‘You accept that’s an option, then?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, of course I do,’ Adams said with a shrug. ‘But let’s come back to that. Or –’
‘Because you understand what’s going to happen if we find evidence of coercion?’
Adams glared at him. ‘I understood it the second I read the fucking file, same as you did.’
Zigic nodded for him to continue.
‘Second, better option: Cooper wasn’t quite the full ticket and maybe he was obsessed with Tessa and maybe he somehow, in his confused, not particularly sharp mind, convinced himself he did kill her.’ Adams was trying to sell the idea too hard because nobody who’d looked over the file would ever buy it. ‘We don’t know, maybe he’d thought about killing her before? Maybe all that got jumbled up in his head and then she’s dead and he feels guilty and he can’t tell reality from imagination any more.’
Zigic wiped his mouth on a paper napkin, pushed the empty plate aside.
‘You just inhaled that butty, mate. Anna not feeding you?’
‘We need to cut out this second option rubbish,’ Zigic said firmly. ‘Because if we’re going to pursue this we need to be honest with ourselves about the potential consequences.’
All the jitteriness flooded back into Adams.
And Zigic could understand it. He’d felt the same surge of anxiety and adrenaline when he opened the file and saw DCS Riggott’s name all over it. DCI Riggott back then. Leading an investigation that went high profile instantly, under pressure to get a fast and clean result before people started asking too many questions about the safety of women and girls in the city. Before they started drawing the conclusion that falling police numbers were endangering them and everyone else.
Riggott’s reputation had always been that of an officer who knew how to get a conviction. Tough, they said. Sharp. Not above bending the rules when it was necessary.
But even twenty years ago the rules were strict enough that you could only bend them so far. Whatever Riggott might have been morally capable of, the station should have held him in check.
Theoretically.
‘If Riggott finds out we’re sniffing around one of his old cases …’
‘I know,’ Adams said uneasily. ‘But that doesn’t mean we stop. We just need to tread carefully for a bit.’ He straightened up where he sat, regathered himself. ‘No point poking the bear until we have to, right?’
‘We can only go so far before we start making noise,’ Zigic pointed out. ‘Not very far at all.’
‘You’d be surprised how much you can achieve off-book.’
Zigic shook his head at Adams, wondered if it was bravado or naïveté. ‘We’ve got a couple of days, tops, before someone leaks this to Riggott.’
‘Better make them count then, Ziggy.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Back to Long Fleet.
No preamble this time. Minimal niceties.
Straight into the governor’s office where the air conditioning was running full blast, creating a distracting background hum and rippling the fronds of the fern James Hammond had placed on the corner of his desk. Its leaves had been recently misted, the smell of damp soil in the air, along with the smoked fishiness of lapsang souchong, which always made Ferreira gag.
Hammond took it in a china cup and saucer, which sat on a dainty silver tray. The sparkling glass teapot next to them functioned like a stink bomb.
Ferreira chose the seat furthest away from it, noticing Zigic wrinkle his nose as he moved in to sit.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Tell us about the woman who Joshua Ainsworth attacked.’
Hammond chewed on it for a few seconds, an over-deep frown wrinkling his chin and cutting a line between his fine blond eyebrows. He’d been expecting the question, Ferreira realised with a start.
‘We didn’t entirely believe the accusation.’ Hammond reached out to straighten his pen and the notepad he’d ripped a page off and binned as they walked in. ‘But given the potential for negative press, we thought it was better to err on the side of caution and suggest Josh resigned.’
‘You need transparency for negative press,’ Ferreira said.
‘Why would Ainsworth agree to resign if he was being falsely accused?’ Zigic asked, his attention fixed firmly on Hammond.
‘I think he was coming naturally to the end of his time here,’ Hammond said. ‘It wasn’t how any of us would have chosen to lose him, but we gave him a glowing reference and a respectable severance package.’
‘Is that how you deal with all your accused sex offenders?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Burnish their CV and give them a bucket of cash?’
Hammond glared at her. ‘As I said, Sergeant Ferreira, I didn’t believe the accusation had merit.’
‘Did you explain that to Ainsworth?’
He shook his head. ‘That would just have complicated matters.’
‘It must have been very confusing to him then,’ Zigic suggested.
Hammond cupped his hands in front of him on the desk. ‘He wasn’t happy about the resignation request, no. He denied the accusation vehemently. He was absolutely mortified to have that said about him after everything that had happened here under the previous regime.’ Hammond sighed. ‘Perversely, I think that made it an easier decision for him. He’d given a lot to this place; as he saw it, he’d been instrumental in making our ladies safer, and then one of them made this accusation about him. I think, possibly, he felt there was a lack of gratitude from them. And, probably, from me, because he didn’t receive immediate, unequivocal support.’ For a moment he looked queasy. ‘But when an accusation is made, I have to investigate it whether I believe it has merit or not.’
It didn’t make sense, Ferreira thought. A spotless track record derailed by one accusation. An accusation that Hammond claimed he didn’t trust.
‘Had there been any other accusations against him in the past?’
‘No, none. As I told you on your last visit, he was very well liked.’
Zigic scratched his beard. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hammond, but this doesn’t make much sense. You believed Ainsworth was innocent and yet you sacked him –’
‘Asked him to resign.’
‘Semantics don’t really figure here,’
