‘I am talking about the darkest place there is, which I inhabited all those years ago, and which Gillian Quinn was in and would have stayed in always until and unless released by Thomas’ death. Whatever nonsense Gillian told you and her son, she stayed with her monster of a husband for one reason and one reason only. She was afraid to leave him. Thomas told her that if he left her he would kill her. She could not leave him. That is why she stayed with him.
‘I killed Kurt for more or less the same reason. I knew that he would never let me go. That I would never be free of him. That wherever I fled he would find me. And yes, I knew that sooner or later he would kill me.
‘I killed Thomas Quinn for Gill, because as long as he was alive there could be no escape for her. And don’t tell me I should have asked for police help. Please. Only three point two per cent of reported cases of abuse against women currently result in prosecution. And domestic violence convictions have shrunk by twenty-three per cent in the past decade. I always thought things would get better, which is why I started Helen’s House, to do my bit to help. With, ironically enough, the relatively small amount of money my lawyer managed to extract from Kurt’s estate. But actually things have got worse.
‘So in recent years, I have occasionally taken the law into my own hands. Two years ago I killed the husband of Rebecca Jane Conway in Bude, Cornwall, for the same reason. He had some lovely habits. He used to make Becky strip naked and stand in the back yard for hours on end. If she attempted to move, or indeed could simply no longer stand and fell, he would beat her with a cane. She was the woman I told you about who, with a baby and a toddler, walked nearly ten miles get to us. Unfortunately her husband came for her. And she was too afraid ever to try to escape again.
‘So I took action. Not for the first time. Over the last seven years, in addition to Thomas Quinn, I have killed three monstrous men. Mark Conway, and two others who came to my notice. Marshall Morgan in Cardiff, who whenever his wife upset him, which was extremely easily done, locked her in a windowless outside shed, often overnight, usually without food and water. And Jerome Finch in Birmingham. He liked to make his wife crawl around the house on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush, and would kick her in the face if she missed a bit.
‘I killed these men because it was the only way to stop them. And because they didn’t deserve to live. And I have to tell you, Mr Vogel, I would do it all over again.’
Forty-Two
Vogel suspended the interview almost immediately. He asked Helen if she would remain in the interview room and left a uniform in charge of her.
He and Saslow were both stunned. But they had work to do.
He instructed Saslow to check out the cases of the three men Helen Harris claimed to have killed, in addition to Thomas Quinn and her husband Kurt St John.
The DS set to with gusto. It quickly became apparent that there were similarities between the three later murders. In each case the wife had been the prime suspect from the beginning, not least because of the history of abuse which became evident. But all three women seemed to have solid alibis, and no other definitive evidence revealed itself. In each instance the investigating officers had continued to believe that, in spite of the alibis, the wife was guilty, but had been unable to prove it. And in each instance the case had been held on file. Which presumably had been Helen Harris’ intention. Assuming she really had committed the crimes in question.
Saslow then studied the MO, the modus operandi, of the three murders, each of which were different, but similar in that they all occurred in the home of the victim when no one else was present in the house. Mark Conway was hit over the head from behind with a heavy object, probably, from the imprint left on his skull, a hammer. Marshall Morgan was stabbed in the heart with a heavy pointed implement which had entered at an angle suggesting that it might have been an ice pick. Jerome Finch’s throat had been cut, sliced from ear to ear with a large sharp knife, quite likely a kitchen knife not dissimilar to the one which had been used to kill Thomas Quinn. In each case, no murder weapon was ever found.
But clearly nobody in any of the police forces involved had looked outside their own investigation. The murder of Mark Conway would have been investigated by their own Devon and Cornwall Police, but had not attracted the attention of the current investigation, and neither she nor Vogel, both new to the D and C, had any previous knowledge of the Conway murder.
Saslow was disappointed that she and Vogel hadn’t picked up on it, but unsurprised that a broader view had not been taken on any of these murders. After all, they would all have been regarded as domestics. Albeit of the most serious kind. Nobody would have suspected any sort of serial killer.
Saslow then attempted to establish a specific link between the previous murders and Helen Harris. One such link was already known, and would be simple to check. Mark Conway’s wife had sought refuge at Helen’s House and had stayed there on at least one occasion.
Saslow called Sadie Pearson and asked her to check the House records on the other two. The DS had already learned that careful records were kept of all who turned to Helen’s House for help and were retained for years for future reference. Helen, in particular, liked to keep in touch, whenever she could safely do so, with any victims of domestic violence known to the House.
Sadie did not seem surprised to hear from her, leading Saslow to suspect that the other woman knew a lot more about her partner’s alleged activities than she was, at this stage anyway, letting on.
Sadie quickly confirmed that the wives of both Jerome Finch and Marshall Morgan had also sought refuge at the House, but had ultimately been coerced into returning to their abusive husbands.
Everything seemed to back up Helen’s story. And what possible motive could she have for lying, particularly in the case of the murders of Conway, Morgan, and Finch? Her account of the killing of her husband, and the way in which she had so meticulously planned it, surely also had to be true. Therefore, Helen had indeed revealed herself to be more than capable of premeditated murder. There was therefore little reason to doubt that she had done the same thing again, and in cold blood killed Thomas Quinn, knowing that she herself could give his abused wife an alibi. Which was something of a double whammy.
Saslow now had few doubts. Helen Harris was a serial killer. Of a very particular kind.
She was a victim turned vigilante.
Meanwhile Vogel, who still didn’t know quite what to make of it all, called both his deputy SIO, Janet Peters, and his immediate superior Detective Superintendent Nobby Clarke, to keep them abreast of the latest extraordinary development.
Then he called Gill Quinn.
‘Are you going to tell me that you have dropped the charge against my son and are coming to arrest me?’ she asked immediately.
Vogel wasn’t sure whether or not she was being serious. So he ignored the remark, instead asking Gill about her and Thomas’ early life. Some of the logistics Helen had chronicled, particularly concerning the start of the relationship between Thomas Quinn and the St Johns, didn’t seem to quite add up. But Gill was quickly able to confirm that Thomas had spent his summers working in North Devon from his mid-teens and was even willing to elaborate somewhat.
‘He had a mate in North Devon whose father ran a golf club and had a stake in a caravan park,’ Gill related. ‘Thomas always said that was where our future lay. As soon as I got pregnant he insisted that we got married, but he agreed that I should stay living with my parents in Plymouth until I’d finished my teacher training, because he knew how much it meant to me. He was like that in those days. Once I’d qualified he whisked me off to Bideford. I thought it was very romantic at the time. Little did I know...’