Missing, Presumed... (An Inspector Angel Mystery)

by Roger Silverwood

  One of the SOCOs turned to see him in the doorway. It was DS Donald Taylor. He was in charge of the SOCO at Bromersley. He pulled down his mask.

  Angel said: ‘What’s that smell?’

  Taylor looked upwards and sniffed several times. ‘Can’t smell anything, sir.’

  Angel grunted. Then sniffed again. He could still smell it. He thought it must be the smell of new carpet or polish or perfume or disinfectant or something. He wasn’t satisfied.

  ‘Found anything useful?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You’ll check for any print of the other three in each of the rooms, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’

  ‘Have you found anything at all that indicates a similarity?’

  He shrugged slightly. ‘Two of them are salesmen.’

  Angel blinked. ‘What do they sell?’

  ‘One sells tiles, sir. Building tiles to builders. And the other, jigsaw puzzles to…stationers, I suppose.’

  He wrinkled his nose. There wasn’t much similarity there. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Two of them use the same toothpaste.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Anything else?’

  ‘No. There’s nothing else.’

  ‘There must be something. Keep looking. Have you done all four rooms?’

  ‘Yes, sir. This is the last. We’ll only be five minutes.’

  ‘Right, then I want you to check out their cars. They’ll be on the car park. You can get the index numbers from reception. I want you to check for prints of any of the other three in each car, but chiefly examine the tread. See if there is any similarity in the soil content. Let’s find out if they’ve been in the same part of the world, just in case they’ve been forgetful.’

  Taylor smiled. ‘Right, sir.’

  He turned away, then Angel remembered something else.

  ‘Oh, Don. I also want you to do a sweep of Room 101. It’s for a different reason from those four. It was occupied last night by a Lloyd Corbett. He’s wanted for all sorts of unsavoury activities. Be sure to pick up his prints, if there are any, to make a positive check with records.’

  ‘Isn’t he the brother of James Corbett from Manchester way? I’ve heard of them. Nasty people. What are they doing over here?’

  Angel had wondered the same thing. ‘That’s him. A lead to where he’s been or where he was going could prove invaluable. So…do your best.’

  Taylor nodded in a positive, businesslike way.

  Angel was assured that he would.

  ‘I’ll just take a look round the other rooms,’ Angel said. ‘Have you got the keys or do I have to use plastic?’

  Taylor smiled and gave him the hotel keys to 212, 215 and 111. He sauntered into room 212 and again immediately met that unusual smell. He frowned as he looked around. The room was set out like the other two had been. A valise was on the case stand at the end of the bed. He opened it and fished about inside. There was a clean shirt in there, nothing else. He looked into the bathroom. He lifted the cover off the lavatory cistern. Of course there was nothing there. If there had been, SOCO would have found it, but old habits die hard. There was nothing in the room of interest. He looked round room 215 and then went down a flight of stairs, to 111. He could find nothing useful to the investigation in either room. There was nothing to link the four men, unless you counted the same insidious smell. He could find nothing else.

  He came out of room number 111, the last of the four rooms, which was opposite room number 101, and bumped into the chambermaid pulling a trolley of clean towels.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he began.

  She stopped. ‘Now what’s wrong?’ she said.

  He smiled to try to warm up the relationship. The response was a cold glare.

  ‘Could you tell me, have any of the bedrooms recently been decorated?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Why? What’s the matter with them?’

  ‘It’s a question of the…ambience,’ he eventually managed to say.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, her eyes like two eggs in a frying pan. ‘And what’s the matter with it? I done that room thorough. Bathroom an’ all.’

  ‘It’s really very…charming,’ he said, ‘but there is a difference.’ He opened the door of room 111 behind him and said, ‘Would you allow me to…explain?’

  She eyed him strangely.

  ‘Please come inside.’

  She hesitated and then slowly crossed in front of him and went into the room. He closed the door.

  ‘What is it? I’ve got six rooms to do yet. I’m way behind.’

