‘And Nadia was very likely at home.’
‘And how does Ainsworth know she’s here?’
Ferreira considered it for a moment but couldn’t come up with an answer.
‘Okay, we need to nail that down,’ she conceded. ‘But let’s say Sutherland was home and Ainsworth came here to get to him, the question still stands – why does he want to get at Sutherland?’ She placed herself at the centre of the geometric-print rug. ‘Well, somebody must have backed up Nadia’s allegation against Ainsworth, right? And given that Nadia is living with Sutherland now, I think he’d be the most likely suspect.’
‘So you think this is Ainsworth wanting revenge on Sutherland for getting him sacked?’ Zigic asked, hearing how right it sounded as he spoke.
‘Revenge is always a good motive.’ She gave him a dark smile. ‘But a spot of light vandalism isn’t much of a revenge.’
‘This would make a lot more sense if we knew that Ainsworth knew that Nadia was here,’ he said. ‘Breaking in to go after her … there’s logic. That feasibly leads to Ainsworth’s murder.’
‘Maybe he did know she’s here,’ Ferreira said. ‘Sutherland thinks nobody from work knows what he’s up to because he’s living fifteen minutes away from Long Fleet, but it’s not the other end of the world, is it? And unless he’s got Nadia under house arrest, there’s a chance they’ve been seen together.’
‘That’s speculative.’
‘We have gaps,’ Ferreira said, exasperated. ‘We need to speculate or we won’t know how to fill them.’
‘With evidence?’ he suggested drily. ‘That’s the traditional method.’
‘Okay.’ She pushed her hair back off her face, a quick flicker of irritation showing. ‘If it is Ainsworth’s blood, then we have him breaking into the house of his former colleague and the woman he attacked at Long Fleet. Two people he has reason to want to damage. And who have ample reason to want to damage him.’
‘They’d have to know he was responsible for the break-in for it to become a reason to murder him.’ Zigic glanced out of the front window, saw the uniforms at neighbouring houses, one bending to put a note through a letter box, the other speaking to a young woman with a baby on her hip. ‘Nadia must have been home when he broke in.’
Ferreira nodded gravely.
‘What did he do to her?’
‘I dread to think.’ Zigic looked around the achingly ordinary living room, wondering what it had witnessed, what they had worked so hard to strip out of it. ‘They both must know what happened here. This clean-up job is too major to handle alone.’
‘The question is which one of them then killed him?’
Zigic rubbed his beard, already knowing what she thought, seeing how she’d shaped the conversation towards this point. ‘You think it was Sutherland.’
‘Do you really believe Nadia is physically capable?’
‘I think that if I was her and I was here alone and Ainsworth broke in, I’d be terrified enough to do just about anything to stop him getting near me again.’
‘That’s motivation,’ Ferreira said. ‘It isn’t capability.’
‘We need to bring Sutherland in.’
‘Long Fleet, then?’
He nodded. ‘Long Fleet.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The problem started at the main gate.
It was the same guard who’d let them in last time, a tall, dark-haired guy with a deep tan and gym-toned body, the one she’d tried to draw into conversation before and been given nothing but murmurs and grunts.
‘You’re not on my list,’ he said.
Zigic had his ID out, holding it up in the open window, but the guard didn’t look at it. Didn’t need to anyway. He wasn’t looking at his monitor either or the tablet he’d checked to let them in the other day. Word had obviously come down that they weren’t to be admitted.
‘We don’t need an appointment,’ Zigic said tersely. ‘We’re investigating the murder of one of your colleagues.’
‘Former colleague,’ the guard said under his breath but loud enough to be certain they’d hear it.
‘Call Hammond and tell him we’re here to see him.’
‘Sorry, sir, but I can’t do that. We don’t take appointments at the gate; that’s the responsibility of Mr Hammond’s assistant.’
‘Call Catherine Field, then.’
‘She doesn’t take appointments at the gate either, sir. There’s a process, as I’m sure you can appreciate. And I don’t have any say in it. I just open up when I’m supposed to and keep the gate shut when I’m not.’
Zigic hit the button to close the window, his profile set hard.
‘Are you going to ram the barrier?’ Ferreira asked, only half joking.
‘Only as a last resort.’ He took out his mobile and called Catherine Field, waited, tapping his foot lightly against the accelerator pedal, his hand tight on the steering wheel, until she answered. ‘Mrs Field, DI Zigic, we’d like a word with you, please. If you could call down to the gate and have the guard let us in.’
Ferreira heard her refuse, in a long-winded and icily polite fashion.
‘Well, that’s very unfortunate. Because we’ve just found evidence of a serious crime at the house of one of your employees,’ he said. ‘We also found one of your former inmates living there.’
Silence at her end.
‘Now, we need further information about the situation and there are two options here. We can run a request through this afternoon’s press briefing and see if the public can help.’ He smiled at Ferreira. ‘Or we could come in and have a chat with Mr Hammond. Which would you prefer?’
He hit speaker and Catherine Field’s voice came through clear and tremulous.
‘Bear with me one moment, please.’
Five minutes later they were shown into Hammond’s office.
He looked harassed, shirtsleeves rolled back and his tie recently reknotted, slightly askew, his blond hair lying wrong on his head as if he’d tried to smooth it back hastily and without the benefit of a mirror. There was a half-eaten sandwich on his desk and a pot of tea, the same lapsang souchong that had turned Ferreira’s stomach the last time they’d been here.
Not even the most perfunctory attempt at a welcome today.
‘I don’t
