‘Good morning, Ma’am.’
DI Holden’s mind was elsewhere, indeed so far distant from the present moment that she completely failed to register the greeting of the young WPC at her shoulder. She locked her car door and turned obliviously towards the station.
‘Ma’am!’ This time the woman’s voice was louder and firmer, and it produced the desired effect of causing the Detective Inspector to turn and appraise its source.
‘Good morning, Constable!’ she replied, but without enthusiasm, and she turned her face back towards the station, pressing forward up the slight incline that would lead her ultimately to the peace of her office.’
‘Your label is sticking out, Ma’am.’
This time Holden stopped fully, and turned to face her interlocutor full on. ‘Sorry!’ she snapped. ‘Did you say something?’
The younger woman flushed, taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. But she was not a person to melt away. ‘With respect, I merely wanted to tell you your label was sticking out. If you’ll allow me—’ And without waiting for a reply, she moved forward round the side of her superior and stretched her hand out towards the nape of her neck. ‘Just one moment, Ma’am,’ she said softly, and with the gentlest of touches she folded the offending white label out of sight. ‘There!’ she finished, and then stepped a pace backwards.
‘Oh!’ Holden said, as enlightenment finally dawned. She paused, embarrassed by her own ill temper. ‘Thank you, um, Constable.’
‘Lawson. WPC Jan Lawson,’ the constable responded. Lawson had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. She had heard only good things of Holden from the other women in the station in the three weeks since her transfer from Northampton. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how is the case going, Ma’am?’
Holden frowned. ‘I do mind, Constable, as it happens.’
Lawson cursed herself silently. ‘Sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t mean to be nosey. It’s just that—’ She paused, genuinely lost for words. She knew what she wanted to say, but how to say it, how to take this one chance that might not come again? ‘It’s just that I imagine there must be a lot to do, and well, one day I’d like to be doing what you’re doing, so I just wanted to say that if you needed any more personnel, then maybe you would keep in mind that I’m here. I know I’m inexperienced, but I’ll do anything.’
Lawson fell silent, and waited as Holden continued to survey her. For a moment or three, she looked back into Holden’s eyes, and then submissively dropped her gaze to the ground.
Holden gave a half smile. ‘I’ll keep that in mind, Constable Lawson,’ she said, before walking purposefully on towards the station again.
DI Holden’s stock-taking session started at 8.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and – for reasons beyond her control – lasted barely ten minutes. It was, however, time enough to draw conclusions of some validity. Wilson arrived at his boss’s office about ten seconds after Fox, and entered the room whistling the theme tune of his favourite soap Neighbours (not that he got to watch it too often these days).
‘OK, Wilson,’ Holden said briskly, as the detective constable shut the door, ‘let’s be hearing from you. You look like the cat that got the cream, so share with us whatever it is you found out!’
‘Morning, Guv!’ answered Wilson cheerfully, enjoying his moment, and pulling a chair forward.
‘Cut the niceties, Wilson!’ she warned.
‘Sorry, Guv!’
‘And don’t bloody apologize, either. Just speak.’
‘Sorry!’ he said, and immediately realized his mistake. Fox laughed loudly. Holden raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion, and looked ostentatiously at her watch. ‘She lied!’ Wilson said firmly. Fox’s laughter died. ‘Anne Johnson lied,’ Wilson continued. ‘She came to Oxford the morning of her sister’s death. We have it on camera. We have her driving her car into the multi-storey car park at 6.40 in the morning, and leaving at 8.30.’
‘You’re sure?’ Holden said.
‘Yes, it was a yellow Mini and the registration number—’
‘Not the car, Wilson!’ Holden said sharply. ‘Her. Can you be sure she was driving it. Can you see her face clearly?’
Wilson paused before answering. ‘The windows and windscreen are that dark, reflective glass. You can see out, but not in.’
‘So it could have been someone else driving?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but why—’
‘Anything else you found out, Wilson?’ Holden spoke curtly, so that Wilson looked down at his knees, anxious to avoid her gaze. ‘No, Guv,’ he said quietly.
‘Right, Fox,’ she said, swinging her attention to the Detective Sergeant. ‘What can you add?’
Fox, who was used to Holden, gave a rueful smile. ‘Not a lot. Yousef Mohammed, who runs the corner shop where Marston Street meets the Cowley Road, remembers seeing Sarah – assuming it was Sarah – about ten minutes before her death. She hung around the front of his shop briefly, looking in the window or something. I think Yousef fancied her a bit. He commented on her long mack.’
‘Is that it, Fox?’ she said in a tone which suggested great disappointment with his efforts.
