‘Michael Angel here, you old Scottish wizard,’ he said, ‘I haven’t heard a word from you since you took Hobbs’s body. What can you tell me?’
‘Dammit, Michael. I’m not Superman, you know. I got straight onto, and I am still at it. And this corpse, I have to tell you, is in the worst state I have ever had the tragic privilege to examine.’
Angel looked sad briefly. ‘I know. I know,’ he said. ‘But do you know the cause of death yet?’
‘I am coming to that. There are so many abrasions.’
‘The wild cat expert from NCOF Wakefield said that pawmarks found in the mud at the scene are those of a cougar, and that the usual method the cougar employs is to bite its prey — typically a deer, sheep or horse — at the neck, which kills it outright.’
‘Aye, well, not in this case, Michael.’
‘Does it look as if the victim fought back at all . . . are there any indications?’
‘It doesn’t seem that he did. The remaining hand is unmarked and there is nothing significant under the fingernails.’
Angel frowned. ‘Does the body look as if it has been killed by a wild cat, left wherever it was for several hours, then dragged to the side of the stream under over-hanging trees and some of the flesh eaten there, where it was discovered?’
‘The body seems certainly to have been devoured voraciously by a big cat of some sort, Michael. And hypostasis indicates that it had been left for some time, face down and then later moved and placed face up as it was found. Also there are scratch marks made by its claws down the victim’s legs and his remaining arm. And I am not sure whether the body was eaten at the site by the stream, at some other place, or at both places. But whatever. That wouldn’t in any case account for the contusions.’
Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What contusions?’
‘Well, there are two contusions to the head . . . they couldn’t have been caused by an animal.’
‘Contusions?’ Angel said. ‘Well they must have been caused by a human, Mac? What sort of a weapon was used?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Something very unusual and blunt. It has left round marks between two and two and half inches in diameter on Hobbs’s temple. The blows would have been delivered with a mighty swipe.’
That was the defining news that Angel had been expecting. It confirmed that Julius Hobbs had been murdered. His heart began to thump. He had suspected that a human agency had been involved in the murder from the very beginning.
‘I’ll email the report through to you later today or Monday,’ Mac said.
‘Thanks, Mac. That’s great. Now, what can you tell me about the young woman?’
‘Haven’t got far with the lassie, Michael, but I can tell you that she also has the same contusions on her left temple, and that the other abrasions, cuts and bites are very, very similar. I should get to her in detail later today or tomorrow.’
‘Can you give me any more information about the weapon used?’
‘No, Michael. Something unusual, with a round end, delivered with a mighty swipe.’
‘Thanks, Mac,’ he said. ‘Have you enough evidence to be able to say that both murders were committed by the same person?’
‘No, Michael, but enough to say that they were committed in the same way with the same or a very similar weapon.’
‘That’s close enough. Thank you, Mac.’
Angel slowly replaced the phone and switched off the speaker.
He slowly turned to Taylor and said, ‘So we do have a serial murder case on our hands, Don.’
‘Yes sir,’ Taylor said, ‘and I have been thinking. How was the dead man carried and deposited tidily at the side of the stream where it was found, without leaving footprints? Nothing and nobody could have done that on wet mud without leaving a mark of some kind.’
‘I don’t know,’ Angel said. ‘If it had been dragged over grass, it would have been absolutely soaked, and if it had been dragged along the edge of the stream, it would be all muddied up. It was neither and there is no other route it could have been taken.’
Angel ran his hand through his hair several times. ‘I don’t know. I simply don’t know.’
‘Maybe the murderer was suspended in some way from the trees that overhang the stream, sir? And swung from branch to branch.’
Angel stared at him, shook his head and said, ‘You mean like Tarzan . . . while carrying the body of Julius Hobbs under his arm?’
Taylor’s face creased. He could see it wouldn’t have been feasible.
‘And it wouldn’t have been practical to have employed a crane, a helicopter or the Red Arrows Display Team either,’ Angel said.
‘No, sir,’ Taylor said with a grin. ‘But why would the murderer want to make us think that a wild animal had been the killer?’
