Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Oh that’s genuine,’ the young woman said quickly. ‘He had a camera set up at a different angle, shooting down the street and taking shots every thirty seconds. It shows people looking at the plaque, and then the dead body, and everyone rubbernecking, but he wasn’t very happy with it. When you zoom in to get a closer view, the images lose definition. He needed a better camera really.’

Holden moved forward round the side of the table to get a closer look. Lawson and Holden followed, and for some time the three of them watched in silence, sipping from their glasses, as every fifteen seconds or so a new photo took up position on the screen.

‘We haven’t seen these before,’ Holden said without elaboration.

‘No,’ agreed Lawson. Though at that moment her mind wasn’t really attending to the images that kept appearing in front of her. ‘I’ve been thinking, Guv,’ she continued.’

‘Don’t overdo it, Constable,’ Holden murmured back.

‘Well, being here makes you think. And there’s one thing that I really can’t get my head round. In fact, it’s really beginning to bug me.’ She paused, untypically needing permission to carry on.

‘Yes?’ Holden said, still watching the PC screen. ‘What is it then?’

‘Well,’ Lawson said earnestly, ‘there’s one thing that really puzzles me. Don’t you think it’s an extraordinary coincidence that on the very same day that Anne visits her sister at the crack of dawn, Bicknell sets up his suicide plaque just down the road. I mean, it might be coincidence, but personally I find it hard to believe.’

For a moment, Holden turned to look at her colleague. There was a frown across her face. ‘I see,’ she said quietly. She continued to gaze in the direction of Lawson for several seconds, before turning silently back to yet another new image on the PC. What she saw, however, caused a dramatic change in manner. ‘Look!’ The excitement in her voice was palpable. She pointed urgently towards the screen. ‘There, Lawson! In the background.’ And she moved her finger further forward until it was almost touching. ‘Look at the jogger!’

‘I see him, Guv.’

‘A woman or a man? What do you think?’

‘Very hard to identify, Guv. The hood is hiding most of the face. A woman or a small man.’

‘There’s red piping on the trousers. Oh Damn!’ Their fifteen seconds was up, and in the next photo to be displayed, taken exactly thirty seconds later, the jogger was nowhere to be seen.

Holden turned and tapped the woman by the table on the shoulder. ‘Do you know how long this runs? When it started and when it finished?’

She puckered her nose as she assessed the question. ‘I think it’s about a fifteen, maybe twenty-minute loop. Sorry, I can’t pretend I’ve watched it through.’

Holden turned back to her colleague. ‘The time, Lawson. It must have been a couple of minutes after Sarah was killed.’

‘Are you suggesting that the jogger was something to do with—’

‘It’s a cul-de-sac, isn’t it? The jogger is coming out of a cul-de-sac.’

Lawson strained to remember what the side-street was like. ‘I think there are some flats on the other side, so maybe the jogger lived there?’

‘But if not, where did he or she come from? From the car park. In which case, the jogger must be the killer.’

‘Based on size, it can’t be Blunt.’

‘Which leaves us with Anne Johnson.’

Lawson looked at her boss. Holden’s whole face was alight with excitement, as the implications of what she was saying and thinking surged through her body. Lawson, however, felt uncertain and even bemused by this sudden development. She fiddled nervously with the stud earring in her right ear, as she tried to weigh her next words with care.

‘It is possible,’ she admitted uncertainly, ‘but even if it’s correct, proving it may be harder.’

‘I know that!’ Holden replied emphatically. ‘I’m not stupid, Lawson.’

‘No, Guv,’ Lawson said quickly, and then turned back to watch the still revolving cycle of Bicknell’s photographs.

Holden too turned, waiting for the jogger to come round again, but she was irritated to find that her attention no longer fully engaged. Partly that was because most of the photos had nothing to capture her interest, and partly because her mind refused to jettison what Lawson had said earlier about the coincidence of Bicknell’s suicide plaque project and Sarah’s supposed suicide.

‘Lawson,’ she said finally, her eyes still on the photos, ‘I think we need a copy of these, and I think too we need a chat with Bicknell.’

Lawson turned to look at her boss, but her eyes focused instead some metres beyond her. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said quietly, ‘here the great man is!’

Bicknell was approaching the drinks table, an empty wine glass in o