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

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Unload,’ Keene said. ‘And put the unused rounds back in the box.’

  As Angel removed the magazine and began the process of emptying it, Keene said, ‘Something bothering you, sir? Are you on edge about something? It’s a bit of a strain being a copper these days, especially in the investigating branch.’

  Angel looked at him and smiled.

  ‘And it’s getting tougher,’ Keene said. ‘I know that in Bromersley you’ve got that Manchester mob at your heels. Is that it?’

  Angel frowned. ‘What do you mean, Jock? What Manchester mob?’

  He gave him a knowing look and touched his nose with his forefinger. ‘If it’s hush-hush, sir, that’s all right by me. I understand.’

  ‘No. No. It’s not hush-hush. I don’t know what are you talking about. What Manchester mob? Tell me.’

  ‘The Corbetts. James and Lloyd Corbett.’

  Angel blinked, then his eyes wandered from side to side beneath half-closed lids. He carried on pushing rounds out of the magazine into the box. ‘Yes. I know of them. What about them?’

  ‘A couple of hard men. I had two Lancashire lads from Preston, or somewhere round there, I think, they were. They’d had one of Corbett’s men through their hands a little while back… They understood that the brothers felt that their faces were getting too well known in Manchester and that side of the Pennines, so they had been making sorties into Yorkshire to see if there were any easy pickings, and they seemed to be getting comfortable in Bromersley. Well, knowing you and DI Asquith, and Ron Gawber and Trevor Crisp, I naturally wondered how you were getting along with them on your patch.’

  Angel pursed his lips then said, ‘Who were these lads, Jock?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. A couple of bobbies from out there, Preston or Blackburn or a little place, might have been Bamber Bridge. Can’t remember. It’s a bit since now. A lot of people pass through here in the course of a week.’

  ‘I’ll have to keep my eyes open, Jock. James and Lloyd Corbett, eh? I’ve certainly heard of them.’

  ‘They’re nasty people, sir. Be very careful. They have no respect for human life. None at all.’

  Angel’s lips tightened across his teeth.

  ‘You wanted me, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘Come in,’ Angel said. ‘Close the door. Sit down. On the PNC, there are a couple of characters, James Corbett and Lloyd Corbett — brothers. You’ll easily find them. They began their nefarious activities in Manchester. I don’t know where you would find them these days. I want you to pull off a photograph of each of them, head and shoulders, front view…both to fit an A4 sheet. Here is the text to go with them. I want you to make up a “Wanted” poster.’

  Ahmed leaned forward. It was something interesting to do. He did a lot of updating of files, which was exacting and boring. ‘How many do you want, sir?’

  Angel was considering the number when the phone rang. He reached out for it.

  ‘A hundred should do it,’ he said, then into the phone he said, ‘Angel.’

  It was a young constable on reception.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir. There’s a woman up here asking to see somebody in charge. And I don’t quite know —’

  Angel’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘Well, put her on to the super. That’s the procedure. I’m busy at the moment.’

  ‘The super’s out, sir. So is Inspector Asquith. You’re the only one left.’

  Angel squeezed the handset. ‘What does she want? Can’t you deal with it?’

  ‘She wouldn’t talk to me, sir. She’s a bit…difficult. Come up from Surrey today specially, she says. Rather posh. Says it’s a matter of life or death.’

  At that, Angel knew he would have to see her.

  ‘All right. Tell the lady I won’t keep her a moment.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ the young PC said. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He sounded relieved.

  Angel shook his head and replaced the phone. He wasn’t pleased. He turned to Ahmed. ‘Nip up to reception. There’s a lady to see me. Bring her down to me in here.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and rushed off.

  Angel hardly had time to glance at the post on his desk when Ahmed arrived back, knocked on the door and showed the lady in.

  Angel stood up to greet her. He liked what he saw. He guessed she was in her forties. He took in her short blonde hair, smart navy suit, long legs and huge solitaire diamond on the third finger of her left hand.

