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

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Oh,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I’m with a client, Michael, but I’ll only be five minutes.’

  He nodded.

  She closed the door.

  He leaned back against the wall, folded his arms and waited. Waiting wasn’t easy for him. Five minutes is a long time when you have a lot to do and a woman’s life might be in danger.

  The time ticked away, and the probation officer duly opened her private door and let him in.

  ‘Who are you looking for this time?’ she said.

  She was used to Angel coming in armed with an almost impossible description.

  ‘Simple, Marie,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for a man called Harry, who is a schoolteacher, a widower and who has been free for at least the past nineteen days.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘If he’s still a schoolteacher, he won’t be on the books.’

  He frowned. It was true. Education authorities don’t let crooks anywhere near schools.

  ‘Maybe he had been a schoolteacher?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe he hadn’t?’

  He rubbed his chin.

  ‘Maybe your man hasn’t even a record?’ she said.

  Angel thought quickly and said: ‘Maybe he got the job through forging his references?’

  ‘You’re stubborn.’

  ‘I have to be.’

  ‘How do you know he’s supposed to be a schoolteacher?’

  ‘A witness said so.’

  ‘How does the witness know?’

  ‘The missing woman, her sister, told her.’

  Marie’s jaw dropped. She saw that this was serious. ‘An abduction?’

  ‘Might be,’ he said.

  He didn’t add his private thoughts. An abduction was ghastly enough.

  ‘Is that all you know?’ she said.

  His lips tightened against his teeth. ‘That’s all the witness, the woman’s sister, knows,’ he said. Then in a quiet, cold voice he said, ‘I believe he lives somewhere not far from the phone box on Victoria Road. And if I was doing a profile, I’d say he was tolerably physically attractive to the mature woman, probably tall, over forty, a great talker, confidence trickster and…’ he added heavily, ‘And a murderer.’

  He could hear the phone in his office ringing out when he was halfway down the green corridor. He wondered if it was Marie from the probation office. He began to run. She had not been able to suggest any of her clients that filled his spec off the top of her head while he had been with her. He wondered if she had suddenly thought of somebody. He pushed open the office door, reached over the desk and snatched up the handset.

  It was Sir Max Monro’s housekeeper, dear Mrs Dunleavy. She sounded very worried.

  ‘I wondered if you heard anything from Mr Nigel, Inspector. I really need some instructions about the house, you know. I really would like to get back to living in my own house. Also there is a lot of post backing up here addressed to him. And there are bills rolling in for the house which will need paying. I can’t pay them. There are lots of inquiries for Mr Nigel and not all friendly. I had a man here yesterday wanting to issue Mr Nigel with a writ. He thought I was protecting him, you know…that I knew where he was. Wanted to look round the house, value the furniture. I had a job to keep him out. Good job I had the door on the chain.’

  Angel was quite perturbed. ‘I have heard nothing, Mrs Dunleavy,’ he said. ‘But you mustn’t worry about a thing. It is a job for Sir Max’s solicitor, the man who drew up the Will. He was at the funeral. Contact him. Tell him what you want to do and do it. If you have any difficulty, let me know.’

  There was a heavy sigh. ‘Oh, thank you, Inspector. Thank you very much. And you think that will be all right?’

  ‘I’m certain of it.’

  There was another heavy sigh. ‘Oh, thank you, Inspector. I will phone him immediately.’ Then she said: ‘Are you having any success finding that…that ruby stone?’

  ‘Not yet. It is rather difficult in the absence of Nigel. When he turns up, will you let me know?’

  ‘I certainly will,’ she said.

  The call ended, leaving Mrs Dunleavy a happy woman, but it had reminded Angel that he really ought to visit the convent in North Yorkshire. It was still possible that there was somebody or something there that might lead him to Princess Yasmin. He must find her, see that she knows the facts and is made aware of her inheritance. It wouldn’t be easy. Harker had given him specific orders not to spend any time on that case. He was still chasing him for a result on the assault on the four men in The Feathers.

