‘A few of them have got violent offences to their names.’
He’d had them checked for that already, Wahlia’s first job as soon as morning briefing was over. Two men with histories of domestic abuse, one convicted rapist, one particularly charming individual who’d been fired from his security guard’s job for trying to coerce a shoplifter into giving him a blow job in exchange for her freedom. She knew her rights and was savvy enough to hit the record feature on her phone the second he escorted her off the shop floor.
‘This is looking more and more like a CID matter, Ziggy.’
‘It’s one avenue we’re pursuing.’
‘Come on, son, I’ve seen the board. It’s your only avenue. Barring that wee boy. And for all you know he’s seen something that’s shit him up bad enough to leg it.’
Zigic leaned against the glass partition. The rest of the team were out there, waiting for Riggott’s verdict, doing the grunt work, checking backgrounds and prioritising the most likely candidates, but what the DCS decided now would dictate whether they had the support to do the job right or not.
‘Mel’s found something, but we need time to get the relevant information back from the techies,’ Zigic said. ‘We’ve got a long-running and escalating campaign of harassment against Holly. Including death threats.’
‘Delivered how?’
‘Online. Her blog, emails, Twitter.’
‘Viable?’
‘They vandalised Dawn’s car. They know where Holly lives. I think we might be looking at a stalking-type situation that was provoked by Holly’s growing prominence as a disability-rights blogger.’
‘Suspects?’ Riggott asked, posture straightening, interested now.
‘No names, not yet. But we’re thinking it’s someone local. Someone she probably knew, which is a limited group because of her age and situation. The abuse has a personal ring to it.’ He sounded so certain he almost convinced himself it was a credible line of inquiry rather than a way of assuaging Riggott. ‘We need more time, though. Getting behind online aliases isn’t as easy as calling in accounts from dating websites.’
‘Sure, it’s nigh-on impossible if they know what they’re doing,’ Riggott said, rising from the chair, going over to the filing cabinet where Zigic’s suit was hanging up.
The clear plastic cover was unzipped and he pulled out one sleeve, testing the feel of the wool, seeing how many buttons were on the cuff; so much the peacock that he couldn’t resist a quick look at the label inside the jacket. It was from Zara, Anna’s choice, nothing like the quality Riggott wore himself but he nodded slightly.
‘Nice. Tidy stitching for high street.’ He sealed the cover and turned back to Zigic. ‘I know what you’re trying to do and I don’t blame you. If it was my case I’d try and distract my boss with some outlandish bollocks like this to buy time.’
‘It’s a solid theory.’
‘Yes.’ Riggott pointed at him. ‘A theory. Mel’s theory at that. And we both know she’s not back up to match fitness. Course she’s fastened on this disability-rights stuff as a motive. Look what the girl’s been through.’
‘I don’t think that’s had a bearing.’
Didn’t think it before but now he was wondering if her sympathies had got the better of her judgement. Had she seen something of herself in Holly and decided to pursue that line of inquiry as a proxy vengeance for the closure she’d never achieved with Christian Palmer?
‘This should never have come up to you,’ Riggott said. ‘One vandalised car and some nasty emails might constitute a hate crime but that isn’t what you’re investigating now, is it? This is the murder of a woman who was indulging in unsafe sexual practices and just happened to be the mother of a hate-crime victim.’
‘Somebody needs to talk to those men.’ Zigic positioned himself between Riggott and the office door; he wasn’t going to lose this case when they’d worked so hard already. ‘It might as well be us. We can do the initial interviews, run down alibis, see who the most likely candidates are.’
‘Not with the size of team you’ve got.’
‘So give me some bodies.’
‘How does that benefit me?’ Riggott asked, amused looking but testy sounding. ‘I’ll be putting the same arses on different chairs.’
Zigic pressed his hands together. ‘We need to talk to these men one way or another. They’ve been in Dawn’s house, they were close to her. Some of them visited her on several occasions which means maybe they witnessed incidents that can help us catch her killer.’
‘Oh, aye, I’m sure you’ll find they witnessed anything that makes them look innocent.’
‘We do the grunt work, you get the credit.’ Zigic stepped back, giving him a path to the door again. ‘I think that benefits you.’
Riggott smiled thinly, fingers curling around the door handle. ‘You’re learning.’
