by Eva Dolan
Nadia nodded, a little of her defiance bleeding away.
But it remained in the air between them, a certain heaviness. They were fighting against what they needed to do as police officers, trying to be people first, feeling their way through the impossible contradictions of those two positions.
The longer the three of them sat here the more unavoidably obvious it became that Nadia knew why they were here, too. The anxiety was coming off her in waves, written in the stiff line of her jaw and the way she held a defensive arm across her body, every muscle straining against the urge to run, right down to her toes, which gripped the seat pad.
‘How did you get here, Nadia?’ Ferreira asked.
‘I don’t understand.’ Her voice was tremulous. ‘You mean, how did I get here from Peterborough?’
‘Why are you living with Dr Sutherland?’
She hesitated and Ferreira realised that Sutherland hadn’t considered the possibility of them finding her and asking these questions. Wouldn’t he have warned her? Given her an explanation to pass onto them?
‘I needed a place to stay,’ she said, as if it was that simple.
‘You had somewhere. Haven house.’ Ferreira watched a shutter come down in front of Nadia’s face, but her fingers twitched against the photo frame and her toes flexed against the chair. ‘Did you call Dr Sutherland while you were there?’
Abruptly Nadia got to her feet. ‘I need some water.’
Ferreira followed her to the kitchen at the back of the room, watched her take down a glass from a wooden shelf, hand trembling as she turned the tap. She concentrated on filling the glass, eyes downcast, lips pursed.
‘Why did you have Dr Sutherland’s phone number?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said quietly, bringing the glass to her mouth. ‘He came to find me.’
Ferreira glanced quickly at Zigic, saw the shock on his face.
‘Why did he do that?’
‘He was worried about me. He wanted to know if I had somewhere to go.’
‘A lot of women leave Long Fleet with nowhere to go,’ Ferreira said, bracing her hand against the worktop. ‘But you’re the only one living in his house.’
‘It isn’t against the rules.’ Nadia turned to face her, spine straightening. ‘I’m not in Long Fleet any more. I can do what I want.’
‘And is this what you want?’
‘I didn’t have anywhere to go,’ Nadia said softly.
It wasn’t an answer but an explanation and Ferreira could see the terrible logic of it. How Sutherland might have framed it for Nadia, how inevitable it must have felt given her circumstances.
‘Are you two in a relationship?’ she asked.
Nadia nodded.
‘Were you sleeping together when you were in Long Fleet?’
‘No,’ she replied, almost before Ferreira had finished speaking.
And Ferreira didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. She saw the shame in Nadia’s eyes, so deep and profound that it stunned her.
Nadia moved away, heading to the chair in the front window again. As Ferreira turned to follow her, she noticed a spatter of dark stains in the pale grout between the limestone floor tiles near the back door. They could have been a dozen different things, she told herself as she squatted down, but she knew what an old wine stain looked like, how it was more purple than this, how curry sauce bled its oily orange spices as it aged, how jam held its colour and coffee went weak and washed out.
Blood looked like this. Only ever blood.
Zigic was questioning Nadia now, asking her about Sutherland and how he’d talked her into coming here. Repeating the same questions Ferreira had asked but at more length because he was distracting her rather than seeking new information.
Ferreira scrutinised the skirting boards near the door, seeing that the wall there had been repainted recently, several thick coats with the roller’s stipple marks visible. Done in haste, she thought. In desperation.
The back door was uPVC, would have washed clean easily enough. She opened it and saw the telltale scuff marks where somebody had levered the double-glazed glass panel out of the unit. There was more dried blood on the brickwork near the handle, drips and tracks that had a bleached-out quality, but blood was persistent and mortar more porous than brick.
She played it through in her head: someone breaks in, cutting themselves in the process, and bleeds all over the door and into the kitchen.
But it wasn’t that, she realised, as she turned a slow circle, her eyes on the ground, and found spots of what could be blood on the paving slabs. They were bleeding before they even reached the door.
