Текст книги "Find the Lady"

Автор книги: Roger Silverwood

Соавторы: Roger Silverwood
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

CHAPTER FOUR

The highly polished brass plaque read, ‘Prophet and Sellman, Solicitors’.

Angel sighed. He pushed open the glass door and walked into a small waiting-room where a pretty young woman was working at a computer. She glanced up at him and smiled. He looked at her more closely. She was a good-looker. He liked what he saw. He pulled out his warrant card and said: ‘I must see Mr Charles Prophet on a matter of great urgency, please.’

She stood up and peered at the card. He noticed her tiny waist and long legs. He wondered why there were so few beautiful girls in the force.

She read the name out aloud.

‘Detective Inspector Michael Angel?’

She had a voice like an angel, and made it sound as if she was referring to somebody terribly important.

‘That’s right, miss,’ he said with a smile.

His eyes drifted down to the third finger of her left hand. There was no wedding ring showing. He breathed in deeply, pulled in his stomach and stuck out his chest.

She looked at him and smiled again. He found himself smiling back. She had full Cupid’s bow lips and dark mysterious eyes. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

‘Won’t keep you a moment,’ she said and deftly manoeuvred her rounded backside round the corner of the desk. He watched her float through a mahogany door to the inner office leaving a cloud of expensive French perfume and ideas that he could get six months in prison just for thinking.

He sighed as he looked round the small waiting-room. He selected a chair near the door and sat down. Then the reason for his visit came back to him. The smile on his face melted away as sight of the wood-panelled wall and the smell of wax polish brought him back to face the awful truth. He was there to investigate a murder and had to tell a man his wife was the victim. He began to consider how he was going to break the tragic news. Although he had done it several hundred times before, it didn’t get easier. There was no textbook way: no magic formula. You simply said what had to be said, gently, and that was all.

The inner office door opened and the glamorous secretary came out.

‘Mr Prophet will see you immediately, Detective Inspector,’ she said in a voice that would have stirred Cecil B. DeMille, if he had still been around.

Angel stood up.

‘Thank you.’

He passed the young woman. He enjoyed a whiff of the perfume again, and then went through the door into the office.

The glamour went out and closed the door.

A well-groomed man with a tanned face and chiselled features stood up behind a desk in the centre of the office. He flashed a set of ivories, which Burt Lancaster’s dentist would have been proud of, stretched out a hand and said, ‘Inspector Angel? Charles Prophet. Very pleased to meet you. What can I do for you? My secretary said it was on a matter of great urgency.’

It was a firm handshake, the sort Angel liked.

Angel looked into the ice-blue eyes and was not a bit surprised that he was popular with all his lady neighbours.

‘It is, sir,’ Angel said and licked his lips.

Prophet’s face changed.

‘Please sit down.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Angel said. ‘You are Charles Prophet, married to Alicia Prophet and you do live at 22 Creesforth Road?’

‘Yes?’ he said. He started looking worried.

Angel certainly had the man’s full attention. He took in a breath and said, ‘I have some very bad news, sir. You need to prepare yourself.’

Prophet’s face changed. He sat down. ‘Yes?’

Angel waited only a moment and then said, ‘This afternoon we had a 999 call from your neighbour, Mrs Duplessis. Police officers attended and found your wife, dead on the settee. She had been shot.’

Prophet stared across the desk at him.

‘No,’ he said quietly. His eyes closed and his mouth dropped open. He breathed in and then out very deeply. It was a very big sigh.

His breathing became heavy.

‘My poor, dear Alicia,’ he muttered. ‘Did she suffer?’

‘No, sir. Death would be instantaneous.’

‘You know she was blind?’

‘We know now. Yes.’

His eyes opened.

‘How did it happen? How will I cope?’ he asked tearfully. ‘Who did this dreadful thing? Why ever would anyone want to hurt her? What happened? How will I manage without her?’

He reached out to a jug on a silver tray and poured some water into a tumbler. With shaking hands took a few sips from the tumbler.

Eventually Angel said: ‘I was hopeful that you could tell us who might have murdered her.’

