Blood on the Cowley Road Page 9

  ‘Morning Wilson. Now, we’ll take the scenic route to the office. Down the High Street if you please.’

  Again Holden offered no explanation, and Wilson, learning fast, drove without question. It was only when they had crossed Magdalen Bridge (‘Look at the mist, Wilson. Perfect backdrop for a murder mystery’), entered the (‘second exit on the roundabout, Wilson’) Cowley Road, and (‘left here into the multi-storey, then keep going right to the top’) turned into the car park that things began to become clear to Wilson. ‘This is where—’

  ‘Yes Wilson,’ Holden said in a tone that implied that it was too early in the morning to be making statements of the obvious. ‘This is where Sarah Johnson plunged to her death.’ Wilson flushed, and tried to concentrate on getting to the top.

  He had barely brought the car to a halt before Holden was out of her seat and marching across the empty tarmac to the concrete wall that ringed the top storey. Wilson turned the engine and side lights off, and hurried after her. Holden was leaning over the wall, looking down.

  ‘Why have we assumed that Sarah jumped, Wilson?’

  Wilson frowned. ‘Well, everything points to it, I suppose.’

  ‘For God’s sake Wilson! Everything! Everything? Don’t flannel. What are the facts? And,’ she said, and then paused, ‘what are mere assumptions?’

  Wilson gulped involuntarily, and tried to think. ‘She was depressive, Guv.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says her sister. Says, I mean said Jake. She went to the day centre because of her mental health problems, didn’t she?’

  ‘So she must have jumped?’

  ‘Not must. But there were the phone calls to Jake the morning she died. He admitted she sounded very stressed. And then there was that student with his plaque about suicide.’

  ‘True,’ Holden conceded. ‘But how can we know that someone didn’t just push her over the edge. How do we know she wasn’t murdered?’

  ‘Look at the wall,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s what, four feet high, maybe a bit more. It wouldn’t be easy to push someone over that against their will.’

  Holden stepped back from the wall and looked at it as if seeing its bulk and ugliness for the first time. She frowned, much as Wilson had shortly before. ‘OK, Wilson. Maybe you’re right. But I want to try something out. Just climb up on the wall and sit facing me?’

  ‘Climb up?’ Wilson said with an air of alarm in his voice.

  ‘Yes, Wilson,’ Holden said, her voice sharp and hard. ‘Climb up on the bloody wall. Now. And for God’s sake get a move on.’

  Wilson looked at her uncertainly, but one look at her face convinced him that now was not the time to confess to a fear of heights.

  ‘Look,’ she continued, suddenly back into a gentler, coaxing mode. ‘There’s an old milk crate over there. Use it as a step, there’s a good chap.’

  Wilson breathed deeply, walked over to the green crate, picked it up, and moved back to the wall. Trying not to think of what was over the other side of the wall, he put all his concentration into the task: placing the crate firmly against the wall, testing his weight on it, then stepping up and pulling himself slowly up onto the top of the wall. He realized as he was doing it that the wall was wider that he had thought, and suddenly sitting down on it didn’t seem quite like sitting on the edge of a precipice.

  ‘There,’ said Holden, still coaxing. ‘That wasn’t too bad. Even for someone who doesn’t like heights.’ This comment took Wilson completely by surprise, and it showed clearly across his face.

  ‘In your file,’ Holden smiled. ‘And don’t worry, I’m not going to make you stand up. I can’t afford to lose a third of my investigation team at one stroke!’

  Wilson smiled uncertainly back. If she was trying to get him at his ease, she had at least partly succeeded.

  ‘Oh, look. I think your shoe lace is loose. Let me tie it up.’ She moved forward and bent down to where his feet dangled. ‘Keep still,’ she said. For several seconds her hands untied and then retied the lace of Wilson’s left hand shoe. Then she looked up at Wilson and smiled, her hands gently resting on his shoe. ‘Now, before you get down Wilson, I want you to think about this moment in time. I want you to picture it in your head. You sitting up on a wall seven storeys above a very solid pavement. You didn’t want to be there, but you are. You are relaxed. You are off your guard – somewhat. You are anxious, but only because you don’t like heights. You are not anxious about me. I am your boss. I can be trusted. Yet my hands are on your shoe. At any moment, as I was tieing up your shoe laces – they weren’t undone, by the way – my hands could have tightened on your shoe, and I could have pushed upwards with all my strength, and by now you would in all probability be lying dead on the pavement below. But fortunately for you, Wilson, I am not a murderer, so you can now carefully get down off the wall and drive me to the office.’

