Nobody wanted to go out like this, though. To leave under a cloud of failure, or worse, suspicion.
How many more reputational hits could their station take?
‘If you want out you can go,’ Adams said. ‘It’s not your fight anyway.’
The statement felt loaded. Zigic couldn’t help but wonder why Ferreira hadn’t said anything to him about Walton. All the silent car journeys the last couple of days, all the times she could have asked for his help or at least his advice.
Why didn’t she trust him with this? After all the time they’d known each other.
Was it because she realised Walton was a problem you had to deal with by bending the rules to breaking point? That she didn’t think he had the nerve or the sense of loyalty to do that? She knew Adams did though, trusted him to do whatever dirty work was necessary.
And she was right.
Assuming she knew what he was planning, Zigic thought.
‘How much does Mel know about all this?’
‘She doesn’t,’ Adams said firmly. ‘And she’s not going to.’
‘If you think she likes being kept in the dark, then you don’t know her very well.’
Adams cocked his head. ‘Think I know her a bit better than you do, mate.’
‘You don’t think it might put her mind at ease knowing something’s being done about Walton?’
‘I dunno. Do you feel particularly zen right now?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ferreira didn’t expect Patrick Sutherland to actually answer his phone, was poised to leave a message when his voice cut in with the kind of wary hello a call from an unknown number merited.
‘Dr Sutherland, this is DS Ferreira, we spoke a couple of days ago.’
‘Of course, yes. I remember,’ he said, sounding vaguely harassed, but she supposed there were very few moments of respite in Long Fleet’s medical bay. ‘Is there something I can help with?’
‘I was wondering if you could come into the station,’ she said. ‘There are some photographs I need you to look at. People who were hanging around Josh’s house. We think they might be have been targeting other staff members.’
‘Is this the couple you showed me before?’ he asked.
‘No, other people,’ Ferreira said.
There were no other people, but she would find some images and pack a file thick with them, to distract him while she primed him for the real questions she wanted to ask. About Josh Ainsworth and the allegation against him and why exactly he’d kept so tight-lipped when they first questioned him.
Sutherland would cite the NDAs and contract she was sure.
But away from Long Fleet, under the jurisdiction of a higher law, she felt confident that she could bring Patrick Sutherland around.
‘Is after my shift okay?’ he asked. ‘It’ll be around seven. Or I could manage Saturday morning if that’s easier for you. I don’t want to keep you there late on my behalf.’
‘I’m here until the day’s done,’ Ferreira told him. ‘Seven’s fine.’
‘It’s a date then.’ He swore, apologised. ‘I forgot who I was talking to there. Sorry. I’m going to hang up now and be embarrassed in private.’
He ended the call and Ferreira shook her head, smiling as she replaced the receiver. It never ceased to amaze her how flustered people got on the phone to a police officer. She’d lost count of the amount of people who had accidentally ended a call with ‘love you, bye’.
Her mobile rang – Parr.
‘Another one with a rock-solid alibi,’ he said.
‘Which one?’ Ferreira asked, getting up and going over to the board where the names of three of the guards she’d despatched them to chase up were already crossed out.
One dead, one emigrated to New Zealand and a third mid-Caribbean cruise.
‘His ex-wife was still at the address we have,’ Parr told her. ‘I couldn’t get away from the woman. She’s not bloody happy, not one bit.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Doing three years inside for beating up some old boy after a Luton Town match. That’s when she decided to divorce him.’
‘Not when he got sacked from Long Fleet?’
Ferreira struck through his name.
‘No, that was all lies according to the ex.’
‘Loyal to the last.’
‘He was always a perfect gentleman apparently,’ Parr said, voice deadpan. ‘Anything more from the others?’
‘Not yet.’
He hung up just as the email from James Hammond hit her inbox. Quickly she read through the scant details he’d sent over about the woman who had accused Joshua Ainsworth of attempted rape.
Hammond apologised for the limited information he could give her, blaming data protection rules. Said he hoped it was enough to find her. Ferreira imagined he meant the precise opposite, was giving them the minimum he could so as to look like he was helping the police but not actually assisting.
She opened the attachment to find the barest of bare minimums.
Nadia Afua Baidoo’s last known address and that of the hostel they had delivered her to on her release. The dates of her stay at Long Fleet but nothing about the time she was there.
Nothing about her accusation against Joshua Ainsworth.
Ferreira called Hammond’s office.
‘Sorry, Mr Hammond is in meetings all afternoon and absolutely cannot be disturbed,’ the woman on the other end said. She didn’t ask for a name or offer to take a message, just put the phone down.
Acting on Hammond’s orders, Ferreira guessed. He was smart enough to know his email would warrant an immediate follow-up.
They’d get nothing more from him.
She printed the photo of Nadia Afua Baidoo and stuck it up in the persons-of-interest column, feeling a slight twinge as she did it, but the woman had a motive, and the sympathy Ferreira felt for her didn’t change that.
The photograph would have been taken when she was processed into Long Fleet, showed her stunned and fearful. She was nineteen but the shock had rendered her even younger-looking, clear-skinned and big-eyed, a ripple around her chin that suggested she’d
