The Danger Within

Forty-One

Vogel called Peters to arrange a team meeting at the Bideford incident room for later that morning, and had just finished briefing her about Gill Quinn’s confession, Wayne Williams’ admission of deliberate falsehood and, in confidence at this stage, what he had learned from Nobby Clarke of Helen Harris’ past, when Saslow arrived at Barnstaple nick a few minutes after eight a.m.

‘C’mon, Dawn, let’s head for Bideford and stop at the café on the Instow road,’ he said. ‘I’ll fill you in over breakfast.’

Saslow looked mildly surprised. As well she might. Vogel was not given to planning meal breaks during a major investigation.

With obvious enthusiasm she ordered a full English — no doubt chosen because she had no idea when she would have the opportunity to eat again — but was only halfway through it when Vogel’s phone rang.

The DCI, a vegetarian but not a vegan, had nearly finished his scrambled eggs, mushrooms and hash browns. He took a final mouthful as he answered the call. It was DI Peters.

‘We’ve got Helen Harris here, boss,’ Peters began. ‘She just arrived. Claims she has something very important to tell us, but she’ll only speak to you.’

Vogel was on his feet at once.

‘Take her along to the interview room, and tell her I’m on my way,’ he said as he ended the call.

He was already heading for the door as he spoke to Saslow. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘We have a rather extraordinary visitor.’

Saslow had experienced Vogel’s tendency to abandon meals before. She clearly had a survival plan. She swiftly picked up her last sausage and rasher of bacon along with the remaining two slices of toast in her paper napkin, leaving only her second fried egg and some baked beans behind. She also remembered to pay, dropping a ten-pound note and a handful of change on the table.

‘C’mon, Saslow,’ yelled Vogel from the doorway.

He just couldn’t wait. He knew this meeting was going to be highly significant.

But he most certainly wasn’t prepared for the revelation which greeted him when he and Saslow walked into the interview room to join Helen Harris, who had duly been escorted there by Peters and was already sitting at the table in the middle of the room, with her back to the door. She stood up and spoke before either of the two officers had time to say anything.

‘I would like to confess to the murder of Thomas Quinn,’ she announced at once.

Vogel was amazed. He glanced at Saslow. Her jaw had quite literally dropped. He suspected his may also have done.

‘Well, why not?’ he enquired rhetorically, after a brief silence. ‘Everybody else is today.’

Helen looked bewildered. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘You should know that we’ve already had Gill Quinn in at dawn confessing to the murder of her husband,’ Vogel replied.

‘Oh c’mon, surely you don’t believe that?’ asked Helen. ‘She’s just trying to protect her son. You know she couldn’t have killed Thomas.’

‘Do I?’ asked Vogel, as he moved behind the table and lowered himself into a chair. ‘I’m beginning to wonder exactly what I do and don’t know about this case. Would you please sit down, Helen. I think we have rather a lot to talk about, don’t you?’

Helen lowered her head slightly in acquiescence. She obediently sat opposite Vogel, and Saslow sat next to the DCI.

Vogel offered Helen the opportunity for legal representation, which she refused, and Saslow started the video and recited the names of those present.

‘I’d like to begin by asking you to repeat what you told us concerning the murder of Thomas Quinn before we had formally begun this interview and commenced the video recording,’ began Vogel.

Without a moment’s hesitation Helen repeated her confession.

‘I also know who killed Jason Patel,’ she added.

‘Do you indeed?’ asked Vogel, again rhetorically. He glanced at Saslow once more. Her eyes were riveted on Helen Harris. It was already clear that this meeting was going to reach far beyond anything he had even considered.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now, before we go any further, I think you’d better tell me who you are, don’t you?’

Helen raised both eyebrows.

‘You know who I am,’ she said.

‘I know who you’ve been for the last twenty-one years,’ said Vogel bluntly. ‘I also know that you are on witness protection. But I have no idea who you were before you were supplied with a new identity. And I would very much like to know, as I suspect it will have a substantial bearing on the investigations I am heading.’

