Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  Finally Adams broke away and trotted over the road.

  ‘Neighbourhood watch,’ he said.

  ‘Had you down as a wrong ’un, did she?’

  ‘She clocked you right off, mate. Thought you were a dealer.’

  ‘Racial profiling.’

  ‘Or the stoner beard,’ Adams suggested. ‘How are you standing that in this weather anyway?’

  Zigic ignored the comment.

  ‘I didn’t think Cooper would be out yet,’ he said.

  ‘Confessed and apologised profusely to the family.’ Adams shrugged, as if that wasn’t the single biggest reason they shouldn’t be there. ‘Makes life easier for us anyway, means we can get to him.’

  Adams started towards Neal Cooper’s place and everything in Zigic’s body was screaming at him to drop back, get into his car and away from this mad scheme. He could still make the appointment at the school, slip into Anna’s good graces again and extricate himself from the position he was poised to assume in Riggott’s bad ones.

  But he knew deep down that this was the only way.

  Adams rang the doorbell, eyes on the toes of his shoes until the moment the lock clicked. Then his warrant card came out and the smile switched on, cold and unfriendly.

  ‘Neal, we’d like a word. Don’t mind, do you? That’s great.’ Adams barrelled in, hand going to Cooper’s shoulder, walking him backwards into the hallway. Cooper stumbled over his feet, one arm bracing against the floral-papered wall. ‘Let’s head through into the living room, yeah?’

  Zigic felt an immediate prickle of discomfort, watching how little resistance Cooper put up, not even so much as a question about what they wanted before he complied. He moved unsteadily, his whole body tilted to the left, shoulder hanging slightly too low, like it had been dislocated and never properly reset, his steps slow and uneven, each one seeming to require a degree of thought as he made it.

  He was barely forty, younger than either of them, but he looked at least ten years older. Prison had been tough on him Zigic guessed, the way it could be on men who killed pretty girls. It only took a couple of bona fide tough guys to see something of their daughter in the victim, and he would have been marked for the duration.

  Cooper’s previously black hair was greyed now and cropped close to his skull, unevenly done, like a home-shave job made by an unsteady hand. His skin was pallid and deep wrinkles had settled between his brows and around his mouth, his forehead set in a permanent crease of concentration or contrition. He sat down in a chair next to the dead electric fire, hands tucked together between his knees, his whole body bent over to avoid looking at them.

  Zigic looked around the living room, saw a woman’s touch had been in evidence once but maybe not now. The decor was at least twenty years out of date, all burnt umber and ochre yellow, the sofa was old but the TV new, while a smell of air freshener did little to cover the scent of confined male body.

  ‘You seen your mate Lee Walton lately?’ Adams asked, taking a seat on the sofa opposite Cooper.

  Cooper shook his head but he looked confused, Zigic thought. Whatever he was expecting from them it wasn’t this.

  ‘You know he went away?’

  His knees started jiggling. ‘I heard.’

  ‘Didn’t do his time though,’ Adams said. ‘Not like you did. Walton got lucky, in and out in less than six months. For what he did. All those women he hurt. That seem fair to you, Neal?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘You did twelve years. While Lee gets away with murder.’

  Cooper said nothing, kept looking at the carpet between his feet.

  Adams was watching him carefully, unblinking.

  ‘We’re running a cold case review,’ he said. ‘You understand what that is, Neal? It means we’re looking into old murders where the conviction is in dispute.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Cooper said, risking a quick glance at him. Zigic saw the fear in his eyes.

  ‘That’s exactly what we were thinking,’ Adams told him conspiratorially. ‘But what we’re wondering is why you confessed to Tessa’s murder.’

  Zigic rolled his eyes. Was this the best he had? Waltzing in and laying it all out to this man, who they knew next to nothing about. Who Adams had clearly assumed was an idiot underserving of finesse or guile.

  ‘She was your friend, wasn’t she, Neal?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And someone killed her.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Tessa any more.’

  He started worrying at a patch of worn fabric on the arm of the chair. Zigic noticed the red skin around his nail beds, the chewed-up cuticles.

