Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  For a few minutes she debated contacting the other doctor, Sutherland, or the nurse, Ruth Garner, who had worked alongside Ainsworth. But she remembered how spooked they had both been during the initial interviews at Long Fleet and doubted that they would be any more forthcoming now.

  She could speak to Damien Paggett again, but that felt like an admission of defeat. She wouldn’t even consider talking to Michaela about the accusation, knew she would spin out whatever story she could think of to try and muddy Ainsworth’s name and raise the prospect of other suspects.

  There were other suspects though.

  All of those sacked staff members with grudges against Ainsworth. Two years was a long time to seethe without taking any action, but not unheard of. A smart person would wait, she thought. Let their victim amass other enemies.

  She looked at the board where Ruby Garrick’s photo had been struck through. She hadn’t left her flat on the night of Ainsworth’s murder, had no opportunity as well as no motive.

  Portia Collingwood too. Home by half past nine just as she claimed.

  Ferreira knew they were only half investigating this murder. Focusing on the suspects they had identified easily, the ones they could actually get to and question. They needed the Long Fleet management to lower their guard and start helping to find whoever murdered their highly valued and well-liked doctor.

  So, why weren’t they helping? They should have turned over a list of ex-employees without being asked, committed themselves to cooperating with the investigation because, after all, they were all colleagues. ‘Brothers and sisters in blue,’ the governor had called them, and then offered the very thinnest assistance he could.

  He would keep stonewalling them until they found a way to break through and force him to help, she realised.

  Paggett’s accusation against Josh Ainsworth might be all the force they needed.

  It didn’t need to be true and they didn’t need to believe it. Just as long as they appeared to when they spoke to the governor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘Can I have everyone’s attention, please?’

  Zigic looked up from the report he was typing, the insistent pitch of Ferreira’s voice sending a bolt of anxiety through him.

  ‘Everyone, please,’ she said again.

  He went into the main office as the last few officers on the floor spun around to face Ferreira where she was standing, in front of the big screen. As he got closer he saw a Twitter stream open, couldn’t read any individual message because she was blocking it off with her body.

  ‘We need to identify this Twitter user,’ she said, stepping aside. ‘PcthirtyOne, based in Peterborough and clearly either a serving or ex-officer, judging by his familiarity with procedure.’

  ‘Knowing procedure doesn’t mean they’re actual police,’ DC Lear said, from the far corner of the room. ‘They might be a groupie or some sad obsessive.’

  ‘No,’ Ferreira said firmly. ‘We’ve got the same ID used across several platforms, going back six years, during which they posted images from inside the station.’ Lear opened his mouth to offer another explanation but Ferreira didn’t give him a chance. ‘Not from common areas. This isn’t a visitor or a suspect. We’re looking at a copper.’

  ‘What have they done?’ Rob Weller asked, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

  ‘We’ve got them tweeting at the official account about Josh Ainsworth’s death, Rob.’ Ferreira took a step towards his desk. ‘Which you were supposed to be keeping an eye on, weren’t you?’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘PcthirtyOne has been offering us advice on how to investigate Joshua Ainsworth’s death,’ Ferreira said. ‘Which is pretty big of him, I think we can all agree.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a man?’ Lear asked.

  ‘Because nobody asked for his opinion but he’s giving it anyway,’ Ferreira snapped. ‘He seems to think we should be talking to Ainsworth’s patients and asking them about his “bedside manner”.’

  ‘Armchair psychologist,’ Murray said gruffly. ‘You know how social media brings them out.’

  ‘No, this guy knows something about Ainsworth. He knew Ainsworth worked at Long Fleet before we’d even gone public with his murder.’ Ferreira gestured at the screen behind her. ‘Tuesday afternoon, 2:14, we’ve got a tweet advising us to “ask the ladies of Long Fleet how warm his hands were”.’

  Zigic saw the implications ripple through the room.

  ‘He must work at Long Fleet then,’ Keri Bloom said. ‘Who do we know who quit the force to go and work there?’

