The Wigmaker

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel sighed, nodded resignedly and picked up his glass.

  Corcoran said: ‘I could easily have invented a tale about a mysterious witness, to oil the situation, but I am not as wicked as all that, not to a good friend like you, Inspector Angel.’

  Nevertheless, Angel thought he must have told him some whoppers in his day. ‘Thank you for trying, John.’

  Corcoran nodded and sipped the black stuff.

  They looked round the quiet bar. There were only two other men in the place.

  Angel said: ‘Did you get the chauffeuring job then, John?’

  ‘No, sir. The suit was all right, but the hat didn’t fit,’ Corcoran said and returned to the Guinness.

  Angel smiled. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not. The pay was rubbish. I was on the way to the Labour when you saw me.’

  ‘Ah,’ Angel said and put down the glass.

  He was wondering whether he should give him a tenner or a twenty for his efforts, although he hadn’t been of any use at all. He decided on a twenty. He liked the man, he wasn’t grasping, he wasn’t devious and he wasn’t oily; he would almost certainly have spent the money issued to him on his release from HMP Boston.

  Angel reached into his pocket and took out his wallet.

  Corcoran’s bushy eyebrows went up. ‘Oh no, Inspector Angel, no handouts, please. I didn’t find nuthin’ out.’

  ‘Treat it as a sort of … retainer,’ Angel said.

  Corcoran blinked. ‘You’re putting me on the books, loike?’

  Angel nodded.

  It seemed to satisfy Corcoran’s scruples.

  Angel opened the wallet on the table. The three photographs were still in the fold. The top one was Gabriel Grainger. The Irishman saw it. He pointed to it and smiled. ‘Huh! Are you looking for him?’

  Angel looked up. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I was on the same landing as him in the whole time I was in Armley in 2004,’ he said.

  Angel’s jaw dropped.

  ‘Ten long months. Poncy sort of chap. Always working out in the gymnasium he was. On exercise, he walked in the sun, if there was any. Never in the shade. He said he was trying to keep up a good skin colour.’

  Angel’s brain was playing snakes and ladders at the speed of broadband. ‘Did you know him well? Did you know his name?’ he said quickly.

  He nodded. ‘Graingerthestranger. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him. He was one of the saner prisoners.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. What else can you tell me about him?’

  Corcoran frowned. ‘Nuthin. You must want him for some-thin’ big?’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘No, John. No. He’s missing, that’s all. His wife’s worrying about him. As a matter of fact, he lives round here … in Bromersley.’

  ‘Oh yes. I know’d that. I know’d that. Funny thing. I saw him about tree weeks ago.’

  Angel’s breathed in quickly. ‘Where? Who with? When?’

  Corcoran smiled. It was a rare occurrence. ‘My goodness, he must be important. Whatever did he do?’

  ‘He didn’t do anything. But I’d like to find him. Where did you see him?’

  ‘In the refreshment room at the railway station. He bought me a drink and the girl serving behind the counter. He bought me a bottle of Guinness and the girl a light ale, I remember. He had a wallet full of money. Flashed it about. Seemed he wanted everybody to see it. If he’d done that down some of the quayside pubs in Dublin he wouldn’t have got far before he would have been relieved of it, I can tell you. Anyway, he certainly caught the eye of the serving girl, and after that, and a bit of mucky chat and sniggering, it was only the wooden counter that prevented them from having to publish the banns to make it all legal. Talk about charm and good looks, Inspector. If anyone could have gotten Cherie Blair out of Number Ten any earlier, I reckon he could’ve done it.’

  ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘Oh yes. He asked me when I had got out and I told him. He asked me about what job I had got and I told him I was still looking round. The rest of the conversation was more in the form of an address. He told me that he had a very posh job for a very wealthy person, and that he was going places … going up in the world. He was certainly well-turned-out. Smart suit, raincoat and suitcase. And the job required him to travel away from home for the time being, everything paid for. Mindst you, he was talking partly for the benefit of the skirt behind the counter – boastful you know – who was lapping up all the honey he could make and hanging on his every word. It was wasted though, because his train came in and he had to leave her panting for more. However, she had to forget him when she was obliged to serve the neglected customers waiting patiently behind the counter for her attention.’

