The Fruit Gum Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘I don’t quite know, sir, but I do know there’s no need for you to chauffeur me round. I am perfectly capable of finding gardens in and around the town that have monkshood in them, and then tripping off to the council tax office to find the owners of the gardens. And I’m sure that you know that.’

  His lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘I do know that,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, Flora, I’m running out of lines of inquiry. I am getting quite desperate. I’m on edge in case I can’t solve this damned case.’

  ‘You’ve always succeeded before, sir. Why do you think you won’t solve this one?’

  ‘Doors are closing, Flora … time is going on … I can’t explain.’

  ‘We’ll get there, sir.’

  Angel sighed. ‘Maybe. Look, I’m sure you’d rather do this on your own.’

  He reached forward, put the car in gear and the BMW set off again. ‘I’ll take you back to the station,’ he said evenly.

  He pulled into his parking space near the rear entrance to the station. He stayed in the car as she got out and went to her own car. Angel watched her. She was soon behind the wheel of the Ford and driving out of the yard.

  Even on that short journey round Bromersley, something had occurred to him. Monkshood wouldn’t be grown in the back streets. You wouldn’t find monkshood in Canal Street or in terraced rows that didn’t have gardens. The murderer would be relatively well off. At least he or she would live in a house with a garden. And he or she must have had access and privacy to a kitchen or scullery or similar to prepare the poison. And it still seemed logical (thinking back to the oriental lilies in Robinson’s hotel room) that the murderer was a woman.

  He thought he was part of the way there to solving the murder. He was looking for a well-to-do woman. Someone who was masterful and strong-willed. A woman who had something to hide.

  An idea occurred to him. He started up the engine and put the car in gear. He went off to the Northern Bank and made some inquiries. He was in there half an hour. When he came out, he was much more settled. His breathing was steady and even. He looked happier and more content than he had for a week or more.

  He got in the BMW and returned to the station. When he reached his office, he picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

  A voice said, ‘DS Carter.’

  ‘Ah, Flora. How’s it going?’

  ‘Oh, hello, sir. There are loads of people with monkshood in their gardens up here.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘High Bromersley. There’s Lady Muick’s castle gardens, Mrs Mackenzie, Sir Rodney Stamp and Mrs Truelove, widow of old Mr Enoch.’

  Angel smiled. ‘Great stuff.’

  After a refreshing evening cutting the lawn and thinking things through, Angel arrived at his office full of optimism and go.

  It was 8.28 a.m. Wednesday, June 26th.

  He picked up the phone and tapped in a single digit for SOCO.

  ‘DS Taylor.’

  ‘Ah, Don. Later this morning, I want you to be prepared to go to Dr Kaye, or any JP of course, to get a warrant to make an arrest for murder and a warrant to search the subject’s premises. In particular, I will want you to find those two tumblers that match the marks on the bedside table and the white porcelain shelf. And if you find them, I want you to phone me immediately, on my mobile. All right?’

  He made two other urgent phone calls and then went out into the street, and walked next door to the Crown Prosecution Service.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Tina, the chubby receptionist, said. ‘What can I do for you? I’m afraid Mr Twelvetrees is not yet back from compassionate leave.’

  Angel frowned. ‘Oh?’

  Tina said, ‘Miss Gregg’s in, if you would like to consult her. Although she is leaving on Friday so. …’

  Angel nodded, thoughtfully. ‘I know. Well, yes please, I would like to see her.’

  Tina plugged in her headset. ‘There’s Inspector Angel. He really wanted Mr Twelvetrees, but … right, Miss Gregg.’

  Tina replaced the phone, looked up at Angel and said, ‘She says that’s all right.’ She pointed to a door. ‘Please go straight in.’

  Angel nodded. He went up to the door, knocked and opened it.

