The Big Fiddle

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Yes, sir. The case against them is that they conspired to steal the diamond.’

  ‘And you can prove it?’

  Angel had to think quickly. He wasn’t sure that he could prove it. He swiftly changed tack. ‘They are also charged with breaking into a bank and stealing – between them – £720,000,’ he said.

  ‘You have recovered that money, I hope?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Angel said. ‘It’s in the station safe.’

  ‘Hmm. I see that we have an unmarked patrol car out of service. I saw it as I came in this morning. How we are to manage without it, I really don’t know.’

  ‘It was unavoidable, sir. The robbers’ van was surrounded by our vehicles and the driver rammed his van into our car in a bid to escape. In no way was our driver to blame.’

  ‘It still means we will be one car short for goodness knows how long. And we shall have a heavy bill for the repairs. And your team will be putting overtime chits in, I expect? There’s another expense.’

  ‘They all did a very good job, sir. I also had to call in the FSU, sir.’

  ‘The FSU?’ he said, raising his bushy ginger eyebrows. ‘Dearie me, Angel. It gets worse. This operation is turning into a very expensive night out. How I keep this station within its budget, I don’t know. And it looks as if you didn’t catch the top man in this gang. I expect he escaped with the stone and we’ll never see it or him ever again.’

  Angel’s fists clenched. He knew this was a serious possibility.

  Harker said, ‘If ever you have to mount an expensive operation like this again, I need to know before you commit the force to such needless extravagance.’

  Angel shook his head. He didn’t think it was by any means an expensive operation. ‘There was no needless extravagance here, sir. We needed the FSU. The robbers were dangerously armed. We took three guns off them and two knives so we certainly needed armed support.’

  ‘But you failed to recover the diamond. The whole object of the exercise!’

  Angel didn’t have a satisfactory answer to the superintendent on that point so he said nothing.

  Harker saw that he was not answering. ‘The trouble with you, Angel, is that your head is too big. You think that because you’ve had your name in the paper a few times and had articles written about you that that makes you a genius, and God’s gift to the police force. Well, let me acquaint you with the real situation: you are not. You bumble your way from one investigation to another, eventually falling over a solution. And hey presto! Like a conjuror pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you appear to have solved the crime. Now, I know you’ve always solved the cases you’ve been given in the past, but your good luck has to come to an end. And this case looks like being the one to do it. Now buzz off and find that diamond, if you can, without incurring this station in any more wasteful and unnecessary expense.’

  Angel came out of Harker’s office fuming. He stormed back down to his office, and met DS Carter at the door.

  ‘What do you want, lass? And what are you doing here anyway? I told everybody on last night’s op there was no need to come in until ten o’clock.’

  She shrugged. ‘Do you want me to go home?’ she said with a grin.

  ‘No. Not now you’re here. Come in. I must just make this call to Don Taylor.’

  They went into his office. He reached out for the phone and tapped in a single digit.

  ‘Don, have you started on that white van yet?’

  ‘We are just unwrapping it now, sir.’

  ‘It is possible that one of the thieves hid the diamond pendant somewhere in the bodywork or under the upholstery. The same is possible in the Black Maria. Will you give both vehicles a very, very close search and let me know instantly if you find anything?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  He closed the phone, replaced it and turned to Carter. ‘Now, Flora, what did you want?’

  Before she could reply, the phone rang. He reached out for it. ‘Angel.’

  A rich, but menacing voice of an educated man who thought he was a superior being said, ‘I left a message for you.’

  It was the voice of the person Angel knew as Edward Oliver.

  Angel’s blood ran cold. His pulse began to race. He held his breath. But he had the presence of mind to press the record button on the telephone.

  The voice continued: ‘The message said, “Inspector A – don’t get in my way.” It was left in red. Have you forgotten it already?’

  Flora knew that something was wrong. They exchanged glances. Angel snatched up his pen and scribbled on the paper nearest to him, ‘Trace this call.’ Then he turned it towards her, she read it, nodded and rushed out of the office.