‘Ah,’ said Helen. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting this.’

Suddenly she looked unsure of herself. Vogel knew that he had probably overstepped his authority. He thought he’d better cover himself.

‘You should be aware, however, that I have no right to try to make you tell me your original identity,’ he said. ‘And that those who arranged for you to be able to start a new life have chosen not to share that information with me, as is normal in these situations except in the most exceptional circumstances.’

‘Would confessing to one murder and being prepared to give evidence on another count as exceptional circumstances, do you think?’ asked Helen, very nearly echoing the question Vogel had asked Nobby Clarke the previous day.

‘Well, it might—’ Vogel began, wondering where this was going to take things exactly.

‘Don’t worry, chief inspector,’ she interrupted. ‘I came here this morning prepared to tell you everything I know, and everything about my past and my involvement in both murders, albeit only very tenuously in one of them, that might assist you in getting to the truth and bringing your investigations to a successful conclusion. I just don’t know quite where to start, that’s all.’

‘You could start at the beginning,’ interjected Saslow.

Helen looked at her thoughtfully. Then she half smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose I could,’ she said. ‘I am afraid it’s a very long story though.’

‘Please,’ said Saslow. ‘Take your time. We’re not going anywhere, are we, boss?’

Vogel shook his head. He noticed not for the first time that Helen’s hands were trembling, and watched as she clasped them together on her lap, took a deep breath, and began.

‘Twenty years ago I was Lilian St John. I was born Lilian Cook. When I was thirty-two I met, fell in love with, and married a rich handsome South African called Kurt St John, with whom I believed I was going to live the dream. But that dream quickly turned into an unimaginable nightmare...’

Vogel and Saslow listened in silent enthralment as the woman they knew as Helen Harris told an extraordinary tale, of a dream wedding, the abusive horrors that began on her honeymoon, the final terrible beating that led to her fleeing the London flat she had shared with her husband. How he had caught up with her and she had stabbed him with an unlikely weapon, a butter knife, in desperate self-defence, yet had been imprisoned for causing grievous bodily harm. How he had continued to stalk her even inside prison, and how, when she had her sentence slashed on appeal she had even changed her name by deed poll and cut herself off from everyone she knew in a desperate bid to finally escape him.

‘He caught up with me in the end, of course; it took him a year, but he found me as I knew he would,’ she said. ‘And that was when I killed him.’

Saslow looked totally shocked. But Vogel had started to recall the case. It hadn’t got enormous publicity at first, except the more salacious aspects in the more salacious newspapers, because of the tendency at the time not to pay any great attention to crimes that were regarded as domestics. But there were certain aspects of it which had attracted considerable interest and led to further police enquiries and an Old Bailey trial not directly connected with Lilian St John’s actions.

‘I know who you are now, and I remember what you did,’ he said. ‘Yes, you killed your husband, you shot him with his own gun, but you didn’t even go to trial. You suffered terrible abuse at Kurt St John’s hands, not for the first time, and it was accepted that you acted in self-defence. Isn’t that so?’

‘Yes, that is so,’ she replied. ‘I had a very good lawyer, though. Jean Carr, do you remember her?’

‘I do. She was a famous human rights barrister, retired now, I think, and she certainly was good. But, anyway, your case was considered cut and dried, Hel... uh... Lil...’ Vogel paused. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what to call you...’

‘Call me Helen,’ she said. ‘Always Helen. I never want to go back to being Lilian St John. And yes, you’re right, the case was considered cut and dried. By everyone. Kurt had hurt me quite badly again, and the police even found his bloodstained fingerprints on the little butter knife which I told them he must have brought with him, in order to do to me what I had done to him previously. It was just the sort of twisted thinking he specialized in, actually. Most importantly they were able to trace the gun to Kurt via his brother, William St John. It was a Vector Z-88, the type of pistol used by South African police and security services. Also by thugs like William, who was head of what the St John family call “security”. And I guess still is, hence his visit to Bideford at the weekend.’

