She paused.
‘He’s quite handy about the house, my George you know,’ she said somewhat defensively.
I’ll bet he is, thought Vogel, particularly when it comes to breaking into them.
‘Mrs Grey, your husband has a criminal record,’ he continued. ‘Was Sir John aware of that?’
Janice Grey frowned. ‘Might ’ave known you’d get onto that,’ she muttered.
‘Well yes, Mrs Grey, obviously we are checking out everyone close to Sir John. Two people have died and now your husband appears to have gone missing. Doesn’t look very good, does it?’
‘Not to you, I don’t suppose,’ said the woman, still muttering.
‘I’m going to ask you again, Mrs Grey,’ said Vogel. ‘Was Sir John Fairbrother aware of your husband’s criminal record?’
‘I dunno,’ replied the woman, this time a tad belligerently. ‘I told you, my Georgie dealt with all that sort of stuff.’
‘All right, Mrs Grey, moving on to last night, when were you first aware that there was a fire at the manor?’
‘When Sophia called George. Woke us both up. He told me straight away, before he went over to try to help.’
‘And you just stayed here, in The Gatehouse, is that correct?’
‘Yes. Until the explosion. Frightened the life out of me, I can tell you. I went outside then, and what a terrible sight it was. That beautiful house, just a ball of fire. One of the fireman said I should get back in, so I did. And I stayed here until a policeman came and said my George had been injured and they were taking him to hospital.’
‘But that would have been more than three hours later, wasn’t it, Mrs Grey? You’ve just told us about the explosion. Weren’t you worried about your husband, when he didn’t come back?’
‘Of course I was. But there was nothing I could do.’
Vogel was considering whether or not to press Janice Grey further on her somewhat questionable account of the night’s events, when Saslow’s phone rang and she left the room to take the call.
He decided he might learn more from a more indirect line of questioning.
‘You were both in Sir John’s employ, Mrs Grey, not just your husband, is that right?’ Vogel continued, in Saslow’s absence.
‘Yes.’
‘So, what exactly were your duties?’
‘I was sort of housekeeper. We had a girl from the village come in two mornings a week to do the heavy cleaning, she wasn’t allowed in Sir John’s bedroom though, and he used to stay in his room when she was in the house. I did that, and made sure everything was how Sir John liked it. He was only living in part of the house anyway.’
‘Did you do anything else?’
‘Well, I helped look after him. Sophia was live-in, of course. I used to do shifts to relieve her, and occasionally we had an agency nurse from Exeter.’
‘You did nursing shifts? I’ve been told Sir John was suffering from Parkinson’s. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘Well, Parkinson’s is a very serious condition. Are you a qualified nurse, Mrs Grey?’
‘Uh, well, um...’ She seemed unable to find appropriate words.
‘C’mon, Mrs Grey,’ Vogel persisted. ‘It’s a simple enough question. Are you a nurse?’
The woman looked curiously alarmed.
She was ultimately saved from answering the question by the return of Saslow, who held out her phone to Vogel saying, ‘It’s Micky Palmer. You’d better hear this, boss.’
Vogel took the phone and, in turn, left the room, listening intently.
Saslow sat down on the sofa again. Janice Grey stared at her for a moment or two then glanced away. Neither woman spoke.
Vogel was not out of the room for long. Upon his return he got straight to the point. ‘You were a nurse, weren’t you, Mrs Grey?’ he enquired.
That same expression of resignation which had appeared on her face when she had allowed the two officers into her home reappeared.
‘Yes, I was,’ she replied finally. ‘Well, an auxiliary nurse.’
‘At the East London Infirmary?’
‘Yes. And I was as good as any SRN too. Better, probably. The rest of them didn’t like me, did they? They ganged up on me. I wasn’t to blame for nothing. I didn’t do nothing. Look, it happened nearly ten years ago, but I’m never going to be allowed to move on, am I? Never. It’s pretty obvious you know all about it now.’
‘I know that you stood trial for the murder of three elderly patients in the geriatric ward of the East London Infirmary,’ said Vogel. ‘And that you were cleared of all charges. It was the end of any hope of a nursing career for you though, wasn’t it?’
‘It was. I lost the chance to do the only thing I’ve ever been any good at.’
‘You were Jane Farley then, weren’t you?’
‘Why are you asking? You know very well.’
‘So, you married George, got a new name and a new life. He might have been a petty criminal, but his name was certainly better than yours.’
‘It wasn’t fair,’ said Janice Grey. ‘I was found not guilty. They still hounded me. The press. The families of the people who died. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t hurt nobody. But it just went on and on. Even after I married George somebody would always find out. And then, more recently, there was internet trolling too. I couldn’t work at anything, let alone nursing. In my other life, me and my first husband, Jim, we had our own house, and we had two children. I lost it all, Jim, the house, even my kids. He chucked me out on my ear right after the trial, and poisoned the kids against me. They’re grown up now, near enough, and they don’t want anything to do with me. I haven’t seen ’em in years. And I had nothing to fight back with, did I? No money and a ruined reputation. There wasn’t nothing I could do. I was just lucky Georgie took up with me, to tell the truth, and he’s stood by me too. But we were pretty much at the end of our tether when this job turned up. He’d lost his market stall. I didn’t have any work. We were living hand to mouth in one room. All we wanted was a fresh start. Then Sir John came into our lives, and it was like a miracle. This was our fresh start. Or it was supposed to be.’
‘Did Sir John know about your past?’ Vogel asked.
‘I left that to George,’ said Mrs Grey again. ‘George looked after all that sort of thing.’
‘Well, it’s hard to believe that a man like Sir John would have hired people for jobs like yours without checking them out thoroughly, isn’t it?’ Vogel persisted.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You must know, surely, why he suddenly decided to sack a couple he had employed for many years and take on you and your husband in their place?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Janice Grey. ‘You’d have to ask him. Only you can’t, can you?’
She uttered a short dry chuckle.
‘Is that supposed to be a joke, Mrs Grey?’ asked Vogel.
The woman looked down at her hands, clasped on her lap.
‘No. I’m sorry. We were both very fond of Sir John. He was good to us. Gave us a chance, didn’t he? Or, at least, he tried to.’
‘Do you think he trusted you?’
‘Yes. I’m sure he did. We never gave him no reason not to. Whatever you might think.’
‘And you say he even trusted you to nurse him?’ Vogel was watching the woman carefully, assessing her every reaction.
She looked up at him directly, eye to eye, and her answer was almost aggressive. ‘Yes, he did, and, why wouldn’t he? I am a good nurse.’
‘Not everyone would trust someone with your past.’
‘I told you, I don’t even know if he knew about it. If he did, then obviously he accepted the “not guilty” verdict. Even if nobody else did. Actually, he used to say I was his favourite. That I had the touch. I always did, you know...’