Nina Sawyer proved a tougher prospect than her daughter. Didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to go over old ground again, couldn’t see why they were so interested in her and her family when Corinne had obviously been murdered by some random ‘thug’ out on the prowl around Ferry Meadows.
‘I am absolutely not blaming Corinne, women should be safe to walk down the street naked if they choose to, but we all know better than that, don’t we?’ she said, looking at Murray, because she was the woman in the room and she would understand.
Murray nodded slightly and Zigic knew she was thinking the same thing as Nina. Except the ‘thug’ Murray had in mind wasn’t quite so random.
Nina shook her head. ‘It’s a shame you don’t take assaults on women more seriously, then you might actually manage to lock these animals up before they graduate to murder.’
‘So you’d like to see tougher sentences?’ Zigic asked.
‘Of course I would,’ she said, bristling slightly. ‘You might not be able to rehabilitate them but at least the rest of us are safe while they’re in prison.’
‘Is that how you felt when Harry got a suspended sentence?’ The skin around her eyes tightened, but she didn’t reply. ‘That was a brutal attack. Should he have been locked up to protect the rest of society?’
Nina shifted her gaze back to Murray, maybe assuming another woman would understand. ‘He acted in self-defence. Harry was barely old enough to shave, let alone extricate himself from unwanted sexual advances from a man old enough to be his father. He was scared.’
‘You can tell yourself that,’ Zigic said. ‘But we all know it was an unprovoked attack. Your son is a bully and a thug.’
A faint blush glowed through her foundation; she’d come into the station decked out in full warpaint, hair done, dressed in black tailored trousers and a silk jumper, looking every inch the poised and polished businesswoman. Seen like this her wealth was obvious, the confidence which it inevitably spawned in a person. Zigic was surprised she hadn’t arrived with an expensive solicitor in tow, but she seemed certain of her ability to handle this solo.
‘Harry may have had his problems when he was younger but he hasn’t been in any trouble, of any kind, since Corinne moved out. She was the agitating factor there, even the judge understood that. Frankly, I think it’s a great credit to Harry how well he’s turned out. Given the kind of example his father set him.’
Zigic was aware of the clock ticking behind her. Harry Sawyer was on his way into the station, Brynn Moran waiting to be spoken to next; he’d driven Nina, asked how long he could expect to be there, he had an appointment with a prospective new client in the afternoon.
They’d left Lily, the younger daughter, at home, and Zigic wondered if it had been an oversight or defensive action. Once he’d realised he dispatched a patrol car to collect her, wishing Ferreira had been in the office to do the job. The girl had met her already, spoken to her at length, it would have made the whole thing much easier.
Time to change tack.
‘Mrs Sawyer,’ he said, ‘we’ve been looking into your and Corinne’s divorce proceedings and it seems to us that you’re stalling—’
‘I am challenging inconsistencies in the accounting,’ Nina said. ‘That takes time, yes, but I won’t be fobbed off with a smaller settlement than I’m due.’
‘But you have that and more.’ Zigic took out a photocopied document, turned to the page Wahlia had marked with a little pink tab. ‘As of November the 25th last year, you have a fifty per cent share of the business, plus the house you’re currently living in and a villa in the Algarve.’
She glanced at the paperwork, shrugged. ‘And your point is?’
‘Why haven’t you signed?’ Zigic asked. ‘It seems a fair settlement.’
‘To you, maybe.’
‘You weren’t holding out because you wanted him back, then?’
‘Oh, now you’re just talking nonsense.’ She examined her fingernails, looking bored. ‘What you won’t find in the paperwork you have are the details of how our business started. It was my money that funded the first properties in the portfolio, and my parents who supported us financially during the last recession, when we almost lost everything. I am entitled to far more than fifty per cent of that business.’
Zigic watched her sitting there haughtily, much more comfortable now their discussion had moved away from her son and on to the less treacherous subject of money. It told him everything he needed to know about her own suspicions.
‘How did Corinne feel about you delaying the completion of your divorce?’ he asked.
‘She wasn’t happy, but she made me unhappy for long enough.’ Nina tossed her head, ash-blonde hair swishing over her shoulder. ‘If she wanted to speed things up all she had to do was agree to my requests.’
‘Did she mention it at your Christmas get-together?’
‘We have a family rule, no business or politics at the dinner table.’
