Long Way Home (27 page)

The crowd was thinning out as they headed north, fewer shops this far up and still too early for the big chain pubs which were strung along both sides of the street. Their doors were open, wafting out the spilt beer and stale body smell of the night before, a few diehards already in. Ferreira expected Renfrew to head inside Yates’s or the College Arms, but he passed both of them without even a sideways glance and kept going.

Another three hundred yards and they would be out of the city centre. Fern House was a couple of streets away, a five-minute walk. The Barlows’ house five minutes further on, and Ferreira couldn’t imagine what else there was to interest Renfrew in New England. Somehow she couldn’t see him frequenting any of the Polish cafes or Bangladeshi grocers.

A group of students came out of the library, lost in conversation, and Renfrew barged through them, sending one of them flying into a parked car. They looked up the street after him but seemed to think better of it. As she walked past, Ferreira heard one of them murmur ‘psycho’ and almost told them how right they were.

Then she lost him.

She quickened her pace, swearing at herself. No side streets, no doorways.

Where was he?

She stopped and scanned the street; two Asian men outside Domino’s, a woman smoking in the doorway of a hairdresser’s, an old guy leaning on a stick, a young one shouting into his phone, Renfrew emerging from behind a UPS van, crossing the road, heading for a hole-in-the-wall jeweller’s opposite. She started to follow but as her foot hit the road she decided against it. Renfrew knew his rights, he would be combative and awkward. Best to wait.

She rolled a cigarette while she watched the door, smoked it quickly, wanting to move, get in there and find out what Renfrew was up to. She wanted to stop him when he came out, provoke him into losing it so she could drop him hard to the pavement. But she wouldn’t. It was the chase talking, that aggro thrill of tailing someone to their destination.

Her mobile phone rang and she fished it out of her bag –
DI Adams.

‘Hey, Mel, you busy right now?’

‘Ish, yeah.’

‘Do me a favour? I’ve got a guy here doesn’t speak any English and it’s a time-is-of-the-essence type of thing, don’t want to wait for a translator.’

Renfrew emerged from the jeweller’s and Ferreira ducked behind the UPS van, out of his eyeline. He wasn’t looking anywhere but dead ahead though, going back into the city centre.

‘Where are you?’

‘City Hospital,’ Adams said.

‘Has your unidentified man identified himself?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Alright, I’m on my way.’

‘Put your foot down, would you, darling? He looks a bit peaky.’

Ferreira went into the jeweller’s, a buzzer sounding over the door as she entered.

The shop was dark and poky under a low ceiling, display cases lining three walls, old wooden things with antiquated locks, crammed with a lot of new silver jewellery and photo frames, christening sets and watches with high street names on their faces, nothing of any value.

The owner looked up from what he was doing, scribbling away behind the counter. ‘I’ll be with you in just a minute, madam.’

She eyed the security camera mounted high in the corner, another antique, and thought how easy it would be to rob the place. The owner was a dainty little guy, couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and he looked like a bleeder with that near-albino colouring.

Maybe he had a sawn-off shotgun holstered under the cash register, but she doubted it.

He tidied away his paperwork and clapped his hands together, a toothy smile splitting his face.

‘Now, what can I do for you?’

Ferreira showed him her warrant card and the smiled closed to a moue.

‘Bloke just came in here,’ she said. ‘Was he buying or selling?’

‘I really couldn’t –’

‘There’s no fence/mugger privilege, sir. So you really can and you’d really better.’

‘He was selling.’

‘I want to see it.’

He went out the back and returned a moment later with a few pieces of jewellery in a stainless-steel tray, placed it on the counter in front of her. Two battered sovereign rings made for thick fingers and an onyx pinkie ring, scuffed up and misshapen from wear, the gold band worn thin.

‘How much did you give him?’

‘Two hundred and ten.’

‘They’re a bit shabby,’ Ferreira said, inspecting the sovereigns closer.

‘That was the scrap value.’

‘Where did he say they came from?’

‘They’re just some old pieces he doesn’t wear any more.’

‘Course they are.’

Ferreira picked up the onyx ring and turned it to the light. Despite the wear to the stone the words etched inside it were still clear,
To my big bear, love Gemma.

