The promise of beer money had done its job and Zigic went up to pay off his bribe to the techies while Ferreira got to work on the information they’d pulled off Corinne’s second phone.
Across the desk Wahlia was waiting on hold with an instrumental cover version of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ piping out of his phone. Ferreira didn’t think it was possible to get more middle of the road than the original but there it was, played on piano with whining strings in the background, pure aural anaesthetic.
‘Have you got in touch with Corinne’s bank yet?’
‘On hold with them now. Some genius doesn’t believe the protocols, wants to check with his supervisor.’ Wahlia glanced at his phone as the music stopped, then grunted with annoyance as another song began. ‘Wankers, think I’ve got nothing better to do with my time than listen to this shit.’
‘Maroon 5, gross.’
‘You recognised it. That’s embarrassing.’
‘My brother was a fan.’
‘Sure he was.’ Wahlia nodded. ‘I bet you had all their albums. Posters on your bedroom wall. Which one did you fancy? Not Levine?’
She scowled at him. ‘We don’t have to be friends, you know.’
On-screen she scrolled through the emails they’d lifted from Corinne’s second mobile phone, taking it one user at a time. There were two dating site apps, and this was where they would find the serious candidates, at the point where brief messages weren’t enough and the communications became longer and more involved, moving out of that closed bubble and into a place halfway between fantasy and real life.
There were a dozen contacts marked as VIP and the first few she went through were non-starters. Flirtations which didn’t take off, an obvious lack of click, even though Corinne appeared to be trying her damnedest to give those men what they wanted.
She was tailoring her behaviour to each of them. Demure with this one, filthy with that, and Ferreira wondered if it was a response to the men or whether she was trying on personas like she’d try on different outfits, figuring out which suited her best.
According to the dates on the emails Corinne had been doing this for close on a year, soon after she’d begun to live as a woman full-time.
She thought of what Von Sherman said about the hormone therapy. Corinne starting her treatment, the oestrogen working its way into her system, building up there, smoothing her skin and thickening her hair, making her feel … different, new sensations, new emotions, or at least ones she perceived differently.
Was Von right, did transition change who Corinne was attracted to? Was that why she suddenly started to show an interest in men after a lifetime of marriage and affairs with women?
Or was it simpler than that? Corinne feeling free to act on impulses which Colin had to repress and deny with a string of infidelities, overcompensating in a manner which now looked almost like a cry for help.
Ferreira knew how much you could hide of yourself within a relationship and how fiercely you could commit to a lie when the truth was unpalatable to everyone, including yourself. She knew just how far some men would go, how cruel and creative they could be when a convincing facade needed building around them.
She bit down on her tongue, focused on the words on her screen, pushing away the ones she’d spent the last two days ignoring as they swam up at her from the deep, dark place she’d buried them.
Focus on the job, she told herself, finger tapping the keyboard, eyes fixed unblinking on an elaborate fantasy Corinne had spun out for some man who’d made it clear he only liked submissive women; beautiful, silent receptacles.
But within a couple of lines her brain stopped absorbing the words, still snagged on the man’s initial message – ‘Tell me what you want me to do to you.’
She saw an arched back, tattooed along the spine, fists clenched around rucked white cotton, the fall of her hair as she moved and the smell of oiled skin.
‘Found Corinne’s boyfriend yet?’ Zigic was standing at the side of her desk, amused-looking. ‘Or are you just reading that for pleasure?’
‘It’s kind of vanilla for me,’ she said.
‘Think there’s anything in it, though? Domination fantasies—’
‘Don’t automatically translate into violent tendencies.’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, you’ll never convince me that’s true.’
There it was, the Zigic puritanical streak. He was probably the only copper living or dead who’d never used his handcuffs for recreational purposes.
‘I think we’re wasting our time here,’ Ferreira said. ‘If Joe was right about Corinne picking up guys in bars she might not have met any of these ones. There’s no sign of dates being arranged so far. Just a load of wank-fodder.’
