Smith frowned but didn’t reply.
Angel said, ‘Understood?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. All right. Understood.’
He stepped out of the cell. ‘What did you say the name of that witness was … that was supposed to have picked me out?’
Nobody caught Angel out as easily as that.
‘I didn’t say,’ he said as he closed the cell door and indicated the way out of the security block.
As they made their way up the corridor, Smith suddenly said: ‘What unrelated offences?’
‘The tennis ball scam, for one thing.’
‘Don’t know what you mean.’
Angel sighed.
They reached the duty sergeant’s desk. There was nobody there. He must have been called away.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ Angel said. ‘Your hut had a bag full of tennis balls in there. I have taken them and recorded them as evidence for the future. Don’t even think of buying any more.’
‘Oh yes,’ Smith said. ‘But they’re not mine. They are for my nephews. They play with them when they visit me.’
Angel’s eyes flashed. He was tired. It had been a long day. ‘Don’t tell me any more lies,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got any nephews or nieces … or brothers or sisters, for that matter. I know that from your notes. So don’t take me for a fool.’
He ran his hand through his hair and turned to Scrivens. ‘It’s late, Ted. I’m going home. Finish up here. See that Mr Smith is offered some transport. He might want some milk and a rusk. And he likes fairytales. If you have to, tell him the one about the three bears.’
‘Go to frigging hell!’ Smith yelled.
‘Good night, sir,’ Scrivens said.
The front door slammed. Angel had gone.
The phone rang.
Angel reached out for it. It was WPC Leisha Baverstock at reception. ‘Good morning, sir. There’s a young woman here asking to see you. Says her name is Sonya Quigley.’
Angel looked up. He didn’t expect that. Sonya Quigley? Of course he would see her. ‘Bring her down to my office, Leisha, please?’
He replaced the phone slowly and rubbed his chin. He wondered what she wanted. She might be able to throw some light on the murder of Doonan even though her father, Liam Quigley, was now out of the frame. Any relevant information would be most welcome. The investigation was going nowhere, and at that moment there was no way that he was able to prove the murderer was Laurence Smith.
Angel had always made it a rule that if anybody came to the station and asked for him by name, he would see them. Same thing if they phoned and asked for him – he would always speak to them.
Anyway, this young woman might be in trouble.
She arrived. She looked nothing like her father. She was pretty and slim, with long, red, stringy hair, and she wore a red coat over jeans and a thick white jumper. She glanced at Angel but didn’t maintain a long look.
‘Good morning. You are Sonya Quigley? Please sit down.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said.
She had skinny, children’s fingers, which she played with as she spoke.
‘Daughter of Liam Quigley? What can I do for you?’ Angel said.
‘Yes. I’d like to see him, please.’
Angel frowned. ‘He’s not here, Sonya. Isn’t he at home?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Oh? He’s not here? I thought he had been arrested?’
‘He’s probably at home now. Have you not been home?’
She put her elbows on the desk and buried her face in her hands. ‘The next-door neighbour said that the police had taken him away and that he had been arrested. He wasn’t there night before last.’
‘He was released yesterday morning. He was only held here overnight for questioning.’
She sighed deeply. ‘Oh, thank God. Thank God.’ She found a tissue and began to wipe her cheeks. ‘I thought he had been arrested for Vincent’s murder. I knew he hadn’t done it. He was angry, worked up if ever I mentioned his name, but I knew he couldn’t take a man’s life like that.’
Angel licked his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘What do you know about it, Sonya?’
The tears started again. ‘Oh, it’s all my fault, Mr Angel. Vincent never meant anything more to me than a safe place I could run to. I only went there to get away from Dad’s moods, drunkenness and bad temper. He thinks I went to bed with him, but I never. Vincent was a nice enough chap, but not in that way … and he’s old enough to be my father. I let my father think anything he wanted. I did it to annoy him … get my own back, you know. Vincent let me have his back bedroom whenever I wanted it, that’s all, honest. He enjoyed my company … and I enjoyed his, when I was lonely or … afraid. But I never intended it to go this far with my Dad. Now I want to find him and tell him everything. I’m so relieved. Don’t you know where he’ll be now?’