  ‘Please sit down,’ he said, and he turned to Ahmed and nodded towards the door.

  Ahmed went out.

  The lady remained standing.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘but I really need to see someone more senior. I understand you are only an inspector.’

  She had a pleasant, deep voice. Probably smoked twenty a day.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry, but I’m as senior as you can get here today. Everybody else is away. Inspector Angel is my name. Perhaps you would like to start by telling me your name and address, and then tell me how I might assist you.’

  She looked at him thoughtfully. He pointed at the chair. She glanced at it briefly, considered it for a moment then sat down. She looked back across the desk at him; put her handbag on her knee without looking at it.

  Angel sat there poised with a pen over a used envelope he had taken out of his inside pocket.

  ‘Inspector Angel,’ she said thoughtfully.

  He looked up.

  ‘Inspector Angel,’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know, I may have heard of you. Are you the same Inspector Angel who they say has a hundred per cent success record in solving murder cases?’

  He frowned, licked his lips then said, ‘Yes. I suppose it is me.’

  Her face changed. She smiled briefly. She put her handbag on the floor and wriggled in the chair. ‘I’ve read about you in the papers. They say you can think like a murderer and that you’ve got a brain as fast as quicksilver.’

  He swallowed. He didn’t like those sort of comments. He didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t very good with compliments. He could cope with most things, but he didn’t have a ready answer for anything flattering.

  ‘That’s just so much newspaper twaddle,’ he said with a wrinkle of the nose. ‘Let’s start with your name, please.’

  ‘My name is Mrs Josephine Henderson. I am staying for one night at least at The Feathers Hotel on Bradford Road. But my home address is Five Trees, Larchfield Hill, Surrey. I have come about my sister Miss Selina Line. I am very worried about her. She lives with me there, well, she used to live there. She has been acting very strangely lately. She left abruptly on 31 July and I haven’t seen her since. I am extremely fond of her. She is my younger sister and I feel responsible for her, and I believe she’s in very great danger.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, she’s not very worldly. She’s forty-four, not married, never had a…serious boyfriend, you know.’

  Angel didn’t know. He frowned. ‘What was her work? What did she do?’

  ‘She didn’t work. She had no need to. Anyway, she wasn’t allowed to. My late father, our late father, didn’t want his daughters to work. He was Sir Gregory Line.’

  Gregory Line? Sir Gregory Line? The name was familiar. To do with new buildings. In queer shapes. Won all those awards for designs in the eighties and nineties…died a couple of years ago.

  ‘The architect?’

  ‘Yes. My sister packed a suitcase and left almost three weeks ago, and, apart from a very short phone call from a telephone call box in Bromersley on 1 August and then another taken by my housekeeper yesterday, I haven’t heard a word…and we were so close.’

  ‘Please go on.’

  Mrs Henderson looked away briefly then looked back. ‘There was a…misunderstanding between a friend of hers and her. This triggered off a row between us. Well, it had happened a few times lately. There had been lots of rows. Too many. In fact, ever since Dad
dy died.’

  She stopped talking and began looking down at her hands, both sides, finger by finger.

  Angel waited. He said nothing.

  ‘She…she latched herself on to people, Inspector. The most unlikely people. For instance, there was the man who delivered the Christmas tree last Christmas. She let him into the house, told him where we wanted the tree putting in the hall. He hadn’t been in the house an hour and she had found out he wasn’t married and she had got him to take her to the theatre the following Saturday.’

  ‘Was it a success? Did she enjoy the trip?’

  ‘I didn’t know about it until afterwards. She said she had enjoyed it, but, fortunately, the relationship didn’t go any further. But there were more…cases. There was the man from the security firm who came to sell us an updated system. Another man she met in the library, who helped her with the new automatic machinery. I can’t imagine what she had said to him, but she got invited to his house and had a meal with him and his wife. She came home in a flood of tears. Fortunately, these…adventures were short lived.’