‘I think it may be significant that Sarah didn’t come in the shop, didn’t even come into the shop to buy her usual newspaper—’
Holden cut in viciously. ‘Fox! Would you be interested in buying a bloody newspaper if you were on your way to jump from the top of a multi-storey car park?’
Even Fox was temporarily thrown. One charitable, though very male, part of his brain assumed in that instant that it must be her time of the month. But he pressed on nevertheless. ‘But surely she might have wanted to at least exchange words with someone, with anyone, especially with someone who she knew liked her. Yousef smiles a lot. Even when I was questioning him about Sarah, he couldn’t think of her without smiling.’
‘But if Sarah was depressed,’ Holden replied, ‘the last thing she might have wanted to do was talk to anyone, especially to someone who is pathologically cheerful.’
‘Maybe,’ said Fox carefully. ‘But remember she then went across the road and looked at Bicknell’s blue plaque. Remember we’ve got a picture of her where she seems to be talking to two other people.’ He paused, wondering how his observations were going down with his boss.
Holden frowned, then fixed him with a stare. ‘So what exactly, Fox, is your point?’
Fox looked down, happy to give ground to his superior. ‘Only that if, by any chance, Wilson’s theory is correct, and that the woman in the mack was Anne, then of course Anne wouldn’t want to risk getting into conversation with Yousef when she didn’t know him, but realized her sister probably did. She didn’t want to risk giving herself away.’
‘In that case, why hover round the front of the shop at all?’ Holden said.
Fox smiled: ‘To be seen, I guess.’
Holden stood up and for a moment Fox was concerned he had misread her, and that he was about to receive a broadside of premenstrual venom. But when she spoke she was calm and complimentary.
‘Good teamwork. Good thinking. Both of you. You, Wilson, have firmly placed Anne Johnson in the area shortly before the death of her sister, when she claimed to be at home oversleeping after an overdose of sex with her head teacher. And you, Fox, have raised at the very least doubt about the identity of the woman in the long mackintosh.’ Holden stopped talking and walked over to the board from which the picture of Sarah Johnson stared out. ‘As for me, team, I have had a little chat with William Basham of Basham and Smith Solicitors. And Mr William Basham has confirmed to me that Anne is the sole beneficiary of Sarah’s will. Not exactly world shattering news, I know. However—’ Holden paused, and raised her right-hand index finger in the air, as if to ensure that she had their fullest attention. She had meant it when she praised them, and yet she was human enough to need both their attention and approval. Both men watched her intently, wondering what rabbit she was going to pull out of her hat. ‘However, Mr William Basham did also let slip another interesting fact, namely that Sarah Johnson was about to change her will.’
‘Change it?’ Fox gasped. Holden almost purred in appreciation of his reaction.
‘Indeed, they had a meeting arranged for later this week,’ said Holden triumphantly. ‘He didn’t know for sure what changes she wanted to make, but in my book this all adds up to a very substantial motive. If Sarah had told Anne that she was going to cut her out of her will altogether and bequeath all her worldly belongings – and that includes a flat that I reckon is worth at least 250,000 pounds – to the day centre or a cat’s home or maybe even to Jake Arnold, then Anne suddenly has a very pressing reason to drive over to Oxford and, when she couldn’t persuade her sister to change her mind, well, to take matters into her own hands. So I suggest the next thing to do is go and pick her up for questioning.’
‘Why do you say Jake Arnold?’ Wilson asked. ‘Is there a particular reason for suggesting him?’
‘No,’ admitted Holden. ‘But frankly if she was changing her will to another individual, then on the basis of what we know so far, Jake would be the most likely suspect. We know they had quite a strong relationship. It may not have been sexual, but from Sarah’s point of view at least, it was a very important relationship. Who was it she tried to ring the morning of her death? Jake.’
She stopped and waited. Her theory provoked only silence, as each man tried to work out an appropriate response. This only irritated her.
‘Come on, gentlemen,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’ve thrown a hunch up into the air, now is the time for you to shoot it down.’
‘So you’re suggesting Anne may have murdered both her sister and Jake?’ Fox said cautiously.
‘Ah, I can see you are not convinced, Fox. But why not? She could have killed her sister because of the imminent will change. And Jake because he must have known about the imminent will change and might otherwise have told us police about it. Or maybe she just thought he was a creep. If you can kill one person, why not a second one?’ Again she stopped, and waited for a reply. It came from Wilson, gingerly taking his turn.
