Blood on the Cowley Road (6 page)

‘Thank you, Wilson,' Holden said, and she turned a smile upon her slightly flushed detective constable. ‘A brownie point for you!'

 

‘Jake was in the wrong job.' Rachel Laing uttered this judgement as soon as she had sat down. ‘Nice guy, but he'd never have lasted.'

If Holden was surprised by this blunt opening statement, she gave no sign. She was experienced enough to know that death, especially unexpected and violent death, affected people different ways. The morning after her own father had been obliterated in a three-car pile-up on the A34, her mother had gone to work as if nothing abnormal had happened, said nothing to anyone in the office, and only rang her, Susan, to tell her after she'd come home, watched the six o'clock news, and helped herself to a small sherry. Rachel Laing was big boned and broad hipped, wore clothes so nondescript you barely noticed them, and oozed matter-of-factness from the pores of her skin. ‘It's not a happy-clappy world. The people who come here have pretty shitty lives and problems. Some cope, some don't. Some survive, some end up dead. Like poor Sarah Johnson. You have to be tough if you're going to last in this environment, and like I said, Jake just wasn't cut out for it. Nice guy and all that, but—'

‘A nice dead guy, Ms Laing,' Holden interrupted, distaste apparent in every syllable she uttered. ‘Just to clarify things, we aren't here to assess how well Jake Arnold was suited to working in the wonderful world of mental health. We're here to find out who the hell killed him. So maybe we could stick to that.'

‘So what do you want to know?' Laing spoke without emotion, as if unaffected by Holden's outburst, though the ghost of a smile drifted across her face. ‘If I know who the killer is?'

Laing never received an answer. Even as she was saying ‘who the killer is?', there came a sound of shouting from beyond the closed door,
followed immediately by a thud and the splintering of wood as the door exploded open. Two figures burst into the room, the first a very flushed Danny and just behind him an equally red-faced DS Fox, his hands already turning palms-up in apology.

‘Danny!' exclaimed Laing, who had risen to her feet. ‘Whatever's the matter?' Wilson, dropping his notebook, stepped forward, but Holden – startled, but still seated – lifted a hand and raised her voice. ‘Stop! Everyone!'

Rather to her surprise, everyone did stop, and before they could start again she addressed Danny.

‘Danny. I think we may have met once before, but in case you don't remember, my name is Susan. I am in charge of the police investigation into Jake Arnold's death. Do you think you might be able to help?'

Danny looked back at the woman sitting unruffled in the battered red armchair. She was wearning dark trousers and jacket, and a plain white blouse. Her hair was dark and short, short enough to reveal a small silver stud in each ear. She looked efficient, organised, in control, yet the tone of her voice was soft and gentle, reminiscent of cooling breezes on a hot summer's day.

‘Why don't you sit down?' She was gesturing towards the mauve armchair that Rachel Laing was now standing next to. ‘Rachel was just about to go, and if you'd rather, my colleagues could go too.'

Danny looked round the small room, at Laing, and Fox and Wilson. He walked two paces over to the window, and looked out of it, then across to the door, where Fox moved to the side. He looked down the short corridor for three or four seconds, before shutting the door firmly. ‘They can stay,' he said, and moved back to the mauve armchair. He sat down with care, perching himself on the front. As if ready for what, Holden wondered. Flight or fight?

‘It was my fault.' Danny spoke quietly, almost as if talking to himself. ‘My fault, all my fault.' Holden, leaning forward, watched him as she may once as a child have watched a trapeze artiste walk the high wire in the big top. Her breathing seemed to have been put into abeyance as she waited to see if Danny would maintain his balance. He was rocking now, only just perceptibly, but rocking nevertheless.

‘Why do you think it was your fault?' Holdens's words were as hushed as his. She hoped they sounded soothing and encouraging.

‘Cause it was,' he said, still rocking.

‘Danny!' she said, her tone slightly raised. ‘You've got to tell me more than that. You've got to explain why.'

