Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  ‘If you think you can do that in –’ Michaela checked the clock again. ‘Eight minutes.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I can get through them all in the forty-eight extra hours I’m going to hold you and Damien for,’ Ferreira said, giving her a saccharine smile. ‘Alternatively, you could stop bullshitting me and go home today.’

  ‘Typical,’ Michaela muttered into her chest.

  ‘Going to be hot again this weekend,’ Ferreira told her. ‘And you wouldn’t believe how stuffy those cells get. No through draught. The smell when the drunk-and-disorderlies start coming in.’

  ‘You think that bothers me?’

  ‘No, you’re impressively battle-hardened, Michaela. But I heard Damien isn’t doing so well. Puked his guts up last night, didn’t he?’

  ‘You’re scum,’ Michaela spat.

  ‘And your opinion is of zero interest to me.’ Ferreira laced her fingers together on the table. ‘You have one piece of information I want. Give it to me or go back down for the weekend. I’m sure you can tap out some words of support on the wall between your and Damien’s cells.’

  Michaela Paggett scowled at her.

  ‘To my best recollection,’ Michaela said, speaking slowly, like she was forcing out each word at some great personal cost. ‘We were at an anti-austerity event in Manchester at the beginning of June and it was late in the day, and we went along to a pub with some people we didn’t know and we got talking about Long Fleet.’ She wet her lips. ‘There was a woman there, older, red hair, not local.’

  ‘Not local to Manchester or not local to here?’

  ‘Either,’ Michaela said. ‘But she seemed to know a lot about what was going on in there. And she said she’d heard that there was a doctor in Long Fleet who was abusing his patients.’

  Ferreira blinked at her. The story was vague and the source untraceable, but the Paggetts had clearly fastened on it because it chimed with what they already believed and allowed them to justify the harassment they’d already perpetrated against Josh Ainsworth.

  ‘You do realise Ainsworth wasn’t the only doctor working there?’ Ferreira said.

  ‘He’s the one who doesn’t work there any more.’ Michaela shrugged. ‘Stands to reason it’s him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Zigic wanted to call Anna and ask how the interview at the school had gone. Something about the grimness of Neal Cooper’s life had made him crave the sound of her voice, the chatter of the kids in the background.

  Neal Cooper wasn’t supposed to end up how he had, all bent up and beaten down, a convicted murderer whose neighbours would all know exactly who he was and what he was supposed to have done. His whole life had been derailed by a conviction, one that now looked increasingly suspect.

  Would he have been a good father? A considerate husband? What had been stolen from him the second he made that false confession?

  Because Zigic was almost completely certain now that it was false.

  ‘Nine-fifty,’ the young guy behind the counter said in a tone that suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d said it.

  Zigic apologised and tapped his card on the reader, then picked up his order and carried it out of Krispy Kreme and across the packed car park to where Adams was sitting smoking on a picnic bench with a charming view of the traffic snarled up at the Serpentine Green roundabout.

  He was full of himself now. Bullish with the success of driving a weak man into revealing a lie he had been holding close to himself for twenty years. And doing it in a matter of minutes, with no evidence, just the force of his personality and a complete lack of proper process.

  That none of this would stand up in a court of law didn’t seem to faze him.

  Zigic sat down opposite him, pushed his iced coffee across the table.

  ‘Cheers, mate.’ Adams flipped open the box of doughnuts. ‘Where’s my Nutty Chocolatta?’

  ‘I refuse to say such stupid words to another adult,’ Zigic told him, picking out a plain glazed ring. ‘You want to go in and get one, be my guest.’

  ‘God, you can be po-faced. We’ve just found the case we’re going to take down Walton with, and you’re begrudging me my choice of doughnut. How has Mel put up with you all these years?’

  ‘She doesn’t make infantile pastry orders,’ Zigic said firmly. ‘And we’re still a long way from this being a case.’

  ‘You will at least admit that Cooper didn’t do it?’

