Long Way Home (42 page)

‘No. He told Emilia to get him a drink and I left.’

Zigic wondered why Emilia hadn’t mentioned it during her interview, realised she was so flustered over them discovering the passport that she probably wasn’t thinking straight.

‘Emilia said he is very jealous. She said he was rough with her afterwards. He does not like her being friendly with other men.’

Zigic leaned back in his chair. ‘What happened next? After Hudson picked up the bottle?’

Stepulov took a deep breath and when he spoke again his voice was thick with emotion which didn’t transfer into the translator’s words.

‘He tried to hit me with the bottle but I managed to get it out of his hand. I shouted for him to leave. I pushed him towards the door.’ Stepulov made a shoving motion across the table. ‘He came at me again and punched me in the stomach. When I fell he kicked me. Here.’

Stepulov tugged his shirt out from the waistband of his trousers and held it high to show them the bruises planted across his stomach and ribcage. Hudson had landed half a dozen blows, expertly placed. Stepulov twisted in the chair and Zigic imagined him rolling into a ball to protect himself, only for Hudson to stamp on his back and dig at his kidneys. There was an odd, squarish bruise under his shoulder blade, like he’d fallen on something hard.

‘I have been pissing blood for a week.’

‘What made him stop?’

‘His phone rang. He was distracted I think and I got up. I thought if I could get outside I could go to one of the houses for help. Call the police. But he was in front of the door and I could not get out. We wrestled. I realised then that he wanted to kill me and I had to defend myself. I don’t know what happened. One moment we are standing up and the next he is on the floor.’ Stepulov frowned. ‘I did hit him. I do not deny that I hit him. But I did not kill him. I only wanted him to be still long enough for me to get away. I locked the door and I ran.’

‘You locked the door? With the padlock?’

‘Yes, sir. I wanted to stop him coming after me. I swear to you, he was alive when I left.’ Stepulov stared at Zigic when he spoke, trying to force him to believe it.

But he didn’t. Not now.

‘Where did you go after that?’

‘To Emilia.’

‘Why not the hospital? Why not call the police and report Hudson for attacking you?’

‘I was worried he’d hurt her,’ Stepulov said. ‘If he knew we were lovers he could have done something bad to her before he came looking for me.’

‘So you put aside your own pain because you wanted to check she was OK?’

‘Yes, sir. I only want to protect Emilia.’

‘Well, you have protected her. Hudson won’t touch her again now he’s dead.’

‘I did not kill him.’

‘You had every reason to want to kill Hudson. He attacked you. There was every likelihood he’d attack Emilia later. And he killed your brother. Come on. Three motives and any one of them would be enough for most men to commit murder.’

‘I did not know he killed Viktor.’

Zigic massaged his temples with his fingertips. The light in the room was too bright, too harsh. Was it usually like this? Like so many chrome splinters shooting through his eyeballs into the centre of his brain.

‘If you’re innocent why didn’t you come forward?’

‘I was scared,’ Stepulov said. ‘In my country the police are very corrupt. They would not believe me.’

‘You’re not in Estonia any more, Jaan, and you’ve had enough contact with the police to know how we operate. That isn’t a reason.’

‘You don’t believe me. I tell you I am innocent and you think I am guilty. How are you any different to the police in Estonia?’

‘You killed Hudson,’ Zigic said and the pitch of his own voice was painful. ‘We’re doing you the courtesy of letting you explain yourself. If you had any sense you’d confess now. You’ll be charged with manslaughter not murder and you’ll be out of prison before Emilia hits twenty-five.’

‘I am innocent,’ Stepulov said again, rising in his chair.

‘Sit down.’

‘No. I tell you, he was alive when I left.’ Stepulov planted his fists on the table, loomed over Zigic. ‘I did not set fire to that shed. You ask the boy, he saw me leave and there was no fire.’

‘What boy?’ Zigic asked.

FERREIRA REPLAYED THE
conversation in her head, hands tight on the steering wheel, music thundering out of the speakers, loud enough to smother the sound of the engine and the heater turned up to full, burning her feet as they pumped the pedals. Kerry Barlow had been at work when she had called her and she had answered in clipped sentences, yes and no, not a single word more than necessary.

