Thomas Quinn’s face was set in a silent scream. The lips pulled back over the teeth in a ghastly grin. The eyes wide open.
It was altogether a sight almost bound to trigger in Vogel the involuntary reaction he had so far managed to keep at bay on this occasion.
He felt the familiar rise of bile within his digestive system. He had as yet avoided throughout his career actually being sick over a crime scene. But more than once he had been obliged to move swiftly away as a matter of urgency in order to find somewhere he could empty the contents of his stomach without damaging the investigation he was working on.
Nausea when faced with the consequences of violence continued to plague him. Nowadays he could usually control it. But not always. He was determined that he would do so this time, and averted his gaze from the corpse on the floor to glance at Saslow.
She was standing alongside the crouching pathologist, bending over the body. As close as any detective should get, even with a suit on. Dawn did not share Vogel’s physical sensitivities in such matters, that was for sure.
But then, the young DS was a tough cookie who, in her short career, had already survived a degree of physical and psychological pressure far beyond the call of duty.
Daisy Dobbs continued to examine the corpse, and had opened the dead man’s shirt revealing the expected patchwork of deep stab wounds. She worked in silence. Vogel was grateful for that. If he did not have to enter into conversation then he could concentrate all his efforts on controlling his wayward digestive system.
After a few minutes the pathologist stood up and turned to face Vogel.
‘Well, not much doubt about this one,’ she remarked. ‘Death by multiple stab wounds, almost certainly. I’ve counted eleven, all in the torso and throat. Almost certainly inflicted by a long straight knife.’
She paused, looking around.
‘I don’t see any sign of a murder weapon nearby,’ she said. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Not yet,’ said Vogel.
He immediately considered a common scenario, particularly in the case of a murder that might be regarded as a domestic.
‘Could it be a standard carving knife?’ he asked.
‘Quite possibly,’ Daisy replied. ‘Look, I’ll conduct a full examination when we get him back to the morgue, and I should be able to give you a more accurate assessment of the kind of knife that was used. But I don’t think you’re going to need or get a great deal more help from me on this one. The cause of death could not be much clearer, and the victim certainly didn’t inflict those wounds on himself.’
Vogel nodded. Daisy Dobbs had been swift, sharp and sensible. And no doubt accurate in her assessment. But she was right, pathology was unlikely to prove to be of much assistance in this case. He would like to see how the young doctor coped with a more challenging, and less obvious, set of circumstances.
‘Time of death?’ he queried.
‘Well, rigor mortis has set in but is far from complete,’ Daisy replied. ‘So he definitely died today, probably this afternoon, and I would guess from the degree of rigor that it is highly unlikely that death occurred less than four hours or so ago.’
‘Can you be any more precise than that?’ asked Vogel.
‘I may be able to after I’ve got him back to the morgue,’ said Daisy. ‘We’ll do a rectal temperature check and so on. I’ll let you know.’
The pathologist’s answer was only what Vogel had expected. He would have to wait. Meanwhile he considered the significance of the information she had already given. He knew that Gill Quinn’s emergency call had been logged at six forty-one p.m. He glanced at his watch. Precisely two hours and two minutes earlier.
So if Mrs Quinn had killed her husband, then presumably she had remained with his dead body during the period after his death, before making the 999 call reporting it. That would have been at least two hours, if Daisy Dodd’s initial time of death assessment was correct, which might appear at first sight to be somewhat strange behaviour. But on the other hand, perhaps the woman had been debating whether to report the crime or not, or whether perhaps to flee the scene. She may also have been attempting to conceal evidence which might incriminate her. However, if that were the case, she certainly hadn’t made a very good job of it.
Or perhaps she had been reduced to such a state of shock by the enormity of what she had done that she had been rendered incapable of doing anything to help herself. Or of contacting anyone who might help her.
Gill Quinn had seemed to be in that sort of state to Vogel, for sure, when he’d first encountered her squatting on the kitchen floor. But there seemed little doubt that she had eventually made the 999 call, and he would expect voice-match software to confirm that. And, there was no sign of the murder weapon so far. So perhaps she had contrived to hide that.
There was a wooden block on the worktop which contained a number of knives, three of which were not in their slots. Vogel glanced towards the dishwasher. He had seen that trick before.
He asked a CSI to open it, which the man did, slowly and with care, but eventually pulling the door wide open. The contents were clearly clean. And there were at least two large knives visible.
‘Any idea when the machine may have been last used?’ Vogel asked.
‘Well, it isn’t warm, so not within the last couple of hours,’ the CSI replied. ‘But probably today judging from the amount of water about. Can’t go beyond that.’
Vogel thanked him, and considered asking for an electrical engineer to be called in just in case it was possible to get a more accurate estimate, but he wasn’t optimistic.
If one of the knives inside the dishwasher was the murder weapon and it had gone through a complete cleaning cycle, then there would be little or no chance of obtaining any forensic evidence from it. But would Gill Quinn really have had the presence of mind to do that?
Vogel reflected briefly on the possibility that a third party had murdered Thomas Quinn. If so, had Gill Quinn been present, and was she therefore aware of who had committed the terrible crime, or even complicit with them, or had she merely arrived home to find the corpse? So far, Vogel and his team knew nothing of the woman’s movements that day. But they would find out, that was for sure.
Daisy Dobbs packed up her bag and left. Her job completed for the moment. The CSIs continued their work, painstakingly combing every inch of the property, particularly in the vicinity of the dead man, and bagging up all possible evidence. Everything would be loaded into their vehicles and taken away for further examination. A mobile phone had been found in the dead man’s pocket, presumably his. Mrs Quinn had not had a phone on her person, and so far no other mobile phone had been found on the premises. The search for any further mobiles would continue. They were invariably a vital part of any investigation.
A CSI walked past the open kitchen door carrying a laptop and an iPad. In the world of modern forensic investigation, IT evidence invariably proved to be every bit as important as a post-mortem and other medical examinations.
Vogel had seen enough. He couldn’t wait to interview Gill Quinn. But he hoped to have considerably more information about her, and her recent movements, before doing so. The wider investigation was already beginning, including door-to-door enquiries. Relatives, friends and colleagues were being contacted.
‘C’mon, Saslow,’ began Vogel. ‘Let’s get back to the incident room and see what else we’ve got—’
He was interrupted by an excited looking Phil Lake.
‘Boss, I’ve just been talking to one of the neighbours, Mavis Tanner. Lives opposite. She came by to see what was going on. I stopped her coming up to the house, obviously, but, well, I know we’ll be knocking on doors soon, only I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a chat...’