Find the Lady (12 page)

Scriven’s nodded enthusiastically.

‘Right, sir.’

He went out.

Angel looked at the mountain of post, reports and general bumf piled up in front of him and blew out a long sigh. He began fingering through it. He wasn’t looking for anything specific. He was hoping that he could find some inconsequential big lump that he could drop into the wastepaper basket to make the pile instantly smaller. It was not to be. He came across an envelope from the General Hospital, Bromersley. He quickly slit it open. It was Mac’s postmortem on Harry Harrison aka Harry Henderson. He raced through it and noted that the small clumps of hair found on Harrison’s coat were his own and thought to have been pulled out of his scalp in the course of a fight; there were many bruises to his head and chest areas as the result of a number of blows thought to have been delivered by bare knuckles. All the blood samples taken at the scene also belonged to the victim.

Angel reread the pertinent facts and grunted unhappily. He could see nothing in the report that would immediately indicate the identity of Harrison’s murderer. He nodded as he considered that the victim’s assailant, if it was one person, would almost certainly have very bruised knuckles. He sighed and began pushing the report back into the envelope when there was a knock at the door.

It was Ahmed. He came in waving an evidence envelope. ‘DS Taylor dropped these in, sir. Mrs Prophet’s address book and a Christmas card list. He said you were expecting them.’

Angel took them eagerly. ‘Right, lad. Thank you.’

Ahmed went out.

Angel opened the envelope and tipped the two items out onto the desk. He looked carefully down the Christmas card list, which wasn’t dated, then looked through the address book. It was a small but thick, leather-backed book with many crossings out, additions and alterations. He looked firstly at the B’s for Blessington to no avail, then at the C’s, just in case she had been entered under C for Cora, but there was no entry there either. He leaned back from the desk and shook his head.

There was a knock at the door. It was DS Gawber.

Angel looked up. He was pleased to see him. ‘Feeling OK.’

‘Bit of a sore throat, sir. All that smoke.’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Sit down.’

‘Have I missed anything, sir?’

‘I was just looking in Alicia Prophet’s address book for an entry for Lady Blessington. Of course, there isn’t one,’ he said glumly. He pointed at the chair and rubbed his chin.

Gawber sat down. He nodded his understanding at Angel’s disappointment.

Angel’s eyes narrowed. ‘This case is really infuriating me, Ron,’ he said, grinding his teeth. ‘We are just not getting anywhere. Let’s kick it about a bit.’

Gawber nodded. That’s what Angel always did when he’d reached an impasse.

‘A so-called friend of the family, Lady Blessington,’ Angel said, ‘with a title, although we now know that’s false, and also there’s no entry of her in Mrs Prophet’s address book or on their Christmas card list, called every month. She collected … or took money from Mrs Prophet, a blind woman … a thousand pounds every month for the last six months.’

‘That sounds like rent or blackmail, sir,’ Gawber said.

Angel nodded to him, then continued. ‘But on Monday last, she arrived with a handgun and murdered her.’

‘Killed the goose that laid the golden egg?’

‘Exactly, but why?’

‘Does Lady B stand to inherit anything, sir?’

‘No Ron, she doesn’t. It all goes to the husband. That’s another one of the things that doesn’t make sense. Lady B hasn’t a motive. If she does, I don’t know what it is. If she was milking Alicia Prophet to the tune of a thousand quid a month, why kill her? The husband says he knew Lady B only slightly. However we know that he took a photograph of her, having tea with his wife on their patio. I have the very photograph.’

He plunged into his pocket and took out the photograph still covered in polythene and placed it on the desk.

‘Anyway, Lady B arrived on Monday afternoon by taxi, having been picked up from the baths on Wells Street. She was seen walking up the garden path and entering the house. About an hour later, she was seen running from the house to the taxi. The taxi driver says he took her back to Well Street Baths where she then disappeared into outer space and has never been seen since.’

‘But she shot Alicia Prophet, sir?’ Gawber said decisively.

‘Without a doubt. There’s nobody else. The husband would be the expected murderer. But he has an excellent alibi. He was working in his office with his secretary.’

‘Very beautiful secretary, you said, sir,’ he said pointedly.

‘Yes, all right. Very beautiful secretary,’ Angel said irritably. ‘Now there are several witnesses to Lady B dashing out of the house only a minute or so before Mrs Prophet’s dead body was found by Mrs Duplessis, a neighbour, on the settee, with orange peel scattered hither and thither.’

