Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

Lawson put the Oxford Mail down, and took the mug that Bella was offering. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’ve got the short straw, babysitting me, haven’t you?’ She smiled her brightest smile as she said this, daring him to agree.

Wilson took a sip from his mug. It wasn’t as hot as he expected. There was more milk in it than he ideally liked. But he wouldn’t have dreamt of complaining about it. ‘Not at all.’

‘Liar’, she said, and walked back into the kitchen. For the second time Wilson admired her back view. She dropped something on the floor, and Wilson continued to watch, as she bent down to search for the recalcitrant object, and then slowly raised herself up again. She turned round, and momentarily they locked eyes. Then he ducked his head and busied himself with his tea.

He heard rather than saw her walking back across the room, and only when she slumped into the armchair next to him did he look up. She was leaning back, observing him. ‘Sometimes, lying is good. Better than the truth,’ she said. And she crossed her right leg over her left so that it dangled dangerously close to him. Wilson, suddenly flustered, sat himself up straighter, and took a sip from his tea. Lawson flirting with him was one thing, but this was altogether something more complicated. It wasn’t as if Bella Sinclair wasn’t attractive. Far from it. But to have someone of her age making a play at him was unnerving.

Bella sat up too, mimicking his posture. She demurely pulled her legs close together, and leant forward earnestly. ‘Tell me,’ she said, as seriously as if she was interviewing him for a job. ‘What made you want to become a policeman?’

Wilson did a double take, momentarily flummoxed by the sudden change. ‘I guess I always did.’

‘Your father wasn’t a copper, then?’

‘No.’

‘Nor your mother?’

‘No.’

‘Your grandmother, then? I bet she was!’

Wilson almost laughed. ‘You’re teasing me!’ he exclaimed. As she was, of course.

‘Me, Constable! Not me!’

They both laughed. Actually, Wilson admitted silently, for all her age, she was bloody attractive. For several seconds they looked at each other, in silence. Bella smiled again. ‘Is the tea all right?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Wilson looked down, took a long sip as if to demonstrate how much he appreciated her tea-making skill, and then glanced up at her.

‘Waste not, want not, Constable.’ The smile had become a grin. ‘That’s what my mother always told me.’

He wasn’t sure he was interested in what her mother always said, but he was finding Bella herself hard to ignore. In fact, he was returning her grin now. He was a puppy, eager to please. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging like crazy. Maybe Bella did fancy him. You read about it often enough in the papers – older women and younger men. Why not? He felt flattered. He felt light-headed. He felt, he suddenly realized, very tired.

He yawned. Bella was still watching him, her head now cocked to one side, but the grin had been replaced by a quizzical frown, as if she was weighing her chances. He suddenly felt unsure of himself. Suppose she did make a make a move on him? He was meant to be watching her, not.… He tried not to finish the thought. Instead, like a toddler with its security blanket, he put the mug to his lips again, almost draining it. It tasted, he realized, slightly funny. And slightly sweet. But he didn’t mind. Suddenly, he didn’t mind at all.

Bella Sinclair was just past the Littlemore roundabout when she finally got hold of David.

‘Where the hell are you?’ she demanded, her mobile clamped to her ear. ‘I’m on the way. I’m coming to get you. But where are you?’

There was no immediate reply, for David was bent over in the undergrowth, panting. He was young and naturally fit. He often walked around Oxford, but running helter skelter through the undergrowth with a pack on his back was altogether different. Yet that wasn’t the only reason he was temporarily speechless. He had avoided Jarn Way, and had instead followed the path that ran roughly parallel to it through the trees. He had kept running until he reached the road – and had almost run slap bang into the police. Fortunately the van carrying them was noisy, and he had stopped in the undergrowth moments before it drove past from left to right, followed by a police car. He knew the road. It led to the scout camp. That was where they must have been, so where were they off to now? He edged forward, and watched them disappear down the road, and then turn right. They were going up towards the Jarn. He bent over, trying to think what to do, and that was when his phone rang. He saw it was Mother, and answered it. But Mother was shouting, and he was panting and shaking, and the police were headed for the Jarn which meant … which meant what?

‘I’m headed for the main road,’ he said firmly to his mother.

‘What main road?’ She was still shouting.

He tried to think. ‘The main road over Boars Hill. That leads to the pub. The Fox.’ That was it. The name of the road. He remembered it from looking on Google Maps before he had left home. ‘Foxcombe Road.’

The name of the road meant nothing to Bella, but the pub did. Roy had taken her there once. She’d let him drive her up there, and she’d let him pay. And then she’d let him take her home and had let him stay. ‘Right,’ she bellowed. ‘Wait there, on the main road. I’ll be with you in five minutes or less.’

‘OK.’ He thrust the phone into his anorak pocket, clipped the pocket shut with its popper, and began to jog up the road. By the time the police had finished searching up near the Jarn, he would be safe in Mother’s car. In five minutes he would be safe.

Rob, the spotter, had a bad feeling. He’d woken up feeling the day wasn’t going to be a good one, and right now as he gazed down over Boars Hill, with its thick green woods, he wasn’t feeling any more optimistic. The guy could be anywhere. A guy in a red anorak – probably with a rucksack. That was the description, which wasn’t so bad. Red was an easy colour to spot, and a rucksack too if they flew low enough, but the bloke could be anywhere in the woods. And if he stayed there, undercover, only the guys on the ground would find him. Larry, the pilot, peeled suddenly to the left. Rob looked forward briefly, wondering what the cause was. He turned further, saw that Liz, his fellow spotter, was staring intently out of her side of the helicopter, and swivelled reluctantly back to the task. They had been scouring the far side of Boars Hill – the far side, that is, if you lived in Oxford, which he did. But now Larry was making a wide looping arc across the fields to the east of Wootton.

Rob, who was on the right hand side of the helicopter, watched as the Wootton to Abingdon road slid past. A single red figure briefly caught his attention, but the red coat was a long one, a woman’s. The helicopter tilted further to the left, signalling a turn towards Oxford. The Harley Davidson dealership appeared down below them and Rob stared enviously down, envious because his wife wouldn’t let him have one, while Liz turned up for work every day on hers. Bitch, he thought. Bitches, they were, both of them.

They were travelling straight now, though climbing gradually, as they followed the line of the road and the contours of the hill. In fact, they were as near as dammit right over The Fox pub now. Rob couldn’t see it from his side, but he knew it well enough. Below him, the open fields had given way to woods, to the large houses and larger gardens of the rich. He fought hard to concentrate, scanning the open spaces for a red man with a rucksack, but no joy. Typical! He was muttering to himself, now, giving full rein to his innate pessimism. A wild bloody goose chase!