‘Tessa Darby could be Sadie Ryan’s sister,’ Adams said. ‘She’s in intensive care, by the way. In case you hadn’t heard. Overdosed after she found out Walton was on the street.’ He gestured at Zigic. ‘Just so you appreciate the stakes here.’
‘I appreciate the stakes,’ Zigic said coldly. ‘You’re not the only person who worked that case. It’s not your special preserve to care about it.’
Adams just nodded at him, a look in his eye that was almost admiring, and Zigic silently cursed himself for rising to the bait.
‘Can I go on now?’ Wahlia asked. ‘So, we’re not only looking at Walton’s victim type but she was also strangled –’
‘Which we know he’s a fan of too,’ Adams interjected.
‘Was she raped?’ Zigic asked.
Wahlia shook his head. ‘No sign of sexual activity.’
‘This is likely to be Walton’s first victim,’ Adams said quickly, because he knew this deviation from Walton’s MO was a stumbling block almost as big as the fact that another man had confessed to the crime. ‘We see this a lot when serial predators start out. First time, they can’t perform or they don’t even totally understand that the aggressive impulse they’re feeling is sexual. So we just get murder from him this time.’
‘Say you’re right about all of that,’ Zigic said, looking at Tessa Darby’s photograph. ‘You still have a confession, which you’re prepared to disregard just because we need to send Walton down again. And I get it, we do need that. But I don’t think this is the case.’
Adams turned to Wahlia. ‘Give us a minute will you, mate.’
‘Sure.’
As Bobby closed the door behind him, Adams leaned across the desk, elbows on his paperwork.
‘You want to know what the full stakes are here, Ziggy?’ he asked, with a studied calm. ‘Walton was outside Mel’s flat last night. He was waiting for her when she came home.’
The news hit him like a blow.
All day she’d been carrying that and going on with work like usual, and he hadn’t even seen it.
‘Is she okay?’
‘She’s fine. He didn’t do anything, he just wants to know where his girlfriend and kid are and he thinks Mel can tell him.’
‘You need to go to Riggott with this right now.’
Adams threw his hands up. ‘And what do you think he’s going to do about it? Walton hasn’t committed an offence. Even if he goes back there every night for a year, it’s only going to be considered stalking and you know how that goes.’ He stabbed his finger at Zigic. ‘No, we need to deal with him.’
‘By pinning a murder on him?’ Zigic asked, incredulous. ‘Are you listening to yourself? This is insanity. Someone confessed. And even if you’re right and Walton did kill that girl, and we can prove it, how long’s that going to take? Meanwhile he’s out there stalking Mel. We need to tell Riggott.’
‘And what if it was your wife he was coming after?’ Adams growled. ‘Wouldn’t you want to take care of the problem yourself?’
For a surreal moment Zigic thought he was proposing a more radical solution. Half expected him to take a couple of balaclavas out of his desk drawer.
Adams wasn’t shy of violence. A few years back he’d shot a suspect dead as the man held a gun to Zigic’s head, and the killing didn’t seem to faze Adams one bit. He holidayed on his forced leave, strutted back into work like the hero the whole station thought he was. And Zigic was grateful for his cold-bloodedness in the instant, but he knew that if it had happened the other way around, he wouldn’t have been able to brush off the guilt so quickly.
If he’d do that for a fellow officer he didn’t much like, how far would Adams go to protect his girlfriend?
Zigic moved towards the door. ‘I’m talking to Riggott.’
Adams darted over and dragged him back, stronger than he looked, propelled by the fear and anger so intensely drawn on his face that Zigic didn’t fight him.
‘Mel’s staying at mine. She won’t be on her own,’ Adams said. ‘I can protect her.’
Could he?
‘Let’s give it a few days, alright?’ Adams moved into negotiating mode and Zigic realised then just how desperate he was. ‘See if there’s any play in this Tessa Darby case. You know Bobby’s got good instincts. This could be all we need.’
Zigic felt himself softening slightly. Because he knew Adams was right, that they weren’t going to stop Walton with a friendly warning. He’d been attacking women with impunity for years. Been in and out of the interview rooms, always ready with an alibi, delivered in such a way as to make it clear to them that not only was it a lie, but that he knew they knew it and they couldn’t do a thing to get his girlfriend to retract it. And now he’d escaped prison he would be feeling invincible.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Give me the file.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ferreira was beginning to feel a twinge of guilt about the tedious nature of the work she was dumping on Parr and Bloom, as a day largely spent on the soul-sapping, eyeball-drying work of watching CCTV footage had now become two days, only broken by an occasional stint sifting through phone records or credit card statements.
As she watched them from across the office, she thought it might be a good idea to take them out to the pub at the end of shift. Colleen as well, who was taking an afternoon tea break and swiping through profile pics on Tinder, doing it so slowly that Ferreira suspected she was actually giving each one full consideration. A few drinks would do her good, a bit of karaoke, which Colleen harboured a not-so-secret love for. As well as a set of lungs that could sandblast the paint off a boat.
But as she was mentally running through the options of where to go, she realised she wouldn’t