Helen paused. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the pages she had extracted from the previous day’s Daily Mail, and pointed at the picture Vogel had released to the media.

‘This is William St John, of the notorious South African St John family. They run a network of international businesses, some way beyond the law, and others designed only to camouflage their more lucrative activities. They are, in reality, no better than gangsters, and they are quite ruthless. Particularly if they think they’ve been crossed. I believed, as I was assured did the police at the highest level, that the family and their activities were effectively destroyed in the UK more than twenty years ago. It would seem not, and that William was responsible for Jason Patel’s death. The gunmen who pulled the trigger were doubtless on his payroll.’

‘You’ll need to explain that,’ responded Vogel at once. ‘How can you be so sure? And how do you know for certain this is William St John? It’s not the best of pictures.’

‘I do know,’ Helen replied firmly. ‘I was almost sure it was him just from the picture, but then he called me. Last night. And threatened me. It was just like the old days really. He’d recognized me from my picture, as I did him, even though we were both twenty years older. I’m several stone heavier too, unfortunately; my hair is totally different, and I wear glasses instead of contact lenses. But I still have my freckles, and they were always distinctive.’

She touched her face with one hand, perhaps involuntarily. Vogel could see no freckles.

‘Ever since I stopped being Lilian, I have hidden my freckles with concealer and foundation,’ she continued. ‘The Mail photographer caught me without my make-up. A rare event.’

She pointed at the newspaper pages again.

‘So you see, there is no doubt that is William St John. And he has made it quite clear that he will not rest until he has achieved revenge for his brother’s death, and also for what I did to him. Or what he perceives I did to him.’

‘What did you do to him?’

‘I was instrumental in him facing a series of charges for his involvement in organized crime, drug running on a massive scale, international fraud, theft, money laundering, and one count of murder. Another exercise in frightening suspect associates that went too far, apparently. I gave evidence against him. I was never named in public, of course, but William knew who I was.’

Of course, thought Vogel, that was what Nobby Clarke had said. The witness gave evidence in camera, but the accused had known full well who they were. That was why Helen had been given witness protection.

‘There was a bit of a stroke of luck all round, the night Kurt died,’ Helen continued. ‘He had brought a briefcase with him, which was found to contain a whole load of incriminating information, mostly pointing at William, “the muscle” as the family have always called him, but some indicating that Kurt was not entirely Mr Clean.

‘The police interviewed me about it, and it turned out that, by default, I knew rather more of the nature of “the family business” than I had realized. Certainly my knowledge, which I had considered so limited, filled in a lot of gaps, and led to William being convicted on almost every charge. The judge sentenced him concurrently on several counts and William was given thirty years. The St Johns were outraged, and the story went round that the woman judge was the granddaughter of the man who gave the Great Train Robbers enormous sentences. It wasn’t true, of course.’

Vogel had a vague memory of that, and told Helen so.

‘He hasn’t served anything like it, obviously,’ Helen explained. ‘Out six months ago, on parole. Only nobody remembered to tell me. You should initiate a search for William and his cohorts straight away, chief inspector. I have reason to believe they intend to flee the country.’

Vogel thought for a moment. He saw no harm in doing just that. He asked Saslow to text DI Peters accordingly. Then he turned back to Helen.

‘You’ve indicated that the St Johns were in business in some way with Thomas Quinn and Jason Patel here in North Devon. That seems like something of a coincidence, particularly if it led to William and his minders coming to the town where you have lived your secret life for so many years on the very weekend that Thomas Quinn was killed. Unless you think they were responsible for that too?’

‘No, the last bit must have been a coincidence, but not the rest of it,’ responded Helen. ‘I remember telling you before that I had fallen in love with North Devon when I came here as a child. I suggested to Kurt that we came here, during what was really a rather wonderful courtship, or seemed to be, before the nightmare began. We stayed at the Saunton Sands Hotel across the estuary. When William phoned me last night he referred to Thomas Quinn as Tommy — which brought back a vague memory from all those years ago. Kurt went to play golf and returned enthusing about Tommy, a young man, I think he was little more than a boy, whom he had met by chance. Kurt said Tommy was just the chap to expand the family business into North Devon.’

