‘No. No,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Lot on my mind.’ He ran the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip. ‘Are you in a hurry?’
She blinked. ‘No, sir,’ she said as she walked back towards him.
‘Like to earn a bit of overtime? I am hopefully going out to arrest the serial killer.’
Her eyes and mouth opened wide. ‘Sir!’ she said.
He frowned. ‘I take it that’s a yes. Bring some handcuffs.’
Chapter Fifteen
Angel stopped the car outside 12a Mulberry Place, a big old Victorian house and pulled on the handbrake. ‘I don’t know whether he’ll be at home or not. I’ll try him on the front door. You go round the back. And be careful.’
Carter dashed off.
Angel walked slowly up the steps to give time for Carter to get in position. He looked at the unwashed windows and the dirty step. He frowned when he observed that the curtains in both of the front rooms were closed. He noticed the cobweb across the corner of the front door as he banged the knocker hard and loud. There was no reply. He waited a few moments then repeated the battering. There was still no reply. He went round the side of the house and saw Carter waiting by the back door.
She saw him and came over.
‘No reply,’ he said, licking his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.
‘What now, sir.’
‘We’re going to break in.’
She looked round for a window to break.
Angel noticed what she was doing. ‘No,’ he said.
He walked across to the back door and peered at the lock. ‘It’s only a two lever,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t take long.’
Carter watched in surprise as he took a slim case of lock-picking tools out of his inside pocket. ‘Hold this for me,’ he said.
She held the open case for him.
Firstly, he sorted out a blank key about the size of the lock, covered one side with white chalk, inserted it in the lock, turned it anticlockwise as far as it would go, withdrew it and checked it for marks. It told him what he needed to know. Then he carefully introduced a pick into the keyhole and then another. He soon had the first lever and had to fish round for the second. It took him a minute or so. He thought he had found it. He applied some pressure. There was a click and it was done. He returned the picks, the blank key and chalk to the case, took it from her, closed it and dropped it back into his inside pocket.
Carter said, ‘Is it unlocked?’
He nodded, turned the knob and pushed open the door.
‘Anybody here?’ he called. ‘This is the police.’
The door led straight into a large, old fashioned kitchen, meanly furnished and in need of a good clean.
‘Anybody here? This is the police,’ they called several times.
They walked quickly through it into a hall. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. A corner of the hall had the wallpaper peeling off. Cobwebs were draped from corner to corner. The floor was uncarpeted. There was the smell of stale food. There was no furniture.
Four doors led out of the hall.
Angel indicated to Carter to look in the rooms.
He looked in the nearest room, which was uncarpeted and had no furniture in it. A second was also empty. A third room was in darkness, the curtain was drawn to. He switched on the light. It had a computer on a bench, a large-screen TV, a chair and piles of magazines and newspapers on the floor. He put his hand on the top of the TV screen expecting it to be cold. It wasn’t.
He sucked in air. A thumping started in his chest. He realized the murderer could not be far away. He suddenly thought about Carter. He dashed out into the hall. She was on the stairs. He was relieved that she was all right. She saw him. Her face brightened. He ran up behind her.
‘Weird, sir?’ she said.
‘He’s in the house,’ he whispered. ‘Be careful.’
She gasped then gawped back at him, with big, startled eyes.
‘How do you know?’ she said.
He didn’t reply. He wished he had brought somebody with muscles like Gawber. He overtook her and reached the top of the stairs. He looked in one room. It was also unfurnished.
Carter looked in the room opposite.
He came back on the landing and had gone into another room when he heard her gasp.
‘Sir! Sir!’ Carter yelled.
‘Yes. Have you found him?’
He dashed out to the landing and bumped into her.
Her hands were shaking in front of her. She saw them as if they weren’t hers. Her face tightened. She stopped shaking and put them down by her side as if she was purposely steeling herself.
‘Have you found him?’ Angel said.
‘No, sir.’
‘What is it, then?’ he said.
