The Auction Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  A paramedic carrying a blanket and a small bag rushed by. ‘Where’s the casualty?’

  ‘We are trying to gain entry now. I’m told there are two.’

  The young man blinked.

  As Angel was passing the French windows, he saw that a pane of glass approximately 6” x 6” near the handle had been tapped out. He looked down for the broken fragments.

  What he saw made him gasp. Inside on the room floor, only inches from the glass door and looking straight at him, was the open-eyed staring face of a woman. The sight made him freeze on the spot. It looked like an old-fashioned pot doll with long stringy hair strewn about its face. The neck was bare. The body was wearing a voluminous long white garment of some sort. The top half of it was red … like an explosion in a dye works. There was no doubt she was dead. On the floor surrounding her and beyond was an irregular pile of tablecloths, tipped-up cutlery, coasters and sheet music. Above lines and dots he made out the words ‘1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky’. All around her was the shambles he was becoming used to seeing. He turned away. He could hear his pulse drumming in his ears and felt unreal. The door jamb looked fuzzy. He felt a hard cold brick where his stomach had been. It was impossible to continue seeing so much death and not be affected.

  An ambulanceman rushed past him. ‘Excuse me.’

  The sight of the man and the sound of his voice brought Angel back to reality. His eyes came back into focus and he blew out a yard of breath. Gripping his crutches, he went down the path to the back door. As he approached, he heard three heavy bangs at one-second intervals, followed by the splintering of wood.

  A voice said, ‘We’re in.’

  Crisp pushed at the door several times, against some obstruction on the room floor, until the gap was wide enough for a man to get through.

  ‘Let the medics in first,’ he heard himself call out.

  Crisp and Scrivens pulled away from the door. The two men in green and yellow dashed inside.

  Angel looked through the open splintered door into the kitchen. The floor round the doorway was littered with packets of sugar, rice and breakfast cereals, cutlery, newspapers, the wall clock, even a broken willow-pattern roast joint dish and other kinds of domestic bits and pieces. Against the far wall he could see a big white cupboard with its doors open and empty shelves except for a solitary blue cup on the middle one. It was sickening. It was a repeat performance. How many more times?

  Another vehicle arrived.

  Gawber came up to him. ‘That girl’s in a bit of a state,’ he said quietly. ‘She’d be better in hospital.’

  ‘Aye.’ Angel nodded. He looked behind him. ‘Scrivens,’ he called.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘There’s a lass round at the front in a red coat. She found the body. The shock has got to her. Take her to the hospital urgently. Ask them to have a look at her. Wait with her. Find out if she’s any family. If they discharge her, take her home. See she’s all right, then come back here.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And, Scrivens! Get her name and address, and if she wants to talk, listen to her, she might say something useful, but don’t press her.’

  He nodded, and together with Gawber he went up to the front gate.

  Dr Mac came bustling down the path. They exchanged glances and shook their heads. There was no need for niceties. These two men had been working together at Bromersley nick for twenty years.

  ‘The super said he thought there were two?’ His deep Glaswegian accent seemed to suit the occasion.

  ‘One’s dead … Mrs Sinclair,’ Angel said quietly. ‘Don’t know for certain about the doctor.’

  Mac sniffed. ‘Who’s inside?’

  ‘Just the medics.’

  The doctor inhaled noisily, turned and mumbled something as he made his way swiftly up the path to get kitted up.

  Gawber came back with a roll of blue and white ‘Do not cross’ tape. He went over to Crisp, said something and they began unrolling it.

  The paramedic and the ambulanceman picked their way over the stuff on the kitchen floor, out on to the back step and into the yard.

  Angel advanced on them.

  The ambulanceman carrying a blanket and a bag avoided everybody and rushed straight up the path towards the front gate.

  The paramedic looked across at Angel. He glanced at the crutches. ‘Who’s in charge?’

  ‘I am. What have we got?’

  The man took a deep breath. ‘Two bodies. A male, white hair, about eighty … in a first-floor bedroom. Female, presumably his wife, in that first room, ground floor … both stabbed in the chest. Can’t do anything for them. Sorry.’