  The beautiful Miss Gregg beamed up at him from her desk and indicated a chair opposite her. ‘Please sit down, Inspector. I hope that you and your lovely wife survived yesterday’s funeral, and have overcome the amazing revelation of all that jewellery. I assume you have come to ask about the legal position of the police in establishing the ownership of the various pieces?’

  ‘No,’ Angel said. ‘We can deal with that, Miss Gregg. No, it’s about something much more serious.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Northern Bank. I went there to inquire if anybody in the last week or so had withdrawn a large amount of cash and then repaid it soon afterwards.’

  Her face creased. ‘I don’t understand your train of thought, Inspector.’

  ‘You will, Miss Gregg, you will. You withdrew £10,000 at three o’clock on Wednesday the 5th of June and repaid it the next morning at 9.45 a.m. Would you like to tell me why?’

  Her neck stretched upwards. The muscles round her small mouth tightened. Her eyes stood out like cherries on stalks. ‘No. I would not like to tell you why, Inspector. It’s an impertinent question, but, nevertheless, I will tell you. I had seen a car advertised in a paper. I thought I might buy it. The vendor would only accept cash. But when I got more details, it wasn’t the car I thought it was, so I changed my mind and returned the money to the bank.’

  Angel shook his head. ‘It wasn’t to give to Patrick Novak to put him at ease, was it?’

  She frowned. ‘Who was Patrick Novak?’

  ‘You correctly used the past tense, Miss Gregg, because you know exactly who he was. He was the porter at Coalsden Cottage Hospital in Norfolk. He was setting himself up to blackmail you for the murder of your ex-boyfriend, Norman Robinson. And don’t ask who Norman Robinson was. He was the father of your baby born in May 2002, when you were only seventeen.’

  Her face went scarlet. Her mouth dropped open. ‘This is absolute nonsense.’

  ‘Is it? Well, where were you on the evenings of Sunday, June 2nd, and Wednesday, June 5th?’

  ‘At home, I suppose. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Nobody. I believe that you know that I live on my own.’

  ‘I’ll tell you where you were on Sunday, Miss Gregg. You were in Norman Robinson’s room in the Feathers, seducing him … dancing in a belly dancer’s costume with a red fruit gum stuck in your navel, to represent a ruby. You’d taken two glasses and a bottle of red wine doctored with the juice of the monkshood flower. You got him worked up into such a state that he would have agreed to anything, and after a glass of that mixed with wine, it was all over.’

  ‘Have you got proof of this? Have you got CCTV of this? It’s well known that the Feathers has CCTV all over the place. If I had been there, the cameras would most certainly have recorded my presence.’

  ‘If you had entered and left by the back door, the door the staff use, and walked up the steps to the first floor instead of taking the lift, you would have avoided all the cameras. I discovered that when I used that exit to avoid a gathering of media in the reception area a few days ago.’

  She carried on as if he hadn’t said a word. ‘But I would imagine in a hotel of that standing, that the back door would always be locked, and only unlocked in response to a bell or a signal of some sort.’

  ‘That is quite right, Miss Gregg. You would know all about it. It’s a Yale lock. You can’t get in without somebody admitting you, but you can get out. That’s why you needed an accomplice to let you in. It was easy for me to work out his identity. You had recently got a man released, a man
who had a record a mile long. Thomas Johnson. And you, supposed to be prosecuting on behalf of the police! You had all his details. His address, phone number and so on. You set it up from this office, no doubt. We have a record of the date and time he phoned you here. And he was actually in the hotel bar drinking that evening. You had bribed him to let you in by the back door at a prearranged time.’

  ‘Ridiculous. Has Johnson told you this story?’

  ‘No, but when you are charged with murder, and he realizes that he might be charged as an accomplice, I think he will cough easily enough.’

  ‘That’s pure invention, Inspector. Why on earth would I want to murder anybody?’

  ‘Ambition. Everybody knows that you hope to be a judge in a very few years. Any scandal, such as having a baby with a tearaway before the legal age, would have very much put you at a disadvantage.’