Her eyes tracked to the door of the room she had just come out of. ‘In there, sir.’
Angel went up to the open door. His nose twitched. There was an unusual smell. He became immediately aware of warm air round his cheeks, ears and hands, and a smell of hot wax. As he went inside, he saw the amazing sight of many candles and nightlights lit - some on a table, some on the floor, and at the far side of the room, some on a dressing table reflected in a mirror. Then Angel saw that draped on a wall were four white bed sheets heavily stained in blood. He reckoned they would be the sheets worn as Roman-type garments by the murderer when he killed Luke Redman, Ingrid Underwood and Angus Peel.
He breathed in and out deeply. His pulse rate was very fast.
It was a big room. Probably the master bedroom. The candles produced an oppressive heat and a camphor like smell.
Carter came up close to him and said. ‘Where is he, sir?’ Angel shook his head. ‘Don’t know.’
He was wondering where he was, also thinking that possession of those sheets alone with his DNA as well as the victim’s on them would be enough to convict him and put him way forever.
There was a high table in front of the sheets, with four photographs, in frames, of the characters in Roman dress from the production twenty years earlier, and four brass candlesticks on it, each holding huge candles decorated with glitter and what looked like brightly coloured glass stones in red, green, blue and amber.
‘It’s a shrine,’ Angel said.
Carter’s jaw dropped open. ‘A shrine?’
They ventured further into the large room and saw another table with a lamp on it, also a large mirror and hat blocks on it. There was a golden-brown man’s wig on one, and a wreath of laurel leaves on the other. To the left of the mirror was a steel box with twenty or more sticks and pots of stage makeup, and to the right, a big open pot of cold cream, and three open packets of crepe hair in different colours.
They were so absorbed in all these materials that they failed to notice a man silently appear from behind one of the bloody bedsheets. He had his hands in his pockets.
He stared at them for a moment then said, ‘Ah. Inspector Angel and a beautiful young lady.’
His voice was as cold as the Christmas icicles that hang from Strangeways’ roof. ‘Breaking and entering my humble home. What are you doing here?’
Startled, they turned to face him.
Angel was on his mettle. ‘We’ve come to arrest you,’ he said.
‘Ha. You’ll never arrest me.’
‘It’s Mr Lamb,’ Carter said.
‘Oh you know me, Miss. I’m flattered,’ he said.
‘It’s not Kenneth Lamb,’ Angel said. ‘It’s Malcolm Malloy, in a mask.’
Carter frowned.
The man sniggered. ‘You’re right, as always, dear Inspector. Your reputation remains unsullied. You will be able to go to your grave knowing that you were right again. How ever did you find out? I thought I had covered my tracks perfectly.’
‘The hospital records, Malloy. You should have destroyed them.’
‘The hospital records? Huh. I didn’t need to. The switch was perfect. The man in the next bed died of similar burns to mine. It was an easy matter to wheel the beds round, swap over the notes, put
an extra roll of bandage over the dead man’s face, and the switch was made. The hospital was closing down the following day. The staff were in chaos. They were leaving for other jobs. I pretended to be asleep when the idiot nurse looked at me, then let the undertaker come in and take the dead man out. The plan was perfect.’
‘Wonderful,’ Angel said ironically.
‘Yes. I thought so,’ Malloy said. ‘You didn’t say what I missed.’
‘You didn’t destroy the ward plan. I only had to see the name of the other man in the ward, and it showed up the whole nasty business.’
‘Damn. I should have been more thorough. Damn. Damn. Damn.’
‘You probably ruined his family’s life, Malloy.’
‘Huh. He didn’t have any family, Inspector. Like me. He didn’t have anybody close. He didn’t have any visitors. Don’t you think I hadn’t thought of that? I watched that very carefully. We shared the ward for almost six weeks, we became very close. He had to have face reconstruction, as I had. It made us both look like freaks. Freaks! I have had to wear a prosthetic chin and half cheek ever since. But my instruction in make-up at stage school came in very handy. You never noticed, did you? If you didn’t have to touch my face, you would never have known.’
