Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

‘Thank you so much for a lovely evening,’ she had said, at the door to her block of apartments. ‘No need to come up. I’m not that decrepit yet. And very nice to meet you, Karen.’

‘Likewise, Jane.’

‘I don’t wish to lecture you, but you won’t be driving after all that wine will you? My husband died in a car crash you see.…’ She tailed off remembering. Despite everything, it was a bad memory.

Karen rested her hand briefly on her arm. ‘Susan told me, and don’t worry, I won’t be driving.’

‘Good.’

Susan leant forward and kissed her mother on the cheek. It was her chance to say something. ‘Karen is staying the night, Mum,’ she said quietly. ‘So no need to worry.’

‘Right!’ Detective Inspector Holden sat in her office in the Cowley Station, and looked round at Detective Sergeant Fox and Detective Constables Lawson and Wilson. It was just gone 8.30 a.m. and she felt better than she had done for weeks. ‘Time to assess where we are. We’ve got two deaths, two mobile phones with photographs and, as far as we know, two paintings. But so far, no answers and certainly no arrests. So, what do we know for certain? Wilson?’

Wilson wasn’t exactly ready for the question, but he wasn’t exactly unready either. He was getting used to Holden’s methods, and firing questions from the hip was certainly one of them.

‘Both murder victims were killed by the same person, or at least the same weapon.’

‘Good. But if it was the same weapon, why not the same killer, or are you just hedging your bets?’

‘The second killing was more frenzied. A thrust to the heart, then to the neck, and then into the eyes.’ He paused, wondering how this was going down. ‘The first killing was more clinical.’

‘Lawson, any comments?’

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Lawson hesitated, remembering the corpse of Jack Smith, and in particular the red holes where the eyes had once been. ‘The second killing was certainly more frenzied. But in both cases, the first blow was one aimed at the heart, and the second to the neck was to make sure.’

‘Fox.’ Holden rapped out his name as if taking a role call. ‘One killer or two. Put us out of our misery.’

Fox leant back in his chair and looked around, at Lawson and Wilson, and then back to Holden. ‘It’s a hard call, Guv.’

‘Sergeant! I want an answer, not a philosophical discussion.’ She slapped her hand down on the desk, not hard, but sufficient to make her point.

‘One.’ Fox leant forward and picked up the mug of black coffee that sat on the desk in front of him. He took a sip. He looked around. He had got their attention. ‘The first killing took place outside in filthy weather in a public car park. The killer didn’t have time for afters. A stab in the bodily mass, then one to the neck to make sure, and he – or she – took off. But Jack Smith was different. He was inside, in a private place. So the killer had time, to do what he wanted to do, to do what he would have ideally wanted to do to the first victim. So two victims and one killer.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant. There’s no certainty, I admit, but I think you’re right.’ She looked at Wilson and Lawson, curious to see their reactions, but there was no need to rub the lesson in. The bottom line was that experience wasn’t something you were born with. ‘So, what do we make of the two paintings? The one that Jack Smith found and the one we found on his mobile. Wilson. Your turn again.’

The young constable looked around nervously. Holden looked back, but said nothing. He was a nice lad, but she wasn’t sure he had what it took. It was a sink or swim business, and she was afraid that sooner or later he would end up drowning.

‘Either Jack Smith was lying, or there are two distinct paintings.’ Wilson paused, trying to marshal his thoughts. ‘The one he described was totally different from the one we found at D.R. Antiquities.’

‘And what do we know about the one we found?’

‘It is probably quite valuable – Mr Russell admitted that – but not hugely valuable.’ Wilson paused again, uncertain what else there was to say about the painting. They had all seen it, after all, so they knew what it looked like.

‘It’s quite small, isn’t it Wilson?’

‘Well, yes,’ he replied.

‘So it could have been hidden under floorboards?’

Wilson frowned, in thought rather than perplexity, for suddenly things had started to slot into place in his brain. ‘Of course, what with all the supporting beams, it would be difficult to hide a large painting under boards.’

‘Exactly,’ Holden said cutting in. She was impatient to push on. ‘It’s just that yesterday Lawson came up with the theory that maybe there was only one painting.’

‘Did she?’ There was irritation in Fox’s voice. He liked working for Holden, and was more than happy to be a sergeant, taking orders, and supporting his DI, but he was not immune to jealousy. And right now the green-eyed monster was telling him that Detective Constable Lawson was usurping his position, and was becoming – had become even – the person with whom his Guvnor swapped ideas and theories.

‘She may have been playing devil’s advocate, of course,’ Holden continued quickly. ‘But even so, let’s just suppose for a moment that Jack Smith lied, and that the painting he found under the floorboards was the same one as we found pictured on his mobile. Why would he have lied to us about what the picture looked like? Why say it had two women and a prone man, when it had one man and one woman in some sort of classical seduction story?’