Blood on the Cowley Road

by Tickler, Peter

  ‘Talk about making things easy for us,’ Wilson grinned.

  But Lawson said nothing, for she was already walking back down the stairs, a box under each arm, and a small but as yet untested idea in her head.

  At much the same time, Danny Flynn stood in the middle of his room and looked critically around. He lived in a bed-sitter on the top floor of a four-storey house on the south-eastern side of the Iffley Road. It was a large room, taking in the full depth of the building, though the eaves of the roof had the effect of making the room seem somewhat smaller than its official dimensions. Danny walked across to the front window, which afforded a view across the Iffley Road towards the university running track, the very one on which Roger Bannister had been the first man to break the four-minute barrier for the mile all those years ago. But this feat was not at all on Flynn’s mind. As he peered out of the window, it wasn’t across the road that he was looking, but rather down at the road, and in particular at the pavements on either side. He stood there for several minutes, hardly moving, but assessing the individuals, couples and groups who were walking up and down them. A grey-haired woman and small child – grandmother and granddaughter presumably – made their way very slowly from right to left as he looked, hand in hand. Two men in dark suits strode past them in the other direction, walking together but not, as far as Flynn could see, talking together. Next into Flynn’s view came a group of five students. Dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and trainers, they rapidly overtook the woman and child, before turning right down the private road, bound perhaps for the running track and Bannister’s footprints.

  None of these moving people held Flynn’s attention for any length of time. What did, however, was first a car, and then a woman. The car was pulled up on the far side of the road, facing the city centre but ignoring all the parking restrictions clearly indicated by the double yellow lines running along that side of the road. A man was sitting in the driving seat and he was talking into a mobile phone. This carried on for over a minute – Flynn kept checking his watch every ten seconds or so – before the car moved jerkily off, the mobile phone still clasped to the man’s right ear. Instantly, Flynn’s attention was transferred to a woman leaning against the railings. For Flynn realized with a start that he hadn’t noticed her before. He hadn’t seen her stop. He hadn’t seen her walking along the street. It was as if she had materialized on that paving slab. Anxiety surged around his body, and his hands, hanging down in front of him started to move from side to side, as if controlled, like those of a marionette, by strings. How long had she been there? She was in the shade created by the overhanging branches of the large beech tree that stood on the far side of the railings. She might have been there ages. Watching. Watching his window? Watching out for him? But her face, the position of her head, told another story, and as he realized this the anxiety began to slowly seep from his body. She was not looking up. She was looking down the road now, to the left as Flynn saw it, and every movement of her body suggested that she, too, was anxious. She looked nervously at her watch, she pulled abstractedly at a lock of hair, she looked back up the street, and then back down the street again. She was waiting for someone, and he – or she – was late. Flynn watched her intently. His hands had stopped moving, and his breathing now eased. She hadn’t looked up towards him even once. So, maybe she wasn’t a spy. Maybe she wasn’t one of them after all. Then, all of a sudden, the woman took another final glance at her watch, before turning and starting to walk back towards the city centre, first slowly, even reluctantly, and soon more purposefully, her legs striding out as if she was determined to leave this embarrassing place behind. She had been stood up. Flynn grinned in relief. But as he watched her disappear from view, he found himself feeling sorry for her, and even angry on her behalf. How dare he stand her up? For a he it must have been, Flynn decided. What had she done to deserve that? Bastard! Flynn watched where she had disappeared for several seconds, in case by some chance she should turn around and retrace her steps. But when she didn’t, he let out a deep breath and sighed.

  There was no one watching, of that he was certain – well almost certain. He was safe. Flynn stepped back from his window, turned round, and reviewed the state of his room again.

