Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  ‘Why don’t you go back to the station,’ Zigic suggested, opening the cupboards in search of biscuits. ‘I’ll call a taxi.’

  ‘No, you’re alright. I’ll wait for you in the car.’

  Wendy Darby stared straight through Zigic as he placed her tea and a plate of biscuits on the coffee table. He felt impotent in the face of her grief, could hardly bear the knowledge that they’d brought her to this point.

  It had been bad enough when they broke the news, but seeing how wild she’d been with Jackie Walton and just how deep that betrayal went was heartbreaking.

  He sat down in an armchair, looked at the photographs of Tessa lined up along the mantelpiece, more of them on the bookshelves and hung in clusters behind the sofa. He wondered where her father was. The file had mentioned him briefly, but he’d never been a suspect so Riggott’s interest in him had ended almost instantly. Had he died or had Tessa’s murder ended the marriage like so many murders did?

  Twenty years was a long time to bear this burden alone.

  ‘Wendy, it’s best you don’t approach Jackie again,’ he said gently. ‘We’ve talked her out of pressing charges but that might not work next time.’

  She didn’t reply, didn’t stir at all.

  ‘I know you’re going through a lot right now and if you need to talk to someone, we can help with that.’

  He regretted the words immediately, knew there was no one he could send to be with her, no family liaison he could assign for an off-book case.

  Again she didn’t respond and all the thin assurances and hopeful sentiments that were rattling around his head smeared together into a meaningless blur. He was doing this for himself, he realised. Was sitting here so he could feel like he’d at least tried to undo some of the damage he’d done. It was a sad and selfish manoeuvre and recognising it only made him feel smaller still.

  ‘Is there anyone I can call for you?’ he asked.

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘If you need anything you can ring me, okay?’ he said, taking out a card and placing it on the table. ‘Any time, Wendy. Just call.’

  He wanted her to snap to her feet. Rant and rave at him, show some spark of defiance so he’d know they hadn’t completely destroyed her.

  But she didn’t and he left the house, hating himself but hating Adams more because he’d started all of this.

  And then in the car, driving back to Thorpe Wood, Adams had finally broken the silence.

  ‘Look, I don’t like this either, Ziggy. But we’re short on options so we’re going to have to do some things which don’t sit well.’

  At the solicitor’s office he’d seemed ready to dump the whole case rather than accept once and for all that Riggott had manipulated Cooper into confessing. That worry had been shelved but Zigic thought he needed reminding that he wasn’t in control of this and that their actions had consequences.

  Bring it home to him, right here and now in the station.

  ‘Colleen, can we have a word, please?’ Zigic asked, as he approached her desk. ‘In my office if you wouldn’t mind.’

  He saw Adams cut a quick glance at Murray and her giving him a questioning look in response, but they both followed. She sat down, Adams positioning himself against the defunct filing cabinets.

  ‘You ready to tell me what you’re playing at, Billy?’ Murray asked him.

  ‘You know what we’re doing, Col.’

  ‘Not the details,’ she said. ‘Not the specific case.’

  ‘Tessa Darby,’ Zigic told her.

  A brief ripple of unease crossed her face, before she rearranged herself in her seat, leaning back and smoothing her blouse down.

  ‘You worked the case,’ Zigic said. ‘Under Riggott.’

  She nodded but she was looking at Adams. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, mate. This why you’ve been keeping me out of the loop?’

  ‘We were just trying to protect you,’ he said. ‘You and Mel.’

  ‘Bollocks. You just never wanted someone who’d tell you what a massive mistake you’re making.’ She jabbed her fingertip into the arm of the chair. ‘That case was solid. We got a confession.’

  ‘Did you know Lee Walton was at the same college as Tessa?’ Zigic asked, seeing from her reaction that she didn’t. ‘And that their mothers were best friends at the time?’

  ‘Cooper didn’t do it,’ Adams told her.

