‘Right. So you continued to advise Sir John’s nurse that they should both stay where they were, in his bedroom, knowing, surely, there was a fair chance the fire would kill them. Is that it?’
‘No,’ said Grey. ‘No. Of course not. Like I said, the fire still didn’t look like much. I said they should stay where they were until either I or the emergency services got through. And I was hoping they’d get here pretty quick after what I’d seen, I can tell you.’
‘But you didn’t even dial 999 then?’
‘No. I didn’t get the chance, to tell the truth. I was attacked almost straightaway. Two, or maybe three of them, I think. Overpowered me and stabbed me. After that I didn’t have any hope at all of getting through to Sir John. Then the tank blew. It was awful. Horrible. But I couldn’t do nothing about it.’
‘Look,’ Vogel interjected. ‘You realise none of this seems quite right, don’t you?’
‘Well, I can’t help that, it’s what happened,’ said Grey stubbornly.
‘After you were attacked, what did your attackers do next?’
‘They ran off.’
‘Did they speak to you at all?’
‘No.’
‘Not a word?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Do you think they knew who you were?’
‘No. Why should they?’
‘I have no idea, Mr Grey,’ said Vogel. ‘But you are telling me that they didn’t know you and you didn’t know them, is that it?’
‘Yes. Anyway, like I said, it was dark.’
‘You feel you were attacked simply because you were getting in the way, is that it?’
‘Yes. Yes. That’s it.’
At that moment a nurse arrived. Vogel turned to face her, enquiringly.
‘Dr Carlisle will speak to you now, detective inspector,’ she said.
‘Right,’ said Vogel. He turned back to the man in bed. ‘We will need you to give a formal statement, and we will want to talk to you again, very soon,’ he said.
Grey nodded. His complexion seemed to have grown even more pallid.
‘And we will need to speak to your wife too, I understand she has visited you here already?’
‘Yes,’ said Grey. ‘She came as soon as she realised I’d been hurt and brought here. But she’s gone back home now... She can’t tell you nothing, anyway.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Vogel.
As they left the ward, following in the wake of the nurse, Vogel spoke quietly to Saslow. ‘Did you notice his hands?’ he asked.
Saslow shook her head, surprised.
‘Smoother than yours, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said the DI smiling. ‘God knows, I don’t know a lot about gardening, but I’ve never seen a gardener with hands like that.’
Dr Carlisle was young, thin, and bespectacled. He wore a white coat and a harassed expression. He was a stereotypical junior hospital doctor. Straight out of central casting, thought Vogel, who had met a number of junior hospital doctors in his time but didn’t think he had ever encountered one who so fitted the part.
‘Phillip Carlisle,’ said the young man thrusting out a bony, long-fingered hand. ‘How can I help?’
‘I’d appreciate your professional opinion on Mr Grey’s injuries,’ said Vogel, taking the doctor’s hand in his. He noticed that, in spite of his harassed air, the young man’s skin was cool and his handshake firm.
‘Well, he has suffered multiple wounds, incisions, to different parts of his body, four to his right shoulder and upper arm, and three to his left thigh,’ replied Dr Carlisle. ‘They are clearly consistent with stab wounds, probably inflicted by a knife of some sort.’
‘And how serious are these wounds?’
‘Not nearly as serious as we thought at first. Mr Grey was bleeding profusely when he was brought in. But he was extremely lucky. The wounds were not that deep, they may have been inflicted by a knife with a short blade, like a penknife, or even a Stanley knife, and certainly none of them were in any way life threatening. They had to be stitched, of course, and I’m sure are painful and debilitating. But they were all in areas of the body where there are no vital organs. Nonetheless, with as many stab wounds as were sustained, I would have expected at least one of them to have hit a major artery. They didn’t. They missed.’
‘So your prognosis is that Mr Grey will make a full recovery?’
‘Oh yes. We will keep him in tonight, but he will probably be discharged tomorrow.’
Vogel was thoughtful as he left the hospital with Saslow.
‘We need to check out the Greys, Saslow. See if you can get hold of Micky Palmer, will you? Never misses anything, Micky. I want to know all we can about them before we talk to Grey’s missus, and before we take a formal statement from George Grey.’
‘Right, boss,’ said Saslow.
‘Meanwhile I’ll call Taunton nick and get them to send somebody here to stand guard over George. As a matter of urgency. I don’t trust that man.’
‘I know what you mean, boss. What will our next move be?’
‘Looks like it might be a bit of a pub crawl, Dawn,’ Vogel replied.
The DC smiled. These were words she never expected to hear from DI David Vogel. After all, everyone knew that Vogel never touched alcohol.
‘Shall we start with lunch at the Blue Ball?’ the DI asked.
As soon as the two police officers had left his bedside, Grey reached for his mobile phone, which was on the bedside cabinet, alongside his wallet. He dialled the number of a pay-as-you-go mobile.
‘Look, I don’t know what your plan is now, but this isn’t what I signed up for,’ he said. ‘Nobody was supposed to die.’
The voice at the other end of the phone was cool and assured.
‘He wouldn’t have lived long anyway,’ said the voice. ‘The Parkinson’s would have got him sooner or later. We probably did him a favour. Saved him a lot of suffering.’
‘Oh yeah, that makes it all right, does it? What about that poor cow of a nurse?’
‘She was trouble from the beginning. Asked too many questions. And she couldn’t be trusted. We got lucky there.’
‘She didn’t seem like trouble to me. In any case, what the hell do you mean “lucky”?’
Involuntarily Grey raised his voice. He realised he had more or less shouted the word. He hunched himself even more closely over his phone and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘Is that what you call it?’ he hissed.
‘In this case, yes,’ said the voice.
‘Look, I’m fucking furious,’ said George, trying hard not to raise his voice again. ‘I could get done for fucking murder.’
‘No.’ The voice was still cool, controlled. ‘You’ll be fine as long as you keep your head. You didn’t do anything wrong, after all, did you? That fire was down to our mysterious intruders, wasn’t it?’
George grunted. ‘You know what,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had the filth round. Two of the Avon and Somerset’s finest. And I don’t think they believe a word of my story about armed intruders. Not a word of it.’
‘Maybe not, but not believing you and proving you are lying are two different things. Just keep calm, George, and everything will be fine.’
‘Will it?’ snapped George. ‘I don’t think so. This is murder. And the cops never let go when they’re investigating a murder. This DI Vogel, he wants to see me again, take a formal statement. I just don’t know what I’m going to say...’
He felt as if every nerve in his body was jangling. He’d been in a few scrapes in his life, lived near the edge, always taken chances, but George Grey had probably never really experienced true fear before. So, this is how it is, he thought. This is how it is to fear life almost more than death.
The voice was speaking again.
‘Look, how long are you being kept in hospital?’
‘I don’t know. Not long, I shouldn’t think.’