The Man Who Couldn't Lose

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Two unmarked police cars came down Edmondson’s Avenue, while the ARV and the dog handler’s van came up it. They had been directed to stop at the red letterbox, which was a useful landmark, being directly opposite number twenty-six.

  The eight police personnel and the dog piled out of the vehicles and ran up Gloria Swithenbank’s garden path. Leading the party were the two men in armoured jackets and helmets from the ARV carrying Heckler and Koch G36C rifles and a battering ram; immediately behind them were DI Angel and WPC Baverstock. They raced past the front window, then round the corner to the back of the house, tried the door, yelled out, ‘Police. We’re coming in,’ and went straight through.

  The armed team charged through the empty kitchen into the tiny front room followed by DI Angel and WPC Baverstock and were surprised to find the householder with her mother, calmly drinking tea and watching television. One armed man raced up to the bathroom to stop the lavatory being used to flush drugs away, while the other checked round the house for any solid fuel heater or fire to prevent the disposal of them by incineration.

  At the same time, the other four members of the team, DCI Gardiner, Sergeant Galbraith, another WPC and a PC dog handler with an excitable spaniel, who began to bark, took up positions outside the front door of the house, and began a barrage of knocking and yelling, ‘Police. Open up. Police. Come on.’

  Gloria Swithenbank jumped to her feet. Her mouth tightened; her eyes glowed like two pieces of coke in a furnace.

  ‘Mercy me!’ she bawled. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Police,’ Angel said, and held up his ID and an A4 sheet of letterhead with typing on it.

  ‘Police? What police? What on earth is happening?’

  ‘Mrs Gloria Swithenbank?’ Angel asked.

  ‘Yes. What the hell is going on?’

  ‘I am a police officer. I have a search warrant. How many people are there in the house?’

  An elderly lady was sitting on the settee facing the television, her mouth wide open in surprise.

  ‘What is it, Gloria?’ she said and began shaking.

  Angel called across to her. ‘It’s all right, love. We’re the police.’

  ‘What are you looking for? I haven’t committed any crime,’ Gloria Swithenbank said.

  ‘How many people are in the house?’

  ‘Just me and my mother. Look, you’re frightening her.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Gladstone. Alice Gladstone.’

  Angel called across to her again. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Gladstone. We’re just looking for something.’

  He turned to WPC Baverstock and made a signal to go to the old lady and attend to her.

  The two men with rifles bustled noisily into the room.

  ‘Every room checked, sir. No attics and no cellars,’ one of them said.

  Angel nodded.

  There was still the racket from outside.

  Angel went to the front door. The key was in the door, so he turned it and let DCI Gardiner and the others in. They crowded into the room.

  Gloria Swithenbank glared at them.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  DCI Gardiner made his way up to her and said: ‘You must be Mrs Gloria Swithenbank.’

  She turned to him and sniffed. ‘What if I am?’

  ‘We have reason to believe that these premises are being used for the illegal distribution of Class A drugs,’ he said. ‘Do you want to tell me where they are?’

  She pulled an astonished face, shook her head, put her hands on her hips and said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Very well,’ DCI Gardiner said calmly, then he turned to the raiding party and allocated an area of the house and garden to be searched by them. Angel was teamed up with Sergeant Galbraith to search the upstairs two bedrooms, bathroom, landing and staircase.

  Angel suggested they start in the bathroom and began to make his way up the stairs followed by WPC Baverstock and the other WPC, who were escorting a protesting Gloria Swithenbank and her mother to a bedroom for a body search.

  Angel found himself on the bathroom floor, where he unscrewed the chromium-topped screws that were holding the plastic boxing round the underside of the bath. He took the boards away; all he found was dust and fluff.

  The dog handler had let his excited spaniel off the lead and given him the run of the house, carefully following him round. The dog rushed into the bathroom, looked round it, wagged its tail, sniffed along the carpet down the side of the bath then looked away, disinterested. The handler pointed under the washbasin. The dog went under it, sniffed, wagged its tail and came straight out.