Twenty minutes later the list of Dawn’s lovers was divided up; Parr, Colleen Murray and a young DC who Riggott had sent, taking thirteen each, more than a day’s work to bring them in and question them but they were starting with the ones deemed most capable of violence. Those with criminal records would be brought in first, then the most recent visitors, the ones she’d seen more than once, a couple of them targeted because their messages contained what Colleen termed ‘red flags’, sadistic suggestions, hints of jealousy, anger at being rescheduled or rebuffed.
It was a guessing game but they needed a system. He would have liked Ferreira to take a look at the messages, knew she had experience Colleen probably didn’t, understood the etiquette better, the nuances. She was still out of the office, though, and when he called her she said she had a strong lead to follow up.
By lunchtime they’d interviewed six men, disregarded five who were able to provide solid alibis for the time of Dawn’s murder. Their reactions varied from cool indifference to lukewarm regret and Zigic wondered whether Dawn realised how little emotional impact she’d made on them, if she’d even care if she knew. All seemed to regard her as nothing more than a willing body, knew little about her, had never cared to find out more.
Crucially, none of them knew she had a daughter.
Zigic had listened in on the questioning via live feeds from the interview rooms and saw a common theme developing.
Dawn said she was single, they saw no reason to disbelieve her. One man had noticed the photographs of Holly as he followed her through the house but hadn’t asked about her, figuring she’d grown up and moved out already. Another recalled making a joke about the stairlift – ‘You’re gonna need that by the time I’m done with you’ – repeated it to Parr expecting him to laugh along. Again he didn’t question why it was there, assumed an elderly relative who’d passed.
None of them saw Holly or heard her.
Following their hard-ons, Zigic thought, wanting to get in and out as fast as possible, head home to the wives and girlfriends they all had, the women they’d likely claim weren’t as interested in sex as them, but they loved them anyway.
All were unaware that Dawn was being harassed.
The sixth man was yet to be questioned.
Ian Bowe – the security guard with the illegal line in quid pro quo – requested a solicitor the moment he stepped into the station, and was currently waiting for her to arrive.
A guilty man would do that but so would an innocent one, coming in trailing his criminal record and the awareness of police procedure which tended to go along with it. Or maybe he’d spent the fifteen-minute journey to the station thinking back over his text messages to Dawn and realised how they might be interpreted in light of her murder.
DC Wheatley said he got the impression Bowe was expecting them when he and two uniforms turned up at the van showroom where he worked now, valeting the vehicles before they went out. He wasn’t shocked by the news, but that was to be expected. Dawn’s name was released to the public during yesterday’s press conference and her phone records showed that they were in relatively steady contact between meetings.
‘Do you want to wait for the solicitor or go and get another one?’ Zigic asked.
Wheatley was on his feet immediately, something of the eager puppy dog about him. ‘No point me hanging around, is there, sir?’
They were blocking the interview rooms solid and Zigic wasn’t sure what they were going to do with the next man Wheatley brought in, but he liked the young DC’s enthusiasm and willingness to put the greater good ahead of ego. Too many junior officers tried to guard their suspects, hoping to make the vital breakthrough in a case, take personal credit for the cumulative efforts of the team. His energy was making Zigic feel old, though.
Or maybe it was because he’d spent the morning managing and observing rather than doing something that actually felt constructive. They were making progress but he didn’t feel as if he was at the sharp end of it.
He paced around the office, went to the murder board but didn’t linger there long, moved to the desk where the files on Dawn’s lovers were lined up, twenty-two, ordered by priority. Wahlia was working on the rest, hunched over his computer, furiously chewing on his gum, barely blinking. When he got up to collect a sheaf of papers from the printer he moved with purpose, brisk and efficient as ever.
Zigic picked up one of the files – the next suspect on Parr’s list – and flicked through it. Nothing remarkable about the man inside but you never knew what was hiding in between the lines of phone records and bank statements and text messages peppered with emoticons.
‘It’s Benjamin,’ Ferreira said.
She was standing on the other side of the desk looking pleased with herself.
‘What?’
‘Sally Lange’s kid. The online abuse. It’s him.’ She came around the desk. ‘I went to the kennels this morning to talk to Warren—’
‘He told you?’
