Murder in Bare Feet

by Roger Silverwood

  He drove the BMW round to the small office block, moved the forklift, the loose steel plate cover beneath it and unlocked the hidden safe.

  Elliott looked on.

  Angel lifted open the heavy safe door.

  ‘Ah!’ Elliott said, his face brightening. He crouched down and gawped into the empty safe. ‘It is certainly big enough, Michael. But if there are no traces—?’

  ‘None,’ he said.

  Elliott shrugged and continued to stare at the open safe.

  Angel looked up and around, suddenly aware that they could be observed. He wondered who could have looked down or across at Charles Pleasant any time when he was opening the safe. It was pretty well sheltered from the world on three sides: the office block, the forklift truck and the perimeter wall. However, he could possibly have been observed by a keen-eyed nosey parker looking from a first floor window in the scruffy lodging house next door. But even if Samson Tickle had ever observed Pleasant’s movements, he wouldn’t have had a key to the old safe. But there was food for thought.

  As Elliott continued to snoop around the safe, Angel meandered out of the scrapyard and up to the rear of the lodging house. The raucous clanging and banging of drums and guitars accompanied by screaming human voices emanating from the electronic speaker in the place assaulted his ears. He pulled a pained face and wondered if it was always like that. He went down the side of the building to the back gate. There was no sign of Tickle, his wife or daughter or anybody else. The gate was open. He went into the small yard and looked around. There was nothing there, just a prop holding up an empty washing line and three wheelie bins for rubbish. He rubbed his chin. The racket was louder and dreadful. He looked upwards. The old stone building seemed eerie and the sky was black as if building for a storm. The din was unbearable. He grunted. There was something wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong. He was considering whether to knock on the back door when he became aware of another noise. It contrasted wildly and made the racket even more like bedlam. It was his mobile phone ringing. He rushed away from the din, out of the yard, down the step and closed the gate. He answered the mobile as he stepped through the entrance into the scrapyard. It was Ahmed.

  ‘That ballroom clock at The Feathers was spot on correct, sir.’

  Angel sighed. ‘Right, lad. Thank you.’

  ‘And the super’s looking for you, sir. He told me to find you and tell you that he wants to see you, urgently.’

  ‘Right. I’ll come straightaway.’

  The lines on Angel’s forehead creased. Confirmation that the clock was correct meant that Emlyn Jones and his son were definitely in The Feathers at the time of Charles Pleasant’s murder. It didn’t help much, but it did finally eliminate them. He’d be able to tell Harker that now for a certainty.

  He returned to find Elliott still staring at the open safe. He looked up. ‘If only this safe could speak,’ he said. ‘Maybe it could tell us about all the stolen stuff it has held hidden from the world.’

  Angel didn’t hear him. ‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘The super wants me. You can stay if you want to. I have to go back.’

  ‘No. There’s nothing more here for me, Michael. I can’t say whether the jade head was here or not,’ he said closing the safe door and turning the key. ‘Found anything to help you with your case?’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘No. Very strange. Something odd about their back yard,’ he said tossing his head in the direction of the lodging house. ‘No dog kennel.’

  Elliott frowned. ‘No dog kennel?’

  ‘Come in,’ Harker yelled.

  Angel pushed open the door.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ Harker continued. It wasn’t a welcoming tone. His ginger moustache was twitching. Angel sensed he was in a bad mood.

  ‘Come in. Come in,’ he squawked impatiently. He took out his menthol inhaler, removed the cap, stuck it up his nose, sniffed noisily, stuck the top back on and dropped it into his pocket.

  ‘Sit down. Sit down.’

  He picked up a pink sheet of A4 from the in tray on his desk and glanced quickly at it. ‘Yes. What’s this? DS Taylor says you authorized the purchase of 28 pounds of plaster of Paris?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘And forty-three plastic boxes? And forty-three padded packets and forty-three first-class, registered express delivery at £6.87 each.’

