Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘So, so.’

‘Only so, so?’ she said.

He frowned slightly. ‘I stayed with my sister for a few days. In Weymouth. Did some decorating.’

‘Decorating! That was kind of you. But you are meant to relax on holiday, you know.’ Her tone of voice was gentle, slightly teasing, designed to draw him out, but Fox wasn’t prepared to prolong discussion of his leisure time. He slurped noisily from his plastic cup of coffee and returned them to the present. ‘What’s been happening here? Anything interesting?’

His superior smiled resignedly to herself. The one distinctly un-doglike characteristic of the sergeant was a dourness that could easily and unexpectedly mutate into sulkiness, but that was something she could live with. ‘Well, I could give you a blow-by-blow account of Mrs Holden senior’s one-woman crusade against the world,’ she continued cheerily, ‘but seeing as it’s Monday morning, and you have just returned from a decorating holiday, I’ll spare you that.’ She leant forward, elbows on the desk, hands pressed together as if in prayer. ‘I’ve got a death for you to investigate.’

‘A suspicious death, you mean,’ he said, suddenly interested.

For a moment, Holden could almost see him wagging his tail, head cocked slightly to the side, a terrier begging to be let off his leash. ‘Not really,’ she said apologetically. ‘Self-inflicted probably. A jumper.’ She saw the eagerness in his eyes begin to fade, and tried to rekindle it. ‘Actually, not so run-of-the-mill. It made the front page of the Mail on Saturday, thanks to the antics of some art student. Anyway, DC Wilson has got the details. He can provide support, but I want you to handle it. We can’t afford any slips with the press so interested.’ She got to her feet as she finished. ‘Keep me informed. I’ve got to go and apply an emotional poultice to my mother’s warden. Otherwise, we’ll have another dead body for you to investigate before the day is out.’

‘What time did you get to the car park?’

Ed Bicknell frowned, and pulled distractedly at the wisp of beard on his chin. He was a little over six feet, Fox estimated, but probably not more than eleven stones in weight. All skin and bone. The blond hair was obviously dyed, while the facial hair, which he had managed to grow, was tinged (naturally) with ginger. He wore the ubiquitous student uniform of jeans and a T-shirt; in his case the shirt was decorated with the faded but unmistakeable face beloved by chic revolutionaries – Che Guevara. When he spoke, his voice was local Oxford. ‘About seven-thirty, or maybe quarter to eight. I overslept. Meant to get there earlier.’

Oversleeping was obviously something Bicknell was good at, Fox decided. When he and Wilson had rung the bell of his flat at 11.00 that morning, there had been some delay before the door had been opened by a befuddled-looking Bicknell dressed only in boxer shorts.

DS Fox had a pad in front of him, and he scribbled a note on it, though he did this more for effect than anything else. It was Detective Constable Wilson’s job to take notes, while he put the questions. ‘So what did you do then?’ he asked.

‘I put my plaque up on the wall of the car park. There are some steps that lead up to the first floor of the car park. I went and stood there and pretended to read a paper.’

‘Why?’ Fox said suddenly.

‘Because!’ Bicknell snapped. That was the question his father had asked only a month ago when he had gone “home” for the weekend. But, of course, his father, being his father, hadn’t even pretended to listen to his son’s answer. Instead, he had suddenly got up, poured himself a large whisky, and turned on the 24-hour news for the third time that evening. At least Fox appeared to be interested. He had leant forward, and his eyes were looking straight into Bicknell’s face. Bicknell sighed, and then continued in a tone which suggested he was humouring a rather irritating small nephew. ‘Because that was the point of the project. To see if people stopped. To see how many just walked past. To observe those that stopped. To photograph them. Unobtrusively. Isn’t that what you police do? Watch people, take photos without them knowing, then use it all as evidence against them?’

If Bicknell’s response irritated the Detective Sergeant, it wasn’t apparent. Fox scribbled a few more notes in his pad, and continued in the same unemotional tone as he had started with. ‘And one of the people you photographed was Sarah Johnson?’

&n

bsp; Bicknell nodded.

‘I’ll need a copy of it.’

‘I took three,’ Bicknell said flatly.

‘Three?’ echoed Fox, his voice rising a semitone.

‘The paper only printed one, but she was there quite a time, staring at the plaque.’

‘How long?’

Bicknell pulled at his chin again. ‘Maybe four or five minutes.’

‘Did you talk to her?’ Fox asked.

‘What do you think? I was up the stairs, trying not to be noticed. Like the proverbial fly on the wall. I was observing people, not chatting to them to see if any of them were feeling fucking suicidal.’

‘So, what happened after she moved on?’

‘Not much. I took one or two more photos. It went very quiet. Most people just walked past without noticing. That’s what happens. Either there’s a group, and other people stop to see what is going on, or there’s no one and everyone walks past without noticing. I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t do something ... you know, intervene in some way to generate some interest when ... Christ, she just fell right out of the sky.’

Bicknell fell silent. Outside, a car backfired. Fox flinched momentarily, then asked a question. ‘Did she make a sound – before ... when she fell?’

Bicknell considered this, raking back in his memory. ‘There was a shout – a couple of seconds before she hit the ground.’

‘What sort of shout?’