The Danger Within

Three

Vogel watched as Morag Docherty hopped nimbly into the ambulance. As the doors closed he caught a final glimpse of Gill Quinn, lying on a stretcher. He could not see her face, but he doubted it would give much away.

Soon, possibly later that night, if not the next day, he would be formally interviewing Gill. His feelings, as ever, were mixed. He didn’t know what had happened inside 11 St Anne’s Avenue, of course, but if he had to hazard a guess at this stage, it would be that the death of Thomas Quinn was yet another domestic tragedy, born primarily of a deeply tormented marriage, one of a long list of such personal tragedies that he had encountered in his career.

The ambulance pulled away, coasting down the short driveway to the main drag, its siren breaking the silence which had previously, and somewhat eerily, engulfed number eleven.

Vogel glanced back at the house. It was a place that smacked of money; Vogel suspected his mother would have called it ‘new money’, a large and well-kept property, probably just pre-war, with one or two features, like a porticoed entrance and diamond-mullioned windows, which were probably supposed to add grandeur, although Vogel thought they were out of place and a tad vulgar.

Aware of another vehicle approaching, he turned to see a black Mini Cooper with tinted windows roar up the driveway and into the parking place the ambulance had just vacated. A blast of heavy metal momentarily filled the cooling evening air as the driver’s door swung open.

Out stepped a young woman, also cloaked in black. A black leather jacket with shiny epaulettes, black leggings, and black Doc Martens. Her hair was a tawny mane. Her lips a blaze of orange. Her spectacles orange-framed and vaguely tinted.

Vogel was momentarily perplexed. Perhaps this was a Quinn family member or friend, who may or may not yet know of the fate which had befallen Thomas Quinn. But PC Lake, who he knew to be on sentry duty down at the gate, had apparently allowed the driver of the Mini to proceed right up to the crime scene unhindered. Perhaps she was a member of the local team who Vogel had yet to meet. One of the emerging breed of sassy young detectives of varying gender that every force in the country seemed to be bringing on.

The young woman carelessly slammed the car door shut behind her and, carrying a large black doctor’s bag, strode towards Vogel, every movement fluid and radiating confidence.

It dawned on him then. This must be the new pathologist.

Ever since moving west from his native London, Vogel had worked only with Dr Karen Crow, one of the most experienced Home Office pathologists in the country. Indeed, many years previously, she had been the first woman in the UK to be appointed to the job. Karen Crow smoked a lot — which Vogel hated — swore a lot, and had talked down to him most of the time. But he had grown used to her, and respected her as a leader in her field who was only very rarely wrong about anything.

He knew, however, that Karen Crow — unmarried, not overly attractive, rarely inclined to attempt to charm, predictably assumed by most of her colleagues to be gay — had recently taken early retirement and gone to live in Brazil with a man. Her younger and allegedly very handsome South American lover. A football coach.

This had, of course, become the stuff of much joyful gossip in police and medical circles throughout Devon and Somerset, which, Vogel had to admit, he had enjoyed as much as anyone.

However, as he watched the redoubtable Dr Crow’s successor approach, Vogel feared he may yet regret her departure even more than he had thought he might.

‘DCI Vogel? queried the young woman, flashing an easy smile.

Vogel nodded. He had been aware that a successor to Dr Crow had been appointed. And he’d known it was another woman. But that was all he’d known. He waited.

‘Daisy Dobbs, pathology,’ she announced unceremoniously, thrusting an outstretched hand in Vogel’s direction.

Vogel did not take it. After such a long period of Covid restrictions he still wasn’t entirely comfortable shaking hands. In explanation he gestured towards his own gloved hands.

‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Dobbs,’ he murmured.

‘It’s Professor, only call me Daisy, for God’s sake,’ she replied.

Vogel found himself blinking rapidly behind his thick rimmed spectacles, a mannerism quite beyond his control inclined to overcome him whenever events took a turn with which he was in some way uncomfortable. He silently cursed himself. This was his crime scene. He had already been appointed senior investigating officer. He was in charge. He had nothing to feel uncomfortable about. But he did feel uncomfortable. And it was just so annoying.

