Long Way Home by Eva Dolan Page B

‘Press is already floating the ENL angle.’
    ‘Where did they get that from?’
    Riggott spread his hands wide, whiskey sloshing up the side of his glass. ‘You’re in charge of the investigation, Ziggy, I just sit here signing time sheets and adding up how much you spend on translators – which is down this month, by the way, gold star for you.’
    ‘There’s a lot of graffiti in the area.’ Zigic took another sip of his drink. It was getting better. ‘I don’t see it though, they’re more mouth than action.’
    ‘You know who Peterborough are playing this weekend?’ Riggott asked. ‘We’ve got Luton at home. You’ll have ENL wankstains coming up by the coachload. Better stamp on the possibility before their publicity department starts printing up flyers.’
    Back in Hate Crimes Ferreira and Wahlia were standing smoking near the open window. The smell of Ferreira’s rough tobacco had filled the room already, even with a breeze blowing through that was strong enough to lift the sheets of paper tacked to the murder board. Tombak’s mugshot was up there now, promoted above the Barlows’.
    Wahlia saw Zigic first and flicked his cigarette out of the window like a naughty schoolboy, nudged Ferreira who was talking in a low voice, her eyes fixed on the floor between her booted feet.
    ‘Why have I just been asked about ENL?’
    ‘Don’t look at us,’ Ferreira said. She took a final long drag on her roll-up and pitched the butt out of the window. ‘There’s graffiti at the top of Highbury Street – so they’re active in the area.’
    ‘Is there any chatter on the boards?’
    ‘I haven’t checked yet,’ Ferreira said. ‘I’d be surprised if they’re not shouting about it already. I’ll look if you want.’
    Zigic glanced at the clock. Almost nine. He wanted to go home and wash the smell of dead fires and grinding poverty off his body.
    ‘It can wait until tomorrow,’ he said.
    ‘What about Tombak?’
    ‘He can wait too. We’ve got nothing to hit him with yet anyway. Go on, get off home the pair of you.’
    ‘Pub?’ Wahlia asked.
    ‘Not tonight.’
    Ferreira pulled on her coat, whipped her long black hair out of her collar. ‘I could go for a quick one.’
    Zigic caught a look pass between them but decided it was none of his business. If they wanted to save themselves a grim trawl through the bars by hooking up who was he to interfere? As long as they managed to maintain a professional distance at work he’d let it go.
    He closed the window and switched the lights off as he left the office. In the stairwell he passed one of the regular cleaners, an ageless Latvian woman with hennaed hair and a lot of thin gold necklaces stacked on top of her tabard. Another cleaner was in reception as he went out, mopping up blood spots from the floor. The guilty party was sitting handcuffed on a chair, woozy-looking with a split lip weeping onto his pink silk tie. He touched his knuckles to his mouth and Zigic saw bone, very white, through the ripped skin.
    He pulled out of the station car park onto Bretton Parkway, a knot of traffic at the roundabout but it cleared quickly, then he was through the dark cordon of Muckland Woods and into Castor, the village huddled in a shallow basin, two miles from the rough tumult of Bretton’s mid-rise council blocks and ‘problem families’, but it felt like more as he passed the millionaires’ houses on The Heights, then small limestone cottages all warmly lit and inviolate-looking, the Royal Oak with a fire up the chimney, the village hall hosting a movie night, which he remembered just then Anna had wanted to go to. Some Italian film they’d missed when it was on at the John Clare in Peterborough and missed somehow at Stamford Arts Centre too. He would buy a copy online later, get a good bottle of wine and cook her something special. Involtini. Maybe some of the veal saltimbocca she liked.
    She was in the kitchen when he got home and he sat for a moment in the