Susan Holden emerged slowly into a state of semi-consciousness and emitted a low groan. She never had been good with alcohol, and the three glasses of uninspired Chardonnay consumed in front of the TV the night before had left her with a low-grade headache. She had drunk it while watching The Graduate. She had seen the film before, but when the alternatives were Match of the Day, a third-rate reality TV show, a film starring Sylvester Stallone, or a fuzzy Channel Five ‘investigation’ into sexual problems, a youthful Dustin Hoffman was going to win out every time. In actuality, she had struggled to stay awake throughout, but she had been determined to see the end – that was the best bit – where Hoffman escapes from the church with the bride (not his, of course) and grabs a lift out of town on a bus full of bemused onlookers.
The upshot of all this was that she had gone to bed somewhat inebriated, totally exhausted, and without drawing the curtains. As a consequence, on Sunday morning the grey intrusive light of an unpromising day had slowly prodded and cajoled her into a state of, if not wakefulness, then at least one of fitfulness. She had resisted its summons, pulling the duvet up over her head, but even the duvet could not deaden the sounds of her father’s clock. It sat in splendid isolation on a small table in the short space outside her room which masqueraded as corridor. Ding dong, dong ding, it rang, and then repeated itself, before beginning to chime out the hour: boom, boom, three, four. Holden found it impossible, even in her semi-conscious prostration, not to count the hours as she had loved to as a child. Seven, eight, nine. Then silence. Then: ‘Shit!’ Holden rolled to her right and scrabbled around on the side table until her hand found the alarm clock. She picked it up and squinted at its digital face. 09.01. She was late.
It took her five minutes to shower and brush her teeth. Then three more to dress and two more to find her handbag, which had mysteriously secreted itself under the sofa (fortunately a trailing handle gave it away). All of which meant that by the time she was ringing the No. 6 bell at Grandpont Grange (‘Luxury accomodation for the older generation’), she was only 15 minutes late.
‘Had a late night, my dear?’ beamed her mother. Susan Holden, who was expecting a verbal barrage on the importance of punctuality and the neglect of the elderly by the younger generation, was taken completely off guard. The woman looked like her mother. She dressed like her mother. She was even wearing her mother’s favourite perfume.
‘Lucky you,’ the imposter continued. ‘If I were twenty years younger, I’d be out there clubbing with you!’
Holden, who at the age of 32 considered herself long retired from the clubbing scene, grinned at the improbable thought of her morphed mother and herself at the Park End. ‘Mmm, I smell coffee,’ she said, as she pulled her shoes off in the hall, and placed them tidily in the corner.
‘It’s been ready for ten minutes, actually,’ her mother said firmly, as if to remind her daughter that she had not had a personality change.
‘Sorry I’m late.’ The words came out automatically, and the Detective Inspector was a little girl again, failing to meet the expected standards.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said her mother, though of course it did.
‘Wow!’ Again the response was automatic, but this time it was genuine. Holden was standing, her mouth literally gaping, in the doorway to the kitchen diner. Since she had last been to see her mother four days previously, the room had been transformed. The avalanche of objects that had emerged from the packing crates had disappeared. A few prized objects were on display, but chaos had been replaced by an almost minimalist order. The table was covered with a crisp white cloth, and on it were laid two places. Two glasses of fruit juice had been poured out, four croissants lay neatly on a central plate, and a selection of miniature packets of cereal stood neatly in line, recalling special breakfasts of childhood. Holden felt herself going gooey round the edges.
‘Sit down,’ her mother instructed, and she did. They ate in verbal silence, broken by the crunching of cereal, clinking of utensils, and the rustle of newspapers. It had always been the rule in the Holden house that you could read the paper at breakfast on Sundays, but never on other days, because meals were social events. Quite how and why this rule had been instituted, Susan had never discovered. Of course, her mother bought the Sunday Telegraph, which her daughter had long since rejected, but Susan found looking through the colour magazine a far from pleasureless task, and she even made a couple of mental fashion notes – a smart new dress and some shoes to match were promoted silently to the top of her list.
