Find the Lady (13 page)

Margaret smiled and disappeared into the kitchen.

The toddler’s mouth was very moist.

Angel looked round for a tissue. There were none to hand, so took a new handkerchief out of his breast pocket, shook it open and wiped Carl’s lips dry. However, there was more dribble, a lot more. Carl dribbled mightily into it. Angel folded it, wiped the little boy’s lips dry again, folded it over again and pushed it back into his breast pocket.

Margaret came back in with a plastic feeding cup.

Carl looked up at her with the cup and lifted up his arms. That was what he needed. She gave him the cup, he took it eagerly, then she lifted him off Angel’s knee.

Angel was reluctant to have Carl taken from him. He smiled as he looked down at the little lad on his mother’s knee, noisily sucking at the juice.

Angel walked up the path, pressed the illuminated bell push on the door surround, stood back and waited.

The door was opened after a short delay, by the lady of the house, who peered at him cautiously. ‘Yes?’ she said adjusting her spectacles.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Duplessis,’ Angel said. ‘Could I have a word?’

‘Oh, it’s Inspector Angel,’ she said, looking relieved. ‘Why, of course. Of course. Please come in,’ she replied.

She conducted him to her sitting-room.

‘Just a couple of things I need to clear up.’

‘Yes. Yes. Anything I can do to help.’

‘I understand that from time to time, you did some shopping for Mrs Prophet?’

‘Yes. Well, I would have done anything to help her. Poor woman.’

‘Well, last Monday, the day of the murder … did you do any shopping for her or Mr Prophet?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I remember in the morning asking if she needed anything, but she said that Margaret was bringing in some bits and would drop them in on her way back from the shops.’

Angel frowned. ‘You see, there was unpacked shopping in two bags on the floor in the pantry and some money, presumably change, on the draining board.’

‘That would have been Margaret. Though I’m surprised she didn’t put the shopping away. Mrs Prophet could have tripped over it. She knew not to leave stuff lying around on the floor.’

Angel’s face dropped. He didn’t like the answer. ‘And the money on the draining board?’

‘That was the arranged place to leave money or keys or anything like that.’

‘But Margaret didn’t work for the Prophets on Mondays.’

‘That’s right, but Mrs Prophet knew that Margaret did her own shopping on Mondays and sometimes asked her to drop a few things in. After all, she has to pass the back gate from town up to Mansion Hill. It wasn’t out of her way.’

‘She would use the back door then? Hmm. So if she had come in to the Prophets’ house, you wouldn’t have seen her?’

‘No, I didn’t see her. I wouldn’t from my house. She would simply go through the gate, up the path, knock on the door, open it, call out and go in. That was the usual routine. It was the most considerate way, really, with Alicia being blind.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I might add that Lady Blessington simply walked straight in when she came visiting. She never,
ever
knocked.’

Angel blinked. ‘Really? Hmmm. The thing is, Mrs Duplessis, about Margaret Gaston, she
says
she didn’t call at the house on Monday, the day of the murder. She’s quite adamant about it.’

Mrs Duplessis sighed, shook her head and said, ‘Frankly, Inspector, she must be … mistaken.’

‘You mean she lying?’

‘I didn’t want to be so … confrontational, Inspector, but I can’t think of any other … explanation.’

Angel pursed his lips.

T
he shapely Karen Kennedy fluttered her eyelashes, held open the inner office door and said, ‘Mr Prophet will see you now, Inspector.’

‘Thank you,’ Angel said, appreciating the whiff of perfume as he brushed past her.

Charles Prophet was standing, leaning over the desk, his hand already outstretched, ready to welcome him.

‘So very pleased to see you, Inspector. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable.’

‘Thank you,’ Angel said. He noticed the pasty, unhappy face and the noted that he was wearing a black tie.

‘Please tell me what progress you are making finding this … woman,’ Prophet said.

‘Frankly, Mr Prophet, it isn’t easy. But have no fear, we will catch her in due course.’

‘You have something of a reputation, Inspector. The word round town is – like the Mounties – you
always
get your man?’

