Angel gave a wry smile. ‘Did she confess to anything, or make any admission of any guilt at all?’
‘She’s too clever to confess to murder directly, sir,’ Flora said, taking a tiny audio recorder out of her handbag. ‘But she did say something interesting. I thought you’d like to hear it.’
He nodded approvingly.
She put the recorder on his desk and pressed the play button.
Angel closed his eyes as he listened.
The playback was tinny and distorted but it was clearly Marcia Moore’s voice.
‘I’ve been used by men all my life, and I thought James Argyle was different. I thought he loved me. I really, really did. I would have done anything for him. We had even agreed to share the money from the sale of the Rosary on a 50/50 basis. But when Charles Domino and Joseph Memoré pretended to threaten to kill me by pushing me out of that hotel window if he didn’t give them the Rosary, do you know, he didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn. He simply let them do it. And he honestly believed that they had killed me. He did. And he still wouldn’t tell them what he’d done with the Rosary.
‘Charlie Domino, Joseph Memoré and me went out earlier and got two matching suits and coats in my size, a mannequin from a dress shop and some blood from a butcher’s to pretend that it was my dead body on the ground in the hotel car-park. I honestly didn’t think that all that was necessary, but they knew better … and they were right! Yes. They were right!
‘I actually climbed down to the floor below on a rope fastened to a sofa and strung out through the bedroom window. Then after James had seen it, and thought it was me, I had to go outside and shift the mannequin before anybody else saw it. I dumped the whole thing in one of the big hotel waste bins, which were handy. But James Argyle was a pig. A pig! An absolute pig! And Charlie Domino and Joseph Memoré eventually got their own way. Memoré threatened to cut off his ears, his nose and some other bits if he didn’t tell them where the Rosary was. And he meant it. James Argyle broke down and told them that the Rosary had been passed on to … to somebody else for safe-keeping until the heat was off.’
Flora reached out and switched the recorder off and looked across the desk at Angel. ‘There was a lot more, mostly denigrating James Argyle, Charles Domino, Joseph Memoré and men in particular.’
Angel thought a moment and then said, ‘Hmm. That was worth knowing, Flora. Great stuff. That puts Harry Wiseman in the clear. And we can add shopbreaking and burglary to her charge sheet.’
She gave a small smile. ‘I’ll go home for a couple of hours, sir … if you don’t mind?’
‘No, lass. You’ve earned it.’
She went out and Angel returned to the wodge of paper from Mrs Lin. He looked at the front page of the top one. It said: ‘Transcript of first interview with Haydn King, The Old Hall, Pine Avenue, Bromersley. 8 p.m. November 1st 2011.’ Then he looked at the others. He checked the dates on the title page of each interview and was about to return to the first, when it came to his mind that the date of 6 December 2011 on the last one, was two days before Haydn King was found dead in his swimming pool.
Angel leaned back in the chair. That date reverberated in his mind for a while. December 6th. December 6th. He recalled that it was St Nicholas Day and that that old saint was the model for the character that became known as Father Christmas. But that wasn’t it. It was something far removed from that. The date would bug him until he remembered.
He decided to read the last interview, the one dated December 6th, first, as it might save him reading the other five. Then it dawned on him; he suddenly knew the significance of December 6th. That was the date the superintendent had said he had visited Haydn King. And that had also been at eight o’clock in the evening. He pushed back the swivel chair and mooched out of his office across the corridor to the CID room.
Ahmed and two other detectives were in there gazing at their computer screens when Angel went in. They looked up at him. He didn’t address them so they continued with their work.
Angel stared across at the whiteboard covering most of one wall of the room. On it were all the known facts of his current cases, dates, times, places, including photographs of Haydn King, Vincent Fleming, Judy Savage, Lee Ellis, Reuben Paschal, James Argyle, Joseph Memoré and Marcia Moore.
Angel frowned when he saw that there was no mention of Superintendent Harker’s meeting with Haydn King on December 6th.
