Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Haven’t I? Is that a crime.’

‘Christ!’ Fox broke in angrily. ‘Let’s just take him down to the station. If he wants to play silly buggers with us, then we’ll fucking well do it properly. We could start by sticking him in a cell for a few hours while we search his flat, and then we could question him for half the night, and then maybe he’ll stop pissing us about.’ Fox stepped forward as he stopped talking, causing Whiting to step back. Then, pleased with the effect of his outburst, he produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. ‘Do you want to tell him his rights, or shall I?’

‘I saw a text message on his mobile,’ Whiting blurted out. He was unsure whether the hulking great sergeant was serious or not, but he found him frightening nevertheless, and suddenly his own appetite for playing games was gone.

‘What message?’ Holden asked quickly.

‘A suspicious one.’

‘That’s not good enough,’ Fox said bluntly.

‘You want chapter and verse? Word for word? Well, let me think. “When can we do it again?” I think that was pretty much it.’

‘Did you often check his mobile messages?’ Holden said flatly.

Whiting shrugged. ‘No. But the fact is he had been behaving pretty suspiciously, so I took my opportunity.’

‘So you asked him about the message?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And he admitted it. That he’d met this guy.’

‘What was this guy’s name?’

Whiting gave another shrug. ‘Don’t know.’

‘You’re lying,’ Fox snarled.

Holden held up her hand, gesturing Fox to silence. ‘Let me just run over the scene. You ask Jake about the message. He admits to meeting someone else. He says it was just a one-off. You don’t ask who he was. You don’t ask where he met him, or when he met him or anything. You just say: “That’s OK, Jake, let’s pretend it never happened and why don’t we crack open a bottle of champagne to demonstrate how grown up we’ve been about it all.” Now, are you seriously expecting me to swallow that story? Because if you are I’ll stop right now and start following Sergeant Fox’s advice.’

Whiting shut his eyes and lifted his hands to his face. Slowly he sucked in a deep breath and then noisly released it. He opened his eyes and looked with an air of resignation across at Holden ‘MM. That’s what his initials were. They were stored on his mobile. But he wouldn’t tell me any more about him. I swear. Not his full name or where he met him, or the colour of his underwear or anything. He was very protective of him. Maybe he was worried I’d storm round to where he lived and cause a scene.’

‘Did you?’

‘No I didn’t. I don’t know where he lives. How could I?’

Holden suddenly stood up. Fox followed suit. Whiting nervously did the same. ‘Is that all?’

‘No,’ said Holden. ‘We’re taking you down to the station.’

‘Why?’ Whiting replied in obvious alarm. ‘I’ve answered all your questions, and I’ve got a gallery to open up.’

‘Because,’ she said, ‘I need a formal statement. Martin Mace was brutally murdered on Monday night, and the way things are at the moment, your name is pretty much top of our list of suspects. And, of course, if my memory serves me right, you didn’t have an alibi for Jake Arnold’s death either.’

Dr Karen Pointer was in her office, seated at her desk, her fingers moving deftly over her laptop keyboard.

‘Come in!’ she called in response to the knock on her door, but she continued typing, her eyes refusing to look up as DI Holden entered the room, though whether it was because it was Holden (she had seen her get out of the car that pulled up outside her window), or whether she was genuinely preoccupied with her report, only she herself knew. ‘Sit down,’ she said, but still her eyes and fingers remained committed to their computer task. Holden sat down silently, and waited. Eventually, Dr Pointer’s hands slowed down. Her right thumb and forefinger briefly moved to the bridge of her nose, alighting there for several seconds, before they moved to the screen of the laptop and firmly closed it down. Only then did she look up. When she spoke, it was with brisk efficiency.

‘I need to check a couple of things out, but otherwise my report on Mace is pretty much finished. I’ll get it over to you this afternoon.’

‘Thank you. I would appreciate that.’

The two women eyed each other. ‘Good,’ Pointer replied, wondering why Holden had come over, and had come on her own this time. It was, she suddenly realized, the first time she had been alone with her since, well, since the incident.

‘I don’t mean to hassle you,’ Holden said apologetically, ‘but I need to know about the time of death. I don’t know how accurate you can be with a burning.’