‘Why?' he said, his voice rising to match hers. ‘Because if I hadn't smashed his car in, then it wouldn't all have started.'

‘It was you who smashed Jake's car in?' Rachel Laing broke in, astonishment apparent in every syllable of her question.

Holden looked up sharply. She said nothing, but the glare she gave and the aggressive manner in which she drew her two fingers from left to right across her lips, were a clear enough message to Laing to shut up. Holden turned back to Danny, but he seemed not to have registered Laing's interruption.

‘Do you mean you crashed his car?' she asked.

‘No!' he exclaimed. ‘I don't drive. I saw it parked outside Sarah's flat late one night. It's an old green Mini. Occasionally he'd bring it here. Anyway, I just smashed it. I broke the windscreen and the driver's window, and the headlights, and then I did a runner. I shouldn't have done it, cause that's when it all started.' He was breathing heavily now, and Holden noticed a couple of beads of sweat on his now flushed face.

‘All what started?' Holden purred.

‘Well, that's when Jake started to be followed.'

Though the casual observer – and certainly not Danny – would not have noticed any change in the smile on Holden's face, behind it the raised hopes were suddenly extinguished. She wondered how she could have been so stupid to expect anything else. With Danny, there was always someone following, so of course there was bound to have been someone following Jake, as there had been someone following Sarah, as no doubt Danny had been followed all the way from his room to the day centre that morning. Not to mention yesterday. Or the day before.

‘How do you know he was being followed?' she asked, but her questions were now on autopilot. Only, unlike an airliner, they were going nowhere.

He frowned, as if puzzled by the question, then after a few seconds smiled. ‘It was obvious,' he stated. ‘Obvious!'

‘It's not obvious to me,' said Holden, her autopilot betraying signs of irritation.

‘You didn't know him,' he said calmly. He was still smiling, not at
Holden though, but at his hands. He held his left palm open, and with his right he traced a pattern on it – a figure-of-eight, Holden reckoned – first one way, and then the other. ‘I did. And from that day, he was different.'

‘How do you mean, different?' Holden asked.

Danny looked up from his hands, but he was still smiling, almost beatifically. Holden was reminded of a picture of a saint that had adorned a notebook once given to her by her Aunt Ida. ‘Different like two identical apples,' he explained, and his hands traced smooth patterns through the air as if he was a priest standing before the altar. ‘One apple is green and shiny, and when you bite into it, it tastes like the best apple you have ever tasted, like the one your dad picked off the tree that day he took you to the fair and you sat on his lap down the helter skelter. And the other apple is green and shiny too, but when you bite into it, the flesh is soft and brown, and in the middle is a long black worm that has gorged itself so full that as soon as your teeth reach it, it explodes like a landmine of bitterness inside you. That was what Jake was like after I'd smashed his car.'

Holden leant back. She had turned the autopilot off, but the feeling that she was wasting her time was growing by the second. She looked back at Danny's grinning face, and then up at the looming figure of Fox. Her eyes sent out a SOS, and he dutifully responded.

‘Can you give us a description of this man that was following Jake?' he asked.

‘A description?' Danny replied with puzzlement in his voice.

‘Yes Danny,' Fox said firmly. ‘How tall was he? What colour hair did he have? Or was he bald? What was he wearing?'

Fox paused, but Danny made no reply. His right hand was tracing patterns on his left hand again, but the movements were faster than earlier, and jerkier. ‘You did see him, didn't you Danny?' Fox pressed. Again there was silence. Danny's right hand began to slow down, until it stopped moving altogether. There was a slight shrug of the shoulders, and a single muttered word: ‘No.'

‘In that case,' Holden smiled, ‘I don't think we need to ask you any more questions, Danny. But thank you. You've been very helpful,' she lied.

As Danny got up from the chair, Holden motioned to Laing to stay.
She waited until Fox had closed the door before asking her question. ‘So what is your take on all of this, Ms Laing. I gather you know something about the vandalizing of Jake's car?'