Maybe a first attempt gone wrong, she thought.
Except no, there they were, more spots almost hidden in the gravel path that ran through the centre of the lawn. Stray drips dried on the flowers of a drift of white ox-eye daisies almost a metre away, as if the burglar had tried to shake the pain out of his hand. She kept walking, the trail getting light and sparser until she reached the back fence.
The bed in front of it was planted with low, dark-leaved creepers, viciously barbed like a trap. No more than knee high.
They would prick you wickedly but she wasn’t convinced they would draw so much blood.
If the burglar came over the fence, they might damage their legs but not their hands. It was barely one and a half metres high, not a drop into the unknown. You would lower yourself down.
Reach up and drag yourself over.
She leaned closer, peering at the top of the fence.
‘Gotcha.’
The entire stretch of fence was lined with gripper rods, their spikes short but thick and vicious-looking, designed to rip open the hands of anyone who tried to climb into the garden.
She thought of the mysterious injuries on Joshua Ainsworth’s fingers, the regularly spaced punctures torn ragged but semi-healed by the time he died. Pictured him grabbing for the top of the fence to haul himself over and ripping his hands open.
But not stopping.
Something propelled him, bleeding, along the path and through the back door and into that house.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
They called a car to take Nadia into Thorpe Wood Station, called a solicitor too, knowing that she would need representation before they formally questioned her. Zigic found the business card he’d been given by the woman they ran into at Long Fleet. She’d said to get in touch if they needed anything, and he figured this was something she could help with.
It was beyond the basic requirements of his job at this point, possibly at odds with best practice for a detective, finding good legal advice for a suspect when an uninterested duty solicitor would make his life easier. But he wanted to do this right.
Forensics turned up at the same time as the patrol car and he saw the fear in Nadia’s eyes as she was walked out of the house, tripping over her feet, her gaze magnetised to the bright red van.
Whatever had happened in that house she knew about it.
How far she was involved and in what capacity remained to be seen.
Zigic called over the two extra uniforms he’d requested and briefed them on the door-to-door: anything unusual noticed in the street late last week, any strange activity sighted at the Sutherland house on the night Joshua Ainsworth was killed.
Ferreira was already next door, standing on the front step talking to Sutherland’s neighbour, who kept gesturing behind herself into the house. Ferreira was nodding, making notes. She looked like she was happy about what she was hearing and sure enough, a couple of minutes later, she returned with a spring in her step.
‘Break-in mid-morning on Thursday,’ she said.
‘Broad daylight?’ Zigic asked, amazed at Josh Ainsworth’s gall. ‘Could she give you a description?’
‘She didn’t actually see it,’ Ferreira told him. ‘She went out at nine to hang some washing out, came back a couple of hours later and saw that the glass had been removed from the back door. She came over here and knocked to see if everything
was okay but didn’t get an answer.’
‘Ainsworth waited until the house was empty then?’
‘I guess.’ But she didn’t sound entirely convinced. ‘Apparently they had a window fitter in the next morning and she went around again to see what had happened – she said they don’t get much trouble here so she was worried if it was the beginning of a spate of break-ins, but I think she’s probably just nosy.’
‘Lucky for us.’
‘Nadia told her they hadn’t taken anything but then the neighbour started warning her about checking they hadn’t got into her bank statements and stuff because of ID fraud and to make sure they hadn’t taken her spare keys, but she said Nadia didn’t want to talk.’
‘What did she know about Nadia?’ Zigic asked.
‘Not much. As far as she’s concerned, Nadia moved in a few weeks ago and they’re a nice quiet couple who don’t annoy her, so …’
‘Perfect neighbours.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did she hear any movement on Saturday night?’
‘She was having an “adult sleepover” at her boyfriend’s place.’ Ferreira rolled her eyes. ‘She actually called it that.’
‘Probably wasn’t comfortable using the term “booty call” to a copper,’ Zigic suggested, earning a wry grin.
