The Auction Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  Ahmed spotted him and ran into the office after him. ‘There’s some photographs from SOC on your desk, sir. And Dr Mac’s been on the phone.’

  Angel nodded. He handed the crutches to him and then pointed to the phone. ‘Get him back for me,’ he said as he slumped down in the swivel chair.

  Ahmed stacked the crutches in the corner, walked over to the desk and picked up the phone.

  Angel glanced at the twenty or so 10” x 8” photographs on the desk and ran a hand over his chin. He fingered through them. They were shots of the murder scene at Drabble’s flat, Sanson’s house and Lady Emerald’s house taken by SOCO. Except for the excessive amount of blood at Drabble’s flat, they all looked pretty much the same: an unruly spread of jumble.

  ‘Can I ask you something about those photographs, sir?’ Ahmed said as he dialled. ‘Aye. What is it, lad?’

  A voice down the line said, ‘Dr Mac.’ Ahmed passed him the phone.

  ‘Michael Angel. You rang me, Mac?’

  ‘Aye. Only to say I’ve finished the PM on that Sanson chap. I can confirm that he suffered two contusions to the lower abdomen, and two to the liver, but they did not contribute to his death. I believe all four blows would have been delivered by a man or men with clenched fists. Also, he must have been quite a drinker; his liver had seen better days.’

  ‘Oh? Right. Thank you, Mac. Anything else unusual … of use to me? Anything under the fingernails? Under his shoes? Tattoos? Was he a drug user? Needle marks? Foreign contents in the stomach? You know what I’m looking for.’

  ‘Negative to all those, Mike. Looked like a regular chap who enjoyed life, perhaps a bit too well. I’ll send the full SP and his personal effects over first thing on Monday.’

  ‘Right. Thanks. What about Alison Drabble?’

  ‘Tuesday, I reckon.’

  ‘Right. Thanks Mac. Goodbye.’

  Angel replaced the phone and rubbed his chin.

  Ahmed began, ‘My question, sir …’

  ‘Oh, yes lad?’

  ‘I’ve heard you say several times that the person who searched Mr Sanson’s, Mrs Drabble’s and Lady Ogmore’s homes was an amateur. Well sir, the photographs show the houses to be an absolute mess. How can you tell it was an amateur?’

  Angel looked at Ahmed and smiled. ‘Good question. Now, if you were a house burglar, you’d want to be in and out of that house as fast as you possibly could, wouldn’t you? Obviously, the longer you are there, the more risk there is of you being caught. The faster you work, the less likely you are to finish up in Armley. Now, an amateur approaching a chest of drawers would open the top drawer, rummage through it, close it and move down to the second drawer, look through that, close it and move down to the next drawer and so on down to the bottom. A professional thief would start at the bottom, pull out the drawer, rummage through it, leave it open and move up to the next drawer, rummage through that, leave that open and move upwards to the next drawer and so on to the top, leaving all the drawers hanging open. That way the professional has saved a few seconds.’

  Ahmed stood there with his mouth open.

  Angel said, ‘Now look at these photographs. The intruder in this case has consumed or wasted even more time; the drawers have been pulled out off their runners and the contents tipped out. You’ll notice the top drawer has been searched first, because it is at the bottom of the pile and the bottom drawer is at the top!’

  Ahmed nodded in admiration.

  ‘Now pass me those crutches.’ He reckoned Pogle would have reported in by now. FSU would be in charge at Littlecombe school. Harry Youel would be in handcuffs. He must find out what’s happening.

  He rocked down the corridor and knocked on the superintendent’s door.

  ‘Come in,’ Harker bawled.

  ‘What’s the latest then, sir? Have FSU got Harry Youel?’

  The super’s ginger eyebrows arched upwards. He took in a deep breath. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snapped.

  ‘Coming back from an enquiry … about half-an-hour ago, I saw Youel and two men in a car turn into Littlecombe school. That obbo is still on there, isn’t it?’

  The superintendent didn’t reply. Angel could see realization dawning on Harker’s lined face. He stared back at Angel with glazed eyes and reached out to pick up the phone. He had to look down to dial the number. Angel could hear it ringing out.

