However this was an investigation into a murder, and Vogel had no choice but to follow the correct procedure, whatever his private thoughts on the matter.
He told Gill he would be with her in a moment, then took Phil Lake to one side.
‘Where’s Docherty?’ he asked.
‘I was about to say, boss,’ responded Lake. ‘She just called in. Apparently she fell asleep on the couch in Greg Quinn’s sitting room. When she woke up she stuck her head into the bedroom to check on Gill and discovered that she was gone. Must have snuck out, Docherty said. She’s on her way in, and she says to tell you she’s very sorry, boss.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Vogel again. ‘I don’t expect my officers to do entirely without sleep. I’m glad Gill hasn’t gone missing, though. Right Lake, you’re with me. We need to set up a formal chat straight away. I presume there’s an interview room free at this ungodly hour?’
Lake agreed that there was, and led the way, with Vogel escorting Gill Quinn in silence, apart from reminding her that she had the right to have a solicitor present if she wished. She declined. Like most coppers Vogel usually welcomed that. On this occasion he would have preferred his interviewee to have legal advice, in the hope that this might help her reconsider her position before too much time was wasted.
‘So, how can I help you this morning, Gill?’ he began noncommittedly, once the preliminaries had been completed.
‘I’ve already said, several times,’ responded Gill a tad impatiently. ‘I want to confess to Thomas’ murder. I did it. It was me.’
‘I see. And yet you appear to have a watertight alibi, provided by the staff and residents of Helen’s House, covering the period of time when your husband was killed, do you not?’
‘I told that PC Docherty, they were mistaken. They didn’t realize I went out, left the House. For more than three hours in the afternoon. I had plenty of time to go back to my place and... and stab Thomas to death.’
‘Right. Perhaps you would like to explain why you have decided to tell us this now, Gill?’
‘You know why. You’ve charged my Greg with his father’s murder.’
‘Indeed. You’ve come forward to protect him, to try to stop him standing trial, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I have. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do it. I did kill Thomas. And I think Greg is trying to protect me.’
‘Gill, Greg isn’t admitting that he murdered his father,’ said Vogel, as gently as possible. ‘In fact I understand he will be pleading not guilty at his first hearing later today. We have charged him because we have built what we feel is an irrefutable case against him. We have gathered a dossier of quite damning evidence, including substantive forensic data.’
‘Yes, well. He’s a clever boy, my Greg. Cleverer than you might think. He’s probably arranged it all. I’m telling you. I killed Thomas. I thought he was going to attack me again. I picked up the nearest knife and stabbed him over and over, until I was sure he was dead. You found me by his body. I was covered in his blood. I’d have thought it was obvious.’
‘OK, let’s say I believe you, Gill. Can you tell me what you did with the knife that you used? We have yet to find the murder weapon.’
‘I uh, I put it in the dishwasher and switched it on, in order to destroy any forensic evidence. Your murder weapon was in the dishwasher. Squeaky clean. Maybe still is.’
Vogel made a mental note not to underestimate Gill Quinn. She was a very different woman now to the one in a state of deep shock who he had first encountered. Or certainly, she seemed to be. He wondered if she’d come up with that one on her own, or if perhaps she’d seen it in a TV drama or maybe read of a similar instance in a newspaper report of another real-life crime.
‘We found your son’s DNA on your husband’s body, containing traces of Thomas’ blood, which is definitively incriminating,’ the DCI continued.
‘I should think you found plenty of mine too,’ Gill Quinn persisted. ‘If there was any of Greg’s DNA on Thomas, then he must have gone to the house after I killed the bastard. But he’s not told you any of that because he guessed straight away that I’d killed Thomas. I mean who else could it be, for God’s sake? And he wanted to protect me.’
‘Gill, we know you were at the House in the early evening on Saturday, and that you were given a lift home to St Anne’s Avenue. Do you expect me to believe that you went back there covered in blood, as you were, and nobody noticed?’
‘No, of course not. I took the bloodstained clothes off.’
‘And then you put them back on when you returned home?’
‘Y-yes. Umm, well. Well, there was just something that made me think Greg may have been to our place. I can’t explain. And then, when I saw again what I’d done. When I saw Thomas lying there. Well... I was so shocked I didn’t know what I was doing...’
The woman was beginning to gabble. Vogel continued to question her for a while longer, and the answers she gave continued to be confusing, to say the least. He was confident that Gill was lying through her teeth, however he could not entirely dismiss her story. But neither did he consider it necessary to detain Gill Quinn.
‘How did you get here from Westward Ho! this morning?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I called a taxi,’ she replied.
‘But I thought you didn’t have any money?’
‘That was two days ago. My son is a builder. There’s always plenty of cash lying around at his place.’
Vogel reckoned that was sure to be the truth.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think PC Docherty should be here by now. I’ll get her to run you back to Kipling Terrace. Unless, of course, there’s anywhere else you’d like to be taken to?’
‘You mean you’re letting me go?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I’ve just told you I killed my husband. Why aren’t you arresting me? You should be arresting me. Don’t you believe me?’
‘I don’t feel I have sufficient grounds to arrest you, but I haven’t said I don’t believe you, and our enquiries will continue,’ Vogel explained patiently.
Docherty had arrived, and duly came to the interview room to collect Gill, who continued to express her desire to be arrested, but allowed herself to be escorted from the building and into Docherty’s car without too much trouble.
Vogel was as confident as he possibly could be that his judgement was correct, and that Gill Quinn’s confession was false. But Gill was clearly a much trickier customer than he had originally thought her to be. And maybe her son was too. Perhaps she was executing some complex kind of double bluff? Perhaps mother and son were in on this together? Perhaps their joint plan was to lay a series of false trails and create a smokescreen in order to blindside Vogel’s investigation?
And if that was so, Vogel’s job was to ensure that they did not succeed.
He was just considering his next move when he was informed that Wayne Williams had arrived at the front office and was desperate to see him. That he wanted to amend his statement.
First Gill, now Williams. Vogel wondered what on earth this might mean. Again he asked Perkins to arrange an interview room. Williams looked even more anxious than he had the previous day.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t told you the truth,’ he blurted out as soon as Perkins had completed the preliminaries. ‘I’ve been worrying ever since yesterday. I’m a law-abiding man, really I am, chief inspector, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, I’ve been getting myself in such a state. I was afraid I might have been seen, and there’s CCTV all over the place, isn’t there, and if you found out I didn’t know what might happen...’
‘All right, Mr Williams, just calm down, and tell me the truth now,’ said Vogel, in his most reassuring voice.