Zigic called Brynn Moran’s solicitor back into the station, then rang down to the custody suite and asked that they bring him up from the cells once again. It would be twenty minutes. Dinner had just been served and he’d be given a chance to eat. Once that was done they could take this as long into the evening as necessary. He was going to throw everything he had at cracking Brynn’s confession. Even if he wouldn’t come completely clean about Nina’s or Harry’s potential guilt, Zigic was determined to at least get him to admit to lying about his own.
But before that he wanted to talk to Harry.
He’d arrived in a patrol car while Zigic was out, followed half an hour later by a solicitor. Nina’s doing, Zigic assumed, because the woman came from the most well-respected chambers in the city. He knew her from his time in CID but hadn’t tangled with her since moving into Hate Crimes. Most of their suspects couldn’t afford this standard of legal counsel.
‘How’s the wrist, Harry?’ Zigic asked, as he sat down.
‘They gave me painkillers,’ he said, lifting the soft cast from the tabletop. ‘It still hurts. First time I’ve ever broken a bone. Miracle really.’
He looked relaxed, a little droopy around the mouth, and if he was on codeine there was no telling how it was affecting him. Or, rather, there was. Zigic had taken them on occasion, recalled how they scrambled his thinking.
He set up the recording, time and date given, names stated in dry voices. This room was stuffy and close, as if all the heat which should have spread into the next one was trapped, pumping out of the radiator behind him.
‘Are you happy to answer some questions?’ he asked.
Harry nodded. ‘No problem.’
‘Ms Carter? Your client is on medication – are you happy for him to proceed?’
She cocked her head. ‘I will be certain to let you know the moment I am not happy, Detective Inspector Zigic.’
Harry Sawyer opened the half-drunk bottle of mineral water and drained it. Furry tongue Zigic guessed; another side effect of codeine. At least he’d eaten though, judging by the empty sandwich carton still smeared with mayonnaise.
‘I was telling you the truth,’ Harry said, unprompted. ‘Back at the house. I really had had too much to drink that night. I forgot to set my alarm and Carly was as hung-over as me, that’s why I was late into work.’
‘And why did you and Carly lie about it?’
‘I asked her to, you can’t blame her. We both knew what you’d think. What with me …’ He scratched his beard. ‘My record. I knew how it would look.’
‘It looks bad.’
‘Brynn killed Corinne, not me.’
‘We have no evidence to support that,’ Zigic told him.
‘He ran off when you came to arrest him. Obviously he’s guilty.’
Zigic rested his chin on his fist. ‘What were you and Brynn hiding from Nina?’ he asked.
Harry dug the knuckle of his thumb into his eye socket, then blinked away the redness he’d caused. He went to fold his arms but the movement was unwieldy with his wrist in the cast and he stopped, laid it back on the table.
‘We know something’s been going on,’ Zigic said. ‘It’s best that you tell me now, before it starts to look like deliberate obstruction.’
‘It started at Christmas,’ Harry said finally. ‘She turned up looking like Mum in drag and I knew she was going to make trouble. She didn’t normally look like that. It was deliberate. I thought she’d done it to upset Mum.’
‘And did it upset her?’
‘Yeah, but …’
He was still reluctant and Zigic realised he was going to have to tease the truth out of the young man. Too many days lying, he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
‘Brynn thought Corinne was trying to get between them,’ he said. ‘How was she going about doing that?’
‘She was flirting with Brynn. Not even subtly, she kept putting her hand on his leg, touching his arm, flicking her hair. It was embarrassing. Tragic.’
‘Did Brynn reciprocate?’
Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t think he even noticed, to tell you the truth. I could see that was annoying her. She liked to provoke a reaction and if she couldn’t get that …’ He shrugged. ‘I guess that’s why she went for the more direct approach.’
‘How direct?’
‘She assaulted him. Basically. I don’t know what else you’d call it.’ Sweat was sticking Harry’s shirt to his armpits, darkening the fabric at his chest. The room was hot but the sweat had sprung up suddenly and the sharp tang of his body odour carried fear in it. ‘I went into the kitchen and saw them. Corinne had Brynn backed up against the cupboards. She’d pretty much pinned him in the corner. She was cupping his junk.’
‘Did he try to push her away?’
‘He did when he saw me,’ Harry said, and something in his tone begged to be challenged.
‘How was he reacting to Corinne’s advances?’ Zigic asked. ‘Before he saw you?’
Another twist of his face. ‘I don’t think he was happy about it.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘There was like a second before he saw me, then he pushed her away.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I lost it,’ Harry said. ‘I knew what she was trying to do. She wasn’t interested in Brynn, she just wanted something to throw in Mum’s face. Mum was so happy with Brynn. As long as I can remember she’s been miserable. That’s what Dad did to her. I suppose even someone as self-absorbed as Corinne could see that Mum was finally moving on with her life and she wanted to take that away from her.’
‘And that’s when you threw Corinne out?’
‘Yes. I knew if she got anywhere near Mum she’d rub her nose in it. I didn’t want everything to blow up.’
‘When did Nina find out about this?’ Zigic asked.
‘Not until afterwards. A week or so. Corinne started ringing Brynn, she was taunting him, telling him she knew he wanted her.’ Harry shifted in his seat. ‘Mum went through his phone. I don’t think she usually did that but, I don’t know. She heard a voicemail about it that Corinne left. She phoned her up and told her to stay away from him. It was stupid. She gave her exactly the reaction she wanted.’
Zigic thought of the phone logs they’d pulled. How calmly Brynn Moran sat in this room and volunteered the information about the calls, explaining them away as him trying to make peace between the two women. Now it looked like the final call on that list might not have been made by him at all. Was it Nina confronting Corinne? They’d found no other contact between the women. Had Nina heard the voicemail and reacted immediately? It seemed out of character but something so damning left little room for cool reflection.
‘Mum couldn’t let it go,’ Harry said sadly. ‘Corinne knew exactly what buttons to push with her. They weren’t the same after that, her and Brynn. They kept playing nice but I could see something had changed. I think she would have thrown him out eventually. She just wasn’t strong enough to do it yet.’
Even now, in Harry’s eyes, it was all about Nina. Not Brynn as a murderer, but Brynn as someone who had mistreated his beloved mother. He had all the empathy in the world for Nina and not a shred of it spare for Corinne.
‘So,’ Zigic said, disgusted. ‘You knew he had a motive and you didn’t tell us. You realise that’s obstruction?’
‘We didn’t know it was even possible he could have done it until you burst into the house this afternoon.’ Harry slumped in his seat like a grumpy teenager. ‘How were we supposed to know Brynn had something like this in him?’
‘You knew.’ Zigic jabbed the tabletop. ‘You’ve all been covering this up for days.’
‘No, we didn’t realise—’
‘You didn’t care. Corinne was dead and none of you cared enough about her to do the right thing and tell us Brynn had a motive.’ Zigic threw his hands up. ‘She was your mother and she was murdered and you just didn’t give a damn.’