‘So where would you like to go today?’ daughter asked mother as she finished her second mug of coffee. She had promised her a trip out earlier in the week, by way of a placebo for not being able to help more with her move, and Wallingford, Henley and Thame had all been discussed then.
‘I nearly rang you,’ her mother purred, ‘but then I decided it would be a nice surprise. Guess what. We’ve been asked out for lunch.’
‘That’s nice,’ her daughter replied.
‘After church,’ added her mother.
‘Church?’ her daughter exclaimed, amazement apparent not just in her tone of voice, but every aspect of her features. This reaction obviously pleased the alien who had clearly taken up residence in her mother’s body. A smile of triumphant delight erupted across the width of her face.
‘St Marks, in Marlborough Road. You’ve been living here for two years. You must know it.’
‘Only from the outside,’ her daughter admitted.
‘Well, in that case its high time you went to a service.’
Her daughter peered across the table, and a smile began to spread across her face too. ‘Have you been bitten by the God bug, mother? Been born again. Because from memory you only go into churches for Christmas, weddings and funerals.’
‘Doris asked me. Mrs Doris Williams. It’s her who asked us to lunch. Lives on the next floor. She’s been a great help. Got her fifteen-year-old grandson to help me sort out this place, put things in the high cupboards, and some in the communal storage room. I think the least we could do is go to church with her.’
And so it was that DI Susan Holden and Mrs Jane Holden (widow of five years) went to their first service together since the funeral of the late Mr John Holden.
That evening, Susan Holden circumspectly poured herself a small glass of wine from the now depleted bottle of Chardonnay, tipped the remainder into the sink, and then consigned the bottle to her green recycling box. Then she sat at the kitchen table, and tried to form a conclusion about what had happened in church. Not the service itself, though she’d found it both very different from what she’d experienced as a child, and rather invigorating too. But after the service. Immediately it had finished, she found herself being engaged in earnest conversation, first by a young woman – well mid-twenties, anyway – and then by a retired man with a grey bread, a bad taste in ties, and an archtypical twinkle in the eye. Clearly, being Christian didn’t preclude gentle flirting with women half his age. When he was buttonholed by a tall, thin young man wearing a brightly striped T-shirt and an anxious frown, Holden found herself suddenly alone amid the babble of voices which signified that the members of St Mark’s were ‘sharing fellowship’ with a will. She was looking around, wondering where her mother was, when suddenly she felt someone touch her shoulder. She turned.
‘Hello, there!’ The speaker was a short man, short enough that she found herself looking down on him. He wore jeans, trainers and a dark blue jacket zipped up to his neck. There was a sheen of sweat on his face, and Holden couldn’t fail to notice the rather unpleasant smell that emanated from him.
‘I know you,’ the man said.
‘Oh?’ said Holden, trying to place him.
‘You were at the day centre on Friday. You’re a policewoman aren’t you.’ He pointed at her, not in an aggressive manner, but as he might have at other times have pointed at a flower or bird he had just recognized. ‘Have you arrested anyone yet?’ he continued. ‘For Jake’s death?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We haven’t.’
‘Do you have a prime suspect?’
Holden smiled, and wondered bleakly why Doris or her mother couldn’t suddenly appear at her shoulder and rescue her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t talk about the case.’
‘Don’t you want to question me?’ His finger had now turned and was pointing directly at his own chest.
Again she smiled, and gestured with her left hand (her right hand still held her mug, not yet emptied, of weak tea) around her. ‘In church?’
‘Why not,’ he replied instantly. ‘The perfect place. For the truth. For confession.’
With the tiniest shake of her head, Holden abandoned all hope of rescue. There was only going to be one way out of this. ‘Is there something you know? Something you want to ... to confess?’
‘Me?’ The man laughed. ‘Not me. Jake. It’s Jake’s confession you need to know.’
Holden, despite all her reservations about the man in front of her – he hadn’t yet told her who he was – felt a surge of interest, even excitement. ‘Did Jake tell you something?’
