THE CHESHIRE CAT MURDERS an enthralling crime mystery full of twists (Yorkshire Murder Mysteries Book 18)

by Roger Silverwood

  As Angel approached the tape, several officers saw him and saluted. He acknowledged them. Then he heard a voice call from behind.

  ‘The witness is up the road, sir. I took him home.’

  He turned to see Patrolman Donohue waving his hand in the air to draw his attention. Angel acknowledged the wave and waited for the constable to catch him up.

  ‘Right, Sean,’ Angel said. ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Number 46, sir. His name is Bullimore.’

  Together they walked back past the police vehicles and round the corner.

  ‘Mr Bullimore is sixty-nine and was shaken up,’ Donohue said, ‘. . . well, the remains are . . . very messy. He was upset. He wanted to come home. He’s had a drop of brandy, sir.’

  Angel nodded.

  They walked up the street a little way.

  Donohue stopped and turned to face the house door.

  ‘Is this it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Introduce us, then get hold of three other officers and do the house to house . . . every house that has windows overlooking the field.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Donohue said and knocked on Bullimore’s door.

  It was answered by an elderly man with a stick.

  Angel heard a dog barking.

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Angel, Mr Bullimore.’

  ‘Come in. Come in,’ Bullimore said. ‘Sit down here. Wherever you like.’

  The barking became louder and more passionate. It was accompanied by banging and scratching noises from the internal door.

  ‘Don’t worry about Caesar, he’s locked in the kitchen.’

  Angel nodded to Donohue, and the officer rushed off.

  ‘Quiet, Caesar.’ Bullimore called. ‘Quiet.’

  The dog whined, barked a couple of times then all was quiet.

  Angel waited for Bullimore to select a seat. He sat in an easy chair by the fireplace then Angel chose the chair facing him.

  ‘What sort of a dog is he, Mr Bullimore?’

  ‘He’s a German Shepherd. He’s three years old, and as keen as mustard. I’m not afraid of anybody or anything when he’s with me.’

  Angel understood that only too well. German Shepherd was the force’s first choice of breed for guard duties, and Ashfield estate was home to a few unsavoury residents, especially among teenagers.

  ‘You live here on your own?’ Angel said.

  ‘Yes. That’s why I have him. He’s good for company as well as protection.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Angel said.

  ‘The policeman said your name was Inspector Angel. Are you that Inspector Angel who the papers say always gets his man . . . like the Mounties?’

  Angel avoided his eyes and said, ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘And is it true?’

  He shuffled uncomfortably. He didn’t want to tempt providence. ‘I’ve been very lucky. I have a great team.’ He wanted to move on quickly and said, ‘Tell me about this morning, Mr Bullimore,’ he said. ‘What time did you get up?’

  Bullimore blinked. ‘Seven o’clock. I always get up at seven o’clock. Caesar needs to go out. I opened the door into the backyard. He can’t get out of there. And he comes back in when he’s ready. I gave him his breakfast and I had my own. I got ready and we came out for a walk at about half past eight. We go into the field as a general rule. I let him off the lead and he darted straight away down towards the stream. He sniffed round something, then barked and looked round for me. He often does that. I walked towards him. Then he bounded back up to me and led me towards the stream. Then I saw it.’

  The elderly man swallowed, rubbed his jaw and said, ‘It looked as if a load of meat had just dropped off a butcher’s van. I couldn’t understand it. Then I saw a pair of leather shoes, socks and the bottom of a pair of trousers and realized what I was looking at. I felt sick. I thought I was going to throw up.’

  The hair at the back of Bullimore’s hands stood up and he gave a little shiver. ‘It couldn’t have been done by a human being, Inspector,’ he said. ‘It would have to have been the result of a wild animal of some sort . . . or several of them . . . maybe starving, desperately hungry, fighting over the dead body . . . I can’t say any more. I slipped the chain over Caesar’s neck and we came back here. I immediately dialled 999 and reported it in. And that’s all I know.’

  Angel frowned, made a note with a ballpoint on an old envelope, and then said, ‘Did you see anybody around the field before or at the same time you were there?’

