Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

Anne looked at her questioner as if she couldn’t quite believe that she had heard her correctly. ‘She was a manic depressive. Up sometimes, down sometimes. There didn’t have to be a reason to be down. Sometimes she just was.’

‘What did she tell you about her will?’

Anne looked at Holden sharply. She started to open her mouth, as if to speak, then closed it. She gave a shrug that Holden thought rather theatrical, the sort of gesture she remembered from a largely forgotten school production of Grease. ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said firmly. ‘Are you saying she was making a will?’

Holden hoped her face wasn’t giving anything away. She had hoped she would catch her adversary out with this question – cause her at the least to admit to knowledge of the will – but like Muhammed Ali in his prime Anne Johnson had swayed out of the way of the intended left hook with contemptuous ease, leaving Holden feeling stupidly clumsy. Holden, almost desperately, tried a right hook: ‘I gather you and Bicknell are very good friends? Rather strange that, to get so chummy with the man whose lunatic art project may have inspired your sister to kill herself.’

‘Ah!’ said Anne Johnson, ‘I wondered when you’d bring him up.’

‘How long have you had a sexual relationship with him?’ Fox said, trying to bring relief to his boss.

‘Sexual relationship?’

‘How long have you known him?’ Holden came in.

‘In the biblical or non-biblical sense?’ she replied with a smile. She waited for a response from Holden, but none came. Eventually, she gave another of her theatrical shrugs. ‘A few days. That’s all.’

‘You expect us to believe that?’ It was Fox again.

‘What exactly are you implying?’ Anne Johnson snapped.

‘Let me give you a scenario,’ Holden said calmly. ‘You are at home. Dr Ratcliffe has just left and you get a phone call. From your sister. She is, as you say, maybe distraught, maybe depressed. But that is not what grabs your attention. It is what she tells you. That she is going to change her will. A will which until that time left everything to you. She is not a poor woman. She owns her own flat. You find it difficult to sleep, wondering what the hell to do. So early next morning you drive to Oxford. You park in the multi-storey, and go and see her. What goes on between the two of you only you know. But let’s suppose that you try – but fail – to persuade her not to change her will. You leave, and you drive your car out of the car park at about half past eight. But my question would be: what did you do then? Because half an hour later your sister plunges off the top of that same car park. Now, can you fill in the gaps for us?’

Anne Johnson had been watching Holden very carefully right the way through this exposition. When Holden stopped talking, she puffed out her cheeks. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘You’ve obviously missed your vocation. As a writer of fiction.’

‘Not much fiction there,’ Holden said with a smile, and she turned briefly towards Fox.

‘We know,’ he said, ‘from Sarah’s phone records that she rang you that night at about 10.10. Fact. We have your car arriving on CCTV. Fact. We have your car leaving on CCTV. Fact. At 8.30 a.m. Yet you only get to school in time to teach the third lesson, which commences at 11.30. Again, fact. We have spoken to Sarah Johnson’s solictor, who has confirmed that she had arranged a meeting to change her will. Fact. And, of course, your sister’s death is a fact. Only its cause remains uncer

tain.’

‘Another point of fact,’ Holden said, leaning forward again, ‘is that much of the fiction has been coming from you, Miss Johnson. For example, you lied to your school about your car breaking down. You lied to DS Fox when you told him you hadn’t seen or even spoken to your sister recently. So why should we believe you when you claim to have no knowledge of Sarah’s will. And why should we believe you when you say you have only very recently met Ed Bicknell. It doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that he was part of your plot, conveniently standing there at the bottom of the car park with his suicide plaque, and even more conveniently photographing her looking at the plaque.’ Holden paused, pondered and then decided to take the plunge. ‘Only who is to say that it was her, standing there in her long mackintosh. Who is to say it wasn’t you? That you were making sure that Bicknell got some photos of you pretending to be your sister, contemplating her suicide, before you made your way to the top of the car park, and there pushed your waiting sister over the edge.’

She stopped then and silence descended on the room. Holden and Fox sat unmoving, their eyes on their suspect, wondering, hoping against hope, almost (in Holden’s case) praying for the woman opposite to break down and confess. Eventually Anne Johnson leant back in her chair and let out a deep sigh. ‘Are you,’ she said coldly, ‘accusing me of murder?’

Holden pursed her lips together, knowing she had not won. ‘At this point, I am merely trying to point out the possibilities.’

‘In that case,’ her interviewee said, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘In what sense,’ Holden responded instantly.

‘In the sense that, if there are any more questions, I’d like to have a solicitor present.’

CHAPTER 10

A four-minute phone call was all it took for Wilson to ascertain Martin Mace’s bank. And much of that four minutes was taken up with waiting while Dr Pointer checked the contents of Mace’s wallet. There then followed a short exchange.

‘There’s a debit card for the National Exchange bank, but no credit card,’ Pointer began briskly. ‘The account name is Martin N. Mace. The account number isn’t entirely clear. The edge of the card is a bit scorched, but the first six digits are two, one, five, four, two and I think that’s a six. But I expect that is enough to be going on with?’

‘Thank you, yes, Dr Pointer,’ Wilson replied gratefully, and remembering his previous meeting with the pathologist. ‘I am sure that will be fine.’

‘The nearest branch is in Headington, by the way,’ she continued.

‘Thank you,’ Wilson said again.

‘I bank there myself.’

‘Right. Well, thank you for your help.’