by Lodge, Gytha
“Unless the prints only appeared later,” Hanson said thoughtfully. “Felix had a key.”
“So unless it was Felix, then it’s profoundly unlikely that the killer was the one arguing with her. And even then, it seems a lot more likely that the whole thing was planned a long time in advance. And while whatever Zoe did that evening was clearly important, and perhaps triggered the murder happening that night, it probably wasn’t the real reason she was killed.”
“More of a last straw,” Hanson agreed. “Yeah.”
Jonah glanced at Lightman. “Do we have any CCTV from farther into town yet? Anything on the shady character with the hat who was walking along Zoe’s road? I’d say, of everything we’ve caught on camera, that figure is the most likely to be part of a long-planned murder. The awareness of the cameras. The clothing. It all spells planning.”
“We’ve got quite a lot in now,” Lightman said. “I’ve started trying to track the guy in the cap back, but there’s a lot to sift through.” He paused. “I know what you’re saying is that Zoe’s movements are less of a priority, but I feel we should still be looking at where she went when she left the flat. And there were also several cars that went by during the probable time of death…”
“OK,” Jonah said. “Let’s split it three ways, then. Juliette, see if you can find out where Zoe went during the gap. And whoever it was who was waiting for her when she got back. Domnall can take the cars.”
“So I would, but I’m back on the blackmail case,” O’Malley said, glancing up from his screen. “Given what you said this morning…”
Jonah grinned, having already made the decision that he would have to own up to Wilkinson in the morning. “This is clearly related. At least one of those cars might have a blackmailer in it.”
“I’m sure they might,” O’Malley said with a short laugh. “I’ve forwarded you an email from Ziggy about those logins, by the way. One of those Felix had access to was set up to track grooming networks and was cleared for a veritable host of things, including countrywide sex crimes. So if he’s been looking at all that, he could easily have picked up Piers Lough’s name.”
“Wonderful,” Jonah said. “Do you want to see about getting them all closed down while I go and talk to him?”
* * *
—
FELIX DIDN’T ANSWER the door immediately, and Jonah wondered whether he didn’t want to talk. But after a second knock and a twenty-second pause, the door opened and Felix’s face appeared.
Jonah experienced what was probably his third shock of the day. Although the man looking out at him was undeniably Felix Solomon—he was dressed in one of the sharp, dark-gray suits and was as well kempt as ever—he was almost unrecognizable. Felix’s face was pallid and his eyes wide. The usually quizzical expression had been replaced by a slack-mouthed panic.
“I’m sorry,” the former policeman said, his voice much quieter than Jonah remembered it. “I’ve…It’s not a great time.”
He looked as though he might shut the door, and Jonah felt instinctively that he needed to talk to him now, while his defenses were down. “I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you,” he said, “but I could use a little help.”
Felix hesitated, but the appeal worked. He backed away and let Jonah into his flat, where the TV was on in the background with the news showing, the sound off. There was a laptop out on the kitchen table, Jonah noted. He wondered whether Felix had been trying some more hacking.
He followed Felix’s gesture and sat on the sofa. Felix was decidedly unrestful company. The retired copper stayed standing, seemingly unable to keep still, and his breath came in uneven, ragged gasps.
“Is it…trauma?” Jonah asked gently, though he knew that much already.
“Yes,” Felix said. “It just…There are triggers.” He waved a hand toward the TV screen.
“I suppose the news is a difficult one,” Jonah said quietly, burning with curiosity about what had done this to a fellow DCI. And then he added, “There have been a few bad memories for me, too. But I guess I’ve been lucky so far. Nothing has been terrible enough to…”
Felix’s breathing continued in disturbing gasps. “Still…should have been tougher,” he said. Jonah thought about pursuing this, but decided he was better off pushing him about the hacking.
“We need to talk about your information on Piers Lough,” Jonah said next, in a firmer tone. “Which, I want to add, proved to be inaccurate. This Piers Lough is entirely the wrong age to be the absconded pedophile.”
Felix gave him a surprised look that cut through the visible panic, and then turned and started to pace up and down, his breathing still noisy. “All right,” he said. “Could still have been him, though.”
“It could,” Jonah said, “but the more important thing at this point is that you’ve been accessing police databases when you are no longer entitled to do so.”
Felix paused, and gave him a slightly pathetic look. “I don’t…”
“I’m not planning on causing trouble,” Jonah said, “but I will be shutting them down.”
“Don’t,” Felix said, leaning forward to put his hand on the kitchen table. “I need to be able to help. God knows, I didn’t help her when she was alive…”
“How so?” Jonah asked.
Felix shook his head, but then spoke anyway. “She gave me a tirade. The afternoon that she died. She lost patience with me and told me I was selfish and, well, that I was wallowing in it.”
Jonah remembered the series of phone calls from Felix, and nodded. And then he thought of Angeline, and how Zoe had told her she was broken. It had been on the Thursday, too. On that same day.
