42

The key found the lock on the second attempt and Ferreira slammed the door behind her, the sound ringing through her head, feeling like she’d been punched. She didn’t think she’d had that much to drink and the food should have soaked it up but she felt toxic already.

In the kitchen she drank two full glasses of water and that didn’t help. It just sloshed around, giving her a colder kind of nausea. She put the kettle on and went into the bathroom to throw up. She needed to be sober when she talked to Zigic. Her whole career could be riding on that conversation and she needed him to see how seriously she was taking this situation.

Almost three o’clock.

She knew she should get some sleep, meet Zigic fully rested and alert, but her mind kept turning, running down the same lines she’d been exploring since the early hours of the morning. There was something she was missing about Ryan Bhakta’s assault, something frustratingly out of reach. The doctor in A&E had known he was lying, she just didn’t know why or about what. Bright and Hale might remember something more useful but she wasn’t going to risk making contact with them. She’d done enough today, with little to show for it, beyond a belief that Ryan had been raped.

How would Zigic react when she told him that? She’d almost done it over the phone but decided it was a conversation best had face-to-face. He wasn’t going to be happy about her independent investigation. He never did approve of that, too much the team player.

It was the least of her worries now, she realised.

In the kitchen she brewed a pot of strong coffee, made a couple of slices of toast she ate dry, every mouthful an effort, and chased them with an ibuprofen.

She took her coffee into the living room and curled up on the sofa with her laptop. This was going to be an act of self-immolation, but she needed to see what was being said.

The vitriol level had risen steadily since the last time she looked and the tone was darker in the wake of Ryan’s suicide, as if this kind of death attracted a different breed of troll to murder. Less condemnation of lifestyle more sick humour, a few dozen persistent offenders competing to hit the bottom of the barrel.

That wasn’t Ferreira’s concern though. As much as she’d love to press charges on every one of the bastards.

The Peterborough Constabulary Twitter account was being bombarded with calls for an official inquiry, accusations of prejudice and bullying, hundreds of different accounts saying they’d hounded Jasmine to her death – nobody used Ryan Bhakta’s name. As she watched, somebody posted a link to a petition calling for the sacking of the officer responsible. They didn’t know who that was yet but they wanted a head to roll. The retweets started instantly and she closed the tab, went over to the Trans Sisters Facebook group.

More of the same there, just coming from fewer people. They were furious, talking about legal action and contacting their MPs, the IPCC, taking it to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

She took her coffee into the kitchen and poured a slug of rum into it. No point worrying about the clear head now. Gilraye would be monitoring the social media accounts, she’d pass the details on to Riggott and he’d pass them up from there.

When the mug was empty she poured another shot into it and smoked a cigarette standing staring out of the window. Simon Trent’s office, the Meadham, the Trans Sisters HQ; all of the main players in this case were within a hundred metres of her. She imagined Evelyn Goddard sitting smugly at her big glass desk, watching Ferreira’s career implode in a social media witch-hunt. It was what she’d wanted from the moment they first met her; a scalp.

How much of this was she engineering? Was it fanciful to think she could do that?

Ferreira took another drag, realised she was being ridiculous. Nobody needed to orchestrate proceedings. Once Jasmine posted that video it was inevitable that the community would start looking for somebody to hold accountable and then the roaming band of opportunistic agitators would come along for the ride. They’d spend a few days on this before they found another cause to fill their lunch breaks and their empty evenings, but by then her career could be over.

Evelyn Goddard was the only person she could get to right now and part of her knew it was a bad idea but she was beyond caring.

Within five minutes she was being buzzed into the office, met at the door by a doughy man wearing shorts and Crocs, despite the weather, who told her she wasn’t welcome there.

‘You let me in,’ Ferreira said, already moving. ‘Where’s Ms Goddard? Through here, yeah?’

She went into Evelyn’s office without knocking, walking in on an unexpected scene, Evelyn pink-eyed, with a bottle of her own uncapped on the desk, a generous measure poured into a tumbler.

‘Thought you’d be celebrating,’ Ferreira said, closing the door on the receptionist’s protests. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. We’re being pilloried.’

‘I didn’t want that.’ Evelyn drew herself together quickly, retrieving her jacket from the back of her chair and pulling it on over her dress, taking the opportunity to wipe her eyes while she was turned away. ‘I only wanted you to take our concerns seriously.’

The fight deserted Ferreira as she watched Evelyn settle herself into her chair again. She looked her age today, older and frailer than the woman they’d dealt with previously, and Ferreira realised she didn’t have the stomach to argue with a grieving pensioner.

‘For what it’s worth, I really am truly sorry about Ryan,’ she said. ‘All I ever wanted was to find the man who attacked him and make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else.’

Evelyn picked up her glass. ‘I was out of order – what I said to you at the house. It was the shock. I knew Ryan was depressed, but I had no idea he was so close to the edge. He never really recovered.’

‘Most people don’t recover from something like that. Not without help.’ Ferreira sat down, debated her next words for a moment, knowing they were make or break. ‘Did you know he’d been raped?’

The eruption she feared didn’t come. Instead Evelyn buried her face in her hand and muttered quietly to herself.

‘I suspected as much,’ she said finally. ‘Ryan’s manner was so strange when I arrived at his house. He seemed … ashamed. I couldn’t understand it at the time, but the more I pressed him about what had happened the quieter he became. I’ve known plenty of girls get beaten up for how they were dressed – God, I’ve had men try it with me. Normally we don’t feel ashamed in that situation, we’re scared or we’re angry or both, but never ashamed.’

‘Did you ask him directly?’

‘I didn’t need to.’ Evelyn drained her glass in one swift draught. ‘I undressed him, remember. I saw the blood. And the semen.’

Ferreira sighed. There it was, all the evidence they needed, gone.

‘We could have got him,’ she said, trying to keep the accusation out of her voice. ‘If only Ryan had come forward.’

‘I hoped he might be strong enough to do that one day.’ Evelyn reached for the bottle of Laphroaig and poured another stiff measure in; the whisky didn’t seem to be touching her. ‘I hoped, eventually, I’d be able to convince him to think of the greater good.’

‘That’s why you asked him to talk to me?’

She nodded, the muscles in her face tightening briefly, and she looked down into her glass before she spoke. ‘And … it’s why I kept the clothes.’

Ferreira shot up in her seat. ‘What?’

‘I’m sorry, I know I should have come forward sooner,’ Evelyn said, almost babbling. ‘But how could I do that without Ryan’s consent and cooperation? I could hardly just march into the police station and say, “Examine these, they’re covered in a rapist’s DNA.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips. ‘Poor Simone, she could have been spared.’

Ferreira was on her feet. ‘Evelyn, where are the clothes now?’