by Eva Dolan
‘Do you think that’s going to stop him?’ Riggott asked, incredulous. ‘You know better than that. You don’t take your eye off an animal like Walton, you don’t go thinking you’re safe because he’s slipped into the shadows.’
‘I’m not getting complacent,’ she said defiantly. ‘I know exactly what he is.’
Riggott nodded. ‘Alright. I’m going to have a patrol car outside your place. He comes near you again and we’ll haul him in.’
She felt her face flush with a sudden shame and anger at him for thinking – just like Billy – that she couldn’t look after herself.
‘That’s not necessary,’ she said, forcing her voice to stay even.
‘I’m not asking your permission, Sergeant.’
‘There’s no law against him being there. What are you going to pull him in on?’
‘Whatever I fucking want to,’ Riggott said firmly. ‘He needs teaching that we take care of our own. A few nights in the cells should put it through his thick skull.’
‘I’m staying with Billy.’
No reaction to the news but she guessed it wasn’t news to him. Station gossip eventually percolated up to the higher echelons.
‘Way Adams is running around all over the place playing the fucking maverick, you don’t want to be relying on him to look after you.’
‘I’m not,’ she snapped. ‘He’s no tougher than I am.’
Riggott made a placating gesture. ‘Alright, Mel, this isn’t a gender equality issue. It’s a sheer fucking scale of the ugly bastard issue. I wouldn’t fancy Billy’s chances against him either.’ He gave her a short nod. ‘The car’s going to be there.’
‘How long for?’
He got up and went around behind his desk, yanking his e-cigarette from its charger. ‘Until we get the result of that fucking DNA test.’
She left his office, thinking of the tacit admission in the statement. He knew what result they were going to get, or he was pretty sure about it anyway, which meant he had coerced a confession out of Neal Cooper. Probably in the full expectation that he was guilty, driven by his instincts and whatever scant evidence they’d dragged together in the case. But she knew he, like so many of his team, the ones he picked and shaped because they mirrored him so closely, were gut-driven detectives. And that was their main failing, trusting their guts that step too far.
Ferreira knew she’d done exactly the same thing with Joshua Ainsworth’s murder and it seemed to be paying off now. But as guilty as Nadia Baidoo and Patrick Sutherland currently looked, there was the small matter of the paternity test.
A piece of grit too sharp to ignore.
She grabbed her tobacco and went downstairs for a smoke, tucking herself away around the corner of the building in a spot of shade where nobody else went, needing a few moments alone to decompress.
The first drag took some of the edge off and as she leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed, she realised that the weight that she’d been carrying for days now had lifted slightly. Knowing that the case Zigic and Adams had been working was viable, that Walton could feasibly be back in custody very soon, she could finally admit to herself how deep her fear of him ran.
Because she’d seen what he was capable of and she hadn’t felt confident in her ability to deal with him alone if it came down to it. Despite what she’d said to Riggott.
Would a patrol car outside deter him? She wasn’t entirely sure it would but maybe now that Walton could feel the net drawing closed around him, he’d think twice before approaching her again. If he had any sense of self-preservation, it would work.
But what about Dani, she thought, and her son.
Dani had gone back to him of her own free will but the boy had no say in it. How old was he now? Nine or ten, big enough to try and get between them when Walton decided to lash out at Dani. Big enough for Walton to think it was high time the boy was reminded of his place in the pecking order.
The poor kid wouldn’t stand a chance.
‘Now you definitely are hiding,’ Adams said, coming around the corner.
He looked hollowed out. Face slack, movements smaller and more contained than usual as he lit up and slumped against the wall next to her.
‘So, that was rough,’ she said. ‘You okay?’
‘I was half expecting him to hit me so, yeah, went better than it might have.’
‘You should have told me what you were doing,’ she said, unable to stop herself now everything was out in the open.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He scuffed at the ground with his toe. ‘I didn’t want Riggott to take it out on you as well.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I thought, if I lose my job over this, at least Mel can keep me in the style I’m accustomed to.’
