‘Yes, Ahmed. I’m fine.’ He looked puzzled. ‘Will you phone and arrange transport for a witness, Benjamin Johnson, back to Duke Street? He’s in Interview Room One. And ask the driver, whoever it is, to take him by the long route.’
Ahmed frowned. ‘The long route, sir?’
‘Tell them it’s for me,’ he said. ‘They’ll know what you mean.’
Ahmed looked puzzled.
‘And a cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘Righto, sir, straight away.’
The door closed.
The phone rang. He reached out and picked up the handpiece.
‘Angel.’
‘It’s DC Scrivens, sir. Great to have you back, by the way.’
‘Thank you, Ted. Now, what is it?’
‘I’m in reception, sir. There’s a young woman here … it’s a bit odd. She’s asking to see you about the Gumme case. She says she knows you. Her name is Mrs Muriel Tasker. Says she wants to make a confession.’
SEVENTEEN
‘I broke into the Gummes’ house and took back the garnet necklace my husband had bought me,’ Muriel Tasker said boldly. ‘I had never done anything dishonest in my life. But it was the way it had been taken from me by that monster, Gumme, that so antagonized me that I was determined to get it back. My husband had said that I should let it go, but I am made of stronger stuff. I watched to see her leave in that fancy car of hers, then I broke the back window with something, climbed in through the window, the alarm started ringing but I took no notice of it. I soon found the bedroom. The necklace was on the dressing table. I just grabbed it, ran back to the window and was out in no time. I ran all the way back home. I was exhausted. I have had the necklace back just over a week now. I don’t get as much pleasure from it, knowing that that tart had been wearing it.’
She banged it down on the table in front of him.
‘There you are. They can’t give me long for taking back something that was mine, can they?’
‘No,’ Angel said. ‘Why didn’t you drive there and park nearby?’
‘We don’t have a car, Mr Angel. Gumme didn’t leave us anything.’
Suddenly, Angel’s eyes glazed over. It was at that moment that he realized who the murderer of Joshua Gumme must be.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Tasker. There’s something important I must see to. It cannot possibly wait.’
He leaned over, took the phone handpiece off its cradle, put it on the desk top, tapped in a number and then picked it up.
The phone was soon answered.
‘Come in here, Ahmed. There’s something important I want you to do.’
‘Right, sir.’
He replaced the phone.
‘Now then, Mrs Tasker, sorry about that. Where were we?’
‘Mr Angel, how long do you think I’ll get?’
‘Oh,’ he said pensively. ‘First offence … your own property … probably a fine. It would be up to the judge.’
‘Now then, Mr Makepiece, I’ll get straight to the nitty-gritty. Where were you between eight-fifteen and approximately ten-thirty, the night Joshua Gumme was murdered?’
Makepiece licked his lips.
‘I told you, Inspector, I was in my little printing room, in the back of the snooker hall. You know. You’ve been there. I was printing the menus—’
‘No, you weren’t. Think again.’
Makepiece looked round Interview Room Number One. He looked at his solicitor, then at Crisp and then back at Angel.
‘But I was,’ he insisted. ‘I was running Charlie Wong’s menus in the printing room.’
‘No you weren’t. Do you want to go for third time lucky?’
Makepiece licked his lips and swallowed. He didn’t say anything.
Angel said: ‘You seem to have had a memory lapse. I’ll tell you why you couldn’t have been in the printing room, shall I?’
Makepiece simply looked at him.
‘Because you had to be let in the main door by Bozo Johnson at around half past ten. If you had been in the printing room, you would have already been in the main building.’
Makepiece’s eyes bounced. He licked his lips.
Angel said, ‘Look, I already know that you were having an affair with Ingrid Gumme. And that’s a very strong motive for murder.’
Makepiece groaned in protest. His face went white.
‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t. I have had no affair with Ingrid Gumme.’
‘You weren’t in the printing room that evening,’ Angel said firmly. ‘Do you want to tell me where abouts you were?’
His solicitor leaned over and whispered in his ear.
