Zigic managed to catch twenty minutes’ sleep while Ferreira drove, only coming round as she drew onto the driveway of Jolene’s austere Victorian semi. It was a nice house in a nice village. Commuter belt, affluent, not what Zigic was expecting, but then again, why did he think Jolene wouldn’t live somewhere like this?
It was the name, he realised. American and slightly trashy, inextricably linked in his mind with the Dolly Parton song. He wondered if that was why Corinne’s friend had picked it. If she liked the idea of being that kind of woman, irresistible and intimidating.
Ferreira went ahead of him to the glossy red front door, dropping a heavy cast-iron knocker which was answered a few seconds later by a tall, slim man with a deep fake tan and carefully styled brown hair, dressed in skinny white jeans and a black shirt open three buttons down. He had the look of a stage psychic or a celebrity nutritionist.
‘Jolene?’ Ferreira asked.
‘Not today,’ he said, with a wan smile. ‘Joe Sherman.’
Ferreira made the introductions and they followed him into a high-ceilinged hallway which gave away the house’s real purpose. They knew from her Facebook account that Jolene and her wife ran a discreet, appointment-only beauty salon for cross-dressers and trans people. The space was decorated with rather less discretion, dominated by a huge, heavily foxed mirror and gold console table, bearing a vase of faintly rotten-smelling lilies. Opposite that, a glass cabinet displayed hair and beauty products.
‘Do you not—’ Ferreira paused. ‘Are you not Jolene all the time?’
‘I’m not trans,’ he said, adopting a patient tone, like a teacher might use with a pupil who’d already failed to grasp their lesson several times before. ‘I’m a cross-dresser. So sometimes I wake up and I’m Jolene and sometimes I’m Joe. Today’s a Joe day.’
Ferreira apologised and he touched a quick hand to her arm, smiling again, warmer this time, showing perfect, bleached teeth.
‘Don’t be silly, you’re allowed to ask.’
‘We’re very sorry about Corinne.’
He nodded. ‘Thank you. The whole group’s been devastated by the news. How are her family coping?’
‘Haven’t you spoken to them?’ Zigic asked.
‘I called Nina, but she didn’t pick up.’ He cast a sad glance towards the cabinet. ‘She blamed me for getting Corinne into all of this. A lot of the wives do. They’ll put up with their men messing around in dresses at home, but we make them beautiful enough to show themselves in public.’
‘How about Sam?’
‘We’re going round later,’ he said. ‘She won’t be looking after herself properly. Von’ll cook something.’ He gestured for them to go through into another room before shouting up the stairs – ‘Von, police are here, can you come down, love?’
It would have been a sitting room originally, well proportioned and quite grand in its day, Zigic imagined. Now it was like any other hairdresser’s, two chairs in front of lit mirrors, all the usual accoutrements placed ready for use. Another small station for manicures and, in front of the fireplace, a grey velvet sofa and two armchairs arranged around a low table littered with magazines.
‘How long had you known Corinne?’ Zigic asked, taking one of the chairs.
Joe tidied the magazines into a pile before he sat down. ‘Oh, years. Fifteen, sixteen. We met at an awful bloody gay bar in Cambridge.’ He put a hand out. ‘Not that Corinne was gay. Or me. But your options were a bit more limited back then. No Internet to speak of, no forums or support groups. The young ones don’t know how lucky they are now.’
He was a talker, that was good.
‘You two were close then?’
‘We were.’
‘Did Corinne ever mention being threatened by someone?’ Zigic asked.
‘No, she was very popular.’
‘In the community?’ A quick nod. ‘What about outside it?’
‘As far as I know.’ He recrossed his legs. ‘Look, Evelyn Goddard said you’d told her Corinne’s murder might be linked to some other attacks.’
‘It’s a theory we’re looking into,’ Zigic said. ‘But right now we’re more interested in any elements of Corinne’s life which might have put her in danger.’
Joe looked away as his wife came into the room and Zigic thought he detected a slight stiffening in the man’s posture. Was she the weak link here?
‘This is Von,’ he said.
She was short and barrel-shaped in black leggings and a matching tunic, long dark hair chopped into a blunt fringe which poked at her heavily kohled eyes.
‘Have you told them?’ she asked, sitting down next to her husband.
He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Said nothing.
‘You’re not going to do Corinne any harm now, Joe.’ She had a smoker’s voice, low and husky. ‘They need to know.’
Ferreira inched forward in her chair, concentrating on Von. ‘We need to catch the man who did this. Believe me, people like this, with this capacity for violence, they don’t stop.’
Von sighed. ‘Corinne was on the trawl.’
‘For what?’
‘A bloke.’
Ferreira glanced at Zigic, eyebrows raised, and it would have seemed unprofessional if he didn’t share her absolute bemusement.
‘But she’s with Sam,’ he said. ‘She left her wife for Sam. Why would she want to start dating men all of a sudden?’
‘The hormones,’ Von said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘She was transitioning, pumped full of oestrogen. It’s way more common than any of that lot want to admit.’
Next to her Joe was looking at his hand, curled into a fist on his thigh.
‘It’s like us,’ she said, talking to Ferreira now. ‘Our oestrogen levels change within our cycle, right? So when we’re ovulating we want big, butch men who’ll give us strong babies, and when we’re menstruating we’re attracted to more androgynous, girly men. Same with Corinne, she was straight as a die when she was Colin and when she was just cross-dressing. But the minute she started having the injections her hormone balance changed, she became more female, a straight female, okay? So she wanted a man.’