‘Yes, he did.’ The man’s left hand moved up and grasped the zip of his jacket. He pulled it down two or three inches, then up again, nervously. ‘On Thursday. About 4 o’clock in the Cowley Road. It can only have been a few hours before he was killed. He must have just come out of the day centre. I’d gone and bought an Oxford Mail at the corner shop. He was standing outside, smoking a cigarette. That was odd, cos I’d never seen him smoke before. I asked him if he knew when Sarah Johnson’s funeral was. She was the woman who jumped from the top of the car park. Perhaps you know about it.’
Holden made some sort of encouraging noise. ‘Yes, I do, but carry on. What did Jake say?’
‘He said something very odd. I thought it was really odd at the time and the more I’ve thought about it, well, the more I got worried about it. You see, he said he didn’t know when the funeral was because there had to be an inquest, and I said wasn’t it terrible that she got so depressed that she jumped, and then he said this. He said, maybe she didn’t jump. And I said what do you mean, and he said something like, well we can’t be sure it was suicide. And then he said that he had to be going. And he walked off down the road. That was the last I saw of him.’
‘Did Jake say why it might not be suicide?’
‘No. That’s all he said.’
‘You’re sure?’
The man’s hand came up again, and like some remotely controlled weapon, pointed at her, aggressively this time. ‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve got a good memory for detail. Just you remember it.’ And with that, he had turned and walked away.
Sitting there on the sofa, her glass of Chardonnay in her hand, Holden tried but failed to come to a conclusion about this encounter. The man’s name, as Doris had confirmed, was Alan. He was a regular face at the 10.30 service, though beyond that she wasn’t too sure. He often came along to the Wednesday morning communion and the drop-in lunch which followed it. He didn’t appear to have a job. ‘I expect he’s on benefit,’ she had said. ‘Probably can’t hold down a job.’ She had pulled a face as she said this, and then – Holden had decided – immediately regretted it. ‘Still,’ she had added quickly, ‘isn’t it marvellous how he comes to church.’ Then with a broad smile, as if to demonstrate the generosity of her spirit: ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways!’
He does indeed, Holden said to herself, as she brushed her teeth. A day that she had expected to spend humouring her mother had turned out ... extraordinary. There was no other word for it. To begin with, her mother had been nice! She had gone to church. She had, even more extraordinarily, found herself enjoying it. And she had met a man who might have been one of the last people to talk to Jake Arnold. The only problem was to know what on earth to make of his evidence.
Wilson pulled the car up outside DI Holden’s terraced house in Chilswell Road at 7.23 a.m. He had been surprised both to receive a call from her the previous night and by the instruction that he should pick her up from home no later than 7.25 a.m. No explanation. Just a curt set of instructions followed by a slightly less curt ‘Good Night’. Leaving the engine running, he got out of the car, only to see that Holden was already out of the front door. He got back in, turned the radio off and waited for her to get in. ‘Morning, Guv,’ he said.
‘Morning Wilson. Now, we’ll take the scenic route to the office. Down the High Street if you please.’
Again Holden offered no explanation, and Wilson, learning fast, drove without question. It was only when they had crossed Magdalen Bridge (‘Look at the mist, Wilson. Perfect backdrop for a murder mystery’), entered the (‘second exit on the roundabout, Wilson’) Cowley Road, and (‘left here into the multi-storey, then keep going right to the top’) turned into the car park that things began to become clear to Wilson. ‘This is where—’
‘Yes Wilson,’ Holden said in a tone that implied that it was too early in the morning to be making statements of the obvious. ‘This is where Sarah Johnson plunged to her death.’ Wilson flushed, and tried to concentrate on getting to the top.
He had barely brought the car to a halt before Holden was out of her seat and marching across the empty tarmac to the concrete wall that ringed the top storey. Wilson turned the engine and side lights off, and hurried after her. Holden was leaning over the wall, looking down.
‘Why have we assumed that Sarah jumped, Wilson?’
Wilson frowned. ‘Well, everything points to it, I suppose.’
‘For God’s sake Wilson! Everything! Everything? Don’t flannel. What are the facts? And,’ she said, and then paused, ‘what are mere assumptions?’
