Between Two Evils Read online

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know about his work situation?’

  Her eyes narrowed as if she suspected him of trying to catch her out. ‘He’d quit his job at Long Fleet, is that what you mean? Of course I knew about it. I was encouraging him to start a GP practice of his own, but he was talking about going away for a few months to do some charity work.’

  ‘And you didn’t like that idea?’ Ferreira asked.

  Another cold look. ‘Yes, I murdered him because he was going to go abroad for a couple of months and deprive me of my extramarital sex. What world do you live in?’

  ‘One where murderers tell whatever lies they need to so we don’t charge them.’

  Zigic drew Collingwood’s attention back to him. ‘What about the protests at Long Fleet?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Did you discuss them with Josh?’

  ‘I knew he’d had some leaflets through his door but he wasn’t concerned about them. Why would he be worried about them?’ She shook her head, looking perplexed. ‘I’m sorry but I suppose I assumed this was a burglary gone wrong. Are you saying you think Josh was killed because of his job at Long Fleet?’

  ‘It’s too early to say yet,’ Zigic told her, the words slipping thoughtlessly off his tongue, sounding like the stock answer they were. ‘Now, we need you to come in and provide us with fingerprints and a DNA sample, Mrs Collingwood.’

  She picked up her phone and thumbed at the screen. ‘My last appointment this evening is at seven, would that be doable your end?’

  Like she was fixing a house viewing or a check-up with the hygienist.

  ‘That will be fine,’ he said.

  A few minutes later, as they were crossing the seemingly endless car park, Ferreira finally snapped.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ she demanded. ‘Why aren’t we hauling her in?’

  ‘Does she seem like a flight risk to you?’ Zigic asked, pausing to look along the lines of cars.

  Ferreira turned around and stalked back over to him.

  ‘If she cleaned toilets for a living you’d have taken her in.’

  ‘That’s what you think this is about?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘You think I’m class-struck?’

  ‘You’re acting like you are.’

  ‘She thinks she’s in control,’ he explained. ‘The more leeway we give her, the more confident she feels, the more likely she’ll end up contradicting herself.’

  ‘So you accept that she’s our prime suspect right now?’

  ‘She always was.’ He finally spotted his car, half hidden by a van. ‘We just didn’t have a name for her before.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DC Keri Bloom sprang out of her chair as Ferreira walked in.

  ‘I’ve just got off the phone with the couple from the holiday let,’ she said excitedly. ‘They did see someone at Dr Ainsworth’s house on Saturday evening. A woman.’ She consulted her pad. ‘She arrived around half six, that’s when they saw her. Petite, slim, redhead, fortyish, the wife said; her husband thought she was in her late twenties.’

  ‘This woman,’ Ferreira told her, plucking the photo of Portia Collingwood from the board and moving it to the top of the suspects list.

  ‘Oh.’ Bloom’s face dropped. ‘I thought I’d made some progress.’

  ‘You did,’ Ferreira said. ‘We’ve got corroboration for the time she arrived. What we need now is to find out if she left at nine o’clock like she claims she did.’

  ‘They didn’t see her leave.’ She gestured back towards her desk. ‘Should I try them again?’

  ‘Keri.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

  ‘What did they say about the fight?’

  Bloom cringed and Ferreira remembered that feeling, embarrassment that in your desperation to reveal one piece of information to a senior officer, you’d completely blanked out the rest.

  ‘It was just before midnight,’ she said. ‘Apparently they’d gone to bed early because they wanted to be up for a dawn walk. But they were woken by the sound of raised voices and something smashing next door.’

  ‘Male or female voices?’

  ‘Neither of them would commit.’

  ‘Did they see anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Bloom shrugged apologetically. ‘I did wonder why they didn’t go and have a look to see if everything was okay.’

  ‘People don’t,’ Ferreira said. ‘That’s what they keep us for.’

  ‘I suppose I wouldn’t, if I was older.’

