Angel reached him and said, ‘Father Riley.’
The priest turned, and when he saw it was Angel, his hands went into the air and his eyes flashed. ‘Just the man I want. Blessed Mother of God, what has happened here, Inspector? A murder in the precincts of my church. It is getting more like Sodom and Gomorrah every day.’
‘Can we go somewhere out of this wind?’
Riley pointed towards the presbytery door. ‘Come to my house. We can thaw out our bones and partake of a mug of coffee.’
Angel thought it an excellent plan.
Five minutes later, the two men were established in the presbytery sitting room in front of a big orange gas fire, warming their hands around mugs of coffee laced with rum.
Riley said, ‘I have been away from the house only two hours on important parish visiting, and when I return I find the remains of a man who has gone to glory at the hand of some wicked person in the back yard of my own church. What is happening?’
Angel’s knuckles tightened momentarily round the handle of the coffee mug. ‘We are doing our best,’ he said.
‘Some of my women parishioners are upset and afraid. Not only for themselves but also for their children and their elderly parents, Inspector. Some of them are even afraid for me! I pointed out to them that the two priests murdered – God bless them – were both Anglican.’
Angel said, ‘You think because you are Catholic that you are not in danger? I wouldn’t be so sure, Father. I have evidence that the man seen skulking around your presbytery at the time it was broken into and ransacked, and the man who murdered the Reverend Raymond Gulli and ransacked his vicarage, are one and the same. In fact I now have proof that the white gown he was seen wearing was a scapular.’
Riley gasped. ‘Oh.’ He shook his head in disbelief then he said, ‘A scapular. A most blessed garment. That is sacrilege, Inspector. The man is clearly a heathen. A servant of Beelzebub. This is going to take a lot of prayer.’
‘I believe that you escaped being murdered because, luckily, you were not there to try to prevent him.’
Riley glared at him. ‘Luck had nothing to do with it, Inspector. There is no such thing as luck. I see the hand of God in this.’
Angel shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe,’ he said.
‘I asked your sergeant, Sergeant Crisp, if the body had been identified. He said it had not. As the man’s life was taken outside my church, he might be local. I might know him. He could be part of my congregation. Besides I need a name to pray for. Perhaps I might see the body.’
‘If we are unable to ID him, I would be most grateful,’ Angel said. ‘We think he is known locally as Irish John.’
Riley rubbed his chin. ‘I know that name from somewhere and it’s not from my days in County Cork. Irish John? Of course, I remember. He was on my list of unfortunates who came every month or so for … assistance.’
‘You gave him money?’
‘I gave him money, and moral support. I tried to give him faith in God as well, as I did all the unfortunates.’
Angel nodded sympathetically. ‘What sort of a man was he?’
‘Quiet. He never spoke much except when it came to asking for money for a meal.’
‘What else can you tell me about him?’
‘He didn’t want to talk and he didn’t want to listen. I daresay he was socially and academically a cut above the general standard of unfortunates wandering the streets. But he was still one of God’s creatures. Can’t think of anything else, Inspector.’
‘Can you think of any reason why anybody would want to murder him?’
‘Oh no, Inspector. Certainly not.’
Angel sipped the coffee, looked into the orange-red flame of the gas fire for a few moments then said, ‘Was the church locked up later than usual last night, Father?’
Riley’s eyebrows shot up. He leaned back in the chair and looked at Angel in surprise. ‘It was not locked until after eight o’clock. The church wardens – two admirable ladies – and I stayed over to wash, wrap and pack safely away the figures of the crib, the big red Christmas candles and the tree lights. It should have been done when we took everything down at Epiphany, but it was too cold. But how did you know that?’
‘I didn’t. Just guessing,’ Angel said. ‘And where exactly did you do this washing and packing?’
‘In the vestry. There’s a sink in there.’
‘In the vestry, with the door closed, and the church door unlocked?’
‘Well, yes, Inspector, why?’
‘A hassock was used by the murderer to muffle the sound of the gun.’
