Killing by Numbers: An Oxford Murder Mystery (Bridget Hart Book 2)

  Killing by Numbers

  An Oxford Murder Mystery

  Bridget Hart Book 2

  M S Morris

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  M S Morris have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  msmorrisbooks.com

  Published by Landmark Media, a division of Landmark Internet Ltd.

  Copyright © 2020 Margarita Morris and Steve Morris

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  Thank you for reading

  1

  Gabriel Quinn had spent a lot of time thinking about death. But when it came for him, it didn’t happen the way he’d imagined.

  In his mind’s eye he’d pictured the Four Horsemen on their steeds, brandishing swords and tridents, trampling sinners underfoot. His dreams had featured deadly plagues, fiery pits and seven-headed monsters. He’d spent hours poring over images of Hell and the Apocalypse – elaborate images of exquisite detail and craftsmanship, drawn by an artist with a God-given skill that surpassed all others. His girlfriend said he was obsessed. But Gabriel knew that death could be sudden and violent, and in that respect, at least, he wasn’t wrong.

  At first he wasn’t sure what had happened. He heard a car horn and smelled burning rubber. Not the trumpet of the angel of death. Not the stink of brimstone. When he forced his eyes open, a big man in a checked shirt with a huge camera slung around his neck was leaning over him. Definitely not St Peter.

  ‘Hey, buddy, you all right there?’

  American. A tourist.

  Gabriel suspected he was far from all right. One minute he’d been cycling along Oxford High Street and now he was lying in the middle of the road with a searing pain in the centre of his chest. Gasping for breath, he squinted at the man’s jowly features and tried to figure out what had happened.

  He’d just come from Jonathan Wright’s art gallery which was displaying some of his paintings along with those of other former students of the Ruskin School of Art. Jonathan was a big supporter of local artists and liked to promote the work of those at the start of their careers. The exhibition had opened just over a week ago, and sales were looking promising. He’d gone to the gallery to discuss substituting some of the sold paintings for new canvases. With any luck his embryonic career was about to take off.

  But then Gabriel had seen something that chilled him to the bone. He had left the gallery in a state. It was imperative that he speak to Todd Lee who ran the art supply shop on Broad Street. He had to see Todd straightaway and tell him what he’d found. That was why he’d been cycling along the High Street in such a hurry.

  It all started to make sense to him now. For weeks he’d had the feeling he was in danger. Call it a gut reaction, or a sixth sense, whatever you like. A creeping sensation that caused him to look over his shoulder every other minute. Whenever he glanced around there was always someone with a camera or an iPhone pointed in his direction. Spies. That’s what they were.

  That woman in the red summer coat outside the University Church who’d pointed her lens in his direction while he was unlocking his bicycle. He’d instinctively put up a hand to avoid being photographed. The couple eating ice creams who’d swerved into his path as he wheeled his bike onto the road. The bearded man in the gallery peering at him while he talked to Jonathan. It was impossible to distinguish innocent bystanders from those who were involved.

  And now this latest discovery. He had to speak to Todd. Shaking with nerves, he’d jumped on his bike and pedalled away as fast as he could, overtaking the open-topped sightseeing bus that had stopped to let people on and off.

  And then what had happened? He remembered signalling right and pulling into the centre of the road, ready to turn into Turl Street. But then a car had pulled up on his left-hand side. A black car. The driver’s window was lowered. Gabriel had looked at the man and noted the close-cropped hair, the two-day-old stubble, the designer sunglasses (Ray-Bans) and the single black stud earring. He had an acute eye for detail and could have drawn the man’s likeness in a matter of minutes. It was a gift.

  But then he’d seen the barrel of the gun, aimed straight at him. Death was not riding a pale, skeletal horse, but driving a Toyota.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. A sudden, sharp pain. The smell of exhaust fumes as the car sped away. The world turning upside down as he lost control of his bike. Landing on the road with an almighty thump. And now a growing crowd of people, following the lead of the American tourist, leaning over him.

  ‘Oh my God, Frank! He’s been shot. Look at the blood on his chest.’ This from a short, blonde woman who was presumably the American tourist’s wife. ‘Dial 911. Quick!’

  ‘It’s 999 in England, Martha,’ said Frank, reaching for his phone.

  Numbers. 911. 999. It’s important to know the right number, thought Gabriel. If he was going to die – and his chances right now were looking less than fifty-fifty – he had to tell someone what he’d discovered. He tried to speak.

  ‘He’s saying something,’ said Martha. She knelt down beside him and leaned in close. ‘What is it, honey?’

  Gabriel didn’t know if he was making sense. His mouth was so dry he could hardly talk. His vision was starting to blur and sounds were becoming muffled. It took all his strength to form the words.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Martha. ‘I couldn’t hear you.’

  Gabriel tried again. ‘L79468235.’

  ‘Hang on, let me write that down.’

  He did his best to repeat the number. Then everything went black.

  2

  ‘Did you remember to pack your toothbrush?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. Stop fussing.’