‘I don’t know, Don. I really don’t know.’
‘He’s gone to a lot of bother, hasn’t he?’
‘Or she has,’ Angel said.
Taylor blinked. ‘Do you really think it’s Ephemore Sharpe, sir?’
‘Well, she’s the most obvious candidate, Don,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, I don’t know. Now push off, Don. I’ve got a lot to do.’
‘Right, sir,’ he said. He got up and went out.
Angel leaned back on the swivel chair and looked up at the ceiling. It was a position he often adopted when he wanted to think. He lowered his eyelids and pursed his lips. As the situation had changed, he was thinking that his first priority was to search Ephemore Sharpe’s farm and outbuildings. And that was under way. Ahmed was sorting out a warrant. Then Angel reckoned that he needed to report the change to Superintendent Harker so that hereafter he could treat the deaths as murders and not be constrained by the notion that the two victims had been accidentally killed. Also he needed to have the suspect, Ephemore Sharpe, under surveillance.
He leaned forward in the chair and reached out for the phone.
‘How’s that warrant coming along, Ahmed?’ he said into the mouthpiece.
‘Be in with it in a minute, sir.’
‘Good lad. Then I want you to find DS Crisp, DS Carter and DC Scrivens, and send them to me ASAP.’
‘Right, sir.’
He returned the phone to its stand, then stood up. He must see Superintendent Harker. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was necessary, before he did anything else.
He left his office and tramped up the corridor to Harker’s suite. He knocked on the door and pushed it open.
The skinny man was at his desk writing.
The room was stuffy and hotter than Strangeways cookhouse. Angel frowned and looked around for the explanation. Sticking out from behind the desk, he could just see the edge of an ancient portable two-bar electric fire.
Harker peered through the piles of papers, files, the box of Movicol and the packet of paracetamol, and in a dreary, bored voice, said, ‘What is it?’
‘I have some important news from Dr Mac, sir . . . about the wild cat killings,’ Angel said.
Harker looked up. ‘You’re not still wasting time on them, are you? They only needed the paperwork preparing for the cases for the coroner’s court, you know. And, as a matter of fact, Angel, I haven’t had a follow up report from you about the break-in and subsequent robbery from the hospital of the bomb making substances.’
‘I am still working on that, sir,’ Angel said. ‘There is nothing new there. However Dr Mac has just told me that he now has evidence that a human — or more than one — is involved in the two killings formerly thought to be by a wild cat. This means that we have two murders on our hands.’
Harker put down his pen and eased back into his chair. ‘I don’t think you could have heard me, Angel,’ he said. ‘I am very worried about the possibility of a repeat performance of 7/7. That would be a national, nay international matter. If that were to happen, it would be horribly intolerable if any of the constituents of the explosive device were traced back to that burglary on my patch.’
Angel took several steps nearer to the superintendent’s desk. ‘Well, yes, sir, it would. And I will take another close look at the witnesses’ statements and the forensic and see if we can find any more lines of inquiry, but, in the meantime, I cannot ignore the new evidence that shows that two people previously thought to be killed accidentally were actually brutally murdered, and I want —’
‘That’s two people, lad. You may have forgotten that fifty-six people were murdered and around seven hundred injured in that 2007 bombing.’
‘No, sir, I haven’t forgotten.’
‘Well what are you blethering on about then?’
‘I want to save time and cut off a corner, sir, by advising you in advance that Mac’s written report will show that the two victims could not possibly have been killed entirely accidentally, and ask you for your authority to treat the victims as murders so that I can quickly pick up where I left off.’
Harker’s mouth dropped open. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Angel’s eyes flashed like a press photographer’s camera. ‘You stopped me investigating the deaths as murders,’ he bawled.
‘Why would I do that? I would never restrict inquiries so early in the investigation. It must have been clear that murder was a possibility.’
Angel’s breathing became heavy and laboured. His knuckles tightened. Harker was always going back on an instruction that later showed him to be in error. ‘You stopped me investigating the death of Hobbs as murder, sir,’ Angel said.
