Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Can anyone vouch for that?’ Holden asked evenly.

‘No,’ said Blunt firmly.

Holden smiled. ‘You appreciate that we have to ask’

Blunt smiled back. ‘O yeah, detective, I’ve seen it on the TV!’

Holden waited until he was almost out of the room. ‘One last final question, Mr Blunt, if you don’t mind.’

He stopped and turned. The smile was still plastered across his face. ‘That’s what they all say, isn’t it? Who do you model yourself on? Frost, Morse, or maybe you’re more of a Columbo. Just missing the crumpled raincoat.’

‘What was the DVD?’

‘Why? Are you into films?’

‘For the record, Mr Blunt.’

‘Coen brothers. The Man Who Wasn’t There? They got the wrong man. You’d like it.’

The two workers whom Holden interviewed (with Wilson silently taking notes) turned out to be very different from each other. Her first thought when Tim Wright walked into the room and folded himself into the chair which Blunt had previously occupied was purely sartorial. ‘Nice shirt!’ popped instantly into her mind, but fortunately not out of her mouth. But she couldn’t make the thought disappear. The fact was that it was a nice shirt. Never mind that it didn’t look as if it had ever come even close to contact with an iron. Or that the blue and white stripes would have looked more at home under a dark suit than above a pair of mid-blue jeans. Holden felt immediately irritated with herself, but Wright had already started to speak.

‘Such a shame about poor Jake,’ he was saying, in a soft public school voice which matched all of Holden’s expectations. ‘Not exactly my sort of chap, but—’

Holden cut in, the striped shirt already firmly relegated to a metaphorical bottom drawer. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ She spoke sharply, and Wright’s eyes blinked in sudden alarm.

‘Well, you know,’ he said, trying to buy time. Holden found her eyes becoming fixated on his Adam’s apple, which contorted itself like some alien intruder trying to burst its way out of his neck. ‘Like different backgrounds, different expectations, different styles of dressing, different in so many ways.’ This time Holden let him peter out.

‘He was gay, yes?’ she said finally, but in a tone of voice that suggested she was making a statement more than asking a question

‘I believe so,’ Wright replied warily.

‘I suppose that would have put him at risk from some people?’ Holden continued.

‘We are very hot on homophobia here,’ Wright replied, this time in a more confident tone, though Holden couldn’t help noticing that he was unconsciously twiddling the wedding ring on the third finger of his left hand. Or was it unconsciously? ‘Very hot on discrimination of all kinds. Anyway, as a motive for murder, I do wonder if you’re barking up the—’

‘Motive!’ Holden spoke sharply, angrily, jumping in before he could finish his wondering. ‘Ever hear of queer-bashing?’ she demanded. ‘Ever seen the body of a man kicked to death because he was gay?’

Wright’s ring-twiddling went into overdrive. He looked down and made no reply. Only when he looked up again did Holden continue. ‘I have

. He didn’t have a face left when we found him. My colleague found his eyeball – his left one I think it was – several yards away in the gutter. Imagine how hard you have to kick a man to do that. And when they’d finished kicking him, one of them took out a knife and ... well, I expect you can imagine the rest.’

Wright had gone pale, a rather sickly non-colour, and Wilson, who had stopped writing, was fast revising his assessment of his boss. Holden meanwhile leant back in her chair and watched. Wright, whose breathing was now heavy and noisy, pulled a puffer from his pocket and took two deep sucks on it.

‘Do you want a glass of water?’ Holden asked without sympathy.

Wright looked across at her and shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’ Slowly his breathing calmed down, and a semblance of colour returned to his features. ‘Do you mean that Jake had been—’

‘No,’ said Holden quietly. ‘No multilation. Just a cracked skull. You may have rules here. But I was trying to point out that not everyone plays by the rules. Killers certainly don’t. Which is why we need your help. Are you aware of anyone here who didn’t like Jake? For any reason.’

Wright ran his hands down the front of his shirt, as if he was suddenly aware of its creases. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can’t say everyone liked him all the time. It’s the nature of the work that you have to draw boundaries, and if people try to cross the boundaries you have to stand up to them, And then, of course, for a while at least, they don’t like you. Jake was quite a gentle man, tried to get on with people, but he didn’t shirk his responsibilities. When he had to be, he could be very unpleasant. I always felt safe when he was around.’

‘Any recent incidents that you can think of? Anyone that he might have upset recently?’

‘I’ve just had two weeks on holiday. So, the answer is no.’

‘OK,’ Holden said with a shrug, as if deciding that there was nothing more to be gained. ‘But if anything occurs to you, when you’ve had time to reflect, do let me know.’

‘Right,’ he said, and then stood up. But he didn’t turn towards the door. A frown emerged from behind his eyes. ‘Perhaps, I should mention one thing. He split up with his boyfriend a few days before I went on holiday. It was fairly acrimonious, I think. Not that I know much about it.’