Ahmed forsook his computer and came up to him. ‘You all right, sir?’ he said.
Angel’s knuckles tightened. ‘That meeting the super had with Haydn King on December 6th isn’t up there.’
Ahmed blinked. ‘It was, sir. But the super saw it and told me to take it down because he said it had nothing to do with the investigation.’
Angel became grim. ‘What?’ he bawled.
The other two detectives in the room turned round to see the reason for the outburst. He glared at them and they turned back to their screens.
He exhaled noisily, turned towards the door, stopped, turned back to Ahmed and quietly said, ‘Er, right. Er, thank you, lad. Carry on.’
Then he steamed determinedly out of the room.
Ahmed frowned then settled back down at his desk.
Angel stormed straight up the corridor to Superintendent Harker’s office. He banged on the door and walked in. He was met by the usual excessive heat and smell of menthol.
He saw Harker at his desk behind a pile of books, ledgers, papers and Kleenex boxes. He looked more ghastly than usual. His head was like a skull with ears.
Harker looked up, sniffed, turned down the corners of his mouth and said, ‘It’s you, Angel. I was about to send for you.’
He threw his pen down onto the desk. ‘Sit down,’ he added.
Angel took the chair opposite and glared back at him.
Harker peered between the piles of books, papers and stuff. ‘Do you know what rules are for, lad?’ he said.
‘That’s just what I wanted to speak to you about, sir.’
‘What?’ Harker said, his eyes bigger than gobstoppers. He couldn’t believe that Angel had come voluntarily to make his excuses. ‘Yes, lad?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Angel said. ‘I have just noticed that your meeting with Haydn King is no longer on the case board in the CID room, and that it was removed on your instructions.’
It took Harker a couple of seconds to catch up. ‘I thought that you … Well, yes. I told PC Ahaz to remove it because it has no bearing on the case. As superintendent of this station, I considered that it was most inappropriate for reasons of discipline to have my name on a case board in company with witnesses, crooks, suspects and dead bodies.’
‘But it has a bearing on the case. Also, it would have been appropriate to have told me that you intended removing it. I am supposed to be in charge of the case. Its absence could have resulted in an important fact being overlooked.’
‘Important fact. What important fact?’
‘The fact that you may have the date wrong. On the date that you gave me, Tuesday December 6th, Haydn King apparently had an evening appointment with his psychiatrist, Mrs Lin.’
Harker didn’t reply straightaway. He leaned forward to look at his desk diary. He turned several pages back, then a page forward and then muttered, ‘Mmm. Tuesday December 6th. Oh dear. It’s not entered in here.’ He looked round a pile of files and papers at Angel. ‘Oh yes. I remember now,’ he said. ‘It was in the evening, wasn’t it? I went there from home. Eight o’clock. Yes. Well, lad, if I said it was that Tuesday evening, Angel, it was that Tuesday evening.’
Angel rubbed his chin. ‘That means that his psychiatrist is in error, sir.’
‘Obviously,’ Harker said. ‘Go and sort it out with her.’
Angel shook his head. He stood up to go. Harker waved a hand directing him to sit back down.
‘Just one moment. I have something to say to you. It is something very important. I thought that that was what you were coming in to explain.’
; Angel’s forehead made more lines than there are on a charge sheet. ‘Explain, sir?’
‘Yes. There are 86 of them in this station. There are two in reception. One in the briefing room. One in this, the CID room. One in this office. One in each cell. I do believe there is one in your office …’
Angel shook his head, then suddenly his face brightened and he said, ‘Fire extinguishers, sir?’
Harker’s face went as red as the positive light on a breathalyser. ‘I’m not referring to fire extinguishers, lad. I’m talking about “No Smoking” signs.’
Angel nodded as it came to him what the superintendent, in his circuitous route, was alluding to. He pursed his lips and waited for the onslaught.
