No criminal record, but she hadn’t really been expecting one.
A patchy social media presence that was entirely professional on Twitter, focusing on her work as an advisor and occasional speaker, the charities she worked with encouraging girls to go into the medical sector and research roles, concentrating on trying to level the playing field for those from traditionally under-represented backgrounds. Maybe that was one thing she had in common with Josh Ainsworth, a social conscience.
Her Instagram presence was very different. So personally revealing that Ferreira was surprised she didn’t have it set to private. But it was easy to kid yourself that no one was interested, she supposed, that you weren’t worth spying on. Or perhaps Collingwood had an exhibitionist streak, like almost everyone else who used the site.
Her photos were aspirational, intimate and posted in flurries. The places she took her young daughter, the romantic dinners she shared with her husband, the antique shop finds and blowsy bouquets she bought ‘just because’.
From the outside the Collingwoods looked like a model family, the kind you could use to sell upmarket SUVs or ethically sourced knitwear.
Was she really still seeing Ainsworth on the side, Ferreira wondered, spearing another piece of chicken from her salad.
The last series of photos Collingwood had posted were from a Sunday afternoon trip to a local stately home. A picnic in a wicker basket, a plaid rug on the grass, her husband grinning boyishly as a tame deer came and took an apple right out of his hand.
Could Portia Collingwood have murdered Josh Ainsworth on Saturday night and then gone home to her family as if nothing had happened? Found the picnic basket in the utility room and placidly made up their sandwiches, cutting the crusts off and wrapping them in parchment paper. Could she have gone out the next morning and given nothing away?
You’d have to be a psychopath, Ferreira thought. But Collingwood was a trauma surgeon, well accustomed to managing risk and stress, to keeping her hands steady while her heart and mind were racing.
‘I spoke to the postie,’ DC Parr said, coming straight over to her desk. He smelled faintly of weed and seemed to notice her catch the scent. ‘He’s got back problems apparently. It’s medicinal. I didn’t think it was worth making anything of it.’
‘Not unless he did rob Ainsworth,’ Ferreira commented. ‘But you don’t think so, do you?’
‘I’d be surprised,’ Parr said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his slightly dated grey suit trousers. ‘He’s ex-army, pretty upstanding sort of bloke, and his husband’s a coder so they’re not short of money. I can’t see any reason why he’d pinch a couple of hundred quid’s worth of tech.’ He shrugged. ‘Difficult to know for sure. But my gut says no.’
Ferreira considered it for a moment. Parr had been about long enough to know when he was being sold a line, but he also had a hard-wired deference to anyone he thought was ‘the right kind of person’. A blind spot she doubted he’d ever get over.
‘Alright, not much else we can do,’ she admitted.
He headed for his desk and she called him back.
‘Zach, I need you to see what the situation with Ainsworth’s holiday was. The brother said he was cycling in Uganda. Just check he was where was supposed to be for me, okay? Rob’s going through his financials, he should have phone records coming through too. Check everything lines up, yeah?’
Parr half turned on his heel. ‘Anything else, boss?’
‘Keep an eye on the tip line for me?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Keri, what’s happening with the couple from the cottage next door?’ she asked.
Bloom hunched her shoulders defensively. ‘Still no word, Sergeant.’
‘What the hell are they doing?’ Ferreira threw herself into her seat. ‘Who goes this long without looking at their phone?’
‘Maybe they did it,’ Weller piped up, not lifting his eyes from his screen, and Ferreira caught the hitch of a smirk across his cheek.
Zigic came out of his office, stretched his neck with a crunch she heard across the room. He glanced at the board as he passed it, not enough progress made in the last hour or so to require any more attention.
‘Portia Collingwood’s out of surgery,’ he said.
Ferreira grabbed her bag. ‘Hit her while she’s shattered, right?’
‘It’s not always a fight, Mel.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They found Portia Collingwood sitting in the corner of the cafeteria at City Hospital, looking less polished than she did in the photograph that was stuck up in the suspects list on Josh Ainsworth’s board. She’d been in surgery three hours by Zigic’s reckoning and he guessed she was probably even more tired than she looked, as she toyed with a slice of chocolate cake, probing at it with the tines of her fork but not actually cutting any off to eat.
A guilty conscience or a stomach full of grief, he wondered.
She stood sharply as they reached her table, and they didn’t even have a chance to introduce themselves before she spoke.
‘I think this is a conversation we should have in my office.’
It was a conversation for an interview room, Zigic thought, but he decided to let her feel in control for a while, was curious what she would admit to while she still believed she was driving proceedings.
They followed her along the corridors, up a stairwell and into a quieter area of consulting rooms and empty waiting areas, to her office. She opened the door and ushered them in, closing it behind them with a deliberation and slowness that he read as an act of acceptance. Or maybe just preparation.
Her office was small and drab and grey, one window but she had the blinds drawn at it and the sill was lined with textbooks. There were files piled
