Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Yes?’ Anne Johnson had been rung two hours earlier by DC Wilson, but she too was briefly non-plused, primarily because she was expecting someone in uniform. Her first thought was that they were from the funeral directors, despite the fact that she had arranged for them to call round the following day. The taller, older man, certainly looked the part: he was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and plain tie under a long black coat, and his downcast expression seemed to her to be appropriate for someone in the burial business. It was this man who responded. ‘Detective Sergeant Fox. And this is Detective Constable Wilson.’ He paused, still not entirely back in the logical world either. ‘You must be... ?’

‘Anne Johnson,’ she said hastily. She offered her hand, while wondering if this was appropriate for greeting a policeman on duty. ‘Please, come in.’

While Anne Johnson got them a mug of tea, Fox sat on a distinctly tatty armchair and looked about the room. He would have liked to have wandered around, nosing around into every corner of the flat, to see what Sarah Johnson had liked to read, to eat, to dress in. What photos did she have in her bedroom? What was on her bedside table and in its drawers (assuming she had one and it had drawers). Were there pills for depression there? Had she stopped taking them? But somehow it seemed insensitive to do that until they had drunk tea together and talked about Sarah. Only then would he feel he could ask permission to look through the dead woman’s possessions.

‘So,’ Anne Johnson said, after she had sat down and taken a sip from her mug, ‘what do you want to know?’

‘We are required to make a few enquiries, for the inquest. Just a formality, you understand?’

‘You want to know if she was the sort of person who would commit suicide, you mean?’ She spoke firmly, unemotionally, in a manner perfected at those wretched parent-teacher evenings that were one of the least enjoyable parts of a teacher’s lot. How often had she sat opposite a pushy middle-class parent, calmly answering his or (more frequently) her overanxious questions. Not-so-little John or Victoria was invariably absent from these intimate public meetings – and always for some highly implausible reason – so pushy parent was able to lay it all out while the next pushy parent in line tutted noisily about the time everyone else was taking. Not that Miss Johnson viewed the slightly ponderous detective and his young sidekick as half as challenging as some of her parents, but the situation unquestionably was. If she could just treat this interview as a rather unexceptional parent-teacher meeting, then she felt she could get through it without bursting into tears and making a fool of herself.

‘I suppose so,’ DS Fox admitted. ‘Yes

.’ He looked down as he spoke – almost demurely – thereby sabotaging her attempts to pretend that he was the archetypal parent from suburban hell. ‘If you don’t mind?’ he added gently.

Anne Johnson took another sip from her mug. ‘Sarah was always a bit up and down,’ she said, and then immediately regretted it. What a stupid, stupid expression. And who was she to patronize her sister with such a trite description? She looked up from her mug at Fox. He gave a vague but encouraging grimace. ‘Bipolar disorder the doctors called it,’ she continued. ‘Manic depression in ordinary language.’ The words began to tumble out. ‘Since she was about eighteen or nineteen. She went to Edinburgh University, had a breakdown her second term. She was sectioned and shut away in hospital until they had diagnosed her and worked out what drugs to pump into her. Then out she went into the community, stigmatized for ever – unable to get a job, a mortgage, anything that you or I would call a normal life.’ She paused, and this time Fox intervened.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Not recently.’

‘Or speak to her?’

She took one, then a second sip from her mug. ‘Look we weren’t exactly best buddies. It was about three weeks ago. I try ... I used to try and ring her on the first of the month. Otherwise I knew I would never get round to it.’

‘I see,’ said Fox.

‘Really?’ Her voice was sharp this time. ‘Personal experience is it? Got a sister like mine have you.’ Normally, she prided herself on maintaining a detached patience throughout even the most trying of parent interviews, but somehow the bland ‘I see’ of this ponderous detective had had the power to blow away all her normal inhibitions of social intercourse. ‘Because if you haven’t, I don’t see how the hell you can possibly see.’