  *

  ‘They were both stabbed in the heart with stilettos like Geoffrey Sanson and Alison Drabble, sir,’ Angel began. ‘The doctor was stabbed in bed upstairs and Mrs Sinclair down in the drawing room. The house was then taken to pieces systematically and searched; the cupboards, drawers and shelves were all cleared and the contents dumped on the floor in the usual way. And there are no fingerprints, no footprints and no witnesses, and up to now, no DNA.’

  The superintendent stopped grinding his teeth and shook his head. ‘We have got to stop this wholesale bloodletting some way,’ he stormed. ‘The chief is breathing down my neck. I’ve got the national press bleating away. I have even had the Editor of the Daily Standard phoning me at home! Don’t know how the hell he got my number!’

  Angel wrinkled his nose and shuffled uncomfortably in the chair. He licked his lips. He had never had a serial case as gruesome as this, and one so lacking in clues. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew whatever he uttered would sound like an excuse.

  ‘How did the murderer get in?’ the super growled.

  ‘Through the French window. A pane of glass was knocked in. The key was in the lock.’

  ‘Huh. Isn’t it always? Did he come out the same way?’

  ‘Yes, sir. With difficulty. Mrs Sinclair’s body was on the floor against the door. It would have to have been pushed by somebody fairly strong to enable him to squeeze out.’

  ‘Now that’s interesting. Hmm. It takes no strength at all to slip a stiletto between the ribs, but a bit of muscle would be necessary to get out of the house. Hmm. Looks like it rules out the possibility of the murderer being a woman?’

  Angel nodded. ‘It looks that way, sir.’

  ‘Why was the doctor stabbed in bed and his wife downstairs?’

  ‘I’m guessing that she heard the noise … the smashed window pane, maybe … came downstairs … went into the drawing room … the intruder stuck the stiletto in her … Then the murderer came upstairs, into the bedroom … and stuck the knife into him.’

  ‘And left a stiletto stuck in each of them?’ Angel nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Two stilettos.’ ‘Sounds like they went there armed purposefully, deliberately to —’

  ‘They?’ he queried. ‘Are you thinking plural, sir? Are you thinking two men?’

  The superintendent’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Two big men? Strong men to push open that French window to get out?’

  Angel rubbed his chin.

  ‘Mmmm. There is one big difference, in this case,’ the superintendent said, pointing a bony finger. ‘Sinclair and his wife weren’t part of the Ogmore troupe.’

  ‘No sir, but he was their doctor. He attended both Lord Archie and Lady Emerald … was still attending her.’ He stopped, pursed his lips and added, ‘She’ll not like this. She’ll not like this at all.’

  ‘Aaaah. And it’s the same MO. Have you got a motive yet? What lines of enquiry are you following?’

  ‘I have no motive, sir. I have to get confirmation that there’s no DNA, and see if the post-mortems tell us anything. SOCOs are still searching the house. They might come up with something.’

  The superintendent went through his repertoire of face-pulling. ‘Aye, and they might not.’

  *

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’ DS Crisp said as he closed the door.

  Angel looked up an
d glared at him. ‘Oh. The wanderer returns. Where have you been? Taking your elephants for a stroll over the Alps? Did you run out of money, or have you come back simply because it’s raining?’

  ‘No sir,’ he said, disregarding the sarcasm. ‘I have only just finished the enquiries, and I know you wanted me to finish them off. And you know I had to break off this morning to attend at Dr Sinclair’s house.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. Well, you’d better go back there now and help Gawber finish off. It’s a big house.’

  ‘I got something this morning, sir.’

  Angel looked up. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes sir. I have a witness who saw two men having a serious natter, arms waving angrily, that sort of thing, with Geoffrey Sanson, down that ginnel between the butcher’s and the auctioneer’s.’

  ‘Oh?’ Angel’s eyes bounced. His mind raced. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Just after the auction had started. Elsie Bennett … works at the butcher’s. She was coming back after delivering something to a customer and was taking a short cut across the car park. She saw them briefly as she passed the end of the ginnel.’

  Angel felt his pulse rate increase. ‘Did she see either of the two men actually assault Sanson?’

