After You Die (36 page)

Across her shoulder Zigic could see Nathan sitting perfectly still on the sofa. He didn’t look comfortable, more as if he’d been frozen to the spot where Rachel had told him to sit, as if her orders had to be followed to the letter even when she wasn’t there to watch over him.

‘What happened to Nathan’s brother?’ Zigic asked. ‘Wouldn’t he be a better witness?’

Her face darkened. ‘We didn’t want it to come to this. The plan was always to use Tyler. We put him in a secure facility for his own safety – there was a price on his head, he couldn’t stay outside.’

‘And?’

‘And they got to him,’ she said. ‘We’re not sure how exactly but ten weeks ago Tyler was found dead in his room. Someone gave him a massive shot of heroin. He wasn’t a user so we have to assume it was administered to silence him. Nathan’s all we’ve got now.’

‘Which is why he’s here with Julia?’

‘He was supposed to be safe with the Campbells. Who’d think of looking for him out here in the arse end of nowhere?’ She glanced back through the window into the lounge. ‘That’s why Nathan ran. He saw some bloke in a car outside Dawn’s house, found her dead inside, and thought they’d tracked him down.’

‘Shouldn’t he have called you, rather than running?’

‘He should, yeah. But he’s a child. A scared, not very bright child, who thinks he can go to the McCarthys and promise them he won’t give evidence. He was trying to protect his nan from reprisals. She’s the only close family he’s got left now.’

‘So why did you take him away from her?’ Zigic asked. ‘You should have put them both in protective custody.’

‘And then what?’ Rachel demanded. ‘We take his nan in, what about his aunts and uncles? His cousins? You think the budget’s there to hide thirty-odd people?’ She shook her head. ‘We did what we had to.’

Zigic folded his arms, feeling disgusted by her and Fallon’s power-playing, their utter disregard for Nathan and his brother and nan, who were just pieces of varying value they were moving around a game board. Tyler had been lost through poor judgement, the grandmother could be sacrificed, but Nathan had to be protected at all costs.

‘What makes you think you can get him to give evidence?’ Riggott took his e-cigarette out of his shirt pocket. ‘He’s run away to avoid doing it. He’s terrified what’s going to happen to his nan. Sounds like he’s sharp enough to keep shtum.’

‘I can convince him,’ Rachel said, a hint of threat in her tone.

‘By protecting him from a murder charge?’ Zigic asked.

‘He doesn’t need protecting because he didn’t do it.’ She stepped away from the window and lowered her voice. ‘But if he did I’m happy to turn him over. Once he’s done what I need him to, of course.’

‘That isn’t how it works,’ Zigic said.

‘You don’t want to go against Fallon,’ Rachel told him. ‘Believe me, that man will destroy you if you cross him. He’s got political aspirations that are way bigger than this case and he won’t stand for you two scuppering him.’ She turned towards Riggott. ‘Nathan gives evidence next week. After that, he’s all yours. I’ll deliver him back here personally.’

Zigic gave a disgusted snort but neither of them was paying any attention to him. The decision had been made, a deal cut, and now it would fall to Riggott to smooth out the details with her.

He half listened as they talked logistics and safe houses, watching Nathan through the glass, wondering what was going on inside his head, memories of Dawn mixed up with ones of his mother, dead on her living-room floor, beaten to death with a hammer. He’d seen and heard enough to be a compelling witness and that was all that mattered to Rachel, but did it make him more or less likely to commit a terrible act of violence himself?

The question of why he ran had been cleared up, the question of why he was being so fiercely shielded too, everything explained away except for the knife and that was all they needed to charge him. It was a result. A solid one.

But still some nebulous doubt stirred at the back of his mind, little things which didn’t quite make sense, illogical actions and unexplained absences.

The copper in him said to ignore them, but the father, looking at Nathan sitting small and cowed on that sofa, wouldn’t be satisfied while the questions remained unanswered.

In his office Zigic made a list, wrote down every element of the case against Nathan which didn’t sit right, spidered each doubt out across the page with queries and notes until the sheet of lined A4 was thick with question marks.