Wilson gulped involuntarily, and tried to think. ‘She was depressive, Guv.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says her sister. Says, I mean said Jake. She went to the day centre because of her mental health problems, didn’t she?’
‘So she must have jumped?’
‘Not must. But there were the phone calls to Jake the morning she died. He admitted she sounded very stressed. And then there was that student with his plaque about suicide.’
‘True,’ Holden conceded. ‘But how can we know that someone didn’t just push her over the edge. How do we know she wasn’t murdered?’
‘Look at the wall,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s what, four feet high, maybe a bit more. It wouldn’t be easy to push someone over that against their will.’
Holden stepped back from the wall and looked at it as if seeing its bulk and ugliness for the first time. She frowned, much as Wilson had shortly before. ‘OK, Wilson. Maybe you’re right. But I want to try something out. Just climb up on the wall and sit facing me?’
‘Climb up?’ Wilson said with an air of alarm in his voice.
‘Yes, Wilson,’ Holden said, her voice sharp and hard. ‘Climb up on the bloody wall. Now. And for God’s sake get a move on.’
Wilson looked at her uncertainly, but one look at her face convinced him that now was not the time to confess to a fear of heights.
‘Look,’ she continued, suddenly back into a gentler, coaxing mode. ‘There’s an old milk crate over there. Use it as a step, there’s a good chap.’
Wilson breathed deeply, walked over to the green crate, picked it up, and moved back to the wall. Trying not to think of what was over the other side of the wall, he put all his concentration into the task: placing the crate firmly against the wall, testing his weight on it, then stepping up and pulling himself slowly up onto the top of the wall. He realized as he was doing it that the wall was wider that he had thought, and suddenly sitting down on it didn’t seem quite like sitting on the edge of a precipice.
‘There,’ said Holden, still coaxing. ‘That wasn’t too bad. Even for someone who doesn’t like heights.’ This comment took Wilson completely by surprise, and it showed clearly across his face.
‘In your file,’ Holden smiled. ‘And don’t worry, I’m not going to make you stand up. I can’t afford to lose a third of my investigation team at one stroke!’
Wilson smiled uncertainly back. If she was trying to get him at his ease, she had at least partly succeeded.
‘Oh, look. I think your shoe lace is loose. Let me tie it up.’ She moved forward and bent down to where his feet dangled. ‘Keep still,’ she said. For several seconds her hands untied and then retied the lace of Wilson’s left hand shoe. Then she looked up at Wilson and smiled, her hands gently resting on his shoe. ‘Now, before you get down Wilson, I want you to think about this moment in time. I want you to picture it in your head. You sitting up on a wall seven storeys above a very solid pavement. You didn’t want to be there, but you are. You are relaxed. You are off your guard – somewhat. You are anxious, but only because you don’t like heights. You are not anxious about me. I am your boss. I can be trusted. Yet my hands are on your shoe. At any moment, as I was tieing up your shoe laces – they weren’t undone, by the way – my hands could have tightened on your shoe, and I could have pushed upwards with all my strength, and by now you would in all probability be lying dead on the pavement below. But fortunately for you, Wilson, I am not a murderer, so you can now carefully get down off the wall and drive me to the office.’
‘Sorry, Wilson.’ They were driving along the Cowley Road, and Holden was wondering if she hadn’t perhaps gone a bit far. ‘I’m not a sadist, at least not normally. But I want you to think. Think hard. Outside the box, as well as inside. The chances are that Sarah did jump. Voluntarily. A suicide. Pure and simple. Only suicides are never pure and rarely simple for the person involved, I imagine. I just wanted to demonstrate that there are options. If someone wanted to get Sarah up on that wall, they could have. They might, for example, have said they wanted to photograph her there, against the Oxford skyline. She might have been flattered by the suggestion. They might have helped her up, held her shoe to give her a leg up, but after giving her a leg up, they could have given her a push. Goodbye Sarah.’
