‘You surely don’t mean Constable Wickes?’ countered Saslow.
‘I certainly do. Well, it seems he prefers me to you after all. He gave me a lift.’
Saslow grinned. The grimness of the moment had been just very slightly alleviated. Vogel managed almost a smile back. It continued to surprise him how much more comfortable he felt with Dawn around. Particularly if there was any sort of tricky situation involving women.
In such circumstances Saslow was his obvious first choice, but he preferred to have any female officer in attendance. He knew that was an old-fashioned sort of view, and would probably be regarded as a kind of inverted sexism. He couldn’t help how he felt. How he was. He believed absolutely that Dawn was far better equipped to deal with a severely traumatized woman than he was. And he was also self-aware enough to realize that his gender might be only a part of the reason for that.
Vogel was not a man who found other people’s emotions easy to deal with at the best of times. When the other person was a traumatized wreck following the violent death of her husband, and in addition was almost certainly going to be the primary suspect in his death, Vogel’s instinct was to pull back in favour of others whom he considered to be better qualified.
The paramedics, a tall woman and a much shorter man, carried on into the kitchen. Vogel and Saslow, wearing coveralls clearly at least two sizes too big for her, followed.
Saslow’s quick eyes took in the scene before her at once. A small, feisty, athletic and very modern young woman, she was the antithesis of Vogel in almost every way. Nobody could ever accuse Vogel of being modern, except in his IT ability perhaps. He was tall and studious looking, with a manner often rather more reminiscent of a clergyman than a policeman, and he towered above Saslow in spite of his very slight stoop. They were still regarded by some fellow officers as something of an odd couple, but the pair had made a good team from the start.
Saslow was masked, of course. However, the DCI knew, that even without a mask, if the sight of the dead man on the floor was causing Dawn Saslow any distress, it would not show in her face. She wouldn’t allow it.
He gestured for her to step back again into the hallway.
‘The woman in there is in total shock,’ he explained, now absolutely serious. ‘I’m going to need your help with her, maybe not this evening, but at some stage. As you know we are working on the assumption that she is Mrs Gillian Quinn and that the dead man is her husband Thomas. Have you managed to find out anything about the family?’
‘Yes, boss. Thomas Quinn, forty-three years old, a successful businessman and a former town councillor. Something of a pillar of the local community, it seems...’
Oh, he just would be, wouldn’t he, thought Vogel.
The DCI felt his heart sinking. There was something about pillars of the community which always seemed to make any sort of police investigation more difficult. Particularly a murder investigation. People’s standing in any community, regional or national, made no difference at all to David Vogel when he was conducting an investigation. But he had come to learn that was not necessarily always so with those he had to deal with in the pursuit of any such inquiry.
‘He’s had a finger in a lot of pies over the years, seems to have made his money originally out of the tourist industry, a theme park just outside the town, holiday chalets, a hotel, that sort of thing,’ Saslow continued. ‘Recently he’s moved with the times. Has an internet trading and delivery company, buying and selling internationally. Not sure of the details, but the word is that business boomed during lockdown, and he made a lot of money.’
‘All right for some,’ muttered Vogel.
Although he realized it was illogical, he had an aversion towards anyone whose finances had ballooned thanks to the pandemic which had destroyed so many lives.
‘What about the wife?’ he continued.
‘Gillian Quinn, known to almost everyone as Gill, is a primary school teacher,’ said Saslow. ‘She reported her husband’s death without explanation when she called emergency services. The operator pushed her, and asked if she thought her husband had died of natural causes, but apparently Mrs Quinn just replied...’
Saslow consulted her notebook.
‘“You’d better send somebody quickly.” Then she hung up, and didn’t answer call-backs. The operator said she sounded totally calm, though.’
‘Really,’ Vogel remarked. ‘Well, she certainly isn’t calm now, that’s for sure. It’s like her brain and her body have very nearly ceased to function.’
He glanced back into the kitchen. The paramedics had succeeded in coaxing Gill Quinn to her feet with barely any fuss at all, which Vogel reckoned was a considerable tribute to their skill and professionalism. He and Saslow stood to one side as they led Gill into the hall. He was mildly surprised the woman could walk. But she seemed able to do so well enough, whilst still in an apparently trance-like condition.
Vogel asked the paramedics what their plan was.
‘We’ll have to take her straight to the NDDH,’ replied the tall woman. ‘No choice. She’s in extreme shock.’
That was the North Devon District Hospital at Barnstaple. Vogel didn’t argue. It was, in any case, quite clear that Gill Quinn was in no condition to be interviewed. He merely pointed out that he would need to send an officer with Gill, which the paramedics accepted without comment.
At least the CSIs could now begin their examination of the rest of the kitchen. But they would have to wait until the arrival of the district Home Office pathologist — who was based in Exeter, an hour-and-a-half drive’s away — before touching the body.
Mrs Quinn looked neither to the left or right as she stumbled her way out of the house, supported on either side by a paramedic, eyes staring straight ahead. There was a wildness in them which Vogel, following closely, found most disturbing.
Shock came in all shapes and sizes, he knew well enough, and often displayed itself in all of those affected by violent crime, not just the victims and perpetrators, but also witnesses.
Nonetheless, every shred of evidence, albeit mostly circumstantial, that had so far been gleaned, pointed directly towards Gill Quinn. The DCI lived and worked by the mantra of opportunity, motive, and intent. It had served him well over the years. It seemed clear that Mrs Quinn would have had opportunity. He did not know yet whether she’d also had motive and intent, but if she had the former, he’d doubtless find out soon enough. The latter sometimes took a little longer to reveal itself.
The paramedics began to help the traumatized woman into the waiting ambulance.
Vogel looked around for the two officers he had posted on sentry duty, protecting the crime scene. Morag Docherty was standing just outside the front door.
‘PC Docherty, get in that ambulance,’ he commanded. ‘I want you to stick to Gill Quinn like glue, and you’re to bring her to me for questioning as soon as the medics allow. Have you got that?’
Two
London, 1997
Lilian St John climbed awkwardly into the waiting taxi, half tripping over the crutches which were supposed to support her. The driver turned in his seat and glanced at her enquiringly. She realized she still had no clear idea where she was going.
She held on tightly to the plastic bag which contained the bloodstained clothes she had been wearing the night it happened, and the few possessions they had collected for her from the place that had once been her home. Allegedly her home.
These included her mobile phone and her credit cards. At least she still had those.
‘Take me to the Dorchester,’ she instructed the driver rather grandly. Or it could have been grand, she thought, if she didn’t look so awful. Her face still bore the scars and bruises of the beating she had received. She had earlier spilled her final cup of hospital tea down the front of her white cotton shirt, crumpled from being stuffed into the locker by her bed, and totally inadequate for the unseasonably cool late-spring afternoon. And her once stylish navy-blue trousers had been slit up the seam of one leg to accommodate the lump of already grubby plaster encasing her left ankle.