Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

‘Then I will have to leave you in peace.’

She gave a single laugh, followed by a cough. ‘I get enough peace, thanks. Pass me some water, will you, and then you can ask your damned questions.’

Holden got up, poured some water into the glass on the side table, and offered it to her. She grasped it in two hands, and helped herself, taking several gulps, before she passed it back to the hovering Holden.

‘No notes, no hidden tape recorder, no nothing. Promise me!’

‘I promise.’

‘And may God condemn you to eternal damnation if you break your promise!’ The ferocity of the ill woman took Holden quite by surprise, and for a few moments she busied herself with replacing the glass, and picking up a greetings card that had fallen on the floor.

‘Well, get on with it then!’

Holden sat down, and composed herself. She had listed several questions in her head, but inevitably they were no longer there when she wanted to draw on them. She cleared her throat. ‘When I asked Lucy why she had committed these murders, she told me to ask you.’

‘Did she now?’ Drabble looked at her quizzically. ‘When did she say that?’

‘Just before she died.’

‘Did you push her?’ The question hit her like a punch in the solar plexus.

‘What do you mean?’ Of course, Holden knew what she meant, but evasion came easily to her. ‘We had a struggle. She had already killed Dr Pointer. She had stabbed her and then she had pushed her over the balcony on to the railings below.’

‘Stabbed her?’ There was real surprise in her voice. ‘That wasn’t in the paper.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ Holden couldn’t see any point in withholding this information. It would be in the public domain soon enough. ‘But that’s what she did. She stabbed her, and then she pushed her over the edge.’

Drabble was staring hard at her. She grunted. ‘So, it was revenge was it?’

‘Revenge?’ Holden was floundering. ‘I’m not quite with you.’

‘Liar!’ She laughed. ‘You killed Lucy out of revenge. Yes or no?’

‘No!’ she replied sharply. Perhaps too sharply. ‘We had a struggle on a balcony seven floors up. You know that. I guess I was stronger, and she ended up falling.’

‘You mean you pushed her.’

Holden was non-plussed by this turn of events. She had come to try to tie up the loose ends about Lucy’s motives for murder, and here she was being, in effect, accused of murder by a terminally ill old woman. She tried to defend herself. ‘When you’re fighting like that with someone, there’s a lot of pushing and shoving.’

‘You were lovers, right, you and Dr Karen Pointer.’

Again, Holden was startled. That had certainly not been broadcast in the Oxford Mail by Don Alexander. Not yet.

‘There’s no point in denying it,’ Drabble said firmly. ‘I can see it by your face. And besides, Lucy told me. It’s amazing what she learnt in that dentist’s surgery. She heard Geraldine Payne and Karen talking about Karen and you.’

Holden again made no response. What was there to do except admit it, or deny it, and she couldn’t deny it. She wouldn’t do that.

‘So when Lucy killed your Karen, you saw red, and you killed her. Deliberately. Not that anyone can prove it was deliberate, but I think we both know it was.’ She had been leaning forward slightly as she made her argument, but now she lay back, and again shut her eyes. Holden was relieved to get this break. Her mouth was dry, and she wished now she had helped herself to coffee in the reception area. There was no second cup on Marjorie Drabble’s side table, so she couldn’t even pour herself some water. She ran her tongue round her lips, and tried to think how to regain control of the situation.

‘OK, then!’ Drabble’s eyes were open, and there was both triumph and amusement on her face. ‘It’s your turn.’

Holden looked back at her. She had thought a lot about this since Karen’s death. In fact, when she had not been grieving or weeping, her only coherent thoughts had been about this. She began. ‘The question that I keep hitting my head against is why now? I can understand that Lucy hated her stepmother, but why did she kill her just ten days ago, and not ten weeks ago or ten months ago.’

‘I’d have thought that would have been obvious. She had just discovered Maria had been having an affair with the plumber.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Holden admitted uncertainly, ‘and that would explain why she killed Jack Smith soon afterwards, but—’

‘But what? That all seems very straightforward to me.’