  ‘Are you there?’ the voice said. ‘I see that I have your attention.’

  His voice was like icicles Angel had seen hanging from the roof outside latrines at Strangeways.

  ‘I am here all right, Mr Oliver. Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘You defied me, Angel,’ the voice continued, ‘yes, you defied me. Not only did you stop me from getting the money Piddington had stolen from the bank, but you also tried to stop me getting the Mermaid Diamond. Nobody pulls two strokes across me and gets off scot-free. Oh no. Now, Angel, I have a young woman here, a very beautiful young woman, who wants to speak to you. I don’t know if I should let her. Hold on, I’ll see if she wants to be nice to me. If she does, I’ll let her speak to you.’

  Angel’s heart was beating so strongly, he thought it might break out through his shirt. He couldn’t imagine who he could mean.

  ‘Who is it, you bastard?’ Angel said. ‘Who is it?’

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  ‘Michael. Oh Michael, darling,’ she said.

  It was Mary. His beloved wife.

  ‘This man is wearing a black hood,’ she said.

  Every muscle in Angel’s body tightened. The monster had Mary in his clutches.

  ‘I am here, Mary,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I have no idea who he is. I beg of you, do as he says. He says he’ll kill me if you tell anyone there, but you’re to look at the CD in the computer at home.’

  ‘Mary,’ Angel began. But the phone call had abruptly ended.

  Inside, his chest was burning like a furnace. It felt as if it would burst. He had never known that he loved Mary so much. He dropped the phone and ran out to his car.

  Flora saw him fly past her on the corridor. She saw his face and knew something was very wrong. She went into his office, saw the phone thrown down on the desk. She picked it up and put it to her ear. There was nothing. Then she remembered that he had pressed the record button. She pressed the green playback button and listened to the conversation he had had with the man only three minutes ago. She was shocked when she heard the playback. She couldn’t decide what to do. She knew she couldn’t do nothing. She decided to race after him and offer to help despite the threat. She put the phone back in its holster and rushed out to the car park. She knew his first stop would be his home to play the CD.

  Angel drove the BMW like a madman. He saw only what was directly ahead in his path. He arrived at home in record time. He dashed into the unlocked house and went straight into the sitting room where the computer was set up on a bureau in an alcove at the side of the fireplace. He switched it on and impatiently waited for it to go through its processes. In the computer tower was a drawer for CDs. He pressed the button and the drawer came out with a disc on it. He glanced at the disc. It had a blank label unfamiliar to him. That must be the one.

  He was about to play it when he heard a noise in the hallway. He gasped. Every nerve in his body tightened.

  It was Flora Carter.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

  ‘I followed you.’

  He shook his head and returned to the computer. He put the cursor on the start button and clicked on it.

  On the screen it showed a man wearing a black hood with slot holes for eyes. He was pointing a handgun at
Mary. Mary was seated with her wrists tied to the arms of a chair. Mary said, ‘He wants me to say that you’ve to look in slot 212 in the bird’s waterproof.’

  Then the computer screen went black.

  ‘Look in slot 212 in the bird’s waterproof,’ Flora said. ‘It’s a sort of puzzle, or conundrum … like a crossword clue. What’s it mean?’

  ‘It is a crossword clue,’ Angel said. His face looked grim. ‘Slot 212 means a letterbox of a house or a flat. Very rare to have flats numbering up to 212. It must be a house number, but which street?’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘There are millions of streets.’

  ‘What’s a bird’s waterproof. Birds don’t have waterproof coats or anything.’

  ‘They do. Their coats. Their feathers are waterproof.’

  ‘Oh yes … their feathers …’

  ‘The Feathers,’ he said. ‘The Feathers Hotel. Slot 212. I’ve got it.’

  He dashed out to the street to the BMW and drove off.

  Flora closed down the computer, came out of the house and closed the door. She followed him to the Feathers in her own car.

  Angel dashed up to the reception desk and asked if there was any mail for room 212. The clerk turned round, looked along the key slots and found one envelope. He passed it over to Angel.