  ‘Then why did he bloody confess?’ She threw her arms wide, looked incredulously between them. ‘Christ Almighty, is this what you’ve been doing? I thought you actually had something on Walton.’

  ‘Cooper’s solicitor believes the confession was coerced,’ Zigic said.

  Her eyes darkened and narrowed and she leaned forward in her chair again.

  ‘No, that never happened.’

  ‘Come on, Col,’ Adams said, moving into the seat next to her. ‘You know what Riggott was like. You worked closely with him on that case –’

  ‘Yeah, I did. Which means you’re accusing me of misconduct as well.’

  ‘No one’s saying that.’ Zigic tried to keep his voice even but he could feel Murray’s annoyance coming across the table, the defensiveness in it that only made him more convinced that the accusation against Riggott was true. ‘But isn’t it possible that the pressure of multiple interviews might have encouraged Cooper to confess?’

  ‘We all tell them same thing,’ Adams said. ‘It’s standard procedure – confess and you’ll get a lighter sentence. If Riggott said that –’

  ‘He didn’t say that,’ she snapped. ‘I was in every single one of those interviews and he never said it.’

  ‘What about the chats that weren’t recorded?’ Zigic asked.

  She glared at him.

  ‘Col, we’re getting close to nailing Walton for Tessa Darby’s murder,’ Adams said, sounding too certain for the evidence they had, but Zigic was sure he believed it, and he could see Murray getting dragged along too, the hard line of her mouth softening, something hopeful coming into her eyes. ‘He’s rattled, right? You know how Walton was, we never managed to put him on the back foot, not once. Not even when we had him in court. But this has got to him. He did it, Col. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You can’t build a case on “rattled”,’ she said, retreating in her chair again. ‘Is that all you’ve got? He looks a bit stressed and Cooper’s solicitor saying the confession was bent?’

  Zigic didn’t want to tell her. She went way back with Riggott, had been brought in and trained up by him. Plucked out of uniform where her talents had been underused and her potential ignored. Word was they were close outside of work too, though Zigic had never noticed her getting special treatment. The station gossip mill suggested Riggott was the person who picked her up after her divorce laid her flat.

  As big as this case was and as emotionally involved as Murray had become with the victims, Zigic felt certain her loyalty to Riggott wouldn’t be swayed.

  Surely Adams saw that. ‘We’ve got a DNA sample,’ he said.

  Zigic winced.

  ‘Where from?’ Murray asked, eyes widening. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Adams said, but she clearly was worried. ‘We’ll have a result tomorrow. And if it comes back as a match for Walton, we’re going to go to Riggott and ask him to reopen the case.’

  ‘You’re dreaming,’ she said, letting out a humourless laugh. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘We need you to come in on this, Col. You were on the original case; we need you to back us up on Cooper’s confession.’

  For ten seconds that felt like five minutes, she didn’t answer and Zigic could hear her breathing becoming shallow and faster, a phone ringing out on the floor and a sudden high peel of laughter from Bloom, which cut through the room like a blade. Murray was going to storm out of here and straight into Riggott’s office.

  This was it.

  ‘Col, please,’ Adams said, a plaintive whine in his voice. ‘We can’t get Walton without you.’
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br />   She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, blew it out again.

  ‘For your sake I hope you’re wrong about this.’ She stood, looking down at Zigic. ‘Because if you’re right and you upend that conviction, Riggott is going to be your enemy for life.’

  She left his office, Adams on her heels, and Zigic watched as he drew her next door into his, obviously planning on softening her up some more.

  Or changing the story, he realised. Putting the responsibility and the blame on him for when the shit hit the fan.

  Ferreira came into the office without knocking. Saw the look on his face and rapped on the frame. She was smiling. Grinning so wide it must have been painful.

  ‘I’ve found Nadia Baidoo.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  It was a housing development at the edge of Deeping St James, a couple of decades old, established enough for the trees planted around it to have grown and hints of neglect to emerge here and there. Large detached places at the front, neat rows of terraces designed to look like workers’ cottages further in, buff brick and slate roofs, peaked porches and short driveways edged with flower beds. A nice spot, quiet and self-contained. The kind of place where the neighbours would say hello in passing but not pry too far, Ferreira thought, hoping she was wrong.

