Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

CHAPTER FORTY

  Haven House was at the northern end of Lincoln Road, beyond the rows of grand old houses carved up into bedsits, the beauty parlours and solicitors specialising in immigration law, the employment agencies and language schools, the B & Bs and hostels that seemed to spring up weekly and change their names once a year. Portuguese cafes and Polish delis, Turkish restaurants and endless takeaway places. Different ones to when Ferreira had lived there but in the same buildings with the same cramped flats above them.

  It was always a disconcerting sensation, returning there, to the place she’d spent her teens and much of her twenties, seeing how everything and nothing had changed.

  She slowed as she passed the white stucco front of her parents’ pub, saw that the car park wasn’t as busy as it should have been, fewer smokers outside too. Her mother’s hand was evident in a chalkboard sign offering a full English breakfast and a beer for £4.95. There was no way they could do it for that price, Ferreira thought. Things must be getting desperate.

  Why hadn’t they said something, she wondered angrily. Asked for her help.

  With a twinge of guilt she realised she hadn’t been to visit them for weeks. Months maybe, if she was honest with herself. Made plans that got blown by work or she used work as excuse to blow them because she had other things she’d rather do with her scant free time. She could blame Billy but knew she’d only been lying to herself. He’d been dropping subtle hints about meeting them for a while now, long enough that she knew he’d probably go in there and introduce himself if she didn’t arrange something soon.

  The thought of it sent a ripple of unease across her shoulders.

  ‘Alright, girl?’ Murray asked.

  ‘I’m good.’

  She pulled up in front of Haven House, a double-fronted Edwardian villa with large bay windows edged in stone and a steep-pitched roof. It had an austere quality from the road despite the well-stuffed flower beds and the pillar-box-red front door, which had been recently reglossed. It wasn’t until they were on the front step ringing for entry that Ferreira noticed the ghost of a swastika showing faintly through the paintwork.

  They’d had trouble, she knew, more in the last twelve months than the previous ten years. Dog shit pushed through the letter box and windows smashed, spurious complaints anonymously called in about the place being used by sex workers and drug dealers, anything to cause them inconvenience. Helping refugees and asylum seekers drew as much hatred as it did admiration. Hence the new security measures.

  ‘Sergeant Ferreira for Mr Daya,’ she said to the intercom.

  The door buzzed and they went into the Minton-tiled hallway where children’s drawings had been framed on one wall. Boxes of food donated by local businesses sat underneath them, waiting to be taken into the kitchen where something aromatic was cooking, the scents of ginger and garlic filling the air.

  Overhead a vacuum cleaner was running back and forth at speed, poppy music playing above it and somebody singing along.

  Ferreira tried to imagine how it would feel to come here straight from Long Fleet, wondered if Nadia Baidoo had felt safe or if she kept expecting to be taken away again. Freedom became harder to believe in once you’d lost it. All the positive energy and soothing paint colours in the world couldn’t rebuild innocence.

  Adil Daya emerged from his office.

  ‘Sergeant Ferreira.’ He shook her hand warmly and turned to Murray.

  ‘Colleen,’ she said. ‘Sergeant. Murray.’

  She was flustered but he was used to it, Ferreira thought.

  Adil Daya was a tall, lithe man, in his late fifties now, but he looked much the same as he had when Ferreira was a kid, still handsome and with a full head of wavy grey hair. She’d been friends with his son at school, the pair of them bonding over their strict parents and an unfashionable love of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

  He ushered them into his office, a small, windowless room painted brilliant white, with innocuous art on the walls and a series of boards covered in targets and lists. On his cluttered desk a stubby vase held a flower arrangement culled from the front garden, the marigolds fragrant in the confined space.

  ‘How’s Mo getting on in London?’ Ferreira asked, as she sat down.

  ‘Very well,’ Mr Daya said. ‘He’s just had another baby. Three now. He wants to stop but his wife loves being pregnant. She’ll fill the entire house if he lets her.’

  ‘That’s great, I’m so happy for him,’ Ferreira said.

