Blood on the Cowley Road Read online

  ‘You asked earlier about someone called Jake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your sister had a mobile phone, and on the day she died, she tried to ring someone listed as Jake. Do you know him?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is to say, I haven’t met him. But he’s a worker down at the day centre. Relatively new, I think. Sarah seemed to like him. I think she found him a good listener.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll follow him up.’

  ‘Right.’ She paused, but only briefly. ‘I guess that while you’re at the day centre, you could follow up Danny at the same time.’

  Fox didn’t smile. Just nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I will.’

  They continued to look at each other in silence – not aggressively, but neither was willing to be first to look down or away. Still looking at her, Fox called through to his colleague. ‘DC Wilson. Are you finished yet?’ ‘Sir!’ came the reply. Then the noise of something being dropped and another less respectful word fell from the lips of the Detective Constable. Fox frowned, but Anne Johnson merely grinned. ‘So that’s what they teach you at police school. How to swear colourfully while searching a suspect’s house. I learn something new every day!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Fox grinned back. He was beginning to enjoy being with this woman. ‘Actually, I think it’s one of the optional courses. You can choose that one or tea drinking while interviewing witnesses and suspects.’

  She stood on the doorstep of the flat, and watched as the two detectives made their way down the pavement. And as she watched, she smiled for a second time, a secret, comfortable and not entirely innocent smile. ‘Cute,’ she said to herself, as she turned back inside and shut the door. ‘Very, very cute.’

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘So, where are we with Sarah Johnson?’ said DI Holden as she finally turned away from the urgent e-mail she had been composing, and looked across at DS Fox and DC Wilson. The sudden question caught Wilson off guard. It was not that he had been dreaming (he was not given to that sort of thing), nor that he was thinking about his girlfriend (he didn’t have one) or even his boyfriend (not his sort of thing). Rather he had been practising his observational skills on the new Detective Inspector’s office. He had exchanged barely a dozen words with her in the six weeks since he’d taken up his post in the Cowley office. Most of the time he had been tagging along behind DS Fox or DS Roberts as he ‘got to know the ropes’. Twice he had heard comments made about Holden – one respectful, the other distinctly sexist – but he liked to draw his own conclusions from his own observations. He had always been good at observing things; even before he was of school age, he had demonstrated a knack for finding items that his mother had lost at home. By the time he was eight he started to turn that observation towards people. This started shortly before the end of the autumn term, one in which his poor work (he was later diagnosed as mildly dyslexic, but not until he was half way through Middle School) and worse behaviour had somewhat strained relations between him and his form teacher, Miss Turner, and his mother. After a difficult meeting at the end of school one Friday, he had felt relieved to be packed off to his grandma’s house across town. But he had hardly curled up in the large musty chair in front of the television before his grandma marched in, switched it off, and stood over him with hands on her hips in a manner that made him shudder.

  ‘So, young man,’ she said, ‘what has been going on at school? Your mother is at the end of her wits.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ he protested.

  ‘It’s not fair on your mother, young man,’ she said firmly. ‘That much I do know.’

  ‘Miss Turner hates me,’ the eight-year-old said plaintively.

  ‘Does she now?’ said the seventy-year-old, unconvinced.

  ‘So does Mrs Wallace.’ (Mrs Wallace was the classroom assistant.)

  ‘Well,’ his grandma said, taking a deep breath as she did so and bending down till her face was opposite his. ‘In that case, what you have got to do,’ and she poked him gently in the ribs as she said this, ‘is make them like you.’

  If the boy had had ears that could prick up, they would have pricked up. ‘How?’ he said. ‘How Grandma?’

  ‘What is Miss Turner’s favourite colour?’

  ‘Blue,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘She likes to dress in blue.’

  ‘Does she wear jewellery?’

  He paused, envisaging in his mind Miss Turner. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘she wears earrings. Little ones usually. But when we have a special day, she always wears long dangly ones. Once she wore a moon in one ear and a sun in the other.’