Prophet held the tumbler, looked down and shook his head.

‘Unless it was a caller at the door? We were constantly hounded by people selling things.’

‘No. We don’t think it was a casual caller. However, a woman was seen leaving the scene.’

Prophet looked up.

Angel went on: ‘Your next-door neighbour, Mrs Duplessis, saw a woman in a fussy blue dress. She said that her name was Lady Blessington.’

Prophet leapt to his feet. His eyes were blazing.

‘Yes. Yes! Lady Blessington. Damn that woman. It would be her. It all fits.’

Angel stared at him.

‘What fits?’

‘That woman,’ Prophet stormed. ‘She’s been trying to insinuate herself into an unwanted and unsought friendship with my wife for six months or so now.’

Angel licked his lips.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘I’m sorry to have to say it, Inspector, but for money. As far as I can tell, she’s a forgotten member of the aristocracy. Apparently, my wife and she were … acquaintances years ago. I think she must have married an impecunious lord, and is now a hard-up widow. I kept trying to warn my wife against her, but Alicia, dear Alicia, wouldn’t listen.’

He slumped back down in the chair. He buried his head in his hands.

‘I told her time and again she should give her a wide berth.’

‘Was Lady Blessington trying to extract money from your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think that … that … some dispute may have broken out and … in the course of it, she shot your wife?’

‘Yes.’

Angel agreed. At the moment it did seem to be the most likely possibility. He rubbed his chin.

‘Can you tell me,’ Angel began, ‘on the settee, where your wife was found there was the peel of an orange. It was sort of spread about, untidily. Looked like the peel of a perfectly ordinary, fresh orange. Can you explain that? Did your wife like oranges?’

‘Really? How extraordinary. Yes, she liked oranges, Inspector. I can’t explain the … untidiness. That was not like her. Very strange.’

‘I know this is a terrible time for you, Mr Prophet. May I ask you just one more question and then I will leave you in peace for the time being.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he grunted.

‘We need to get hold of Lady Blessington, of course. I have men out searching for her now. Do you happen to have her address?’

‘No. I haven’t. I have no idea where she lives. I wish I did. My wife may have it somewhere. I don’t think so, somehow. Since she lost her sight, she also lost all interest in writing.’

‘You’ve no thoughts where Lady Blessington might be at this moment?’

‘No, Inspector. I hardly knew her. Didn’t want to know her….’

‘Right, sir. Thank you very much. We’ll be going through everything, of course.’

He stood up.

Prophet sighed.

‘Oh dear. Are your people at my house now?’

‘I’m afraid they’ll be there, possibly for a few days.’

‘I’ll stay at The Feathers.’

Angel nodded gently.

‘It’ll be best, sir. Please accept my sincere condolences. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow, sir. In the meantime if anything occurs to you as to where the missing woman might be, or if she should contact you, please phone the station.’

Charles Prophet lowered his head.

‘Good morning, sir,’ Gawber said.

‘Ah. Come in, Ron. Good morning. Sit down. Tell me about Wells Road Baths then? Did you catch up with young Scrivens?’

Gawber sighed.

‘Not much to tell, sir. Yes, Ted Scrivens is coming along fine. I took a good look round the place, the men’s changing rooms, shower cubicles, tea bar and slipper baths and so on, then spoke to them in the office. They were very busy yesterday, especially in the afternoon, it being so hot. They could not remember a woman in a blue dress. The manager was very frank about it. They were run off their feet. Hadn’t time to notice their own shadows.’

He nodded.

‘Is there any CCTV?’

‘Just the pool, for safety reasons. But nowhere else. I checked the tape last night. I didn’t spot anybody on the edge or wearing a swimsuit who might have answered the description of Lady Blessington.’

Angel picked up the phone and tapped out a number.

‘There’s nothing else much up Wells Street … some houses,’ Gawber continued. ‘A newsagent’s, butcher’s … that’s about all.’

‘It might be worth going into the newsagent’s,’ Angel said. ‘She might have popped in for something, perhaps while she was waiting for the taxi, and if she lives round there, she might be known to him. A man might remember a woman in a blue dress.’