  Angel pursed his lips. He could see the pattern. ‘Well, what caused your sister to leave the house the last time?’

  ‘The last man proved to be very difficult. She said that she thought she would like to get in trim after Christmas. She saw an ad in the local paper, interviewed a man, a so-called personal trainer, and engaged him to come to the house two afternoons a week. He was a very personable young man. In his twenties. Prime physique. Suntanned. Dark hair. Blue eyes. I saw him arrive in his shorts. I could see that this was a potentially volatile situation. So I thought that I would join in the sessions to keep a sisterly eye on things. Selina wasn’t pleased but she tolerated my presence. Anyway, she had three exercise sessions and after that they’re talking on the phone late at night, making arrangements to meet somewhere. The next day I got a phone call from a young woman crying her eyes out because she had found out that Selina was coming between her and her partner. And that she was expecting their second child! Oh dear. I had to put the poor girl right and then explain all this to Selina. At first she didn’t believe me, thought I was making it up, just to separate them. Anyway she saw the muscle man — who, of course, lied at first and she believed him. Anyway, it all came out, although it took a few days. There were a lot of upsets, tears and unhappiness. Poor Selina. It was a mess. You would have thought she would have been grateful to me, but no, I think she hated me. She stayed in her bedroom all the next day and the day after that…wouldn’t speak to me. I tried to speak to her. All she would say was “go away”. I went out riding. It always relaxes me. I was out all the afternoon. When I got back, I went up to try to make peace with her again but was met on the stairs by our housekeeper who told me Selina had gone out of the house dressed up to the nines carrying two suitcases. Apparently she had called for a taxi, which was unusual in itself. Our gardener handyman would have taken her anywhere she had wanted to go in our 4 x 4. Anyway, I was devastated. I had no idea where she had gone. She didn’t return that night. She’s been gone nineteen nights, and that big lumbering house is too big for one person, Inspector.’

  ‘I assumed you were married, Mrs Henderson?’

  ‘I was. My husband died four years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But she did contact you?’

  ‘A very brief starchy phone call the following morning. She said that she had met a schoolteacher called Harry, that he was a widower, that they were madly in love, that he definitely wasn’t married, and that they were getting married a week on Saturday, and that I wasn’t to try and stop her, and that was all. She was very emotional and she wasn’t that clear but that was the essence of the call. She didn’t say that she loved me or anything like that. She didn’t wait for me to say anything. I immediately had the phone call traced by the telephone company and discovered that it was from a call box on Victoria Road in Bromersley in South Yorkshire.’

  Angel raised his head. ‘How very enterprising of you, Mrs Henderson.’

  ‘It is one of the perks of being the daughter of a knight of the realm, Inspector. The title impresses some people.’

  ‘And that’s what brought you here?’

  ‘Yes. Now, can you please find her for me? She is extremely wealthy in her own right. I fear for her safety. I think she is in the hands of someone very unscrupulous. She is very naïve still.’

  ‘There is nothing illegal about two single people getting married.’

  Her eyes narrowed, her bottom lip quivered. ‘There’s more, Inspector, much more. She had a large sum on deposit at the Egham, Epsom and Esher Building Society. The manager told me this morning that yesterday she had withdrawn every penny of it. Also, she had several thousand pounds in her ordinary bank account. That has also been withdrawn in cash in their branch here and the account closed. I rushed into her bedroom, and looked in her dressing-table drawer. She has taken all her jewellery. The stuff that was Grandmother’s, that she had inherited, the Cranberry garnet earrings, the emerald and diamond necklace, and the eight-carat solitaire diamond ring that Daddy gave her on her eighteenth birthday. It made me shudder when I thought about it. I fear that she is in the hands of some crook who is taking as much money from her as he can and then he’s going to murder her. I immediately packed a bag, caught the train and here I am. You must find her, Inspector, before it is too late.’