‘I’d like to try and take stock of what we know.’ It was some half an hour later, and DI Holden was addressing her small team in her office. It felt more cramped than it had the previous Monday morning, not so much because Wilson was there as well as Fox, but more so because a large free-standing noticeboard, which had materialised along the Oxford Road side of the room, cut off much of the natural light that would otherwise have come in through the window. In the middle of the board was a large head and shoulders photograph of a smiling Jake Arnold, surrounded by four slightly smaller ones, each showing his dead body from a different aspect. To the left was a single picture of Sarah Johnson; like Jake she was smiling, though to Wilson’s eye the smile was more forced than natural. He was struck more by the darkness round the eyes, and sense of sadness emanating from the whole. Or was that him projecting his own feelings. He wasn’t sure. She was wearing round her neck a small heart-shaped locket on a fine gold chain, and he wondered who had given it to her. Was it a recent gift? Or was it, he suddenly thought, a gift from herself to herself. He did hope not.
‘Jake Arnold died some time last Thursday evening, after leaving the Iffley Inn. He left there at about 10.00 p.m. according to the barman, and his body was spotted in the river by the lock round about 10.45 p.m. He had been hit over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, hard enough to be dead before he entered the river. The weapon used might well have been a mooring spike.’ She paused, and took a sip of coffee. ‘Wilson. The mooring spike?’
‘Yes, Guv. On Friday afternoon, I came across a man with a narrowboat moored up that side estuary that leads from the main river down toward the western end of Donnington Bridge Road. He had lost a mooring spike the night before.’
‘Lost?’ Holden cut in sharply.
‘Well, no, not lost,’ Wilson fumbled ‘Stolen. Apparently.’ Wilson felt his assurance seeping away. He looked across to Fox for reassurance, but the slight smile that flickered across his face was anything but reassuring.
‘When, precisely, Wilson?’ Holden spoke each word separately, a pause in between each, asserting her authority over her young charge, but the tone of voice was softer, and she finished with a smile that was designed to encourage.
Wilson consciously paused, trying to compose his thoughts and his words. ‘While he was out getting his supper. Roughly between about 7.15 and 9.00. Though he didn’t seem too sure of time.’
‘And how long would it take a person to walk from there down to, say, the Iffley Inn?’ Holden asked.
‘Fifteen minutes, I’d say, but you could do it quicker if you wanted.’ Wilson replied.
‘So what do you think, Fox?’ Holden turned to her Detective Sergeant now, as if to reassure him that although she might be giving Wilson a lot of attention, when she needed the wisdom of experience, Fox was very definitely her man. ‘Is this a premeditated killing or a casual one?’
Fox pursed his lips while he pondered the question. ‘It could have been premeditated. The man – or woman – nicks the mooring spike and wanders off down the river. He could walk along the river bank, as long as he had some means of hiding the mooring spike. They are quite long, so maybe a sports bag or something like that. If he knew Jake, he would have known Jake lived in east Oxford. He could have waited for him to come along the path. It would be very dark. However ...’ Fox paused and took a slug of coffee. ‘There is an alternative scenario. The mooring spike could have been stolen by a casual passer-by. Maybe a yob who fancies a bit of vandalism. Maybe he’s had a few drinks. He wanders down the river towards the Isis, sees Jake mincing along the towpath, and before you know it he’s whacked him over the head, and knocked him into the river. He throws the spike into the river too, and then gets the hell out of it.’
‘So which of those do you fancy Wilson?’ Holden said.
Wilson nervously smoothed the side of his hair. ‘Well, I suppose, either,’ he said with obvious uncertainly.
‘Make a choice,’ Holden interrupted brusquely. ‘Based on what we know. On the facts.’
Wilson smoothed his hair again. ‘Premeditated!’ He spoke firmly now. ‘The time factor definitely points that way. The latest it was stolen was 9.15. Probably earlier. Jake didn’t leave the pub until round about 10 o’clock. Would a vandal really have taken three-quarters of an hour or more to cover a distance that would normally take a fit man only fifteen minutes? And there have been no reports of any vandalism taking place on Thursday evening. I checked with the duty officer this morning.’ Wilson paused, now looking his senior officer full in the face. She nodded.
‘I’m glad to see you’re thinking, Wilson. For a moment back there, I was beginning to wonder—’ She trailed off, and now in turn took a sip at her coffee. Then she looked across at Fox.