Harker said, ‘It came to my notice last night as I looked in on the prisoner, Marcia Moore, that she was smoking a cigarette. And she was sitting not three feet away from a “No Smoking” sign. I asked the duty jailer what he thought he was doing allowing the prisoner to smoke, and he told me that you had not only authorized it, but that that you had actually bought the cigarettes for the prisoner, and a full box of matches, and sent them in.’
Angel knew there was no chance of winning this argument. He decided to keep shtum and sit it out.
Harker, having got his second wind, continued: ‘So there was a prisoner in a cell in my station, being in possession of a banned tobacco substance, supplied by a senior officer. And not only that, she was also in possession of a box of matches, another banned item, an item capable of burning the station down. What would I have said if the Inspector of Constabulary had called in unexpectedly? How would I have got out of that?’
Angel realized that Harker now wanted his involvement, so he would have to give some sort of an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I have never known an Inspector of Constabulary come down to the cells before introducing himself to the Chief Constable and—’
‘What are you babbling on about, lad?’
‘It was a quick way to ease the accused into making admissions and explanations that has saved us a lot of time, sir. A lot of time. And as you say, time is money. I remember when I smoked, it was a great help when I was under stress, and if I had had my cigarettes taken away from me—’
‘I don’t want to know about your troubles, lad. I don’t need a lecture on addiction. You will have to learn to live according to the rules, and the rule in this nick, in the cars and in the car-park is, no smoking. And that applies to all ranks and all visitors regardless of whoever they are. Got it?’
‘Yes, sir. Got it.’
‘Right. Now buzz off and find out what your Mrs Lin has to hide.’
Mrs Lin smiled delightfully as she came into her sitting-room, but Angel sensed some resentment of him hidden beneath the charming manner.
He stood up. She gestured to him to sit down, and she sat down opposite him.
‘Now then, Inspector. I am with a patient, but we haven’t started yet. I can give you two minutes only. What is it that is so important?’
‘Hopefully, that’s all it will take,’ he said.
From his briefcase, he produced the file of transcripts of the interviews with Haydn King and took out the bottom one. He pointed to the top page. ‘This is dated 6th December. It was a Tuesday. Is this correct? Are you sure it wasn’t the day before, or even the day after?’
She looked at the page. Her expression didn’t change. ‘I’ll get my secretary.’
She went out of the room. She was only away a few seconds. She returned with a young woman who was carrying a large slim book.
‘This is Inspector Angel, Amina,’ Mrs Lin said. ‘Please point out to him the entry of Mr King’s appointment.’
Amina held the book over his shoulder. It was an appointment diary showing a week at a time and she was holding it open at the first week in December. It confirmed what Mrs Lin had said. The name ‘Haydn King’ appeared on the 8 p.m. line under the date Tuesday, December 6th 2011.
It was a clean and tidy handwritten entry. There didn’t seem to be any alteration, rubbing out or inking over.
Angel stood up and said, ‘Well, yes, thank you. That seems clear enough.’
‘Thank you, Amina,’ Mrs Lin said, also standing. ‘Please tell my next patient I will only be a moment.’
Amina closed the book and went out.
Mrs Lin said, ‘I hope you are satisfied. And now, dear Inspector Angel, I have to go.’
Angel said, ‘I have to ask you this, Mrs Lin. It is extremely important. Even so, is there any possible chance that you could be mistaken?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she said.
‘On Tuesday evening, December 6th last, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., Mr Haydn King was here and you were with him?’
‘Indeed I was. Now I really must go, Inspector. Please see yourself out. Excuse me.’
Angel returned to the station. He sat in his office rubbing his chin and thinking about his next move in the case.
He reached out for the phone and tapped in a number. It was soon answered.
‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said.
‘There’s a psychiatrist, a Mrs Lin, lives at 2 Pine Close. Contact CRO, see if anything is known. And ring me straight back.’
‘Right, sir.’
He then rang his GP and managed to speak to him. The doctor said that he knew Mrs Lin, he spoke very highly of the woman and said that he referred patients to her from time to time, preferring her to the only other specialist he knew of in the town. Angel thanked him and replaced the phone. Then he dialled his old friend and colleague Dr Mac.