‘Or using it at all in 2018.’
‘You’ll be old one day, Mel.’
‘By the time I’m old everyone’ll be sleeping with sex robots and it’ll be called genital interfacing.’
He shook his head at her and headed into the house. They walked through to the back garden where Kate Jenkins stood by the rear fence, suited up, her kit box open.
‘Have you had a look yet?’ Ferreira asked. ‘It has to be how Ainsworth injured himself, right?’
Jenkins twisted her long red hair up and pinned it. ‘Mel, I know you need this to be right and it certainly does look like a good match for his injuries, but I need to do the actual science stuff before I can say that, okay?’
‘The spacing of the wounds looks identical.’
‘It does,’ Kate agreed. ‘But this won’t be the only house in the area that’s using these grips as an anti-burglar device. Not to mention the fact that Ainsworth might have come in contact with another set in a perfectly innocent way.’
‘Is there blood on them?’ Zigic asked her.
‘There’s something that might be blood,’ she said carefully. ‘But I’m looking at the effort they made to cover up evidence inside the house and I’m wondering why they left these here.’
‘They didn’t know he came in over the fence.’ Ferreira was committed to the theory now and Zigic found he agreed with her thinking. ‘He’s hardly bleeding until he gets to the back door. I struggled to follow the track down here and I’m –’
‘A bloodhound?’ Kate asked with a grin.
‘I was going to say a highly trained detective with excellent instincts and sharp eyesight.’
‘So modest,’ Zigic said.
‘My point is, if they were panicking – and they should have been – it’s logical that they concentrated on getting rid of any evidence in the house. Anyone might have seen the blood in there. But by the time you get to the centre of the lawn, there’s almost nothing to see so they failed to follow it to the source.’
Zigic had looked for blood as they came up the garden, hadn’t seen anything but an occasional rusty spot on the buff-coloured gravel, a spatter on some white flowers that might have been a common horticultural affliction for all he knew.
‘What about in the house?’ he asked. ‘Anything jump out at you?’
‘I’m in the garden, Ziggy,’ Kate said, taking a pair of pliers from her toolkit. ‘Go and harass Elliot, he’s in charge inside today.’
They headed in, found the downstairs empty still but Elliot’s stuff was set by the back door and they kept well away from it, not wanting to disturb anything.
Ferreira wandered over to the sitting area, gestured at the sofa and the chairs. ‘I’m sure all of this is new.’
‘It’s got that new upholstery smell,’ he agreed. ‘You think it got that messy in here?’
‘They’ve redecorated for some reason,’ she said. ‘Either Sutherland wanted to make the place all nice and fresh for Nadia, or …’
‘Everything got covered in blood and had to be chucked out?’ She nodded. ‘We’ll pull his financials, look for a recent shopping spree.’
‘Skip hire,’ Ferreira suggested. ‘Or a van rental. Getting furniture out of the house takes organising.’
Zigic folded his arms, worried they were running ahead of themselves. Yes, the walls had clearly been repainted recently enough that he could still smell the faint hint of volatile chemicals and the furniture did look brand new, but would Ainsworth’s bleeding hands have necessitated such a thorough overhaul?
‘How much was he bleeding, realistically?’
‘It doesn’t have to be gushing out all over the place,’ Ferreira said with a shrug. ‘A couple of spots of a murdered man’s blood in a house is enough to get a conviction.’
That was hope more than experience, he thought.
‘Ainsworth breaking in here doesn’t mean they murdered him,’ he told her, putting some warning into his voice.
‘No, but it makes it far more likely that they did.’ She leaned over the sofa, peering behind the back. ‘For all we know Ainsworth broke in while they were at home and one of them killed him and then took him back to his own place so it’d look like a robbery.’
He put up a cautioning hand. ‘Now, hold on a minute, Mel.’
‘I’m just thinking out loud.’