  ‘And what can you tell me about Mrs Wallace?’

  ‘Muck!’ he said triumphantly. ‘She likes white muck.’

  For a minute the old lady was puzzled. ‘Muck?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I saw it last week. She took a spray thing out of her bag, and I read the words “white muck” on its label.’

  Wilson’s grandma laughed. ‘White musk. You mean white musk!’

  ‘Why do you want to know, grandma?’ he asked.

  ‘Because,’ she said, suddenly serious again, ‘tomorrow we are going to buy them each a Christmas present that they will really like. And every time they use that present they are going to think about you and they are going to say to themselves, maybe that boy Colin Wilson isn’t so bad after all.’

  ‘So will they like me when they’ve opened their presents?’ he asked.

  His grandmother smiled. ‘It may not be that simple or quick. But if you do as I say, we’ll get them to like you, by hook or by crook.’

  And so Colin Wilson began the task of Making His Teachers Like Him. It wasn’t always easy, and it didn’t usually involve giving presents (except on suitable occasions) but it did involve him making observations and then acting on those observation. When Miss Turner mentioned one Friday that her father wasn’t very well, he made a Get Well card and gave it to her the following Monday. When she lost a parrot earring, it was he who found it under her desk. And when he once arrived early in class and found her already there, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, he withdrew silently, shut the door firmly behind him, and stood on guard, refusing to let anyone else in until Miss Turner herself came and opened the door.

  So the greenhorn Detective Constable who sat in the Inspector’s office that morning was a man who had learnt to observe and notice both objects and people. He noticed that there was no picture on the rather bleak desk, and he wondered if that meant that DI Holden had no partner (or did she prefer not to advertise her private life). He took in the dark, discreetly striped trouser suit, the white blouse and the stud earrings, but drew no particular conclusions about her from them. He recognized the scent she was wearing, but couldn’t quite place it. And, looking around the room, he observed that she had made no attempt to stamp her personality, her ownership on it. Was it just a matter of not having had time over the last week, or was it significant of something in the way she viewed work and her work environment?

  ‘So where are we with Sarah Johnson?’

  If Holden’s words had taken Wilson by surprise, the same could not be said of Fox. ‘We’ve interviewed the student Bicknell, and her sister, Anne Johnson. Bicknell claims not to have spoken to her, but he has given me copies of all the photos he took that morning, including three of her looking at his plaque.’

  ‘And the sister?’ queried Holden, with a hint of impatience in her tone.

  ‘She confirmed that Sarah was a manic depressive. She admitted that she hadn’t actually spoken to her for about three weeks, and hadn’t seen her for some time, but she did say that Sarah had been in reasonable spirits three weeks prior to her death.’

  ‘Three weeks,’ Holden echoed. She pressed the first finger of her left hand on her forehead between her eyes, and shut her eyes briefly, trying to focus on this information. ‘What do you make of that, Wilson?’ she said, again catching Wilson off guard.

  He blushed slightly. ‘Well,�
�� he said uncertainly, ‘I suppose, given the cyclical nature of manic depression, highs followed by lows’ – Wilson was feeling his way here – ‘and given that this was three weeks before her death, it isn’t at all inconsistent with her having jumped—’

  Wilson’s stumbling sentence was cut short by Holden. ‘As evidence goes, it proves nothing. Quite right.’ She turned now to Fox. ‘What next then Derek?’

  ‘I want to interview Jake. He’s a worker at the day centre. She tried to ring him the morning of her death three times. He should be able to clarify her state of mind.’

  ‘Good,’ Holden said, nodding her head. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Danny turned up at the flat when we were interviewing Anne.’

  Holden looked puzzled. ‘Danny?’ she queried.

  ‘You know,’ Fox continued, ‘mad Danny Flynn, from the day centre.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course. What did he want?’

  ‘He said someone had been following Sarah.’

