‘Where are you even from?’ Zigic asked, exasperated. He waited but she didn’t answer. ‘Right, you can’t tell me that either.’
Her accent was Estuary but he knew better than to believe it meant anything. Even if she’d started out around London it didn’t mean that she was based there now or that Nathan’s case, whatever that might be, was tied to the city. Especially as he was clearly meant to be kept hidden away out here on the edge of the Fens. The more he thought about it the more likely it seemed that Nathan was a recently released offender and the only ones who warranted such an intense degree of protection were those with high-profile crimes inextricably linked to the names they could no longer use.
‘You realise there’s nothing to stop me going public with this,’ he said. ‘My case, my suspect, I can have his face on every major media outlet within the hour.’
She stepped up to him, toe to toe. Six inches shorter but swollen with aggression. ‘I will have your fucking job.’
‘I’m prepared to risk it.’
‘You’ve got no idea what’s at stake here.’
‘Not if you won’t explain it to me,’ Zigic said. ‘And until you’re prepared to do that I’m going to pursue Nathan however I think best.’
She backed down slightly, half a step, creating some breathing space. The anger was still there though and she glanced towards the lake for a second, teeth bared, as if she was seriously considering making a move on him.
Suddenly Zigic felt stupid for meeting her here, off the record and the radar, no witnesses to their conversation. She could do or say anything and it would be his word against hers. She was furious and desperate, a combustible mix he needed to get away from.
He started back towards the car, feet crunching over the gravel, more popping gunshots rolling around the basin as he made the slight rise from the banks of the knothole, feet skidding on loose stones.
‘If Nathan’s face goes public he’ll be dead within hours.’
Zigic stopped.
‘Do you want that on your conscience?’
She was a few feet away from him, holding out a slip of paper folded between her fingertips. ‘This is my number.’
He didn’t take it.
‘I’m not trying to stop you talking to Nathan,’ she said. ‘When I find him you can talk to him. I promise you that. Whatever you need to ask him, I’ll make sure he cooperates.’ She gestured with the paper. ‘Please.’
Zigic took it from her and tucked it into his pocket. ‘What if you don’t find him?’
‘We know where he’s heading,’ she said. ‘I just hope to God we can pick him up before he gets there.’
They walked through the scrub and climbed back over the fence into the lay-by which was still full of vehicles but different ones from those he’d seen before. Zigic’s Coke was sitting on the bonnet of his car where he’d left it, sun-warmed now and undrinkable and he threw it into the nearby bin.
‘I’ll keep you updated,’ Rachel said, by way of a goodbye, and strode off across the road, heading back towards wherever she’d hidden her car.
For a moment he debated following her – something about the story didn’t ring true, the evasions and threats she’d pulled out of the air – but as he snapped his seat belt into place his phone buzzed, a message from Riggott:
My office ASAP
.
Riggott’s secretary looked up from her computer as Zigic approached the office.
‘You’ll have to wait, he’s in with someone at the moment.’
It was about as pointless a statement as anyone had ever made, with an unbroken stream of machine-gun ranting blasting through the closed door. Whoever was on the receiving end of the boss’s ire had wisely decided to stay silent. It was the best option with Riggott whether you were right or wrong. But especially if you were right.
The DCS suffered from too much pent-up aggression, that was the problem. At heart he was still a detective, made for crushing suspects’ stories in the interview rooms. Zigic had sat next to him through countless hours of probing and cajoling, violent threats and seductive promises all delivered with impeccable credibility. Management gave him limited scope to flex his skills and only one audience for them.
The office door opened and a red-faced detective constable hurried out, chased by a single vehement curse.
Riggott poked his head around the door, pointed at Zigic.
‘You’re up, big man.’
A fan whirred in the corner of the room, rustling the papers scattered across Riggott’s desk, and as it turned it blew a chocolate wrapper onto the floor. He worked in chaos and Zigic wondered if it was another symptom of his reluctant removal from the fray, a way of keeping things intriguingly complex for himself.
Riggott gathered the file he’d been looking at and dropped it on top of the pile of ones just like it in his out tray. Whatever transgression the office’s previous victim had committed would be in there and now Riggott was done with that.
He waved for Zigic to sit down and produced an e-cigarette from his shirt pocket.
