Blood on the Cowley Road Read online

  ‘Yes, as part of our investigation, I need to clarify the terms of her will.’

  ‘I suspected as much,’ William Basham said, opening a folder on his desk. ‘After you telephoned, I took the precaution of reading through her testament again to remind myself of its terms.’ He slowly turned the pages of the document within it, as if a single re-reading was not sufficient. Finally, he closed the folder and looked up.

  ‘It’s all very straight forward,’ he said. ‘She left everything to her sister, Anne.’

  ‘When did she make her will?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘And she has made no changes to the will since first drawing it up?’

  Basham frowned briefly. ‘No, but—’ He didn’t finish his sentence, instead opening the folder again.

  ‘But what?’ Holden said, irritation with the ponderousness of William Basham beginning to show in her tone of voice.

  ‘She was due to come and see me on Thursday.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Holden, her interest suddenly raised. ‘And why was that?’

  ‘She wanted to make some changes to her will.’

  ‘Really?’ Holden said, fighting to keep her sudden excitement at this development under control. ‘I wonder if you could tell me what these changes were?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, with a slight shake of the head. ‘You see, that’s what we were going to discuss on Thursday.’

  ‘Didn’t she give any clue when she rang up? I mean, do you think it is possible that she going to cut her sister out of the will?’

  Basher leant back and smiled, enjoying his position of strength. ‘Who knows? Maybe she just wanted to leave fifty pounds to the local cat sanctuary. But as one reflects on it, one can’t help but find it a bit odd.’

  For a brief but brilliant moment, Holden wanted to grab the self-satisfied ass sitting opposite her by the lapels and shake him as she had once seen a Jack Russell terrier shake a rat till its neck was well and truly broken. Not that she wanted to damage him, merely to shake the mannered pomposity out of him. But instead she counted silently to five, and then said in muted tones: ‘Tell, me, Mr Basham. What precisely do you find odd.’

  Basham leant forward, the smile still fixed to his face. ‘Well, the fact that a person might kill herself days before she was about to make a new will. Somehow, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense.’ His smile widened even further. ‘Does it, Inspector?’

  Tracking down someone who had seen Sarah, or her sister pretending to be Sarah, shortly before she had plunged to her death proved, in the event, a straightforward task. But first Fox decided to try and recreate for himself the route she would have taken from her flat in Marston Street to the car park. Along Marston Street she would have walked, then left at the corner as far as the pedestrian crossing, then across the Cowley Road and left again for fifty metres, and then there was the car park. The obvious option for a pedestrian, Fox told himself, was to walk along the front of the car park, past where the student Bicknell had set up his senseless experiment that morning, and then use the stairwell in that far corner of the building. However, suppose, just bloody suppose, that Wilson was right. That the person in Bicknell’s photos was not Sarah en route to her death, but Anne? Suppose, Fox thought, that they had both originally gone to the car together. And suppose Anne had wanted them to avoid Bicknell and his camera, then she could have turned right down the side of the car park as soon as they reached it, and led her sister in by the door near the entrance for cars. When they got to the car, parked on the top level, Anne could then have made an excuse – say, she’d forgotten her car keys – and asked her sister to stay with her bag at the car while she returned to get it from the flat. Only she didn’t go to the flat, but merely came back down to the street before returning to Sarah. Only this time, she took care to use the more obvious entrance, walking past the student and looking at his plaque for long enough to make sure he would remember her (or, even better, photograph her). So what were the complications in all of this? There was the coat. How the hell did she get that coat onto her sister after she had gone back up to the car? It was this detail that was bothering Fox as he stood at the top of the car park looking down. Whose coat was it in the first place, he suddenly wondered. Sarah’s? In which case Anne could just have borrowed it that morning to walk to the car. Or was it Anne’s? Did she offer her sister to try it on, or even give it to her as a parting gift? And then what? They look over the car park wall together. Maybe Anne says: ‘Look at that student artist down there. You won’t believe what he is doing!’ Sarah leans over further to get a better look, and then a quick push and she is screaming and falling to her death.