Angel shook his head gently. ‘I’m sorry.’
She suddenly pulled a face. ‘He’s started up with this Juanita Freedman woman. That’s where he’ll be. It’s all so … awful!’
The tears started again.
Angel said, ‘I’ve met Miss Freedman. She seemed pleasant enough.’
‘He had me take her out … and entertain her. Just the two of us. Last night. To The Feathers. He shoved forty quid in my hand and said give her a good time and enjoy yourselves, and don’t come back before eleven o’clock. She likes white wine. Oooh. Horrible stuff. I did it because he wanted me to. But I don’t like it. All she talks about is books, Clarice Cliff, Rennie Mackintosh and Scotland … and she smells of peppermint. We got a taxi there and a taxi back. She’s trying to take my mother’s place. It’s not right. Nobody can do that.’
‘Of course not. Where’s your mother?’
‘She’s in County Clare. Middle of nowhere. I love her dearly. I sometimes wish I was there with her and my grandmother. And my older sister.’
‘You can always go back there, can’t you?’
‘I’ve been back. But there are no people there. Just women, and hens and sheep. It’s like a graveyard and besides, there’s no work. I couldn’t easily settle after all this busy, busy over here. No. Besides, my father is trying to buy another house. It includes a shop. If he gets it … maybe … I can have the shop and start up as a hairdresser. I’m trained for that, you know. Been to Bromersley College. Got the diploma. Worked for a year at Madam Georgina’s in town, you know. But it’ll never happen. You see. That woman’ll be in the way. She’ll put the mockers on it. You see.’
‘Your mother?’
‘No. Miss Juanita bloody Freedman.’
Ahmed came in and closed the door. ‘You want me, sir?’
‘Yes, lad. I want you to get that small ad in the Personal Column of the South Yorkshire Post all editions tomorrow night,’ Angel said, passing him a small piece of paper.
Ahmed peered at the paper, frowned and looked across the desk at Angel.
Angel’s mouth tightened. ‘What’s the matter? Can’t you read it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, then he cleared his throat and slowly read: ‘Cherub wants love. Contact in usual way.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Angel said loudly. ‘Don’t read it as if it’s Japanese. It’s perfectly good English.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘And tell them to charge it to me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Ahmed went out, re-reading the paper and shaking his head.
Angel watched the door close. He gave way to a smile as he considered what was going through Ahmed’s mind.
He returned to the morning’s post.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ Angel called.
It was Gawber.
Angel looked up from his desk. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said with eyebrows raised. ‘Come in, Ron. I thought you’d run off and joined a circus.’
Gawber looked down at him and smiled. ‘I’ve not been as long as all that, sir,’ he said as he closed the office door. ‘And I have caught up w
ith some of the people in the Fisherman’s Rest who didn’t stay behind to be interviewed.’
Angel nodded appreciatively. He was really very pleased to see his favourite sergeant. He hoped that Gawber might cheer him up.
‘I’m impressed, Ron,’ he said. He moved the report he was reading on to a pile on the corner of the desk, leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Well, I hope you know something helpful. I’m making absolutely zero progress here. And being rapidly worn down by the persistent ridicule from the newspapers about pigs in pokes, and every ham joke and pun about pigs, millionaires and glamorous widows you can possibly think of.’
‘Huh. I’ve read them, sir,’ Gawber said. ‘You’ve never let the papers bother you before.’
‘Well, ordinarily they wouldn’t, if I knew we were making some progress, but we’re not. Anyway, what have you got?’
