Long Way Home (29 page)

Zigic suspected he was completely amoral.

‘Right then, gents, to business.’

Jenkins stood at the head of one of the long stainless-steel tables, the file open in front of her, a rack of test tubes to her left, sealed evidence bags to her right, clothing inside them, just rags.

‘Ziggy, we recovered this from the tread of Viktor Stepulov’s work boots.’ She held up a test tube with some black dust in it.

‘What is it?’

‘Dried mortar. Very unusual stuff. They only use it for laying black engineering bricks.’

She handed it over and he glanced at it.

‘OK.’

‘Billy.’ She gave another test tube to Adams. ‘That came out of the turn-up of Paolo Perez’s jeans.’

Adams rattled the test tube, a small black nugget inside it.

‘So, it’s the same mortar?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what? They must use it tons of places.’

Jenkins took the samples off them and fitted them back into the slots in the Perspex rack. ‘Actually they don’t. But you’re sceptical, that’s fine. It’s your job to think nobody knows anything but you.’

‘Where was Perez working?’ Zigic asked.

‘We can’t get a straight answer out of him right now,’ Adams said. ‘He told Mel he was on a building site, though. Where was your guy?’

‘We don’t know. The Olympic redevelopment was mentioned but that seems unlikely given where his body turned up.’

‘We got peat from his boots too,’ Jenkins said. ‘So he was out on the fens somewhere. The same with Perez.’

‘Can you narrow it down a bit?’ Adams asked.

‘Forensic science has come a long way, Billy, but unfortunately, no, I can’t give you an exact grid reference for soil.’

‘
CSI
lied to me.’

‘Yeah, you can’t trust anything those bastards say.’

Zigic pulled the sleeves of his jumper up, crossed his arms. ‘Is this really enough to suggest the two crimes are linked? We’re in the middle of fenland and there are thousands of migrant workers in the building trade.’

‘It’s my job to supply the information,’ Jenkins said. ‘You two can draw your own conclusions. But we’ve found the same grey fibres on both men’s clothing – they’re from a Volkswagen transporter van. Which is a popular model, I’ll grant you that. Except these fibres went out of production in ’04.’

Zigic thought of the vans parked up in the dirt outside Bob Drake’s house in Great Gidding, trying to remember what make they were. He’d run in quickly to get out of the rain and hadn’t paid as much attention as he should. He made a mental note to have the DVLA records checked out when he returned to the office.

He still couldn’t believe Drake would dump Viktor so close to his home.

He couldn’t believe he’d shoot Paolo Perez either but that was just a gut instinct about the man with no basis in fact. He seemed well set up and happy to cooperate. Too happy, perhaps. One of those elaborate displays of innocence the guilty sometimes managed to pull off.

The image of the bald man with the hunting rifle came back to him.

Maybe Drake wasn’t involved. He had thirty men there, what if an argument blew up between Viktor and one of the other workers? How far would they go to dump his body? A few miles? Drake said they went out clubbing, they weren’t captives. It was possible.

‘I need to talk to Perez,’ Zigic said.

Adams checked his watch. ‘Brief Mel. I’ll take her with me. Want to try and have another go at him today anyway.’

Jenkins looked between them and Zigic knew she was waiting for an argument. This was where they’d traditionally whip their dicks out to decide who was in charge, but he had enough to worry about with Jaan Stepulov’s case stalling; Adams could take the extra stress and if there was a pat on the head from Riggott at the end of it he was welcome to take that too.

He’d prefer to talk to Gemma Barlow without Ferreira anyway.

‘OK. She’s all yours.’

Adams smiled. ‘I won’t keep her out too late. Scout’s honour.’

GEMMA BARLOW WAS
still in her pyjamas when she opened the front door, her hair flat on one side, tangled on the other, and from the state of her eyes Zigic guessed she’d spent a fair part of the day in tears.

She stepped back to let him inside, mumbled something about tea and retreated to the kitchen, leaving him to close the door.

There was a pall hanging over the house, curtains drawn, the air smoky and stale as if the windows hadn’t been opened for days, and even in the living room, where the lights and the television were both on, it felt sombre and grey. He noticed a bottle of white wine, almost drained, on the coffee table.