She smiled.

‘I’m going to need to take these with me.’

THERE WAS BUILDING
work in progress at the hospital and half of the car park was cordoned off behind high wire fences, men in viz vests and hard hats wandering about, a few in suits with clipboards monitoring them, making sure to keep their white wellington boots pristine, staying well away from the rubble and dust.

Ferreira found a space and went to get a ticket, swearing at the machine as it spat out the same pound coin three times in a row, finally taking it, along with another four, in exchange for an hour’s grace from the clamp.

As she crossed the road she saw DI Adams standing with the other smokers under the wide blue canopy outside reception. He was his usual dapper self, in a black suit and narrow charcoal overcoat with the collar turned up against the wind.

They’d slept together two and a half times, their last encounter a drunken fumble at the Christmas party which was hastily aborted when his then-girlfriend tracked them down to the ladies’ toilets. He’d called a couple of times and suggested a drink but neither of them were that invested in the idea.

He didn’t look bad today though, she thought, watching him bend to give a light to an old man in a wheelchair.

He smiled as he saw her, slipped off his sunglasses.

‘Very smart.’

‘In court,’ she said.

‘What were you up for? Slap a suspect again?’

‘Used non-approved method of restraint.’

‘Yeah, I know how much you like them.’

She looked at her shoes, bit back the smile before it spread too wide, remembering him shouting at her as he sat naked on his living-room floor, handcuffed to the radiator.

‘Ziggy’s alright without you for a bit, is he?’

‘He’ll have to be.’

‘You give him lip like that in the office?’ Adams asked.

‘He’s an enlightened boss.’

‘I’ll square it with him when we’re done. Say I threw my rank at you.’ Adams flicked his cigarette away into the road. ‘Shall we do this?’

They went into the aqueous grey-blue gloom of reception, a hubbub of voices coming from the cafeteria, all low and serious, passed a jumble sale for a local hospice, tables piled with third-hand paperbacks and children’s toys, two elderly women with fake smiles plastered on their faces for the patients who picked things up and put them down again, their attention elsewhere as they tried to distract themselves with the dusty tat.

‘Heard you’ve taken over one of Hawkes’s cases,’ Adams said, as they entered the stairwell. ‘That thing on Holme Fen. Why did Riggott give you it?’

‘The dead guy’s brother’s one of ours,’ Ferreira told him.

‘You getting anywhere with it?’

‘Nobody wants to talk, you know how it is.’

Adams opened the door onto Ward 7 and she went in ahead of him, the smell of disinfectant barely masking the shit it had recently cleaned up. There was a large sign warning of norovirus in the area and she wondered why they’d put someone with a gunshot in an infected ward.

A fat nurse in blue scrubs stepped in front of them.

‘Hands.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘We ask all visitors to disinfect their hands before entering the ward.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought you meant,’ Ferreira said.

The nurse watched as they pumped pink goo from a canister and finally cleared their path when she was satisfied her instructions had been carried out.

Adams shot Ferreira an amused look.

‘What? Manners don’t cost anything.’

‘I’m not arguing. Wouldn’t dare.’

A consultant was doing his rounds as they passed the bays, a young guy dressed fogeyish in grey flannel trousers and a striped shirt, a bow tie at his neck. He led a gaggle of students behind him, more women than men, all watching him rapt as he reduced the patients to slabs of diseased meat, speaking as if they weren’t there.

Ferreira could still hear his voice as they reached a private room at the far end of the ward, rich, round vowels projecting the full length of the corridor, talking about a colonoscopy like he was giving a soliloquy from
Hamlet
.

The PC outside the room snapped to attention, his right hand twitching like he was going to salute Adams.

‘At ease, soldier.’

The room was dimly lit and warm, machines humming and pinging, tubes snaking in and out of the man lying propped in the bed, with the bars pulled up either side of him. He was sleeping or sedated, didn’t notice them enter, but his visitor stood as the door opened.

‘Sergeant Ferreira, you are here.’

‘You two know each other?’ Adams asked.

