Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘And are you hard on him, Lawson?

This time there was no shrug. ‘Yes. But I look after him too.’

‘So do I, Lawson.’

‘Damn!’ The curse came from the corridor, and both women immediately recognized it as Wilson’s. Out of their sight, the flustered constable dropped to his knees to pick up several sheets that had fallen from the file in his arms. Then, back on his feet, he hurried the last couple of paces to the door and pushed into DI Holden’s office, head down. ‘Here you are,’ he said ‘that’s everything off Fox’s desk.’ And he set the bundle down in front of Holden, oblivious to the amused smiles that the two women were exchanging.

Holden didn’t notice them at first. It was some 20 minutes since Wilson and Lawson had retreated from her room down the corridor to their own, and in that time she hadn’t so much as opened the file on Sarah Johnson, let alone reread it. What with visiting the loo again – she really should cut down on the coffee – getting some paracetamol from her car, and then being ambushed on her way back by Linda from personnel, the time had raced unrelentingly forward, leaving all her good intentions in its slipstream. Back in her office, instead of sitting down and opening the file, she stood and gazed out of the dirty office window. Not that her brain registered anything that was happening in the stop-start Oxford Road traffic, for it was focused on violent death and also on her mother. Not that she was wishing one on the other, far from it. But somehow her mother’s words refused to go away. ‘Martin Mace and Sarah Johnson,’ she had insisted. ‘They are the key to the mystery.’ Who the hell did she think she was? Miss Marple? What the heck did she know about solving crimes? And yet maybe she was right. They were linked by this game of football at Wrexham, of course. But they were linked too by Jake. Jake and Sarah had a strong relationship, and Mace and Jake were or had been lovers. And then there was Blunt, a man Holden neither liked nor trusted. But that, she had to remind herself, did not make Blunt a killer. But he was another link, no question. And Blunt and Jake disliked, maybe even hated, each other.

‘Guv! Guv!’

Holden turned round reluctantly, to see Lawson and Wilson in her room again.

‘We’ve found something, Guv!’ said Wilson.

‘What?’ she said pulling herself irritably into the present moment.

‘A car crash on the 5th. On a side road just off the A5, about 10 miles south of Wrexham. A VW van went off the road, about eight o’clock at night. Six passengers, all killed.’ Wilson paused and glanced at Lawson,

‘I rang the locals,’ she said, taking over the baton. ‘The van was from Oxfordshire. Three of them from Witney, and three from Oxford itself. They were peace campaigners, on the way home from some demo.’

‘You have a list of names?’

‘Yes, and pictures,’ Wilson said, holding out a wadge of paper in his hand.

‘One more thing,’ Lawson said. ‘We think it might be relevant, given the nature of Martin Mace’s death. The van caught fire. They reckon the petrol tank burst open on impact. It looks like all the occupants burnt to death.’

‘You think it may be relevant, Lawson?’ Holden exclaimed. ‘That’s the understatement of the year. Well, drop everything and for God’s sake go and pick them up – Smith and Sexton – before the murderer gets to them too.’

Two minutes later Holden frowned hard at the sheet of paper she was reading, and scratched at her forehead. She had just finished reading the single-page report of Fox and Wilson’s visit to Anne Johnson. She leafed quickly through the rest of the file, not reading, but looking. Then she got up, crossed the room to her open door and walked purposefully down the corridor. ‘Wilson!’ she called, as she turned into the second doorway on the left. The startled constable looked up. He was sitting at his desk, with one hand holding a bag of salted crisps in its palm while the fingers of the other deposited some of its contents into his mouth. He jumped to his feet, almost dropping the bag as he did, wondering what the heck he had done now.

‘Just waiting for Lawson. She’s in the loo,’ he said defensively.

‘Where’s the diary?’ she asked.

‘Diary?’ Wilson replied, feeling hopelessly lost.

‘Sarah Johnson’s diary,’ Holden snapped. ‘When Fox and you visited Sarah Johnson’s flat and met Anne Johnson there, you found Sarah’s diary. It’s in the notes that you wrote up, Wilson. But it’s not in the file. So where’s it got to?’

Wilson scratched his head. ‘I can’t recall seeing it recently. But I do remember it. It was a red diary, A5, you know, a desk diary. Maybe it’s in one of the drawers.’ He moved over to Fox’s desk and leant down, tugging at the nearest handle. When it refused to moved, he tried the next drawer, and then the third. ‘They’re locked, Guv.’

‘And presumably Fox has got the key.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Where is he, anyway?’

‘Gone to the dentist again. He thinks he’s got an abscess.’

‘I see,’ Holden said, though she wasn’t sure that she did see. What the hell was he doing buggering off to the dentist without telling her first anyway? ‘Well, ask around. Someone must hold a spare set of keys for these desks, or a master. Anyway, use your initiative and find the diary, and bring it to my office. And sharpish!’ Holden turned and left him to it. What was it her father used to say? Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself. One of the few sensible things he did say. So let Wilson get on with it.

Barely three minutes later, Wilson appeared triumphantly at her door, with Lawson at his shoulder and the elusive red book in his hand. ‘Bingo!’ he said with a grin. ‘It was in Fox’s bottom drawer. I couldn’t find a key so I had to—’

Holden had raised her finger to her lips, like a librarian bringing a noisy reader to heel. Wilson dribbled to a halt.

‘Too much information, Wilson. You got the diary and I assume you didn’t cause any serious damage doing so. That’s enough for me.’

‘Yes Guv.’

‘So bugger off and find Smith and Sexton.’

Doreen Sexton looked at her watch for the fourth time in ten minutes and swore. Not that anyone would have known for she never cursed out loud. ‘It’s not lady-like,’ her mother had drummed into her throughout her childhood. Not that being lady-like was high in Doreen Sexton’s priorities for herself. She was far too practical in her approach to life and too committed to her nursing to give herself airs and graces. But, nevertheless, she – like her mother and her mother before her – left the swearing to the menfolk, and even then insisted that it remain outside the house.