‘Was the shirt made of cotton, by any chance?’ he asked.
‘It certainly was, boss,’ answered Peters.
‘How convenient,’ murmured Vogel, who knew that cotton was the best fabric for the recovery of fingerprints, and the finer the cotton the better.
‘Get on to Custody at Barnstaple nick,’ he told DI Peters. ‘Tell them Saslow and I are on our way. I want to interview young Quinn again straight away. And almost certainly I shall be charging him. We’d better get his solicitor there.’
They were just crossing the new bridge over the Torridge when Peters called.
‘It seems Philip Stubbs is already with Quinn in his cell,’ she said.
‘Good, that should speed things up,’ said Vogel.
‘Yes boss, but there’s something else, Helen Harris is also there. With Stubbs and Quinn in the cell.’
‘What?’ Vogel cried. ‘How the hell did that happen? We’ve arrested Gregory Quinn on suspicion of murder. He has free access to his solicitor and can confer with him in private, but not members of the general public, for God’s sake.’
‘It seems Barnstaple Custody don’t regard Helen Harris as general public, boss.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ snapped Vogel. ‘Tell them to get that bloody woman out of it, smartish.’
‘I’ve already done that,’ said Peters. ‘In view of our investigations earlier I had an idea you’d feel this way.’
‘Too right,’ said Vogel. ‘What on earth are they playing at? Don’t they realize nobody is above suspicion in a murder investigation? What they’ve done is totally against procedure.’
‘Almost everyone in Bideford and Barnstaple nick has worked closely with Helen Harris for years, boss,’ said Peters, by way of an attempt at an explanation. ‘They think of her as one of us.’
‘One of us?’ queried Vogel irritably. ‘And yet nobody knows a damned thing about the woman. Rest assured, I’m going to change that. Smartish.’
Thirty-Eight
Kurt was taken to the morgue. Lilian was taken to hospital.
She was not only bruised, battered and covered in scratches, but also she had been badly cut on her shoulders and arms.
She had explained to the police who came to interview her that her husband had tracked her down even though she had relocated, changed her name, and kept the lowest of low profiles.
‘Just as I always feared he would, he came to find me,’ she told them. ‘I tried so hard to hide away, but he found me. He pushed his way into the flat and forced himself on me. He started to hit me straight away. He slapped me a couple of times then punched me in the face. Hard. You can see what he did to me.’
She gestured towards her damaged face. ‘This is what he has always done to me,’ she continued. ‘The only way he can achieve an erection, with me anyway, is to cause pain. And it works. It always works. Rather spectacularly. The rest of the time he is totally flaccid.’
Two police officers were by her bedside. A young male PC and an older female CID officer who had introduced herself as Detective Sergeant Brenda Smythe.
The PC was blushing, a common enough reaction amongst so many, Lilian had found, when she attempted to describe Kurt’s sexual preferences.
‘You can use the past tense,’ commented DS Smythe. ‘Your husband is definitely dead.’
Lilian thought that approach was a little ambivalent. She wasn’t sure whether DS Smythe sympathized with her or not. But she could not be anything other than relieved to hear that Kurt really was dead. Even though she already feared the consequences of that. She had known he was dead. This time. Of course she had known. But she could hardly believe it.
DS Smythe asked first about the stab wounds Lilian had suffered. Which, although little more than flesh wounds, were serious enough to require a number of stitches.
‘We found what we think is the weapon he used, at the scene,’ the DS said. ‘A silver butter knife. A strange choice.’
Lilian shook her head. ‘Not so strange,’ she said.
And she did her best to explain about the incident at Bristol when she, in desperation, had stabbed him with a butter knife.
‘He told me he intended to do to me what I did to him. Kurt is — was — a very strong man. Usually I just submitted to him, because it would end up worse for me if I didn’t.’
‘But not this time,’ commented DS Smythe. ‘It was your husband it ended up worse for. He died.’
Lilian could only nod her head in agreement. She remained silent.
‘Could you please tell me exactly what happened which led to you shooting Mr St John?’ the DS continued.
Lilian did her best to do so. She explained how all she had ever wanted to do was to escape. How she’d managed to get off the bed and away from him, she had no idea how, and run for the door, but he’d come after her, and grabbed her.
‘Then suddenly he pulled a gun on me, a handgun, I was terrified,’ she continued.
‘But wasn’t Mr St John naked?’ asked DS Smythe. ‘He was certainly naked when we found him.’
‘Y-yes he was,’ affirmed Lilian. ‘And if you’re asking me where he got the gun from, well I didn’t think about it at the time, I was so terrified, but I realized we were standing where he’d dropped his jacket when he forced his way into my flat. I think it must have been in his pocket.’
‘Did your husband often carry a gun?’
‘Perhaps not often, but I had seen him with firearms before, he would have certainly known how to get hold of one.’
‘What did he actually do with the gun?’
‘He threatened me with it, of course. Why else would he have brought a gun with him? He told me that if I didn’t stop trying to get away he would shoot me. In the heart, he said. He pointed the gun straight at me and he told me that I was never going to escape him, that I shouldn’t try. Then he said that if he couldn’t have me, he was going to make damned sure nobody else did.’
‘But you have mentioned what a big strong man he was, how on earth did you manage to get the gun away from him?’
‘I’m not quite sure. I remember thinking that if I tried to get out of the door again, if I tried to run, he really would shoot me. As he had said. So I just stood there and begged and pleaded with him. We were standing close together. I’m not sure, but I think at one point the barrel of the gun was sticking into me. I think I tried to push it away, I must have tried to grab it, I suppose. Instinctively. I really don’t remember.
‘Then the gun went off. At very close quarters. It fired. I realized it was in my hand. That I must have pulled the trigger. But I have no real recollection of that. All I really remember is a bang and a flash, and watching him sink to the floor. He just collapsed, with this massive gaping hole in his chest. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen. And all I know is that I have killed a man. Killed my husband. And I doubt I will ever come to terms with that. But I had no choice, DS Smythe. It was him or me. He was going to kill me. And if I hadn’t, by some extraordinary freak, got hold of that gun and fired it first, he would have done. I have no doubt about that. He would have killed me.’
Lilian called Jean Carr as soon as the two officers left the ward. They had given little away, and she had no idea really what they had made of her and her extraordinary story.
She did know she was going to need extensive professional help if she was going to avoid being locked up again, and this time for a great deal longer.
The barrister was positive from the start.
‘You killed in self-defence,’ she said at once. ‘Absolutely no doubt about it. For God’s sake, the man pulled a gun on you. He came to you carrying a firearm with presumably that intention. That’s premeditation. Then he threatened to shoot you in the heart. You had no choice but to do whatever you could to defend yourself. Don’t worry. This time you’re going to walk free. Just leave it to me.’