Greg and Maureen Fernsby’s house lay at the far end of a tidy cul-de-sac on the fringes of Wantage, accessed through a convoluted set of mini roundabouts and short twisting narrow roads.
Squashed between a matching set of two identical homes, it boasted one of the smallest front gardens Mark had ever seen – and an empty driveway in front of a tiny garage.
‘Shit. Did she warn him?’
Jan held up her phone. ‘Carl Antsy says not – he’s been with her since we left.’
Mark found an empty space behind a neighbour’s car, saw one of the patrol cars approach the corner into the dead-end street, and turned his attention back to the house. ‘Let’s not hang around, just in case.’
After fetching a stab vest from the back seat and handing another to his colleague, he strode up the short path and beat his fist against the front door.
He ran his hand down the velcro fastenings for the vest, trying to ignore the sickness that threatened to overwhelm him.
He’d been stabbed before, and was lucky to have survived that attack.
The front door edged open, and a woman in her sixties glared at him.
‘Mrs Fernsby? Mrs Maureen Fernsby?’
‘What do you want?’
Mark held up his warrant card. ‘Where’s your husband Greg?’
‘He’s… he’s out at the moment. What’s going on?’
He didn’t respond, and instead glanced over his shoulder to the four uniformed officers who hovered at the end of the path and signalled to them. ‘Check the back garden. I saw a gate around the side.’
Three of them peeled away, the remaining officer standing on the pavement in case Sally’s father reappeared.
Turning back to Maureen, Mark kept his face passive. ‘Can we come in, Mrs Fernsby? We’ve got some questions we’d like to ask you regarding two murders we’re currently investigating.’
‘What’s that got to do with us?’
‘Please, could we do this inside?’ He placed his hand on the door, and it gave way under his touch as she took a step back, bewilderment in her eyes.
The hallway walls were strewn with family photographs amongst watercolour paintings of bucolic scenes depicting rivers and streams, and as he followed her towards a door to his left, he paused.
‘Is this Emma?’ He pointed to an amateurish photograph taken in a back garden, a backdrop comprising a fence and tomato plants behind Sally and the small baby she cradled.
Maureen gave a small nod. ‘Three months before she was first diagnosed,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘Nothing was quite the same after that.’
Her words punched him in the gut, and he traipsed silently into a living room with a high ceiling that offset its box-like size.
Two armchairs and a small sofa were placed around a glass-topped coffee table, and as Maureen eased into the far end of the sofa, she seemed to shrink under his gaze.
He heard footsteps behind him, a deep baritone voice murmuring to Jan, and then she was at his side.
‘He’s not here.’
Mark’s eyes narrowed as he turned his attention to Sally’s mother. ‘Where’s Greg?’
‘He said he was going fishing. It’s what he usually does on a Tuesday.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘If he’s not at the fishery, then he’ll be somewhere along the Thames up near Shifford – he likes it there. He was hoping to catch some bream.’ She frowned. ‘Why do you want to speak to Greg? What’s this about?’
Mark waited until Jan sped from the room, her phone to her ear. ‘Mrs Fernsby, I need to ask you some questions, and due to the nature of them I have to make this formal.’
Maureen paled when he cautioned her, and sat back with her mouth open.
‘I want to take you back to two weeks ago. Did you visit Sally?’
She blinked, then nodded. ‘I did, yes.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Greg said he wanted to go on a night fish – he hadn’t done that for a while – and suggested I stay with Sally. It’d been a few weeks since I’d spent any proper time with her because I’ve been so busy with work.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘I’m part-time at one of the solicitor’s offices here in Wantage.’ She gave a tired shrug. ‘Greg retired a few years ago but with the state of my pension I couldn’t afford to, so I’m going to keep going as long as I can.’
‘Did you go on your own to Sally’s two weeks ago?’
‘Yes – there’s a bus route twice a day that gets me to the end of her road. It’s only a half-mile walk after that.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘After work, so I went straight from there. It must’ve been about five-thirty because I finish at five and had to wait around for the bus.’
‘What time did Greg say he was going fishing?’
‘He usually leaves here at half-three if he’s going to Shifford. Sometimes he’ll catch enough to come home early, other times he might be out until one, two o’clock in the morning.’
‘What did you do the next morning?’
‘I went straight from Sally’s into work.’ Maureen clasped her hands over her knee. ‘Look, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘I will, bear with me. When you came home that Wednesday afternoon, was Greg acting strangely in any way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did he seem troubled, or unhappy about anything?’