‘But there is a problem, isn’t there, Guv, with the time Anne’s car left Oxford. We have it on CCTV leaving the car park at 8.30. That is some three-quarters of an hour before Sarah’s death. It’s one thing to suggest Anne’s visit caused Sarah to commit suicide, but it would be very hard to argue without other evidence that she pushed her sister off the top of the car park.’
Holden smiled, but her response to Wilson was uncompromising. ‘That’s the key, Wilson. More evidence. I mean, imagine you are Anne Johnson wanting to establish an alibi. What do you do? She knows there are CCTV cameras at the car park, so she drives out at 8.30, and goes and parks it somewhere else. She then lures her sister up to the top of the car park, and pushes her over the edge. Then she leaves by the stairs, and walks to her car. But now, of course, she’s got to get to Reading. It’s a good hour’s drive at the best of time, and probably more at that time of morning, so she has to cry off her first lesson. But that isn’t a problem because Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, her amorous headmaster, is hardly going to make a fuss, now is he?’
‘No, Guv,’ Wilson agreed. ‘No, he isn’t.’ But he wasn’t entirely convinced.
It was at this point that Holden’s stock-taking session came to an abrupt end. There was a knock on the door, which opened immediately. The face of Sergeant Tolman appeared, his hand raised as if in apology, or perhaps to ask permission to speak. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Ma’am, but I thought you’d like to know. They’ve just found a dead body. Down at the allotments in Meadow Lane. A garden shed went up in flames last night apparently, and some old boy discovered a charred body in it this morning. It’s a bit of a mess, apparently, so ID may take a time, but the allotment belongs to a lorry driver. Name of Martin Mace.’
Holden resisted the temptation to drive straight over to the Meadow Lane allotments. There was little to be gained, she reckoned, from rushing round there at breakneck speed. Uniform would be looking after the site, and Dr Pointer had already been summoned. Better to give them a bit of space and time first. Besides, there was still the death of Sarah Johnson to be followed through. First with a phone call to St Gregory’s, Reading.
‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe, please?’ Holden said to the woman who answered the phone.
‘He’s rather busy,’ came the automatic response of the head teacher’s personal rotweiler. ‘Can I take a message.’
‘No, you can not take a message,’ snapped Holden, who was still in no mood to take prisoners. ‘This is Dectective Inspector Holden of the Oxford police, and I need to speak to Dr Adrian Ratcliffe now.’
‘One moment,’ came the flustered response of a guard dog whose bark was clearly worse than her bite. Several seconds of silence, then a crackle and a man’s voice spoke.
‘Dr Adrian Ratcliffe here. How can I help you?’
The soft, polished tone of his voice served only to goad, not soothe. ‘You can help, Dr Ratcliffe, by getting into your car and driving over here to the Cowley Police Station in Oxford.’
‘I’m sorry, what do you mean?’ came the blustering reply. ‘I have a school to run and—’
‘You’ve a choice,’ Holden snarled back. ‘Either you can get yourself to this police station by 10.30 a.m. or I’ll arrange for a marked police car to drive into your school to collect you. And I’ll ask them to arrive with blue lights flashing. Do I make myself clear?’
Having dealt with one problem, Holden addressed the issue of Anne Johnson. ‘Right, Wilson. I want you to go round and pick up Anne Johnson. Take WPC Lawson with you. I want someone to be with her at all times. She’s not under arrest yet, but I don’t want her making phone calls we aren’t aware of. Once you’re back, you can express surprise that I’ve had to pop out. I want her to sit and sweat a bit. All right?’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘And if, Wilson, you happen to let slip to her the information that we are also pulling Ratcliffe in for questioning, then that won’t matter to me. Understood?’
‘Absolutely, Guv.’
It was almost 9.30 a.m. when Holden and Fox arrived at the allotments and the first thing Holden noticed was the smell. A smell of badly burnt meat that still drifted through the air along with the flecks of ash being disturbed by the freshening morning breeze. The blackened remains of Martin Mace’s shed and the immediate area around it had been surrounded by a makeshift barrier of garden cane and police tape. Four uniformed police, two men, two women, stood uneasily at its four corners, eyes firmly fixed on the crowd of rubbernecking locals and press who had been drawn by the news of unexpected excitement. Cameras clicked as Holden and Fox pushed passed them. They both fought a temptation to scowl, wishing they could get on with their job without interference, yet knowing only too well that violent death both alarms and compels.
‘Is it Martin Mace, Inspector?’ one of the reporters called out. Holden recognized the rather high-pitched male voice as belonging to Don Alexander, a reporter at the Oxford Mail. ‘It’s his shed, you know.’
Holden turned. ‘We will be giving a press conference in due course, Don. I’m sure you don’t want me to speculate and give you misleading information. Now, if you don’t mind all moving off, we’ll try and concentrate on investigating this death.’
