Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

‘Oh!’

‘I’m afraid I can’t pretend that things have moved along very far. As we discussed, the injury is consistent with him having shot himself, but if someone had been able to get close to him, that person could have put a gun up close to his head and … bang!’

‘How about the angle of entry? Doesn’t that help. In terms of probability, which way does it point?’ She was aware even as she spoken that a tone of desperation had entered into her voice. She heard a sound in her ear that might have been a sigh.

‘I can’t say for definite one way or another. And I can’t give you odds, Susan. I’m not a bookie at the greyhounds. The way things are, unless or until we come up with something more at our end, you need to keep an open mind.’

‘What about the time of death?’

‘Ah, I thought that might be your next question. Again, I’m not able to be a huge help. Given that he wasn’t found until Sunday morning and rigor mortis was fully established, the best we can do is make a judgement from his stomach contents. But assuming that he had breakfast no later than seven o’clock that morning, all I can say is that there is no sign of any more recent meal. Breakfast had been pretty much fully digested by the time of death, so I guess that leaves the time slot pretty wide. Let’s say after nine o’clock, and before noon. Probably.’

‘Probably?’

‘Sorry!’

‘Thanks,’ she said, speaking without even a hint of irony.

‘Thanks? I’m not sure I’ve been much help.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ she agreed firmly. ‘But I wanted to say thanks anyway, Doctor.’

‘I appreciate it, Inspector.’

‘Sorry about yesterday.’

For the second day running, DI Holden and DS Fox were seated in Sarah Russell’s living room. This time, their host and interviewee chose, to Holden’s relief, to sit opposite them rather than stand in front of the fireplace. The only obvious reminder of her fall was a plaster on the side of her forehead, and the livid swelling underneath it.

‘I hope you’re feeling up to this?’ Holden replied. It was a politeness only. She wasn’t about to get up and leave if Sarah said she wasn’t.

‘I’ve felt better.’ Of course she’d felt better.

‘I hope it won’t take long.’

‘In that case, why don’t you get on with it?’ The fall had clearly not knocked the aggressive streak out of her. ‘You could start by telling me if it was suicide or murder.’

‘I’m afraid we still aren’t sure about that.’

‘Great!’ The fall hadn’t damaged her capacity to do sarcasm either. Holden wondered if this was delayed shock, or a ruse to divert them, or just normal service resumed. She glanced at Fox, a pre-arranged signal. He was sitting with a notebook open on his knees.

‘When we spoke to you on Saturday,’ he said carefully, ‘you said your husband left home that morning at 7.30. Is that correct?’

‘As near as damn it.’

‘And that was the last time you saw him.’

‘Of course.’

‘And you went back to bed till when?’

Suspicion raised its head in Sarah Russell’s head. He knew something. This was not a detective going through the motions, ticking off the questions and counting the seconds until he could be out the door and off to the next interview.

‘Who says I went back to bed?’

Fox looked down at his notes. ‘What you said was: “Saturday is my chance of a lie-in”. So I was assuming that meant that you went back to bed.’

‘Is that what policemen do – make assumptions?’

Fox didn’t rise. He wasn’t going to answer her question because he knew from experience that when interviewees got aggressive, there is always a reason. Sometimes it was fear, but this woman showed no sign of that. So he smiled back at her, and deliberately paused. He never got to respond, however, because Holden cut in. She was not prepared to play softball.