The Murder List

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel looked at them eagerly. He was favourably impressed. ‘That’s great, Ahmed. Leave them with me for now.’

  Ahmed grinned. ‘I’ll get on with those other jobs, sir.’

  ‘Right, lad,’ Angel said and he reached out for the phone.

  Ahmed went out and closed the door.

  Angel tapped in a number. A voice said, ‘Bromersley Chronicle, news desk.’

  ‘Can I speak to the editor, Geoffrey Poole, please? This is Michael Angel, Bromersley Police.’

  ‘Please hold.’

  Several seconds later, the cheery voice of the editor came on the line.

  ‘Yes, Michael. What can I do for you? Have you got a breakthrough in that serial killer case yet?’

  ‘No, but we believe that our killer stole an unusual ring from his last victim and we have a photograph of that ring. If it has been seen by anyone since early last Saturday morning, we want to know about it.’

  ‘And you want the Chronicle to give it some exposure, for free?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Now Geoffrey, this case is ostensibly a local case. The victims are all local and I am pretty certain that the killer is local, so this appeal only needs to be local, which means I can offer it to the Bromersley Chronicle as an exclusive, without anybody accusing me or the force of partiality. Only afterwards, if it doesn’t produce a positive result, then it might it be offered to other papers. All right?’

  ‘Fair enough. We’ll use the exclusive tag then and I’ll give it front page exposure. We’ll want that photograph in the next hour to get it in the next edition.’

  ‘I’ll get it to you promptly, Geoffrey, and thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Michael, and thank you. Goodbye.’

  Angel ended the call, and immediately tapped in a single digit.

  A voice down the line said, ‘Control room. DS Clifton.’

  ‘Ah, Bernie. DI Angel. I want to get an envelope down to the Bromersley Chronicle office urgently. Will you get someone to collect it from me?’

  ‘Right away, sir,’ Clifton said.

  Angel replaced the phone, opened a drawer in his desk, took out an A4 envelope and a sticky label marked “From Bromersley Police – URGENT”. He slapped the label on the envelope, marked it “For the attention of The Editor, Geoffrey Poole Esq.” Then he put the two touched up prints of the ring unfolded inside and sealed it. He had only just finished that when a PC in road patrolman’s gear knocked on the door and collected the envelope.

  He picked up the phone and tapped a single digit. It was soon answered.

  ‘SOC, DS Taylor, can I help you?’

  ‘Ah, Don, Angel here. How are you getting on with those prints?’

  ‘Nothing positive yet, sir. The PNC has no record of them. We are going through the local and most recent prints we have logged, by hand.’

  ‘Right, Don. Keep me posted,’ he said. He hung up the phone and ran his hand through his hair. This waiting was wearing him down.

  The phone rang. He reached out and snatched it up. ‘Angel,’ he said.

  It was Detective Superintendent Harker.

  ‘You’re never off the bloody phone, are you?’ Harker said. ‘Don’t you ever go out and interview your suspects face to face? Never mind answering that. You would only have come out with some annoyingly glib answer. Now, I want to see you, straightaway. I’ve got to go out in a few minutes and look at a bouncy castle to see if it’s suitable for the Constabulary Mid-Summer Party, so I can only spare you five minutes.’

  Harker ended the call.

  Angel bared his teeth he was so angry. He slammed down the phone. Jumped up from his desk, pulled open the office door and made his way up the green painted corridor. By the time he’d reached Harker’s office door, much of the paddy had left him. He knew he would gain nothing from saying anything he would regret, but there were limits to his patience.

  He knocked on the door and went in.

  The office, as usual, had the atmosphere of an orchid hothouse and the smell of an old fashioned chemist’s.

  The little man was at his desk. He looked up. ‘Come in. Sit down.’

  Angel chose the seat directly opposite the superintendent where he could see him between the tall piles of books, ledgers and papers.

  Harker picked up a sheet of paper, glanced at it and said, ‘Did you make two overseas calls to two different numbers in Ontario, Canada on a telephone in this station last Saturday at 10.31 and again at 10.36?’

