Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

‘He got expelled, two weeks ago.’

‘Did he now! And why was that?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Fox smiled. He’d got the measure of this arrogant prick. ‘Drugs, was it?’

Holden had just sat down with her pistachio ice cream and Americano coffee when Fox walked in. ‘Treat yourself, Sergeant,’ she said cheerfully.

‘No thanks,’ he replied, sitting down opposite her. ‘Not ice cream weather, in my book.’

She made a face, and took a bite out of hers.

‘Master Tull’s alibi has gone AWOL,’ he said.

‘AWOL? In what sense?’

‘In the sense that he wasn’t at that party he claimed to have been at. He went out to score some drugs, and his only witness for the evening is a guy who has just been thrown out of Cornforth for selling coke to the other students.’

Holden took a lick of her ice cream as she considered this information. ‘So he had the opportunity. What about the motive? Killing your mother is pretty extreme. Drugs I can believe, but.…’

But Fox had had time to consider this, and had his reasoning ready. ‘Suppose he hadn’t got enough money. Suppose he was desperate for a fix, so he went to meet her after her lecture, got into an argument, and when she refused him money he stabbed her.’

‘It’s possible,’ Holden admitted, ‘but it’s all speculation. What exactly do we know about him to support that idea?’

Fox made a face. He knew it was speculation, but as a theory he felt it wasn’t a bad one, so to hear Holden dismiss it so casually was irritating. God, she could be a pain up the arse at times. He had just blown a suspect’s alibi wide open, and her reaction was to play devil’s advocate. Thank you, ma’am!

‘We know he takes drugs,’ Fox said. ‘And we know he can lie.’

Holden took another lick, but made no comment. Fox wished that he had had something now. A woman had sat down behind Holden in his direct eye line. She had a round face, frizzy hair and oval glasses that made her look rather academic, and she had in her hand a cornet of dark-brown ice cream. He wondered how old she was – maybe mid-thirties he reckoned – and then his eyes drifted from the ice cream to her left hand and he suddenly realized that he was looking to see if she had a wedding ring. She didn’t, not that that necessarily meant anything nowadays.

‘Is there someone you know over there, Sergeant?’ Holden’s words broke into his brief introspection, and he shook his head in answer.

‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

‘Do you want to know about Lucy Tull’s alibi?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Because I find it disconcerting, in fact bloody rude, when you stare over my shoulder to check out the talent.’

Fox bowed his head slightly, as if in apology. ‘So what did you fmd out about her?’ he asked dutifully.

‘Well, she was probably at the hospital till maybe 8.45 p.m. At least that’s what she wrote in the visitor’s book, and Mrs Drabble supports that sort of timing. But even so I reckon she could have made it to St Clement’s in time to kill her stepmother. So time isn’t an issue. I rang Oxford Cabs. She was picked up from here by a private hire car just after 10.00 p.m. So the key question is, was she here in the intervening period, as she claims?’

‘You’ve asked, presumably?’

‘Of course. But no joy. The manager can’t remember. He says he thinks he’s seen her in here from time to time, but there were a lot of people that night escaping the rain. And the two Poles who were working that night with him have just gone back to Krakow for a month.’

‘Great!’ Fox looked around the room, his eyes methodically scanning the four walls. ‘No CCTV?’

‘No.’

‘So she’s not got an alibi either.’

‘And neither has her father.’