Von sounded very certain but the science seemed overly simplistic to Zigic. Was that really how it worked? Pump a man with a certain hormone and you change his sexual orientation?
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Joe said wearily. ‘Corinne was testing herself.’
‘How?’ Ferreira asked.
‘She needed to know that she passed as a “real” woman. That’s a huge thing for people at her stage of transition. A lot don’t – I’m not being bitchy but surgery can only do so much and some will never pass as natal women. Corinne wanted men to believe in her as a woman.’
Von snorted softly. ‘She wanted a man, Joe. There’s no shame in it.’
‘Did she find one?’
‘Don’t see why she wouldn’t have.’ Von shrugged. ‘She was a good-looking woman. Elegant, poised – I made sure of that.’
‘Von teaches comportment,’ Joe said. ‘She used to be an actress, didn’t you?’
‘An extra.’
‘You were better than that.’ He reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Von’s in very high demand with the girls. She teaches them how to sit like ladies and walk like ladies. It takes a lot of conditioning – a lot – to knock the old habits out.’
‘Corinne had it down though,’ Von said, with a hint of pride. ‘The moves, the voice. She was an excellent pupil.’
‘You realise that if Corinne was dating men who didn’t know she was pre-op, then she was putting herself in a seriously dangerous situation,’ Ferreira said.
Joe gave her a withering look. ‘Asking for it, was she?’
‘That is not what I said.’
Von told him to calm down. ‘She’s right. How do you think some bloke was going to react if he found out?’
‘How would he?’ Joe said. ‘She wasn’t going to sleep with anyone.’
‘What did she tell you about these men?’ Ferreira asked.
Joe glanced at Von. ‘It was nothing heavy. She went out on a couple of dates. Different men. She wouldn’t see any of them twice in case things started to get serious.’
‘It doesn’t take two dates for things to get serious,’ Ferreira said.
Von laughed. ‘My kind of girl.’
Zigic could see the pair of them getting on. Found he liked Von’s bluntness himself too. She was the only person they’d spoken to so far who didn’t treat the subject with reverence or delicacy and wasn’t politicising it either.
‘Where did Corinne meet these men?’ he asked. ‘Online?’
‘No, she’d just go into a bar and pick someone up,’ Joe said. ‘Seems archaic, doesn’t it? But she preferred going old-school. Honestly, I think she liked the challenge.’
‘Was Sam aware what Corinne was doing?’
‘Are you joking?’ Von asked. ‘Why would she tell her?’
‘Maybe she worked it out.’
‘Corinne was careful,’ Joe said. ‘She … well, we were her alibi, so to speak. Or I was. You have to understand Corinne wasn’t doing anything wrong. She wasn’t actually cheating on Sam. I wouldn’t have covered for her if I thought she was.’
Zigic didn’t believe that. People covered up their friends’ infidelities all the time and what was a two-year relationship with Sam compared to a fifteen-year friendship with Corinne?
‘What do you think of Sam?’ Ferreira asked.
Von gave a showy sigh and raked her fingertips through her hair. ‘Honestly, I’ve always thought they were a weird couple. You’ll have talked to Nina already? I couldn’t understood why Corinne would go from someone like that to, you know, a butch.’
‘They were in love,’ Joe said. ‘And Sam was good for Corinne. She’s given her unconditional support, which is more than you can say for most women in her situation.’
Was that bitter edge aimed at Von? Zigic wondered. Was she holding him back from taking the next step? Not that it mattered to them or the case, but he knew how it might colour the couple’s perception of Corinne and Sam’s relationship.
He glanced at Ferreira, gave her the nod.
‘Okay, well, I think that’s all for now,’ she said, rising from her seat and fishing out a card. ‘If you think of anything else that might be useful, you can reach me on this number.’
Joe nodded, Von smiled, taking the card, and offered to see them out.
When they were at the front step, Zigic already heading for the car, Ferreira stopped and turned back.
‘Do you know Simon Trent?’
‘Simone, yes. We haven’t seen her for, oh, it must be over a year now. Lovely girl, great bones.’
‘Were you aware that she was attacked last year?’
‘I heard about it.’ Von pulled the door up behind her, moving out into the porch. ‘Do you think whoever attacked her killed Corinne? Because – oh, I shouldn’t say …’ But she was going to, would have insisted even if they tried to stop her, Zigic guessed. ‘Look, I saw her out a couple of times with men. Just having coffee, nothing salacious, but they were obviously dates.’
Ferreira cocked her head. ‘How do you know they were dates?’
‘Lovey, I know sexual tension when I see it.’
Von flinched as Joe shouted her name from inside the house and quickly reached into the hallway to press a button that started the electric gate opening.
‘Drive safely,’ she said and closed the door on them.
Back in the car, pulling onto the narrow country lane, Zigic took out his mobile and rang Wahlia, told him to chase up the tech department over Corinne’s second mobile phone. He wanted it done by the time they returned to the office. Beers on him if they succeeded. It was a cheap trick but he’d known it work before.
‘I told you Simon was hiding something,’ Ferreira said, toeing the accelerator to overtake a tractor. ‘Simone’s dating men, Corinne’s dating men, I bet Aadesh was too, not that we’ll get him to admit it. This is our link.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Please, maybe.’ She grinned at him. ‘You can feel it too. Don’t deny it.’
She was right.
The adrenalin was pumping, the sleepless nights forgotten. This could be the breakthrough they’d been pushing towards. Corinne was dating. Men who thought she was available and willing and, crucially, physically as well as visually female.
It only took one man not to respect her boundaries.
A couple of drinks too many, a straying hand …