‘No, not at all. In fact, he was in a really good mood – he even bought me flowers.’ She smiled, and then it quickly faded away again. ‘He hasn’t done that since Emma died. He even forgot our anniversary last year. Thirty years…’
‘About Emma’s passing – did either of you seek counselling to help you through your grief?’
Maureen’s gaze slipped to the carpet, and he noticed how she dug her nails into her palms. ‘I made him go. I was worried. Scared, in fact.’
‘Greg didn’t cope well?’
‘None of us did, but he took it especially hard. He loved her so much.’ She sighed. ‘He obviously loves Charlotte too, but she’s such a different character to Emma – boisterous, whereas Emma was gentle, happy to play quietly. She’d crawl across the carpet here making a beeline for him whenever Sally brought her round.’
‘Who was his counsellor?’
‘Some chap over in Abingdon. I found him on social media. I didn’t want us to use someone too local because people gossip, you know? I mean, I know the counsellor wouldn’t but I didn’t want people to see us walking in or out of his office.’
‘Did Sally know about it?’
‘God, no – of course not. She was getting a lot of help from her GP surgery, and us. It helped us, talking to a stranger who didn’t make assumptions.’
‘Going back to the Wednesday after you’d stayed at Sally’s – Greg had been fishing you say, so what happened to the clothes he was wearing that night?’
She looked perplexed. ‘Like I said, he was in a good mood when I got home, and he’d bought me a lovely bouquet of chrysanthemums. I asked him what he’d managed to catch, and he said just the one trout…’
‘A bit strange, given he was out all night. Weren’t the fish jumping?’
‘That’s what I said,’ Maureen replied. ‘But his clothes… they were folded up on the counter in the kitchen. They were the same as I’d seen him in on Tuesday morning – an old jumper and a pair of jeans he keeps for fishing, and I said to him he’d better not stink out the house. That’s when he said he’d already washed them.’
‘Was that out of character for him?’
‘I suppose so, yes. I mean he’ll pop in a load every now and again but I usually do a wash on Wednesdays. I normally stick a load in before I leave for work.’
‘Where are his jeans and shirt right now? The ones you saw him wearing that Tuesday before he went fishing?’
‘In the bedroom drawers, I expect. He was wearing his other old clothes when he left earlier – he has two lots for fishing. Unless he’s put the shirt he wears underneath in the ironing cupboard. I don’t usually do the ironing until the second wash is done on Saturdays, you see, because he likes to go fishing on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. It means I can get all the blood and fish guts out of the material straight away. I mean, sometimes I have to use hydrogen peroxide but then I…’
Mark was already out the door and halfway up the stairs before she finished speaking.
Pulling protective gloves from his trouser pocket, he quickly found the master bedroom with a fitted wardrobe against the outer wall, then saw the chest of drawers behind the door.
He found Greg Fernsby’s old sweatshirt and jeans folded up in the bottom drawer, and tentatively held each to his nose.
There was a faint smell, underneath the distinct aroma of the same washing pods he and Lucy used, and when he looked closer he could see several thumb-sized stains on the hem of the sweatshirt.
It seemed that Greg Fernsby wasn’t as efficient at removing stains as his wife was.
Feet thundered up the stairs behind him, and Jan appeared holding an evidence bag.
‘Figured you’d need this,’ she said, shaking it open while he slipped the clothing inside. ‘And I’ve spoken to Kennedy. He authorised the paperwork for the search here ten minutes ago and for the arrest of Greg Fernsby – if we can find him. There was a patrol about a mile away from the reservoir when he got on to Force Control, and they’re on their way now.’
‘Okay, let’s go. We’ll get one of the uniform patrols to stay with Mrs Fernsby and take a formal statement from her while they’re waiting for Jasper’s lot to arrive. We need the house and garage searched.’
When Mark reached the doorstep, PC John Newton lowered his radio.
‘There’s been no one reported matching Mr Fernsby’s description or his car at the reservoir, Sarge. He must be at Shifford.’
‘Same as he said he was two weeks ago when he killed Sonya,’ Mark replied.
Jan tossed the car keys from hand to hand. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, Fernsby was definitely lying about night fishing there.’ Newton tucked his radio back in his vest. ‘It’s not allowed along that stretch of the Thames – I’ve just checked.’
‘Nice one, constable.’ Mark held up his phone so Jan could see the maps app while he found the location. ‘That explains how he knew about the lane going past Charney Bassett. It’s a direct route to his favourite fishing spot.’