The Danger Within

Thirty-Three

Vogel and Saslow were silent as they drove away from the hospital heading for Westward Ho! to once again try to interview Gill Quinn. For quite a while all Vogel could think about was the sheer horror of watching another human being die.

He was pretty sure Saslow felt much the same as him. It was just that she dealt with that sort of thing better. Indeed, Vogel suspected that most police officers dealt with it better than he did.

As it turned out the DCI didn’t have long to dwell on the death of Jason Patel, nor even its significance.

DI Peters called with news of yet more evidence against Gregory Quinn. Vogel considered the significance of the additional information for a moment or two. Then he turned to Saslow.

‘Change of plan, Dawn,’ he said. ‘I reckon the time has come to arrest young Quinn. The Patel shooting could still be a red herring as far as our first murder is concerned. At the very least we need the chance to eliminate Greg from our enquiries.’

‘Should we get backup?’ asked Saslow.

Vogel agreed that they should. He didn’t think Greg Quinn would resist arrest. But he was a big strong chap, and it could be somewhat embarrassing if he did. In addition, the presence of a couple of uniforms when making an arrest always added gravitas, Vogel reckoned. Not to mention a little extra intimidation.

Perkins, and the surveillance team detailed to keep watch on Quinn, had reported that he was one of several Durrants employees working on a house the company was renovating in the East-the-Water district of Bideford.

Vogel and Saslow turned off the old Barnstaple road into the narrow lane leading to the riverside property just as a patrol car, with its blue lights flashing and siren wailing, approached from the opposite direction.

As soon as the two vehicles pulled to a halt, Gregory Quinn, wearing work clothes including steel-capped boots and a hard hat, emerged from the house and walked towards them. He took off the hard hat and stood just back from the pavement, waiting. He was a picture of resigned dejection, not even remotely resembling the rather full-of-himself young man Vogel had first encountered. And he rather looked as if he had been expecting them.

Whether or not this was a further indication of guilt had yet to be learned, but Vogel considered that it might be.

‘You didn’t need an escort, Mr Vogel,’ said Quinn quietly.

Vogel ignored that. ‘Gregory Malcolm Quinn, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your father, Thomas Albert Quinn,’ he said.

Then he recited the standard UK police caution.

‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Quinn held out both his hands before him, as if expecting to be handcuffed.

‘I don’t think we need cuffs, do we, Greg?’ Vogel enquired quietly.

Quinn shook his head. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘But you are making a big mistake, Mr Vogel, I can tell you that. I didn’t kill my father. I couldn’t do a thing like that.’

Vogel knew it was still possible that the young man was telling the truth. But the evidence was now beginning to stack against him.

He instructed the uniforms to take Quinn back to Barnstaple and put him through the custody procedure. He and Saslow followed in Saslow’s car. On the way he called Morag Docherty to tell her about Greg’s arrest.

‘We’ll be sending a team round now to search his flat, of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to keep Gill out of the way as much as possible. And we will want to talk to her again later, but first I have a question for you to ask her as soon as you can. Certainly before the search team arrive, when you would be more or less forced to tell her about Greg’s arrest. It would be good to get in before she knows. I’m going to text you the number of the phone she used to text her son on the afternoon of Thomas’ murder. I want you to ask her who the phone belonged to.’

‘OK, boss, I’ll do it straight away.’

‘If she plays true to form, she won’t be very forthcoming. But just keep on asking. We think it belongs to one Maggie Challis, only don’t tell her that. Just stick at it, and stick with her. Right?’

‘Right, boss,’ said Docherty.

Whilst Vogel and Saslow were waiting for Gregory Quinn to be processed, a series of clips from the CCTV footage filmed in the vicinity of the Bideford office block where Jason Patel had been shot were patched through to them by DI Peters. A specialist team had been hard at work, as directed by Vogel, and had extracted material that was without doubt highly relevant. Two men wearing dark clothing and baseball hats, tinted glasses, and standard surgical face masks, had been caught on camera entering Tide Reach at three thirty-one p.m. the previous day. At four ten p.m. there was footage of Jason Patel arriving. And there was footage of the two men leaving, in rather more of a hurry, at four fifteen p.m.

‘These are our killers, all right,’ said Vogel at once. ‘They have to be. Look at the timings. But we’ve not got a hope in hell of anyone recognizing them from this stuff, that’s for sure. You can’t see their faces at all.’

‘Covid’s done evil bastards like this a bit of a favour, hasn’t it, boss?’ remarked Saslow. ‘In the current climate masked men can wander around towns like Bideford without attracting any attention at all.’