Should she have read fear in that?

She had put it down to the usual discomfort at receiving a call from the police, thought the woman was aware of being overheard by the people nearby and was picking her words carefully. There was no tremble in her voice, no telltale pauses.

At least that was how she remembered it now, vaguely, more mood than specifics. She remembered Kerry Barlow saying her son had been home with her all night. He only went to his father’s at the weekends; Gemma didn’t want him there any more often.

It sounded right at the time and nothing in the woman’s account gave her reason to think otherwise.

Ahead of her the patrol car slowed as it reached the Boy’s Head pub and turned off the main road. A small gang of men, smoking in the car park out front, jeered as they passed, threw up two-fingered salutes.

Ferreira flicked her indicator as she swung down Brewster Avenue and pulled onto the kerb fifty yards in. The uniforms were out already, standing under an orange street light looking towards Kerry Barlow’s house. She’d brought Clarke for the matronly air, Jones for the bulk, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Brewster Avenue was a quiet little cul-de-sac, red-brick and white-render semis with small front gardens and on-road parking which clogged the narrow road. At the far end there were a couple of larger houses divided into flats and the entrance to the local primary school, screened by bare-limbed trees. A security light blinked on as Ferreira climbed out of the car and she saw a figure come to the lit front window, bulky but indistinct, then the light went off and the curtains opened a crack, a second figure joining to watch.

That was how you judged an area, she thought. If people are curious about the arrival of a police car you know you’re on a good street.

The door of Kerry Barlow’s house opened and a man in shorts and a hoodie came out, waved across his shoulder and shouted goodbye as he headed for his vehicle. Kerry stood on the doorstep watching him, so distracted that she didn’t notice the patrol car or Ferreira crossing the road, flanked by Clarke and Jones.

Ferreira was expecting her to be older, rougher, assuming Phil Barlow had traded up to Gemma, but his ex-wife had a lean, athletic figure and blonde hair feathered around a heart-shaped face.

‘Ms Barlow?’ Ferreira called.

‘Is there a problem, Kes?’ the man asked, standing with his car door open.

‘It’s fine, Graham,’ she said. ‘Go on, drive safely.’

‘Boyfriend?’ Ferreira asked.

‘He’s a client.’

‘What sort of client?’

‘I’m a physiotherapist. Why else would I be dressed like this?’ Kerry shoved her hands into the pockets of her navy jogging bottoms. ‘Is this about Phil?’

Ferreira nodded.

Kerry’s gaze drifted past her, to Clarke and Jones standing on the path.

There was music playing inside the house, muffled by a closed door, all bass line, and Ferreira could smell food cooking, something spicy and salty, a late dinner for when Kerry had seen off her last client of the day.

‘Is Craig at home?’

‘Of course he’s at home, I don’t let him wander the streets at this time of night.’

‘We need you both to come to the station, please.’

‘Why?’

‘We believe Craig saw our suspect leaving the scene of the crime. We need him to make an identification.’

‘No,’ Kerry said. ‘He was at home all night, he couldn’t have seen anything.’

She backed away as Ferreira crossed the threshold, her face frozen halfway between fear and incredulity, too stunned to protest for a couple of seconds. Then Ferreira was heading upstairs and the woman found her voice, shouted after her, ‘You can’t come into my house without a warrant.’

PC Clarke intervened, talking to her in a smooth voice, telling her not to worry, it was just some routine questions.

‘You can’t do this.’

Ferreira followed the music to a bedroom at the front of the house, a biohazard poster on the white panel door and few old stickers half scraped off, the remains of a marijuana leaf and a Spurs badge, like the boy had switched allegiance to more effective distractions.

She opened the door without knocking and the music boomed in her face, a black-metal voice raw and snarling over driving guitars. The room was a Lynx- and sweat-reeking pit, walls painted haematoma purple and covered with posters, so many clothes strewn across the floor that she couldn’t see the carpet. Craig Barlow had his back to her, seated in a leather swivel chair at a desk pushed against the opposite wall, his attention fixed on the flat-screen monitor. He was playing some game, his character creeping along a shot-marked wall in a generic Middle Eastern war zone.