  ‘No. It was deserted. Spooky even. I didn’t hang about. If I could have run, I would have.’

  ‘Did you see anything at all suspicious that morning or last night. By the look of it, this house overlooks the field. You could probably have seen the incident from a back window.’

  ‘Mmm. Possibly, but I sleep in the front. I didn’t see anything anyway, and Caesar would have kicked up hell if he had heard anything in the night. I think this house is too far away from the stream for us to have heard anything.’

  Angel nodded.

  Bullimore said, ‘He sometimes hears things from Ashfield Lodge Farm. The woman there keeps cats in the house and she feeds a fair number of feral cats, and if Caesar hears them courting . . . making their peculiar noises . . . that always makes him bark, in fact, he goes mad. I always have to keep him on the chain as we go past her place.’

  Angel raised his eyebrows, paused and said, ‘Do you happen to know the lady’s name?’

  Bullimore wrinkled his nose. ‘It’s Sharpe, and she’s no lady.’

  Angel pretended not to hear his last four words, and said, ‘Mrs Sharpe,’ as he wrote the name on the back of the brown envelope.

  ‘It’s Miss Sharpe,’ Bullimore said. ‘Miss Ephemore Sharpe.’

  ‘Ephemore Sharpe,’ Angel said while still writing. ‘You know her well?’

  ‘I’ve met her, Inspector. She’s not nice to have as a neighbour, I can tell you. She’s a retired schoolmistress, never married, has no friends . . . well, nobody ever goes there except on business . . . Has cats in the house, cats in the barns and outbuildings. People go to her from all over the place sometimes, if they have a sick cat and they’re desperate. She sets herself up to know more about cats than anybody.’

  ‘But you don’t like her. Why?’

  ‘Well, Inspector, I’ll tell you. I came to live here about thirty-six years ago. She was already living there in the farmhouse with her father and mother. Her father ran the farm, worked like a dog, and was as miserable as sin. Mother kept house, helped with the milking sometimes, never smiled, and grumbled all the time about everything and everybody. Ephemore went out to teach at the grammar school and put the fear of God into all the kids. She taught history. My, what a family. And they were all ugly. Uglier than the devil’s totem pole. But I suppose, out of the three of them, Ephemore was the ugliest. She is like the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz. Anyway, me and my wife had a nodding relationship with all three. If we passed any of them in the street, we’d say, ‘Good morning’, or ‘Good afternoon’, and walk on as quickly as we could. And they were only tolerably civil back. Anyway, her father and mother died about ten years ago. Ephemore sold the herd — got a very good price for it, I heard. Anyway, she retired from school teaching straightaway. She took to keeping cats. About eighteen months ago, I was passing her place with Caesar, and her yard gate was open. It was a bit unusual. I had Caesar on a lead, but unfortunately he saw a cat, somewhere in her yard, and charged off after it, pulling the lead out of my hand. It dodged through a small hole under one of her outbuildings. Caesar made a mighty effort to follow it, but, fortunately, couldn’t get through the hole. However he scratched around it, but made no progress, so he stood barking at the hole, kicking up hell. I eventually got hold of the lead and was pulling him away when Ephemore appeared at her front door. She glared at me, demanded that I left her yard and said that if my dog ever entered her property again, she would have it
shot. Of course, I protested and tried to apologize, but she wouldn’t have any. She’s a nasty old cow. All the pupils at the school hated her, and there’s no wonder.’

  Mr Bullimore was interrupted by a knocking on the door. It was immediately followed by renewed wild and angry barking from the dog.

  Angel looked round.

  ‘Quiet, Caesar! Quiet! It’s all right!’ Bullimore called, then he turned to Angel and said, ‘It’s the door,’ and he reached down to the floor for his stick to assist him to stand up to answer it.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Angel said, and he jumped up, crossed the room and turned the copper doorknob.

  It was Flora Carter, one of the two sergeants in Angel’s team and quite the prettiest female police officer in Yorkshire.

  ‘Ah, Flora,’ Angel said, and he stepped out of the house and closed the door to speak to her in private. He briefed her about the phone call from Sister Mary Clare and the burglary at St Magdalene’s Hospital, and instructed her to go down there immediately and see what she could make of it.