Gawber pulled out his notebook and sighed. ‘Nothing much. I first interviewed the three men who were sitting around the table with Doonan – separately, of course. They agreed on what he wore, the woolly hat, scarf and black gloves … and about what happened. Man came in, looked round, went to the bar, ordered a drink and a sandwich and when Clem Bailey went in the back to make the sandwich, he came over to them, pulled the gun out of his pocket, pointed it at Vincent Doonan, pulled the trigger three times then went straight out through the door. It was as quick and simple as that.’
‘It seems to me that the murderer knew that Clem Bailey would have to go in the room behind the bar to make up the sandwich. He wanted him out of the way. Why?’
‘Because he thought Bailey might recognize him, or because he thought he might have tried to prevent him.’
‘Not much you can do against a determined man with a loaded gun. It must have been because he thought he might recognize him.’
Gawber nodded. ‘Perhaps he didn’t want to be in Clem Bailey’s sights for too long?’
Angel nodded, then he said, ‘You know that Clem Bailey picked out Laurence Smith from the mug book?’
Gawber’s mouth opened and his eyebrows went up.
‘But we can’t make it stick,’ Angel added quickly.
‘He’s got a good alibi?’
‘No. He hasn’t got any alibi. He hasn’t got a strong enough motive either. Some argument over a shareout of the spoils of an old job. CPS would never take it on. Go on. Tell me. What else?’
‘Remember there was a family of five, the Summervilles, three women and two men, who were in the pub at the time of the murder? Well, one of the men, father Summerville, came into the pub yesterday lunchtime … started talking to Clem about the murder. By chance, I called in on Clem Bailey and Clem pointed him out to me. I had a word with him, took his address and his sister’s address and was able to interview all of them. Apparently it had been his wife’s birthday. The family were out for a celebratory drink.’
‘What did they see?’
‘Mr Summerville senior said that he was side on to the gun and he reckons he knows about arms. It was his hobby until the laws about owning guns and the banning of replicas was introduced in the eighties. He said that he saw the silhouette of the barrel. Unusual design. The finger guard almost reached the end of the barrel. Also, the gun had a blue tinge and therefore he believes it was a Beretta Tomcat.’
Angel blinked. That was interesting. ‘It’s true, but it could also have been stainless steel or titanium. Do you think he’s reliable?’
‘He seemed to be talking sense to me, sir.’
Angel rubbed his chin and said, ‘The calibre of a Beretta is .32.’ He reached out for the phone and determinedly tapped in the number to the mortuary at Bromersley General.
Gawber said, ‘Have you heard back from Dr Mac about the—’
‘I’m going to find that out, right now,’ he said.
The phone was answered. ‘Mac? It’s Michael Angel. Sorry to bother you, but I haven’t had your report on either Doonan or Santana yet, and I—’
Dr Mac said, ‘I know. I know. I’ve done the work, it’s just a matter of—’
‘All I want to know just now is the calibre of the three bullets that went into Vincent Doonan.’
‘I can remember that. They were from the same gun, of course, and they were .32.’
‘.32, Mac? Thank you very much.’
Angel and Gawber exchanged looks.
He replaced the phone. ‘So we know the murder weapon. Now we know what we’re looking for.’
‘Yes, but it might be at the bottom of the Don, sir.’
‘It might. It might not.’
The phone rang. Angel reached out for it. It was the super.
‘Yes, sir?’ Angel said and wrinkled his nose.
‘You’d better come up here,’ Harker growled. ‘Straightaway,’ he added and there was a loud click.
Angel groaned and slammed down the receiver. He turned to Gawber and said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
Gawber stood up. ‘I’ve to write up my notes. I’ll carry on, if you don’t need me.’
‘Right,’ Angel said, feeling briefly quite envious of him.
They both went out of the office. Gawber dashed out next door into the CID office, while Angel charged up the green corridor.
He didn’t know what Harker wanted. It must be something in a report he wanted to ask about. He was surely not going to bellyache about the fact that he hadn’t yet charged anybody for either of the murders. It wasn’t a week since Santana had been found murdered and only three days since Doonan had been shot dead.