  Angel moved away from the desk and tore open the envelope. The single sheet of paper inside read: ‘Still with us, Angel? Try this. No apples. Just water, but in a tin. RLS.’

  He groaned, slumped into a seat in the reception area and stared at the paper.

  Flora came in through the rotating doors, saw him and rushed over.

  ‘There you are,’ she said.

  He looked up and passed her the note.

  She sat down next to him and read it aloud: ‘No apples. Just water, but in a tin. RLS.’

  ‘It’s a toughie,’ Angel said.

  ‘Who do you know with the initials RLS, sir?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking … I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever put away or worked with … it’s a Robert, Roger, Ralph, Raymond … or to take the surname, Smith, Sunderland, Scott, Southall, Stevenson … I don’t know, there must be hundreds.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘The only name that comes to mind is Robert Louis Stevenson. But he didn’t write this clue. It’s not him.’

  Flora closed her eyes and said, ‘I can’t think …’

  ‘“No apples,”’ he said, repeating the clue. ‘Years ago they used to put apples in a barrel.’

  ‘In that story …’

  ‘Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.’

  ‘That’s it,’ she said.

  ‘The boy hides in an apple barrel. An apple barrel.’

  ‘“No apples. Just water,”’ she said reading the clue again.

  ‘Does that mean a water barrel? The only water barrel I know of round here is at the vicarage.’

  He dashed out of the Feathers. Flora caught up with him at the door of the BMW. ‘Shall I come with you, sir?’

  Abstractedly, he pointed to the nearside door of the car.

  ‘Shall I drive?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  She got into the car.

  Angel drove like a madman. Flora hung onto the seatbelt as the BMW rocked wildly from one side to the other. The car roared along Park Road, then turned right down a narrow lane and through the vicarage gates. It careered down the drive, spraying the recently laid shale like water, and stopped with a jerk at the front door. He dashed out of the car and up to the doorbell, pressed it, then without waiting for a reply, ran to the back of the house to a water barrel set up on bricks with a metal cover, designed to collect rainwater. He yanked off the cover. It was almost full. Floating on the surface of the water was a tin that had once held tobacco. He picked it out of the water, removed the lid and found inside a folded piece of paper.

  Flora caught up with him. ‘What’s it say?’

  Angel’s heart sank. He had had enough of this stupid game. He wanted to get to Mary. It made him sick thinking what might be happening to her. He quickly tore open the paper. It said: ‘You are on form, Angel. Try this – inside, but outside where it’s cold, where your missives may be held in contradiction to gravity.’

  He read the clue again, pulled a face like thunder, then passed the note to Flora.

  ‘He’s got me beat this time.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t, sir. You can do it.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. What’s he mean, “Inside, but outside where it’s cold”? Where is it cold?’ Angel said.

  ‘The Arctic, the Antarctic, the sea generally, cold-rooms, refrigerators …’

  ‘It says, “Inside but outside where it’s cold”. Does that mean on the outside of cold-rooms and refrigerators that are inside a building, as opposed to the Arctic where it is cold outside?’

  ‘I should think so, sir. Give it a try.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, why does it say, “outside where it’s cold”?’ Angel said, rubbing his chin. ‘Not inside. Not inside the cold-room or the refrigerator.’

  ‘“Where your missives may be held in contradiction to gravity,”’ Flora said.

  ‘A missive is a letter or a note or some sort of communication, isn’t it? He’s put the word “your”, so it means my office or home or car or wherever.’

  ‘What’s “held in contradiction to gravity”?’

  Angel shook his head. ‘I don’t even know what he means. I suppose he means something that defies gravity? But nothing defies gravity, does it?’

  ‘Say a ball bouncing, the sponginess in the ball causes the ball to bounce up in the air. Is that defying gravity?’

  ‘In a way it is. You could say that all aeroplanes defy gravity,’ he said.

  ‘And birds and chickens, they fly. And kangaroos, they jump.’

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not kangaroos,’ he said. ‘Right, Flora, what have we got now?’