  ‘Someone followed Tessa,’ Adams said, moving to the edge of his seat. ‘Someone watched her, waited until she was in an isolated spot. And when he was sure nobody else was around, he dragged her off the path, into the leaves and the dirt, and he strangled her.’

  Zigic watched Cooper, waiting for some kind of reaction. One he couldn’t control. Some trace of remembered pleasure or still-fresh guilt. But he saw nothing except an overwhelming desire for Adams to stop talking in the way Cooper tucked his chin down into his chest and drew his heels closer in to the chair, his hands twitching like he wanted to cover his ears.

  ‘It takes a long time to strangle someone, Neal.’ Adams voice was low and dark. ‘People don’t realise that. They see it done on TV and think it’s all over in a few seconds. But it takes two minutes, three maybe, if she’s strong. Do you think Tessa was the kind of girl who fought back?’

  Cooper was shaking now and Zigic thought of all the murderers he’d seen faced with the truth of their crimes, how none of them could entirely contain themselves when the memory of it was stirred afresh. A murder like Tessa Darby’s, men who did something like that, you always caught a hint of satisfaction on their faces. Even the smartest killers couldn’t hide that.

  Cooper looked like he wanted to cry.

  ‘Can you imagine it, Neal?’ Adams asked, almost whispering. ‘Pushing Tessa face down into the dirt and feeling her fighting for her life, minute after minute. And it isn’t ending, she’s still there, trying to save herself. Can you imagine what that would feel like? Knowing you could stop and she’d live but you don’t, you keep going and still she’s alive and kicking but it’s getting weak. You can feel the life going out of her under you. How do you think that feels?’

  A tear ran down Cooper’s grey-stubbled cheek. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his creaky voice barely audible.

  Adams glanced at Zigic, a split second of ‘I told you so’.

  ‘Why did you confess, Neal?’

  He just shook his head, a low humming noise vibrating around his throat.

  ‘Did someone threaten you?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’ He looked up finally, eyes bloodshot and wet, his mouth contorted with pain. ‘Leave me alone. Get out of my house. I don’t have to talk to you.’

  ‘Did Lee Walton threaten you, Neal?’

  ‘Get out.’

  Adams stood up but only moved in closer to Cooper. ‘Did Walton kill Tessa?’

  Cooper started humming again, louder now.

  ‘If Walton killed Tessa and you covered for him, then every other crime he committed is your fault, Neal.’

  Zigic grabbed Adams by the elbow, tried to pull him away, but he snatched his arm back and leaned down into Cooper’s face, hands on the arms of the chair, mouth inches from his ear.

  ‘That makes you an accessory,’ he said. ‘You understand what that means? It means you go back to prison.’

  Cooper shot to his feet, shoving Adams away from him. Zigic braced himself to tackle the man but he made no further move, only stood panting in front of them as if he didn’t know what to do next.

  Slowly Zigic stepped between them. ‘Neal, we’re just trying to find out what really happened to Tessa, alright? I can see how upset you are right now. I saw that in the statements you gave to our colleagues all those years ago. She was your friend and y
ou were obviously devastated about what happened to her.’

  ‘I loved her,’ Cooper said quietly, unable to meet Zigic’s eye.

  ‘If you loved her then you must want to see her killer punished.’

  ‘It’s too late.’ He sat down again, stared at the dead electric fire. ‘Leave me alone. I’m not saying anything else to you.’

  Adams’s mouth was open ready for another round but Zigic pushed him back once more.

  ‘I’m leaving you my number, Neal. If you change your mind, call me.’ He took out a card and left it stuck in the frame of a gilt mirror. ‘The sooner you talk and the more you help us, the less likely it is you’ll be charged with any further offences.’

  He wasn’t sure if Cooper even heard him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  It was impossible for Ferreira to concentrate with Colleen Murray sitting across the desk from her, speaking perfectly accented French. Her posture had shifted, becoming looser and more expressive, her free hand wheeling in the air as she berated the gendarme on the other end for something that remained absolutely opaque to Ferreira, other than the mention of a hotel.