  ‘No. But she got a good look at them; they were quite distinctive. She’d be able to identify them if she saw them again.’

  ‘Got a description?’

  ‘Big, middle-aged and they both had ponytails.’

  9

  ‘Good morning, sir. Have you seen the morning papers?’

  ‘No, Ron. Have I missed something important?’

  ‘There’s a big lump of money been taken from the Northern Bank on New Street: £600,000.’

  Angel looked up from his desk. ‘What? A hold-up? I hadn’t heard. When was this?’

  ‘No. Fraud. Something to do with the cash machines in the wall. They’re not sure exactly when, or how. Over a period of a couple of days, I think.’

  There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in.’

  It was Ahmed. He was carrying a copy of the local newspaper, South Yorkshire Examiner.

  ‘Now then, lad?’ Angel said, his mind still mulling over the cash machine fraud. ‘What do you want?’

  Ahmed nodded at Gawber and turned to Angel. ‘Have you read this, sir?’ he said and slid the paper on the desk in front of him.

  Angel took in the headline and read it out loud. ‘South Yorks £1.5m Bank swindle!’ He pushed the paper away irritably. ‘So what? You didn’t do it, did you?’ he said, pulling a stern face.

  Ahmed grinned.

  ‘Well, tell me about it. In a nutshell. What happened? I’ve a lot on.’

  Gawber said, ‘There’re similar headlines, on all the papers: the locals and the nationals. The national figure runs into fifty million quid!’

  Ahmed read: ‘There’s £320,000 missing from the Woollen Bank in Doncaster, £129,000 and £402,000 from two branches of the City, Country and Capital Bank in Sheffield, and £600,000 from the Northern Bank in Bromersley.’

  Angel shook his head in surprise. ‘How was it done?’

  The phone rang. He reached out for it. ‘Angel.’

  ‘Aye.’ It was the superintendent. ‘Have you seen Pogle anywhere? Is he with you?’

  ‘No, sir. He’ll be on that obbo at Littlecombe, won’t he?’ Angel said slyly.

  The superintendent sniffed and then replied, ‘Come down here then.’

  There was a click and then silence.

  Angel frowned and replaced the phone. He stood up. ‘I’ve got to go.’ He reached out for the crutches. ‘Ron, if you find anything interesting at Sinclair’s let me know. And Ahmed, see if you can find somebody called Benny Peters. Might be a bookie. And you can leave that paper there when you’ve read it, if you like.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And tell Scrivens I want to see him,’ he bawled over his shoulder as he pointed the crutches down the corridor.

  He knocked on the superintendent’s door and went in. A smart, well-fed man in a suit as sharp as a stiletto was sitting opposite Harker looking serious, rich and important.

  The super stopped grinding his teeth. ‘This is Mr Alwoodley, local representative of the Association of UK Bankers and Deposit Takers. He represents the banking fraternity in this neck of the woods. That’s right Mr Alwoodley, isn’t it?’ he said, oozing goodwill, with a smile that would have made Anne Robinson reach for the slop bucket.

  The smart man nodded, but he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Mr Alwoodley has already seen the chief constable and he has authorized him to address senior officers,’ the super said. ‘Merryweather is on leave, Ascrigg is off sick and Pogle is busy, engaged on an urgent case. That leaves just you. You’ll have to fill Pogle in with the gist of it later. We are all ears, Mr Alwoodley,’ he said and returned to grinding his teeth.

  ‘Yes. Thank you, superintendent,’ the man began. ‘As you will have heard, gentlemen, very recently, large sums of cash have been and are still being defrauded from the banks from the ATMs, the Automatic Teller Machines, the holes in the walls that dispense cash. And you probably know the system works by the connection of the ATM to the bank’s computer via a telephone line. Well, a computer geek in the States has discovered how to intercept the link, override the security regime and cause the machine to pay out unmonitored sums without limit. Essentially, it works like this. An accomplice enters a valid card and PIN in the ATM in the regular way and begins a transaction. The electrical activity generated down the line enables the crook to identify the circuit out of many thousands. He introduces a resistor at that point that counters the usual credit-limit monitoring mechanism, thus allowing the ATM to pay out cash non-stop, virtually indefinitely! This man has conducted this fraud throughout the States, raking in millions of dollars. Furthermore, he has now marketed the bug and method on a franchise basis around the world. In the UK, we know there are over thirty licensees. And the word is that in this area the so-called licensee is a man called Harry Youel.’