‘Well, Fox. Marks out of ten for Wilson’s analysis?’
Fox looked back at her. ‘Well, Guv, in the circumstances, I think I’d give him a nine.’
‘Nine? Why nine?’
‘We don’t want him getting big headed now do we, Guv?’
Holden shook her head gravely. ‘Certainly not, Fox.’
‘So, team, who’s our prime suspect?’ Holden asked the question as if asking a class of five-year-olds what the capital of Uzbekistan was. There was no immediate answer. Outside, a particularly noisy lorry, piled high with scrap metal, rumbled up the incline of the road, heading for the ring road.
‘What about Blunt?’ she suggested, unwilling to wait.
‘Well worth an interview,’ Fox said, ‘based on what Les Whiting told us, but my instinct is that Danny is a more likely killer—’
‘Why?’ Holden responded sharply. ‘If Jake’s complaints had been upheld, Blunt’s job, even his career is in jeopardy. He looks a tough bastard to me, so when Jake complained he was a bully, maybe he decided to get his retaliation in first.’
‘Like I said,’ Fox admitted, ‘he is worth an interview, but Danny is the key, in my book.’
‘Why?’ Holden snapped again. ‘Because he’s a nutcase? Because if that’s your criterion, there are plenty of suspects down at the day centre.’
‘Because he is linked to both Sarah and Jake. He was devoted to Sarah, and he didn’t like Jake. Jealous maybe that Sarah relied more on Jake than himself. So when Sarah tops herself, he blames Jake for letting her down and—’
‘Wilson, what do you think?’ Holden said sharply, still in combative mode. ‘Which of them should we target?’
Wilson swallowed. ‘This may seem like a cop-out, but why not target them both.’
‘Both of them?’ Holden asked out loud. Then she laughed. ‘Is your father, or even your dear mother, a politician, Wilson? Because if so, you’ve clearly learnt a thing or two from them.’
Fox chuckled. ‘Nine out of ten again, I think Guv.’
The idea had first formed in his head just after the school secretary rang back. ‘Hello,’ she’d said in a tone which exuded briskness, ‘St Gregory’s School here.’
‘DC Wilson,’ he’d said. He had intended to continue with some pleasantry, but Miss Hegarty was steaming remorselessly forward on her mission to connect her head teacher and the Oxford police without hindrance or delay. ‘Please wait, while I put you through.’ Wilson waited several seconds while Miss Hegarty’s mission encountered some invisible hitch, but in that interval the idea materialised, like some speck of grit. One moment the eye is fine and unnoticed, the next there is a speck in it which you can’t not notice. And like all respectable specks of grit, it resolutely refused to be dislodged by a metaphorical rub of the eye.
Wilson had first rung St Gregory’s fifteen minutes earlier. Once he had explained his requirements to Miss Hegarty, she had promised to call back as soon as the head was available. In the meantime, Wilson had determined to get a firmer grip on the evidence, such as there was, of the death of Sarah Johnson. He had retrieved the case folder from Fox’s meticulously tidy desk. The Detective Sergeant had ‘popped out’ to the chemist, to get himself some painkillers for his still-sensitive teeth, although Wilson had his theory – with little firm foundation, if truth be told – that his superior had developed an interest in the recently separated Doreen, who served behind the counter there. Wilson took the folder and looked through its sparse contents. His attention was immediately drawn to Fox’s interview of Ed Bicknell. Reading it through, he felt immensely irritated – as he had while witnessing the interview – with the laid-back, upper-middle-class self-confidence and indolence which emanated from every pore of Bicknell’s body. He wasn’t anti-student as such, Wilson told himself, but how could a man get up at 11 o’clock in the morning and still think the world owed him a living. He, Wilson, knew that only hard work, bloody hard work, would get him anywhere in life. And besides, what sort of man was Bicknell that he could view the suicide of a woman as nothing more than an opportunity to gain money, publicity, and professional advancement. Wilson pushed the folder away, in disgust, not just with Bicknell but with himself, too. He was meant to be looking into whether Sarah Johnson’s death was suicide, not jumping to a whole set of half-baked conclusions. He gave himself an almost physical shake, as a dog might after scrambling out of a river, and he reached for the CD onto which Bicknell had copied his photographs. He picked it up, inserted it into his PC, and took hold of the mouse.