  ‘It was for a copy of the footprint—’

  ‘I know what it was for,’ he bawled. ‘The whole thing, including qualified DC’s labour, works out at nigh on seven hundred pounds. What do you think SOCO are there for? They are not there to make plaster cast footprints on a production line basis for some new game you’ve invented.’

  Angel’s lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘That is the footprint of the murderer of Charles Pleasant.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘I thought it was a quick, cheap way of informing the national force.’

  ‘And do you think that all the forces in the country are going to line up the villains that pass through their hands in the course of the day, get them to remove their shoes and socks and invite them to put their bare foot on the plaster cast and see if it fits, like they’re playing a pantomime game?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Angel said.

  ‘And what about their human rights? Do you not think that their human rights might be infringed?’

  ‘No, sir. If they are villains, they are villains. I wasn’t thinking that anyone not suspected of a crime would be asked to check themselves out against the plaster cast.’

  ‘Brussels says that all people, villains or otherwise, are still entitled to be treated and protected in a particular way.’

  ‘They say a lot of things in Brussels, sir,’ Angel said.

  ‘You think you can run the force as if it was your own private army.’

  ‘It’s not as intrusive as taking fingerprints, sir. For one thing, there are no ink marks on the foot, and—’

  ‘There are strict routines to be gone through – as well you know – before a person’s fingerprints can be taken.’

  Angel sighed. It was useless arguing. He had run out of sweet reasonableness.

  ‘And the cost comes straight out of my budget,’ Harker continued. Then he pulled his full repertoire of facial expressions.

  Angel avoided looking at him and said nothing.

  ‘Well, I can’t very well stop them now,’ Harker concluded.

  Angel almost smiled. The plaster casts had been despatched by first-class post yesterday. He would have had a job on!

  ‘Don’t do anything like that in future without consulting me, understand?’

  ‘Right sir,’ he said and stood up.

  ‘Just a minute. Just a minute,’ he said.

  Angel concealed a sigh and sat down.

  ‘Did you find anything out about the men who abducted you in the Fat Duck the other day?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing new there. I’ve been through the rogue’s gallery. They’re not in there.’

  ‘What were you doing in a public house at that time of the day, anyway?’

  Harker didn’t approve of public houses. His face showed it. Angel had seen that same expression on a female prison visitor after she had caught a whiff of Strangeway’s gravy.

  Angel’s knuckles whitened. ‘It was my lunchtime. I sometimes meet a snout there.’

  Harker rubbed his chin. ‘I thought I saw that young DS from the Antiques and Fine Art squad, going into your office?’

  ‘Yes sir. He’s looking for a jade head that has been stolen.’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s in the Police Review this morning. Don’t let him waste your time on that, lad. Let him find it. It’s no skin off our nose.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Angel said. He would have agreed to almost anything to get out of Harker’s office. There was a lot to do.

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  He eventually escaped from Harker’s office and found Elliott waitin
g outside his office for him. He looked excited and yet restrained.

  ‘Got a minute, Michael?’

  ‘Of course. Come in. Sit down.’

  ‘I have just heard from my boss in London,’ Elliott began. ‘The man who held you up, who called himself Gold, was a drug smuggler from Hong Kong whose real name was Abraham Goldstein. Your description fits exactly. He likes to be known as Gold. His two sidekicks were Nelson Shadrack and Seminole Trotter. They originally had a racket stealing expensive cars here in the UK with fake banker’s drafts and exporting them with fake documents. They were from Morocco but lately working from an address in Dover.’

  Angel looked up, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Have they caught them, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Elliott hesitated.

  Angel stared at him.

  ‘Got some more info on Goldstein,’ Elliott said. His face looked solemn.

  ‘Oh?’

  There was an awkward pause.

  Angel frowned. ‘What?’ he said eventually.

  Elliott licked his lips. ‘It’s not very nice. He was found dead in a hotel urinal in Earl’s Court,’ he said quickly. ‘He’d been attacked from behind with a cheese-wire. His head was almost severed.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose, turned away momentarily, licked his lips, turned back and said, ‘Have they any idea who was responsible?’

