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Susan glared at her mother. There was no sadness in her eyes, only fury. That was forbidden ground as far as she was concerned, a no-go area dotted with unexploded mines. Bloody Richard. Bastard Richard. Richard who slapped her around, Richard who cheated on her, Richard who eventually ran out on her, thank God! Why the hell hadn’t she walked out on him first?
‘Were you happy with my father, then?’ If her mother was going to mention the unmentionable, then so would she.
‘Yes.’ Sometimes only a lie will do.
‘Oh yeah. Not from where I was sitting.’ Why not be aggressive and nasty? She would give as good as she got.
Her mother wrenched the door open. The words had done their job, and some. ‘I can see I shouldn’t have started this conversation.’
Her daughter strode past, and only when she was outside did she throw back a reply, but it was lost in the slamming of the door.
It would typically take little more than two minutes to walk to her house in Chilswell Road, but once she was in Whitehouse Road, she stopped under a street lamp, removed her mobile from her bag, and made a call. She needed someone to talk to. About the case. That’s what she told herself. She had talked to her mother, of course, before the evening had disintegrated, but she hadn’t been able to talk to her about the photo of the naked Jack Smith or the painting he had found. Apart from anything else, this wasn’t information she wanted getting gossiped round the neighbourhood. So she still
needed to talk to someone else, someone she could bounce her thoughts off, someone she could trust. At least, that was what she told herself as she searched for the number. Which was why and how she came to ring Dr Karen Pointer at 9.25 that evening.
‘It’s Susan Holden,’ she said when her call was answered.
There was the briefest of pauses. ‘Hello, Susan. What a lovely surprise.’
‘I’ve just had supper with my mother.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘No it wasn’t. Well, it was OK until we got on to the subject of me, and then it all went tits up.’
‘Oh dear.’ Again there was a pause, though less brief. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’
‘I’m just walking back to my house.’
‘Would you like me to come round, Susan?’
There was a pause. What did she want? Across the road, two students walked past. She recognized the woman as living up her end of Chilswell Road. They were talking intently, apparently oblivious of her scrutiny, and they were holding hands. ‘Yes, please,’ Holden replied.
‘Now?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind at all.’
CHAPTER 4
‘So, where are we, Sergeant?’ In truth, DI Holden should have had a pretty firm idea herself of where they were, but at 9.05 that next morning, as she sat in her rather frayed but ergonomic office chair, facing the three members of her team, her mind was having a struggle to stay in the present and not drift back to the previous night.
Karen Pointer had arrived at her house in Chilswell Road within fifteen minutes of their brief phone call. Holden had seen her arrive, and had opened the door before the bell had rung. For several seconds they had stood unmoving, one outside, one inside. Was either of them conscious that this could be or might be or should be a defining moment in their relationship – crossing of the Rubicon or maybe a Pandora’s box moment? Perhaps. It was Karen, eventually, who had broken the silence.
‘You look exhausted.’
Susan had smiled and looked down at her feet almost bashfully, as if the other woman had told her how beautiful she was. And maybe that was exactly what Karen Pointer was saying.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Susan had replied, finally looking up.
Only then had Karen moved forward into the narrow hallway, where for some thirty seconds they had hugged each other before finally, tentatively kissing. Then they had gone into the kitchen and talked and talked over mugs of tea – about life and work, and the past and the future, and mothers. And Karen had insisted Susan ring her mother, even though it was ridiculously late. And then they had gone to bed, though not initially for sex. They had lain together fully clothed, Susan facing the wardrobe as she always did, and Karen tucked close behind her, her left arm curled protectively around her companion’s body, and they had talked desultorily until they had both fallen asleep. Only much later, just after the clock on the landing had chimed four o’clock had Susan woken up and turned round and moved into territory that was for her scary and thrilling and unknown.
‘Wilson and Lawson have chased up the rest of Maria’s students.’ Fox was summarizing where they had got to. Holden forced herself back to the present. ‘But to be honest there’s nothing to add to what we had already found out. Dominic Russell left at the end of the interval, and the last person to see Maria was John Abrahams. She received no phone calls, and there is no reason to believe she was planning to meet anyone. One thing several witnesses agree was that there was ill feeling between Maria and Dominic that evening.’
‘But that doesn’t make him a killer,’ Holden insisted. ‘He was home by nine o’clock and fast asleep in front of the TV when Maria was killed, according to his wife.’
‘She might be lying,’ Fox stated.
