The Big Fiddle

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Yes, sir. With a key.’

  ‘Could he describe him?’

  ‘Tall, black hair, athletic and young looking.’

  ‘Young looking? What did he mean exactly?’

  Crisp screwed up his face. ‘Not sure, sir.’

  Angel blew out a yard of air, then said, ‘Well, you’d better go and find out. That man is very possibly her murderer! And I need the best possible description of the man you can get. Wake up, lad. And find out if they spoke. If it was only, “Good morning” he might have given his accent away or he might even have had a speech impediment.’

  Crisp stood up. ‘Raymond Rich will be at work now, sir,’ he said. ‘He works at Beasley’s Foundries in Sheffield.’

  ‘I don’t care where he works, just find out as much as you can. And you’d better phone me when you get a result. Anything at all. Best ring on my mobile. I don’t know quite where I’ll be. I’m going out imminently to see Piddington’s daughter.’

  SEVEN

  The delightful smell of the multicoloured blooms in the little flower kiosk just off the busy main road in the centre of Bromersley greeted Angel as he went through the open door. He glanced round. There was only a young girl at the small counter.

  ‘Can I see Mrs Elsworth, please,’ he said.

  The girl peered round a doorway behind her and said, ‘There’s a man asking to see you, Christine.’

  A second later Christine Elsworth appeared wearing a navy blue overall. She didn’t look pleased when she saw it was Angel.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Elsworth,’ he said. ‘Can we go somewhere quiet and talk?’

  She nodded. ‘Come in the back. It’s not very big, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said.

  He followed her behind the counter, through the doorway and into the small back room. The little room had had its door removed to make more space. It had a workbench, two stools, stacks of boxes, rolls of wrapping paper and twenty or so varieties of flowers in green tin vases of water standing on the floor. There was a strong smell of fresh greenery. On the bench was a metal tray in the shape of a cross. It was filled with wet oasis cut to fit and partly decorated with small red rosebuds. Angel looked at it curiously.

  ‘I was busy with that,’ she said as she sprayed the rosebuds with a fine mist of water. ‘But it’s all right. It’ll keep. It’s not wanted until two o’clock.’

  In the background, Angel could still hear the murmur of dialogue between customers coming into the shop and the young assistant’s softer and even quieter replies. It was cramped, but Angel had interviewed people in much worse conditions.

  Christine Elsworth pointed to one of the stools. She put the spray on a shelf under the bench and sat on the other stool.

  ‘I expected to hear from you yesterday,’ she said.

  Angel sat on the stool. He licked his lower lip. ‘Yes. Sorry about that. It was an exceptionally busy day.’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  He thought she must not have heard about the murder of her father’s carer.

  ‘I went to interview Nancy Quinn and regrettably found her dead,’ he said. ‘She had been murdered.’

  Christine Elsworth’s face changed. Her jaw fell and her mouth dropped open. ‘How awful,’ she said. After a few moments she said, ‘It makes me ashamed, Inspector.’

  ‘Ashamed?’ he said.

  ‘I thought that she might have murdered my father.’

  ‘We’re still looking into that.’

  Christine Elsworth shook her head.

  ‘I have a few questions I must ask you,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Who benefits from the death of your father?’

  She frowned. ‘I wouldn’t have thought my father’s will was relevant, Inspector. It isn’t as if he was a rich man. As it happens, I am his only child and he made me sole beneficiary.’

  ‘So what will you inherit, Mrs Elsworth?’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t thought about it. I know he has between two and three thousand in the bank plus this house and what bit of furniture there is, that’s all.’

  ‘Is the mortgage paid off?’

  ‘Yes, I’m glad to say that it is. He paid that off years ago.’

  Angel nodded thoughtfully. ‘Good. Good.’

  He wished his mortgage was paid off. He wondered how her flower business was doing. If the rent wasn’t too high and sales were healthy, she could be doing very nicely, even in the recession.

  ‘Do you have an accountant, Mrs Elsworth?’

  ‘Of course. King and Company on Victoria Road. Only a small practice … I can afford his charges. Why?’