  ‘I will tell him you asked after him.’ Daya lowered himself into his seat. ‘And you are well?’

  ‘Never better,’ Ferreira told him, beginning to feel vaguely absurd, having this catch-up, but sometimes you had to do the family chat first.

  ‘But you have a problem?’ he asked, tone shifting into the professional.

  ‘We’re looking for one of your former residents,’ Ferreira told him. ‘Nadia Afua Baidoo. We understand she was here briefly but we can’t find her and we need to speak to her as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Is she in trouble?’

  ‘No, we’re just concerned for her safety right now,’ Ferreira said.

  ‘This doesn’t surprise me,’ Daya said, clasping his hands on his stomach. ‘We hoped she would stay with us while she found her feet. To go from being locked up like that … it’s never an easy transition. Especially for such a young girl.’

  ‘How long did she stay with you?’

  ‘Only for one week. She was in a state of shock, I think. They so often are. It takes some time to acclimatise to freedom. And once that process has begun there is the larger issue of where to go and what to do with your life.’ He shook his head. ‘Sadly, there are very limited options and it is a great challenge to rebuild a life that has been … shattered how Nadia’s life was. It can be overwhelming to try and do that alone.’

  ‘Did she speak to you about her time in Long Fleet?’

  His eyes darkened. ‘That place. We have many women come from there and always it is the same. The depression and the anger. For the first two days Nadia stayed in bed. She wouldn’t eat, she hardly spoke.’ He put one hand up. ‘Please understand, she was a lovely young woman. Polite and considerate but the sadness was so deeply buried in her she seemed only half alive.’

  Ferreira thought about the alleged attack by Josh Ainsworth and how it would only be natural that she was struggling when she was released.

  ‘Surely she’d have been relieved to be out?’ Murray asked.

  ‘It is not that simple,’ Daya told her regretfully, but said no more, as if he didn’t have the words to explain.

  ‘Do you know why she was given leave to remain?’

  ‘No, she didn’t want to talk about her circumstances, which is understandable and not uncommon.’ He frowned, forehead crinkling. ‘She was quite concerned about being taken in again. I remember she asked me whether her leave to remain could be revoked and under what conditions. I couldn’t help without knowing more details but she didn’t know the details herself.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather unusual?’ Murray asked. ‘People who stay out of trouble are usually left alone.’

  ‘Regrettably, that is not always the case,’ Daya said. ‘And it is quite common to be confused about the law. The powers that be aren’t always at pains to explain themselves, and often the ladies are so relieved to find they will be released that they don’t always take on what they are being told.’

  Ferreira could understand that, your mind blotting out everything apart from the news that you were free.

  ‘What about her solicitor?’ Murray asked. ‘They must know the details.’

  Daya nodded. ‘They would, but I’m afraid I don’t know who her solicitor is. As I said, she was not very forthcoming. I hoped she would tell us more as she became more comfortable and more confident. Helping the ladies rebuild trust in people is one of the main challenges we face here.’

  Beyond his office door the hallway filled with the sound of women’s voices, speaking a
language Ferreira didn’t recognise, a child with them singing in a wonky falsetto, a song from an advert.

  ‘How did Nadia come to leave here?’ she asked. ‘She must have had somewhere to go.’

  ‘She told me she wanted to go back to Cambridge,’ Daya said, the thought of it still clearly troubling him. ‘I’d asked her about her family there and she told me she had nobody, so it seemed strange that she would want to return but I supposed the familiar place might be good for her. And to put some distance between herself and Long Fleet.’

  ‘Did she have money?’ Ferreira asked. ‘A phone?’

  ‘We gave her some money for a bus ticket. And clothes – she arrived here with nothing.’

  ‘So, she didn’t have a phone?’

  ‘We provided a phone for her – a local phone shop donates the out-of-date models and we put a pay-as-you-go SIM card in them,’ he explained. ‘Nadia was reluctant to take it because she said she had nobody to contact.’

  Ferreira felt a stab of sympathy, trying to imagine being so alone in the world.

  ‘Do you have a number for the phone?’ she asked.