She found a smile for him.
‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘What did Riggott want with you?’
She explained about the patrol car and he accepted it without a murmur. She wondered if he felt as intimidated by Walton as she did, if maybe he doubted his own presence would be a deterrent to the man.
‘I was thinking about Dani and her son,’ she said. ‘Do you think I should get in touch with social services?’
‘After that shit last night, yeah, probably a good idea,’ he agreed, thoughtful-looking. ‘I’ve got a mate there owes me a favour. Let me call him and see about getting someone to keep an eye on them.’
‘Thanks.’ She grabbed his hand and squeezed it quickly.
He fluttered his eyelashes. ‘Oh, my God, public display of affection at work. Be still my boyish heart.’
‘Fuck off then,’ she said, grinning as she dropped his hand.
They went back up to the office, Adams walking past Colleen as if she didn’t even exist. Ferreira felt a prick of sympathy for her, was sure she’d gone to Riggott with the best of intentions, wanting to keep Adams from getting himself into any deeper trouble. But it was going to take awhile for that rift to heal. She would talk to him later about it, try and get him to make the first move with Colleen. They’d worked together too long to fall out over this.
Ferreira moved to the board where Ainsworth’s murder was plotted out, Zigic already standing there, Bloom, Parr and Weller all arranged facing him. He’d started the briefing without her but it hardly mattered. They were getting close now and she was increasingly convinced that the most significant part of their day would be questioning Nadia Baidoo again.
‘Forensics,’ Zigic said, uncapping the marker pen and beginning to write on the board. ‘Blood-type match for Joshua Ainsworth on the carpet grip removed from Sutherland’s garden fence and several deposits inside the house.’ He wrote fast and almost illegibly and Ferreira knew she’d have to rub it all out once he was done and print in the same words. ‘We also have Ainsworth’s fingerprints in the kitchen, up the banister and in the bathroom.’
‘But nowhere else?’ Parr asked.
‘He bandaged his hands up,’ Bloom said, looking at Zigic. ‘Maybe he kind of came to his senses while he was doing that, realised how much evidence he was leaving behind and gave up on whatever else he’d gone there for.’
‘What he was doing there can wait for now,’ Zigic said. ‘The important thing is we can prove he was in Sutherland’s house. Now,’ he took a breath. ‘We just need to prove that they knew he’d been there.’
‘Nothing from door-to-door yet.’ Parr reached for a can of energy drink. ‘I noticed a couple of places had CCTV cameras though, so I was going to head back and see if we can get the footage.’
‘Any of them pointing directly at Sutherland’s place?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Any on the entrance to the close?’
He frowned. ‘No, sir. It’s a long shot I know.’
‘Get hold of them,’ Zigic told him. ‘Check everything.’
Weller waved a vague finger towards the suspects column. ‘Are we forgetting the rest of them, then?’
‘Right now we’re concentrating on Patrick Sutherland and Nadia Baidoo,’ Zigic said f
irmly. ‘We’ll be questioning both of them today and I’d like us to have a comprehensive, preferably irrefutable, bundle of evidence when we head in there.’ He clapped his hands smartly. ‘Crack on then.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
A few minutes after ten a call came up from reception.
‘Lady down here for you, Mel.’
‘Who is it?’
‘She won’t give me her name.’
The woman from their paternity test? Ferreira wondered, as she hurried down the stairs. Someone naïve enough to believe she could hold on to her privacy and untroubled life by simply refusing to say her name.
When she saw the woman, Ferreira realised she hadn’t been brought out by the public appeal, which ran on yesterday’s local news.
She was around sixty, tall and slim in baggy combats and trainers and a Momentum T-shirt in the same Soviet red as the clip-in streaks that stood in striking contrast to the perfect, silvery whiteness of the rest of her shoulder-length hair. She had a severe face and a steady gaze, which settled on Ferreira as she walked up to her. In a moment she felt the woman take her measure and relax slightly, as if deciding that, yes, she could talk to this policewoman.