  ‘And where was the train headed for?’

  ‘Leeds, I tink … but he was going further, much further.’

  ‘He could change at Leeds. You’ve no idea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Ah! Inspector Angel. I remember it well. The unluckiest day in the year, it was. Friday, the thirteenth.’

  ‘Friday, the thirteenth … of April,’ Angel said rubbing his chin.

  ‘I remember that because I didn’t want to go to my flat. It was unlucky. I was bound to be run over, or tumbled and my wallet stolen. Yet I knew the decision was imminent.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know for certain. But it was late in the evening. I was in my cups and shortly afterwards, the young lady turned me out. She was closing the place, she was. She said she had to cash up and sweep the floor.’

  Angel’s mind began to buzz. There was something to think about. Maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  The 16.02 train to Sheffield had just pulled out of Bromersley railway station leaving the platforms and the refreshment room deserted.

  Angel pushed open the heavy brown door and saw a pretty young lady behind the counter. She was chewing gum and tidying up freshly washed teacups, saucers and glasses. He went straight over to her.

  ‘Good afternoon, miss. Were you the young lady working here late on the evening of Friday, April the thirteenth?’

  The girl stared at him warily as she lowered the wire tray of pots on to the counter. ‘I might have been,’ she said. ‘Who wants to know?’

  Angel pulled out his warrant card and badge and held it up for her. ‘Police. Nothing to worry about. I’m interested in a man you served here that evening.’

  She stopped chewing the gum and began to look interested. ‘Oooh. That’s two weeks back. There’s only Mrs Mountjoy and me does evenings, and she was off then having her varicose veins stripped. Well, she’s a lot older than me. It’s these composite floors: hard as bell metal and cold as steel. April the thirteenth? Nearly three weeks ago? Yes. Mmmm. It would have been me. What man?’

  He took out his wallet and showed her the photograph of Gabriel Grainger. It was a print of one originally taken in Belmarsh. It didn’t particularly do him justice. She took it and stared sat it. She chewed the gum a couple of times, frowned, then eventually she smiled. ‘Yes. Yeeees. That’s the one. He was gorgeous.’ Then her face changed. ‘Crickey! Is he on the run?’

  ‘No. He’s gone missing. His wife is concerned. I’m trying to find him. That’s all.’

  She smiled. ‘His wife? I bet she is. And with his money!’

  Angel blew out a relaxed sigh. ‘Do you happen to remember if he said where he was travelling to?’

  She shook her head. ‘He said he had an executive job with a very rich person. Travelled all over the place. I think he caught the ten twenty-eight to Leeds, but he was going on from there. I close at ten-thirty. I remember he left before I shot the bolts. He was lovely, though. A real hunk.’

  ‘Did he have any luggage?’

  ‘Brown leather suitcase, I think.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he was headed?’

  ‘Sorr
y,’ she said. ‘But wherever it was, I wish I’d gone with him,’ she added, then returned to chewing the gum.

  ‘It may be just a coincidence, sir,’ Gawber said.

  Angel glared at him across the desk, his lips tightened against his teeth. ‘Ron,’ he said. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that in the murder business, there’s no such thing as coincidence?’

  Gawber’s eyebrows went up. Angel was always saying that.

  Angel ran his hand through his hair. ‘I have drawn a complete blank trying to find out where Grainger was travelling to on that Friday night, the thirteenth. His wife says that he left his house with a suitcase at approximately nine-twenty. At nine-thirty, he arrived at the waiting room in Bromersley station with a wallet full of money, which he must have been given or picked up at some point. He booked a ticket to somewhere – thought to be to Leeds – then disappeared. Eight hours later, Katrina Chancey is supposed to have left her home by some transport we have not been able to trace, to who knows where? Nothing heard of her since.’

