Find the Lady (14 page)

The other case, the murder of Harry Harrison … now
that
was relatively simple. It was committed by one crook or the other. One suspect was in hospital, and with his injuries, he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. The other was … well … somewhere else.

Mary came in with his tea on a tray. It was finnan haddock. They always had fish on a Friday. He enjoyed that then reached out for the
Radio Times
to see what might be on television after the news: politics, pop groups, personality parades, soaps and cooking. He fell asleep in the chair.

Mary looked across at him and sighed.

On Saturday he weeded the garden and cut the lawn; on Sunday, Mary prepared a picnic lunch and they spent the late morning on the moors. However the weather broke unexpectedly and following several rolls of thunder and some lightning, it rained vertical stair-rods. They arrived back home at one o’clock, missing the worst of the weather and in time to watch a John Wayne cowboy film on television, then ‘Songs of Praise,’ followed by ‘Last of the Summer Wine.’ As the theme music increased in volume and the credits rolled up over the bucolic scene, Angel’s mobile phone rang out. He was surprised at the interruption: it could only be police business and he knew it must be urgent. His pulse increased and his heart began to bang in his chest, as he reached down into his trouser pocket and yanked the phone out.

‘Angel,’ he said expectantly.

‘Sorry to bother you, sir. This is PC Donohue. We have been called out to a vehicle fire on some farmland in Skiptonthorpe. It is a big, black Mercedes saloon. We attended and when I reported it in, the desk sergeant said you had it on orders that you had to be advised on this number of any sighting of this vehicle.’

‘Yes. Yes,’ Angel said excitedly. ‘That’s right. Tell me, what’s happened?’

‘We had a treble nine call to a vehicle fire by the back road behind Summerskill’s farm on the top side in Skiptonthorpe. We attended promptly, so did the fire service.’

Angel’s knuckles tightened. ‘Don’t tell me the fire service have been crawling all over the site?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘What’s the state of the fire now, lad?’

‘It’s out, sir. The fire service are just damping down.’

‘Right. When it’s safe, get them off the site, mark it out and treat it as a crime scene. And stay there. I’ll be with you in about fifteen minutes.’

‘You’ll need your wellies, sir.’

A
ngel soon found the country road behind the farm at Skiptonthorpe. He saw the police car with two policemen inside at the side of the road. He drove up and parked behind it.

And he certainly did need his wellies. The rain had now ceased but it had been a very heavy downpour.

He clocked the gap between some bushes where the Mercedes had been driven ten yards off the road onto the edge of a ploughed field, dumped and ignited. A lager can, several newspapers and magazines had been dumped close by and were now drenched and part trodden into the mud.

There was a smell of burning rubber and petrol.

He could see that the car’s rear window and windscreen had been smashed, most of the upholstery and carpeting burned out, and all the internal surfaces and controls were black, but the metal parts, the wheels and the tyres were intact.

He squelched precariously at a careful distance of about twenty feet from the car looking down at the sodden earth.

Two policemen came up to him wearing high-visibility yellow coats and flat hats.

‘Good evening, sir. Good evening, sir.’

Angel looked up from the muddy field, his lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘Look at all those footprints. You’ve had a bigger crowd here than there was at Reggie Kray’s funeral!’

The two policeman exchanged glances but said nothing.

‘I want you to mark out this area with DO NOT CROSS LINE tape, at a minimum of fifteen feet from the car and this break in the bushes. I want to preserve every track in the mud from around the car and up to the road.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘When you’ve done that, I shall want some illumination. It’ll be dark in a few hours. I expect to be here all night. I shall want one of you to go to the stores and get a lighting kit and generator.’

They dashed off and opened the boot of their car.

Angel dug his hand into his pocket, pulled out his mobile and tapped in a number. ‘Is that the National Crime and Operations Faculty? I want to call on your specialist to advise on motor vehicle tracks, please. It’s very urgent.’

It was 2100 hours and the section of the field and the break in the bushes had been marked out with DO NOT CROSS tape attached to stakes in the ground. The road was full of activity and thronged with police vehicles. Angel had requested more uniform to secure the site and manage the few interested members of the public occasionally rubbernecking as they passed. SOCO had arrived and also an HGV with low loader to transport the car away. Angel was with a DI Ince and a photographer from the NCOF who were working on pads on their knees making plaster casts and taking measurements with a steel tape.