  ‘I will find it.’ Daya took a ledger from his desk and started flipping through the pages.

  ‘Did Nadia mention friends she might go to stay with?’ Murray asked, a hint of concern in her voice now. ‘A boyfriend, perhaps?’

  ‘No, she was very insular,’ he said, hand hovering over the book. ‘Although I did see her with a man a couple of days before she left.’

  ‘Did he come here?’ Ferreira asked.

  ‘No, I saw them at the cafe across the road. I remember being happy that Nadia had gone out, even if it was only to have a coffee. I thought it was a positive sign.’

  ‘Do you think she knew him?’

  ‘I think so, yes. I watched them for a moment, because of course we have a problem with grooming gangs targeting our ladies, and I was concerned that he might be one of those men. But Nadia appeared to know him. And later, when she came back I asked her about him and she said he was a friend she’d run into.’

  ‘Didn’t that seem strange to you?’ Murray asked. ‘She said she had nobody but then this guy just happens to run into her?’

  ‘Nadia seemed relieved,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that is what I remember. She seemed somewhat happier after meeting him and so I thought it could only be a good thing.’

  Ferreira showed him a photograph of Josh Ainsworth. ‘Is this him?’

  ‘I didn’t see his face,’ Daya said. ‘He had brown hair but I cannot say any more than that.’ He turned another page in the book. ‘Ah, here we are.’

  He read out the number for Nadia’s phone and Ferreira noted it down, while Murray typed it into her own mobile and dialled it.

  She waited.

  ‘Switched off,’ Murray said irritably.

  ‘This is very worrying.’ Daya leaned forward, placed his palms flat on the table. ‘She was in a highly vulnerable state when she left, but we are not a prison and I couldn’t force her to stay here, as much as I think this was the best place for her.’ He gave Ferreira a searching look. ‘I think there is something you’re not telling me, Melinda.’

  She hesitated a beat too long, feeling caught out under his gaze, a teenager again visiting the Daya house and trying to remain on her best behaviour, be respectful the way Mo had been with her parents.

  ‘Is this because of the doctor from Long Fleet who was killed?’ he asked.

  ‘We wanted to speak to Nadia for some background,’ Ferreira said. ‘But we’re quite concerned for her well-being right now.’

  A pained expression clenched his face. ‘We should have tried harder to keep her here.’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done,’ Ferreira assured him. ‘Nadia’s a grown woman.’

  ‘She’s only a girl,’ he said desperately. ‘She’s a vulnerable girl and we let her go out into the world with a few pounds and a change of clothes. We failed her.’

  Ferreira tried to persuade him that he’d done the right thing but he was becoming smaller and older as he sat there. She wished they hadn’t come here and unsettled this good man, but murder investigations created all kinds of emotional collateral damage. Often in the places you least expected. Just another one of the job’s burdens.

  He saw them to the door and Ferreira promised she would be in touch when she knew anything more, would tell him when they found her. Hoped it was a promise she could keep, but as she got into the car and pulled away, the uncomfortable sensation that had been growing in her stomach only hardened and settled in.

  She had a terrible feeling they weren’t going to find Nadia Baidoo.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ Zigic said, as they crossed the gravelled car park into the garden centre, passing people coming out carrying net bags of bulbs and straggly perennials with sale stickers on. ‘We shouldn’t be approaching her at work.’

  ‘It’s not my first choice, but we’re on a clock here, Ziggy.’ Adams dropped back to let an elderly woman in a wheelchair through, her daughter thanking him. ‘We’ll be delicate, okay? You take the lead.’

  A young guy in a green Aertex and an assistant manager’s tag pointed them to Tessa Darby’s mother, working in a distant corner among the piles of terracotta planters and lengths of willow fencing. She was sweeping the brick pathway with a stiff brush, gathering up the mess of a broken pot, the big pieces already in a wheelbarrow, just shards of blue-glazed ceramic and powder remaining.

  Wendy Darby looked like her daughter, the woman she would have grown up into if it wasn’t for Neal Cooper.