‘Ruby Garrick called me,’ she said. ‘You want to know about a woman from Long Fleet.’
‘We should discuss this upstairs,’ Ferreira told her and immediately the tension returned to the woman’s face.
‘I’m not going to talk to you here,’ she said.
Ferreira nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘There’s a pub up the road.’
‘Bit early for the pub.’
‘They serve coffee,’ the woman said, starting out of the door.
Ferreira followed, knowing she probably should have insisted. This woman could be a fantasist or dangerous, although she didn’t look like either. She looked like a seasoned protestor, someone who’d already spent time in police stations under circumstances that hadn’t been pleasant, and wouldn’t step into one of her own volition without a very good reason.
As they walked up the road, the woman moving at a swift rate, Ferreira considered trying to get her talking there but decided against it. She might spook otherwise and if she had information she was too important to let slip for the sake of a couple of minutes.
She texted Zigic as she walked, letting him know where she was going.
The Woodman was a new-old chain place on the edge of the golf course, and a few athletes were already in when they arrived, tucking into bacon rolls or full English breakfasts before they set out. There were a couple of suits working at laptops, earbuds in, paperwork out, and a pair of elderly ladies drinking what looked like mimosas with their eggs Benedict. They spoke quietly but laughed loudly and Ferreira half wished she could nab a seat nearby and eavesdrop.
‘What are you having?’ she asked.
‘I’ll buy my own.’
They ordered coffees and went to a seat as far away from the other customers as possible, a small table next to a painted fireplace filled with electric candles. The woman took the straight-backed wooden chair, leaving Ferreira the lower leather wing chair.
It was an interesting move, she thought, but would gain the woman nothing.
‘Judy,’ the woman said finally.
Ferreira doubted it was her real name and she would need more if the woman had the right kind of information, but she’d leave it at that for now.
‘Mel,’ she said. ‘How are you involved with Long Fleet?’
‘I’m not involved with them. I help run a charity for refugee women who’ve been unfairly incarcerated. We try to get them legal help, make sure their families know where they are and can keep in touch with them.’ She was getting angry just describing the work and Ferreira could only guess at the horrors she heard. ‘A lot of women are essentially kidnapped from their homes or workplaces without anyone being informed where they’ve been taken. We try to give them a link to the outside world. Get their stories out, engage their local MPs, the press, anyone who can help with their asylum applications.’
‘That must be frustrating work.’
‘Don’t pretend you care,’ Judy said, shooting her a withering look.
‘I’ve spent the last seven years workings hate crimes,’ Ferreira told her. ‘I see what happens to women on the margins of society, I know how vulnerable they are. Believe me, I have nothing but sympathy for the women in Long Fleet.’
‘But you work for the people who oppress them.’
‘Not everyone in the police force is an oppressor.’
‘No,’ Judy said, the sneer turning into a contemptuous smile. ‘Just enough of them to make life difficult for anyone with the wrong name or the wrong skin colour.’
She wanted to argue with the woman but knew there was no point.
‘The woman you’re looking for,’ Judy said. ‘Why do you want to speak to her?’
‘As I told Ruby, we’ve been given a tip-off that she fell pregnant while she was locked up and we’d like to speak to her about how that happened. I’m assuming it wasn’t consensual.’
‘How can it be consensual in that place?’ Judy snapped. ‘He might not have pinned her down but only because he didn’t need to. Long Fleet had already done it for him, locking her up, taking away her hope and her self-esteem. He groomed her into thinking it was what she wanted.’
‘Does she still think that?’ Ferreira asked.
‘No,’ Judy said quietly. ‘Once she was deported she began to understand what happened.’
The same as with Nadia Baidoo, Ferreira thought. Sutherland using his access and his position of trust within Long Fleet to get to the most vulnerable women, using kindness and charm rather than force, but was it any different, really? Was he any better than the guards he’d helped to get rid of?