  ‘From that, sir, what do you deduce?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ron. It’s obvious that they might have met up somewhere, but Zoë Grainger says that it was a man’s voice on the phone telling her husband where to meet and at what time. If it had been some straightforward mucky weekend between two adults there would not have been a male voice directing him, would there? It would simply be a double adultery … sadly, happening all the time, but it’s not a police matter. Also, it wouldn’t have been Chancey’s voice on the phone. He’s not likely to be engineering an arrangement for Grainger to run off with his wife and have given him some cash to pay for the wherewithal to enjoy themselves.’

  Gawber nodded. He agreed. He rubbed his chin.

  ‘Who else is there, sir?’

  ‘Zoë Grainger said it was definitely a man.’

  After a moment, Angel said: ‘If they met, what reasons, apart from the obvious, would they have met for?’

  Gawber looked up and said: ‘You don’t think Grainger, with or without the collusion of Katrina Chancey, is setting up a blackmailing situation to extract money from Frank Chancey, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ron. Why would a woman enjoying a great career as a model and happily married to a multimillionaire, a handsome multimillionaire at that, bother with a poverty-stricken, ex-con loser like Grainger? All right. He’s a great-looking bloke. A furtive, dirty little weekend might be tempting, … stretched out to a week, but not three weeks, and it would be difficult to believe that she was contemplating a long term commitment. Also, she was supposed to be a mad, mad career woman. Doing well both sides of the Atlantic. Was she willing simply to dump it without telling her agent? Nobody actually saw Katrina leave the house. You and Trevor Crisp could not find the taxi, specialist holiday hire car outfit, friend, relation or anybody to actually admit to collecting her and taking her anywhere. Nor did any member of her staff. And Frank Chancey had already left for the office. He didn’t take her to the airport either. And her own car was still in the garage.’

  ‘All this happened three weeks ago, tomorrow. And we have not seen or heard a word. Don’t you realize, sir, they could both be dead?’

  Angel shuddered briefly and looked disapprovingly at him. ‘Give up, Ron. Don’t be so pessimistic. Of course, that possibility has gone through my mind. But I’ve known people be missing for a lot longer than three weeks and still turn up as fresh as … as Mary Archer.’

  Gawber nodded. It was true.

  Angel sighed. Then, ‘I am sick of this,’ he suddenly called out. ‘If it wasn’t for the super I wouldn’t be consuming valuable time on this Chancey business at all. I should be giving my full attention to finding the murderer of Peter Wolff. I don’t want that case going cold on me. But I am stuck on that one, Ron, I must confess. There are some pieces missing. Or there is something I cannot yet see.’ He frowned, sighed, shook his head and said: ‘I feel like a blind man in a darkened room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.’

  Gawber smiled to himself. Despite what he had said, his boss thrived when he was under pressure and had several cases to deal with simultaneously. He had seen the great man working on three entirely separate cases at the same time, carrying the multifarious strands of each case in his memory. He had seen him do it. For Angel it was a challenge and he loved it. He had seen him absorb the facts, then weigh the probabilities, the improbabilities, the uncertainties and the likelihoods, and then, ‘hey presto!’ out popped the identity of the guilty party and a full explanation as to how the crime had been executed. Angel seemed to be able to apply all the permutations to the situation and eventually arrive at the one and only result that fitted all the facts. In time, he had always managed to solve the unsolvable, and Gawber had every faith that he would manage to find Wolff’s murderer and the whereabouts of Katrina Chancey and Gabriel Grainger very soon.

  It was Flat 4. Angel knocked on the door. It was some time before there was any response and then the door was quickly yanked opened and a bright-eyed Zoë Grainger appeared.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Inspector,’ she said, panting. She put her hand to her chest. ‘Have you brought me some news … of my husband?’

  He licked his lips. ‘I’m sorry, no.’

  She pulled the door open wider. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Just a few questions, Zoë,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not calling at an inconvenient time?’

  ‘No. Not at all,’ she said, closing the door. ‘Have you no idea where he might have disappeared to? It’s three weeks today. When you knocked just now I just thought that … I hoped it might be him. That he might have lost his key, or …’

  ‘Sorry to have raised your hopes.’

