The Danger Within

Fifteen

Vogel was still struggling to get his blinking under control. He was stunned. Of course, he had assumed that a call from Helen Harris meant there was at least some history of domestic violence in the Quinn household. He supposed he had been rather hoping that he might be provided with information which would build the evolving case against Gill Quinn, and possibly help bring his investigation to a swift and irrevocable conclusion. The last thing he had expected was what appeared to be a cast-iron alibi. And from such a reputable source.

‘Are you absolutely sure of that, Miss Harris?’ interjected Saslow.

Vogel rather wished she hadn’t asked that question. Not of this woman. He turned to look at Helen Harris again. The line of her lips had tightened.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe I entirely understand the question,’ Helen replied. ‘Are you suggesting I might have made a mistake? That Gill Quinn wasn’t here yesterday? That maybe I have the wrong day? Or even, perhaps, the wrong woman?’

‘Uh, no, of course not, I mean...’

‘Well then, what is the alternative? Do you think I have lied to you, detective sergeant? Do you think I am giving Gill a false alibi?’

‘I don’t... I mean... I’m not suggesting anything like that... we just need to confirm...’

Saslow was stumbling over her words. She sounded more than a little flustered. Which was unlike her. But it served her right, thought Vogel. She had spoken without thought. And Helen Harris had proceeded to make mincemeat of her.

He stepped in.

‘I think DS Saslow merely wants to confirm that you could be absolutely sure that Gill did not leave the House at all during the course of yesterday,’ he said. ‘Is it not possible that she could have slipped out without anyone here realizing?’

‘Slipped out to murder her husband, do you mean, Mr Vogel?’ asked Helen.

Vogel noticed what was little more than a twitch, but might have been just the merest flicker of a smile, on either side of her mouth.

Vogel had instinctively liked the woman the first time he met her, and probably still did. He also had considerable respect for her. That didn’t mean he was going to allow her to manipulate, or even to attempt to take charge of, his investigation. Vogel would never let anyone do that.

‘Would you please answer my question?’ he asked curtly.

The flickering smile, if it had really been there at all, evaporated.

‘Of course, chief inspector,’ she answered briskly. ‘Absolutely no way at all. This is a busy house, full of people. There is only one way in and out. Nobody leaves or enters here without being noticed. In any case, if you really are suggesting that Gill returned home, with or without intent to harm her husband, she had no means of getting there. Not quickly, anyway. It’s two bus rides away. And she didn’t have any money on her. She left home in a big hurry yesterday morning, you see. So often the way.’

‘But Miss Harris, Gill Quinn had a car,’ commented Vogel. ‘It’s currently being checked by our forensic people. Why didn’t she drive here?’

‘Violence comes in many forms. With Thomas Quinn it primarily took the form of total control. Gill could only use her car when he allowed her to, mostly just to drive to and from work, and occasionally to go shopping. The rest of the time he kept the car keys from her.’

‘Would it really have been out of the question for her to take buses home? What about a bus pass?’

‘Completely out of the question in every way. I told you, she left home in a panic, without any credit cards, or anything of that kind, certainly not a bus pass even if she has one, which I doubt. I don’t know this for certain, but I always assumed that Thomas kept possession of her money, and it’s quite possible that she doesn’t even have any credit cards in her own name. If she does, he would have controlled her use of them.’

‘How did she get to you yesterday morning, then?’

‘She walked, Mr Vogel.’

Vogel thought for a moment. St Anne’s Avenue was nearly three miles from the centre of Bideford. The House was at the top of the town, almost a mile or so further up a steep hill.

‘That’s a fair walk, and not a particularly easy one,’ he commented.

‘Desperation, Mr Vogel.’

Vogel stared at her. He didn’t like what he was hearing. He was by nature a kind man. Cruelty upset him. And it made him feel inadequate. He was a policeman. Perhaps a rather old-fashioned policeman. He supposed he had become one in order to do his bit to put the world to rights. It would always be his most abiding regret that he was so rarely able to do so.

‘Oh yes, Mr Vogel,’ Helen continued. ‘Fear and desperation. Aspects of the human condition we are all too familiar with here. That is what we deal with on a daily basis here. A while back we had a woman turn up, with two little ones, who had fled her home down in Cornwall. She had nowhere else to go, and she’d heard of us and believed we would protect her. She had just enough money to buy train tickets to Barnstaple. Then she walked the rest of the way, with her baby strapped to her back, pushing her toddler in his buggy. That’s more than twelve miles, Mr Vogel, and it took her nearly five hours.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.’