The photographs were in chronological order, with a date and time on the bottom left-hand corner of each picture. He began to flick through them, spending a second or two on each one until he came to the first photo of Sarah Johnson. 8:42:33. About twenty minutes before she jumped or fell or was pushed to her death. He sat and examined the image. She was standing looking at the plaque and her face was fully in profile. She was wearing a fawn mackintosh, mid-calf in length, and below it jeans and black ankle boots. For several seconds Wilson studied the picture. One part of his brain, a part not concentrating on the image of Sarah Johnson, became aware that outside the room, down the corridor, there was a sudden running of feet. He ignored it, and clicked onto the next picture. Another one of Sarah Johnson, but this time two other persons had joined her. She had turned her head towards them, but this had caused shadow to fall across her face. Was she talking to the man or woman? Wilson could see only their backs. The man was dressed in a mid-blue denim jacket and somewhat lighter jeans. The woman was dressed in a dark jacket and skirt, and a white line around the neck suggested a white blouse too. Office clothes for her, more casual for him. Separate people or a couple of some sort? Wilson wondered. How easy would it be to track them down? Not impossible, despite the photo showing only their back views. Was she perhaps walking to her office in town as she did every day? Was he perhaps a student with less regular habits. But even if they could be found, what could they remember that would be useful?
Outside the police station, in the car park, a siren was turned on. Wilson registered the fact, but again discarded it as irrelevant to him. Then there was another noise, much closer to home. He stretched out a hand and picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ a female voice said. ‘St Gregory’s School here.’ In the several seconds it took Miss Hegarty to connect her head teacher to the Oxford police, the idea which was to plague Wilson for several days came into existence. Tiny, as yet barely formed, but nevertheless unquestionably there.
‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, here,’ a voice said tersely. ‘Head teacher of St Gregory’s. To whom am I speaking?’
Wilson winced at the grammatical precision of the question. ‘Detective Wilson,’ he replied, taking a split-second decision to obscure his own low ranking. ‘Oxford Police, sir. It is very good of you to ring back so promptly.’
‘What do you want,’ Ratcliffe cut in, ‘precisely? I do have a very exacting day in prospect, so if we could just cut to the chase.’
Wilson made a face down the phone line. ‘We are just trying to complete our investigations into the death of Sarah Johnson.’
‘Terrible thing,’ the head teacher broke in. ‘Such a terrible thing.’ Wilson could almost see the man shaking his head as he spoke. ‘Poor Anne, her sister, was quite distraught. You aren’t wanting to speak to her, are you? I do hope not, because I have given her compassionate leave. No other family you see. I expect she is across in Oxford now, sorting out Sarah’s flat. I suggest that you could always try contacting her there.’ For someone who had a very busy day in prospect, it was surprising, Wilson reflected, how Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, Header Teacher of St Gregory’s, appeared to have time to talk. It wasn’t as if he, Wilson, had yet had the opportunity to ask a question yet. ‘There must be so much for her to do,’ Ratcliffe was saying. ‘I had to do it for my mother. There were six large bin bags of clothes alone to take to the charity shops, let alone anything else. But doing it for a mother is one thing. That is somehow natural, part of the order of things. But to do it for your sister when you are in your mid-thirties, well that is just ... just terrible.’
‘So,’ said Wilson, taking the opportunity offered by the lull in Ratcliffe’s monologue, ‘I suppose Anne is the sole heir and beneficiary? ’
‘Well, I imagine so,’ said the busy head teacher. ‘I’m pretty sure there’s no other family. But you can always ask Anne herself. As I said, she’s probably in Oxford.’
‘We’ve already spoken to Anne,’ Wilson said firmly.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Ratcliffe exclaimed, ‘instead of letting me rabbit on. Anyway, if you have spoken to her, why are you ringing me up?’
