Between Two Evils

by Eva Dolan

  Each had a cardboard box in their arms, ‘Nadia’ written on the sides in swirling capitals.

  ‘Did you find her?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Murray said, putting the box down next to her desk. ‘Her previous landlady gave us this lot.’

  Ferreira dropped hers beside it and quickly filled him in on their day’s work so far: Nadia Baidoo’s brief stay at the hostel, her abrupt departure and the sad story of her life up to the moment she was arrested and taken to Long Fleet. He could see it had affected them both and when he looked again at Nadia’s photograph stuck up on the board, he decided that what he thought was the usual and understandable shock in her eyes might actually have been a deeper emotion, a thorough and inescapable grief.

  ‘We were just discussing whether she needs to be considered a suspect,’ Murray said.

  Ferreira glared at her. ‘Or a potential victim.’

  ‘Of who?’ Zigic asked.

  ‘She accused Joshua Ainsworth of attacking her. He lost his job.’ Ferreira shrugged as if the theory was so solid she didn’t need to back it up further.

  ‘So, you’re thinking revenge?’

  ‘I am,’ Murray nodded. ‘By her on him.’

  ‘No,’ Ferreira said sharply. ‘Because women who get attacked never go after their attackers. We know this.’

  ‘I had a quick poke through the stuff she left at her last home,’ Murray said, gesturing towards the cardboard boxes. ‘Found two pairs of size nine shoes.’ She looked pointedly at Ferreira. ‘Which means we have a size match for the footprints forensics found at Ainsworth’s house.’

  ‘It’s a really common shoe size,’ Ferreira said.

  ‘Not for a woman.’

  Zigic opened one of the boxes, seeing carefully folded jeans and jumpers inside, a few paperbacks and scented candles in glass pots, a small make-up bag with a broken zip.

  On the top was a single photograph in a glittery frame – Nadia Baidoo and an older woman, presumably her mother, sitting in a punt on the Cam. They were both smiling, faces pressed close together, holding flutes of champagne up to the camera. Just in shot behind Lola’s shoulder was a pink balloon with ‘Birthday Girl’ printed on it.

  It wasn’t much to leave behind you, he thought. Two boxes.

  Not enough that you would feel you had to go back for it.

  He sat down on the edge of the desk.

  ‘For now, she’s a person of interest,’ he said. ‘She can give us a perspective on Ainsworth that nobody else has been able to, so we need to find her.’

  ‘Aren’t you curious why she’s disappeared off the face of the earth?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Nadia left the safety of Haven House, where they were trying really hard to help her, with nothing but a few quid and a phone she’s got turned off.’ She stood with her feet planted wide, a picture of defiance. ‘She had no family here, no boyfriend. Her friends all abandoned her while she was grieving for her mother, so I doubt she’s decided to reconnect with any of them. Even her church – where she was a regular – haven’t heard from her.’

  ‘I agree it’s worrying,’ Zigic said gently. ‘But we both know there are lots of terrible ways for a young woman in Nadia’s situation to fall between the cracks.’ He watched her face harden. ‘The more likely explanation for her disappearance, given everything we’ve been told, is that Nadia might have killed herself.’

  Ferreira threw herself into her chair with a pained grunt.

  ‘We discussed that in the car,’ Murray told him.

  ‘Mel, you need to call Missing Persons. Get in touch with Cambridge and see if they know anything about her.’

  ‘She’s not got anything on her record since she was released from Long Fleet,’ Ferreira said. ‘I already checked.’

  ‘Which is why you need to get in touch with them directly and see if they know her as a rough sleeper or something like that.’

  ‘A sex worker?’ Ferreira asked. ‘That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’

  ‘Coming out of a facility,’ he said. ‘We know the options aren’t good if she’s going it alone.’

  ‘That bloke Mr Daya mentioned seeing her with,’ Murray said. ‘He’s the catalyst here. Nadia’s withdrawn and quiet and then suddenly she’s out having coffee with some guy. And then a couple of days later she’s gone.’ Murray shook her head brusquely. ‘You tell me that doesn’t sound like a procurer. He’s seen her weakness and charmed her away from the only people who can help her get back on her feet.’

