Blood on the Cowley Road

by Tickler, Peter

  Smith groaned yet again and tried to raise himself from the ground with his left arm, cajoled into consciousness not so much by the shouting or the wetness as by the smell. It was a strong, unpleasant smell, as well as being a very familiar smell, and in the circumstances it was a frightening one. His clothes, he realized, were covered not with water, but with petrol. As adrenalin began to pump through his veins, he tried desperately to get himself upright, now using both arms to force his body upwards, but it was a pointless expenditure of his personal resources. His assailant calmly put the petrol can back down on the ground, picked up the metal spike again, and for a second time swung it in an arc through the air. This time, however, he aimed not at Smith’s head, but his left knee. He was a strong man, and fury added to that strength: the bar crashed unhindered into its target and Smith went down again in screaming agony.

  His assailant sniggered. ‘Now you’re not going to get any ideas about running off,’ he mocked, though the snigger and words were wasted on Smith. Through the excruciating pain, which seemed to rip from the knee right up his side to the base of the skull, all his limited energy and concentration was focused on just one thing – survival – and if survival proved impossible, then at least revenge. He twisted his face upwards in an attempt to see more than just his attacker’s legs, but the act of trying to focus merely caused more pain to streak across his head. The man laughed loudly this time, and kicked him hard in the stomach, so that he collapsed again in a heap.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ Smith begged. And then again: ‘It was an accident! ’

  If Smith hoped that these words would somehow stop his assailant, they failed. His attacker aimed another kick at him, this time at his left leg rather than his stomach. Smith screamed again.

  ‘An accident?’ his assailant shouted. ‘You didn’t mean it? What sort of idiot do you think I am. My girlfriend burns to death and you call it a fucking accident. Next thing is you’ll be begging me to forgive you, to turn the other cheek. Well, let me tell you, I’m no lovey-dovey Christian. If I believed in a God, he’d be the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-fora-tooth type. Vengeance is mine, you bastard, do you get it? Vengeance is mine! And you are going to burn, just like her.’ With that he bent down, picked up a second can and began to pour yet more petrol on Smith. He was curled up in a semi-foetal position, his left hand on his stomach, the other flapping around the smashed knee. But inside his head, his mind was remarkably clear. He just needed to get the bastard closer.

  ‘It was all her fault!’ Smith snarled. ‘The bloody bitch started it!’ The odd thing was that this was almost true. They had come together in the pub, the six of them on their way back from a peace protest, and the five of themselves on their way home after the game. Sitting at adjacent tables, they had got on all right at first. One of the peaceniks asked about the game; he was a Oxford United fan, and they, it turned out, were all from the Oxford area, but after a bit it got a bit political, and the woman – she had long, fuzzy hair, and circular glasses, and a stud in her nose – started to go on about war, and the army, and how soldiers were the stooges of politicians, and how no one in their right mind should kill people for a living – and that had really wound Al Smith up because his little brother Jo had joined up two years ago, and twelve months later had been blown up by a suicide bomber, so he didn’t want to be lectured by any hippie on the ethics of bloody war. ‘The frizzy haired bitch started it!’

  That got his assailant’s attention. The empty petrol can was hurled away, and he stepped right up to Smith, so that his boot was almost touching his face. ‘You’re lying. You’re a lying piece of shit. You drove them off the road. I know that because Sarah told me, and so did Jake just before I killed him. So say what you like, because it won’t change a thing. Your time is up, arsehole!’

  And then he struck a match. Not that Smith saw him do it – he could see only his legs, and the burning van beyond – but he knew it was coming, and he heard and recognized the tell-tale noise, so that he knew he was too late. Smith’s right hand, which had been flapping around his smashed kneecap as if in some vain attempt to assuage the pain, had moved further down his right leg, and had finally located what it sought, a short-handled knife strapped in a leather sheath just above his right ankle. It had then taken several critical moments of desperate scrabbling to pull up the trouser leg and grasp the handle, but then only a second to lunge through the air and strike deep into the man’s calf. The match fell pirouetting and reeling through the air, igniting the petrol vapours before it reached Smith’s jacket. The man fell to the ground, bellowing out pain. As the flames erupted into his face, he twisted violently to the left, trying to hurl himself away to safety, but two clawing hands had hold of his coat, and like rotweillers with their prey, they refused to let go.