  ‘The smell. Do you not notice the unusual smell? Is it some polish that you use?’

  She lifted up her nose, wrinkled it slightly, sniffed several times and said, ‘The window needs opening, that’s all it is.’ She charged across the room towards it.

  ‘Just a moment,’ Angel said.

  She stopped, turned and looked back at him.

  ‘Can you not smell something unusual?’ he said. ‘A distinctive smell?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s boiled sweets.’

  He frowned. ‘Boiled sweets?’ he said. He shook his head. ‘I can smell this in 201, 212, 215 and here, where the four men were attacked, but I can’t smell it in 101. Why do you think that is?’

  ‘Because the chap in 101 was probably a chocolate man.’

  ‘Ah,’ Angel began. ‘Mr Manson, I wonder if you could assist me?’

  Manson came up to the hotel reception desk. ‘I will certainly try, Inspector. All my staff are instructed to assist you in every way with any inquiries you may wish to make to solve this dreadful business,’ he said with a smile that might have turned milk into cheese.

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘The four injured residents must have been heavily sedated if not entirely unconscious to enable such a vicious assault to take place. I need to know if anyone saw a person — say, for instance, Mr Corbett — drop a hypnotic drug into their food or drink during the course of the evening?’

  Manson frowned as he considered the question. After a few moments he said: ‘I will see. Please wait here. It won’t take a moment.’

  He shot off and was away only three minutes.

  ‘I have spoken to the staff on duty at the time,’ he said on his return, ‘and the consensus of opinion is that Mr Corbett of room 101 could not have administered anything to anybody. It is believed that he stayed in his room all evening, as he was not seen in the bar or the restaurant after around 5 p.m. A restaurant chitty shows that he ordered a light meal from room service at 7.10 p.m. The staff seem to remember him, his appearance being…unusual. On the other hand, while they accept that it would easily be possible to drop a foreign substance into a glass of red wine or a beer, they cannot say with any certainty anything about the drinking patterns of any of the four residents who were attacked in the early hours. The staff regret not being able to assist with this information, mainly due to the fact that none of them can recall what any of the four actually looked like. They just seem to be anonymous men in lounge suits to them. The chitties show that while all four dined separately in the restaurant that evening, one of the residents, the man in room 201, Mr Selman, had no drinks at all on his bill. Also, whilst replying to this question, all the restaurant and bar staff hasten to say that they did not see, nor would they condone, the adding of any kind of foreign substance to a resident’s food or drink. And I must say, I am entirely in accord with the latter remark.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. Things were not getting any better. It was beginning to look as if Corbett couldn’t have sedated the four men. Was it possible he had had an accomplice? An inside man, a member of the hotel staff?

  ‘Have you taken on any new staff lately?’ Angel said.

  ‘There have been no changes in any department in the hotel here for more than twelve months now, Inspector,’ he said, raising his head. ‘While good staff are hard to find, so is a good employer.’

  Angel sighed. He was blocked at every turn.

  �
��Now, Inspector, is there anything else?’ Manson said.

  Angel detected an unmistakable impatience in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Angel said. He would not be put off. ‘I wonder if you can tell me when and by what method Lloyd Corbett booked a room here.’

  ‘Possibly, possibly,’ he said, and he pulled out a ledger from a shelf under the reception desk top and riffled through the pages. ‘You know, Inspector, in a year, hundreds of residents come and go through those doors. We try to make them as comfortable as possible. Every room is let almost every night of the year, so we must be doing something right, don’t you think? Now, let me see.’

  He stopped at a page, looked at it closely and then said, ‘He phoned late on Sunday and booked a single room for the next night, the Monday. It was a cancellation. He must have been very fortunate; we are normally fully booked at least a week in advance.’

  ‘Do you have the phone number from where he called?’

  ‘No, Inspector. I do not.’

  ‘What time did he check in on Monday?’

  Manson glared at Angel over his thick black-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘We don’t have that information either, Inspector,’ he said as he closed the ledger and slammed it noisily back into its place on the shelf.