  The house they wanted was an end-of-terrace tucked away in a corner. There was no car in the driveway, the windows were all semi-shaded by wooden blinds, but the upstairs ones were open and she felt sure that Nadia Baidoo would be in.

  Hoped Patrick Sutherland was too.

  The desire to confront him was an almost physical thing now, a stirring of adrenaline and indignation through her blood. When she thought of how carefully he’d evaded her questions about Nadia – the pitch-perfect performance he’d given of a man conflicted, scared for his job, unwilling to fully believe the worst of his former colleague.

  He’d duped her.

  First at Long Fleet and then at Thorpe Wood Station.

  She felt owed the pleasure of turning up unexpected at his door to expose him. Wanted to see his face drop.

  ‘How did he think we wouldn’t find out about Nadia?’ Zigic asked angrily.

  Ferreira held her tongue, remembering how dismissive he’d been of her determination to track Nadia down. And maybe she hadn’t anticipated it playing out like this, more concerned for the young woman’s safety than anything else, but if she hadn’t pursued that instinct, they wouldn’t be here now and Patrick Sutherland would still be nothing more than a witness on the periphery of the investigation.

  ‘Surely someone from Long Fleet knew about them,’ Zigic said.

  ‘He told me he doesn’t have anything to do with any of them outside work. He lives miles away, so the likelihood of bumping into someone who’d recognise her is minimal.’

  ‘But still …’

  ‘I guess he knew he was safe as long as we never had a reason to turn up at his house.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘That’s why he put himself out coming to the station the other evening. He didn’t want us here. I should have seen it.’

  ‘Nobody could have seen that,’ Zigic said reassuringly.

  She knocked on the front door, watching through its small glass panel for movement in the darkened hallway beyond. A figure came out of a room at the back of the house, and they could obviously see her more clearly than she could see them because she slowed and stopped near the foot of the stairs, as if wondering whether not answering was an option.

  Ferreira cocked her head to listen for the back door slamming, primed to give chase if necessary.

  But finally the figure moved again and the door opened.

  Nadia Baidoo. Taller than Ferreira expected from her photograph, almost six foot and willowy despite the baggy T-shirt she was wearing over a pair of leggings. Younger-looking than she expected too. She could have passed for fourteen right then, with her hair wrapped up in a silk scarf and her eyes flicking nervously between them before she settled on Zigic.

  ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

  Her accent was local, vaguely estuary, and Ferreira was momentarily surprised before catching herself. How many times had she snapped at someone for praising her ‘excellent English’ or being surprised by her accent? In her head Nadia had sounded Ghanaian. A stupid and lazy assumption she’d made despite knowing the young woman had come here as a child.

  ‘Detective Inspector Zigic,’ he said. ‘This is Sergeant Ferreira. Do you think we could come in, please?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘We’d just like to ask you a few questions,’ Ferreira said. ‘I’m sure you’d prefer to do that here rather than …’

  Nadia caught her meaning and stepped back to let them in, closed the door and showed them into a large room that went right through the house, sofas at the front, dining table in the middle, kitchen tucked down the back overlooking the garden. There was an unmistakable smell of newness in the room, discernible even under the sharp scent of polish. A mingling of emulsion and new fabric and as they moved to the seating area, Ferreira noticed how plumply perfect the sofa cushions were, as if they had never been sat on before.

  Zigic took one end of the sofa, Ferreira the other.

  Nadia stood over them, hands clasped in front of her, one foot on top of the other, and she looked so absurdly girlish that Ferreira was glad Patrick Sutherland was out because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her hands off him. Even if they hadn’t met in Long Fleet, if that terrible unequal power dynamic didn’t exist, this relationship would look wrong.

  Creepy, she mentally corrected herself.