Jonah badly wanted to know what could have happened to the kind, comforting, supportive friend to make her turn on all of them. While he knew that her murder had probably been planned, it could still be part of the same story. If Zoe had been suddenly brusque and unsupportive to one of the many people who had clearly leaned on her, it might have made the decision for them. Most killers had some kind of an emotional reason for seeing it through.
“Do you think it was fair of her to say that?” Jonah asked after a moment.
“It…was a harsh thing to do, and ignored many things,” Felix said. “I was bloody furious with her. So I didn’t talk to her that evening. I didn’t check up on her, even though I knew she’d said it because she was desperate. I feel like…like I drove her to do something.” He shook his head. “I think she invited someone round, and I have an awful feeling it was Aidan Poole.”
Jonah wondered again whether Felix had some reason for wanting Aidan Poole in the frame. He watched Felix carefully as he said, “Why Aidan?”
“Because she’d never got over him,” Felix said, nothing in his manner altering. “He…changed her. Maybe not just him. All of it. Maybe it was the rest of us, too.”
“There was nothing she said that day that led you to believe she’d invited him over?” Jonah persisted.
“No,” Felix said, and shook his head. “She didn’t say anything else, really. She hadn’t mentioned Aidan for weeks, though I think she often wanted to.”
“So you didn’t argue with her again?” Jonah asked. “On Thursday evening?”
Felix shook his head. “I didn’t want to see her.”
“We have witnesses to an argument at nine o’clock,” Jonah persisted. “And CCTV has so far picked her up speaking to someone at the front door on her return to the flat. We should have an image of whoever it was soon.”
“It won’t find me,” he said flatly. “I saw her come back while I was upstairs, and I was still too angry with her to want to know. I walked away from the window because I hated the sight of her just then.”
Jonah decided it was time to bring up their two newest lines of questioning, starting with Aidan Poole’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime.
Felix
moved over to the wall where two framed commendations hung, scanning over them without really reading.
“Have you seen Aidan recently?”
“Of course I haven’t!” Felix said, sounding momentarily irritated rather than panicky. “I only knew him through Zoe, and I didn’t like what I saw.”
“But perhaps you had them round while they were still together?” Jonah asked, turning to him with a neutral expression. “Or invited him over for drinks?”
“I’ve never invited him anywhere.” Felix’s expression was flat and unhelpful, but there was obvious disgust there. Disgust toward Aidan, Jonah thought. This was something he wanted to pursue further in the station, where it would all be on record.
“What about Wednesday?” Jonah asked, deliberately changing tack. “Did you see Zoe on Wednesday night at all?”
“On Wednesday?” Jonah couldn’t tell whether Felix was surprised or not. He was well aware that the apparent panic might all be a sham, but it was one that didn’t seem to slip. Felix was either genuine or incredibly practiced at playing the anxiety card.
“Zoe met someone late,” Jonah said. “Someone matching your description.”
“What?” Felix stared at Jonah. “No, it…it wasn’t me. I was here on Wednesday. I’d had a bad night.”
“Not bad enough to go out drinking?” Jonah asked. “To get so drunk that you needed a taxi home?”
“No,” Felix said. He was still moving, and Jonah was beginning to find the constant motion wearing. He wondered how Felix’s friends coped with him when he was like this. How Zoe had coped. “No, I went nowhere. Who was she meeting? Was it a new boyfriend?”
“If they matched your description, they were certainly on the old side for a boyfriend,” Jonah said with a raised eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Some people look older than they are,” Felix said, momentarily looking at him with a flicker of control once again. “I’ve never been one of those.”
Jonah would have agreed at any point up till this afternoon. Right then, however, Felix looked his age. More than his age, perhaps. He had been suddenly transformed into a frail old man, and seeing it made Jonah feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t think Zoe had any other friends my age,” Felix went on. “Did Maeve mention any?”
“We’re looking into it,” Jonah said.
“For God’s sake,” Felix said abruptly. “You said you wanted my help! How can I help if you won’t tell me anything?”
Jonah nodded. “Well, if you want to help, you can do it properly.” He rose. “Come into the station tomorrow and help us instead of hacking in the background.”
Jonah wondered, after he’d said it, whether he’d given Felix the impression that he might be allowed access to their files. He thought of correcting that impression, but he could see the profound effect that this idea had had on Felix. His breathing had become noticeably quieter and his cheeks had color in them again.
Jonah let himself out of the flat and drove back to the station with a strange, repetitive prayer to nobody in particular in his mind, a prayer that he would never find himself shut out and desperate for scraps of detective work, eager to help a DCI with his own agenda.
June—five months before
Latterworth Road was so very unlike anywhere Zoe had ever wanted to live that she almost turned and walked back home. The quietness. The suburban semis. The mothers with pushchairs. To live here would be like some kind of exile, and—worse—like accepting that her life was done now. That she would never again be the young, attractive, carefree student.
It was hard not to hate Maeve just then. To be as angry with her as she was with Aidan. If Maeve had been the friend she should have been, Zoe could have stayed.
