Saslow picked up Detective Inspector David Vogel from his home, at Sea Mills on the M5 side of Bristol, at 6.15 a.m. It was still dark on a cold, wet, early-October morning. Pretty typical of the west of England, Vogel thought. He wasn't looking forward to being driven halfway across Somerset on what could quite probably not be a police matter at all.

Then there was the very slight awkwardness he sometimes felt nowadays with Saslow. The two officers had been working together since soon after Vogel transferred from the Met to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary's Major Crime Investigation Team. In the beginning Dawn Saslow, small, dark, and clever, had been a uniformed constable. Vogel quickly formed a high opinion of her, and had been instrumental in her promotion to MCIT. But things hadn't been quite the same between them since their last big case. And neither had Saslow, in Vogel's opinion. She remained an exceptional officer, but had, he thought, lost more than a little of her raw, almost schoolgirl-like enthusiasm for the job.

He settled into the passenger seat and turned towards the young DC.

'How are you feeling then, Dawn?' he asked.

Saslow's eyes were focused on the steering wheel. Vogel cursed himself as soon as he had spoken. Not so long ago he wouldn't have bothered to enquire after her welfare, and Saslow would know that.

'I meant, with such an early start,' he added quickly.

She answered equably enough.

'I'm fine, sir,' she said. 'Could have done with a couple of hours more kip.'

'Me too,' said Vogel, with feeling.

'You think this could turn out to be a wild goose chase, don't you, boss?' Saslow continued, as she eased her pool vehicle away from the kerb.

Londoner Vogel, a true city boy, did not hold a driving licence. Learning to drive had actually been a condition of his transfer to the Avon and Somerset from the Met. But somehow or other he'd still managed to avoid more than a couple of extremely unsatisfactory lessons.

'Something of the sort,' muttered Vogel.

'I thought so,' continued Saslow. 'I mean, I was a bit surprised to hear we'd been called out to a house fire. Even a major one.'

'No ordinary house, and no ordinary householder,' said Vogel.

He took off his thick-lensed spectacles and rubbed them inadequately against his sleeve.

'I assume you've heard of Sir John Fairbrother?'

'Vaguely, sir. One of the great and the good, isn't he?' Vogel chuckled wryly.

'One of the greatly rich, that's for sure,' said the DI. 'Chairman and CEO of Fairbrother International. His family still own Fairbrother's Bank, the second oldest private bank in the UK and the sixth oldest in the world. Sir John is in his early sixties now, but apparently has always continued to run the family business with a rod of iron. And he has a reputation for being something of a maverick. There's been a rumour that he's had to step back a bit in recent months because he hasn't been well. Unsubstantiated, though, and officially denied. But the city seemed to believe it. The shares in Fairbrother International keep dropping.'

'So how ill do we think he is, boss?' asked Saslow.

'Very ill indeed now, Saslow. In fact, it would seem that he's dead. I thought you knew that?'

'I knew two people were suspected of having died in this fire, but I wasn't told who they were, or even if they'd been identified,' responded Saslow.

'No, well, of course there's no question of them having been identified yet,' said Vogel. 'And, as we all know, in the case of a fire sometimes formal identification is never possible. But there's not much doubt that in this case the two casualties are Sir John and his Filipino nurse. It was the nurse who called 999, from inside the house, Blackdown Manor.'

He reached into a pocket for his notebook, and glanced at it before continuing.

'The call was logged at 1.31am this morning. The 999 operator reported that the woman, who gave her name as Sophia Santos, sounded anxious but in control. Her English was not perfect, but good enough not to be a problem.

'She indicated that she was with her employer, Sir John, in his bedroom, and that they had both smelt smoke. The operator asked if Sophia thought they could safely leave the house, and the nurse replied that Sir John was unwell, and that she believed it would be safer to stay in the bedroom which had a fire door. She also said she had spoken to someone called George, whom she described as Sir John's driver, and that he had said they should stay where they were and he would come to assist them. The operator had begun to ask other questions when Sophia apparently ended the call, in spite of the operator's request for her to stay on the line, saying that her employer needed her. Repeated attempts by the 999 operator to call her back failed.

'Then, at 2.05 a.m., Sophia called again. By then she was panicking. The operator tried to calm her down and told her that firefighters had arrived at Blackdown Manor, and she was sure they would soon get to her and her employer.

'The nurse then said they might be too late, and that the police were also needed because there were armed intruders on the property. "Bad men with guns", were her exact words apparently. The operator asked how she knew that, if she had seen these "bad men", and the nurse replied that she hadn't seen them, that George had told her. She also said she was afraid that these men intended to kill Sir John and her too. The operator asked if this George was now with her and Sir John, and she replied that he hadn't been able to get through yet, he too was afraid of the men with guns, and she'd only been able to talk to him on the phone. The operator then asked if she could speak to Sir John. The nurse replied that her employer's speech wasn't good, and he no longer used a phone.'

Vogel put his notebook down and turned towards Saslow.

'Apparently, this time the 999 operator managed to keep Sophia on the line for about four minutes, reassuring the nurse about the arrival of the emergency services and so on, until she heard a loud bang down the phone line and Sophia began to scream uncontrollably. The operator tried to calm her and find out what had happened, but Sophia just carried on screaming until the line went dead.'

Vogel closed his notebook and put it back in his pocket. For a moment there was silence in the car. Neither Saslow nor Vogel had any words.

Saslow spoke first. 'Jesus boss, seems like that 999 operator heard that poor woman dying.'

'Yes, I think she probably did, Saslow,' said Vogel quietly.

'That's just so terrible,' said Saslow. 'I wonder how often that happens, boss?'

'In the age we live in, where almost everyone has a mobile phone, I suspect it's not that unusual.'

'I wouldn't like that job, boss,' commented Saslow.

'No, at least we're not always totally helpless in the face of death and destruction, eh Saslow?'

Saslow glanced sideways at her senior officer. He did have a disconcerting turn of phrase at times. She decided to take him at face value and made no comment.

'And that was the last call from anyone in the house,' Vogel continued. 'As might be expected. All further attempts to regain contact failed.'

There was another short silence, interrupted again by Saslow.

'But I presume the reason we are on our way there is because of the armed intruders, not the fire.'

'Well, yes. That's the primary reason, at this stage. If there ever...