  ‘Have we got a description?’ Zigic asked.

  ‘No. Mr Daya only saw him from the back.’

  Zigic rubbed his cheeks, feeling the peaks and troughs of this conversation like so many pinpricks. He wasn’t convinced Nadia Baidoo was a viable suspect, wasn’t even entirely sure she’d be able to tell them anything that would lead them to Joshua Ainsworth’s killer either.

  He’d attacked her and been sacked and she’d been released.

  Beyond those bare bones, what more was there to know?

  Right now they needed to focus on the staff members Ainsworth had informed on. Follow up on the violence between him and Jack Saunders.

  ‘There is more to this,’ Ferreira said, in a low firm voice.

  Murray looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe she went off with someone she met in Long Fleet.’

  ‘One of the guards, you mean?’ Zigic asked, getting a soft snort of derision from Ferreira.

  ‘I was thinking more like one of the other women,’ Murray suggested. ‘You know what prison friendships are like.’

  ‘Not built to last.’

  ‘But it takes them awhile to realise that.’ Murray nodded towards the board. ‘Other thing about prison relationships … if you want revenge they’re the best kind of help you can get.’

  ‘They weren’t in prison,’ Ferreira said wearily. ‘These aren’t hardened criminals we’re talking about, okay? She was a waitress who got arrested because her paperwork wasn’t right. What makes you think a year in Long Fleet could turn her into Liam Neeson?’

  ‘Mel, do you think your empathy might be getting in the way here?’ Murray asked, her face set in an expression of concern that Zigic expected to be wiped off it imminently by Ferreira’s response.

  Instead Ferreira took a deep breath, sucked her bottom lip into her mouth.

  ‘Okay. Maybe, yeah,’ she admitted. ‘But we have to keep in mind how massively unlikely it is that Nadia went from victim to murderer in a matter of weeks. We all know how rarely victims find the strength to stand up to their abusers, right? Getting to a place where they’re capable of murder is a whole other level.’

  ‘Unless she found someone to do it for her,’ Zigic suggested.

  Ferreira sneered. ‘You old romantic.’

  She knew, he thought.

  She knew exactly what Adams had dragged him into. Knew and didn’t approve.

  ‘Let’s wait to see if Missing Persons come back with anything,’ he said, wanting to go into his office and close the door, just sit in silence with these racing thoughts for a few minutes. ‘And it might be an idea to take this lot up to forensics.’ He tapped one of the boxes of clothes. ‘Get a DNA sample and see if it hits anything. Fingerprints. Whatever Kate can find.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Murray said, stacking the boxes and heading out.

  Ferreira was watching him now, on her feet again, an expression like she was trying to burn her way through his eyeballs. She took a couple of slow and deliberate steps towards him.

  ‘Did you make any progress?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were out all day, you must have got somewhere with it.’

  The phone on his desk started to ring.

  ‘I’ve got to get this, Mel.’

  He went into his office, closed the door behind him. Through the partition window he could see her still looking as he went behind his desk and answered the phone.

  ‘Don’t tell her anything,’ Adams said, on the other end.

 
Zigic swore at him.

  ‘That’s exactly what I am, yeah. But we’re not involving anyone else in this mess. Like I told you, step away if you need to but you don’t get to tag someone else in.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The rest of the day shift were gone, the unlucky souls scheduled for Friday night in now and settled around the office as Ferreira waited for Patrick Sutherland to arrive. This was always a strange time, everyone waiting for something to kick off as the evening wore on, the sense of potential mayhem only increased by the hot weather and long days.

  Most of her fellow officers were doing the same thing she was, catching up on paperwork, trying to clear their desks before a more urgent task dragged them away. Billy was still in his office. She’d told him to go home without her but he insisted he had a lot of catching up to do.

