Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘Tied to it?’

‘With garden wire.’

‘Shit!’

She walked over to Wilson. ‘Checking your Facebook, I see,’ she smirked. ‘Naughty boy!’

‘Not mine, actually. Greenleaf’s.’

‘Greenleaf’s?’

‘Yeah, Roy Hillerby from Sunnymede has asked Greenleaf to be his friend, and look at these photographs he posted. From the Hayes and Yeading game.’

‘Hey, that’s Jim Wright and his daughter, and Greenleaf and Bella Sinclair.’

‘Yeah, I’m not sure about the others. Hillerby hasn’t tagged anyone or written any names, so I was thinking we should go and show it to Fran Sinclair. She ought to know everyone on it.’

‘OK, let’s go.’

‘I ought to speak to the guv first.’

‘She won’t want to be disturbed. She and Fox have gone off to tell Maureen her husband has been marmalized.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘She wants a list of names of everyone in that Oxford United box. If you want to avoid a bollocking, I suggest you ring her when you’ve got them, not before.’

Maureen Wright had changed her clothes. The pink blouse and black slacks had been thrust into the washing machine, and had been replaced by a blue T-shirt and jeans. She had brushed her teeth to get rid of the taste of the vomit, applied some perfume, and brushed her hair. She was ready for whatever came next, as long as it didn’t involve photographs.

‘When did you last see your husband?’ Holden asked. She was sitting opposite on the sofa as before, leaning forward, eager to get on with it, a terrier worrying at a bone.

‘Yesterday morning, just before I went to Reading.’

‘What time was that?’

‘About half past ten, maybe eleven.’

‘And Jim was at home?’

‘That’s right. He was at home. Sitting on his arse, because with Greenleaf being dead, that cow at Sunnymede didn’t want him doing any more work there.’

‘So he had no work to go to?’

‘He told me he was going to finish off Mr Jones’s patio. He lives three doors up. Jim laid it all a couple of weeks ago, but he needed to go and finish it off. I warned him I’d finish him off if he didn’t get it sorted because we needed the money, but that was Jim Wright all over. Never quite finished what he started unless you planted a bomb under him.’

‘And you said earlier he was planning to call on someone about a possible job?’

‘Oh, you were listening then.’ Maureen’s answer was savage with sarcasm.

‘But you don’t know who it was?’

‘No, I still don’t know.’

Sometimes, when she questioned people, Holden got a strong sense that they were telling the truth, and sometimes she felt instinctively that they were spinning a line. But right now, she had neither. The only sense she had was that Maureen Wright was spurting out vitriol in the same way – and perhaps for the same reason – as an octopus ejects ink, to protect itself and confuse its enemy. Holden was encouraged. ‘Look,’ she insisted, ‘I do need to ask these questions if I’m to—’

‘Bugger your questions, Inspector.’ Maureen Wright stood up abruptly, catching the edge of the table on her knees so that it lifted and jumped with her. ‘And bugger my husband. There are more important things in the world than him. David has gone missing. My son has gone missing.’ And then she started howling.

Wilson and Lawson found Fran Sinclair in Greenleaf’s office – or rather it had been Greenleaf’s office, but it was clear that Fran Sinclair had already staked a permanent claim to it. It wasn’t as if she had heavily feminized it – far from it – but the walls proclaimed that this room was now under new ownership. In particular, an oversized graduation photo of her confronted the visitor as he or she entered the room, and to the right of it a framed certificate proclaimed Frances Alison Sinclair as having been awarded a degree of Bachelor of Arts (Second Class) in Applied Social Studies.