  ‘Might need to speak to him,’ he said.

  She flushed round the neck and the redness spread to her cheeks.

  ‘It would be in absolute confidence,’ he said. ‘I want to eliminate you from our suspect list just as much as you do. In cases of murder the family is always suspected first and needs to be eliminated.’

  She turned away, pulled a tissue out of her overall pocket and dabbed her eyes. ‘It’s outrageous … what you are insinuating.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Elsworth. Murder is a rotten business. But don’t you worry. If you are innocent, you have nothing to worry about.’

  He waited a few moments for her to recover her composure, then said, ‘Your daughter, Moira. I need to speak to her.’

  ‘Moira knows nothing. She can’t help you. What do you want to see her for?’

  ‘To exclude her from our investigations. If she’s innocent she’s nothing to worry about either.’

  ‘Oh dear. Isn’t it enough that we’ve lost a father and a grandfather without being accused of being responsible for his murder?’

  ‘I’m not accusing anybody of anything. Just tell me how I can get in touch with her. Where does she work?’

  ‘She’s between jobs at the moment. I can probably reach her on her mobile,’ she said. She took out a phone from the pocket in her overall, tapped several buttons and put it to her ear. Then she looked at Angel sternly and said, ‘Whatever arrangement you make to interview her, I want to be present, Inspector.’

  Angel shook his head slowly. ‘She’s over eighteen, isn’t she?’

  Christine Elsworth looked away from him and began to speak into the phone. ‘It’s me, darling. Listen. I am with that policeman I told you about … yes, that’s the one. Now he wants to meet you … to interview you … to ask you some questions. … I don’t know. … He’s at the shop.… You can? Well, where are you now? … Hold on, I’ll ask him.’

  She held the phone away from her mouth and said, ‘She’s the other side of town, Inspector. She was going to drop in here to see me this morning anyway. She can be here in five or ten minutes if that would be convenient to you.’

  Angel nodded. ‘That would be fine.’

  She returned to the phone. ‘Marvellous, darling … look forward to seeing you … well, bring him with you … he can wait in the shop … well, that’s up to him, isn’t it … ’bye.’

  She closed the phone and dropped it into her overall pocket. ‘She’s shopping with her new boyfriend.’

  Angel looked at her. It sounded interesting. ‘What’s he like, the new boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh, very smart. Nicely spoken. Clean. Usually wears a suit. Much more civilized than the unshaven, tattooed, scruffy, jean-clad layabouts I’ve seen her with of late. She might bring him with her. I hope you won’t say anything that might affect their relationship, Inspector. My mother made life difficult and embarrassing for me and my acquaintances when I was young. I vowed I would not be so critical of Moira’s friends.’

  Angel shrugged. ‘Have you any thoughts on who might have wanted to murder your father?’

  ‘No. None at all.’

  ‘Nobody, as far as you know, had a grudge or a disagreement with your father … anything at all?’

  ‘No. He never spoke of anything. And we were very close, p
articularly lately.’

  ‘And his granddaughter, your daughter, Moira, did he get on well with her?’

  She glared at Angel. ‘Of course he did,’ she said. ‘What do you think we are, a family of heathens?’

  Angel was surprised by her response. ‘A simple “yes” would have been a more than adequate reply, Mrs Elsworth. Now, about Nancy Quinn. What can you tell me about her?’

  ‘Do you think she murdered my father?’

  ‘We are leaving that question open for the time being. Did Nancy Quinn come with good references?’

  ‘Well Inspector, I can’t say that she did. That’s not to say that she came with bad references. I was so desperate I believe I took her at face value. At the interview, I thought she was satisfactory and as there was nothing valuable in the house, I didn’t think I needed to bother about her honesty. I just needed her to see that Dad was clean, comfortable and well fed. I never thought of anything else.’

  ‘So you knew nothing of her history or her background?’

  ‘I knew she had no formal qualifications. She admitted that straightaway.…’

  Angel heard the girl in the shop say, ‘Good morning, Moira,’ behind him.

