Morning briefing was quieter than usual and as he outlined the plan for the day Zigic’s eyes kept straying towards Ferreira’s desk, the chair sitting spun out from her computer, a half-eaten chocolate bar next to the mouse, a cup of coffee gone cold nearby.
He should have got in earlier, talked to Riggott. Maybe he could have explained the situation, smoothed things over. If nothing else he would have pointed out that they needed every officer they could muster if they were going to catch Corinne Sawyer’s murderer, and since Ferreira had been so heavily involved with speaking to the Sawyer family, she was the last person they could afford to lose at that moment.
As it was he arrived to a fait accompli.
A message from Riggott and another from Ferreira, apologising for fucking things up. When he called her her phone diverted straight to voicemail.
It was only one day, but tomorrow was Saturday and with no overtime budgeted for the case they would lose the weekend too, no chance of her being back in the office before Monday, and by then the pressure would have increased. If they couldn’t make significant headway today there was every chance Corinne Sawyer’s murder would be moved to CID as next week began.
Wahlia and Murray were watching him, waiting for their orders.
She’d arrived early, apologised for her outburst at the end of yesterday’s shift, but he’d been where she was, showed contrition he didn’t feel to senior officers, and he knew nothing had really changed in her attitude. He needed to work with what he had, though.
‘Alright,’ he said, eyeing the board. ‘So, today we’re going to speak to the main players in the Sawyer family. I’m not expecting anyone to break down and confess, but we’ve got limited lines of inquiry, as things stand, and my feeling is they are the right place to focus our attention.’
Murray frowned, stayed silent.
Zigic gestured at Wahlia. ‘Bobby, I need you to pick up where Mel left off yesterday. Chase up the rest of the information on Corinne’s phone, see if there are any other men we should be looking into.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Also, I want us to have a very firm handle on the particulars of Corinne and Nina’s divorce negotiations before we talk to her. There was a lot of money at stake and I think we can safely say that’s a valid motive.’
Murray piped up. ‘But Nina was in line to come out with a big pay-off, wasn’t she?’
‘One point five mil,’ Wahlia said. ‘Straight fifty/fifty split.’
‘Not like she was going to be destitute then.’ Murray reached for her tea. ‘Why kill Corinne and risk losing all that?’
It was a fair question but Murray’s tone grated on Zigic. He forced himself to ignore that and said, ‘Because it’s never just about money. Say you were Nina, and you felt like you’d wasted the best years of your life on a man, been integral in building up a business, maybe even done the bulk of the work. Then he walks out on you. Hands it all over to another woman – how would you feel?’
She hid her mouth behind her mug; he knew just how she felt about it. Her own divorce had been acrimonious and saw her move from a large, detached house in a good village to a two-and-a-half-bed semi in a rough suburb, while her husband started afresh with a new woman fifteen years younger than her.
‘No, this isn’t just about the money,’ he said. ‘It’s about what it represents.’
Murray sighed. ‘Are we seriously considering Nina Sawyer a suspect, then?’
‘Why not?’ Zigic shrugged. ‘She knew Corinne’s routine. And since we don’t have a concrete sighting, there’s no telling whether it was a man or a woman who killed her.’
‘We’ve got a footprint of a size 10 shoe at the scene,’ Murray reminded him.
‘And it’s a site that sees heavy footfall.’
Murray leaned forward in her chair, elbows on her knees. ‘So, we’re saying the girlfriend’s a potential suspect, too?’
‘If she suspected Corinne was cheating on her, yes. It’s the oldest reason in the world.’
‘But did she know that?’
‘We have to assume she suspected,’ Zigic said, remembering their conversation. ‘Sam Hyde is an outside bet, though. Right now I want us to concentrate on what happened at the Christmas dinner. Everyone’s admitted there was an argument but nobody has given us an explanation.’
He stood up and went over to the board, rapped his knuckle against Harry Sawyer’s face. ‘The daughter told us Corinne slapped Harry. He physically threw her out of the house and she slapped him. We need to nail down why that happened and if it represents a motive.’
‘They’ll close ranks,’ Murray said. ‘I’ve talked to Nina, and Harry’s girlfriend, remember. They’re holding firm.’
Zigic folded his arms. Ten past eight and he was already sick of her negativity. If he had any other option he’d send her back up to CID right now.
‘We don’t need them to give anyone up. We do this the old-fashioned way, alright, Colleen? We get them talking, we make them go over what happened as many times as we have to until one of them slips up and tells us what we need to know.’ He opened his hands up wide. ‘Is that how I want to do this? No. But we don’t have a ton of other options, do we?’