  Murray pouted as she listened to the person on the other end of the phone. Stayed silent for less than five seconds before she rolled her eyes violently and threw up her hand, letting off a string of invective that concluded with her slamming the phone down.

  ‘Putain!’

  Ferreira knew that one.

  ‘Col, girl to girl, I have to tell you, you are sexy as all hell.’

  She gave a throaty laugh. ‘Maybe I’ll try the French on my next date.’

  ‘I guarantee that will get you out of any museum trips,’ Ferreira said. ‘Take it they lost Batty?’

  ‘Yeah, dragged their arses and by the time they got to the hotel, he’d upped and checked out.’ Her face clouded over again. ‘What kind of idiots wait until eleven to pull someone out of a hotel? Bloody place has checkout at ten on its website.’

  ‘Do they have any idea where he was heading?’

  ‘They’re looking into it, apparently. Not going to hold my breath though.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘He’ll be running out of money in the next couple of days. So it’s a toss-up between him making a call home for more cash or winding up somewhere cheap and dodgy and getting himself knifed.’

  ‘Or getting arrested trying to rob some more?’

  Murray shook her head. ‘Batty’s not the robbing sort. Not got the balls for it.’

  ‘He’s up for attempted murder, Col.’

  She sighed. ‘They’re all hard cases with their mates around. Take that away, he’s just another little gobshite.’

  Ferreira went back to work, still looking into the Paggetts, even though she felt the likelihood of them being responsible for Ainsworth’s murder fading.

  It wasn’t necessarily a valid feeling, she knew that, kept reminding herself that just because a new and more promising line of enquiry had opened up it didn’t mean this one was fully closed.

  If she didn’t find something compelling, she would be forced to release them in ninety minutes, and she didn’t think she’d find anything in the contents of their mobiles, which the tech department had delivered late yesterday afternoon.

  Both phones had been turned on around the time of Ainsworth’s murder but not used. Which told her nothing. Especially as neither of them was a particularly heavy phone user. They seemed to be doing some kind of digital detox, judging by the pattern of usage, which was divided into strict half-hour blocks four times a day, both of them on the same schedule.

  Within those blocks most of their activity was related to the various activism groups they belonged to, regular blogs and Michaela’s habit of posting photographs of whatever custom trainers she was wearing that day.

  Annoyingly they hadn’t outlined their plans to kidnap Joshua Ainsworth in the notes app or recorded photos of his corpse for posterity.

  Ferreira refreshed her email again, checking whether Hammond had come good on his promise to send over the file on the accusation against Ainsworth yet.

  Still nothing.

  ‘Thought you’d have taken the opportunity to get out of the office,’ Murray said. ‘Nice day like this, don’t want to be sitting on your arse while the kids have all the fun with your suspects.’

  ‘I overdid it at the gym this morning,’ Ferreira told her. ‘My arse needs the rest.’

  ‘Mine needs some biscuits.’ Murray opened her desk drawer and brought out a Tupperware container of homemade cookies, held it out to Ferreira. ‘Dark chocolate and cardamom.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She took one and resisted the urge to shove it in her mouth whole. ‘Damn it, these are good.’

  Murray bobbed her head at the compliment, broke her own biscuit in half and dunked it quickly into her tea.

  ‘Bit of a shocker with your man,’ she said, speaking with her mouth full from behind her hand.

  ‘I’m not shocked by anything any more.’ Ferreira thought of the moment Hammond came clean about Josh Ainsworth and how inevitable it had felt. She’d become incapable of separating power from its abuses, mistrusted anyone who actively sought out jobs with the vulnerable. ‘Everyone we talked to went on and on about what a good bloke Ainsworth was, right?’ she said. ‘And the more you hear that the more you think it has to be lies.’

  ‘It’s the job,’ Murray told her.

  The second time in two days she’d said it and Ferreira wondered which of them she was trying to convince.

