Saslow was interrupted by the somewhat clumsy return of DC Perkins, who tripped over his own feet in his haste to enter the room.
‘There’s been a development, boss,’ he began, his voice and manner both considerably more animated than previously. ‘We’ve had a call from Helen Harris. Said she has important information regarding the Quinn case. Do you know who she is, boss?’
Vogel nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’
He could feel a little shiver of interest running up and down his spine.
‘So what did she have to tell us, Perkins?’ he asked.
‘She wouldn’t say, boss, only that she wanted to speak to someone in authority.’
Vogel grunted. He would have expected little else.
In the short time since he had become permanently stationed in North Devon, Vogel had already had dealings with Helen Harris. She was well known amongst police as well as medical personnel in the area.
She ran the high profile and innovative Helen’s House, a refuge and support centre for abused women — based on Sarah’s House in Arizona, the groundbreaking leader in its field which provides legal advice, medical care, and sheltered accommodation for abused women; all under one roof and largely provided by professionals. Like Sarah’s House, Helen’s House worked closely with the authorities in the region, and even sent representatives to scenes of domestic abuse along with the police and other emergency services.
Vogel’s previous encounter with Helen Harris had not been concerned with a live case, but rather at his first meeting of the regional police liaison committee which met periodically with social services, medical professionals, and others, to discuss what could be done to improve and develop procedure in what remained a vexed area of policing.
Such meetings might not immediately seem to fall within Vogel’s remit, but the chief constable of the Devon and Cornwall force believed in prevention rather than cure, whenever possible. He expected MCT officers, and indeed representatives of almost all areas of policing, to make occasional appearances.
‘He’s got a point, Vogel,’ Nobby Clarke had told him. ‘After all, the vast majority of the major crimes of violence which we are called in to investigate are domestics of some kind.’
Vogel had instinctively taken a liking to Helen Harris, and quickly developed considerable respect for the work she seemed devoted to. She was bang up to date too, and had talked at length at that meeting about the effect of Covid, when couples and families had been forced to isolate and turn in on themselves for long periods of time, resulting in a sharp national increase in incidents of domestic violence.
‘Well then, you’ll have a good idea why she’s called in, boss,’ Perkins continued. ‘It can only mean one thing, surely?’
Vogel was inclined to agree. If Helen Harris was in any way involved in this case, then the implications were pretty obvious. And if she had called in with information, then it would undoubtedly be important. She certainly wasn’t a time waster. She wanted to speak to someone in authority. And Vogel wanted to speak to her.
‘I’ll talk to her myself,’ he told Perkins.
‘Right, boss. Shall I ask her if she can come in?’
Vogel shook his head.
‘No. I’ll go to her. I don’t want to start by ordering her about, and I’ve never been to Helen’s House. If there’s any involvement there, I’d like to check the place out myself.’
He did know vaguely where the House was. In Bideford, in the area known as the top of the town.
‘Tell her I’ll be there within the hour,’ he said. ‘Saslow, with me. Perkins, speak to DI Peters. We should appoint a family liaison officer. Gill’s husband has been murdered, and we do not yet know who the murderer is. We should remember that.’
Perkins looked slightly nonplussed. As well he might. Everything about the case so far, Gill Quinn’s behaviour, the way in which she had reported her husband’s death, and all the circumstantial evidence, indicated that the woman was guilty of his murder. And if Helen’s House was involved in any way that surely added to the probability.
Vogel was not a man who was inclined to count his chickens. Nonetheless he could feel the pieces of the jigsaw beginning to fall into place in his head. And he strongly suspected that his imminent meeting with Helen Harris was going to be vital.
‘OK, Perkins, get on with it,’ he instructed. ‘There’s more than one reason for appointing a FLO, as you know. I’d like someone keeping a very close eye on both mother and son. Don’t forget, Greg Quinn also seems to have a possible motive. Tell DI Peters I want both of them kept on our radar twenty-four-seven.’
‘Got it, boss,’ said Perkins, as he turned rather more smartly on his heels, and made his way out of the room without further incident.
Twelve
It was around four thirty in the morning when Lilian arrived on the outskirts of the ancient West Country sea-port city. She stopped at a service station, put twenty pounds worth of petrol in the now extremely thirsty motor car, and bought herself coffee and sandwiches.
Maybe it was the adrenalin of doing something at last, but for the first time, not only since leaving hospital but actually since the night it had all happened, she felt genuinely hungry.
She was heading for the Westbury Park area of Bristol. Her married cousin, Laura Beggs, whom she had once been close to, lived there. The two women had grown out of touch, and Lilian no longer had a phone number for Laura. Neither, of course, did she have a phone — something she needed to rectify as soon as she managed to raise some funds. But many years ago she’d visited the house which she knew remained to be Laura’s home because they did still send each other Christmas cards.
There was no one else she could think of who she could possibly turn to.
She skirted Bristol city centre using the inner ring road. At Clifton she turned off towards the famous old suspension bridge, parked by the visitors centre and walked along the bridge clutching her coffee and sandwiches. It was still far too early to go calling on anyone. Dawn was just beginning to break on what promised to be a beautiful day.
Lilian leaned against the safety fence on the city side of the bridge. Bristol lay before her, a still sleeping city. She could see the old docks, with their modern state-of-the-art residential developments, the huge lock gates and the floating harbour. She shifted her glance, looking downwards. The Avon, like a shiny black snake, wound its way along the gorge two hundred feet below. The Brunel designed triumph of nineteenth-century engineering upon which she stood was frequently used in suicide attempts. And anyone jumping from it was almost certain to succeed in their aim.
Lilian felt strangely grateful that the moment when, in such an opportune situation, she might well have taken her own life had passed.
She no longer wished to die. She was determined to live. But without Kurt. She just needed a place of refuge for a few weeks.
She’d had a career once, in magazine journalism, which she had ultimately found disappointing and had readily abandoned for Kurt. How glad she would be for the chance to return to it now. Apart from any other considerations she had no money. She was sure a husband wasn’t allowed to just cut off his wife financially the way Kurt had done, and there must be a way of clearing funds. But how long would it take? Even if she could afford legal help.
She allowed herself to fantasize, just for a moment, that Kurt would be arrested, tried and imprisoned. It was the only real path of escape she could imagine.
Meanwhile she could do no more than take things by stages.
She fleetingly wondered just how pleased cousin Laura would be to see her, beaten up and bringing with her such awful problems, but Lilian did not think she would turn her away.