After You Die (39 page)

‘We’re no longer considering him a suspect.’

The relief bloomed briefly across her face, replaced within seconds by a realisation that made her glance at the interview-room door.

‘So you see our problem,’ Ferreira said. ‘Matthew’s burning clothes late at night, very soon after Dawn was killed. The murder weapon is found in his shed. Wrapped in clothing which can only have come from inside the house.’

‘We’ve ruled Nathan out,’ Zigic said. ‘Which leaves you and Caitlin and Matthew.’

‘How did Matthew get on with Dawn?’ Ferreira asked.

Julia pressed her lips together, a millisecond of forced composure to cover a reaction she didn’t want them to see.

‘Matthew’s not particularly sociable,’ she said. ‘He’s a thinker, not really one for small talk, so they didn’t have much in common.’

‘Opposites attract,’ Ferreira said.

Zigic didn’t need to look at her to know she was smiling.

‘If you’re suggesting that something was going on between Matthew and Dawn …’

‘Yes, Mrs Campbell?’ The smile left Ferreira’s voice, ice in its place. ‘If we are … then what?’

She huffed. ‘Well, it’s ridiculous. Dawn wouldn’t be interested in him for one thing.’

‘I think we’ve already established that Dawn was interested in anything with a dick and a pulse,’ Ferreira said.

‘There was nothing going on between them.’

‘We’ve spoken to dozens of men who were sleeping with Dawn and none of their wives or girlfriends knew there was anything going on between them either.’ Zigic watched her make another pursed-lip face. ‘It would have been easy for him to slip out while you were at your book club, wouldn’t it?’

‘I trust my husband.’

‘He wouldn’t be the first to man to stray while his wife’s pregnant,’ Ferreira said.

The barest flicker of pain tightened Julia’s eyes, fine lines springing up, melting away slowly.

‘He was a frequent visitor until quite recently,’ Zigic said. ‘Isn’t that right? Helping with Holly’s education until they could sort out something more structured.’

Relief on Julia’s face but Zigic wasn’t sure why. Could she really rule out an affair that easily?

‘He was helping her, yes.’

‘But that all stopped a few months ago. Why?’

She hesitated. ‘Holly suffered something of a downturn in her condition. Depression, I think. She wasn’t up to it.’

‘Really?’ Ferreira asked. ‘That’s not what Matthew told us.’

‘What did he tell you?’ Julia demanded.

‘I don’t think you were happy with him spending so much time there. Dropping in after work for an hour. Once or twice a week? That’s a lot of time to give Holly her assignments and a reading list. Maybe he was giving Dawn something too.’

‘Matthew was not sleeping with Dawn.’

Ferreira planted her elbow on the table, chin in her palm. ‘Funny that Matthew stopped going around about the same time you stopped minding Holly. Why was that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘No? You don’t remember telling us that you used to go and look after Holly so Dawn could have her dates?’ Julia’s eyes narrowed; caught in the lie and she knew it. ‘What was it, Julia? You thought maybe it was Matthew she was meeting?’

‘No!’

‘Would have been a good system for them. Gets you out of the way, frees up Matthew to meet Dawn.’

‘You’re wrong. That’s ridiculous.’ A flush coloured her cheeks. ‘I’ve told you there was nothing between Dawn and Matthew.’

Neither of them challenged her about it, left the words hanging there, let them play on Julia’s mind for a few seconds, let her realise how firm they’d sounded. Too firm. Spoken with the full force of hopeful denial rather than absolute truth. Because she couldn’t know, not for sure, and the longer she sat there, hearing those words echoing in her head, the more she would question them and every tiny glitch in their relationship would silt up around them; Matthew’s hand lingering on Dawn’s shoulder, some shared joke, some intercepted look that might suggest an inappropriate level of intimacy. Things she’d chosen to brush off now taking on new significance.

It would take time for her to turn on him, though, longer than they could keep her sitting in this interview room.

‘What about Caitlin?’ Zigic asked. ‘Were she and Dawn close?’

‘Dawn was very kind to her,’ Julia said, looking perplexed by the change in tack. ‘You’re surely not suggesting that she’s a suspect now? My God, you people are disgusting. Caitlin adored her. If you knew the life that poor girl’s had you wouldn’t even consider suggesting something so … so … horrific.’