  Her question was met with an awkward silence but Zigic noticed the look of approval Ferreira shot her.

  ‘Somebody knows who he is.’ Ferreira’s gaze moved slowly around the room and he followed it, searching for the same thing she was, a twitch of discomfort, an attempt at hiding it. ‘I want you all to take twenty minutes –’

  A few low groans.

  ‘This is a murder investigation, in case any of you have forgotten that,’ she said fiercely. ‘So you can put aside whatever it is you’re doing and look through his Twitter feed and see if there’s anything you recognise.’ A few seconds passed and nobody moved. ‘Now, people.’

  Slowly, the room turned its back on her and Zigic gestured her into his office, watching some of the confidence morph into defiance as she walked in. He closed the door behind her, not wanting anyone to overhear this conversation.

  ‘Why didn’t you run that past me before you did it?’

  She looked stunned. ‘Since when did I have to do that?’

  ‘We discussed Damien Paggett’s accusation and decided there was no merit in it,’ he reminded her. ‘Now you’ve announced to a room full of officers – some of whom you know can’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut – that we’re considering the possibility that Josh Ainsworth is a sexual predator.’ He heard his voice rising, forced himself to bring it back down. ‘Mel, for Christ’s sake, if one of them leaks this to the press …’

  ‘Someone’s tweeting this stuff at the force’s Twitter account,’ she said, a hand flying out towards the screen in the other room. ‘It’s already in the public domain. It’s been public for three days.’

  He rubbed his beard, anticipating the hassle this would bring them from Riggott. The pressure Long Fleet would hand down.

  ‘If you want to give anyone a bollocking, it should be Weller,’ she said. ‘I told him to stay on top of social. I swear to God I don’t know how he ever made it out of uniform.’

  She was right but it was a deflection he wasn’t going to fall for.

  He pressed his hands together, feeling like he needed to say this as slowly and calmly as possible, because he knew why she was so agitated and why she was fixating on the accusation against Josh Ainsworth now.

  Walton was in her head. All of that emotion couldn’t stay strapped down. Especially not in her. She needed to let it out somewhere and she’d transferred it onto Josh Ainsworth.

  ‘The Paggetts are lying to protect themselves,’ he said firmly. ‘We know that. It’s been their approach since the first time we spoke to them. And now it looks like they’ve picked up this accusation from Twitter and tried to use it to throw us off their scent.’

  She crossed her arms.

  ‘We have absolutely no reason to believe Josh Ainsworth was abusive to the women in his care,’ he said. ‘Okay? This is just standard online speculation. But at least we know where the Paggetts picked it up from so it was definitely worth digging into.’

  Ferreira gave him a quick, tight smile. ‘Great pep talk. The thing is, I don’t believe the accusation and I’m not buying any of this crap from the Paggetts.’

  He eyed her warily, knowing she would never give up a hunch so quickly.

  ‘But I figured that if we can convince Long Fleet’s governor that we believe it, we might be able to scare up some names from him.’

  ‘What names?’ Zigic asked, feeling a stirring of interest, his anxiety fall
ing away now he could see the sly way her mind was turning.

  ‘The staff members who got fired over Ainsworth’s abuse reports.’ She leaned back against the wall, a little too casually. ‘I mean, where are we right now? We’ve ruled out everyone bar the Paggetts.’

  ‘They’re our prime suspects for a reason, Mel,’ he said, but he knew where she was going with this and that she was right.

  They couldn’t keep fighting shy of Long Fleet’s influence. And Riggott’s discomfort about the investigation moving closer to it couldn’t be allowed to knock a whole line of enquiry out of play. A couple of days ago when their other suspects were still looking like strong possibilities, it had been easy for him to take the steer from Riggott.

  Now he had to follow his gut and his experience.

  Both were pointing to Long Fleet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DC Keri Bloom found their man.

  While the rest of the office was scrolling through PcthirtyOne’s Twitter feed as Ferreira had instructed them to, Bloom was on the phone to the station’s human resource department, asking which former officers had requested references to Long Fleet Immigration Removal Centre.