  ‘You can’t prove this.’

  ‘We’ll see. And that brings me to the evening of Wednesday, June 5th. Where were you that night?’

  She pulled a sour face and shrugged.

  ‘At home, I expect. On your own?’ Angel said.

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘That was the evening that Patrick Novak was poisoned in the George hotel. Novak was a very nosey hospital porter, in a posh, Norfolk private hospital, where all the patients were either exceedingly rich or had need to keep their medical situation confidential. Everybody knows that your parents had great plans for you, and it must have come as a mighty blow to them when you became pregnant at seventeen especially to a penniless seventeen-year-old layabout. They must have had a bob or two to be able to afford to send you away to that private hospital in the middle of nowhere for your delivery. At this time, Patrick Novak was quietly feathering his nest, taking secret and illicit photographs of patients and their visitors, listening at keyholes, noting addresses and so on, to use, where possible, in situations that might arise. So when he read in the papers that Norman Robinson had died in that ghastly way, he put two and two together and considered that you were a ripe candidate for blackmail. So he contacted you and you repeated the dose as before. It was even easier for you. As Patrick Novak stayed in the George hotel, where there was no CCTV, you didn’t need an accomplice.’

  ‘And do you expect a jury to believe this … this fairy story?’

  ‘Absolutely, Miss Gregg. Because I can already prove most of it, and additional evidence is coming in all the time.’

  ‘You really believe that I would lower myself to put on a dancer’s costume … and … and perform for anybody, with a fruit gum in my navel?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I also believe that you poured petrol into Enoch Truelove’s shop and set fire to it in the certain knowledge that it would also burn out the fancy dress hire business on the floor above and thereby consume in the flames the woman’s hire book, receipt book and anything else that would show that you hired a belly dancer’s costume over that critical period. The tragic part of it was that old man Truelove lost his life trying to save his little greengrocer’s shop from ruin.’

  ‘You can’t prove that, either.’

  ‘I’m working on it. That’s three men you have killed. I hope you are pleased with yourself.’

  Angel’s remote rang. He reached down into his pocket and opened it up. ‘Angel,’ he said. ‘Yes, Don. Go ahead.’

  As the caller spoke, Angel listened to him but had his eyes on Juliet Gregg. She was trying to look calm, ordered and superior.

  ‘Thank you, Don. Goodbye.’ He closed the phone and put it in his pocket.

  ‘That was SOCO. We have a warrant to search your house. He is there now, and he reports that he has found two glass tumblers on your sideboard that exactly match the marks made by the two tumblers that had held poison and were present in both Norman Robinson’s and Patrick Novak’s rooms at their respective hotels.’

  ‘That’s impossible. And how dare you enter my house? If you have done any damage you will pay for it.’

  ‘He also said that in the wild-flower area of your very big garden there are more than sixty plants of monkshood.’

  She was breathing very deeply and trying to look unconcerned.

  Angel’s phone rang again. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to her as he answered it. ‘Angel,’ he said. ‘Yes, Trevor? Right. Give me the details.’

  Angel quickly took out his notebook and pen, and wrote as he listened.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right. Got that. … Right, goodbye.’ He replaced the phone and turned to back to Juliet Gregg.

  ‘And that was one of my sergeants to tell me that he has found the record which shows you were admitted to Coalsden Hospital on April 30th 2002, that you had a caesarean section on May 2nd and that a baby boy was delivered weighing 4 lbs 6 oz and that, sadly, the baby died a week later from breathing complications and pneumonia.’

  Juliet Gregg’s face turned to stone. ‘What has happened to everybody? That hospital was supposed to offer a completely private and confidential service. Can nobody do the job they are supposed to do?’

  Angel stood up.

  ‘I shall deny everything,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to get an easy ride.’

  Angel opened his coat to reveal a microphone clipped to his coat and a thin cable that disappeared round his back to his hip pocket. ‘It’s all recorded here,’ he said.

