The side gate was open when Zigic arrived at the Moran home but there was no sign of Brynn’s father, the workshop closed up and silent, much to the relief of their neighbours, Zigic imagined. At the foot of the garden he saw a woman moving around in the greenhouse, lugging a stack of hefty black planters.
She must have been in her early seventies, but like her husband she looked younger, dressed in skinny jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt, her hair dyed blonde and tied away from her face. The weight of the pots didn’t seem to trouble her as she set them down on the ground.
‘Mrs Moran?’
She squinted at him. ‘Can I help you?’
‘DI Zigic.’ He held out his hand. ‘I came the other day and talked to your husband.’
‘He told me.’ Her palm was rough and flat, her fingers strong when they gripped his. She had Brynn’s hooded and serious eyes, the same fleshy mouth.
‘I’ve got some bad news, Mrs Moran. It might be better if we went inside.’
‘Is Brynn alright?’ she asked, panic lifting her voice.
‘Yes and no.’ He gestured back towards the house. ‘I really think it would be better if we didn’t discuss this out here.’
She led him into the house through a small lean-to, where a dozen seed trays sat on pine shelves, the soil damp, water dripping rhythmically through them onto the lino. Then into a kitchen where their dinner was simmering on the stove, filling the room with a smell of garlic and oregano. She sat down at a round table with two chairs, a forgotten cup of tea scummed over, next to a seed catalogue and notebook with a planting plan sketched out across a double page.
Between the greenhouse and the kitchen she seemed to have aged ten years, the fear dulling her eyes and slackening her skin.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Come on, spit it out.’
‘Brynn has confessed to Corinne’s murder.’
She gasped, pressing her hand to her chest. ‘No, no, he’d never do that. I don’t care what’s he’s told you, it can’t be true. He’s not got a violent bone in his body and he loved Colin.’
‘And Corinne?’
‘It was all the same to Brynn. Man or woman. She was still Colin underneath.’
‘But they’d fallen out of contact,’ Zigic said. ‘Was that Nina’s doing?’
‘She didn’t want them seeing each other. She never came right out and said it’s her or me but Brynn knew the score.’ Maura shook her head sadly. ‘He thought she’d get over it eventually. Once she got used to Corinne being how she was. He’s like that, always sees the best in people. He told Corinne to be patient, let him talk Nina round gradually.’
‘They were still seeing each other then?’
‘Round here, yes,’ Maura said. ‘Corinne used to take me out for lunch, last Friday of the month. We’d been doing that since she left Nina. Brynn and her would have a drink and a natter when she dropped me off.’
Brynn hadn’t mentioned it and that bothered Zigic. He had every reason to hide their meetings from Nina but none to keep it from him. Unless he was so paranoid about Nina finding out that he wouldn’t even take that risk.
‘When was the last time they saw each other?’ he asked.
‘Just after Christmas. Corinne and me went out as usual and she brought me home afterwards. Brynn was round helping Bob with one of his toys.’
‘How were they?’
‘Same as always.’ Her pale grey brows drew together. ‘They never argued, not serious. Why would he kill her?’
‘He’s refusing to tell us,’ Zigic said. ‘Maybe he did it for Nina. She’s been quite clear about how miserable Corinne made her. Perhaps Brynn was sick of seeing her being treated so badly.’
‘Is that what he said?’ she asked, beady-eyed now.
‘He won’t say why he did it.’
Maura nodded triumphantly. ‘Then you know he’s lying.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Zigic went to cross his legs, stopped when his bruised knee protested. ‘Maybe he’s just not prepared to admit what drove him to it.’
‘If you believed he’d done it you wouldn’t be here talking to me,’ Maura said. ‘So why are you here, really?’
‘I’m not convinced that Brynn killed Corinne. Not yet, anyway.’ He shifted in the chair, straightened out his leg to ease the pain. ‘But he’s refusing to talk to us—’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Maura said, drawing herself up, ready to apply her maternal weight to the situation. ‘I won’t let him throw his life away for that woman.’
‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid.’
Maura walked out of the room, told him to wait there, and he did, listening to the sauce bubbling on the hob and the percussive drip of the water through the seed trays in the lean-to. He thought of what Nina Sawyer had told him about Christmas, still wasn’t sure he believed it. There was no good way to verify her account, which was already contradictory, a combination of Harry’s eyewitness report and a conversation with Corinne which was purely hearsay at this point.
Assuming it was true it gave Brynn a motive for murder.
But it gave Harry and Nina one as well. A better one.
Until he could force Brynn into giving up further details the confession was unsatisfactory, legally and otherwise.
Maura returned with a photo album, an old one, peach-coloured with gold trim worn away in places from handling. She slapped it down on the table and opened it up.
‘Look at this, Brynn and Colin, the first year of school.’
Two boys, the men they would become already discernible in their faces. Brynn round-cheeked and grinning, Colin gaunt, his clothes creased and dirty, but he was smiling too, his arm around Brynn’s shoulder.
‘They were inseparable.’
She kept turning the pages, taking Zigic through fishing trips and visits to the funfair on the side of the River Nene, the boys growing up, Brynn filling out, Colin staying lean, becoming more poised. He looked for traces of Corinne in him, saw them as they got into their early teens. Colin wearing his hair longer, sometimes in a ponytail, cultivating an androgynous look, part punk, part glam rock.
There were other people in some of the photos, girls in lots but never the same ones for very long. Maura and Bob making the scenes look like regular family snapshots. And in almost every image Zigic saw how Brynn looked to Colin, the camera catching a closeness the naked eye might not.
