Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Why can’t you take some time off to help me get organized?’ she had demanded on the phone the night before.

‘I’ve already taken four separate days off in the last two months,’ Holden had snapped tetchily.

‘Oh’ came the wounded response, ‘you’re keeping a tally are you.’

‘No!’ she had retorted, although she was. ‘It’s just that I do want to take some proper holiday sometime. And besides,’ she had added, playing her trump card, ‘I’ve got a death to investigate.’

‘A murder?’ said her mother with sudden curiousity. ‘How exciting!’

‘Actually, a probable suicide,’ she had had to admit.

‘A suicide?’ The disappointment was evident even down a not very good line. ‘And suicide is more important than a mother’s needs?’

It was at this point in the Detective Inspector’s replay of her conversation with her mother that Detective Constable Wilson had brought the car to a halt and made his joke about smoking and bike sheds.

Holden lurched back into the present, unamused. ‘Wilson,’ she said sharply, ‘this is not the place for jokes. Your task is to listen, take your lead from us, and, if in doubt, to keep your mouth closed. This is a murder investigation, not a day out to Blackpool.’ With that, she nimbly exited the car and started off towards the Evergreen Day Centre, as if trying to shake off the pursing fury of her mother.

No one greeted them at the door, and only when she had pushed through the outer pair, and then the inner pair did she realize why. Based on past experience (well, only two visits in four years if the truth be told), she expected to encounter a roomful of people arrayed around a series of functional tables on a varied selection of plastic upright chairs and seen-better-days armchairs and sofas. The last time she had had to call in, there had been a group making non-religious Easter cards in one corner, a couple of men, encirled by an intense group of spectators, involved in a silent chess duel in another corner, while a third group argued noisily over a Scrabble board. This time, however, everyon

e present was seated in a haphazard circle, which Jim Blunt was addressing. He noticed Holden immediately, and held up a hand – whether in greeting or as a warning she wasn’t quite sure.

‘Well,’ he said, looking round the members, ‘I think this is a good time to stop. The police have arrived. No doubt they’ll have more news of poor Jake. Obviously, I’ll keep you all informed, but for now try to carry on as normal. I know that’s going to be difficult, but as long as we support each other, we’ll all be OK.’

Blunt led his three visitors into the same cramped room that Fox and Wilson had entered two days earlier.

‘So,’ he said, after he had shut the door and sat down, ‘can you tell me any more about it. We’ve got a lot of very concerned members out there. Jake was popular.’ He paused, but only to catch his breath, and before Holden could respond he had started off again. ‘It must have been an accident, right? I mean you can tell if he’d been drinking too much. It’s just that someone asked if he’d committed suicide. And after what Sarah did, well, I wanted to be able to assure everyone that it was just an unfortunate case of too much drink.’ Blunt dribbled to a halt, looking from Holden to Fox to Wilson and back to Holden, searching for reassurance.

Holden, who was sitting bolt upright, leant forward, her face wiped clean of emotion. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that in the light of what the pathologist has told us, we are treating the death of Jake Arnold as neither an accident nor suicide. Jake was murdered. Last night, after leaving the Iffley Inn. I don’t want to say any more about how it happened at this stage, but we have, of course, got to conduct interviews, here, today, which will obviously be disruptive for your day centre.’

‘Shit!’ Blunt spat the word out like a piece of sour fruit. ‘Damn and hell!’

‘Perhaps we can start with you. Then you’ll be free to break the news as best you can. After that, I think we should interview all your other colleagues. While Wilson and I are doing that, Detective Sergeant Fox and you can draw up a list of members, and try and prioritize those who had a relationship, good or bad, with Jake. And of course with Sarah Johnson.’

Blunt, whose eyes appeared to have half shut, raised his head with a jerk. ‘Sarah?’ he exclaimed. ‘You think Jake’s and Sarah’s deaths are connected? She committed suicide, right? So what possible connection—’

‘I think nothing at this stage,’ Holden said firmly. ‘I keep an open mind, and try to consider all possibilties. And one of those possibilities is that the deaths of Sarah and Jake, who seem to have had at least a friendship, are in some way connected.’

Blunt’s mouth was open. Twice he tried to say something, and twice he failed. Holden noticed the side of his neck pulsing like a steam piston, and she wondered if he was going to lose it. She couldn’t seem him crying – he didn’t seem the type – but sometimes those who held themselves together most tightly could behave in unexpected ways. A third time Blunt moved his mouth, and this time words came out. ‘Are you saying Sarah’s death wasn’t suicide. That she was murdered too.’

Holden leant back now, and gave a deep exhalation of breath. ‘Sarah’s death was most probably suicide. We can’t be certain. But as far as your members are concerned, there is no need to alarm them by suggesting it wasn’t.’

‘Right,’ he said, and gave a single nod.

‘In a minute, I’d like you to go and break the news about Jake to them, but first I have to ask you a couple of questions.’

Blunt drew his hand across the top of his head. Wilson wondered if this was a nervous reaction. Holden waited deliberately for a few seconds before continuing.

‘How did you get on with Jake?’ she asked with studied casualness.

‘Well enough,’ Blunt said, but he made no elaboration of his answer. Holden looked at him carefully. She frowned. She too was in no rush.

‘Well enough ... for what, I wonder?’ She spoke softly, dreamily almost, looking up at the ceiling as she did so.

Blunt waited for her eyes to focus back on him before reacting. And when it came, it was a measured and assertive reaction. ‘Just well enough. Nothing more, nothing less. I was his boss. I had to tell him off occasionally, and challenge him too. He was a bit idle, if you want my honest opinion, and sometimes he needed a metaphorical kick up the arse. Generally, he took it well. But we weren’t pals or anything. It’s not a good idea from my point of view to get too pally with colleagues.’ He stopped talking, and again his hand passed unconsciously across his head.

Holden held his gaze, and for several seconds said nothing. Only when he adjusted himself in his chair, and his hand for a third time flew low across his almost hairless head did she ask the obvious final question. ‘Where were you last night? Between eight and eleven o’clock?’

‘In my flat. Watching a DVD, until I fell asleep in the armchair.’