  The DI laughed, again catching Wilson off his balance. ‘Sounds about par for the course, for Danny.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Fox.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ she said firmly, ‘we do need to be sure that it was suicide.’

  Anne Johnson’s first reaction on seeing the place where her sister had plummeted to her death was to turn on her heel and run. But that would have been difficult. She had dressed up for the occasion – a white blouse, a discreet dark-blue skirt, and moderately high heels – and given that she had trouble even walking in high heels, running away was patently not a realistic option. A second complication would have been the extravagantly large bouquet of flowers she held in her arms. It had seemed such a good idea when it had first occurred to her. It would be some weeks before she could lay poor Sarah’s body to rest, so to place a wreath of flowers at the site of her death had seemed an ideal temporary tribute. But now, standing on the dirty grey strip of paving stones at the base of the car park, it all seemed banal, pointless and even tasteless. The stunning bouquet seemed ridiculously over the top for this tawdry setting. Who was to say that by tomorrow morning someone wouldn’t have nicked it for their lover or elderly mother, or that a drunk wouldn’t have urinated all over it? And what was she trying to achieve with this bouquet anyway. To commemorate her sister’s wonderful and fulfilled life? To celebrate the sensitive, supportive and joyful relationship that she and her sister had enjoyed? Without warning, her body shivered. Who the heck was she trying to fool? Her sister’s life had been punctuated with mental health problems and mangled relationships, and she, Anne, had been only too ready to wash her hands of Sarah when things got difficult. And when she’d told the detective that she rang her sister every three weeks, well that hadn’t actually been the truth, had it? God, what a selfish cow she was! These thoughts were followed by a wave of self-loathing that hit her with such physical intensity that she thought she was going to be sick. She bent over, propping herself against the wall with one hand while the other clung on to the flowers. She waited, willing herself to retch, but nothing came up, and gradually the feelings of nausea receded, until she was able to straighten herself up and breathe in a gulp of air.

  But, although the nausea had gone, the sense of futility she had felt earlier was flooding back. Looking round, she realized that she didn’t actually know where the body had fallen and lain. She’d studied the photos in the paper, and she had tried to listen to what the police had to say, but now that she was here, none of that was much help. Somehow she had assumed that there would be marks of some sort on the pavement, maybe a dark circle of something that she could identify as blood. Didn’t the police use chalk to mark the positions of dead bodies, or was that only on television? Or maybe you had to be the victim of murder, not just a suicide, to attain that level of importance? But the only markings on the pavement were bird droppings – pigeons she guessed – and what looked like spatterings of yellow paint. (How did they get there?)

  It was at this point that Anne Johnson became aware that she was being watched. She looked up to see a young man staring at her. He must have just come out of the car park, for he was standing two steps from the bottom of the concrete stairs that led down from the first storey of the car park to the pavement, some five metres from where she was. To her astonishment, she recognized him.

  Her first words were softly spoken, addressed more to herself than to anyone else. ‘Jesus Christ! You’re him!’ The young man must have heard – or possibly lip-read – her words, for he remained still, frozen to his step. Only his eyes betrayed agitation.

  ‘You’re him!’ she said again, this time more loudly, and with the index finger of her right hand pointing directly at his head. ‘You’re the art student in the paper? The bastard who pushed her over the edge.’

  If Bicknell was startled by the violence of her words, he was not showing it. He looked at her for three or four seconds, before thrusting his hands into the pockets of his zipped jacket in a studied act of defiance. He then stepped forward down the last two steps, spun round and started to walk away.

  ‘Stop right there!’ Anne Johnson was at school again, her voice lancing across the playground, bringing bullies and bullied reluctantly to heel. Bicknell came to a halt, and after some hesitation turned around. When he looked up, he saw her as many younger persons had over the years. She was not a tall woman, but as she stood there, one hand firmly on her hip, the other casually holding her bouquet like it was a lethal weapon, he felt a shiver of something not so far removed from fear. He felt compelled to move towards her.

