Blood on the Cowley Road Read online

  ‘OK,’ Holden said with a shrug, as if deciding that there was nothing more to be gained. ‘But if anything occurs to you, when you’ve had time to reflect, do let me know.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, and then stood up. But he didn’t turn towards the door. A frown emerged from behind his eyes. ‘Perhaps, I should mention one thing. He split up with his boyfriend a few days before I went on holiday. It was fairly acrimonious, I think. Not that I know much about it.’

  ‘Do you know the boyfriend’s name?’ Holden was leaning forward now, her affected indifference now discarded.

  ‘Les. Les Whiting, I think. Like the fish.’

  ‘Boss,’ said Wilson, as soon as Wright had left the room. ‘That ties up with what Jake said.’

  ‘Explain,’ Holden said tersely.

  ‘When DS Fox was interviewing him, he asked him about the phone calls that Sarah Johnson had made to his mobile, and he asked how come he kept it turned off so much, and he said – that’s Jake said – that he kept it turned off because he had split from his boyfriend and he, Les, kept hassling him. So it all ties up.’

  ‘Thank you, Wilson,’ Holden said, and she turned a smile upon her slightly flushed detective constable. ‘A brownie point for you!’

  ‘Jake was in the wrong job.’ Rachel Laing uttered this judgement as soon as she had sat down. ‘Nice guy, but he’d never have lasted.’

  If Holden was surprised by this blunt opening statement, she gave no sign. She was experienced enough to know that death, especially unexpected and violent death, affected people different ways. The morning after her own father had been obliterated in a three-car pile-up on the A34, her mother had gone to work as if nothing abnormal had happened, said nothing to anyone in the office, and only rang her, Susan, to tell her after she’d come home, watched the six o’clock news, and helped herself to a small sherry. Rachel Laing was big boned and broad hipped, wore clothes so nondescript you barely noticed them, and oozed matter-of-factness from the pores of her skin. ‘It’s not a happy-clappy world. The people who come here have pretty shitty lives and problems. Some cope, some don’t. Some survive, some end up dead. Like poor Sarah Johnson. You have to be tough if you’re going to last in this environment, and like I said, Jake just wasn’t cut out for it. Nice guy and all that, but—’

  ‘A nice dead guy, Ms Laing,’ Holden interrupted, distaste apparent in every syllable she uttered. ‘Just to clarify things, we aren’t here to assess how well Jake Arnold was suited to working in the wonderful world of mental health. We’re here to find out who the hell killed him. So maybe we could stick to that.’

  ‘So what do you want to know?’ Laing spoke without emotion, as if unaffected by Holden’s outburst, though the ghost of a smile drifted across her face. ‘If I know who the killer is?’

  Laing never received an answer. Even as she was saying ‘who the killer is?’, there came a sound of shouting from beyond the closed door, followed immediately by a thud and the splintering of wood as the door exploded open. Two figures burst into the room, the first a very flushed Danny and just behind him an equally red-faced DS Fox, his hands already turning palms-up in apology.

  ‘Danny!’ exclaimed Laing, who had risen to her feet. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Wilson, dropping his notebook, stepped forward, but Holden – startled, but still seated – lifted a hand and raised her voice. ‘Stop! Everyone!’

  Rather to her surprise, everyone did stop, and before they could start again she addressed Danny.

  ‘Danny. I think we may have met once before, but in case you don’t remember, my name is Susan. I am in charge of the police investigation into Jake Arnold’s death. Do you think you might be able to help?’

  Danny looked back at the woman sitting unruffled in the battered red armchair. She was wearning dark trousers and jacket, and a plain white blouse. Her hair was dark and short, short enough to reveal a small silver stud in each ear. She looked efficient, organised, in control, yet the tone of her voice was soft and gentle, reminiscent of cooling breezes on a hot summer’s day.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ She was gesturing towards the mauve armchair that Rachel Laing was now standing next to. ‘Rachel was just about to go, and if you’d rather, my colleagues could go too.’