  Angel had to think back. That was the day Michele Pulman was murdered. ‘Yes, sir, on the phone in my office,’ Angel said. ‘Why?’

  Harker’s face hardened. ‘But that was Saturday,’ he said. ‘You don’t work Saturdays.’

  ‘I worked last Saturday because – with my team – I was called out to a triple nine on Creesford Road, the serial killer’s fourth victim, Mrs Michele Pulman. It was a long day.’

  ‘Well, that explains why you were in your office on Saturday, but it doesn’t explain why you phoned Canada.’

  Angel sighed. ‘I phoned Canada to trace the next of kin of the dead woman, sir.’

  ‘And did you find him or her?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was a cousin … a woman.’

  Harker sniffed. ‘And is the cousin coming over the ocean to identify the body?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir.’

  Harker went scarlet. ‘Oh, no, sir. Oh, no, sir,’ he said, attempting to mimic Angel. ‘Well, what was the point of the exercise then?’ he bawled. ‘Why didn’t you send an email to the Ontario Provincial Police? That would have cost nothing.’

  ‘A phone call gives you more flexibility, the opportunity to sense the nature of the person you are talking to and the ability to detect their attitude to their dead relative.’

  Harker’s fists clenched and unclenched. ‘We’re not dealing with attitudes and senses. We’re dealing with facts. Was he at the scene or wasn’t he? Did he have a weapon or didn’t he? Are his prints on the weapon or aren’t they? Did he have a motive or didn’t he? And so on. We’re not into attitudes and senses. They’ll not count a penny in court. I don’t know how you ever became a policeman – especially a detective. Are you any nearer solving this cauliflower serial killer business or not?’

  ‘We are, sir. We have a lager can from a waste bin at Michele Pulman’s home, which is plastered with a man’s prints. Yet no man lives there or has been in the house recently to the housekeeper’s knowledge. If we can find the owner of the prints, we will have the serial killer.’

  ‘Oh. My goodness, look at the time,’ Harker said. He stood up. ‘You’ll have to go, Angel. Or else I shall be late. Well, I don’t know what to do about these phone charges. I can’t pass £28.00 for two telephone calls to Canada. You’ll have to watch these stupid, unnecessary charges, Angel. Well, go. Go. Get out of it, man. You’re making me late. Some of these fairground amusement people are very wealthy and don’t like to be kept waiting.’

  Angel came out of Harker’s sweatbox, stormed down the corridor to his own office.

  A few moments later there was a knock at Angel’s door.

  Angel rubbed his face all over with a hand as if to obliterate the memory of the last few minutes with Harker, then he said, ‘Come in.’

  It was DS Carter.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Flora.’

  She could tell he was not his usual self.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘I will be in a minute,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve found Ernestine Homer. She’s in a retirement home on Sheffield Road. She’s 86 but, according to the manageress, has all her wits about her.’

  Angel’s face brightened. ‘Great stuff, Flora,’ he said rubbing his chin. ‘I must see her. What’s the address?’

  THIRTEEN

  It was eleven o’clock exactly when Angel was shown into the small bedsit room of Mrs Ernestine Homer at the Belmont Ladies Retirement Home, Sheffield Road in Bromersley. She was propped up with pillows in a comfor
table looking upholstered chair near the window, so that she could see what was happening outside.

  ‘Do come in and sit down, Inspector,’ she said.

  Angel moved a dining chair nearer to her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Homer.’

  ‘It’s to do with the dancing school and my dancing ensemble, “Grounds for Divorce”, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it is. Do you mind if I put this little recorder here to save time writing out notes?’

  ‘Not at all, Inspector. This is quite a new experience for me, being interviewed by the police, especially at my age. I hope you won’t be battering me with a truncheon,’ she said with a little titter.

  He smiled at her and said, ‘I’ll try and restrain myself, Mrs Homer. Now, I have it right, don’t I? In the 1970s, one of your pupils was Michele Noble, who later married and changed her name to Pulman?’