‘Were any of the men pushing for face-to-face meetings?’
‘One guy raised the issue but Corinne cut off contact as soon as he started to press her on it. The rest didn’t seem very fussed about moving it into real life.’
‘Maybe he didn’t like that,’ Zigic suggested, hopefulness in his tone.
They’d been here before, last year, a murder which appeared to hinge on the victim’s use of hook-up sites and Ferreira supposed it was only natural that Zigic believed this one might too. He didn’t understand how the culture functioned, how casual it was, the sheer disposability of the people involved.
‘Okay.’ She met his expectant gaze. ‘This all reads like Corinne is experimenting. And it happens, you know, loads of people use dating sites as ego trips or cheap entertainment. They’re not looking to meet “the one”, half of them aren’t even interested in hooking up, they just get off on knowing the possibilities are there if they ever wanted to act on them. These men she’s talking to, if they wanted sex they wouldn’t be hanging around chatting, they’d call her a cock-tease and move onto the next profile. They’re play-acting just as much as she is.’
Zigic frowned. ‘Are you sure about that? Maybe they’re enjoying the seduction. Building up anticipation before they finally meet.’
‘No.’ Ferreira smiled at how earnest he was. ‘They’re really not. And that’s not something Corinne was interested in either, judging by how she was handling them.’
His shoulders dropped. ‘She might have been arranging meetings by phone, we’ve got no record of that, have we?’
‘I’m checking the texts and call logs next.’
Zigic went into his office and Ferreira returned to the long stream of messages, more of the same all blurring into one, the superficial differences disappearing within a predictable framework. She switched over to the call logs, found four numbers with heavy usage, always in the daytime, and she guessed it was easier to hide them from Sam than it would have been in the evening.
Out at work, in her car, alone. Sam wouldn’t know what Corinne was doing or who she was talking to.
Something had piqued her suspicion though, Ferreira realised. Something had sent her riffling through Corinne’s wardrobe, and what would she have done if she found this phone before they did?
Was it possible she knew about it already? Was she looking for it purely to dispose of it and obliterate the motive against her buried behind its locked screen?
They hadn’t considered her a suspect but thinking about it now, wasn’t it strange Sam came looking for Corinne so quickly? That she knew exactly where to find her among the thousands of acres of Ferry Meadows, the multiple entrances and exits?
It was the most common, tediously predictable of motives. Woman has affair, partner murders them. One of the biggest killers of women in the world: jealousy.
Ferreira rolled a cigarette and went to smoke it on the windowsill, damp, cold air seeping through her clothes and into her bones as she sat there, thinking about Simon Trent again, whether access to his phone and laptop would show them similar behaviour.
From what Von had said his behaviour sounded similar to Corinne’s routine of picking men up in bars. Did he think Simone was a good enough mask to throw off any workmates or friends of his wife? Simon and Simone were two different people, it wasn’t a crazy assumption, but still, it showed a wilful disregard for his security. Smacked of a desire to be caught.
And yet he’d buckled to his wife’s ultimatum: Simone or me.
Ferreira didn’t believe he’d stopped cross-dressing. Knew enough about the psychology to realise that would be torture. Simone was still in him, she couldn’t be erased or denied, not forever. She was the person Ferreira needed to speak to, the one who’d been attacked, who would want revenge, but how to get to her when Simon was so firm in his denial of her continued existence?
She took a deep drag on her cigarette, trying to imagine the willpower involved in suppressing part of yourself like that. The pressure it would exert on you hour by hour, day by day, and how long you could go on before you cracked.
Simon was cracking. The anger he displayed when she suggested he was interested in men. She’d put it down to knee-jerk heterosexual defiance, but now she knew better. She’d got too close to the truth.
‘Mel, with me.’ Zigic was already heading for the door, one arm in his parka. ‘Nina Sawyer has just called to report her daughter missing.’
‘Jessica?’
‘The other one, Lily.’