‘Maybe I need to, Miss Harris,’ said Vogel quietly. ‘I certainly believe you have a lot more to tell me. You haven’t said exactly why Gill came here yesterday morning, what actually caused her to flee her home and walk four miles to what she presumably considered to be safety?’

‘Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? Thomas attacked her. Not for the first time. The man specialized in all manner of tortures, Mr Vogel.’

‘Gill was taken to hospital last night and kept in until early this morning,’ said Vogel. ‘She was thoroughly checked out. The medics found signs of old yellowing bruising around her ribs. But that was all. She said she received them when she had to do an emergency stop in her car.’

‘And you accepted that, did you? Don’t most motor cars have air bags which protect people riding in a front seat in such circumstances.’

‘Gill drives a classic car. An MG. No air bags. Didn’t you know that?’

‘I have little interest in cars.’

‘Well, in any case, the medics found no sign of any new injuries. What did Thomas Quinn allegedly do to her?’

‘There’s no allegedly about it, Mr Vogel,’ said Helen caustically. ‘Did anyone look behind her ears?’

‘Behind her ears? I don’t know. We certainly didn’t at the station. And nobody mentioned anything at the hospital...’

Vogel was stunned. What was Helen Harris talking about? His imagination was beginning to take over. And the direction in which it was taking him was making him feel even more ill at ease.

‘Medical professionals dealing with abuse should be aware of this kind of thing,’ Harris continued. ‘But I suppose that wasn’t why Gill was hospitalized, was it?’

‘No. It was because she appeared to be in deep shock that she was taken to the NDDH. Which, like all hospitals, is still suffering from the aftermath of the big Covid surge this last winter. It is possible that the physical examination was not as thorough as perhaps it should have been. That they just checked for obvious signs of injury.’

Helen Harris reached for her phone.

‘I always take photographs,’ she said. ‘Women like Gill often go to considerable lengths to prevent their injuries being seen, by their friends and families as well as by strangers, and are most unlikely to tell a doctor, or a nurse, or a police officer, about what has happened to them unless they have absolutely no choice. Here they feel safe and shielded, partly because we pledge confidentiality. I would not be breaking that confidentiality except in the most extreme circumstances. And even then, and you may not approve of this, Mr Vogel, I quite probably would not do so if we weren’t coincidentally able to provide Gill with an alibi.’

Helen tapped the screen of her phone a few times, then passed it to Vogel.

‘These were taken yesterday, in case you’re wondering,’ she said. ‘Soon after Gill arrived here.’

A series of photos appeared showing a woman, almost certainly Gill Quinn, although taken from behind, holding up her hair to reveal the backs of her ears. Behind each ear there were a number of old scars, and other small wounds in the process of healing. Also behind each ear there was one obviously new wound, raw and weeping. It seemed clear to Vogel that these were burns, old and new. And he was pretty sure they would have been inflicted by a lit cigarette.

The DCI was shocked. Silently he handed the phone to Saslow. The young DS made a small noise. It was a sharp intake of breath.

She too did not speak.

Vogel handed the phone back to Helen Harris.

‘Systematic, calculated, and viciously cruel abuse, Mr Vogel,’ she said, as she took the phone. ‘That is what Gill Quinn has suffered at the hands of her husband for years. That is what we deal with here over and over again. Most people still have a very old-fashioned idea of domestic abuse. Like a husband coming home from the pub drunk and beating up his wife. The modern truth is far more sophisticated, and in my opinion often considerably worse than that. It’s not entirely inflicted by men either. We had an elderly man here once who had endured years of abuse from his wife. He was frightened and emaciated. Every so often she would put a diuretic in his food. He barely dared to eat.

‘Thomas Quinn was a sophisticated man. His physical attacks on his wife constituted merely the tip of the iceberg of his abuse.’

‘That may be so, Miss Harris,’ responded Vogel. ‘But I’ve been more than twenty years a copper and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.’

He waved a hand at Helen Harris’ phone.

‘Indeed, Mr Vogel. And that is the whole point. You’re not supposed to see it. The perpetrator makes sure of that. And the victims are all too often complicit in that. Some will even accept quite vicious injuries, like the burns Gill has suffered, in a place that is not readily visible, as long as their faces are not damaged.’