  Fucking hell, Fox thought as he made his way down, Wilson really could be right. He really could. But the problem was they had no evidence. They needed a witness.

  Yousef Mohammed owned the little general stores shop on the corner of Marston Street and Cowley Road. Did he recognize the woman in the picture, Fox enquired. Of course he did. It was the poor woman who jumped from the car park. So sad. ‘She was a regular customer,’ Yousef continued proudly. ‘Miss Johnson was always popping in for this or that. I think she must have shopped for most things at Tesco’s, but like many people if it’s just a pack of eggs or a pint of milk you need, then it’s easier to call in on your local shop. I may be a bit more pricey,’ he grinned, ‘but I provide the personal touch, and I am very convenient. And, of course, she always bought her newspaper here.’

  ‘Always?’ Fox interrupted. ‘Did she have an order with you then?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, still smiling. ‘She just called in most days and bought one.’

  ‘Do you remember if she bought one the morning of her death?’

  For several seconds, Yousef was silent, as he tried hard to remember. Then his face suddenly lit up again. ‘No,’ he said triumphantly, ‘she didn’t. I know because I saw her at the door. She hovered outside for a few moments, and I thought to myself, here comes Miss Johnson for her Daily Mail. But she didn’t come in, she just walked on.’

  ‘What was she wearing? Do you remember?’

  ‘But of course! She was wearing that long coat she is wearing in the picture. I liked it. I like it when women cover themselves up. It shows they have respect for themselves. I remember thinking it was a shame she didn’t come in and buy her Daily Mail, because then I could have told her how nice she looked.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Fox said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. But there is one more thing I’d like to ask you. Do you remember what time it was you saw her?’

  Again the grin gave way to a frown, but only for a second of two. ‘Not exactly. But of course it can’t have been very long before the poor woman’s death. Maybe 10 minutes, maybe 15. It is very hard to be sure. You see, it’s a very busy time of the morning for me. No time to watch the time, if you know what I mean!’ And he laughed at his own joke.

  Wilson placed the DVD into his PC and waited as it hummed into life. Technology, he would have been the first to admit, is a wonderful thing, but technology only takes you so far. As he deftly wielded his mouse and started the DVD playing, he was conscious he still had a substantial task in front of him. It hadn’t been difficult to get hold of CCTV coverage from the cameras installed at the car park, one covering the entrance and one the exit. But he still had to trawl through the footage and try to identify Anne Johnson’s car. It was a yellow Mini, and its number was OU12 AHG. And, of course, it might not be on the film at all, for she may not have come to Oxford at all. Or she might have come to Oxford, but parked somewhere discretely out of the way of prying security cameras. In which case, Wilson might sit up late into the evening, and yet find absolutely nothing to support his theory.

  He had decided to check the exit gate footage first. If Anne had driven to Oxford and had parked in the car park, and had left the car park shortly after the death of her sister, then all he had to do was search between 9.00 a.m. and 9.15 a.m. and it ought in theory to be
easy to spot her car departing and thereby prove that she had been lying. Wilson quickly located 8.59 a.m. on the film, and then sat to wait for the Mini to appear. The precise time of Sarah’s death was clear: a passing pedestrian had phoned the emergency services from a mobile at 9.08 a.m. Allowing for a minute or two of panic, this fixed Sarah’s fall to about 9.06 or 9.07, Wilson reckoned. That was the key period of time. Wilson watched in fascination as the time at the bottom of the screen progressed. Not surprisingly, very few cars left the car park at that time of the morning. First there was a red Fiat Uno at 9.01, then a rather battered blue Montego estate at 9.02. Then nothing. 9.06 came, 9.07, then suddenly a Mini, only it was a black one, with the wrong number plate. Then again a gap. A couple of minutes more passed before a white van followed, then nothing for three, four, five more minutes. At last, another car, this time a dark-green Ford Galaxy, but then again nothing, until Wilson had to admit that it was past 9.15 and no yellow Mini (with or without a number of OU12 AHG) had left the car park. Wilson leant back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. He was not yet ready to give up. She could have left earlier. Maybe the woman in Bicknell’s photos was Sarah, walking to her suicide, but Anne had lied about her car breaking down. Why? Because she had overslept? Wilson shook his head. ‘Hardly!’ he said out loud, though there was no one in the office to hear him.

