‘Lots of people’s first crime is murder.’
‘No, the first crime we hear about is murder.’ She stood between him and the door, blocking his route to the office, not ready to give up yet. ‘You know as well as I do that violent behaviour doesn’t emerge out of nowhere; it’s built up to over years and the only reason anyone believes otherwise is because they don’t see all the shit we do.’
Voices rose up the stairwell, footsteps underneath them.
‘The Paggetts have been engaging in criminal activity for over a decade,’ Ferreira insisted. ‘They have systematically targeted companies and groups and individuals who offend their sense of morality. Is it so unbelievable that the fliers they sent to Ainsworth were opening gambits in a longer game?’
Two uniformed officers came up the stairs and Ferreira grudgingly stepped aside to let them through the door, stepped smartly back in front of it before Zigic could go through as well. She didn’t want to have this conversation in front of the rest of the team, he realised.
‘They’d been hanging around Ainsworth’s house,’ she said. ‘We’ve got them down the end of Ruth Garner’s back garden. Doesn’t that concern you at all?’
It did, but he was reluctant to admit that when she had such a fiery look in her eye.
‘Why do you think they were doing that?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Intimidation?’ she asked. ‘Worrying if it’s that, right? Scouting out their households for some reason? Even more worrying, given that we have a bludgeoned corpse on our hands. Or maybe they’re looking to move to a quieter village. Do we think that’s feasible?’
‘Mel –’
‘And weren’t they eager to distract us with another suspect?’
‘Mel – I already said, yes, alright? But don’t let yourself get derailed by this. We have enough else to do.’
‘I won’t get derailed,’ she said stiffly.
He reached for the door and she moved away, heading back to the stairs they’d just come down.
‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.
‘To see Kate.’
‘Do not tell her to run that test,’ he warned, trying to make it sound like a joke.
‘I need to sort out a time for drinks.’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Jesus, you don’t trust me at all, do you?’
He didn’t. Not when she had the bit between her teeth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Zigic kept one eye on Ferreira’s desk as he got on with the paperwork that had accumulated during the day, waiting for her to come back up from forensics, sure he’d be able to read the guilt on her face if she did go ahead and order the test.
Who arranged drinks in person rather than over text? She had a phone. Her calendar was on it.
He took a sip of his coffee, recoiled when he realised it was actually tea. He’d been trying to cut down on caffeine but was hating every moment of it. There was something in the station’s pipes he was sure. Something that made the water taste faintly stale and metallic, left a nasty tang that only the strongest, blackest coffee could cover.
When he glanced up from his screen a few minutes later, he saw DCS Riggott standing by Ainsworth’s board with Parr, absorbed in a conversation that was clearly unrelated to the case. Parr laughing at whatever Riggott was saying.
Riggott’s presence always seemed to sharpen up activity on the floor. The youngest officers wanting to impress him, the longest-serving ones either traumatised by working under him or so thoroughly drilled by his management that the mere sound of his voice would send a bolt up their spine and kick them into a higher gear.
Zigic felt it himself, a clench of muscle memory that went right back to his time as a newly minted detective constable under the then DI Riggott’s wing. He remembered the pride he’d felt when Riggott singled him out for some task on a case, how he’d wanted his approval more than that of any other DIs, how he’d work longer hours, go into more dangerous situations, all for the gift of Riggott’s brief and bluff approval.
It had been Riggott who encouraged him to take the sergeant’s exam, who pushed him on to inspector level when he was just getting comfortable in that role, telling him he was too good to settle at some middling rank. Riggott who’d handed him the Hate Crimes Unit to manage. Insisting his ethnicity had nothing to do with the promotion, pointing out that a dozen other detective inspectors had applied, officers with similar backgrounds to his, ones prepared to move from the other end of the country to be involved in their pioneering experiment.
A failed experiment, Zigic thought glumly.
But Riggott had been supportive while it lasted, managed them with a light touch by his standards, trusting them to get the job done.
Since they’d returned to CID, Riggott’s presence had become more overt and Zigic wasn’t sure if it had been always like this for the rest of the team or if it was something to do with Riggott’s impending retirement. As his career came to a close, he seemed to find himself drawn back to the floor more frequently, sitting in on briefings, dogging the footsteps of his DIs. More than once Zigic had come out of interview rooms to find Riggott had been watching on a monitor, wanting to offer tips on technique.
It was retirement, he decided.
It was only natural that an officer who’d sacrificed so much to the job couldn’t bring himself to let go.
His age was beginning to show on him, decades of sixteen-hour days and sleepless nights, all the drinking and stress and the pincer of pressures that only increased as you moved up the ladder. Fifty-eight but he looked ten years older, the beginning of a stoop visible at his shoulders despite his expensive suit habit, the hint of a bald patch at the crown
