The Blue Virgin by Marni Graff Read Free Book Online

flat?”
      Davey’s face turned dark. “No.”
      “Then how did you know Miss Wallace wasn’t alive? You told Miss Isaacs to call the police, not an ambulance,” he pointed out.
      Davey looked confused for a moment, then shrugged. “Don’ know. She just looked dead, ya know?”
      Declan chewed his lip and decided not to press the issue for now. “All right, Davey. Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch.” He told the constable to report to Detective Constable McAfee and motioned for Watkins to leave with him.
      Outside the crowd had thinned as people left for work. Declan ran his eyes over the remaining group. One short muscled man with a malevolent look caught his attention. The man looked away hastily when he saw Declan’s appraising eye, raising the hackles on Declan’s neck. “Your impressions of Haskitt?” Declan asked his sergeant, watching the man sidle away.
      “Hiding something, I’ll bet,” Watkins answered. “Bit of a crush on the victim, I’d say. Wonder if he stalked her?” He rubbed his eyes. “What did the station want?”
      “No confession from the Rogan woman. I told them to let her stew a bit and release her.” Declan watched the muscleman cross the street and enter a flat down the block. Good, house-to-house would find out who he was. “We need to get the mother’s details from her, do a notification so we can get the formal ID tonight.”
      The aroma of fresh-ground coffee reached the men from the cafe across the street.
      “But first let’s get a cuppa to go, Watkins.”

    *

    Cursing under his breath, Tommy Clay turned onto the busy Cowley Road, walking briskly for fifteen minutes to the triangular junction known as The Plain, which marked the branching of the Cowley, Iffley and Headington roads, all leading to those suburbs of Oxford. Tommy paused beside the Victoria Fountain for a long line of small cars and large, spewing buses to pass, before crossing during a brief break in the late-morning traffic. Purposefully continuing on his course, he passed the entrance to Magdalen College’s outdoor theatre on the River Cherwell, crossing over the bridge but ignoring the river’s punters pushing along the quiet water with long poles, trying to catch a breeze. He carried on to the Botanic Garden, past laboratory buildings and a massive stone arch. He finally turned off onto Rose Lane, his destination the field behind Merton College.
      It had become a hazy, warm summer day. He stopped to light a cigarette, inhaling deeply, getting his bearings. Merton Grove’s playing fields were bordered on the north by Dead Man’s Walk, an ancient passage for Jewish funeral processions, separated on the south from Christ Church Meadow by the wide avenue known as Broad Walk. Once the walk had been planted with elm trees, but a bout of Dutch elm disease had killed most of them. They were replaced by plane trees in the mid-seventies, but the enormous stump, more than nine feet wide, of one progenitor still remained. This was Tommy’s objective, and as he approached, he was happy to see the fine weather had beckoned to many others as well, who were spread out over the green: single sunbathers, couples in various stages of courtship, and most of all, the nannies, sitting clustered together on blankets with heads together gossiping, as their small charges ran free and unnoticed in relative safety.
      Tommy Clay, devotee of organic foods and exercise, newly interested in the merits of meditation, had clipped, short brown hair, shorter nails, and no visible tattoos to spoil the spotless image he desired to project. The casual observer immediately noticed that he worked out with weights, the sculpted muscles of his arms and chest highlighted by his clinging T-shirt. Lighting a second cigarette from the stub of the first, one of the few pleasures he allowed himself without regret, he settled in the shade of the plane tree nearest the elm stump.
      When the police had