  Or Lee Walton.

  Zigic still wasn’t entirely sure. The more the day wore on the more he felt he was being pulled along by Adams’s desperate energy and his desire to make this about Walton rather than chasing actual facts. If this was an open case, if he had to justify his actions at the end of each shift, would he be here?

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Darby?’

  She stopped brushing mid-stroke, her back stiffening, and turned around slowly. Alerted by the tone of his voice, Zigic thought, the combination of apology and insistence you could never fully shake off once you’d adopted it. She looked scared underneath the weariness and sadness.

  ‘How can I help you today?’ she said, looking between them, hoping that she was wrong.

  But then Zigic made the introductions and her fingers tightened around the broom handle, and he wondered if this was how she’d found out about Tessa. Two strange men approaching her out of nowhere with the worst news a parent could hear.

  ‘I’m very sorry to disturb you at work,’ Zigic said.

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘I wondered if we could talk to you about Tessa.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘What else is there to say?’

  There was no delicate way to do this, despite what Adams had said, and now he saw why his senior officer stepped back and handed over the lead. This wasn’t like going into Neal Cooper’s house and rattling him. There were consequences for Mrs Darby that were going to hurt and that pain would be on him.

  But she would want the right man to be punished, Zigic thought, and forced himself to press on.

  ‘Do you remember one of Tessa’s friends, Lee Walton?’

  A flicker of panic passed over her face and he realised he didn’t have to explain. That she was connecting the dots by herself. Maybe she had already wondered about him.

  ‘They weren’t friends exactly,’ she said. ‘I’m friends with his mum – me and Jackie have known each other for years. Tess had known him since she was little.’ Her hands twisted around the broom handle. ‘Why are you asking me about him? What’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘He was released from prison recently,’ Zigic said.

  ‘Jackie told me all about it,’ Mrs Darby said, a caustic edge coming into her voice. ‘She always said he wasn’t guilty.’

  ‘And did you agree with her?’
Adams asked.

  ‘All mothers want to see the best in their sons.’ Mrs Darby shook her head. ‘But I followed the news. That many women don’t just lie.’

  ‘It was a lot more women than the ones he was charged over,’ Adams said.

  Zigic moved slightly, putting himself between them, pieces of broken pot crunching under his feet. But the damage was done, as it was always going to be.

  Mrs Darby knew where they were going. Twenty years after her daughter’s murder, eight after the man convicted of it was released from prison, why would anyone be asking about the case now?

  ‘Neal Cooper killed my girl,’ she said fiercely. ‘He confessed.’

  ‘We have reason to believe his confession may have been made under duress,’ Adams said. ‘We’re carrying out a case review prompted by the discovery of new information that might have a bearing on how the original investigation was conducted.’

  Zigic felt his pulse thudding in his neck, wanted to round on Adams and tell him to go, take his lies and hunches and complete lack of tact, and leave this to him.

  A soft, keening noise came out of Mrs Darby and she let the broom drop, the sound like a gunshot in the walled confines of the garden centre.

  ‘You’ve got no right to do this,’ she said, her voice clogged, hand going to her throat. ‘Cooper confessed. He killed my Tess. He was obsessed with her. Why do you want to make out he’s innocent? Isn’t it bad enough he only served twelve years? For my daughter’s life. He’s out and about, living it up, doing whatever the hell he wants. And my little girl is dead. Why are you defending him?’

  Zigic put his hands out, wanting to calm her but seeing it was impossible.

  ‘We just want to make sure the right man is punished, Mrs Darby.’

  ‘No, you think I’m an idiot,’ she snapped, darting towards him. ‘You lot messed up and now Lee’s out and you want to put him back inside. God knows, he deserves to be banged up and never see the light of day, but I will not let you use my little girl to do that.’

  ‘You really think there’s no chance he was responsible?’ Adams asked. ‘Knowing what you know about him now – what we all know he’s capable of – don’t you want us to at least investigate the possibility?’ She looked at him, eyes brimming. ‘Maybe we can save another mother from going through what you’re suffering.’