BETWEEN TWO EVILS
ALSO BY EVA DOLAN
DI Zigic and DS Ferreira series
Long Way Home
Tell No Tales
After You Die
Watch Her Disappear
This is How It Ends
CONTENTS
ALSO BY EVA DOLAN
DAY ONE: TUESDAY AUGUST 7TH, 2018
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY AUGUST 8TH
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DAY THREE: THURSDAY AUGUST 9TH
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
DAY FOUR: FRIDAY AUGUST 10TH
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
DAY FIVE: SATURDAY AUGUST 11TH
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
DAY SIX: SUNDAY AUGUST 12TH
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DAY SEVEN: MONDAY AUGUST 13TH
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
DAY EIGHT: TUESDAY AUGUST 14TH
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
DAY ONE
TUESDAY AUGUST 7TH, 2018
CHAPTER ONE
‘So this is where you’re hiding,’ Adams said, coming down the brown brick steps in front of Thorpe Road Police Station, a cigarette already hanging from his mouth.
‘Just getting some sun.’ Ferreira closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her face up: twenty-five degrees at 10 a.m., basking weather. Bikini-on-beach-drinking-rum-cocktails weather. Which is exactly where she’d been a week ago, Adams beside her then too, their first holiday together and they hadn’t killed each other, so she guessed there was something to be said for him. He’d come back from St Kitts with a deep tan and a more relaxed air, and that was certainly helping too.
‘You know Riggott’s going to start docking your pay if you keep this up,’ he said, lighting up.
‘Where else am I supposed to smoke?’
‘Crazy thought, but you could quit,’ he suggested, exhaling a lungful.
Ferreira flicked an eyebrow up at him. ‘I’ll quit when you do.’
‘Well, maybe cut down from thirty a day.’
‘I don’t smoke that much.’
‘You’re coming out here that often.’
She took another deep drag, her eyes straying to the station’s broad, brutalist façade and the greyed-glass windows of what had been the Hate Crimes Unit on the first floor.
‘You can’t sulk about it for ever, Mel.’
Ferreira straightened up and away from the wall. ‘I’m not sulking.’
‘You know what I mean.’ He tried a smile but she wasn’t softening, not after having had this conversation with him repeatedly and always with the same conclusion during the six months since the Hate Crimes Unit had been mothballed. ‘They clung on for longer than anyone expected,’ he said. And even her partner Zigic agreed on that point when she’d talked to him about it.
They’d had a good run, Zigic insisted. Being back in CID didn’t mean they stopped investigating the hate-based offences that had consumed their professional lives for the last seven years; it just meant they did more for everyone else too. Now they had access to more resources when they needed them, a bigger team to draw on, more local knowledge and expertise. It meant that the burden didn’t always have to fall just on them.
But she felt the burden on her when they were sent to another violent incident in New England, another dispute between neighbours or a drink-fuelled brawl that spilled onto the road or into the parts of the city where the citizens the council were actually bothered about lived. The way Ferreira saw it, they’d been taken off hate crimes and put on anything that involved a foreign accent, deployed more to save the cost of translators than anything else.
Their caseload had quadrupled and yet she no longer felt like they were helping people. Just keeping the peace. And if she wanted that she would have stayed in uniform.
‘I’m not happy,’ she said, almost at a whisper, almost without meaning to.
‘I know.’ He reached for her hand and she pulled away as his fingertips grazed her knuckle, checking to see if anyone around them had noticed.
‘Not here, okay.’ A moment of pain tightened his eyes and she pretended not to see it, tossed her head, already feeling guilty. ‘Can I bum a fag?’
Adams sucked the last breath out of his own cigarette, dropped the butt into the bin. ‘No, come on, we should get back up there.’
They headed into reception and through the stairwell doors, where a couple of guys from anti-terror were coming down, all swagger and growl as they talked about the cricket, making even that seem like a life-or-death matter. Part of her thought it was ridiculous, but part wondered how she’d fare with them. Maybe what she needed was more of a challenge?
‘How do you fancy going out for dinner tonight?’ Adams asked, as he held the door open for her.
‘It’s Tuesday.’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘What’s the point of going out for dinner when we’ve got the whole rest of the week to put up with?’
He rolled his eyes at her. ‘You are the worst fucking Catholic I’ve ever met.’
‘What’s my particular brand of indoctrination got to do with dinner?’
‘Because you should know to take all the pleasures you can get whenever they’re offered.’ He gave her a cheeky wink and headed for his office, pulling his mobile out of his pocket.
She watched him pass between the rows of desks, saw Parr straighten in his seat as he approached, the new kids at their shared station in the corner looking extra focused for a few seconds, trying to make a good impression on the DCI. She saw his stride falter as he answered the phone, his free hand tightening into a fist and all the tension she’d holidayed out of his body returning in a rush.
He battered on the window of Zigic’s neighbouring office and gestured for him to come out as he ended the call, then shouted back across his shoulder, ‘Mel, Bobby, Colleen, in with me.’
Zigic emerged from his office, giving Ferreira a questioning look.
At the desks around them, a shiver of interest had raised eyes from screens, the rest