  Quickly his right hand took hold of the mouse again and rewound the film to 8.00. a.m. This time he played it forward at speed, stopping whenever a car left the car park. There was a spate of three between 8.03 and 8.04 a.m., people who had no doubt parked overnight and were now off to work. Then nothing, a long gap until 8.30 when ... Wilson almost gave a whoop of excitement. There it was. Her car. Her yellow Mini. The black windows hid the face of the driver, but the number plate was undeniable. OU12 AHG.

  Triumphantly, Wilson printed off several still shots of the Mini, then switched DVDs and began to scroll through the film of cars entering. At 6.30 a white van arrived. The same one as he had seen leaving, Wilson wondered, and made a note of the registration number. Ten minutes later another vehicle arrived. The yellow Mini. Anne Johnson’s Mini. ‘Jackpot!’ Wilson shouted to no one. ‘I’ve hit the bloody jackpot!’

  Mace stood outside the shed on his allotment and shone his torch onto his watch. 8.25 p.m. Five minutes early. He looked around, peering into the darkness. He could see no one, hear no one, feel no one.

  The phone call had come at 3.30 p.m. He had been in his kitchen, stirring his mug of tea. He had let the mobile ring three times. Only then had he grabbed it off the kitchen worktop, flipped it open, and begun to panic. Even as he had raised it to his ear, the vein down the left-hand side of his neck had started to throb violently.

  ‘Hello?’ He had tried to speak calmly, but the simple word was distorted by anxiety.

  There had been a brief pause, then a voice. The voice.

  ‘Have you got the money?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take it to your allotment tonight. 8.30 p.m. And take your mobile.’

  That was all.

  And now here he was at his allotment. Another minute passed, and another, and then a phone rang. Only it wasn’t his mobile. He swung his torch round so that it pierced the dark like a searchlight, but it found no one. Only his shed. The shed. The sound of a ringing phone was coming from inside his shed. He trained the torch on the door of the shed, and moved cautiously towards it. The lock, he suddenly realized, was missing. Someone had ripped it right off the door. Nervously, he leant forward and grasped the door handle with his free hand. It opened easily, squeaking slightly. He must oil the hinges again, he thought to himself. He moved forward, playing the beam of the torch around the interior of the shed. No one there. Only – on the floor – a mobile phone, the source of the ringing noise. He leant down and picked it up. Carefully he raised it to his ear. ‘Hello!’

  ‘Hello!’ came the answer, only it didn’t come from the mobile. It came from behind him, from a figure that lurked, almost invisible, in the darkness. A split second later, a heavy blunt instrument smashed into the back of his head, causing him to collapse into oblivion on the floor of the shed.

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘Good morning, Ma’am.’

  DI Holden’s mind was elsewhere, indeed so far distant from the present moment that she completely failed to register the greeting of the young WPC at her shoulder. She locked her car door and turned obliviously towards the station.

  ‘Ma’am!’ This time the woman’s voice was louder and firmer, and it produced the desired effect of causing the Detective Inspector to turn and appraise its source.

  ‘Good morning, Constable!’ she replied, but without enthusiasm, and she turned her face back towards the station, pressing forward up the slight incline that would lead her ultimately to the peace of her office.’

  ‘Your label is sticking out, Ma’am.’

  This time Holden stopped fully, and turned to face her interlocutor full on. ‘Sorry!’ she snapped. ‘Did you say something?’

  The younger woman flushed, taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. But she was not a person to melt away. ‘With respect, I merely wanted to tell you your label was sticking out. If you’ll allow me—’ And without waiting for a reply, she moved forward round the side of her superior and stretched her hand out towards the nape of her neck. ‘Just one moment, Ma’am,’ she said softly, and with the gentlest of touches she folded the offending white label out of sight. ‘There!’ she finished, and then stepped a pace backwards.