But what was she supposed to do when Maeve undermined her at every opportunity? When she forwarded messages from Aidan, and told him where Zoe could be found? Three times she’d arrived back at their house to see Aidan’s car parked nearby, and every time Maeve had apologized and told her he’d taken her by surprise. That she hadn’t meant to let him in. That she’d been worried he might do himself some kind of harm.
She needed out quickly, and that meant saying goodbye to their tatty old house with its view of the river; to the bars and the pubs; to the feeling of living life as she was supposed to. It meant accepting Felix’s offer, because there was nowhere else available to move into by the weekend.
Felix looked so pleased to see her as he opened the door that she felt heavy with guilt. She couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to be excited. He strode up the stairs ahead of her, telling her how glad he was that she was keen.
“You’re going to be a much better tenant than the girl I’ve had,” he said.
“Has she moved out?” Zoe asked. “Is it definitely OK?”
“Yes,” Felix said with a smile. “She moved out yesterday, so you just decide what you want to do.”
He opened the bland wooden door and let her in, holding it for her and gesturing like someone presenting a show of some kind. Zoe tried her best to see it with unclouded eyes. To see the space and the light, and not the awful blankness of the place.
“The furniture’s all new,” he said as she gazed around at the pale sofa and the sleek kitchen. “I was thinking of getting a desk in here. Do you think that would be useful?”
“That would be great,” Zoe said, smiling at him.
She walked through to the bedroom, which was bright with reflected light from a wall full of mirrored wardrobes. The bed was hospital-bare, with its rolled-up duvet and pillows.
“Those are mine,” Felix said, gesturing, “so you may as well have them.”
Zoe nodded and drifted toward the wardrobes. For want of something better to do, she opened one of them.
“Oh,” she said. And then she gave an embarrassed laugh. “It looks like she left some stuff.”
She pulled the door back to let Felix see the shirts and jackets that were still hanging inside.
“Oh,” Felix said. He moved forward with a jerk, and instead of taking a closer look, shut the door with a bang. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll forward them on.”
Zoe felt quite suddenly as though he was too close. She stepped backward, and gave an awkward smile. “Great,” she said. “Good to have so much hanging space. I’ve got too many clothes.”
For a moment Felix said nothing, and then he smiled again, all warmth and confidence. “You and me both,” he said.
He followed her as she moved back into the sitting room and stood in the center of it. She could tell that he was watching her keenly to see if she liked the place. She didn’t know how to tell him that she couldn’t seem to like anything these days.
“So,” he said in the end. “What do you think?”
“It’s great,” she said. “Thanks so much.”
“You want to take it?” He was clearly delighted, and she wanted to feel delighted, too.
“Yes,” Zoe said, giving him her best attempt at a smile. “I’d love to.”
“Wonderful,” he said. “Wonderful. Do you want…Why don’t you come and have a cuppa and I’ll print out a contract?”
Zoe felt as though she’d rather go home, but she nodded anyway and followed him down the stairs and across the first-floor landing. As they reached his door and he was reaching for his keys, his phone buzzed.
She watched him pull it out of his pocket and read something. Just a quick scan over a message. And it was like watching the vitality drain out of someone. He was suddenly, between one moment and the next, a different person. An older one, whose breath sounded unsteady and whose hand faltered as he tried to unlock the door.
“Is everything all right?” she asked him.
“I’m…It’s all right,” Felix said, and drew in an unsteady breath. “I’m fine. Fine. Just…a stressful message from an old c
olleague.” He looked up at her, and said in a strange voice, “He’s not well. That’s all.”
She nodded, and suddenly remembered how he’d been at her exhibition last September. She had a sense that there was a lot going on with Felix. A lot that was hidden.
It took him three attempts to get the key into the door and turn it, and although Zoe would have loved an excuse to leave, she felt incapable of leaving him like that.
“Let me make you a cuppa,” she said. “You can sit and chill.”
* * *
—
IT TOOK FELIX fifteen minutes to actually start talking. He’d barely spoken during that time, but he’d let her chatter at him and it had calmed him to the point where he could talk, and the fact that she was there, helping him, made Zoe feel that everything was all right. That this was what she was here on this Earth to do.
She could help the others, too. She would make amends with Victor and Maeve and go back to helping and supporting them. Caring for all of them and letting her light move into them somehow was enough. She could be happy just watching them bloom.
“I have PTSD,” Felix eventually told her. “And it gets triggered by such strange things. Sometimes just…an image, or a sound. It’s so difficult to predict.”
She nodded, and brought her cup of tea to the sofa so she could sit opposite him. “Or a message?” she asked.
“Yes,” Felix said, and took a breath. “Yes, sometimes.”
“Was it to do with work?” she asked. “The trauma?”
With a sigh, Felix started to tell her. It had been seven years ago, and he’d been a DCI. He’d been on the hunt for a serial rapist who had come close to strangling one of his victims.
“I was on the way back from an interview. Late on, this was. And the operator notified me of a crime that might be related. A small girl saying her mummy was being attacked.”
