Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  ‘It was Ainsworth, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Someone smuggled a camera in to get that footage and handed it over to Garrick. Who else could it have been?’

  ‘She claims they only met last year and this must have been filmed a few years ago,’ Zigic reminded her. ‘There was an anonymous whistle-blower, remember. That’s who provided the footage for the Channel 4 news exposé, that’s who gave testimonies about what they’d witnessed. It’s highly likely whoever they were, they were in contact with Ruby Garrick because her group are outside the gate every day, and she’s the one pushing local politicians and press to do something. She’d be the first port of call for any member of staff wanting to get the truth out.’

  ‘I still think it could have been Ainsworth,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I doubt he’d have kept his job after exposing the place to that level of embarrassment.’

  ‘He was working there when it was filmed,’ she said, pressing because she could feel his desperation to let it go, and she was worried that he’d rather keep the focus away from Long Fleet. She understood the pressure he would be under from Riggott and above, but that only made it more important that she kept up the pressure from below. ‘Look, we know he was close to Ruby Garrick. Doesn’t that prick your instincts even a little bit?’

  ‘Mel, this is such a delicate investigation we can’t go off half-cocked wherever our instincts lead us.’ He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, chewing on his bottom lip. ‘And think about it, okay, what doesn’t that footage show?’

  ‘It doesn’t show Josh Ainsworth.’

  ‘It doesn’t show any of the medical facilities,’ Zigic said. ‘It doesn’t show any kind of health-based interaction with any women. Whoever was wearing that camera was wandering around the halls, they were on night shifts following guards on surprise inspections. Does that sound like part of a doctor’s work schedule?’

  Grudgingly she admitted that it didn’t. ‘Unless he went out of his way to be in those places to get the footage he needed.’

  ‘You’re grasping at straws now,’ he said, as they drew up to the main gate. ‘The most logical explanation is that a guard filmed it and Ainsworth’s connection to Ruby Garrick is incidental.’

  ‘Because coincidences are suspect. So it’s “incidental”.’ She eyed the security guard coming out of the hut towards them. ‘Tell you something, I bet his former co-workers would have known if it was Josh exposing them.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They were directed to the Visitors Centre at the front of the complex where a middle-aged woman in a navy suit was waiting for them. She checked their IDs again before she would take them inside.

  ‘Welcome to Long Fleet,’ she said, shaking their hands. ‘I’m Catherine Field, the liaison officer. You should direct any enquiries through me in future.’ She smiled as if it was a helpful suggestion, but Zigic could hear the machinery churning behind it. ‘Please, follow me.’

  It was a large room, set up like the reception area of any medium-sized office or university. Cafe tables and chairs, stools at a curved counter, several vending machines along one wall and bright abstract prints on another. Another woman sat at the counter, bent over some paperwork, ID clipped to her jacket. She looked like a solicitor, Zigic thought. He couldn’t imagine many other people getting access.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting for a moment,’ Field said, directing them to a table before going over to the solicitor. ‘I’ll take you through now, Ms Hussein.’

  ‘Quicker than usual,’ the woman said, eyeing Zigic and Ferreira and smiling faintly as if suddenly understanding. ‘Are you police?’

  Zigic nodded.

  ‘We should go through now,’ Field said.

  The woman took a business card from her pocket, handed it to Zigic. ‘In case you need to know anything they’re not prepared to tell you.’

  Field’s face showed the briefest flicker of annoyance.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting,’ she told them again and this time the solicitor went with her through a set of airlocked double doors and away.

  Ferreira’s eyebrows went up. ‘So much for introducing a new regime of greater transparency.’

  ‘Let’s play nice, hey, Mel?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’ She made a circuit of the room while he sat and waited, looking through the heavily reinforced glass doors to the corridor beyond, thinking of the footage he’d watched this morning unfolding between those walls. ‘Do you think they know yet?’

  ‘Almost definitely,’ Zigic said. ‘If there’s other staff living in the village, word will have got around.’

  ‘So we should prepare to be fed a line.’

  ‘Play nice and keep an open mind,’ he said.

  Field came back and headed back outside. ‘This way, please.’

  She led them along the front of the building, footsteps brisk in a pair of sensible court shoes that rang against the paving, and to a smaller block landscaped with evergreens and with a water feature running next to its door. They were doing everything they could to make it not look like a prison, but there was no ignoring the gates and high fences, the cameras positioned at regular intervals and the key points wherever they went.

  They passed through a nondescript reception area and into a suite of bland offices, via an airlock manned by a sturdy woman in a grey uniform. Field led them to a door at the end of the corridor, which was standing open ready for them.

  The brushed steel nameplate read JAMES HAMMOND, GOVERNOR.

  Field popped her head around the door, ‘Visitors for you, sir.’

  Hammond was younger than Zigic was expecting, barely forty, smartly suited, clean-shaven and with blond hair carefully styled in a deep parting. He carried a vague air of ex-military in his bearing and the precisely calibrated strength of his handshake, and Zigic wondered if that was how he’d come to have such a senior position at his age. Military into private sector security was a well-trodden path.

  He gestured for them to sit as Field closed the door and retreated to a seat behind them.

