The Curious Mind of Inspector Angel

by Roger Silverwood

  He opened it up to pages two and three. Glanced at it, sniffed, then turned back to the front cover.

  ‘Good. The answer, my dear Watson, is in the title,’ he muttered then tossed the booklet into the waste-paper basket in the knee hole of his desk and returned to fingering the remaining letters and papers in the pile.

  The phone rang. It was only 8.30 a.m. It was early. He reached out for it.

  ‘Angel.’

  From all the coughing and wheezing, he recognized the caller was Harker. His lungs made more animal noises than the boiler in Strangeways kitchen.

  ‘Come down here,’ Harker spluttered and banged down the phone.

  Angel turned up his nose. He wondered what the Yeti wanted. He could hardly be expecting a result on the Johannson murder. The body was only found yesterday morning: he thought he had done pretty well. The other murder investigation into the tramp wasn’t progressing quickly, admittedly, but he was on top of it. He was still awaiting SOCO’s findings. And he had already applied for a search warrant for 2 Creeford Road following the funny business with Richard Mace, the householder and the girl thief dropping the candle-snuffer.

  Angel knocked on the door and pushed it open.

  There was more coughing from ‘Mr Mean’. His face was buried in a handkerchief but he pointed to a chair and Angel sat down. A wave of TCP drifted past him.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harker said with a sniff. ‘I most certainly do.’ He put the handkerchief away and picked up a sheet of A4 by the corner and waved it at him. ‘What’s this? What’s this?’ he said impatiently.

  Angel peered at it. He thought he could see perfectly well what it was. It was his application for a warrant to search Number 2, Creeford Road.

  ‘What’s the matter with it, sir? I have set it up for later this morning.’

  Harker shook his head. ‘You can’t do that! There’s not enough justification.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘The householder has no visible means of support, sir!’

  ‘Have you any evidence that he’s robbing banks or knocking over security vans or something?’

  ‘That’s what I want to find out, sir.’

  ‘Have you some evidence that he’s committed an offence?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Is he a past offender, then?’

  ‘No. But there’s the business of the girl coming over the wall with the stolen candle-snuffer.’

  ‘You know it’s stolen, do you? You’ve seen it on some missing list somewhere, have you?’

  Angel’s pulse was racing. ‘Not exactly, sir.’

  ‘Isn’t Mace disowning it?’

  ‘The girl dropped it, and when it was recovered and taken round to him, he said it was his, then changed his mind when my wife told him I was on the force.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve read all that. I read all your reports. They’re better than Hans Christian Anderson. Perhaps he made a mistake.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t?’ Angel said angrily.

  Harker glared at him. ‘You can’t keep poking into people’s houses on some flimsy suspicion. We don’t want a reputation for unnecessary aggressive policing. I know that you think that you have some special gift for solving difficult murder cases. And you have had some … small successes in the past, but you mustn’t think that you are some superior body that can sniff out a criminal, like a talented water diviner can find a new underground source.’

  Angel wondered if there was some praise in there somewhere. The Yeti must be slipping; he might say something complimentary if he wasn’t careful.

  ‘I don’t think that at all, sir.’

  ‘I should think not. Haven’t you got plenty to do with those two murder cases? Shouldn’t you be looking for the girl with the tattoo on her ankle?’

  ‘Yes, I have plenty to do, sir. Plenty,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Right,’ Harker said with a sickly smile. ‘And so have I. You’d better get on with it.’

  Angel could see that whatever he said, Harker had dug his heels in and was not going to sanction the warrant. It was frustrating that his efforts should be hindered in this way. He should be getting support not obstruction, but it had always been the same with King Kong.

  He looked up and saw him screw up the application for the warrant and triumphantly throw it at the wicker waste-paper basket in the corner of the room.

  Angel’s blood pressure was up. He could hear his heart banging under his shirt. He went out and closed the door. That wasn’t the end of the matter. Oh no. There was some mystery concealed inside Number 2, Creeford Road and he was determined to get inside the big house and find out what it was.