‘Same MO as Reynard.’

‘No prints or DNA left by the murderer. There is £6.56 in cash found on the draining board. Fresh oranges, bought locally, are found in the dustbin … two bags of shopping in the pantry doorway. And Lady B looks like an older version of the model in a painting found on the wall of Margaret Gaston’s bedroom.’

‘Who is she, sir? The girl in the painting?’

‘An unknown model from the 1930s.’

‘It couldn’t have been Lady B when she was younger?’

‘No. She would have had to have been born in 1910.’

‘Of course. Could it have been her mother?’

Angel blinked. ‘Witnesses put Lady B between forty and sixty. Yes. If you stretch things a bit, it’s possible. I suppose it could be her mother, but that doesn’t give us a motive for her murdering Alicia Prophet? Nor an indication as to where she has disappeared to.’

Gawber shook his head. ‘No sir. But there must some reason why this picture turns up at this time. It’s telepathy. It’s a telepathic picture of the murderer. Do you think somebody or something out there is … trying to tell us something?’

Angel pulled a face and ran his hand quickly through his hair. ‘Don’t let’s get carried away, Ron. You can’t solve murders with a ouija board, tarot cards and magic smoke writing!’

‘But there must be an explanation,’ Gawber said forcefully.

‘Yes,’ Angel said animatedly. ‘I am sure there is. I don’t know what it is yet, but there
will
be a reason, and I bet it’s a damn good reason too.’

‘Or it could be coincidence.’

‘
Coincidence
?’ he yelled. ‘
Coincidence
! How many times have I told you, Ron. When you look for evidence in a murder case, there’s no such thing as coincidence!’

Gawber didn’t reply. He didn’t want to annoy Angel further, so he decided to stay silent.

There was an awkward silence.

Angel was a little embarrassed by having allowed himself to be unnecessarily irritated and worked up over what he considered to be Gawber’s unorthodox attitude to coincidences. He considered briefly whether to apologize or not, decided against it, then returned to the original problem in hand. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Eventually, he broke the silence and said: ‘What’s so fascinating about blue, Ron?’

‘Blue, sir? The colour blue?’

‘Yes. Lady Blessington is always seen in the same blue dress.’

‘Maybe she’s only got one best dress? She’s hard up. No shame in being poor, sir.’

‘No. None at all. Still I think if she’s visiting Bromersley, and been around here for six months, you’d think she’d want to show the world an alternative dress … if only to follow the seasons round?’

‘I expect so, sir. Even I have two suits. Sunday best, and second best.’

‘In the winter, if she only had one dress, she could wear something – a coat or a cloak – over it, I suppose, couldn’t she?’

‘That dress would show under her coat.’

‘Aye. Why does she wear such a long dress, Ron? After all, it’s the middle of summer. The temperature has … sometimes … been in the eighties.’

‘Maybe she’s got lousy legs, sir.’

‘You mean muscular?’

‘Don’t know what I mean. I’m just thinking aloud, sir.’

‘Do you think she was sporty?’

‘Yes, sir. She caught the taxi to and from the swimming baths on Wells Road. Maybe she was a swimmer?’

‘I don’t know. She wasn’t seen in the pool on the CCTV, you know. But some sporty women have powerful limbs that are not necessarily attractive.’

‘That dress covered her arms as well.’

‘Yes, well maybe she’s also got great muscular arms?’

‘Maybe. Maybe.’

The door suddenly opened. It was Ahmed. He didn’t knock. There was something different about him. His eyes were shining.

‘Have you heard the news, sir?’

‘What?’ Angel looked up and snapped at him.

‘Reynard’s been arrested and charged, sir. It’s on TV. It was a news flash. I was in the canteen.’

Angel and Gawber leapt to their feet and rushed out of the office and up the corridor to the double doors and through to the station canteen. There was a crowd of ten policemen and women looking up at the TV fastened high up to the wall. They rushed up and stood behind them. On the screen, they could see a man in a plain dark suit standing in front of a stone building speaking directly to camera. Underneath him was a caption that read: ‘Detective Inspector Blenkinsop.’ He was saying:

‘… known as Reynard, aged 35 years of Cutforth Road, London SW, was at 0935 hours this morning arrested after an exchange of gunfire outside the Chitterton branch of the Exchange Building Society. The arrest came after a week-long surveillance operation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency of the police, and demonstrates how successful the police can be, when the different forces under the direction of SOCA can work together to fight crime.’