‘I told you already, I’m not fucking hungry,’ he said.

‘And I’m not your fucking mother, so watch your mouth.’

He spun away from the computer but didn’t get up. His feet did a nervous little dance against the floor and he started to chew on the ball of his thumb, looking at Ferreira like he was thinking of bolting for the door behind her. Pull some move he only knew how to execute on a keyboard.

He was his father’s son, short-limbed and soft in the body, his face wrapped in puppy fat and dusted with freckles. He looked a very young fourteen.

‘Put your shoes on,’ Ferreira said.

‘Where are we going?’

‘The station.’

‘I don’t want to go.’ His hands gripped the arms of his chair and he glanced back across his shoulder at the character on the screen, hunkered down and twitching, alert to attack. ‘I’m in the middle of a game.’

Ferreira crossed the room in four quick steps. She stabbed the power button and the screen died.

‘And now you’re not.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Grow the fuck up. A man’s dead and you’re a witness, I can do a hell of a lot more if you don’t cooperate.’

Craig grabbed a hoodie from his unmade bed and shoved his feet into a pair of battered white trainers, stomped out of the room and down the stairs where his mother was waiting, bag on her shoulder, keys in her hand, and as Clarke took over, guiding Craig Barlow out to the patrol car, Kerry followed, shouted after him as she reached her own vehicle, ‘Just tell them the truth, darling. Don’t worry about your dad.’

A DIFFERENT GUARD
brought Phil dinner, a woman this time, with bottle-red hair and a mannish jawline. She threw the tray down, weak tea sloshing over the rim of the cup, dousing the grey blanket.

He knew he should try and eat something but the limp chips and the dry chicken stuck to the roof of his mouth and every time he tried to swallow it felt like there was a pebble lodged in his throat. He gulped the tea, tasting a sour note from the almost spoiled milk, but the lump remained.

How long had he been here now? A day at least and they said they’d called his solicitor just after lunch, ready for questioning, but if that was true it would be over already.

Why were they keeping him waiting?

He got up from the bench and pounded on the cell door, the metal unyielding under his fist, banged until his bones ached and shouted for the guard.

She opened the eye-level slot in the door.

‘What is it now, Mr Barlow? Dinner not to your liking?’

‘I want to talk to Inspector Zigic,’ he said, hearing how hoarse his voice had become. ‘I need to tell him something.’

‘He’ll call for you when he’s ready.’

‘Is my solicitor here?’

‘They will call for you when they are ready, Mr Barlow.’

She slammed the slot closed.

They were messing with his head.

He kept telling himself that. Knew he needed to stay strong, not buckle to the fears which had been plaguing him for the last twenty-four hours, trying to analyse what they were doing out there, poking around in his life, looking for something to hit him with.

There was only one thing he’d lied about and only Gemma could reveal it, but she would have done it by now if she was going to.

Unless they were working on her still, finding her more loyal than they expected.

He needed to talk to her. Just for a second. He didn’t need to ask, he’d know the moment she said his name whether she was sticking by him or not.

They had to let him make a phone call. Wasn’t that how it worked? You were entitled to let your family know where you were.

He banged on the door again, pulse throbbing through his hand with each fresh strike, imagining he was pounding his fist into Stepulov’s face, knowing it was what he should have done that first day when he came out of the house to find him sitting in the open doorway of the shed.

If he’d been a man right then and made a stand, none of this would be happening. Maybe he’d have won the fight and been arrested for assault, maybe he’d have lost and suffered a beating, either way he would have been rid of Stepulov.

He kept hammering on the door, shouting for the guard.

Then there were feet in the corridor, more than one set, and he stepped back as the locks tumbled on the cell door.

The guard stood in front of him with her hands on her hips but whatever she said was lost on him as he saw Jaan Stepulov propelled along the corridor behind her, another guard holding him by the elbow. His head was shaved and his beard gone but it was Stepulov, definitely.

She followed his gaze, smiled.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mr Barlow.’

‘How –’

‘It’s not my job to answer your questions. I’m sure Detective Inspector Zigic will explain everything in good time.’