Vogel shook his head.

‘I know that’s true, but I must admit it does puzzle me a bit. There’s so much more help available nowadays than there used to be, surely. People like you, and the police attitude to domestic abuse has changed dramatically over the years.’

‘Probably, but not always to any great effect. Fewer than a quarter of reported incidents result in prosecution. The women, and occasionally the men, who come to us here are inclined not to have a great deal of confidence in the police or the UK’s judicial system. In any case, the Quinns, way before yesterday’s awful incident, were a perfect example of a couple living an abusive life, in which both victim and perpetrator were to some degree complicit. Gill has somehow managed to hold down a responsible job which gives her a certain standing in the community. She has a son she adores whom I understand also adores her, and whom she has always managed to see frequently, without her husband being present. She has always lived well and in a certain style. You’ve seen their home? More than comfortable, and beautifully situated. In addition to all his other dubious attributes, Thomas Quinn was an astute businessman, according to Gill, who was convinced, by the way, that she would finish up with very little if she tried to end their marriage.

‘Also, like most who feel they are trapped in this sort of situation, Gill appeared to have convinced herself that Thomas wasn’t all bad, and would always tell us that there were good times in between his violent outbursts. Albeit that she was always being controlled. So she kept that awful horrible part of her life a secret, and just put up with it. She used us as a refuge, which is at least partially what we are for, somewhere to escape to during the bad times.’

‘When exactly did she start coming to you?’

‘Last year, during the first lockdown, when the abuse she suffered reached a whole new level. A not uncommon scenario, as I’m sure you know, chief inspector, when people, particularly those in fragile and potentially violent relationships, were suddenly and unexpectedly trapped together with little or no outside influence to divert them from each other. It was after the first time Thomas had used a lit cigarette on her. She seemed as shocked as we were then. She told us that, although he had previously been violent on occasions, it was not severe — in her opinion — as long as she did exactly what he said. In everything. Which is that other kind of abuse I was talking about. Exerting total and quite stupefying control over another human being. Anyway, apparently Thomas was full of remorse for burning her, and promised that he would never ever do such a thing again. Having seen those pictures, Mr Vogel, you know just how well he kept that promise!’

Vogel knew. He also knew that those pictures would be indelibly printed on his memory. For ever. Like so much else he had seen during his career. But there were now a number of other questions crying out for answers. He made himself concentrate on that.

‘You mentioned Gill’s son, Greg,’ he began. ‘Whom she adores. Whom you believe adores her. Surely Gill couldn’t have kept all this from him? Don’t you think he must have been aware of what was happening to his mother? Didn’t he ever try to help?’

Helen shrugged.

‘People see what they want to see, Mr Vogel,’ she said. ‘And as for helping his mother, well, that was a hard thing to do. We can bear witness to that. Yesterday was just another example of that. Gill was more frightened and distraught than any of us had ever seen her. We really did hope that this time she would allow us to do something more constructive to help her. She was in a shocking state when she arrived. The burns to her ears were paining her dreadfully. She said she didn’t think she could carry on. But as the day passed she changed her mind again. Told us she just wanted to wait until Thomas had calmed down, then go home.’

‘That must have been very frustrating for you, Miss Harris,’ commented Vogel.

‘Yes,’ Helen agreed. ‘But it is also something we are all too familiar with.’

‘It would appear that Thomas Quinn was guilty of criminal assault. You clearly have reservations about the help that is available from the authorities, but did you suggest to Gill that she might come to us and report his abuse, or at least take refuge with you more permanently?’

‘We discussed all of that. We don’t tell our women what to do. They have to reach the point where they want to take action, and feel confident in doing so. Yesterday we rather hoped Gill had reached that point. But she still went back to Thomas.’

‘What did she do while she was here yesterday?’ asked Vogel, changing tack slightly.

‘Oh, the stuff that all our people do, cooed over the babies, helped get lunch, watched some TV, chatted about all sorts of things, rarely the things that really matter. It takes a while for any of our victims to be frank about their situation, and some never get to that stage. Gill was one of those, unfortunately.’

‘Forgive me asking again, Miss Harris, but are you absolutely certain that she was here all day and never left the premises? Not even for a short time?’

‘Absolutely sure.’

‘All right. Can you confirm exactly when she left?’

‘No I can’t, not exactly. But I expect my partner, Sadie, can. She gave Gill a lift home. She’ll be in the day room, I expect. If you don’t mind waiting a moment I’ll go and get her.’

