Seeing how Damien’s eyes fixed on the camera set high in the corner as Ferreira prepared the tapes, he decided it was most likely fear at work.
Damien picked at the front of his T-shirt, the pink cotton sweaty and sticking to his skin, even though the room was relatively cool. Zigic wondered how he’d managed to survive a decade of protests and arrests, how he’d managed to keep it together when they cut their way through fences and snuck up on people’s houses to vandalise their cars and throw blood on their front doors.
Had Michaela been the driving force? Did she wind him up and set him off, or was it simply that without her at his shoulder he couldn’t properly function? There was always a boss in any criminal partnership, always a sidekick. And usually, when you isolated the latter from the person who provided the brains and the backbone, they cracked.
Ferreira led again, asked the same questions they’d run through with Michaela Paggett about the specifics of their alibi and the conversation with the neighbour at the barbecue.
He gave the same answers. Not word for word but close enough that Zigic suspected they had decided to get their stories straight in readiness for this eventuality.
The kidnapping plan was a joke, he insisted. Just talk. Like you talk about selling everything up and going travelling around the world. Something you would never do.
‘Plenty of people sell up and go travelling,’ Ferreira said. ‘Less actually go through with a kidnapping but the ones who manage it tend to spend a good while on the planning. Just like you have.’
Damien buried his face in his hands and rubbed it until his cheeks were red. He was already jittery, his knees jiggling under the table and his gaze flitting around the room. Every answer he gave was addressed to the walls or the ceiling or the centre of the table between them.
‘We’ve got your DNA inside Josh Ainsworth’s house, Damien,’ Ferreira reminded him.
‘I’m not denying that we’re the ones who made the fliers.’
‘But you were so scrupulous with them,’ Ferreira said, playing up her confusion. ‘I mean, you didn’t leave a single fingerprint anywhere on them, so we know you were wearing gloves – why would you do that?’
‘Because you have my fingerprints on record,’ he admitted, squirming in his chair.
‘And why would you suppose we’d ever fingerprint the fliers?’
He shrugged one narrow shoulder. ‘I just thought I should be careful.’
‘There’s nothing illegal about putting fliers through someone’s door,’ Ferreira said. ‘So, why would we be checking them for fingerprints?’
He didn’t answer.
‘The only explanation I can see is that you were planning to do something much more serious to Josh Ainsworth, and you didn’t want the fliers to tie back to you.’
‘No,’ he said determinedly. ‘That isn’t what happened. We were worried about being sued for libel.’
Ferreira laughed. ‘Libel? Come on, Damien. You two broke into a fur farm and released a hundred mink. You’re telling me you had the confidence to do that but you were worried about a libel charge?’
‘We were younger then,’ he said, eyes fixed on one of the crushed bottles. ‘We were stupid.’
‘You’re hardly smart now. You’ve been seen hanging around Josh Ainsworth’s house, you’ve made threats, you’ve harassed him. And now we’ve got evidence of you planning to kidnap a member of Long Fleet staff just hours before he was murdered.’ Ferreira tapped her fingertips against the table. ‘What happened, Damien? You got all drunk and pumped up and decided to take a stand?’
‘No.’
‘You thought a doctor would be easier to take down, we know that. But when you got to Josh’s house, you found out he was stronger than you were expecting.’ Ferreira’s voice was soft with regret and understanding, pitched just right. ‘He put up a fight, things got messy and he falls and hits his head. Is that it?’
‘No,’ Damien said, finally looking at her. ‘None of that happened. I’m not a violent person. I believe in direct action but that doesn’t include violence. If we act like that we’re no better than they are.’
‘You think Josh Ainsworth was a bad person?’ Ferreira asked.
‘I know he was,’ Damien said sternly.
‘Because he worked in Long Fleet? He was a doctor, Damien. Those women need medical care and he was in there trying to help them. Josh Ainsworth was not your enemy, he was your ally. And if you’d taken the time to actually speak to him instead of bombarding him with hate mail, you would have found that out for yourself.’
A wry smile lit his face briefly. ‘Ruby tell you all that, did she?’
‘She was his friend,’ Ferreira said, opening her hands up wide. ‘I’d say she knew him better than you did.’
He nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, okay, right.’
Zigic could see how desperate he was to be prompted and guessed Ferreira could too and that was why she sat back in her chair and made a show of picking something non-existent off her trouser leg.
‘Have you talked to any of the women who left Long Fleet?’ Damien glanced at Zigic and then back to Ferreira, the skin around his eyes tight, nostrils lifted by disgust. ‘No? You didn’t think that might be important? You just talked to a bunch of people who all thought Ainsworth was God’s gift.’
‘Is this your defence?’ Ferreira asked flatly. ‘You’re going to tell us Josh Ainsworth was a piece of shit and he deserved everything you did to him?’
‘We didn’t touch him,’ Damien said. ‘But he did deserve what he got and fair play to whoever did it. You’ve seen the fliers we sent him, where do you think we got that stuff from? Do you think we just made it up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ainsworth was not a good guy.’
Ferreira rolled her eyes theatrically and Zigic felt the same impulse, seeing where this was going. Damien Paggett trying to draw them away onto