  A piece of detective work that Zigic admired even as he was wondering why Ferreira hadn’t taken that route herself. She was off her A-game, he thought. Understandably with Lee Walton circling her.

  He would have to talk to her about it. Couldn’t let this secret fester away between them, keep pretending he believed she was fine when she obviously wasn’t.

  ‘Do you remember him?’ Ferreira asked, as he turned into the car park of the big-box superstore where former PC Jack Saunders was now working.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she admitted.

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Twenty-seven. So he’d have been in after we both moved upstairs. No reason to notice him unless he was a dick.’

  Thorpe Wood had provided him with a glowing reference when Long Fleet came calling because they’d never had any trouble with him and they wanted to help him onwards in his career after he left as a result of stress.

  Another one with stress, Zigic thought.

  He wondered what kind of reference Long Fleet had provided Jack Saunders with when he left. Maybe they hadn’t given him one at all and he’d excused the break in employment some way, falling back on his excellent, if undistinguished, record in the police force to get him a job flogging DIY supplies.

  In the store huge banners and stands everywhere advertised their summer sale, garden furniture and outdoor ovens arranged inside the main door, astroturf displays and pallets stacked high with charcoal.

  At the information desk they flashed their credentials and asked where they could find Saunders, were told he was working in the kitchen design centre.

  Up the stairs to a mezzanine level under the blast of air conditioning.

  ‘That’s him,’ Zigic said, pointing to a rangy guy with dark brown hair in an undercut and a prominent Adam’s apple. He wore a shirt and tie, rather than the uniform the other staff sported, but he still looked like a copper. Still held himself that way, rigid-spined and wide-stanced.

  Zigic remembered him now. Not from work but from the hidden camera footage recorded inside Long Fleet. Jack Saunders strutting down an over-lit corridor, casting a conspiratorial glance back across his shoulder before opening the door of a cell without warning onto a woman standing in her underwear. He remembered the woman scrambling to cover herself with a sheet and how Jack Saunders had apologised, sincerely and at length, then made a grotesquely racist comment to the person with him as he was closing the door.

  Saunders was showing an interested young couple the inside of a range cooker, opening each door in turn, a lot of flourish in his movements.

  ‘You could cook dinner for twelve in this one,’ he said. ‘It’s the ideal model if you enjoy entertaining.’

  ‘Not cheap,’ the man said.

  ‘Quality never is,’ Saunders told him. He turned to the woman, smiled. ‘Does he do much of the cooking?’

  She matched his smile. ‘Only in the microwave.’

  Saunders turned back to the man. ‘You should always let the lady have her way.’

  ‘Jack Saunders,’ Ferreira said, letting him hear the official in her voice. ‘We’d like a word.’

  Saunders apologised to the couple, said he wouldn’t be a minute, why not check out the worktop options while they waited.

  ‘Sergeant Ferreira,’ he said, walking towards them and keeping going, trying to move them away from his customers.

  They stayed put, forcing him to stop.

  Reluctantly, he did.

  ‘Sir.’ He nodded curtly to Zigic. ‘I don’t suppose you’re here to buy a new kitchen.’

  ‘Drop the shit, Saunders,’ Ferreira snapped. ‘You wanted our attention, now you’ve got it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘See, this is why you never made it out of uniform. We’ve seen the tweets, we know it’s you.’

  ‘This is a bit of a comedown from Long Fleet, isn’t it?’ Zigic said. ‘Why did you leave? You seemed to be enjoying yourself there.’

  Saunders glanced nervously around them. ‘I resigned.’

  ‘After Josh Ainsworth reported you to the governor?’ Zigic could see the ire rising in him. ‘Sounds more like you were sacked.’

  ‘Purged,’ Ferreira said.

  Saunders tucked his hands into the small of his back, reverting to his training posture.

  ‘I was let go with no recourse to legal advice, no tribunal, no nothing,’ he said, anger and self-pity mingling in his voice. ‘All on the say-so of Ainsworth and Sutherland.’

  ‘And that unfortunate undercover footage,’ Zigic reminded him. ‘And the testimony of the women involved.’