Angel looked at him, but said nothing. What was there to say?

‘Or, in this case,’ Prophet added, ‘your woman.’

‘I hope not to fail this time, Mr Prophet,’ he said evenly. ‘That’s why I am here. There are one or two points on which I would like clarification.’

Prophet nodded. ‘Of course. Fire away.’

‘There’s the matter of the description of Lady Blessington. You are probably the person who knew her the best … saw her the most, after your dear wife. Other witnesses say she that she had a squawky voice, unusually high-pitched.’

‘I never detected anything unusual in the way she spoke, Inspector. I thought that she spoke perfectly normally: educated, pleasant enough, with no particular accent.’

Angel nodded.

‘How old do you think she was?’

‘Must have been over sixty, I would have thought.’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Everybody else thought she was younger: between forty and sixty.’

‘Maybe she was. I am, perhaps, not good at assessing ladies’ ages. She was always pretending to be something she wasn’t. She was clearly unstable to have committed such a heinous crime.’ He stopped, swallowed and then added, ‘It’s hard for me to speak … dispassionately.’

‘Of course. Of course. Forgive my asking these sorts of questions.’

‘That’s all right. You have your job to do and I do want to help.’

‘You believe that she murdered your wife because she couldn’t extract any more money from her?’

‘Convinced of it. What other explanation could there be?’

‘I don’t know. And have you absolutely no idea where she lived … or where she came from?’

‘I believe she said that she had a small cottage in Norfolk.’

Angel looked up interestedly. That was new.

‘What part of Norfolk? Did she mention the town?’

‘Of course not,’ he said wryly.

‘Did she come here by train?’

Prophet said: ‘I really wasn’t interested enough to bother to find out these details, Inspector. I simply wanted her to leave us alone. As I have said, I never liked the woman and tried to put Alicia off her, but poor dear, she was always willing to help anyone who came to her with a sob story. This woman was clearly … deranged.’

‘Would it surprise you to learn that she wasn’t titled?’

‘Nothing about Cora would surprise me.’

‘We just can’t get a lead on her? Did she ever express any interest in a particular place, apart from Norfolk, where she might have bolted to. She’s disappeared off the face of the earth. Any information would be most welcome.’

Prophet wrinkled his nose. ‘Alicia once said that she had spoken fondly about the sunshine in Florida, I recall. But that was probably only a passing fancy.’

Angel sighed. Florida was a big state. He hoped that it would not come to contacting the Federal Police over there.

‘Well, if you think of anything…?’

‘Of course.’

Angel consulted his notes.

‘Now, about Margaret Gaston. She said she didn’t go to your house that … Monday.’

‘She doesn’t work for us on Mondays.’

‘Did you take any shopping into your wife anytime on that day? There was some shopping found in the pantry and some money, £6.56, found on the draining board in the kitchen.’

Prophet frowned. ‘No. It was not I,’ he said. ‘I had not yet returned to the house after I left for the office on the morning of that dreadful day; still haven’t. I’m staying at The Feathers Hotel.’

Angel nodded and said, ‘There must be some explanation. Your wife
was
completely blind, wasn’t she? She wasn’t capable of doing any shopping, was she?’

‘Of course not. Mrs Duplessis, next door, may have brought in that shopping, but it sounds more likely to have been Margaret Gaston. My wife may have asked her to shop for some things and to pop them in on her way back from town. And it
was
quite usual for her to put the change and leave any messages on the draining board in the kitchen.’

‘Did she have a key?’

‘No, but she wouldn’t need a key. The door would have been unlocked. Both doors, front and back, were unlocked. It was easier for Alicia, you see.’

‘And oranges. Did your wife like oranges?’

‘Why, yes, of course,’ Prophet said, looking at him with eyebrows raised.

‘There were some freshly bought oranges in the outside rubbish bin, and orange peel strewn about the settee. Do you know anything about that?’

‘No. Sounds very odd.’

Angel’s lips stretched back tight across his teeth as he nodded.