  It was followed by a rustle of clothes.

  Moira Elsworth entered the little workroom.

  Christine Elsworth slid off the stool and stepped up to her daughter, arms outstretched.

  ‘Darling,’ Christine said and turned her cheek towards Moira, who pressed her lips briefly on it.

  ‘How lovely to see you,’ Christine said.

  Moira looked uncertain and said, ‘Yes, hello, Mummy.’

  Angel looked the girl up and down.

  Moira was a 20-year-old stunner in a summer dress.

  She turned to Angel, smiled and said, ‘And this is the famous policeman you were telling me about? How do you do, Inspector?’

  He smiled and nodded. She was easy to smile at.

  ‘I’ve read about you in the papers,’ Moira Elsworth said. ‘It said that – like the Mounties – you always get your man. I’ve got to ask you, is that really true?’

  Angel licked his bottom lip. He hated that tag. Because inevitably the odds were that a case would crop up where there simply wasn’t enough evidence and he would not be able to prove the guilt of a suspect. He hoped it wouldn’t happen in this case. He swallowed, then said, ‘It has been up to now, miss.’

  ‘The Inspector wants to ask you a few questions, Moira,’ Christine Elsworth said.

  ‘Call me Moira, Inspector please. And let’s hope you get your man this time.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, Moira,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope so. And thank you. But I need your help. And your mother’s right: I do want to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Excuse me, Inspector,’ Christine Elsworth said. She looked at Moira and said, ‘Did Charles bring you – is he in the shop waiting for you?’

  Angel saw the muscles round Moira’s mouth tighten. ‘No, Mummy,’ Moira said. ‘He dropped me off and went off to fill up with petrol.’

  Angel looked at Christine. He wasn’t pleased.

  ‘Sorry,’ Christine Elsworth said. ‘I didn’t want him hanging around, that’s all….’

  ‘Moira,’ Angel said. ‘Did you get on well with your grandfather?’

  ‘Oh yes, Inspector. He was a lovely man … a substitute father to me for years until his memory went about two years ago. Then he didn’t seem to respond much to us any more. He would look at me and smile. He knew I was a friendly face, but he didn’t seem to know who I was exactly.’

  ‘Did you see much of him lately?’

  ‘Not as much as I should have done, I know,’ Moira said. ‘I called in to see him about a week ago, briefly. He seemed fine. He was watching a cowboy film on the television. He turned it off when we came in. I said there was no need. He didn’t know me and, of course, he didn’t know Charles, but he was pleased to see us. He started on with his rambling, so I asked him if there was anything he wanted. He didn’t seem to understand. He looked warm and comfortable, and tolerably happy. We couldn’t understand what he was on about and he didn’t listen to us, or wouldn’t listen, so, after a while, we left.’

  Angel frowned. ‘And what was he rambling on about?’ he said.

  Christine Elsworth butted in and said, ‘Just words that don’t make sense repeated and repeated.’

  Angel looked hard at her, then turned back to Moira Elsworth and said, ‘What exactly did he say? Can you remember any of it?’

  Christine Elsworth said, ‘I’ve told you. It’s just words that don’t make any sense repeated over and over again.’

  Angel glared at her. He was furious. ‘Mrs Elsworth, if you can’t keep quiet and let your daughter answer for herself, I’ll book you for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty.’

  Moira said, ‘As far as I could make out, he was saying, “There’re thousands and thousands.” He kept repeating that, then, sometimes he said, “There’re thousands and thousands of pounds.” That’s all. He was trying to tell us something, but I don’t know what.’

  Angel rubbed his chin.

  ‘Tell me, Moira. Where were you on Sunday night at around ten o’clock?’

  ‘Ten o’clock? I was with Charles at his flat in Tunistone.’

  ‘If I’m allowed to speak,’ Christine said, looking at Angel, ‘I can confirm that that is so. I spoke to her on the phone about then … only to find out what sort of a day she’d had. She said that she was tired, having been out all day with Charles in Knaresborough. Mother Shipton’s Cave and all that.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Moira said. ‘We rowed up and down the river … I was tired out. Got in about eight o’clock.’