  Earlier she’d overheard him on the phone to Sadie Ryan’s mother, defeated-looking as the woman filled him in about the after-effects of her daughter’s suicide attempt. The physical damage not as bad as her doctors feared but the psychological still emerging. Sadie was out of hospital now and they’d left Peterborough for her grandmother’s place in Kent, couldn’t face knowing they were in the same city as Lee Walton and his apparent legions of supporters who were harassing them via social media.

  When she’d gone in to borrow his lighter, Billy was staring at the wall, every furious thought visible as it passed across his eyes.

  Ferreira forced her attention back to the reports on the ex-Long Fleet staff that Parr, Weller and Bloom had turned in. They’d tracked down all of them bar one, who had taken a job as a long-distance lorry driver and was currently somewhere in Europe. All had alibis of varying strength, which would be picked at until hopefully one fell apart. A couple had minor offences on their records but nothing to suggest a capability for murder. Not that it always worked that way.

  Several had mentioned Jack Saunders attacking Joshua Ainsworth and as she read through the reports, she began to realise that the group seemed to regard him as leader of some kind. Definitely the alpha male when they’d been working at Long Fleet, maybe because he’d been a copper doing the job they’d all dreamed of but couldn’t achieve. It held a certain mystique for a particular kind of person, the sort who frequently ended up in security.

  She’d checked his service record, found that a few minor complaints had been made against him by suspects but none upheld. The usual accusations of undue force that everyone collected whether they were deserved or not.

  Saunders’s alibi wasn’t as secure as he’d made out when they spoke to him. Keri Bloom had talked to a few of the people he worked with, ones who were there at the bowling alley the night Ainsworth was murdered. Saunders was present but the party started to break up around nine when it moved to a nearby pub and nobody could say exactly what time he left.

  If he’d lied about that and failed to mention punching Ainsworth in the face, she had to wonder what else he was hiding.

  Reception called at ten past seven – Patrick Sutherland had arrived.

  Ferreira picked up the file of random mugshots she’d selected and went down to fetch him.

  He looked ill at ease, even though the reception area was empty. Or maybe it was just the usual end-of-week malaise that hit people as their last long shift finished. His dark brown hair was mussed, shirt crumpled at the elbows, and when he tried a smile on her, it barely reached his heavy-hanging eyes.

  ‘Do you usually work such long hours?’ he asked, as they entered the stairwell.

  ‘When we’ve got a big case on, yes,’ she told him.

  ‘You can’t get that many murders in Peterborough.’

  ‘We get more than we’d like.’ She opened the door to Interview Room 1 and showed him in ahead of her.

  His tiredness abruptly gave way to a nervous energy that sent him around the perimeter of the room.

  ‘Mr Hammond would kill me if he knew I was here,’ Sutherland said with an uneasy smile. ‘Or sack me and then sue me for breach of contract.’

  ‘This is purely an informal thing,’ Ferreira assured him, knowing that was the only way she could hope to get him to talk. ‘Nothing you say here will get back to Hammond.’

  She sat down and a moment later he took the hint and joined her, sliding into the seat opposite.

  ‘So these are protestors you want me to look at?’ he asked, nodding towards the file under her hands.

  ‘We’ve been seeing some worrying discussion in private groups online about Josh’s death, and now we need to identify any of the participants who might have been involved in the protest at the gates or hanging around near staff members’ homes.’ She slid the file over to him but didn’t remove her hand. ‘Do you live in Long Fleet village?’

  ‘No, Deeping St James,’ he said, with the subtle note of pride she was accustomed to hearing from people who lived in the historic almost-town just north of Peterborough. ‘I know a lot of the staff like the village because it’s convenient, but I need to get away at the end of my shift or I feel like I’m not really free of the place.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she said, drawing her hand away. ‘There are some jobs where it’s best if people can’t follow you home.’

  Walton popped into her head for a moment, the breadth of him and the crackle of bad energy he carried.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Sutherland asked.