  Carter nodded and rushed off.

  Angel then went back in to Bullimore’s front room.

  ‘It was one of my sergeants,’ Angel said.

  Bullimore nodded.

  Angel resumed his seat, frowned, rubbed his chin and said, ‘When you saw what was left of the body, did you immediately turn away?’

  ‘If you mean did I touch anything, Inspector? No, I didn’t. I put the chain round Caesar and came straight back here.’

  ‘Good. It might be necessary to have your footprints to eliminate you from the scene.’

  Bullimore blinked. He looked down at his feet and said, ‘I was wearing these shoes.’

  ‘You’d better take them off and give ’em to me. You’ll get them back tomorrow.’

  Bullimore grunted, pulled the bow on a shoelace and began to kick the shoes off.

  Angel stood up. ‘I think we’ve finished here for now, Mr Bullimore. Thank you very much indeed. You’ve been most helpful. If anything further occurs to you, give me a ring at the station, will you?’

  Angel came out of the house with the man’s shoes swinging by the insides of heels from his fingertips.

  Trevor Crisp, Angel’s other sergeant, was strolling up the street towards him. Their eyes met.

  Angel glared at him.

  Crisp increased his speed. He noticed the shoes Angel was carrying. His lips began to develop a smile.

  Angel’s eyes missed nothing. ‘It’s taken you long enough to catch up with me, lad,’ he said. Then as he came level with the sergeant, he lifted up his arm and swung the shoes at him. ‘Catch!’ he said. ‘Witness’s shoes. For SOCO. And I said that you’d see that he got them back tomorrow. All right?’

  Crisp caught the shoes. Mud from one of them smeared the sleeve of his light-coloured raincoat. He looked at the brown smear, and rubbed it making it worse. He glanced angrily at his boss, who was walking on briskly nonchalantly unaware of any mishap.

  The sergeant ran after him. ‘Don Taylor ran out of Denstone KD plaster, sir,’ he said. ‘He knew I’d be coming here. He asked me to get some from the stores on the way in. There are a quite a few clear prints around the body in the clay at the edge of the stream.’

  Angel’s eyebrows went up. Clear prints were practically unheard of in today’s criminal investigations. He was pleased. ‘Clear footprints? Good.’

  ‘Not exactly footprints, sir,’ Crisp said. ‘Don said that they are paw prints probably from a cat.’

  Angel glared at him. ‘A cat?’

  Crisp shrugged. ‘That’s what he said.’

  The sergeant found himself conveniently passing his car, so he took the opportunity of dumping the witness’s shoes in the boot.

  Angel stopped, wrinkled his nose, turned back to him and said, ‘Come on, Trevor. Let’s see this woman Ephemore Sharpe.’

  They walked together to the end of the street, then went through the farm gate into a big yard. There was a smart stone-built farmhouse with a large immaculately maintained garden behind it, and three stone-built barns at the other side facing it. Several cats rushed in different directions from one outbuilding to another as the policemen made their way over uneven cobbles to the farmhouse door.

  Angel banged the big knocker hard and waited. Nothing happened for a while so he looked at Crisp and pulled a face. Crisp was about to reach up to it to knock again when the door opened and a woman appeared.

  Angel gasped. From Bullimore’s description, it was certainly Miss Ephemore Sharpe and he hadn’t exaggerated at all.

  She looked them up and down suspiciously, using sharp jerky movements like a vulture.

  ‘Miss Sharpe?’ Angel said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Are you policemen?’

  She had a hard, nasal voice, a big nose with nostrils so wide that you could see that the insides were bright pink with thread-like violet veins. Very unusually, her septum was Z shaped.

  ‘Good morning,’ Angel said. ‘Yes. We need to speak to you about a very important matter.’

  ‘It’s not convenient just now,’ she said, and began to close the door.

  ‘I’m afraid that I have to insist,’ Angel said. ‘These are police inquiries about the death of a man.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, young man,’ she said. ‘The police are our servants and not the other way round. These are enlightened days. I know my rights.’