  She nodded. Her double chin wobbled. ‘That’s quite correct,’ she said with a smile. ‘A most beautiful and charming girl.’

  ‘Tragically, Mrs Homer, I am investigating her murder.’

  Her bottom lip trembled. ‘Murder?’ she said. ‘Oh dear. I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to bring you the news. Now, can you tell me anything about her?’

  ‘Well, it’s such a long time ago … Michele Noble … she was excellent, very likeable young girl, very popular with the boys I believe, as were all of our young ladies for that matter.’

  ‘Can you remember anything in particular about her?’

  ‘No. You tend to remember those who were trouble. There’s really nothing more I can say about her.’

  ‘How many pupils did you have, Mrs Homer?’

  ‘Hundreds and hundreds over the years. Mothers used to bring their little dears from as young as five. Mostly girls but a few boys. Initially, I had to try to teach them rudimentary things like dancing in time with the music. It was not always easy. I had classes of all ages sub-divided according to their ability. Some children made it, but a lot didn’t. And when they reached twelve or thirteen many of them lost interest.’

  ‘This was before you started “Grounds For Divorce”, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, I kept the school going as well. The school was our bread and butter. After all, we had to keep supplying and replacing the girls who weren’t suitable for GFD. Those who hadn’t the looks, the ability, were unreliable or ill, or put on weight.’

  ‘Do you have any registers or lists or group photographs that would enable us to trace any of them?’

  She held out her hands, open and facing upwards, and said, ‘Rupert kept the books and had stacks of photographs and publicity stills. That stuff all went to the tip when I gave up my home to come here.’

  ‘Would you remember any of the other three women who have also been murdered?’

  Mrs Homer put both of her shaking hands up to her mouth. ‘Oh dear. I didn’t know there were any more.’

  ‘Sorry to have shocked you, Mrs Homer. And, of course, they may not have been pupils of yours.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, her hands still shaking.

  Angel then read out the maiden names of the other three murdered women one at a time, and showed recent photographs of each one. Mrs Homer thought she remembered them all and believed that they had been dancers in ‘Grounds For Divorce’ but she could not be at all certain. And she was unable to tell him anything specific about them.

  ‘If they had all been dancers in “Grounds For Divorce”, Mrs Homer, can you remember any others so that we can protect them?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Inspector,’ she said. ‘My memory is not what it was. You are asking me to go back over forty years!’

  Angel sighed. It was clear that she could be of no help to the investigation. He thanked her for her help, took his leave and raced back to his office at the police station.

  The phone rang. Angel reached out for it. It was Taylor. There was excitement in his voice. ‘The prints on the can of lager belong to Cliff Grant, sir.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. His mouth dropped open. ‘Cliff Grant? There’s no possibility of a mistake, Don?’

  ‘Absolutely not, sir. There’s his thumb and three fingers and a palm print, all Grant’s. Also, there are no other person’s prints on it.’

  ‘Right, Don. Great stuff. I’ll get a warrant immediately and I will want your team to give the house and shop a thorough search. Take the house to pieces brick by brick, if necessary. Stand by.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Angel returned the phone to its cradle, jumped up from behind his desk, went out of his office across the hall to the CID room. He pushed open the door. The only detective there was Crisp. He was at his desk looking at a computer screen and tapping away into it. He looked up and saw Angel. He called across. ‘Looking for me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, but I am also looking for Ahmed.’

  ‘He’s out, sir. I think he said you’d sent him to find out about the death of Michele Pulman’s husband and their daughter.’

  Angel recalled that he had sent him to Births, Deaths and Marriages.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And where’s Flora?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. She was around a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Hm. Come on through to my office.’

  As they went out of CID together, they bumped into DS Carter.

  ‘I want you, Flora. I want both of you in my office now.’

  When Angel’s office door was closed and the three of them were settled, Angel told them about Cliff Grant. They were both surprised.

