Blood on the Cowley Road (2 page)

Bicknell got up and went over to the large desk sited under the window. He leafed through a pile of paper sheets until he found one he was happy with.

‘This is a copy,' he said, placing it on the coffee table in front of Fox. ‘I'll have to burn all the photos onto a CD.'

Fox looked at the plaque. It was a strong blue colour, with white writing. Paper card it might have been, but the first impression was strikingly realistic, even this close. It was no surprise that it attracted attention when it was up on the wall. No surprise that Sarah Johnson chose to stare at it for so long.

‘When you put your plaque up, did you know that two people had jumped to their deaths from that car park in the last six months?'

‘It was hardly a state secret, now was it?'

Fox's eyes were still on the plaque, as if scanning it might somehow bring him a blinding revelation. When that didn't work, he read it out loud: ‘26 April. Jo Smith stood here while contemplating suicide.' When he looked up, Bicknell had moved back to the desk and was turning on his computer.

‘Who was Jo Smith?' he asked quietly.

‘Jo Smith?' Bicknell snorted. ‘Jo Smith was a figment of my bloody imagination. All right?'

Fox spun round with a sudden spurt of anger. Who the hell did Bicknell think he was? For a second he imagined the pleasure to be gained from punching the cockiness out of him. Fuelled by the thought, he strode over to the desk and leant with all the physical threat he could muster across Bicknell's personal space.

‘Don't you regret what you did at all? Hasn't it occurred to you that it might have been your smart-arsed project that tipped her over the edge? That if you had bloody well stayed in bed that day, she might still be walking around Oxford today?'

If Bicknell was taken aback by Fox's burst of anger, he wasn't going to show it. ‘If I did tip her over the edge,' he snarled back, ‘so fucking what? Who are you to pass judgement, detective? How the hell do you know that she isn't better off dead than alive? Maybe life was, for her, just too bloody shitty to be worth carrying on.'

‘And maybe she was just having a bad day,' Fox responded. ‘Maybe if she had made it to the next day, she would have felt better.'

‘Maybe you missed your vocation as social worker, detective.'

Fox stood up straight again. Again pain shot across his lower back, but he kept his eyes full on Bicknell. ‘You're quite a cool bastard aren't you?' he said, his voice now under control.

‘Look, detective, let's just get this straight, then you can stop trying to lay all this shit on me.' Bicknell's computer had come to life. He started to tap away on his keyboard as he spoke. ‘She's dead, right? She chose to jump. Right? No one – unless, of course, you know any different – pushed her. She just climbed up to the top, looked out across the dreaming spires of sunny Oxford, and jumped. As a consequence, I got some great publicity – not to mention some cash from the newspapers. I've already had two galleries on the phone wanting me to exhibit my work. Sarah Johnson's death was the best thing that could possibly have happened to me. So if you want to know if I've any regrets, the answer is not many. If you want to know if I lie awake at night wondering if I behaved properly, I don't. Now, if you'll give me a couple minutes, I'll burn these photos for you. Then, if you don't object, I've got some phone calls to make. All right?'

When the door of Sarah Johnson's flat was pulled back by a woman with brown shoulder-length hair, blue-grey eyes, slightly up-turned nose and a thin oval-shaped face, DS Fox felt as if he was seeing a ghost. He was a down-to-earth, sceptical man, but in the moment in which the door opened and he looked into the face of Anne Johnson, he was – however briefly – a believer. His logical approach to life should have prepared him for the facial similarity of the two sisters, but if less than an hour after scanning the blank features of a corpse in the morgue you come face to face with the living embodiment of that corpse, it would be easy for logic to get submerged by emotion.

‘Yes?' Anne Johnson had been rung two hours earlier by DC Wilson, but she too was briefly non-plused, primarily because she was expecting someone in uniform. Her first thought was that they were from the funeral directors, despite the fact that she had arranged for them to call round the following day. The taller, older man, certainly looked the part: he was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and plain tie under a long black coat, and his downcast expression seemed to her to be appropriate for someone in the burial business. It was this man who responded. ‘Detective Sergeant Fox. And this is Detective Constable Wilson.' He paused, still not entirely back in the logical world either. ‘You must be... ?'

‘Anne Johnson,' she said hastily. She offered her hand, while wondering if this was appropriate for greeting a policeman on duty. ‘Please, come in.'

While Anne Johnson got them a mug of tea, Fox sat on a distinctly tatty armchair and looked about the room. He would have liked to have wandered around, nosing around into every corner of the flat, to
see what Sarah Johnson had liked to read, to eat, to dress in. What photos did she have in her bedroom? What was on her bedside table and in its drawers (assuming she had one and it had drawers). Were there pills for depression there? Had she stopped taking them? But somehow it seemed insensitive to do that until they had drunk tea together and talked about Sarah. Only then would he feel he could ask permission to look through the dead woman's possessions.

‘So,' Anne Johnson said, after she had sat down and taken a sip from her mug, ‘what do you want to know?'

‘We are required to make a few enquiries, for the inquest. Just a formality, you understand?'