‘Was that normal behaviour on the part of your future husband?’

‘Oh yes. Kurt was always looking for the main chance. And for what he called “the talent”. Bright, hard-working people — usually young, he liked to get them young — who were eager for success. And, of course, they had to be thoroughly unscrupulous and prepared to do almost anything as long as the price was right. Although I didn’t realize that at the time. Anyway it all made sense after William’s call. Thomas Quinn was Tommy, and that was the link with the St Johns.’

‘So, are we to assume that this business arrangement has been going on for more than twenty years, without incident, until this weekend?’

‘There is always something suspect about even the most innocent looking business activity, if the St John family is involved, so I would very much doubt that,’ said Helen. ‘The big difference is that William is at large again. And he wouldn’t tolerate anything even slightly amiss in any of the family outposts. Indeed he would take it as a personal insult.’

‘All right, well thank you for that,’ said Vogel. ‘We will look into it. Meanwhile, I don’t think you’d finished telling me about the night Kurt died, had you?’

‘No, I hadn’t. The most important part of my story. And the most dreadful.’

She paused yet again. Vogel wondered how anything could be more dreadful than what he had already heard.

‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

It was still several seconds before Helen spoke again. She looked as if she might be struggling to find the right words.

‘The thing is, I planned it,’ she blurted out suddenly.

Vogel was momentarily puzzled. ‘Planned what?’ he asked.

‘I planned Kurt’s death. I planned exactly how I would kill him. Down to the last detail.’

Vogel looked at Saslow. Saslow looked at Vogel. Neither of them dared speak.

‘I was ready and waiting for him when he came for me, even though I had prayed every day that he never would,’ Helen continued. ‘Everything was organized. My weapons, the gun and the little butter knife, were concealed underneath the table by the door. Waiting, as I was, just in case. I wanted Kurt to think I was running, trying to get away. And I wanted it to look that way to the police too.

‘I had the gun behind my back, ready, when he came at me, and I shot him at point-blank range in the chest. I didn’t hesitate, Mr Vogel.

‘When I was sure that he was dead, I set about framing him. I put the gun in his hand so that it would have his fingerprints on it as well as mine. Then I stabbed myself with that little butter knife. It might have been little, but it hurt like hell. I had to do it though, Mr Vogel. Everything had to be extreme, to justify and explain my shooting Kurt.

‘I wiped my own prints off the butter knife, but not my blood, of course, and smudged Kurt’s prints all over it. The DNA, the blood pattern, the prints, all matched my story. A neighbour reported hearing my screams. That was a bonus. I wasn’t even aware that I had screamed.

‘I didn’t want to kill him. Really I didn’t. I just never wanted to set eyes on Kurt St John again. Even though I had planned every detail, it was a plan I hoped never to execute. But, was I glad he was dead? Oh yes, Mr Vogel, so very very glad.’

Quite abruptly, Helen stopped speaking.

Vogel had been quite mesmerized. And he suspected it was the same for Saslow. He had to struggle to think like a policeman again. Could it really be true?

‘That’s quite a story,’ he said eventually. ‘There are parts I don’t totally understand though. The gun, as you said, was traced to Kurt—’

‘I was imprisoned for fifteen months, I had all the right contacts,’ Helen interrupted. ‘Prison gives you that. You come into contact with people who know how to get a gun if you want one. And people who are more than willing to teach you the tricks of their nefarious trades. You can learn how to cover your tracks. You can learn how to lay a false trail, how to frame someone else. And, if you’re desperate enough, you can even learn how to kill and get away with it...’

Again she paused. Again Vogel glanced at Saslow, and Saslow glanced at Vogel. Again neither of them dared speak.

‘I didn’t want it to come to that, chief inspector,’ Helen continued eventually. ‘I did everything I could for it not to happen. I changed my name, I went to live in a crap bedsit in a place where I knew nobody and nobody knew me. I did everything I could to hide from Kurt. I was prepared to exist like that for the rest of my life. And it would have been just an existence. I didn’t go after Kurt, Mr Vogel. And I so hoped he wouldn’t come after me again. But when he did, I had no choice.