Zigic made the calls and within an hour the Sawyer family started trickling into the station. They presented no resistance, but really, how could they? The family of a murder victim, not accused of anything yet, none of their houses searched, it would be madness to do anything but cooperate fully when a detective inspector requested they come in for a chat.
Innocent and you came to genuinely help. Guilty, you couldn’t afford to draw attention to yourself by delaying.
Despite Murray’s grumbles she proved to be an asset in the interview room. She looked like a woman who’d seen everything, suffered more than her fair share, and that made people feel comfortable around her. Jessica was the first to arrive and having proven very open previously, Zigic wasn’t surprised when she spilled the same old story to them, only with more emotion this time.
She’d held it together through the press conference but her grief seemed to be on a time delay and now it was catching up with her. Her voice cracked when she said Corinne’s name, she stumbled over her words and repeated herself, questioned herself, didn’t appear to be functioning on the same level mentally as she had before. Grief had removed all the old certainties.
The problem was Jessica had been away at Christmas and only knew what she’d heard second hand; too much drink flowing at the table, Nina sniping, Corinne giving as good as she got, and then Harry throwing her out of the house.
‘Why did he lose his temper with her?’ Murray asked.
‘He was drunk.’
‘Did Corinne provoke him?’
Jessica held her hands on the table, fingers knitted tightly together, visibly debating with herself. ‘Harry and Corinne always had a … fraught relationship.’
‘Fraught how?’
‘Harry loved Dad, he idolised him. We’ve been through this already, I don’t understand why I need to tell you it all over again.’
‘Because Corinne hit him,’ Zigic said. ‘Was she always like that?’
‘No.’ Jessica drew herself up in her chair.
‘I understand that you want to protect Corinne’s memory but we know she slapped Harry and these things rarely happen in isolation.’
‘She was a very loving mother.’
‘And what kind of father was she before that?’
‘The same,’ Jessica said. ‘She didn’t suddenly change personality.’
‘Obviously she did, if that’s the first time she hit one of you.’
Jessica didn’t reply but he could see she was flustered.
‘Harry must have done something to antagonise her,’ Zigic said. ‘Something very serious.’
‘Corinne wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t believe in people hitting their children. She said it was what bad parents did.’
Like her own, Zigic thought, remembering what Bob Moran had told him, the beatings meted out by Corinne’s mother.
‘So she was a bad parent?’
‘No!’ Jessica looked exasperated.
‘If bad parents hit their kids and Corinne hit Harry, then what did that make her?’
‘You’re twisting my words,’ she snapped. ‘Corinne was patient with us, even when we were being complete terrors. She didn’t even react when …’
‘When what?’
She pressed her lips together, dropped her gaze. ‘It was nothing. It was years ago. Why does this matter? Harry didn’t kill her.’
‘Harry has a history of violence,’ Zigic said shortly, slipping into the unfamiliar bad-guy role. He opened up the file he’d brought in with him and took out a photograph of the man Harry Sawyer had attacked when he was eighteen. He was a slightly built, middle-aged guy, bald and pale, with a badly broken nose and black eye. ‘Did he ever talk about why he did this?’
Jessica stared at the photo, frowning deeply. ‘I – he said it was self-defence.’
‘It wasn’t. Harry pleaded guilty.’ Zigic watched her sag slightly, no more hiding from the kind of man Harry was. ‘He attacked this man because he was gay. No other reason but that.’
‘He was only eighteen.’
‘Yes, it was years ago,’ Zigic said, throwing her words back at her. ‘Is that what Corinne didn’t hit Harry over?’
Jessica stayed silent, looking at the man’s battered face.
‘How do you imagine she felt, knowing her son did this to someone just because of their sexuality?’ Still she didn’t reply. ‘Corinne must have wondered if Harry wanted to do that to her, don’t you think? Harry attacked this man but really he wanted to hurt Corinne?’
Jessica looked away from them both, visibly struggling to hold herself together.
Zigic took another photo out of the file and slid it over the table. He should have warned her and he should have apologised for showing her an image of Corinne, dead, barely recognisable, but he needed to shock her now.
‘Jessica.’
He tapped the photo and she looked at it automatically, just a split second before she recoiled, gasping, her hand over her mouth, eyes squeezing shut.
Zigic put the photograph away again. ‘Do you see? It’s not so different, is it?’
‘I’m leaving.’ She pushed away from the table and hesitated for a second, looking between the two of them, as if seeking permission.
Zigic gestured towards the door. ‘You’re free to go.’
Part of her didn’t want to, he could see it in how she hitched her handbag onto her shoulder and the slowness of her step as she headed for the door. She knew something but she wasn’t quite ready to tell them yet. The shock had done the trick; now they would have to wait until she’d wrestled with her conscience, her love for Corinne versus her loyalty to her brother.