33

‘Do you want me to see to her?’ Anna asked, mumbling into Zigic’s shoulder as Emily released another wild, howling cry. ‘Dushan, are you awake?’

He blinked at the clock on the side table; half past one. Forty minutes since Anna changed her nappy, two hours since he finally got Emily to sleep in the first place. Technically it was his turn.

‘I’ll go.’

‘She probably just wants another feed.’

Emily calmed a little as he lifted her out of the cot, wrapping a blanket around her. Her hand made a grab for his beard but couldn’t find purchase on its newly pruned form; small victories, he thought as he carried her down into the kitchen.

While the bottle warmed up he walked round the table, sure he’d nod off again if he made the mistake of sitting down. He switched on the radio, tuned it to 3, a soft lilting piece of music filling the room. Sometimes it helped but not tonight, when she seemed to interpret the music as a challenge, something to be drowned out with more crying.

Milan appeared in the doorway, his sleep-creased face a picture of very grown-up exasperation.

‘I can’t sleep with all this noise,’ he said.

‘She’ll calm down in a minute. Go back to bed, buddy.’

Milan huffed. ‘I have school in the morning, you know.’

‘I am aware of that.’ Zigic gestured towards the stairs. ‘Now go and get back into bed, please.’

The timer on the bottle-warmer pinged and Zigic waved Milan out of the room, heard his feet slowly mounting the stairs, a hard-done-by trudge that made the flight sound twice as high as it was. It was a difficult life he had, Zigic thought, with a slight smile, as he sat down and fed Emily.

Her hands closed around the bottle, just in case he didn’t know what he was doing and within a minute she was already falling asleep, still sucking as she started to doze. When he took it away she murmured but didn’t stir any more and he sat there for awhile, cradling her against his chest, half convinced that the second he moved she would wake up and treat them to another one of her piercing arias.

If only there was a way to sleep sitting up, with his eyes open, holding on to her safely.

Carefully he carried her back upstairs and laid her down like she was made of glass, holding his breath the whole time. Moving with a cat burglar’s stealth he made his way round to his side of the bed and just as he was pulling back the cover his phone rang.

Emily cried, Anna swore into her pillow and he apologised to both of them as he snatched his mobile up from the table where it had been charging – on silent, he thought – and left the room.

‘Mel, for Christ’s sake, what are you ringing me at this time of night for?’

Three minutes later he was in the car, pulling out onto the ice-speckled road. She’d called for uniform already and he caught them up on Thorpe Road, blue lights blazing ahead of him as he tailed them through the sparsely peopled city centre. Only taxis and pizza deliveries on the road for company, past the courts and the cathedral, which glowed an anaemic pink against the night sky, heading for Park Road.

The house was in darkness, a stately Edwardian villa, semi-detached, well maintained under the street lights. Ferreira’s car was at the kerb, a silver Mercedes on the driveway, and she was standing next to it with Evelyn Goddard, who tore her gaze away from the house as Zigic parked up and went over to them.

‘What do we know?’ he asked.

‘She posted the video just after midnight,’ Evelyn said, shivering inside her shearling coat. ‘I started getting calls about ten or fifteen minutes later, nobody knew what to make of it but when I saw it I knew exactly what she was planning to do.’

‘It was a suicide note,’ Ferreira said. ‘I tried to get in but the place is locked up tight.’

Zigic called over the uniforms, who already had the ram out of the back of the patrol car, waiting for the go-ahead. It took four hefty swings to break down the front door and then they were moving through the house, switching on lights, Evelyn calling for Jasmine, Ferreira shouting for Aadesh, until Evelyn corrected her gently – ‘Ryan, his real name’s Ryan.’

Zigic scanned the place as he followed, taking in the bland decor, finding everything tidied away and immaculate, but devoid of personality.

Upstairs there were three bedrooms, only the largest furnished and no sign of the occupant.

Evelyn stopped at the bottom of a second flight of stairs, a narrow channel running up them towards a closed door.

