Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

She looked down at the floor, as if acknowledging his superiority, and only after several seconds did she look up.

‘Who used to top up your mother’s hip flask with whisky? Was it you?’

Holden’s sudden change of direction took Jim Wright completely by surprise, and he gaped like a landed fish desperate for water. Then his red face darkened to puce. ‘What’s your fucking game, Detective? What are you trying to say?’

‘Your mother had a hip flask. Someone topped it up with whisky for her. She came home most Sundays for lunch, didn’t she? So was that when you filled it up with whisky again?’

‘Not me,’ he snarled. ‘Not me, Detective!’

It was then that Holden noticed Maureen. She had made it as far as the archway through to the kitchen, but no further. She was watching her husband, and her two hands were attached to her hips like they had been stuck there with super-glue. ‘Was it you, Maureen?’ Holden asked quietly.

Her mouth opened as if to say something, but no words came out. Her face had turned a sickly, yellowish grey.

It was Jim who answered. ‘It wasn’t her who did it.’

Holden nodded, but her gaze was still fixed on Maureen. ‘Who was it then, Maureen? We need to know.’

>

Maureen’s eyes blinked. There was moisture in them, and distress too. ‘Our son, David.’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘He used to do it. It was one of his Sunday jobs.’

‘Actually,’ her husband butted in, ‘to be strictly accurate, David is our adopted son.’

‘What bloody difference does that make, you bastard?’ Maureen Wright moved a pace towards her husband, her hands detaching themselves from her hips. For a moment Holden saw them balling into fists, as if she was about to lash out at him, but Maureen stopped advancing, and unleashed instead a volley of words. ‘Adopted or not, we chose him, so he’s ours, full stop. Until we’re dead, and maybe beyond that too. Not that you’re much use to him as a father.’

‘Is David here?’ Holden didn’t need to see more of this. Watching a couple hacking bits out of each other – that was something she took no pleasure in.

‘He doesn’t live with us,’ Maureen said quickly. ‘Not any more. He’s twenty now, and lives in a flat on Barns Road. He needs his privacy at his age.’ The words poured out, a protective torrent.

‘Well, we will need to talk to him.’

‘He’s got Asperger’s syndrome,’ Maureen blurted out. ‘He’s not an extreme case, but you must treat him properly. And I’d like to be present.’

Holden nodded, as she assimilated this information. ‘We do have to ask him some questions.’ She tried to sound kind as well as firm. ‘But you’re welcome as long as you don’t interfere.’

‘OK,’ she said.

‘Good. Perhaps we should do that here, tomorrow morning.’

Fran Sinclair’s mobile rang. She was halfway through EastEnders – not to mention her second gin and tonic – and she was tempted to ignore it. But she was tempted too to see who it was she was ignoring. She picked the mobile up. Bella!

On screen, Phil Mitchell was doing his one-man bore routine. Phil Mitchell was the character she would most readily push off the top floor of the Empire State Building if she ever got the chance, so she muted the TV with the remote control, and answered her sister.

‘The police want to interview me again.’

‘Do they?’ Fran wasn’t surprised. They were doing a lot of interviewing again after Greenleaf’s death. She’d had that bear of a sergeant asking her for a minute by minute account of her Monday afternoon and evening. To see if she’d got an alibi. Which of course, she hadn’t. She told them she’d been sitting at home on her own, but that didn’t constitute an alibi as far as they were concerned. She took a swig of her gin and tonic, and swilled it round her mouth like mouthwash, savouring the sharpness.

‘At Sunnymede,’ her sister was saying. ‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Well maybe I’ll see you.’

‘I’m worried.’

Fran giggled. The gin was doing its worst – or maybe best. ‘You’re worried? Why? Did you kill Greenleaf? Because if you did, you should be worried. And if you didn’t, then what’s there to be worried about?’ She giggled again. She was pleased with that response. It sounded smart. Clever. Much cleverer than she could usually manage.

‘He got me suspended!’ Bella persisted. ‘I’m an obvious suspect.’

‘In that case, you’d better get your alibi sorted!’ Fran belched, the tonic now taking its turn.