Blood on the Cowley Road Read online

  ‘Do you know about Jake and Jim Blunt?’

  ‘Know what?’ said Holden, her ears metaphorically pricked.

  ‘Well, I guess Blunt wouldn’t have mentioned it, and I doubt any of those self-seeking workers who fawn around him would have wanted to rock their cosy little boat.’ He paused, looking for some sort of reaction from Holden. Like an actor, he seemed to crave the oxygen of audience approval, but the Detective Inspector had no desire to indulge him. ‘Perhaps you can get to the point, sir!’

  ‘The point, my dear, is that Jake put in a complaint about Blunt. A formal complaint. To management.’

  ‘A complaint about what?’ Holden said evenly, still refusing to cooperate with Whiting’s game.

  ‘He said that Blunt had bullied him. In supervision.’

  ‘In supervision?’

  ‘They had one-to-one supervisions every three or four weeks. Privately, in a room. So it was the ideal place for Blunt to bully poor Jake. No witnesses, you see.’

  ‘Assuming that Blunt was bullying him.’

  ‘Well, of course he was bullying him! Why on earth should Jake have lied about it?’

  For several seconds, Holden said nothing. On the face of it, Whiting’s loyalty to his ex-boyfriend, was convincing, even impressive. Jake had cheated on him, and that had hurt Whiting. Hurt him enough to end the relationship. Yet here he was taking Jake’s side.

  ‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly, feeling her way. ‘Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that Blunt was bullying Jake. Now, that’s hardly a motive for murder.’

  ‘Why the hell not!’ Whiting spoke sharply, his voice leaping an octave. ‘He’s a right bastard that man. I wouldn’t put anything past him.’

  Some four hours later, Martin Mace was pushing his way through the crowd of football fans in the garden of the Priory pub. Oxford were playing Bristol Rovers. Not quite a local derby, but it was a rivalry with history. Two men (Little and Large to their mates) sat at a small round table by the low wall that delineated the edge of the pub’s official limits. There were six pint glasses on the table, two of them already empty, and two only half full. Mace was late.

  ‘Hurry up, your miserable bastard. It’s nearly your round already. Honestly, you move bloody slower than Julian Alsop, and let me tell you that ain’t a bloody compliment.’ Al Smith was 6 feet 4 and rising, with a body frame to match. Even sitting down, his physical bulk was obvious, and his voice cut a swathe through the babble of noise.

  On another day, Mace would have given as good as he got, but on this occasion he slumped heavily down onto the empty stool, nodded at the smaller man, and picked up one of the glasses of Guinness.

  Sam Sexton, a short, skinny man with a dark swirl of hair and at least three days of stubble, slipped unconsciously into his role of peacemaker. ‘Leave him be, Al. He’s had to drive to Grimsby and back today. It’s enough to piss anyone off!’

  ‘Fucking Grimsby,’ Smith snorted. ‘I hate bloody Grimsby. The only good thing about that hole is the fish and chips.’

  ‘You all right, Martin?’ Sexton asked. Mace had drained his pint, and was pulling the second one towards him. He ignored the question, and began to drink again, only stopping when the glass was two-thirds empty. He carefully placed the glass down on the table, then leant forward. For the first time since sitting down, he looked at his two friends. Each of them leant forward.

  ‘Jake’s dead!’

  For several seconds, the three of them remained silent, while all around the chatter ebbed and flowed. ‘They reckon he was murdered!’ Mace continued.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Murdered?’

  ‘Some bastard whacked him over the back of the head, then dumped him into the river. They fished him out at Iffley Lock.’

  ‘The poor bugger!’ Sexton said.

  ‘How did you find out?’ Smith said, his voice no longer booming.

  Mace had anticipated this question. He hadn’t told either of his friends about the anger management group – he could imagine what Al’s response would have been – and he didn’t want to tell them now, but he did want to talk about Jake.

  ‘I was down near the Evergreen Day Centre,’ he improvised, ‘where Jake works, and there were a couple of police cars outside. So I knew something must be up, and this guy started to tell me that one of the workers had been found dead in the river—’

  ‘I’m not fucking surprised,’ Smith said, his voice louder again and harsh. ‘He was bloody asking for it if you ask me. Bloody pansy.’