  ‘But only Ainsworth’s been murdered,’ Ferreira said.

  Saunders shuffled where he stood, gaze dropping to the toes of his shiny brogues for a nervous moment before he looked back at them, a new resolve in his eyes.

  ‘It’s no secret I didn’t like Ainsworth much. We didn’t get on and he said some hurtful and untrue things about me, but I’m sorry about what happened to him.’

  As hard as he was trying to keep it together, Zigic could still see the old wounds were troubling Saunders.

  ‘And what exactly about his allegations were untrue?’ Ferreira asked.

  He looked around them again, wanting to be sure there was no audience.

  ‘Alright, so I said some things that I shouldn’t have. But it was just banter.’

  ‘It was hate speech,’ Ferreira told him. ‘As an ex-copper you know the distinction, so don’t come the fucking innocent with us.’

  ‘I wasn’t abusive,’ he said angrily. ‘I wasn’t like some of them. I didn’t force myself on anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. I just made a few comments where I shouldn’t have.’ He was directing all of this to Zigic, picking him for the sympathetic ear. ‘Christ, you can’t say anything any more without someone jumping down your throat.’

  ‘You weren’t just saying “anything”,’ Ferreira reminded him. ‘You were using grossly offensive racial slurs and threatening language towards highly vulnerable women in your care.’ She stabbed a finger at him. ‘And we saw you bursting into those women’s rooms, Saunders. We know exactly what you are.’

  Saunders took half a step towards her and Zigic saw what Ainsworth must have seen in him. How thin the veneer of decency was, how warped and cracked.

  Easy to imagine this man snapping. Picking up a table leg and battering Joshua to death with it.

  ‘I never abused anyone,’ he growled. ‘Why the hell would I want to touch one of them?’

  Zigic watched him realise what he’d said a split second after the words left his mouth, saw annoyance but no shame. He could have punched him but instead caught hold of Ferreira’s arm as she made for the man, spitting a Portuguese curse at him.

  Sau
nders’s face flushed and he moved away from her, pointedly averting his eyes.

  ‘Maybe my behaviour was less than perfect but I’m not dangerous,’ he said, speaking more slowly now, guarding himself against further accusations. ‘Unlike Saint Joshua. You’re looking for who killed him? You might want to start with the woman he attacked.’

  Ferreira snorted. ‘This is seriously how you want to defend yourself?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t need to defend myself.’

  ‘Ainsworth cost you your job. You really do need to defend yourself, Saunders.’

  ‘Where were you Saturday evening?’ Zigic asked.

  ‘Works’ bowling night. People can vouch for me if you need that. But I’m telling you, I never touched Ainsworth.’

  ‘We do need that.’

  Ferreira took down the names he gave, their numbers. The temporary lull should have taken the wind out of his sails, but Zigic heard him becoming more irritated with each string of numbers he read from his phone, and he knew Ferreira heard it too because she kept asking him to repeat them, reading them back to him with mistakes he was sure she wasn’t making.

  ‘Did they tell you why Ainsworth quit?’ Saunders asked, as he slipped his phone into his pocket. ‘Probably gave you the old “resigned with stress” line, right?’

  ‘The same as you gave when you left Thorpe Wood,’ Ferreira said.

  ‘I was stressed,’ he insisted. ‘How long’s it been since you got your little hands dirty? You’ve got no idea what it’s like for us lot on the front line.’

  Ferreira just smirked at him, satisfied that she’d hit a sore spot.

  Saunders visibly gathered himself, looked to Zigic again, still believing he was the receptive one. All boys together, Zigic thought. That was what Saunders was accustomed to and he couldn’t envisage any man not wanting to play the game.

  ‘You don’t believe me about Ainsworth, fine.’ He shrugged, wounded. ‘Talk to the governor. Ask him about the “resignation”.’

  ‘Everyone we’ve spoken to says that same thing about Ainsworth,’ Zigic said. ‘Everyone apart from you. And you are not a reliable witness. You’re a suspect.’