Holden waited and watched as the onlookers began to retreat reluctantly from the scene.
‘Hey!’ she said suddenly to Fox. ‘Over there, on the left, in the black jacket. Isn’t that—?’
‘Danny Flynn!’ Fox said, completing her sentence. ‘It certainly bloody is.’
‘Well!’ she added. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
‘Not so odd, if you ask me Guv.’
Reluctantly, Holden pulled her eyes away from the now fast-retreating Flynn, turned and resumed her walk towards the tape barrier.
‘Good morning, Dr Pointer!’
It was several seconds before one of the two figures in white protective suits stood up and turned towards the two detectives.
‘Not a good morning for this chap.’
‘Do you have an ID?’
‘Martin Mace is his name. Probably. I understand this is, or rather was, his shed. The fire has done a lot of damage, but the contents of his wallet have survived pretty well. So I think we can say with some considerable expectation of accuracy that either this body is that of a pickpocket, or that he is, indeed was, Martin Mace.’ Pointer smiled. ‘And the next question?’
‘Without wishing to commit you to one hundred per cent at this stage, Doctor,’ Holden said, ‘can you tell us how Martin died.’
‘Well, I think I can say with some certainty that he was alive when the fire started, so I guess we can safely say he burnt to death. His hands had been tied behind him with wire. So had his feet. There are traces of a plastic covering which has burnt off it, so I imagine the killer used garden wire. Plenty of it here,’ she said gesturing towards the immaculately cared for plants and canes. ‘Also, there was tape round his mouth.’
‘To stop him shouting? So he was conscious as well as alive?’
Dr Pointer frowned, then pulled something out of the pocket of her overall. ‘I guess so. But the tape had another purpose too. To keep something in his mouth.’ She lifted the plastic bag in her hand up high. ‘Look! It’s amazing how well it has been preserved. But then his mouth was firmly shut.’
‘Money?’ Holden said in surprise.
‘Do you fancy a few new clothes, inspector,’ Pointer said with a laugh. ‘Maybe we could go fifty-fifty. There’s plenty of it.’
‘How much?’ Holden asked, but without even a hint of humour.
Pointer shrugged. ‘I need to keep it for tests, obviously, but its all twenty pound notes. We reckon £500.’
‘This is more like it!’ WPC Jan Lawson said as Wilson manouevred the car carefully out of the cramped car park at the back of the Cowley Police Station. ‘A proper murder case!’
Wilson said nothing. He was trying to concentrate on avoiding the riot van parked immediately to his right.
‘Is this your first?’ she continued, but he again made no reply beyond an indeterminate grunt as he swung cautiously left past the Chief Superintendent’s BMW.
The smile on Lawson’s face hardened into a pout. Normally she had little difficulty in getting a man’s attention, so Wilson’s indifference irritated her. It wasn’t that he was that dishy, but when she set her sights, however temporarily, on a man, she expected him to show an interest. She decided to try a different tack.
‘I bet you’re a virgin.’
The different tack worked: the car lurched suddenly forward then rocked to a halt as Wilson’s attention was well and truely grabbed.
She laughed. ‘Oops! Steady, Constable. Not the best way to impress Dectective Inspector Susan. Crashing in the car park on the way to arrest a murder suspect! You’ll be back on bike duty if you’re not careful.’
‘We’re bringing her in for questioning, not arresting her,’ Wilson said pedantically.
‘Whatever!’ she said, before lapsing into silence. Wilson, who was having trouble finding a gap in the traffic on the Oxford Road, was relieved about that, but no sooner had he slipped out in front of a Morris Traveller than WPC Lawson resumed.
‘Anyway, by virgin, I was merely thinking in terms of murder. Your first time investigating one. Nothing else. All right?’
‘All right,’ Wilson replied, who had hoped that this particular line of conversation had already ended.
‘Mind, you,’ she continued cheerfully, ‘there’s nothing wrong with a man being a virgin in my book. Nothing wrong at all.’
Wilson tried to concentrate on the road.
‘Not at your age, anyway.’
Wilson felt himself going red, and hoped against hope that she would stop.
‘So,’ she said, with an effortless change, ‘did she do it? This Anne Johnson. Did she kill her sister, do you think?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I do hope so. It would be so much more interesting than a suicide.’
