‘Mrs Collingwood often has to go to work in the evening,’ she’d told them. ‘She is a very important surgeon.’
Ferreira had studied her for any hint of malice or insinuation as Zigic asked the questions, knowing that there could be no secrets in a household where somebody else washed your sheets, but she saw no sign that the au pair was lying. Not when she said that Mrs Collingwood was a good employer, very fair, or when she maintained that she returned home from ‘work’ at half past nine.
You might lie for a good employer, Ferreira thought as she marked up the times of Portia Collingwood’s alibi on the board under her photograph. If your other positions had been bad enough, if your au pair friends shared their horror stories … a safe placement, well paid and with a well-tempered boss might be worth misleading the police to protect.
Somehow Ferreira doubted that she was a well-tempered boss though.
But there it was, until they managed to prove otherwise – Portia Collingwood away from the crime scene by nine o’clock.
‘Zach,’ she called.
Parr glanced up from his screen. ‘Boss?’
‘Where are you with Ruby Garrick’s alibi?’
‘Checking out the footage now,’ he said.
Ferreira went over to his desk, watched across his shoulder as the images on the screen moved by at 6x speed, long stretches of nothing as the doorway into Ruby Garrick’s building remained undisturbed, then a blur of a figure at which point he would slow it down and go back to be sure that it wasn’t her.
He was at 6:24 p.m. on the Saturday evening, long shadows coming into shot before their owners did, crisp in the late sun.
‘I can narrow down the time frame if Collingwood was at his place until nine, right?’ he said hopefully.
‘No, you need to do the whole evening,’ Ferreira explained. ‘Just because Collingwood didn’t mention anyone else hanging around Ainsworth’s house doesn’t mean Ruby Garrick wasn’t there.’
‘Gets jealous when she sees him with a younger woman?’ Parr asked, leaning forward as he slowed the image down, leaning back when he realised it wasn’t her. ‘That makes sense.’
‘Let’s just be thorough here, okay.’
Ferreira returned to her own desk, finding that the PM results had come in while she was away. As she opened the file Zigic emerged from his office and went over to the board.
‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘PM results are in and we’re looking at blunt force trauma, as expected. More tests to be run and they might show something interesting, but for now this is the cause of death on Josh Ainsworth.’ He reached into the file he’d brought with him and stuck up a photo of the death wounds. ‘At least ten distinct blows all on the right side of his head, concentrated on the temple, eye and cheek area. One or two would likely have proved fatal.’
‘Overkill,’ Weller murmured.
Ferreira had the same image open on her screen and she realised how little she’d taken on board at the crime scene. Now, beyond the shock of the violence, she could see the telltale signs of a body that had lain for days, the discoloration of Ainsworth’s skin, the dark tracery of blood going bad in the veins of his face and neck.
‘What about his broken nose?’ she asked. ‘It says here the break is inconsistent with the murder weapon. So, a first punch to put him down?’
‘But he didn’t fight back at that point?’ Parr said, perplexed. ‘Why didn’t he try and defend himself then, before it escalated?’
‘Shock?’ Bloom offered.
‘Or it was a sweet shot and he didn’t get a chance,’ Weller suggested, a hint of admiration in his voice.
‘Approximate time of death late Saturday night early Sunday morning,’ Ferreira read out loud. ‘That matches what we’re getting anyway.’
Zigic had tacked another photo up on the board – the table leg.
‘This is our murder weapon.’
‘Heat of the moment, then,’ Parr piped up, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.
‘It’s manslaughter, right?’ Weller asked.
‘We’ll worry about that when we find who did it,’ Zigic said impatiently.
He wasn’t impressed with Weller either, Ferreira thought. Had probably noticed, the same as she had, that he was quick with his commentary and slow to offer anything useful.
‘We have defence wounds,’ Zigic went on, adding a photograph of Ainsworth’s hands, his broken fingers bent sickly out of alignment. ‘Nothing that suggests he managed to get any blows of his own in, so don’t expect to see injuries on his murderer. This was him putting his hands up and getting them broken, nothing more.’
One more photo went up, of the underside of Ainsworth’s fingers and palms. ‘These wounds are another matter.’
Ferreira found it in the file, magnified it on screen.
‘These are old,’ she said, looking at the line of parallel holes stabbed into Ainsworth’s skin across his palm. Four on his left hand, five on his right; a ruler next to them gave spacing at 2.5 cm, the holes themselves barely 3 mm.
‘They were made several days before his death,’ Zigic said. ‘The coroner won’t commit to a cause, but they’re distinctive and we need to keep these marks in mind.’ He tapped the photograph. ‘Any thoughts?’
Weller blew out a noisy breath, lips smacking against each other.
‘Ainsworth was a cyclist, wasn’t he?’ Bloom asked. ‘Maybe they’re from some kind of bike maintenance? Could he have done it on the spokes or the chain perhaps?’
Zigic frowned and Ferreira could see him wanting to be encouraging even as he was going to shoot her theory down. ‘Good thought, but I don’t think you’d see multiple wounds on both hands under those circumstances.’
‘Torture?’ Weller asked.
Parr let out a derisory snort of laughter, more for the hopeful tone Weller had used than the suggestion, Ferreira thought. They did see instances of torture, very occasionally, but it was usually in the context of sexual or domestic violence, or carried out to obtain financial details during robberies.
‘I doubt he was tortured several days before his death without reporting it, do you?’ Zigic asked,