Gawber smiled.

There was the sound of a reply from the earpiece.

‘Excuse me,’ he said and turned to the phone.

‘Ahmed. Find out what Burke’s Peerage says about Lady Blessington. Also, see if you can get a reference to her anywhere else … anywhere at all, on the internet or in the telephone directory, or on the voter’s list at the town hall. We must find out where she lives.’

He replaced the receiver.

‘I’ll get onto that newsagent’s, sir,’ Gawber said and stood up. ‘The houses up there would be too long a shot, wouldn’t they?’

There was a knock at the door. Gawber opened it. It was Crisp.

‘At this stage, they would,’ Angel replied. ‘And there’s too many. But if we don’t get a direct lead soon, we may have to resort to sniffing round them. Leave Scrivens up there. Tell him to scratch around. See what he can uncover. It’s a long shot. Be good experience for him.’

Angel saw Crisp and said, ‘Come in, lad.’

Crisp and Gawber exchanged nods.

Angel called, ‘Let me know if you find out anything.’

‘Will do, sir,’ Gawber said as he went out. Crisp closed the door behind him.

‘Sit down. Now this woman, Margaret something or other. You found her all right?’

‘The name’s Margaret Gaston, sir. What a girl,’ he said with a big smile.

‘Gaston. Right. Did she call at the Prophets’ at any time yesterday?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No?’ Angel said and rubbed his chin. ‘What else did you find out?’

‘Ah, well sir, she’s a good-looking lass, about twenty-five with a great figure. She has long blonde hair, and—’

‘You weren’t supposed to be checking her out for the position of the next Mrs Crisp!’

‘No sir,’ he said, trying to stifle a smile. ‘Well, she’s got a young son aged about two and she lives on her own in this small flat at the top of Mansion Hill, number 19.’

‘A one-parent family?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Aye. Go on.’

‘She does a few hours a week cleaning and house-keeping for the Prophets.’

‘Was she at the house at all yesterday?’

‘No, sir. Monday is her day off.’

‘When she’s at the Prophets’, who looks after her little boy?’

Crisp licked his lips.

‘She didn’t say, sir.’

Angel’s jaw tightened.

‘You didn’t ask, did you?’ he growled.

Crisp’s eyes bounced.

‘Never thought about it, sir.’

Angel shook his head. He wasn’t pleased.

‘Did you ask her how well the Prophets got on together?’

‘Yes, sir. She said that she thought they got on well enough. She didn’t know much about it, she said, because she was usually alone at the house with Mrs Prophet during office hours when Mr Prophet was out, at the office.’

‘Did she ever see Lady Blessington?’

‘No. She said she’d never heard of her.’

Angel frowned, then his eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped open.

‘Really? Mrs Prophet never spoke to her about the woman?’

‘Apparently not, sir. That’s what she said, anyway. On reflection, it does seem a bit strange. You’d expect her to boast a bit about knowing a titled lady.’

Angel frowned.

‘Wasn’t she ever there when Lady Blessington called?’

‘Couldn’t have been, sir.’

‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’

Crisp considered the question.

‘It could just be a coincidence.’

Angel squeezed an earlobe between finger and thumb. He wasn’t happy about it. He’d never believed in coincidences, not in the murder business.

‘No good asking you if she knew the address of the mysterious Lady Blessington then, is it?’

Crisp shook his head.

The phone rang. Angel reached out for it. It was a young PC on reception.

‘There’s a woman here, sir. Reporting a lodger gone missing. She sounds worried. Inspector Asquith is at the hospital having his sinuses washed out or something. I don’t know quite what to do with her.’

Angel would have liked to have told him; instead, he sighed.

‘Right, lad. Ask the lady to wait. I’ll get DS Crisp to see her.’

He replaced the phone and turned to Crisp.

‘Nip up to reception. A woman reporting a misper. See if you can sort it out smartish. Then come back here.’

‘Right, sir,’ Crisp said and dashed out of the office.

Angel picked up the phone and tapped in a number. It was soon answered. It was DS Taylor.