‘No. No. No. You must have misunderstood. Show me the memo that shows that I took such a narrow attitude.’
‘I don’t believe there was a memo.’
‘No. There never was one.’
‘It was just a verbal instruction.’
‘Nonsense. I think you’ve lost the plot, lad.’
‘No, sir. But we may have lost the case,’ Angel said, then he stormed out of the room, banged the door and bustled down the corridor.
Ahmed was waiting for him at his office door. He was holding a sheet of A4 in his hand.
‘Is that the warrant?’ Angel said, snatching the A4 from him as he passed.
‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘And the duty JP is a Mrs Stone. DS Carter and DC Scrivens are on their way, but I’ve not been able to find DS Crisp.’
‘Right. Come in and wait. This’ll only take a minute . . . never can find that lad . . . don’t know what Crisp gets up to.’
Ahmed waited by the desk and looked out of the window. The sun was beginning to shine.
Angel filled in the box headed: ‘Reason for warrant’, then signed it stating the date and time.
Scrivens knocked on the door and went in. ‘You wanted me, sir?’
‘Yes, come in,’ Angel said, then he turned back to Ahmed and shoved the warrant into his hand. ‘Run up to the Operations Room, give the duty sergeant my compliments and ask him to find some transport to take you to Mrs Stone’s house urgently. She’s a big woman and might seem a bit daunting, but she’s really very nice. Give this warrant to her, with my compliments. She’ll know what to do. Then bring it straight back to me. All right?’
‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said and dashed out.
Angel looked up at Scrivens. ‘Now then, Ted. Go round to Inspector Asquith’s office and ask him if he could see his way clear to letting me have a team to search Ephemore Sharpe’s farmhouse and outbuildings . . . ready to leave in about fifteen minutes. About twenty officers should do it. The farmhouse isn’t very big. But there are three barns and a big garden . . . and I don’t want to be there all day.’
‘Shall I tell him what you are looking for?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell him I’m looking for evidence that she is a murderer, Ted.’
‘Right, sir.’
Then Angel said, ‘No, Ted. Tell him I’m looking for a cougar.’
Scrivens frowned. ‘A cougar, sir? You mean . . . a wild cat, sir. That sort of a cougar?’
‘Yes. That sort of a cougar.’
Scrivens’s forehead creased, then he looked at Angel and began to smile.
But Angel’s face remained as straight as a truncheon.
Scrivens suddenly realized that his boss was deadly serious. He promptly stopped smiling and said, ‘Yes. Erm . . . I’ll tell him, sir. A cougar.’
He dashed out and closed the door.
13
It was 10.20 a.m. when Angel’s BMW, two marked Range Rovers and two patrol cars travelled down Ashfield Road. At the end, they halted briefly while an officer jumped out of the leading vehicle, opened the gate to Ashfield Lodge Farm, stood by it to allow the procession of vehicles to pass into the farmyard and then closed it.
A squad of uniformed officers headed by Angel went up to the front door. He knocked on it. A PC carrying a battering-ram pushed passed him up to the door.
Angel tugged on his high-profile yellow waistcoat and said, ‘Wait a minute, Constable. Give her a chance to answer.’
Several officers began to shout. ‘Come on. Police! Police! Open up!’
A few moments later the door opened.
Ephemore Sharpe glared down at them all.
The look of her astonished them. They stopped shouting and eased back from the door.
‘What’s all this?’ she said.
Angel showed her the letter in his hand. ‘Miss Sharpe,’ he said, ‘I have a warrant to search your property.’
She put her hands up to her face. ‘No! No!’ she said. ‘You can’t do this.’
Angel stood to one side and eight uniformed policemen pushed past him and in front of her, into the house.
She lowered her hands. Her face was screwed up with hatred. She turned, followed the men down the hall, and Angel heard her shout repeatedly, ‘You’ve no right in here. This is outrageous!’
He turned away from the farmhouse and accidentally walked into a measuring tape across the front of the house. Two officers had been nominated to measure the external and internal lengths and widths of all the buildings to check for any false walls that could have been concealing space. They lifted the tape over him and he rushed across the farmyard.