  There was a click and then he quickly said, ‘Pogle? … Everything all right, lad? … Anything to report? … Harry Youel turned up? … No? Are you sure? … Three men in a red car?’

  Superintendent Harker glared at Angel; he looked as happy as a bus driver with a boil on his bum. He turned back to the phone. ‘No? … Right. Has anybody arrived in the last hour or so? … No? Right … No. Stay where you are.’

  He replaced the handset.

  ‘I think you’re going round the twist, lad. Or you need glasses! Was Ron Gawber with you when you saw this — car?’

  ‘I didn’t make a mistake, sir. I saw the car and I saw Harry Youel in a hat with his face half-covered, which was how he was yesterday.’

  ‘If his face was half-covered, how do you know it was him? It could have been anybody.’

  ‘Not with those two passengers; not in an identical red car.’

  ‘Was it the same index number?’

  ‘I didn’t get the index number.’

  ‘Well, how do you know it was the same car, then?!’ he growled angrily.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘And did Gawber see this … this invisible car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Pogle says nobody’s called at the place all morning. And certainly not a car with Harry Youel in it!’

  8

  ‘I’ve something to show you, love,’ Mary said as soon as he got through the door.

  ‘What’s for tea, lass? Is it salmon?’

  ‘Yes. Look at that old photograph album on the table. I’ve left it open at a page.’ Angel draped the crutches over the settee and flopped into a chair at the table while loosening his tie and the top button of his shirt. He looked at the album. His eyebrows shot up and he smiled. ‘Hmm. It’s my mum and dad’s wedding.’

  Mary came out of the kitchen, walked over to the table and leaned over his shoulder. ‘And there’s your aunt Kate,’ she pointed with a wet finger.

  ‘Mmmm. In that funny hat. What about it?’

  ‘What’s that she has in her hand?’ she asked pointedly.

  He looked closely and he could see clearly the old lady posing grandly on the church steps holding a slim black cane that reached down three inches from a bridesmaid’s white shoe. ‘Oh, aye,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘I told you,’ Mary said confidently. ‘There are five or six other earlier photographs with Aunt Kate on. And she’s always leaning on that stick.’ She reached over his shoulder and turned over a few pages. ‘Look. There’s one there taken at Skegness, walking on the front. She must have been about thirty. She’s walking with a stick there, look.’

  ‘All right, love. You’ve made your point. So she had a stick. She always had a stick.’

  Mary shook her head. ‘For a detective, you’re a bit slow sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s twice today I’ve been told off.’

  She smiled softly. ‘Oh. Mr Charm been having a go at you?’

  He sniffed. ‘The point is, how would anybody else know that she needed a stick?’

  ‘You don’t believe the obvious, do you?’

  ‘This latest photograph was taken over forty years ago. She died in 1962. Half the world wasn’t born then.’

  ‘And half the world has died since. And those that are left didn’t know Aunt Kate and couldn’t have cared less whether she had a stick or not,’ she said turning away to the kitchen.

  ‘That’s why it’s a mystery! If the explanation was obvious, I wouldn’t be looking for a solution, would I? It’s so aggravating. It isn’t obvious. I have to find out how Selina Bailey
knew.’

  ‘She’s a medium. She can see these things,’ Mary called impatiently. ‘She has a gift to see the past. Some people have! It isn’t new. There have been mediums around for hundreds of years.’

  ‘And there have been confidence tricksters around since time began!’

  He turned back the few pages in the album to the photograph of his parents’ wedding.

  ‘It’s nearly ready,’ Mary called angrily from the kitchen. ‘Will you lay the table or not?’

  ‘Aye,’ he muttered.

  He lifted the photograph out of the page and turned it over. At the bottom corner was a little gilt label with the words ‘Gorman Photographers’ in black stuck on to it. He shook his head. He’d heard the name before; it was an old, respected family business from years ago. He remembered the name had appeared on the back of photographs of him as a baby. He heard the rattle of plates from the kitchen.

  ‘I’m bringing it in,’ Mary called.