  Angel blinked. He was not usually stuck for words. In this case, the woman had surprised him. He took a deep breath and said, ‘As an inspector of police, madam, I know mine. You are obliged to assist us in our inquiries. If you will not do it voluntarily, I can get a warrant. That would be very time consuming and unnecessary.’

  She considered the matter a few moments then, opening the door wider, she said, ‘I can give you a couple of minutes. You may come in. Wipe your feet. But you must make it quick. I have a lot to attend to.’

  Inside, she ushered them into a drawing-sitting room, comprising a settee, four upholstered chairs, a grand piano and a television. Framed paintings and photographs, predominantly of cats of all sizes, almost entirely obscured the wallpaper. The largest photograph was of a man with a big moustache and wearing a leotard. He was in a big cage wielding a whip and a chair surrounded by six huge, clawing tigers.

  Angel looked at them and then at Crisp who nodded to indicate that he had seen the photograph and would remember it.

  On the piano, there were in addition a dozen or so family photographs in polished silver frames. They were of people of all ages, in groups or single portraits. Each person in each photograph had a huge nose, big ears, sunken cheeks, staring eyes, a thin, pointed chin and sparse grey hair. Angel felt confident that they all must be relatives of Miss Sharpe, and that each one must have scowled deliberately as the photographer clicked the button.

  The old woman indicated seats where they should sit, while Angel introduced himself and Crisp to her.

  She said, ‘I would like to know why there are all these police vehicles cluttering up the only access to the field.’

  ‘They are there to assist in the investigation of a dead body found by the stream,’ Angel said.

  ‘You do realize, Inspector whatever your name is, that the presence of those vehicles there will disturb the cats — both feral and tame — who regularly come here to feed. Your big, noisy vehicles with flashing lights, and your men banging about in heavy boots are ruining all that and frightening the cats away. It’s disgraceful and as a taxpayer — a very big taxpayer, as it happens — it is not right that I should have to put up with this nuisance.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Sharpe, that you are being inconvenienced,’ Angel said, ‘but a man is dead and we do need to find out the cause of his death . . . for the sake of the community. I am here just now specifically to ask you if you saw or heard anything suspicious anywhere in the field, but in particular near the stream, yesterday, last evening or during the night.’

&nb
sp; ‘I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual at all,’ she said.

  Angel said, ‘All the windows at the south side of the house look onto the field and from your upstairs rooms, I expect you have uninterrupted views down to the stream . . . are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. What is the dead man’s name? And how did he die?’

  ‘We don’t know that yet.’

  She sniffed. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ Angel said. ‘I was hoping you could help us. Anyway, that’s all I need for now. I may be back with additional questions when we have more information,’ he added, then he looked at Crisp and the two men stood up to leave.

  She opened the door and said, ‘Well, I can’t say it has been a pleasure because it hasn’t.’

  The two men made for the hall. She followed them to the front door.

  ‘If you recall hearing or seeing anything at all in the field, please let me know,’ Angel said, ‘it is vitally important.’

  ‘I know nothing at all about it, young man,’ she said.

  Before he could reply, the door slammed.

  As Angel and Crisp picked their way over the cobblestones on their way up to the farm gate, Angel turned to Crisp and said, ‘Get onto the PNC asap, Trevor, and see if there’s anything known about her.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Crisp said. ‘I don’t suppose there will be.’

  They reached the gate and Crisp said, ‘She was a schoolteacher, wasn’t she?’

  Angel nodded.

  ‘I thought so. What was her main subject?’

  ‘History, I believe,’ Angel said.

  ‘Modern history, sir?’

  ‘Aye. Gestapo techniques to the under fourteens.’

  3

  The field behind Ashfield Lodge Farm,

  Bromersley. 2 p.m. Monday, 25 October 2010.

  Ds Taylor phoned Angel to advise that his team and Dr Mac, the pathologist, had completed their inspection of the scene, and that they were ready to remove the remains of the body to the mortuary.

  Angel, in a white one-piece overall with hood, boots and gloves, picked his way across the field towards the stream. The first person he came across at the site perimeter was Dr Mac who silently led him to the body.