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, cogs turning; the steamy kitchen in Andrus Tombak’s dosshouse, the procession of close-lipped men and fruitless conversations. It felt like months had passed, although it had only been five days. ‘Mr Perez was helping with our inquiries into the Stepulov murder.’

She slipped into Portuguese as he took her hand between both of his.

‘What are you doing here, Mr Perez? How do you know this man?’

‘He is my cousin,’ he said, eyes bright. ‘Paolo.’

‘Your cousin who was missing?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, look, he is alive.’

Barely, Ferreira thought, looking at the man’s broken nose and blacked eyes, the seeping gunshot wound high on his chest. They had bandaged him and cleaned him up, but he’d evidently suffered for a long time before that injury was inflicted. His ribcage showed through his tan skin and his collarbones stood sharply out, shadows pooled behind them.

His eyes were open now though, haunted and watchful.

‘How did you know he was here?’

‘A nurse phoned me this morning,’ Perez said. ‘Paolo gave them my number. I thank God I didn’t change my mobile or I would never have known he was here.’

‘Has he talked to anyone yet?’ she asked Adams.

‘We got a few words out of him earlier, in Portuguese – I don’t know what he said, God knows how he got them to make that phone call. They sedated him while I nipped out to check with the office. The doctor reckoned he was getting pretty worked up about something or other. She wanted him to rest for a bit.’

‘He doesn’t look like he’s up to being questioned.’

‘I need anything you can get, Mel. This is serious shit now.’

‘Has he spoken to you?’ she asked Perez.

He shook his head. ‘He keeps talking about Maria – his girlfriend – but he wasn’t making any sense.’

‘Just give it a go, will you?’ Adams said.

Ferreira inched past Marco Perez and sat down in the visitor’s chair pulled up close to the bed, placed her hand lightly on Paolo’s arm and switched to Portuguese.

‘Paolo, my name’s Mel, we need to ask you a few questions about what happened. Is that OK?’

His head rolled towards her on the pillow and he blinked slowly, giving the merest nod.

‘He speaks English very well,’ Perez said. ‘He worked in bars back home, his English is perfect.’

She told Adams.

‘We’ve tried that, he doesn’t answer. The doctor said it happens sometimes when people have experienced trauma, they revert to their first language.’ He folded his arms. ‘I wouldn’t have dragged you over here if it wasn’t necessary, would I? Just ask him if he knows who shot him.’

She squeezed Paolo’s arm lightly, drawing his attention back to her.

‘Paolo, do you know who did this to you?’

‘The English.’

‘I need you to tell me their names.’

‘No names.’

‘You’re safe here, Paolo. There’s a policeman outside the door, nobody can get to you, you don’t need to be afraid of them. Tell us who they are and we’ll lock them up. OK? Just tell us and we’ll get them.’

‘I do not know names.’ His foot twitched under the tightly drawn covers. ‘They tell us nothing.’

‘What’s he saying?’ Adams asked.

Ferreira ignored him.

‘Where were you when it happened?’

‘I do not know. There are fields and a road.’ He lifted his hand from his stomach, made a vague gesture in the air. ‘I cannot remember. Black fields, big.’

‘On the fens?’

‘I don’t know where.’

‘Were you working there?’

He nodded, closed his eyes and swallowed.

‘Did the people you were working for do this to you, Paolo?’

‘They are animals.’ He gripped her hand suddenly and she felt how rough his skin was, calloused and worn like it had been scraped with sandpaper. ‘They killed my friend. You must find them.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘It was Saturday. I think. What is today?’

‘It’s Monday.’

‘What month?’

‘It’s still February, Paolo, you were only unconscious for a few hours.’ His fingers tightened around hers. ‘What did they do to him?’

‘There was an accident,’ he said, his voice thickening. He closed his eyes again and when he spoke every word looked like it hurt. ‘He was injured and I told the English they must take him to hospital but they wouldn’t. They threw him into the concrete and he was still alive. One of them pushed him down with a rake. They killed him.’

He pulled his hand free and covered his eyes. The heart monitor was beeping faster and when Ferreira glanced at it she saw his pulse racing, climbing above ninety beats, then a hundred. He groaned low in his throat and turned away from her.

‘For Christ’s sake, Mel, what’s he saying?’