‘I’ve just had a very interesting phone call about you.’ He took a short puff. ‘And I can tell you, I don’t appreciate being left stammering like a fucking tube because one of my officers has left me out of the loop.’
‘It was a fast-moving situation—’
‘Fast-moving my hairy left one,’ Riggott said. ‘We have these amazing devices now called smartphones. You don’t even have to talk, you can just tap in a message and it comes straight to me. Something like … I’m poking my nose into bigger shit than I can deal with. Help!’
‘I didn’t have a chance,’ he said and kept talking despite Riggott’s rolling his eyes. ‘This copper – Rachel – she made the call before I even knew she existed. She’s a piece of work.’
‘She knows her business, you mean.’
‘She’s uncooperative, unprofessional, and I’m pretty sure she’s hiding something of significant importance to my case. Now she’s used whatever pull she’s got to have you tell me to back down. Am I about right?’
‘What d’you reckon she’s on with hiding then?’ Riggott asked.
Zigic explained about Nathan, the mystery over his identity and the claims by Holly’s father of a potential threat from him – exaggerating slightly but he needed Riggott firmly onside. Told him the boy had run away and nobody had bothered to report it.
He saw that he was getting through to the DCS, piquing the detective inside the superintendent.
‘So, you’re thinking this wee feral’s a wrong’un?’
‘I’m struggling to see another reason for all the secrecy,’ Zigic said. ‘She’s desperate to keep his face out of the press. That suggests to me that he’s highly recognisable. Not many eleven-year-old boys are.’
‘No, just the sort who drown toddlers in paddling pools and set fire to their nanas.’ He took a thoughtful pull on his cigarette, exhaled vapour. ‘How strong a suspect you reckon he is?’
Zigic shrugged. ‘Until we know more about the kid it’s tough to say. Maybe he’s just a witness. He saw something that scared him so he ran. It’s a brutal crime for a child to carry out.’
‘You’re thinking like a father,’ Riggott said. ‘We both know what eleven-year-old boys can do when their wiring’s not right. DNA at the scene?’
‘Hairs in bloodstained towels in the bathroom. Our killer cleaned up before they left the house.’
‘Nothing at the locus?’
‘It was too badly contaminated.’
‘And the family’s covering for him, aye?’
Zigic nodded. ‘The foster mother won’t cooperate. She’s hiding behind some confidentiality agreement they had her sign. I don’t know if we can compel her?’
‘Word on this has come from mighty high up,’ Riggott said gravely. ‘Now, you know me, I’m never one to worry about stamping on toes and I wouldn’t expect you to put this Rachel woman’s case before yours, but you’re going to cooperate with her. No sneaking about, no leaks. Not if you want to keep your job.’
It wasn’t an idle threat, then. She’d come at him with real clout.
‘Did they tell you anything about him?’
Riggott shook his head and Zigic could see how much that annoyed him. A crime on his patch and he couldn’t intervene, hadn’t even been given the professional courtesy of an explanation.
‘Other suspects?’ he asked.
‘Nothing concrete yet,’ Zigic said. ‘I’m hoping we can get something more from the nurse. She’d have been there, seen more of the comings and goings maybe. But the girl died from natural causes brought on by neglect, so it’s an odd combination of circumstances.’ He explained them briefly and Riggott nodded along. ‘It looks like we can rule out the estranged husband. He wouldn’t have left Holly to die. That rules out anyone close to them, I think. If they had an issue with Dawn alone, why punish Holly too?’
Riggott’s mouth twitched. ‘Catch yourself on, son. The nurse should’ve arrived the next morning, I take it – anyone familiar with their routine would expect Holly to be found the next day. Don’t go ruling people out on that basis.’
He was right, Zigic realised. It was a gamble on the part of the killer but not much of one.
‘What else?’
‘We’re looking into Dawn’s love life,’ Zigic said. ‘Still waiting on the tech department to go through her contacts but several sources say she was hooking up with random guys at her house.’
‘Dangerous behaviour to be undertaking, that.’
‘Potentially, yeah.’
‘Sure, there’s no potentially about it. Carry on like that long enough you’ll find a thug.’ Riggott sighed. ‘Ann Summers on every high street, fucking dildos in the chemists, and these women still go putting themselves under any bastard with an Internet connection and a hard-on.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t just about the sex,’ Zigic suggested. ‘She was lonely. She was struggling. Maybe she needed the company as much as anything else.’