A
ngel slowly put the phone back in its cradle. He smiled, turned to Gawber and said, ‘That was DI Blenkinsop of Chitterton CID. He confirms that they have had Reynard under observation for the past six days and that there is no possible chance that he could have been anywhere near Creeford Road on Monday afternoon last.’

Gawber nodded and smiled. ‘So that clears that up. The orange peel found around Alicia Prophet’s body, was definitely not left there by Reynard.’

‘That’s right,’ Angel said rubbing his hands gleefully.

Gawber frowned. ‘So we have to find out why Lady B left it. Are we to suppose that, like Reynard, she had to have a swift intake of vitamin C every time she murdered somebody?’

Angel stopped rubbing his hands, pursed his lips and said, ‘I have an idea about that, Ron, but at the moment, I can’t make it all fit.’

‘But Lady B
did
shoot Alicia Prophet, sir, didn’t she? She
was
the last person to see Mrs Prophet alive?’

‘I believe so.’ He reached up to his ear and massaged the lobe of it slowly between finger and thumb. He sighed and added: ‘But I am not happy about how we arrive at that conclusion.’

‘Witnesses, sir. Three witnesses.’

‘Yes, Ron. But the clues are all wrong. I mean … why do you think we are provided with a woman in a blue dress who makes herself very well known to the husband, a neighbour and a taxi driver, so that, after she has murdered Mrs Prophet, those very witnesses are in a position to describe her to us in such absolute detail?’

‘I don’t understand, sir,’ Gawber said.

‘Well, we have a full description of her, yet after the taxi driver drops her back at Wells Road Baths, we are unable to trace her? And you know something else, Ron. I bet you that we’ll never see Lady Cora Blessington again. Charles Prophet smelled a rat, and warned his wife against her. She should have heeded his warnings. A murderer worth his salt would not want to be known by his name, much less be recognized by the victim’s spouse, two neighbours
and
a taxi-driver.’

Gawber looked into Angel’s eyes. He admired his clear, logical thinking. Here was the inspector at his very best.

‘No, it’s all wrong, Ron,’ Angel continued. ‘Instinct screams out at me. This is a very unusual case. We are dealing with a very clever and dangerous individual, who is very close to us. I feel it in my bones. We are being had, Ron. Lady B or whoever she is, is making monkeys out of us, and I don’t like it!’

Gawber rubbed his chin. ‘Well, where is she now, sir? She can’t have disappeared into thin air?’

‘No, she hasn’t. She’s really very close. She has discarded the blue dress, hat and trainers, and is now dressed in normal, everyday clothes, working in an office, factory or shop; driving a car, a truck or pushing a pram; looking after a husband, a family or whatever life she has made for herself.’

‘All right, sir, but what’s her motive?’

‘Money. She began to milk Alicia Prophet for all the money she could. And that’s quite a lot, but when the poor woman realized that that was what she was about, she turned off the tap and Lady B snapped. In the absence of any other information, that’s the motive.’

Gawber frowned and rubbed his chin. ‘Well, where do we go from here.’

‘Back to the beginning, where else? We need to go back and interview all the witnesses. Check through all the evidence, look at the murder in an entirely different light. This is the unusual case of the murderer who
wanted
to be recognized.’

Gawber shook his head. ‘But we don’t know who she is. It’s all very complicated. Maybe we’ll never find the murderer.’

‘Oh, we’ll find the murderer all right.’

‘If she gets away with it, it will go down as the perfect crime.’

Angel raised his head. His bottom lip jutted forward defiantly. ‘There is no such thing as the perfect crime!’

Angel reached the top step, held onto the banister rail and breathed heavily. Those three flights of stairs had played havoc with the calves of his legs. He stood there to catch his breath, remembering with satisfaction that even though he was breathing a bit heavily, he had given up smoking finally three years earlier. He looked across the landing at the door with the number 19 stuck on it: that was Margaret Gaston’s flat. He listened out for banging drums and raucous electronic racket, but all was quiet. He was approaching the door, when it opened unexpectedly. A man wearing a crumpled grey suit, light-coloured, open-necked shirt, grey hair and a broad smile came out. He closed the door quietly then turned round. When he saw Angel, he gasped, his eyes lit up and the smile vanished; he put a hand across his mouth and nose and dashed past him down the stairs. Angel didn’t recognize him but he knew when a man looked guilty. And that man looked very guilty. His eyes followed the little man until he disappeared round the bend in the staircase. He turned back and noticed a wicked smell of brandy, then, thoughtfully, he crossed the landing and knocked on the door; it was promptly opened by Margaret Gaston. She was smiling.