‘You want to know if she was the sort of person who would commit suicide, you mean?' She spoke firmly, unemotionally, in a manner perfected at those wretched parent-teacher evenings that were one of the least enjoyable parts of a teacher's lot. How often had she sat opposite a pushy middle-class parent, calmly answering his or (more frequently) her overanxious questions. Not-so-little John or Victoria was invariably absent from these intimate public meetings – and always for some highly implausible reason – so pushy parent was able to lay it all out while the next pushy parent in line tutted noisily about the time everyone else was taking. Not that Miss Johnson viewed the slightly ponderous detective and his young sidekick as half as challenging as some of her parents, but the situation unquestionably was. If she could just treat this interview as a rather unexceptional parent-teacher meeting, then she felt she could get through it without bursting into tears and making a fool of herself.

‘I suppose so,' DS Fox admitted. ‘Yes.' He looked down as he spoke – almost demurely – thereby sabotaging her attempts to pretend that he was the archetypal parent from suburban hell. ‘If you don't mind?' he added gently.

Anne Johnson took another sip from her mug. ‘Sarah was always a bit up and down,' she said, and then immediately regretted it. What a stupid, stupid expression. And who was she to patronize her sister with such a trite description? She looked up from her mug at Fox. He gave a vague but encouraging grimace. ‘Bipolar disorder the doctors called it,' she continued. ‘Manic depression in ordinary language.' The words began to tumble out. ‘Since she was about eighteen or nineteen.
She went to Edinburgh University, had a breakdown her second term. She was sectioned and shut away in hospital until they had diagnosed her and worked out what drugs to pump into her. Then out she went into the community, stigmatized for ever – unable to get a job, a mortgage, anything that you or I would call a normal life.' She paused, and this time Fox intervened.

‘When did you last see her?'

‘Not recently.'

‘Or speak to her?'

She took one, then a second sip from her mug. ‘Look we weren't exactly best buddies. It was about three weeks ago. I try ... I used to try and ring her on the first of the month. Otherwise I knew I would never get round to it.'

‘I see,' said Fox.

‘Really?' Her voice was sharp this time. ‘Personal experience is it? Got a sister like mine have you.' Normally, she prided herself on maintaining a detached patience throughout even the most trying of parent interviews, but somehow the bland ‘I see' of this ponderous detective had had the power to blow away all her normal inhibitions of social intercourse. ‘Because if you haven't, I don't see how the hell you can possibly see.'

Fox looked down, wondering if perhaps he should leave, and come back another time. But before he could come to a decision, DC Wilson exploded. Not literally, of course. He had been taking a sip from his mug of heavily sugared tea when Anne Johnson had launched her unexpected broadside. The small amount of tea that entered Wilson's mouth had immediately taken on a sinister life of its own, forcing itself into the unfortunate detective constable's windpipe. Wilson's windpipe – as is the way of windpipes in such situations – objected to this sudden intrusion of liquid, and after a short pause while Wilson fought for control and lost, the tea hurtled across the small table around which the three of them were seated and splattered unerringly on Anne Johnson's T-shirt.

‘Bloody hell!' Fox rose to his feet, his face three shades darker than it had been.

‘Sorry,' the wretched Wilson burbled. ‘I am so sorry.' He too was on his feet.

Anne Johnson stayed firmly seated and laughed. Not the laugh of a woman at the end of her emotional tether, but rather the laugh of a teacher in control. A laugh – at once unexpected and incongruous, raucous in tone and then suddenly terminated – which Miss Johnson occasionally employed in class to bring her unsettled pupils back to heel. Fox and Wilson were both suitably perplexed. ‘Do sit down,' she said in the calmest of voices. ‘Please!' Wilson looked at Fox, Fox looked at Wilson, and in unison the two naughty schoolboys resumed their seats.

‘I think it would be in all our interests to bring this meeting to a prompt conclusion.' Having gained control, Ms Johnson had no intention of relinquishing it. ‘As far as I can see, we have established that my sister was a manic depressive. We have established that I have not seen her for some time, and have not even spoken to her for three weeks. So, obviously, I cannot help much vis-à-vis her recent state of mind. What I can add is that when I last spoke to her she seemed to be in good spirits. In fact, it was quite a relief to me, because she had been very low earlier this year.' She paused, considering if there was anything else she wanted to say. ‘I think that is about it,' she said eventually, ‘but if you want to snoop round her bedroom, look inside the medicine cabinet, sniff her knickers, or do whatever it is that policemen do in these circumstances, then you have my blessing.'

‘Thank you,' said Fox, meaning it. ‘But if you don't mind, I do have a couple more questions – then we'll do our bit of snooping and go.'

She looked steadily at him, gave a slight nod of her head, but said nothing.

‘Did your sister – do you know – keep a diary, or anything like that.'

‘Yes.' The answer came instantly. ‘It's in the little cupboard by her bed. It was on top of the cupboard when I arrived, but I thought it best to put it away.'

‘Thank you,' said Fox, who had decided that politeness was the best approach. ‘The other thing would be to ask you if you know of a man called Jake?'