  When the police arrived some two minutes later, the smouldering corpse of Al Smith lay inert on the ground, all life thankfully extinguished. But under its blackened bulk lay the still twitching, and barely recognizable body of Jim Blunt.

  It took Jim Blunt six days to die. He was in the John Radcliffe Hospital for almost thirty-six hours before he opened his eyes, and another twenty-four passed before he uttered any sound decipherable as a word. On day four he finally began to form sentences and to show awareness of his surroundings. DI Holden, who dropped by each day to check on his progress, was so encouraged that she brought Detective Constable Lawson with her the following afternoon. In the presence of Lawson and a prickly, protective nurse, Holden conducted a painfully slow interview with Blunt. The nurse terminated the exchange after only three minutes when Blunt feebly waved his questioner away and turned his head towards the window. For the remainder of the day Blunt slept desultorily. At six o’clock he took some soup with surprising enthusiasm, but then fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke. At 9.05 a.m. the following day he was declared dead by the duty doctor. The transcript of the interview is reproduced here:

  Holden: Do you know who you are?

  Blunt: Yes. James Henry Blunt.

  Holden: Did you kill Jake Arnold?

  Blunt: Yes.

  Holden: Did you kill Martin Mace?

  Blunt: Yes.

  Holden: Did you kill Sam Sexton?

  Blunt: Yes.

  Holden: Did you kill Alan Smith?

  Blunt: Did he die then?

  Holden: Did you kill Sarah Johnson?

  Blunt: Sarah? (There was a long pause.)

  Holden She fell from the top of the car park. Did you push her?

  Blunt: No.

  Holden: Were you there at the top of the car park when she fell to her death?

  (Blunt began to laugh and after several seconds turned towards the window. At the staff nurse’s insistence, the interview was terminated.)

  EPILOGUE

  They decided to drive as far as the St Clement’s car park, and then walk. Not that there was a lot of choice, it being Oxford. It was a clear, cold night, the first one of the winter, and after the rain and endless low cloud of the previous week, it came as something of a relief. For Lawson, the unexpected sunshine of that day seemed highly appropriate: her permanent transfer to Holden’s section had been all but sealed (the paperwork was on the Chief Superintendent’s desk, awaiting his signature), a small pay rise had been secured, and only that morning she had been allowed to sit in and witness the conclusion to the inquest into Sarah Johnson’s death. Life was indeed good.

  ‘A good day at the office, Guv,’ she said, as the two of them stood at the pedestrian crossing. Holden turned and stared at her constable with a look of incredulity. She had spoken barely a word since leaving the station. It was not that Lawson had found her silence sullen or gruff, it was just that Holden had brought every attempt at conversation to a gentle but firm closure. But this, Lawson kept telling herself, was a social outing, and therefore chat was essential.

  Holden sniffed. ‘For you, Lawson, perhaps.’ And she stepped onto the crossing as a yellow Mini pulled up to let them over. Another co
nversation strangled at birth. Lawson sighed silently. Well, maybe there would be people at the private viewing to talk to. A private viewing. It sounded so exclusive. The first she had ever been to, and hopefully not the last. She didn’t move in the world of private viewings, and she had been delighted, and touched, when Holden had shown her the invitation: ‘DI Susan Holden and colleague’ had been hand-written in the most elegant of scripts at the top of the printed card.

  ‘So, would you like to come, Lawson,’ she had said. ‘Fox laughed when I showed him, and Wilson said he was playing football, which seems a pretty feeble excuse to me, and—’

  ‘So I’m third choice, am I, Guv?’ Lawson had chipped in, no longer feeling quite so touched.

  Holden had looked at her with irritation. ‘It’s a question of seniority, Lawson.’ She snapped. ‘I could hardly ask you first.’

  ‘I was joking, Guv,’ she had replied hastily, conscious she had overstepped the mark.

