Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘So, you’ve not arrested anyone yet then?’ Smith said, with a sneer in his voice. He was looking at Holden now, apparently having read and seen enough.

‘Where were you on Monday night,’ Holden asked.

‘Oh, we’re suspects are we?’ Smith replied aggressively. ‘Just because we’re his best bloody mates, you think we killed him?’

‘I don’t think anything,’ Holden said, her own voice louder in response. ‘But we need to know where you were at the time of Martin Mace’s death. So just tell us where you were on Monday from, let’s say, 6.00 o’clock onwards.’

‘I was working, wasn’t I, till about 7.00. On a house in Cornwallis Road. Doing an extension out the back for them. With Sam. Then I went home, had a shower, had a pizza out the freezer, then went to the Wellington in Between Towns Road. Sam was there.’

‘When did you arrive at the Wellington?’

‘About nine o’clock I’d say.’

‘Yes,’ Sexton said. ‘That’s right; I had only been there a couple of minutes when he arrived.’

‘And where had you been before that, Mr Sexton?’

‘I was with Al in Cornwallis Road till about five o’clock, but I left him to finish off cos I had another job to price up. I got home about six – my wife will confirm that, but she went out about seven; she works nights at the hospital Monday to Thursday – and I watched the telly and did the ironing.’

‘So between seven and roughly 8.45, you were at home, but no one else was there? Is that right?’

Sexton, who appeared to have been starting to relax, suddenly lifted his right hand to his forehead and dragged it through his hair with such violence that he wrenched his head back. ‘Are you accusing me?’ He squealed the words. ‘I was his mate. A good mate. Why should I want to kill him? Why should anyone want to kill him?’

‘That’s what we want to know,’ Holden said firmly. ‘But the fact is that someone wanted to kill him, and did so. If we can find out why, then the chances are we’ll find out who.’

It is impossible to know who had the idea first. And later, when discussing it in the pub after the case had been closed, both Wilson and Lawson acknowledged the part the other had played in the genesis of the idea. But one fact is as certain as can be: that the idea came very shortly after the final whistle. After Holden and Fox had finished questioning Smith and Sexton, the four of them had had a short debriefing before Holden signalled that their working day was over. Fox offered to drop his boss off at her flat, but Wilson said he thought he’d stay and watch the game. Lawson, rather to his surprise, had said that she’d keep him company. But it was, unfortunately, a distinctly uninspiring game. Oxford scored a minute after half-time, and then conceded a goal two minutes later. And that, in terms of goals and excitement, was pretty much that.

‘If that doesn’t put you off football, then nothing will,’ Wilson said to his companion gloomily. The two of them were still sitting in their seats, as they waited for the other spectators to disperse. Wilson opened his programme and began to read through the manager’s notes again.

‘Do you always buy a programme?’ Lawson asked.

Wilson, engrossed, appeared not to have taken in the question. Over the tannoy, a disembodied voice reminded fans that there was another home game the forthcoming Saturday. As silence returned to the echoing roof of the stand, Wilson looked up and turned his head towards Lawson. ‘Why do you ask?’ he said warily.

Lawson was equally cautious in her reply. ‘I was just thinking,’ she said.

Wilson looked down at his programme, folded it carefully shut, and looked at her again.

‘About programmes?’

‘Yes.’ The thought, or maybe two identical thoughts, had now entered or been created within their separate brains.

‘Mace had loads of programmes in that room of his,’ Wilson said quietly, as if afraid that saying it loudly might somehow reveal a fatal flaw in his thinking.

‘So did Arnold,’ said Lawson. ‘On the bookshelves in his bedroom.’

They looked at each other for several seconds in silence. The stand in front of them was now almost totally deserted except for a couple of stewards at the bottom of the steps.

‘What about Sarah Johnson?’ Lawson asked.

Wilson tried to think back to the search he and Fox had made after Fox had interviewed Anne Johnson. The problem was they hadn’t been looking for anything like football programmes. Drugs and signs of depression and that diary that they had found, but football programmes? ‘I just can’t recall noticing,’ Wilson admitted. ‘And besides, there’s no real reason to believe she didn’t just commit suicide and—’

‘It would be a connection, wouldn’t it,’ Lawson said assertively. ‘Another connection besides the day centre. Suppose they always sat together—’

Wilson, aware that Lawson was half a step in front of him, cut in angrily: ‘A programme won’t tell you that!’

Lawson pursed her lips, while she considered her next sentence. A look of innocence emerged from her features, and from her mouth there came an equally innocent tone of voice. ‘When I was a kid and went to watch something – a pantomime, or an outdoor Shakespeare play, or once I went to Wimbledon – I always kept my programme and my ticket. Didn’t you?’

CHAPTER 11