‘I take it you are still at 22 Creesforth Road? Have you found anything that would indicate the address of this Lady Blessington, Don. We can’t find it anywhere. Nobody seems to know.’

‘Nothing yet, sir.’

‘Is there anything in the place that might help us? A letter, a photograph?’

‘There is a drawer with a lot of loose photographs in a drawer in the sitting-room. They are not in an album. They might include a picture of her ladyship.’

‘Aye. Right. That’d be something to be going at. I’ll send round for them. And have you come across a cheque book or anything that would indicate where Mrs Prophet banked?’

‘Yes sir. The Northern Bank, Market Street.’

‘Right lad. Thank you.’

He replaced the phone. There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed.

‘Yes, lad. What is it?’

‘Lady Blessington isn’t in Burke’s Peerage, sir. There’s a Blessing, and a Blessingham, but no Blessington.’

Angel nodded.

‘And she’s not in the phone book, sir, or in the voter’s list at the town hall, or on the internet. Do you want me to look anywhere else?’

‘No, Ahmed. I think it is fast becoming clear that our Lady Blessington is no lady, in every sense of the word. We are looking for a woman who is a murderer, untitled, in a powder-blue fussy dress, has blonde hair and appears to be between the ages of forty and sixty.’

Ahmed nodded, but couldn’t think of anything useful to say. He turned to go.

‘Just a minute,’ Angel said. ‘There’s summat else. Go to 22 Creesforth Road and collect a bundle of photographs from SOCO and bring them here. On your way back, I want you to call in at the Northern Bank. Tell the manager we are looking into the murder of Mrs Alicia Prophet and get a copy of statements of her account for the last 12 months and look sharp about it.’

Ahmed dashed off.

The phone rang again. It was Crisp in reception. ‘Sorry to bother you, sir. About this misper. This lady is worried about one of her tenants. He’s been missing a month. Would you have a word? Incidentally, she owns the flats at the top of Mansion Hill, where another of her tenants is Margaret Gaston.’

Angel pulled an unhappy face. He rubbed his chin. He’d plenty on his plate. He really didn’t want to get involved.

‘All right, bring her down. Let’s get on with it.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I am Detective Inspector Angel. Please sit down, Mrs-er …’ Angel said.

‘Thank you. My name is Elizabeth Reid, Mrs Elizabeth Reid,’ the tubby Scottish lady said in a raw Glaswegian dialect.

‘I understand that you lease out flats in that block at the top of Mansion Hill and that one of your tenants has gone missing, Mrs Reid? Tell me about him.’

‘Yes, Inspector. A man came to me about three months ago. He was after a bedsit. Mr Harold Henderson his name was. I fixed him up with one on the top floor, number twenty. He seemed a reliable, clean-looking man. He paid me a month’s rent in advance. I made out a rent book in his name. He’s now overdue. I collect, normally on a Tuesday. I’ve called the last four Tuesdays. He wasn’t in. He’s never in. I thought it was odd, so this morning, when he didn’t reply, I used my key to take a look … see what was happening, you know. When I got inside, it was untidy, sink full of pots, dirty clothes all over the place. That’s usually what I find with single men … nothing cleaned or dusted. It looked like he hadn’t been there for weeks … like deserted!’

Angel sniffed. It didn’t seem to him to be particularly significant. ‘Don’t you think he could have taken a holiday?’ he said.

‘If he has, I don’t think he took any clothes with him.’

Angel rubbed his chin. Men don’t need much. He could have bought a clean shirt and underwear as he went along.

‘Another funny thing,’ she continued. ‘He’s moved all the furniture round. He’s put the table by the window and he’s moved the bed to the middle of the room. I ask you, who sleeps in a bed in the middle of a room?’

Angel raised his head. His eyes narrowed.

‘Bed in the middle of the room?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘It’s crazy, Inspector, isn’t it?’

He looked at Crisp. ‘Come on, laddie. We must have a look at this.’

They were at the flats in a few minutes and climbed the three uncarpeted flights of stairs following Mrs Reid. She led them onto the top floor, along the short landing to a door with the printed plastic numbers, two and zero, gold on black, stuck to the top of the door. She produced a bunch of keys and unlocked the door.

