The Diamond Rosary Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel’s smile widened. ‘No, Mrs Lin, I haven’t an appointment. I haven’t a letter. I’m Detective Inspector Angel, and I need to speak to you about the late Haydn King. I am investigating his murder.’

  Her face changed. The smile vanished. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course. I had heard that he had died. Please come in.’

  She led him into a small sitting-room decorated in Oriental style, predominately red and gold.

  Angel blinked as he looked round the room.

  She pointed to a comfortable chair.

  When they were both settled, Angel said, ‘Would you please tell me, what your relationship was with Haydn King?’

  Mrs Lin said, ‘I was very saddened to hear of his death. I got to know him rather well. He had been consulting me for the past two months.’

  Angel frowned. ‘And what was he consulting you about?’

  ‘I am a psychiatrist, Inspector Angel, and I am not certain that it is appropriate for me to discuss that with you.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Lin, the poor man is dead. He didn’t die naturally or peacefully. Don’t you think if he could speak to you, and was asked, he would want his murderer caught and punished?’

  Her face changed. The comfortable look went. ‘He probably would, but he would also prefer the very fact that he was consulting a psychiatrist at all to remain secret. Incidentally, Inspector, how did you find out that Mr King was my patient? He didn’t want anybody to know. It was supposed to be a closely guarded secret.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Mr King was most particular. If it leaked out, he said, certain parties might consider that he was weak and incapable of managing a large public company. He told me that it could even affect the share price of his company. He even swore me to secrecy.’

  ‘I’m a detective, Mrs Lin. It’s my job to find things out.’

  Her eyes brightened for a second. ‘I know,’ she said suddenly, with a look of accomplishment. ‘It was Meredith, his butler. He told you. Haydn told him everything.’

  Angel smiled. ‘You have still not told me why he consulted you.’

  She shook her head and looked down at the red carpet. Then she looked back up at him and said, ‘I am still trying to decide whether the situation requires me to betray my professional code.’

  Angel pursed his lips. His face muscles tightened. He looked straight into her eyes and said, ‘Don’t you want to help me find his killer?’

  He stared at her. She stared back at him.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ he continued, ‘you may have some information that might seem innocuous to you, but may supply the missing link that could lead to his killer. You must not deny me the opportunity of bringing him to book. Perhaps more importantly to you as his doctor, you must not allow your late patient’s murderer to roam around freely and perhaps kill again.’

  ‘You put up a strong argument, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, how would you feel if the murderer were to kill again? It might be quite reasonably claimed that you were responsible because you did not assist me to your utmost when you had the opportunity.’

  Mrs Lin blinked, then said, ‘Very well, what do you want to know?’

  Angel felt his chest relax. He blew out a small breath. ‘Did Mr King tell you about the recurring nightmare he had seeing himself floating in his swimming pool, dead?’

  Mrs Lin’s jaw trembled with anger as she said, ‘Certainly not. I would regard that as extremely serious. If he had said any such thing I would have been very concerned for him.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘You are quite sure about this? I thought that that was what he would have come to you about primarily.’

  ‘Positively not,’ she said.

  Angel licked his bottom lip before he said, ‘Do you keep a written record of each consultation?’

  ‘Yes, of course. The consultations are recorded and afterwards my secretary transcribes the tapes, so that a permanent record is kept.’

  ‘How long are your consultations, and how many did Mr King have?’

  ‘The consultations lasted for one hour. He saw me on a Tuesday evening at eight o’clock. From memory, he first came about two months ago, so that would be seven or eight consultations.’

  ‘I would like to see those transcriptions, Mrs Lin.’

  ‘You will treat anything that may be embarrassing for Haydn King with the utmost discretion, Inspector, won’t you? And you will not say that he was consulting a psychiatrist? I must try to keep my bond with him even though he has gone.’