  ‘I was at home finishing the ironing,’ Christine Elsworth said.

  ‘Thank you very much, both of you,’ Angel said. ‘I think that’s about it for now.’

  They both looked pleased.

  He turned towards the way out, then he looked back.

  ‘One more thing, Moira,’ he said. ‘Will you call into the station some time soon, and bring your friend, Charles … erm, what’s his name?’ Then he paused and looked at her with eyebrows raised.

  ‘Morris,’ Moira said. ‘His name is Charles Morris.’

  ‘Morris, thank you. Yes, Charles Morris. We need your fingerprints – and his – to eliminate them from those found in your grandfather’s house. All right?’

  ‘All right, Inspector,’ Moira said, sounding confident, but then she half closed her eyes and licked her bottom lip as her stomach turned over and a shiver went down her spine.

  Angel left Christine and Moira Elsworth at the flower kiosk and returned to the BMW parked down High Street. He got inside, pulled out his mobile and tapped in a number.

  Ahmed answered. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Ah yes, lad. Find out what you can about a Charles Morris. There’s not much I can tell you. I expect he’ll be in the age range twenty-five to forty-five. See if he’s known to us, and ring me back. And is Ted Scrivens there?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s at his desk.’

  ‘Let me speak to him, will you?’

  ‘Yes sir, just a minute.’

  ‘DC Scrivens here, sir.’

  ‘Ted, I want you to go to Nancy Quinn’s flat and look for a newspaper dated last Sunday. It should still be there. It might have been binned, but wherever it is, find it and stuff it in an evidence bag. Also find a bottle of milk, probably in the fridge; it might be a plastic bottle, put that in a bag also. Take both items to Don Taylor to see if there are any good prints on either of them.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘Hang on. I want you to do something else. DS Crisp has found a witness who saw a man entering Nancy Quinn’s flat at around ten o’clock on Sunday morning last with those two items. Find the nearest, likely place a man might go at ten o’clock on a cold, May Sunday morning to buy a bottle of milk and a newspaper, if he was bunked up with Nancy Quinn. It’s not likely to be far from there
. And I can’t be certain, but I would expect him to get both items from the same shop. I want a full description of the man. He could possibly be her murderer. See what you can do. All right?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Angel closed the mobile. His heart felt lighter. He was quite pleased he had given that highly critical job to Scrivens. There was a young detective who was not academically gifted, but he was very hard-working, reliable and honest.

  He pocketed the mobile and started the car engine.

  It was only a couple of side streets away to Victoria Road. He drove the car slowly so that he could read the painted windows and, in some cases, the brass plates of the many solicitors, accountants, estate agents, veterinary surgeries, dentists and sandwich shops all crammed together in that short road. He saw a plate that read: King and Co., Accountants. That was the one he wanted.

  He stopped the BMW and made his way up to the door. The card in the glass panel in the door read Enter. He turned the doorknob and went in.

  The top corner of the door hit a lever that caused a large curly spring with a bell in the centre to bounce about, making a loud ring. A man wearing spectacles with thick lenses and spidery frames came through a door into the hall. He was dressed in a shiny blue suit, collar and tie.

  Angel introduced himself and asked to see the person who dealt with the business affairs of Mrs Christine Elsworth.

  ‘That would be me, Inspector. Andrew King. There is only me. Please come through.’

  Angel followed him into an office comprising a big desk, six long tables and three chairs. The desk, chairs, tables and part of the floor were covered with piles of papers, letters, brown envelopes, account books, ledgers and tax tables.

  ‘Sit down,’ King said, pointing to a chair; then he saw the clutter of papers on it.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. He rushed over, gathered everything up until he had an arm-load and then looked around for somewhere to put it. He decided that the floor was the only option. He eventually selected a space and deposited it all there.

  ‘There we are,’ he said. ‘Sorry about all this. The year-end. It’s my busiest time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Angel said.

  King settled down at his desk, leaned forward and said, ‘Now, Inspector, what do you want to know?’