Blood on the Cowley Road by Peter Tickler

the normal time. There was only Mick and a group of students left – it was bloody quiet really – and after a bit of tidying up, I went outside for a bit of fresh air and a fag, and that was when I saw all the lights up near the lock. So I walked up there and saw them pulling this body out of the water by the weir, and I noticed he was wearing a striped scarf. His hat was missing, but I was pretty damn sure he was the bloke in the pub, so I told one of the coppers there.’
    â€˜How come you were so sure?’ Holden asked. ‘Lot’s of people must wear Oxford United scarves round here.’
    Smith snorted. ‘Have you seen the scarf, Inspector?’
    â€˜No,’ Holden admitted. ‘We’ll be doing that later.’
    â€˜Well,’ he said with a sneer, ‘when you do, you will notice that the scarf is not an official Oxford scarf. It is very obviously a hand-knitted job – blue and yellow stripes. He told me his mother made it.’ He paused and gave a large leering smile. ‘I reckon he was a right Mummy’s boy, if you know what I mean. Still attached to the apron strings. Flapped his hands around like a seal on amphetamines.’
    â€˜Can we just stick to facts,’ Holden said sharply, trying to regain control of an interview that had started to go into a spin, ‘and relevant facts at that.’
    â€˜In my view it’s a fact. He was a pansy, a poofter, a homo, call it what you will. And how do you know it isn’t relevant? Maybe he looked in the mirror when he went to the loo. Maybe, he decided he couldn’t stand what he could see in it. Maybe the beer had loosened his inhibitions, so he went out and jumped in the river.’
    â€˜Thank you, Mr Smith,’ Holden said with exaggerated politeness. ‘We will keep your theory in mind. In the meantime, I have just got one more thing to ask, then we’ll be off. Did you hear or see anything after he left the pub? Any shouting from outside or anything?’

    â€˜No,’ he said.
    â€˜You’re sure? After all, it was pretty quiet in the pub. Maybe you—’
    Ted Smith cut into Holden’s probing with barely disguised irritation. ‘Look you here,’ he said in a Welsh accent that had suddenly lost its musical charm. ‘I said no, didn’t I. It’s a simple word, and it has a simple meaning. So I’ll say it once more. No! All right?’
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    When she was a seven-year-old, Dr Karen Pointer had wanted to be a magician. Now she was approaching her thirty-seventh birthday, something of that spirit lingered on. As the three of them stood around the shrouded corpse, she leant over, took one corner of the sheet with her right hand, and paused dramatically. For two or three seconds she waited, and only then, as if she was producing a rabbit from a hat, did she flick the sheet through the air with a flash of her wrist to reveal the naked body of Jake Arnold. Wilson, predictably, gave an involuntary gasp, while Holden, equally predictably, refused to react at all to the showmanship.
    â€˜I haven’t, of course, had time to complete a full examination and to carry out all the tests I would want to—’ Pointer began.
    â€˜Quite,’ said Holden. ‘We understand that fully.’ She spoke with a brusqueness born of anticipation and impatience. Dr Pointer had rung her on her mobile just after Wilson and she had left the Iffley Inn, and had suggested that since there were some ‘unexpected findings’ in her examination of the corpse, Holden might want to pop along and have a chat. But now they had ‘popped along’, the good doctor was in no rush to reveal her news.
    â€˜So everything I say,’ Dr Pointer continued carefully, ‘is said only on the understanding that these findings are provisional and therefore are subject to revision—’
    â€˜Would you rather we came back another day?’ Holden asked with