  ‘I’m him,’ he said, when he was half a pace from her. ‘That is to say, I’m the student in the paper. But I don’t push people off multi-storey car parks. So, I’d be very careful what you go around saying, lady.’

  ‘I was speaking figuratively,’ she said, looking straight into his eyes.

  ‘Whatever,’ he responded, holding her gaze. Ever since he had printed off those photos he had taken of Sarah Johnson, as live and dead, Bicknell had got to know her features in some detail. Now, like DS Fox before him, he found himself taken aback by the face of her sister Anne – the same straight brown hair, oval face, and slightly upturned nose.

  ‘God, you are like her.’ The words came out automatically, an unconscious reaction to his thoughts.

  ‘Only on the surface,’ she responded instantly. ‘Underneath we’re chalk and cheese.’

  He nodded uncertainly. ‘Right’ he said, but wondered why she had been so quick to emphasize their difference.

  ‘Did you talk to her?’ she rushed on. Then paused, uncertain how to phrase what she wanted to say. ‘Before she ... before she... .’ The words stuck to the back of her throat, unwilling to be uttered. She tried again. ‘When she was looking at your plaque. Did she say anything? Did you get an impression of how she was.’

  ‘No!’ he said flatly. She said nothing in return, merely did something with her face which made him realize that more was expected. ‘I was taking photos, from a distance. Talking would have ... have interfered with the experiment.’

  ‘The experiment!’ She tossed the words back at him, because it was easier to be cruel than generous. Easier to inflict pain that endure it. ‘Well, that would never do. To interfere with the experiment.’

  She had spoken loudly, loudly enough, she realized, for passers-by to hear. An old woman with a shopping trolley had stopped and was watching with fascination – Anne scowled at her until she resumed her slow progress – then turned back to Bicknell. ‘Look, I need to lay these bloody flowers right where she fell. You can at least help me with that.’

  Bicknell was floundering in unfamiliar waters. Policemen who thought they were tough was one thing, but this woman.... He sighed silently. Easier to go with it, wait for the storm to abate. ‘It was over there,’ he said, pointing.

  She turned, and moved three paces, and placed the flowers gently on the pavement. ‘Here?’ She turned her face towards him, her voice now calm, wanting reassurance.
He nodded. She turned back to the flowers, and maintained the position for some thirty seconds. A bus pulled past and stopped a few metres away. A young woman lugging a baby in one arm and dragging a folded carrycot with her free hand got off. She expertly opened up the carrycot with a single flick of her hand, put the infant in it, strapped it in, then walked past, looking with mild curiosity at the woman and her flowers. Finally, Anne Johnson stood up and turned towards the immobile Bicknell. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

  As Detective Constable Wilson turned the corner and brought the unmarked police car gently to a halt, Detective Sergeant Fox, who was seated next to him, wondered – not for the first time – what genius it was that had come up with the name of the Evergreen Day Centre. Tucked away in a cul-de-sac off the Cowley Road, the two-storey building showed few signs of lasting for ever and no sign of anything green. The overall impression it gave was of unutterable greyness; only the metal windows protected against this uniformity, but the white paint applied to them was not of recent memory. At least someone had decided to rail against this dank vision from the 1930s: a brightly painted board leant against the wall to the right of the double doors, bidding all comers ‘A warm welcome to the Evergreen Day Centre’ in a mixture of reds, pinks and blues (but curiously not a singe splash of green). A group of three men, who stood smoking to the left of the sign, turned as one to survey Fox and Wilson as they approached. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ The youngest of the trio spoke loudly, and Wilson flinched involuntarily. Fox, however, merely smiled: ‘Good morning to you, gentlemen. Is Jim Blunt around today?’

  It was the oldest man who replied. He was a strikingly thin man, and had grey, wispy hair, and a smile which revealed teeth long overdue a visit to the dentist. He sported a faded tweed jacket, white shirt, and brown corduroy trousers. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ he demanded in an aristocratic accent. ‘Mr Blunt is a busy man.’