  The phone rang again. It was Harker. Angel smiled wryly at the coincidence. He thought his ears must have been burning.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from the hospital,’ Harker snapped. ‘Get over there smartly. Charles Drumme was admitted at 7.30 this morning. He has a gunshot wound.’

  Angel’s head came up. He blinked and charged out of the office. Time might be important. Drumme might have something to say about who had shot him.

  Drumme was the king of crime in Bromersley and had held that position since Caleb Hull had been put away for eight years in 2005, mainly the result of assiduous investigative work by Angel. His arrest had slashed the crime figures for minor offences overnight. That day there had been a spirit of celebration in the station. After the sentence, the chief constable had called him up to his office and congratulated him.

  Drumme was a nasty character, and he held the gaming machine franchise in most of Bromersley’s pubs and hotels, had a string of girls working for him down by the canal and ran a patchy protection racket involving some of the small cafes, takeaway restaurants and several shops. Angel understood that the cost of the ‘protection’ was unspecified and unpredictable, but the result was that he and his gang usually ate well at no cost. The rackets were all built on fear. Fear of having a face slashed or property trashed. Angel could never get a witness to speak against him and his small band of thugs.

  Angel reached the hospital in eight minutes, enquired at reception for Drumme’s ward number, took the lift to the fourth floor, made his way to the nurses’ station and was instantly directed to room 12 opposite. The room door was wide open. As he approached, he saw that it was a single ward and that the patient was purple-faced and propped in a sitting position with pillows. He had a plaster over one eye, a surgical dressing on his tanned chest and a thick bandage round one arm above the elbow. A plastic bag of clear liquid hung from a stand with a pipe flowing down to his wrist. Even so, Angel knew it was Charles Drumme. Their eyes met. He recognized Angel. His eyes flashed and his lips tightened and curled with anger.

  ‘You’re too bloody soon, Angel,’ Drumme said. ‘My funeral’s not for another thirty years at least.’

  ‘By the colour of your face, and all those bandages, I should watch it. It could be sooner than you think.’ He reached for the chair by the wall, pulled it across and sat down.

  ‘You needn’t make yourself comfortable, Angel. This isn’t one of your interview rooms. One word from me and these nurses’ll have you out of this ward and down that corridor quicker than you can say “Let’s be having you”.’

  ‘There’s no cause to be difficult, Charlie. This is only a friendly call.’

  ‘The name’s Charles, and I’m not difficult. Where’s the fags and the Glenfiddich? If this was a friendly call I wouldn’t expect you to come empty handed.’

  ‘Don’t push the smart chat, Charles. I heard you’d been injured. Naturally we’re always concerned if one of our…regular customers gets duffed up.’

  ‘There was no fight. I walked into a door, that’s all.’

  ‘What about the gunshot wound? Was it where you banged your arm accidentally on a projecting door key?’

  ‘It’s not a gunshot wound. The doctor made a mistake, that’s all.’

  Angel smiled wryly and wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Who did it, Charles?’

  ‘Forget it, Angel. Move on.’

  Angel leaned forward. ‘If you finger
him and we can prove it, he’d get five years. He’s very likely still got powder burns on him as we speak. Do yourself a favour. Get him out of the way. He can’t be a friend of yours, Charles. Just give me a name. I can have him picked up and put away before he gets to you again.’

  ‘Forget it, Angel. I settle my own scores.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s the trouble. Innocent people get hurt. And you could go inside for it. At least if I do it, it’s legal. It’s done properly, with no comebacks.’

  ‘Buzz off.’

  ‘You’re a fool.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve no idea who they were.’

  ‘They certainly made a monkey out of you.’

  ‘You know nothing. I was caught unprepared, that’s all. It won’t happen again. I got my methods.’

  ‘They must have been outsiders, eh, Charlie? Local heavies would have been a bit wary of you. They must have been from another patch?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Don’t come the “no comment” with me, Charlie. They were, weren’t they?’

