Текст книги "Find the Lady"

Автор книги: Roger Silverwood

Соавторы: Roger Silverwood
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FIND THE LADY

Roger Silverwood

ROBERT HALE · LONDON

Table of Contents

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

By the Same Author

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

LONDON, U.K. MONDAY, 1 JANUARY 2007

A man was found shot dead in his first-floor flat, on Upper Sackville Street in the West End of London. He had been shot at point-blank range with clinical precision: one bullet .202 calibre straight through the forehead. There had been no report from the neighbourhood of a gunshot, so it was assumed that the pistol had been fitted with a silencer. On the body of the dead man, the murderer left a small white card with black printing, like a visiting card, that simply read: ‘With the compliments of Reynard.’ Also, pieces of orange peel were found at the scene of the crime, from which it was assumed that Reynard ate an orange after he had committed the murder.

That New Year’s Day murder was the twenty-second killing by Reynard using the same MO. The police had made no progress in identifying and apprehending the murderer. He was assumed to be a man, who worked alone. Many of the murders had been committed in London, but there had also been cases in other parts of the country and as far north as Newcastle-on-Tyne. In seven years, he had murdered more than eighteen men and four women that the police knew about. The motive for each murder was not known, although it was invariably established after their deaths that the victims had had criminal records or had been suspected of criminal activities.

The newspapers were having a field day. Whenever Reynard struck, the press, particularly the tabloids, filled their pages with every detail of the new crime and compared it with the earlier ones attributed to him, and gleefully published cartoons and disdainful copy, ridiculing the police force for their inability to bring Reynard to book.

Even in these sophisticated days of DNA, it seemed that there had never been any kind of substance, human fluid, matter or hair left behind at the scene, or anywhere else, that could be attributed to him. Every policeman in the UK was desperate to unmask and arrest him. Profilers at all levels had been making projections, but with such limited information their reports had not proved adequate.

Each of the forty-three forces, as well as the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) newly formed on 3 April 2006, was put on special watch for master serial murderer, Reynard.

WAKEFIELD, WEST YORKSHIRE, U.K. 0400 HOURS. MONDAY, 8 JANUARY, 2007

The sky was as black as an undertaker’s cat.

The heavy steel gates at Wakefield Prison, a category A secure unit, rattled open and a Group 4 white van with two uniformed men in the cab, nosed its way out. It turned left onto Love Lane and made its way through quiet, deserted halogen-lit streets and shadowy shuttered shops towards the A642 and from there onto the M1.

The white van held two crooks, each locked in separately in the small, sweaty cages in the back. One of the crooks was Eddie ‘The Cat’ Glazer, a ruthless career bank robber and murderer, as hard-boiled as a ten-minute egg. He was serving thirty years for the manslaughter of a security guard in Sheffield in 2001. The other was Harry Harrison, a jewellery thief and confidence trickster: one of several thousand … too stupid to be honest … even more stupid to get caught.

The British penal system provided for the timely movement of prisoners from time to time, so that they did not get too knowledgeable about routines and develop such relationships with prison officers or others that they might begin to devise ways of escape.

Time hangs heavy in the cells. It’s the only commodity of which there’s an oversupply and prisoners have to do something with their grey matter when cooped up behind bars twenty-four seven. Some spend their time conjuring up schemes to acquire more drugs and money, others fantasize on how to get more women and enjoy better sex, but most all of them dream how to escape from the ungodly place.

There was hardly any traffic on the damp city roads that January morning at that unsociable hour. A lone taxi and an articulated ASDA lorry circled a roundabout as the powerful Group 4 van’s headlights picked its way out of the city and eventually joined the A642. The road twisted and turned, but progress was rapid. The van had travelled only two miles out of the city however, when, coming up to a bridge over a railway line, where the road narrowed, the van’s headlights suddenly picked out two cars in the middle of the road; they appeared to have been in a serious collision. They blocked the road so that it was impossible for the van to continue its journey. The headlights of both damaged cars shone brightly but futilely; white steam issued from under a mangled bonnet and black smoke still puffed out from one of the car’s exhaust pipes.

