She had a bath, climbing in with difficulty and dangling her plaster-cast leg over the edge. The warm water felt good, but the bath would have helped much more if she had not been so aware that she was using toiletries he had also used.
Three
Vogel watched as Morag Docherty hopped nimbly into the ambulance. As the doors closed he caught a final glimpse of Gill Quinn, lying on a stretcher. He could not see her face, but he doubted it would give much away.
Soon, possibly later that night, if not the next day, he would be formally interviewing Gill. His feelings, as ever, were mixed. He didn’t know what had happened inside 11 St Anne’s Avenue, of course, but if he had to hazard a guess at this stage, it would be that the death of Thomas Quinn was yet another domestic tragedy, born primarily of a deeply tormented marriage, one of a long list of such personal tragedies that he had encountered in his career.
The ambulance pulled away, coasting down the short driveway to the main drag, its siren breaking the silence which had previously, and somewhat eerily, engulfed number eleven.
Vogel glanced back at the house. It was a place that smacked of money; Vogel suspected his mother would have called it ‘new money’, a large and well-kept property, probably just pre-war, with one or two features, like a porticoed entrance and diamond-mullioned windows, which were probably supposed to add grandeur, although Vogel thought they were out of place and a tad vulgar.
Aware of another vehicle approaching, he turned to see a black Mini Cooper with tinted windows roar up the driveway and into the parking place the ambulance had just vacated. A blast of heavy metal momentarily filled the cooling evening air as the driver’s door swung open.
Out stepped a young woman, also cloaked in black. A black leather jacket with shiny epaulettes, black leggings, and black Doc Martens. Her hair was a tawny mane. Her lips a blaze of orange. Her spectacles orange-framed and vaguely tinted.
Vogel was momentarily perplexed. Perhaps this was a Quinn family member or friend, who may or may not yet know of the fate which had befallen Thomas Quinn. But PC Lake, who he knew to be on sentry duty down at the gate, had apparently allowed the driver of the Mini to proceed right up to the crime scene unhindered. Perhaps she was a member of the local team who Vogel had yet to meet. One of the emerging breed of sassy young detectives of varying gender that every force in the country seemed to be bringing on.
The young woman carelessly slammed the car door shut behind her and, carrying a large black doctor’s bag, strode towards Vogel, every movement fluid and radiating confidence.
It dawned on him then. This must be the new pathologist.
Ever since moving west from his native London, Vogel had worked only with Dr Karen Crow, one of the most experienced Home Office pathologists in the country. Indeed, many years previously, she had been the first woman in the UK to be appointed to the job. Karen Crow smoked a lot — which Vogel hated — swore a lot, and had talked down to him most of the time. But he had grown used to her, and respected her as a leader in her field who was only very rarely wrong about anything.
He knew, however, that Karen Crow — unmarried, not overly attractive, rarely inclined to attempt to charm, predictably assumed by most of her colleagues to be gay — had recently taken early retirement and gone to live in Brazil with a man. Her younger and allegedly very handsome South American lover. A football coach.
This had, of course, become the stuff of much joyful gossip in police and medical circles throughout Devon and Somerset, which, Vogel had to admit, he had enjoyed as much as anyone.
However, as he watched the redoubtable Dr Crow’s successor approach, Vogel feared he may yet regret her departure even more than he had thought he might.
‘DCI Vogel? queried the young woman, flashing an easy smile.
Vogel nodded. He had been aware that a successor to Dr Crow had been appointed. And he’d known it was another woman. But that was all he’d known. He waited.
‘Daisy Dobbs, pathology,’ she announced unceremoniously, thrusting an outstretched hand in Vogel’s direction.
Vogel did not take it. After such a long period of Covid restrictions he still wasn’t entirely comfortable shaking hands. In explanation he gestured towards his own gloved hands.
‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Dobbs,’ he murmured.
‘It’s Professor, only call me Daisy, for God’s sake,’ she replied.
Vogel found himself blinking rapidly behind his thick rimmed spectacles, a mannerism quite beyond his control inclined to overcome him whenever events took a turn with which he was in some way uncomfortable. He silently cursed himself. This was his crime scene. He had already been appointed senior investigating officer. He was in charge. He had nothing to feel uncomfortable about. But he did feel uncomfortable. And it was just so annoying.
Daisy Dobbs looked about fifteen to him. How on earth could she be a professor? Which kindergarten had she qualified at? He realized he really shouldn’t think like this, but the truth was that Vogel was somewhat afraid of youth. He knew he wasn’t sexist or racist, and he tried very hard not to be classist, not to fall into the trap of so many otherwise highly laudable police officers who were inclined to slot criminal behaviour into the various boxes of British class society.
However, the older he got and the greater seniority he achieved, the less he seemed able to stop himself being ageist. Or perhaps it was youthist?
He just did not see how the teenager standing before him, looking more like a rock singer or a reality show contestant than a professor of medicine, could possibly have the knowledge and ability to even approach the achievements of her predecessor.
He waited while she swiftly kitted up in PPE, then followed her into the house. He hadn’t really taken much notice of the interior before. The kitchen was slick and ultra-modern. Everything seemed to be white or stainless steel, including the floor tiles, against which the deep red of the dead man’s blood stood out with a disturbing intensity. Vogel shivered slightly.
A bottle of whisky and just one glass, half filled, stood on the kitchen table. So only one person had been drinking. Vogel wondered if that was significant.
Daisy Dobbs immediately crouched by the body and made what appeared to be a preliminary examination of the dead man in the position in which he had been found.
Then she asked a CSI to help her turn him over.
It was immediately clear that Vogel’s initial assumption that Thomas Quinn had been stabbed to death was almost certainly correct. And the murder weapon’s points of entry were fairly clear, even though the victim remained fully clothed, in jeans and a shirt which looked as if it had once been a crisp pale blue. There appeared to be a number of stab wounds, indicated by damage to the clothing and a deeper blood stainage, all in the area of the dead man’s chest. Except one. Thomas Quinn had also been stabbed in the middle of his throat.
Vogel found that especially disturbing. In his long and varied experience he had never before seen such a thing. He thought that it must take a particular kind of human being, or maybe just someone in a particularly extreme emotional state, to be able to stab another human being directly in the throat. Presumably whilst facing him.