  ‘But you’d call the police, wouldn’t you?’ Ferreira asked, getting a nod. ‘So why do you think they didn’t bother?’

  Bloom considered it for a second. ‘Because they had plans for the next day and they probably didn’t want to disrupt their schedule talking to us?’

  ‘Never underestimate the potential for selfishness when you’re struggling to find witnesses.’ Ferreira went over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. ‘Next we need to pull the CCTV for the streets around the Collingwoods’ house. See what time she got home and we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  They’d stopped at the house – a Tudorbethan mini-mansion with tiny windows and a black-and-white wooden façade – on the way back from City Hospital, wanting to speak to Portia Collingwood’s au pair about her movements on Saturday night, hoping she hadn’t straightened out her story with the young woman already.

  After the interview in her office, Ferreira wouldn’t put anything past Portia Collingwood. She was too held together, too upright and stone-faced. Nobody who exerted that level of self-control could maintain it for ever and in her experience, they were the people who exploded the most extravagantly at the first sign of a crack. She couldn’t help but wonder just why the doctor felt the need to be so contained. What was lurking in there she didn’t trust herself to let out?

  The au pair backed her up.

  ‘Mrs Collingwood was called into work at six o’clock on Saturday evening,’ she’d said, as she folded towels in the pristine white laundry room behind the equally pristine black kitchen.

  The young woman had returned to the room as soon as she’d let them in, hurried back to her work as if she didn’t have a second to spare in her day, not even to speak to the police.

  ‘Mrs Collingwood often has to go to work in the evening,’ she’d told them. ‘She is a very important surgeon.’

  Ferreira had studied her for any hint of malice or insinuation as Zigic asked the questions, knowing that there could be no secrets in a household where somebody else washed your sheets, but she saw no sign that the au pair was lying. Not when she said that Mrs Collingwood was a good employer, very fair, or when she maintained that she returned home from ‘work’ at half past nine.

  You might lie for a good employer, Ferreira thought as she marked up the times of Portia Collingwood’s alibi on the board under her photograph. If your other positions had been bad enough, if your au pair friends shared their horror stories … a safe placement, well paid and with a well-tempered boss might be worth misleading the police to protect.

  Somehow Ferreira doubted that she was a well-tempered boss though.

  But there it was, until they managed to prove otherwise – Portia Collingwood away from the crime scene by nine o’clock.

  ‘Zach,’ she called.

  Parr glanced up from his screen. ‘Boss?’

  ‘Where are you with Ruby Garrick’s alibi?’

  ‘Checking out the footage now,’ he said.

  Ferreira went over to his desk, watched across his shoulder as the images on the screen moved by at 6x speed, long stretches of nothing as the doorway into Ruby Garrick’s building remained undisturbed, then a blur of a figure at which point he would slow it down and go back to be sure that it wasn’t her.

  He was at 6:24 p.m. on the Saturday evening, long shadows coming into shot before their owners did, crisp in the late sun.

  ‘I can narrow down the time frame if Collingwood w
as at his place until nine, right?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘No, you need to do the whole evening,’ Ferreira explained. ‘Just because Collingwood didn’t mention anyone else hanging around Ainsworth’s house doesn’t mean Ruby Garrick wasn’t there.’

  ‘Gets jealous when she sees him with a younger woman?’ Parr asked, leaning forward as he slowed the image down, leaning back when he realised it wasn’t her. ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘Let’s just be thorough here, okay.’

  Ferreira returned to her own desk, finding that the PM results had come in while she was away. As she opened the file Zigic emerged from his office and went over to the board.

  ‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘PM results are in and we’re looking at blunt force trauma, as expected. More tests to be run and they might show something interesting, but for now this is the cause of death on Josh Ainsworth.’ He reached into the file he’d brought with him and stuck up a photo of the death wounds. ‘At least ten distinct blows all on the right side of his head, concentrated on the temple, eye and cheek area. One or two would likely have proved fatal.’

  ‘Overkill,’ Weller murmured.