In the kitchen Gemma was banging around, a little unsteady on her feet, and when she tried to fit the kettle back down onto its pad she struggled to line it up.

‘Is Phil at work?’

‘Yeah.’

She leaned against the counter and combed her fingers through her hair, suddenly aware of how she looked. But she lost interest in that quickly.

‘What do you want him for?’

‘It’s you I need to talk to.’

She crossed her arms. ‘Why?’

‘We think we’ve identified the man who killed Mr Stepulov,’ Zigic said, and saw her face soften instantly, an insinuation of a smile at the corners of her mouth. ‘But I need you to come in and take a look at his photo, then hopefully give us a statement.’

‘OK, that’s great. I’ll just get changed.’

Gemma went upstairs and he heard her walking around in the bedroom overhead, the one which looked out across the garden, which they couldn’t possibly have missed the fire from, and he moved to the back door, saw that one of the shed’s side walls had collapsed since he was last there, exposing the tangled wreckage of the sunlounger which Jaan Stepulov had died on.

She hadn’t asked who the man was and he guessed he could put any photograph he liked in front of her and get a positive ID.

He went into the living room and switched off the television. There were used tissues wadded against the arm of the sofa, a boxful at least. He wondered what conversations this room had seen during the last couple of days, accusations and recriminations, denials and pleading. Had they sat here with their bank statements spread across the coffee table, trying to work out where the money to pay off Renfrew would come from?

Or maybe they were just blundering along, holding their fears to themselves, not wanting to voice the possibility that they wouldn’t get away with it. The same things could be said only so many times before they became meaningless, the hollow reassurances and comforting lies –
if we just stick to our story they can’t touch us
.

Zigic looked at the family photographs ranged across the shelves, thinking how genuinely happy Phil and Gemma appeared. There was no strain around the eyes, no too-wide smiles or lopsided body language. There were a few of Gemma with Phil’s teenaged son and even they seemed comfortable together.

It didn’t take much to disrupt the pattern of people’s lives.

One night Jaan Stepulov wanders down Highbury Street, drunk maybe, needing shelter, and they were unlucky enough to be the ones who hadn’t locked their shed. A simple oversight and everything changed.

Gemma came downstairs again, hair tidied, make-up done. She took her car keys off the heart-shaped hook above the telephone table.

‘Ready when you are then.’

‘I think it’s best if I drive,’ Zigic said and made himself smile. ‘Don’t want you getting pulled over for the breathalyser, do we?’

In the car she was quiet and Zigic let the silence stretch out as they passed through the centre of the city, noticed her turn to look at the Crown Court as it loomed up on their left, a cold, grey building standing squat and ugly next to the river. Her hands tightened around the straps of her bag.

The traffic was thick along Bourges Boulevard, the end of the working day drawing close, the offices throwing out suited men and women who filled the paths and bus stops, a few late shoppers and early drinkers among them, moving with different levels of determination. Phil would be heading home soon, Zigic thought, and he might worry when he found the house empty, but they’d be back for him later.

He crossed the Crescent Bridge onto Thorpe Road, passing Peterborough General Hospital, a 1970s eyesore eight storeys high, then one new block of apartment buildings after another filled the road, upscale, exclusive developments where four small rooms cost more than a family home elsewhere in the city. There were a few halfway houses and hostels tucked between them but you wouldn’t know that until you moved in.

The traffic was all heading in the same direction, out of the centre and home towards the suburbs or the ring of nice, quiet villages beyond where nobody had ever been burned to death in a locked shed. It was major news in Ailsworth if one of Zigic’s neighbours lost a few hand tools from theirs, created a sense of unease which would last for weeks and have the Neighbourhood Watch out in force as darkness fell.

At the station Gemma Barlow went docilely up to the interview room and when he asked if she’d like a cup of tea or something she said she just wanted to get finished quickly so she could be home in time for Phil. He hated coming in to an empty house.

It might be the last evening that happened for a while, Zigic thought, as he collected what he needed from the office.