‘Of course I knew. I knew it wasn’t Lamb who stole the sheets. Like I knew you weren’t Lamb when you appeared so dramatically just now.’
‘How could you know? How did you know? My height is the same as his. The suit is similar to the one he wears. The mask is a fair likeness, and the skin colour identical!’
‘You have blue eyes, he has brown, and the mask does not flex and tighten naturally when you speak.’
Malloy breathed in noisily. He was not pleased. ‘There are limits to what one can expect of a mask, Inspector.’
‘What did you start it all for?’ Angel said. ‘Why murder the people who were your friends.’
‘They were not my friends. They were my competitors. While I was three years in and out of hospital, in unspeakable pain and being carved about, they were making relationships, marrying, having children, running businesses, establishing practices, becoming famous. Doing all the things normal people do. But not I. All I could do was take a backroom job, a humble clerk, where hardly anybody saw me. With a face like mine, I couldn’t even get a job as the hunchback of Notre Dame, much less as a leading man. I couldn’t kiss a woman – on stage or off – for fear she would be repelled by the coldness of my plastic lip. Why should it happen to me? What had I done? Why couldn’t it have happened to someone else? There are plenty of stupid, worthless, motiveless people out there in the world. Why me? I was set for great things. I was greatly talented. I was ready for all the Shakespearean, Dickensian and every other part. There isn’t a character I could not have played magnificently. I was set to pick up all the awards. Everybody said so. By now, I would have had a cupboard full of Oscars. My name would have been linked with all the big Hollywood names. I would have been chancellor of universities. Awarded the CBE. I would have been worth millions. Women would have been clamouring for my attention and I would have been swatting them away like flies. I would have made love to every desirable woman in the world and been searching for more. There would have been no end to it. Alas, it was not to be.’
Angel sniffed. ‘No, it was not.’ He stepped forward and said, ‘Malcolm Malloy, I am arresting you on -’
Malloy suddenly pulled his right hand, holding the silver dagger, out of his pocket. He held it up high. ‘Stay where you are, Inspector. Nobody is arresting anybody.’
Angel froze. His heart pounded.
Carter stared up at the weapon.
Angel took a deep breath, turned back to Malloy and said, ‘I have started the notice of arrest, I have to finish it.’
‘I have not finished my mission, Inspector. There are still two members of the conspiracy that have to be disposed of.’
‘No, Malloy. Put down the dagger down. Your killing spree is finished.’
Carter suddenly said, ‘Come on, Mr Malloy. I think your description of the mad man who has been badly treated has been most wonderfully portrayed and if it had been part of a screen trial, I reckon you would most certainly have got the part.’
Angel glanced at her, his mouth open. He wondered if she had gone mad.
‘Really?’ Malloy said. ‘Do you think so? You are so much more understanding than the Inspector.’
Angel blinked.
‘But I do think you should put the dagger down,’ Carter said. ‘You have made your point most eloquently, I thought. You know, Mr Malloy, it might be possible for you to take up writing plays for the stage or television. You could become another George Bernard Shaw or Alan Ayckbourn. Had you never thought of it?’
Malloy’s voice changed. It was softer and thoughtful. ‘Writing plays?’
‘If you have to go away for a while, you could write a play or a whole series for television. You would only need paper and a pen.’
Malloy’s voice changed. ‘I’ve certainly lots of ideas. Characters are always bouncing around in my head at night; they keep me awake. I never sleep for long. Some nights I never sleep at all.’
Angel watched and listened. He didn’t move.
‘You need some peace and quiet, Mr Malloy,’ she said. ‘Let’s start by getting rid of that dagger.’
Malloy blinked. Thought a moment, then lowered his hand with the dagger in it to his side.
‘Shall I take it, Malcolm? Can I call you Malcolm?’
‘Nobody has called me Malcolm in years. What’s your name?’
She stepped up to him with her hand open.
