Harry Sawyer wouldn’t talk to them without a solicitor present, despite Murray’s assurances that it was only an informal chat. He wasn’t buying that. He’d been here before and realised he was in trouble.
‘Good sign,’ Murray said, shaking her crisp packet at Zigic across the canteen table.
He declined, was supposed to be avoiding junk food, although he wasn’t convinced the cheese sandwich he’d bought was much healthier. They had an hour to kill before Harry’s solicitor arrived and coming down here for a late lunch was as good a use of the time as he could think of.
The alternative was returning to his office to write up the report Riggott had requested on Ferreira’s handling of Ryan Bhakta. The DCS had given him until Monday, almost as if he was allowing them a chance to get their story straight. Zigic was sure Bhakta’s suicide stemmed from a lifetime of personal struggles and the fallout from a particularly brutal attack rather than the short conversation Ferreira had had with him earlier in the week, but he knew it looked bad on her and him and their department in general. And he was well aware that the sword which had been hanging over their collective necks ever since Hate Crimes had been founded had dropped almost within touching distance.
He wasn’t going to lay this all on Ferreira, though.
In her position he would have done the same thing, any good detective would, and he already knew he was going to make that absolutely clear. How he did that was what troubled him.
Murray crumpled up the empty crisp packet. ‘Going for a fag.’
Zigic took out his mobile and called Ferreira’s number. She picked up after two rings and he could hear music in the background, chattering voices.
‘Where are you?’
‘Having lunch,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d enjoy my day off.’
‘Well, don’t get too used to being a lady of leisure.’
‘You’ve spoken to Riggott?’ she asked, a bright note coming into her voice. ‘What did he say?’
‘I haven’t spoken to him yet. He wants a report by Monday.’
‘Oh.’ Glasses clinked together at her end and she thanked somebody. ‘I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, won’t I? Not like I’m completely unemployable. There’s always private security.’
She was slurring slightly and Zigic pinched the bridge of his nose, picturing her getting hammered in some bar, trying to drown the guilt and the worry he knew he’d be feeling in her position.
‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘After work, okay?’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I’ll call you later.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She rang off and Zigic looked at his lunch for a second before throwing the paper napkin over the remnants of his sandwich. He should have tried to reassure her but he didn’t want to lie and he’d never been much good at pep talks.
As he was heading back up to Hate Crimes again his phone rang, an unfamiliar number on the screen. He paused in the stairwell to answer.
‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
‘Jessica?’
‘I should have said this ages ago, but I didn’t want to cause any trouble.’ She sounded distressed. ‘I owe it to Mum.’
Above him the stairwell door banged and Murray called his name from the top of the next flight. He held a finger up.
‘What is it, Jessica?’
Zigic listened while the story spilled out of her, punctuated by sniffs, her voice getting thicker and more choked until the final words, when she dissolved into tears. He thanked her but she was already gone.
‘Solicitor’s here,’ Murray said. ‘What was that all about?’
He updated her as they went down to the interview rooms. Murray didn’t seem very pleased with the development, questioning the importance of what Jessica had told him and when he insisted it mattered, questioned her reliability.
Murray wanted it to be Walton so much she’d probably refuse to believe a signed confession from any other suspect.
Harry Sawyer sat with his knees spread wide, leaning back from the table, but he snapped to attention when they walked in, pushed his jumper up to his elbows, straightened his watch on his wrist, getting himself ready. Next to him the solicitor had the same expression of bored implacability they all wore in this situation. Just another client on another regulation case.
Murray ran through the usual spiel, explained that Harry was free to leave whenever he liked, and he nodded, eyes cutting quickly towards the door as if he might test the theory at any moment.
He was nervous. Had good reason to be, Zigic thought.
Or maybe it was only experience making his knees shake under the table and his tongue dart out to wet his chapped lips. There was a bottle of water on the table in front of him, half drunk, the label shredded.
Murray got the initial questions out of the way, as with Brynn Moran, and then Zigic took over, getting down to their real business.
‘On the 26th of December last year, you had an altercation with Corinne,’ he said. ‘Tell us what that was about.’
‘She was mouthing off at Mum.’
‘And you decided to stop her?’
‘Somebody had to.’
