The Danger Within

Twenty-One

Dr Lamey left after completing her examination of Gill Quinn. She would be submitting a written report later. But she had already made her prognosis clear. The dreadful injuries Gill had suffered were burns, deliberately inflicted and almost certainly with a lit cigarette. No other conclusion was possible.

Gill had mercifully stopped sobbing. Saslow took Greg into the kitchen to make his mother a cup of tea, leaving Vogel alone with Gill. And Vogel took the opportunity to ask her about her relationship with Wynne Williams.

‘He’s my headmaster,’ she responded quickly. ‘That’s all. Why are you asking me about him?’

Vogel ignored the question. ‘Is he not something rather more to you than that?’ he asked.

‘No. Well, yes. He’s a friend.’

‘Just a friend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your husband thought he was rather more than that, didn’t he?’

‘Thomas was always jealous. Usually of nothing. That’s what led to... Well, all too often it led to him doing... uh, doing things to me...’

‘We have spoken to Mr Williams today,’ Vogel continued. ‘He told us that he was in love with you. Indeed that he is still in love with you. He wanted you to go away with him, and he told you that. Isn’t that the case?’

‘I don’t know. Well, y-yes, he did say things like that. I never thought he meant it. Like I said, I just thought of him as a friend. And my boss, of course.’

‘Mr Williams also told us what happened in the pub on Friday evening. He called it “your special place”, by the way, yours and his. He told us how your husband turned up in a fury and dragged you away. Very nearly literally.’

‘Well yes, like I told you, Thomas was so jealous. He was very angry that night.’

‘Mr Williams said you looked afraid.’

‘Of course I was afraid. I knew what was in store for me.’

‘Was it after that incident that he attacked you? That he inflicted those awful burns on you?’

‘Yes. Almost as soon as we got home. H-he’d done it before, of course.’

‘That much is quite clear. And this was a regular occurrence, was it not? We do have a doctor’s opinion.’

‘Yes, it was. But only relatively recently. His violent outbursts had got worse and worse over the last year. He couldn’t cope with lockdown at all. His business was in trouble, too, although he wouldn’t admit it.’

‘I understood that your husband was a very successful businessman, and that he’d made a lot of money, particularly during lockdown, is that not so?’

‘I think he did at first. But there was some big property deal that went wrong. He couldn’t get planning permission or something. And I think he’d invested millions. Possibly money that he’d borrowed. He kept getting these phone calls, I don’t know who from, but they seemed to scare him. He hated being stuck at home with me, of course, but I suspected it was his business troubles that sent him into such terrible rages. Thomas couldn’t ever accept that he’d failed in anything. He didn’t make mistakes. It was always somebody else’s fault. But I was pretty sure things were going wrong even before Covid, whoever’s fault it was.’

‘Thomas also abused you in other ways, didn’t he? By controlling you, bending you to his will.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you leave him, Gill?’

Vogel wasn’t sure he should have asked that, not even in an informal interview. He just couldn’t help himself.

‘Leave him?’ Gill replied. ‘Leave him for what? To go where? We married young. I was twenty and pregnant. Tommy, that was what he was always called in those days, was a year younger. I was at university in my home town, Plymouth, and I lived at home. Tommy was my first. He swept me off my feet. He was always a charmer when he wanted to be.’

‘Not lately though, Gill, judging from those scars of yours.’

Gill smiled wryly. ‘No, but it really was only since Covid that he turned into... well, he did become a monster. And I did think about leaving him. Several times. I also thought, when we all got back to normal after Covid, Thomas would get back to normal too. And I could cope with his normal. It wasn’t all bad. I have some good memories too. You’re like Greg. You could never understand.’

‘You’re probably right, Gill. I don’t think I could ever understand. Funny thing is though, I can understand you wanting to kill him.’

Vogel had no doubt he shouldn’t have said that. Again he hadn’t been able to help himself.

‘But you know I didn’t, don’t you? You know where I was at the time he died. You know I couldn’t have done it.’

‘So it would seem, Gill. I wonder, though, do you have any idea who might have killed your husband.’

‘Me? No. Of course not. How could I?’

‘Well, did Thomas have any enemies?’

‘He would certainly have crossed a few people in business over the years, he was that sort, and I got the impression there were some pretty angry business associates out there at the moment. I told you, those phone calls. But I can’t think that there would be anyone who would want to kill him.’

‘What about Wynne Williams?’

‘Wynne? Good God. You’ve met him. Wynne wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘He’s besotted with you, Gill. It’s amazing what people will do, the lengths to which they will go when they are in love. Mr Williams actually told us he would do anything for you...’

Greg, followed by Saslow, re-entered carrying a tray with four mugs on it and a bowl of sugar.

‘What’s this about Wynne Williams?’ he asked.