  Angel said, ‘So we need to work fast. First of all, we need a warrant to bring him in for questioning and another to search the house and shop.’ He looked at Crisp and said, ‘Will you get those, Trevor?’

  Crisp nodded and stood up to go.

  ‘I should apply to Mrs Flood,’ Angel said. ‘She’s a JP, she’s the nearest and she’ll most likely be at home now. Hurry up.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and he dashed out.

  Angel picked up the phone, turned to Flora and said, ‘I know you’ve a lot of inquiries in hand. Pop off, but don’t go far. You never know when you might be needed.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said, and went out.

  He tapped out a number on the phone. The call was to his opposite number in the uniformed division, Inspector Asquith.

  ‘Michael Angel here, Haydn. Can you let me have three of your lads to bring in a suspect who may be armed with a knife?’

  ‘Is this chap the serial killer, Michael?’

  ‘Yes, I am pleased to say he is. Just got the evidence against him. I am waiting for a warrant. Will you have your men come to my office in about ten minutes?’

  ‘To pick that man up will be a pleasure. They’ll be with you before then.’

  ‘Thank you, Haydn.’

  Ten minutes later, at 1.20 p.m., three police vehicles left quietly from the car park at the rear of the police station. Firstly, armed with the two warrants, was DS Carter and Angel in his car, then next were three uniformed police constables in the patrol car, which was followed by DS Taylor and his team in the white SOC van.

  As Angel turned right out of the car park, Flora said, ‘I realize that we have proof that Grant had the opportunity to be in Michele Pulman’s house, sir, but have we also got proof that he had means and motive as well?’

  ‘We’ve got him for all three, Flora. It was well-known that he and his mother didn’t hit it off. He disappeared off the face of the earth for eight months just to get out of her way. However, from what I understand, he hadn’t the ability to live independently without her. He tried to make it work. It obviously didn’t. So he came back. They presumably had a row, he saw how easy and simple his life could be without her, so he took a knife to her. That’s motive. Well, for means, it was simply a common domestic steak knife out of the kitchen drawer, and opportunity, well, he lived there and he was there. He could choose his own time. What more do you want?’

  ‘I can see all t
hat, sir,’ Flora said. ‘But that only explains the murder of Gladys Grant, sir. What about the other victims?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking for some time that the killer wanted only one of the victims dead. The others were to hide the significance of that death, thereby obscuring his motive. It sets we “stupid” coppers scurrying round trying to discover what relationship these dead women have to one another, when there isn’t any.’

  ‘I see what you mean, sir. But what about the cauliflower and the rice? What are they all about?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Grant will tell us that,’ Angel said as he turned left onto Canal Street. He checked in his mirror that the two vehicles behind him were still there.

  They travelled in silence to the end of that long street. Angel turned left at the end onto Sebastopol Terrace and stopped outside the shop.

  The three uniformed were first out of their patrol car. One went round to the back door. The other two went in by the shop door followed by Angel and Carter. The bell rang loudly over their heads. There were no customers in the shop. One of the constables turned the sign on the door round to show it was closed. Then the two constables made their way through the gap in the counter to the back when Grant came through from the kitchen. He was smiling but the smile left him when he saw the grim faces of the two uniformed police at his side of the counter. One of them moved very close to him, the other went through the kitchen to the back door and let the third policeman in. They came into the shop and moved up to Grant, whose eyes slid rapidly from side to side, taking in the new and entirely unexpected situation.

  ‘What do you want?’ Grant said.

  The older of the uniformed constables said, ‘Have you got anything sharp on you, sir? In your pockets or …’

  ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Of course I haven’t anything sharp. What is this?’

  ‘Would you empty your pockets out onto the counter, sir?’

  Grant’s face went scarlet. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’

  Angel said, ‘You should know, Mr Grant, that I have a warrant here to arrest you for questioning in connection with the murder of your mother, and three others. I also have another warrant to search this house and shop. Now you can cooperate with us and come quietly, or you can protest and be difficult, but the end result will be the same.’