thank you,’ she said.
Then she started to cry again. It could have been Vogel’s kindness that had sparked her off once more, or it could have been that she simply couldn’t stop. He straightened up, mentally kicking himself. He knew better than to make promises like that, didn’t he? Particularly to a child, because children took promises at face value. As a rule, they didn’t understand about saying things just to make someone feel better. As a rule, children were more honest than adults. Sometimes brutally so.
But Vogel hadn’t been able to help himself. He had a daughter at home who was only a little younger than Molly. Rosamund Vogel was a sensitive, caring girl. She didn’t have a brother to worry about, but if she had and she feared that anything might have happened to him, she would be distraught. She could never be what Molly Mildmay was. Rosamund Vogel had her own problems, but like Molly, she was still at that stage where she loved her family unconditionally.
Vogel found it difficult to watch Molly’s distress. Whenever possible he tried to keep his questioning methodical and nonconfrontational in style, cool, controlled, dealing with facts not emotions. He had tried so hard not to add to her misery, to try to come up with some words of encouragement to lift her spirits.
Vogel sighed inwardly. Would he never learn? He only hoped he could keep his promise in this instance and bring Molly Mildmay’s little brother home.
At least they were still within the golden twenty-four hours, he reminded himself. He just had to get on with things. As ever.
‘Yardley, take Molly back to her mother will you, and bring Janet Porter in,’ he commanded.
The PA had short wavy hair dyed an unnatural dark brown and cut in a severe bob. She was wearing a striped business suit and at a glance looked every inch the competent, dedicated aide. In sharp contrast to young Molly and Joyce Mildmay, she had not been crying. But then, she was no relation to the missing boy, Vogel reminded himself. Her surprisingly bright blue eyes did, however, betray a hint of alarm.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Vogel said briskly. ‘I only need a moment of your time, Miss Porter.’
Janet said nothing. She clasped her hands together and placed them on the table. Vogel couldn’t help wondering why everyone seemed to do that during police interviews. Most people, innocent or guilty, were nervous when interviewed by the police, particularly as part of an investigation into something as serious as the possible abduction of a child.
Janet told Vogel that she had arrived at the house at around 10 a.m., not long after Mark Mildmay, Henry Tanner and Stephen Hardcastle. They had all left the office as quickly as they could when Joyce had called them with the shocking news. Janet had remained a little longer than the men in order to lock the place up.
She seemed to have nothing more to offer concerning the immediate circumstances of Fred Mildmay’s disappearance, but there remained the matter of the delayed letter.
Vogel cut to the chase.
‘Miss Porter, something has come to my attention which I hope you may be able to throw some light on,’ he began. ‘I don’t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily at this stage, nor cause further distress to Mrs Mildmay, so I would appreciate it if you would not discuss with anyone else the matter I now wish to ask you about. Is that clear?’
Janet cleared her throat and looked even more nervous.
‘Uh, yes, of course,’ she said.
‘Good,’ said Vogel. ‘I understand that Mr Charles Mildmay left a letter to be given to his wife and read only in the event of his death. And I think you know about that letter, is that correct?’
‘Well, yes...’ began Janet hesitantly.
‘I also understand that it was you who forwarded the letter to Mrs Mildmay, along with an accompanying letter which I believe bears your signature,’ Vogel continued. ‘Can you confirm that?’
‘Yes,’ said Janet.
‘And when did you post it to Mrs Mildmay?’
‘On Monday. I’m certain of that, because Mr Tanner and Stephen were away from the office.’
‘This letter, bearing a clear instruction that it be passed to Mr Mildmay’s wife in the event of his death, had presumably been in your office since before he died. Given that he lost his life last November, can you explain why the letter was not sent then?’
Janet hesitated.
‘Well, I sort of can. It had been wrongly filed. It wasn’t in Charlie’s file, you see, along with his will and other papers.’
‘So how did it finally materialize? And who instructed you to send it on to Mrs Mildmay?’
‘Nobody did,’ Joyce replied quickly.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Vogel.
‘Nobody told me to send it on. I found the letter myself, misfiled. Stephen had asked me to deal with something concerning his own affairs — he’s trying to buy a new property and the mortgage company wanted to know about his life insurance — and when I went to his file to look for the policy I found Charlie’s letter there. I realized it must have got in the wrong place.’
Janet paused as if an unwelcome thought had occurred to her.
‘It wasn’t my mistake, Mr Vogel, I can assure you of that,’ she continued, suddenly going off at a tangent. ‘I had never even seen the letter before. I don’t know how it came to be in the wrong place, but I certainly didn’t put it there.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t, Miss Porter,’ murmured Vogel, stifling a smile.
Janet Porter clearly had considerable professional pride, and was not prepared to allow her competence to be questioned.
‘Please go on, Miss Porter,’ said Vogel.
‘When I saw what was written on the envelope — that it should be given to Joyce Mildmay in the event of Charlie’s death — well, I was horrified to think that it had been sitting there in our office all that time,’ Janet continued. ‘I thought it should be sent to Mrs Mildmay straight away.’
‘So you posted it on yourself, without checking with Mr Hardcastle, or Mr Tanner?’
‘Well, not exactly. As I told you, Stephen and Mr Tanner were out of the office. They were in London that day, you see. They had an important business meeting in the morning, then lunch at Mr Tanner’s club. It was about lunchtime when I found the letter. I called and left a message on Stephen’s voicemail telling him about it and asking if he wanted me to pop it in the post with a covering note, but he never got back to me, not all afternoon. I wasn’t surprised. Mr Tanner’s club lunches are legendary. Anyway, both Stephen and Mr Tanner trust me to use my own initiative — indeed, they encourage me to. So when it came to five o’clock I phoned Stephen again and left a message saying I would put the letter in the post unless I heard from him to the contrary. I didn’t hear from him, so on my way home I dropped it in the post box opposite the office. It seemed the right thing to do. And I was afraid that if Mr Tanner found out about the letter being in Stephen’s file, he might be angry with Stephen. He has rather a temper on him, you see. Also, I didn’t want to keep the letter from Joyce any longer...’ She looked at him quizzically.