The security driver slowed and the van headlights picked out a man lying flat on the wet road by the open door of one car. Part of his head was in a dreadful state, covered with a red glutinous liquid. A woman in the driving seat of the other car was slumped awkwardly over the driving wheel, her hair sticking out in every direction.

The Group 4 drivers had a strict protocol to deal with situations of this sort. After all, this could be a mock event staged in an attempt to release their prisoners. They promptly checked that their cab doors were locked and immediately radioed the nearest police station, which was Wakefield Westgate, and informed them of the RTA and their situation. The duty police sergeant reminded them to treat the incident with suspicion and caution, and advised that an ambulance and police support would be despatched instantly and that their ETA would be 12 minutes.

The Group 4 men eyed the scene with concern. They saw the man on the road move slightly as if having now regained limited consciousness. They could hear him calling for help. They drove the van closer until the light beam shone directly onto him. He appeared to be in great pain and as he turned to face the van they could see his face was a gory mess. He was moving his head slightly from side to side, as if he wanted to say something, and then they heard a cry from the woman in the other car.

It was too much for the driver and his mate to ignore. They decided to venture out and see if they could assist them. They opened the cab doors and the next thing they knew they were flying through the air like pilots in ejector seats. They had been pulled out by a couple of huge men in balaclavas, jeans and trainers. When the policemen picked themselves up from the road, they were looking down the barrels of old Sten guns.

The two pretending to be injured, wiped the banana and tomato ketchup off their faces, pulled on balaclavas and dashed round to support the gunmen.

No words were used. Prods with the shotguns soon had the Group 4 men at the side door of the van, unlocking it. They pushed up the step. One of the heavies peered through a narrow slot into one of the cages.

Glazer peered back. He was holding onto the door and jumping up and down, his face was red, his eyes darting round in all directions.

‘Come on, Tony,’ Glazer screamed. ‘Hurry up! Come on!’

The key was turned, the door opened and he shot out as though he was at the end of a piece of elastic.

The woman leaped forward and wrapped her arms round his neck.

‘You’re out, Eddie. You’re out!’ she squealed.

She kissed him hard on the lips but he pushed her away.

‘Yeah. Yeah. Let’s get away from here.’

There was a loud knocking from the next cage.

The heavies rammed the two Group 4 men into Glazer’s compartment: it was a tight squeeze. They closed the door and turned the key.

There was more knocking and some yelling from the next cage. A voice screamed, ‘Let me out. Don’t leave me here!’

It was Harry Harrison.

Tony Glazer looked at his brother who said, ‘Let’s go. Leave the bastard there.’

The Glazers, Oona and the two heavies stepped down from the van.

Harry Harrison yelled through the peephole in the door.

‘I’ve got money, Mr Glazer. Honest. Ten thousand pounds stashed away. You can have it all.’

Eddie Glazer turned back and said, ‘Where?’

‘In Wakefield. Just let me out of here. You can have it all.’

Oona yelled, ‘Come on, Eddie. The cops’ll could be here anytime.’

‘You’d better not be kidding me. When can you get it?’

‘This afternoon. Come on, Mr Glazer. I never done you no harm, have I? We’re mates, aren’t we?’

‘You’d better be on the level,’ Eddie Glazer yelled.

Glazer turned to the heavy with the keys.

‘Right,’ he said with a nod. ‘Let him out, Ox.’

The door opened and out shot Harry Harrison. He closed it quickly and gave a big sigh.

‘Come on,’ yelled Tony Glazer to his brother.

‘You’re coming with us,’ Eddie said to Harrison grabbing him by the neck of his coat.

Tony Glazer’s eyes flashed. ‘We’ve no bloody room!’

‘He’s worth ten grand to me. Find room!’