  ‘No one deserves to be murdered,’ Sexton said quickly.

  ‘Don’t call him a bloody pansy,’ Mace snarled. ‘He was OK. I liked him.’

  ‘Liked him, did you?’ Smith leered across the table. ‘Liked him a lot, did you?’

  ‘Leave it out, you guys,’ Sexton said plaintively. ‘Martin,’ he said, trying to steer the conversation to safer water, ‘when did this all happen?’

  Mace raised his glass and drained the rest of its contents. Then he put it down, belched and leant even further forward. ‘Suppose, just suppose the person who killed Jake knows?’

  ‘Knows what?’ Smith replied, his voice now much quieter.

  ‘About last May.’

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ Smith said aggressively, but his voice was even quieter. ‘How could anyone?’

  ‘Suppose Sarah didn’t jump?’ Mace continued, ignoring him. ‘Suppose she was pushed.’ He paused, picked up his glass, realized it was empty and put it down again. ‘Suppose she was murdered too.’

  ‘You’re just guessing, Martin!’ Sexton said.

  ‘Suppose,’ persisted Mace, ‘suppose that just this once, I am right. What then?’

  ‘You’ve as much chance of being right as Paul Wanless has of lasting 90 minutes,’ Smith laughed. ‘Now, are you going to get your round in before the game fucking starts?’

  CHAPTER 6

  Susan Holden emerged slowly into a state of semi-consciousness and emitted a low groan. She never had been good with alcohol, and the three glasses of uninspired Chardonnay consumed in front of the TV the night before had left her with a low-grade headache. She had drunk it while watching The Graduate. She had seen the film before, but when the alternatives were Match of the Day, a third-rate reality TV show, a film starring Sylvester Stallone, or a fuzzy Channel Five ‘investigation’ into sexual problems, a youthful Dustin Hoffman was going to win out every time. In actuality, she had struggled to stay awake throughout, but she had been determined to see the end – that was the best bit – where Hoffman escapes from the church with the bride (not his, of course) and grabs a lift out of town on a bus full of bemused onlookers.

  The upshot of all this was that she had gone to bed somewhat inebriated, totally exhausted, and without drawing the curtains. As a consequence, on Sunday morning the grey intrusive light of an unpromising day had slowly prodded and cajoled her into a state of, if not wakefulness, then at least one of fitfulness. She had resisted its summons, pulling the duvet up over her head, but even the duvet could not deaden the sounds of her father’s clock. It sat in splendid isolation on a small table in the short space outside her room which masqueraded as corridor. Ding dong, dong ding, it rang, and then repeated itself, before beginning to chime out the hour: boom, boom, three, four. Holden found it impossible, even in her semi-conscious prostration, not to count the hours as she had loved to as a child. Seven, eight, nine. Then silence. Then: ‘Shit!’ Holden rolled to her right and scrabbled around on the side table until her hand found the alarm clock. She picked it up and squinted at its digital face. 09.01. She was late.

  It took her five minutes to shower and brush her teeth. Then three more to dress and two more to find her handbag, which had mysteriously secreted itself under the sofa (fortunately a trailing handle gave it away). All of which meant that by the time she was ringing the No. 6 bell at Grandpont Grange (‘Luxury accomodation for the older generation’), she was only 15 minutes late.

  ‘Had a
late night, my dear?’ beamed her mother. Susan Holden, who was expecting a verbal barrage on the importance of punctuality and the neglect of the elderly by the younger generation, was taken completely off guard. The woman looked like her mother. She dressed like her mother. She was even wearing her mother’s favourite perfume.

  ‘Lucky you,’ the imposter continued. ‘If I were twenty years younger, I’d be out there clubbing with you!’

  Holden, who at the age of 32 considered herself long retired from the clubbing scene, grinned at the improbable thought of her morphed mother and herself at the Park End. ‘Mmm, I smell coffee,’ she said, as she pulled her shoes off in the hall, and placed them tidily in the corner.

