Blood on the Cowley Road by Peter Tickler Page A

ill-disguised irritation.
    Dr Pointer smiled. ‘No need,’ she said. ‘I think I can say with ninety-nine per cent certainty that Mr Jake Arnold was dead by the time he entered the river.’
    â€˜How did he die?’ Holden asked, doing her best to sound unimpressed.
    â€˜From a blow to the back of the head,’ Dr Pointer said before falling
silent again. After the magician’s opening, she was now going to make the Detective Inspector ask for every bit of information.
    Holden had no option but to play along with her game. ‘Any idea what sort of weapon the killer used?’
    â€˜Of course I’ve an idea,’ Dr Pointer huffed. ‘There’s a long depressed fracture which suggests a long, thin but heavy implement – maybe some sort of metal bar.’ Again she fell silent.
    â€˜Um!’ said Wilson trying to get the attention of the two women. Holden looked at him with irritation writ large across her face. Pointer, noticing, smiled her widest smile at the young man and immediately promoted him.
    â€˜Yes, Sergeant?’ she asked expectantly.
    â€˜I was wondering,’ Wilson said awkwardly, ‘if perhaps it might have been maybe like a metal spike that people use for mooring their boats. That’s what we used when I was a kid and we went on a canal boat holiday.’
    â€˜You used them for knocking people on the back of the head did you?’ Pointer said, her smile cracking into gentle laughter. ‘Oh, dear!’
    â€˜The constable’s suggestion seems eminently sensible to me,’ Holden retorted. Like some protective mother hen, she flew to the defence of her young charge. ‘Or perhaps,’ she added caustically, ‘you can come up with a better idea?’
    Dr Pointer’s smile retreated before this onslaught. ‘It’s as likely as anything,’ she admitted.
    â€˜Can you be absolutely sure he was dead when he entered the river?’ Wilson asked, emboldened by his governor’s support.
    Dr Pointer looked across at him, but this time without a glimmer of humour. ‘Yes, I can be and indeed am absolutely sure, Constable,’ she said firmly, demoting Wilson back to the ranks. ‘I wouldn’t say so otherwise. If he had entered the water alive, there would be water in his lungs. As you can see,’ she said, with a gesture towards the long slit down the centre of the corpse, ‘we have taken a good look inside, and in my expert opinion there is no doubt, even though we haven’t yet had time to complete a diatom test. Which we’ll make a start with now if you haven’t any more questions.’
    Holden gave a slight but unmistakable bow of the head towards Pointer. ‘Thank you, Doctor. No more questions.’

    As Wilson brought the unmarked car gently to a halt in exactly the same spot as he had some fifty-one hours earlier, he was surprised to see that there was no one outside the Evergreen Day Centre. ‘Where’s the smoking brotherhood?’ he quipped as the three of them got out. ‘Have they got some new bike sheds to hide behind?’
    Both Holden and Fox had been silent throughout the short journey from the station. After they had met up with Fox at the station, Holden had given him a quick, but thorough briefing on developments, before they had set off on the short trip to the day centre. Neither Fox, still feeling somewhat morose after his dental treatment, nor Holden was inclined to talk. Holden sat in the back, trying to concentrate on the task before them, but she found her thoughts being drawn by some invisible and undeniable force back to her mother. Her beloved, bloody-minded, point-scoring, I-know-better-than-everyone mother.
    â€˜Why can’t you take some time off to help me get organized?’ she had demanded on the phone the night before.
    â€˜I’ve already taken four separate days off in the last two months,’ Holden had snapped