The gang left the van, its external side door open, swinging in the night air. They dashed down the banking to the rail track. A minute later, Eddie ‘The Cat’ Glazer was in a sidecar attached to a Honda 500 being driven alongside the railway track by his younger brother, Tony. Eddie’s wife, Oona, had her arms tight round his waist. Close behind them was another Honda motorbike with the two heavies and little Harry Harrison sitting precariously on the mudguard.

The two motorbikes noisily sprayed out silver grey gravel as they sped away into the night.

BROMERSLEY, SOUTH YORKSHIRE, U.K. 1800 HOURS. MONDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2007

Simon Spencer looked round at the gloomy pub wallpaper, the scratched woodwork, the smeared dull copper work and the dusty tables strewn with empty bottles and dirty glasses.

‘Light ale,’ the bartender said, banging the bottle down in front of him. ‘That’s two pounds. Haven’t seen you in here before, John,’ he said pointedly with a sniff.

Spencer looked round at the quiet crowd of twenty-five or so drinkers; some were smoking cigarettes, standing around snatching teatime anaesthetic to bolster them up before going home to their nagging wives and irritating children for a boring evening watching repeats in front of the television, or mooching round houses, shops, offices, garages and warehouses looking for an unlocked door or an undemanding window to gain easy access, where, in the secret of the night, they might find something transportable and easy to sell.

Spencer glanced from man to man. As he did so, each in turn averted his eyes and sought cover by supping from a glass, taking the opportunity to turn away dragging even harder on his cigarette.

At length Spencer turned to the big tattooed man with the little gold ring in his ear and said, ‘I’m looking for somebody.’

‘No somebodies in here, John. All nobodies,’ the bartender said as he took the coins and tossed them into the open till drawer. He wiped the top of the counter with a dirty bar towel. His eyes narrowed. ‘What sort of somebody?’ he asked after a pause. ‘Has the body got a name?’

Spencer took his time. Spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words. He looked across the bar room, then nonchalantly said: ‘Oh, somebody … anybody, who wants to earn a few hundred quid. Easy like.’

The bartender blinked.

‘A few hundred?’

Spencer shrugged and picked up the bottle.

‘Everybody’s up for that, John, I reckon,’ the bartender added.

Spencer took another gulp of the beer.

‘It’s a special kind of man. A man who maybe wouldn’t mind … maybe … bending the rules a bit.’

The barman looked at him closely then shook his head thoughtfully.

‘There’d be nobody here interested in anything dishonest, John,’ he said warily.

‘Not dishonest,’ Spencer protested irritably. ‘Just a wee bit … out of the ordinary, that’s all. And why do you keep calling me John?’

‘I call everybody John, John.’

A man came up to the bar. The barman turned away to serve him.

Spencer shrugged and slowly finished the beer. He looked round at the other drinkers in the little bar. They deliberately turned away from him when they felt the possibility that a glance from him might change into a hard intrusive look. He slowly finished his drink. He wrinkled his nose. He was disappointed with his foray into Bromersley’s unfriendly grubby backwater alehouse. He pulled up his coat collar and strode out of The Fisherman’s Rest on Canal Street. This thoroughfare was a short, unmade road that ran parallel to Bromersley canal for a few hundred yards before it joined the main road. The canal was a smelly, slow-flowing stretch of water from which, he had heard, dead bodies had been fished by the local constabulary from time to time.

Spencer hardly gave the water a glance. His mind was on other things as he trudged his way along the path to the main road on his way to the bus station.

He passed ten terraced houses whose front doors abutted the pavement. There were ginnels at every second house to give access to the back doors. As he passed the last ginnel, he suddenly heard a scuffling sound and then a man’s soft whisper.

‘Hey, copper. What you doing slumming round here?’

Spencer turned and in the moonlight, saw a man in a suit, shirt and collar. In the crisp February moonlight he could see that he was holding something shiny and black in his hand and pointing it at him.

