Blood on the Cowley Road (24 page)

 

Al Smith was losing his cool. He had arrived early at the Wittenham Clumps car park. Deliberately so. He had wanted to get there in plenty of time to suss out the area. To see if he could gain any sort of edge. There were three cars parked up when he pulled in, and he felt better when he saw them. If the bastard was going to try and kill him, he wouldn't want to do it in front of witnesses. So as long as there were other people there, he was safe. But suppose one of the cars was the killer's. Maybe he too had come early. Maybe he was up there in one of
the Clumps, hiding amongst the trees in the undergrowth. The Clumps were aptly named: two clumps of trees which appeared to have been plonked at random on the tops of these two hump-like hills by some higher power. A god with a love of camels and a sense of humour perhaps. But for Smith the place had a sense of something more sinister, a pagan god. Smith had been there only once before, and he remembered seeing a wicker figure in the nearest wood. He must have been eleven or twelve, and he remembered the fear he had felt. Not that he had admitted it to his mum or dad – that would have been sissy. But he remembered how very cold the wood had felt and how glad he had been to reach the far side and emerge into the bright, warming sunshine.

Suddenly he was back in the present, and realized that, ridiculously, he was shivering. He tried to ignore it and scanned the open grassland that surrounded the two hillocks. A woman with two small black-and-white dogs, Jack Russells probably, was walking up towards the left-hand copse, while a man with a light-coloured Labrador was climbing the slope towards the nearest copse. The driver of the third car was nowhere to be seen however. He – or she – could be anywhere: in one of the copses, or the other side and out of sight. A simple visitor enjoying the view and the air. Or the killer.

And so Smith waited, constantly surveying the terrain before him. Occasionally, he looked round behind himself, as a vehicle drove along the lane, but none slowed down to turn into the car park. Where the fuck was he? For the twentieth time he checked his watch. It was 5.15. How much longer should he give it before he ... before he did what? Just drive off? Or should he ring Jake's mobile? What the hell was the bastard playing at?

‘Good evening!' The woman with the Jack Russells took him completely by surprise. He had noticed her returning down the hill, but he had been so intent on looking out for the killer and so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he had completely overlooked her, and now here she was walking past him so close he could smell her perfume.

‘Good evening,' he parroted back. He watched as she opened the rear passenger-side door. The dogs jumped dutifully in, and she slammed the door shut. Suppose the killer was a woman? Why the hell
did it have to be a man? Wasn't a woman just as capable of thumping Jake over the head or burning Martin to death in his own allotment shed. In fact, wasn't a woman more likely to have done it than a man. If you thought about the planning and execution of Martin's death (and Al had, like many others, followed every detail avidly in the local media), wasn't that degree of malicious cunning typical of a woman? He watched as the woman, who had made no attempt to murder him, turned right out of the car park and began to accelerate down the hill towards the village. He stood watching until he could hear her engine no more. Then, he jumped. Almost literally.

‘Fuck!' he swore, disgusted with his own reactions and feelings. His mobile was ringing. Hastily he dragged it out of his pocket. A quick glance showed it was Jake's phone. He pressed the green button and pushed the mobile against his left ear. ‘Where the hell are you?' he said aggressively. ‘I've been waiting ages.'

‘Tut, tut!' came the mocking voice. ‘That's not a very nice greeting!'

Smith was swivelling around, left and right, to see if he could see the killer. Was he waiting there in the wood, or behind the hedge, a rifle in his hands, playing with him before he fired? There was no one visible. The labrador and his master had disappeared from view. Smith suddenly realized how vulnerable he was, standing there in a lonely car park with no other humans in sight. He must have been stark staring bonkers to imagine that the bastard would just turn up and fight, man to man.

‘You said five o'clock!' he said.

‘Change of plan. Sorry!'

‘What do you mean? You made the arrangement.'

‘That's right, I did. And now I'm making a different arrangement. Because I'm calling the shots, arsehole. So I'm telling you to drive to the Bullnose Morris and wait in the car park till I call again.'

‘How do I know you're not just taking the piss?'

