Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘What’s your point? He must have done it one day when he was visiting her at Sunnymede.’

‘I don’t think so. She’s not in uniform. And it looks to me like she’s sitting in a bus.’

‘I can’t say I’d noticed. Anyway what does it matter?’

‘Look at the date,’ Holden pressed. ‘He’s written it on the bottom: 4 December 2009. So you see, Maureen, what we were thinking, putting two and two together, was maybe Bella is David’s mother? What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ came the instant reply. Too instant, Holden thought. She is too nonchalant. She is not surprised. She is lying.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Maureen conceded. ‘How should I know? We never met his so-called parents when we adopted him. There was no contact. Not then, not ever.’

‘I see,’ Holden said in a tone that implied she really didn’t see.

‘Anyway,’ Maureen snapped, ‘what does it matter? Right now, what matters is that David is missing, and you’re doing nothing. I was telling your constable that David used to camp up in Boars Hill, when he was part of the Boy Scouts, so maybe he’s gone there.’

Holden nodded, as if giving due consideration to the woman’s theory. ‘Or …’ She paused, determined to get Maureen Wright’s attention. ‘Or maybe he hasn’t run off at all. Maybe he’s gone to his birth mother.’

‘Why the hell should he have?’

‘Perhaps he likes her.’ As replies went, this was about as low as Holden could possibly have gone, except perhaps by adding the words that she had left unspoken, but hanging in the air: ‘more than you’.

Maureen Wright looked at Holden as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. ‘You bitch,’ she said quietly. ‘You fucking bitch.’

Holden should have apologized. Immediately. She knew that. But knowing was one thing and doing was another. And besides, how do you behave towards a woman who may have lost a beloved husband, or alternatively may have anchored him to a railway line and watched as the London train ran him down.

‘She’s not herself, today, Inspector.’ The voice came from the doorway, where a girl had appeared.

‘Vickie,’ her mother said, plaintively, ‘there’s no need—’

‘There’s every need, Mum,’ she cut in, and moved forward to give her a prolonged hug. Then she stared down at Holden. ‘My mother has been through a lot this morning, Inspector. In case you haven’t noticed, her husband’s been murdered, and her son has run away, so maybe you should try being nice to her.’

Holden bowed her head. It might have been an apology, but she said nothing to support that theory. Fox, watching from the sidelines, reckoned it was at least half way to one. He had seen his boss in many situations, but rarely had he seen her apologize. And yet this time he sensed that she was at least embarrassed by Vickie’s challen

ge. Fox tried to suppress a smile. DI Holden taken to task by a 12-year-old. Now that was something.

‘I didn’t recognize you, Vickie.’

‘Why should you? We’ve never met.’

‘You’re not like the photos.’

‘Photos?’

‘The school photos. You and David. In the upstairs loo.’

‘Best place for them.’

‘It’s funny though.’

‘Funny?’ Vickie, who had perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, stared at Holden, suspicion in her eyes. Not that it was easy for Holden to see them, for her long black hair fell lank down either side of her pale face, like half-pulled curtains.

‘Most girls – most women in fact – would give their eye teeth for your blonde hair….’

‘What’s that to you, Inspector?’ Maureen Wright, sitting next to her daughter on the sofa, had no intention of putting up with any crap. ‘It’s a free world, and if she wants black hair, that’s her choice. End of.’

It wasn’t just black hair, though. It was the clothes too – black long-sleeved blouse, black skirt, dark patterned tights, and black Doc Martens boots – not to mention the black eyebrows and black lipstick. The whole Goth transformation.

‘I dyed my hair black once,’ Holden said, dropping her voice as if this was something secret that only they were sharing. ‘I was older than you, maybe sixteen or seventeen. My father went spare.’