Blood on the Cowley Road by Peter Tickler Page B

tetchily.
    â€˜Oh’ came the wounded response, ‘you’re keeping a tally are you.’
    â€˜No!’ she had retorted, although she was. ‘It’s just that I do want to take some proper holiday sometime. And besides,’ she had added, playing her trump card, ‘I’ve got a death to investigate.’
    â€˜A murder?’ said her mother with sudden curiousity. ‘How exciting!’
    â€˜Actually, a probable suicide,’ she had had to admit.
    â€˜A suicide?’ The disappointment was evident even down a not very good line. ‘And suicide is more important than a mother’s needs?’
    It was at this point in the Detective Inspector’s replay of her conversation with her mother that Detective Constable Wilson had brought the car to a halt and made his joke about smoking and bike sheds.
    Holden lurched back into the present, unamused. ‘Wilson,’ she said sharply, ‘this is not the place for jokes. Your task is to listen, take your lead from us, and, if in doubt, to keep your mouth closed. This is a murder investigation, not a day out to Blackpool.’ With that, she nimbly exited the car and started off towards the Evergreen Day Centre, as if trying to shake off the pursing fury of her mother.

    No one greeted them at the door, and only when she had pushed through the outer pair, and then the inner pair did she realize why. Based on past experience (well, only two visits in four years if the truth be told), she expected to encounter a roomful of people arrayed around a series of functional tables on a varied selection of plastic upright chairs and seen-better-days armchairs and sofas. The last time she had had to call in, there had been a group making non-religious Easter cards in one corner, a couple of men, encirled by an intense group of spectators, involved in a silent chess duel in another corner, while a third group argued noisily over a Scrabble board. This time, however, everyone present was seated in a haphazard circle, which Jim Blunt was addressing. He noticed Holden immediately, and held up a hand – whether in greeting or as a warning she wasn’t quite sure.
    â€˜Well,’ he said, looking round the members, ‘I think this is a good time to stop. The police have arrived. No doubt they’ll have more news of poor Jake. Obviously, I’ll keep you all informed, but for now try to carry on as normal. I know that’s going to be difficult, but as long as we support each other, we’ll all be OK.’
    Blunt led his three visitors into the same cramped room that Fox and Wilson had entered two days earlier.
    â€˜So,’ he said, after he had shut the door and sat down, ‘can you tell me any more about it. We’ve got a lot of very concerned members out there. Jake was popular.’ He paused, but only to catch his breath, and before Holden could respond he had started off again. ‘It must have been an accident, right? I mean you can tell if he’d been drinking too much. It’s just that someone asked if he’d committed suicide. And after what Sarah did, well, I wanted to be able to assure everyone that it was just an unfortunate case of too much drink.’ Blunt dribbled to a halt, looking from Holden to Fox to Wilson and back to Holden, searching for reassurance.
    Holden, who was sitting bolt upright, leant forward, her face wiped clean of emotion. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that in the light of what the pathologist has told us, we are treating the death of Jake Arnold as neither an accident nor suicide. Jake was murdered. Last night, after leaving the Iffley Inn. I don’t want to say any more about how it happened at this stage, but we have, of course, got to conduct interviews, here, today, which will obviously be disruptive for your day centre.’

    â€˜Shit!’ Blunt spat the word out like a piece of sour fruit. ‘Damn and hell!’
    â€˜Perhaps we can