‘Right then, you need to call in Ainsworth’s financials and phone records,’ she said, giving him the job he should have done off his own bat.
He glanced at Parr. ‘It’s nearly six.’
‘Just get them,’ she said, going to answer the phone, which was ringing on her desk. Reception calling. ‘What is it?’
‘Gentleman down here to see you, a Mr Ainsworth.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Sir, this is Greg Ainsworth, Josh’s brother,’ Ferreira said as Zigic walked back into the reception area, with his thumb stuck in the knot of his tie, trying to wrench it off.
Greg and Josh Ainsworth looked alike, same pale skin and brown hair and small eyes, his framed in heavy black glasses and the purplish smudges of early fatherhood. Greg kept one hand on a double buggy, two small boys strapped into it, wearing matching dungarees and striped T-shirts. One was soundly asleep, the other talking quietly to the stuffed blue elephant he was dancing on his lap.
‘Mr Ainsworth.’ Zigic held out his hand. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss. It must have been a terrible shock.’
Greg nodded. ‘Thank you. Yes, yes it is. He’s always been such a sensible person.’
Zigic wondered at the train of thought between the two statements. As if only wild living and bad decisions could get a person murdered.
‘We should go upstairs and talk,’ Ferreira said.
Zigic helped Greg to manoeuvre the buggy through the door and into the lift, asking about the boys, how old they were and what were their names, smiling at them when they looked at him. Greg returned the questions, a reflex politeness, but it was good to get him talking. His voice was flat and he seemed overwhelmed by the strangeness of the surroundings, eyes on everything until they were settled in the muted colours and soft upholstery of the family room.
Shock, Zigic thought. The grief would be in there, gathering, waiting for the numb, stunned feeling to wear off before it hit him full force.
The moment that the door closed one of the boys began to grizzle and Greg lifted him into his lap, where the boy started playing with the flap of his shirt pocket.
‘Mum and Dad have just got back from identifying Josh’s body,’ he said.
‘How are they doing?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Not good. I’d have done it if they’d told me. I just wish I could have spared them it.’ He grimaced. ‘Dad said it was bad. I don’t know what I thought had happened to Josh, but I didn’t think it was going to be so violent.’
Zigic was surprised his parents went into detail, wondered why they hadn’t protected him from the truth after they protected him from the ordeal of actually seeing his brother’s body.
‘We need to ask you a few questions,’ he said. ‘If you’re up to it?’
‘I want to help,’ Greg told them, visibly steeling himself to the task.
‘How much did Josh tell you about his job?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Which one?’
‘Did he have more than one?’
‘He was working pretty much full-time at this detention centre near his house,’ Greg said, a vague disgust wrinkling the skin around his nose. ‘But he was doing shifts at a private hospital in town as well, the GP surgery there. Only three or four times a month, but I think he needed a break from the other place, to be honest.’
‘Greg left Long Fleet about two months ago,’ Zigic said. ‘Did he tell you about that?’
‘Yes, sorry, of course. He resigned. He didn’t want Mum and Dad to know, so I’ve got a bit too used to lying about it, I suppose.’ Greg rubbed his eye behind his glasses, almost knocking them off his nose. ‘I’m not thinking straight right now.’
‘That’s completely understandable,’ Ferreira said gently, but Zigic could see a hint of mistrust in how she shifted in the armchair. ‘What did Josh tell you about the circumstances around his resignation?’
The little boy on Ainsworth’s lap started to squirm and he lifted him up and sat him down again on the other thigh, told him to be good and they could go for ice cream later.
Greg sighed. ‘I know he hadn’t been happy there for a while. He didn’t agree with the place in the larger sense, its existence, you know? Our grandmother was from Ukraine and Josh was always very aware that she might have ended up in there if she was seeking asylum now. But he also knew someone needed to be in there looking after those poor women.’ He frowned, watching his son walk the stuffed blue elephant along the arm of the sofa. ‘Josh was trying to do good in a bad place. But I suppose it just got too much for him in the end. Five years is a long time to fight your conscience.’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘Not in so many words, no. He didn’t have to say it.’
‘Why exactly did he think Long Fleet was a bad place?’ Zigic asked, wanting to see how much Josh had confided in his brother.
Greg pushed his hand back through his hair. ‘Josh saw the problems at Long Fleet right from day one. Bullying, harassment, abuse. Most of it low level but some of it not. He spent the first two years he was there taking complaints to his boss and he kept getting them thrown back at him. Insufficient evidence, the women are liars, they’re trying to entrap staff members. He was banging his head against a brick wall.’ Greg looked at his sons, as if wondering how much of this they might be taking in. ‘He was about ready to quit, but a new governor came in and then the abuse accusations were being taken seriously. People being sacked left, right and centre. People he’d seen acting like animals for years finally getting their marching orders. It was like a weight lifting off his shoulders.’
Zigic thought of Josh Ainsworth’s cosy chats with Ruby Garrick and all the information she’d disseminated through