  ‘Yep, fine.’ She brushed her hand back over her hair. ‘Long week, not enough sleep.’

  ‘Do your neighbours know what you do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve managed to pretty much avoid talking to any of them,’ she said. ‘How about yours?’

  ‘God, no. They think I’m a GP in town.’

  ‘You don’t think they’d like you as much if they knew you were at Long Fleet?’

  ‘I suspect a lot of them wouldn’t approve of Long Fleet’s business. We’re a nice little liberal enclave after all. That’s why I moved there.’ He pointed at the file. ‘Shall I shut up and get on with this? Let you start your weekend.’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

  He took his time over each photograph, giving them more consideration than she felt they needed. But people tended to in this situation, wanted to show they were taking it seriously, fulfilling their side of the social contract they had made with the police.

  You either recognised a face or you didn’t, she thought. It was a split-second thing and it couldn’t be changed by extra exposure. In fact, she was sure the longer you looked the more likely you were to convince yourself you’d seen them before.

  Which was part of the reason eyewitness reports were such bad evidence.

  ‘How well do you know Jack Saunders?’ Ferreira asked, as he was turning over an image.

  His hand slowed. ‘I can’t talk about that, I’m sorry.’

  ‘This is just between us, Patrick,’ she said. ‘No tapes, no statement. I’m just asking you to give me some background on Saunders. We’ve heard he assaulted Josh after he was sacked.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that too,’ Sutherland admitted. ‘But I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Saunders is still maintaining that he was unfairly dismissed.’

  Sutherland shook his head, turned another page, giving that photo less attention. ‘Saunders can deny it all he likes. The evidence was there. He was caught on camera, for God’s sake.’

  His fingers curled away from the file and Ferreira saw the flicker of fear cross his face.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she asked.

  He pressed his mouth into a firm line.

  ‘You were the one who got that footage inside Long Fleet.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said weakly, unable to meet her gaze. ‘My understanding is that an anonymous whistle-blower did it.’

  Ferreira settled back in her seat, letting the silence develop, watching him sit perfectly still, staring through the photograph in front of him. She could hear the quickness of his breaths, sme
ll the stale coffee on each exhalation and the mint he’d tried to freshen them with.

  ‘Look, as far as I’m concerned the person who got that footage out is a hero,’ she said. ‘I thought it might be Josh’s doing but the woman who handled it told us he wasn’t responsible.’

  Sutherland risked a quick glance at her. ‘Please, don’t make me say it.’

  ‘It’s important I know, so I can disregard it as a factor in Josh’s murder,’ she told him. ‘It goes no further than this room if it isn’t a factor. You can just nod if that’s easier.’

  He closed his eyes, nodded shortly.

  ‘Does Hammond know it was you?’

  Another nod.

  It wasn’t vital intelligence for the investigation but she felt better for knowing. One small mystery cleared up.

  ‘I’m surprised Hammond kept you on after that.’

  ‘He was brought in to clean up the place,’ he said. ‘Letting me go would have been punishment for telling the truth. And he couldn’t prove it. He just put two and two together. Hammond isn’t stupid.’

  Why did that sound like a warning? she wondered. Was it simply that Sutherland and the rest of the Long Fleet staff were so terrified of breaking their contracts that every time they considered the potential fallout this fear clutched at their throats?

  ‘Do you think Saunders murdered Josh?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s made accusations about Josh’s behaviour inside the facility,’ Ferreira told him. ‘Accusations that Hammond had enough faith in that he told Josh to resign.’

  Sutherland closed the file with a sigh. ‘This is what you wanted to talk to me about.’

  ‘No tapes,’ Ferreira reminded him. ‘No camera. You’re not here and we’re not talking.’

  But he was getting to his feet. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like at Long Fleet. If I talk to you and you take anything that I’ve said to Hammond or anyone else, it’ll come back on me.’

  ‘This is a murder investigation.’ Ferreira stood, moved between him and the door. ‘Do you really think the NDA you signed is more important than finding out who killed Josh?’