Ferreira was already at Ryan Bhakta’s house, sitting on the bonnet of her car, when Zigic arrived. She looked wired and he wondered how much sleep she’d got, guessed it was more than him. Emily had kept them awake all night and the last thing he’d done before he’d left home was warm a bottle so Anna could feed her without getting up.
She wasn’t happy about him working this morning but he’d promised it would only be for a couple of hours.
Harry Sawyer’s house had been searched yesterday afternoon and Murray had returned with a pair of trainers and several black jumpers which might yield a match with the fibres lifted from Corinne’s hoodie. The tests would have to wait until Monday though, so there was no real reason to keep him locked up.
Maybe a weekend of picking over the bones of their interviews would weaken the resolve of one member of the Sawyer family. Jessica had already proved herself willing to speak out, Lily too – although she’d contributed nothing new during her interview – and he suspected any further progress would come from somebody finally finding the confidence to withdraw their support from Harry.
‘You know where to look?’ Zigic asked, as he hunted in his pockets for the key he’d picked up at the station.
Ferreira nodded. ‘Exactly where.’
The door had been fixed after its encounter with the battering ram, a new lock fitted, and the key turned with a hard clunk. He followed Ferreira up to the attic. It wasn’t where he’d expected Evelyn Goddard to hide the clothes, seemed far too dangerous. This was clearly a special place to Ryan Bhakta and he doubted that a worn and stained dress, especially one with such horrific memories attached to it, would go unnoticed for a year.
‘Why didn’t she take the clothes home with her?’ he asked, sitting down on the armchair, knowing he was surplus to requirements.
‘She said she was worried that taking them out of the house would create legal complications down the line.’ Ferreira stood in the centre of the room, looking around.
‘I thought you knew where to look.’
She cocked her head, walked over to him. ‘It’s behind you.’
Zigic got up and dragged the armchair away from the wall, revealing a small white hatch, which she opened to reveal a crawl space under the eaves.
‘He must have rearranged the furniture since Evelyn was here last.’ Ferreira squatted down and directed her phone’s torchlight into the void. ‘Gross.’
‘So much for avoiding contamination.’
She shifted onto her knees and her head and shoulders disappeared through the door. ‘I would have loved this when I was a kid.’
‘What about now?’
‘Yeah, not so much,’ she said, voice muffled as she shuffled further in.
They were wasting their time, he realised. Surely there was no way someone as neat and precise as Evelyn Goddard squeezed through that door, not as far as Ferreira was going.
Zigic went into the adjoining bathroom and walked straight out again. Ryan Bhakta’s body was gone but the evidence of his suicide was still there, dried blood on the floor, a pinkish film clinging to the sides of the bathtub. It would fall to the family to clean up and he wondered how long it would be before they could face coming here.
Ferreira had backed out and started to search in the opposite direction, just her boots visible.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘Got it.’
There was dust on her face and cobwebs all over her hair and clothes when she wriggled back out, clutching the crumpled bundle in a gloved hand.
‘You better take this,’ she said, looking down at herself.
Zigic pulled on his own gloves and took the package from her. Evelyn had put Ryan’s clothes in a Waitrose bag, knotted the top and then slipped it inside a clear plastic sheath from a local dry-cleaner’s, wound that round the bag several times. It hadn’t been enough to deter spiders and other bugs and as he carefully unwound the sheath dozens of dry husks fell out onto the carpet.
He unpicked the knot and there, inside, was a carefully folded gold dress, its fabric still retaining a faint trace of perfume. Too faint to fully cover the sour tang of stale bodily fluids.
‘We’ve got blood,’ Zigic said.
He opened up the bag so she could see inside.
‘That’s the dress he was wearing the night he was attacked. I’ve seen the photos.’
‘Okay, we’re getting somewhere.’ He reknotted the bag, feeling a curious sense of anticlimax. They might have the clothes but they didn’t have a suspect and there was no guarantee that the DNA samples which forensics should be able to lift from the dress would match anyone already on the system.
Ferreira seemed to be feeling it too, the energy which had propelled her into the crawl space gone. She was standing at the dressing table where Ryan Bhakta had said goodbye to the world. The laptop was still there, his mobile phone next to it.
‘We should take these, too.’
Outside, Zigic loaded everything into the boot of his car, already thinking about getting home. He’d swing by the station and drop this lot off, in and out in ten minutes.
Ferreira put her hand up as he drove away and he hoped she wouldn’t spend the whole weekend worrying about Monday’s meeting.
He managed to get up to forensics and out of the station again without being sidetracked and as he pulled out of the car park the sun broke through the clouds, weak and pale, but sun all the same, and it felt like the first touch of spring.
He drove back down Thorpe Road and into the Waitrose near the train station, which was doing brisker business than he expected, travellers stopping in for coffees and sandwiches, an already rowdy group of men stocking up on beer. A stag do, judging by their outfits; two Batmans, three Power Rangers and the biggest of them done up like Alice in Wonderland. Zigic wondered if he’d lost a bet or if he just liked the dress.
Would they be the types to hassle someone like Corinne or Simone? Would the bearded Alice go along with it to hide his own secret habit? Would he be the one who shouted loudest?
Zigic shook his head. This job.