‘We still don’t even know if it’s Ainsworth’s blood,’ he said firmly. ‘And there’s no way Ainsworth was murdered here on Thursday morning – the post-mortem puts the time of death late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, so you need to disregard that option right away.’
Ferreira sat down on the arm of the sofa and stood immediately as it tipped. She pointed at it. ‘I’m not heavy, that’s a cheap sofa.’
Zigic pressed on. ‘The neighbour told you the break-in happened Thursday morning, which means Sutherland was likely at work at the time.’
‘And Nadia was very likely at home.’
‘And how does Ainsworth know she’s here?’
Ferreira considered it for a moment but couldn’t come up with an answer.
‘Okay, we need to nail that down,’ she conceded. ‘But let’s say Sutherland was home and Ainsworth came here to get to him, the question still stands – why does he want to get at Sutherland?’ She placed herself at the centre of the geometric-print rug. ‘Well, somebody must have backed up Nadia’s allegation against Ainsworth, right? And given that Nadia is living with Sutherland now, I think he’d be the most likely suspect.’
‘So you think this is Ainsworth wanting revenge on Sutherland for getting him sacked?’ Zigic asked, hearing how right it sounded as he spoke.
‘Revenge is always a good motive.’ She gave him a dark smile. ‘But a spot of light vandalism isn’t much of a revenge.’
‘This would make a lot more sense if we knew that Ainsworth knew that Nadia was here,’ he said. ‘Breaking in to go after her … there’s logic. That feasibly leads to Ainsworth’s murder.’
‘Maybe he did know she’s here,’ Ferreira said. ‘Sutherland thinks nobody from work knows what he’s up to because he’s living fifteen minutes away from Long Fleet, but it’s not the other end of the world, is it? And unless he’s got Nadia under house arrest, there’s a chance they’ve been seen together.’
‘That’s speculative.’
‘We have gaps,’ Ferreira said, exasperated. ‘We need to speculate or we won’t know how to fill them.’
‘With evidence?’ he suggested drily. ‘That’s the traditional method.’
‘Okay.’ She pushed her hair back off her face, a quick flicker of irritation showing. ‘If it is Ainsworth’s blood, then we have him breaking int
o the house of his former colleague and the woman he attacked at Long Fleet. Two people he has reason to want to damage. And who have ample reason to want to damage him.’
‘They’d have to know he was responsible for the break-in for it to become a reason to murder him.’ Zigic glanced out of the front window, saw the uniforms at neighbouring houses, one bending to put a note through a letter box, the other speaking to a young woman with a baby on her hip. ‘Nadia must have been home when he broke in.’
Ferreira nodded gravely.
‘What did he do to her?’
‘I dread to think.’ Zigic looked around the achingly ordinary living room, wondering what it had witnessed, what they had worked so hard to strip out of it. ‘They both must know what happened here. This clean-up job is too major to handle alone.’
‘The question is which one of them then killed him?’
Zigic rubbed his beard, already knowing what she thought, seeing how she’d shaped the conversation towards this point. ‘You think it was Sutherland.’
‘Do you really believe Nadia is physically capable?’
‘I think that if I was her and I was here alone and Ainsworth broke in, I’d be terrified enough to do just about anything to stop him getting near me again.’
‘That’s motivation,’ Ferreira said. ‘It isn’t capability.’
‘We need to bring Sutherland in.’
‘Long Fleet, then?’
He nodded. ‘Long Fleet.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The problem started at the main gate.
It was the same guard who’d let them in last time, a tall, dark-haired guy with a deep tan and gym-toned body, the one she’d tried to draw into conversation before and been given nothing but murmurs and grunts.
‘You’re not on my list,’ he said.
Zigic had his ID out, holding it up in the open window, but the guard didn’t look at it. Didn’t need to anyway. He wasn’t looking at his monitor either or the tablet he’d checked to let them in the other day. Word had obviously come down that they weren’t to be admitted.
‘We don’t need an appointment,’ Zigic said tersely. ‘We’re investigating the murder of one of your colleagues.’