Angel went in first. He looked round. It was an untidy room with a small window looking over some of the roofs of houses. The furniture was utilitarian. There was a small table against the window and, as Mrs Reid had said, the bed was right in the middle of the room. The floor was uncarpeted but there was a rug the size of a small hearthrug placed at the side of the bed, so that when Mrs Reid’s lodger got out of bed on a morning, his feet would naturally land on the rug and not on the cold bare wooden floorboards.

Angel crossed straight to the bed, leaned down, dragged the hearthrug away, then bent down to look at where it had been. There they were, as he expected, two very fine saw cuts, three feet apart across two floorboards. They were only visible if you knew where to look. He nodded with satisfaction and with the tips of his hands and fingernails easily managed to lift first one floorboard and then the other. He pulled the two pieces from the support of the beams and handed them to Crisp.

Mrs Reid stood close by and looked on open-mouthed. ‘Goodness gracious me,’ she said.

Angel immediately saw the reason for the freshly made hiding place. It was stuffed with Bank of England £20 and £50 notes bundled in green Northern Bank wrappers.

Crisp’s eyes glowed.

‘There must be thousands, sir.’

‘Aye,’ Angel said. He reached into his pocket and took out his mobile. He opened it and dialled a number.

‘Goodness gracious me,’ Mrs Reid said again.

‘Shall I count it, sir?’ Crisp said.

‘No. Don’t touch any of it. There’ll be some prints on the wrappers, and I want them clean, clear and indisputable,’ he said heavily. ‘Then it can be moved and counted.’

Another ‘Goodness gracious me,’ escaped from Mrs Reid, who then said. ‘What about my Mr Henderson, Inspector? Wherever can he be?’

Angel nodded towards the cache of money.

‘Don’t worry about him, Mrs Reid. We’ll find him. And if we don’t find him, he’ll definitely find us.’

There was a knock at the door. It was Gawber.

‘No joy at that newsagent’s, sir. He has no knowledge of a woman in blue. He has never seen her in his shop that he can recall.’

Angel’s face assumed a grim expression. He pushed his hand through his hair.

‘Lady B phoned the office for a taxi to pick her up outside Wells Street Baths, yesterday at a few minutes to two o’clock. How did she get to the baths? Did she walk it? Does she therefore live in walking distance of there? Would we able to trace her phone call to the taxi office?’

‘I’ve left Scrivens there, sir. He’s still working on it,’ Gawber said.

The phone rang. It was DS Taylor of SOCO. ‘I thought you’d like to know, sir, about that hair we found on the victim’s skirt.’

‘Yes Don,’ Angel said, his face brightening.

‘We’ve got a match, sir, but I’m sorry to say it’s that of her husband, Charles Prophet.’

Angel wrinkled his nose. That was a big disappointment to him. ‘Right. Thank you very much, Don.’

‘But there’s something else,’ Taylor said. ‘Don’t know whether it’s good news or bad. We’ve been through the Prophets’ wheelie bin and, at the top, probably the last item put in there, were four oranges in a plain white plastic bag.’

Angel rubbed his chin. With Reynard’s penchant for oranges, that was something to think about. ‘Yes, Don?’

‘Not likely to be from a supermarket. They were in a plain white plastic bag … probably came from a shop or a market stall.’

‘Yes, but are there any dabs on it?’ he asked urgently.

‘Only smudges and strips: nothing we can use.’

‘Oh,’ he growled.

‘There’s something else, sir. The sample peel we took from the victim’s skirt on the settee is the identical variety and the same maturity as the oranges in the wheelie. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that there had been five oranges in the bag originally and that one of them was consumed by the murderer, Reynard.’

Angel felt a slight, cold tremor run up his back at the very mention of the name as he thought that he might be so close to identifying and arresting that infamous man.

‘Pity you couldn’t have managed a print off the bag,’ Angel said. ‘It would have been a big step forward.’

‘Sorry sir,’ Taylor said.