  The first thing that would have struck a visitor was the neatness of the room. Apart from the slightly faded pattern of the duvet cover, the bed might have been part of a window display: the two pillows were plumped, the duvet was rumple free, and a towel lay folded into a square at its foot. On the small chest of drawers next to the bed there stood a lamp with a pale-green lampshade and a small black alarm clock. Nothing else. A three-door wardrobe dominated the wall to the right of the bed (as Flynn looked at it), and the long mirror on the central door showed not a single mark (Flynn had cleaned it just before going to sleep the night before.) Next to it was a doorway that led to the shower room and toilet, as well as to the front door of the bedsit. And next to that were bookshelves that covered the wall right up to the front of the room. Flynn frowned, and moved forward. He peered at two wooden figures, Norwegian trolls, which stood in the centre of the shelving as if they were guardians of all the books and magazines that were stacked above, below and to either side of them. They were squat figures, with cheerful faces and bulbous noses, but Flynn was not satisfied. He grunted, and then moved the male figure a few millimetres backwards. He stepped back a pace, grunted again, stepped forward, and this time moved the female figure slightly to the right. He stepped back again, surveyed the figures, and this time nodded in satisfaction. He continued then with his 360-degree sweep of the room, looking for anything that had gotten out of place. Eventually he nodded again, before advancing towards to the side of the wardrobe closest to the doorway. He removed a ring with three attached keys from a hook screwed into the wood and thrust them deep into his right-hand pocket. There was a second hook. On this there hung a Swiss Army knife. Flynn ran the thumb and first finger of his left hand down its red casing. When Fox had visited, he had noticed it hanging there; in truth Flynn rarely removed it from its place. But on this particular morning Flynn picked it gently off its hook and examined it closely. Then without a sound he put it into his left-hand pocket, before flicking the two light switches upwards and opening his door to leave.

  Jake Arnold’s flat was a mess. Even before the intruder had been in and tossed things around it had been a mess, and no one had been allowed to put anything back. Although it was smaller than Mace’s house – a double bedroom, a small guest bedroom, a very snug bathroom, and a large open space that served as a sitting and dining area, with galley kitchen off to the side – finding football programmes and other memorabilia proved a much more exacting task for Wilson and Lawson. He had bookshelves, built in either side of the fireplace, but most of the contents of them were on the floor.

  ‘Maybe you could sift through these,’ Wilson suggested, with a wave of his hand, ‘while I go through his drawers.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lawson said mildly, but with a flash in her eyes. ‘Whatever turns you on.’

  The drawers did not, however, prove in any sense exciting. They had already been half ransacked, and it didn’t take Wilson long to discover that Jake Arnold hadn’t stashed his football programmes under his pants or his pullovers. A box at the bottom of the wardrobe briefly offered hope, but it turned out to contain a collection of gay magazines much too explicit for the rather prudish detective constable. Wilson found himself wishing he’d chosen the shelves.

  ‘Nothing here,’ Lawson called through.

  ‘Nor here!’ he shouted back, and shut the wardrobe door firmly. He walked back through to the living room where he found Lawson standing with hands on her hips and a frown on her face. ‘Do you think he threw his programmes away?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Wilson replied with a shrug.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t bother buying them. Maybe he just borrowed someone else’s,’ Lawson suggested, and then added dryly. ‘In my experience, men can be very ti
ght with their money.’

  ‘And in my experience,’ Wilson said, trying not to rise, ‘men who go to football like to buy a programme. They like to make a note of who played and who came on as a substitute, and who scored. And then they keep those programmes. For a while, at least.’

  ‘So where are Jake Arnold’s?’ Lawson demanded.

  Wilson shrugged. ‘Well, unless there’s a roof space that I haven’t spotted, there’s the kitchen and the bathroom.’

  ‘I’ll take the bathroom,’ Lawson said hastily, conscious that she had drunk too much coffee that morning. ‘If that is OK with you, that is?’ she added.

  Wilson made no comment. He moved slowly towards the doorway of the small kitchen and looked in. His attention was immediately drawn to a row of several books in the corner behind the kettle. The name of Delia Smith on a spine of the nearest confirmed the obvious – that they were recipe books. He picked up each one in turn, flicking through each methodically in the hope, futile he knew, that Jake Arnold had kept his programmes tucked inside for some obscure reason. Well, Delia was famously a supporter of Norwich City FC. But no. Nothing. He then started to go through the drawers and cupboards. Cutlery, crockery, glasses, tinned food, dry food, saucepans, a wok, another kettle, still in its box.