‘Bloody tractor!’ Dr Adrian Ratcliffe was last in a queue of ten vehicles – eight cars of various colours and two white vans, to be precise – moving at twenty miles per hour behind the object of his fury. ‘Why can’t it get off the main road?’ he demanded of the empty passenger seat of his Saab. It had not been a very good trip; there were too many lorries on the road for that, not to mention roadworks at Shillingford which had delayed him for a full ten minutes. Even in a good mood Ratcliffe was an aggressive driver, always anxious to get there sooner (wherever ‘there’ might be). Today, though, he had a genuine reason for such anxiety: if he didn’t get to the Cowley police station by 10.30, then that bloody DI woman would be on the phone to school asking where he was or, even worse, sending round a pair of clodhopping coppers to cause maximum embarrassment.
‘Get on with it!’ he shouted, as the car at the front of the column pulled out and then passed the tractor. ‘And you!’ he urged as the next car edged slowly to the right, only to lurch back again as a BMW, having just escaped the 30 m.p.h. zone in Nuneham Courtenay, accelerated towards them. ‘Damn!’ he snarled.
In truth, Dr Ratcliffe still had some thirty minutes to get to his destination, which ought to have been more than enough given that the rush hour had passed, but he was finding it difficult to think rationally. For the fact is that he was worried. Very worried indeed. What if this went to court? What if his relationship with Anne Johnson came up. What if, God forbid, she used him as an alibi in open court? His imagination went into overdrive.
‘Miss Johnson, did you visit you sister the night before her death?’
‘No, My Lord, I was in bed.’
‘Can anyone vouch for that.’
‘My headmaster can.’
‘Really, and how is that Miss Johnson.’
‘Well, my Lord, we were fucking.’
‘Between what times?’
‘About 7.30 till maybe 11.00.’
‘Really. He must have a remarkable stamina!!’
‘Actually, it only took three minutes, but that’s men for you!’
The whole jury titters, while in the gallery the press hacks rub their hands in delight.
He tried to shake free of his imaginings, but cold reality was no better. If this came out, Alice would never forgive him. That would be it. Finished. Caput. End of story. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. It was a cliché, but one which summed up Alice to a tee.
‘So, who do you want to be?’
Wilson, who had just pulled up in Marston Street, looked across at his companion with puzzlement writ large across his face. ‘Sorry?’
‘Good cop, or bad cop?’ WPC Lawson said flatly.
Puzzlement was replaced by alarm. ‘What on earth are you talking about? We are only going to bring her in for questioning, not force a confession out of her.’
Lawson grinned. ‘Hey, Constable, lighten up.’
Wilson tried to smile back, but somehow his face wouldn’t cooperate. He tried to think of some appropriate response, but his brain wouldn’t cooperate with that either. In the end he just nodded, before getting out of the car.
‘Is that it?’ Lawson said, indicating a red door immediately opposite them across the road.
‘Yes,’ Wilson replied.
‘Right,’ she said, marching towards it. ‘I’ll be the bad cop, then.’
Wilson locked the car and strode anxiously after her. What the heck was she going to do?
Lawson got to the door first and pressed the bell, once, twice and then again. ‘You can lead,’ she said, as Wilson caught up with her.
Anne Johnson opened the door. This time, there was no towel swathed round her head, but her welcome was just as hostile. ‘Not you again!’
‘Good morning, Miss Johnson,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we need to ask you a few more questions.’
‘Questions?’ she exclaimed.
‘Down at the station.’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘Do you mind if we come in for a moment?’ Wilson pressed on patiently.
‘Yes, I blooming do,’ she said firmly.
‘I really do need to use your toilet,’ WPC Lawson said, stepping forward from behind her much taller colleague. ‘You know what it’s like.’ Anne Johnson opened her mouth to object, but Lawson wasn’t waiting for an answer. ‘Coming through,’ she said, and pushed her way past the astonished woman.
‘Really!’ Anne Johnson huffed, but she knew she had lost the skirmish.
‘And who might you be?’ Lawson said, as she entered the living area. A tousled figure in crumpled white T-shirt and jeans was just getting up from the sofa. The man said nothing, but Wilson, following his colleague, recognized him instantly.
‘Bicknell!’ he exclaimed.
By the time Holden and Fox had returned to Cowley Police Station, both interviewees were ready and waiting for them. Ratcliffe was in Room B, on his own, while Anne Johnson was in Room C, with WPC Lawson standing discretely in attendance. Holden, however, was in no mood to rush. She spent some ten minutes in the ladies toilets, took another five minutes to make herself a mug of coffee, and then strolled casually along the corridor to Wilson’s office. The detective constable was bent over the printer next to his desk.
‘Any problems, Wilson?’
‘The printer’s jammed,’ he said, without looking up.
‘I meant with Anne Johnson.’