  ‘Oh!’ Holden said, as enlightenment finally dawned. She paused, embarrassed by her own ill temper. ‘Thank you, um, Constable.’

  ‘Lawson. WPC Jan Lawson,’ the constable responded. Lawson had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. She had heard only good things of Holden from the other women in the station in the three weeks since her transfer from Northampton. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how is the case going, Ma’am?’

  Holden frowned. ‘I do mind, Constable, as it happens.’

  Lawson cursed herself silently. ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t mean to be nosey. It’s just that—’ She paused, genuinely lost for words. She knew what she wanted to say, but how to say it, how to take this one chance that might not come again? ‘It’s just that I imagine there must be a lot to do, and well, one day I’d like to be doing what you’re doing, so I just wanted to say that if you needed any more personnel, then maybe you would keep in mind that I’m here. I know I’m inexperienced, but I’ll do anything.’

  Lawson fell silent, and waited as Holden continued to survey her. For a moment or three, she looked back into Holden’s eyes, and then submissively dropped her gaze to the ground.

  Holden gave a half smile. ‘I’ll keep that in mind, Constable Lawson,’ she said, before walking purposefully on towards the station again.

  DI Holden’s stock-taking session started at 8.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and – for reasons beyond her control – lasted barely ten minutes. It was, however, time enough to draw conclusions of some validity. Wilson arrived at his boss’s office about ten seconds after Fox, and entered the room whistling the theme tune of his favourite soap Neighbours (not that he got to watch it too often these days).

  ‘OK, Wilson,’ Holden said briskly, as the detective constable shut the door, ‘let’s be hearing from you. You look like the cat that got the cream, so share with us whatever it is you found out!’

  ‘Morning, Guv!’ answered Wilson cheerfully, enjoying his moment, and pulling a chair forward.

  ‘Cut the niceties, Wilson!’ she warned.

  ‘Sorry, Guv!’

  ‘And don’t bloody apologize, either. Just speak.’

  ‘Sorry!’ he said, and immediately realized his mistake. Fox laughed loudly. Holden raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion, and looked ostentatiously at her watch. ‘She lied!’ Wilson said firmly. Fox’s laughter died. ‘Anne Johnson lied,’ Wilson con
tinued. ‘She came to Oxford the morning of her sister’s death. We have it on camera. We have her driving her car into the multi-storey car park at 6.40 in the morning, and leaving at 8.30.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Holden said.

  ‘Yes, it was a yellow Mini and the registration number—’

  ‘Not the car, Wilson!’ Holden said sharply. ‘Her. Can you be sure she was driving it. Can you see her face clearly?’

  Wilson paused before answering. ‘The windows and windscreen are that dark, reflective glass. You can see out, but not in.’

  ‘So it could have been someone else driving?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but why—’

  ‘Anything else you found out, Wilson?’ Holden spoke curtly, so that Wilson looked down at his knees, anxious to avoid her gaze. ‘No, Guv,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Right, Fox,’ she said, swinging her attention to the Detective Sergeant. ‘What can you add?’

  Fox, who was used to Holden, gave a rueful smile. ‘Not a lot. Yousef Mohammed, who runs the corner shop where Marston Street meets the Cowley Road, remembers seeing Sarah – assuming it was Sarah – about ten minutes before her death. She hung around the front of his shop briefly, looking in the window or something. I think Yousef fancied her a bit. He commented on her long mack.’

  ‘Is that it, Fox?’ she said in a tone which suggested great disappointment with his efforts.

  ‘I think it may be significant that Sarah didn’t come in the shop, didn’t even come into the shop to buy her usual newspaper—’

  Holden cut in viciously. ‘Fox! Would you be interested in buying a bloody newspaper if you were on your way to jump from the top of a multi-storey car park?’

  Even Fox was temporarily thrown. One charitable, though very male, part of his brain assumed in that instant that it must be her time of the month. But he pressed on nevertheless. ‘But surely she might have wanted to at least exchange words with someone, with anyone, especially with someone who she knew liked her. Yousef smiles a lot. Even when I was questioning him about Sarah, he couldn’t think of her without smiling.’