  ‘I don’t think so, Lawson. I don’t think so at all.’ There had been a silence then, cold and hard. Eventually, Lawson had been forced to plead: ‘I would like to come with you, Guv. If you don’t mind.’

  Holden had given a half laugh. ‘Look, Lawson, do you think I couldn’t have persuaded Fox to accompany me, or Wilson, if I’d really wanted their company? But I didn’t want them. I wanted you, because I thought you’d blend in better. Fox is a philistine and would have stood out like a second-hand car salesman in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. As for Wilson, bless him, well he’s not exactly socially adept. Whereas you, I trust, will just merge in. They know I’m a cop, but we are going as enthusiasts of art. You could be my young cousin, or half-sister from a second marriage, or even my innocent young lover. Just so long as we aren’t obviously coppers. That way we might learn more.’

  ‘About art?’ Lawson had said, eager to make amends.

  Holden laughed again, but it was a louder and altogether kinder laugh, cut off only by the sudden need to negotiate the final road crossing. They were now on the approaches to Magdalen Bridge, the ancient eastern entrance to the medieval city. They walked briskly in a finally contented silence, along the slight curve of the High Street until they came to their destination.

  The Bare Canvas gallery was certainly not as Holden had seen it when she had last visited it to interview Les Whiting. The garish, abstract, frameless canvases had disappeared. So too had the bright white walls on which they had been displayed, to be replaced by a network of oppressive grey partitions which mimicked the grim walls of the multi-storey car park. The wall nearest the door as they entered had a blue circular plaque on it. Holden expected it to be a copy of the one that she had seen, but it was not. In the middle was a single word followed by a question mark: ‘Why?’ And round it, in smaller writing, the words ‘Ed Bicknell and Ms Johnson invite you to ask the question’.

  ‘Welcome, Susan!’ Les Whiting stood before them, arms held wide apart in full greeting mode, a mode which obviously involved dispensing with the formalities of police titles. ‘Les Whiting, gallery owner and entrepreneur, at your service!’ He bowed theatrically.

  ‘Entrepreneur?’ Susan Holden quizzed. ‘Is this a new departure?’

  ‘Art has moved on. Think Damien Hirst. Think Tracey Emin. And so the purveyors of art must move on too.’

  ‘This is my colleague, Jan Lawson,’ Holden said quickly, conscious that Whiting had ignored her.

  ‘I guessed!’ he said, but barely glanced at her. ‘You won’t believe the Press interest. They were crawling all over the place this afternoon, and getting Anne to pose this way and that. They couldn’t get enough of it.’

  ‘Is she here?’ Holden asked, curious to know exactly what Anne’s part was.

  ‘She will be soon. Ed Bicknell is somewhere. Would you like to have a chat? Honestly, he’s like a schoolboy who’s raided the tuck shop. Can’t believe his luck.’

  ‘So you’re all making a killing are you, out of a death? You and Ed and Anne?’

  If she had hoped her aggressive questioning would throw Whiting off balance, Holden was disappointed. It merely spurred him on. ‘Does it all come back to money for you, Susan? I’m disappointed, I really am. I thought you were smarter than that. It’s not just money – though that helps, of course it does. We all need money, even you, Susan dear. It’s about being taken seriously. From now on, we will be known, and for that reason alone we will be taken seriously. In this world of celebrity, that’s what matters. The unknowns are ignored. Tell me if I’m wrong?’

  ‘Sadly, Mr Whiting, I fear you are right,’ Holden said, before moving forward past him, with Lawson close at her back. The exhibition was, as Lawson later told her mother, laid out backwards. ‘I’m not sure why. I suppose Bicknell thought he was being clever and artistic, making us take it all in backwards, but the whole thing was too clever by half if you ask me.’

  The first images were of flowers: first an old woman, shapeless in her jumper and skirt, walking right to left, in her hand a Tesco carrier with the heads of flowers protruding; she was placed on the left-hand side of the photograph, as if about to step out of it. Next the same woman holding a large bunch of flowers in her right hand and tossing a broken-stemmed one away with her left; then the woman picking up the flowers; then a dog, a rather mangy collie type cocking its leg over the flowers as they lay on the pavement; two youths in sports wear and baseball caps walking past laughing; an old woman with a stick labouring past and not looking; then a small girl, one hand firmly gripped by a woman (an older mother or a young grandmother, Lawson speculated) – the child was looking over her shoulder as the flowers passed all too swiftly by. The final image was of a smartly dressed woman, laying flowers on the pavement, while in the foreground a pair of trousered legs strode by.