  ‘You want to take that thought to its logical end?’ Zigic asked. ‘Cooper didn’t do it but he confessed anyway because someone exerted pressure on him. And the only person in a position to exert that kind of pressure on him was the officer who led the investigation and who carried out every single interview with him: Riggott.’

  Adams sipped his coffee, trying to look unconcerned. But Zigic would bet that behind his sunglasses were the eyes of a very nervous man.

  Just like there were behind his.

  ‘Riggott isn’t the only option,’ Adams said. ‘Who’s to say Walton didn’t bully him into it?’

  ‘Is that why you kept banging on about him?’

  Adams gave a shrug that looked more like a shudder. ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘No, if we’re going to pursue this you can’t keep doing that,’ Zigic said, leaning across the table, aware of the family away to their right. ‘Stop trying to find a way of wrecking Cooper’s conviction without fucking over Riggott.’

  ‘I just want to be certain before we do that.’

  Adams was getting more uncomfortable by the second. Seeing his career advancement stalling, Zigic thought. All the backstabbing and arse kissing he’d put in over the years, the late-night drinking sessions with Riggott, listening to his stories and performatively absorbing his wisdom, all of that time and effort suddenly wasted if it turned out Riggott had coerced someone into a false confession.

  Zigic dipped his doughnut into his coffee and waited for Adams to elaborate. Or finish mourning his lost future as DCS.

  ‘We need something concrete,’ Adams said slowly. ‘If we’re going to take that case apart, we need more than Cooper whispering about not doing it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There was a saliva sample lifted from Tessa’s cardigan,’ Adams said. ‘It wasn’t a match for Cooper, so they took the view that it wasn’t relevant, and could have happened days before she was killed.’

  ‘I’m already aware of that.’ Zigic felt a chill across the back of his neck at the thought of what came next, if he let it. At how dangerous a proposition they were edging towards. ‘But we can’t run the test without cause and we can’t get cause without running the test.’

  ‘I mean, we can,’ Adams said, swirling the ice around in his coffee, looking into that rather than at Zigic. ‘Running a DNA test is no big ask. We’ll just use a private lab. Get verification – or not – then see where we stand when we have full information.’

  ‘And how do you intend to get hold of the sample?’ he asked.

  Adams gave him a grim smile. ‘Me? You suddenly not a part of all this, Ziggy?’

  ‘Do you have an idea or not?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, a little of the bullishness returning. ‘Wouldn’t want you doing anything that made you uncomfortable. Christ, if you can’t even order a doughnut with a funny name –’

  ‘You have absolutely no integrity,’ Zigic said, before he could stop himself, sick of how lightly Adams was dealing with this slow-moving catastrophe they were engineering for themselves.

  ‘Integrity? Really? Does that seem like something important right now?’ Adams demanded. ‘Is integrity going to keep Walton out of Mel’s face? No, it isn’t. Integrity can go fuck itself.’

  ‘This could get us both sacked.’

  ‘Sacked?’ Adams gave a bitter laugh. ‘It could get us locked up.’

  ‘And you’re happy to risk that?’

  ‘If you have a better plan I’d love to hear it.’

  Miserably, Zigic took another doughnu
t from the box and tore it into pieces, dipping each into his coffee in turn, eating them without pleasure, the pastry sticking to the roof of his mouth, feeling each time he swallowed like he was going to choke.

  He didn’t have a better plan.

  His only plan was to speak to Riggott before things went too far.

  But in his gut, he knew that point had been passed the second they walked into Neal Cooper’s home. The only way was onwards; find the evidence – however they came by it – then take it to Riggott. Present him with a fait accompli and hope the part of him that wanted justice for Tessa Darby would outweigh the part that wanted a smooth run through his last year before retirement.

  Nobody wanted to go out like this, though. To leave under a cloud of failure, or worse, suspicion.

  How many more reputational hits could their station take?