  ‘Alleluia!’ Wilson turned, surprised by the sudden and high-pitched shout of his colleague. She was standing just behind him in the doorway, and her right hand brandished her discovery. ‘Six programmes, all from last season.’

  ‘They were in the bathroom?’ Wilson felt a little cheated that it had not be he who found them.

  ‘Four home games and two away. They were on the chest of drawers by the loo. Under the leaflets on depression, self-harm and hearing voices. A choice of reading for the happy crapper!’

  Wilson grinned despite his unreasonable irritation. ‘Two down and one to go then.’

  When DI Holden’s phone rang only ten minutes after her brief conversation with Don Alexander, her first reaction was to ignore it, but she knew she couldn’t. On the third ring she picked it up and immediately heard an all too familiar voice. She immediately began to count silently to ten. ‘Sorry darling,’ her mother gushed. ‘You know how I don’t like to bother you at work but, well, I’ve had an idea.’

  Her daughter, who had now reached ten, continued her silent count on towards twenty.

  ‘Hello?’ her mother had said. ‘Can you hear me Susan?’

  Fifteen ... sixteen ... ‘Yes Mother, I can hear you.’

  ‘Well do you want to hear my idea? Its about your case!’

  Nineteen ... twenty. ‘Yes Mother,’ she fibbed, ‘I’d like to hear your idea. But,’ she added, still in untruth mode, ‘I do have a meeting very shortly.’

  ‘Well, assert you authority,’ she barked. ‘Make them wait. They’ll respect you more for it. Anyway, this is my idea. Only, I bet you’ll think it’s a silly one.’

  Susan recognized the game. ‘Tell me mother, just tell me.’

  ‘After all, who am I but a silly old woman who knows nothing of the world of real crime and—’

  ‘Cut the self-pity, Mother, and just tell me your idea.’ Again, there was silence – at both ends of the phone conversation. Susan took in a deep breath of air through her nose, held it, and then expelled it through her mouth. ‘Please!’ she added firmly.

  ‘All right,’ came the grudging reply. ‘If you’re sure.’ But this time there was no further dramatic pause. ‘I woke up in the middle of the night, three o’clock it was, and so I got up and made a cup of tea. There I was, sitting at the kitchen table nibbling on a ginger nut, when it came to me. You see, there are three deaths. The first one may or not have been suicide, but the second and third ones were murder. And they were both killed by the same person. We can be certain of that because the murderer then went and searched both their homes. Now, all three dead persons were connected by the day centre but one was a worker, another attended the day centre as a patient or client or whatever you call it, and the third one went along to the anger management group. They weren’t all three best buddies or anything. Sarah had a dependent relationship with Jake. Jake had a fling with Martin.’

  ‘Mother!’ Susan Holden butted in. She was impressed and appalled at the detailed grasp of the whole business that her mother seemed to have gained from their chats over coffee and down the phone. ‘We talked all about this last night. Now I know you’re keen to help, but I have got a lot of things to do, so if you could just get to your point!’

  ‘My point, darling, is that the key to this is the relationship between Sarah and Martin. Jake was the middle link if you want, but if you can find out what incident or common interest or emotional bond links those two, well, then your murder’s solved.’

  ‘Yes,’ said her daughter, conscious that she had to respond somehow. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘There’s no maybe about it. You mark my words. Anyway, I must go and get ready. I’m meeting Doris in ten minutes.’

  ‘Going shopping?’ Susan asked, anxious to grasp any opportunity to steer the conversation away from her mother’s big idea.

  ‘No!’ came the scornful reply. ‘She’s my prayer partner. Didn’t I tell you? We meet once a week to pray for and with each other. Anyway, don’t you worry dear. You’re top of our list.’ And with that, Mrs Holden terminated the phone call.