‘Mr Vogel thinks Wynne might have killed your father, and that I may have helped him do it, or perhaps that he did it just because he thought I wanted your father dead,’ said Gill bluntly.

She was suddenly beginning to sound considerably more on the ball. Indeed quite sharp. Vogel could for the first time imagine her holding down a senior teaching and admin job. The miracle of sleep, he thought, not for the first time.

‘What?’ said Greg, looking and sounding perplexed. ‘I mean, why?’

‘Because, Greg, Mr Williams is in love with your mother,’ said Vogel.

He too could be blunt, when he thought it might be to his advantage.

‘And he was aware of your father’s abusive behaviour towards her,’ Vogel added.

‘Mum?’ Greg queried, sounding astonished. ‘Are you having an affair with Mr Williams?’

‘No, I’m not. Your father thought so though. Or at least, he said he did. Sometimes I thought that might be an excuse for...’ She paused. ‘For what he did to me.’

‘So is that why Dad went for you on Friday night?’

‘Yes. He caught us in the pub together.’

‘You went out with him?’

‘It wasn’t “going out”. Not like that. Not for me, anyway.’

‘But you told him what Dad did to you. And you never told me.’

‘I didn’t tell him the half of it. Anyway, I’ve explained that. You’re my son. I didn’t want you to be affected by it all.’

‘Well, I am now, aren’t I? I’d have made you leave him, Mum, I’d have taken care of you. None of this would have happened if only you’d told me...’

Greg’s voice tailed away. His eyes had filled with tears.

‘I wanted to protect you from it,’ said Gill.

‘I wish you hadn’t.’

Vogel stepped in then.

‘Greg you lived at home until you were seventeen, with both your parents, you have continued to see your mother frequently, to spend as much time as possible with her. Did you really not know about your father’s violence towards her?’

‘No, I didn’t. I swear. Upon my life. I knew he was controlling, and unkind. But I never imagined for a moment anything like I’ve seen today. I had no idea. If I had known, I’d have done something about it.’

Maybe he had done something about it, thought the DCI. He did not voice his thoughts though. He would save that for a formal interview. And, ideally, he would like to have at least some evidence first. Could it be possible, he wondered, that the young man really hadn’t known about Thomas’ physically abusive behaviour? Or was he acting?

‘Yet you moved out of the family home when you were so young,’ Vogel continued eventually. ‘If you didn’t know what your father was doing to your mother, why was that?’

‘We didn’t get on. I told you that before. And he tried to control me too. To make me do what he wanted, not what I wanted. I wasn’t going to have it.’

‘You had a privileged education, you could have gone on to university, taken up a profession, anything. Yet you gave it all up, left school with no qualifications, I understand, and walked away from both your mother and your father—’

‘I didn’t walk away from my mother, and I never would, she knows that,’ interrupted Greg. ‘And I did have a few GCSEs. But I wasn’t an academic, that’s for sure. I always liked working with my hands, making things. I’d already worked for Durrants in the school holidays. Mike Durrant took a shine to me, he offered to take me on as an apprentice. He fixed me up with digs too.’

‘Greg’s always been independent, and a hard worker,’ said Gill, suddenly every inch the proud mother. ‘He’s done well for himself, too, I always knew he would.’

Vogel was just considering whether he should continue with this line of questioning, or whether he should save it for the inevitable formal interview, when his phone rang. It was DI Peters, calling from the incident room.

Vogel excused himself and stepped out into the hall.

‘Boss, we’ve just had a report of a disturbance in Tide Reach, that new building on The Pill,’ she began.

Momentarily Vogel wondered why she was telling him that, but he kept quiet. There was sure to be a very good reason. He had developed a considerable respect for Janet Peters.

‘Thing is, boss, that’s where Thomas Quinn’s company have their offices,’ the DI continued, immediately offering an explanation for her call, just as Vogel had expected. ‘And the chap who called in heard what he thought could have been gunfire. Tide Reach is mostly made up of offices, so you’d expect them to be empty on a Sunday, but there are two apartments at the top of the building, and our caller lives in one of them. He’s been told to stay put until we’ve checked the place out. The other apartment is unoccupied, apparently.’

Vogel experienced the familiar frisson of excitement he always felt when he suddenly learned something that might be of significant import in a case. This time it was accompanied by the merest tremor of fear. He’d been told there may have been gunfire. And Vogel didn’t like guns.

‘Has anyone tried to contact Thomas’ business partner again?’ he asked.

‘Jason Patel? You and Saslow were on your way to see him, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. But we haven’t got to him yet. We’re at Greg Quinn’s place. You could try him on the phone.’

‘Will do, boss.’

‘Are first responders on the way?’

‘Yes, boss. Ambulance and armed response too, just in case. As there might be guns involved, we’re taking no chances.’

Vogel had already learned enough about North Devon to have a reasonable grasp of logistics.

‘We’re fifteen minutes away,’ he said. ‘Will attend.’