  Detective Inspector Bridget Hart pulled off the Wolvercote roundabout onto the Woodstock Road and joined the flow of traffic heading towards the centre of Oxford. Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Chloe, was in the passenger seat clutching her overnight bag on her lap and typing rapidly on her phone with two thumbs.

  ‘And toothpaste?’

  ‘They’ll have toothpaste.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  It wasn’t really the toothbrush, or potential lack thereof, that was making Bridget so anxious. It was the idea of Chloe taking the train to London on her own and staying overnight with Bridget’s ex-husband, Ben, and his new girlfriend, Tamsin, who was ten years younger than Bridget and, Bridget imagined, ten pounds lighter.

  Rationally, she told herself that Ben was Chloe’s father, and if Chloe wanted to have a relationship with him then she shouldn’t stand in her daughter’s way. It was just that where Ben was concerned, Bridget found it hard to be rational. She harboured a deep-seated, visceral antipathy to her ex-husband, based, not unreasonably, on the fact that he had cheated on her (multiple times) during their
brief marriage so that she now found it impossible to trust him, even where Chloe was concerned. She gripped the steering wheel and silently cursed a bus that pulled out in front of her.

  ‘Are you all ready for this evening, Mum?’ asked Chloe, interrupting Bridget’s uncharitable train of thought. Miraculously her daughter appeared to have put her phone away and was making conversation. Bridget knew she should be delighted by this rare occurrence, but the way Chloe asked the question made her squirm in her seat.

  ‘This evening? You mean going to the opera with Jonathan?’

  ‘I mean your date with Jonathan,’ said Chloe in an exasperated tone of voice that implied Bridget was a hopeless case where men were concerned. She probably had a point.

  ‘Yes, I’m all ready. But I wouldn’t call it a date as such.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘We’re just going to see a production of La Bohème at the New Theatre, that’s all.’ She signalled right and turned into Beaumont Street. An elegant couple descended the steps of the Randolph Hotel and climbed into a waiting taxi. A group of foreign schoolchildren were staring at their phones outside the Ashmolean Museum, indifferent to Oxford’s antiquities.

  ‘Sounds like a date to me,’ said Chloe.

  ‘Yes, well, I suppose so.’ Bridget stopped at the red light outside Worcester College.

  She had met Jonathan, very briefly, for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Her sister, Vanessa, had invited them both to Sunday lunch in the hope of doing a spot of matchmaking. For the happily-married Vanessa with her doting husband, two perfect children (one of each), adorable dog and comfortable family home, Bridget’s single status seemed to be a constant source of anxiety, a problem needing to be fixed. But after dropping Chloe off at Vanessa’s that day, Bridget hadn’t been able to stay for lunch because she was in the middle of a murder enquiry – a student found dead at Christ Church – so she’d only got as far as saying a quick hello to Jonathan. Afterwards Chloe had told her what a great person he was. Jonathan had then invited her to the opening night of a new exhibition at his art gallery on the High Street. She’d gone along – at Chloe’s insistence – and had enjoyed half an hour chatting to him, but then she’d had to leave early after receiving an urgent call from her sergeant. Such was the life of a detective inspector with Thames Valley Police.

  ‘You should go for it, Mum,’ said Chloe in the voice of one who seemed to be an expert on affairs of the heart.

  Go for what? Bridget wondered. She didn’t like to ask. Still, she’d made an effort to tidy her little house in Wolvercote in anticipation of inviting Jonathan back for a nightcap. She’d even put clean sheets on the bed, although that was probably over-anticipating things. This was only a trip to the opera after all. A first date, if you must.

  She pulled into the train station car park and skilfully reversed her red Mini into the narrow space left by two much bigger cars. She loved her little car. It was nippy, easy to park and a lot more reliable than her ex-husband. Small is beautiful, she thought. It was something she told herself on a regular basis, in view of the fact that she measured only five foot two at full stretch. Chloe, on the other hand, was already, at fifteen, an impressive five foot six. In this respect, at least, it looked as if she was going to take after her father.

  They crossed the footbridge over the Botley Road, and Bridget bought Chloe a return ticket from one of the machines in the station entrance.

  ‘Phone me when you get to Paddington, won’t you? Just so I know you’ve arrived safely.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. And I promise not to talk to any strange men on the train.’

  Bridget was about to say something in response when she saw that Chloe was grinning at her. She hugged her daughter and gave her a kiss. ‘Have a lovely time.’

  ‘You too, Mum.’

  She watched as Chloe went through the ticket barrier and disappeared from view. She really must try not to turn into one of those tiresomely neurotic mothers, always worrying and nagging about the least little thing. Her own mother had been terrible in that respect, but then that was hardly surprising after what happened to Bridget’s younger sister, Abigail.

  As Bridget turned to leave, her phone began to vibrate in her bag. She glanced at the screen before answering. Chief Superintendent Grayson. God, that man had a knack of choosing the wrong moment. She was due at the hairdresser’s in half an hour, an emergency appointment to touch up a few grey strands that had just started to appear, like unwelcome intruders, in her medium-brown bob. She had stared at them in disbelief in the mirror, wondering how they could have suddenly materialised, just when she was about to go on her first date in years. She wasn’t even forty yet.