  Drumme’s eyes flashed angrily. His jaw stiffened and his lips curled cruelly. He strained both arms and legs to try to raise himself up. ‘It’s Charles,’ he bawled and then flopped back on the bed with a pained expression. If he could have gotten out of bed he would have done. ‘And I’ll say anything I frigging well want to. Now get the hell out of here.’

  ‘All right. All right. Say who did this to you and I’ll go right now and lock them up.’

  ‘Buzz off. I’m a patient in here. I have rights. I don’t have to put up with the likes of you. You’re a frigging nuisance. I’m telling you nothing. I never tell coppers anything. You know that. Now, buzz off and don’t come back.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. He stood up. He put the chair back by the wall. His eyes suddenly twinkled mischievously. ‘I can see I’m breaking your resistance down, Charlie, but you’re tired,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back and have another word with you later.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Don’t frigging bother!’ Drumme screamed, and a stainless-steel kidney bowl and a plastic jug of water followed him out of the room, landing noisily on the corridor floor.

  Chapter Six

  Angel came out of the hospital through the revolving door in reflective mood. It had almost been a waste of time. Detectives would give up interviewing if interviewees were all like Charles Drumme. Reading between the lines, all that he had deduced was that Drumme had been attacked by outsiders, people he didn’t know, which probably meant the Corbetts.

  He looked among the sea of cars for the BMW. He recognized the roof and made his way past a parked ambulance and a taxi towards it.

  He was thinking he could do without the Corbetts on his patch. Then he heard the ringing of his mobile phone. He dived into his pocket. It was Superintendent Harker. He sounded in a state.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ he bawled. ‘We’ve got an armed robbery in progress. It’s on Market Street. A Pelican Security van. I’ve informed the FSU. Set up roadblocks on Bradford Road and Sheffield Road. Market Street is a one-way street. You can’t get behind them because they’ve blocked it off with a stolen furniture-type van of some sort. I’m on my way down there now. Meet me at the exit end of Market Street ASAP.’

  There was a click and that was it.

  Angel ran to his car, reversed out of the parking bay, worked his way along the parking lanes and eventually on to the main road. He raced down Park Road. He knew exactly the quickest way to the end of Market Street. He drove quickly and carefully, overtaking everything when it was safe to do so. He switched on the RT so that he could hear any reports that might come in to the operations room. It was going to take him another two minutes to get on to Victoria Road, which led to the end of Market Street. The robbers surely would be clear of the scene by the time he arrived there. The blocking off the street behind them was, from their point of view, a smart ploy. The operation sounded like the work of a sophisticated gang.

  There was a lot of chatter on the RT from traffic division about traffic delays and a broken-down car at the traffic lights on Sheffield Road. Then he heard something about the robbery. It was an exchange between the sergeant in the operations room to Inspector Asquith, who was also on his way to the scene.

  ‘There were two vehicles involved. A red van and a green van seen being driven away. At least three armed men and a woman in balaclavas. No shots fired, but a big explosion and smoke from the back of the Pelican Security van, doors blown off in the street, money cage opened with heavy wire cutters, and van emptied of a quantity of canvas sacks and transferred to robbers’ vans, now driven away. A woman in a flat over a baker’s shop had a bird’s eye view of the crime scene and has been giving a commentary to the sergeant in the operations room.’

  Angel was on Victoria Road. A small car in front was driving close to the kerb and then out again, then in. Probably looking for somewhere to park. Angel let out a long hard blast on the car horn. The car stopped dead. He quickly changed down to second gear, pressed hard down on the accelerator and drove round in front of it. The driver glared at him, shook his fist and yelled something obscene. Angel ignored him and drove on.