  Angel stifled a smile and simply nodded.

  Manson turned to the desk clerk with raised eyebrows.

  The young man shook his head, then said, ‘Now I remember, it must have been before three o’clock, sir, because he was in the cocktail bar at the end table. With the door open I could see him from here. A skinny, bald-headed, mean-looking man. Always had a drink in front of him. Kept looking in this direction.’

  Angel’s eyes shone.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, looking at the young man. ‘That’s him, but how can you be certain it was before three o’clock?’

  Manson butted in and said: ‘Because he must have bought a drink in that bar before it closed at three o’clock prompt.’

  Chapter Two

  WARD 29. BROMERSLEY GENERAL HOSPITAL. 1800 HOURS. TUESDAY 24 JUNE 2008

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Michael Angel,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Nurse Frazer.’

  ‘That’s me. Thank you for coming so promptly. I am afraid Sir Max Monro is not…very well,’ she said, looking at him meaningfully. ‘He’s eighty-nine, you know. He wants his son, but we were unable to find him. He’s very agitated. His BP is very high. He wanted you to bring a recording machine.’

  ‘I have it in my pocket.’

  ‘Good. He asked for that particularly. I’m hopeful that when he has seen you, he will settle down. Will you follow me?’

  It was a typical single ward. One of everything. There was an LCD screen at the side of the bed displaying illuminated changing shapes like a range of mountains, and numbers flickering and altering every second or so.

  The patient was a white-faced old man with blank, watery eyes. He held tightly on to the edge of the bedclothes, looking first at the nurse and then at Angel.

  ‘Now then, Sir Max. I’ve got Inspector Angel to see you,’ she said, glancing from the old man up to the monitor. She didn’t like what she saw.

  ‘I want my son, Nigel,’ the old man said in a rich, masterful voice.

  ‘We can’t find him, Sir Max. I did tell you. He is not at home. I have phoned several times. I have spoken to your housekeeper. She’ll tell him you’re in here when he calls. He’ll turn up any time, I’m sure. I’ll try again in a minute. Don’t worry about it.’ She turned to Angel and said, ‘I’ll leave you to it, Inspector. Please don’t let him get excited.’

  Angel nodded.

  She went out and closed the door.

  ‘It’s important that I speak to my son,’ the old man said.

  ‘Nurse said they were unable to raise him, Sir Max.’

  The old man frowned and tried to hoist himself up on one elbow. ‘Do I know you?’ he said, peering at him with one eye partly closed.

  Angel blinked. He understood that the old man had actually asked for him by name.

  Sir Max couldn’t quite reach a sitting-up position. He sighed and lowered himself back down on to the pillow.

  Angel looked down at him and smiled reassuringly. ‘I believe you sent for me. We’ve met a couple of times. I came up to your house two years ago after a burglary. Don’t you remember? You had a cat that jumped on my stomach — it was called Noel, I think. Unexpected. Caused me to spill tea on your carpet.’

  Sir Max’s eyes suddenly opened wide. He smiled. ‘It was called Christmas, and I remember it well. You are Michael Angel. You said you had two cats. Still got them?’

  ‘What a memory. Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘Oh yes. I remember you. You are a dead straight chap. That’s what I need. And something of a whizz at catching criminals, I do believe. Ah yes. That’s why I sent for you.’

  Angel shrugged. He was embarrassed when people made complimentary remarks. He reckoned he could handle anything but compliments.

  ‘You want to make a statement of some sort?’

  ‘Yes. While my mind is clear. While I can remember the details. I wanted to tell my son, Nigel, but nobody can contact him. He’s been looking after my affairs since I had my first stroke three years ago. I have signed everything over to him. I don’t know where the hell he is. It’s been four days since I last saw him.’

  ‘How can I find him?’

  ‘He’s in property, you know. Buys rundown property, smartens it up and then sells it on, or divides it into flats or viable units for offices or commercial uses and leases them out. You know the sort of thing. He’s extended into Spain. He’s all over the place. He’s worth millions. He won’t know I’m in here.’