  ‘Mrs Lin, I will not deceive you. If I come across any information in those transcripts that I can use to arrest and charge somebody with murder, then I will use it. And if the source has to be declared in open court in the course of delivering the evidence then that will have to be done as well. However, if I find that there is nothing in the transcripts useful to my inquiries, then the content will remain absolutely confidential, and I would probably not even have need to mention that he consulted a psychiatrist at all.’

  Angel returned to his office armed with a red pocket file of closely typewritten A4 pages of Haydn King’s consultations with Mrs Lin. He could foresee a heavy weekend’s work ahead of him. He dumped the file on his desk as Ahmed knocked on the open door behind him and came in.

  Angel turned. ‘Now lad, what you want?’ he said, ‘I’ve no time now. I’ve got to get out to that murder scene.’

  Ahmed’s mouth dropped open. ‘But he’s here, sir,’ he said. ‘You said you wanted to see him ASAP.’

  Angel stared at him. ‘Who is here?’

  ‘Mr Wiseman, sir. You asked me to get hold of him ASAP. I’ve got him. He’s outside waiting in the corridor.’

  Angel screwed up his face as he considered what to do. He was anxious to get along to Two Pins Lane behind Jubilee Park. At the same time, there were matters he needed to clear up with Harry Wiseman, and the man was outside his door waiting for him.

  He made a decision. ‘Hang on a minute, lad,’ he said.

  Ahmed nodded, closed the door and stood by it.

  Angel went round the back of the desk, snatched up the phone and tapped in the number of Crisp’s mobile.

  ‘Now then, lad, how is it going?’ Angel asked. ‘Are Don Taylor and his lads and Dr Mac still busy going through their routines?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Did you want to speak to them?’

  ‘No. Have you enough hands there? Sufficient security?’

  ‘Yes, sir. There’s all the SOCO team and six uniformed.’

  ‘Have you got the ID of the victim yet?’

  ‘No, sir. We haven’t yet reached the stage of being able to search him.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘It’s an old banger reported stolen in November.’

  ‘Hmmm. How burned is the victim? Will it affect the ID?’

  ‘Don’t think so, sir. The legs and the torso are scorched and partly burned, but the head and face seem to be untouched.’

  ‘Right, Trevor. I’ll leave you to it and I’ll be down in about half an hour. Tell Don Taylor and the doc to phone me if anything urgent crops up.’

  Angel replaced the phone, looked up at Ahmed and said, ‘Right lad, show Mr Wiseman in.’

  Ahmed’s face brightened. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  He turned, opened the office door and said, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Wiseman.’

  The man strode in briskly, his face as straight as a prison bar.

  Angel pointed to the chair opposite him. ‘Please sit down, Mr Wiseman. Thank you for coming in.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting in this police station more than half an hour,’ Wiseman said. ‘You wanted me urgently so I came as soon as I could. I assume it is to tell me that you have found the body of the dead woman?’

  ‘I think we have. About ten hours after you reported the sighting, a woman answering the description you gave returned to the hotel and spoke to the hotel manager.’

  ‘Ridiculous. Obviously, it wasn’t t
he same woman.’

  ‘No it wasn’t.’

  ‘Was it her twin sister?’

  ‘It wasn’t even a relation. Can I take you back to what you saw that night?’

  Wiseman breathed in and out heavily. ‘Yes. Yes,’ he said.

  ‘You said that you woke in the night, needed some fresh air, so you opened the window and glanced outside. A light shone – you couldn’t say where it came from – but it shone briefly on to a dead body on the ground on the car-park below.’

  ‘That’s right. Yes.’

  ‘You were sleepy. You had just woken up. For how long was that particular spot on the car-park illuminated?’

  ‘A couple of seconds or less.’

  ‘Was it a powerful light?’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose it was.’

  ‘Mr Wiseman, what you actually saw was a stolen mannequin in a big blonde wig wearing a black lace dress and coat.’

  Wiseman quickly inhaled, then breathed out noisily, while shaking his head. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘But there was blood all over,’ he said.

  ‘Earlier that day, a butcher in town reported a bucket containing pig’s blood was missing. The police lab reports that splashes of blood we found there were from a pig.’