  There was twelve years between Nadia and Sutherland but it might as well have been twenty.

  ‘Do you want tea or something?’ Nadia asked.

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Ferreira said, showing her an open and neutral face, wanting her to feel like she could talk to them. ‘How are you, Nadia?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said warily, moving to a pale armchair that sat too low to the ground for her height.

  Ferreira reached into her handbag and took out the photograph they’d found in the boxes from Cambridge, the one of Nadia with her mother.

  ‘I thought you might want this back,’ Ferreira said, passing it to her across the coffee table.

  Nadia let out a small sob as she took it, hiding her mouth with her hand. Tears sprang up in her eyes. ‘I thought I’d lost this.’

  ‘Mrs Loewe kept it for you,’ Ferreira told her. ‘She kept all your things. I think she was hoping you’d go back home when you could.’

  ‘This is the only photo I have of Mum,’ Nadia said, touching her fingertips gently to the image. ‘I had loads on my phone but they took it when they arrested me, and when I asked for it back, they told me it got lost somewhere.’

  ‘Are they saved to your laptop?’ Ferreira asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘We’ve got that at the station.’

  The relief was there and gone in an instant, smothered by fear. ‘Can you send me it?’

  ‘We’ll sign it over to you,’ Ferreira said, seeing how desperate Nadia was not to be taken in again.

  They’d anticipated this. Prepared for it. In the car on the way over, they discussed Nadia Baidoo’s vulnerability and the importance of handling her carefully. Neither wanted to retraumatise her. But Zigic had insisted she was a suspect as well as a victim, and at some point they were going to have to take her in.

  He’d agreed that an initial informal conversation here might make it less difficult on her, but Ferreira was aware of all the more serious questions they would have to ask her soon.

  ‘How are you coping?’ she asked. ‘Being out of Long Fleet?’

  Nadia flinched at the name of the place. ‘It’s better here. The village is nice.’

  No mention of Sutherland and it occurred to Ferreira that Nadia perhaps thought they were unaware that this was his house.

  ‘Why didn’t you go back to Cambridge?’


  ‘There’s nothing there for me,’ Nadia said, curling up a little tighter in the chair, her eyes still fixed on the photograph she held against her knee.

  ‘What about your friends?’

  ‘They’re not my friends any more,’ she said sadly. ‘People like that, they’re your friends as long as you’re the same as them, but when something happens, when you – when your life gets difficult, it’s like they think the bad stuff is catching and they run away from you as fast as they can.’

  Ferreira thought about what Mrs Loewe had told her, how Nadia was left to her grief for months. No visits, no calls. It was understandable that she felt like this. And maybe she’d said the same to Sutherland and he’d seen the opportunity to snatch her up out of her isolation. No mother to disapprove of him, no girlfriends to wrinkle their noses and say, ‘But he’s so old, babe.’

  ‘Mrs Loewe tried to find you,’ Ferreira told her. ‘She’s been really worried about you.’

  Nadia chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully, but didn’t reply, and Ferreira wondered whether things had been so warm at that house as they’d been led to believe. Mrs Loewe hadn’t looked very hard for her after all.

  ‘The people at Haven House are worried too,’ Ferreira said. ‘Why did you leave there so suddenly?’

  ‘They told me I could stay as long as I wanted to.’ Still Nadia wouldn’t look at either of them.

  Ferreira glanced towards Zigic, saw how troubled he was by her behaviour, how he strained as he sat there, wanting to do something but not knowing what he could do. For all his talk of Nadia being a suspect, Ferreira could see the father rising up in him, the nurturing instinct that was never far from the surface.

  ‘They were going to help you get sorted, weren’t they?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Find you somewhere to live, get your paperwork all straightened out.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my paperwork?’ Nadia said, looking up sharply. ‘I was given permission to stay. You can’t just take it away from me. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just been here, I’ve been studying. What have I done?’

  ‘We’re not here about your paperwork,’ Zigic said, putting out a calming hand. ‘There’s no problem with it, okay?’