  ‘Terrible news about Ainsworth,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘I’m sure by now you’ve heard that he wasn’t working with us any more, so I’m not certain how much I can tell you. We’re more than happy to cooperate with our brothers and sisters in blue however we can, though.’

  ‘Perhaps you could fill in some of the details for us,’ Zigic suggested. ‘Like when exactly Mr Ainsworth left?’

  Hammond glanced over Zigic to Field and she piped up from behind Zigic’s back.

  ‘June 1st this year.’

  A little over two months before his murder.

  ‘And what was the reason for him leaving?’

  ‘Stress.’ Hammond frowned, turning away to the window beside them, which overlooked a vegetable garden containing rows of canes and plastic cloches, nobody tending to them today. ‘As I’m sure you can imagine this environment takes a lot out of even the strongest of us. It’s pretty relentless, pretty thankless work, and not everyone’s cut out for it. Not long term anyway.’

  ‘How long did Mr Ainsworth last before it got too much for him?’

  ‘Five years,’ Hammond said, a hint of admiration in his voice. ‘Longer than anyone expected.’

  ‘You didn’t think it would suit him?’

  ‘Joshua was an outdoorsy type, a keen off-road cyclist. We chatted a bit about that when I came on board. The way he talked about being out in the woods, the kind of trails he rode, I didn’t think he’d deal well with being cooped up all day.’

  Zigic saw Ferreira’s fingers flexing above the armrest, a sure sign that she was holding in some comment, making an effort to play nice as requested.

  Hammond was looking at her too now. ‘Our staff are locked up just as surely as our clients are, Sergeant.’

  ‘And they get to go home to their families at the end of their shift,’ she said coldly.

  ‘As a police officer I’m sure you can appreciate the importance
of maintaining the rule of law.’ His tone was dry, bordering on sarcastic and Ferreira straightened in her chair. ‘When you encounter a lawbreaker, you do your damnedest to lock them up. When we see someone flouting immigration law, we do the same. For as long as necessary to ascertain their right to remain. And then we release them or deport them as the law demands.’ He folded his arms on his desk. ‘This isn’t a gulag, Sergeant Ferreira.’

  Zigic spoke before she could.

  ‘We need to talk to the other medical staff. Anyone who worked closely with Mr Ainsworth in the weeks leading up to him quitting.’

  Hammond nodded curtly. ‘Of course. Catherine will set you up in an office along the hall. Our medical day shift is rather depleted at the moment, but they’re both in this morning so it shouldn’t be any problem having them come in for a quick chat.’

  He stood, letting them know this interview was over.

  They were put in a disused office three doors down from Hammond’s, half the size, no window and with nothing but a desk and four mismatched chairs around it.

  ‘Was that what playing nice looks like?’ Zigic asked, once they were alone.

  ‘He’s full of shit.’

  ‘People frequently are, Mel. That doesn’t mean you have to pull it out and feed it back to them.’

  Field returned a few minutes later with a youngish guy in chinos and a white linen shirt folded back to his elbows. He was blandly good-looking, blue-eyed and lightly stubbled. Attractive enough that Zigic noticed Ferreira giving him a once-over. Her type, he thought, before he caught himself. Since she’d started dating Adams, he wasn’t sure what her type was.

  ‘Dr Sutherland,’ Field said.

  ‘Patrick.’ He shook Zigic’s hand as the introductions were made, reached across the desk for Ferreira’s, both of them holding on for a second longer than necessary. ‘Sorry to be meeting you under such sad circumstances. Josh was a lovely bloke. Really great doctor. We’re all a bit shell-shocked right now.’

  Field retreated from the room and shut the door behind her as they took their seats.

  ‘How well did you know Josh?’ Ferreira asked.

  ‘Fairly well, I think.’ Sutherland frowned. ‘I mean, I thought I did, but then he went off with stress like that, just out of nowhere. I had no idea it was all getting on top of him. He seemed fine. Considering.’

  ‘Considering what?’

  ‘This isn’t the easiest place to be a doctor. He’d have been better off in a GP’s post somewhere. We all would, I suppose, but someone has to do the job, don’t they?’

  Zigic sat back, watching Ferreira nodding as she watched Sutherland, wondering if she knew how obvious she was being.

  ‘Did he ever tell you why he came to work here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I know he moved around a fair bit before he settled down here. That’s why I was surprised he left. People who locum for years, generally when they find somewhere they’re content, they stick with it to the end.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘That was a bad choice of words, sorry.’ He took a fast, deep breath. ‘I think there was an ideological component to it for him. I know there is for me. And the way he dealt with patients, you could see he was trying to let them know someone cared about them. That he understood what they’d gone through and he was always going to be incredibly careful not to make them uncomfortable.’

  ‘You must have a lot of challenging cases in here,’ Ferreira said.

  ‘A lot of the physical complaints are fairly minor,’ he told her. ‘But what underpins them can be quite heavy. We see a lot of self-harm for instance. So we swab the area and give them a few stitches, but as for what’s causing it … we can’t really do anything. That can be hugely challenging. Josh suffered a lot with the frustration of it.’ He shrugged lightly. ‘I suppose stress and frustration are interchangeable, aren’t they? But nobody says they’re quitting over frustration.’