Anne Johnson didn't have the opportunity to reply, because at that moment the doorbell rang. There was nothing polite about that, though, because it rang and continued ringing, as if someone had leant up against it accidentally and was pressing all their weight on it.

‘Who on earth could that be?' Anne Johnson rose to her feet and moved towards the hallway of the apartment, while Fox surreptitiously rose behind her, and moved to the side so that he would have a full view when the outside door was opened. He recognized Danny Flynn immediately, but the man framed in the doorway had eyes only for Anne Johnson. ‘You're her sister aren't you? Sarah's sister. She told me about you.' Anne surveyed the stranger with apparent calm – though a nurse taking her pulse at that moment would have noticed a considerable acceleration in its rate. The man had hair close-cropped almost to his skull and eyes that were never still. He wasn't tall, slightly shorter than herself, Anne judged, and he was skinny with it, a fact accentuated by the tight black leather jacket that he wore zipped up to his neck. On his hands, she noticed, he was wearing white latex gloves. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘I am Anne. Who are you?'

He ignored the question. ‘They were following her, you know. Had been for weeks.' Suddenly Anne felt glad of the presence of the two detectives. The man was now shifting his weight from side to side, as if warming up for a slalom. Then he suddenly looked behind him to his left, then to his right, before sticking his hands into his jacket pockets and letting out a deep sigh. ‘I told her to tell the police, but she just laughed. She was always laughing was Sarah.' Again he paused, and again he looked behind him to left and right. ‘She should have listened. Now she's dead.'

‘Hello, Danny.' Fox had moved forward and was standing by Anne's shoulder. He didn't think she was at risk. Danny was disturbing rather than dangerous, in his experience, but he felt it was time for him to intervene.

‘You!' He almost hissed the word.

Fox tried to be disarming, without expecting Danny to be convinced. ‘You all right Danny?'

‘You've been following me.' His voiced was raised now, almost a shout. ‘You've been following me again!'

‘No I haven't, Danny,' he said with exaggerated calmness. ‘I've come to speak to Anne about the death of Sarah, that's all. Just doing my job.'

‘They did it!' He was hissing again now, and again he looked behind him. ‘They forced her to jump. They forced her.'

Anne thought she could see a tear in the corner of his left eye. ‘Who
did?' she said. ‘What do you mean?'

Danny raised his arm and pointed at Fox. ‘He knows' he shouted, and then he was gone, down the path, out of the gate, and off down the street.

‘Stop!' Anne said, and moving forward after him, but Fox was moving forward too, at her side, placing a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Leave him!' he said sharply.

She turned and pulled her arm out of his grasp. ‘Didn't you hear what he said?' The schoolteacher's poise had evaporated, leaving behind raw distress. ‘Aren't you going to stop him? Take him in for questioning?'

‘No,' said Fox firmly. He was standing across the path now. ‘There's no need.' For several seconds he waited, unsure whether she might suddenly try and run after Danny herself, but eventually she gave a muffled snort and retreated back inside the flat.

‘Danny is known to us.' They were sat down again around the square pine coffee table, and Fox had switched into patient explanation mode.

‘And Danny knew Sarah, right?'

‘Yes,' replied Fox quietly.

‘And Danny said they forced her to jump.'

‘Danny's paranoid.' It was Wilson who said this. Both Anne and Fox turned to look at him. If Fox was unhappy about his colleague's brusque interruption, he didn't show it. ‘He always thinks he's being followed,' Wilson continued. ‘By us – the police that is – or MI5 or MI6 or the CIA. You name it, he's been followed by it. So, if he thinks Sarah was being followed, then that's only to be expected.'

‘Thank you, Constable,' Anne said icily. ‘Very informative. I suppose I should feel reassured.'

‘Perhaps I should stress that we aren't going to ignore Danny,' said Fox, trying to regain the initiative. ‘We know where he lives. We know he is always in and out of the day centre. So we can always talk to him in calmer surroundings. But if I were you, I wouldn't place too much credence on what Danny says. Besides, there's no reason to believe that Sarah didn't take her own life.' He paused, then stood up. ‘Unless, of course, you know something that we don't?'

It took the two detectives less than five minutes to complete their
‘snoop round' the flat. They found Sarah's diary and an address book, various boxes of pills, but otherwise nothing that was of interest. As Wilson carefully bagged these items, Fox went and stood at the door of the kitchen. He felt, after the harshness of his last remark, that he ought to make some sort of amends. He waited while Anne Johnson finished drying up the mugs from which they had drunk their tea. ‘Sorry about Wilson,' he said, gesturing towards the marks on her T-shirt. ‘Drinking tea is not something they include on the young detective's training course.'

She folded the tea towel and laid it carefully over the back of the lone chair in the kitchen. The she looked up at him.

‘You asked earlier about someone called Jake?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘Your sister had a mobile phone, and on the day she died, she tried to ring someone listed as Jake. Do you know him?'

‘No,' she said. ‘That is to say, I haven't met him. But he's a worker down at the day centre. Relatively new, I think. Sarah seemed to like him. I think she found him a good listener.'