‘No. He was stoned out of his head. Totally useless. But as I was leaving I saw this T-shirt, right, and it had this symbol on it I knew I’d seen before and me and Ethan have gone right back through everything.’ She rocked on her heels. ‘I mean,
everything
. And we’ve found it. Benjamin used the symbol from this T-shirt as an ID image on one of the accounts he was using to harass Holly.’
Zigic sighed. ‘That isn’t evidence, Mel. How many people do you think own that T-shirt?’
She smiled. ‘Not as many as you’d think. It’s a small company, they only make limited runs of each given design, for limited periods, and they only sell through their own website.’
‘So, what, thousands?’
‘Hundreds. Two hundred and fifty to be precise. I called them.’
‘It isn’t enough.’
‘It’s enough for a warrant to seize his laptop,’ she said. ‘All the proof we need will be on it. I’ll lay any money you like it is.’
Wahlia’s phone started to ring and he snatched it up fast. A three-second conversation that put theirs on pause, much to Ferreira’s evident annoyance.
‘Bowe’s solicitor just arrived.’
‘I need that warrant,’ she said.
Zigic found Bowe’s file and held it out to her. ‘Interview first, then we’ll discuss it.’
Ian Bowe looked at home in an interview room, no signs of agitation or discomfort; he didn’t even straighten up in his seat as they walked in and most people did, an unconscious shiver of movement stiffening their spine, signalling that they were taking this seriously, that they wanted to appear upstanding even whilst sitting down.
His slightly stooped posture might have been a sign of defeat or disrespect. Zigic was leaning towards the latter but hoped he was wrong.
As Ferreira closed the door behind him, slamming it harder than necessary, he realised he shouldn’t have brought her in here. He’d seen Bowe’s photograph already, but hadn’t registered the likeness to Christian Palmer; the same big, no-nonsense physique, same square features and dirty blond hair cut with regimental precision. Now he saw the man through her eyes and he felt the displaced anger bubbling up in her when she took the seat next to him, noticing the jerky way she moved, the bite in her voice as she set up the recording equipment, barking at Bowe to state his name.
That straightened him up and raised an eyebrow from his solicitor, who had looked bored until then, picking bits of fluff off her black pinstripe trousers.
‘I didn’t kill Dawn,’ Bowe said.
‘No messing, hey?’ Ferreira sneered at him. ‘Get your denial in quick. Is that what Ms Quinn there told you to do?’
‘I know how you lot work,’ he said. ‘Dawn dies and you pick me up because I’ve got a record. It’s not fair. I’ve had treatment for that.’
‘Treatment for trying to blackmail women into giving you blow jobs?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Which church hall do they hold those meetings in?’
Ms Quinn interrupted. ‘Sex addiction is no laughing matter, Sergeant.’
‘Are you a sex addict, Mr Bowe?’
‘I’m learning how to manage my urges.’
‘And what about when you can’t manage them?’ Ferreira asked. ‘What do you do when someone says no to you?’
‘Dawn didn’t say no to me. She couldn’t get enough of it. You ask me, she’d got an addiction too. Sometimes I’d hardly get in the door before she had her hand in my trousers.’
‘How often did you visit her?’ Zigic asked.
‘Five, six times. I didn’t keep score.’
It tallied with the information pulled off her phone. So did his previous comment. Dawn came across as the instigator, texting him on a whim, at short notice often, telling him she needed him right then. One of the few men she allowed in her house, suggesting that she trusted him.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘Last week,’ he said, squinted as he tried to recall the details and then a smile. ‘Tuesday evening. She called when I was in Tesco’s. I bought a bottle of wine and went round there.’
‘Wine?’ Ferreira smiled right back at him. ‘You old romantic.’
‘I was always told you shouldn’t turn up at someone’s house empty-handed.’
‘You’re a gentleman?’
‘I try to be.’
‘You liked Dawn?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, liked her enough.’
‘Enough for what? To fuck, to date?’
‘It was a casual thing,’ he said, a hint of wariness creeping into his voice. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend.’
Of course he did, Zigic thought. All these puffed-up, emotionally stunted men, sniffing around the dating sites for some action on the side while their wives and girlfriends were – where? At home with the kids, working late, out doing the exact same thing? He tried to imagine the level of contempt involved, knew he couldn’t ever act like that and go home to Anna. Wouldn’t want to even if he knew for certain he’d get away with it.