He didn’t like what he saw.

He put his hands up … because … he had seen old films in the old cinema picture show and he thought it was the sensible thing to do.

‘Who are you?’ Spencer said. ‘And what do you want?’

‘I ashed you first, brudder. I tell you, we don’t like plainclothes coppers creeping round our places. And you’re sure getting brave coming round here in ones.’

‘I’m not a policeman. And I can prove it, but who are you?’

The man waved the gun boldly. He didn’t believe him.

‘Oh yes? This ain’t no lollipop I’m holding in my hand, brudder. It sort of gives me an advantage, don’t you think?’

Spencer swallowed.

‘Look, friend, I’ve got a wallet in my inside pocket. It’s got more than a hundred pounds in it. Take it, why don’t you?’

The man with the gun blinked.

Spencer stuck his chest forward and slightly inclined his body towards him.

The man hesitated. He licked his lips and said: ‘Keep still then. No tricks.’ He reached out. His hot, sticky fingers touched Spencer’s coat lapel, dipped swiftly into the inside pocket and professionally, between first and second fingers, lifted out the fat leather wallet.

It was quick and smooth. Spencer didn’t feel a thing.

The gunman tried to open the wallet.

Spencer took a step towards him.

He saw him. ‘Stay where you are,’ he said nervously and backed away. He tugged harder at the wallet. It was reluctant to open. He tugged at it harder. Then suddenly, he managed it. That quick positive action triggered the cunningly set up ignition of a strip of magnesium, by dragging an ordinary match quickly past two pieces of sandpaper held tight with an elastic band. The result was a blinding white light lasting for about a second.

The dazzle was long enough.

The gunman yelled and instinctively dropped the wallet.

Spencer reached out for the man’s wrist, gave it a sharp twist and then held onto it. The gunman was on the floor and the gun rattled across the pavement into the gutter. Spencer kicked him under the chin, let go of his arm and picked up the gun. Then he reached down over the stunned man and recovered the wallet. The gunman groaned and rubbed his jaw.

‘You shouldn’t be pulling guns on strangers,’ Spencer said with a grin. ‘You could get yourself killed. Stand up,’ he added waving the gun in his direction.

The man got to his feet still rubbing his jaw.

‘That hurt, copper,’ he groaned. ‘You know, I could do you for assault.’

‘And if I was a policeman, I could arrest you for assault with a deadly weapon.’

‘Don’t get too cocky, old chum. That ain’t a pukkha gun you’re waving about there, and it ain’t loaded. And if you ain’t a copper, what do you want mooching round hereabouts?’

‘I ain’t – I’m not a policeman.’

He took a step back from the man and fumbled for the safety catch. It couldn’t be moved. It wasn’t movable. He depressed a catch and the cartridge holder came free; it weighed very little. It was made of plastic. He snorted and threw the replica at him.

‘Catch.’

He caught it and put it in his pocket.

‘And if I couldn’t get you for assault with a deadly weapon,’ Spencer continued, ‘I’d look at your record and find something else I could book you for.’

‘If you’re not a copper, you couldn’t get to see my record.’

‘Maybe I could bribe a policeman to let me have a copy of it.’

The young man stopped and looked at Spencer thoughtfully.

‘If you’re not a copper, you must be a private investigator.’

‘No.’

Mystified, he said: ‘Here. What do you really want, then?’

‘Somebody who wants to earn a few hundred quid. Easy like.’

‘A few hundred?’

Spencer shrugged.

‘Maybe a few thousand.’

‘I might be interested.’

‘I need a special kind of man. A man who maybe wouldn’t mind bending the rules a bit.’

He grinned.

‘Might be able to do that.’

‘Somebody reliable. Somebody bold. Somebody who could pretend to be somebody he isn’t.’

‘What’s the catch, brudder?’

‘There’s no catch. You just have to do exactly what I tell you.’