  ‘Sorry, Wilson.’ They were driving along the Cowley Road, and Holden was wondering if she hadn’t perhaps gone a bit far. ‘I’m not a sadist, at least not normally. But I want you to think. Think hard. Outside the box, as well as inside. The chances are that Sarah did jump. Voluntarily. A suicide. Pure and simple. Only suicides are never pure and rarely simple for the person involved, I imagine. I just wanted to demonstrate that there are options. If someone wanted to get Sarah up on that wall, they could have. They might, for example, have said they wanted to photograph her there, against the Oxford skyline. She might have been flattered by the suggestion. They might have helped her up, held her shoe to give her a leg up, but after giving her a leg up, they could have given her a push. Goodbye Sarah.’

  ‘I’d like to try and take stock of what we know.’ It was some half an hour later, and DI Holden was addressing her small team in her office. It felt more cramped than it had the previous Monday morning, not so much because Wilson was there as well as Fox, but more so because a large free-standing noticeboard, which had materialised along the Oxford Road side of the room, cut off much of the natural light that would otherwise have come in through the window. In the middle of the board was a large head and shoulders photograph of a smiling Jake Arnold, surrounded by four slightly smaller ones, each showing his dead body from a different aspect. To the left was a single picture of Sarah Johnson; like Jake she was smiling, though to Wilson’s eye the smile was more forced than natural. He was struck more by the darkness round the eyes, and sense of sadness emanating from the whole. Or was that him projecting his own feelings. He wasn’t sure. She was wearing round her neck a small heart-shaped locket on a fine gold chain, and he wondered who had given it to her. Was it a recent gift? Or was it, he suddenly thought, a gift from herself to herself. He did hope not.

  ‘Jake Arnold died some time last Thursday evening, after leaving the Iffley Inn. He left there at about 10.00 p.m. according to the barman, and his body was spotted in the river by the lock round about 10.45 p.m. He had been hit over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, hard enough to be dead before he entered the river. The weapon used might well have been a mooring spike.’ She paused, and took a sip of coffee. ‘Wilson. The mooring spike?’

  ‘Yes, Guv. On Friday afternoon, I came across a man with a narrowboat moored up that side estuary that leads from the main river down toward the western end of Donnington Bridge Road. He had lost a mooring spike the night before.’

  ‘Lost?’ Holden cut in sharply.

  ‘Well, no, not lost,’ Wilson fumbled ‘Stolen. Apparently.’ Wilson felt his assurance seeping away. He looked across to Fox for reassurance, but the slight smile that flickered across his face was anything but reassuring.

  ‘When, precisely, Wilson?’ Holden spoke each word separately, a pause in between each, asserting her authority over her young charge, but the tone of voice was softer, and she finished with a smile that was designed to encourage.

  Wilson consciously paused, trying to compose his thoughts and his words. ‘While he was out getting his supper. Roughly between about 7.15 and 9.00. Though he di
dn’t seem too sure of time.’

  ‘And how long would it take a person to walk from there down to, say, the Iffley Inn?’ Holden asked.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, I’d say, but you could do it quicker if you wanted.’ Wilson replied.

  ‘So what do you think, Fox?’ Holden turned to her Detective Sergeant now, as if to reassure him that although she might be giving Wilson a lot of attention, when she needed the wisdom of experience, Fox was very definitely her man. ‘Is this a premeditated killing or a casual one?’

  Fox pursed his lips while he pondered the question. ‘It could have been premeditated. The man – or woman – nicks the mooring spike and wanders off down the river. He could walk along the river bank, as long as he had some means of hiding the mooring spike. They are quite long, so maybe a sports bag or something like that. If he knew Jake, he would have known Jake lived in east Oxford. He could have waited for him to come along the path. It would be very dark. However ...’ Fox paused and took a slug of coffee. ‘There is an alternative scenario. The mooring spike could have been stolen by a casual passer-by. Maybe a yob who fancies a bit of vandalism. Maybe he’s had a few drinks. He wanders down the river towards the Isis, sees Jake mincing along the towpath, and before you know it he’s whacked him over the head, and knocked him into the river. He throws the spike into the river too, and then gets the hell out of it.’