  The end of Market Street was in sight. He could see the McDonald’s sign on the corner. A bus was ahead of him. He stuck his nose round the rear of it and saw a green van careen round the corner on two wheels; the tyres squealed and pedestrians stared at it. Then it straightened up. It had come out of Market Street. His pulse raced. If he could follow it, without being spotted… It was green as described. It was being driven very quickly. He latched on to it as it weaved in and around the busy town traffic. He gripped the steering wheel determinedly. He was not intending to lose it. He would stick with it. He’d follow it to hell if that’s where it was going. It was being driven far more quickly than was safe. It turned out of the town on to the ring road. Angel was close behind. It seemed to be making for the Ml. He would have liked to have phoned in for support or reported his position but the speed of travelling needed all his attention. He wasn’t going to risk losing it. It took corners on two wheels. Even on the straight, when it wandered too close to the kerb or the central white line, it was jerkily corrected at the very last moment.

  The driver had shown no signs of acknowledging that he was being followed. Angel considered overtaking the van. His BMW would easily do that. But they were armed and he wasn’t, so that idea was quashed. The van reached the roundabout incorporating the slip roads to the M1 but the driver kept in the offside lane. The van went round the roundabout all the way. He stayed right behind them. He became uneasy, but he had no choice. They made the circle again. Angel’s face dropped. He had been sussed. They had used that ploy to find out if he had been following them. They now knew that he had. His pulse raced; he didn’t know what they would do. Next time round, unexpectedly, the van moved left into the nearside lane and went down the narrow slip road. At the same time, the back doors of the van opened and a man dressed in black and wearing a balaclava threw several handfuls of something too small to identify.

  Angel was wary. He braked and dropped back a little. Then he heard a bang. It was a puncture. His steering was heavy and uncontrollable. He braked. There were three more bangs in quick succession. The BMW slewed across the slip road out of Angel’s control. He saw the man hanging out of the back of the van wave mockingly as the van pulled away and got smaller and smaller and filtered neatly into the traffic on the motorway ahead as the BMW came to a stop.

  Superintendent Harker stood in his office, hands on hips, his face redder than a judge’s vest. ‘I told you to rendezvous at the end of Market Street.’

  ‘When I saw the green van come out at speed, I thought it too good an opportunity to miss.’

  Harker sniffed. ‘But you didn’t do anything. You didn’t see anything. Just knocked up a bill to recover your car and repair four punctures.’

  Angel stood there, with nothing to say. Then he re
membered. ‘I got the van’s index number, sir.’

  Harker glared at him. ‘So did everybody else. You didn’t even call in and tell me or anybody where you were, to give us chance to head the robbers off or put up a roadblock.’

  Angel looked down briefly. It was true, but it had been virtually impossible to use a phone. ‘I was travelling too fast keeping up with the van, sir.’

  Harker pulled a face like he’d just sampled prison hooch. ‘I am not going to ask if you travelled at speeds exceeding the speed limit.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. There was no answer to that.

  Harker sat down in the swivel chair. He opened and closed a drawer in his desk several times, eventually closing it with a particularly loud bang.

  ‘You’d better get back to finding out why visitors staying at the best hotel in town get their fingers smashed in the middle of the night,’ he said. ‘We don’t want a repeat of that sort of thing. Gets the town a bad name. You’re supposed to be the wonder boy detective. You get all the headlines. It’s time you had that little mystery solved. Should be as easy as pie to a hotshot detective like you.’

  Angel’s head came up. A hot sensation generated across his chest and swelled up into his face. He wanted to give Harker a mouthful in retaliation, but his desire to remain in the force was even stronger.

  ‘Go on,’ Harker said with a gesture of dismissal. ‘Get on with it. Be sure to tell Asquith what happened.’

  Angel clenched his fists, nodded, walked out and closed the door.

  If there had been a backside to kick, he would have kicked it. He stormed up to his room, went inside and slumped down at his desk. He frowned. Asquith? Haydn Asquith? He was the inspector in uniformed division on traffic. He looked great in the uniform. But he had had no experience in detecting techniques.

  *

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Good morning. Did you finish distributing those “Wanted” leaflets?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘I’ve brought the few that were left over.’ He placed a folder on the desk.