‘Ainsworth waited until the house was empty then?’
‘I guess.’ But she didn’t sound entirely convinced. ‘Apparently they had a window fitter in the next morning and she went around again to see what had happened – she said they don’t get much trouble here so she was worried if it was the beginning of a spate of break-ins, but I think she’s probably just nosy.’
‘Lucky for us.’
‘Nadia told her they hadn’t taken anything but then the neighbour started warning her about checking they hadn’t got into her bank statements and stuff because of ID fraud and to make sure they hadn’t taken her spare keys, but she said Nadia didn’t want to talk.’
‘What did she know about Nadia?’ Zigic asked.
‘Not much. As far as she’s concerned, Nadia moved in a few weeks ago and they’re a nice quiet couple who don’t annoy her, so …’
‘Perfect neighbours.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did she hear any movement on Saturday night?’
‘She was having an “adult sleepover” at her boyfriend’s place.’ Ferreira rolled her eyes. ‘She actually called it that.’
‘Probably wasn’t comfortable using the term “booty call” to a copper,’ Zigic suggested, earning a wry grin.
‘Or using it at all in 2018.’
‘You’ll be old one day, Mel.’
‘By the time I’m old everyone’ll be sleeping with sex robots and it’ll be called genital interfacing.’
He shook his head at her and headed into the house. They walked through to the back garden where Kate Jenkins stood by the rear fence, suited up, her kit box open.
‘Have you had a look yet?’ Ferreira asked. ‘It has to be how Ainsworth injured himself, right?’
Jenkins twisted her long red hair up and pinned it. ‘Mel, I know you need this to be right and it certainly does look like a good match for his injuries, but I need to do the actual science stuff before I can say that, okay?’
‘The spacing of the wounds looks identical.’
‘It does,’ Kate agreed. ‘But this won’t be the only house in the area that’s using these grips as an anti-burglar device. Not to mention the fact that Ainsworth might have come in contact with another set in a perfectly innocent way.’
‘Is there blood on them?’ Zigic asked her.
‘There’s something that might be blood,’ she said carefully. ‘But I’m looking at the effort they made to cover up evidence inside the house and I’m wondering why they left these here.’
‘They didn’t know he came in over the fence.’ Ferreira was committed to the theory now and Zigic found he agreed with her thinking. ‘He’s hardly bleeding until he gets to the back door. I struggled to follow the track down here and I’m –’
‘A bloodhound?’ Kate asked with a grin.
‘I was going to say a highly trained detective with excellent instincts and sharp eyesight.’
‘So modest,’ Zigic said.
‘My point is, if they were panicking – and they should have been – it’s logical that they concentrated on getting rid of any evidence in the house. Anyone might have seen the blood in there. But by the time you get to the centre of the lawn, there’s almost nothing to see so they failed to follow it to the source.’
Zigic had looked for blood as they came up the garden, hadn’t seen anything but an occasional rusty spot on the buff-coloured gravel, a spatter on some white flowers that might have been a common horticultural affliction for all he knew.
‘What about in the house?’ he asked. ‘Anything jump out at you?’
‘I’m in the garden, Ziggy,’ Kate said, taking a pair of pliers from her toolkit. ‘Go and harass Elliot, he’s in charge inside today.’
They headed in, found the downstairs empty still but Elliot’s stuff was set by the back door and they kept well away from it, not wanting to disturb anything.
Ferreira wandered over to the sitting area, gestured at the sofa and the chairs. ‘I’m sure all of this is new.’
‘It’s got that new upholstery smell,’ he agreed. ‘You think it got that messy in here?’
‘They’ve redecorated for some reason,’ she said. ‘Either Sutherland wanted to make the place all nice and fresh for Nadia, or …’
‘Everything got covered in blood and had to be chucked out?’ She nodded. ‘We’ll pull his financials, look for a recent shopping spree.’
‘Skip hire,’ Ferreira suggested. ‘Or a van rental. Getting furniture out of the house takes organising.’
Zigic folded his arms, worried they were running ahead of themselves. Yes, the walls had clearly been repainted recently enough that he could still smell the faint hint of volatile chemicals and the furniture did look brand new, but would Ainsworth’s bleeding hands have necessitated such a thorough overhaul?
‘How much was he bleeding, realistically?’
‘It doesn’t have to be gushing out all over the place,’ Ferreira said with a shrug. ‘A couple of spots of a murdered man’s blood in a house is enough to get a conviction.’
That was hope more than experience, he thought.
‘Ainsworth breaking in here doesn’t mean they murdered him,’ he told her, putting some warning into his voice.
‘No, but it makes it far more likely that they did.’ She leaned over the sofa, peering behind the back. ‘For all we know Ainsworth broke in while they were at home and one of them killed him and then took him back to his own place so it’d look like a robbery.’
He put up a cautioning hand. ‘Now, hold on a minute, Mel.’
‘I’m just thinking out loud.’
‘We still don’t even know if it’s Ainsworth’s blood,’ he said firmly. ‘And there’s no way Ainsworth was murdered here on Thursday morning – the post-mortem puts the time of death late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, so you need to disregard that option right away.’
Ferreira sat down on the arm of the sofa and stood immediately as it tipped. She pointed at it. ‘I’m not heavy, that’s a cheap sofa.’
Zigic pressed on. ‘The neighbour told you the break-in happened Thursday morning, which means Sutherland was likely
