Ferreira slipped her arms around him, held on to him, feeling his chest swell against hers with each breath he took. Deep ones, slow ones, trying to calm himself but failing. He buried his face in her neck and she stroked the back of his head, saying the usual words they brought out in these situations.
It didn’t work with another copper though. He’d said them, too. Knew how hollow they were.
‘We’ve got to do something about him,’ he said, drawing back slightly from her, arms still locked around her waist.
‘We are doing something,’ Ferreira said firmly. ‘Bobby’s working on it.’
‘You didn’t see that girl,’ he groaned. ‘She’s looking at a fifty–fifty chance of brain damage. Her mum’s in fucking bits. Bobby going through the files isn’t anything like enough. Col was right, we can’t just wait around for him to do it again.’
‘What can we do?’ she asked. ‘Seriously? We don’t have a lot of options here.’
He looked helpless. ‘Fucking something.’
She said nothing because there was no answer now, just like there hadn’t been this morning in his office. She guided him into the living room and sat him down, moving his jacket and the newspaper underneath it.
The front page held a splash on prisoner releases imminent in the city as a result of the compromised forensic results. She scanned it quickly: no mention of Walton, but plenty about the failings of the police to keep people safe, about the abuses of justice, innocent individuals sent down on corrupted evidence.
‘They don’t mention him,’ she said.
‘Page four,’ he said wearily.
She turned to it, straight into a photograph of Walton looking like a model citizen with his girlfriend and son. An old photograph that didn’t show the marks on the girlfriend’s arms, which Ferreira had seen when she interviewed her or the shadow of trauma visible behind her son’s eyes.
Miscarriage of justice, the headline said.
‘“I’m scared for my safety,”’ Billy quoted, spitting out the words. ‘“The police have branded me a predator and even being exonerated by the courts won’t clean away that stain. There are scary people out there who aren’t above vigilante justice.”’
Ferreira swore softly, feeling the anger rising in her chest.
‘Anything we do now, we’ll be accused of harassment,’ he said.
‘You don’t know that.’
A humourless smile twisted his mouth. ‘Oh, I do know that. Because I called the boss from A & E and he told me in no uncertain terms that we’re to steer clear of Walton.’
Ferreira dropped, stunned, onto the sofa next to him. ‘Why would he say that?’
‘There’s legal action in the offing.’ He shook his head, the disbelief written across his face. ‘Fucked-up system, yeah? Walton is suing for false imprisonment.’
‘But he won’t get anywhere.’
‘Probably not.’
She stared at the photograph.
‘So, what does that mean for the investigation?’
‘Nothing, we have to keep going,’ he said, determination squaring his shoulders, even though she could hear the hesitancy in his voice. ‘We don’t need to talk to Walton to dig something up on him.’
Instinctively she glanced away, towards the window, thanking the God she didn’t believe in that he hadn’t seen Walton on the street outside. The mood he was in he might have beaten him to death right there on the pavement. Or more likely, found himself laid out.
One thing she knew for certain, she couldn’t tell him what she’d seen.
DAY TWO
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 8TH
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zigic called the morning briefing for eight, evidently wanting to get a jump on the case. He didn’t look as perky today, Ferreira thought, looked like he’d hardly slept in fact. His hooded green eyes were deeply shadowed and drooping, his beard unkempt, cheeks slack above it. Maybe it was only the sweltering heat wilting him, but the careless way he’d dressed this morning and the distracted approach he took to the coffee machine, spilling half a scalding cup over his hand, suggested there was something bigger at work in his life.
Or perhaps he was just as rattled by Walton’s release as Billy.
She watched from her desk as the rest of the team arrived, checking her emails and rolling a cigarette she was already desperate to get lit. Parr was eating a two-bag breakfast he’d picked up from Greggs, today’s sunflower-yellow tie placed carefully over his right shoulder as he tucked into an eclair, his chin thrust forward as he took delicate bites to preserve the parts of his shirt the double-napkin arrangement didn’t cover. In the corner of the room the new kids, Keri Bloom and Rob Weller, were watching and quietly mocking him.
They seemed ridiculously young to Ferreira, almost children. Maybe it was because they’d known each other so long, through school together, then training, then uniform and now, sharing a desk and the same stupid in-jokes they should have grown out of.
She spun slowly in her chair to see what was going on with Adams and DS Colleen Murray, who had already been sequestered in his office when Ferreira arrived. He’d left her bed at first light, said he was going home to change, even though he kept clothes at her place. She suspected he’d gone back to the hospital to check on Sadie Ryan.
She’d spent half the night awake, thinking about Walton and what he wanted: was it an attempt at intimidation or something more serious? There was no guarantee she’d see him out there, only luck that she did, and as the dark hours ticked by, she started to realise that whatever he was planning, it must go further than standing