  ‘My boss thinks that – from the MO – it will be a Chinese gang member after the reward.’

  ‘And what happened to Nelson Shadrack and Seminole Trotter?’

  ‘Don’t know. They seemed to have run off. I expect they’ve gone to ground.’

  ‘And the jade head?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

  Angel sat down.

  Elliott said, ‘I’ll have to go straight back to London, Michael. See what I can find out about Goldstein. You never know, he might have had a lead. There might have been something in his pockets or his hotel room.’

  Angel turned to the table behind him. There were two boxes containing plaster footprints of the murderer of Charles Pleasant. He picked up one and gave it to Elliott. ‘Here, Matthew, take this. Check this against the right foot of Goldstein. You might find my murderer for me.’

  Elliott took it and smiled.

  ‘You might be lucky. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.’

  Angel crossed to the door, opened it and shook his hand.

  Elliott dashed off.

  A split second before he closed the door, he saw a man he thought he knew being accompanied down the corridor by PC John Weightman. He frowned as he returned to his desk. It was somebody in whose company he had been quite recently, and not somebody he had expected to see in the station, but he couldn’t put him into context.

  He picked up the phone and tapped in a number. Ahmed answered promptly.

  ‘I’ve just seen John Weightman down the corridor with a man. Find out who he is and what he’s doing here.’

  As soon as he replaced the phone, he remembered who it was. It was Grant Molloy, manager of Pleasant’s scrapyard. He was surprised to find him in the station.

  Two minutes later, Ahmed rang back. ‘He’s one of two men who were fighting in the car park of the Fat Duck, sir. Something to do with a gold chain. His name is Grant Molloy. He’s in Interview Room Number One.’

  ‘Where’s the other defendant?’

  ‘He’s in the security room at reception, sir, with Ted Scrivens.’

  Angel replaced the phone and charged up the corridor to reception. He opened the trap in the door of the security room and peered through. Sitting uncomfortably on the fitted bed was a white-whiskered old man in navy blue suit trousers and navy blue suit jacket that didn’t match, and a pair of trainers. He was holding a mug of tea and looking up at DC Scrivens who was writing something on a clipboard. On hearing the opening of the trap in the door, the two men turned and looked at it.

  ‘All right, Ted. I’m coming in,’ Angel said.

  Scrivens straightened up.

  Angel let himself in. The security room didn’t have a knob or handle on the inside, so he left the door slightly ajar. He looked down at the old man. ‘What’s going on here?’

  Scrivens said, ‘This is Fillip Featherstone, sir.’

  ‘Fighting Fillip Featherstone,’ the whiskered man said. ‘That’s why Fillip is spelled with a F. He wouldn’t believe me,’ he added, pointing to Scrivens.

  ‘He’s an ex-boxer, sir,’ Scrivens said.

  ‘What’s the charge?’

  ‘They were fighting. Mr Featherstone and another man were causing a disturbance in the Fat Duck.’

  Angel looked down at Featherstone. ‘What were you fighting about?’

  ‘I wasn’t meaning any harm. A gold chain except that it weren’t gold. He’d tried to pass me a gold-plated chain for a pukka solid 18-carat one. I gave him £100. When I found out it was plated I realized I had been done. I threw it at him. He threw it back and threatened me, so I gave him one. Right in the solar plexus.’

  ‘That’s assault, Mr Featherstone,’ Scrivens said.

  ‘Well, what would you have done? Let him get away with it?’

  Angel pursed his lips. ‘And who was this chap? Can you describe him?’

  ‘It’s that chap Molloy. The man in the scrap business. He’s always hawking stuff around.’

  Angel’s raised his head. Interesting, he thought. Was there another possible line of inquiry opening up to him? ‘Have you bought stuff from him before?’

  ‘Might have.’

  ‘Oh? What sort of stuff?’

  He hesitated. ‘Gold bits. A muff chain. A woman’s charm bracelet. A turquoise ring. Can’t think of anything else.’