Once she’d left the room Vogel turned to Saslow.

‘Well, what do you think of that, Dawn?’ he enquired. ‘Seems like our leading suspect has a pretty strong alibi.’

‘She also has a pretty strong motive, boss. Stronger than either you or I would have imagined, I reckon. Me anyway. I can’t believe what that man did to her.’

‘I agree, but it seems she may not have had the opportunity...’ Vogel began.

He broke off as Helen Harris, and a second woman, returned.

‘This is Sadie, Sadie Pearson, without whom I would be totally lost,’ she announced.

Sadie turned out to be the birdlike woman who had answered the front door. This time she managed a brief smile. She had clear bright eyes which darted around the room almost as if they had a will of their own.

Vogel repeated his question concerning Gill Quinn’s time of departure.

‘Oh yes, I know to the minute,’ Sadie Pearson responded immediately, and somewhat to Vogel’s surprise.

‘I keep my car radio permanently tuned to Radio Four,’ she continued. ‘Mostly, the only time I get to catch up on what’s happening in the world outside of this place is when I’m driving. The six o’clock news was just beginning as Gill and I set off.’

‘So what time did you get to Gill’s home?’ asked Vogel.

‘Well, I turned the radio down because I had a passenger, but I kept it on. Habit, I suppose. And the news ended just as I dropped Gill off. It’s only fifteen minutes on a Saturday, so it would have been pretty much dead on a quarter past six. Gill would have been home a few minutes later.’

Vogel was mildly puzzled.

‘A few minutes later?’ he queried. ‘Didn’t you drop her at her door?’

‘Oh no. I dropped her just the other side of the playing fields at the back of St Anne’s Avenue. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted Thomas to see one of us with her...’

‘Would he have known who you were?’

‘I have no idea. Helen and I are quite well known locally. But in any case, Gill wouldn’t have wanted Thomas to see her with almost anyone she had met without his knowledge, indeed his permission.’

Vogel nodded.

‘However, you’re assuming she was unaware that her husband was already dead,’ he said.

‘I certainly am,’ Sadie Pearson affirmed. ‘But she wouldn’t have wanted any of her neighbours to see me, either. Just in case they recognized me. Don’t forget, her dealings with all of us here was a big secret. As with so many of our people. Helen and I don’t always agree with that, and certainly didn’t in Gill’s case. But that was how it was.’

Vogel turned to Helen again.

‘You said she had come to you in a hurry, in a panic, without any money, or credit cards, or her phone—’

‘Yes,’ Helen interrupted. ‘She told us Thomas had taken her phone again. He quite often did, especially if he was in a really bad mood, which was a not infrequent occurrence.’

‘I see. But, I was wondering, did you know if she had her house keys with her?’

‘No,’ said Helen. ‘I didn’t think about it actually.’

‘Neither did I,’ agreed Sadie. ‘But I kind of assumed she expected Thomas to be at home. It wasn’t a working day for either of them. She kept saying she wanted to stay here long enough to be sure he had calmed down.’

‘OK. What about Gill’s state of mind? How was she when you dropped her off?’

‘She was as all right as she could be,’ said Sadie. ‘Determined to go back to Thomas. In spite of everything. She was quite calm, Mr Vogel, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Partly yes. Did the two of you talk at all on the journey, or at the end of it?’

‘Not a lot. I told Gill to take care, and that we were always here for her. She could come to us any time. She said she knew that. But she had very little to say, really, which was pretty usual for her. Particularly when her initial panic had worn off. She got out of the car as soon as I pulled up and set off across the playing fields. She knew well enough that Helen and I thought it was high time she found a way of leaving Thomas. We were becoming more and more anxious about her safety. But, yet again, she wasn’t prepared to take that final step. I just turned the car around and drove back.’

‘You said she was calm. Was there anything about her behaviour which was in any way unusual or disturbing?’

‘No there wasn’t, chief inspector. And if you’re asking if she looked like a woman who was planning to go home and stab her husband to death, no, she most definitely did not. Thomas Quinn was the abuser in that relationship, Mr Vogel, not his wife. Gill Quinn is the gentlest of souls. She would be quite incapable of killing anyone.’

Meanwhile Gill and her son were settling into Greg’s home in Kipling Terrace, Westward Ho! a row of converted Victorian properties which in their entirety had once been the boarding school attended by Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book.