‘Merciful Father! You are saying that a hassock from this church was used in the murder of … And while we were packing away the holy crib in the vestry, the murderer came into the church and ventured purposely into a pew and stole a hassock to … to …’
‘You didn’t hear the sound of a gun shot at any time, did you?’
‘No, I did not. As it happens we were nearly blown out by the racket from The Fisherman’s Rest next door. It’s outrageous to have such riotous noise on a Sunday evening, particularly when it is next door to a church.’
‘Do you mean somebody was playing loud music?’
‘That’s what they call it. Drums, guitars and a woman screeching something. You could have heard her in Hades.’
Angel rubbed his chin. ‘You don’t happen to know her name, do you?’
Riley’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No idea, I’m sure.’
‘Anyway, Father, what time did you finish your chores and lock the church door?’
‘It must have been a few minutes past eight.’
‘Then what did you do?’
Riley stared back at him. He wasn’t pleased. He thought the question implied that he was under suspicion. He hesitated a moment before he said, ‘I came back here, had my supper, said Compline and was in bed for about ten o’clock.’
‘Thank you,’ Angel said.
‘Even as my head hit the pillow, I could hear that wretched woman with a drum and guitars screaming like a harlot in purgatory.’
‘And did you get to sleep all right?’
‘Oh yes. But I would have rather fallen asleep in silence in the care of my guardian angel.’
Angel thanked Riley for the coffee and the warm and walked back to the BMW, which he had parked directly in front of The Fisherman’s Rest. He glanced at the public house and a small poster in a glass picture frame on the door caught his attention. There was a photograph on the poster of a woman with a lot of fair hair. He made his way through the snow up to the door to see it. As he had thought, the singer who had so disturbed Father Hugo Riley was Felicity Kellerman. She had been appearing at the pub the previous evening, singing and playing her guitar.
Angel rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he returned to the car.
THIRTEEN
When he arrived back at his office, DS Carter was waiting for him.
‘Have you a minute, sir?’ she said.
‘Come in, lass. What have you got?’
‘I managed to get to see the CCTV at Heathrow of passengers leaving for San Francisco last Monday afternoon, sir, and I clearly saw the bearded figure of Ben Wizard actually boarding flight 4088 at 1720 hours. So he couldn’t have been involved in the murder of Harry Weston, here at 3 p.m., nor the priests subsequently.’
Angel’s face tightened. Another suspect was crossed off his metaphorical list.
Carter said: ‘I also asked to see the passenger list and it confirmed that he was on that flight.’
Angel nodded. That seemed to be conclusive. That was the end of Ben Wizard.
‘It also occurred to me that the person Zoe Costello said she saw was clean shaven, sir,’ she said.
‘I know, lass. I know,’ Angel said. ‘But beards can be shaved off and stage beards applied.’
She looked surprised. She hesitated. ‘Yes, sir. I suppose so.’
‘You have to consider all possibilities.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she s
aid, ‘but—’
The phone rang.
‘Just a minute, ‘Angel said and reached out for the handset. It was the civilian receptionist.
‘There’s a Miss Phoebe Wilkinson of St Joseph’s Church on the line. Sounds very strange, asking for you, Inspector.’
Angel frowned. He was worried for the old lady.
‘Put her through, please,’ he said. ‘Hello, Miss Wilkinson, are you all right?’
‘Perfectly, Inspector Angel, thank you. But I appear to have broken the law, inadvertently, of course, and I don’t quite know where to turn. My dear brother Tom would go mad if he knew. He’s away, you know, in Rome – doesn’t return while next Monday. Then Elaine, my help, suggested that I spoke to you. I wonder if you would be kind enough to call round at your earliest convenience? I would come to you but it is a little difficult. I do not walk very well and I am so slow.’
‘I will call on you in about twenty minutes, Miss Wilkinson, if that would be convenient.’
The old lady was delighted and thanked him for his consideration.
He replaced the phone, turned to Flora and was about to say something when the phone rang again. He snatched it up.