  FOURTEEN

  Angel drove the BMW along Park Road past Jubilee Park main gate and followed the asphalt road adjacent to the park wall for a half mile to a turning off it called Two Pins Lane, which was an unmade track only really suitable for a farm tractor.

  Angel made his way down there until he saw the inevitable blue-and-white tape stretched all the way across the track between a hawthorn bush and a sycamore tree. As he slowed down, a uniformed policeman stepped out from behind the tree, peered down at him behind the wheel, recognized him and threw up a salute, then tapped something into a mobile, looked at the LCD and pressed a button.

  Angel drove up to the tape, stopped the car, got out and locked it. He acknowledged the salute and said, ‘Everything all right, Constable?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the PC said. He lifted up the tape for Angel to pass under. ‘It’s down the lane just round the corner. I’ve told them you are here.’

  ‘Thank you, lad.’

  Angel walked briskly towards the scene.

  DS Crisp came rushing round the corner to meet him. ‘You’re in time to see it in situ, sir. Dr Mac is getting ready to transfer the body into the mortuary wagon.’

  ‘Right,’ Angel said, increasing his speed. In cases he was investigating involving unexplained death, he insisted, whenever possible, on seeing the body before it was removed.

  As they turned the corner they were immediately drawn into a vortex of activity: patrol car lights flashing; RT chattering; two uniformed policemen heaving the remains of a car door onto a trailer; two firefighters in yellow waterproofs rolling up a hose. And, at the centre, a cluster of SOCO men and women in white overalls, headgear and gloves were huddled under powerful lights over a steaming, smelly, burnt-out carcass of metal, rubber and textiles, which thirteen years ago had been a gleaming Volkswagen Passat car.

  Angel and Crisp reached the scene and stopped.

  Don Taylor came up to them.

  He joined Crisp watching Angel at work.

  Angel stood there, his eyes panning across the scene like a video camera, and memorizing everything of significance.

  The two front doors and the windscreen of the Passat had been removed, so that Angel had easy and close access to the body. As he leaned into the shell of the car, ever cautious not to touch anything, the rest of the SOCO team and Dr Mac withdrew.

  The dead man was in the driving seat, slouched forward over the steering wheel. He was wearing a jacket, dark blue shirt and jeans.

  Angel could see that he had a good head of brown hair, pronounced cheekbones, broad shoulders, muscular arms and slim strong hands. The wound in his chest was not clearly visible but he saw a patch of dried blood on his shirt and jeans.

  Eventually Angel straightened up, took a pace back and stood there deep in thought.

  ‘Sir,’ Taylor said.

  ‘Yes, lad?’ Angel said.

  ‘There’s not much, sir.’

  ‘Got his ID yet?’

  ‘No, sir. Fortunately his fingers are not damaged. I’ve sent his prints to be checked by CRO. We might get a match.’

  Angel nodded. ‘What about the contents of his pockets?’

  ‘That’s a funny thing, sir. There aren’t any. He’s been well and truly shaken down.’

  Angel pursed his lips. Now that was unusual. ‘Whoever did this must have been looking for something … something small … so they took the lot to be sure not to miss it.’

  A small man in white overalls, mask and gloves came over.

  It was Dr Mac. ‘There you are, Michael.’

  ‘What you got, Mac?’

  ‘The wound was made by a slim sharp knife – a stiletto, I’d say – between the ribs straight into the aorta. Placed with the precision of a surgeon. Death would have been instantaneous. He’s not been dead long … an hour or two at the most.’

  Angel remembered how Mathew Elliot had said James Argyle had been found. It was almost certainly the work of the same person, the Chameleon.

  ‘Thanks, Mac,’ Angel said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Aye, well there is,’ Mac said. ‘Unusually, Michael, the young man appears to be athletically very well set up. Might be a boxer or training for the Olympics, or similar. He’s all muscle. There’s not an ounce of fat on him.’

