‘Dr Sutherland, for the record, please state your name.’
He took a couple of grudging steps towards the table, leaned in. ‘Patrick Sutherland. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I already told you everything I know.’
‘Sit down, Patrick,’ Lawton said in an undertone, so low it seemed that Sutherland didn’t hear him because he retreated from the table again.
Zigic leaned against the wall, wanting to keep Sutherland on his feet. Suspects were always less stable when they were standing; once seated they began to compose themselves, took their time in answering, considered their responses more carefully. So much easier to trip him up like this.
‘We’ve spoken to Nadia,’ he said. ‘And her account of the break-in on Thursday August 2nd doesn’t tally with what you’ve told us.’
‘Perhaps Ms Baidoo’s recollection is flawed,’ Lawton suggested smoothly.
‘I very much doubt she’s misremembering seeing Joshua Ainsworth coming over Patrick’s garden fence and forcing his way into the house.’ Zigic turned back to Sutherland. ‘And I doubt she’s misremembering you losing your temper and saying you’d go and warn Ainsworth to stay away from her.’
‘You only have her word for all of this,’ Lawton said.
‘You’ve lied to us on record, Patrick. This is your one and only chance to come clean about what happened between you and Joshua Ainsworth.’
Sutherland exhaled sharply, his shoulders slumping as he did it, chin dropping onto his chest. He looked thoroughly beaten, shirt a mess of creases and rumples, sweat-stained under the arms, hair greasy and chaotic, the previously rakish waves now seedily plastered to his skull.
He threw his hands out in a gesture of surrender. ‘I was trying to protect her.’
‘From what?’
‘From herself.’ He drew his head up again, slowly, like it was too heavy for his neck. ‘But I can’t, can I? Not for ever.’ He shoved his fingers back through his hair. ‘She was doing so well. I actually thought she might get over it, given enough time and care. Maybe I was naïve to think I could fix her, but … that’s what love is, isn’t it? Fixing each other.’
It wasn’t, Zigic thought. But of course Sutherland would see it that way, this man who sought out women who were weakened and scared, who would look to him with fear and adoration and meet every small effort he made for them with disproportionate gratitude. It was skin-crawling, seeing how his mind worked.
‘She was getting better,’ Sutherland said, a hint of pride in his voice before his eyes hardened. ‘Then Josh came to the house. He tore the place apart looking for Nadia.’
‘It didn’t look torn apart,’ Zigic said.
‘I cleared everything up. I didn’t want Nadia to have to see a single trace of his presence there.’
‘You missed quite a bit of his blood,’ Zigic told him, letting some of the pleasure he felt show.
Sutherland went on as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘Thank God, she saw him before he saw her and went to hide.’ He shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to think about what he would have done to her if he’d found her.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us about this the first time we asked you?’
‘Because of Nadia,’ he said, as if it was obvious. ‘I didn’t want her to have to suffer through explaining everything he’d done to her. And it’s my house, I didn’t think it was anyone’s business if we had a break-in. There’s no legal requirement to report a crime.’
‘But there’s a moral one,’ Ferreira told him. ‘Because your one unreported crime could keep us from solving other linked ones.’
‘I wanted to call you,’ Sutherland said earnestly.
He took a seat at the table finally and Zigic saw an admission in the move: Sutherland needed to concentrate now. He was opposite the empty seat but directing his story across the table to Ferreira.
‘I was scared,’ he told her. ‘I’m ashamed to admit it but I was scared for Nadia and for me. I knew that calling you would expose our relationship and I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. But I was more afraid of Josh and what he’d do to Nadia. I told her we’d have to call you and she begged me not to.’ He pursed his lips. ‘She was convinced that any contact with the law would have her leave to remain revoked. And I tried to explain to her that it only happened to people who’d committed crimes, not victims of them. But she was just so … terrified. She wasn’t thinking straight. That level of fear … it’s impossible for any of us to understand, I think.’
Zigic slid into the free seat. Sutherland gave him the merest flicker of acknowledgement before turning back to Ferreira.
‘Nadia was trapped,’ he said, his hands locking together on the tabletop. ‘Between her fear of being deported and her fear of Josh coming back.’
‘It must have been very difficult for her,’ Ferreira said softly, giving him an earnest look now. ‘And you.’
‘She wasn’t in her right mind.’ Sutherland shook his head helplessly. ‘You have to understand, Nadia has PTSD. She was and is incapable of rational thought where Josh is concerned.’ He closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to his mouth. ‘It was self-defence. She was in fear for her life.’
‘What are you saying, Patrick?’ Ferreira asked. ‘What did Nadia do?’
‘Saturday night,’ he said, looking queasy as he forced out the words. ‘I woke up and realised I was alone in bed. I thought maybe she couldn’t sleep and had gone downstairs to watch TV – she was having trouble sleeping but she won’t take pills because of the side-effects.’
Zigic felt a cold, tumbling sensation in his stomach. Something in the pitch of Sutherland’s voice and the inward-turned expression on his face, led to an indefinable, entirely illogical feeling that this was the truth coming out of the mouth of this well-practised liar.
Nadia had