‘Who doesn't here? It was the big day centre news when it happened.'

‘And when was that?'

Laing shut here eyes briefly as she tried to focus on the detail. ‘About three months ago, I should reckon. But you can check that in your records. Jake reported it to the police because his car was so damaged. But until just now, I had no idea that it was Danny who did it. Will you be prosecuting him for it?'

‘I'm not sure there's a lot of point,' Holden said with a slight shrug. ‘Not now that—' Her sentence dribbled to a halt. ‘Look,' she said, ‘what really matters here is not who smashed Jake's car. It's who killed him. Why did Danny smash up his car? Did Danny hate him enough to smash his head in too?'

Laing took a noisy intake of breath, then released it as if warming up for some imminent physical effort. ‘When Danny smashed Jake's car, it was parked in Marston Street, right outside Sarah Johnson's flat. This took place roundabout 11.00 o'clock at night. It caused some friction between Jim Blunt and Jake when it became apparent that Jake had been visiting Sarah Johnson, and Jim thought he was overstepping the boundaries. '

‘But Jake was gay?' Holden said.

‘Yes!' She almost snorted the word. ‘Sure he was gay. No one was saying he was sleeping with Sarah, but being round at her flat, and being there late at night – well, it suggests a degree of friendship that was well ... some would call it unprofessional. But personally, I would call it bloody stupid.'

‘And what about Danny?' Holden said, determined to steer the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. ‘If he was jealous enough to smash up Jake's car, then he must have been very fond of Sarah?'

‘Yes,' Laing said again, this time with something close to a sigh. ‘I would say he was very fond of Sarah. Devoted. Like a puppy. Always ready to make her a cup of tea, or nip down to the Londis to get her some cigarettes. But she kept him at a distance.'

‘But she didn't keep Jake at a distance?'

For a second time Laing sucked air in and out of her lungs while she pondered her response. ‘In my judgement, her relationship with Jake was at an altogether deeper level than hers with Danny. She both humoured and used Danny, but Jake—' Laing paused and resumed again her deep breathing, in, out, in, out: ‘Jake she needed. And on Jake she became, I fear, dangerously dependent.'

‘And Danny became very resentful of this relationship, did he?' Holden pressed.

‘I would say so, yes.'

‘Would you say he hated Jake?'

‘Hated him?' She leant back into the chair, and looked up at the ceiling. Unconsciously, she pursed her lips, before lowering her gaze until it met Holden's. ‘Hated, as in hated him enough to have killed him? I think not. Disliked, yes. Hated no.'

‘Really?' said Holden, a note of scepticism in her voice. ‘I'm surprised that you should be so naïve, given that you work with people. You must know how things can grow and grow. Small resentments can become large resentments. Large resentments can turn into jealousy, which can turn sooner or later, if not checked, into hatred. And hatred can lead to murder.'

‘If you say so,' said Laing, in a voice which said quite clearly that she didn't share the detective's gloomy assessment of human character. ‘Is that all?' she said, ‘because if it is I ought to be getting out into the centre and helping the others.'

‘Of course,' Holden said, accommodatingly. She rose to her feet to indicate the interview was over. ‘Thank you for your help.'

Laing rose slightly awkwardly to her feet, suddenly feeling conscious of her own bulk. If she had been honest with herself, she would have acknowledged that she resented the rather trim figure that the Detective Inspector cut opposite her. With a curt nod of the head, she turned towards the door.

‘Just one last question,' Holden said as the other woman's hand grasped the door handle. Laing turned, but said nothing. ‘I was just wondering,' Holden said, as off-handedly as she could, ‘whether maybe Jake was bisexual?'

Laing smiled, then uttered a single dismissive laugh. ‘All I can say is, he never came on to me.' She laughed again. ‘Thank God!'

‘Damn!'