  Angel said: ‘The nurse said I should bring a tape recorder.’

  ‘Ah yes. That’s right. Good. I want to get down the facts. I so easily forget things these days.’

  Angel took a recorder out of his pocket, switched it on and put it on the pillow beside him.

  ‘It’s very small. Are you sure it’s all right?’

  ‘It’s what we use in the force every day, Sir Max.’

  ‘Is it recording now?’

  Angel nodded. ‘Yes. Just speak in your normal voice.’

  He cleared his throat and began. He spoke as if he were addressing a battalion. ‘This is Sir Max Monro of 38 Creesforth Road, Bromersley. During the Second World War, I was a second lieutenant in the Third Yorkshire Lancers. My regiment was decimated in the early North African campaign, so in October 1944, I was promoted to captain in the field by Major General Sir Hubert Whitty and despatched with a squad of four men to be the personal bodyguard of the Grand Dumas, who was the leader of a sect in the state of Alka Dora in North Africa. The Grand Dumas had made his HQ in a range of desert sand hills on the coast of the Mediterranean. He was a supporter of the Allies and under his leadership his sixty followers had been sabotaging installations in Libya and Algeria, and stealing supplies of ammunition, food, water and petrol, so he was much valued by the Allied Forces. He and his men lived in tents and roamed the desert and so, therefore, did we. We were frequently subjected to mortar-shelling attacks, also subjected to small bombs and machine gunning from low-flying German planes, which meant that we were always on the move. I remember one night we moved camp three times and didn’t bother putting up our tents. We simply camouflaged our vehicles and for safety slept under cover of the hot sand 200 yards away from them. Those were horrible nights…and days.

  ‘Anyway, after a particularly hard and difficult night, and two of his best men having been killed in a wave of machine-gun fire, the Grand Dumas said that he wanted to speak to me, where we would not be overheard. We walked several hundred yards out towards the desert. When he was satisfied we could not be overheard, he said that he had a treasure more valuable than the moon. He was deadly serious. He was very solemn, which was unusual. He tended to treat the war as a game; he was usually in high spirits with a devil-may-care attitude.
The death of two of his best men earlier that night had clearly affected him. Anyway, in the dark, he took something out of a sort of pocket that was sewn into his cummerbund. It was a wonderful stone, a huge ruby. He let me hold it a moment. It had many facets, and was about as big as a duck’s egg. Even at night, in the desert, under the clear star-laden night sky, I could see that it was truly magnificent. It glowed deep red even when the only light was the moon and the stars. He then told me that he had a daughter, Princess Yasmin, who was living in England under the covert protection of the British government, in the Convent of St Peter in the village of Lower Bennington in Yorkshire. He said that the ruby was her inheritance. It would buy her a dowry worth over a thousand camels and it would ensure that she could be honourably married to someone worthy of her. Then he asked me… He made me promise that if anything were to happen to him, that I would take the ruby to her and tell her how much he loved her. Of course, I promised that I would.

  ‘Inevitably, only a few nights later, we were strafed by a German Stuker. The Grand Dumas was killed, my sergeant was killed, I stopped one in my shoulder and some shrapnel in my leg. Our Morris 15 cwt was put out of action. The Grand Dumas’s private tent was burned down. Our ammunition truck received a direct hit. It was an absolute shambles. I don’t remember how many other casualties there were. Anyway, I crawled over to the Grand Dumas, took the ruby out of his cummerbund and stuffed it into one of my ammunition pouches before his followers took his body away for a very long ceremonial burial.

  ‘That was in March 1945. I was flown next day by helicopter to a field hospital in Gibraltar. Eight days later I was put on a boat at Cherbourg. The boat journey from Cherbourg to Dover was very uncomfortable…up and down those blasted steps into the hold. Thence by a very slow train to Bromersley to St Miriam’s Cottage Hospital.’