  Danny looked round the small room, at Laing, and Fox and Wilson. He walked two paces over to the window, and looked out of it, then across to the door, where Fox moved to the side. He looked down the short corridor for three or four seconds, before shutting the door firmly. ‘They can stay,’ he said, and moved back to the mauve armchair. He sat down with care, perching himself on the front. As if ready for what, Holden wondered. Flight or fight?

  ‘It was my fault.’ Danny spoke quietly, almost as if talking to himself. ‘My fault, all my fault.’ Holden, leaning forward, watched him as she may once as a child have watched a trapeze artiste walk the high wire in the big top. Her breathing seemed to have been put into abeyance as she waited to see if Danny would maintain his balance. He was rocking now, only just perceptibly, but rocking nevertheless.

  ‘Why do you think it was your fault?’ Holdens’s words were as hushed as his. She hoped they sounded soothing and encouraging.

  ‘Cause it was,’ he said, still rocking.

  ‘Danny!’ she said, her tone slightly raised. ‘You’ve got to tell me more than that. You’ve got to explain why.’

  ‘Why?’ he said, his voice rising to match hers. ‘Because if I hadn’t smashed his car in, then it wouldn’t all have started.’

  ‘It was you who smashed Jake’s car in?’ Rachel Laing broke in, astonishment apparent in every syllable of her question.

  Holden looked up sharply. She said nothing, but the glare she gave and the aggressive manner in which she drew her two fingers from left to right across her lips, were a clear enough message to Laing to shut up. Holden turned back to Danny, but he seemed not to have registered Laing’s interruption.

  ‘Do you mean you crashed his car?’ she asked.

  ‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t drive. I saw it parked outside Sarah’s flat late one night. It’s an old green Mini. Occasionally he’d bring it here. Anyway, I just smashed it. I broke the windscreen and the driver’s window, and the headlights, and then I did a runner. I shouldn’t have done it, cause that’s when it all started.’ He was breathing heavily now, and Holden noticed a couple of beads of sweat on his now flushed face.

  ‘All what started?’ Holden purred.

  ‘Well, that’s when Jake started to be followed.’

  Though the casual observer – and certainly not Danny – would not have noticed any change in the smile on Holden’s face, behind it the raised hopes were suddenly extinguished. She wondered how she could have been so stupid to expect anything else. With Danny, there was always someone following, so of course there was bound to have been someone following Jake, as there had been someone following Sarah, as no doubt Danny had been followed all the way from his room to the day centre that morning. Not to mention yesterday. Or the day before.

  ‘How do you know he was being followed?’ she asked, but her questions were now on autopilot. Only, unlike an airliner, they were going nowhere.

  He frowned, as if puzzled by the question, then after a few seconds smiled. ‘It was obvious,’ he stated. ‘Obvious!’

  ‘It’s not obvious to me,’ said Holden, her autopilot betraying signs of irritation.

  ‘You didn’t know him,’ he said calmly. He was still smiling, not at Holden though, but at his hands. He held his left palm open, and with his right he traced a pattern on it – a figure-of-eight, Holden reckoned – first one way, and then the other. ‘I did. And from that day, he was different.’

  ‘How do you mean, different?’ Holden asked.

  Danny looked up from his hands, but he was still smiling, almost beatifically. Holden was reminded of a picture of a saint that had adorned a notebook once given to her by her Aunt Ida. ‘Different like two identical apples,’ he explained, and his hands
traced smooth patterns through the air as if he was a priest standing before the altar. ‘One apple is green and shiny, and when you bite into it, it tastes like the best apple you have ever tasted, like the one your dad picked off the tree that day he took you to the fair and you sat on his lap down the helter skelter. And the other apple is green and shiny too, but when you bite into it, the flesh is soft and brown, and in the middle is a long black worm that has gorged itself so full that as soon as your teeth reach it, it explodes like a landmine of bitterness inside you. That was what Jake was like after I’d smashed his car.’

  Holden leant back. She had turned the autopilot off, but the feeling that she was wasting her time was growing by the second. She looked back at Danny’s grinning face, and then up at the looming figure of Fox. Her eyes sent out a SOS, and he dutifully responded.

  ‘Can you give us a description of this man that was following Jake?’ he asked.