  Les Whiting took the decision not to go into the gallery as he was standing on its doorsteps. He had walked there, as he did every morning. It had taken not much more than ten minutes of vigorous activity, and that had included a couple of enforced stops while he waited for the lights to change, first at the junction just beyond Folly Bridge, and then at the bottom of St Aldate’s where one of the buses coming up from London had swung just a little bit too wide and caused him to nervously hop back a step. It was as he strained a bit harder up the slope to Carfax that his emotions began to pulse as hard as his body. Jake. It had all started so well. He had been attracted to Jake from the moment he had stumbled, wet and bedraggled, into his gallery. They had hit it off immediately, and very quickly their relationship became more than just friendship. For the first time in his life, Les had felt really at one with someone. He didn’t believe in fate or there only being one guy out there in the world for him, or any rubbish like that, but Jake had been special, one in ten thousand if not a million. It had been magic, a real genuinely loving relationship, and Les had begun to dare that this would be the longed-for life partnership that had seemed so elusive.

  It was then that there had been the incident at the day centre. Jake had come home from work late. It was almost seven o’clock when he turned up; typically he would be home long before that. And he had promised that he would cook that night, and yet when he came in he was reeking of alcohol and refused to answer any questions. Only later, after leaving half the supper that Les had prepared, and drinking most of the two bottles of wine he had opened, did he tell him about Jim Blunt. Jim bloody Blunt.

  Somehow things had changed after that. Les couldn’t put his finger on why. He had listened for hours that night as Jake had told it and retold it, but the next evening, when Les had tried to discuss it again, Jake had blanked him and told him never to mention it again. After that, things between them had been.... What had they been? Different, certainly. Unease had slipped surreptitiously into Les’s head. And close behind had followed suspicion. Les had found himself watching Jake, checking his post, and even sneaking a look at his text messages, and it was during one of these snoops that his suspicions had been justified. Jake was seeing someone else.

  Les stood at the doorway. The set of keys for the gallery were in his right hand, but he made no attempt to use them. He looked at his watch. Ruth would be in shortly. Finally back at work after her two weeks in Portugal with that tedious boyfriend of hers. She could hold the fort for a while. Why not? He put the keys back in his right-hand pocket, pulled the mobile out of the left-hand one, and fired off a curt message. ‘Will be late. Take charge. LW’
Then he was headed off down the High Street, though at a slower pace than before. He knew he had to confront Blunt – for the sake of his own peace if nothing else – but he was in no rush to do so. It was odd to be wanting so earnestly to protect a man with whom he had had such a bitter parting. Perhaps it was the guilt he felt that drove him forward down the slow curve of the High, guilt that he had somehow failed Jake when he had most needed him. It was easy to blame others – Blunt or Mace or Jake himself – but Les knew that the fault was his too. Now, as he crossed Magdalen Bridge, he realized that what he sought was redemption, and by hell if he couldn’t obtain it, well it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  For the third time that week, Anne Johnson answered her sister’s doorbell and found herself face-to-face with Detective Constable Wilson. His pushy WPC was at his back, but Anne Johnson had no intention of letting her force her way in. She smiled frostily as she stood firmly in the middle of the doorway. ‘Not you again!’ She spat the words out as if they were the stones of unripened plums.

  ‘We need to have a look round your sister’s flat again,’ he said, holding her gaze.

  ‘It’s not very convenient.’

  ‘We have a warrant,’ he replied firmly. ‘We’ll try not to make a mess.’

  ‘Don’t just try!’ she said tartly, but she knew she had no choice. Bicknell had departed with his cameras, so at least there wasn’t the embarrassment of him hanging around in the background. She turned and retreated back inside.

  Lawson and Wilson were in the flat less than five minutes. Three Oxford United programmes were quickly located on the bookshelves in the living room, tucked between a large format Know your Lucky Stars book and a coffee table book called, simply, Paris. It was Wilson who found them, and he left the flat absurdly pleased by this fact. Not, of course, that he could have admitted as much, but the fact was that he was beginning to feel distinctly threatened by Lawson.