Blood on the Cowley Road

by Tickler, Peter

  ‘You don’t believe me, I know,’ he said in a now much raised voice. ‘You think I’m a paranoid nutcase. You’re just like all the others!’ He shouted these last words, and then began to rock backwards and forwards in his chair, hugging himself as he did so. A nurse, alerted by the noise, appeared like some genie in the doorway. ‘It’s time you left,’ he said firmly.

  ‘So, how did it go?’ The four of them, Holden, Fox, Wilson and Lawson, were sitting in a circle around Holden’s rectangular desk. It was Holden asking the question. She had called Lawson and Wilson in when she heard their animated voices in the corridor, and had summoned Fox via the phone. ‘You start, Lawson,’ she ordered. ‘Tell us how you got on with Danny.’

  ‘Pretty well, I think.’

  Holden made a face. ‘Pretty well? What exactly do you mean by that? It’s not an expression that fills me with confidence.’

  ‘We got on fine, thank you, Guv,’ Lawson replied, trying but not quite succeeding in looking Holden full in the face. ‘Though to be honest,’ she continued, her eyes now flicking down, ‘we didn’t end that well. In fact, Danny freaked a bit and the nurse suggested that I leave, but before that—’

  Holden lifted both hands in the air, as if surrendering. ‘Please, Lawson, why don’t you cut out the bad bits and confine yourself to the good news, such as whatever it was that Danny told you about Blunt, because I assume that with all your charm you managed to hold a conversation with him before he, as you so delicately put it, freaked.’

  Lawson swallowed. She glanced across at Wilson, but if she was hoping for some moral support, she was out of luck. He was staring fixedly downwards as if pretending that he wasn’t there. She shrugged, and looked back at Holden. ‘Danny told me that he saw Sarah Johnson at Blunt’s house two nights before her death.’

  Holden’s ears pricked up, metaphorically at least. ‘And?’

  ‘I thought that might be significant.’

  ‘Why? They knew each other from the day centre, didn’t they? Why should it be significant? Maybe she was feeling desperate and had called round for some support.’

  ‘Danny said he saw them kissing.’

  ‘Did he?’ Holden’s interest was now fully engaged. ‘Well, that is interesting. Assuming, of course, that Danny is to be trusted.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he be?’ Lawson said protectively. ‘Just because he—’

  ‘He’s bloody paranoid.’ Fox laughed. ‘There’s every reason not to trust him.’

  Lawson turned towards the sergeant, her face flushing, though whether in anger or embarrassment the still silent Wilson wasn’t sure. ‘I was there, sir,’ she retorted. ‘And I do have personal experience of paranoia. And in my opinion he wasn’t making this up, or imagining it.’

  ‘Let’s assume,’ Holden cut in, ‘for the sake of argument, that Danny did see Blunt and Sarah Johnson kiss. The question we need to ask is where does that leave us? Wilson,’ she said changing tack, ‘how did you get on with Danny’s nurses?’

  ‘Sorry, Guv,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t get anything out of them. I spoke to a chap called Kay, who was about to go off shift, and he told me Danny had barely said a word.’

  ‘Any visitors?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Phone calls?’

  Wilson paused. ‘Not that Kay said.’

  Holden frowned. ‘Next time, make sure you ask? Sometimes you have to work for information.’

  Lawson cleared her throat. ‘Um, can I ask how you got on when you interviewed Blunt, Guv.’

  ‘Of course,’ Holden said with a smile, conscious that Lawson was trying to take the spotlight of criticism off Wilson. She liked the way Lawson operated. She’d definitely got character. Holden turned towards Fox. ‘What would you say, Sergeant? Did we get anything useful out of Blunt do you think?’

  Fox laughed, though this time it was not a laugh designed to put anyone down. ‘I’d say we did about as well as Wilson. Jim bloody Blunt told us nothing. In fact, he basically refused to talk without a lawyer present.’

  ‘But that tells us something, doesn’t it?’ Lawson said eagerly. ‘That he had something to hide. That he was worried about what Danny told him.’

  ‘In that case,’ Fox replied, ‘maybe we did do a bit better than Wilson.’