Angel thanked him, replaced the handset and brought Ahmed and Gawber up to speed with SOCO’s news.

Then he said: ‘Ron, Nip up to Creesforth Road. Ask Don Taylor for that bag and then go round the town. See if you can find a fruiterer in town or on the market who sold a man five oranges in a bag like that, yesterday, Monday. I know it’s a long shot, but you never know.’

‘Right, sir,’ Gawber said and went off.

Angel watched the door close.

Ahmed came up to the desk. ‘Can I do anything, sir?’

Angel smiled. He liked the lad’s enthusiasm.

‘Yes. Fetch me a cup of tea.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said eagerly, and dashed off out of the room.

Angel reached out for the phone. He tapped in SOCO’s number. He wanted to speak to DS Taylor.

‘Ron, I want you to send a fingerprint man up to Flat 20, Mansion Hill. There’s an impressive amount of fun-time money under the floorboards, and I want to know where it has come from. It wants fingerprinting, counting and depositing in the station safe. Trevor Crisp is hanging on there for you. All right?’

He hung up and pushed the swivel chair backwards and gazed up at the cream ceiling with the grey dust marks round the rose and the electric flex that came down holding the white plastic lampshade. He rubbed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb.

There were many things that didn’t make sense in this murder case. This orange business was wacky. Why would Reynard buy five oranges, murder somebody, peel one, throw the peel over her, eat it and throw the other four away?

‘Come in. Come in,’ Harker squawked. ‘Sit down. Sit down.’

Angel knew he was in a bad mood, by the speed he spat out his instructions and the pitch of his voice.

Angel pulled up a chair and looked across the desk at the superintendent. His bushy ginger eyebrows made him look like one of the uglier Muppets. And he didn’t look well. His face was the colour of an outside loo and there was that lingering smell of TCP. He always smelled of the stuff when he was out of sorts.

‘Now, what’s all this about the Prophet woman being murdered by Reynard?’ Harker said challengingly.

Angel blinked. He must have been talking to SOCO. He didn’t know that Harker was yet familiar with the finding of orange peel at the crime scene. ‘I’m not sure that she was, sir,’ he replied carefully.

‘Orange peel over her body, isn’t that the MO?’

‘Not strewn about the place like this was, sir. The case notes of his two latest victims say that the orange peel was put in a relatively tidy pile, in one case on a table, and the other, a chair arm. Also, there was a printed card about, saying, “With the compliments of Reynard”. SOCO have found no sign of a card.’

‘I know all about that,’ Harker said leaning back in his chair and flaring his nostrils.

At that angle, his nose looked like the entrance to the Dover to Calais tunnel.

‘Nevertheless,’ Harker continued. ‘SOCA should be advised. We want a quick clear up, and they’ve been making a special study of Reynard. They’ve got specialist officers. They maybe could clear this up in no time. Also, I heard that in that Merseyside murder, all the motor expenses for the two weeks they were there, were put down to SOCA. Saved Liverpool CID over six thousand pounds. Helped their quarterly budget no end.’

Angel frowned as he ran his tongue round his mouth desperately thinking of what to say. Then it came to him. He looked up.

‘Yes, but SOCA sent in a Chief Super in that South Hixham case, sir. A woman called Macintosh. Eighteen stones she was. You may know her? I heard from a DI up there that she had the station running round like rabbits. Made everybody jump. Everybody, except the Chief Constable. And it was the Chief Constable who eventually had to bring things to a halt. The regular police work had been brought to a standstill. She had cancelled all leave and rescheduled the shift system, and they had had to pay out thousands in overtime. And despite all the upset and palaver throughout the station, they still didn’t catch Reynard.’

Harker frowned. ‘Hmmm,’ he said slowly. He was thinking.

Angel looked at his eyes. He had slowed him down. He was weighing the pros and cons. His pupils were bouncing and moving from side to side. The cogs were moving like a Heath Robinson time machine.

Angel concealed a smile and turned away.

After a few moments, Harker said: ‘Very well, as you are certain it isn’t Reynard, we needn’t bother SOCA. That’s all I really wanted to know. Carry on then.’