The man did not answer the question, unless an explosion of laughter can be called an answer. But it died as suddenly as it had started. The phone call was over.

 

Holden heard the footsteps in the corridor, and looked at her watch. It was barely twenty-five minutes since she had spoken to Don
Alexander. She had asked him to bring over every photo he had on file from the inquest and funerals of those six people who had died on 5 May.

‘Use a messenger,' Holden had said, ‘and we'll pay. Just as long as it's quick.'

‘I've got a motorbike,' Alexander had replied with the smugness of a card-sharp who knows he's got an unbeatable hand. ‘Saves me loads of time round the city. I'll bring them myself. Then if you need any help with identification, or anything—'

‘Fine!' Holden had agreed. Not that she had had any choice. It was as obvious as the dog-shit on the pavements of Oxford that Alexander wanted to be sure that no one got the inside story before he did, and she could hardly blame him for that. But if the photos were to confirm her darkest fears about Fox, if there was just one photo with his face lurking in the background, then she would be faced with the additional problem of stopping Alexander releasing the story before she was ready. ‘Bent cop is serial killer' was not a headline she wanted appearing on the front page without the press office being fully briefed in advance. She had not, of course, told Alexander of her suspicions, but he would soon put two and two together, and then, whether she liked it or not, the cat would be out of the bag. She would have to prevail on his good nature. Hell, even journalists must have a good nature hidden somewhere deep down within them. Maybe a bit of flattery, or rather a lot flattery, would do the trick. He was probably vain enough. With this final uncharitable thought in her head, and with the tread of footsteps getting ever closer to the doorway, she stood up, ready to receive him.

‘Bloody hell!' she said. Then there was silence. Her jaw dropped as low as any jaw has ever dropped in amazement.

‘Sorry, I'm a bit late Guv,' came the reply. ‘Is something wrong?'

Holden stared at DS Fox until her jaw regained movement.

‘Where in God's name have you been?' she demanded.

‘I told Wilson,' he said defensively. ‘Didn't he tell you? I went to the dentist.'

 

Smith pulled up in the car park of the Bullnose Morris in Garsington Road, and turned off the car. The light was fading fast. He looked
around, but there was no one to be seen. Half a dozen cars and, as far as he could see, no one sitting in any of them. Wherever he was, it wasn't here. He flipped open his mobile and rang Jake's number. The voice answered: ‘Where are you?'

‘At the Bullnose. Where else?'

‘Set your milometer to zero.'

‘What?'

‘Drive one point one miles towards Garsington, then turn left. Drive zero point four miles down that road. You'll see a farm track leading off to the right, and a sign saying “Private – Dingle Dell Cottage”. Follow the track till you reach a delapidated stone cottage. I'll be waiting for you.'

‘What if I don't?' Smith asked. But there was no response. Only a dial tone.

‘Fuck!' he said. He held the phone to his ear for several more seconds. Then he tried a redial, but it just cut straight into Jake's message and his answering service. ‘Fuck!' he said again.

 

When you're faced by a man whom you suspect has committed three murders, and you are alone in a room with him, every word you utter and every move you make has to be weighed with the greatest of care. DI Holden looked across at her sergeant and smiled. It was, in the circumstances, a pretty convincing smile, and Fox, who wasn't sure what he had walked into, gave a somewhat sheepish grin back.

‘What was it?' she asked with apparent concern. ‘An abscess?'

‘Yeah,' he said with shrug.

‘Hmm!' she said neutrally, before she began what she hoped was unobtrusive probing. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you'd got to. It's just that you've been out quite a time, and you're with Mr Stewart just down the road, aren't you? And of course,' she added with a thin smile, ‘we are in the middle of a murder investigation!'

A helpless grin spread across Fox's face. ‘Sorry, Guv. It's a bit embarrassing, really,' he said. And, as if to reinforce his words, Fox gave a pretty good impression of looking embarrassed too. ‘I fainted!'

‘You fainted?' Holden echoed, trying to spin out the time available to her, only how much was available to her she really didn't know. And Fox, she realized with a start, had pushed the door shut behind him.