Makepiece shook his head at him.
‘I ain’t done nothing. I’ve got nothing to hide. I ain’t going in the pokey for nobody.’ He turned to Angel. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll tell you where I was.’
Angel gestured to him to continue.
‘I came to work for Mr Gumme about seven years ago as a driver. He was stuck in a wheelchair even then and had not long been married to Ingrid. When the boss was away, well, the cat used to play. Ingrid always was flighty. She used to wear revealing swimsuits then brush up close to you. She’d run her hands slowly down her body, suggestively, like, and so forth … ordinarily, I might have been tempted. I can’t pretend I didn’t notice or that it had no effect on me. But I know when to keep off the grass, and that was turf I had no intention of playing ball on. She used to say how she fancied me. Me? I ask you. With a face like mine. She kept saying things like how unhappy she was and hinted if the boss died she’d need somebody to help her spend his money. I’m not daft, Inspector. If she’s behaving like that and saying stuff like that to an old soldier like me, what on earth is she saying to younger more obliging punters? Anyway, I didn’t want no trouble. I was nice and cosy wid the boss and I wanted to keep my job, so I tried to keep my distance from her, widout falling out wid her, if you sees what I mean. Then about ten days ago, Ingrid told me that the boss had said that a big crook called Spitzer wanted to meet him at The Feathers and that he was going along to discuss the idea of maybe dealing a load of heroin in the snooker hall. She said this was the golden opportunity to get rid of the boss and get Spitzer blamed for it. I said that I wanted no part in it. The boss came in so we couldn’t talk no more.’
His voice trailed away.
‘Then what?’ Angel said.
‘Well, the night I took him to meet Spitzer at The Feathers, I dropped him off and came back to the boss’s house. Put the Bentley quietly in the garage, and dropped the door as I told you. I was going to put the keys through the letterbox as usual, then she appeared through the French window in front of the swimming pool. She wasn’t wearing much and she invited me in. I told her that I couldn’t do anything to hurt the boss. She made light of it and said that she had only been joking. We had a few drinks and to cut a long story short we went to her bedroom. The first time and the only time. Afterwards, as we got dressed she said would I drive her to The Feathers. It was more of an order than a request from the boss’s wife.’
‘Oh yes,’ Angel said dryly.
‘Anyway, I drove her there and then she said the strangest thing. She said she could drive herself back. She said would I mind walking home. Didn’t want to keep me up. It was about ten o’clock by now. I said OK.’
Angel said: ‘You would, her being the boss’s wife.’
‘I walked back to the snooker hall, got there about ten-thirty and the rest you know. That’s the truth, Mr Angel. The honest gospel truth.’
‘You know who murdered Gumme then, sir?’ Crisp asked quietly as he pushed Angel in the wheelchair up the green corridor.
‘Oh yes,’ Angel said as he nursed his plaster-covered left wrist in his right hand. ‘I’ve instructed Ahmed to brief John Weightman and WPC Baverstock, to get warrants and scramble whatever PCs and vehicles they can to bring them in.’
Crisp’s eyebrows shot up.
‘You’ve worked it out then, sir?’ he said excitedly, as he open
ed the office door and pushed the wheelchair up to the desk. He closed the door and then sat down opposite him.
Angel smiled.
‘It’s easy when you get all the information. Muriel Tasker has just filled in all the missing blanks. Take this garnet necklace of hers. Among other things, she has just told me that her husband, James Tasker, handed it over to Gumme two weeks ago as a contribution to the impossible debt he had incurred. A week later, she admits to breaking into the house and taking it back from Ingrid Gumme’s dressing table. Fair enough. But I have to ask myself, how did she know that that’s where it would be? Gumme could have sold it, given it to someone else, put it in a safe, taken it to the jewellers to be cleaned, kept it in his pocket, but no, he had given it to Ingrid the evening of the same day, and she had worn it and left it on her dressing table. Now, how did Muriel Tasker find that out?’
Crisp looked blank.