‘Oh,’ he said, looking up with a sheepish look on his face. ‘Sorry. No, no problems.’
‘Good.’
‘But there was one interesting development.’
‘Oh?’
‘Ed Bicknell was there.’
‘Bicknell!’ she exclaimed. ‘How very interesting. What was he doing there?’
‘Can’t say they volunteered any information. He just said he had to be off. In the circumstances, I thought it might be best for you to pursue that line of enquiry.’
There was a coughing sound from the corridor. Holden turned, to see Fox entering the open door. ‘I hope I haven’t been delaying you Guv?’
‘No,’ she said, and turned back to Wilson. ‘While we interview Ratcliffe, can you do me a timeline of everything we know about Sarah Johnson’s last hours, starting from 7.00 p.m. when Dr Ratcliffe visited Anne Johnson’s house in Reading. Sightings of her Mini. Phone calls, et cetera.’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘It’s Sam.’
‘All right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘Have you heard from Martin?’
‘No.’
‘He’s not answering his mobile.’
‘Oh!’
‘Got your ticket?’
‘Yeah. Look I’ve got to go.’
‘Okay.’
‘See ya!’
‘I do hope this is important. I spoke to someone over the phone – name like a carpet, Constable Wilton or Shagpile or something – and I can’t for the life of me see what else there is to say.’ Dr Adrian Ratcliffe spoke aggressively. He was damned if he was going to be pushed around, and in the circumstances attack seemed the best form of defence. Take charge, throw the enemy off balance, cover his tracks.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ the woman asked. Trying to lull him into a sense of security, was she? What sort of idiot did she take him for?
‘No!’
‘Tea?’
‘No!’
‘Water?’
‘Does it come with whisky?’
The woman looked down at the papers in front of her, turned the top sheet over, and frowned. She looked up. ‘Why did you lie to Constable Wilson?’
‘I didn’t.’ He said it without blinking, looking straight into her face.
‘You said Anne Johnson’s car had broken down.’
‘That’s what she told me.’
‘When?’
‘When she rang me, that morning.’
‘Oh,’ the woman said. ‘I thought maybe this was an excuse that you’d arranged the night before, while you smoked your post-coital cigarette.’
Ratcliffe’s eyes opened wider for a second. He wasn’t surprised that Anne had talked about their relationship, but he was disappointed. However, ‘I don’t smoke,’ was all he said.
‘That evening, did Anne Johnson intimate that she might be late the next day?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Definitely not.’
‘When did you leave her house that night?’
‘What the hell has this got to do with anything?’ He displayed anger now.
‘Please answer the question,’ she insisted.
‘I don’t know. About ten o’clock probably.’
‘Probably!’ She frowned again, and rubbed briefly at her chin. ‘I suppose ... I suppose your wife can confirm what time you got home, and then we can knock off the time for travelling and—’
‘Do you take pleasure in wrecking lives?’ This time the anger was genuine, fuelled by fear. ‘My affair with Anne Johnson has absolutely nothing to do with the death of her sister. Sarah killed herself the following morning. Just after 9.00 o’clock, wasn’t it? You have no right to destroy my marriage, the lives of my two children, by bringing this to court, or revealing this to my wife.’
DI Holden leant back in her chair, and brought her hands up together in front of her mouth. If she had been sitting in a church pew, the observer would have concluded that she was praying, but in the context of a police interview, deep thought was more likely. She remained in this pose for several seconds, before abruptly standing up.
‘Interview terminated,’ she said.
‘Are you ready, Guv?’ Fox was standing cautiously at the doorway of DI Holden’s room. Wilson was half a pace behind him, also unsure whether to enter or not. ‘We’ve kept her waiting quite a long time now.’
‘He’s a slimy creep, that Ratcliffe,’ she snarled. ‘Hell, I’d like to hang his balls out to dry!’
‘Being a creep isn’t a crime,’ Fox said patiently.
‘Well it bloody well ought to be,’ she said defiantly, but the snarl was gone.
Fox stepped forward, apparently satisfied that it was safe to do so. ‘Wilson here has got a list of all the phone calls to and from Sarah’s mobile.’
Holden looked past Fox at her detective constable and beckoned him. ‘Let’s be seeing it then, Wilson.’
He moved forward, placed it on her desk, and stepped back. For a full half a minute Holden studied it. Then her finger stabbed down at one particular entry. ‘What about this one, Wilson?’
He moved forward again, bending down to get a clear view. ‘That’s a phone box, Guv. In Iffley Road. Opposite the Cricketers. That’s on the corner—’
‘Thank you Wilson,’ she said firmly. ‘I do know where the Cricketers is, as it happens.’