  ‘Not inside the cold-room or refrigerator, where your letters or notes are held, defying gravity, like aeroplanes, birds or chickens.’

  Angel shook his head. He sighed. ‘I don’t know, Flora. I really don’t know. While we are playing this damned silly parlour game, what’s happening to Mary? That man is clearly off his head.’

  ‘But sir, we have to solve this to get to Mary.’

  He took a deep breath and said, ‘Yes. All right. What have we got, then?’

  Flora said, ‘Not inside the cold-room or refrigerator, where your letters or notes are held, defying gravity.’

  Angel suddenly said, ‘I know who that Edward Oliver is. He was a freelance crossword- and puzzle-setter for newspapers and magazines. It’s quite terrifying. His real name was Dennis Reville. He murdered his wife in the most cruel way … must be twelve years ago. I arrested him. He always threatened to get back at me. His brief put up a brilliant defence. He brought psychiatrists in to testify from all over the place. They said he was a psycho. The judge sent him to Wilefowle, north of the county, at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Hadn’t heard he’d escaped.’

  ‘We must solve this, sir,’ Flora said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Oh yes. Outside a cold-room or refrigerator, where your letters or notes are defying gravity.’

  Suddenly his eyes stopped roving around. His mouth dropped open. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said.

  He ran to the driver’s door of the BMW. Flora had to be quick. He pulled away before she had closed the car door.

  ‘What does it mean, then?’ she said when she had her seatbelt fastened.

  ‘He means the next clue is under a magnet on the fridge in our kitchen!’ he said as he whisked the steering wheel round to take a corner.

  She nodded as her mind caught up with his explanation.

  It was another scary race across Bromersley.

  Eventually they arrived at his house. He dashed out of the car, leaving the door open, raced into the house to the fridge. There was a note waiting for him. He snatched it from under a magnet. It read, ‘Go back two.’ His
eyes flashed. That must mean go back to the vicarage. He raced back to the BMW. The paper with the clue was left floating to the floor as Flora arrived in the kitchen. She saw it, picked it up, read it, then rushed out of the house.

  Angel was already driving away when Flora arrived at the kerb. She stood there, mouth open, watching the BMW race down the road, and hearing the low purr of the exhaust. As he turned at the end of the street, she took out her mobile and tapped in a number.

  Angel’s mind was everywhere. He was frantic with worry. As the car rocked from side to side, he suddenly had a thought. He had rung the doorbell at the vicarage, and there had been no reply. Even if the vicar was out, there was his wife and his housekeeper who could have answered. He had never found the vicarage unoccupied. Even when the vicar and his wife were on holiday a covering priest from Wakefield used to stay in the house.

  NINETEEN

  Meanwhile inside the vicarage, Dennis Reville, the tall, dark and handsome man with the cherubic face, had been busy drilling holes in the woodwork of the sitting room and fitting up a cord threaded to the sneck on the old door then through eye-hole screws directly to the trigger of a rifle fastened to a chair and aimed directly at Mary, who was fastened to a chair by her wrists and ankles.

  ‘You see, my dear,’ Reville said to her, ‘your dear husband has only to lift the sneck of the door to enter and it will tighten this cord which will pull the trigger of the rifle and you will be out of the world for good. And he will have murdered you. Isn’t that a hoot?’

  Mary screamed, then said, ‘You’ll never get away with it.’

  He walked behind the chair, produced a scarf and gloves. He stuffed the gloves through her teeth.

  ‘Oh, yes I will,’ he said with a big laugh, as he tightened the scarf over her mouth and tied several knots in it. ‘And your dear Michael will spend the rest of his life in torment.’

  He then turned and switched on an audio tape recorder.

  Angel arrived in the BMW at the vicarage, spraying the shale around the drive. He leaped out of the car and went up to the front door. He banged the Victorian knocker hard and the door opened two or three inches, as if it had not been closed properly. He pushed it open and called out, ‘Anybody there? Michael Angel here! Vicar!’