‘It’s no secret I didn’t like Ainsworth much. We didn’t get on and he said some hurtful and untrue things about me, but I’m sorry about what happened to him.’
As hard as he was trying to keep it together, Zigic could still see the old wounds were troubling Saunders.
‘And what exactly about his allegations were untrue?’ Ferreira asked.
He looked around them again, wanting to be sure there was no audience.
‘Alright, so I said some things that I shouldn’t have. But it was just banter.’
‘It was hate speech,’ Ferreira told him. ‘As an ex-copper you know the distinction, so don’t come the fucking innocent with us.’
‘I wasn’t abusive,’ he said angrily. ‘I wasn’t like some of them. I didn’t force myself on anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. I just made a few comments where I shouldn’t have.’ He was directing all of this to Zigic, picking him for the sympathetic ear. ‘Christ, you can’t say anything any more without someone jumping down your throat.’
‘You weren’t just saying “anything”,’ Ferreira reminded him. ‘You were using grossly offensive racial slurs and threatening language towards highly vulnerable women in your care.’ She stabbed a finger at him. ‘And we saw you bursting into those women’s rooms, Saunders. We know exactly what you are.’
Saunders took half a step towards her and Zigic saw what Ainsworth must have seen in him. How thin the veneer of decency was, how warped and cracked.
Easy to imagine this man snapping. Picking up a table leg and battering Joshua to death with it.
‘I never abused anyone,’ he growled. ‘Why the hell would I want to touch one of them?’
Zigic watched him realise what he’d said a split second after the words left his mouth, saw annoyance but no shame. He could have punched him but instead caught hold of Ferreira’s arm as she made for the man, spitting a Portuguese curse at him.
Saunders’s face flushed and he moved away from her, pointedly averting his eyes.
‘Maybe my behaviour was less than perfect but I’m not dangerous,’ he said, speaking more slowly now, guarding himself against further accusations. ‘Unlike Saint Joshua. You’re looking for who killed him? You might want to start with the woman he attacked.’
Ferreira snorted. ‘This is seriously how you want to defend yourself?’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t need to defend myself.’
‘Ainsworth cost you your job. You really do need to defend yourself, Saunders.’
‘Where were you Saturday evening?’ Zigic asked.
‘Works’ bowling night. People can vouch for me if you need that. But I’m telling you, I never touched Ainsworth.’
‘We do need that.’
Ferreira took down the names he gave, their numbers. The temporary lull should have taken the wind out of his sails, but Zigic heard him becoming more irritated with each string of numbers he read from his phone, and he knew Ferreira heard it too because she kept asking him to repeat them, reading them back to him with mistakes he was sure she wasn’t making.
‘Did they tell you why Ainsworth quit?’ Saunders asked, as he slipped his phone into his pocket. ‘Probably gave you the old “resigned with stress” line, right?’
‘The same as you gave when you left Thorpe Wood,’ Ferreira said.
‘I was stressed,’ he insisted. ‘How long’s it been since you got your little hands dirty? You’ve got no idea what it’s like for us lot on the front line.’
Ferreira just smirked at him, satisfied that she’d hit a sore spot.
Saunders visibly gathered himself, looked to Zigic again, still believing he was the receptive one. All boys together, Zigic thought. That was what Saunders was accustomed to and he couldn’t envisage any man not wanting to play the game.
‘You don’t believe me about Ainsworth, fine.’ He shrugged, wounded. ‘Talk to the governor. Ask him about the “resignation”.’
‘Everyone we’ve spoken to says that same thing about Ainsworth,’ Zigic said. ‘Everyone apart from you. And you are not a reliable witness. You’re a suspect.’
They started to walk away and Saunders followed them.
‘I’ve still got mates at Long Fleet,’ he said. ‘Word is one of the girls accused Ainsworth of attacking her. Attempted rape, I heard. Nasty attack.’
‘Who are they?’ Zigic asked, rounding on him. ‘We need names.’
‘They won’t talk to you,’ Saunders said, taking a quick backwards step. ‘They can’t. The contracts we had to sign going in, they’re serious stuff. NDAs, the lot. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this now. They could sue me.’
‘Getting sued is the least of your worries right now,’ Zigic told him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
‘I don’t like this,’ Zigic said finally.
They hadn’t spoken as they left the superstore, except to agree that they both needed a drink. Ferreira suspected he only suggested it in the first place because he wanted to have this conversation away from the office, felt it was something they needed to decide upon between themselves before they returned.
He pulled into the car park of a pub on the Oundle Road, quiet as five o’clock approached, too early for the post-work crowd, too late for anyone else. Only a few older couples taking advantage of the two-courses-for-a-tenner meal deal, sitting facing each other but saying very little, as she’d gone to the bar and ordered their drinks.
Now, outside in the beer garden, settled in the dappled shade of a big old maple tree, alone with the road noise and the birdsong, they could get down to business.
‘He’s lying, right?’ she said, as she rolled a cigarette. ‘He’s got good reason to want us to think Ainsworth was a piece of shit. Just the same as the Paggetts.’
‘And their accusation likely came from seeing his comments online.’
‘Until they can provide us with another source for it, yeah, I think we have to assume so.’ She lit up. ‘I’ve been all through their group’s posts and there’s no hint of an insinuation that Ainsworth was a problem, and I think someone would have mentioned it if they’d heard anything.’
‘Unless it was said