Daisy Dobbs looked about fifteen to him. How on earth could she be a professor? Which kindergarten had she qualified at? He realized he really shouldn’t think like this, but the truth was that Vogel was somewhat afraid of youth. He knew he wasn’t sexist or racist, and he tried very hard not to be classist, not to fall into the trap of so many otherwise highly laudable police officers who were inclined to slot criminal behaviour into the various boxes of British class society.

However, the older he got and the greater seniority he achieved, the less he seemed able to stop himself being ageist. Or perhaps it was youthist?

He just did not see how the teenager standing before him, looking more like a rock singer or a reality show contestant than a professor of medicine, could possibly have the knowledge and ability to even approach the achievements of her predecessor.

He waited while she swiftly kitted up in PPE, then followed her into the house. He hadn’t really taken much notice of the interior before. The kitchen was slick and ultra-modern. Everything seemed to be white or stainless steel, including the floor tiles, against which the deep red of the dead man’s blood stood out with a disturbing intensity. Vogel shivered slightly.

A bottle of whisky and just one glass, half filled, stood on the kitchen table. So only one person had been drinking. Vogel wondered if that was significant.

Daisy Dobbs immediately crouched by the body and made what appeared to be a preliminary examination of the dead man in the position in which he had been found.

Then she asked a CSI to help her turn him over.

It was immediately clear that Vogel’s initial assumption that Thomas Quinn had been stabbed to death was almost certainly correct. And the murder weapon’s points of entry were fairly clear, even though the victim remained fully clothed, in jeans and a shirt which looked as if it had once been a crisp pale blue. There appeared to be a number of stab wounds, indicated by damage to the clothing and a deeper blood stainage, all in the area of the dead man’s chest. Except one. Thomas Quinn had also been stabbed in the middle of his throat.

Vogel found that especially disturbing. In his long and varied experience he had never before seen such a thing. He thought that it must take a particular kind of human being, or maybe just someone in a particularly extreme emotional state, to be able to stab another human being directly in the throat. Presumably whilst facing him.

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...’

Lake stopped abruptly. A thought seemed to occur to him. Vogel was already aware that Lake lacked the self-assurance of his partner, PC Docherty. He was, however, a solid and intelligent young officer.

‘Hope that’s all right, boss?’

‘Get on with it, Lake,’ muttered Vogel impatiently.

‘Yes, boss. Seems Mrs Tanner was walking her dog past the Quinn house this afternoon. She says a window was open at the front, and she heard what she described as a “bit of a rumpus”.’

“Did she know what time it was?’

‘About three or four,’ replied PC Docherty.

That fitted almost exactly with the probable time of death, and could be a vital piece of evidence, thought Vogel.

‘Was she any more clear about what she actually heard?’ asked Vogel.

‘A little, boss.’

PC Lake consulted his notebook.

‘She heard what she described as “a bang, then a scraping noise, like something being dropped and maybe a piece of furniture being moved. And raised voices”.’

‘Raised voices? Male or female?’

‘Both, she thought, but she wasn’t sure. And she couldn’t actually hear what they were saying, even though she paused to listen for a few seconds — bit shamefaced she was about that, boss. Then it all went quiet, she said, so she just walked on home.’

‘She wasn’t overly disturbed by what she’d heard, then?’

‘Not at all, boss.’

‘Presumably there were no screams, or anything like that.’

‘Not that Mrs Tanner was aware of, I don’t think. She said it had sounded to her like a perfectly normal argument between a married couple.’

PC Lake consulted his notes again.

‘This is what she told me. “It was nothing untoward. Well, I didn’t think so at the time. Just a bit of a rumpus. It happens in even the happiest marriages, and if I’d thought for a minute there was any violence going on I’d have called the police”.’

‘So, she was reasonably sure the voices she heard were those of Thomas and Gill Quinn, was she?’

‘I asked her that, boss. She admitted that she couldn’t be sure, and not even entirely sure that it was a man and a woman, but she asked who else it was likely to be? And she pointed out that it was a Saturday afternoon, and so quite likely that the Quinns would be at home together.’

Which was probably a fair enough assumption, thought Vogel. It seemed, rather sadly, as he’d suspected, that this case was not going to take long to solve.