  Galbraith removed a mirror over the bathroom sink, found nothing and screwed it back. Angel and Galbraith together pulled up fitted carpets to see if any floorboards were loose or had been recently disturbed, looked for any fresh sawing or cutting marks and turned the pictures on the walls to see if there was any hiding place behind them. They searched thoroughly the beds, the wardrobes, the cupboards and the drawers. They even checked for any hollow-sounding places in the walls. The stairs were just as carefully scrutinized for loose floorboards. In fact, they looked every possible place where drugs or a stash of cash could be concealed. Nothing.

  Angel knew that downstairs the team would be just as thorough, and that they would examine every package containing foodstuffs in the kitchen cupboard as well as everything in the refrigerator and deep freeze.

  After two hours, Angel and Galbraith went down the stairs to the sitting room. He saw the DCI was still interviewing Mrs Swithenbank and her mother. By the look on his face he might just as well have been talking to Mrs Buller-Price’s pot poodle Fifi.

  With a nod from the DCI, Angel and the rest of the team packed up their traps and left the house almost as quickly as they had arrived. The raid had obviously not provided sufficient evidence for a charge. They gathered outside in the street.

  ‘Well, thank you, everybody,’ Gardiner said. ‘You’d better return to your own respective offices. I regret the waste of time. This tip-off was, regrettably, a turkey.’

  The dog handler said, ‘Sir. The dog did react positively at a cupboard in the kitchen. I pulled everything out and let him have a good old sniff around, but there was nothing to be found. It was spotlessly clean. Also on the kitchen table. Even though it would have been wiped down, even scrubbed, the dog did detect the recent presence of a Class A drug on the top. Perhaps it had been used in the preparing of twists or packets.’

  The DCI looked skywards and ran his hand through his hair.

  ‘Can you rely on that dog?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir.’

  He rubbed his hand across his mouth.

  ‘Who checked the vacuum cleaner?’

  WPC Baverstock put up a hand.

  ‘I did, sir. There was hardly anything in it. The bag must have been changed recently. I emptied it out on a sheet of newspaper. There were no signs of H or any other illegal substance.’

  ‘Did the dog sniff it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But there was nothing. I also checked the carpet sweeper, and got the same result.’

  ‘Did anybody find anything … anything else at all unusual in the house … or garden?’

  Nobody said anything.

  Gardiner threw up his arms.

  ‘Right. Thank you, everybody. Let’s go.’

  He leaned forward to get into the car.

  Angel called out: ‘She was tipped off, sir.’

  The DCI’s head shot back out.

  ‘I’ve got more to do with my time than oversee time-wasting raids on old biddies scratching out an existence on a council estate,’ Harker said with a sniff. He was drumming his fingers on his desk while licking his lips and shaking his head.

  Angel looked down at him. He was uglier than usual. He’d seen better-looking orang-utans – and his moustache could do with trimming. H
e recalled that he’d started growing it that way about the same time the postman had delivered a book addressed to him at the police station in a cellophane cover called The Love Life of Josef Stalin.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, sir,’ Angel said.

  ‘The DCI says the intelligence was rubbish.’

  ‘I don’t think it was, sir. When we arrived, everything was just too perfect. It was ten o’clock in the morning. The beds were made. There were no pots in the sink. All signs of a meal had been cleared away. Everywhere had been vacuumed and tidied round, just as if they had been expecting visitors. Also, neither of the women worked; Gloria Swithenbank said they had no savings and no debts, therefore we are expected to believe that they survived solely on her mother’s pension. The rent is eighty-four quid a week. Swithenbank had sixty quid in her purse, her mother had twenty and there was not another bean in the house. The larder was well stocked and she had two bottles of vodka and a hundred cigarettes in the cupboard. It just doesn’t add up.’

