Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

‘I went home.’

‘What time would that have been?’

The reply to this question came not from Dominic, but from Sarah Russell. ‘He came in just as I was settling down to watch Waking the Dead.’

‘And he stayed in, did he?’

‘As I recall, he got himself a whisky and then fell asleep in the chair. It was very peaceful, apart from the snoring!’

‘Is there anyone else who can verify this?’

Sarah puckered her lips together while she considered the question. Then her eyes brightened. ‘There’s Charlie!’

‘And who is Charlie?’ DI Holden replied.

‘Charlie is my cocker spaniel.’

Mrs Jane Holden laughed when, much later, her daughter recounted this to her. ‘She must have a sense of humour, that Sarah!’

Mother and daughter were sitting at the elegant mock-Georgian dining table in Mrs Holden’s spacious retirement flat in Grandpont Grange. They had just eaten a three-course meal courtesy, Susan was fairly certain, of Marks and Spencer, and in deference to the older woman’s bad back they were still sitting at the table as they sipped their coffees.

‘I’m not sure I thanked you for the supper,’ Susan said absentmindedly, ignoring her mother’s comment. She was looking down at her cup, which she held in her two hands as if cradling something small and precious.

‘I’m used to that,’ her mother said sharply.

Her daughter looked up. ‘Sorry!’ It was the automatic reaction of a daughter to a demanding mother.

‘Your father never said thank you for a meal. He would clear away the dirty dishes, and stack them on the side in the kitchen, but he never said thank you.’

Silence descended. Perhaps if Susan had been a perfect daughter, she would have pondered the implications of this exchange, and then sympathetically explored the issues and feelings that underlay her mother’s words. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t, for her mind was on other matters. And they were much more pressing. At least, as far as she was concerned, they were. She frowned. ‘That’s the last thing I would have said about her.’

Her mother looked at her in bewilderment. ‘About whom?’

‘Sarah Russell. Serious, controlling, contemptuous even. But I wouldn’t have described her as having a sense of humour.’

‘Oh?’ Her mother was back on track. ‘You didn’t find it funny, what she said about Charlie the cocker spaniel?’

Again, her daughter’s response was not an answer. ‘He’s the hilarious one in their relationship. The life and soul of the party. Like daddy was. The perpetual naughty little boy. Sarah is stuck with being his mother.’

‘But that doesn’t mean she can’t sometimes be funny.’

‘I think she was trying to distract me.’

‘From what?’

Her daughter didn’t immediately reply. It was something that had occurred to her only as she had been sipping at her coffee, and she needed to give it one more whirl in her head before she gave life to it by expressing it in words. Eventually, however, she shrugged. ‘From the fact that she is his alibi.’

Shortly after making this observation, Susan Holden pecked her mother on the cheek, thanked her again for the meal, and left. Or at least she would have left, except that her mother, who had gone to the front door of the flat as if to let her out, had turned and was leaning against it, blocking her exit. If Holden had not been so preoccupied, she would perhaps have sensed trouble.

‘You ought to go out more,’ she heard.

‘I thought that was what I was doing this evening,’ she replied. ‘Going out.’

‘Supper with your mother does not constitute going out.’ Her mother spoke firmly, as mothers do when squaring up to their children. In her case she had got only one daughter, but that made her well-being all the more precious. And she was worried about her. ‘We are sociable beings, designed to have a partner in life.’

‘Ah!’ Susan knew where this was going. It was a surprisingly long time – two or three months maybe – since they had had a conversation like this. But not long enough. Susan was tempted to answer back, but the single glass of wine over her supper had mellowed her mood. So she fought the urge.

Her mother was still leaning against the door, looking at her daughter, and there was sadness in her eyes. ‘Just because Richard was a bad one doesn’t mean every man is.’