  Ferreira had the same image open on her screen and she realised how little she’d taken on board at the crime scene. Now, beyond the shock of the violence, she could see the telltale signs of a body that had lain for days, the discoloration of Ainsworth’s skin, the dark tracery of blood going bad in the veins of his face and neck.

  ‘What about his broken nose?’ she asked. ‘It says here the break is inconsistent with the murder weapon. So, a first punch to put him down?’

  ‘But he didn’t fight back at that point?’ Parr said, perplexed. ‘Why didn’t he try and defend himself then, before it escalated?’

  ‘Shock?’ Bloom offered.

  ‘Or it was a sweet shot and he didn’t get a chance,’ Weller suggested, a hint of admiration in his voice.

  ‘Approximate time of death late Saturday night early Sunday morning,’ Ferreira read out loud. ‘That matches what we’re getting anyway.’

  Zigic had tacked another photo up on the board – the table leg.

  ‘This is our murder weapon.’

  ‘Heat of the moment, then,’ Parr piped up, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

  ‘It’s manslaughter, right?’ Weller asked.

  ‘We’ll worry about that when we find who did it,’ Zigic said impatiently.

  He wasn’t impressed with Weller either, Ferreira thought. Had probably noticed, the same as she had, that he was quick with his commentary and slow to offer anything useful.

  ‘We have defence wounds,’ Zigic went on, adding a photograph of Ainsworth’s hands, his broken fingers bent sickly out of alignment. ‘Nothing that suggests he managed to get any blows of his own in, so don’t expect to see injuries on his murderer. This was him putting his hands up and getting them broken, nothing more.’

  One more photo went up, of the underside of Ainsworth’s fingers and palms. ‘These wounds are another matter.’

  Ferreira found it in the file, magnified it on screen.

  ‘These are old,’ she said, looking at the line of parallel holes stabbed into Ainsworth’s skin across his palm. Four on his left hand, five on his right; a ruler next to them gave spacing at 2.5 cm, the holes themselves barely 3 mm.

  ‘They were made several days before his death,’ Zigic said. ‘The coroner won’t commit to a cause, but they’re distinctive and we need to keep these marks in mind.’ He tapped the photograph. ‘Any thoughts?’

  Weller blew out a noisy breath, lips smacking against each other.

  ‘Ainsworth was a cyclist, wasn’t he?’ Bloom asked. ‘Maybe they’re from some kind of bike maintenance? Could he have done it on the spokes or the chain perhaps?’

  Zigic frowned and Ferreira could see him wanting to be encouraging even as he was going to shoot her theory down. ‘Good thought, but I don’t think you’d see multiple wounds on both hands under those circumstances.’

  ‘Torture?’ Weller asked.

  Parr let out a derisory snort of laughter, more for the hopeful tone Weller had used than the suggestion, Ferreira thought. They did see instances of torture, very occasionally, but it was usually in the context of sexual or domestic violence, or carried out to obtain financial details during robberies.

  ‘I doubt he was tortured several days before his death without reporting it, do you?’ Zigic asked, letting Weller see the scorn before he shifted slightly to take the whole team in again. ‘We work with the facts we have, we don’t start indulging in fantastical thinking. There are enough leads here to keep you busy.’

  ‘If the wounds are several days old, does that mean they might have happened while he was on holiday?’ Bloom asked.

  Zigic looked at the timeline on the board.

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility,’ he said. ‘Mel, call the brother and see if Josh’s hands were bandaged when he picked him up from the airport. He’d have probably mentioned it but we should make sure.’

  With a final glance at the board and a few words of encouragement, he retreated to his office again and Ferreira called Greg Ainsworth’s number, wondering why Zigic was so fixated on the odd little marks on Josh’s hands.

  They were strange, but they would likely have a banal explanation.

  Greg answered fast, the bright and bouncy sound of cartoons playing in the background, and the first question he asked her was whether they’d arrested anyone yet.