‘I'm not very good with dentists, especially when they're brandishing needles.' Again he flashed that sheepish grin. ‘That's why I changed dentists, from Mr Stewart to Mrs Stephenson.'

‘You changed dentists?'

‘Yes. It's silly, really. Me being a policeman and yet having a phobia of going to the dentist. I was talking to the pharmacist about it and she suggested that maybe I'd be better with a woman dentist, and she told me about Mrs Stephenson, who she goes to. So I thought I might as well try her out. And to be honest, Mrs Stephenson was very nice and reassuring, but I still fainted, and then she insisted that I sit down and rest up with a cup of tea, but I realize I should have rung in and, well, I'm sorry, Guv.'

As Fox's little speech petered out, Holden allowed herself to sink back down into her chair. She was conscious of tension across her shoulders and the nape of her neck, and a throbbing at the back of her head. It ought to feel better than this, when you suddenly realize you've been an inch away from making a terrible mistake, but it didn't. Perhaps that was because suspicion still lurked, not yet fully under control, at the back of her brain.

‘Fox,' she said, ‘tell me about Sarah Johnson's diary.'

He frowned. ‘I'm not with you Guv. What about it?'

‘It wasn't with the file. It was in your desk drawer, locked away,' she said, and then played her final card. ‘Someone had ripped out a page. Can you explain that?'

‘I'm not sure what you're suggesting, Guv,' he said cautiously. Suspicion was roused and active at the back of his head too. ‘That I should leave my desk drawer unlocked? That I should have noticed a page was missing from the diary? Or what? Because to be honest, I never got round to reading it properly. I mean I flicked through it at the beginning, but after that I put it in my drawer because it seemed safer, and besides my desk diary is very like it. And then I forgot all about it.'

‘Your forgot all about it?' Accusation, doubt and suspicion accompanied these words, but they were more to do with Fox's lack of professionalism than anything else. The idea of Fox as killer had almost completely receded, and she felt deflated and irritated as a consequence.

At which point in their conversation, the door burst open and in
walked a figure known to both of them.

‘Don!' Holden said brightly, ‘Is it good to see you!'

‘The pleasure is all mine,' he flashed back, all charm and smarm. He placed a thin bundle of papers on the desk.

‘Is that all there is?' Holden said, disappointment apparent in her voice.

‘There's this too,' Alexander replied, pulling a CD out of his pocket as a conjuror might pull the missing card. ‘We're in the twenty-first century Inspector, where we come from, and photos are mostly digital.' Holden snatched it irritably from his hand and moved round the desk to sit back down at her PC. Fox, a man happier with old fashioned photos and grubby newspaper cuttings, began to leaf deliberately through those on the desk.

‘So what is it exactly we are looking for?' he asked eagerly.

‘There's no need for you to hang around, Don,' Holden said dismissively. ‘We'll take it from here.'

‘I can't let these out of my sight, Inspector,' he said pompously. ‘I'm doing you a big favour as it is.'

‘Well, sit down over there,' she said indicating a red chair in the corner of the room. ‘We can't work with you peering over our shoulders. '

‘As you wish,' he said, and moved away. He was not unhappy. He was in the room and on the spot. Whatever kicked off, he would know. The story was safe.

Barely a minute had passed before Holden broke the silence. ‘Look!' she said.

Fox, who was in the middle of reading a newspaper report, moved round the desk. ‘Well, damn me!' He found himself staring at a pair of sombre-looking men standing in front of a large rectangular hole in the ground. One he didn't recognize, but the other, the one of the right-hand side, was all too familiar.

‘Can I help?' Alexander asked, standing up as he did so.

‘No!' Holden snapped, as she clicked again with the mouse. Another picture came up. There were five people in this one. Holden and Fox stared for three or four seconds before the sergeant spoke:

‘Isn't that what's her name?'

‘Rachel Laing, you mean?'

‘Yes.'

‘I think so. And the guy next to her, in the anorak, I've met him in church.'

‘Church?'

‘He came up and spoke to me. He knew Jake and Sarah, from the day centre.'