Angel looked across at him. He wasn’t happy. What Harker had said was not exactly correct. If Reynard proved to be the murderer of Alicia Prophet, and SOCA had not been advised early in the investigation, SOCA would be furious and a big rocket would be sent from them to the Chief Constable. Somebody would be in trouble. But it wouldn’t be Harker. Oh no. He’d simply say that he, Angel, had misled him.

He closed the door.

Ahmed passed two envelopes across the desk. One was a large A4 Manilla with the one word, EVIDENCE, printed across it in red, and a smaller one bearing the name and logo of the Northern Bank PLC in small black letters in the corner.

‘The bank was a bit funny about releasing Mrs Prophet’s statements to me, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘Until I showed my ID and told them about her death.’

‘They would be, and a good job too,’ Angel said as he slit open the envelope from the bank with a penknife.

Ahmed nodded, went out and closed the door.

Angel took the bank statements out of the envelope. There were twelve sheets. He looked at them carefully. There hadn’t been much activity in the account, but he did note that for the past six months a regular amount of £1,000 a month had been deducted from her balance. There was no payee’s name; the entries simply said that the withdrawals were in cash. He checked them over again then wrinkled his nose. That six thousand pounds needed some explanation.

He turned to the thicker envelope. He opened the top and peered inside. It contained photographs, mostly black and white, in all sizes. He closed the flap and put the envelope back on the desk. He looked at it thoughtfully for a few seconds and then reached out a hand to it and tapped it twice with the fingertips. He had made a decision. He stood up. The phone rang. He raised his eyebrows as he reached out for the receiver. It was Harker.

‘There’s a treble nine,’ he said urgently. ‘A man’s body found in a skip down the side of The Three Horseshoes, off Rotherham Road.’

Angel pulled a face. His pulse began to race. Another body. Here we go again. Would it never end? Another murder, and he’d quite enough on his plate.

‘Reported by a workman, a James Macgregor,’ Harker added. ‘He’s waiting there on site.’

‘Right, sir,’ Angel said, then he phoned SOCO, Dr Mac and Gawber. He passed on the information and instructed them to make their way to the crime scene A.S.A.P. He also advised Ahmed of the recent developments and instructed him to tell Crisp to join him as soon as the money under the floorboards in the flat had been dealt with and deposited in the station safe. He then grabbed the thicker of the two envelopes and dashed down the green-painted corridor to the rear door exit that led to the station car park.

Five minutes later, the white SOCO van, Dr Mac’s car and Angel’s BMW arrived at The Three Horseshoes in quick succession. The pub was on the corner of the Mansion Hill and Rotherham Roads, not the best part of Bromersley. It had a small car park on one side of it, but locals would take the shortcut between the two roads, across the car park and park behind the pub, thus cutting off the corner and saving half a minute or so walking round the front of the pub.

Angel parked on the street. He noticed a small skip in the car park by the rear wall of the pub and advanced determinedly towards it. The green-painted skip had the words ‘For hire’ and an 0800 telephone number stencilled in white on each side. As he got nearer he could see that it was three-quarters filled with stone, dust, bricks, plasterwork and builder’s debris. At one end, there appeared to be a bundle of brown rags with a man’s shoe on top. That was the dead man.

SOCO were setting up blue and white tape bearing the words POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS, while Mac had found a bottle crate and was preparing to stand on it to lean over the skip. The car park was bathed in brilliant sunshine so extra lighting on the body was not necessary.

Angel met James Macgregor, who was in the pub drinking tea from a vacuum flask. He told Angel that he was working on some conversions in The Three Horseshoes, knocking an inside wall down to make two rooms into one and that in the course of bringing out a wheelbarrow of rubble, a few minutes ago, he had pushed it up a plank and found this body.

‘Yeah. I’d noticed what I thought were some old clothes someone dumped in the skip earlier this morning, you know. People do that, you know. Get rid of rubbish in any old skip they see hanging around the streets, you know. So. Well then I didn’t think anything of it. I’d tipped in a few loads before I had a closer look, and of course, it was this poor man.’