Gemma sat up straighter when he returned to the interview room, gave her name for the tape in a confident voice very different to the one she’d used last time she was in there. He couldn’t tell if it was the drink giving her courage or the prospect of this finally being over.

Her composure cracked when Zigic slid the photograph of Clinton Renfrew across the table.

‘Have you seen him before, Gemma?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Did he burn our shed down?’

‘I asked first,’ Zigic said. ‘Who is he?’

She pressed her lips tight together and looked away to her left, stared at the door she was regretting walking through.

Zigic brought out the evidence bag with Phil’s rings inside and placed them on the table. The noise drew Gemma’s attention back and her eyes widened.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘You recognise them then?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Zigic took out the onyx pinkie ring. ‘You had this one engraved, Gemma. You must remember doing that. What was it, Phil’s birthday?’

‘Our anniversary. Five years.’

‘It’s very nice. Phil must have cherished it.’

Her bottom lip quivered.

‘You wanted to know where we got it,’ he said. ‘This man – Clinton Renfrew – sold it to a jeweller in town earlier today, along with a couple of Phil’s sovereign rings, for two hundred quid. Now, what I’m wondering is how he came to have them in the first place.’

Gemma stared at the ring, her mouth open slightly but nothing came out.

Zigic waited, the clock ticking softly in the quiet, hearing muffled voices from the next room, angry but indistinct, then the sound of a chair falling.

‘Phil was mugged,’ Gemma said finally. ‘Thursday night, he went over the pub for a pint and he was mugged on the way back by two big blokes. They took everything, all his jewellery.’

‘Why didn’t he report it?’

‘I told him he should but he thought with all this going on you wouldn’t care.’

‘But it’s a lot of money’s worth,’ Zigic said. ‘And it’s important, I mean sentimentally – you lose an anniversary present like this, you want to try and get it back. If I lost my wedding ring –’

‘They didn’t take his wedding ring.’

‘That was decent of them.’

‘He couldn’t get it off,’ she said, snapping out the reply so quickly he was sure she was lying. ‘He’s put on weight, he needs a new one really but he won’t change it. He’s superstitious like that.’

Zigic nodded. ‘Understandable. So what did these blokes look like?’

‘Polish or something. Big.’

‘And how do you think Clinton Renfrew came to have what they stole?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he bought them off the blokes and then sold them on. I don’t know how thieving bastards like that work.’

Zigic put the ring back in the bag, Gemma watching him.

‘Where do you know Renfrew from?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Gemma, be sensible now, you just told me you recognised him.’ Zigic leaned across the table. ‘Him and Phil are friends, we already know that.’

‘They’re not friends,’ she said sharply. ‘Phil hates him.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s a piece of shit.’

‘But they go way back.’

Disgust contorted Gemma’s face. ‘Phil went out with his sister for a few months. Years back, before we met. He was on the rebound after his divorce, he wouldn’t have touched that fucking skank otherwise.’

Zigic wondered if she realised what she was saying now, the implications she was creating and the connection she was admitting to so easily. The wine she’d drunk was still sloshing around in her system, making her cheeks flush through her make-up and loosening her tongue. She had days of emotional strain pent up in her chest and perhaps this was the tipping point.

This job was all luck, he thought, catching people at a low enough ebb to say something they’d regret.

‘Has he seen Clinton lately?’

‘Why would he?’

‘Did you know Clinton’s been inside?’

‘No.’

‘For arson.’

Gemma leaned back in her chair, hands on the table, and she looked again at the photograph. ‘You reckon he did it?’

‘Clinton burns down buildings for a living,’ Zigic said. ‘He fired a sandwich bar on Gladstone Street a few years ago – a man died in there too.’

Gemma buried her face in her hands. ‘No. No, no, no.’

‘And now he’s somehow found himself in possession of Phil’s jewellery. Do you see where I’m going with this, Gemma?’

‘No.’

‘Phil wants rid of Stepulov but he’s not going to burn him out, he’s not that kind of man, you said it yourself. Renfrew is, though. He wouldn’t think twice about it. But he’s going to want paying . . .’

‘No.’

‘Yes, Gemma.’

She shook her head, muttered more denials.