Martin Mace was normally a dab hand with his hoe. He was a solidly built figure – just 5 feet 8 inches in his bare feet – and had once been solid muscle, the result of a ferocious commitment to a bodybuilding regimen. But three years of long-distance lorry driving had taken its toll, steadily turning solid muscle into less than solid fat. His hair was short and flecked with grey, and he sported on the back of his neck a tattoo of an ox and the letters ‘OUFC', which reflected a lifelong commitment to Oxford United. But despite appearances, once he picked up his hoe and started to address the weeds that were a constant threat to his allotment, he became a man of subtlety and even grace. Like a ballet dancer spinning and pirouetting round the stage, the head of his hoe would flit between the rows of runner beans and carrots, amongst the Cos lettuces and the beetroot, and around the pyramid of canes up which his sweet peas were growing (his Granddad has always grown sweet peas on his allotment and so did he), and deftly but mercilessly it would destroy all interloping weeds. Sometimes, Mace would undertake this task even when no weeds were visible to the naked eye, for he found the very process of wielding his hoe both comforting and therapeutic.

But that Friday afternoon, the therapy was not working.

‘Damn!' His dancing hoe had stopped still, as if appalled by the enormity of what it had done. It lay paralyzed in the soil, some three inches from the severed stem of a runner bean plant. With a single movement it had sliced carelessly through this green tube and terminated the life of those many green beans above that drew their life from it.

The hands which held the hoe tightened and stiffened. The knuckles turned white. And from somewhere above, Mace's mouth repeated the same simple word in ever-increasing crescendo. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!'

It had been a disturbing afternoon for Mace. He had gone to the Evergreen Day Centre to attend the Anger Management group which ran every Friday at 3.00 p.m. He had missed the previous session because of a traffic jam on the M40 just south of Birmingham. As a self-employed lorry driver, he could to some degree order his working life to fit in with his own needs. When the Yellows had been playing at Shrewsbury two Tuesdays previously, he had managed to arrive at the ground at 7.00 p.m. precisely, time enough to park his loaded lorry, grab a pie and chips from a local café, and join his mates in the away fans end just in time to catch the players finish their warm-up routines. Normally, he could be back in Oxford early on a Friday, in time to attend the anger management sessions which his GP had recommended, but a pile-up of two lorries and four cars last Friday had brought him and several hundred other vehicles to a two-hour halt. The odd thing was that when he did finally get back home, he found he was frustrated at missing the session. It was odd because he had started the course reluctantly. He had expected his doctor to offer him some pills to calm him down when he had finally plucked up courage to attend surgery, but instead she had warned him that pills might affect his ability to drive. She had then suggested that if he was serious, then he should attend the anger management group that she knew was due to start at the Evergreen Day Centre. So he had gone, promising himself that after one session he'd be able to tell himself that it was all a complete waste of time and not bother again. But on his arrival he'd discovered that one of the people leading the session was Jake Arnold, and so when the following Friday came round he found himself going along so as not to upset Jake. And then the following week he had gone along because – not that he would have admitted it – he wanted to. But then there was the crash and the missed session, and then today he had got there ten minutes early only to be greeted by chaos, and by news that had hit him like a left hook to the solar plexus. Jake Arnold was dead. More than that, Jake had been murdered. He was told about it by Rachel, who ran the group with Jake, and a tall plain-clothes copper
with the humour and charm of an undertaker presiding over the funeral of his own mother.

‘I'm sorry,' the detective had said without sounding as if he meant it. ‘This may be a bit of a shock, but we need to ask you a few simple questions.' The questions had started with the mundane – full name, address, telephone and mobile numbers – and had then moved on to the slightly more creative.

‘You first met Jake Arnold when you started this course, did you?'

Mace had been tempted to agree, but with Rachel sitting there he decided a lie was an unnecessary risk. He didn't know if Rachel knew anything about him and Jake, but she might do. ‘No,' Mace said. The copper looked up with sudden interest, but said nothing, waiting for Mace to expand on his single word response. ‘Jake was a fan of Oxford United, like me, so we'd seen each other at games. We weren't mates or anything, it's just that at away games you all get herded together. So when I came along to this course, well, we recognized each other, didn't we.'