  ‘Please sit down. I am getting to think the worst, Inspector. I really am. Questions?’

  ‘Yes. On the night he went, you said that there were two phone calls, and that your husband answered both.’

  ‘Yes. They were both for him. The first one he took upstairs on the bedroom extension, and the second down here about ten minutes later.’

  ‘You did not speak to the caller or overhear your husband’s side of the first call?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘What did you overhear of the second call? It is vitally important to tell me everything you know.’

  ‘I couldn’t hear what was actually being said by the caller, of course, but the voice sounded loud, deep and sort of urgent.’

  ‘Was the caller a man?’

  ‘It was definitely a man. From what my husband said, as near as I can remember, he was to pack a bag, meet him or somebody in ten minutes. He was going away. He didn’t know where to or for how long. Last words were, “there’s money in this, Zoë. Big money. Have faith in me. Trust me. I’ll be back before you know it”. I said I didn’t believe him, that I’d trusted him before and that he was a born liar. And some other dreadful things I wished I hadn’t. I didn’t know then what he was up to. Still don’t.’

  ‘When he left, did he have much money on him?’

  ‘He couldn’t have had more than ten pounds, from his unemployment money, that I know.’

  ‘He was seen in the refreshment room at Bromersley railway station shortly after he left here brandishing a wallet full of twenty pound notes.’

  Her jaw stuck out and her bottom lip quivered. ‘Must have got it from one of his women,’ she said. ‘Was he with a woman?’ she added quickly. ‘I bet he was with a woman.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t, actually. Witnesses say that he was alone.’

  She raised her head. ‘What was he doing at the railway station, Inspector?’

  ‘He caught a train, we believe to Leeds. Does he have any particular friend in Leeds? Or anywhere else, for that matter?’

  ‘I told you, he has women all over the place. I can’t think of any one of them he’d want to be with for three weeks. After a few days he always came back to me,’ she said looking down.

  Angel wrinkled his nose, rubbed his
chin, then said: ‘You or your husband don’t happen to know a woman called Katrina, do you? She’s a model, I believe.’

  Zoë’s head came up. Her eyes flashed. ‘Is he with her? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No. Not at all. It’s just that … she also seems to be missing.’

  ‘I know her. Local girl. Seen her in loads of magazines and TV ads. I’ve seen him ogling her in the underwear section of Grattan’s catalogue. She’s very young. In her teens.’

  ‘She’s twenty-two. Went missing on Saturday morning, the fourteenth of April, the morning after.’

  Her pretty mouth tightened. ‘He likes the young ones.’

  Angel sniffed. ‘The thing is, Zoë, did he know her?’

  ‘I don’t know who he knows, Inspector. Where did she go missing from?’

  ‘From her house. She’s married. Lives on Creesforth Drive off Creesforth Road.’

  ‘Mmm. My Gabriel likes them rich, as well. He may have known her. We don’t normally mix in such elevated circles, but he was never backward at coming forward. What’s her husband say?’

  Harker raised his ginger eyebrows. ‘Thirty-six pairs of shoes of varying sizes?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What’s the point of that? Were they for different women?’

  ‘No, sir. That’s the point. Chancey ordered from the store. He selected them himself. Chose each pair. To restock his wife’s wardrobe, he said. He had thrown her other shoes away.’

  ‘Well,’ Harker growled. ‘Have you asked him why?’

  ‘You wanted me to treat him with kid gloves. What excuse could I possibly make to question him? It would be akin to asking him if he had gone round the twist. And he wouldn’t take kindly to being considered a murder suspect … friend of the chief constable and all that. Now, I want permission to treat Chancey in the ordinary way. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation as to why he would buy his wife shoes in different sizes. I can’t think of one, but there might be. Maybe he’s got the hots for the girl in the shoe shop, and she’s on commission? I don’t know, but to me, it smells fishy. His wife going missing like that, things might not be what they seem. I need to seize all his footwear to check for precious metal dust, gold, platinum, whatever. Just to eliminate him.’