‘Well, laddie, Jennifer Lin is the best in the business. Known her years. I can highly recommend her. And, by the way, she would make you an excellent witness.’
Angel’s eyebrows shot up. That was praise indeed. ‘Thank you, Mac,’ he said.
Minutes later, Ahmed phoned back. ‘Nothing known about Mrs Lin, sir.’
Angel knew that he should be cheered by the positive reports on the woman, but they indicated that Harker had to be wrong. And going back and arguing the point further with him would not exactly be enjoyable.
This was at the forefront of his mind when he arrived home at 5.30 that cold Friday night. Over poached salmon, new potatoes and peas he explained the problem to Mary.
‘The super insists that it was Tuesday, 6th December when Haydn King summoned him, the super, to King’s house and told him about the dream where King saw himself floating dead in his swimming pool. Mrs Lin, his highly respectable psychiatrist, insists that Haydn King was consulting her in her surgery on the same evening and at the same time. Clearly, one of them has to be wrong,’ he said as he helped himself to more potatoes.
Mary said, ‘Well, the super isn’t getting any younger.’
‘Huh! He should be pensioned off, but he won’t go.’
‘And he’s not very well, is he? What’s his memory like?’
‘All right … I think.’
‘That might be the problem,’ she said. ‘He’s forgotten and he’s simply got the date mixed up.’
‘But he’s adamant it was Tuesday, 6th. As is Mrs Lin. This means I must be overlooking something, Mary. I am going to have to re-evaluate all the evidence and look at the case from an entirely different angle.’
‘Has the super anything to gain from insisting it was the 6th?’
Angel considered the point as he eased the salmon off the skin. ‘Mmm. I don’t think so, love. Don’t know of anything.’
‘It seems to me that the only other possibility is that the super is trying to establish an alibi for himself, for some reason.’
He thought about what Mary had said. It seemed to him that she was suggesting that Harker might be engaged in something unlawful. He promptly dismissed it. But in the absence of any other explanation, the idea lingered in his subconscious.
They finished the meal, retired to the sitting-room for coffee and when she had served it, she said, ‘It’s a week to Christmas Eve, tomorrow, you know. We must put the tree up �
� and the lights … and the trimmings.’
And so the weekend was committed to preparing for the coming celebration.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday, Angel did everything that Mary asked of him, but the idea of Harker being engaged in something dishonest created a turmoil in his mind and even when he was sticking the Christmas cards to long strips of paper to make them convenient to hang, his mind was still occupied thinking about Mrs Lin, Haydn King, Reuben Paschal and the swimming pool. It was the same when he was watching Songs of Praise followed by repeats of re-runs of clips from old Carry On films.
Mary watched him surreptitiously throughout that Sunday evening. She noticed his half-closed eyes and the hand either caressing his chin or tapping lightly on the arm of the chair and knew his mind was still on the case.
He was still thinking about it when he had got into bed, kissed Mary, switched off the light and pulled the duvet around his shoulders.
‘It’ll soon be Christmas. Have a good night, sweetheart,’ Mary said.
He smiled although she could not see it. ‘You must remember to put your stocking up,’ he said.
She giggled.
The last thing he remembered before dropping off to sleep was Mary saying, ‘And don’t be thinking about that Haydn King business all night.’
‘Goodnight, darling,’ he murmured.
EIGHTEEN
Angel was suddenly wide awake. His eyes clicked open. He glanced around the bedroom. It was as black as fingerprint ink.
He eased himself up from the pillows and peered through the dark at the bedside table. The glowing hands of the clock told him that it was either 7.20 or 3.35.
He blinked, then yawned.
And that was the Eureka moment!
That’s when it all happened. That’s when he knew who had murdered Haydn King and Reuben Paschal. He also knew why the super persisted in his claim that Haydn King had told him about the nightmare at eight o’clock on the evening of the 6th December, when Angel knew that it was not possible.
The Diamond Rosary Murders Page 19