‘When investigating, sir, it is important that we get corroboration where we can. The coroner prefers it.’
‘Ah, ha!’ Down the other end of the telephone call, in the office of the head teacher of St Gregory’s, it seemed that the penny had suddenly dropped. ‘No wonder you were so pleased for me to rabbit on.’
Wilson was feeling very pleased with how things were going, but of course he wasn’t going to say so. ‘Actually, sir, we just want to firm up on the details of the day of Sarah Johnson’s death.’
He paused, and, in the city of Reading, Ratcliffe paused too. Two men silently taking stock. Waiting for the other to make the next move.
‘Such as?’ said Ratcliffe, back in terse mode.
Wilson tried to sound off hand. ‘Well, for the sake of completeness, sir, can you just confirm that Anne was at St Gregory’s on the morning of 21 September.’
‘One moment.’ Again the terse reponse, followed this time by nearly a minute’s silence before Ratcliffe spoke again: ‘Anne has a first lesson on a Friday. Then two periods off, then lessons before and after lunch. And she runs a gymnastics club after school, in the sports hall.’
‘I appreciate that that is her timetable, sir,’ Wilson said firmly, ‘but that isn’t what I asked for.’ Wilson now had a definite sense that Ratcliffe was being less than straightforward. ‘What I wanted to confirm whether Anne was in school as per her timetable. And if so, what time did she arrive at school?’
‘Well,’ said Ratcliffe with a sneer in his voice, ‘I am not sure I am going to be able to give you precise details about when she arrived and so forth. We aren’t a police state here you know.’
‘Wouldn’t she have taken a register of her class, first thing?’ Wilson retorted. ‘And if so, wouldn’t she have signed it? As far as I am concerned, and as far as the coroner is concerned, that would be more than adequate evidence.’
‘Just wait,’ Ratcliffe said. ‘I’ll check.’ Wilson smiled. No doubt Ratcliffe would take his time over the checking process, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. The head bloody teacher was rattled. The supercilious git! The wait turned out to be almost two minutes, though Wilson wasn’t counting. In fact, his attention was focused again on the picture displayed on the PC monitor, picture number two of Sarah Johnson. The idea which had slipped into his mind while he was first waiting to speak to Ratcliffe was now making its presence felt. Could it ... could it possibly be?
‘Sorry for the delay.’ It was Ratcliffe, and the tone of voice was suddenly breezy. ‘You were right! I checked the register and I’ve had a word with the school secretary. The details of that terrible day are very fresh in her mind. Apparently Anne didn’t make it to her first lesson. She had problems starting her car. Mr Ford took her place, as he had a free period, and she was in school in time for her lesson before lunch. So that would have been by 11.30 a.m. Of course, it was during that lesson we got the phone call about her sister. Now, does that about cover it, Detective?’
‘Thank you,’ said Wilson. ‘That covers it very well. For now.’
‘You look bloody pleased with yourself.’ It was only five minutes later, and DS Fox had returned from the chemist and had sat down at his desk to see his young colleague smiling almost beatifically into space. ‘Don’t tell me the Queen has gone and invited you to her next garden party!’
Wilson laughed. ‘I’ve just had an idea, that all.’
‘An idea!’ said Fox dramatically. ‘Well knock me down with a feather. Detective Constable Wilson has had an idea. Are you going to share it with me, then?’
‘No,’ said Wilson, more firmly than he meant to. ‘At least, sir, I’d rather not do so yet, until I have checked out a few things. It might be nothing.’
‘Ah, the detective constable’s idea may be nothing!’ Fox laughed, but his heart was not in it. He got up and walked over to the corner of the room, where he switched on the kettle. ‘I hope these bloody painkillers do the trick.’
Meanwhile, some 30 miles away at St Gregory’s School, Reading, Dr Adrian Ratcliffe sipped at the cup of coffee that Miss Hegarty had brought in. For several seconds, he frowned. Then he picked up the telephone receiver and began to punch in a familiar set of numbers. He waited for the call to connect, and for someone, after two rings, to answer.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘Yes?’ came a rather irritated reply.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.’