‘Uh, no. I didn’t.’
‘And why was that?’
‘I had a pressing amount of paperwork to do. Weekends are often the only time I have for that. I spent quite a lot of the day in my office.’
‘Helen, did you even know Maggie Challis was here?’
Helen Harris hesitated for just a split second. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said.
Vogel held out his hands in front of him, palms up.
‘So if one woman could be present in this house for three hours on Saturday afternoon without you knowing, why couldn’t another be absent from the house for three hours without you knowing? I am beginning to think, Helen, that the alibi you have given Gill Quinn may be somewhat flawed.’
Helen frowned. When she spoke again her voice was slightly louder and firmer than previously. ‘I did not give Gill Quinn an alibi. Not personally. Not for the entire day. You are quite wrong, Mr Vogel, to suggest that I did. I said that either I, or Sadie, or one of, or indeed perhaps all of, the other women who were here on Saturday, could, between us, vouch for Gill having been present here all day. Without leaving the premises. That is an entirely different premise. We provide a one-hundred-per-cent group alibi. I stand by that absolutely. And I take exception to your insinuation that I might in some way be dissembling.’
Vogel found himself blinking rapidly behind his spectacles. He so wished he did not do that when he felt embarrassed or ill at ease. He turned his head slightly in the hope that Helen Harris wouldn’t notice. But he hoped in vain.
‘Do you have something in your eye?’ she asked casually.
Vogel thought it might be the very first time anyone had actually drawn attention to his mild affliction. Or certainly anyone he was interviewing, albeit informally.
‘I think you know that I do not,’ he replied equally casually. ‘And I am sorry if I offended you,’ he continued. ‘However, you must see that unless we can prove that the phone number belongs to Maggie Challis, or unless you recall another visitor you had overlooked...’
He paused, studying Helen carefully, and was gratified to see that she appeared to have coloured slightly, and might no longer be quite so sure of herself. ‘Unless either of those eventualities are realized,’ he continued, ‘then it would seem Gill must have left these premises in order to borrow a phone from someone and call her son...’
‘Unless the burner belongs to Gill herself,’ suggested Helen, who was clearly not entirely wrong-footed.
Vogel hadn’t actually considered that. In any case he didn’t think it likely. It didn’t fit.
‘Her son claimed he didn’t recognize the number, and I believe he was telling the truth,’ said the DCI. ‘If Gill had a secret phone it would seem unlikely that she would have kept it a secret from Greg. It is also probable that the burner would still have been on her person, or certainly somewhere in her home, when we encountered Gill after her 999 call. We have found no such phone.’
‘Perhaps you should look harder, Mr Vogel. Alternatively, you could ask Gill whose phone she used. Or indeed if it was her own phone. Have you thought of that?’
The same wry little smile flickered around Helen Harris’ lips. Vogel could clearly detect a note of sarcasm in her voice. She was perfectly sure of herself again, and the DCI was no longer entirely sure that he liked the woman as much as he’d thought he did. She was sharp as a needle, a characteristic he always appreciated. And clearly a great friend and ally to those who came to her for help, which was admirable. But perhaps she was a tad too acerbic. Certainly in her dealings with a senior police officer.
He had deliberately not yet sought out Gill Quinn to ask her whose phone she had used to call her son, because, when he asked questions like that he preferred, whenever possible, to already know the answer. Which was classic interviewing technique. However he had no intention of sharing any of that with Helen Harris.
Instead, without responding at all to her final remark, he bid her farewell and took his leave.
Thirty
Lilian stood trial at Bristol Crown Court.
It felt as if the odds were stacked against her from the start. She continued to fear that Charlie was no longer a hundred per cent behind her. He had not been quite the same with her since the incident with Kurt in Islington. In turn, she was beginning to realize, neither was she any longer sure that this kind and decent man was quite clever enough. His judgement had so far been way off almost throughout. It was possible Kate may not have done her that big a favour in persuading Charlie to take up her case, she reflected disloyally. And her legal aid barrister was, it soon became clear, not a patch on the prosecuting barrister, who put the case against Lilian swiftly and succinctly.
According to the prosecution Lilian was a calculated and violent woman who, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, had attempted to kill her devoted husband. And she had acted without provocation.
Kurt was called to the witness box straight away. Cool, handsome and collected, he was at his most charming. He managed not only to look sorrowful and virtuous, but even vulnerable. In spite of herself Lilian could not help being impressed by his performance. It also seemed almost inevitable to her that she was about to be destroyed by it.
Kurt expressed fluently his great regret over everything that had happened. Even the way he talked was attractive. He spoke beautiful English, with just the merest hint of a South African accent.
His barrister began by asking him about the earlier incident at Penbourne Villas.
Looking embarrassed, his body language awkward, Kurt told how rough sex and drugs led to the wife he so loved throwing herself from the balcony of their home and being seriously injured.
‘I just wish I could turn the clock back,’ he said. ‘I certainly wish I’d never agreed to her demands, never agreed to get drugs for her. But she begged me to.’
Kurt went on to explain how he had fled the UK — after what he called ‘the accident’ — because he didn’t think anyone would believe his version of events.
‘I panicked,’ he says. ‘And when I heard the police were looking for me, I panicked even more. But I soon realized I couldn’t live without Lilian. So I disguised my appearance and acquired another passport in order to re-enter the country, find Lilian, and see if I could persuade her to try again.
‘I knew the risks, and I realize I have behaved stupidly, and that in using a false passport I have committed a serious offence with which I could be charged at any time. But I was prepared to do whatever it took to save my marriage. I was desperate. Really desperate.’
‘Have you ever deliberately hurt your wife, Mr St John, in any way?’ asked the prosecution barrister.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Kurt, his eyes blazing with sincerity. ‘The only injuries she ever suffered, until she fell from the balcony, were the result of the bizarre sexual demands she insisted on making of me. I hated it. But I love her so much. She is still the only woman in the world for me.’
He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. Lilian couldn’t swear to it, but she was pretty sure his eyes had filled with tears.
‘I would still have Lilian back in spite of what she has done to me, however many times she stabbed me, it makes no difference,’ he said. ‘If she goes to jail I will wait for her. I will never walk away from her.’
Those words were quite chilling to Lilian. But she was all too aware of the jury melting.
As he spoke, Kurt turned in the witness box, so that he was directly facing Lilian, staring at her. And there was nothing remotely melting to her about the look in his pale blue eyes. It was pure menace. The jury did not see it. Neither could they possibly have understood what he really meant by his last remark. She understood. He had merely confirmed what she had come to believe a long time ago, since way before he finally put her in hospital, pretty much since she had married him. She now knew absolutely for sure, that Kurt St John would never let her go. He would never leave her alone for as long as they were both alive. Not under any circumstances.