  ‘Hello?’ She stepped outside the station, straight into the path of the smokers congregating there to light up.

  ‘DI Hart, we’ve got an incident on the High Street.’ Grayson always dispensed with pleasantries and got straight to the point.

  ‘What sort of incident?’ She waved away the smoke from a nearby cigarette and walked down the steps. The air there was probably even filthier, thanks to the diesel fumes from idling taxis.

  ‘Cyclist killed.’

  ‘Isn’t that a job for the traffic cops?’ Accidents involving cyclists were an all too common occurrence in a city with hundreds of students riding bikes. Sometimes it was the fault of the car driver, sometimes the fault of the cyclist. Deaths were rare, but not unheard of.

  ‘Reports say he was shot.’

  Bridget stopped walking. ‘Shot?’ Gun crime in the city of dreaming spires was practically non-existent.

  ‘Uniform from St Aldate’s are down there now but this looks like a murder and I need a detective to take charge.’

  ‘Isn’t anyone else available?’

  ‘I’d like you to lead the investigation.’

  ‘I see.’ She ought to have been pleased that she was his first choice to head up the case. It had been a long, hard slog to get to this point in her career. Having a child at a young age had held her back. Now with Chloe less dependent on her she’d finally started to make a go of things, recently leading her first murder enquiry. That had been touch and go at times, with Grayson wanting to take her off the case and replace her with a more experienced detective when things started to heat up, but she’d fought her corner, kept the case and ultimately solved it. Grayson had even congratulated her and her team in the end, but she still felt as if she needed to prove herself to him, to demonstrate that the last case hadn’t been just a lucky fluke.

  She took a deep breath. How would the Chief Super react if she told him it was her day off and she had a hair appointment? Somehow she didn’t think he would be understanding.

  ‘I’ll get down there right away,’ she said.

  ‘Keep me updated.’ Grayson ended the call.

  On the way back to her car, she called the hairdresser’s to cancel.

  3

  A shooting was such a rare event in Oxford that Bridget wondered what she was going to find when she arrived at the scene. This wasn’t a tough inner city. Any guns in this part of the world were typically used for shooting pheasants and partridges. Grayson was demonstrating considerable confidence in her, assigning the case to her instead of one of the more experienced detectives like Davis or Baxter. She hoped she was up to the challenge.

  As she turned onto St Aldate’s, the dome of Tom Tower loomed up ahead, reminding her of her previous case – the murder of a female student at Christ Church. Her first murder investigation since being promoted to detective inspector. She would never be able to visit the college or the cathedral again without thinking of the beautiful and intelligent young woman who had been battered to death. Such a tragedy.

  With Trinity term now over, the undergraduates had left the city, or “gone down” in Oxford-speak, making way for an influx of summer students and conference guests who would stay in rooms overlooking idyllic quadrangles and dine in great halls. At this time of year there was also a huge surge in tourist
s who flocked to Oxford from all over the world, drawn by the city’s renown as home of the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and by its medieval architecture and dreaming spires.

  But Oxford wasn’t all punting and poetry. The traffic, for one thing, was diabolical. St Aldate’s was, as usual, heaving with double decker buses, made worse by the fact that the police had sealed off the top of the road at Carfax so that no one could turn onto the High Street. A hapless traffic cop who looked new to the job was doing her best to re-route buses down Queen Street.

  Bridget managed to manoeuvre the Mini around the obstacle course of buses, showed her ID to the officer guarding the crossroads and was granted access to the High Street. A couple of marked police cars were slewed across the road, their blue lights flashing. An ambulance stood with its rear doors open, but no siren sounding. When life had expired there was no urgency to get back to the hospital. She could see that armed police had been called in and were conducting a search of the area, going in and out of the shops and cafés along this stretch of the High Street. They would be concerned that the shooter might still be at large. With the traffic stopped and pedestrians being held at bay, there was an eerie silence to the centre of the city, normally bustling with life.

  A bright orange Subaru parked next to the ambulance could mean only one thing. Detective Sergeant Jake Derwent must already be here. She’d worked with him on the last case and appreciated his down-to-earth manner. She pulled up behind his car and soon spotted him standing head and shoulders above everyone else around. At six foot five he made her feel like even more of a midget than usual. He was interviewing a group of bystanders about the incident, scribbling in his notebook.

  He spotted her approaching and a welcoming smile spread across his face. ‘Morning, ma’am.’ He stooped slightly when he spoke to her. ‘I was just taking a few witness statements.’

  ‘Good. What’s the situation so far?’

  Jake frowned at his notebook. ‘No one’s completely sure what happened. At first people thought that the cyclist had been knocked off his bike but then Mrs Harris over here’ – he pointed towards a middle-aged woman who was being comforted by a man, presumably her husband, with a huge camera slung around his neck – ‘noticed that he’d been shot. They called the emergency services.’