Zigic wanted to tell her that he knew exactly what kind of life Caitlin had had. Knew it better than her probably, but her juvenile record was sealed and he couldn’t admit to having seen it, not without compromising the entire case.

‘How often did Caitlin visit Dawn?’ he asked.

‘I took her around there with me occasionally.’

‘And how often did she go on her own?’

‘A few times,’ Julia said. ‘Dawn’s been a very good influence on her. Caitlin has had a tough time of it and most people can’t see past the way she looks, but Dawn did. She drew her out of herself. It’s absolutely unthinkable that Caitlin would hurt her.’

Zigic listened while Ferreira pressed her further, wanting to know more about their friendship, challenging everything she said, trying to find some inconsistency or weakness, but Julia mounted an impassioned defence of the girl, even more convinced of her innocence than she had been of Nathan’s. Zigic thought of what he’d said, about Holly hating Caitlin, and realised she was likely to have been jealous of the time and attention her mother lavished on this interloper, a part-time daughter who fulfilled her need for gossip and nail painting in a way Holly couldn’t and maybe wouldn’t have even if she’d never been injured.

Why would Caitlin turn on her? This woman Julia portrayed as the cool aunt figure, who bought her clothes and sat for hours watching films with her, invited her to barbecues and made her feel as if she was part of a stable and happy group of people living the kind of contented life she hadn’t known before, a world away from the households where she was at best grudgingly tolerated and at worst horribly abused. It made no sense.

He wanted to talk to the girl, though. Suspected she was paying more attention to what was happening in the Campbell household that Thursday night, maybe all the other nights too. Teenage girls were born snoopers he suspected and ones who’d been shunted from pillar to post like Caitlin would be even more sensitive to the currents shifting within a family, needing to be aware of who their allies and enemies were.

‘Will this take much longer?’ Julia asked. ‘I really do need to go and collect Caitlin from school.’

‘No, that’ll be all for now,’ Zigic said.

He thanked her and left Ferreira to see her down to reception, find a car to take her home.

Back in Hate Crimes he passed the details of Julia’s alibi to Colleen Murray, told her to get onto it right away, still not entirely convinced of the woman’s innocence. There was something in her vehement denials that smacked of self-delusion.

His gut had been towards an ex-lover right from the start and with three suspects to pick from his money was on Matthew.

Twenty-five minutes after she put Julia in the back of a patrol car Ferreira was in reception again, called down to deal with Matthew Campbell who had arrived after going home to find his house turned inside out and his wife missing.

‘Mrs Campbell left a little while ago,’ Ferreira said. ‘She should be home now.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned to leave and she called him back. ‘We do have a few questions for you, sir.’ She smiled. ‘Since you’re already here.’

She took him up to the same interview room his wife had recently vacated and he sat down in the same chair, looked around himself as if these surroundings were a source more of curiosity than anxiety.

It was an odd attitude to strike, she thought, as she went up to Hate Crimes, taking the stairs two at a time, just to see if she could. The small wound in her calf complained about the movement and she decided not to do that again today, paused at the doorway to check that no fresh blood had welled up.

Zigic was standing over Wahlia, listening as he ran through the Campbells’ financial records.

‘Anything in there we can use against the husband?’ Ferreira asked.

Wahlia shook his head. ‘Mortgage, car payments, pension plan. No expensive vices. No cheap ones either from the looks of this.’

‘Affairs can be cheap,’ she said. ‘As long as you don’t need hotels.’

Zigic flicked an eyebrow up. ‘Our resident expert.’

‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? If he’s screwing Dawn she’s right there in the village and she didn’t seem like the high-maintenance type. No paper trail doesn’t mean no affair.’

‘You like him for it?’ Zigic asked.

‘More than Julia or Caitlin, yeah.’ She took a mouthful of water from the bottle she’d left on her desk. ‘Has Jenkins got anything off the knife yet?’

‘No fingerprints,’ Zigic said. ‘It’s been wiped clean. Predictably. Hairs in the clothing are a type match for Nathan but not for the ones she recovered from Dawn’s bathroom so we’d better get a DNA sample off Matthew Campbell.’

‘Incidental, do you think? Or was someone trying to frame Nathan?’

Zigic shrugged. ‘Could be either but since the knife was taken
after
he ran off there’s a possibility that whoever killed Dawn saw him as a good scapegoat.’

‘Any signs of phone contact between Matthew and Dawn?’