  ‘Are they genuine or staged, do you think?’ Lawson wondered out loud, but Holden didn’t answer. ‘Come on,’ she merely said, ‘let’s go and see what’s next.’

  What was next was a body. In the first photograph, the body was almost incidental. Most of the picture was taken up by a policeman, hand thrust forward, obviously trying to block the photographer from taking shots of the body which could be seen sprawled in the background, taking up but a small fraction of the image, but unmissable because it was the only thing in the picture that was in focus. Holden sucked in her breath and pondered. Either Ed Bicknell was a very skilled photographer, or he was a dab hand at manipulating his images on the PC. In the next couple of photographs, the body again took a subordinate role, this time to the two policemen who arrived and began to cordon off the area. But the remainder – and there were a dozen of so of these – focused unreservedly on the body that only seconds earlier had been a living, breathing Sarah Johnson. She had landed on her back, or at least had finished up on her back, her head twisted violently at an angle. The photographs were displayed in a huge circle, and it was possible to trace anticlockwise the seconds after impact, as blood spread in a gradually expanding arc from the gaping wound that had been her face. The photos were snapped from a variety of angles and heights: one was so close up that the camera might have been laid on the pavement only a foot or so from the head, while another had been taken from directly above the battered head, as if from some miniature helicopter.

  ‘He must be a cool bastard.’ Lawson literally felt her gorge rise as stomach juices momentarily forced their way up into her throat. She was trying to imagine herself there at the time, watching this man clinically lining up his photos. Did he delay his 999 call so that he could have more time with the body? Indeed, was it he who called the police? She couldn’t remember from the records. Maybe he was clicking away with his camera while some other bystander was ringing for an ambulance and the police. Did he have to ask people to move away from the body so he could have a clear view for all his shots?

  ‘Good evening, ladies!’ Holden and Lawson were taken by surprise by the voice close behind them, and turned as one. ‘Are you enjoying it?’ The voice belonged to Ed Bicknell
, an Ed Bicknell who had scrubbed up considerably since Holden had last seen him. The scruffy Che Guevara T-Shirt and ripped jeans had been replaced by a dark brown velvet suit and glistening white shirt, and his hair and beard had been subjected to a very thorough make-over in honour of the media. He was, no question, a man determined to make his mark.

  ‘Ah, Mr Bicknell,’ Holden smiled. ‘The man of the moment.’

  ‘I’m not sure “enjoying” is quite the right word,’ Lawson said firmly. ‘Do we really need to see so many pictures of the poor woman? She was someone’s daughter, you know.’

  Bicknell smiled at her patronizingly. ‘Actually, both her parents are long since dead, so I doubt they will object, but nevertheless I take your point. Not that I would agree with you, however. There’s no escaping death, not for any of us. We have to look at it how it is – final and brutal. But we all move on after the death of others. If we are very close to someone who dies, it may take us some time, but our own emotional survival demands that we do move on, that we learn to walk past those reminders of death just as in the first part of the exhibition those pedestrians walked past the flowers. But what interests me is why Sarah Johnson jumped. What made her decide that it was better to walk to the top of a car park one fine morning and plunge to her death, than to carry on living? Did that blue plaque really push her over the edge? That’s the line the Daily Mail will doubtless pedal in its feature in tomorrow’s edition, but who cares what the Daily Mail thinks? Maybe the blue plaque freed her to be true to her innermost convictions. Maybe it simply gave her permission to jump. Maybe she looked in the mirror as she brushed her hair that morning and suddenly decided enough misery was enough. Watch the news. Read the newspapers. The world is a catalogue of misery. Maybe Sarah saw the world more clearly than we do. Maybe that was the reason why she jumped. Twenty-twenty vision.’