‘I’m afraid that’s so...’ Vogel began, then he paused as another section of footage from a different camera played out.

This showed a large metallic grey vehicle with tinted windows parked in The Pill car park. It was a Range Rover. After a few seconds the driver’s door opened and a bulky figure, also wearing dark clothes, baseball hat and mask, stepped out. He leaned against the vehicle, then reached into his pocket for something, and removed his mask, bowing his head as he did so.

‘My God,’ said Vogel. ‘This has to be those guys’ driver. And he’s trying to light a cigarette. The cool bastard.’

‘Hang on, something’s startled him,’ said Saslow. ‘Look, he’s turned his back on us and he’s getting right back in the car. I reckon he heard gunfire, boss.’

‘So do I, Saslow,’ said Vogel.

The officers watched for a few minutes more, then the two men they had seen entering and leaving Tide Reach appeared running towards the vehicle. They climbed in, and the Range Rover was driven swiftly, but not at excessive speed, towards the car park exit.

Vogel immediately replayed the footage of the man leaning against the vehicle.

‘There’s not a clear shot, his head is bowed throughout the few seconds when he’s not wearing a mask, but I think we’ve got a glimpse of his face, don’t you, Saslow?’

‘Yes, boss, I do. But it’s pretty grainy stuff, isn’t it? Looks like the camera from which this footage was taken was quite a long way away. It’s a fairly distant shot. We can zoom in, of course, but then it will be even grainier. I think the number plate might be decipherable, though. Shall I get DI Peters to put out a trace, boss?’

‘I reckon she’s already onto that, Saslow. And I’ll bet my mortgage the plates are false, too. But I think it’s worth releasing that footage of the driver to the media. I know there’s not much to go on, but there might be just enough for somebody to recognize him.’

Gregory Quinn was already installed in the designated interview room when Vogel and Saslow arrived. This time he had asked for a legal presence and a duty solicitor had been appointed and was also present.

The young man and his solicitor, Philip Stubbs, a local man Vogel had previously encountered on more than one occasion, were sitting together on one side of the central table. Vogel and Saslow positioned themselves opposite them. A uniformed officer stood by the door.

Saslow recited for the record the names of all present and the time of the start of the interview.

Vogel came straight to the point.

‘Greg, I understand you are the owner of a highly powered inflatable boat and trailer which you keep in a garage just up the road from your flat,’ he began without prevarication. ‘Is that so?’

‘U-uh yes,’ responded Gregory, only a little hesitantly. ‘I go sea fishing.’

‘Did you take that boat out to sea on Saturday evening, the day your father was killed?’

This time Gregory Quinn’s hesitation was distinctly noticeable. ‘Y-yes, I did, b-but only for a quick spin,’ he responded eventually.

‘Yet when we previously asked you to tell us your whereabouts on that day, you did not mention that you had taken your boat out, nor indeed that you owned such a boat.’

Quinn shrugged. He might well have been making a huge effort, Vogel suspected, but when he spoke again he sounded rather more like his usual self, or at least what appeared to Vogel to be his usual self: confident, almost cocky.

‘Well, why would I? I didn’t think any of that was important.’

‘You merely told us that you had gone drinking with a mate in Torrington and stayed at his place all night. Why?’

‘Why did I tell you that, or why did I stay at my mate’s place?’

Quinn was definitely back to being cocky now. Well, two can play at the same game, thought Vogel.

‘Why both?’ he countered deadpan.

‘Because that’s what I did. Because it was the truth.’

‘Didn’t you think there was a fair chance somebody would have seen you in that distinctive van of yours, taking your boat down to the beach, and launching it off the slipway?’

‘I didn’t think about that at all. Why would I? I hadn’t done anything wrong. There’s no law against taking your own boat out, is there? Or should I have asked police permission first?’

Vogel chose to ignore that. He had no intention of allowing himself to seem even remotely provoked.

‘We do have a witness who watched you launch your inflatable,’ the DCI continued. ‘He said you loaded a rucksack into it. He noticed that particularly because you were carrying it as if it was heavy. He thought that a bit odd. Why would you be carrying a heavy bag on a fishing trip? He also noticed that you didn’t appear to have any fishing equipment with you—’

‘Yeah well, I’ll bet my wages I know who your witness is,’ interrupted Greg. ‘That nosey arsehole who thinks he’s in charge of bloody Westward Ho! but actually he’s just a car park attendant by the slipway. I keep most of my fishing stuff in the bow locker. He knows fuck all, that one. In any case, I told you, I just went out for a quick spin. I didn’t go fishing.’

