Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

The question seemed to take her by surprise.

‘You asked me that last time.’ She was indignant, or was pretending to be. ‘And I tell you again. I did not kill him. Why would I kill him?’

‘Maybe because he was making you do things that you didn’t want to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean dressing up like a schoolgirl.’ She stabbed her finger at Gorski and raised her voice. ‘Sex games! Or maybe he was getting tired of you? Perhaps, instead, you were helping him find schoolgirls to have sex with?’ She repeated the stabbing movement of her finger. ‘I mean—’

The rest of what Holden meant was drowned out by the scream that erupted from Ania Gorski’s throat. Holden had been half expecting it. She had pushed and pushed, in the hope that something would give. But what she hadn’t expected was what happened next.

Ania Gorski flicked her wrist. The water in her half-empty glass showered across the table, into Holden’s face. ‘Hey!’ It was Holden who shouted now, caught completely by surprise. Ania flicked her wrist again, this time downwards, glancing the edge of the table so that the rim of the glass cracked off. Then, with a huge grunt of effort, she hurled herself forward and swung the makeshift weapon towards the detective inspector’s head. There was a squeal, like a piglet being slaughtered. Blood sprayed red, and Holden screamed for help.

‘What on earth has happened to you? You look frightful!’

Susan Holden had tried to let herself into the flat quietly. Since her fall, her mother had conceded that it would be a good idea for her daughter to have a set of keys, though tonight Susan would rather have gone to her own home, bolted and chained the front door, and taken refuge in a bottle of wine, a microwave dinner, and some suitably undemanding tosh on the TV.

‘Thanks, Mother.’ It might, in other circumstances, have been a sarcastic reply, but after the shock of the incident, over two hours in accident and emergency, and seven stitches in her left cheek, Susan Holden was beyond sarcasm.

‘Have you caught him then? The killer? Did he do this to you?’

‘No.’ She walked across to the sideboard, and poured herself a slug of whisky. She swilled it round the bottom of the tumbler, took a sip, and turned to face her mother.

Her mother, to her surprise, grinned. ‘We are a pair, aren’t we!’

Her daughter grinned back. ‘The question is, who needs looking after most?’

They both laughed.

‘I expect you’d like some supper.’

Susan sat down at the table, opposite her mother, and took another sip. ‘In a minute.’ She needed to talk first. To unload her day.

‘There’s a plate made up for you in the fridge.’

‘You remember Ania, the Polish woman?’ She paused. Her mother nodded. ‘She did this. I was interviewing her, and she attacked me with her glass. I should have seen it coming.’

‘You were playing the bad cop, were you?’ Mrs Holden laughed.

‘Sort of.’ She frowned. ‘I was on my own, and I pressed a bit too hard.’

Her mother got slowly to her feet. ‘You stay there. I need to keep moving. I’ll get your supper.’ But she made her way round the table, not directly towards the kitchen. Gently she put her hand on her daughter’s chin, and moved her head to the side so that she could get a better look. ‘What a shame!’ she said, and then kissed her on the forehead. ‘My poor little girl.’

As her daughter ate her supper, Mrs Holden tried hard not to look at the stitches just above the jawline of her left cheek. Hopefully, in time, it would heal and the scar fade, and what nature couldn’t fix, then make-up would surely cover, but right now it was hard not to stare. So she asked her more about her day and listened as her daughter told her. She listened right to the end, for it w

as in the end of her working day, the interview with Ania Gorski, that she was, for obvious reasons, most interested.

‘So,’ she said, when Susan fell silent, ‘the question is why did she do it? I mean, quite apart from the obvious reason that you are prettier than she is and she was jealous!’

Susan shrugged, and laid her knife and fork down on her plate. Telling the story, reliving the experience, had helped. What was it that had triggered Ania’s reaction? She could be a bully, she knew that. She wasn’t proud of it, but sometimes needs must. But the fact was, when she had asked Ania bluntly if she’d murdered Greenleaf, there had been no sign of her flipping. She had denied it, and asked why she would have. No, it was what she had said next. About dressing up as a schoolgirl to satisfy Greenleaf. That had pressed Ania’s buttons. She flushed, embarrassed to even remember what she had said to the woman next. She had accused her of helping Greenleaf find schoolgirls for sex. That was what had pushed Ania over the edge. And she couldn’t blame her for that.

‘You can tell me,’ her mother said.

‘No I can’t,’ she replied. That was a lie, of course, and yet it was also the truth. She just couldn’t tell her mother.

She stood up, and felt a wave of exhaustion roll over her. ‘I’m off to bed,’ she said quietly, and this time it was she who moved round the table. She leant down and kissed her mother on the forehead. ‘I’m so glad you moved to Oxford. So glad.’

CHAPTER 10