  ‘If you want out you can go,’ Adams said. ‘It’s not your fight anyway.’

  The statement felt loaded. Zigic couldn’t help but wonder why Ferreira hadn’t said anything to him about Walton. All the silent car journeys the last couple of days, all the times she could have asked for his help or at least his advice.

  Why didn’t she trust him with this? After all the time they’d known each other.

  Was it because she realised Walton was a problem you had to deal with by bending the rules to breaking point? That she didn’t think he had the nerve or the sense of loyalty to do that? She knew Adams did though, trusted him to do whatever dirty work was necessary.

  And she was right.

  Assuming she knew what he was planning, Zigic thought.

  ‘How much does Mel know about all this?’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ Adams said firmly. ‘And she’s not going to.’

  ‘If you think she likes being kept in the dark, then you don’t know her very well.’

  Adams cocked his head. ‘Think I know her a bit better than you do, mate.’

  ‘You don’t think it might put her mind at ease knowing something’s being done about Walton?’

  ‘I dunno. Do you feel particularly zen right now?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Ferreira didn’t expect Patrick Sutherland to actually answer his phone, was poised to leave a message when his voice cut in with the kind of wary hello a call from an unknown number merited.

  ‘Dr Sutherland, this is DS Ferreira, we spoke a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Of course, yes. I remember,’ he said, sounding vaguely harassed, but she supposed there were very few moments of respite in Long Fleet’s medical bay. ‘Is there something I can help with?’

  ‘I was wondering if you could come into the station,’ she said. ‘There are some photographs I need you to look at. People who were hanging around Josh’s house. We think they might be have been targeting other staff members.’

  ‘Is this the couple you showed me before?’ he asked.

  ‘No, other people,’ Ferreira said.

  There were no other people, but she would find some images and pack a file thick with them, to distract him while she primed him for the real questions she wanted to ask. About Josh Ainsworth and the allegation against him and why exactly he’d kept so tight-lipped when they first questioned him.

  Sutherland would cite the NDAs and contract she was sure.

  But away from Long Fleet, under the jurisdiction of a higher law, she felt confident that she could bring Patrick Sutherland around.

  ‘Is after my shift okay?’ he asked. ‘It’ll be around seven. Or I could manage Saturday morning if that’s easier for you. I don’t want to keep you there late on my behalf.’

  ‘I’m here until the day’s done,’ Ferreira told him. ‘Seven’s fine.’

  ‘It’s a date then.’ He swore, apologised. ‘I forgot who I was talking to there. Sorry. I’m going to hang up now and be embarrassed in private.’

  He ended the call and Ferreira shook her head, smiling as she replaced the receiver. It never ceased to amaze her how flustered people got on the phone to a police officer. She’d lost count of the amount of people who had accidentally ended a call with ‘love you, bye’.

  Her mobile rang – Parr.

  ‘Another one with a rock-solid alibi,’ he said.

  ‘Which one?’ Ferreira asked, getting up and going over to the board where the names of three of the guards she’d despatched them to chase up were already crossed out.

  One dead, one emigrated to New Zealand and a third mid-Caribbean cruise.

  ‘His ex-wife was still at the address we have,’ Parr told her. ‘I couldn’t get away from the woman. She’s not bloody happy, not one bit.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Doing three years inside for beating up some old boy after a Luton Town match. That’s when she decided to divorce him.’

  ‘Not when he got sacked from Long Fleet?’

  Ferreira struck through his name.

  ‘No, that was all lies according to the ex.’

  ‘Loyal to the last.’

  ‘He was always a perfect gentleman apparently,’ Parr said, voice deadpan. ‘Anything more from the others?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He hung up just as the email from James Hammond hit her inbox. Quickly she read through the scant details he’d sent over about the woman who had accused Joshua Ainsworth of attempted rape.