‘Brynn idolised him,’ Maura said, lost in their past now, smiling back at the faces smiling out at her. ‘You wouldn’t believe it now but he was an awkward boy. Cripplingly shy. Couldn’t talk to girls. Colin used to do the talking for both of them. He loved women, he listened to them, I reckon that’s why he did so well.’
Zigic had to ask her.
‘Did it ever go further between the two of them?’
Maura looked up sharply. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Well, we know Corinne was developing an interest in men, did you ever get a sense that Colin and Brynn—’
Maura snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Would you have known if they were … experimenting?’
She gave him a pitying look. ‘All kids experiment. Are you going to sit there and tell me you never flicked through one of your old man’s Playboys with your mates? It’s what boys do.’
‘But Colin wasn’t like other boys,’ Zigic said. ‘Did you know he was cross-dressing?’
She shifted in the chair, closed the photo album. ‘He tried to hide it. But I saw the way he looked at my clothes when they were on the washing line. He was always happy to help me with the laundry. He’d fold everything up for me and put it away. I could see from how he touched the blouses. Then one day I just told him, “Try one on if you like.”’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes. He started crying and shaking. He told me he’d put one of his mum’s blouses on and she caught him doing it. Nasty bitch beat the hell out of him.’ Maura’s eyes narrowed at the memory, the anger still festering in her. ‘She thought he was gay. She used to call him her little gay boy. Never stopped it, right up till when she died. She had no understanding of what he was going through.’
‘But you did?’
‘Not right away,’ Maura said slowly. ‘I knew there were fellas that liked dressing up as women. Not a new thing, is it? I can’t say I thought it was normal, but I didn’t think it was … sick, or anything like that.’
‘Did Brynn and Bob know about this?’ Zigic asked.
‘I told Bob.’ She bit her lip, worried at it for a few seconds. ‘He weren’t happy, tell the truth. Blew his top, didn’t want Colin round here any more, didn’t want Brynn having anything to do with him.’
‘That was an extreme reaction.’
‘It was a different time back then,’ she said weakly. ‘You’ll be too young to remember what it was like. I had gay pals before I married Bob so it never bothered me as much as it bothered him. I knew they weren’t any different to the rest of us, but he was a country boy, his family were staunch Methodist folk and they reckon anything off the straight and narrow leads you straight into hellfire. That’s where Bob was coming from. He thought Colin’s behaviour was … deviant and he thought he’d “corrupt” Brynn or, I don’t know, he believed hanging around with Colin was going to damage him somehow.’ Absently she stroked the photo album. ‘Bob’s not like that any more. He knows better now. Weird, isn’t it, everyone thinks you get more conservative as you get older but he’s mellowed so much he’s like another person.’
Zigic thought of the conversation he’d had with Bob Moran and struggled to believe he’d ever been less than fully accepting of Corinne.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Back then?’
‘It was hard.’ Maura’s weathered fingertips traced along the embossed letters on the album. ‘I tried to talk Bob round but he wouldn’t have Colin in the house.’
‘How did Brynn take that?’
‘Badly, of course. Even more so because neither of us told him why. I didn’t think it was right to expose Colin’s secret and Bob wouldn’t do it because he was scared Brynn wouldn’t care. In the end Colin made the decision for us. He took himself off a couple of weeks later and we didn’t see him for years after that.’ She sighed. ‘Bob felt terrible. He was convinced Colin had done something stupid. Killed himself or run off down to London and ended up on the streets doing God knows what to survive.’
‘And when did Brynn find out the truth?’ Zigic asked.
‘It was when Nina found out and started kicking up merry hell. I’m not sure Colin would’ve ever told Brynn to be honest. He was petrified what people would think of him.’ Maura smiled regretfully. ‘Then he told Brynn and he never batted an eyelid. He made some stupid joke about Colin having the legs for it and that was it. They went on just the same as before.’
She stood up and went over to the hob, adjusted the heat under the big cast-iron pot. ‘If Brynn’s told you he killed Corinne he’ll have said it to protect one of that lot.’
Zigic waited for her to turn back to him, needing to see her first reaction.
‘We’ve been told Brynn made a pass at Corinne.’
‘By who? Nina?’ Maura held the wooden spoon like a cudgel. ‘No, there’s no way he’d do that. She’s trying to drop him in it so you don’t look at her. She’s the one who hated Corinne.’
His gut agreed with Maura.
It had felt like a distraction when Nina told him and even she dismissed the idea out of hand. But she was smart. Would know that an accusation quickly undermined would look more damning than one she resolutely pursued. Because she was in the frame for this too and shifting blame was what a guilty person did.
No, Zigic was certain Nina had given Brynn a motive then whipped it away, in the hope that he’d keep toying with it and come to the conclusion that Brynn murdered Corinne because she was trying to break them up and take away the family he’d always wanted.
Strange that she only mentioned it once she knew they doubted his alibi, too.
Did she think it was her or Brynn now?
Nina had always been the person with the strongest motive to kill Corinne. They knew she’d suffered years of emotional trauma as Colin philandered and cross-dressed through their marriage, that she’d suffered depression so deep it became a full-blown breakdown.
Zigic could imagine Brynn confessing to protect her and he wasn’t going to allow it to stand.
He thanked Maura for talking to him and she walked him out to his car, a little stooped now under the weight of their conversation and fear for her son.
She grabbed the car door as he moved to close it.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Talk to Brynn, make him see sense. He can’t give his life up for these people.’