He arrived at Harker’s door, tapped on it and walked in. It reeked of menthol and it was uncomfortably hot. It was like being in a greenhouse in July with all the windows shut.
The pasty-faced ogre with the big eyebrows and the cough was seated at a desk, peering at him between two piles of files and papers.
‘You’re there, Angel,’ he muttered. ‘Sit down.’ He snatched an A5 sheet of pink paper from out of a wire basket and peered at it.
Angel thought he recognized it. From where he was sitting, it looked like an expense chitty.
Harker glared at the paper and said, ‘You seem to have an obsession with cuckoo clocks. So much so that you couldn’t resist the infantile urge to go out and buy one.’
Angel sniffed. It was an expense chitty. It was his expense chitty.
‘It wasn’t like that at all, sir.’
‘With police funds.’
‘I bought it, sir, because it seemed odd that all round the town just about every villain I have called on in the past week has one on his wall.’
‘So you thought, hang the expense. It’s not my money. You didn’t want to be left out.’
‘No, sir. In view of your observations about large quantities of heroin arriving in all kinds of unusual containers, I thought it possible that maybe the stuff was being smuggled inside the clocks.’
‘Yes. I know. As well as shelling out police funds, you committed police facilities – costly, valuable police facilities – to examine the damned thing.’
His eyebrows went up. ‘I did ask SOCO to—’
‘Well, I have instructed DS Taylor to return the thing to you forthwith as it was. Really, Angel, I sometimes think you’ve gone round the twist. SOCO can’t examine every damned pot, pan or clock that tickles your fancy on the off-chance that it may contain drugs, and so that you can have a free handout in the process. They have far too much to do.’
‘I’ve never put forward an item to be examined for drugs before, sir. You are suggesting that I am always calling on the facilities of SOCO to examine things. It is not for my personal benefit. It was simply to try to curb the illegal import of drugs, heroin in particular. That’s all.’
‘I think, lad, that you’re getting away from the main thrust of your responsibility at this station.’
Angel felt his face getting hot. ‘Detecting crime and bringing criminals to justice is what I thought I was supposed to be doing.’
‘Detecting crimes of murder is what you�
��re supposed to be doing, lad. Specifically, solving and bringing to court the two cases I have given you. Murder is what you’re supposed to be good at. The newspapers are always singing your praises. I daresay if they knew the truth, about your stupid diversions into cuckoo clocks and other crackpot things, they wouldn’t glorify you so much.’
The muscles on Angel’s jaw tightened. A regular banging started in his chest and extended to a throbbing in his ears. He wanted to let rip but it would only have lost him his job … the job he loved more than anything in the world. He tried to marshal his thoughts. He couldn’t think of anything to say that was reverential and useful. His mind could only produce words of anger.
‘Let’s move on,’ Harker said. ‘This Santana case … It is giving the newspapers a field day. I am fed up with jibes and cartoons of pigs in nightdresses and uniformed policemen standing by scratching their heads. This really is too bad. It brings disgrace on the force. When are you prepared to issue a statement to shut them up?’
Angel clenched his fists. There was truth in what Harker had said. He couldn’t deny it.
I know, sir. I can only issue a statement when I have something new to say. These newspaper men are not fools. If I tried to waffle on telling them general stuff that they already know, it would only annoy them and stir it all up even more. They want answers … to the key questions.’
‘As a matter of fact, lad, I wouldn’t mind knowing the answers to those questions myself. When are you going to be able to come up with some answers?’
Angel had no glib reply, no clever comeback. All he could say was, ‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t know.’
Five minutes later, he came out of the super’s office, his heart pounding like a timpanist playing Tchaikovsky. He stormed down the corridor to his office, bounded in and closed the door much louder than he had intended.
CHAPTER 8
It was a few minutes before he could resume any kind of work that required creative or original thought and, providentially, it was at the end of that interval of time that there was a knock at his office door.
The Cuckoo Clock Murders Page 9