Long Way Home by Eva Dolan Page A

unrecognisable.
    Perez’s cousin probably didn’t want to be found, Zigic thought. He’d come over here to work and it hadn’t panned out how he expected. He was probably too ashamed to go home and admit the failure, have it rubbed in his face by family members who’d say ‘I told you so’.
    Ferreira heaved a huge sigh and started to roll a cigarette at the table, taking tobacco out of a battered tin with the Virgin Mary on the lid.
    ‘How many more are there?’ she asked.
    ‘Just a couple.’
    ‘Tombak’s alibi’s going to hold.’
    Zigic was getting that impression himself. Even the people who hated Tombak agreed that he was here all morning, banging on doors and kicking anyone too slow to haul themselves out of bed.
    ‘It doesn’t mean he’s not involved.’
    ‘We need to find Viktor,’ she said, sealing her cigarette. ‘If he’s still alive.’

14
     
    ZIGIC’S MOBILE RANG as he pulled into the station car park; DCS Riggott.
    ‘The press officer’s after your balls, son. She had to shove young Bobby out on the steps for the hacks to play with.’
    ‘He likes the camera,’ Zigic said, climbing out of the car.
    ‘And I like some rank on the teatime news. Show the civilians we’re taking them seriously. You’ll have a good excuse – and that’s not a question – you
will
have a good excuse.’
    ‘We’ve brought a suspect in.’
    ‘Good. Come up and tell Daddy all about it.’
    The night shift was ticking by in CID, nothing much to do yet, too early for the drinks to have kicked in. A young woman in a dark suit was stationed at his old desk, sitting with her legs tucked under herself, earphones in, eyes fixed on her Kindle, and he wondered if she was reading about fake crimes while she waited for a real one to break.
    The desk outside Riggott’s office was empty, his receptionist gone for the night, the dust cover slipped neatly over her computer and not a paper clip out of place.
    Zigic knocked on the DCS’s door and was told to come in.
    Riggott’s office had one of the best views in the station, windows on two sides overlooking the rolling parkland of Ferry Meadows, dark clusters of woodland and the river cutting through it. But not now.
    It was dark out and the reflection of the office was superimposed over the view, cream walls and framed hunting prints like something from another century. Riggott fancied himself the country gent away from work and Zigic imagined it was an appealing idyll when you’d grown up in West Belfast, watching guns being put to their proper use. There was a pair of stuffed cock pheasants in a glass case on top of a filing cabinet and Riggott would inform anyone who asked, and many who didn’t, that he’d bagged them on a shoot with the Chief Constable.
    Zigic had told Anna about it, expecting her to laugh at his boss’s pretensions, but she gave him a serious look and told him he should think about getting a shotgun licence.
    Riggott had his feet up on the corner of his desk, handmade chestnut oxfords gleaming under the light from an anglepoise lamp, while he flipped through a copy of that night’s
Evening Telegraph
.
    ‘Well, they spelled your name right, Ziggy.’ He threw the paper aside and gestured for him to sit down. ‘Drink? Course you will.’
    Riggott produced another tumbler from a drawer and poured a double measure of Connemara whiskey, pushed it across the desk. ‘Twelve years old that, like licking peat off a witch’s tit.
Sláinte.
’
    ‘
Zivili.
’ Zigic took a sip, tasted dirt and scorched wood and forced himself not to pull a face.
    ‘So, you’ve released the racist householders and brought me what?’
    Zigic debriefed him about the fight between Stepulov and Tombak, explained the situation at the house on Burmer Road and their clutch of unwilling informants.
    ‘Break one of them and get him charged. We don’t want this becoming politicised.’ Riggott stared into his drink, a look of pure disgust on his raddled features.