Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

The younger woman flushed, taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. But she was not a person to melt away. ‘With respect, I merely wanted to tell you your label was sticking out. If you’ll allow me—’ And without waiting for a reply, she moved forward round the side of her superior and stretched her hand out towards the nape of her neck. ‘Just one moment, Ma’am,’ she said softly, and with the gentlest of touches she folded the offending white label out of sight. ‘There!’ she finished, and then stepped a pace backwards.

‘Oh!’ Holden said, as enlightenment finally dawned. She paused, embarrassed by her own ill temper. ‘Thank you, um, Constable.’

‘Lawson. WPC Jan Lawson,’ the constable responded. Lawson had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. She had heard only good things of Holden from the other women in the station in the three weeks since her transfer from Northampton. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how is the case going, Ma’am?’

Holden frowned. ‘I do mind, Constable, as it happens.’

Lawson cursed herself silently. ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t mean to be nosey. It’s just that—’ She paused, genuinely lost for words. She knew what she wanted to say, but how to say it, how to take this one chance that might not come again? ‘It’s just that I imagine there must be a lot to do, and well, one day I’d like to be doing what you’re doing, so I just wanted to say that if you needed any more personnel, then maybe you would keep in mind that I’m here. I know I’m inexperienced, but I’ll do anything.’

Lawson fell silent, and waited as Holden continued to survey her. For a moment or three, she looked back into Holden’s eyes, and then submissively dropped her gaze to the ground.

Holden gave a half smile. ‘I’ll keep that in mind, Constable Lawson,’ she said, before walking purposefully on towards the station again.

DI Holden’s stock-taking session started at 8.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and – for reasons beyond her control – lasted barely ten minutes. It was, however, time enough to draw conclusions of some validity. Wilson arrived at his boss’s office about ten seconds after Fox, and entered the room whistling the theme tune of his favourite soap Neighbours (not that he got to watch it too often these days).

‘OK, Wilson,’ Holden said briskly, as the detective constable shut the door, ‘let’s be hearing from you. You look like the cat that got the cream, so share with us whatever it is you found out!’

‘Morning, Guv!’ answered Wilson cheerfully, enjoying his moment, and pulling a chair forward.

‘Cut the niceties, Wilson!’ she warned.

‘Sorry, Guv!’

‘And don’t bloody apologize, either. Just speak.’

‘Sorry!’ he said, and immediately realized his mistake. Fox laughed loudly. Holden raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion, and looked ostentatiously at her watch. ‘She lied!’ Wilson said firmly. Fox’s laughter died. ‘Anne Johnson lied,’ Wilson con

tinued. ‘She came to Oxford the morning of her sister’s death. We have it on camera. We have her driving her car into the multi-storey car park at 6.40 in the morning, and leaving at 8.30.’

‘You’re sure?’ Holden said.

‘Yes, it was a yellow Mini and the registration number—’

‘Not the car, Wilson!’ Holden said sharply. ‘Her. Can you be sure she was driving it. Can you see her face clearly?’

Wilson paused before answering. ‘The windows and windscreen are that dark, reflective glass. You can see out, but not in.’

‘So it could have been someone else driving?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but why—’

‘Anything else you found out, Wilson?’ Holden spoke curtly, so that Wilson looked down at his knees, anxious to avoid her gaze. ‘No, Guv,’ he said quietly.

‘Right, Fox,’ she said, swinging her attention to the Detective Sergeant. ‘What can you add?’

Fox, who was used to Holden, gave a rueful smile. ‘Not a lot. Yousef Mohammed, who runs the corner shop where Marston Street meets the Cowley Road, remembers seeing Sarah – assuming it was Sarah – about ten minutes before her death. She hung around the front of his shop briefly, looking in the window or something. I think Yousef fancied her a bit. He commented on her long mack.’

‘Is that it, Fox?’ she said in a tone which suggested great disappointment with his efforts.

‘I think it may be significant that Sarah didn’t come in the shop, didn’t even come into the shop to buy her usual newspaper—’

Holden cut in viciously. ‘Fox! Would you be interested in buying a bloody newspaper if you were on your way to jump from the top of a multi-storey car park?’

Even Fox was temporarily thrown. One charitable, though very male, part of his brain assumed in that instant that it must be her time of the month. But he pressed on nevertheless. ‘But surely she might have wanted to at least exchange words with someone, with anyone, especially with someone who she knew liked her. Yousef smiles a lot. Even when I was questioning him about Sarah, he couldn’t think of her without smiling.’

‘But if Sarah was depressed,’ Holden replied, ‘the last thing she might have wanted to do was talk to anyone, especially to someone who is pathologically cheerful.’

‘Maybe,’ said Fox carefully. ‘But remember she then went across the road and looked at Bicknell’s blue plaque. Remember we’ve got a picture of her where she seems to be talking to two other people.’ He paused, wondering how his observations were going down with his boss.