  Angel opened the door, and the shop bell rang out.

  Ahmed followed him inside, took off his helmet and stepped down into the little, low-ceilinged shop. He gazed round in surprise at the tightly packed mishmash of furniture, pictures, clobber and rubbish in Mr Schuster’s little emporium.

  David Schuster shuffled through the bead curtain in a cloud of cigarette smoke. When he saw Angel and Ahmed, he smiled, ‘Ah. Inspector Angel, with reinforcements, I see, this time,’ he said with a grin. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘This is Police Constable Ahaz,’ he said turning round to Ahmed. ‘Mr Schuster.’

  They exchanged nods.

  ‘I am glad you have called in, Inspector. I have remembered something about that candle-snuffer. The hands at the end of the blades. They are praying hands. It was something unique to a particular part of the low countries, many, many years ago. Of course the area was overrun by the Germans in 1939. Churches were looted. Church valuables were scattered all over.’

  ‘I know that now,’ Angel said.

  Schuster looked surprised. ‘Who told you that? There are not many people out of that part of Europe who would know about the praying hands, Inspector.’

  ‘Who have you been telling about this candle-snuffer, Mr Schuster?’

  ‘Nobody, Inspector. Nobody. Knowledge is money. I don’t give information away lightly.’

  Angel didn’t believe him. ‘I need to know,’ he said commandingly.

  ‘I didn’t tell anybody,’ Schuster said reaching for the burning cigarette he had placed there and taking a drag. ‘That info didn’t come from me. Must have been somebody else.’

  ‘There isn’t anybody else. You must have mentioned it to somebody.’

  ‘I’m not daft, Inspector. I don’t tell people my business. All my transactions are confidential. Knowledge and privacy are my stock in trade.’

  Angel shook his head. This man could keep his mouth shut.

  ‘I would have bought it from you at that price,’ Schuster added with a smile.

  ‘What price? It was never for sale. It still isn’t.’

  ‘Between £30 and £100, I said.’

  ‘It’s not mine to sell.’

  ‘Now that we know where it came from, I could pay a £1000.’

  ‘It’s not mine to sell!’ Angel shouted.

  Schuster shrugged. ‘£2000?’

  Angel shook his head impatiently. ‘I said it’s not mine to sell.’ He sighed. ‘But there is something I might buy from you.’

  Schuster pursed his lips, affecting indifference and looked over his glasses. ‘What is that then, Inspector?’

  Angel looked down at the shop floor and gently tapped one of the fire extinguishers with the toe of his shoe. ‘What do you want for this?’

  Schuster blinked. ‘A fire extinguisher? Can’t sell you that. Health and Safety and all that. It would most likely be illegal. It probably doesn’t work anyway. I’ve got six of them. They’re over forty years old. Came out of Bransby Art Gallery.’

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’

  He shrugged. ‘Probably end up on the tip.’

  ‘Well, can I have one, then?’ Angel said. ‘For nothing. That wouldn’t be illegal.’

  ‘It probably doesn’t work. Be all corroded up. It’s no good, I tell you.
What would you do with it?’

  Angel tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Knowledge and privacy are my stock in trade. I don’t give information away lightly.’

  Schuster frowned then smiled.

  EIGHT

  * * *

  There was a knock on Angel’s door.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  It was Ahmed: ‘Just had a call back from the Salvation Army, sir.’

  ‘Oh?’ Angel said, looking up from the desk.

  ‘They’ve no report of anybody missing who fits the description of our dead tramp.’

  Angel growled and shook his head.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Make me a cup of tea. Two sugars.’

  Ahmed headed for the door, frowned then turned back. ‘You don’t take sugar, sir.’

  ‘I do today,’ he grunted as he reached out for the phone. ‘Angel. Hello, yes?’

  It was DI Matthew Elliott of the Antiques and Fine Art squad based in London – an old friend of his. Angel’s face brightened.