  Hammond apologised for the limited information he could give her, blaming data protection rules. Said he hoped it was enough to find her. Ferreira imagined he meant the precise opposite, was giving them the minimum he could so as to look like he was helping the police but not actually assisting.

  She opened the attachment to find the barest of bare minimums.

  Nadia Afua Baidoo’s last known address and that of the hostel they had delivered her to on her release. The dates of her stay at Long Fleet but nothing about the time she was there.

  Nothing about her accusation against Joshua Ainsworth.

  Ferreira called Hammond’s office.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Hammond is in meetings all afternoon and absolutely cannot be disturbed,’ the woman on the other end said. She didn’t ask for a name or offer to take a message, just put the phone down.

  Acting on Hammond’s orders, Ferreira guessed. He was smart enough to know his email would warrant an immediate follow-up.

  They’d get nothing more from him.

  She printed the photo of Nadia Afua Baidoo and stuck it up in the persons-of-interest column, feeling a slight twinge as she did it, but the woman had a motive, and the sympathy Ferreira felt for her didn’t change that.

  The photograph would have been taken when she was processed into Long Fleet, showed her stunned and fearful. She was nineteen but the shock had rendered her even younger-looking, clear-skinned and big-eyed, a ripple around her chin that suggested she’d been on the verge of tears.

  Ferreira wondered if that was why Joshua Ainsworth had targeted her, the vulnerability radiating from her.

  Nadia Afua Baidoo had been released from Long Fleet on June 16th, 2018 and spent her first night of freedom, after a full year locked up, at a hostel on Lincoln Road that was run by an interdenominational charity and staffed largely by volunteers.

  After that, nothing.

  Ferreira ran all of the usual checks, finding no sign of recent activity on Baidoo’s passport. No criminal record except for the immigration offence for which she’d been sent to Long Fleet. Caught overstaying in a raid on the restaurant in Cambridge where she’d been working. Ferreira remembered the raid. It has caused a minor stir in the press when it emerged that the owners had cooperated with the investigation in order to avoid the fines they should have been hit with, had called in all the affected staff on one shift to make it easier to round them up and ship them off.

  She wondered why Hammond hadn’t given them any information about the reasons why she was ultimately given leave to remain.

  Overstayers weren’t usually so lucky.

  The hostel should be the next move, she thought
, eyeing Zigic’s empty office. Obviously the ‘family stuff’ that wouldn’t take long had been more complicated than he anticipated but after two hours’ absence she thought he might at least have texted her.

  She went to the board and added a mark on the timeline of Joshua Ainsworth’s murder to show the point where Nadia was released from Long Fleet.

  Seven weeks between her freedom being granted and his murder.

  Two weeks before Nadia was released, Ainsworth resigned.

  Was she reading too much into it?

  She knew how infrequently the victims of violence sought revenge.

  Revenge was a fantasy, a coping mechanism, something people ran through in their heads to exorcise the demons of their trauma, a little of the pain fading away with each new method of torture and despatch.

  Almost nobody carried it through into reality because mostly when you were confronted with the person who hurt you, the remembered terror renewed itself, and your body, which had been so sure and strong in those fantasies, started to shake and go numb, or else to freeze you to the spot. It would take an almost superhuman feat of will to overcome the muscle memory of being victimised, force yourself to move forwards and strike first when every atom in you cried ‘run’.

  Ferreira looked down and saw that her hands were in fists.

  Her own body going back to the parking garage under her building, back into the all-encompassing burn and thrum of Lee Walton’s personal space.

  Was that how Nadia had felt when she saw Ainsworth?

  Could she really have got past that lamp-stunned rabbit feeling and shoved him onto a table hard enough to break it? Then picked up one of the smashed legs and methodically struck his temple again and again until she exposed grey matter?

  Maybe she was that kind of woman.

  Maybe Long Fleet had hardened her.

  Ferreira turned to Murray, sitting typing up a report, stabbing at the keyboard like it had offended her.

  ‘Hey, Col, do you fancy a drive?’