  ‘And you were satisfied.’

  There was more hesitation. ‘I suppose so. A mate of mine bought a car battery off of him for ten quid, but it was duff.’

  ‘But you were satisfied with all the stuff he had sold you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Where’s the chain?’

  Featherstone plunged into his pocket and pulled out a gentleman’s watch chain. It certainly looked like gold. He passed it over to Angel.

  Angel said, ‘How do you know it isn’t gold?’

  Featherstone blinked. ‘Huh! There’s a little tag soldered on one of the ends near the catch. It has the letters RG embossed on it.’

  Angel looked at the end of each catch and eventually found it.

  ‘It stands for rolled gold,’ Featherstone said. ‘He tried to kid me on it stood for real gold. Huh!’

  Angel smiled wryly. He looked across at Scrivens. ‘Take this down to SOCO and ask somebody to test this for me and bring it straight back.’

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Featherstone called after him.

  Scrivens went out leaving the door ajar.

  The old man turned to Angel and said, ‘Well, are you going to arrest Molloy, then?’

  ‘Are you making a formal charge?’

  ‘Well,’ he rubbed his whiskered chin. ‘I don’t want a fuss. All I want is my hundred quid back. He wouldn’t give it to me.’

  ‘There’s a matter of a charge against you for disturbing the peace, causing an affray and I don’t know what else.’

  ‘You’re not serious, are you? What else was I to do?’

  Angel frowned. ‘We’ll see. Wait here.’

  Angel went out of the room and closed the door. He went down to Interview Room Number One. There was big PC John Weightman sitting opposite Grant Molloy, who was looking forlorn. As Angel came through, Molloy immediately looked away.

  Weightman stood up. ‘Do you want to take over, sir?’

  ‘No, John. Not really. What’s it all about?’

  ‘Well, sir, I was called to the Fat Duck to find this man with another fighting and shouting in the car park. I stopped the fight and summoned a car to bring them here. This man is—’

  ‘I know who it is, John. Did he say what they were fighting about?’
>
  Molloy turned to look at Angel and spoke out loudly. ‘I wasn’t fighting,’ he said. ‘I was only defending myself. I had sold a heavy rolled gold double Albert watch chain to Fillip Featherstone. He was happy enough with the deal at first, then he suddenly changed. He went mad and wanted his money back. He actually threw it at me. I threw it back. Then he came at me like a madman. And that’s the truth, the honest gospel truth.’

  Angel told him that Featherstone had said that he had been told it was solid gold, but Molloy said that he had told him it was rolled gold from the start and that he would have wanted more than £100 for it if it had been gold. Angel asked him if he was prepared to give Featherstone his money back and Molloy reluctantly agreed, then Angel said, ‘Where did you get the double Albert from?’

  Molloy looked away briefly, then came back and said, ‘It was my father’s. I have had it years.’

  Angel knew he was lying.

  ‘And was a gold muff chain, a woman’s gold charm bracelet and a gold turquoise ring, all your father’s also?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Angel raised an eyebrow.

  Molloy’s face went red. ‘Well, no,’ he said.

  ‘And the car battery you sold for £10 to a friend of Featherstone’s, which incidentally, was duff.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Molloy said. ‘It was stuff mostly brought into the yard by totters, but anybody who was a bit short on their rent, or whatever, would bring stuff in and try and sell it. I’ve even had three piece suites and televisions offered, usually near Christmas.’

  ‘All the stuff you bought should have gone through Mr Pleasant’s books.’

  He looked away before replying. ‘He was doing all right. You don’t run a new Bentley on peanuts.’

  ‘But you bought stuff with his money, didn’t give a receipt, didn’t enter it in the books, sold it at a profit then replaced the purchase money in the float and kept the difference for yourself?’

  ‘It was only beer money, Mr Angel. Pleasant didn’t miss it. I didn’t have to buy the stuff in the first place. I wasn’t stealing from anybody.’

  ‘It’s still dishonest, Molloy.’