Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘Quite,’ Wilson continued, earnestly. ‘Common knowledge to everyone in Sunnymede, and, no doubt, to his friends too. Which suggests to us a premeditated murder by someone he knew.’

‘As opposed to him having the bad luck to run into a mugger who needed some money for drugs?’

‘But the killer used wire, Guv!’ Wilson blurted out, more loudly than he had intended. ‘He – or she – rigged up a wire at throat height across the path, and then used a heavy object, to finish the job. We spoke to Charlie back at the station. It doesn’t look like a chance mugging, not to us, Guv.’

Holden looked at Wilson. He was, she reckoned, coming on. He had been so diffident when he first worked for her, and yet now he was learning to fight his corner. She was pleased. That was what she needed, a team who would challenge her and say what they felt. And who didn’t just sit on their arses.

Holden took another sip of her coffee, and smiled. ‘You have been a busy pair, haven’t you! I don’t suppose you’ve worked out who the killer is? And the motive?’

Lawson cleared her throat. She had been happy for Wilson to lead so far, but playing second fiddle didn’t come naturally to her. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Who links the old woman and Greenleaf? Well, the obvious person in my book is Bella Sinclair. Greenleaf had got her suspended – that’s a clear motive. And she looked after Nanette Wright.’

Holden cut in. ‘As did many staff, in one form or another.’

‘Agreed.’ Lawson paused. It was the weak point in her theory, that Nanette Wright and Paul Greenleaf knew many people in common. Almost anyone who worked there might potentially have hated both of them. ‘But I suppose my argument would be that you’ve got to start somewhere, and Bella seems as good a person to start with as anyone.’

Holden pursed her lips. Her coffee was only half drunk, but she put it down on the table in front of her. She could feel a headache beginning. She didn’t need any more stimulation.

‘What about Mrs Wright’s son and daughter-in-law?’ It was Wilson who jumped back in the fray, at the same time dissociating himself from Lawson. ‘One fact we do know is that it is they who had most to gain from the old woman dying now. According to her accountant, her death is a financial life-saver for them.’

‘But why would they have killed Greenleaf?’ Lawson wasn’t ready to concede ground, and certainly not to Wilson.

‘There could be lots of reasons,’ Wilson riposted, his voice now strident. ‘Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean …’

‘Enough!’ Holden shouted. ‘Wilson is right in one respect. We don’t know enough!’ Holden spoke sharply now, the tone of her voice reminding both of her detective constables that when push came anywhere near shove, she was the boss. ‘It’s all very well to have theories, but what we need first and foremost is facts. So we need to dig deeper, not get fixed on one theory above all others.’

She stood up, and marched over to the window. She looked out into the bleak grey morning and began to shift rhythmically from one leg to the other. She was feeling stressed and irritated, and her irritation, she realized, was not with Lawson and Wilson. At least they were having a say. ‘So, Sergeant,’ she said loudly, without looking around. ‘Do you have anything useful to add?’

Fox scratched his thinning hair. If he was hurt or annoyed by her tone, he didn’t show it. His reply was measured, and somewhat ponderous. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Guv. We do need to keep an open mind. But if you’re asking me—’

‘That,’ Holden said, spinning round to face Fox, ‘is exactly what I’m doing. Asking you! I’m hoping for the benefit of your experience, Sergeant. I am hoping you will demonstrate why you are a blooming sergeant and these two are not.’ She stood, her hands on her hips, aware that she was pushing her luck with all of them, and especially with a man who had given her such solid support over the last three years or so.

Fox straightened himself in his chair, and returned his inspector’s glare, but when he spoke he was still calm and infuriatingly unemotional. ‘Guv, with respect,’ he said – and that was an expression he never used when speaking to her – ‘I think there’s too much theorizing going on. We don’t know much at all about this Greenleaf. So why don’t we concentrate on him, find out all we can about him, and then we can compare that with what we’ve learnt about Nanette Wright, and see where it all leads.’

Holden looked around, at Lawson and Wilson, and then back to Fox. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you say so, Sergeant.’

‘I do, Guv. I do.’

It didn’t take long for the four of them to search Greenleaf’s flat. They found his clothes and personal effects on the bed, as Fran Sinclair had said they would. Wilson was deputed to check out the mobile, Holden herself began to scrutinize every card and piece of paper in his wallet, while Fox and Lawson took the living room and bedroom respectively.

‘He must have some paperwork, somewhere,’ Lawson said irritably. There was nothing of interest to her in his little bedside chest of drawers, and nothing that she could find stuffed in, under, or behind the immaculately organized clothes in the built-in wardrobe.

‘There’s something here,’ Fox called out in response. ‘In fact, it looks like our Mr Greenleaf has another house, out in Charlton-on-Otmoor.’

Holden, who had given up on the wallet, was leaning over Fox almost before he had finished speaking.

‘It looks like he’s been having some building work done on it,’ Fox was explaining. ‘Here’s the address of the property.’

‘And look at who’s been doing it.’ Holden’s finger stabbed down onto the invoice, at the letter heading. ‘JW Builders, Oxford. Look at the address! Lytton Road.’

‘You mean, JW as in Jim Wright.’

‘I’d put my mortgage on it.’

‘There’s something interesting here, too, Guv.’ Wilson was brandishing Greenleaf’s mobile phone like he was looking for bids at an auction. ‘Ania. Isn’t that the name of the nurse you interviewed?’

‘What about her?’

‘She rang Greenleaf last night. Or tried to. Three times.’