‘What about the heavy bag?’ asked Saslow. ‘What were you taking out to sea, Greg? Was it something you planned to drop overboard? Something you didn’t want found, weighed down so that it would sink? Was that what you were carrying?’

‘I didn’t have a rucksack with me. I wasn’t carrying anything. Your witness talks a lot of bollocks. Anyone will tell you that. He doesn’t like me. And he always wants to be the centre of attention.’

‘Does he? Whoever killed your father, Greg, would have been covered in blood. Their clothes would have been soaked. They’d need to get rid of them if they were to have any chance of getting away with what they had done. And we have yet to identify the murder weapon. Is that what you had in that rucksack, Greg? The knife which you used to kill your father, and bloodstained clothes?’

‘No. I told you. There was no rucksack. No damned knife either. Nor bloodstained clothes.’

‘We will of course be conducting a forensic search of your flat, your van, and your boat, Greg.’

‘Do what you like. I didn’t kill my father. I couldn’t kill anyone. I just couldn’t.’

‘Not even in the heat of the moment? I’m not saying you planned to kill him. Indeed, it seems unlikely your father’s killer had any sort of plan. I think you went around to your family house looking for your mother, that you had some sort of row with your father, the neighbours heard raised voices, and you just lashed out.’

‘No. That’s rubbish. Total bloody rubbish. I wasn’t even there. I haven’t been to the house for weeks.’

Vogel studied the young man in silence for a moment. Sometimes in a case like this he would have a definite opinion on whether or not an interviewee was telling the truth. With this particular subject he remained unsure. Although he did believe the neighbour who said she had seen Greg’s van parked at the family house. After all she had no reason to lie. He decided to push the point.

‘Are you absolutely sure of that, Greg?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said the young man.

‘I don’t think I believe you,’ Vogel remarked mildly. ‘As you know, we have a witness who told us that she saw your van parked at the house on Saturday afternoon. Why would she lie?’

‘I don’t know. Another attention-seeker probably.’

Vogel and Saslow continued their interview for a further ten minutes or so, without making any significant progress, until they were interrupted by DC Perkins.

‘Can I have a word, boss?’ he asked. ‘Something you should see.’

Vogel was aware of Gregory Quinn’s eyes boring into his head as he stepped out of the interview room. He was with Perkins for just a few minutes, during which Saslow sat with Quinn in silence.

When Vogel returned he was carrying an iPad. He put it down on the table in such a position that all four involved in the interview, himself, Saslow, Quinn and Quinn’s solicitor, could see the screen.

Then he ran the video he had just been shown. It comprised aerial images of the immediate area around the Quinn house. The initial shots had been taken from high over the estuary. The camera had then panned in, following a network of roads towards St Anne’s Avenue, and finally homing in on the avenue itself, offering close-ups of most of the houses including number eleven. One shot clearly showed Gregory Quinn’s distinctive orange van, with its purple logo and markings, parked in the parking area by the garages at the rear of the house. An area that could not be seen from any vantage point other than from directly above.

A numerical display in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen gave the date and time when each shot had been filmed. The date was the previous Saturday, the day of Thomas Quinn’s murder. The time was three thirty-one p.m. Quinn looked confused and anxious. As well he might, thought Vogel.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ he asked.

‘This is some footage of your parents’ house shot on the day of your father’s murder by a professional cameraman using a drone. The cameraman was gathering background material for a new TV drama being filmed around Northam and Appledore. One of our chaps noticed the filming going on and made some enquiries just in case they had anything that might help us. You could say he struck gold, Greg. Turned out this cameraman had been carrying out a kind of blanket drone coverage of the area, as he didn’t know exactly what the director would require. It is now undeniable that your van was parked at the back of the house on the day in question. In addition to its distinctive colour and markings, the registration number is quite legible.’

Vogel zoomed in.

‘Also, there is a figure walking away from the van. We can now see that the person walking away from the van and entering your family house through the back door is you. And the date and time is shown on the screen.’

Quinn said nothing more, instead glancing anxiously at his solicitor, who did not intervene.

‘Greg, you really can no longer deny that you were at your parents’ house on Saturday afternoon, and this film places you there within the exact time frame during which we believe your father was killed,’ Vogel continued. ‘Do you understand me?’

‘All right, yes, I was there,’ Quinn suddenly blurted out. ‘But I didn’t kill my father. Honestly I didn’t.’

These moments of breakthrough on a major case always took Vogel’s breath away. He had to make a real effort to continue with his line of questioning without revealing his excitement.

‘All right, Greg, we’ll move on to that later,’ he said. ‘For the moment I just need you to formally confirm for the record that you were at your parents’ house on the date and at the time indicated by this film.’