  ‘So which of those do you fancy Wilson?’ Holden said.

  Wilson nervously smoothed the side of his hair. ‘Well, I suppose, either,’ he said with obvious uncertainly.

  ‘Make a choice,’ Holden interrupted brusquely. ‘Based on what we know. On the facts.’

  Wilson smoothed his hair again. ‘Premeditated!’ He spoke firmly now. ‘The time factor definitely points that way. The latest it was stolen was 9.15. Probably earlier. Jake didn’t leave the pub until round about 10 o’clock. Would a vandal really have taken three-quarters of an hour or more to cover a distance that would normally take a fit man only fifteen minutes? And there have been no reports of any vandalism taking place on Thursday evening. I checked with the duty officer this morning.’ Wilson paused, now looking his senior officer full in the face. She nodded.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re thinking, Wilson. For a moment back there, I was beginning to wonder—’ She trailed off, and now in turn took a sip at her coffee. Then she looked across at Fox.

  ‘Well, Fox. Marks out of ten for Wilson’s analysis?’

  Fox looked back at her. ‘Well, Guv, in the circumstances, I think I’d give him a nine.’

  ‘Nine? Why nine?’

  ‘We don’t want him getting big headed now do we, Guv?’

  Holden shook her head gravely. ‘Certainly not, Fox.’

  ‘So, team, who’s our prime suspect?’ Holden asked the question as if asking a class of five-year-olds what the capital of Uzbekistan was. There was no immediate answer. Outside, a particularly noisy lorry, piled high with scrap metal, rumbled up the incline of the road, heading for the ring road.

  ‘What about Blunt?’ she suggested, unwilling to wait.

  ‘Well worth an interview,’ Fox said, ‘based on what Les Whiting told us, but my instinct is that Danny is a more likely killer—’

  ‘Why?’ Holden responded sharply. ‘If Jake’s complaints had been upheld, Blunt’s job, even his career is in jeopardy. He looks a tough bastard to me, so when Jake complained he was a bully, maybe he decided to get his retaliation in first.’

  ‘Like I said,’ Fox admitted, ‘he is worth an interview, but Danny is the key, in my book.’

  ‘Why?’ Holden snapped again. ‘Because he’s a nutcase? Because if that’s your criterion, there are plenty of suspects down at the day centre.’

  ‘Because he is linked to both Sarah and Jake. He was devoted to Sarah, and he didn’t like Jake. Jealous maybe that Sarah relied more on Jake than himself. So when Sarah tops herself, he blames Jake for letting her down and—’

  ‘Wilson, what do you think?’ Holden said sharply, still in combative mode. ‘Which of them should we target?’

  Wilson swallowed. ‘This may seem like a cop-out, but why not target them both.’

  ‘Both of them?’ Holden asked out loud. Then she laughed. ‘Is your father, or even your dear mother, a politician, Wilson? Because if so, you’ve clearly learnt a thing or two from them.’

  Fox chuckled. ‘Nine out of ten again, I think Guv.’

  The idea had first formed in his head just after the school secretary rang back. ‘Hello,’ she’d said in a tone which exuded briskness, ‘St Gregory’s School here.’

  ‘DC Wilson,’ he’d said. He had intended to continue with some pleasantry, but Miss Hegarty was steaming remorselessly forward on her mission to connect her head teacher and the Oxford police without hindrance or delay. ‘Please wait, while I put you through.’ Wilson waited several seconds while Miss Hegarty’s mission encountered some invisible hitch, but in that interval the idea materialised, like some speck of grit. One moment the eye is fine and unnoticed, the next there is a speck in it which you can’t not notice. And like all respectable specks of grit, it resolutely refused to be dislodged by a metaphorical rub of the eye.