‘Lady B was, by all accounts, tall, sir,’ Gawber said. ‘All the witnesses are quite agreed on that. And
that
picture of her
was
above that girl’s bed. Now Margaret Gaston is quite tall. Put that blue dress on her, a wig, the hat and the trainers and, I think we’d have a Lady Blessington look alike. It must have been her. It would explain the shopping in the pantry, the money on the draining board, the orange peel over the body and the oranges in the dustbin?’

‘I am satisfied that the orange peel over the body was to try to put the blame for the murder on Reynard, but we now know it couldn’t have been him.’

‘I realize that, sir.’

‘But the lass is … too beautiful to be Lady B,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘And seems to be a lot younger.’

‘She could have worn a mask.’

Angel looked up at him. He accepted that that was a possibility.

‘She’d probably manage the strained voice all right, Ron,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that. She’d just have to talk an octave or so higher.’

‘And she’s very hard up, sir. Desperate for money. You said she was on the game.’

‘Aye. Got that little lad, Carl, to bring up, hasn’t she? Another one-parent family. Hmmm.’

‘It might help if we knew who the father was.’

‘It might. It might very well, Ron,’ he said heavily and then he stood up. ‘I’ll think about it over the weekend. Right now, I’m going to the hospital. See Spencer. Then I’m going straight home. I’ve had enough of this week. See you on Monday.’

The woman at the hospital reception desk directed him to Room 12, Ward 23 on the second floor. He found it, tapped on the door and waited a couple of seconds. There was no reply so he pressed down the handle and walked in.

It was a single room with minimum furniture: bed, locker, chair, sink and a pedestal fan. There was a patient on the bed, not covered by blankets or sheets, but encased in bandages except for the eyes, nose, mouth and hands. Angel assumed it was a man.

The patient was resting on his side on a big pile of pillows on an unusually large bed; he had his knees bent so that he was almost in a foetal position. The fan was blowing a cool breeze over him. As Angel closed the door, he turned his head slightly to look round at his visitor.

‘Mr Spencer?’ Angel said. ‘Simon Spencer?’

‘Yes,’ the man said, groaning. ‘Can you tell me how much longer I am going to be bandaged up like this?’

Angel found the chair.

‘I’m not a doctor, Mr Spencer. I’m Detective Inspector Angel.’

‘Ooooh,’ he moaned.

‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

‘So they tell me,’ he said sourly. ‘Don’t I recognize you? Weren’t you and another chap fastened up in Glazer’s barn, when that lunatic threw that bomb in it?’

Angel nodded.

‘And you’re in the police?’ His voice indicated that the fact was stretching his belief. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘I think you know what I want,’ he said evenly.

‘No,’ Spencer said. ‘I have no idea. You’ll have to spell it out.’

‘I am investigating the murder of Harry Harrison also known as Harry Henderson.’

‘Well, he
was
a little worm, but good gracious, I didn’t have anything to do with
that
.’

‘That’s what
you
say. We know that you worked a nice little fraudulent gig with him, and for that, you will be charged in due course. What I am interested in today is how Harrison came to be stabbed to death and dumped in a skip on the car park of The Three Horseshoes.’

‘Well, Inspector, I don’t know anything about
that
.’

Angel looked straight into his eyes.

‘Where were you on the night of Monday, July 16th?’

‘I can’t remember that now. I’m pretty certain that I was at home.’

Angel sniffed. ‘And what’s the address? If it’s 212 Huddersfield Road, don’t bother wasting my time.’

Spencer sniggered, then he said, ‘I can’t remember.’

The muscles of Angel’s jaw tightened. ‘Well, you’d better start remembering something. You’re already going down for fraud. If you don’t remember something, you could be looking through steel bars for the rest of your life.’

Angel seemed to have struck a nerve. Spencer’s breathing became uneven and his hands began to shake.

‘I can’t exactly remember everything,’ he stammered. ‘It’s true. I was looking for him. I had to find him to get my share of the money, but he had gone to ground. I had heard he had been seen in that pub, The Three Horseshoes, but when I got there, there was no sign of him.’