Fox looked down, wondering if perhaps he should leave, and come back another time. But before he could come to a decision, DC Wilson exploded. Not literally, of course. He had been taking a sip from his mug of heavily sugared tea when Anne Johnson had launched her unexpected broadside. The small amount of tea that entered Wilson’s mouth had immediately taken on a sinister life of its own, forcing itself into the unfortunate detective constable’s windpipe. Wilson’s windpipe – as is the way of windpipes in such situations – objected to this sudden intrusion of liquid, and after a short pause while Wilson fought for control and lost, the tea hurtled across the small table around which the three of them were seated and splattered unerringly on Anne Johnson’s T-shirt.

‘Bloody hell!’ Fox rose to his feet, his face three shades darker than it had been.

‘Sorry,’ the wretched Wilson burbled. ‘I am so sorry.’ He too was on his feet.

Anne Johnson stayed firmly seated and laughed. Not the laugh of a woman at the end of her emotional tether, but rather the laugh of a teacher in control. A laugh – at once unexpected and incongruous, raucous in tone and then suddenly terminated – which Miss Johnson occasionally employed in class to bring her unsettled pupils back to heel. Fox and Wilson were both suitably perplexed. ‘Do sit down,’ she said in the calmest of voices. ‘Please!’ Wilson looked at Fox, Fox looked at Wilson, and in unison the two naughty schoolboys resumed their seats.

‘I think it would be in all our interests to bring this meeting to a prompt conclusion.’ Having gained control, Ms Johnson had no intention of relinquishing it. ‘As far as I can see, we have established that my sister was a manic depressive. We have established that I have not seen her for some time, and have not even spoken to her for three weeks. So, obviously, I cannot help much vis-à-vis her recent state of mind. What I can add is that when I last spoke to her she seemed to be in good spirits. In fact, it was quite a relief to me, because she had been very low earlier this year.’ She paused, considering if there was anything else she wanted to say. ‘I think that is about it,’ she said eventually, ‘but if you want to snoop round her bedroom, look inside the medicine cabinet, sniff her knickers, or do whatever it is that policemen do in these circumstances, then you have my blessing.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fox, meaning it. ‘But if you don’t mind, I do have a couple more questions – then we’ll do our bit of snooping and go.’

She looked steadily at him, gave a slight nod of her head, but said nothing.

‘Did your sister – do you know – keep a diary, or anything like that.’

‘Yes.’ The answer came instantly. ‘It’s in the little cupboard by her bed. It was on top of the cupboard when I arrived, but I thought it best to put it away.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fox, who had decided that politeness was the best approach. ‘The other thing would be to ask you if you know of a man called Jake?’

Anne Johnson didn’t have the opportunity to reply, because at that moment the doorbell rang. There was nothing polite about that, though, because it rang and continued ringing, as if someone had leant up against it accidentally and was pressing all their weight on it.

‘Who on earth could that be?’ Anne Johnson rose to her feet and moved towards the hallway of the apartment, while Fox surreptitiously rose behind her, and moved to the side so that he would have a full view when the outside door was opened. He recognized Danny Flynn immediately, but the man framed in the doorway had eyes only for Anne Johnson. ‘You’re her sister aren’t you? Sarah’s sister. She told me about you.’ Anne surveyed the stranger with apparent calm – though a nurse taking her pulse at that moment would have noticed a considerable acceleration in its rate. The man had hair close-cropped almost to his skull and eyes that were never still. He wasn’t tall, slightly shorter than herself, Anne judged, and he was skinny with it, a fact accentuated by the tight black leather jacket that he wore zipped up to his neck. On his hands, she noticed, he was wearing white latex gloves. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am Anne. Who are you?’

He ignored the question. ‘They were following her, you know. Had been for weeks.’ Suddenly Anne felt glad of the presence of the two detectives. The man was now shifting his weight from side to side, as if warming up for a slalom. Then he suddenly looked behind him to his left, then to his right, before sticking his hands into his jacket pockets and letting out a deep sigh. ‘I told her to tell the police, but she just laughed. She was always laughing was Sarah.’ Again he paused, and again he looked behind him to left and right. ‘She should have listened. Now she’s dead.’

‘Hello, Danny.’ Fox had moved forward and was standing by Anne’s shoulder. He didn’t think she was at risk. Danny was disturbing rather than dangerous, in his experience, but he felt it was time for him to intervene.

‘You!’ He almost hissed the word.