Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘Are you drinking?’ Bella’s irritation was apparent even down the rubbish phone connection they had got. ‘Look!’ she said, her voice growing more strident with every syllable. ‘This is serious. What’s going to happen to me? Do you think I’ll get my job back now Greenleaf is dead?’

Fran wanted to laugh again, but she was seized instead by a bout of wheezing and coughing that betrayed all too vividly her years of devotion to cigarettes. Only when it had subsided was she able to voice a response. ‘The police are investigating two suspicious deaths at Sunnymede, and you’re concerned about your job. How very single-minded of you, dear sister! But to answer it, yes I’d say that your chances have very much improved with Greenleaf’s death. But, of course, it is out of my hands. It’s Margaret Laistor who will be making the decision.’

‘But you will back me up, won’t you, Sis? Tell the saintly Margaret what a bastard he was?’

‘Sure I will. I’ll cover your back, just like I always do.’

‘Bless you, Sis.’

‘Bye!’ Fran killed the call. The credits were coming up at the end of EastEnders. Not that she cared that she’d missed some of it. There were more important things in life. Not to mention iPlayer and the Sunday omnibus.

She tipped her glass, until she had drained it, and then burst into giggles again. Bella saying ‘Bless you’. Now that really did take the biscuit!

CHAPTER 9

Of course I put the whisky in Nan Nan’s flask that Sunday. I always did. She’d get cross if I didn’t, and when she was cross, she was really nasty. She could say terrible things. Not that I told the police that last bit. I don’t want them to think badly of her. Anyway it was my job to do it. I always come home on Sunday. Dad would go and get Nan Nan from the old folks’ home, and Mum would cook the roast dinner. When she arrived, I’d get her a drink, and she’d also give me her hip flask, and I’d top it up with whisky for her to take back to the home. Mind you, when I say top up, that’s not really true. Usually it was empty, so it’d be a case of fill it up, not top it up.

‘Did you ever add anything to the whisky?’ the lady detective asked.

‘Once,’ I said. ‘You see, once Dad told me to add some water. He told me she was drinking too much whisky. ‘She’s drinking me out of house and home,’ he said. So I mixed some water with the whisky, but she knew, and the next Sunday she didn’t half tell me off. I didn’t like that. So I never tried it again.’

‘David,’ the lady detective asked, really slow, as if I was some sort of idiot, ‘someone put some medicine into your gran’s flask before she died. Something to make her sleep better. Only it went wrong and she went to sleep and never woke up. Was that you, David?’

Went to sleep and never woke up! Does the lady think I don’t know what death is? Does she think I am completely brainless? She was accusing me of killing Nan Nan. I went mad then. I started shouting and all sorts. ‘I didn’t!’ I shouted. ‘I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t!’

Then Mum started shouting too, shouting at the lady detective, and it was terribly noisy, so I stopped shouting and put my hands over my ears until it had all gone quiet.

‘Sorry!’ the lady said. But she wasn’t sorry, I could see that. She looked at me like I was a dumb child. People often do. And she smiled a false smile. ‘I just need to ask you where you were this last Monday,’ she said.

So I told her. ‘I went to work,’ I said. ‘I got there at 9 o’clock, and I had my lunch at 12 o’clock, and I went home at 4.30 p.m. like I usually do.’

‘And what did you do in the evening? Did you go out at all?’

‘No’ I said. ‘I stayed in all evening because I wanted to play on my new computer game. I also watched EastEnders. I like EastEnders.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

‘I’m going to be late for work because of you,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mum. ‘I’ve already spoken to Jaz.’

Doesn’t Mum understand? That’s not the point. I hate being late. I’m never late. Being late is bad.

So I went and caught the bus to work.

I’m not stupid. I know that the lady asked about Monday because that was when Mr Greenleaf was killed. Do I look stupid?

Mother doesn’t think I’m stupid. She’s told me. I’ll send her a text. Perhaps she’ll buy me an ice cream at lunchtime. I’d like a blackcurrant one.

‘So, what do you think?’

They were at the end of Littlehay Road, waiting to pull out into the Oxford Road. It wasn’t exactly a perfectly timed question from Holden, especially as it was Fox who was driving, and he was a man who liked to concentrate when he was behind the wheel.

Holden shut her eyes. She wasn’t in a hurry for an answer, but she did want to hear what he had to say. The car lurched forward, and then very quickly stopped. It was well past rush hour, but the traffic heading into the city centre suggested otherwise.

‘He’s a bit odd,’ Fox replied.

‘Well, he has got Asperger’s,’ Holden said. ‘But that wasn’t really what I was asking. Do you think he could have put morphine in the flask with the whisky?’