It was eleven o’clock when Angel arrived back at the station. He was cold, tired and thoroughly fed up. He slammed the office door, threw his coat at the hook on the side of the stationery cupboard and missed. He pulled a face at it, considered whether to go over and pick it up, decided not to, then slumped down in the chair. He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. He wasn’t satisfied with Harry Saw’s evidence, or rather, lack of it. The man didn’t seem to know anything about anything.
Angel thought that the evidence in the case collated so far was a hotchpotch of inconsistencies. The source of the book about dreams appeared to be a mystery, but he couldn’t see why it should be. Haydn King’s prints weren’t on it, so it was reasonable to suppose that he hadn’t read it. Yet its presence supported the evidence that he was deeply troubled by that repeated nightmare, and it was tragic (and baffling) that that horrible dream had become a reality.
He turned to thinking about Marcia Moore. She was positively identified by two witnesses in Bromersley. One of them was Charles Wiseman, who said that he had seen her dead body in the yard below his hotel window on Wednesday night. However, the body had subsequently vanished. The other witness was Mrs Fortescue, the hotel manager, who had said that Marcia had been to her office, the following Thursday morning. She had spoken to her and she had been very much alive. That simply didn’t make sense. Neither of them appeared to be lying. Neither of them had a motive. Or if they had, it was not obvious.
His train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ he called.
It was Ahmed. He was holding a thin, fawn paper file.
‘Ah,’ Angel said, his face brightening. ‘Can you rustle up a cup of tea, lad?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said, ‘but can I first tell you first about the query I’ve got checking out the calls made from Haydn King’s home phone?’
Angel saw a gleam of pleasure in the young man’s eyes. He eagerly held out a hand for the file of papers. ‘What you got, Ahmed?’
‘I’ve highlighted the calls in yellow, sir. Apparently Mr King phoned three times to a place called the Astra Agency.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve looked it up, sir. It’s on Denmark Street. Something to do with show business. He phoned them three times. All on the same day, Wednesday November 16th. Two weeks before he died.’
Angel pursed his lips then slowly blew out a foot of air.
Ahmed said, ‘I did phone and the person who answered said that they were agents to the stars. I didn’t want them to realize it was a police inquiry so I rang off.’
He nodded. ‘Good thinking, lad.’
Ahmed beamed.
‘Have you checked his mobile yet?’
‘I’m about to start working on it, sir. But that London number doesn’t appear on the list, I’ve already checked it for that.’
‘Great stuff. I’ll give it a ring now. Hop off and make me a cup of tea.’
Ahmed went out.
Angel reached out for his phone and tapped in the London number.
It was answered promptly. ‘The Astra Agency, agents to the stars, Clarissa speaking,’ a voice said.
Angel thought the woman had a mid-Atlantic accent, and was probably middle-aged. Whether the accent was genuine or affected he wasn’t sure.
‘Can I speak to whoever deals with Haydn King, please,’ Angel said.
‘Haydn King, did you say? Won’t be a second. Is that Haydn with a hay or a haitch?’
‘An aitch,’ he said.
‘Hold on, please,’ she said and he was then treated to a recorded spiel about how great the Astra Agency was and then it went on to list some of their clients and their attributes. The recording stopped abruptly and Clarissa was back. ‘You’re not on our client base. Are you a producer or a booker?’
‘I want to speak to the person who deals with Haydn King,’ he said. ‘He phoned two weeks ago. My name is Michael Angel. I’m from Bromersley in South Yorkshire.’
She sighed. ‘So you’re a new producer or booker, Michael. I’ll put you through to Benny, he’s the boss. He likes to speak with new promoters. Hold on, please.’
There was a click, followed by four seconds of very loud rapid drumming and a girl screeching, then, to Angel’s relief, the girl died and the woman Clarissa returned.
‘Sorry, Benny’s on the line talking to Cameron Macintosh,’ she said. ‘I can’t interrupt him, sorry about that. I don’t know how long he’ll be. Oh, his line is free now. Putting you through.’