  ‘Got your message, Michael,’ Elliott said. ‘I’ve studied the photograph of the candle-snuffer. Great stuff. How did you come by it?’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Angel said, rubbing his chin. ‘What’s your interest in it?’

  ‘What do you mean? It comes under the heading of Antiques and Fine Art. Of course I’ve an interest in it.’

  ‘Is it stolen?’

  ‘Of course it’s stolen.’

  ‘Who is the rightful owner?’

  ‘I suppose the Orthodox Cathedral of St Saviour’s of Patina, the West Balkans.’

  Angel blinked. ‘What’s it doing in Bromersley then? It’s not that valuable, is it?’

  ‘Not in itself, no, but you’d be surprised.’

  ‘Surprise me, then.’

  ‘Well, it’s a long story, Michael. I’ve looked it up in old cabinet papers in the war archives.’

  ‘Just give me the gist of it.’

  ‘Well, I have been able to discover that back in the dark days of the Second World War, when Europe was being invaded and overrun by Germany, and the land was being pillaged and treasures stolen for Goering and other high ranking Nazis, the priests and elders of the orthodox church in Patina decided to send the cathedral silver and treasures via England to a bank in New York, for safe-keeping. So the old silver communion sets and pictures and things, twenty-one pieces altogether, were carefully packed in two wooden crates and smuggled out of Yugoslavia, through France and across the Channel. It was an involved and complicated operation. Special permits and custom exemption forms had to be completed, and the two-man RASC squad, transporting them from Harwich to Liverpool needed a special government movement order and fuel allowance, and had to have petrol vouchers issued by the Ministry of War. The consignment had to be delivered to Liverpool docks, Pier 16, SS Bellamy, bound for New York, on 15 December 1940. It was addressed to account number 9045, East Balkan Bank, Manhattan, N.Y. This was all done at a very high level and Prime Minister Churchill approved the arrangement. However, tragically, the SS Bellamy was sunk by a U-boat in the mid-Atlantic on 17 December and it was naturally assumed that the treasure had gone down with it. A detailed report was written up at the time in the cabinet secretary’s office and a copy sent to the cathedral in Patina. This report was first made public in 1971. Since that time, in fact, until two days ago, it was thought that everything had been lost until your photograph of that candle-snuffer, that very particular candle-snuffer, was shown to the church authorities. It became clear that the consignment wasn’t at the bottom of the Atlantic.

  ‘Now, I have been very hard at it since. The last known sighting, which I have been able to trace, is of the two-man squad transporting the treasure through Sheffield, on 14 December 1940, which was the first night of the terrible blitz they suffered there. Just before midnight, a Police Constable Thomas Shaw, who incidentally must have been a very brave man, recorded in his notebook that he gave the officer in charge directions out of Sheffield, to Bromersley, then over the Pennines to Liverpool. He also recorded that they were travelling in a 15-cwt Morris van, licence plate number RA 1767, and that the officer was a man called Captain Mecca or similar. They couldn’t quite read his writing.’

  ‘Mecca? Was he foreign?’

  ‘Don’t know. There the trail ends.’

  Angel shook his head and rubbed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb. ‘Are we to assume then, that wherever the candle-snuffer came from, this collection of church silver and treasures will be there also?’

  ‘I think so, hopefully. Don’t you?’

  ‘And what sort of value are these … treasures?’

  ‘Priceless, Michael. Absolutely priceless. The candle-snuffer was one of the least valuable of the items. Don’t bother trying to put a figure on them. Whatever you or I thought, the next appraisal would probably double it, and the one after that might very well multiply it by ten. It’s just a big, big … telephone number.’

  ‘That much?’

  Elliott said, ‘You didn’t tell me how you came by it.’

  ‘No. A thief dropped it as she was climbing over the wall of a house.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘You’ve searched the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ he screamed.

  Angel’s lips tightened back against his teeth. He knew that Elliott would think him incredibly stupid.

