Blood on the Cowley Road (13 page)

‘Hello!' came the answer, only it didn't come from the mobile. It came from behind him, from a figure that lurked, almost invisible, in the darkness. A split second later, a heavy blunt instrument smashed into the back of his head, causing him to collapse into oblivion on the floor of the shed.

‘Good morning, Ma'am.'

DI Holden's mind was elsewhere, indeed so far distant from the present moment that she completely failed to register the greeting of the young WPC at her shoulder. She locked her car door and turned obliviously towards the station.

‘Ma'am!' This time the woman's voice was louder and firmer, and it produced the desired effect of causing the Detective Inspector to turn and appraise its source.

‘Good morning, Constable!' she replied, but without enthusiasm, and she turned her face back towards the station, pressing forward up the slight incline that would lead her ultimately to the peace of her office.'

‘Your label is sticking out, Ma'am.'

This time Holden stopped fully, and turned to face her interlocutor full on. ‘Sorry!' she snapped. ‘Did you say something?'

The younger woman flushed, taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. But she was not a person to melt away. ‘With respect, I merely wanted to tell you your label was sticking out. If you'll allow me—' And without waiting for a reply, she moved forward round the side of her superior and stretched her hand out towards the nape of her neck. ‘Just one moment, Ma'am,' she said softly, and with the gentlest of touches she folded the offending white label out of sight. ‘There!' she finished, and then stepped a pace backwards.

‘Oh!' Holden said, as enlightenment finally dawned. She paused, embarrassed by her own ill temper. ‘Thank you, um, Constable.'

‘Lawson. WPC Jan Lawson,' the constable responded. Lawson had
no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. She had heard only good things of Holden from the other women in the station in the three weeks since her transfer from Northampton. ‘If you don't mind me asking, how is the case going, Ma'am?'

Holden frowned. ‘I do mind, Constable, as it happens.'

Lawson cursed herself silently. ‘Sorry, Ma'am. I didn't mean to be nosey. It's just that—' She paused, genuinely lost for words. She knew what she wanted to say, but how to say it, how to take this one chance that might not come again? ‘It's just that I imagine there must be a lot to do, and well, one day I'd like to be doing what you're doing, so I just wanted to say that if you needed any more personnel, then maybe you would keep in mind that I'm here. I know I'm inexperienced, but I'll do anything.'

Lawson fell silent, and waited as Holden continued to survey her. For a moment or three, she looked back into Holden's eyes, and then submissively dropped her gaze to the ground.

Holden gave a half smile. ‘I'll keep that in mind, Constable Lawson,' she said, before walking purposefully on towards the station again.

 

DI Holden's stock-taking session started at 8.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and – for reasons beyond her control – lasted barely ten minutes. It was, however, time enough to draw conclusions of some validity. Wilson arrived at his boss's office about ten seconds after Fox, and entered the room whistling the theme tune of his favourite soap Neighbours (not that he got to watch it too often these days).

‘OK, Wilson,' Holden said briskly, as the detective constable shut the door, ‘let's be hearing from you. You look like the cat that got the cream, so share with us whatever it is you found out!'

‘Morning, Guv!' answered Wilson cheerfully, enjoying his moment, and pulling a chair forward.

‘Cut the niceties, Wilson!' she warned.

‘Sorry, Guv!'

‘And don't bloody apologize, either. Just speak.'

‘Sorry!' he said, and immediately realized his mistake. Fox laughed loudly. Holden raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion, and looked ostentatiously at her watch. ‘She lied!' Wilson said firmly. Fox's laughter died. ‘Anne Johnson lied,' Wilson continued. ‘She came to
Oxford the morning of her sister's death. We have it on camera. We have her driving her car into the multi-storey car park at 6.40 in the morning, and leaving at 8.30.'

‘You're sure?' Holden said.

‘Yes, it was a yellow Mini and the registration number—'

‘Not the car, Wilson!' Holden said sharply. ‘Her. Can you be sure she was driving it. Can you see her face clearly?'

Wilson paused before answering. ‘The windows and windscreen are that dark, reflective glass. You can see out, but not in.'

‘So it could have been someone else driving?'

‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but why—'

‘Anything else you found out, Wilson?' Holden spoke curtly, so that Wilson looked down at his knees, anxious to avoid her gaze. ‘No, Guv,' he said quietly.

‘Right, Fox,' she said, swinging her attention to the Detective Sergeant. ‘What can you add?'

Fox, who was used to Holden, gave a rueful smile. ‘Not a lot. Yousef Mohammed, who runs the corner shop where Marston Street meets the Cowley Road, remembers seeing Sarah – assuming it was Sarah – about ten minutes before her death. She hung around the front of his shop briefly, looking in the window or something. I think Yousef fancied her a bit. He commented on her long mack.'

‘Is that it, Fox?' she said in a tone which suggested great disappointment with his efforts.

‘I think it may be significant that Sarah didn't come in the shop, didn't even come into the shop to buy her usual newspaper—'

Holden cut in viciously. ‘Fox! Would you be interested in buying a bloody newspaper if you were on your way to jump from the top of a multi-storey car park?'

Even Fox was temporarily thrown. One charitable, though very male, part of his brain assumed in that instant that it must be her time of the month. But he pressed on nevertheless. ‘But surely she might have wanted to at least exchange words with someone, with anyone, especially with someone who she knew liked her. Yousef smiles a lot. Even when I was questioning him about Sarah, he couldn't think of her without smiling.'

‘But if Sarah was depressed,' Holden replied, ‘the last thing she
might have wanted to do was talk to anyone, especially to someone who is pathologically cheerful.'

‘Maybe,' said Fox carefully. ‘But remember she then went across the road and looked at Bicknell's blue plaque. Remember we've got a picture of her where she seems to be talking to two other people.' He paused, wondering how his observations were going down with his boss.

Holden frowned, then fixed him with a stare. ‘So what exactly, Fox, is your point?'

Fox looked down, happy to give ground to his superior. ‘Only that if, by any chance, Wilson's theory is correct, and that the woman in the mack was Anne, then of course Anne wouldn't want to risk getting into conversation with Yousef when she didn't know him, but realized her sister probably did. She didn't want to risk giving herself away.'

‘In that case, why hover round the front of the shop at all?' Holden said.

Fox smiled: ‘To be seen, I guess.'

Holden stood up and for a moment Fox was concerned he had misread her, and that he was about to receive a broadside of premenstrual venom. But when she spoke she was calm and complimentary.

‘Good teamwork. Good thinking. Both of you. You, Wilson, have firmly placed Anne Johnson in the area shortly before the death of her sister, when she claimed to be at home oversleeping after an overdose of sex with her head teacher. And you, Fox, have raised at the very least doubt about the identity of the woman in the long mackintosh.' Holden stopped talking and walked over to the board from which the picture of Sarah Johnson stared out. ‘As for me, team, I have had a little chat with William Basham of Basham and Smith Solicitors. And Mr William Basham has confirmed to me that Anne is the sole beneficiary of Sarah's will. Not exactly world shattering news, I know. However—' Holden paused, and raised her right-hand index finger in the air, as if to ensure that she had their fullest attention. She had meant it when she praised them, and yet she was human enough to need both their attention and approval. Both men watched her intently, wondering what rabbit she was going to pull out of her hat. ‘However, Mr William Basham did also let slip another interesting fact, namely that Sarah Johnson was about to change her will.'

‘Change it?' Fox gasped. Holden almost purred in appreciation of his reaction.

‘Indeed, they had a meeting arranged for later this week,' said Holden triumphantly. ‘He didn't know for sure what changes she wanted to make, but in my book this all adds up to a very substantial motive. If Sarah had told Anne that she was going to cut her out of her will altogether and bequeath all her worldly belongings – and that includes a flat that I reckon is worth at least 250,000 pounds – to the day centre or a cat's home or maybe even to Jake Arnold, then Anne suddenly has a very pressing reason to drive over to Oxford and, when she couldn't persuade her sister to change her mind, well, to take matters into her own hands. So I suggest the next thing to do is go and pick her up for questioning.'

‘Why do you say Jake Arnold?' Wilson asked. ‘Is there a particular reason for suggesting him?'

‘No,' admitted Holden. ‘But frankly if she was changing her will to another individual, then on the basis of what we know so far, Jake would be the most likely suspect. We know they had quite a strong relationship. It may not have been sexual, but from Sarah's point of view at least, it was a very important relationship. Who was it she tried to ring the morning of her death? Jake.'