CHAPTER TWO

CREESFORTH ROAD, BROMERSLEY, SOUTH YORKSHIRE, U.K. 1400 HOURS. MONDAY, 16 JULY 2007.

The taxi pulled up at a leafy, detached house on the expensive side of the town. The sun was shining. The sky was blue and cloudless and yet the birds weren’t singing; in fact, there was an eerie quiet, as if time was suspended.

A chubby woman in a sundress, relaxing on a canvas chair, could be observed in her garden through the cupressus, applying cream to her arms and shoulders.

‘Number twenty-two, ma’am,’ the taxi driver said to his fare in the back. ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it, ma’am?’ he said.

A figure in light blue, with a big straw hat affording shelter from the sun, and wearing Ashanti mirrored sunglasses answered him.

‘Twenty-two, the Beeches. Exactly so, my man. Is the fare the same as before?’ the high-pitched delicate voice enquired.

The taxi driver had no idea what the customer might have paid before. ‘It’s six pounds, missis,’ he said irritably. ‘It’s allus six pounds from Wells Street Baths to Creesforth Road. You gotta cross town and it allus takes a lot of time, you know.’

There was a click from the fastening of a handbag.

‘Oh yes. I understand. That’s quite all right.’

The big long hand in the white glove shot over his shoulder waving a ten pound note.

‘Keep the change, my man.’

The driver’s face brightened.

‘Oh thank you, ma’am,’ he said, swiftly thrusting the note into his trouser pocket with a big smile. ‘Now, do you want a hand with your bag?’

The nearside door of the taxi opened and out came a long nylon-covered leg. ‘No thank you. Now, what’s your name?’

‘Bert Amersham, ma’am.’

‘Well now, Mr Amersham—’

‘Call me Bert, ma’am. I answers well enough to Bert.’

‘Well, Bert. I am Lady Cora Blessington. The time is exactly two o’clock. Now, you will collect me at three o’clock exactly, won’t you?’

The taxi driver looked with more interest at the fare since he had received the handsome tip. She was not a handsome woman. Rather gawky, he thought, and the fluffy old-fashioned blue dress would have been more suited to a much younger woman.

‘I’ll be here on the button, ma’am. You can depend on it.’

A man in a suit, white shirt and tie came through the front gate of the house next door. He saw the figure in powder blue pushing open the gate of Number 22. He looked the summery apparition up and down, smiled self-consciously and said, ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Good afternoon,’ the figure in blue replied with a coy smile and made a way up the path.

The sunbather from next door waved across the fence.

‘Beautiful weather, Lady Cora,’ she called. ‘Wonderful afternoon.’

‘Fabulous,’ came the reply in the high-pitched delicate voice, and with a royal wave added, ‘We must enjoy it while we can.’

It was sound advice.

Someone was about to be murdered.

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR ANGEL’S OFFICE, BROMERSLEY POLICE STATION, SOUTH YORKSHIRE U.K. 1400 HOURS. MONDAY, 16 JULY 2007.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Angel called.

A young probationer policeman, Ahmed Ahaz entered. He pulled open the door, held the knob and, like a flunky at a palace, made the announcement. ‘Miss Smith, sir.’

A pretty young woman came in. Angel smiled, quickly stood up and pointed at the chair next to his desk.

‘Please sit down, Miss Smith.’

He nodded at PC Ahaz who went out and closed the door.

The young woman looked round the little dowdy green-painted office, and quickly took stock: a cleared desk top with a pile of post in the centre of it; a swivel chair; a filing cabinet; stationery cupboard; a small table; a telephone and two ordinary wooden chairs. By the look on her face, she had perhaps expected more impressive surroundings for the celebrated police inspector.

She sat down, put her small handbag on her knees and gave a little cough.

Angel looked up from the desk and straight into her eyes.

‘Now then, you wanted to see me, Miss Smith?’