He tapped the side of the iPad.

‘I just said I was there. He was alive when I arrived though. I m-mean he w-was alive when I left. But there’s no film of my leaving, is there? Well, if there had been you’d have seen there was no blood on me. There c-couldn’t be. Because he wasn’t bleeding when I left. I m-mean, he hadn’t been stabbed. I hadn’t stabbed him... I m-mean, I didn’t stab him...’

Quinn was stumbling over his words and beginning to gabble.

‘Would you please tell me if you and your father quarrelled on Saturday afternoon?’ Vogel interrupted.

‘Well yes, I suppose so. I mean, we never got on. We always q-quarrelled. I only went to the house to try and find Mum. When I realized she wasn’t there I left. I didn’t attack my father. I didn’t touch him, w-why would I? What would I gain? It’s only my mother I worry about...’

Again Quinn was gabbling. Vogel let him do so until he paused for breath, before speaking again. ‘Now that we have formally ascertained that you were at the scene of the crime at the relevant time, I would like you please to go through exactly what happened from the moment you arrived until you left.’

Greg looked as if he were about to respond. Then his lawyer stepped in.

‘Chief inspector, I am advising my client to say nothing more unless or until you formally charge him, and I have had time to discuss this matter with him fully,’ said Philip Stubbs suddenly.

Vogel wasn’t best pleased. Greg Quinn had begun to talk. The DCI had thought they might be getting somewhere at last. On the other hand, he didn’t blame Stubbs for interjecting. If Vogel had been a lawyer representing Quinn he would have done exactly the same. He decided to have one last try.

‘I thought you might like to get this sorted out now, Greg,’ persisted Vogel. ‘It could help you a lot if you told us honestly everything that happened between you and your father on Saturday afternoon.’

Greg glanced towards Philip Stubbs who said nothing more, merely shaking his head just very slightly.

‘C’mon Greg. This is your chance to get it all over with,’ encouraged Vogel.

‘No,’ said Greg after another few seconds silence. ‘I’m going to do as Mr Stubbs says. I’m not saying anything more.’

Morag Docherty had walked out into the hallway of Greg Quinn’s flat to take Vogel’s call.

When she re-entered the sitting room where she had left Gill Quinn watching TV, or at least staring at the set, Gill was standing right behind the door, holding the house phone in one hand.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked at once.

Morag suspected that Gill had been listening to her conversation with the DCI.

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Morag lied.

‘I’ve been trying to get Greg on the phone ever since you went outside to take that call,’ Gill continued. ‘He’s not picking up.’

‘Does he always pick up when you call him?’ asked Morag, avoiding Gill’s question as best she could. ‘Even when he’s at work?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘Well, perhaps he just can’t at the moment,’ said Morag, truthfully enough. There seemed little doubt that Gill and her son were very close, the PC reflected, and she wondered what relevance that might prove to have as the investigation into Thomas Quinn’s murder progressed.

‘Maybe.’ Gill looked thoughtful. ‘So what is it you want to ask me then?’

That question from Gill confirmed, of course, that Docherty had been correct in guessing that she had been eavesdropping on her conversation with Vogel. The PC didn’t think that her side of the conversation would have given much away, but clearly it had aroused a suspicion in Gill Quinn that something was happening which affected not only her but also her son.

Morag had suspected for quite a while that Gill’s state of shock wasn’t really as extreme as the impression she’d attempted to impart. Now the PC was becoming pretty sure of that. Or, at least, that Gill had recovered considerably more than she was letting on.

‘I need to ask you whose phone you used when you sent Greg a text message on Saturday afternoon?’ Docherty queried.

‘Do you indeed?’ countered Gill. ‘Well, I’m not answering any of your questions until you answer mine. Something’s going on with my son. Where is he? That’s what I want to know for a start.’

Docherty wondered whether she could risk lying again. But she was an experienced officer. She knew well enough that lies usually landed coppers in hot water. Her earlier fib had been oblique and almost certainly explicable. Another would be far too dangerous. But she made one more attempt to first get the other woman to tell her whose phone she had used.

However Gill Quinn was intransigent.

‘You’ll get nothing from me until you tell me where my son is,’ she insisted, shaking her head ferociously.

‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ said Docherty. ‘But if you would just cooperate with me...’

‘Well that’s a giveaway, isn’t it?’ Gill snapped. ‘Greg’s been arrested, hasn’t he?’

The search team was on its way. Docherty would in any case then have to tell Gill where her son was, in order to explain their presence and that no search warrant was required. She certainly suspected, in the light of her new sharp demeanour, that Gill would ask for one.

‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ agreed the PC, a tad reluctantly. ‘Greg has been arrested and is currently being interviewed at Barnstaple police station.’

‘As I thought,’ retorted Gill sharply. ‘And I will answer your question now. I actually don’t know whose phone I used.’

Not that again, thought Morag. Vogel had warned her of this, nonetheless it was annoying.

‘Look Gill,’ said Morag, putting on her most conciliatory voice. ‘If you want to help yourself and also help Greg, I really suggest that you cooperate...’

‘It isn’t a question of not cooperating,’ the other woman interrupted. ‘I am cooperating. I have told you I don’t know whose phone I used, and that’s the truth.’

‘Would you mind explaining that.’

‘Certainly, dear.’

My goodness, thought Docherty, Gill Quinn had made some recovery. What was with the ‘dear’, all of a sudden? She sounded condescending. And even, perhaps, a tad superior. Docherty feared she hadn’t handled this well. She waited in silence for Gill to continue.

‘I don’t know whose phone I used because it belonged to somebody I met in the street,’ said Gill Quinn. ‘I needed some fresh air. I left Helen’s House just to go for a walk around the town and look at the shops. Anything to try to clear my head. When I started to think straight again, I remembered that I’d arranged to meet Greg at Morrisons that morning. I knew he’d be worried sick about me, so I approached a stranger, a woman I’d never seen in my life before as far as I’m aware, and asked her if I could borrow her phone to send my son a text. I told her I’d inadvertently left my own phone at home. That was true, of course, except that it wasn’t inadvertent.’

Gill chuckled, in a bitter sort of way.

Docherty thought about the CCTV in wide use throughout Bideford town centre.

‘Where were you when you used this woman’s phone?’ she asked.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Gill replied quickly. ‘I have very little idea where I was all afternoon, as a matter of fact, or what I was doing.’

‘But you’re quite sure now that you left Helen’s House, are you?’

‘Oh yes, for at least a couple of hours. Probably more. Maybe three hours or so.’

‘Do you know what time you left the House?’

‘Well, I didn’t take any real notice of the time. But let’s see... We’d had lunch. A while before, I think. I expect I left about two. Something like that.’

‘And when you said you walked around the town, do I assume you meant Bideford?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘But how did you get to Bideford. I understand you didn’t have your car. You had no money. You didn’t have your wallet.’

‘I suppose I walked.’

‘It’s a fair walk.’

‘I’m a good walker. But maybe I didn’t go to Bideford. Maybe I just walked around Northam, or into Appledore. I really don’t know. You saw the state I was in on Saturday.’

Morag had seen, all right. And, perhaps unfairly, she was beginning to wonder if even then at least some of Gill Quinn’s state of shock had been an act.

‘That was after your husband had been killed, and we’d just found you covered in blood sitting with his dead body,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes. I was pretty shaken before that, though. You know what he did to me.’

‘All right, but why did you go back to the House?’ asked Docherty.

‘I don’t understand, why wouldn’t I?’

‘Well, you reported your husband’s death at six-forty-something. If you stayed out for three hours or so you couldn’t have been back at the House for long before you left again to go home. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?’

‘I hadn’t made up my mind what to do when I returned to the House. My head was all over the place.’

‘Then what made you decide that you wanted to go home, after all?’

‘Who knows? I always did go back in the end. The alternative was to admit that I was a victim. And I’ve never been able to admit that, you see. Even though I was, of course.’

Docherty was further surprised by Gill’s lucidity, and more than ever convinced that the other woman now knew exactly what she was doing and saying.

‘Gill, you must realize that what you have just told me suggests that Helen Harris, Sadie, and the other women residents at the House, have all lied to the police, in order to give you an alibi.’

‘Oh no, dear, Helen and Sadie would never lie. Not to anyone, and certainly not to the police. I’m sure they were just mistaken. As for the other women, I expect they just didn’t realize I’d gone out. It’s not a prison there, you know.’

‘I realize that, Gill,’ said Docherty. ‘But I would like to ask you if you realize that you have just totally destroyed your own alibi?’

‘Oh yes, I do realize that,’ agreed Gill.

‘And the timescale you have given me means that you almost certainly would have had time, even on foot, to return to your home in St Anne’s Avenue, kill the man who had abused you for so long, and then return to Helen’s House, albeit apparently without anyone there realizing you had left. Do you agree that is so?’

‘Oh yes, dear,’ Gill Quinn agreed. ‘I had motive and opportunity. Isn’t that what you say in the police force? But I didn’t kill Thomas, of course. Neither, I can assure you, did my son. And you won’t be able to prove that either of us did.’