  Wilson tried not to feel irritated. Instead he joined in. ‘Are we saying that Blunt killed Sarah Johnson? And then Jake Arnold? And then Martin Mace?’

  For a moment no one answered. Lawson looked at Holden, for guidance and reassurance. Where the hell were they? It all seemed to be getting more complicated, not less. Murkier, not clearer.

  Holden sighed. She leant back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling, buying time while she framed her response with care. ‘Blunt, I think, is not a man to be messed with. He served in the army for five years. He is, I would suspect, quite capable of killing if he thought it was necessary. But what are we suggesting? That he killed Sarah Johnson because she threatened to tell on him. Well, that’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility because, let’s be clear, having a sexual relationship with a client is a serious disciplinary offence in that field. Just as, of course, would have been his bullying of Jake if that had been proved. But why kill Mace?’

  ‘Maybe he got a taste for it,’ Fox suggested.

  ‘Maybe,’ Holden said without conviction. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Should we get a search warrant?’ Wilson said eagerly. ‘Maybe we’ll find something that’ll prove it.’

  The frown that was already on Holden’s brow deepened. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘I think that first we need to think about this a little more.’

  ‘Wittenham Clumps car park. 5.00 tonight. ALONE.’

  Smith looked at the message and felt a slight surge of optimism. It was hardly seismic, but he felt it nevertheless. The bastard had taken up the challenge. He had agreed to a meeting. OK, it was risky. The bastard would be waiting for him. He would have all the advantages of surprise. Probably he’d be armed too. But he wouldn’t be the only one. And all he needed was a chance. An opportunity for revenge. Just one.

  He pressed ‘Reply’ and keyed in his response. Just two letters and an exclamation mark. ‘OK!’ A couple of clicks later, and the message was sent. He locked the mobile, pushed it back in his pocket, and felt for his cigarettes. Hell, he needed one.

  If anyone had offered Holden a cigarette at that moment, she might well have succumbed to the temptation. She had ended the meeting with Fox, Wilson and Lawson by getting up and saying she needed the toilet, and had spent ten minutes there, first squatting for an unnecessarily long time in her cubicle, then splashing her face repeatedly with water, as if refreshing herself physically might also cause her to be refreshed mentally. It didn’t work however, and she returned to her room feeling even more frustrated than she had when she left it. As she slumped heavily into her chair, the phone rang. With a groan, she stretched to pick it up. Just as long as it wasn’t that ruddy reporter again.

  ‘Darling!’

  It wasn’t the reporter.

  ‘Mother!’ she replied.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘No!’ she lied. Three unexplained deaths, two of them unquestionably murder. Several leads, but no clear pattern to them. Junior staff looking to her for inspiration and guidance. Of course, it was a bad time! But, curiously, Holden found herself relieved to hear her mother’s voice.

  ‘We’ve been thinking about you, Doris and I have.’

  ‘Well, that’s good of you,’ she replied.

  ‘And praying for you, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ her daughter echoed. She didn’t believe in prayer – not really – but it was ridiculously comforting to know that these two old women had been spending their time praying for her. After all, what sane person would not like to be prayed for?

  ‘So, any progress, then?’ her mother asked eagerly.

  ‘If you mean by that, have we arrested anyone, or are we about to arrest anyon
e, the answer is no. There’s been no spectacular break through.’ She spoke firmly, as if she was a parent lecturing a somewhat dippy child. But of course the thoughts of stern parents do not always match their outward demeanour. And tapping away inside her head was a question that was becoming more insistent by the minute. What about Blunt and Sarah Johnson?

  ‘Well, there will be,’ came the confident reply. ‘We have asked the Lord to show you the truth, and he will not refuse the prayers of those who cry out in faith to him.’

  ‘I am busy, Mother,’ her daughter said hastily, suddenly keen to disengage. A born-again Christian mother. God, was that what she had been landed with?

  ‘Remember what I said this morning,’ Mrs Holden said, ignoring her daugher’s alleged business. She had never been a woman to be swayed from her objective. ‘Mace and Sarah Johnson. They are the key to the mystery. I just know they are.’