  ‘It’s been ready for ten minutes, actually,’ her mother said firmly, as if to remind her daughter that she had not had a personality change.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ The words came out automatically, and the Detective Inspector was a little girl again, failing to meet the expected standards.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said her mother, though of course it did.

  ‘Wow!’ Again the response was automatic, but this time it was genuine. Holden was standing, her mouth literally gaping, in the doorway to the kitchen diner. Since she had last been to see her mother four days previously, the room had been transformed. The avalanche of objects that had emerged from the packing crates had disappeared. A few prized objects were on display, but chaos had been replaced by an almost minimalist order. The table was covered with a crisp white cloth, and on it were laid two places. Two glasses of fruit juice had been poured out, four croissants lay neatly on a central plate, and a selection of miniature packets of cereal stood neatly in line, recalling special breakfasts of childhood. Holden felt herself going gooey round the edges.

  ‘Sit down,’ her mother instructed, and she did. They ate in verbal silence, broken by the crunching of cereal, clinking of utensils, and the rustle of newspapers. It had always been the rule in the Holden house that you could read the paper at breakfast on Sundays, but never on other days, because meals were social events. Quite how and why this rule had been instituted, Susan had never discovered. Of course, her mother bought the Sunday Telegraph, which her daughter had long since rejected, but Susan found looking through the colour magazine a far from pleasureless task, and she even made a couple of mental fashion notes – a smart new dress and some shoes to match were promoted silently to the top of her list.

  ‘So where would you like to go today?’ daughter asked mother as she finished her second mug of coffee. She had promised her a trip out earlier in the week, by way of a placebo for not being able to help more with her move, and Wallingford, Henley and Thame had all been discussed then.

  ‘I nearly rang you,’ her mother purred, ‘but then I decided it would be a nice surprise. Guess what. We’ve been asked out for lunch.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ her daughter replied.

  ‘After church,’ added her mother.

  ‘Church?’ her daughter exclaimed, amazement apparent not just in her tone of voice, but every aspect of her features. This reaction obviously pleased the alien who had clearly taken up residence in her mother’s body. A smile of triumphant delight erupted across the width of her face.

  ‘St Marks, in Marlborough Road. You’ve been living here for two years. You must know it.’

  ‘Only from the outside,’ her daughter admitted.

  ‘Well, in that case its high time you went to a service.’

  Her daughter peered across the table, and a smile began to spread across her face too. ‘Have you been bitten by the God bug, mother? Been born again. Because from memory you only go into churches for Christmas, weddings and funerals.’

  ‘Doris asked me. Mrs Doris Williams. It’s her who asked us to lunch. Lives on the next floor. She’s been a great help. Got her fifteen-year-old grandson to help me sort out this place, put things in the high cupboards, and some in the communal storage room. I think the least we could do is go to church with her.’

  And so it was that DI Susan Holden and Mrs Jane Holden (widow of five years) went to their first service together since the funeral of the late Mr John Holden.

  That evening, Susan Holden circumspectly poured herself a small glass of wine from the now depleted bottle of Chardonnay, tipped the remainder into the sink, and then consigned the bottle to her green recycling box. Then she sat at the kitchen table, and tried to form a conclusion about what had happened in church. Not the service itself, though she’d found it both very different from what she’d experienced as a child, and rather invigorating too. But after the service. Immediately it had finished, she found herself being engaged in earnest conversation, first by a young woman – well mid-twenties, anyway – and then by a retired man with a grey bread, a bad taste in ties, and an archtypical twinkle in the eye. Clearly, being Christian didn’t preclude gentle flirting with women half his age. When he was buttonholed by a tall, thin young man wearing a brightly striped T-shirt and an anxious frown, Holden found herself suddenly alone amid the babble of voices which signified that the members of St Mark’s were ‘sharing fellowship’ with a will. She was looking around, wondering where her mother was, when suddenly she felt someone touch her shoulder. She turned.

  ‘Hello, there!’ The speaker was a short man, short enough that she found herself looking down on him. He wore jeans, trainers and a dark blue jacket zipped up to his neck. There was a sheen of sweat on his face, and Holden couldn’t fail to notice the rather unpleasant smell that emanated from him.

  ‘I know you,’ the man said.

  ‘Oh?’ said Holden, trying to place him.