Angel knew it was Detective Superintendent Harker on the line because of the raucous sound of a hippopotamus clearing its throat followed by a few quick small coughs and ending with a loud roar, the result of a cough and a sneeze combined.
When it all quietened down, Harker said: ‘Ah, Angel. The manager of Cheapo’s supermarket has just phoned in to report two young men attempting to rob their outside cash dispensing machines. Their staff are holding one of them. Sort it out, lad.’
Before he could reply, Harker had banged down his handset. Angel tightened his lips back against his teeth, yanked the phone away from his ear and replaced it noisily in its cradle. He relayed the information to Carter then added, ‘I have a lot on, Flora. I’ll leave it to you to sort out. You might need a bit of muscle. Take John Weightman if he’s on duty.’
Carter felt a warm glow in her chest. It was the first case he had entrusted to her since she joined Bromersley force in 2009.
‘Right, sir,’ she said. She smiled and went out.
Angel was pleased to see that somebody was happy. He assembled all the reports, envelopes and papers on his desk into a pile and put them in the top right-hand drawer of his desk. He reached out for his coat, switched off the light and closed the door.
St Joseph’s presbytery. Monday, 18 January 2010. 4.45 p.m.
Elaine Jubb answered the presbytery door. She gave Angel an uncertain smile and then deliberately looked away. He wondered what she had to be cagey about.
‘Miss Wilkinson is expecting you,’ she mumbled. ‘Please come this way.’
She opened the door into the sitting room where Phoebe Wilkinson was seated in the lounger chair facing the two television sets. The screens were black and silent. A tartan car rug was draped over a chair on her left. To her right were two chairs heaped with newspapers.
Miss Wilkinson was holding a large magnifying glass with a carved ivory handle and studiously reading The Racing Post.
‘It’s Inspector Angel,’ Elaine said.
The old lady’s face brightened when she looked up at him. ‘Ah, yes. Thank you for coming so promptly, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Please sit down. Would you like anything to drink? Elaine will organize some tea, coffee or something stronger?’
‘No, thank you, Miss Wilkinson,’ he said. He moved the newspapers away on to the other chair and sat down.
The old lady turned to Elaine and said, ‘Right, dear. Now you get off to the bookie, dear? He closes at five, doesn’t he? And I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Righto, Miss Wilkinson, if you’re sure there’s nothing else you want. The casserole is ready in the oven, don’t forget.’
‘Thank you, dear,’ Miss Wilkinson said.
Elaine Jubb went out.
Angel noted that as soon as the room door was closed and they were on their own, Miss Wilkinson changed. The ready smile and cordiality left her with the speed of a bank robber’s getaway car.
‘Inspector Angel, I have made a dreadful mistake.’
‘Tell me about it, Miss Wilkinson.’
‘There was a photograph of an unusual stone- and brown-coloured suitcase in the Bromersley Chronicle. The caption said that it was used in the robbery of that security van two weeks ago.’
Something disturbed the sleeping hive of bees in Angel’s chest. They suddenly awoke and began to whizz around at speed, creating a regular hot throbbing around his heart.
‘Yes. That’s right,’ he said.
‘Did you ever find the suitcase? Did anybody come forward with it?’ she said.
His hands shook slightly, then he said, ‘No, no. Why?’
‘Well, my brother has a suitcase in exactly the same colours and design,’ she said. ‘Did it have … did it have money in it?’
Angel stood up. ‘Where is it, Miss Wilkinson?’
Her hand reached out to her left to a tartan car rug across a chair. Then deliberately looking away, she pulled the rug to reveal a stone- and brown-coloured suitcase.
When Angel saw the case, he darted round the back of Miss Wilkinson’s chair to reach it. He pressed the two catches on the locks and lifted the lid. It was part filled with twenty pound notes. He didn’t touch any of the contents but began to try to estimate how much money there was in there. He saw that the notes were wrapped in fifties in blue sleeves, worth £1,000, and they were packed in bundles of ten in clear polythene and labelled ‘Northern Bank. £10,000 in £20 notes’. After a few moments, he stood back, turned to Miss Wilkinson and said, ‘It isn’t all here. There’s a lot missing. There’s about two million, at a rough count.’