  ‘Is that what God told you?’ her daughter replied waspishly.

  From the other end of the phone there came a gasp that was fully audible to the younger woman, and she felt immediate shame at the cheapness of her own remark. There followed only silence, as each waited for the other to make the next move. Eventually it was the older woman who spoke.

  ‘We will continue to pray for you,’ she said firmly. ‘Goodbye!’

  ‘Guv! We’ve found a link.’

  It was a bare two minutes since Holden mère and Holden fille had terminated their conversation. The latter looked up at the intruders, irritation and mayonnaise smeared across her face. Her right hand brandished two-thirds of a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, the first third of which was wedged irrevocably inside her mouth. Talking was briefly out of the question, so she waved the two young puppies that stood eagerly in her doorway towards the chairs.

  ‘We could come back in a few minutes,’ WPC Lawson said in an only slightly apologetic tone. The cat that got the cream, Holden decided, as the animal analogies came thick and fast. She shook her head, returned the uncommitted part of the sandwich to its plastic triangle, and concentrated several seconds on chewing. Then a sip of coffee, and she looked up again at Lawson and Wilson.

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘As you know, Guv,’ Wilson started, ‘we’ve been searching the homes of Sarah Johnson, Martin Mace, and Jake Arnold. Mace was a dyed-in-the-wool supporter. Went to nearly every home and away game. The two guys you interviewed at the Kassam stadium before the game, Sam Sexton and Al Smith, they were his best mates and it looks like they always sat together. In the case of home games, that was always in the Oxford Mail stand. He kept a programme from every game he went to, and the tickets. He missed just four games last season, two in early September – holiday we reckon – and two in early December – more holiday, or maybe he was ill. However, Jake is a very different story. He went to just six games. One in January and one in February, both home games. Then Leyton Orient away in March. Two more home games in April. And lastly the away game at Wrexham on 5 May.’

  ‘And did he sit in the Oxford Mail stand too?’ asked Holden.

  ‘No, Guv. The South Stand. The connection isn’t with the home games.’

  ‘So they sat together at the away games, then?’

  ‘One moment, Guv,’ Wilson said, trying to wrest back control of the story. ‘We found just three programmes in Sarah Johnson’s flat. For the same two home games in April that Jake Arnold went to, and the away game at Wrexham in May.’

  ‘So Jake and Sarah went to the same games,’ Holden summarized. ‘So they maybe went together.’

  ‘That seems likely. We know Jake bought two tickets for those April home games, whereas he bought only one ticket for the games he went to in January and February.’

  Holden leant back and surveyed Wilson and Lawson. Was this all they had? Was this what they meant when they had said they had found a connection, because she sure as hell needed more than a pattern of Jake and Sarah building up some sort of relationship over football. She needed something, if not concrete, then at least solid.

  ‘That Jake and Sarah had some sort of personal relationship isn’t exactly news,’ she said quietly.

  ‘We know,’ said Lawson, finally breaking her silence. ‘But take a look at this. It’s a programme from the away game at Wrexham. We found it in Mace’s house.’ She laid a programme carefully on the table in front of Holden. Then repeated the process with two more. ‘This one came from Jake Arnold’s loo, and this from the bookshelves in Sarah’s flat.’

  ‘What’s your point exactly?’ Holden said sharply.

  Wilson leant forward now and, like a conjuror performing a card trick, very deliberately turned each programme over. As was traditional, the back page showed the two squads of players, Wrexham down the left, and Oxford as the away team down the right. As was also traditional, the fans who bought these programmes had marked the players chosen for the team that day. In biro. In fact in a rather unusual colour of biro. Purple. All three programmes were annotated in purple biro.

  ‘It looks very much like the same biro. We think they must have sat together for the game, Jake and Sarah and Martin Mace,’ Wilson said.

  Holden peered closely at the programmes. She was no forensic expert, but if that wasn’t the same biro then it was one hell of a coincidence. ‘It is certainly a connection,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But do you think they travelled to the game together, or just bumped into each other beforehand and so went in together?’

  ‘We think they travelled together,’ Lawson said.