She forced a smile at Malloy. ‘DS Carter,’ she said.
Malloy looked at the dagger, gave a little shrug, turned the dagger round so that he was holding the blade and offered it to her.
Malloy was about three feet away from them both.
She reached out for it.
Angel held his breath.
Malloy smiled, then when she was almost touching the handle, he swiftly pulled his hand back and said, ‘Do you think I’m so stupid?’ In a split second he reversed his grip so that he was holding the dagger firmly by the handle and he reached up to make a stab at her.
Angel, who had not taken his eyes off the dagger, dashed forward and made a snatch for his wrist. Malloy looked amazed. He pulled against Angel’s grip but it was useless. He withdrew his hand from the other pocket and Carter saw that he had another knife. Malloy pressed the end and a blade flicked out, which he plunged into Angel’s back.
Carter saw blood spurt out, screamed, looked round for a weapon of some sort. She reached up to the crude altar beside her, snatched up the nearest candlestick, tossed out the lighted candle and landed a tremendous series of blows at Malloy’s head, chest and hand until her strength ran out.
Eventually, Malloy dropped the flick knife, turned, stared into her eyes and fell full length in front of her.
Angel fell over the top of him, now holding the dagger in his hand.
Flames flared up around the altar from the discarded candle.
‘Cuff him,’ Angel said panting and got to his feet.
As she did so, on her knees, she said, ‘I may have killed him.’
Angel saw the flick knife and kicked it towards the door. ‘Self-defence, if you have.’
‘Yes, but -’
‘He might be better off. If he’s alive, he’ll be sent to Rampton and never see the light of day again.’
Suddenly there was a roar of yellow flames as one of the sheets behind the altar caught fire. There was a carpet on fire and the covering on the altar was alight. The whole room was ablaze with candles and with fabrics and curtains on fire.
They set about stamping out the burning fabrics, dragging them to the floor and stamping on them. Smoke added to the confusion. There was a shortage of oxygen causing them to gasp. The flames took hold on the wallpaper and the curtains round the window. Angel took off his coat and tried to damp down the fl
ames. As fast as they put one fire out, another developed.
Angel took out his mobile and tapped in a number.
‘Control Room.’
‘This is DI Angel. Send an ambulance to 12a Mulberrry Place. Also report a fire there, also send two uniformed men ASAP. Don’t mess about. Matter of life and death.’
‘Right, sir.’
He closed the phone.
The figure on the floor wriggled.
Angel noticed and looked at Carter. She’d seen it too.
More flames roared up behind them.
‘Let’s get him out.’
Malloy was on his face, his handcuffed hands behind his back. They each put an arm through his and tried to move him. It was slow but they dragged him on to the landing, which was filling with smoke. One of Malloy’s trouser bottoms had caught fire. Angel stamped on it and put it out.
The room was an inferno of flames and candles and the heat was increasing. Angel, shielding his face with his arm, went back to the door and tried to close it. It was too late it fell to pieces in flames.
Malloy moved again. His eyes opened. Carter stooped down to look at him.
Angel looked back into the room. ‘We can’t do any more in there,’ he said. He moved further away from the doorway and began to put on his coat. There was blood on it. He looked at it surprised. Carter saw him.
‘He caught you with the knife.’
‘Where? I didn’t know.’
Angel found that it was near his side. It didn’t hurt, but it was oozing blood.
Carter looked at his bloody shirt and pulled a face.
There was a crash as something in the room fell down. The fire had developed a roar, and a regular crackling of burning timber.
Malloy groaned.
They looked down at him. His mask had partly melted in the heat and the scuffle.
Angel said, ‘We’ll have to get out of here.’
‘How,’ she said.
He looked down at the floor said, ‘Hey, Malloy. Can you stand up?’
‘What?’
‘Can you stand up?’
Malloy slowly shuffled round into a sitting position, then Angel pulled him up by the back of his shirt neck.
‘Are you all right?’
Shrine to Murder Page 16