Angel said: ‘She found out from her husband, James. And how did he find that out?’
Crisp looked just as blank.
‘Because he must have seen it there for himself. He had been in Ingrid Gumme’s bedroom. He too had been “at it” with Mrs Gumme.’
Crisp didn’t look blank any more.
‘Ingrid made the same overtures to James Tasker as she had to Horace Makepiece and, in her plan, had made an effortless transposition of James Tasker for Horace Makepiece. Tasker was much weaker and far more needy than Makepiece, so it was a doddle. She arrived at The Feathers, must have been after ten o’clock. James Tasker was already there, boozed up and angry and haranguing Gumme about the way he had treated him. He took little persuading by her to pursue her murderous scheme. She had already taken her husband’s gun from his drawer in his study. When Spitzer parted from Gumme and angrily went up to his room, Ingrid appeared and enlisted Tasker to transfer Gumme from The Feathers to the Bentley. She drove the car, while Tasker, sozzled in alcohol and egged on by promises of money and whatever else, made by Ingrid, shot him dead through the heart in the back seat. Ingrid then drove the car to the Town End Bridge where they dumped him over the bridge followed by the wheelchair into the River Don.’
‘What about the gun? They didn’t throw that over as well?’
‘No. To perpetuate the idea that her husband was murdered in the hotel by Spitzer, Ingrid needed the gun to be found somewhere in The Feathers. She probably knew that public lavatory cisterns are one of the favourite places police search. So she drove Tasker back to The Feathers to hide the gun in the Gents.’
‘Original, sir,’ Crisp said. ‘Nasty but original.’
Angel nodded.
‘The day after, to remove all possible traces of the murder, she and Tasker took the Bentley out into the wheat field early in the morning, and set fire to it.’ Then Angel added, ‘And the plan might have worked if it hadn’t been for the lift at The Feathers being out of order.’
‘Wow!’ Crisp said, his eyes shining. ‘She couldn’t anticipate that, sir. Nobody could have.’
‘No,’ Angel said with a sigh. ‘Well, you can finish this off, Crisp. You know everything now you need to wrap up this case.’
Crisp’s eyes glowed with anticipation.
‘Yes, sir.’
Angel arched his back, pulled a face and sighed.
‘Before you start, phone Transport. Organize a car and driver for me. I want to go home.’
Mary was all smiles that evening. Glad to have him home but no more pleased than he was to be in his own easy chair by the fire. He seemed tolerably comfortable, but, unusually, not very talkative. He couldn’t find anything of interest on the television and hadn’t any enthusiasm for any of his library books. He ate a light meal Mary had prepared and at seven-thirty with her help, got undressed and into bed. He took the pills and fell straight to sleep.
The next day he didn’t hurry to rise. Mary brought his breakfast to bed. He started his ablutions at ten o’clock and was inundated with phone calls from Superintendent Harker, Gawber and Crisp enquiring about different aspects of the cases against Spitzer, Coulson, Ingrid Gumme and James Tasker. The chief constable enquired of Mary into his health and promised to provide anything in his power to hasten his recovery. The Police Federation representative rang about his personal insurance. Ahmed phoned saying that he would be pleased to hear that he had heard that a new car had been ordered for him, also that Mrs Buller-Price had spoken to him and had left a message that she had had Mrs Gladstone to stay overnight and that she thought that she would be all right and would manage satisfactorily while her daughter Gloria was on remand; also that she had baked a special Battenburg cake for him and would leave it at the police station. Even the Bromersley Chronicle phoned to ask him about the accident at Bull Foot roundabout and he gave them enough for an eighth of a page in Friday’s edition.
There were about half as many calls on Thursday, a mere handful on Friday and then none at all for two weeks.
In the meantime, he had appointments at the hospital and Ron Gawber called for him and transported him and Mary.
Eventually, the plasters were duly removed from his ankle and wrist.