  Wilson had first rung St Gregory’s fifteen minutes earlier. Once he had explained his requirements to Miss Hegarty, she had promised to call back as soon as the head was available. In the meantime, Wilson had determined to get a firmer grip on the evidence, such as there was, of the death of Sarah Johnson. He had retrieved the case folder from Fox’s meticulously tidy desk. The Detective Sergeant had ‘popped out’ to the chemist, to get himself some painkillers for his still-sensitive teeth, although Wilson had his theory – with little firm foundation, if truth be told – that his superior had developed an interest in the recently separated Doreen, who served behind the counter there. Wilson took the folder and looked through its sparse contents. His attention was immediately drawn to Fox’s interview of Ed Bicknell. Reading it through, he felt immensely irritated – as he had while witnessing the interview – with the laid-back, upper-middle-class self-confidence and indolence which emanated from every pore of Bicknell’s body. He wasn’t anti-student as such, Wilson told himself, but how could a man get up at 11 o’clock in the morning and still think the world owed him a living. He, Wilson, knew that only hard work, bloody hard work, would get him anywhere in life. And besides, what sort of man was Bicknell that he could view the suicide of a woman as nothing more than an opportunity to gain money, publicity, and professional advancement. Wilson pushed the folder away, in disgust, not just with Bicknell but with himself, too. He was meant to be looking into whether Sarah Johnson’s death was suicide, not jumping to a whole set of half-baked conclusions. He gave himself an almost physical shake, as a dog might after scrambling out of a river, and he reached for the CD onto which Bicknell had copied his photographs. He picked it up, inserted it into his PC, and took hold of the mouse.

  The photographs were in chronological order, with a date and time on the bottom left-hand corner of each picture. He began to flick through them, spending a second or two on each one until he came to the first photo of Sarah Johnson. 8:42:33. About twenty minutes before she jumped or fell or was pushed to her death. He sat and examined the image. She was standing looking at the plaque and her face was fully in profile. She was wearing a fawn mackintosh, mid-calf in length, and below it jeans and black ankle boots. For several seconds Wilson studied the picture. One part of his brain, a part not concentrating on the image of Sarah Johnson, became aware that outside the room, down the corridor, there was a sudden running of feet. He ignored it, and clicked onto the next picture. Another one of Sarah Johnson, but this time two other persons had joined her. She had turned her head towards them, but this had caused shadow to fall across her face. Was she talking to the man or woman? Wilson could see only their backs. The man was dressed in a mid-blue denim jacket and somewhat lighter jeans. The woman was dressed in a dark jacket and skirt, and a white line around the neck suggest
ed a white blouse too. Office clothes for her, more casual for him. Separate people or a couple of some sort? Wilson wondered. How easy would it be to track them down? Not impossible, despite the photo showing only their back views. Was she perhaps walking to her office in town as she did every day? Was he perhaps a student with less regular habits. But even if they could be found, what could they remember that would be useful?

  Outside the police station, in the car park, a siren was turned on. Wilson registered the fact, but again discarded it as irrelevant to him. Then there was another noise, much closer to home. He stretched out a hand and picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ a female voice said. ‘St Gregory’s School here.’ In the several seconds it took Miss Hegarty to connect her head teacher to the Oxford police, the idea which was to plague Wilson for several days came into existence. Tiny, as yet barely formed, but nevertheless unquestionably there.

  ‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, here,’ a voice said tersely. ‘Head teacher of St Gregory’s. To whom am I speaking?’

  Wilson winced at the grammatical precision of the question. ‘Detective Wilson,’ he replied, taking a split-second decision to obscure his own low ranking. ‘Oxford Police, sir. It is very good of you to ring back so promptly.’

  ‘What do you want,’ Ratcliffe cut in, ‘precisely? I do have a very exacting day in prospect, so if we could just cut to the chase.’

  Wilson made a face down the phone line. ‘We are just trying to complete our investigations into the death of Sarah Johnson.’

  ‘Terrible thing,’ the head teacher broke in. ‘Such a terrible thing.’ Wilson could almost see the man shaking his head as he spoke. ‘Poor Anne, her sister, was quite distraught. You aren’t wanting to speak to her, are you? I do hope not, because I have given her compassionate leave. No other family you see. I expect she is across in Oxford now, sorting out Sarah’s flat. I suggest that you could always try contacting her there.’ For someone who had a very busy day in prospect, it was surprising, Wilson reflected, how Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, Header Teacher of St Gregory’s, appeared to have time to talk. It wasn’t as if he, Wilson, had yet had the opportunity to ask a question yet. ‘There must be so much for her to do,’ Ratcliffe was saying. ‘I had to do it for my mother. There were six large bin bags of clothes alone to take to the charity shops, let alone anything else. But doing it for a mother is one thing. That is somehow natural, part of the order of things. But to do it for your sister when you are in your mid-thirties, well that is just ... just terrible.’