A man who sounded like he’d been gargling with petrol and chewing on cheap cigars for forty years said, ‘Yeah, hello Michael. Good to hear from you. Benny Astrakhasi, agent to the stars. What sort of a set-up have you got? And who recommended us?’
‘Are you the boss, the principal of the agency?’
‘Yeah. Sure. I’m both. What’s the gig, Bud?’
‘I am a police officer investigating a very serious crime and I want to know the nature of the business a man called Haydn King had with your agency. He phoned your number two weeks ago.’
‘The police, eh?’ he rasped. ‘Haydn King? I don’t know no Haydn King. And I would have remembered a fancy name like that whether he was client or a producer. Tell you what, Clarissa might remember.’
‘She says she can’t recall the name.’
There was a pause.
‘Yeah … well, if he was selling something, telephone systems, advertising, computer stuff. Dozens of them a day, Bud. I wouldn’t know…’
‘I don’t think he would be selling anything.’
‘Must be a wrong number … we get ‘em all the time.’
‘It wasn’t a wrong number. Three calls were made to this number on Wednesday, 16th. Two in the morning and one in the afternoon. I’ve got the times and the length of the calls from the phone company. In total they add up to sixteen minutes.’
Astrakhasi said, ‘Well he certainly wasn’t selling nothing. I wouldn’t let him bung up my lines for sixteen minutes with de chat. My phone lines are as valuable to me as my arteries, Bud. I can tell you that. Look, I got to go. I got calls piling up on me. I’m losing valuable business and work for some of de boys and girls.’
Before Angel could reply, his ears were assaulted by drums and more screeching. He pulled a face and held the phone out at arm’s length. He was considering cancelling and re-dialling when he heard a woman’s voice through the earpiece.
‘Michael, are you still there?’ Clarissa said. ‘If that name comes up, I’ll remember. We get more than three hundred calls a day, literally. Sometimes a lot more. Give us a bell in a week or so. I gotta go. All the lines are on red. Benny will go mad. I gotta go. Bye-eeeee.’
The line went dead.
Angel slowly replaced the phone. His face was more creased than the prison psychiatrist’s joggers. He couldn’t for the life of him think what business Haydn King could have had with the Astra Agency, the self-styled agents to the stars, but he was pleased to be out of range of the banging drums and the screeching girl.
There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed with the tea.
Angel’s face brightened. It soured immediately when he saw the bundle of post Ahmed had under his arm. He reached out for it and tossed it onto the desk as Ahmed put the mug of tea on the coaster Angel had set near the phone.
‘Ta, lad,’ he said as he eagerly reached out for the mug.
Ahmed grinned and went out.
Angel leaned back in the swivel chair and sipped the steaming tea. He was still thinking about the Astra Agency and Haydn King when the phone rang. He stared at it for a time, hoping it would stop. It didn’t. Still holding the mug he reached out for it with the other hand. ‘Angel,’ he said.
‘Control Room, sir. DS Clifton.’
‘Yes, Bernie. What is it?’
‘A report came in earlier this morning that there was a dead man’s body seen floating in the canal, sir. I sent Alpha Bravo down. Eventually they managed to fish
it out, and the body is now on its way to the mortuary as we speak—’
Angel interrupted him. ‘Bernie,’ he said, ‘Bernie, while I am genuinely very sorry to hear about another poor soul in the drink, why are you bothering me with it?’
‘Couple of things, sir. I don’t believe the man jumped voluntarily. Firstly, there is nothing in any of his pockets, and secondly, there is a huge wound on the top of his head. Seems to me that it could be murder.’
Angel pursed his lips. That familiar hot buzzing sensation began in his chest, and his heart began to beat louder and faster. Sounded as if the signs of murder were unarguable. But he had such a heavy workload.
‘Have you told the super?’ Angel said.
‘He’s busy with the Chief Constable, sir, organizing the Punch and Judy for the kids’ Christmas party. He said to get you to deal with it.’