He now knew that Dawn’s love life had been a distraction and he realised how eager they’d been to fasten on it because women were usually murdered by current boyfriends or exes. He’d considered the overwhelming odds and gone with them, spending valuable man hours tracking down every one-night stand and semi-casual fuck buddy she’d been with, certain that her killer would be among them.

Holly’s online existence had been another compelling possibility, inflated in importance by Ferreira’s certainty and the frustrating, petty need to satisfy Riggott that this was a potential hate crime and keep the case under his control. That problem, at least, was solved, thanks to Baxter and Fallon’s insistence on absolute discretion.

Zigic knew it was normal to go down these blind alleys, that it happened in the vast majority of cases, and that you only kicked yourself afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight to illuminate every overlooked lead and the gaps in knowledge which arose from focusing on the wrong people.

Now the gaps were where he’d find Dawn’s killer.

An hour ago he was prepared to put his career on the line to bring Nathan in, defy Rachel Baxter and her politically inclined boss, but looking at all of those questions he was increasingly convinced that Nathan was innocent.

He pulled up the forensics reports from the house and pored over them once again, while that vague sense of having missed something tickled away at him, sure that there was something hiding between the lines.

He found the details of the post-mortem, knew what he was looking for there and concentrated on the specifics of the stab wounds which had killed Dawn Prentice, the angles of entry and the implications drawn from them. Only one blow had been landed while she was upright – the slash across her throat which would have robbed her of air – and the rest had been delivered as she lay dying, the killer kneeling astride her hips, driving the knife down into her chest and stomach, over and again. Nine more stab wounds, plunged in deep, the final blow the hardest; it had gone clean through her left lung and pierced the muscles around her shoulder blade.

It took strength to inflict multiple injuries like that, he knew. Brute physical strength or intense emotional strength. He didn’t think Nathan was capable of the former and he strongly suspected that the angle of the initial strike was inconsistent with somebody so short.

He called the pathologist and left a message.

The moment he put the phone down he realised there was more the doctor could tell him and he called back, asked his second question, the more important one, said it was urgent.

Jenkins did answer when he phoned her, slightly breathless.

‘I’ve only just got back, Ziggy,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to give me a chance to do the actual work before you can have the report.’

‘It’s not about what you found at the Campbells’. Well, it sort of is.’

‘This sounds like a poorly thought-out theory you’re formulating.’

‘The hair you found, it was dyed, right?’

She sighed. ‘On casual first inspection with the naked eye, yes, it appears to be a ginger hair that has been dyed brown. Mel tells me the boy you’re looking at has dyed hair.’

‘He does, but the ones you found in Dawn Prentice’s bathroom weren’t coloured, were they?’

A drawer opened at her end. ‘No, they weren’t. Is that all? You’ve got the report, everything’s in there.’

‘Can you do a comparison for me, please, Kate? First job, okay? It’s urgent.’

‘Alright, bear with me a couple of minutes and I’ll get on it.’

‘And Kate …’

She sighed. ‘Yes?’

‘This is the murder weapon, right?’

‘It’s the right size, right kind of blade, and it matches the marks found on Dawn Prentice’s ribs, so I think you’re safe to assume it is, yes.’

She put the phone down and Zigic went out into the office. Wheatley was back in CID, still pursuing the attacker he’d fortuitously discovered while questioning Dawn’s lovers, and Zigic realised he might have to drag him up to Hate Crimes again if his theory – not as poorly thought out as Jenkins assumed but still sketchy – turned out to have legs. Parr and Murray were eating lunch at their desks, waiting to have new tasks assigned now the discovery of the knife had rendered their day’s work pointless.

Wahlia’s desk was empty and when Zigic crossed the office floor he saw him out in the hallway with Ferreira, the pair of them standing by the vending machine caught up in a low but intense-looking conversation.

‘You need to get it checked out,’ Wahlia said.

‘It’s fine. It doesn’t even hurt.’

‘Just let the doctor take a look.’

Ferreira snatched her drink out of the tray and straightened up into Wahlia’s face. ‘For Christ’s sake, Bobby! Would you stop going on about it.’

She walked away from him, meeting Zigic’s gaze as she returned to the office. He saw the split second of rage before she made her face blank.

‘You don’t look very happy for a man who’s just closed his case.’

‘It isn’t closed,’ Zigic told her.