‘Nothing,’ Wahlia said.

‘How far back have you gone?’

‘Eight weeks.’

‘How pregnant do you reckon Julia is?’ she asked Zigic.

‘Twenty-eight weeks.’

‘Our resident expert,’ Ferreira said, with a smile he returned slightly goofily. ‘You think we should look back some more?’

He nodded, told Wahlia to get the relevant paperwork as a priority.

‘You want to wait for that to come in?’ she asked. ‘Or take a run at Matthew now?’

‘Might as well soften him up.’

Matthew Campbell stood as they entered the room, held a hand out for Zigic to shake; reflexive good manners or an attempt to lift himself above the situation? Ferreira wasn’t sure, but she watched him as she set up the recording equipment, saw him compose himself, spine straightening, shoulders back, hands clasped loosely on the tabletop.

She saw through it, though, in how he touched a fingertip to his glasses, then his earlobe, heard his feet dragging against the floor as he tucked them under the chair, leaning forward slightly to state his name for the recording.

‘You’re aware that we recovered a knife from your garden shed this morning, Mr Campbell?’ Zigic said. ‘The knife that we believe killed Dawn Prentice.’

‘Julia texted me, yes.’

‘The night Dawn was murdered – Thursday the tenth – where were you?’

‘At home. With the children.’

‘And what were you doing?’

‘Marking.’ He gave them a weak smile. ‘Unfortunately a teacher’s working day doesn’t end at three o’clock like most people assume.’

‘But you have enough free time to do some late-night gardening,’ Zigic said. ‘What were you burning?’

‘Branches, brambles. That kind of thing.’

‘Clothing?’

His fingers knitted tighter together. ‘No.’

‘Could you explain why we found traces of burnt clothing in your incinerator then?’ Zigic asked.

‘I suppose somebody else put the clothes in there once the fire was burning. Or before I lit it perhaps. It was already full of branches.’ His hands broke apart. ‘I wish I could explain it.’

He was too calm, Ferreira thought. The implications were clear, he was obviously a suspect. So why persist in acting as if it hadn’t occurred to him?

‘That’s your alibi?’ she asked. ‘You were burning stuff.’

Matthew blinked slowly. ‘No, the children would be my alibi. If I need one.’

‘You need one, Mr Campbell.’

‘I didn’t kill Dawn.’

‘We wouldn’t expect you to say anything else.’

He brushed his hand back over his hair. ‘I don’t know what else to say. I was at home with the children. Isn’t that good enough for you?’

‘Nathan didn’t see you all evening,’ Zigic said. ‘That’s half your alibi shot.’

Matthew glared at him across the table. ‘Maybe you should be asking where Nathan was when Dawn was killed. He was always going around there, just wandered over whenever he felt like it.’

‘We know all about Nathan,’ Zigic said, a hint of warning in his tone. ‘And he’s no longer being considered a suspect. You very much are.’

‘Ask Caitlin then, she saw me.’ Matthew looked between them, the way every suspect did, trying to decide who would be more receptive, and settled on Ferreira. ‘I had a long talk with her before I went out into the garden.’

‘About what?’

‘She was upset. She hardly ate anything at dinner, then Julia went out and she went up to sulk in her bedroom. I heard her crying a while later and thought I should check on her.’

Zigic tensed slightly next to her. ‘What was she crying about?’

‘Leaving us. She’s going in a few weeks. On to another family.’

‘Why? Has she been causing trouble?’

‘No, she’s been perfectly well behaved. But with the baby coming … we discussed it and Julia feels it’s better if we don’t take any more children in for a while.’ He opened his hands up. ‘She wants some time to enjoying being a real mother. Those first months are so important for bonding. She doesn’t want any distractions.’

‘Julia didn’t mention that,’ Zigic said. ‘Why do you think that is?’

Matthew’s face twisted. ‘I honestly couldn’t say. I suppose she doesn’t think it has any bearing on the situation.’

Because Julia didn’t want to look like a bitch, Ferreira thought. That was the only explanantion. She’d come in playing the maternal saint, wanting to look too fundamentally good to be guilty, and admitting to kicking out a troubled young girl would undermine that version of herself.

‘It seems very harsh on Caitlin,’ Zigic said, clearly troubled by the idea.

He frowned. ‘It is slightly, yes. But it was never a permanent arrangement. We were only fostering her.’