  The superintendent and Angel exchanged the slightest of glances.

  Alwoodley continued. ‘As we speak, this man Youel, no doubt, will have an engineer, or more than one, installing bugs in lines willy nilly, defrauding my members of millions of pounds and, in the process, destabilizing the currency. It is obviously essential that you arrest this man immediately and charge him with fraud.’

  The superintendent said, ‘How do you know all this, Mr Alwoodley? About this chap Harry Youel?’

  ‘We caught a man in Glasgow, who had been a local director in the telephone company’s offices. He had been beaten and shot by the thug who had bought the licence for the Glasgow area from the American. He told one of our security investigators, just before he died. You can rely upon the source, superintendent.’

  ‘And where do we find this chap, Harry Youel?’ Angel asked tongue-in-cheek. He noticed out of his eye corner, the superintendent nodding at the question.

  Alwoodley blinked and then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hoped you would know that.’ The superintendent said, ‘If we knew where villains were hiding, life would be much simpler, Mr Alwoodley. Hmmm. Is that it? Have you finished?’

  ‘Not quite, if you don’t mind?’

  The superintendent waved him on to continue and began to suck his gums.

  ‘The ATMs and computers are constantly being updated to avoid fraud, of course, and our members are hastily installing the necessary hardware to prevent recurrences, but it will take us another month or six weeks to have everything secure. In the meantime we are losing millions of pounds.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Why don’t you simply empty the machines, the ATMs, until the new safeguards are in place?’

  The young man smirked and lowered his eyelids momentarily. ‘If only it was that simple. Our members have inter-bank agreements with — among others — foreign countries to fund their nationals when they are in the UK, and they have come to depend on ATMs as a reliable method of sourci
ng cash, as indeed have many UK customers. It would leave users stranded, be very embarrassing and would lose us a great number of depositors if we were simply to withdraw the service. And it comes at a very bad time I might say, just when we are getting customers used to interfacing with technology.’

  Angel looked at the superintendent and then back at Alwoodley. ‘Well, you could close all the ATMs down for six weeks, couldn’t you? And your staff could learn to interface with people again,’ he said with a sniff. ‘It would be very much cheaper for you!’

  *

  Ahmed put his head round the door. ‘There’s Mrs Buller-Price in reception to see you, sir. I phoned her yesterday morning for you, if you remember?’

  Angel pulled a face. ‘What!’ He certainly needed to see her, but he wished she hadn’t been so prompt. ‘Right, Ahmed, show her in,’ he said and began to clear up the papers on his desk.

  Ahmed bobbed out leaving the door ajar.

  Angel resolved to be his usual charming self, but he would have to give her short shrift. Two minutes later, he heard footsteps approaching down the corridor.

  Ahmed tapped on the open door and pushed it open further. ‘Mrs Buller-Price, sir,’ he said with a big smile.

  She rolled into the office, blinking, with her mouth making movements like a goldfish.

  ‘How nice to see you again, Mrs Buller-Price,’ Angel said. ‘Thank you for coming in.’ He pointed to the chair.

  She homed in on him, beamed and held out a big hand. Then she sat down in the chair and lowered her walking stick with the Victorian pot handle and her big leather handbag to the floor close by her feet.

  He glanced across at Ahmed, who was holding the doorknob, and said, ‘Two teas, lad?’

  Ahmed nodded and went out.

  Looking round the little office she exclaimed, ‘What a lovely room you have here, inspector. But no flowers?’

  ‘No. The chief constable doesn’t like the offices decorated with flowers.’

  ‘Oh really? Oh yes. Doesn’t want to soften your image, I expect,’ she said with a knowing wink. ‘Makes it harder to get confessions out of the punks. I get the picture,’ she added with a chuckle.