Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Don’t patronize me,’ she snarled. ‘Just because I’m a woman.’ If looks could kill, Wilson’s blood would have been smeared across the kitchen wall, but no such thing occurred. Eventually, Doreen Sexton emitted a snort of disgust and turned her body and face towards the female detective.

‘Mrs Sexton,’ Lawson said, intervening. ‘We don’t mean to patronize you. But we are concerned for your husband’s safety. We really do need to locate him.’

‘What do you mean?’ She spoke with alarm in her voice. ‘His safety? What are you talking about?’

‘You are aware of Martin Mace’s death?’ Lawson continued determinedly. ‘We understand he was a good friend of your husband. And we think it is possible that Martin’s killer has a grudge against Sam and also Al Smith.’

‘God!’ she said, breaking the habit of a lifetime. ‘Oh, God!’ And she grabbed the back of a kitchen chair to steady herself.

‘Please, sit down Mrs Sexton,’ the blonde woman suggested. This time Sexton obeyed.

‘He’s not answering his mobile,’ she said disconsolately. ‘It’s turned off. It’s not like him, you know. He always keeps it on. Always.’

‘When is he due home?’ Lawson asked quietly.

‘He’s late! He promised to be back to give me a lift to the hospital. I’ve got all these things to carry, you see, too much to take on the bus, and he promised. He normally keeps his promises. Something must have happened to him. He’d be here if he could. Something must have happened to him. Oh my God!’

‘Please, try not to worry,’ Lawson said, conscious that this was asking the impossible, but conscious too that she had to keep the woman from freaking. She’d had quite enough of that today with Danny. ‘Where was he working today? He’s a builder, isn’t he?’

‘He finished early. He rang me, and said he had to go and meet someone about a job, but he wanted me to know that he hadn’t forgotten me, you know that he had remembered that I needed a lift.’

‘Did he say who this meeting was with, or where it was? Maybe he’s just got held up—’

‘Some rundown cottage, he said. Off the Garsington Road. It had an odd name. I remember thinking, that’s a funny name for a house—’ She trailed off, as she tried desperately to recall the name from her memory bank. ‘Like in a fairy tale. Not a real life name ... Oh, God, I can’t remember. I can’t remember!’

‘Don’t worry Mrs Sexton,’ Wilson said soothingly. ‘It’ll come to you in a minute. That’s what my mum always said to my dad when he couldn’t remember something. As soon as you stop trying to remember, then it’ll pop straight into your head. And it always did. Always!’

An observer could not have divined whether Doreen Sexton took in, or was even aware of, these words of homespun wisdom, for her head remained tilted slightly to the right, while her eyes were fixed on a distant point beyond and above Lawson’s shoulder. The only thing that moved was the expression on her face, from one of intense concentration to increasing blankness and then, remarkably and suddenly, transfiguration. ‘Of course,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Of course. Dingle Dell. That’s what it was! Dingle Dell Cottage.’

At much the same time that Wilson and Lawson were ringing the Sextons’ doorbell, DS Holden was ringing the Oxford Mail. Given that every time her phone had rung that afternoon she had hoped against hope that it wasn’t Don Alexander asking her for news of developments, this was at one level a remarkable turnaround. But although Holden had an in-built suspicion of the media, the bottom line was that she needed his help, and she needed it fast.

‘It’s Detective Inspector Holden,’ she said as soon as he answered the phone.

‘What a pleasure, and what an unusual event to be rung up by you, Susan,’ he replied suavely.

Holden ignored the familiarity. If he had been ringing her, she would have taken him on, but right now she had no option except to swallow her irritation.

‘I need your help,’ she said bluntly.

‘Well, Susan,’ he said, enjoying his position of superiority, ‘that’s a turn-up. But of course I wouldn’t be being public-spirited if I didn’t give you every possible assistance in your investigations.’ He paused, and then noisily cleared his throat, before continuing. ‘However,’ he said with emphasis, ‘of course I do have to answer to my editor for my time and it is only fair to—’

‘You’ll get first bite at the story!’

Holden said sharply. ‘Don’t you worry!’

‘Oh, I’m not worried Susan. I know I can rely on your word. So what is it I can do for you?’

Al Smith was losing his cool. He had arrived early at the Wittenham Clumps car park. Deliberately so. He had wanted to get there in plenty of time to suss out the area. To see if he could gain any sort of edge. There were three cars parked up when he pulled in, and he felt better when he saw them. If the bastard was going to try and kill him, he wouldn’t want to do it in front of witnesses. So as long as there were other people there, he was safe. But suppose one of the cars was the killer’s. Maybe he too had come early. Maybe he was up there in one of the Clumps, hiding amongst the trees in the undergrowth. The Clumps were aptly named: two clumps of trees which appeared to have been plonked at random on the tops of these two hump-like hills by some higher power. A god with a love of camels and a sense of humour perhaps. But for Smith the place had a sense of something more sinister, a pagan god. Smith had been there only once before, and he remembered seeing a wicker figure in the nearest wood. He must have been eleven or twelve, and he remembered the fear he had felt. Not that he had admitted it to his mum or dad – that would have been sissy. But he remembered how very cold the wood had felt and how glad he had been to reach the far side and emerge into the bright, warming sunshine.

Suddenly he was back in the present, and realized that, ridiculously, he was shivering. He tried to ignore it and scanned the open grassland that surrounded the two hillocks. A woman with two small black-and-white dogs, Jack Russells probably, was walking up towards the left-hand copse, while a man with a light-coloured Labrador was climbing the slope towards the nearest copse. The driver of the third car was nowhere to be seen however. He – or she – could be anywhere: in one of the copses, or the other side and out of sight. A simple visitor enjoying the view and the air. Or the killer.

And so Smith waited, constantly surveying the terrain before him. Occasionally, he looked round behind himself, as a vehicle drove along the lane, but none slowed down to turn into the car park. Where the fuck was he? For the twentieth time he checked his watch. It was 5.15. How much longer should he give it before he ... before he did what? Just drive off? Or should he ring Jake’s mobile? What the hell was the bastard playing at?

‘Good evening!’ The woman with the Jack Russells took him completely by surprise. He had noticed her returning down the hill, but he had been so intent on looking out for the killer and so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he had completely overlooked her, and now here she was walking past him so close he could smell her perfume.

‘Good evening,’ he parroted back. He watched as she opened the rear passenger-side door. The dogs jumped dutifully in, and she slammed the door shut. Suppose the killer was a woman? Why the hell did it have to be a man? Wasn’t a woman just as capable of thumping Jake over the head or burning Martin to death in his own allotment shed. In fact, wasn’t a woman more likely to have done it than a man. If you thought about the planning and execution of Martin’s death (and Al had, like many others, followed every detail avidly in the local media), wasn’t that degree of malicious cunning typical of a woman? He watched as the woman, who had made no attempt to murder him, turned right out of the car park and began to accelerate down the hill towards the village. He stood watching until he could hear her engine no more. Then, he jumped. Almost literally.

‘Fuck!’ he swore, disgusted with his own reactions and feelings. His mobile was ringing. Hastily he dragged it out of his pocket. A quick glance showed it was Jake’s phone. He pressed the green button and pushed the mobile against his left ear. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he said aggressively. ‘I’ve been waiting ages.’