‘He came to see you recently, didn’t he?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you stay in touch with him after you were deported?’
The question felt crass, but Dorcus seemed unfazed.
‘No, he found me on Facebook,’ she said. ‘He told me he was coming to Kampala for a holiday. He asked me about the city. He had not been here before.’ She smiled slightly. ‘He did not know anybody in Kampala. Only me.’
‘And he came to see you when he arrived?’
‘Yes, he brought medicine for Joseph’s eyes.’
‘Are they better now?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Much better, yes.’ She looked down at him, taking hold of his tiny hand and stroking his fingers.
Dorcus seemed happy despite everything, and Ferreira struggled to imagine how she could possibly feel that way. Given what she’d gone through, how she’d managed to come to terms with falling pregnant while she was locked up and then being deported in the middle of the night. Ferreira felt angry on her behalf, wondered how Dorcus had found this calm within herself.
She noticed the small gold cross she wore and supposed maybe that helped.
‘Did Dr Ainsworth tell you he’d left Long Fleet?’
The contented expression on Dorcus’s face faltered momentarily, as she lifted her eyes towards the camera, but then she returned to her baby, cradling his head and rocking him from side to side.
‘He told me this, yes.’
‘And did he tell you why?’
Her face turned grave. ‘At Long Fleet the good people are punished for helping. This is why he left. He was made to leave for telling the truth.’
‘He wanted to tell the truth about what happened to you, didn’t he?’ Ferreira asked, watching Dorcus carefully for any sign that she needed to pull back, but she only nodded.
‘I did not want to make trouble. If anyone made trouble they were the first to be sent away,’ she said. ‘But they took me anyway.’
‘Did Dr Ainsworth know who attacked you?’
Dorcus lowered her eyes again, her face becoming pensive. ‘I was not attacked.’
‘We were told you fell pregnant in Long Fleet,’ Ferreira said. ‘Was that not true?’
‘I was blessed with my boy there, yes. But I was not attacked. Dr Ainsworth said it is the same thing though. When a man has power a woman does not, there is no reason for him to be violent. His power is his violence.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Judy told me this too, but I did not believe her. My nana, she said, “Never believe the words of a man who wants you.”’ Dorcus smiled wanly. ‘I believed Patrick. He said he loved me and he would make sure I was not sent away.’
Zigic let out a low breath next to her.
The same story as with Nadia, except Sutherland’s ploy worked in her case.
‘How was he planning on stopping your deportation?’ Zigic asked.
‘He said there were medical troubles he could make it seem like I had. If I had some of these things wrong with me, I could not be deported.’
Ferreira was sure that wasn’t true, but could imagine being convinced by the lie in Dorcus’s situation. When you were desperate it would sound logical enough to hang your hopes on.
‘Patrick said he couldn’t live without me.’ There was something like scorn in Dorcus’s voice now and Ferreira wondered if it was directed at Sutherland or herself for believing him. ‘He called me his “ebony queen”.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Those are not the words of a man in love, are they?’
Ferreira shook her head, momentarily tangled in the sheets of the English Lit student she’d dated at uni, listening to all the words he knew for the colour of her skin. She’d been young enough to enjoy the intensity of his attention then, only ended it when he lifted his head from between her thighs and told her she tasted different to English women.
‘Dr Ainsworth was suspicious of Patrick’s behaviour when you were still in Long Fleet, wasn’t he?’ Zigic asked. ‘He wanted you to speak to the governor.’
‘Patrick said if Mr Hammond found out about our relationship, they would deport me immediately. I trusted Patrick to help me. So, I said nothing.’
‘What about when Dr Ainsworth came to visit you last month? Did you tell him about Patrick then?’
‘I will never be able to go back to England,’ she said despondently. ‘But Joseph will, one day. He is half an English boy, they won’t be able to tell him no and lock him up.’ She smiled down at the boy, radiant as she watched him sleeping. ‘Dr Ainsworth knew already. At Long Fleet he asked me if it was Patrick and I would not say. I should have said then. The other women needed to be kept safe from him but I did not understand that when it was happening. Because he didn’t hurt me, I thought what we were doing was not bad. But it is. It is wrong that Patrick lies to women and gives them false hope to get what he wants from them.’
‘Dr Sutherland has been suspended,’ Ferreira told her. ‘He won’t be working as a doctor any more.’
They’d agreed not to share his suspected role in Ainsworth’s death but she thought Dorcus deserved to know this much, to have the guilt she felt lightened slightly by the knowledge that he wouldn’t be going back there.
‘Dorcus, did you give Dr Ainsworth permission to take a DNA sample from your son?’
‘Yes. And from me also. He said he would use it to prove what Dr Sutherland did, so he would lose his job and not be able to be a doctor any more.’ She looked directly into the camera, a new fierceness in her eyes. ‘I am glad he has lost his job.’
Her baby stirred, wriggling against her chest, his small fist fighting the air, alerted by the strain in her voice and the shift in her posture as she leaned closer to the camera.