She wondered how he saw himself. Not as a sexual predator, of course not. He could point to more blatant ones and distinguish himself from them too easily to see how similar he was. When he said he loved Nadia, he sounded like he believed it. Maybe he thought the same about this woman. Or had wanted to convince himself that he did, that there was a deeper and more meaningful connection in play.
‘Do you know who’s responsible?’ Judy asked her.
‘We have an idea,’ Ferreira said. ‘But from what we could gather she wouldn’t tell anyone while she was in Long Fleet, so we need to speak to her to be certain who we should bring in. Do you know who he is?’
Judy shook her head. ‘Dorcus wouldn’t tell me who was responsible. I strongly advised her to make a formal complaint. Involve her solicitor, insist she brought the police in even if you didn’t actually do anything.’
‘We would have taken her seriously,’ Ferreira said.
A waitress came over with their coffees and for a moment that killed the conversation, both of them waiting for her to finish straightening the chairs at a nearby table and turning a small vase of flowers to the correct angle before she returned to the bar.
Judy dumped three sugars into her coffee, stirred it slowly.
‘Honestly, I think Dorcus was hoping it would all go away if she just kept her head down and didn’t whip up any trouble. That’s how she handled being locked up. Went into her cocoon.’ She blew on her coffee and took a small sip. ‘I explained to her that a complaint was her best chance of being given permission to stay. Long Fleet are nothing if not risk averse. They’d have done it just to keep her quiet.’
‘But they deported her instead?’
‘Because that’s the most effective way to silence someone, isn’t it?’ Judy said. ‘Send them off thousands of miles away.’ She crossed her legs and cupped her hands around her knee. ‘Dorcus was terrified of being sent back with a baby on the way. She’s a very religious young woman from a very traditional family. She knew they wouldn’t forgive her for getting pregnant, no matter how it happened.’
‘Have you spoken to her since she was deported?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Yes, a few times. I try to keep in touch
with the women we lose. I don’t want them to think they’ve been forgotten.’
‘Did she have the baby?’
‘Of course she did,’ Judy said sadly. ‘I advised her to terminate the pregnancy while she was in Long Fleet. Given her circumstances it seemed the wisest course of action. But she wouldn’t hear of it.’ She smiled slightly. ‘She had a beautiful little boy.’
Judy’s hand strayed to her pocket but stayed outside it.
‘Do you have a photo?’ Ferreira asked. ‘I’d love to see it.’
Judy stared at her for a few seconds, as if trying to decide if this was genuine interest or some sneaky police trick.
Eventually she took her mobile out and scanned through the photos, then held the phone out to Ferreira, making it clear she wouldn’t let her take it.
The baby was chubby and cute, swaddled tightly in a brightly patterned blanket. He was smiling although one of his eyes was swollen and gummed shut.
‘Nasty case of conjunctivitis, bless him,’ Ferreira said.
‘Oh, that’s cleared up now,’ Judy told her, putting the phone away. ‘She had a visit from a doctor friend of hers, he took some medication over. She was having a hell of a time getting something for it over there.’
‘A doctor from your charity?’
‘No,’ Judy said slowly, seeming uncomfortable. ‘Actually, he worked at Long Fleet.’
Judy couldn’t look at her now and Ferreira was angry with herself for letting the woman dictate the terms of their conversation. She should have hauled her up to an interview room, made her do this on the record.
‘Which doctor?’ she asked sharply.
‘Joshua Ainsworth.’
Ferreira took a deep breath, feeling the anger climbing up her spine one vertebra at a time, building and burning as it reached her skull.
‘You knew he’d been murdered and you said nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that this might have been important information?’
‘How could it be?’ Judy said weakly. ‘Dorcus is in Kampala. He was killed at home. I assumed it was a break-in.’
Ferreira bit down on the reply she wanted to give – to remind this woman that she wasn’t a police officer, that she knew nothing about the case, was in no position to assume anything. Instead she reached deep inside herself and found a small and neglected reservoir of near calm.