He closed the case, put it on the floor and sat down.
‘That’s right. It is exactly half.’
‘Where is the rest?’
‘In the bank. I took your advice, you know, and opened another account.’
‘The money that was in the flour bin?’
Her face brightened. ‘Yes. You see, I thought that that was my share of the money.’
His face reddened. ‘More than two million pounds, your share?’ he said.
‘I thought it was the money from the sale of Daddy’s house, The Grange. You see, in his Will, Daddy left the house in equal shares to my brother Tom and me. The two million in the suitcase was Tom’s share. Elaine put it in his study until he got back from Rome. I forgot all about it.’
Angel ran his hand through his hair. ‘But Miss Wilkinson, you didn’t think the house was going to fetch over four million pounds, did you?’
‘I don’t know. Its value was never mentioned in my hearing. An actual price wasn’t actually discussed. And everybody said what a magnificent estate it was.’
He remembered what a great house and grounds it was, but the country was in the middle of a recession, and property sales were at an all-time low. He couldn’t see it selling for that figure.
‘How much was the house actually sold for?’ he said.
‘It hasn’t been sold, Inspector. That’s what alerted me to this mistake.’
Angel blew out a lungful of air through his teeth. ‘Well, how much have you in the bank?’ he said.
‘What? In my own name?’
‘In anybody’s name?’
‘It’s a bit difficult to give you an exact figure,’ she said. ‘You see, I have two accounts. One is for what I will call my own account, and then I have a second one that I call my charities account. Also there are cheques in the post that may not yet have been cleared. You see, I have sent £250,000 to Haiti following that dreadful earthquake appeal, £250,000 to Save the Children, £250,000 to the Cancer appeal and £250,000 to the Red Cross.’
Angel gasped. ‘That’s a … that’s a … that’s a million pounds, Miss Wilkinson.’
‘Yes,’ she said with a big smile. ‘Isn’t it great?’
Angel gulped,
ran his hand through his hair again and said, ‘So how much have you got left?’
‘I have the original capital of two million pounds,’ she said.
He sighed.
‘Plus today’s winnings of about £1,800 from my online betting,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘And I’ve £200 to come from Brian, the bookie,’ she said.
Angel sighed with relief. ‘Is that it?’
Miss Wilkinson’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Why no. I nearly forgot. There’s also my stake money of £10.’
‘Of course,’ he said with a wry smile as he dipped into his pocket and began to fish around for his mobile. ‘You haven’t yet told me how you came by the suitcase.’
‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘Elaine found the suitcase left in the hall by the door one morning and took it into the kitchen. Before he left, my brother had told her to expect the return of some vestments borrowed by a priest from Skiptonthorpe and that they might include a surplice that needing washing. She was quite used to this. It happened from time to time.’
‘I see,’ Angel said. ‘Please excuse me a moment, Miss Wilkinson.’
He tapped a number into his mobile and had a quick muttered conversation with Don Taylor at SOCO. He then ended the call and pocketed the phone.
He turned back to Miss Wilkinson. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And Elaine thought that that was the suitcase?’
‘Yes. She opened the case up on the kitchen table, found it full of money and brought it to me. I naturally thought it was the money from the sale of The Grange.’
Angel shook his head. ‘Now why on earth would you think that?’
Miss Wilkinson raised herself up and said, ‘I had already told Elaine I was expecting a big sum of money. She thought that that was it. We both did. My brother Tom being away, I … Anyway, I understood The Grange had been sold, and I also heard that some firms wouldn’t accept cheques in payment any more. I don’t know. I wondered if it was because so many banks have recently been in financial trouble? Fancy! Banks in financial difficulty? My father never trusted banks. So I thought that the solicitors perhaps weren’t using banks any more. These are fast-moving days of change that I can hardly keep pace with, Inspector. It was a natural mistake to make, surely?’
The Dog Collar Murders Page 19