‘So you sort of knew him, but you weren't mates?'

‘Yes!' Mace said, and then ‘No!' Again the copper fixed him with an expression that was intended to convey that (a) he wasn't a man to be messed about with and (b) he was happy to sit here all day asking questions until he got replies that he was satisfied with. ‘Look,' Mace continued, conscious that he wasn't handling this very well. ‘What I mean is that I knew him by sight, but I didn't actually know him until after I came here, to the group.'

‘So you got to know him since?' the copper suggested eagerly. ‘You must see him at every game?'

‘No. Not every game. I don't see him at home games, for a start. I always go to the Oxford Mail stand, he probably sits in the South Stand. And he doesn't go to all the away games either.'

‘Did you see him at the last away game?' The copper was relentless. ‘Where was it, by the way?'

‘Shrewsbury. The Tuesday before last. Nil bloody nil. We played rubbish, but so did they. Jake and me had a chat at half-time.'

‘About what?' the copper broke in quickly.

‘About the football. What the fuck else? Hardly the time or place to discuss how I was getting on with my anger management, now was it?'

‘Just one more question,' the copper had said then. Mace had felt relieved when he'd said this because inside he could feel himself getting more and more pissed off with the questions and the bloody copper's attitude and even with Rachel standing there with her mouth closed for once, but her eyes taking every fucking last thing in. ‘Breathe deep!' He could almost hear Jake say it, which in the circumstances was a right stupid thing to be almost hearing.

‘I need to ask you where you were last night,' the copper was saying. Mace tried to compose himself. ‘I went to Lincoln in the morning. I got back about four o'clock,' he said as calmly as he could. ‘Had some food. Went to the allotment. But it started to rain soon after I got there so I went home, watched the telly for a bit, and went to bed about 9.00 p.m. I had to be in Grimsby by 8.00 this morning, so I had to be up very early.' He stopped, waiting for a response. The copper frowned, scribbled a few notes on his pad, and grunted. ‘OK, that's all.'

The interview was over.

 

At much the same time that Martin Mace was contemplating his hoeing disaster, and less than half a mile away from where he was so doing, Detective Constable Wilson was striding the towpaths of southern Oxford in search of a murder weapon. Not that he expected to find a blood-coated implement lying abandoned in the bushes by the side of the river. But he did hope for confirmation of his theory that the weapon used had been a mooring spike. He started his search in Iffley. He parked his car in the village, then walked down the sloping side road that led to the lock, precisely the route that Peter Mellor had taken with his dog the previous night. He paused for a few moments at the weir where Jake Arnold's body had shot suddenly into Mellor's view, and stared down into the water as if waiting for inspiration to rise fully formed from its swirling waters. With a shake of the head, he moved on, across the lock gates, then turning north. He soon passed the Iffley Inn on his right, but he had no interest in revisiting it, and his stride lengthened as his eyes spotted a narrowboat moored a couple of hundred metres up ahead. A middle-aged man dressed in navy blue slacks, polo shirt and nautical hat was busy checking his moorings, and it took only the most casual questioning from Wilson to elicit the information that they had only just arrived, having spent the previous night at
Wallingford. He pushed on, slowing briefly at Donnington Bridge in order to read its undergraduate graffiti, but then accelerating northwards, swinging with the river first left and then right, until suddenly before him there lay, as at any time of year, a spectacular view right up to the Head of the River pub, lying in its much favoured and highly profitable position by Folly Bridge. Wilson stopped and for a moment took in the view. On the right stood college boathouses, lining the river in a strict regimental rank, while opposite them – and little more than fifty metres from where he was standing – stood the university boathouse in solitary isolation. But it was not at these that the young detective was looking. He had fished these waters as a boy, and the buildings were remarkable to him only as the background to memories of fish that he had landed and fish that got away. Wilson was looking for moored boats (narrowboats or small cruisers), but surprisingly, given that it was sunny and the weatherwoman had promised a very pleasant weekend, there was none to be seen. A cyclist's bell jangled unconvincingly behind him, but before Wilson could turn and look, the cyclist was past him, up and over the steeply humped footbridge in front of him, and away past the university boathouse, long hair flapping in the wind. Wilson did not follow. The bridge's purpose was to allow pedestrians (and cyclists of course, it being Oxford) to cross a small tributary which entered the River Isis at this point, and it was along the southern bank of this waterway that Wilson now began to walk. This was not a path that was well used, and he walked with care. And with anticipation. Because a few hundred metres along the tributary, where it looped round to go under the Donnington Bridge Road, he knew he would find the boats of several river dwellers, and there he reckoned, with a bit of luck, he would find someone missing a mooring spike. As luck would have it, he never got that far. He had walked for barely a minute before he came across a narrowboat almost hidden from view behind a densely foliaged hawthorn bush which was flanked on either side by two graceful willows. As narrowboats go, it was short, fewer than sixteen metres in length Wilson reckoned, and perched on its roof, sipping something from a mug, was a small bald-headed man in dirty brown T-shirt and jeans.