  Harker pursed his lips, then said, ‘Perhaps she’s on the game?’

  Angel smiled. ‘Have you seen her?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No, sir,’ Angel continued. ‘Gloria Swithenbank had been tipped off. And she’d had time to get the drugs and money hidden, where we couldn’t find them, get the house straight, make herself presentable and then get her and her mother positioned in front of the telly like two spiced pussies waiting for a knock on the door.’

  Harker wrinkled his nose.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Where could the woman hide the stuff so quickly and thoroughly?’

  Harker persistently shook his head.

  Angel said: ‘The dog handler said his dog reacted positively at two places in the kitchen.’

  ‘Really? But then again, could we really put our trust in a dog?’

  Angel grabbed the advantage.

  ‘Would you rather put your trust in a man, sir?’

  Harker frowned.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘Any man, sir. Say a professional man. Say a doctor?’

  ‘A doctor?’ he said grandly. ‘Well, yes. Of course, a doctor would be ideal.’

  ‘Such as Harold Shipman.’

  Harker’s eyes flashed. ‘I didn’t mean a villain!’

  Angel was dead serious.

  ‘There’s no deceit in a dog, sir. A dog isn’t a villain. It isn’t dishonest. It hasn’t a record. All it has to hide is bones.’

  FOUR

  ‘Come in, Ron,’ Angel said, pointing to the chair. ‘What did you make of it?’

  ‘Harry Hull was released four weeks ago from Armley,’ Gawber said, closing the door.

  Angel’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Been over his pad?’

  ‘Yes, a little two-room flat, part of a big house, number 101, on Earl Street, but there was nothing of Mrs Buller-Price’s there. Or anything else he shouldn’t have. He’s getting very clever is our Harry.’

  ‘Did he have an alibi?’

  ‘No, sir. Says he was in the flat the whole time. No money to go out and enjoy himself, he says. Can’t prove it though.’

  ‘Useless, then. I still reckon it’ll be him.’

  Angel rubbed his chin slowly, then added, ‘And how was Mrs Buller-Price, then?’

  ‘You know her, sir. Cheerful and resilient, even though she’s had some very choice pieces stolen. Optimistic, too. She expects us to recover them.’

  Angel sighed. ‘You made a list?’

  Gawber dug into his inside pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of A4 and handed it to him.

  Angel quickly scanned the list, which comprised £200 in £20 notes, two emerald and diamond rings, a pearl choker, fourteen small silver items including picture frames, and a sixteen-inch tall white pot figure of a French poodle.

  Gawber said: ‘I don’t understand why anyone would steal a pot poodle of that size … or any size for that matter. I mean, it wasn’t valuable. It wasn’t antique. It would be heavy, awkward to carry and difficult to fence.’

  Angel nodded.

  ‘A fence would want to charge him rent for taking it in,’ he said wryly.

  ‘Does Harry Hull like dogs?’ Gawber asked.

  ‘The only thing Harry Hull likes apart from money, booze and women is Harry Hull. I’ve got another idea. Nip down to Dolly Reuben’s. See if she’s got a white pot dog for sale.’

  Dolly Reuben ran a tatty secondhand furniture shop on Cemetery Road. It had been the front for her husband’s business. Frank Reuben was the biggest fence in South Yorkshire, until he was caught in possession of £4,000 worth of newly minted 20p pieces stolen from a security van in transit between South Wales and London. Frank was in the middle of a five-year stretch in Pentonville.

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Gawber.

  ‘Take a sneaky look through her shop window, before you go in.’

  Gawber smiled, nodded and made for the door.

  ‘And on your way out, tell Ahmed I want him.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  The door closed.

  Angel sighed, scratched his head and leaned back in the swivel chair. He really must get on with investigating Joshua Gumme’s murder. His next of kin must be informed. Everything else must wait. He would have to delegate more.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  It was PC Ahaz flourishing a piece of paper.