  ‘A description?’ Danny replied with puzzlement in his voice.

  ‘Yes Danny,’ Fox said firmly. ‘How tall was he? What colour hair did he have? Or was he bald? What was he wearing?’

  Fox paused, but Danny made no reply. His right hand was tracing patterns on his left hand again, but the movements were faster than earlier, and jerkier. ‘You did see him, didn’t you Danny?’ Fox pressed. Again there was silence. Danny’s right hand began to slow down, until it stopped moving altogether. There was a slight shrug of the shoulders, and a single muttered word: ‘No.’

  ‘In that case,’ Holden smiled, ‘I don’t think we need to ask you any more questions, Danny. But thank you. You’ve been very helpful,’ she lied.

  As Danny got up from the chair, Holden motioned to Laing to stay. She waited until Fox had closed the door before asking her question. ‘So what is your take on all of this, Ms Laing. I gather you know something about the vandalizing of Jake’s car?’

  ‘Who doesn’t here? It was the big day centre news when it happened.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  Laing shut here eyes briefly as she tried to focus on the detail. ‘About three months ago, I should reckon. But you can check that in your records. Jake reported it to the police because his car was so damaged. But until just now, I had no idea that it was Danny who did it. Will you be prosecuting him for it?’

  ‘I’m not sure there’s a lot of point,’ Holden said with a slight shrug. ‘Not now that—’ Her sentence dribbled to a halt. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘what really matters here is not who smashed Jake’s car. It’s who killed him. Why did Danny smash up his car? Did Danny hate him enough to smash his head in too?’

  Laing took a noisy intake of breath, then released it as if warming up for some imminent physical effort. ‘When Danny smashed Jake’s car, it was parked in Marston Street, right outside Sarah Johnson’s flat. This took place roundabout 11.00 o’clock at night. It caused some friction between Jim Blunt and Jake when it became apparent that Jake had been visiting Sarah Johnson, and Jim thought he was overstepping the boundaries. ’

  ‘But Jake was gay?’ Holden said.

  ‘Yes!’ She almost snorted the word. ‘Sure he was gay. No one was saying he was sleeping with Sarah, but being round at her flat, and being there late at night – well, it suggests a degree of friendship that was well ... some would call it unprofessional. But personally, I would call it bloody stupid.’

  ‘And what about Danny?’ Holden said, determined to steer the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. ‘If he was jealous enough to smash up Jake’s car, then he must have been very fond of Sarah?’

  ‘Yes,’ Laing said again, this time with something close to a sigh. ‘I would say he was very fond of Sarah. Devoted. Like a puppy. Always ready to make her a cup of tea, or nip down to the Londis to get her some cigarettes. But she kept him at a distance.’

  ‘But she didn’t keep Jake at a distance?’

  For a second time Laing sucked air in and out of her lungs while she pondered her response. ‘In my judgement, her relationship with Jake was at an altogether deeper level than hers with Danny. She both humoured and used Danny, but Jake—’ Laing paused and resumed again her deep breathing, in, out, in, out: ‘Jake she needed. And on Jake she became, I fear, dangerously dependent.’

  ‘And Danny became very resentful of this relationship, did he?’ Holden pressed.

  ‘I would say so, yes.’

  ‘Would you say he hated Jake?’

  ‘Hated him?’ She leant back into the chair, and looked up at the ceiling. Unconsciously, she pursed her lips, before lowering her gaze until it met Holden’s. ‘Hated, as in hated him enough to have killed him? I think not. Disliked, yes. Hated no.’

  ‘Really?’ said Holden, a note of scepticism in her voice. ‘I’m surprised that you should be so naïve, given that you work with people. You must know how things can grow and grow. Small resentments can become large resentments. Large resentments can turn into jealousy, which can turn sooner or later, if not checked, into hatred. And hatred can lead to murder.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Laing, in a voice which said quite clearly that she didn’t share the detective’s gloomy assessment of human character. ‘Is that all?’ she said, ‘because if it is I ought to be getting out into the centre and helping the others.’