  Chapter Five

  Angel arrived at his office as usual at 0828 hours, picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

  Ahmed answered. ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Good morning. Get a message out to Ron Gawber and Trevor Crisp that I want them in my office, ASAP. All right? And when you’ve done that, I want you in here, promptly.’

  A few moments later, Ahmed knocked on the door and pushed it open. ‘They’re on their way, sir.’

  Angel picked up the wedge of A4 sheets with pictures and descriptions of James and Lloyd Corbett made up like nineteenth-century posters of wanted outlaws from off the desk, waved them at him then dropped them down with a bang. ‘They’re great, Ahmed. Just what I wanted.’

  The young man smiled.

  ‘Now I want you to get a list of public houses licensed in the Bromersley area from the desk sergeant and note down the name of the licensee. Then I want you to deliver personally one of these posters into the hand of every licensee and get a signature from him or her for it. I want you to say that DI Angel of Bromersley Police sends his compliments and requests their cooperation in the event of them seeing either of these two men. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Take Scrivens with you. It shouldn’t take you two more than a day if you take the area car.’

  Ahmed smiled. That was a job he would enjoy. He liked to get out of the office.

  Angel picked up the leaflets, took one off the top and handed the rest to Ahmed, who quickly took them and made for the door.

  The door closed. Angel watched it and smiled.

  Almost immediately, DS Gawber and DS Crisp arrived.

  He went swiftly through all the facts he had gleaned from Mrs Henderson the previous afternoon about her missing sister, Selina Line.

  Gawber said: ‘Isn’t this simply a missing person inquiry, sir?’

  ‘It might be, Ron. But there is such a lot of money and jewellery involved, which is worrying. Also this particular woman sounded very vulnerable — no mother, and two years after her father died, she may have felt lonely. Her sister said she was unmarried and unworldly. Also, the crook wouldn’t dare simply to abandon her after he’d picked her clean. She has seen him, his place of residence…she has lived with him. She would be able to give a very detailed description of him, and if he had a record, she’d pick him out on the PNC in a minute.’

  Angel looked at both sergeants. They exchanged glances with each other and then nodded soulfully. The outlook cast a quiet and sombre gloom over the gathering, but also brought with it a sense of urgency.

  ‘Do we have any pictures
of her, sir?’ Gawber said.

  ‘Mrs Henderson is having some photographs of her sent forthwith from her home. She’s also having some photographs of the missing jewellery forwarded from the insurance company. She is staying for the time being at The Feathers, she says, to keep close to the search.’

  Angel looked at Crisp. ‘Now I want you to enquire at the registrar’s office for details of a wedding that took place in Bromersley, according to Mrs Henderson, on Saturday, ninth of this month, between a man called Harry something or other, a widower, he said, and Selina Line. I suppose she wouldn’t change her name. Anyway, see if you can find it.’

  ‘Was it a church service or a civil service?’ Crisp said.

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s something you’ve got to find out.’

  ‘Might it be a bigamous marriage, sir?’

  Angel’s fists tightened. ‘It might. It might. It might not. Find out. Go on. Crack on with it.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and went out.

  Angel looked at Gawber. ‘She said the bridegroom was a teacher, Ron, a widower. Not much to go on. A teacher with a first name of Harry. Schools are on holiday. You’ll have to start at the education office in the town hall. See what you can dig up.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Gawber went out and closed the door.

  Angel stood up, then walked purposefully up the corridor to the security door and out of the station. He bounced down the steps, turned right at the bottom and walked on 200 yards or so to the magistrates’ court, then turned right and through the door marked ‘Probation Office’. He passed the ‘Reception and Waiting Room’ door and stepped smartly along the corridor to an old black door, where he tapped gently on one of the panels.

  After a few seconds a young woman with long black undisciplined hair opened the door six inches and peered round it.

  He smiled at her. ‘Marie, have you a minute?’