  *

  It was 8.28 a.m. Monday, 9 May, when Angel arrived at the station. He rocked his way down the corridor to his office, slung the crutches into a corner, hung his coat on the hook on the side of the stationery cupboard and dropped into the swivel chair. He looked at the pile of post in the middle of the desk and the corners of his mouth turned down. Blowing eight inches of hot air, he began to finger through the envelopes. There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  It was Ahmed.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said brightly.

  ‘Huh,’ Angel growled. ‘What’s good about it?’ he replied without looking up. ‘There was a time when I could do this job without getting a pain in my chest.’

  ‘Well, for one thing, sir,’ Ahmed said brightly. ‘It isn’t raining.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he grunted. ‘It’s forecast for this afternoon, lad.’

  Ahmed smiled and shook his head.

  Angel looked up. ‘Have you just come in here to give me a weather report?’

  ‘No sir. I’ve got that address you wanted … Cyril Sagar’s.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, his face brightening. ‘What is it then?’ His pen was poised.

  ‘11 Bartholomew Street.’

  ‘Aaaah. Right,’ he said scratching it out on the back of a used envelope and slipping it into his pocket.

  ‘And I’ve been down to the Bromersley Chronicle office and seen all four issues for August 1962. It came out on a Saturday then, sir.’

  ‘Aye. Did you find out anything useful about Mrs Sagar?’

  ‘No sir. It said he left a widow and a daughter but it didn’t give any names or addresses or even initials. There was nothing that would give us a lead to where they might be living now.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose.

  ‘It did mention someone who you know, though,’ Ahmed said with a smile.

  ‘Oh? Who?’

  ‘Mrs Buller-Price, sir. She was a witness to him falling, and she was present at the coroner’s inquest. And she was interviewed on television.’

  Angel blinked. ‘Now that’s interesting.’

  Ahmed beamed.

  ‘You’d better phone her up and ask her if she’d be kind enough to call in here next time she’s in town. Do it nicely.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Angel rubbed his mouth hard, then he said, ‘Aye. There’s something else, while I think about it. I want a list of calls made last month from 28 Huddersfield Road, that’s the home of a woman who calls herself a ‘medium’, Selina Bailey. You can get her number from the book. And keep that enquiry under your hat.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And where are Crisp and Scrivens?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Well find out!’ he snapped. ‘Tell them I want to speak to them, smartish.’

  ‘Right sir.’

  There was a knock at the door. ‘See who that is, lad, and then crack on. All these interruptions: this office is like Simon Cowell’s audition room.’

  Ahmed opened the door. It was DS Gawber.

  ‘What is it, Ron?’

  Gawber was carrying a cream file and a polythene bag with the word ‘Evidence’ in big red letters printed across it.

  Ahmed held the door open for him and then went out.

  ‘Just come in from Dr Mac,’ Gawber said, reading the label. ‘PM report on Geoffrey Sanson and the contents of his pockets.’

  ‘Aaah,’ Angel said and held out his hands. He put the stuff on the desk and began to open the plastic bag.

  ‘Can I have a word, sir?’

  Angel nodded towards the chair.

  ‘A woman’s just been in to report her husband missing. An Anton Mulholland.’

  Angel looked up briefly then frowned. ‘Happens every day.’

  ‘The type of man, age and so on … it’s a bit different. This chap, he’s fifty, highly skilled management engineer, had a long time in hospital … and still not well … he isn’t working … been very ill … disappeared last Tuesday night.’

  Angel shook his head impatiently. ‘It’ll be the milkwoman or a lass in the post office or —’

  ‘No. It’s not like that, sir.’

  He shook his head again and sighed. ‘Look, Ron. I’ve a lot on, and I can’t do with a sob story on a Monday morning.’

  Gawber persisted. ‘He’s been in touch with her, by phone, very briefly on Wednesday night. She said that he says he’s being held against his will … and he needs his pills to keep him going. She says he can’t manage without them.’

  Angel pursed his lips and then sniffed. ‘Hmm.’ He shook his head and said, ‘I bet his wife is a good-looker.’

