Walton was there last night, was she expecting another showing tonight?
She was staying with Adams now though and he hoped that would deter Walton from approaching her again. Part of him, the most cynical and dispirited part, suspected Walton saw little threat in Adams. Men who attacked women were frequently comfortable using violence against men, too. And Adams would hardly be an intimidating prospect to someone like Walton. Three inches shorter, fifteen kilos lighter, and for all his attitude Zigic wasn’t sure how useful Adams would be in a fight.
Violence was ever-present when you were in uniform, but once you moved into plain clothes the chances of being attacked were rare and you usually had enough backup in place to ensure the first punch thrown was also the last. You got out of the habit of defending yourself. Began to talk down aggressive suspects rather than steaming into them.
Zigic realised he hadn’t been injured in the line of duty for four or five years now. Then immediately cursed himself for thinking that, as if he was jinxing himself. The last time it had happened Ferreira had pulled him out of harm’s way, gone wading back into the fray with her face wild and her baton swinging.
She was well capable of taking care of herself, that was why he found this nervous air she was carrying so disconcerting.
Parr was looking expectantly at him. Bloom and Weller too.
‘Alright, let’s call it a day,’ he said.
They gathered their things quickly, just in case he changed his mind, and hurried out of the office.
‘Briefing at eight,’ he shouted at their retreating backs.
‘I think we broke them,’ Ferreira said, opening and immediately closing a patisserie box that had appeared next to the coffee machine sometime during the afternoon.
‘You should get off, too.’
She waved towards Adams’s office. ‘I’m going to wait for that one.’
‘Are you …’
She looked sharply at him, a warning in her eyes but he was going to say it.
He moved closer to her, aware of the few stray officers still in their seats nearby.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, in a low voice. ‘With all this Walton stuff?’
‘He told you,’ she said, nodding to herself.
‘Of course he did. I don’t know why you didn’t tell me yourself.’
‘It’s under control.’ Her jaw set hard and she reached for the coffee pot, pouring the last of it into her FC Porto mug. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
He wanted to say more, tell her he was there for her if she wanted to talk about it, if she needed anything, but he’d waited too long, he realised, picked the wrong venue. She wouldn’t talk here, not with the eavesdroppers at the surrounding desks, would hate the idea of looking weak in front of them.
And maybe she just didn’t want to involve him, he thought, surprised to find himself wounded by the rejection.
Zigic drove home still thinking about Walton, experiencing a rising sense of anger that he had dared go to Ferreira’s home. Out of prison a matter of days and his only thought was threatening her into revealing the whereabouts of his girlfriend and son. He’d put those thoughts aside since Adams had told him about it, but they had festered at the back of his mind and now he found himself even more determined to see Walton locked up again. If he was arrogant enough to go after a police officer, what wouldn’t he do?
The house was empty when he got home.
He went into the rare quiet and stillness, feeling slightly adrift as he moved through the rooms. Anna had taken the children out for the day with her mother, to some model village she’d visited as a child and was sure they’d love. He’d half expected them to be back by now, texted her to check they were all okay and got a reply a few minutes later as he was stripping off in the bedroom. They’d stopped off for dinner, would be back in a few hours, she said.
He showered and dressed, went into the kitchen and drank a cold beer while he hunted for something to eat in the fridge. Finally, he gave up and ordered a takeaway, exploiting this rare opportunity to indulge without Anna judging him for it. While he waited he went out into the garden and watered the boys’ little vegetable patch, finding the tomatoes ripening nicely but the lettuces wilting.
You could have made a salad from them, the virtuous voice in his head suggested, but it was too late for that now and it would be worse to waste the pizza he’d ordered. Especially since it had three different meats on.
When it arrived half an hour later, he realised he’d made the right call. He ate two-thirds of it and then carefully hid the evidence of his small culinary crime at the very bottom of the bin. Even under the rubbish the leftovers smelled amazing, and if he’d had a couple more beers, he might have been tempted to dig the box out again.
There was no more avoiding it, he thought, as he closed the bin lid. The job he should have done in the office but didn’t, because it felt wrong to turn away from the investigation into Joshua Ainsworth’s murder. Or if he was honest with himself, because he wanted this to be right so badly that he was deferring the possibility of finding out it wasn’t.
He put a pot of coffee on and opened the file Adams had given him about Tessa Darby’s murder.
DAY FOUR
FRIDAY AUGUST 10TH
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Zigic woke up on the sofa, head bent at an awkward angle against the arm, shoulders aching and his left foot numb. His phone was ringing on the coffee table, hidden under the case file he’d been reading.
As he unstuck his eyes, he saw Milan sitting on the floor in front of the television, cartoons playing muted with the subtitles running. He’d made himself a tray of breakfast:
