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

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘No comment, dear boy.’

  ‘Did you buy them locally or off the internet?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Do you rent or own any other premises?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Are you going to say no comment to everything I ask you?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Schuster is far too smart to be caught out, Ron,’ Angel said as he closed his office door. ‘And too tough to make a confession. He’s been through interviews many times before.’

  ‘We’ve got to find premises where he might have taken Selina Line, sir — a place where she may still be held.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Angel said. He sat down in the swivel chair, looked up at Gawber and added, ‘Unless, of course, he’s telling us the truth.’

  ‘He’s very confident despite being booked for growing a Class C.’

  ‘If it is him, he will make us prove everything step by step. He is not going to admit anything and make life easy. I’ve got Don Taylor taking a SOCO team to search that cannabis factory as well as his house. If there’s any trace of Selina Line there, he’ll surely find it. Nevertheless, we should take nothing for granted. We need to widen our net.’

  There was a knock at the door. It was Crisp.

  Angel looked up at him.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’ Crisp said.

  Angel clenched his fists. ‘I’m always wanting you. Even in the middle of the night, I waken up and cry out for you!’

  Gawber tried to hide a smile.

  Crisp frowned. ‘I don’t understand —’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ Angel said. ‘You never come running in here saying “I’ve finished that job and I’ve got some great news.” Never. I’ve always got to send someone out to find you, then you appear with bad news.’ Crisp couldn’t deny it. He stood there while Angel continued the barrage. ‘I sent you out with a photograph of Selina Line on Friday, to show it to every person in Bromersley authorized to marry folk, and you disappeared into outer space.’

  ‘I’ve done that job, sir. I’ve seen them all.’

  ‘About time. And where is he then, or she? I understand that some of them can be women these days.’

  Crisp hesitated. ‘There were twenty-two, sir. I’ve seen every one and nobody recognized her.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes flashed. ‘Nobody?’

  Crisp stood there. He didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say.

  Angel put both hands to his face and rubbed his eyelids, his cheeks and then his chin. He sighed, looked back at Crisp and said, ‘You’d better be sure about this.’

  Crisp looked at him square on and said, ‘I am sure, sir.’

  Angel nodded at him, looked up at Gawber and said, ‘Go to The Feathers and bring Mrs Henderson in, Ron. There’s some explaining to be done.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Gawber said and went out.

  Crisp looked down at Angel, trying to look confident.

  Angel opened the middle drawer of the desk and took out the three photographs of Selina Line’s jewellery the insurance company had sent him. He put them on the desk and pushed them towards Crisp.

  ‘These are expensive, very expensive pieces last seen in the possession of Selina Line. Very striking. There’s a diamond and emerald necklace, an eight-carat solitaire diamond ring and a large pair of garnet earrings. There’s a few quid there. £80,000 worth. See if you can spot them in the local jewellers, antique shops or auctioneers or wherever. If you do, find out how they came by them. All right?’

  Crisp looked closely at the photographs.

  There was suddenly a very quick knock on the door, then it was thrown open with such a force that it noisily hit a chair that was standing against the wall behind it.

  It was Ahmed. He rushed in. His eyes were shining. He dashed up to Angel sitting at the desk. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, then he noticed Crisp. ‘Oh, sorry, sarge. Excuse me. It’s ever so important.’

  ‘It’s all right, Ahmed. I’m just going,’ Crisp said. He went out and closed the door.

  Angel looked at the young man closely. ‘What is it, Ahmed? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Well, sir, I have just found out…that…that their eyebrows meet above their noses.’

  Angel’s mouth dropped open. ‘What?’

  ‘The four men, sir. You said that if I found out something that was applicable to all of them, that was the same in all four columns, you said that you would know why their fingers were broken.’

  Angel frowned. He licked his lips.

  ‘Well, their eyebrows meet above their noses, sir,’ Ahmed said with a big smile. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t ask them that at the beginning. Does that mean that you will now be able to work out why?’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘What I said was that it might lead to finding out why. I can’t — off the top of my head — work out the…relevance, Ahmed. Not just like that.’

  The smile dropped off Ahmed’s face. It was the first match he had had, and he had hoped that it would have provided Angel with the clue he had needed to solve the case. Also, it would have drawn to a close the job he had found so tedious.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it, Ahmed. See what significance it has.’

  Ahmed looked down at him and frowned.

  ‘It might be a very valuable clue,’ Angel said.

  ‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said. But he knew when he was being pacified. He went out and slowly closed the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Angel said.

  Gawber opened the door. His face showed that all was not well.

  Angel stood up. ‘Please come in, Mrs Henderson.’

  She stared at him. ‘I really didn’t need an escort, Inspector, and to be brought to a police station as if I was a criminal.’

  Gawber looked across at Angel for an indication as to whether he wanted him to stay or leave.

  Despite the obvious antagonism, Angel thought he could best deal with Mrs Henderson on a one-to-one basis. He replied to Gawber with the slightest movement of his head and eyes.

  Gawber went out.

  Angel pointed to the chair nearest the desk. ‘Please sit down, Mrs Henderson. This won’t take long.’

  ‘If you had telephoned The Feathers,’ she continued, ‘you could have spoken to me direct. I told you I had intended staying there until you had found Selina.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you feel that I have been in any way discourteous,’ he said. ‘This is very difficult for me. You seem to be an honest woman, a woman who has her sister’s best interests at heart…’

  She stared across at him with piercing eyes. ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid that everything you have told me about your sister seems to be…in error. Based on information supplied by you, I have invested considerable police time on this inquiry, Mrs Henderson. As a matter of fact, inquiries are still proceeding, but nothing so far fits the facts you supplied. You told me that it was your considered opinion that Selina would insist on being married before living with a man.’

  ‘That is so. Yes. It is the way we were brought up.’

  ‘She felt very strongly about this?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely. Why?’

  ‘Simply because we cannot find any trace of a marriage having taken place.’

  She frowned.

  Angel pulled open the desk drawer and took out a photograph. He pushed it across the desk at her. ‘This is the photograph you gave me. Is it a true likeness of your sister, Selina Line?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It was taken last Christmas.’

  Angel rubbed his chin and said, ‘No certificate of marriage has been issued to anybody looking anything like your sister during the last month or so. We have made enquiries of everybody licensed to conduct the service of marriage and none of them have seen her. You said that she had said she was to be married on 9 August?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, but it isn’t right. Nothing
’s right. You said she was to be married to a teacher, who was a widower and that his name was Harry.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. That’s what she said.’

  ‘There are no teachers in Bromersley called Harry, widower or not.’

  ‘That’s what she said. Admittedly all this was said in a rush, over the phone. I could have misheard some detail, but the essence of what she said I am certain is right.’

  ‘Of course, she was relaying what the man had told her?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes.’

  ‘Well, we can’t necessarily rely on what the man told her —not if he intended to…to rob her?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘But how can we separate the truth from the fiction?’

  ‘Well, he has robbed her. Her bank and building society accounts are empty. I told you.’

  ‘Those accounts could only be accessed by your sister?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Requiring her signature, or a forged signature?’

  Mrs Henderson raised her eyebrows.

  Angel changed the question. ‘Well, no other person’s signature was required?’

  ‘No.’

  Angel reasoned that if he could uncover any direct evidence of foul play in connection with Selina Line’s bank and building society accounts then it would confirm Mrs Henderson’s insistence that she had been abducted. That was the next line of inquiry he must explore.

  ‘I need the details of your sister’s accounts at the bank and the building society, Mrs Henderson. There may be a lead there.’

  ‘Of course. I have the addresses here,’ she said opening her handbag. ‘I don’t have Selina’s account numbers, but I have my own passbook for the building society and cheque book from the bank…the same institutions as Selina’s.’

  Angel nodded appreciatively as he took the passbook and cheque book from her. ‘That’s all I can think of for now. I must arrange for transport to return you to The Feathers.’

  He picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

  ‘If you would order a taxi, that would be fine,’ she said.

  ‘But we can manage to find you an unmarked car.’

  ‘No. I’ll go back by taxi.’

  The phone was answered. It was Gawber.

  Angel said: ‘Come in, Ron.’

  He replaced the phone and copied the name and addresses of the bank and building society from Mrs Henderson’s books on to the back of an envelope from his inside pocket.

  Gawber arrived.

  Mrs Henderson took her leave of Angel, and Gawber showed her out of the office, up the corridor and past reception to the front door. He saw her into a taxi and then returned quickly down the green corridor. As he came back into the office, Angel was rubbing his ear between finger and thumb.

  ‘Sit down a minute, Ron,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking. Got a little job for you. Up to now, all the evidence of the possible abduction of Selina Line has come from Mrs Josephine Henderson. We have not had an atom of substantiation from any other source. Furthermore, it was only phone calls from that phone box in Victoria Road made by Selina that connected her to this town. If we are ever going to find her, we need to find another connection between her and this town, or better still the man she’s associated with who is thought to reside here, whether it is Schuster or Potter or somebody else. This might be an opportunity to make that connection. I want you to chase up Selina Line’s bank and building society and see if you can make that connection. Find out how the money was withdrawn. Where it was transferred to. Who was she with at the time? And so on. All right?’

  Chapter Eleven

  It was 8.28 a.m. Tuesday morning. Angel was in his office. He was looking at the pile of letters and reports on his desk in front of him and wrinkling his nose. He looked at his watch. It was 8.29 a.m. He needed it to tick round another sixty seconds. The second hand moved amazingly slowly. He shook the watch to see if it had stopped. It hadn’t. He noticed his fingernails. He looked at the nails on both hands. He opened the desk drawer and rummaged around among a broken pair of handcuffs, armband with ‘police’ printed on it, paper stapler, police whistle on silver chain, penknife, various pens, pencils, rubbers and other stationery items. He was searching for a pair of nail scissors, which he knew were there. He poked around a few times but they weren’t to be seen. He frowned and slammed the drawer shut noisily. He looked again at his watch. He couldn’t wait any longer. He reached over to the phone and tapped out the number.

  It was answered promptly. He was surprised.

  ‘SOLO, DS Taylor,’ a voice said down the line.

  ‘It’s Michael Angel, Don. I wanted to know how you got on yesterday. Did you find any signs of the recent presence of a woman at either of those addresses?’

  ‘Well, there was nothing apparently untoward in the house, sir. I took a few random samples but they all turned out to be those of Gloria Schuster or Dennis Schuster. The house on Well Lane seemed to contain only those of Schuster. There were no prints of females there, in the obvious places. There were no footprints available to us, nor any DNA at either property.’

  Angel’s jaw tightened. Again it wasn’t absolute. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It simply meant that he couldn’t absolutely rule Dennis Schuster out of the Selina Line case. Why was it always impossible these days to be a hundred per cent certain of anything? Anyway, it was not Taylor’s fault. SOCO had done its job. He mustn’t be impatient.

  ‘Thanks, Don,’ he said and replaced the phone.

  He left the office, got in his car and went down to the big house on Well Lane. A uniformed PC was standing outside the front door. He threw up a salute.

  ‘Morning. You know what’s in here, don’t you?’

  ‘Morning, sir. Yes, of course.’

  ‘Anybody been up to the place, seen you and run off?’

  ‘Haven’t seen anybody like that, sir.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Keep your eyes peeled. You’re not here merely to make the pictures in the papers and on the telly look good, you know.’

  The constable stifled a smile.

  ‘Is the back door locked?’ Angel said.

  ‘I have the key here, sir,’ he said, producing it from his pocket.

  Angel let himself into the house. The smell was awful. The heat and fan source had been switched off but there was hardly any improvement. Angel went systematically from room to room. He wanted to check whether it was possible for any room to be used as a prison cell. There were no locks on the outside of any of the rooms, nor any giveaway screw holes in the doors where padlocks might have been fitted. The windows were in no way specially adapted. There were no bars across or special locks on them. A good kick and the glass would have shattered, leaving a hole large enough to escape through. There was nowhere secure enough to restrain even a frail woman — unless she was compliant or drugged. He wasn’t pleased. He came out of the house, locked the door, returned the key to the PC at the front door and ambled round the house to the outbuildings. There was an outside lavatory, a coalhouse and a shelter to store logs. He looked in at all of them; they were all empty. He pursed his lips and wandered back to the PC on the door.

  ‘Seen anything of any waste bins, lad?’

  ‘No, sir. There aren’t any.’

  ‘They’ve not been whipped by the press boys, have they?’

  ‘There weren’t any when I checked in at the beginning of my shift, sir.’

  He nodded, returned to his car and drove off to 11 Edward Street. There was another uniformed PC at the door. The house was unoccupied. Gloria and Trudi Schuster had found temporary accommodation with Gloria’s mother. Angel looked round the small house, searching for the same things as at the Well Lane premises. He saw nothing in there that could be considered at all criminal. He came out of the house, ambled round the backyard, found a wheelie bin with a number 11 scrawled in white paint on it, and lifted the lid. It was empty except for a magazine at the bottom. He had to turn the wheelie bin upside-down
to get at it. It fluttered down and flopped on to the flagstones in the backyard. He turned the wheelie bin back, put it in position and then peered down at the cover page of the magazine. It was called Lady and Home. He raised his eyebrows. He had come across the periodical before. He knew it to be the specialist glossy monthly magazine catering for the needs of rich, elderly people (mostly female), predominantly offering employment, also advertisers seeking to sell specialized services and products to that niche, lush market. It was standard reading for conmen looking for rich widows in big country houses to rip off.

  He dashed round to his car to find an evidence bag. He pushed the magazine into it with his fingertips and sealed it.

  He returned to the station, called in at SOCOs, left the copy of Lady and Home, told Taylor where he had found it and asked him to check through it for prints. Then he returned to his office. He was wondering what more he could do to push his inquiries about Dennis Schuster along. He couldn’t think of anything. He then moved to considering whether he should chase Crisp to see how he was proceeding with searching for Selina Line’s jewellery, or prod or push at further inquiries into Laurence Potter. He couldn’t think of any way he could stimulate action from him while still staying the right side of Judges’ Rules. He would have liked to have searched his house, but there was no possible justification he could have given to a JP to get a search warrant. Living near a particular telephone box, coming into an undetermined amount of money and having a criminal record was simply not enough.

  He looked at the pile of post and reports in front of him and began fingering through the papers and envelopes.

  Finding the missing Selina Line was beginning to seem impossible. He hated being beaten.

  He began looking at the address and then the sender’s name on the reverse side of the envelopes when his concentration slipped away. It slipped away as easily as an uneaten steamed haddock slithered into the slop bin at Strangeways. He was thinking about Selina Line and the quiet wedding to a local man, even though he was unable to find any trace of it. He imagined the bride, almost certainly not in white, middle-aged, but in a costume or, being the month of August, a summer dress, and maybe a hat. And then something occurred to him. Something important. Something that every woman would have thought of. Reality returned. He stopped fumbling with the envelopes and pushed the pile of post away. He opened a drawer and pulled out the Yellow Pages. He raced through the pages to H for hairdressers. He made extracts of the names and addresses of the six nearest to the Victoria Road telephone box, then he took a photograph of Selina Line out of his desk drawer, and dashed out of the station to his car.