‘Go on,’ Angel said.

‘Well, I was making enquiries about him from the landlord. He said he didn’t know anything, but a mouthy man, who I later learned was Eddie Glazer, overheard us. He said that he was a friend of Harrison and bought me a drink. I thought he might lead me to him. We were getting on rather well. Then he said he had something special about Harry to show me in his car. I fell for it. We went outside, and I was set on by him and three other thugs, who knocked me out cold. I must have been unconscious for twelve hours. When I woke up, I was in a big house. They locked me in a room. They kept beating me up and throwing cold water over me … and asking me where the money was. I didn’t know, did I? If I had known I would have taken my share and disappeared. But they kept on at me. Glazer got big Ox to persuade me – as he called it – but I didn’t know anything. They even sent Glazer’s wife in to try and coax it out of me. They simply wouldn’t believe me. The trouble was that Harrison owed Glazer ten thousand pounds. Something to do with his escape from prison, and the fact that he hadn’t paid stuck in Glazer’s gullet. Anyway, they held me for three nights, I believe. I lost track of time. I was taken to the barn. The rest you know.’

Angel rubbed his chin. It had the ring of truth about it. He was more than half inclined to believe him. He was still waiting for the results of SOCO’s tests on Spencer’s and Glazer gang’s clothes and effects. He was hopeful of some conclusive evidence that would enable him to make an arrest. It should also indicate whether Spencer was a liar or not. He remembered that SOCO had also reported that Harrison had been severely assaulted with clenched fists before he was stabbed; such an assault would leave abrasions, bruising or scuffs on the assailant’s hands and knuckles.

‘Hold your hands out,’ Angel said.

‘What?’

Angel reached out and took hold of one hand. He grabbed it tightly by the wrist.

‘Here. What’s happening? What are you doing?’

Spencer tried to pull away, but Angel held it with a grip of iron. He looked at the back of his hand and at the knuckles, then turned it over. It felt like a rubber glove stuffed with bread and butter pudding. He took the other hand. It was the same. He sniffed and let both hands drop. They were the hands of a man who had never done a hard day’s work in his life, much less been involved in a punch up. But Angel was still not quite satisfied.

‘You’ve no idea who gave Harry Harrison a damned good hiding and finished him off by sticking a knife into him several times, then dumped him in that skip, leaving him to bleed to death, have you?’

‘Well, it wasn’t me. More than likely it would have been Eddie Glazer. He probably caught up with Harrison in the pub or somewhere and the little squirt refused to tell him where he’d hidden the money. Glazer’s a nasty piece of work.’

‘Hmmm,’ Angel muttered. That was true. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Spencer,’ Angel began. ‘Glazer and his gang have disappeared. All we have to go on at the moment is the description and licence plate number of their car. Any assistance you can give me in finding where they might have disappeared to would be greatly appreciated.’

Spencer sighed then said: ‘I don’t know anything about that, Inspector. Honestly, I haven’t a clue. I wish I had. They’re no friends of mine.’

Angel was tired and fed up. It was the weekend. Thank God for that. Two murder cases in one week was hard work. He went home. He put the car away, locked the garage, came in through the back door, smiled weakly at Mary, took a bottle of German beer out of the fridge and a glass off the draining-board and shuffled off into the sitting-room. He loosened his tie, pressed a button on the television remote control and slumped into the chair. As the set warmed up it showed a young woman in front of a map rattling off details at high speed about the temperature and global warming. He sipped the beer. It had been five days since he had first been sent to Creesforth Road and had been presented with the murder of Alicia Prophet. He wasn’t really any the wiser about the mysterious Lady B. An amateur murderer if ever there was one, he thought. Virtually advertised the fact that she was at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder. Committed the murder in broad daylight, ate an orange and sprayed the peel over the body, then trotted down the front path like a lady of leisure, conveniently dropping her handbag in front of a neighbour, Mrs Duplessis. Made sure the taxi driver would remember her, publicized her destination, Wells Street Baths, then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Ridiculous.