‘Sorry!’ he replied, stepping back again as his did.
Holden looked up from the list of phone numbers. ‘Don’t apologize all the time, Wilson, unless you’ve got something proper to apologize for. You’ve done a good job’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘Now, whatever happened to Sarah Johnson, we know we’ve got two other murders to solve, so I want you to turn your attention to them. In fact, to Martin Mace. I want you to follow up the money that was stuffed into Mace’s mouth.’
‘What money?’ said Wilson, who had yet to be updated on the allotment details.
‘There was a wadge of money,’ Holden replied, ‘probably £500, stuffed in the dead man’s mouth. Assuming, as we are, that the dead man is Mace, I want to know if the money was his or his killer’s. Ring Pointer. She’s got the wallet that Mace was carrying. Presumably, there’ll be a debit card in it. Go to the bank. Check his withdrawals over the last few days. Five hundred pounds is too much to withdraw at a slot machine, so if he withdrew it, he’ll have done it in person. We need any clues we can. OK?’
‘Yes, Guv. Thank you Guv.’
‘For God’s sake, Wilson, don’t thank me either,‘ she said wearily. ‘Unless I’ve done you a real favour.’
Wilson opened his mouth to apologize, but shut it again just in time.
‘Sorry to have kept you for so long,’ Holden said, as she and Fox sat down at the table opposite Anne Johnson.
‘Oh, I assumed it was all part of the softening-up process.’ Anne Johnson said this without emotion, a bleak smile across her face.
‘Would you like a tea or coffee?’ Holden said pleasantly.
‘No!’ The reply was definite.
Holden looked down and opened the folder of paper she had placed on the table. She spent several seconds frowning over the first page. Then she closed the folder and looked up. ‘You’ve been lying to us, Miss Johnson?’
‘Have I?’ she replied, steadily holding the Detective Inspector’s gaze.
‘In fact, you seem to make quite an art of not telling the truth.’
Anne Johnson shrugged, but said nothing.
Holden flicked a glance towards Fox, who immediately opened a folder in front of him, and drew from it a photograph which he pushed across the table in front of him.
‘Is that your car?’ he asked.
‘It looks like it,’ she said grudgingly.
‘The number plate is quite clear,’ Fox said evenly. ‘For the sake of the tape recording, can you please confirm yes or no if this is your car.’
‘You obviously know it is,’ she said belligerently.
‘This photograph of a car which you have agreed belongs to you was taken at the entrance to the multi-storey car park at the Magdalen Bridge end of the Cowley Road. As you can see from the timestamp at the bottom, it was taken at 6.40 a.m. the morning of your sister’s death. Were you driving the car?’
‘I suppose I must have been.’
Holden leant forward. ‘In your original statement to DS Fox, you told him you hadn’t seen her for some weeks prior to her death.’
‘Did I?’ she said, as if she was genuinely surprised.
‘In fact, Miss Johnson,’ Fox said, ‘you told me you hadn’t even spoken on the phone?’
‘Look, what does it matter? My sister had jumped from the top of a car park. I was still very distressed. I might have said anything.’
‘We are trying to establish the precise circumstances of your sister’s death,’ Fox continued doggedly. ‘If you lie, it is a very serious matter. Now the fact is that we have photographic evidence of you arriving in Oxford and parking very near to your sister’s home less than two and a half hours before she died. We also know from Miss Sarah Johnson’s mobile phone records that she rang you up the previous night.’
Anne Johnson laughed. ‘Haven’t you been a busy boy! A gold star for you.’
Holden leant forward and took up the baton. ‘Why did she ring you?’
‘Why do you think? She was depressed.’
‘More so than usual?’
‘Well, I guess so,’ Anne Johnson said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘given that she then committed suicide. It’s not the thing you do if you’re feeling on top of the world.’
‘But that’s something we are trying to establish. If she did indeed commit suicide, and if so, why. Because the evidence so far is circumstantial. ’
Anne Johnson’s attitude of bored intolerance disappeared. ‘What the hell do you mean? Of course she committed—’
‘There’s no of course in my book,’ Holden snapped, ‘merely evidence – good, bad or circumstantial. And so far it doesn’t add up to anything conclusive. There’s nothing that says she must have jumped rather than she was pushed by person or persons unknown.’
‘So,’ Fox cut in, ‘perhaps you can tell us in more precise terms what she said when she rang you up.’
Anne Johnson dropped her gaze, so that when she replied, she addressed her words towards the table.
‘She was very distressed. She said how she was feeling very low. How she hated herself. That she wasn’t sure she could carry on.’