‘Yes. I asked to see you, Inspector Angel. I had read so much about you in the newspapers, I felt as if … as if, I knew you … ever so slightly. I mean I don’t know any policemen at all really. Never had reason even to call in at a police station. So I thought I would ask to see you by name. I hope that’s all right. You see, I am very worried.’

‘Of course. Of course. You want to report a crime?’

Her face straightened.

‘Yes. Indeed I do,’ she said positively.

He nodded.

‘It’s like this,’ she began then stopped.

Angel peered at her and said: ‘Please continue. In your own time.’

‘It’s rather tedious, I am afraid. I don’t know quite where to start.’

‘Start wherever you want to.’

‘I’ll try to tell you in sequence, Inspector.’

He nodded encouragingly.

‘Well, my father was the proprietor of Smith’s Glassworks. He was a widower, and when he died ten years ago, he left the business to my brother John and me. I was not the slightest bit interested in it. The business made fancy shaped bottles. Short batch runs for perfume companies and customers of that sort. I left the day-to-day running of the business entirely to my brother. I had a little capital of my own and I run a riding stables up in Tunistone. That keeps me busy enough. I received dividends on a quarterly basis from the business and that’s all I cared about glass bottles. Now, just about two years ago, my brother rang me up and said he had had an offer for the company from an American conglomerate and he asked me my feelings about selling up. I said I didn’t care much one way or the other. He told me how much was involved. It sounded most attractive so we agreed to sell to them. A few weeks later, the deal was completed and, after paying off all the creditors, the bank loan and the capital gains tax, we expected to net almost two million pounds. I would have received half of that. John said that he would put the cheque from the American company safely on deposit as the following day he was taking his wife and my two nieces on holiday to the island of Phuket for Christmas to celebrate the deal. I saw them off at the station, and, tragically, that was the last I saw of them.’

Angel pursed his lips as he began to anticipate what was coming next.

‘You will recall the tsunami on that horrific Boxing Day, 2004.’

He certainly did. Who could forget the pictures? He nodded sympathetically.

‘Eventually, the Home Office notified me officially that they had all been killed.’

‘Dreadful,’ Angel said. ‘Losing an entire family like that.’

She nodded and wiped away a tear.

‘And what can I do to help?’ He said gently.

‘Well,’ she sighed. ‘The money has apparently disappeared.’

Angel blinked, then frowned.

‘Where did your brother bank the cheque?’

‘There’s the rub,’ she said. ‘He didn’t tell me and I didn’t think to ask. He said it was banked at a good interest and that he would settle the tax with the revenue and then make the final distribution on his return. That was all right by me, at the time. I was in no hurry. However, time has gone on. John didn’t return. Naturally, I thought a statement from the bank or building society or wherever it had been invested would have been sent out by now … obviously to his last known address. As his next of kin, I have dealt with his affairs, cleared his house and indeed, sold it. But no sign of the investment has shown up, either among his papers or by post. Now the Inland Revenue are chasing me for the tax on the sale, which is a mighty sum.’

Angel screwed up his face in sympathy and eyed her carefully.

‘Your brother definitely received the cheque?’

‘Definitely. He phoned me. He couldn’t contain himself; he had to boast. It was a certified cheque, he said, for two million pounds.’

‘But you have no idea what he did with it?’

‘That’s the problem.’

‘He didn’t deposit it where his personal account is?’

‘No. We discussed that. The interest rate for a large sum on short term deposit wasn’t competitive. But I have no idea where he placed it.’

‘Hmm. You could start with the Americans.’

‘They can only confirm it was cashed through the currency exchange in a lump sum and then paid out in sterling with thousands of other payments, which means it’s impossible to trace.’

Angel sighed. He rubbed his chin. The cogs began to go round. His first thought was to say that it was a civil case, but, then, as he thought about it, he realized a crime had definitely been committed. Every investment house worth its salt would want to find the depositor if a deposit had been left in its hands for a much longer time than had been originally arranged. Somebody must know something about it. This was a case for the fraud squad, but he knew they were up to their eyes in a particularly big foreign bank case that was also monopolizing the media’s interest.

