Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Do you know the boyfriend’s name?’ Holden was leaning forward now, her affected indifference now discarded.

‘Les. Les Whiting, I think. Like the fish.’

‘Boss,’ said Wilson, as soon as Wright had left the room. ‘That ties up with what Jake said.’

‘Explain,’ Holden said tersely.

‘When DS Fox was interviewing him, he asked him about the phone calls that Sarah Johnson had made to his mobile, and he asked how come he kept it turned off so much, and he said – that’s Jake said – that he kept it turned off because he had split from his boyfriend and he, Les, kept hassling him. So it all ties up.’

‘Thank you, Wilson,’ Holden said, and she turned a smile upon her slightly flushed detective constable. ‘A brownie point for you!’

‘Jake was in the wrong job.’ Rachel Laing uttered this judgement as soon as she had sat down. ‘Nice guy, but he’d never have lasted.’

If Holden was surprised by this blunt opening statement, she gave no sign. She was experienced enough to know that death, especially unexpected and violent death, affected people different ways. The morning after her own father had been obliterated in a three-car pile-up on the A34, her mother had gone to work as if nothing abnormal had happened, said nothing to anyone in the office, and only rang her, Susan, to tell her after she’d come home, watched the six o’clock news, and helped herself to a small sherry. Rachel Laing was big boned and broad hipped, wore clothes so nondescript you barely noticed them, and oozed matter-of-factness from the pores of her skin. ‘It’s not a happy-clappy world. The people who come here have pretty shitty lives and problems. Some cope, some don’t. Some survive, some end up dead. Like poor Sarah Johnson. You have to be tough if you’re going to last in this environment, and like I said, Jake just wasn’t cut out for it. Nice guy and all that, but—’

‘A nice dead guy, Ms Laing,’ Holden interrupted, distaste apparent in every syllable she uttered. ‘Just to clarify things, we aren’t here to assess how well Jake Arnold was suited to working in the wonderful world of mental health. We’re here to find out who the hell killed him. So maybe we could stick to that.’

‘So what do you want to know?’ Laing spoke without emotion, as if unaffected by Holden’s outburst, though the ghost of a smile drifted across her face. ‘If I know who the killer is?’

Laing never received an answer. Even as she was saying ‘who the killer is?’, there came a sound of shouting from beyond the closed door, followed immediately by a thud and the splintering of wood as the door exploded open. Two figures burst into the room, the first a very flushed Danny and just behind him an equally red-faced DS Fox, his hands already turning palms-up in apology.

‘Danny!’ exclaimed Laing, who had risen to her feet. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Wilson, dropping his notebook, stepped forward, but Holden – startled, but still seated – lifted a hand and raised her voice. ‘Stop! Everyone!’

Rather to her surprise, everyone did stop, and before they could start again she addressed Danny.

‘Danny. I think we may have met once before, but in case you don’t remember, my name is Susan. I am in charge of the police investigation into Jake Arnold’s death. Do you think you might be able to help?’

Danny looked back at the woman sitting unruffled in the battered red armchair. She was wearning dark trousers and jacket, and a plain white blouse. Her hair was dark and short, short enough to reveal a small silver stud in each ear. She looked efficient, organised, in control, yet the tone of her voice was soft and gentle, reminiscent of cooling breezes on a hot summer’s day.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ She was gesturing towards the mauve armchair that Rachel Laing was now standing next to. ‘Rachel was just about to go, and if you’d rather, my colleagues could go too.’

Danny looked round the small room, at Laing, and Fox and Wilson. He walked two paces over to the window, and looked out of it, then across to the door, where Fox moved to the side. He looked down the short corridor for three or four seconds, before shutting the door firmly. ‘They can stay,’ he said, and moved back to the mauve armchair. He sat down with care, perching himself on the front. As if ready for what, Holden wondered. Flight or fight?

‘It was my fault.’ Danny spoke quietly, almost as if talking to himself. ‘My fault, all my fault.’ Holden, leaning forward, watched him as she may once as a child have watched a trapeze artiste walk the high wire in the big top. Her breathing seemed to have been put into abeyance as she waited to see if Danny would maintain his balance. He was rocking now, only just perceptibly, but rocking nevertheless.

‘Why do you think it was your fault?’ Holdens’s words were as hushed as his. She hoped they sounded soothing and encouraging.

‘Cause it was,’ he said, still rocking.

‘Danny!’ she said, her tone slightly raised. ‘You’ve got to tell me more than that. You’ve got to explain why.’

‘Why?’ he said, his voice rising to match hers. ‘Because if I hadn’t smashed his car in, then it wouldn’t all have started.’

‘It was you who smashed Jake’s car in?’ Rachel Laing broke in, astonishment apparent in every syllable of her question.

Holden looked up sharply. She said nothing, but the glare she gave and the aggressive manner in which she drew her two fingers from left to right across her lips, were a clear enough message to Laing to shut up. Holden turned back to Danny, but he seemed not to have registered Laing’s interruption.

‘Do you mean you crashed his car?’ she asked.

‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t drive. I saw it parked outside Sarah’s flat late one night. It’s an old green Mini. Occasionally he’d bring it here. Anyway, I just smashed it. I broke the windscreen and the driver’s window, and the headlights, and then I did a runner. I shouldn’t have done it, cause that’s when it all started.’ He was breathing heavily now, and Holden noticed a couple of beads of sweat on his now flushed face.

‘All what started?’ Holden purred.

‘Well, that’s when Jake started to be followed.’

Though the casual observer – and certainly not Danny – would not have noticed any change in the smile on Holden’s face, behind it the raised hopes were suddenly extinguished. She wondered how she could have been so stupid to expect anything else. With Danny, there was always someone following, so of course there was bound to have been someone following Jake, as there had been someone following Sarah, as no doubt Danny had been followed all the way from his room to the day centre that morning. Not to mention yesterday. Or the day before.

‘How do you know he was being followed?’ she asked, but her questions were now on autopilot. Only, unlike an airliner, they were going nowhere.