‘What was making her feel that?’ Holden said.
Anne looked at her questioner as if she couldn’t quite believe that she had heard her correctly. ‘She was a manic depressive. Up sometimes, down sometimes. There didn’t have to be a reason to be down. Sometimes she just was.’
‘What did she tell you about her will?’
Anne looked at Holden sharply. She started to open her mouth, as if to speak, then closed it. She gave a shrug that Holden thought rather theatrical, the sort of gesture she remembered from a largely forgotten school production of Grease. ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said firmly. ‘Are you saying she was making a will?’
Holden hoped her face wasn’t giving anything away. She had hoped she would catch her adversary out with this question – cause her at the least to admit to knowledge of the will – but like Muhammed Ali in his prime Anne Johnson had swayed out of the way of the intended left hook with contemptuous ease, leaving Holden feeling stupidly clumsy. Holden, almost desperately, tried a right hook: ‘I gather you and Bicknell are very good friends? Rather strange that, to get so chummy with the man whose lunatic art project may have inspired your sister to kill herself.’
‘Ah!’ said Anne Johnson, ‘I wondered when you’d bring him up.’
‘How long have you had a sexual relationship with him?’ Fox said, trying to bring relief to his boss.
‘Sexual relationship?’
‘How long have you known him?’ Holden came in.
‘In the biblical or non-biblical sense?’ she replied with a smile. She waited for a response from Holden, but none came. Eventually, she gave another of her theatrical shrugs. ‘A few days. That’s all.’
‘You expect us to believe that?’ It was Fox again.
‘What exactly are you implying?’ Anne Johnson snapped.
‘Let me give you a scenario,’ Holden said calmly. ‘You are at home. Dr Ratcliffe has just left and you get a phone call. From your sister. She is, as you say, maybe distraught, maybe depressed. But that is not what grabs your attention. It is what she tells you. That she is going to change her will. A will which until that time left everything to you. She is not a poor woman. She owns her own flat. You find it difficult to sleep, wondering what the hell to do. So early next morning you drive to Oxford. You park in the multi-storey, and go and see her. What goes on between the two of you only you know. But let’s suppose that you try – but fail – to persuade her not to change her will. You leave, and you drive your car out of the car park at about half past eight. But my question would be: what did you do then? Because half an hour later your sister plunges off the top of that same car park. Now, can you fill in the gaps for us?’
Anne Johnson had been watching Holden very carefully right the way through this exposition. When Holden stopped talking, she puffed out her cheeks. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘You’ve obviously missed your vocation. As a writer of fiction.’
‘Not much fiction there,’ Holden said with a smile, and she turned briefly towards Fox.
‘We know,’ he said, ‘from Sarah’s phone records that she rang you that night at about 10.10. Fact. We have your car arriving on CCTV. Fact. We have your car leaving on CCTV. Fact. At 8.30 a.m. Yet you only get to school in time to teach the third lesson, which commences at 11.30. Again, fact. We have spoken to Sarah Johnson’s solictor, who has confirmed that she had arranged a meeting to change her will. Fact. And, of course, your sister’s death is a fact. Only its cause remains uncertain.’
‘Another point of fact,’ Holden said, leaning forward again, ‘is that much of the fiction has been coming from you, Miss Johnson. For example, you lied to your school about your car breaking down. You lied to DS Fox when you told him you hadn’t seen or even spoken to your sister recently. So why should we believe you when you claim to have no knowledge of Sarah’s will. And why should we believe you when you say you have only very recently met Ed Bicknell. It doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that he was part of your plot, conveniently standing there at the bottom of the car park with his suicide plaque, and even more conveniently photographing her looking at the plaque.’ Holden paused, pondered and then decided to take the plunge. ‘Only who is to say that it was her, standing there in her long mackintosh. Who is to say it wasn’t you? That you were making sure that Bicknell got some photos of you pretending to be your sister, contemplating her suicide, before you made your way to the top of the car park, and there pushed your waiting sister over the edge.’
She stopped then and silence descended on the room. Holden and Fox sat unmoving, their eyes on their suspect, wondering, hoping against hope, almost (in Holden’s case) praying for the woman opposite to break down and confess. Eventually Anne Johnson leant back in her chair and let out a deep sigh. ‘Are you,’ she said coldly, ‘accusing me of murder?’
Holden pursed her lips together, knowing she had not won. ‘At this point, I am merely trying to point out the possibilities.’
‘In that case,’ her interviewee said, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘In what sense,’ Holden responded instantly.
‘In the sense that, if there are any more questions, I’d like to have a solicitor present.’