Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

Bicknell was floundering in unfamiliar waters. Policemen who thought they were tough was one thing, but this woman.... He sighed silently. Easier to go with it, wait for the storm to abate. ‘It was over there,’ he said, pointing.

She turned, and moved three paces, and placed the flowers gently on the pavement. ‘Here?’ She turned her face towards him, her voice now calm, wanting reassurance.

He nodded. She turned back to the flowers, and maintained the position for some thirty seconds. A bus pulled past and stopped a few metres away. A young woman lugging a baby in one arm and dragging a folded carrycot with her free hand got off. She expertly opened up the carrycot with a single flick of her hand, put the infant in it, strapped it in, then walked past, looking with mild curiosity at the woman and her flowers. Finally, Anne Johnson stood up and turned towards the immobile Bicknell. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

As Detective Constable Wilson turned the corner and brought the unmarked police car gently to a halt, Detective Sergeant Fox, who was seated next to him, wondered – not for the first time – what genius it was that had come up with the name of the Evergreen Day Centre. Tucked away in a cul-de-sac off the Cowley Road, the two-storey building showed few signs of lasting for ever and no sign of anything green. The overall impression it gave was of unutterable greyness; only the metal windows protected against this uniformity, but the white paint applied to them was not of recent memory. At least someone had decided to rail against this dank vision from the 1930s: a brightly painted board leant against the wall to the right of the double doors, bidding all comers ‘A warm welcome to the Evergreen Day Centre’ in a mixture of reds, pinks and blues (but curiously not a singe splash of green). A group of three men, who stood smoking to the left of the sign, turned as one to survey Fox and Wilson as they approached. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ The youngest of the trio spoke loudly, and Wilson flinched involuntarily. Fox, however, merely smiled: ‘Good morning to you, gentlemen. Is Jim Blunt around today?’

It was the oldest man who replied. He was a strikingly thin man, and had grey, wispy hair, and a smile which revealed teeth long overdue a visit to the dentist. He sported a faded tweed jacket, white shirt, and brown corduroy trousers. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ he demanded in an aristocratic accent. ‘Mr Blunt is a busy man.’

‘And so am I,’ replied Fox, walking past the trio and pushing open the twin doors which served as the entry pointy to the hidden world of the Evergreen Day Centre.

‘Well, well, well! If it isn’t our favourite copper, Detective Fox.’ The greeting from the squat man who stood in the middle of the room was every bit as mocking as had been that of Mr Tweed Jacket outside, but there the similarity ended. His hair was closely cropped, he wore a black polo style shirt, and black jeans, and his voice was pure Brummie. Where Mr Tweed Jacket was tall and thin, Jim Blunt was short and broad. The only common physical feature, Fox idly thought, was a total lack of loose fat anywhere on either man: Blunt was solid muscle, and Mr Tweed Jacket was solid skin and bone.

‘We need a few minutes of your time please, Jim,’ said Fox conversationally. ‘This, by the way, is my colleague DC Wilson.’

Blunt flicked a glance at the uneasy young man standing at Fox’s shoulder, but otherwise ignored him. ‘Follow me,’ he ordered, and led them through a door in the left-hand corner of the room. A short corridor took them to a small room containing two armchairs. He waved Fox to the dirty mauve one, and himself sat heavily down into the dirty red one. ‘Shut the door, lad’ he said, pointedly not looking at Wilson. Wilson did so, and took out a notebook.

‘So,’ said Blunt, ‘I guess you’ve come about Sarah.’

Fox nodded, but said nothing.

‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ Blunt said suddenly. ‘But then, in this business nothing comes as a surprise. Mind you,’ he continued without any apparent logical connection, ‘she’ll be missed.’

‘By whom?’ said Fox quickly. ‘Jake?’

Blunt frowned and pulled at a non-existent moustache. ‘Why do you mention Jake?’ he asked, looking straight at Fox.

‘She tried to ring him the morning she died.’

Blunt pulled again at his invisible moustache, then nodded, apparently satisfied, and stood up. ‘I’ll send him through. But don’t keep him too long. He’s cooking lunch today.’

Fox held up his right hand. ‘Just one more question for you. Would you say Sarah had been particularly low recently? I mean, we know she suffered from manic depression—’

‘Your bloody label, not mine!’ Blunt cut in angrily, and the colour of his face turned a fierce red. ‘You’re just like the doctors. Manic depression, bipolar disorder. Why is it that you want to stick fancy sounding labels on people with mental health problems. They’re just people, with problems, right. People who need bloody help. Help they don’t get from their fucking families, help they don’t get from their fucking fair-weather friends. That’s where we come in. But we’re just people too. We’re not bloody miracle makers.’

With that, Blunt wrenched the door open, and marched out.

A minute later, a young man appeared at the still-open door, and announced himself as Jake Arnold. He wore a plain, mid-blue shirt, rust-coloured whipcord trousers, and a pair of blue leather lace-ups of slightly darker hue than the shirt. A twisted leather band was just visible on his left wrist, and an unconvincing smile crossed his face.

‘We won’t take much of your time,’ Fox promised, once Jake was settled in the red armchair. ‘We are just trying to establish the state of Sarah’s mind in the period of time leading up to her death. For the coroner’s report. We understand that you knew her quite well?’

‘She used to come here a lot. So we saw each other then.’

‘And outside the day centre? Did you meet up with her in your private time?’

Jake Arnold chewed on his bottom lip as he considered this question? ‘Workers have to maintain a sensible distance between themselves and the members of the day centre.’

‘Quite,’ said Fox, nodding and smiling in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. ‘But I imagine individuals tend to develop stronger relationships with one worker than another.’

Jake chewed again on his lip. ‘Yes,’ he admitted finally, ‘I suppose Sarah did tend to turn to me rather than any of the others.’

‘So you were friends really?’

‘Yes,’ he said with apparent reluctance. ‘I guess we were friends. We used to go to the football together sometimes. She was a United fan.’

‘So, do you have any idea why she might have killed herself?’

‘Not really, no,’ he said.