  She laughed loudly in an exaggerated, mocking way. ‘But you can’t use recordings in court, Angel,’ she said. ‘I would have thought you would have known that.’

  ‘It has also been transmitted to my sergeant, who should be in your reception area.’ He looked across at the office door, and in a quiet voice said, ‘Come in, Sergeant.’

  The door opened and Flora Carter came in, taking off the headset and patting down her hair.

  Juliet Gregg noisily sucked in a lungful of air. ‘No,’ she said, staring at the sergeant in disbelief.

  ‘Did you get all that, Flora?’ Angel said.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Juliet Gregg slowly stood up and continued to stare at the sergeant.

  ‘Cuff her,’ Angel said.

  Flora took a pair of handcuffs out of her pocket, crossed the room to the young barrister and said, ‘Miss Gregg, put your hands behind your back, please.’

  Juliet Gregg screamed out, ‘No! No!! No!!!’

  There was a mighty tussle, but between them, Angel and Flora Carter soon managed to get the handcuffs on her.

  Then Flora said, ‘Juliet Gregg, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything. …’

  Everybody in the station was both shocked and excited about the arrest of Juliet Gregg and congratulated Angel and the rest of the team.

  Later that day, Ahmed came into Angel’s office and said, ‘Can I ask you a question, sir?’

  Angel peered at him. ‘’Course you can, lad.’

  ‘Well, what I don’t understand is what first put you on to her, sir. I mean, she was ostensibly a pillar of respectability, wasn’t she?’

  He nodded. ‘Indeed she was. Well, Ahmed, it was a couple of days back when I realized that the murderer must be someone in the know about forensics, because the murderer on each occasion took the tumblers as well as the poisoned wine away with them after each murder. He or she knew that the glass tumblers that had held poison in them could have told SOCO such a lot.’

  Ahmed sat down and looked into Angel’s eyes.

  ‘I began to suspect old Marcus Twelvetrees,’ Angel said, ‘until I found out that the buying of the oriental lilies by Norman Robinson for his girlfriend had the ring of truth about it, because indeed, Robinson’s pockets showed that he hadn’t a bean, and dear old Enoch Truelove had said that Robinson hadn’t quite sufficient money on him to be able to pay the full price. Then, of course, I realized the murderer must be a woman. Well then, there was only one woman in the CPS it could be
, and that was Juliet Gregg.’

  Ahmed nodded and smiled.

  ‘Thereafter, I don’t know how the mind works,’ Angel said. ‘I just know that when you’ve eliminated everything it couldn’t be, you arrive at what it has to be and build on that. Which is what I did.’

  ‘Wow,’ Ahmed said with a big grin.

  Angel smiled.

  Angel closed the back door, locked it and looked round for Mary. Then he heard her running downstairs.

  He went to the fridge and took out a can of German beer and a tumbler from the cupboard.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘And congratulations.’

  She put her arms round him. He reciprocated while still holding onto the can and the glass. They kissed.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Can’t I kiss my husband if I want to?’

  ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Anytime. All the time.’

  They both smiled.

  ‘And congratulations on solving the case,’ Mary said.

  He stopped pouring the beer, frowned and said, ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I would never have guessed it was Juliet Gregg. I always thought she was, erm … erm … too posh.’

  ‘Nobody’s too posh, sweetheart. But how did you know?’ he said.

  ‘You see. You’re not the only detective in the house. Actually, Mrs Mackenzie has been on the phone to enrol me into assisting at the hospital library and she told me. She was amazed. She had been told by Mrs Dickens, who is a big noise in the WVS. She could hardly believe it. But it was her daughter, Tina Dickens, who works at the Criminal Prosecution Service, had rung her up and told her.’

  ‘I see,’ he said taking his first sip of the beer. Then he said, ‘Any post?’

  Mary smiled. ‘Well, erm … yes. A present.’

  He could see that there was something mischievous about her smile.