  ‘Why not, for god’s sake?’

  Angel sniffed. ‘I have a little … local difficulty,’ he said.

  The phone rang.

  He reached out for it. ‘Angel.’

  It was DS Crisp on the line. He sounded in trouble. He was talking fast and breathlessly. ‘I’m in the gents at the Imperial Grand, sir. I’ve found her.’

  Angel’s head lifted, his eyes front and centre. He didn’t believe it. ‘The girl with the tattoo?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a countess. Contessa Radowitz. The thing is … I am trying to hold on to her with a drink at the bar.’

  Angel sighed. ‘Well, don’t leave her, son,’ he snapped. ‘Get back to her before she evaporates with the booze!’

  ‘Yes, sir. I will. I know, but I have no money. Well, not this sort of money anyway. I’ve only twenty pounds. A round of drinks here costs twelve quid!’

  Angel’s face dropped. ‘Daylight robbery.’ He bit his lip. ‘I’ll sort something out. Stay with her. Keep working on her. Find out what you can about Johannson. Phone me at your next opportunity.’

  ‘Right, sir. Got to go.’ The line went dead.

  Angel replaced the phone and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a roll of notes. He counted out ten £20 notes and put the roll back. He pushed the £200 in an envelope and put it into his inside pocket.

  He went down the corridor past the cells and out of the back door. He got in his car and drove to Leeds. He was there in forty minutes. He parked on a meter up Edward Street and walked back the hundred yards to the Imperial Grand Hotel. He went past the reception and porter’s desk, and followed the signs to the bar. It was a big room and busy with lots of noisy people sitting and standing around. He went up to the bar and ordered a fresh orange juice. He had to wait until it was prepared, which suited him fine. It gave him the opportunity to check out the room. There was no sign of Crisp, with or without a girl. He wrinkled his nose.

  The bar girl placed the orange in a long stemmed glass on a paper doyly in front of him. He paid with a note, she came back with his change. He counted it, pulled a face like an undertaker at a pauper’s funeral, dropped the coins in his pocket and carried the glass out through the door into the foyer. He saw an illuminated sign that said ‘Toilets’ and another ‘Lounge’ and meandered into the latter. It was another big room with many easy chairs and settees set around coffee tables. There were about thirty people in there … mostly in pairs. Then he saw Crisp and the young lady, sitting on a settee, talking. There were coffee cups and a cafeti�
�re on the table in front of them. Even from that distance Angel thought the girl looked good. Jet black hair. Small, slim. He drifted back into the foyer. By the lift he found space on a tall wooden pedestal with a big vase of flowers on it to rest his glass, then he stood with his back to the wall, fished out his mobile and tapped in a number. It was soon answered.

  ‘I’m here in the hotel in the foyer,’ Angel said quietly. ‘I’ve brought you £200’s worth of bait. Can you meet me in the gents loo?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Crisp said flamboyantly. ‘I can agree to that. Buy me £30,000’s worth. Debit my Swiss account with it. It can be partly set off as a tax loss against the gain I made on the sale of my yacht in Italy. Be in touch soon.’ The line went dead.

  Angel smiled and shook his head. The stuff that lad could make up at short notice. He’d jailed conmen who weren’t half as smooth as Trevor Crisp.

  Angel finished the orange, put the glass down on a table as he passed it and made his way down the steps to the gents loo. He checked all twelve cubicle doors to find out if they were occupied. Two were but they were shortly vacated. He ran the taps over the sink and hovered over the washbowl in case anybody came in. A few minutes later Crisp came through the door wearing a worried look.

  ‘Thank you for coming over yourself, sir,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You should have sent somebody.’

  Angel frowned. ‘Have you found out about Johannson? What she was doing in his room?’

  ‘Haven’t got round to that, yet. Can’t ask her that outright, sir, and maintain my cover,’ Crisp said.

  Angel nodded. ‘Well, I must see her and ask her directly. There’s something else. You said her name was the Contessa Radowitz?’