‘Billy told me what you’re doing,’ she said, staring across at him, eyes wide and unblinking. ‘With Walton’s case.’
Zigic said nothing, almost certain that she was fishing. She knew they were looking into potential new charges, knew the two of them had been out all day yesterday doing something, but he doubted Adams had come clean about it. He was too worried about the repercussions. There was a dubious kind of machismo in play with him, Zigic thought, keeping Ferreira and Murray out of the proceedings, as if the little women needed protecting.
Or maybe not machismo exactly. Adams would probably consider it chivalrous.
But Zigic didn’t want anyone else to jeopardise their career over this.
‘Why are you angry about it?’ he asked instead.
‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said, slowing down to let a pheasant cross the road ahead of them. ‘Did you want to be more involved?’
She let out a snort of laughter.
‘You’re going to play innocent, are you?’
‘Mel, I don’t know what to tell you.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re looking into a potential case but honestly, I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. As much as your boyfriend would like it to stick.’
He spotted the low bulk of Long Fleet Immigration Removal Centre in the distance and accelerated towards it, as if he could leave this conversation behind them.
He hated lying to her and she knew that.
‘Billy’s scared,’ she said. ‘And if he feels that way then you’re doing something really stupid.’
Zigic didn’t answer, told himself it was only a couple more days, then this whole ugly mess would come to a head and everything would be out in the open, one way or another.
She muttered something under her breath and turned away, watching the fields whipping by.
At the edge of the village, he slowed again, passing the green where the crime scene tape was still tacked up over Joshua Ainsworth’s front door. A couple were unloading their car in front of number 8, another weekend rental beginning, and he wondered if they were horrified to find themselves next to a crime scene or secretly thrilled. The husband was talking to the postman, pointing at number 6, and he guessed they’d be getting the full story already.
He turned down the lane where Ruth Garner lived. The houses here were wider spaced and set further back from the road. Simple red-brick cottages in pairs and a few detached places in among them, with caravans on driveways and cars parked on the road. Her house was the last on the lane, with a large garden that gave on to pastureland, where a couple of horses stood huddled under the only tree to get out of the morning sun.
‘You lead,’ he said, as they got out of the car.
‘Because I actually know who we’re talking about,’ Ferreira said sharply.
He let it go. He should have been working the case with her so he supposed he’d earned the jibe.
She knocked on the front door and when there was no answer, they headed off around the side of the house.
They found Ruth Garner sitting on a bench in the back garden, drinking a cup of tea, the remnants of her breakfast being fought over by a few birds that scattered as their footsteps rang out across the uneven paving.
She started when she saw them.
‘Sorry,’ Ferreira said. ‘We did knock.’
‘I shouldn’t be talking to you,’ Ruth said, gathering up her plate and mug and going into the kitchen.
But she didn’t shut them out, so they followed her inside. Stood until she offered them a seat, her good manners overcoming her discomfort.
‘You know I can’t tell you anything else,’ she said, leaning back against the butler’s sink, arms wrapped around her abdomen. ‘My contract – I just can’t.’
‘We’re only looking for some background,’ Ferreira said smoothly. ‘Nothing you say’s going to get back to Hammond or the company.’
Ruth still look wary.
‘Do you remember a former inmate called Nadia Baidoo?’ Ferreira went on. ‘She was released about seven weeks ago.’
‘I was on sabbatical seven weeks ago, I already told you that.’
‘Nadia was brought to Long Fleet June last year,’ Ferreira said, bringing out a photograph of the young woman. ‘Did you have any contact with her between that time and your sabbatical?’
Reluctantly Ruth came over to the table, picked the photograph up and gave it a quick glance before putting it down again and returning to her post against the sink.
‘I remember Nadia, yes,’ she said. ‘Nice girl, very quiet, very patient. I remember being surprised that she was in there because I thought she was English when I first met her. But then I found out she’d been over here since was she small so she is English really, in any way that matters.’ She shook her head. ‘Not the way that matters at Long Fleet, obviously.’
‘Did she have medical problems?’ Ferreira asked.
‘I can’t discuss that with you, sorry.’
‘She was coming into the medical bay, though?’
Ruth nodded.
‘Who treated her?’
‘All of us at various times.’
‘But who predominantly?’
‘Well, Patrick and Joshua, of course,’ Ruth said with a shrug. ‘Look, I’m sorry but why are you asking about Nadia?’
‘Did Nadia ever mention a boyfriend to you?’ Ferreira said, ignoring the question.
Ruth was silent for a moment, as if weighing the possibility of insisting on getting her own answer first.
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘What about family?’
‘We didn’t really have those kinds of conversations,’ Ruth said. ‘But I know her mother was the only family she had in England and she’d passed away. The rest of her family were in Ghana, but I got the impression she wasn’t very close to them.’
‘Who was Nadia close to at Long Fleet?’ she asked.
‘I couldn’t tell you that, sorry.’
‘Because of your contract?’
‘No, because I don’t know,’ Ruth said, getting testy now.
They were drawing closer, Zigic thought. He saw the shift in her body language, how she hunched her shoulders and spread her weight between her feet as if she was steeling herself for where she assumed the conversation was heading.
‘We really don’t see very
