‘He must have a devious mind.’
‘Anyway, the robbery worked like this. Chantelle Moses arrived at the bank, padded up as a pregnant woman. She carried a long hat pin safely stuck into a parsnip somewhere on her; also a glass vial containing sulphretted hydrogen stuck to a piece of sticky tape. She conned her way into the lavatory. With the hat pin she made a miniscule hole in the floating plastic ballcock in the cistern, which we now know caused a flood ten minutes after she had been taken away by Stanley Jones and Abe Longley dressed up as ambulance men in charge of a fake ambulance. She placed the vial in the hinge of the door, and she clocked the position and height of the CCTV cameras for her partner and his cousin for when they made their second entrance as plumbers later. The telephone calls, the interceptions and the voices were being appropriately managed by Emlyn Jones on a stool outside the solicitor’s office next door to the bank. He was also, of course, the mastermind behind the whole thing. The rest you know. At 6 o’clock tomorrow morning, three of the four of them will be arrested simultaneously, and charged with bank robbery.’
‘That’s great, Michael. But why only three?’
‘Because we already have the fourth in custody charged with murder.’
Her face glowed. ‘Really? Well, who is it? And why did he murder him in his bare feet?’
‘Well, it was Abe Longley.’
‘Really? Abe Longley? I thought he had an alibi with his girlfriend and their parents?’
‘It was a lie, and we broke it.’
‘But why did he murder him in his bare feet?’
‘I’m getting there. I’ll tell you.’
‘And why was Charles Pleasant driving without shoes?’
Angel smiled. ‘In 2003, Jazmin left her husband, Emlyn Jones, to live with Charles Pleasant. Emlyn Jones hated Pleasant for taking her away from him and their son Stanley. Likewise, Larry Longley hated Pleasant for taking his wife, Bridie, away from him and their son, Abe. And I suspect that Jones had for some time egged his nephew on to get even with him. He had said he couldn’t himself. As the deserted husband, he’d be bound to be the prime suspect. Anyway, as his father was suffering and getting weaker in prison, Abe must have eventually agreed, a plan made and alibis set in place.
‘They knew Pleasant was dealing in stolen valuables, antiquities and so on, so somebody, Jones probably, disguised his voice, phoned Pleasant and made a deal to offer to sell him something interesting for £8,000, and an appointment at the scrapyard for 4.30 p.m. was duly arranged. Now, Emlyn Jones, Stanley and Abe Longley had to have good alibis. Abe had worked hard at creating a relationship with Penny Furnace and her parents, and Emlyn Jones planned to be photographed by his son, with the super, at the Potts gig at 4.30 exactly. It was this exactness that started me thinking. The murder actually occurred ten or eleven minutes earlier than planned. As you remember, it was a very hot summer Sunday afternoon … hottest day for fifteen summers. Anyway, sometime that afternoon, before 4.00, I suppose, Abe Longley arrived at Sebastopol Terrace … he was early … he had time on his hands … decided to take shelter out of the sun and out of the way of potential witnesses. He rented a room in the lodging house next door to the scrap metal dealer’s, which very suitably had a bird’s eye view of the yard. It was very hot. He was uncomfortable, maybe he … looked at the time … decided he’d time to take a cool shower. He stripped down and got in the shower. While enjoying the coolness of the water, he heard the sound of a car arriving. He leaped out of the shower, looked through the window, saw the car drive up below … it was Pleasant’s Bentley arriving at the scrapyard. He was undressed and wet through. He pulled on his trousers and shirt and grabbed his gun and dashed into street, leaving the room with the shower running and his pants, shoes and anything else behind. The puddles complained about upstairs in the hotel weren’t made by water leaks or imagined dogs, they were made by Abe Longley. When he reached the pavement outside the front of the lodging house, Pleasant had already got out of car, unlocked the padlock, pushed open the gate, returned to the car, got in, closed the car door, and was about to drive into the yard. It was at that moment that Longley, in wet clothes and no shoes, arrived. He dodged behind the cement mixer and fired four shots from a gun fitted with a silencer. Pleasant flopped over the steering wheel, dead. Longley then started to run off, he realized he had no shoes. There was nobody around. He didn’t want to waste time going back upstairs. So he rushed over to Pleasant’s car, opened the car door, removed his shoes, closed the door, wiped the door handle clean of his prints, put on the dead man’s shoes and ran off.’
Mary’s jaw dropped. ‘And that was it?’
Angel nodded.
There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other. They weren’t expecting anybody.
‘I’ll go,’ Mary said, pushing herself out of the chair.
‘I’m having another beer. Do you want anything?’
‘Just a tonic water, love.’
Angel went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. From the front door, he heard Mary say, ‘Thank you very much.’ The door closed and then he heard her whoop with joy. ‘I’ve won! Michael. I’ve won,’ she dashed through to the kitchen tearing into a colourful overprinted envelope.
‘What’s that?’ he said turning away from the cupboard. ‘Who was that?’
‘John from next door,’ she said. ‘Just got in from work and found this on his mat. Addressed to me. The postman must have pushed it through the wrong letterbox. I’ve won fifty thousand,’ she said, her face glowing.
Angel looked blank.
She looked at the tonic bottle and then at her husband and said, ‘I’ll have a gin in it.’ She read the letter with shaking hands and then passed it over to Angel. ‘Read it. Isn’t it wonderful? We can go to Florida this Christmas. I’ll have some new curtains in here and in the bedroom. That bathroom needs decorating. We can get a man in to do it. Where’s my gin?’
Angel frowned. He’d heard the words, ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘It’s that quiz, I entered. Don’t you remember? I got all the answers correct. It says one hundred per cent. Here. Read it,’ she said thrusting it at him impatiently. ‘First prize fifty thousand. It’s got my name all over it. I’m the winner.’
Angel read it.
Dear Mrs Angel,
This is your lucky day, Mrs Angel of 30 Park Street, Forest Hill Estate, Bromersley!
We are pleased to congratulate you on getting all the questions 100 per cent correct, thereby winning first prize of £50,000 in the all stars’ world quiz. The money is yours. The cheque is already made out to you, Mrs Angel.
All you have to do to release the payment is to send your cheque for £124.75 made out to ‘The Paymaster’ at quiz headquarters in Nigeria, at the box number at the head of this letter. This is to pay the foreign bank their charge for the difference in the exchange rate between euros and sterling to permit the company trustees to release your cheque of £50,000 in sterling payable to Mary Angel through any British bank you wish to designate.
Congratulations, Mrs Angel. You are a winner! We look forward to you claiming your prize money.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Mary said, as she took a swig from her glass.
Angel shoved the letter into her hand, sniffed and said, ‘You’d better read it again, then tell them to deduct the hundred and twenty-four pounds from the fifty thousand and send you the difference!’
By the Same Author
IN THE MIDST OF LIFE
CHOKER
THE MAN IN THE PINK SUIT
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HONEST
MANTRAP
SALAMANDER
SHAM
THE UMBRELLA MAN
THE MAN WHO COULDN’T LOSE
THE CURIOUS MIND OF INSPECTOR ANGEL
FIND THE LADY
THE WIG MAKER
Copyright
© Roger Silverwood 2008
First published in Great Br
itain 2008
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0768 8 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0769 5 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0770 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 8593 5 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Roger Silverwood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Murder in Bare Feet Page 18