Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

Blunt: Yes. James Henry Blunt.

Holden: Did you kill Jake Arnold?

Blunt: Yes.

Holden: Did you kill Martin Mace?

Blunt: Yes.

Holden: Did you kill Sam Sexton?

Blunt: Yes.

Holden: Did you kill Alan Smith?

Blunt: Did he die then?

Holden: Did you kill Sarah Johnson?

Blunt: Sarah? (There was a long pause.)

Holden She fell from the top of the car park. Did you push her?

Blunt: No.

Holden: Were you there at the top of the car park when she fell to her death?

(Blunt began to laugh and after several seconds turned towards the window. At the staff nurse’s insistence, the interview was terminated.)

EPILOGUE

They decided to drive as far as the St Clement’s car park, and then walk. Not that there was a lot of choice, it being Oxford. It was a clear, cold night, the first one of the winter, and after the rain and endless low cloud of the previous week, it came as something of a relief. For Lawson, the unexpected sunshine of that day seemed highly appropriate: her permanent transfer to Holden’s section had been all but sealed (the paperwork was on the Chief Superintendent’s desk, awaiting his signature), a small pay rise had been secured, and only that morning she had been allowed to sit in and witness the conclusion to the inquest into Sarah Johnson’s death. Life was indeed good.

‘A good day at the office, Guv,’ she said, as the two of them stood at the pedestrian crossing. Holden turned and stared at her constable with a look of incredulity. She had spoken barely a word since leaving the station. It was not that Lawson had found her silence sullen or gruff, it was just that Holden had brought every attempt at conversation to a gentle but firm closure. But this, Lawson kept telling herself, was a social outing, and therefore chat was essential.

Holden sniffed. ‘For you, Lawson, perhaps.’ And she stepped onto the crossing as a yellow Mini pulled up to let them over. Another co

nversation strangled at birth. Lawson sighed silently. Well, maybe there would be people at the private viewing to talk to. A private viewing. It sounded so exclusive. The first she had ever been to, and hopefully not the last. She didn’t move in the world of private viewings, and she had been delighted, and touched, when Holden had shown her the invitation: ‘DI Susan Holden and colleague’ had been hand-written in the most elegant of scripts at the top of the printed card.

‘So, would you like to come, Lawson,’ she had said. ‘Fox laughed when I showed him, and Wilson said he was playing football, which seems a pretty feeble excuse to me, and—’

‘So I’m third choice, am I, Guv?’ Lawson had chipped in, no longer feeling quite so touched.

Holden had looked at her with irritation. ‘It’s a question of seniority, Lawson.’ She snapped. ‘I could hardly ask you first.’

‘I was joking, Guv,’ she had replied hastily, conscious she had overstepped the mark.

‘I don’t think so, Lawson. I don’t think so at all.’ There had been a silence then, cold and hard. Eventually, Lawson had been forced to plead: ‘I would like to come with you, Guv. If you don’t mind.’

Holden had given a half laugh. ‘Look, Lawson, do you think I couldn’t have persuaded Fox to accompany me, or Wilson, if I’d really wanted their company? But I didn’t want them. I wanted you, because I thought you’d blend in better. Fox is a philistine and would have stood out like a second-hand car salesman in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. As for Wilson, bless him, well he’s not exactly socially adept. Whereas you, I trust, will just merge in. They know I’m a cop, but we are going as enthusiasts of art. You could be my young cousin, or half-sister from a second marriage, or even my innocent young lover. Just so long as we aren’t obviously coppers. That way we might learn more.’

‘About art?’ Lawson had said, eager to make amends.

Holden laughed again, but it was a louder and altogether kinder laugh, cut off only by the sudden need to negotiate the final road crossing. They were now on the approaches to Magdalen Bridge, the ancient eastern entrance to the medieval city. They walked briskly in a finally contented silence, along the slight curve of the High Street until they came to their destination.

The Bare Canvas gallery was certainly not as Holden had seen it when she had last visited it to interview Les Whiting. The garish, abstract, frameless canvases had disappeared. So too had the bright white walls on which they had been displayed, to be replaced by a network of oppressive grey partitions which mimicked the grim walls of the multi-storey car park. The wall nearest the door as they entered had a blue circular plaque on it. Holden expected it to be a copy of the one that she had seen, but it was not. In the middle was a single word followed by a question mark: ‘Why?’ And round it, in smaller writing, the words ‘Ed Bicknell and Ms Johnson invite you to ask the question’.

‘Welcome, Susan!’ Les Whiting stood before them, arms held wide apart in full greeting mode, a mode which obviously involved dispensing with the formalities of police titles. ‘Les Whiting, gallery owner and entrepreneur, at your service!’ He bowed theatrically.