Gill had liked it when her son had rented a flat there. After all she was a schoolteacher. Her first love had always been English literature. And almost all her younger pupils were still fans of The Jungle Book. Kipling was now an otherwise unfashionable writer, with views largely regarded as inappropriate in the modern world, but Gill personally thought he had merely been a man of his time and was a vastly underrated author.

None of this was on her mind that Sunday morning. She had grabbed her son and held him close when she’d been taken to him at Barnstaple police station. She loved him so much. He was always so kind to her, and she knew him to be much more sensitive than he sometimes at first appeared.

For many years now, Greg had been her greatest solace in life. There was perhaps one other source of potential consolation, but Gill had always been unable to cope with any sort of romantic attachment outside her marriage. For a start, she had rather suspected that Thomas would kill her if she strayed. But in fact it was Thomas who had now been killed.

She had taken a shower, hoping to wash away not only any remaining spots of Thomas’ blood and the lurking taint of hospital and police station, but also the entire awful horror of the manner of his death.

It didn’t work, of course. But Greg had stopped at a chemist on the way to Westward Ho! and picked up the sedatives the police doctor had prescribed for her. Gill hoped that they would bring her sleep and hopefully block out the persistent images of her dead husband which were filling her head.

She did need help. Her somewhat hysterical outburst at the police station had been genuine enough. She really hadn’t known what she should say to the police, and had ended up feeling quite desperate. It was that which had turned her into a screaming, weeping wreck, as much as anything else. And she had certainly been in a state of some shock ever since it had all happened. But she had been pretty much aware of what was going on throughout. Apart perhaps from the time she’d been alone with the body of her husband after she had dialled 999. However, she had to admit, some of her unresponsiveness had been more a ploy to avoid answering unanswerable questions than anything else.

Greg had insisted she took over his bedroom. He had also lent her a T-shirt, which on her doubled as a rather baggy nightdress, and she felt clean and comfortable again. She hoped that rest would allow her to cope better, and had already climbed into Greg’s bed when he knocked and entered, carrying a cup of tea and some biscuits.

‘I thought you should try to eat and drink something, Mum,’ he said.

She thanked him and said that she would indeed try.

‘But I’m more interested in getting some sleep,’ she continued. ‘I’m about to take a couple of those pills.’

‘Right,’ said Greg.

He continued to stand by the bed staring at her. Saying nothing more. Gill was afraid he was about to burst into tears. They had barely spoken on the drive home or since their arrival at the flat. There was an unusual awkwardness between them. Gill supposed it was inevitable under the circumstances.

‘Look, Greg, we need to talk,’ she said suddenly. ‘I know that, and you know that. Maybe not now. But certainly later, when perhaps we will both feel better.’

‘Yes, I hope so,’ said Greg, a little obliquely. ‘And you will eat something, won’t you?’

Gill obediently ate half a biscuit, took a sip of tea, then swallowed two of her prescribed pills, washed down with a swig of water.

‘I’ll see you later, then,’ said Greg. ‘Sleep well.’

She watched him leave the room, shutting the door quietly, then allowed herself to sink into the pillows, hoping and praying for oblivion, at least temporarily.

Greg made his way into the sitting room, which offered sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean out to Lundy Island and beyond, and stretched out on the sofa. He was aware of nothing beyond his own growing sense of anxiety and apprehension.

He couldn’t quite imagine how he and his mother were going to speak about anything. And he rather suspected it might be better for both of them if they didn’t. But they would, of course. He supposed that they had to.

He couldn’t be sorry that his father was dead. And he was pretty sure his mother wasn’t sorry either. But he was deeply sorry about the mess Thomas’ death had landed both him and his mother in.

From the moment he had received that call from the police telling him that his father had died in suspicious circumstances, and learned that Gill was at Barnstaple nick ‘helping us with our enquiries’, Greg had feared that she might be arrested. And then, once it became clear that he was also required to help with enquiries, and indeed was interviewed by that clever seeming DCI Vogel, he began to fear that he might be arrested instead. Or maybe as well as.

He couldn’t see how the police could possibly have grounds to arrest either of them. Not yet anyway. But he had just learned the hard way how it feels to be formally interviewed in the pursuance of a murder investigation. And it didn’t feel good.

Now, more than anything, all Greg wanted to do was ensure that his mother suffered no more pain. As ever, he just wanted to protect her. But he had yet to work out how to do that.