  Murray went back to her report and Ferreira blew out a sigh as she returned her attention to the Paggetts, still thinking about Ainsworth and how they’d been right about him all along. Wondered if they’d known he was a predator before Jack Saunders’s tweets started popping up in the public domain.

  She opened up the scans of the pamphlets, found the one she was looking for.

  Initially she’d assumed it was about Ainsworth’s work at Long Fleet, alluding to what they saw as the fundamental immorality of the place. But now she was wondering.

  Did they know about the alleged attack? Would that have been motive enough for them to make the step from harassment to assault?

  She called the tech department, asking them to find her a date for the flier.

  ‘You’ve got their cloud data in the bundle,’ the guy at the other end said wearily. ‘Check the files and you’ll see a time stamp on it.’

  She thanked him and got a ‘no problem’ in return, the tone of a man who spent most of his day fielding stupid questions.

  Ferreira had Michaela Paggett brought up from the cells. She looked crumpled but unbothered by her night in custody. Ferreira had expected no different, knew people accustomed to the cells rarely cracked in them.

  ‘You’ve got to release us in the next twenty minutes,’ Michaela said, once the tapes were set up, pointedly eyeing the clock on the wall above them. ‘And I don’t have to speak to you without my solicitor present so I hope you can get him here fast.’

  ‘We can hold you for another forty-eight hours,’ Ferreira told her. ‘As I’m sure someone of your experience would know.’

  ‘With cause.’

  ‘Planning to kidnap Josh Ainsworth is cause.’

  Michaela snorted. ‘A joke at a party. That’s not a plan.’

  Ferreira ignored her, brought out a scan of the flier and pushed it across the table.

  ‘I told you, I’m not going to speak to you without my solicitor.’

  ‘I’m not questioning you, Michaela,’ Ferreira said. ‘But I’d like you to explain to me what you meant by this: “You act like your hands are clean but we know what you are.”’

  Michaela glanced at it, then back at Ferreira. She saw confidence rising in the woman’s posture, realisation on her face.

  ‘Damien told you then. About the accusation?’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’ Ferreira asked.

  ‘Why should I tell you?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ Ferreira countere
d. ‘If you’re innocent you should want to help us.’

  A quick laugh utterly devoid of humour. ‘I don’t care who killed Ainsworth. We didn’t do it but he had it coming.’

  ‘Because he worked at Long Fleet? That’s not reason enough to murder someone. Not even in your world.’ Ferreira leaned on the table. ‘What did Josh Ainsworth do?’

  ‘I only know the same as Damien,’ Michaela said dismissively. ‘We heard Ainsworth was no better than the rest of the them.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Online.’

  ‘When?’

  Michaela looked at the flier. ‘I can’t remember. Awhile ago.’

  ‘Like a month awhile or a few days awhile?’

  ‘A month or so, I guess.’

  Ferreira tapped the flier. ‘You made this on June 28th. And I can’t find any mention of Ainsworth as a potential abuser online before Tuesday.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t know where to look.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘I can’t remember where I heard it. Things get said.’ Michaela shrugged, twisting away from the table slightly. ‘Maybe I didn’t see it online, maybe someone told me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘God, do you remember where every single piece of information in your head came from?’ Michaela asked, exasperated.

  ‘This isn’t just any old piece of information,’ Ferreira pressed. ‘It’s something you gave enough credence to to turn it into a special piece of hate mail.’

  Michaela threw herself back in her seat, arms folded. ‘Look, all I know is I heard that Ainsworth wasn’t the good guy everyone thought he was. There was some rumour that he’d attacked a woman and that was why he wasn’t at work any more.’

  ‘This came from someone inside Long Fleet?’ she asked.

  ‘Piss off,’ Michaela snapped. ‘We don’t have anything to do with anyone who works in Long Fleet.’

  ‘Ruby Garrick did.’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t as fussy about the company she kept.’

  ‘Did this gossip come from her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you remember where it didn’t come from?’ Ferreira asked. ‘How about if I we go through the entirety of your contacts list and everyone in your groups, and you can tell me the ones it didn’t come from until we get to the person who actually told you?’