Angel sniffed. He wasn’t best pleased. Deep down inside he was angry. He already had too much to do, and he felt that another case on top was an imposition. He sighed. He must stay controlled. There was no cause to shoot the messenger. He breathed evenly in and then out.
‘All right, Bernie,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Get one of the patrolmen in Alpha Bravo to contact me on my mobile ASAP?’
Angel ended the call then quickly tapped in Ahmed’s number.
‘Ahmed,’ he said. ‘A body has been pulled out of the canal. I am going to the mortuary to look into it. Ring Don Taylor and ask him to stand by.’
Ahmed swallowed. He was still green enough to be both shocked and distressed by such news, but he was learning not to show it.
‘Right, sir.’
ELEVEN
Doctor Mac handed him a white mask and a pair of latex gloves.
‘Ta,’ Angel said. ‘You know I don’t know how you can work in this smell all day, Mac.’
‘The first twenty years are the worst,’ the old doctor said as he made for the mortuary theatre door.
Angel pulled on the second glove with a snap.
‘Come on with ye,’ Mac said.
A technician in a green overall was swilling down the white-tiled theatre floor with a hose.
Angel followed the doctor across the tiles to a bank of huge refrigerated drawers against the far wall. Mac checked the label on one of them.
‘Here he is,’ Mac said and then pulled it open.
Frozen air swirled around the body then trickled downwards, hovered around the tiled floor for a few seconds then disappeared.
As it cleared, Angel bent down and looked closely at the fully dressed body of a big man lying on his back with his hands across his chest. His suit and shoes were covered with a thin deposit of grey mud. The skin on his face and hands was a blue-grey colour. The top of his head was markedly misshapen, and his cheeks and chin were covered with several small red cuts.
‘That’s a terrible-looking wound to the top of the head, Mac,’ Angel said.
‘It’s a wee bit early for me to give you any hard facts, Michael. The body has only been here a few minutes and I haven’t had a chance to examine him carefully, but it certainly looks like the blow that killed him.’
Angel nodded. He knew how meticulous the doctor was.
Angel peered down into the big man’s face.
‘What about all those small lacerations to the face, Mac? By their colour they look as if they were made after death. What do you make of them?’
‘Aye, the lacerations? There are seven or eight which are certainly post-mortem,’ Mac said, then he sighed and shook his head. ‘I ken it makes no sense.’
Angel frowned. He had not seen injuries like those before.
A mobile phone rang out.
‘That’s mine,’ Angel said as he reached into his pocket.
‘Excuse me, Mac.’
He opened the phone. It was PC Sean Donohue. He was reporting in as directed by DS Clifton. He said that he and PC Cyril Elders had responded to the triple-nine call from the landlord of the Fisherman’s Rest, the pub which overlooked the stretch of the canal where the body was found.
‘The landlord told us that from an upstairs window he saw what he thought was a man’s body, face down among some bulrushes, sir,’ Donohue said. ‘He went down for a closer look and then made a triple nine. Me and Cyril Elders responded quickly, but we had to call in the Fire Brigade for their assistance. Eventually we got the body out and loaded it into the meat wagon for the mortuary. And that’s about it.’
‘You will recall the place where the body was seen?’
‘Oh yes, sir. We staked it out with sticks and tape.’
‘Right,’ Angel said. ‘I’ll send SOCO to take a look. Can you rendezvous with them there in five or ten minutes?’
‘I’ll be there, sir.’
Angel terminated the call, then tapped in SOCO’s number to complete the arrangement. Then he turned back to the doctor.
‘I think we’ve gone as far as we can go, Mac,’ he said.
‘Aye. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. But I will know all there is to know this time tomorrow, and I’ll send you my report by email as usual.’
Angel nodded. ‘Thank you for your help, Mac. Would it offend your professional instincts if I were to take this poor man’s dabs myself now? Maybe I can find him on the PNC and speed things up a bit?’
The doctor smiled beneath the mask. ‘Be my guest, Michael. I’ll get you an ink block.’