It wasn’t feasible to attempt to search every single deposit account in every bank, building society, insurance company and investment house in every currency in the UK over the past two years. He would need warrants and security passes and it would take forever. There must be something he could do. He needed time. Time to think about it and decide what to do.

‘Well, I’ll need the date your brother received the cheque.’

‘That’s easy. It was a memorable day. It was the 17th December 2004.’

‘And I need your name and address and telephone number and your brother’s last address in Bromersley.’

‘Certainly. I’ll write them down, shall I?’

The phone rang. He reached out for it.

‘Angel?

It was the superintendent.

‘Come up here, smartish,’ he said abruptly, and replaced the receiver.

It sounded urgent. Angel wrinkled his nose. He left the report he was reading and went out of the office. He strode up the green corridor to the door marked ‘Detective Superintendent Horace Harker’, knocked, pressed down the handle and pushed it open.

‘Come in,’ Harker yelled.

‘You wanted me, sir?’

There was a smell of TCP wafting round the room. Angel was used to it. Harker must have a cold again. His nose must have been running like a bath tap, as it was red around the nostrils and his mouth was turned down like the drawing of a villain in a children’s cartoon strip. He reached out to the wire tray at the front of his desk, took out a small slip of paper and looked down at it.

‘Aye. A treble nine. Just come in. A dead body found by a neighbour up at The Beeches, 22 Creesforth Road. Hmmm. Must be somebody with a bit of brass. Woman by the name of Prophet, Alicia Prophet. Thought to be murder.’

Angel’s pulse rate increased by ten beats a minute. A murder case always brought him to life. The news made his heart pump that bit harder. Something also happened inside his head: it was like a jumbo jet on the tarmac, revving its engine before take off. He thought that solving murders was what God had put him on this earth to do. And it may have been so; he had no hobbies and no other interests apart from his wife and their garden.

He knew of a solicitor’s practice in Bromersley called, simply, ‘Prophet and Sellman’. It was an unusual name; the victim had probably had something to do with that.

‘Have you advised SOCO, sir?’

‘Yes, and Doctor Mac.’

‘And who reported it?’

‘Next-door neighbour. A Mrs Duplessis.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said and made for the door. He charged up the corridor and barged into the CID room.

PC Ahaz was working at a computer at his desk near the door.

‘Ah, there you are, Ahmed.’

The young man stopped staring at the screen and jumped to his feet.

‘I want you to find Ron Gawber and Trevor Crisp.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘Tell them to meet me A.S.A.P. at 22 Creesforth Road? I’m going there now.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘There’s a report that a woman’s been murdered.’

Ahmed’s jaw dropped an inch. He’d been on the force for four years now; he was still a probationer and was expecting to be a fully-fledged constable by Christmas next. Although he had been on DI Angel’s team from his very first day at Bromersley nick, and had been involved in more than thirty cases of death from various causes, the news of a murder still had a disturbing effect on him.

Angel pulled up his BMW behind the white SOCO van on Creesford Road under the shade of a horse chestnut tree. It was a beautiful summer’s day but he noticed that nobody seemed to be outside, taking advantage of the hot sun … not in their front gardens anyway. This struck Angel as unusual, if not meaningful. He opened the gate of The Beeches and made his way up the path.

The front door opened and a man in a white paper suit, hood, wellingtons and so on came out; he was carrying a large polythene bag. He saw Angel and pulled down the face mask.

It was DS Donald Taylor, in charge of SOCO on the Bromersley force.

‘What’ve you got, Don?’ Angel asked.

Taylor shook his head sadly.

‘Murder, sir, almost certain. Woman. In her forties. Name of Alicia Prophet. Solicitor’s wife. Wound in her head. I think it happened less than an hour ago. No disturbance. No apparent break in. Dr Mac’s working on her now.’