Ruby Garrick let them in with little question and a warmer welcome than they’d received at the Paggetts. She was in her fifties, with grey-threaded black hair worn in braids, which reached her jawline and a small diamond stud in one of her slim, high brows. A line of finely inked script showed from the cuff of her white cotton kaftan.
‘I’ve heard about Josh,’ she said, showing them into a living room crammed with bookshelves and Ercol furniture, old film posters framed on the walls. They sat down when she offered and accepted the rose lemonade she insisted on fetching for them with a comment about the heat and what a long day they must have had.
When she returned she sank onto a floor cushion near the coffee table, where her laptop lay closed as if she’d been working before they buzzed. Zigic wondered what was on it, guessed the Asylum Assist network was fully consumed with talk of Ainsworth’s murder right now.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, drawing her knees up to her body. ‘Was it a robbery?’
‘Too early to say,’ Zigic told her.
It was a natural assumption, the one people made because they’d rather believe in the bad faith of strangers than the bad actions of friends and family and lovers. With Ainsworth’s devices missing, possibly as an act of misdirection, he reminded himself that she was a suspect, despite her nice manners and slightly absent air.
‘You knew Josh quite well, we understand.’
‘I didn’t expect to become quite so friendly with him,’ she said, her gaze going misty. ‘We all have this idea that the staff at Long Fleet are scum. After what came out about the abuses in the place, it’s difficult not to think that.’
‘But they cleaned house,’ Ferreira said.
‘And replaced them with more of the same, most likely.’ Ruby Garrick took a sip of her lemonade. The drink in her glass was discernibly less pink than the ones she’d brought for them, and Zigic wondered if she’d put something in it. ‘Josh was different though, he genuinely cared about the women in there. He hated what the place was, what it represented, but he knew that somebody needed to make sure there was a safe space for the women to go into and tell what was happening to them. It took quite a toll on him.’
‘But he stayed?’ Zigic asked.
‘For a few years, yes,’ she said. ‘Eventually it got to him, though. He resigned a couple of months ago.’
Zigic glanced at Ferreira.
‘Are you sure about that?’ she asked. ‘We heard he was taking some holiday time.’
‘I’m quite sure,’ Ruby said, a little scorn in her voice as if she was used to being underestimated and didn’t appreciate it. ‘I tried to talk him out of it because those women need all the allies they can get. But … when someone is so unhappy, you have to respect what they want.’
‘It sounds like you were very close,’ Zigic suggested softly.
She turned to him, wearing an unreadable smile. ‘Detective Inspector, he was young enough to be my son.’
Ainsworth wasn’t, not by some way, and it wasn’t what Zigic had been getting at, but the fact that she’d interpreted the comment that way was interesting. Taking the same insinuation that the Paggetts had made. Perhaps she’d heard it all before. Perhaps she enjoyed the thought. Judging by the gentle smile lingering around her eyes, he suspected as much.
‘You were a regular visitor to Josh’s house.’
‘I wouldn’t say regular.’ She touched her throat and quickly withdrew her hand. ‘I’d been there a few times for coffee, he made me dinner once – he was a very good cook, doctors so often are, don’t you find?’
Neither of them replied, no frame of reference to judge on.
‘We talked,’ she said. ‘He was a very kind and gentle soul. The first time I approached him was when he was leaving work, oh, some time last summer, and I was in a filthy mood and I saw him coming out of the gates on his bike, and I stepped in front of him and I just started shouting at him. Telling him he should be ashamed of himself working in there, that he was taking blood money, that he was propping up a fascist apparatus that treated women’s bodies as disposable.’ She inclined her head towards Ferreira. ‘All of those things are true. But he didn’t argue with me. He took a flier and promised me he would read it.’
Ruby rearranged herself on the floor cushion, stared into the tabletop like she was reliving the moment.
‘That evening he emailed me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I was expecting. An argument, maybe. A defence of Long Fleet at least. But he agreed with me. It went on from there, we talked about the politics of the centre and what was wrong with the immigration policy behind it. Then we started talking about other things too. I’m a history teacher and we discovered that we shared an interest in twentieth-century social history and some things like that. Eventually we decided to get together for a coffee and chat.’
‘But it never went any further?’ Ferreira asked and Zigic heard the mistrust in the question.
‘No, believe it or not, it is possible for a man and woman to spend time together without jumping into bed.’
‘Was Josh seeing someone?’
‘I believe so,’ she said slowly, a trace of annoyance in her voice. ‘But I never asked. I thought it was his business and he’d tell me if he wanted to. All I can assume is that it wasn’t a very serious relationship.’
Was that hope? Pointless now.
‘These leaflets,’ Ferreira started, reaching for her glass. ‘How many of them do you put out?’
The sudden swerve seemed to