Riggott waved his words away. ‘Don’t be soft, Ziggy. You’ve got a puritan’s view of women, you know that?’
He wasn’t going to sit there and argue sexual politics with his boss, as much as he disagreed. Fact was, Riggott knew far more about random hook-ups and one-night stands than he did, if the station rumour mill was to be believed.
‘How’s the disability angle looking?’ Riggott asked.
‘She wasn’t taking it seriously,’ Zigic said, happy to be back on firm ground. ‘Her harassment log is virtually non-existent, no suspects, no witnesses. Right now I’ve got serious reservations about the extent of it in general, let alone as a potential motive.’
‘Give it another couple of days, then. If anything turns up, you stick with it, if not I’m having it back in CID.’
When we’ve done all the hard graft, Zigic thought.
‘Don’t gimme that face,’ Riggott said. ‘You know how this works.’
‘I don’t want to rule the harassment out prematurely. It isn’t always an obvious crime. Not these days. If we can find whoever vandalised her car that would be a good start, rule them in or out.’
‘It’s minor.’
‘But it’s indicative of a prejudiced and aggressive mindset,’ Zigic said, voice firm. ‘And it was over a year ago. Who’s to say they haven’t escalated during that period? They slashed her tyres, they’re obviously knife-happy.’
‘That’s a mighty big stretch, Ziggy.’
‘I need time to look into it.’
Riggott’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You’ve had nigh on a year.’
‘It wasn’t a priority then,’ Zigic said through gritted teeth. ‘End of the week.’ Riggott pointed with his e-cigarette. ‘Missing kid or no missing kid, you need to bring me progress.’
Zigic went back up to Hate Crimes, trying to put the meeting with Rachel out of his mind, the pistol shots and black water and the sight of that gun holstered on her hip as the rising wind snapped at her shirt. There was no point wasting his time speculating on what Nathan had done or who she was trying to protect him from. Until he could actually sit down and speak to the boy he might as well not even exist. It was all up to her now.
Work had temporarily halted in the office but evidence of the day’s industry was there on the desks, hidden under drinks and plastic cartons from a severely belated lunch break. Wahlia was eating a sandwich with one hand, his mobile phone in the other. An unopened salad was sitting on Ferreira’s desk while she stabbed buttons on the printer and swore at the paper tray. Behind her DC Colleen Murray was tucking into a chocolate pudding and she met Zigic’s eye as he came in, vaguely guilty looking, as if she’d been caught skiving off.
She was one of the least likely skivers in the building. A careful, sceptical woman, who’d come into the police after a long stint in the RAF. She’d retired out at forty, divorced at forty-one, retrained while she raised two teenagers single-handed and now they were both away at university her job absorbed her totally. She was the kind of copper who’d happily work until midnight and sleep at her desk, be ready to go again at seven a.m.
Useful as that was to her senior officers, Zigic didn’t think it was very healthy for her. She looked five years older than she was, twenty pounds heavier than she should be, and it was a rare morning that she didn’t carry the scent of the previous night’s drinking on her.
‘I’m going to talk to Dean Carter’s girlfriend in a minute,’ she said.
The labourer; Zigic had almost forgotten about him, too many other possibilities crowding in. He was glad of Colleen’s diligence.
‘Did Carter’s friends come through for him?’ She nodded. ‘What about Westman? Does his alibi hold?’
‘Yes, sir. But I don’t know how much credence you’d want to give his wife.’
‘Does the wife suspect anything?’ he asked.
‘My feeling is she’s resigned to him having affairs. I didn’t have to spell it out to her, sir. She caught on right away.’ Colleen dropped her half-eaten pudding into the bin. ‘Once a woman’s decided her security’s more important than fidelity there’s very little you can do to lean on her.’
Zigic went and poured himself a coffee. ‘Where does she say they were?’
‘At home getting ready, then a romantic dinner. That swanky pub in Fotheringhay.’
‘Check with them,’ he said. ‘Just to be on the safe side. The price that place is, Westman must have been apologising for something.’
‘He was fucking Dawn a few hours before,’ Ferreira said. ‘That must have been worth three courses and a bottle of prosecco.’