Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Do you remember if she bought one the morning of her death?’

For several seconds, Yousef was silent, as he tried hard to remember. Then his face suddenly lit up again. ‘No,’ he said triumphantly, ‘she didn’t. I know because I saw her at the door. She hovered outside for a few moments, and I thought to myself, here comes Miss Johnson for her Daily Mail. But she didn’t come in, she just walked on.’

‘What was she wearing? Do you remember?’

‘But of course! She was wearing that long coat she is wearing in the picture. I liked it. I like it when women cover themselves up. It shows they have respect for themselves. I remember thinking it was a shame she didn’t come in and buy her Daily Mail, because then I could have told her how nice she looked.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Fox said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. But there is one more thing I’d like to ask you. Do you remember what time it was you saw her?’

Again the grin gave way to a frown, but only for a second of two. ‘Not exactly. But of course it can’t have been very long before the poor woman’s death. Maybe 10 minutes, maybe 15. It is very hard to be sure. You see, it’s a very busy time of the morning for me. No time to watch the time, if you know what I mean!’ And he laughed at his own joke.

Wilson placed the DVD into his PC and waited as it hummed into life. Technology, he would have been the first to admit, is a wonderful thing, but technology only takes you so far. As he deftly wielded his mouse and started the DVD playing, he was conscious he still had a substantial task in front of him. It hadn’t been difficult to get hold of CCTV coverage from the cameras installed at the car park, one covering the entrance and one the exit. But he still had to trawl through the footage and try to identify Anne Johnson’s car. It was a yellow Mini, and its number was OU12 AHG. And, of course, it might not be on the film at all, for she may not have come to Oxford at all. Or she might have come to Oxford, but parked somewhere discretely out of the way of prying security cameras. In which case, Wilson might sit up late into the evening, and yet find absolutely nothing to support his theory.

He had decided to check the exit gate footage first. If Anne had driven to Oxford and had parked in the car park, and had left the car park shortly after the death of her sister, then all he had to do was search between 9.00 a.m. and 9.15 a.m. and it ought in theory to be

easy to spot her car departing and thereby prove that she had been lying. Wilson quickly located 8.59 a.m. on the film, and then sat to wait for the Mini to appear. The precise time of Sarah’s death was clear: a passing pedestrian had phoned the emergency services from a mobile at 9.08 a.m. Allowing for a minute or two of panic, this fixed Sarah’s fall to about 9.06 or 9.07, Wilson reckoned. That was the key period of time. Wilson watched in fascination as the time at the bottom of the screen progressed. Not surprisingly, very few cars left the car park at that time of the morning. First there was a red Fiat Uno at 9.01, then a rather battered blue Montego estate at 9.02. Then nothing. 9.06 came, 9.07, then suddenly a Mini, only it was a black one, with the wrong number plate. Then again a gap. A couple of minutes more passed before a white van followed, then nothing for three, four, five more minutes. At last, another car, this time a dark-green Ford Galaxy, but then again nothing, until Wilson had to admit that it was past 9.15 and no yellow Mini (with or without a number of OU12 AHG) had left the car park. Wilson leant back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. He was not yet ready to give up. She could have left earlier. Maybe the woman in Bicknell’s photos was Sarah, walking to her suicide, but Anne had lied about her car breaking down. Why? Because she had overslept? Wilson shook his head. ‘Hardly!’ he said out loud, though there was no one in the office to hear him.

Quickly his right hand took hold of the mouse again and rewound the film to 8.00. a.m. This time he played it forward at speed, stopping whenever a car left the car park. There was a spate of three between 8.03 and 8.04 a.m., people who had no doubt parked overnight and were now off to work. Then nothing, a long gap until 8.30 when ... Wilson almost gave a whoop of excitement. There it was. Her car. Her yellow Mini. The black windows hid the face of the driver, but the number plate was undeniable. OU12 AHG.

Triumphantly, Wilson printed off several still shots of the Mini, then switched DVDs and began to scroll through the film of cars entering. At 6.30 a white van arrived. The same one as he had seen leaving, Wilson wondered, and made a note of the registration number. Ten minutes later another vehicle arrived. The yellow Mini. Anne Johnson’s Mini. ‘Jackpot!’ Wilson shouted to no one. ‘I’ve hit the bloody jackpot!’

Mace stood outside the shed on his allotment and shone his torch onto his watch. 8.25 p.m. Five minutes early. He looked around, peering into the darkness. He could see no one, hear no one, feel no one.

The phone call had come at 3.30 p.m. He had been in his kitchen, stirring his mug of tea. He had let the mobile ring three times. Only then had he grabbed it off the kitchen worktop, flipped it open, and begun to panic. Even as he had raised it to his ear, the vein down the left-hand side of his neck had started to throb violently.

‘Hello?’ He had tried to speak calmly, but the simple word was distorted by anxiety.

There had been a brief pause, then a voice. The voice.

‘Have you got the money?’

‘Yes!’

‘All of it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take it to your allotment tonight. 8.30 p.m. And take your mobile.’

That was all.

And now here he was at his allotment. Another minute passed, and another, and then a phone rang. Only it wasn’t his mobile. He swung his torch round so that it pierced the dark like a searchlight, but it found no one. Only his shed. The shed. The sound of a ringing phone was coming from inside his shed. He trained the torch on the door of the shed, and moved cautiously towards it. The lock, he suddenly realized, was missing. Someone had ripped it right off the door. Nervously, he leant forward and grasped the door handle with his free hand. It opened easily, squeaking slightly. He must oil the hinges again, he thought to himself. He moved forward, playing the beam of the torch around the interior of the shed. No one there. Only – on the floor – a mobile phone, the source of the ringing noise. He leant down and picked it up. Carefully he raised it to his ear. ‘Hello!’

‘Hello!’ came the answer, only it didn’t come from the mobile. It came from behind him, from a figure that lurked, almost invisible, in the darkness. A split second later, a heavy blunt instrument smashed into the back of his head, causing him to collapse into oblivion on the floor of the shed.

CHAPTER 9

‘Good morning, Ma’am.’

DI Holden’s mind was elsewhere, indeed so far distant from the present moment that she completely failed to register the greeting of the young WPC at her shoulder. She locked her car door and turned obliviously towards the station.

‘Ma’am!’ This time the woman’s voice was louder and firmer, and it produced the desired effect of causing the Detective Inspector to turn and appraise its source.

‘Good morning, Constable!’ she replied, but without enthusiasm, and she turned her face back towards the station, pressing forward up the slight incline that would lead her ultimately to the peace of her office.’

‘Your label is sticking out, Ma’am.’

This time Holden stopped fully, and turned to face her interlocutor full on. ‘Sorry!’ she snapped. ‘Did you say something?’