Angel returned to the police station with a card in his pocket bearing a full set of the dead man’s fingerprints. He strode purposefully down the green corridor past CID. Ahmed saw him, jumped up from his seat, snatched a file from his desk, dashed out into the corridor and followed Angel into his office.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Ahmed said.
Angel turned round. ‘Yes, lad. What’s up?’
‘Nothing’s up, sir. Might even be good news.’
Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Could do with some of that,’ he said as he took off his coat. ‘Shut the door, then, and sit down.’
Ahmed took a letter from the Anglian Telephone Company from the file and referred to it as he spoke. ‘I’ve finished checking Mr King’s mobile phone calls over the three weeks before his murder, as you instructed, sir. They are mostly calls to members of his staff, his accountant, his solicitor, his tailor, the man who cuts his hair and trims his beard and so on. They seem to be perfectly all right. But then, there are two calls to a Mrs Lin that are … well, unexplained.’
Angel dropped his chin onto his chest and lowered his eyebrows. ‘And who’s Mrs Lin?’
‘I don’t know exactly, sir. I made an exploratory phone call to her, trying to find out what line of business she is in, but because I wouldn’t give my name and address, she wouldn’t say.’
Angel’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really?’ he said. He rubbed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb.
‘I didn’t want to say I was from the police, sir, so I hung up. But she is in the phone book. She doesn’t live far away from where Haydn King lived. His place is that big house in Pine Avenue, isn’t it? Well, Mrs Lin’s house is round the corner in a cul-de-sac called Pine Close. She lives in number 2.’
Angel pulled out an old envelope from his inside pocket and scribbled the address on the back of it, then he looked up. ‘When did he make these calls?’
Ahmed looked down at the letter from the telephone company. ‘On Thursday 1st December, at 5.10, and then again on Monday 5th December, at 5.17.’
‘And did the calls last long?’
‘The call on the 1st was four minutes and the one on the 5th was six minutes, sir.’
Angel pursed his lips, his eyes deep in thought.
At length, Ahmed said, ‘What does the length of the call tell you, sir?’
‘Could indicate whether the call was friendly, or even intimate. An unpleasant call is likely to be short, abrupt … and people bickering don’t usually want to stay on the phone a moment longer than necessary. Whereas people who like each other are likely to spen
d more time chatting, making their arrangements or conducting their business, whatever it might be, courteously, happily… in no hurry to end the call.’
Ahmed raised his eyebrows thoughtfully, then smiled and nodded.
‘All right, lad,’ Angel said. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll look into it. Thank you.’ Then he pulled the fingerprint card out of his pocket and handed it to him. ‘Check these prints with the CRO straightaway and see if they have a match.’
Ahmed’s face brightened. ‘Got a suspect, sir?’
‘They’re from the dead man.’
Ahmed’s face promptly changed. He looked at the card as if it had just been fished out of the Pentonville slop bin, and dropped it into the file he was holding.
‘By the way, is the super in?’ Angel said.
‘Yes, sir.’
Angel wrinkled his nose. Then he looked at Ahmed and said, ‘Right, lad. Crack on with that, then. And let me know if they come up with anything ASAP.’
Ahmed went out.
Angel sighed. He had to see Superintendent Harker as soon as possible. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t put it off any longer.
He needed confirmation that King told the super that he had repeatedly had that awful dream on that particular day. He must confirm the fact before he could confidently take the investigation any further. It was incredible that a man would forecast the manner of his own death and then two days later for it actually to happen.
He went out of his office and up the corridor to Harker’s office. At the door, he stopped, sighed and knocked.
‘Come in,’ the Superintendent called.
Angel lowered the handle and went inside.
The old fan heater was still clanking away and the air was sticky from the overbearing heat.
Harker looked up from behind his desk. He had to dodge between the heaped piles of papers, reports, copies of Police Reviews, circulars and boxes of Kleenex and Movical to be able to see that it was Angel.
‘Oh, it’s you, lad,’ he said with an unwelcoming pouting of the lips.
The Diamond Rosary Murders Page 12