‘Good evening!' Wilson said cheerily. The man looked up, nodded briefly, and said nothing.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,' Wilson continued, this time brandishing his ID card in front of him as a matador might brandish his cloak at a bull. ‘Detective Constable Wilson. No need to be alarmed, but we had some reports of thieving locally, and I just wanted to—'

The dwarf-man laughed. ‘Ah, you've got a very nice soppy class of yob in Oxford, haven't you? Very genteel indeed!' He took another sip from his mug, then waved it in the air in a manner that made Wilson wonder if it didn't contain something a bit stronger than tea. ‘Now in Birmingham, they smash your windows. In Leicester they throw all your clothes into the river and smear shit on your bedding. But in Oxford, posh city of dreaming spires, all they steal is a mooring spike, but only one mind you not two, because they wouldn't like your boat to float off down the river now would they.'

‘When was this?' Wilson tried unsuccessfully to keep the sense of excitement out of his voice.

‘Big case, for you, is it?' the man chuckled. ‘Catching the man who stole a mooring spike.'

‘When?' Wilson said, this time sharply. ‘I need to know when.'

‘Last night. When I was out getting some supper.'

‘Can you be more precise?' Wilson pressed. ‘Please.'

The man scratched his head in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Well, let me think. I must have left the boat about 7.15, maybe a bit later. I walked up to the main river, then up to the town, and had a pie and chips and peas and a couple of pints in that pub by the bridge, and then I walked back. Must have got back to the boat maybe a bit after 9 o'clock. The stern was out across the river. And the mooring spike was gone.'

Wilson inspected the area where the mooring spike had been. The man had replaced it with another (‘I always carry a spare'), but if Wilson had hoped to find some object carelessly dropped by the murderer when he removed the spike, by now his luck had run out. Five minutes later, having declined a cup of tea but taken the man's name and mobile number, he set off back towards Iffley, softly whistling as he went. He felt sure that Susan – that is to say Detective Inspector Holden – would be very pleased with him. He did hope so.

 

‘Nice flat you've got here,' Holden said brightly, keen to avoid jumping straight into questions. She walked three paces across the spacious
minimalist room, and took in the wide sweep of the river through the large picture window. It was 8.30 on Saturday morning and, directly below, a flotilla of mallards made its way from left to right across her vision, down river. ‘I wish I had a view like this,' she said with feeling. She herself lived only a few hundred metres away as the crow flew (not that crows are often seen traversing Grandpont), but the view from her flat (the bottom floor of a two-storeyed Victorian terraced building) was merely of other terraced houses. Les Whiting lived on the third and top floor of a relatively new development of flats close by Folly Bridge. Holden remembered them being built, and remembered, too, envying those people who could afford to buy them.