‘Must have been awkward, though. Having that hanging over the festivities.’
Nina shrugged again, shoulders sharp through her jumper. ‘She should have thought about that before she insisted on coming.’
‘Her and Harry had a set-to – what was that about?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do,’ Zigic said. ‘Things got heated. Corinne slapped him.’
For a moment he seriously considered whether she knew anything about it, she looked genuinely perplexed, as if she thought he was trying to catch her out.
‘That doesn’t sound like something she’d do,’ Nina said. ‘She was always quite volatile but I’d never known her to be violent. Or Colin, for that matter.’
‘Maybe she was upset because Harry threw her out,’ Zigic suggested and got nothing but another slight shrug. ‘Why did he do that?’
‘I don’t remember that happening.’ She glanced away again, towards the blank wall at her right. ‘One minute she was at the table and the next she’d left. I thought it was rather rude of her not to thank us for lunch, but it wasn’t entirely out of character.’
Zigic made Nina go through the meal in detail. The questioning quickly annoyed her but he wanted her distracted by the minutiae, knew it was the small errors in a timeline which could reveal their lies. But she kept answering his prompts, what they ate, what they drank, who was cooking and whether she was in the kitchen.
‘Brynn’s a far better cook than me,’ she said. ‘I left him to it.’
‘While you and Corinne and Harry stayed at the table?’ She nodded. ‘At what point did Harry throw her out?’
‘I – I think it was after dessert.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘We’d all had rather a lot to drink,’ she said defensively. ‘God, it was weeks ago, how can you seriously expect me to remember?’
‘Fights tend to be memorable.’
‘There was no fight.’
‘Harry threw Corinne out and Corinne slapped him. That’s a fight by anyone’s definition of the word,’ Zigic said. ‘Now, the more you deny it, the more we have to think it was about something significant.’
Nina folded her arms, the fine gold bracelets she wore clinking together. ‘Who told you about this? How do you even know it’s true? I didn’t see anything. Nobody else saw it.’
‘It happened and if you genuinely weren’t told about it then, again, we have to think it was a serious fight or else why wouldn’t Harry tell you?’
She pondered it for a moment, eyes searching the tabletop for an answer, and Zigic found he believed her dismay. Lily knew, because she’d told Ferreira. Harry knew, because he’d done the deed and felt Corinne’s wrath stinging on his cheek. But maybe neither had told her about it.
‘We were in the living room,’ she said slowly. ‘Brynn was making coffee and Corinne was upstairs with Lily. I don’t remember her coming back down.’
‘“We” being you and Harry?’
‘Yes. So he can’t have thrown her out because he was with me,’ Nina said triumphantly, daring him to contradict her. ‘Corinne must have finally realised she’d outstayed her welcome and left.’
‘Except we know they had an argument in the hallway,’ Zigic said. ‘And we know Corinne struck Harry. So your recollection of events is clearly flawed. And I’ll ask you again – have you ever witnessed violence between them before?’
She glared at him. ‘Of course not.’
‘But Harry clearly has a temper.’
‘He does not have a temper.’
‘How would you explain this act of violence then?’
‘A fabrication,’ Nina said.
Zigic sighed, took back the document from the table in front of her and placed it in the file. ‘Thank you, Mrs Sawyer, that will be all for now.’
‘What an absolute bloody waste of my time,’ she said, standing smartly, collecting her leather tote bag and tucking it into the crook her arm.
‘DS Murray will see you out.’
Colleen stopped the recording and Nina let herself be escorted from the interview room.
Wahlia was waiting for him in the corridor.
‘Thought you’d want to know before you spoke to Brynn Moran,’ he said, holding out a sheet of call logs. ‘Conversations between Corinne and Brynn Moran in the fortnight after Christmas. Found them on Corinne’s second phone, which seems a bit off.’
Zigic checked them over, three calls, all during the day, durations of less than a minute for the first two. Moran called Corinne, she called back the next day, then another return call from him. That one was longer, four minutes plus.
‘This could be anything, Bobby. They were friends from way back, and Lily Sawyer told Mel he was acting as a peacekeeper between Corinne and Nina. It’s not unexpected that they’re talking.’
‘Maybe not, but if he’s peacekeeping after Christmas doesn’t it suggest he might know what the almighty bust-up was about?’