  Gawber’s eyebrows lifted. He nodded. ‘Yes. She is actually.’ He smiled. ‘Yes. Adele Mulholland,’ he said, savouring her name.

  ‘Aye. Well it does sound serious. Do the best you can for her, but don’t bother me with it unless you have to. I am never at my best dealing with good-looking women with problems. I’m better with ugly ones whose life is sweet.’ He ran his hand over his chin. ‘Have you finished all your interviews in the Sanson case?’ he added quickly.

  ‘Finished on Friday, sir. Wrote them up over the weekend. Everybody says they were looking at the auctioneer or the painting, the vital moment the man was stabbed.’

  ‘Well somebody wasn’t,’ he sniffed. ‘Did you trace those two men in ponytails?’

  Gawber shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

  Angel pulled a face and tipped the contents of the polythene bag on to the desk top. There was a handkerchief, key ring, two pounds in change, ballpoint pen, wallet with various credit cards, library ticket, a single ticket to York Races in June, and a cheque book with the Northern Bank. That was what he wanted; he reached out for it and eagerly looked at the stubs. There were the expected entries for regular domestic needs, but the frequent entries to pay ‘Benny Peters’ sums from £20 to £100 were the entries Angel was most interested in. He pointed the stubs out to Gawber. ‘Who’s Benny Peters?’

  Gawber shook his head. Angel thrust the cheque book into his hand. ‘Go down to the Northern Bank. Find out all you can about these payments, and the state of Sanson’s account.’

  Suddenly, Angel’s office door was thrown open. It banged back against the wall noisily and rebounded back a foot or so.

  The two men looked up open-mouthed.

  In the doorway was the tall lumbering figure of the superintendent, grinding his teeth and producing an excess of saliva. He held out a hand. The fingers seemed to be feeling the quality of invisible cloth.

  Angel’s jaw dropped. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  Gawber stood up.

  The superintendent’s face was whiter than a death certificate. His big ginger eyebrows projected forward giving him the hooded look of a vulture.

  Angel licked his lips and stood up.

  ‘I’ve just had a triple nine call,’ he said breathily, his red eyes staring. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Doctor Sinclair and his
wife … found dead … in their house. Get over there, smartly.’

  Angel’s neck and arms turned to goose-flesh.

  They were the first on the scene at the large Victorian semi-detached house. It was situated in one of the few elegant tree-lined streets in the town, where in the first half of the twentieth century the professional and business leaders of the town had lived and brought up their children. Sadly, it was now relegated to lumbering, ill-maintained houses, some converted into flats, as wealthy succeeding generations had made their homes in newly built, detached houses further out of town on the perimeter of the green belt.

  As Gawber and Angel got out of the car, they saw a young woman in the front garden talking to a neighbour over the garden fence. When she saw them, she came running down the short garden path to the gate, a teacup in her hand. Her drawn face told the story.

  ‘Are you the police? … I come and do a bit of cleaning for Mrs Sinclair, three mornings a week. I came this morning. I pressed the doorbell. No reply. I tried several times. I couldn’t make them hear me. Then I walked round to the French window, they sometimes leave it open for me. As I tried the handle …’ She stopped. Her face creased, tears welled round her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She dug into a pocket searching for a tissue, then looked at the empty teacup. Bending down, she put the cup on the path, stood up, found a tissue and wiped her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’ She pointed to the path leading to the rear of the house. ‘Down there … by the door …’ She shivered and turned away from the house. ‘I want to go home.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, love. We’ll take you home.’

  She exploded into a heart-felt cry. Angel balanced on one leg and put an arm round her.

  Gawber turned away.

  A police car pulled up quietly, followed by an ambulance.

  ‘I’ll just see to these chaps, love.’ He signalled to Gawber to look after her.

  DS Crisp and DC Scrivens came up to him with anxious faces.

  ‘Where the hell have you two been hiding? Never mind. Check on the doors. If they’re locked, break in. Go in by the back way. Quick as you can.’

  Angel squeezed the grips on the crutches and propelled himself down the path towards the back of the house.