Greg felt absolutely shattered. He understood only too well. This was quite devastating evidence. He glanced at Philip Stubbs, desperately seeking assistance. The solicitor stepped in at once.
‘Don’t answer that,’ he instructed Greg, before addressing Vogel.
‘I am advising my client to answer no more questions at this stage,’ he said.
‘Right,’ said the DCI. ‘You should know that I shall be approaching the CPS with a view to charging your client later tonight.’
Vogel turned to Greg. ‘Are you absolutely sure that you have nothing else to say?’ he asked mildly. ‘You could make things worse for yourself, you know.’
Greg had no idea what he could say. He merely shook his head. He didn’t know how things could be worse. It felt as if his world was about to end. He wanted his mother. He needed to talk to his mother. Desperately. Although he wasn’t entirely sure what he could say to her, either.
Forty
It really did look now as if the Quinn case was about to reach its obvious conclusion. But Vogel was far from satisfied. There had been a second murder which he still could not believe was totally unrelated to the first. After all, it was Thomas Quinn’s business partner who had been shot. Also, he had a mystery woman on his patch, already connected, albeit at a certain distance, with Thomas’ murder. And that continued to bug him.
It was rare to find people living their lives in the UK who did not have a documented history by the time they reached adulthood. Building an entire new identity, without even the hint of a past, was not easily done. Even in the age of the internet, let alone more than twenty years previously. Indeed, it was pretty nigh impossible without assistance at the highest level.
Vogel really needed to call Nobby Clarke. He and Nobby went back a long way and he had always admired and respected her. That had sadly changed the last time he worked with her, due to a situation which Vogel continued to believe had seriously compromised them both and, ultimately, he had taken the decision to move permanently to North Devon in spite of Clarke rather than because of her. As a result the easy banter of their old relationship had been lost, and they were inclined to speak only when professionally necessary. This was definitely one of those occasions. He had developed a theory about Helen Harris, and he was eager to check it out. Also, he needed to give Clarke a further progress report.
He called her mobile and she picked up almost at once. They both dispensed with any niceties, Vogel swiftly and concisely gave her an update on the progress of his investigations. Basically the Patel murder inquiry was ongoing, and the Quinn case had almost certainly been resolved.
‘I would therefore like to charge Gregory Quinn tonight with the murder of his father,’ he concluded.
To his relief, but only as he had expected, Clarke immediately agreed that he should do that. ‘And I’ll leave you to liaise with the CPS, you’re the one running the show,’ she added. ‘But I don’t see any problems there, do you?’
Vogel conferred that he did not, and hoped that would prove to be so. But you could never be totally sure with the prosecution service, in his experience. He then explained his dilemma concerning Helen Harris.
‘I think I know what you’re getting at here, Vogel,’ responded the superintendent. ‘But you’d better spell it out.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Vogel.
Once upon a time she would have rounded on him for calling her ‘Ma’am’. Detective Superintendent Clarke was not much given to formality. She actually preferred to be called Nobby, but she would put up with ‘boss’. At a push. Nowadays however, her relationship with Vogel was different, and she invariably made no comment whatever he addressed her as.
‘Well, I think Helen Harris might be on witness protection,’ Vogel continued. ‘It’s just about the only thing that makes any sense. It’s as if she wasn’t born until 2000. Nobody can recreate themselves to that degree without help at the highest level. We both know that.’
‘Possibly,’ said Clarke. ‘So what do you want me do about it?’
Vogel was aware that she knew perfectly well what he wanted her to do about it. He played it straight.
‘I’d very much like you to find out if I’m right, boss,’ he replied evenly.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Clarke.
She ended the call without any further prevarication. Sometimes Vogel so missed the way things used to be between them. But he had accepted that they would never be able to get those days back.
And, anyway, he had no time for pondering the past. He had work to do. He needed to present his case to the CPS. He wanted Greg Quinn charged as soon as humanly possible.
Helen Harris was in her office with the door shut. That in itself was unusual. She didn’t feel particularly well. Her eyes were sore. Her hands were trembling. She had just knocked half the contents of her coffee mug over the newspaper spread out on her desk.
And it was that newspaper, the Daily Mail, which was causing her so much concern that she believed it to be affecting her physically.
Helen rarely read newspapers, certainly not the Mail, and had only just seen the paper, that day’s edition, even though it was past ten o’clock in the evening. Sadie had handed her a copy when she had returned from her visit to Barnstaple police station, and suggested she should take a look
Sadie hadn’t appeared overly disturbed. Why should she have been?
‘They’ve made you famous,’ she’d remarked lightly.
Helen was deeply disturbed.
The Mail had done one of its major investigations into what it had dubbed ‘Murder by the Seaside’. A snappy front-page blurb led into a spread and a further page inside the paper.
It was the spread that initially alarmed Helen. The Mail had published a row of mug shots of people involved in the police inquiry into the deaths of Thomas Quinn and Jason Patel, which stretched across two pages. Vogel was there as the senior investigating officer, also Saslow, the two victims of course, and Gill and Greg Quinn. The Mail had clearly done its homework. Wynne Williams also featured, as did a summary of his possible affair with Gill. And Patel’s ex-wife Maureen, along with some perhaps ill-judged comments about her husband and his business partner Thomas’ possible links with organized crime.
However it was the final picture in the line-up which had stunned her. The Mail had somehow acquired a close-up photograph of her, which looked as if it had been snatched just outside the House. Nonetheless it was pin-sharp. And if the photographer’s intention had been to present her as some sort of deranged half-wit then he had done an excellent job. Her hair was all over the place, her mouth appeared to be hanging open, and there was a distinctly wild look in her eye. Neither was she wearing any make-up, which meant that the freckles on her face, which she had habitually masked with concealer and foundation for so long, were starkly evident. Helen couldn’t believe she had been so careless, particularly when she’d known there were press photographers about. But, upon further studying the picture, she realized that it had been taken early the previous morning when she had stepped into the back alley to put out some rubbish. And she’d had no idea that there was any particular press interest in her. She certainly hadn’t noticed the presence of any journalists in the vicinity of Helen’s House — not even the photographer who’d so successfully snapped her. Helen had missed a call from a Daily Mail reporter who’d left a message saying that she wished to speak to her about issues concerning domestic violence following the death of Thomas Quinn, but nothing about that message had indicated that they were aware of her personal involvement in the case. Which presumably had been the caller’s intention. She’d ignored it for no other reason than that, under the circumstances, she hadn’t wished to further draw attention to herself.