Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘We know,’ said Lawson, finally breaking her silence. ‘But take a look at this. It’s a programme from the away game at Wrexham. We found it in Mace’s house.’ She laid a programme carefully on the table in front of Holden. Then repeated the process with two more. ‘This one came from Jake Arnold’s loo, and this from the bookshelves in Sarah’s flat.’

‘What’s your point exactly?’ Holden said sharply.

Wilson leant forward now and, like a conjuror performing a card trick, very deliberately turned each programme over. As was traditional, the back page showed the two squads of players, Wrexham down the left, and Oxford as the away team down the right. As was also traditional, the fans who bought these programmes had marked the players chosen for the team that day. In biro. In fact in a rather unusual colour of biro. Purple. All three programmes were annotated in purple biro.

‘It looks very much like the same biro. We think they must have sat together for the game, Jake and Sarah and Martin Mace,’ Wilson said.

Holden peered closely at the programmes. She was no forensic expert, but if that wasn’t the same biro then it was one hell of a coincidence. ‘It is certainly a connection,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But do you think they travelled to the game together, or just bumped into each other beforehand and so went in together?’

‘We think they travelled together,’ Lawson said.

‘Think!’ Holden snorted, turning to face Lawson. ‘What do you mean, think? Because thinking isn’t enough, Lawson, as I’m sure you know.’

‘It’s not just guesswork,’ Lawson said, while producing another piece of paperwork from her lap. But this was just a single sheet of A4, a police incident report. ‘On the evening of 4 May,’ Lawson continued, ‘Jake’s car was vandalized.’

‘By Danny Flynn,’ Holden replied, stopping Lawson in her tracks. Holden smiled a rather smug smile, pleased to see the surprise on both their faces. ‘Danny admitted as much when we saw him the other morning. He burst in when we were interviewing one of the workers, Rachel Laing. But at the time, I don’t imagine Jake knew who had done it. Still, I am interrupting you. Do carry on.’

‘Well, the fact was Jake had a problem when he saw his car Saturday morning. He and Sarah had tickets but no transport to get to Wrexham. So what do they do? They get a lift. With, to judge from the purple biro, Mace.’

‘And,’ added Wilson, ‘maybe with Al Smith and Sam Sexton too, since they were inseparable from Mace on match days.’

The three of them fell silent. Outside, an irate driver hooted impatiently at another road user. Inside, Lawson and Wilson waited for their boss to pronounce. ‘So,’ she summarized, ’we have a connection, in point of fact a very strong connection. Five people drive to Wrexham on 5 May in a vehicle. Of these five, three are now dead. Sarah Johnson jumped – or was pushed – to her death, Jake Arnold was slugged over the head and dumped into the river, and Martin Mace lured to his allotment and burnt to death. Al Smith and Sam Sexton are still alive. But I’d bet my life they know something. Sexton was very on edge when we interviewed him. So my question is, what happened on 5 May? That’s what we’ve got to find out.’

‘Why don’t we go and pick up Sexton and Smith,’ Lawson said. ‘They must know something.’

‘Do we know where they’d be? Still at work presumably.’

‘They do building work together often,’ chimed in Wilson, who had typed up the notes the morning after the match.

‘Which means they could be working anywhere presumably?’

‘Sexton has a wife,’ Lawson said, anxious not to be outdone by Wilson.

Holden looked at her watch. ‘You could waste a lot of time trying to find them. Let’s leave it for now, and pick them up once they get home from work. In the meantime, I want you two to do some research. Police records. Press reports. What I want you t

o look for is something that could have caused someone to want revenge. Anywhere between here and Wrexham, on 5 May.’

‘What are you going to do, Guv?’ Wilson said.

Holden looked at him sharply. ‘Why, Wilson. Are you monitoring me?’

‘No, Guv, definitely not, I was just—’

‘I’m going to take another look at Sarah Johnson,’ she continued in a voice that would have sliced through pack ice. ‘If, that is,’ she added, ‘it is all right by you, Wilson!’

For several seconds, a freezing silence descended on the trio. Holden knew she had gone too far, but had no intention of saying sorry. She sniffed, and when she spoke again, her voice was under control, and almost human.

‘Wilson, would you mind getting the file on her, please.’

Wilson needed no further asking. ‘I think it’s on Fox’s desk.’ And with that he scuttled out the room.

Holden looked at Lawson, who in turn looked back at her. A woman who had got somewhere, and a woman who wanted to be there. ‘You think I’m too hard on him?’ Holden asked.

Lawson shrugged, but offered no comment.

‘Tell me!’ she insisted. ‘Woman to woman. Off the record.’

Lawson shrugged again. ‘A bit hard, yes. But mind you, he does ask for it.’