‘It was still self-defence, in my opinion, chief inspector, but I don’t think a court would have seen it that way, do you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Vogel agreed. ‘It would have been regarded as premeditated.’

‘I never thought I’d have the guts, you know, not if it came to it,’ Helen continued, almost as if Vogel hadn’t spoken. ‘But ultimately I did it without batting an eyelid. I killed my husband. I blew a hole in his chest. And I planned it down to the last detail. That’s something I’ve had to live with for more than twenty years.’

‘Yes, Kurt St John died a very long time ago,’ commented Vogel. ‘So why are you telling us this now?’

‘One reason is that I’m a lapsed Catholic, I’ve been waiting a long time for this confessional.’

Helen laughed, almost as if she were telling a joke, before turning deadly serious again.

‘Another is that I can no longer be hurt. Not really. Not by William, although he doesn’t know that. And not by the forces of law. I have multiple sclerosis. It was diagnosed not long after I killed Kurt. At the time my Catholic guilt told me that it was just retribution. Mine is relapse-remitting MS, the commonest sort, and most of the time I have been able to live more or less a normal life. There have been bad episodes over the years, of course. And it’s largely because of the MS that I became so overweight, which I’ve always hated. But it’s only recently that I’ve had to accept I am approaching end-stage MS. My attacks have become more frequent and I am often in considerable pain.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Helen,’ murmured Vogel.

With the benefit of hindsight, however, he was not entirely surprised. He had, after all, noticed her trembling hands before, and the way she’d stumbled and then needed to sit after she’d attempted to mow the lawn. But at the time he had thought nothing of any of that, and totally misinterpreted what now seemed to be quite clear indications of a potentially serious health issue.

‘Yes, but it means I am unlikely to ever stand trial, not for anything,’ Helen replied, with another small laugh.

‘However, the most important reason is that I want you to know what I’m capable of,’ she continued. ‘I know how to kill. I know how to commit a murder. I’ve done it before. I also killed Thomas Quinn, I don’t want there to be any doubt about that, and I don’t want the wrong person to be convicted of his murder.’

‘Well maybe,’ responded Vogel. ‘But killing a man who has caused you such terrible suffering and repeatedly put you in fear of your life is one thing, killing somebody you don’t even know on behalf of a third party is something entirely different.’

‘Yes it is, isn’t it?’ remarked Helen conversationally.

She looked thoughtful and paused yet again.

‘The thing is, I’ve done that before too,’ she said.

Vogel could hardly believe his ears. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, although surely the meaning had been clear enough.

‘I want to tell you something, Chief Inspector Vogel and Sergeant Saslow, something monumentally catastrophic that people who have never been directly involved rarely even consider. I doubt either of you really know about domestic abuse. Not really. I don’t think you’re married, are you, sergeant? Or not to a man anyway. And I doubt you’ve ever had a close relationship with a man, have you?’

Saslow shook her head. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. She felt her cheeks begin to colour. Saslow liked to keep her private life exactly that. She never talked about her sexuality at work.

‘As for you, Mr Vogel, I doubt you’re an abusive husband somehow. And attending a few select committee meetings on the subject tells you nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am sure you know the basic facts, two women a week in this country are killed by men. Yet there are government strategy initiatives looking into homelessness and knife crime, and all manner of other crucial issues, but not into domestic violence — despite the fact that almost two million women and 800,000 men suffered domestic abuse during 2019, the last fully recorded year. And those, of course, are only the cases that were reported to the authorities. Data is limited since the pandemic, but we know the situation has become much much worse. During the first lockdown the National Domestic Abuse Helpline reported a sixty-five per cent increase in calls. For me every statistic is a stab to the heart. But there is something else, perhaps the greatest horror of all, for which there are, as far as I am aware, no recorded figures, no substantiated data.

‘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.’