He joined the rest of the outdoor team who had already opened the first barn door. They found that there were twenty trestle tables set up against the walls with six or eight boxes, originally made for hens to lay their eggs in, located on each of them. There were two cats snoozing in separate boxes. As soon as the cats realized that the visitors were strangers, they scurried out of the boxes and off through gaps under the bottom of the barn wall.
There were textile materials in the bottom of the nest boxes to make them comfortable for the cats. Angel instructed the officers to examine the improvised mattresses. They found them to be discarded domestic textiles such as towels, curtains or blankets. They rolled them up and put them back. There was nothing illegal or untoward in there. Angel indicated that all was satisfactory and the barn doors were closed.
The second barn contained more trestle tables with fifteen or twenty bowls on top, containing cat meat, biscuits, milk and water. Angel thought that there was plenty of freshly dispensed food, enough perhaps to feed an army of small cats.
Both barns were tolerably clean and didn’t smell at all unpleasant. He signalled that that barn was all right also, and the doors were closed.
The third barn was being used as a garage. It had a small 2006 registered Renault car nearest the doors. Behind it was crammed full of old farm machinery and tools.
Angel looked through the frame of an old combine harvester and saw a turnip wagon, odd wheels, tyres, scythes, pitchforks and garden tools. He rubbed his chin. He was disappointed and there was no concealing it.
The outside search team leader looked at Angel and said, ‘What do you want us to do, sir? How far do you want us to go?’
‘Tow out that car and that combine harvester,’ he said. ‘Then have a good look round. See if anything has been used or moved recently, and check the floor. Make sur
e it is solid and has not recently been disturbed. If you find anything, I’ll be in the house.’
‘Right, sir.’
The driver of one of the Range Rovers produced a short towing cable from out of his toolbox.
Angel crossed the farmyard and through a side gate to the back of the house where there were two constables with a heat-seeking detector which they were passing across the garden. They systematically held the screen area along the borders and the lawn scrutinizing them from side to side. It would detect dead bodies up to three metres below the surface.
‘If you find anything, I’ll be in the house,’ he said.
‘Righto, sir.’
The inside team were working in pairs and had systematically undertaken a room at a time. He went through the back door, through the kitchen into the living-room where Ephemore Sharpe was sitting in a rocking chair, rocking furiously, gripping the chair arms with her red, bony fingers and her face almost purple with rage. She glanced up at him then turned quickly away.
He crossed to the officer he had nominated as the inside team leader and raised his eyebrows quizzically.
The inside team leader shook his head slightly. It was clear enough.
Angel nodded and turned away. He went all round the house and spoke to the officers in the bedrooms, the bathroom, the loft, the drawing room, the kitchen, the pantry and the study. They all reported that they had not found anything illegal or anything to indicate that Ephemore Sharpe was in possession of a large cat.
Angel’s lips tightened back against his teeth. His face muscles were as tight as the chief constable’s budget. He ran his hand through his hair. He felt also that some of the younger constables were sniggering at the fact that he was expecting to find a dangerous wild cat hidden away in the old woman’s house.
He wandered back into the study as that had now been satisfactorily cleared by the officers who had been searching there. It was a place where he could be on his own and perhaps think things out. It was the room where he had last interviewed Ephemore Sharpe, and he glanced at the myriad of photographs of her, mostly formal school photographs with pupils dating back to 1968. They all had handwritten captions with the date underneath. He looked along the rows and rows for more recent ones and then began to look at them carefully to see if he recognized anybody. He found one photograph that caught his attention. It looked like Julius Hobbs. It was similar to one of the photographs he had seen of him in his mother’s flat at The Old Manse, Ripon Road. He was one of about twenty-eight boys and girls in school uniform, some standing on chairs, some seated and some kneeling on grass. It was captioned at the bottom. It read: ‘Form 5A, July 1998’. He looked along at the other fresh-looking faces of youth to see if he could see any others he recognized.
THE CHESHIRE CAT MURDERS an enthralling crime mystery full of twists (Yorkshire Murder Mysteries Book 18) Page 13