  ‘I didn’t know you were back, sir. I’ve got Edmund Gumme’s address and telephone number,’ he said, putting the paper on his desk.

  ‘Right, Ahmed. Ta. Now, what’s DS Crisp doing?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. I haven’t seen him this morning.’

  Angel glanced at the note in front of him, picked up the phone and began tapping in the number.

  ‘Well, see if you can find him and tell him I want him. SAP.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said as he closed the door.

  ‘I’ll have to put a collar and lead on that lad,’ he muttered.

  He still had the phone against his ear and was listening to the ringing-out tone. It suddenly clicked and a recorded man’s voice said: ‘This is Edmund Gumme. I regret I am not able to take your call. Please leave a message and your number and I’ll get back to you.’

  Angel hesitated. He didn’t want to leave a recorded message telling him his father had been shot dead and dumped in a river. He put his hand on the cradle and ended the call. Then he tapped in another number. It was ringing out.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  The door opened. It was DS Crisp.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. His lips tightened across his teeth. He banged the telephone down in its cradle.

  ‘Come in, Sergeant. I was just ringing you on your mobile. Where have you been? You’re supposed to be on my team yet I can never get hold of you.’

  DS Crisp’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been very busy. Maybe my mobile’s faulty again. You had told me to deal with that attack on that postman?’

  ‘That was ages ago.’

  ‘It was Tuesday before I got to it, sir. The day before yesterday.’

  ‘Well, it was only an hour’s job, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The man was hurt, sir. Had to go to hospital,’ he said pointedly.

  Angel knew already that he was losing the argument. He indicated the chair.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said patiently.

  ‘Right, sir. Yes. A fifty-eight-year old postman was in a post office van returning from collecting post from letterboxes in the outlying villages west of Bromersley … Tunistone, Gullbush, Hoylandswaine … round there. It was about seven o’clock Monday evening when he reached his last pick-up point, which was a box in the wall, next to the Frog’s Leap Inn at Midspring. He stopped and while he was filling the sack, somebody hit him on the back of the neck with someth
ing hard and he fell on the pavement. When he woke up, he was on a trolley in A and E in the Bromersley General.’

  ‘Was he badly hurt?’

  ‘Nasty bump on his head. He was off work three days.’

  ‘What was taken?’

  ‘Nothing. The van was not touched, and the post seemed all right. There was a bit of a panic when the manager couldn’t find the postman’s keys, but the next day they turned up in the gutter not far from where he fell.’

  Angel ran his hand across his mouth.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing more I could do. The man could have died.’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t. Have you any witnesses? Any forensic? Is the postman known to us? What’s the motive?’

  Crisp’s mouth dropped open.

  Then he said, ‘No witnesses, sir. No forensic. The man is not known to us. I don’t know what the motive was. Kids trying their arm, I expect, then getting scared and running off.’

  Sticking his jaw out, he shook his head and said, ‘Is there anything more you can do to find out who attacked this poor chap?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ he snapped. ‘Well, let’s move on. Push off and file your report while it’s fresh, then come back here. I’ve an urgent job for you. It should have been done yesterday. I want you to go to York to find a man.’

  Angel managed to clear some of the paperwork off his desk and then strolled down the corridor, out of the rear door to the station vehicle park. He got into his car and drove it to The Fat Duck for a change of scene. It was only a three-minute trip from his office and was his favourite pub. He hoped he might bump into a snout he knew, who might have been able to supply him with a tasty morsel of underworld gossip. He would have particularly liked any information about Joshua Gumme and his recent activities. In any event, the informant didn’t show. He met several familiar friendly faces, exchanged a few courtesies and indulged in a pint of Old Peculier, a meat pie and several slices of black pudding stabbed conveniently with cocktail sticks offered on the bar.

  Through the friendly chatter, mostly about football, he heard a phone ring. It was his mobile. He dived into his pocket, turned away from the bar and the noise and made towards the door. He pressed the button and checked the LCD screen.