Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘This is why I never told you,’ her mother was saying. It was a variation on a theme she had been playing ever since her daughter and the nice sergeant had turned up at the hospital. ‘I didn’t want to distract you from your big case.’

There was no reply. Holden was sitting in the back of the car. She was hiding. She knew if she said something, anything, it would be unforgivably rude.

‘We’re very glad to be able to give you a lift, Mrs Holden.’ Fox realized it was up to him to intervene.’

‘You’re only saying that.’

‘No I’m not,’ he said calmly, easing to a stop at the traffic lights. ‘I mean it. And despite what you might sometimes think, your daughter is very fond of you. It is just that the case is at a very difficult stage.’

‘Is it now?’ Mrs Holden paused. But almost immediately pressed on. ‘What has happened today, then? Or is that something that you can’t tell me? My daughter is always refusing to tell me things, but I can keep a secret.’ Neither of these statements was entirely true, but right now she was more interested in provoking her daughter than being entirely straight with the sergeant.

‘Jim Wright has been killed,’ Fox said. He could see no reason not to say it. If it wasn’t all over the local news now, it almost certainly would be at six o’clock.

‘Really? Murdered, you mean?’

‘And David has run away.’

‘David? You mean he killed his father and has gone on the run?’

‘We don’t know. That’s one possibility,’ he admitted cautiously. ‘But the key thing is to find him.’

‘I feel sorry for the boy,’ the old woman said.

‘He’s a grown man, nearly twenty,’ DI Holden interjected suddenly from the back of the car.

‘But inside, I bet he’s a small insecure boy.’

‘What do you mean?’

Mrs Holden, who had finally provoked her daughter into life, had no intention of not telling her. ‘He’s had a terrible shock. After all these years, his birth mother turns up, and tries to reclaim him. Suddenly he’s got two mothers and doesn’t know who to trust, who to love. He’s got Asperger’s, hasn’t he, and maybe sibling rivalry with his so-called sister, Vickie. And remember his grandmother has just died, and she must have doted on him.’

‘Why must she have?’ Holden’s tone was acerbic.

‘I can’t imagine any woman who’s lucky enough to have grandchildren, not doting on them. It wouldn’t be natural.’

There was no quarter being asked, and certainly none given. The production of a grandchild had been a taboo subject ever since her daughter’s traumatic affair with Karen Pointer, but now, it seemed, the knives were well and truly out. And there was bright red blood dripping from both blades.

‘Here we are!’ Fox said loudly, like a boxing referee trying to part two boxers at the end of a particularly gruelling contest. ‘Home sweet home!’

But his words were falling on deaf ears. ‘You’re living in cloud cuckoo land, Mother. For all we know, it was David who killed his grandmother. For all we know, he was so fed up with her nagging him that he laced her whisky with enough morphine to kill a mule.’ Holden had no compunction about exaggerating when it suited her argument.

‘But why would he have done that? After all Nanette had done for him. I mean, have you thought how on earth this Bella found out that David was her son? Would she really have recognized him after all these years? Of course not! I bet it was Nanette. Somehow she must have realized that David, her adopted little grandson, was none other than Bella’s abandoned baby. And so she brought them together.’

Fox had got out of the car, and had opened Mrs Holden’s door. ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ she beamed. ‘So kind of you.’ She eased herself out with as much alacrity as her legs and hips allowed, expecting a riposte from her daughter. Getting in the last word was not, she knew from experience, very easy with her daughter. But the detective inspector said nothing. She too extricated herself from the seat belt and car. Then she tucked her left arm inside her mother’s right, and motioned her forward.

‘Come on then, Mother. Let’s get you upstairs. I think Sergeant Fox has heard enough from the two of us.’

Vickie was studying her nails when the phone rang. She wished she hadn’t painted the red ones red. It wasn’t even a nice red. It was garish, disgusting. They should be black too. They should all be black.

The cordless phone was on the arm of the sofa. She watched it ring – two, three, four times – and only then did she lean over and pick it up.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me. David.’ He was whispering.

‘Where the hell are you, David?’

‘I’ve run away.’