‘Is your mother not capable of defending herself?’ Zigic asked.
Harry shifted his feet under the table, trainers squeaking on the linoleum floor. ‘Corinne bullied her for years. Mum’s the victim here.’
‘Corinne’s the one who was murdered.’ Zigic studied him, saw only the barest flicker of panic around his eyes. ‘You physically removed Corinne from the house – is that right?’
‘I escorted her out.’
‘And as you were “escorting” her, she hit you.’
‘She didn’t.’
Zigic sighed. ‘We know she did, Harry. We’ve had it confirmed by two sources. Why did she hit you?’
Harry Sawyer wet his lips. ‘She hit me because I told her she was a joke.’
‘Not a freak?’
He shrugged. ‘A joke, a freak, what’s the difference? I can’t remember exactly what I said. I was offensive, but she’d been offensive to Mum. I don’t have to apologise for that.’
‘You said “it didn’t matter what she did, or how much money she spent, she’d always just be a freak in a dress”.’
A hint of embarrassment coloured his cheeks. ‘There’s no law against being rude to someone.’
‘It depends how far it goes.’
‘It didn’t go any further. She left.’
‘What about after she left?’
‘I didn’t speak to her again.’
‘Before she died?’
Harry Sawyer shook his head. ‘No. I had nothing else to say to her. I wouldn’t have been there for dinner except Mum needed someone to watch her back.’
Interesting choice of words, Zigic thought. He was making it sound even more combative than the others had, and it made him wonder if that was how Harry Sawyer saw the dynamic within his family. A fight, a war, a situation where backs actually had to be watched. Or if he was just the kind of idiot whose dialogue was peppered with the hyper-masculine language of violence.
‘Did you hit her back?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I was raised not to hit women.’
‘But you don’t see her as a woman,’ Zigic said. ‘She was just a “freak in a dress”. A man. And we know you’ve got no problem hitting other men.’
Sawyer’s jaw clenched, cords rising in his neck. ‘I was a kid.’
‘And how old were you when you beat your dad up?’
‘I told you, I didn’t hit her back.’ Sawyer was trying to stare him down but Zigic had seen much worse from much tougher men. All he saw when Sawyer put the hard eye on him was fear gilded with bravado.
‘Not her,’ Zigic said. ‘Not Corinne. I want to know how old you were when you beat your dad up. Colin.’
There was the fear, its covering stripped away, and Sawyer retreated behind his hands, curled them up like he was cold and held them over his mouth. The classic pose of someone who was about to lie.
‘I didn’t do that.’
‘You broke two of Colin’s ribs, you knocked out three of his teeth and perforated his eardrum.’ Zigic’s turn with the hard stare now. ‘That was a hell of a beating, Harry. What were you, fifteen, sixteen?’
‘Who told you?’
‘Why? Are you going to beat them up too?’
‘Jessica,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She wasn’t even there.’
‘No, but she saw the results of your anger-management issues,’ Zigic said. ‘And I guess she’s not the only member of your family wondering if you’re a murderer about now.’
Sawyer planted his palms flat on the table and for a moment Zigic thought he was going to kick off, welcomed the prospect and the advantage it would give them, but he didn’t. He just flexed his sinewy hands, the muscles in his forearms tensing, and then caught himself, withdrew slightly.
Easy to imagine those thick fingers with her earphone cables looped around them for purchase as he choked the last breaths out of her.
‘I didn’t kill Corinne.’
‘You despised her,’ Zigic said. ‘She disgusted you.’
‘I didn’t kill her. I’ve got an alibi. Take my DNA, take my fingerprints, see if I did it.’
He slammed his arm down on the table, slapped his inner elbow, as if Zigic might produce a needle then and there. Zigic raised an eyebrow at him.
‘You know the process better than that, Harry. You’ve been here before.’
‘Then you know I didn’t do it, because I’m already on your system.’
Sawyer was breathing hard, a vein throbbing at his temple. Maybe he thought he’d been more careful and they had nothing to test against. They didn’t have much, but there was a size 10 shoe print at the scene and fibres on Corinne’s clothes and very soon a search team would be at his house looking for items to match them.
‘I’m leaving.’
‘No, Harry,’ Zigic said. ‘You’re not.’