  His gaze drifted away into the corner of the room as his voice faded into silence. His expression was queasy, as if he was already regretting what he’d said.

  ‘Did you two stay in touch after he left?’ Ferreira asked.

  ‘I kept meaning to call him,’ Sutherland said regretfully. ‘Swing by and drag him out to the pub or something, just check up on him. But they were struggling to get another doc in to cover his shifts, so I ended up doing most of them.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve been out of this place for the last couple of months.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘I hadn’t talked to him since the day he left.’ Sutherland looked between the two of them. ‘Sorry, I don’t feel like I’m being much help here.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Ferreira told him. ‘You can only tell us what you know.’

  He smiled at her, looking relieved at her reassurance.

  ‘How long have you worked here, Patrick?’

  He glanced up at the suspended ceiling. ‘Oh, six years, just over. Josh started not long after me.’

  ‘So you both survived the purge.’

  Zigic felt a chill come across the table from Ferreira, wondered if he’d misjudged her attention towards the man. Had she seen something that intrigued her more than an attractive doctor with half decent dress sense?

  Sutherland’s face hardened. ‘We did. And we’d both been calling for action for quite some time before the board finally decided to drag the old governor out and bring in someone who wouldn’t keep looking the other way on the abuses we were dealing with in the medical bay on a near daily basis.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you to bypass the governor and come to us?’ Ferreira asked.

  He pressed his lips together. ‘I’m legally forbidden to discuss this. I’m very sorry. I really want to help you however I can but, you have to understand, this isn’t a hospital. It isn’t even a regular prison. Different rules apply here. I’m sorry.’

  Ferreira settled back in her chair for a moment, seemingly satisfied that she’d got to the root of the problem, but they were a long way off it yet, Zigic thought, and Sutherland apparently saw that too.

  ‘What I can say is I really don’t think any of that could have anything to do with Josh’s death. It was two years ago. The staff who were sacked will all have moved on.’ He tucked his hands between his thighs, shoulders curling around protectively. ‘At the time – heat of the moment – I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them got nasty, but now? No, it doesn’t make any sense, does it?’

  ‘Did Josh give statements against anyone in particular?’

  A fearful look crossed Sutherland’s face. ‘I can’t comment on that. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m sure you understand the importance of these questions, Dr Sutherland.’ Zigic tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. ‘Somebody has brutally murdered your friend. If you have any information you are bound by law to tell us. Who did Josh report?’

  Sutherland couldn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Dr Sutherland, this isn’t just about Josh any more,’ Ferreira said softly. ‘If someone you two reported has gone after Josh, there’s every chance they’ll be coming for you next.’

  Sutherland pressed his lips together tightly, whitening the skin around them.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell us?’ Zigic asked, trying to contain the desperation he felt.

  ‘I wish I could.’ He turned to Ferreira again, leaning across the desk towards her. ‘Truly, I really wish I could help you.’

  Then he stood up and left the room, slumped and sheepish, drained of the easy confidence he’d walked in with.

  ‘Still believe he left with stress?’ Ferreira asked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Five minutes later the door opened again and a doughy middle-aged woman in a set of blue scrubs came in. She cast a wary look at each of them, peering out from under the ash-blonde wedge of her fringe, green eyes quick and searching, before she turned back towards Field for guidance or permission.

&nbs
p; ‘This is Ruth Garner,’ Field said, waving her towards a seat. ‘Detective Inspector Zigic and Sergeant Ferreira. They just have a few questions for you. Anything you need I’m just along the hall.’

  The door closed and Zigic noticed Ruth Garner’s head cock towards it as if she was listening for Field’s retreating footsteps. When she realised they were both watching her, she crossed her arms defensively over her stomach, swallowed hard.

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked. ‘Was Josh really murdered?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ DI Zigic said regretfully. ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘We’d worked together for four years, so fairly well, I suppose.’

  ‘And what did you think about him resigning?’

  ‘I didn’t – I don’t know,’ she stammered, seemingly caught off guard by the question. ‘It was a bit of a shock. I thought he liked working here. As much as you can like it.’

  ‘How did he seem to you in the weeks before he left?’

  ‘I wasn’t here then,’ she said, looking between them, not sure who to settle her attention on. ‘I had to take some time off. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer in April. We weren’t sure how long she had but she was adamant she wanted to die in her own home, so I took some time off to look after her.’

  Zigic offered their condolences and she thanked him automatically, almost dismissively.

  She shook her head clear. ‘What was I saying? Yes. No, I wasn’t here when Josh left. I came back a few weeks ago and he’d already left. Stress, apparently. It does get to you. I think it’s worse when you live in the village too. You’re never fully away from the place, not really.’

  ‘Do you live in Long Fleet?’ Zigic asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘How much do you know about the protestors here?’

  ‘Not much. They seem dedicated.’

  ‘Have you seen the leaflets they’re putting out?’

  She nodded again but she looked confused by the shift in conversation. ‘Sorry, do you think they’re behind this?’