The ankle felt and looked good, but his wrist was out of shape and an unhealthy grey colour, which worried him. After a week’s course of treatment in the physiotherapy department, the use came back into his fingers, and they began to have a rosy pink glow, which delighted him. He took a short walk each day and he seemed to be getting back to normal.
It was now five weeks since he had been in his office and he was beginning to feel the need to get back to work.
He told Mary he was returning to work the next day. She was delighted.
He phoned the office and spoke to Ahmed. He enquired if he had heard any more about a replacement car for him. He said that DS Crisp had taken it and was running it in. He told him to tell DS Crisp to bring it to his house the following morning at 8.20 a.m. prompt.
Then with a light heart, he went up the stairs to set about sorting out some appropriate clothes for the morrow. He went in his handkerchief and sock drawer and at the back found the pack of playing cards and the spectacles that Gumme’s son had left with him all those weeks back. He had forgotten all about them, so much had happened.
He put on the black, heavy spectacles and took the cards out of the packet. What Mary had said was true. The cards were not squared up; it seemed that they could not be squared up. Some cards projected the absolute minimum amount, but he shuffled them and looked carefully at them and a big smile spread all over his face. All became clear.
He went downstairs and called out to Mary.
‘Want a game of cards?’
‘I’m busy. Getting your tea.’
‘Come on. Play you at pontoon.’
‘You’re no good at cards. You can never remember what’s gone,’ she said wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Wearing those Groucho Marx bottle-bottom spectacles too?’
He grinned.
‘You don’t have to remember what’s gone with pontoon. Come on. It’ll relax you.’
‘You don’t even like cards. Oh. You’ve found that stupid pack, have you? It’s no good. After you’ve shuffled them, they don’t square up.’
‘Depends who shuffles them. Look at them. They’re square now.’
He passed them to her. She looked at them carefully. They certainly were. She gave him an old-fashioned look.
‘Is this the same pack?’
‘Yes. I bet you a fiver I win every trick.’
She grinned confidently. He had never been any good at cards. He hadn’t the patience and couldn’t remember even a simple sequence.
‘You’re on.’
She handed him the pack.
They scurried to the table like children and he put the pack down in the middle.
‘Cut for dealer,’ he said eagerly.
He cut first and showed a king.
Mary reached out and showed a six.
‘I’m the dealer,’ Angel said, with the grin of a Cheshire cat.
He picked up the pack and dealt two cards each on the table.
Mary looked at her cards. She had the five of clubs and the eight of spades.
Angel showed the ace of diamonds and the king of spades.
‘Banker’s pontoon,’ he crowed. ‘Pay five-card tricks only.’
Mary said: ‘Twist.’
It was the ten of spades.
‘Five and eight and ten, that’s twenty-three. You’re bust.’
He swept up the cards triumphantly and placed them under the pack, and dealt out another two cards each.
Mary showed her cards to be the seven of hearts and then the three of clubs.
‘I’ll buy one,’ she said. ‘For a pound.’
Angel grinned and gave her a card.
She turned it over. It was a three of diamonds.
‘That’s thirteen,’ she said. ‘I’ll twist.’
It was the ten of hearts.
Angel grinned again.
‘You’re bust.’
He swept up the cards and put them back under the pack in his hand.
This went on for an hour, Angel winning every game, Mary getting angrier and angrier.
Eventually Angel teasingly said, ‘These are the cards you said were no good.’
‘Let me have a look at them, then.’
She reached out and took the pack from him.
‘Are these the cards that that awful man Gumme used?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there something special about them?’
‘Yes.’
She turned them over face side and looked at the order of the cards. It told her nothing.
‘These are the cards that you shuffled and wouldn’t square up. You’re one of a particular group of card player that Gumme could never have played with.’
‘Why?’
‘Because when you shuffle, you divide the pack into approximately two, don’t you? Then turn them round and filter them back into one pack. Well, his particular scam would have been defeated by that sort of shuffle. He used to watch all his opponents before a game to see if they shuffled in that way; if they did, he wouldn’t play against them.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, handing him back the pack impatiently.
The Man Who Couldn't Lose Page 19