Lawton cleared his throat noisily. ‘This would be an internal matter for Long Fleet management, I presume.’
Had Sutherland already flagged this possibility with him? Zigic wondered. It seemed unlikely that Lawton would be aware of the specifics of Long Fleet’s procedures otherwise. Or maybe they’d discussed a potential charge in relation to Nadia Baidoo and that was how he’d planned to head it off.
Sutherland’s attention was still fully fixed on the photograph, mouth hanging open slightly.
‘Josh broke into your house to get a DNA sample,’ Zigic said. ‘He needed it to prove paternity of Dorcus’s baby so he could expose you for what you are. A predator.’
‘All of that may well be true,’ Lawton said, a stirring of unease in his tone. ‘But Patrick was completely unaware of Ainsworth’s plan or his intentions. It isn’t a motive if my client was ignorant of it.’
‘I already told you what happened to Josh,’ Sutherland said, dragging his gaze up to Zigic with an effort that looked monumental. ‘Nadia crept out of the house while I was asleep. When she came home she was covered in blood. She was shaking. I thought she was hurt. I wanted to take her to hospital but when I suggested it, she broke down and admitted what she’d done to Josh. I undressed her and put her in the shower and then I burned her clothes and her shoes.’
His voice was toneless and he sat perfectly still as he spoke in those short sentences that were maybe as much as he could manage, as he felt the world shifting under him. Or maybe he thought they sounded more honest for their simplicity.
They didn’t though. It was the speech pattern of a caught liar and Zigic knew it only too well.
Sutherland kept going.
‘I know it was wrong of me to do that,’ he said. ‘I destroyed evidence. But I was only trying to protect her. I knew she’d acted in self-defence. Or she believed she did. I was scared for her. I didn’t want to lose her.’ He passed a hand in front of his face. ‘I’m not denying helping her. I’m an accessory to murder. But that’s all I am. I didn’t kill Josh.’
Zigic knew that manoeuvre as well. Admit the smaller crime in an attempt to claim innocence of the larger one.
‘And that’s how Josh’s blood got in your car?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you attempt to clean the interior of the car afterwards?’
He hung his head. ‘Yes.’
‘You destroyed more evidence?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you clean the car?’
Sutherland paused and Zigic saw him fumbling for an answer. He wasn’t expecting them to ask for more details. Thought he’d given them enough already.
‘I always wash the car on Sunday afternoon, I did it then.’
‘In full sight of your neighbours?’
‘I didn’t think it would look strange because I always do it then.’
‘But you’re not usually cleaning large deposits of blood from the upholstery,’ Zigic commented. ‘How did you clean it?’
‘Is this really relevant?’ Lawton asked, seeing that Sutherland was struggling. ‘Patrick has told you everything you need to know. Maybe you should be talking to Ms Baidoo now since she’s the guilty party.’
‘There wasn’t that much blood in the car,’ Sutherland said finally, his brain dredging up an answer by going to the truth for once. ‘I just used the regular cleaning fluid I always use. I don’t know why it matters.’
He had cleaned it, Kate Jenkins had told them as much. But he hadn’t done a very good job, hadn’t got right into all the nooks and crannies where she knew to search for evidence, because people always missed the same places.
‘What time did Nadia get home?’
‘I don’t know. It was the early hours of the morning.’
‘Was it light?’
‘No.’
‘And you cleaned her up and put her to bed, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ Sutherland said, getting testy now, not wanting to repeat himself because maybe he was smart enough to know that lies fell apart in the repetition of them.
‘Did you go to bed at the same time?’
‘Yes.’
‘So when did you burn her clothes?’ Zigic asked.
Another fumble, another slightly too long delay in answering a question about a moment that should have been seared into his memory.
‘The next day. I went outside and burned them in the garden incinerator with some old newspapers and things so it wouldn’t look suspicious.’
‘Your neighbours can’t have liked that,’ Zigic said. ‘Setting a fire while they’ll have wanted to be enjoying their gardens over the weekend.’
‘I did it early. Before eight. Nobody was up at that time.’
Zigic nodded, as if he was convinced. ‘Yeah, nobody wants to be up that early at the weekend.’
He lifted up the cardboard file and took out the tablet he’d been keeping, half hidden, underneath it, tapped the screen. A video player opened, a clip paused, ready to run.
‘There’s one other thing we’d like you to explain for us, please, Patrick.’ Zigic positioned the screen between Sutherland and his solicitor. ‘At 12:45 a.m. on the morning of Sunday August 5th – that’s around an hour after Joshua Ainsworth was murdered, so you’re clear – one of your neighbours was searching for her dog. It slips its lead quite a lot apparently.’
Lawton’s manicured fingers twitched.
Zigic noted the action with a slight smile, reached out and set the video playing. The neighbour had recorded with sound and despite the hour the image was clear enough to make out the number plate of Patrick Sutherland’s vehicle parked up in his front drive.
The woman hadn’t been interested in that though, panned over it in a split second as she focused on what she’d really thought worth filming: Patrick Sutherland, barefoot and naked except for a pair of tight white boxer briefs, getting out of his car.
Her supressed giggle was absurdly light in the interview room. Beyond it the sound of Sutherland closing the car door with exaggerated care, not wanting to wake the