  ‘We’re making progress,’ she told him. ‘But we’re very early in the investigation.’

  She asked him about the wounds and he told her that Josh had been fine when he collected him from the airport, no signs of injuries of any kind. The only complaint he had was an infected bite on his backside, which had sent the boys into fits of laughter.

  His voice thickened as he recalled it and Ferreira was about to say her thank-yous and goodbyes when he asked, ‘Have you talked to Portia yet?’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘What did you think of her?’

  Ferreira paused a moment, choosing her words carefully, because she wasn’t expecting him to press her on the matter and wasn’t sure why he would.

  ‘She seems to be holding her grief very close to herself.’

  ‘Was Josh still seeing her?’

  ‘They were casually involved, yes,’ Ferreira told him.

  ‘Even though she’s married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it must have been her husband, mustn’t it?’ Greg said.

  ‘It best not to leap to conclusions,’ Ferreira warned, sure that he wasn’t the kind of man to go around to the Collingwoods’ house and kick off, but grief could stir the vengeful spirit in even the most placid people. ‘Mr Collingwood’s alibi looks very strong right now.’

  ‘What about hers?’

  ‘Why would you think she was responsible?’

  ‘She had a temper,’ Greg said. ‘I don’t think she was ever seriously violent with Josh, but he described her as “fiery”.’

  ‘Fiery doesn’t necessarily mean violent.’

  ‘She was possessive though, isn’t that usually a red flag in situations like this?’

  Ferreira supressed the sigh she felt rising in her chest. His story had changed, subtly but definitely since they last spoke to him, taking on fresh aspects at a pace she didn’t quite trust. Usually the worst version of a person came out in the initial interview, as grieving friends and family members transferred their irrational anger towards the victim onto another, still available, target. This felt like Greg grinding an old axe.

  ‘I can assure you that we are pursuing every avenue of enquiry,’ she said, clicking into the familiar assurances they always used, the ones that were superficially comforting but gave nothing away. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Ainsworth.’

  She ended the call before he could pry any further, went back to the post-mortem results and began a thorough readthrough.

  She tried to
keep her attention on the job at hand but she kept drifting back to the conversation with Portia Collingwood, remembering her chilly demeanour and her air of self-assurance, wondering how she and Josh Ainsworth fitted together as a couple. If their relationship was really as free and easy as she suggested.

  Without his side of the story, she could say just about anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Joshua Ainsworth’s clothes were laid out on one of the long steel-topped tables in the lab, ragged-looking even though they were largely undamaged, sad and forlorn under the pitiless lights. Lightweight grey yoga pants and a T-shirt with a Soviet-era cycle race on the front. There was blood on the T-shirt, long dried and darkened to that specific reddish-brown you’d never mistake for anything else.

  The clothes looked small for a man of his size. Five foot eleven, according to the post-mortem report, 76 kilos of what must have been lean muscle, the build of a dedicated cyclist.

  Zigic had written off Portia Collingwood as his killer because of the size disparity he’d perceived. Had half disregarded Ruby Garrick for the same reason and probably any other woman they might come across during the investigation. In his head it was already shaping up into a man’s crime but now he wasn’t so sure.

  A sudden push, a bad fall, a weapon to multiply the force of the killer’s rage: yes, a woman could have been responsible under those circumstances, he thought, looking at the narrow chest of the T-shirt and the span of the trouser thigh.

  ‘Sorry for the delay,’ Kate Jenkins said, shuffling out of her office. ‘I think every single thing in here has been moved while I was away. In fact, I’m starting to think they did it just to annoy me.’

  The small office she used, little more than a cupboard, still bore the previous occupant’s uncomfortably Gothic taste in art and a virtually dead spider plant in a wicker hanger over the desk, untouched by sunlight. Zigic could see that Kate had started bringing her own personal possessions back in, photos of her kids on the drawers of the filing cabinets and a few postcards on the corkboard, but she’d either run out of steam or time, and there was a transitional air to the room, caught between two owners for now.