Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘So it was an unpleasant break-up, was it?’ It was Fox who said this, causing both Whiting and Holden to turn towards him. Holden frowned with irritation, but Whiting seemed unflustered.

‘Have you ever had a relationship that went down the tubes, Detective?’ He paused, giving Fox an opportunity to reply. But Fox said nothing. ‘The ends of relationships are never, in my experience, pleasant. Never. In the case of Jake and me, he betrayed me, so of course I hated it. Briefly, I hated him. So I gave him his marching orders. But life is too short to dwell on things that don’t work out. So if you are implying, as I think you are, Detective, that our break-up was so acrimonious that I decided to bash the cheating bastard over the head and then drop him in the river to make sure, then let me tell you that you have got it wrong.’

Whiting now raised his cup, which had been hovering uncertainly between his mouth and his lap all the time he was speaking, and took a long and noisy slurp from it.

‘We have to be suspicious of everyone.’ Holden spoke softly, almost apologetically, irritated as she was by her colleague’s heavy-footed intervention. ‘It’s virtually part of our job description. I’m sure you must realize. And while we are on difficult questions,’ she continued, plunging on while she had an opportunity, ‘I might as well ask you now where you were on Thursday night. Please!’

To her surprise, Whiting smiled. ‘Oh, Inspector,’ he said, ‘How reassuring this all is.’ He placed the not yet finished cappuccino cup on the table, and leant back in his chair. He placed his fingers together, as if he was about to demonstrate to them that old rhyme that Holden suddenly remembered from school. ‘Here’s a church and here is a steeple, open the doors, see all the people.’ But the fingers stayed still, as did his eyes which surveyed Holden as a chess player might stare at his adversary, immediately after making a move.

‘First you do, well if not the good-cop, bad-cop routine, then at least the nice cop, miserable sod cop routine, and then even as I am in mid-cappuccino you slip in the “Where were you when the victim was murdered?” question. Of course, I knew it was bound to come, and of course like all good suspects I have an alibi that no one can vouch for.’ He paused, half-smiling, forcing a response. But surprisingly it came from a suddenly good-humoured Fox.

‘If you could just tell us what your unprovable alibi is, sir, then I can, like a good Policeman Plod, record it in my notebook, so that we can come back another time and try and trip you up on the details.’

‘Sergeant!’

Whiting almost bounced vertically in the air in his delight. ‘How nice of you to enter into the spirit. Now let me see.’ He paused – overdramatically in Holden’s view – until he felt he had got sufficient audience attention. ‘It was a migraine. I felt it coming on as I was on the bus home, so as soon as I got in I made myself a cup of jasmine tea, took two painkillers, and then took myself to my lonely bed. All very inconvenient, I know.’

‘And no one phoned?’ Holden asked firmly. ‘No one rang the bell?’

‘I unplugged the phone, didn’t I.’ Whiting’s tone was flatter now, as if the seriousness of the situation was beginning to seep under the surface bravado. ‘If anyone rang the door bell, I didn’t hear. I was in never-never-land almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.’

‘You have a mobile?’

‘Who doesn’t? But I turned that off too. Obviously.’

‘Why obviously?’ Fox interrupted again.

‘Bloody hell, haven’t you ever had a migraine. Cause if you had, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question.’

‘I specialize in stupid questions,’ Fox responded evenly. ‘I’m a stupid plodding, sergeant, and I ask stupid bloody questions.’

‘Well, bully for you!’ Whiting laughed.

‘Perhaps we can focus on Jake,’ cut in Holden, who was getting a little suspicious of Whiting’s manner. His lover of recent time lay dead in the mortuary, yet here he was playing to his audience of two with a will. ‘You may not have killed him, but someone did. It was a nasty, violent, deliberate act. Someone out there disliked Jake very much. So as Jake’s close friend, maybe there is something you know that we ought to know. And if so, now is the time to tell us.’ She paused, and added: ‘If, that is, you want us to catch his killer.’

Whiting held up his hands theatrically, but then dropped them as if having second thoughts. ‘Sorry. Point taken.’ For a few seconds he shut his eyes, raising his right hand to his mouth. Then he opened them again and looked straight at Holden.

‘Do you know about Jake and Jim Blunt?’

‘Know what?’ said Holden, her ears metaphorically pricked.

‘Well, I guess Blunt wouldn’t have mentioned it, and I doubt any of those self-seeking workers who fawn around him would have wanted to rock their cosy little boat.’ He paused, looking for some sort of reaction from Holden. Like an actor, he seemed to crave the oxygen of audience approval, but the Detective Inspector had no desire to indulge him. ‘Perhaps you can get to the point, sir!’

‘The point, my dear, is that Jake put in a complaint about Blunt. A formal complaint. To management.’

‘A complaint about what?’ Holden said evenly, still refusing to cooperate with Whiting’s game.

‘He said that Blunt had bullied him. In supervision.’

‘In supervision?’

‘They had one-to-one supervisions every three or four weeks. Privately, in a room. So it was the ideal place for Blunt to bully poor Jake. No witnesses, you see.’

‘Assuming that Blunt was bullying him.’

‘Well, of course he was bullying him! Why on earth should Jake have lied about it?’

For several seconds, Holden said nothing. On the face of it, Whiting’s loyalty to his ex-boyfriend, was convincing, even impressive. Jake had cheated on him, and that had hurt Whiting. Hurt him enough to end the relationship. Yet here he was taking Jake’s side.