  ‘Think!’ Holden snorted, turning to face Lawson. ‘What do you mean, think? Because thinking isn’t enough, Lawson, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘It’s not just guesswork,’ Lawson said, while producing another piece of paperwork from her lap. But this was just a single sheet of A4, a police incident report. ‘On the evening of 4 May,’ Lawson continued, ‘Jake’s car was vandalized.’

  ‘By Danny Flynn,’ Holden replied, stopping Lawson in her tracks. Holden smiled a rather smug smile, pleased to see the surprise on both their faces. ‘Danny admitted as much when we saw him the other morning. He burst in when we were interviewing one of the workers, Rachel Laing. But at the time, I don’t imagine Jake knew who had done it. Still, I am interrupting you. Do carry on.’

  ‘Well, the fact was Jake had a problem when he saw his car Saturday morning. He and Sarah had tickets but no transport to get to Wrexham. So what do they do? They get a lift. With, to judge from the purple biro, Mace.’

  ‘And,’ added Wilson, ‘maybe with Al Smith and Sam Sexton too, since they were inseparable from Mace on match days.’

  The three of them fell silent. Outside, an irate driver hooted impatiently at another road user. Inside, Lawson and Wilson waited for their boss to pronounce. ‘So,’ she summarized, ’we have a connection, in point of fact a very strong connection. Five people drive to Wrexham on 5 May in a vehicle. Of these five, three are now dead. Sarah Johnson jumped – or was pushed – to her death, Jake Arnold was slugged over the head and dumped into the river, and Martin Mace lured to his allotment and burnt to death. Al Smith and Sam Sexton are still alive. But I’d bet my life they know something. Sexton was very on edge when we interviewed him. So my question is, what happened on 5 May? That’s what we’ve got to find out.’

  ‘Why don’t we go and pick up Sexton and Smith,’ Lawson said. ‘They must know something.’

  ‘Do we know where they’d be? Still at work presumably.’

  ‘They do building work together often,’ chimed in Wilson, who had typed up the notes the morning after the match.

  ‘Which means they could be working anywhere presumably?’

  ‘Sexton has a wife,’ Lawson said, anxious not to be outdone by Wilson.

  Holden looked at her watch. ‘You could waste a lot of time trying to find them. Let’s leave it for now, and pick them up once they get home from work. In the meantime, I want you two to do some research. Police records. Press reports. What I want you t
o look for is something that could have caused someone to want revenge. Anywhere between here and Wrexham, on 5 May.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Guv?’ Wilson said.

  Holden looked at him sharply. ‘Why, Wilson. Are you monitoring me?’

  ‘No, Guv, definitely not, I was just—’

  ‘I’m going to take another look at Sarah Johnson,’ she continued in a voice that would have sliced through pack ice. ‘If, that is,’ she added, ‘it is all right by you, Wilson!’

  For several seconds, a freezing silence descended on the trio. Holden knew she had gone too far, but had no intention of saying sorry. She sniffed, and when she spoke again, her voice was under control, and almost human.

  ‘Wilson, would you mind getting the file on her, please.’

  Wilson needed no further asking. ‘I think it’s on Fox’s desk.’ And with that he scuttled out the room.

  Holden looked at Lawson, who in turn looked back at her. A woman who had got somewhere, and a woman who wanted to be there. ‘You think I’m too hard on him?’ Holden asked.

  Lawson shrugged, but offered no comment.

  ‘Tell me!’ she insisted. ‘Woman to woman. Off the record.’

  Lawson shrugged again. ‘A bit hard, yes. But mind you, he does ask for it.’

  ‘And are you hard on him, Lawson?

  This time there was no shrug. ‘Yes. But I look after him too.’

  ‘So do I, Lawson.’

  ‘Damn!’ The curse came from the corridor, and both women immediately recognized it as Wilson’s. Out of their sight, the flustered constable dropped to his knees to pick up several sheets that had fallen from the file in his arms. Then, back on his feet, he hurried the last couple of paces to the door and pushed into DI Holden’s office, head down. ‘Here you are,’ he said ‘that’s everything off Fox’s desk.’ And he set the bundle down in front of Holden, oblivious to the amused smiles that the two women were exchanging.