‘Forgotten something, Luke?’ she said quickly. ‘Oh.’

‘Hello.’

When she saw it was Angel, the smile left her. Her eyes flashed and her face flushed up scarlet. She quickly closed the door to an opening of ten inches or so.

Through the gap, Angel could see that the top half of her was cosily wrapped in a short, quilted housecoat, but her long legs were uncovered down to her feet, which were snugly enclosed in the rabbit skin slippers.

‘Oh, I … I thought it was … somebody else,’ she stammered, closing the door another inch or two.

Angel put his hand on the door to keep it open.

She maintained the pressure on her side to narrow the gap.

‘I need to ask you a few more questions, Margaret. It won’t take long.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not convenient just now.’

‘Why? Have you something in there you don’t want me to see?’

‘No. No,’ she said, trying to be nonchalant. ‘I was just going to … take a bath, that’s all.’

Angel applied more pressure on the door.

‘The bath can wait. It’ll only take five minutes.’

Her face hardened. ‘Have you got a warrant?’ she said sternly.

The question quite surprised him. His eyebrows shot up. ‘I don’t need a warrant just to talk to you, Margaret,’ he said applying more pressure on the door. ‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘Nothing.’ She suddenly pulled the door open wide. She knew she couldn’t win. ‘I’m not properly dressed for visitors,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

Angel smiled wryly. She wasn’t properly dressed last time he interviewed her. She didn’t object to his presence then, so what was different?

He glanced round the room to see what it was that she may not have wanted him to see. He saw a part bottle of Napoleon brandy and a glass on the sideboard. Underneath the bottle placed in the shape of a fan were three, ten pound notes.

She dashed over to the sideboard. He saw her pick up the notes, fold them and deftly stuff them into her bra. Then she quickly picked up the bottle and glass, turned round to face him, switched on a smile, rocked the bottle invitingly and said: ‘Drinkie?’

He shook his head.

‘Oh no. Of course. You’re on duty,’ she said tartly. ‘Well, sit down, Michael,’ she said. ‘Won’t be a second.’

She shuffled off in the slippers into the kitchen, deposited the bottle and glass and came out with a packet of Silk Cut and a disposable lighter. She glanced down at the cot as she passed it to the sofa to check that baby Carl was asleep, she smiled briefly, then flopped athletically onto the sofa stretching out her long legs.

‘I thought you might have brought my picture back,’ she said as she tore off the cellophane from around the packet.

‘Er, no. I hope you don’t mind. I’d like to keep it until the case is solved, if that’s all right. Your landlady doesn’t mind.’

‘Right,’ she said crisply.

Angel took out an envelope from his inside pocket and pretended to read it. He tried to marshal his thoughts.

She tapped out a cigarette and lit it. She blew out a big cloud of tobacco smoke. ‘Well, what is it you want to ask me?’ she said.

‘Who was that man?’ he said without looking up.

She thought a moment then said, ‘Nobody.’ Then she slapped down the lighter boldly and blew out another big cloud.

He continued to look down at the envelope. ‘How long have you known him?’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Nobody.’

‘Oh, him?’ There was another pause. ‘He came to check the gas oven and the boiler. Make sure it doesn’t give off CO
²
, and gas us while we were asleep.’

‘He reeked of brandy,’ he sniffed. ‘So do you. Do you entertain all your visitors with brandy?’

‘We just got carried away,’ she said with a grin.

‘Brandy is expensive.’

‘So what? I didn’t buy it, Michael. He brought it.’

Angel shook his head. ‘He brought a bottle of brandy to check on your gas boiler?’

She took a drag on the cigarette and breathed out loudly. ‘All right, Michael. All right. So he didn’t call to check the bloody boiler, but he has absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Alicia Prophet. He’s just a sweet little man who visits me almost every Friday in his lunch hour. Now, I don’t want you investigating him and upsetting his job or his wife. If any of this leaks out you could wreck his marriage!’

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘About a year.’