He told her to wait, called a uniform in to make sure she would, and led Ferreira up into an attic room more elaborately decorated than the rest of the house. It was lit by recessed spotlights set low on a dimmer and fitted out with mirrored wardrobes and gold damask wallpaper, a large armchair under a skylight, a dressing table against a wall with a closed laptop sitting on it next to an empty bottle of pink champagne.

Another door stood ajar to his right, music playing beyond.

Ferreira was hanging back and he saw something akin to fear as she brushed her hand over her hair.

He went in.

The bathwater was red, its surface still, but the flickering light of two dozen candles danced across it and the face of the woman lying there, conjuring an appearance of life so convincing that Zigic held his fingers to her neck much longer than he needed to, waiting for a pulse to come fluttering under them, looking at the cuts she’d made along her arms, long and deep, from wrist to elbow.

This was more than a gesture. She meant to die.

‘Is he alive?’ Ferreira asked. ‘It takes ages, you know. It can take like an hour. More.’

Zigic stepped back from the bath, avoiding the pearl-handled straight razor near his feet and the spots of blood which had flicked off its blade as it fell.

‘He’s dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

She started towards the bath but he grabbed her shoulders and backed her away into the corner of the small en suite. ‘Mel, he’s dead. There’s nothing we can do now.’

Ferreira squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. ‘I did this. He didn’t want to talk about it and I made him.’

‘You don’t know what was going on in his head.’ He kept one hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to look at him, but she was staring at the body. ‘Nobody kills themselves because of one conversation, okay? He could have been fighting with depression for years, this isn’t on you.’

‘Bullshit. I talked to him two days ago and now he’s done this.’ Her hand shot out. ‘Look at this fucking scene – it’s a statement. It’s totally staged. This is a message.’

‘Yes, it probably is,’ Zigic said, as softly as he could. ‘But not for you.’

‘You haven’t seen the video.’

He felt the floor lurch under him at the chill in her voice. ‘Did he mention you?’

She slipped away from him and sat down on the lid of the toilet. ‘Not by name.’

‘But he mentioned the investigation?’

She shook her head, a bitter smile cutting her face. ‘He made it crystal clear he felt like he was being harassed by us.’

‘I need to see it.’

Evelyn Goddard’s voice was going off downstairs, arguing with the uniform, demanding to be let up in that imperious tone she’d learned in Her Majesty’s Navy. The PC patiently explained that she was to stay where she was, but Zigic could hear that he was wavering, too used to obeying whoever ordered him about with the greatest degree of authority.

‘How was I supposed to know he’d do this?’ Ferreira said, speaking from behind her hands, eyes wide above them.

‘You were just doing your job. How would we get anywhere if we couldn’t talk to victims of crimes?’ He squatted down in front of her. ‘We’ll discuss this tomorrow, okay? Go home, get some sleep—’

She glared at him. ‘I’m not going to sleep.’

‘Mel, I will deal with this,’ he said, straightening up, encouraging her to her feet. ‘Don’t talk to Evelyn, just walk out and go home.’

‘This is my mess.’

He closed the en suite door. ‘This is a mess, I’m not going to deny that. But right now we are in a house with a suicide and a very vocal, very well-connected, transgender rights activist. Do you see where I’m going with this?’ She wasn’t even looking at him, staring instead into the bloody bathtub. ‘Evelyn has seen the video, she knows exactly what was said and she’s going to be looking for any reaction you give that will support her feeling – her highly probable conviction – that we’re responsible for this.’

‘Then I should stay,’ Ferreira said. ‘It’ll look weird if I’m the first responder and I just walk out. She called me specifically. She knew what she was doing.’

Zigic took a deep breath, inhaling the meaty tang of blood and the mingled scent of jasmine and rose. She was right. Evelyn Goddard hadn’t called 999, she’d contacted Ferreira after seeing the video. Was it cynical to assume she had an agenda beyond her concern for a friend’s safety?

