Their visit to Andy Quinn’s home was timed to see them arrive ten minutes after Debbie Weston, the FLO. Arriving mob-handed wouldn’t have got them off to a good start and having a trusted officer in Debbie Weston about the place was intended to put Quinn at ease.
‘I’m sure DC Weston has already updated you on the news from forensics and the door-to-door enquiries, Mr Quinn, but we need to double-check a few things with you and ask you some questions pertaining to operational procedure,’ Wendy said diplomatically. She’d already tactically suggested that perhaps she should take the lead in speaking to Quinn, knowing Culverhouse’s tendency for being tactless.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll do what I can to help,’ Quinn said, forcing a smile.
‘I’m sure you understand that we’ve had to look into Keira’s personal life quite closely in order to establish the circumstances leading to her death. As part of that, we had to go through her bank statements to see who she was financially linked to. We saw a number of payments, every week in fact, from your account to hers over a number of years. What were these for?’
Quinn turned his head towards the window and Wendy saw his jaw clenching.
‘I’d been paying her some money to keep her going. I don’t exactly have much, but it was certainly more than she had. I felt some sort of obligation towards her and didn’t want to see her out on the streets. You didn’t know her like I did. She was a heavy drinker and hadn’t worked a day in her life. That’s what we argued about, a lot of the time. Despite all that I still cared for her, of course I did. So I used to give her some money out of my pay packet to make sure she wasn’t lying in a gutter somewhere.’
‘Why did you stop the payments?’ Wendy asked, hoping to catch Quinn in a stream of opening up.
He made a small snorting noise. ‘Because I found out she’d been earning an income after all. A friend told me that Keira had been working as a hooker for a few months. When I asked her, she admitted it. As I saw it, not only did she have an income but she’d broken my trust. That’s when I put a stop to the payments.’
‘So when you told us yesterday that she didn’t work, you were lying,’ Culverhouse said.
‘It’s not work, is it? Not full-time, anyway. And certainly not what you could call a career option. I didn’t see much point in mentioning it. She might as well have some dignity left.’
‘That’s not really for you to judge,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘How did she take you stopping the payments? I mean, I can imagine she’d’ve been pretty pissed off.’
‘She wasn’t exactly happy, no,’ Quinn replied, brushing an invisible speck of dust from the arm of his chair. ‘She said it was her life and she’d do as she pleased. I agreed and said I’d do what I wanted with mine too. We agreed to disagree.’
‘Very diplomatically put,’ Culverhouse said.
Wendy cut in before he could say any more. ‘Now we’ve got to ask, as I’m sure you imagine — do you know of anyone who would’ve wanted Keira dead?’
Quinn looked at the floor and seemed to be genuinely trying to rack his brains. ‘No, nobody. No-one that I can think of. But then again we didn’t exactly speak to each other much since we were divorced, so I wouldn’t know anyone she’d met since.’
‘You didn’t speak, but you paid a hundred quid a week into her bank account,’ Culverhouse said, raising an eyebrow.
‘I’ve already explained that,’ Quinn replied, staring Culverhouse down. ‘Is it a crime to want your ex-wife not to live on the streets?’
‘I’m not sure I’d be quite as caring,’ Culverhouse replied.
‘Well that goes to show that we’re very different people, doesn’t it?’
‘It certainly does. Where were you on the night of the thirtieth and morning of the thirty-first of August, Andy?’ Culverhouse liked to try and catch people off-guard in the vain hope that a suspect might slip up or at least give in to a slight, subconscious facial twitch — a ‘tell’ which would belie their words.
‘I was at home. And before you ask, no, I don’t have an alibi. I was at home on my own, watching TV all evening and then I went to bed.’
‘Anything good on?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘Not especially, no. Usual rubbish.’
‘Which programmes did you watch?’ Wendy asked, a little more directly than Culverhouse had.
‘Uh, I think there was something about Indian cookery. Yeah, I remember that one because it made me hungry and I ended up making some cheese on toast. The slice of bread is still missing from the pack if you want to check that.’
Culverhouse gave him an icy stare. ‘And then what? Off to bed with a mug of Horlicks and a copy of the Reader’s Digest?’
‘If you like. I woke up in the morning, put the radio on while I was making my breakfast and that’s when I heard about the body.’
‘Making your breakfast at nine in the morning?’ Culverhouse asked. ‘Wouldn’t you have been at work by then?’
‘I had a day off,’ Quinn replied, looking at Culverhouse with a neutral look in his eyes.
‘To do what?’
‘To relax. We all need to relax now and again, don’t we? Turned out not to be very relaxing at all.’
Wendy could sense the tension growing between Quinn and Culverhouse and decided to try and defuse it.
‘If you could possibly have a think for us and let us know if you think of anyone who might be able to provide an alibi, please let us know. Perhaps a neighbour who saw you outside, a friend who called — anything like that.’
‘I will,’ Quinn said, smiling at Wendy. ‘Thank you.’
‘Something’s not quite right there,’ Culverhouse said when they’d left and were getting back into their car. ‘The thing with the payments is just bloody weird. And no alibi? And having a day off work? Handy, that.’
‘I’m not quite sure how,’ Wendy replied. ‘Surely if he’d killed her he’d want to make everything look as normal as possible to divert suspicion away from him.’
‘Dunno about that. We’ve both known our fair share of killers who delight in the chase, trying to get us to suspect them while just keeping any decent evidence out of reach.’
‘You reckon?’ Wendy asked, pulling away from the kerb.
‘Come on, Knight. You saw the way he looked at me. Almost goading me, boasting with his eyes.’
‘That probably had more to do with the fact that you were being less than sensitive, as usual. I’m surprised you didn’t ask him where the murder weapon was.’
‘Of course, I forgot we were meant to be treating murder suspects with respect. Like the respect he showed Keira Quinn when he sliced her fucking neck open.’
‘You don’t know that he did, guv. Doesn’t quite sound right to me that he’d risk all that for no reason. They were divorced, he wasn’t paying her money each week any more. What reason could he have for killing her?’
Culverhouse looked out of the side window of the car and exhaled, his breath steaming up on the glass. ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’