Blood on the Cowley Road (DI Susan Holden 1)

‘Especially not my tutor. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could vomit.’

‘So you didn’t discuss it with anyone at all?’

For several moments the question hung in the air. Bicknell pursed his lips in thought, before slowly raising his glass and draining the red wine from it. Only then did he look Holden full in the face.

‘For the last few months, I’ve been going to a support group. For people who’ve suffered loss. In my case, my parents. For others it was husbands and wives, lovers, children, in one case a twin sister. And we talked about how we felt and all that sort of stuff, and how we could properly confront our loss and move on. To be honest, I thought it was all going to be a load of bollocks at first, but it wasn’t, and so I kept going back. And I got pally with this guy who had lost his girlfriend in a car crash, and one night we went to the pub afterwards, and I told him about my idea and he was really interested and encouraging, and said I really should do it.’

‘And this guy’s name?’

‘Jim. I didn’t know his other name. First names only in the group. But, of course, I recognized him when his face appeared in the papers.’

‘It was Jim Blunt?’

‘Yes.’

Holden took a deep breath in, and then let it out again, as she tried to maintain a semblance of calm.

Lawson, sensing the situation, took up the baton. ‘Can I ask you, sir, if you actually discussed with Jim Blunt the precise day you were going to do it?’

‘Oh yes, we discussed it,’ Bicknell said. He was relieved now. Talking about it even to the police, was amazingly cathartic and comforting. Outside the support group, he never talked about his parents. Now he spoke almost cheerfully. ‘In fact, he suggested that Friday was a good day for him, and he might come and take a look himself after he’d attended some meeting he had first thing.’

At 9.05 the following morning, DI Holden presided over a meeting of Fox, Wilson and Lawson. She herself had arrived in the office at 7.45 a.m., but had felt no sense of impatience or indeed urgency. She knew what she wanted done, and 7.45 was too early to go banging on doors. She was glad, however, of the peace of her office, and took the opportunity to read through the files and statements again, and to make some notes for the interview she had planned. At 9.05, when the three of her colleagues filed in, she briefed the two men on the previous night’s developments, and then laid out her instructions for the morning. Lawson would accompany her in locating Danny Flynn. Fox would get hold of Blunt’s mobile phone records, and also make a phone call to Dr Adrian Ratcliffe. And Wilson was given the task of knocking on doors.

Holden and Lawson found Danny just leaving his flat. He recognized both of them, and looked at them uneasily. Like many people, he found himself getting uncomfortable when confronted by the police, even when they were bending over backwards to be nice.

‘Sorry to bother you, Danny,’ Holden said in a voice that she hoped sounded both apologetic and friendly. ‘But we really do need your help.’

‘Why?’ he said. He was genuinely puzzled. It was weeks since the young one had talked to him in the hospital, and he had heard on Radio Oxford the night before that the inquest had decided that Sarah had committed suicide, so he couldn’t see what else there was to talk about.

It was the young one who spoke next, her voice calm and barely loud enough to be heard over the passing cars. ‘Danny, do you remember that when you were in the hospital you told me how you had seen Sarah visiting Jim Blunt’s house.’

‘Of course,’ he said indignantly. ‘I’m not an amnesiac, you know.’

‘No, of course not. All I want is for you to tell me what Sarah was wearing that night?’

Danny didn’t answer at first. Instead, he busied himself with doing up the zip of his windcheater, and then thrust his hands into his pockets. His face and eyes remained cast down, as he searched for a detailed memory of that night. Eventually he looked up at Lawson. ‘She was wearing a skirt, black I think or some other dark colour. And a short jacket or coat. It might have been leather. And she wore boots. Red ones. I remember that clearly.’ Danny looked down again, apparently finished.

‘That’s really clear, Danny,’ Lawson enthused. ‘Was she wearing any jewellery that you can remember?’

‘No,’ he said quickly, still looking down. ‘I wasn’t that close and it was dark.’

‘I understand.’ Again she spoke

gently, and with care, all too conscious of how suddenly her last interview of Danny had disintegrated. ‘I think you said last time you saw them kiss, just before Sarah left. Can you tell me a bit more about it. Was it, like, a kiss between girlfriend and boyfriend or maybe more of a hug like between friends?’

Danny twisted his head, first to the left and then to the right, a man enduring the pain of something he’d much rather not remember. ‘Not a hug.’

Lawson paused, not sure how much further to press. Holden, sensing this, intervened.

‘Danny,’ she said. ‘I just want to ask you one question. It may seem a bit odd, but I want to ask it anyway, and then we’ll leave you in peace. OK?’

He finally raised his head to look at his questioners, and nodded slightly.

‘I know you’ve met Sarah’s sister, Anne. They are very alike, aren’t they? So what I want to know is whether you’re certain the person you saw that night was Sarah. Could it possibly have been Anne?’

‘You think I’m stupid,’ he said, his voice rising wildly. Lawson recognized the behaviour and knew that they had lost him now, just as she had previously lost him in the hospital. Holden lifted her hands, in apology or surrender, but Danny wasn’t looking. He had turned, and was already moving away from them down the Iffley Road, striding out like a competitor in a fifty-kilometre walk. Lawson made as if to follow him, but Holden grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t bother,’ she said firmly. ‘We’ve done enough.’

Holden’s team met up again in her office at just after eleven that morning. After she had given an account of their encounter with Danny, Wilson was asked to report on his door-to-door enquiries.