  ‘Of course,’ Holden said, accommodatingly. She rose to her feet to indicate the interview was over. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  Laing rose slightly awkwardly to her feet, suddenly feeling conscious of her own bulk. If she had been honest with herself, she would have acknowledged that she resented the rather trim figure that the Detective Inspector cut opposite her. With a curt nod of the head, she turned towards the door.

  ‘Just one last question,’ Holden said as the other woman’s hand grasped the door handle. Laing turned, but said nothing. ‘I was just wondering,’ Holden said, as off-handedly as she could, ‘whether maybe Jake was bisexual?’

  Laing smiled, then uttered a single dismissive laugh. ‘All I can say is, he never came on to me.’ She laughed again. ‘Thank God!’

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘Damn!’

  Martin Mace was normally a dab hand with his hoe. He was a solidly built figure – just 5 feet 8 inches in his bare feet – and had once been solid muscle, the result of a ferocious commitment to a bodybuilding regimen. But three years of long-distance lorry driving had taken its toll, steadily turning solid muscle into less than solid fat. His hair was short and flecked with grey, and he sported on the back of his neck a tattoo of an ox and the letters ‘OUFC’, which reflected a lifelong commitment to Oxford United. But despite appearances, once he picked up his hoe and started to address the weeds that were a constant threat to his allotment, he became a man of subtlety and even grace. Like a ballet dancer spinning and pirouetting round the stage, the head of his hoe would flit between the rows of runner beans and carrots, amongst the Cos lettuces and the beetroot, and around the pyramid of canes up which his sweet peas were growing (his Granddad has always grown sweet peas on his allotment and so did he), and deftly but mercilessly it would destroy all interloping weeds. Sometimes, Mace would undertake this task even when no weeds were visible to the naked eye, for he found the very process of wielding his hoe both comforting and therapeutic.

  But that Friday afternoon, the therapy was not working.

  ‘Damn!’ His dancing hoe had stopped still, as if appalled by the enormity of what it had done. It lay paralyzed in the soil, some three inches from the severed stem of a runner bean plant. With a single movement it had sliced carelessly through this green tube and terminated the life of those many green beans above that drew their life from it.

  The hands which held the hoe tightened and stiffened. The knuckles turned white. And from somewhere above, Mace’s mouth repeated the same simple word in ever-increasing crescendo. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’

  It had been a disturbing afternoon for Mace. He had gone to the Evergreen Day Centre to attend the Anger Management group which ran every F
riday at 3.00 p.m. He had missed the previous session because of a traffic jam on the M40 just south of Birmingham. As a self-employed lorry driver, he could to some degree order his working life to fit in with his own needs. When the Yellows had been playing at Shrewsbury two Tuesdays previously, he had managed to arrive at the ground at 7.00 p.m. precisely, time enough to park his loaded lorry, grab a pie and chips from a local café, and join his mates in the away fans end just in time to catch the players finish their warm-up routines. Normally, he could be back in Oxford early on a Friday, in time to attend the anger management sessions which his GP had recommended, but a pile-up of two lorries and four cars last Friday had brought him and several hundred other vehicles to a two-hour halt. The odd thing was that when he did finally get back home, he found he was frustrated at missing the session. It was odd because he had started the course reluctantly. He had expected his doctor to offer him some pills to calm him down when he had finally plucked up courage to attend surgery, but instead she had warned him that pills might affect his ability to drive. She had then suggested that if he was serious, then he should attend the anger management group that she knew was due to start at the Evergreen Day Centre. So he had gone, promising himself that after one session he’d be able to tell himself that it was all a complete waste of time and not bother again. But on his arrival he’d discovered that one of the people leading the session was Jake Arnold, and so when the following Friday came round he found himself going along so as not to upset Jake. And then the following week he had gone along because – not that he would have admitted it – he wanted to. But then there was the crash and the missed session, and then today he had got there ten minutes early only to be greeted by chaos, and by news that had hit him like a left hook to the solar plexus. Jake Arnold was dead. More than that, Jake had been murdered. He was told about it by Rachel, who ran the group with Jake, and a tall plain-clothes copper with the humour and charm of an undertaker presiding over the funeral of his own mother.