He sighed and shook his head. ‘What’s his surname?’

‘I can’t tell you
that
!’ she exploded.

‘Well, I daresay we will be able to find him easily enough. There won’t be many Lukes working at the gas board.’

‘I don’t want your men climbing all over the bloody gas board offices, Michael. You’ll give him away as easy as wink. He’s a quiet, nervous little man. He relies on me to be discreet. It’s not fair.’

Angel sighed. ‘Look here, Margaret, life isn’t fair. You have to do the best you can. But if you don’t do anything wrong, you can tell the truth, the complete truth, can’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes,’ she said irritably. She didn’t like being lectured. ‘Now what were those questions you wanted to ask me?’

‘What’s his name?’

She shook her head.

Angel said: ‘If his only crime is being unfaithful to his wife, I tell you, Margaret, I am not a bit interested … probably won’t even need to check him out.’

She sighed: ‘Luke Molloy.’

‘Thank you.’

The name didn’t ring any bells with him. He scribbled it quickly on the envelope and pushed it into his pocket.

‘Now what were those questions you wanted to ask me?’ she said impatiently.

‘Yes. The afternoon Mrs Prophet was murdered, where were you?’

‘That was Monday, wasn’t it? I was here. I told you. That’s the day I have for doing
my
shopping and that. I don’t go to the Prophets’ on Mondays.’

‘But specifically, Margaret, did you go to the Prophets’ house
last
Monday?’

‘No.’

‘Do you do Mrs Prophet’s shopping?’

‘Some of it, yes.’

‘And did she ask you to do some shopping for her on Monday? I know you did some shopping because you bought some oranges from the man on the market.’

‘I told you, I didn’t see her on Monday.’

‘Well, she could have phoned you or left a message or asked you earlier.’

‘Well, she could have, but she didn’t.’

‘You see, Margaret, there was some shopping left in the doorway of Prophet’s pantry.’

She shrugged.

‘And some money, £6.56,’ Angel said. ‘Could have been change from the shopping, left on the draining board in the kitchen?’

‘Could have been done by Mrs Duplessis, next door. She shopped for her sometimes. In fact, she was always dropping in. Pain in the backside, she was.’

Angel nodded. That might be true.

‘But you had shopped for Mrs Prophet in the past, hadn’t you?’

‘Yes. Regular. At least once a week. Usually a Wednesday.’

‘Ah,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘now where would you have left the shopping and the change in the event of Mrs Prophet being out when you returned?’

‘Alicia was never out. She never went out. It would have driven me bats. She didn’t want to go out. What would have been the point? She couldn’t see anything.’

‘Well, humour me,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘If Alicia had been out, the house would have been locked up. I would have had to have brought her shopping here. And, before you ask, I wouldn’t have been able to get into Alicia’s,
because I haven’t got a key
!’

Angel wrinkled his nose and rubbed his chin.

Her raised voice in answering the question might have disturbed Carl. There was a slight noise from the cot. It sounded as if he was waking up and wasn’t too pleased about it. She leaped up from the sofa, flashing the long legs and stabbing her feet into the rabbit slippers.

‘He’s waking up.’

Angel looked across at mother leaning over the cot and baby Carl, whose bottom lip was turned down and his face creased. There was a second’s delay then a loud cry began the most woeful time of howling.

Margaret picked him up. ‘Aaaah. There’s my beautiful little boy,’ she said. ‘There, now. There. There.’

She jiggled him in her arms but the crying continued.

‘He wants some juice, Michael. He’s teething.’

Angel put out his arms. ‘Give him to me. He’ll be all right with me, won’t you Carl? I’ll hold him. Go and get some him some juice, Margaret.’

Carl’s eyes focused on Angel. He looked willing to go to him.

‘Come on, Carl,’ Angel said warmly. ‘Come on, big boy.’

He held out his arms and Margaret handed him across. ‘He’ll mucky up your suit,’ she warned.

‘No matter. It’ll clean.
There
we are,’ Angel said, nestling him on his knee.

Magically, the crying stopped.

Margaret grinned at the big man holding the baby so close to him and began to tickle his nose with a finger.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ she said.

‘No rush,’ Angel said. ‘We’re all right, aren’t we, Carl? We can get along a treat, can’t we? Yes we can. Yes we can. Cutgee, cutgee, cutgee coo. Cutgee, cutgee, cutgee coo….’