‘We’ve got the knife. It was wrapped up in Nathan’s clothing. What else do you want?’ She dropped into her chair and put her feet up on the corner of the desk. There was a speck of dried blood on the calf of her jeans, rusty looking against the grey. ‘Except for a confession. You always want one of them.’

‘What have you done to your leg?’

‘Shaving cut.’

She stared back at him, waiting for him to push her about it, but now wasn’t the time or place.

He waited until Wahlia was back at his desk and everyone was paying attention before starting the debrief. It was a severely edited one, because most of what he’d learned about Nathan this morning couldn’t be shared with them and maybe that was why he received so many dubious looks and outright bemusement when he suggested Nathan might not be the guilty party.

‘But he still ran,’ Parr said.

‘He was scared. I can’t go into details but I’m telling you he had a very good reason that was in no way linked to Dawn being murdered.’

‘So why run so close to her death?’ Parr threw his hands up. ‘If he was scared why not go a week before or today? There has to be some significance.’

‘He believed her murder was related to him and that’s all you’re getting,’ Zigic said firmly. ‘We will no longer be considering it a sign of potential guilt.’

‘What about the knife?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Isn’t that enough to charge him?’

‘I want to be sure we’re charging the right person.’ Zigic sat on the edge of an empty desk, the murder board in his eye line, full of ruled-out suspects. ‘And the problem we have is the gap between Dawn being murdered and Nathan calling the police. Anyone got an explanation for that?’

‘He was worried about Holly, obviously,’ Ferreira said. ‘His issue was with Dawn, he realised Holly hadn’t been found, so he makes an anonymous call to get the police there and save her.’

‘Possibly, but if he was worried about her wouldn’t he have called the police sooner?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Heat of the moment, he wants to get out, maybe he didn’t even consider Holly until the next day.’

‘Then he should have called the next day. Why wait until two days had passed? And then go to recover the knife? Why do that at all?’

Zigic looked around the room, settling on each of their faces for a second before moving on, everyone at a loss to explain it.

‘Are we sure that was when the knife was taken?’ Wahlia asked. ‘We’ve only got Nathan’s word for it.’

‘The post-mortem results show tearing around one of the chest wounds,’ Zigic said, touching two fingers to his breastbone. ‘I’m still waiting for clarification but even I know that’s consistent with the knife being removed some time after death.’

‘Maybe he wanted a trophy,’ Parr suggested.

‘That he then went and wrapped up in his own clothing and hid at the house?’

‘He’s a kid.’ Parr gave a slight shrug. ‘Most killers do something stupid eventually.’

‘Not the kind who carefully destroys almost every piece of physical evidence they’ve left behind at the murder scene,’ Zigic said. ‘Dawn’s murderer wiped down surfaces, including the carpet in the hallway and up the stairs, so we wouldn’t even be able to lift a footprint. That takes intelligence and it takes time, suggesting our killer wasn’t panicking. Nathan is a nervy kid. He’s traumatised and easily confused. That kind of behaviour doesn’t fit with his personality.’

‘Whose version of his personality?’ Ferreira asked. ‘Rachel’s? Because we know she’s come in her with her own agenda.’

‘I’ve spoken to him,’ Zigic said. ‘He isn’t a cold-blooded killer and that’s what we’re looking for here. Someone who lost it, then quickly changed gear and managed to clean up after themselves very effectively. Then went home without raising any suspicions and spent two days going about their business before returning to take the knife and hide it in the Campbells’ shed. This is an adult’s crime.’

‘We’re thinking it’s someone in that house then?’ Wahlia asked.

Zigic’s eye snagged on Benjamin Lange’s name in the Suspects column, Warren Prentice above it. He thought of PC Jackson’s report of seeing Warren running past the house when they were there. Maybe he was just out for a jog; maybe not.

‘Not necessarily. The knife was found in the garden shed. There’s an alley down the back of the chapel that would give easy access to the Campbells’ garden – anyone could have got access through it.’

‘And access to Nathan’s clothing to wrap it in?’

He turned back to Ferreira, saw the annoyance beginning to harden her jaw.

‘That could easily have been taken from the washing line.’

Zigic stood up, democratic interlude over.