  Angel looked up. Something was on his mind. His eyes made small, rapid movements. He blinked, then suddenly said, ‘Lee Ellis, the body-builder, the lad wanted for the murder of that newspaper vendor in London. I bet it’s him. He was thought to have stolen the Rosary from the old newspaper vendor, snapped his neck according to the Met.’

  ‘Could be,’ Taylor said, ‘How old was he, sir? Do you know?’

  ‘Round about thirty, thirty-five, I think.’

  Mac said, ‘That fits!’

  ‘Yep. He looks about that,’ Taylor added.

  Angel nodded and turned to Crisp. ‘Check that out online, Trevor. Get a photograph. Quickly.’

  Crisp ran to a gap in the hedge into a field where his car was parked. He had a laptop in the boot of his car.

  ‘Have you seen all you want, Michael?’ Mac said. ‘If so, I’ll get him away the now. I might have more to tell you when I have him on the slab.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Thanks, Mac,’ Angel said.

  The doctor rushed off.

  Taylor said, ‘If the victim had the Rosary, sir, that could be the motive for the murder.’

  Angel nodded. ‘But the Chameleon didn’t get it. The victim didn’t have it on him. That’s why his pockets were emptied and the contents taken away.’

  Taylor nodded in agreement.

  Angel pointed to the car and said, ‘I bet there was nothing in the glove compartment either.’

  Taylor’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re right, sir. Like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard,’ he said.

  ‘The Chameleon will have taken that stuff and searched through it, hoping for an address or something that would lead him to where the Rosary might be.’

  Angel pointed towards the body in the wreck and said, ‘We need to know for a fact whether this is Lee Ellis or not.’

  He looked round for Crisp. At the other side of the wrecked car he saw an elderly man with a ruddy complexion wearing a heavy fawn overcoat, brown trilby and wellingtons. The man was surveying the scene and taking everything in.

  Angel pointed towards him and said, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s the one who phoned this in, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘Claude Eaton. Farmer. He owns all the land round here. The field where we’ve parked our transport is his.’

  ‘Oh?’ Angel said. Then he went round the car up to him and said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Eaton. I’m Detective Inspector Angel. I understand that it was you who found this car and made the triple-nin
e call?’

  ‘It was a bit of a shock, Inspector. I didn’t know which to ring first, the police, the fire or the ambulance. Looks like the poor chap needed all three! Do you know who it is?’

  ‘Not yet. Do you live round here?’

  Yes. I live in that house over there. In the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Very nice. Please tell me what you saw.’

  ‘Well, I was shaving, and from my bathroom window I saw smoke billowing over the hedge, so I hurriedly got dressed and came out here, taking a short cut over a gate and across the field. When I saw it was a car with a man in it I wanted to get him out. But I simply couldn’t get near the car door because of the heat.’

  ‘If it is any comfort to you, Mr Eaton, he would have been dead. You couldn’t have saved him.’

  Eaton nodded. ‘Thank you … that’s some comfort.’

  ‘Did you see anybody in a car or on foot anywhere near here?’

  ‘Not at that time, but I did see a big car race past my house about an hour earlier. I thought it was a bit strange. I hadn’t seen it before. Obviously he was lost. There isn’t much traffic past my house at any time. It doesn’t go anywhere. Only to a holiday cottage up the lane. Then it’s a dead-end. You have to turn round and come back.’

  Angel looked at him closely. ‘What make was it? What colour was it?’

  ‘I don’t know what make it was, but it was big and it was black. I am sure of that.’

  Angel could only think of the black Mercedes. He wondered how the press could have been on the scene so early. Then he thought that maybe the car that had been following him had not been hired by a London newspaper, but by others with more ominous intentions. His stomach muscles tightened. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He ran his hand through his hair.

  He then saw Crisp hovering close by, carrying his laptop with the lid up. His eyebrows were raised expectantly, trying to get Angel’s attention.

  Angel turned back to the farmer and said, ‘Thank you, Mr Eaton. Thank you very much. Excuse me.’

  The man waved and smiled.

  Angel walked a few paces away up to Crisp. ‘What you got, lad?’