  ‘You were at the day centre on Friday. You’re a policewoman aren’t you.’ He pointed at her, not in an aggressive manner, but as he might have at other times have pointed at a flower or bird he had just recognized. ‘Have you arrested anyone yet?’ he continued. ‘For Jake’s death?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We haven’t.’

  ‘Do you have a prime suspect?’

  Holden smiled, and wondered bleakly why Doris or her mother couldn’t suddenly appear at her shoulder and rescue her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t talk about the case.’

  ‘Don’t you want to question me?’ His finger had now turned and was pointing directly at his own chest.

  Again she smiled, and gestured with her left hand (her right hand still held her mug, not yet emptied, of weak tea) around her. ‘In church?’

  ‘Why not,’ he replied instantly. ‘The perfect place. For the truth. For confession.’

  With the tiniest shake of her head, Holden abandoned all hope of rescue. There was only going to be one way out of this. ‘Is there something you know? Something you want to ... to confess?’

  ‘Me?’ The man laughed. ‘Not me. Jake. It’s Jake’s confession you need to know.’

  Holden, despite all her reservations about the man in front of her – he hadn’t yet told her who he was – felt a surge of interest, even excitement. ‘Did Jake tell you something?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ The man’s left hand moved up and grasped the zip of his jacket. He pulled it down two or three inches, then up again, nervously. ‘On Thursday. About 4 o’clock in the Cowley Road. It can only have been a few hours before he was killed. He must have just come out of the day centre. I’d gone and bought an Oxford Mail at the corner shop. He was standing outside, smoking a cigarette. That was odd, cos I’d never seen him smoke before. I asked him if he knew when Sarah Johnson’s funeral was. She was the woman who jumped from the top of the car park. Perhaps you know about it.’

  Holden made some sort of encouraging noise. ‘Yes, I do, but carry on. What did Jake say?’

  ‘He said something very odd. I thought it was really odd at the time and the more I’ve thought about it, well, the more I got worried about it. You see, he said he didn’t know when the funeral was because there had to be an inquest, and I said wasn’t it terrible that she got so depressed that she jumped, and then he said this. He said, maybe she di
dn’t jump. And I said what do you mean, and he said something like, well we can’t be sure it was suicide. And then he said that he had to be going. And he walked off down the road. That was the last I saw of him.’

  ‘Did Jake say why it might not be suicide?’

  ‘No. That’s all he said.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  The man’s hand came up again, and like some remotely controlled weapon, pointed at her, aggressively this time. ‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve got a good memory for detail. Just you remember it.’ And with that, he had turned and walked away.

  Sitting there on the sofa, her glass of Chardonnay in her hand, Holden tried but failed to come to a conclusion about this encounter. The man’s name, as Doris had confirmed, was Alan. He was a regular face at the 10.30 service, though beyond that she wasn’t too sure. He often came along to the Wednesday morning communion and the drop-in lunch which followed it. He didn’t appear to have a job. ‘I expect he’s on benefit,’ she had said. ‘Probably can’t hold down a job.’ She had pulled a face as she said this, and then – Holden had decided – immediately regretted it. ‘Still,’ she had added quickly, ‘isn’t it marvellous how he comes to church.’ Then with a broad smile, as if to demonstrate the generosity of her spirit: ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways!’

  He does indeed, Holden said to herself, as she brushed her teeth. A day that she had expected to spend humouring her mother had turned out ... extraordinary. There was no other word for it. To begin with, her mother had been nice! She had gone to church. She had, even more extraordinarily, found herself enjoying it. And she had met a man who might have been one of the last people to talk to Jake Arnold. The only problem was to know what on earth to make of his evidence.

  Wilson pulled the car up outside DI Holden’s terraced house in Chilswell Road at 7.23 a.m. He had been surprised both to receive a call from her the previous night and by the instruction that he should pick her up from home no later than 7.25 a.m. No explanation. Just a curt set of instructions followed by a slightly less curt ‘Good Night’. Leaving the engine running, he got out of the car, only to see that Holden was already out of the front door. He got back in, turned the radio off and waited for her to get in. ‘Morning, Guv,’ he said.