Jack Culverhouse flicked through the reports that’d been left on his desk by Frank Vine. The door-to-door enquiries had thrown up nothing and speaking to Keira Quinn’s few friends and family had given them half as much.
On closer inspection it seemed that Keira hadn’t been working as a street prostitute, but rather as a private escort. There was no trace of any records of clients at her flat, so any link between her professional life and her death would be speculative at best.
It was a sad fact of life that prostitutes were far more likely to be murdered than most other people. With so many street prostitutes in Britain coming from migrant communities, it was likely that hundreds, if not thousands more died each year than were officially recorded.
Culverhouse took another sip of his steaming coffee. All of the details about Keira’s life seemed to show that no-one would have a reason for wanting her dead, yet the manner of her murder showed evidence of being a very deliberate act. Unless somebody was out to deliberately target prostitutes and escorts, something didn’t quite add up.
In his mind, the only real explanation was that Andy Quinn had to be involved somewhere along the line. On the face of things he may have had no reason to want his ex-wife dead, but the fact was they only had his word for it. Keira Quinn seemingly kept herself to herself and not many people knew much about her. It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility for Andy Quinn to be hiding something from them.
As Culverhouse tried to think through some possibilities, the phone on his desk began to ring. A withheld number. He picked it up.
‘Culverhouse?’
The voice on the other end of the phone wasn’t one he recognised.
‘DCI Culverhouse? My name’s Suzanne Corrigan, I’m a reporter on the Mildenheath Gazette. I was just wondering if I might be able to ask you a couple of questions. It’s about the Keira Quinn murder. We’re running a story on it this week and I—’
‘I don’t recognise your name,’ Culverhouse interrupted. He made it his business to know the names of the reporters on the local newspapers. If he was perfectly honest, he found it hard to avoid them.
‘You probably won’t. I’m new,’ Suzanne said. ‘Now, I just wanted to clarify whether—’
‘The only information I release will be at press conferences or managed press releases, Ms Corrigan,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘If there’s anything we want to release to the public I’ll be sure to let you know.’
Culverhouse was about to put the phone down when he heard something that caught his interest.
‘Is it true that Keira Quinn was working as an escort?’
He raised the phone back to his ear. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Is it true?’ Suzanne Corrigan repeated.
Culverhouse paused while he considered his response. ‘If we have any further information we’ll organise a press conference or issue a press release.’
He put the phone down before Suzanne Corrigan could say any more. His relationship with the press and media outlets had always been conflicted. There were times when he was annoyed at their constant intrusion into investigations, but then there were also times when they truly came in useful, such as bringing Andy Quinn to their attention so quickly. Right now, though, he was more upset that a local journalist could be about to publish information which would harm their investigation.
He put down his mug of coffee and stepped out of his office to address the incident room.
‘Did anyone by any chance happen to accidentally tell a fucking reporter that Keira Quinn was a hooker?’
His question was met with silence, save for a couple of small chuckles from officers who found Culverhouse’s flair for language amusing.
‘Right,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘I’ll take that as a no. Which means one of you fuckers is lying to me, because I fail to see how a desk monkey at the Gazette could’ve found that out so quickly seeing as it took them six years to work out their editor was a paedo.’ A previous editor of the Mildenheath Gazette, Denis Rowe, had been uncovered as a predatory paedophile a few years earlier — a scandal which almost sunk the newspaper. ‘Knight, if you could peel your face away from that computer screen and come and see me in my office, I’ve got a few things I need to update you on.’
‘Uh yeah, no problem, guv,’ Wendy replied, looking up from her computer. ‘But I just need to finish this. Can I have five minutes?’
Culverhouse grunted. ‘You can have ten. I’m going for a shit.’