‘Okay.’ He rubbed his forehead, still trying to formulate a plan, but the flickering light of the candles was making the scene so grotesque that he couldn’t fully concentrate. ‘Okay, go and call for an ambulance. I’ll speak to Evelyn.’

He started to open the door and she lunged to close it again.

‘I think you should see the video first. You need to know what we’re dealing with.’ She took her mobile out and handed it over to him with the screen paused. ‘Give me yours – I’ll deal with Evelyn and make the call.’

Zigic hesitated but handed his phone over. ‘Be careful what you say to her and don’t let her up here.’

Ferreira went back out through the dressing room and as soon as her foot hit the top step Evelyn Goddard started firing questions at her, some of the authority gone from her voice.

‘Where is he? Is he alright? Why haven’t you called an ambulance, for God’s sake?’

‘It’s too late for that,’ Ferreira said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Zigic closed the door again, trusting her to calm the situation as well as she could, and tapped the screen.

The woman’s photograph was stuck to a board in the office and he’d seen it dozens of times during the last couple of days, but she didn’t look like that on-screen, no more party girl, drunk and smiling. Didn’t look like the dead version of herself in the bath either. This ‘her’ was somewhere between the two; she sat tall and straight as she stared into the camera, sombre in her black dress.

Before she even spoke her intention to be taken seriously was clear.

‘I’m not going to hide any more,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to be scared any more and I’ve had enough of lying about who I am. This is me. I’m Jasmine.’ Her eyes dipped and she pressed her lips together, visibly steeling herself. ‘Last year I was attacked by a man who beat me up because of who I am. Because of what I am. What we all are. I’ve been hiding ever since and it shouldn’t be that way. We shouldn’t let men like him control us and make us feel ashamed or scared to go out in the world. They call us freaks and weirdos and perverts, but they’re the ones who are sick. Not just the violent abusers, but the people who act like they’re better than us because they fit into a neat little box that society terms “normal”. They use that word to oppress us and we let them.’

She blinked, her eyes shining large.

‘Because we’re afraid of letting the world see who we really are. I wish I was brave enough to be me properly, but I’m not. That man is still out there and maybe some of you have been hurt by him too and if you have then I’m deeply, truly sorry that I didn’t do more when he attacked me. I wanted to help the police but I can’t. I didn’t see his face, I didn’t know him. But they won’t leave me alone because they think I’m lying to protect myself from exposure. I promise you all – my sisters – that isn’t the case. Whatever is said about me in the coming days, please know that this is the truth.’

She paused for a long moment and Zigic looked at her, lying there in the bath, growing colder, the faint trace of life he’d seen when he walked in now completely gone.

‘I hope you all find the courage to live better lives than I did.’

The video ended and for a moment he stared at the frozen screen, still processing her words.

No wonder Ferreira felt so guilt-stricken. Her interview was unquestionably a contributory factor and they would need to deal with the consequences of that.

Zigic switched the light on and went to blow out the candles around the bath, wary of the fire hazard. It felt like an intrusion on the careful scene Jasmine had created but now reality had to take precedence and the banal work of removing her body would soon begin, the ambulance on its way.

He found Ferreira and Evelyn Goddard in the spartan living room at the front of the house. Ferreira sat on the arm of the sofa, Evelyn perched on the edge of a tub chair, her heavy shearling coat wrapped tight around her.

She stood as Zigic entered the room. ‘Well, I hope you’re both very proud of yourselves. You started the week with one dead trans woman and now you have two.’

‘Ms Goddard, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, please.’ Zigic gestured towards the door. ‘Until we have confirmation of cause of death, this is a crime scene.’

She drew herself upright and walked over to him. ‘Oh, it is a crime scene, alright. We all know Jasmine committed suicide because you people drove her to it with your harassment tactics. You have caused her death just as surely as if you’d held her down and cut her wrists yourselves.’

Before either of them could speak she swept out of the house, barging aside the PC stationed at the front door, climbed into her car and pulled out of the driveway in a furious spray of gravel. Somehow he doubted that parting shot would be the last they heard from her on the subject.