Free Tell No Tales by Eva Dolan Page A

built tight together, the kind of place where you got to know the familiar rumble of a specific engine or the way the people opposite’s door rattled.
    All they had to go on was Sofia’s word and Gilbert’s overdose and very soon Zigic was going to stand in front of the assembled press and declare the case as good as solved, based on those things alone.
    Ferreira came into the office carrying a white plastic sack, dumped it on her desk and shrugged out of her jacket.
    ‘You two look serious.’
    ‘Sofia Krasic was spinning us a line about Gilbert,’ Wahlia said. ‘Jelena was still seeing him.’
    ‘Why would she lie about it?’ Ferreira asked, taking a sleek, silver laptop out of her bag. ‘Hossa Motors CCTV footage.’
    She called Grieves over and told her to take it up to the technical department and get them to run a copy off onto a hard disk straight away.
    ‘Tell them they do not want me up there.’
    Grieves hurried out, clutching the laptop to her chest.
    Ferreira sat down, gave them both an expectant look.
    ‘So, what do we think?’
    ‘That Sofia’s going to have some explaining to do,’ Zigic said.
    ‘He tried to kill himself. He’s guilty.’ Ferreira took a small tin out of her handbag and started to shred tobacco into a liquorice paper. ‘Course, the television was on when we got there, he might have seen the footage on the news and been overwhelmed with grief.’
    ‘That still doesn’t explain why she’d lie about him stalking Jelena.’
    ‘How would she know he’s got form?’ Wahlia asked.
    ‘She couldn’t have known that,’ Zigic said. ‘Unless he was stupid enough to mention it. Which is unlikely.’
    Ferreira stuck her unlit cigarette in her mouth and went over to the murder board, picked up a black marker pen from the shelf underneath.
    ‘While we’re sharing shitty news.’ She rubbed out ‘unknown one’ which was written in red and added it to the deceased list. ‘He didn’t have any ID on him. I’ve got his stuff but it looks like someone pinched his wallet from the scene or he forgot it when he left the house.’
    ‘Did you get a photo?’ Zigic asked, going round to her side of the desk.
    ‘On my phone.’
    ‘Sofia might know who he is.’
    ‘Yeah, and she’ll probably lie about that too,’ Ferreira said. She went and opened one of the long bank of windows on the opposite side of the office, perched on the narrow sill and lit her cigarette. ‘Aren’t you supposed to have a suit on?’
    Zigic shot her a mock-stern look and she grinned.
    ‘Black, do you think?’ he asked, emptying the property bag onto her desk. ‘Or charcoal grey? Since you’re our resident fashionista.’
    ‘Navy blue,’ she said. ‘It’s professional but it doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard. White shirt, black tie.’
    He picked up the key. ‘Half Windsor knot?’
    ‘What else?’
    Zigic dropped the key again. It wasn’t going to tell him anything. He thumbed the power button on the man’s mobile but the screen stayed black. Another job for the techies.
    He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better shift.’
    An Anglia News van was turning into the station car park as he pulled out. They were an hour early but they obviously expected a scramble and wanted to grab a prime spot. The press officer promised it would just be a brief statement but he knew already exactly how trapped he was going to feel, the lights in his eyes and the cameras on him, like some old-school interrogation technique they were no longer allowed to use.
    Two people were dead. A brief statement wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the hacks.
    He slipped off the dual carriageway and slowed sharply as he approached the edge of the village, catching up to the back of a horsebox which looked more secure than most armoured vans. It turned into the driveway of a sprawling 1970s mansion on Castor Heights, the kind of house which screamed slum landlord or drug dealer gone legit. Down the hill he passed rows of small