She stopped and waited. Her theory provoked only silence, as each man tried to work out an appropriate response. This only irritated her.

‘Come on, gentlemen,' she said sarcastically. ‘I've thrown a hunch up into the air, now is the time for you to shoot it down.'

‘So you're suggesting Anne may have murdered both her sister and Jake?' Fox said cautiously.

‘Ah, I can see you are not convinced, Fox. But why not? She could have killed her sister because of the imminent will change. And Jake because he must have known about the imminent will change and might otherwise have told us police about it. Or maybe she just thought he was a creep. If you can kill one person, why not a second one?' Again she stopped, and waited for a reply. It came from Wilson, gingerly taking his turn.

‘But there is a problem, isn't there, Guv, with the time Anne's car left Oxford. We have it on CCTV leaving the car park at 8.30. That is some three-quarters of an hour before Sarah's death. It's one thing to suggest
Anne's visit caused Sarah to commit suicide, but it would be very hard to argue without other evidence that she pushed her sister off the top of the car park.'

Holden smiled, but her response to Wilson was uncompromising. ‘That's the key, Wilson. More evidence. I mean, imagine you are Anne Johnson wanting to establish an alibi. What do you do? She knows there are CCTV cameras at the car park, so she drives out at 8.30, and goes and parks it somewhere else. She then lures her sister up to the top of the car park, and pushes her over the edge. Then she leaves by the stairs, and walks to her car. But now, of course, she's got to get to Reading. It's a good hour's drive at the best of time, and probably more at that time of morning, so she has to cry off her first lesson. But that isn't a problem because Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, her amorous headmaster, is hardly going to make a fuss, now is he?'

‘No, Guv,' Wilson agreed. ‘No, he isn't.' But he wasn't entirely convinced.

It was at this point that Holden's stock-taking session came to an abrupt end. There was a knock on the door, which opened immediately. The face of Sergeant Tolman appeared, his hand raised as if in apology, or perhaps to ask permission to speak. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Ma'am, but I thought you'd like to know. They've just found a dead body. Down at the allotments in Meadow Lane. A garden shed went up in flames last night apparently, and some old boy discovered a charred body in it this morning. It's a bit of a mess, apparently, so ID may take a time, but the allotment belongs to a lorry driver. Name of Martin Mace.'

 

Holden resisted the temptation to drive straight over to the Meadow Lane allotments. There was little to be gained, she reckoned, from rushing round there at breakneck speed. Uniform would be looking after the site, and Dr Pointer had already been summoned. Better to give them a bit of space and time first. Besides, there was still the death of Sarah Johnson to be followed through. First with a phone call to St Gregory's, Reading.

‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, please?' Holden said to the woman who answered the phone.

‘He's rather busy,' came the automatic response of the head
teacher's personal rotweiler. ‘Can I take a message.'

‘No, you can not take a message,' snapped Holden, who was still in no mood to take prisoners. ‘This is Dectective Inspector Holden of the Oxford police, and I need to speak to Dr Adrian Ratcliffe now.'

‘One moment,' came the flustered response of a guard dog whose bark was clearly worse than her bite. Several seconds of silence, then a crackle and a man's voice spoke.

‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe here. How can I help you?'

The soft, polished tone of his voice served only to goad, not soothe. ‘You can help, Dr Ratcliffe, by getting into your car and driving over here to the Cowley Police Station in Oxford.'

‘I'm sorry, what do you mean?' came the blustering reply. ‘I have a school to run and—'

‘You've a choice,' Holden snarled back. ‘Either you can get yourself to this police station by 10.30 a.m. or I'll arrange for a marked police car to drive into your school to collect you. And I'll ask them to arrive with blue lights flashing. Do I make myself clear?'

Having dealt with one problem, Holden addressed the issue of Anne Johnson. ‘Right, Wilson. I want you to go round and pick up Anne Johnson. Take WPC Lawson with you. I want someone to be with her at all times. She's not under arrest yet, but I don't want her making phone calls we aren't aware of. Once you're back, you can express surprise that I've had to pop out. I want her to sit and sweat a bit. All right?'