Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Police business then,’ Whiting said, holding the door open so that they could enter. ‘Is it OK with you if I open up?’ he asked. ‘I’m not expecting a flood of visitors, but a single buyer is all one needs sometimes. ’

‘Best not,’ said Holden firmly. ‘Sorry, but this is serious police business, and if all goes well it’ll only take a few minutes.’

Whiting locked and bolted the door. ‘Well in that case,’ he said rather petulantly, ‘I won’t risk delaying you by offering you a coffee.’

‘Good,’ Fox said uncompromisingly, ‘because all we are interested in are some straight answers to some questions. Then, as the Inspector said, if we are satisfied with the answers we’ll go.’

‘And if you’re not?’

‘Where were you on Monday night?’

Whiting frowned. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Would you rather we did this down at the police station?’ Fox asked belligerently. ‘Because if you don’t bloody well answer our questions, that’s where you’ll be going, and your precious gallery will be staying shut for a lot longer.’

Whiting looked across at Holden, but if he hoped to gain comfort there he was disappointed. The woman’s face was hard, stripped bare of emotion, and her eyes met his unflinchingly. He turned back towards Fox. ‘I was here,’ he said. ‘We had a private showing, to open this exhibition. It started at 6.00, though I had been here most of the day getting ready for it with Kim. Kim Carpenter. The exhibitionist.’ He gestured towards the walls. ‘It finished about 8.00 p.m.’

‘Did you leave immediately?’ Fox pressed.

‘Not immediately. I had to clear up, but I probably left about 8.30.’

‘Can anyone verify this?’

‘Well Kim offered to stay behind, but her son and daughter had come up from London, so I told her to go and I finished off on my own.’

‘We’ll need to get her to verify this.’

‘Look, what exactly is all this about?’

‘Don’t you know?’ Fox asked.

‘Well, of course I don’t. I mean, you come here and start asking—’

‘Mr Whiting!’ Holden spat the words out like an archetypal sergeant major bringing a new recruit to order. Whiting stopped, and for three or four seconds silence fell. When Holden continued, her voice was quieter, but equally as firm. ‘Tell us about your break-up with Jake. If I recall correctly, you said he had an affair with another man, but I don’t think you told us who this man was.’

‘I think you recall incorrectly,’ Whiting replied. ‘I am certain I told you he had a one night stand with someone. And the reason I never told you his name was because I never knew what it was.’

Holden chewed at her lip, while her brain apparently lost itself in puzzled thought.

‘So how did you find out about this, this er …one night stand. Did Jake confess it over his cornflakes the next morning?’

‘What the hell does it matter?’

‘It matters,’ Holden said, reverting to her sergeant major tones, ‘because I want to find Jake Arnold’s killer.’ Even as she said this, Holden was undecided as to what to say next – if anything. Whiting, she was sure, had not been entirely truthful about the end of his relationship with Jake, but that merely made it all the more important to choose her line of attack with care. There seemed to be two possible approaches: one softly, softly, probing with questions gently, remorselessly; or there was the opposite approach.

‘You must have hated Martin.’ Holden said this in a matter-of-fact, doesn’t-really-matter tone. She tried to look as if she was uninterested in the answer, merely going through the motions for the sake of it, but she was watching intently for Whiting’s reaction, conscious that it was that first second of time, that first unguarded expression to flick across his face, maybe – if she was lucky – his first utterance that would tell her that her suspicions were well founded. Or not.

Whiting opened his mouth as if to speak, but then shut it again. He smiled, and then opened his mouth again, this time to speak. ‘Martin? Martin who

?’

‘I think you know.’

He scratched his head theatrically. ‘Hm!’ he continued. ‘I think I know at least three Martins, and then of course there’s also Mr Martin who runs the corner shop. I find him perfectly pleasant.’

Holden changed tack abruptly, switching back to her original line of enquiry.

‘You haven’t yet told me how you found out about Jake Arnold’s one night stand.’