It was going to be a busy night.

‘Two coffees, Ahmed. Smartish.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said and went out of the office.

Angel looked up Gawber, rubbed his scratchy chin, sniffed and said, ‘They’ve ditched the only lead we had, Ron. We had the number, colour and make of their car. Now I have no idea where they are and we have absolutely nothing to go on!’

‘You brought the NCOF in, sir?’

‘Aye. I’m clutching at straws, Ron. I’m hoping they can, maybe, save the day by reading something from the tyre tracks. There were some pretty sharp outlines in the mud.’

‘Yes. And they’ve turned nothing up?’

Angel’s miserable face told him that they had not. ‘It’s early days.’

‘Has SOCO brought the Merc back here, sir?’

‘No. It’s been taken to Wetherby. I wanted the boys in the lab to go over it. They might turn up something. There’s also a lager can and some papers and magazines that were littering up the scene. They might help. Don Taylor’s working on them now.’

Ahmed came in with two beakers on a tin tray. They reached out and helped themselves.

‘Ta, lad,’ Angel said. ‘Now, nip down to SOCO and ask DS Taylor if he’s anywhere with that lager can and those papers I brought in.’

Ahmed nodded and went out.

The phone rang. Angel picked up the receiver. It was Harker.

‘There’s something in the post. I want you up here,’ he growled. There was a loud click and the line went dead.

Angel pulled a face as if he needed a tooth pulling. He turned to Gawber. ‘It’s the super. I’ve got to go.’

He trudged up the corridor and knocked on the door.

‘Come in,’ Harker bawled. He was sitting at his desk, head down reading.

Angel closed the door.

Eventually Harker looked up, stared at him, blinked, scratched his head and said, ‘You look a right mess. I thought it was Bill Oddie dressed up for a funeral.’

‘I have been up all night, sir. I haven’t been home yet.’

‘Yes. I heard. It was only a car fire, wasn’t it? Did they really need you there to turn the hose on,’ he said sarcastically.

‘It’s the Glazer gang’s Mercedes,’ Angel replied strongly. ‘They’ve obviously changed over vehicles there. I am trying to find out what they’ve changed to, and where they are now.’

‘I know. I know, but it’s nowt to do with you, lad. I haven’t authorized it. It’s not your case.’

‘It might be, sir. Could be Glazer, or one of his gang, who murdered Harry Harrison.’

‘I thought that
that
was down to Spencer.’

Angel licked his lips. ‘It
could
still be him. I’m waiting for some forensic from SOCO. That should settle it.’

Harker sniffed.

‘Come on, lad, admit it,’ he said expansively. ‘Admit it. You’re in the dark, aren’t you? You’re just fishing. Harrison was well known among the crooked fraternity. It could be anyone of a thousand villains who might have heard of the big money he’d got hold off.’

‘No, sir. I’m
not
fishing,’ Angel replied resolutely. ‘There’s a reasonable bet it’s Glazer or Spencer.’

Harker shook his small, grotesque, gargoyle-like, misshapen head.

‘Well, press on with it, then. Time is money. I know you have a personal reason for trying to get Eddie Glazer back behind bars. I know he gave your pride a proper singeing, but don’t let that cloud your judgement,’ he said waving a sheet of paper he was holding. ‘But I didn’t call you in to talk about your pride. It’s about this.’

‘What is it,’ Angel said, holding out his hand.

Harker didn’t pass it to him. ‘It’s a bill from a Mrs Reid for damage to a door and door jamb, lifting of floorboards, scratching of paintwork … it goes on. Four hundred pounds.
Four hundred pounds
! It’s hardly a legitimate charge against this department. Who’s going to pay for
that
?’

‘That would be damage the Glazers did, searching Harrison’s flat. It would be down to
them
!’

‘Can’t charge it to them,’ Harker snapped. ‘They’re not here. We don’t know where they are. You just said so. You let them get away. They just slipped through your fingers.’

Angel’s eyes flashed. ‘They were heavily armed.’

‘So were you.’

‘You
know
the situation, it made attack on our part impossible. It would have been against standing orders. There could have been a bloodbath.’

‘I only know what you tell me in your reports, which I know are sometimes heavily edited.’

Angel’s jaw tightened. He pursed his lips. He breathed in and out a couple of times. This argument was going nowhere; he refused to let Harker wind him up any further. ‘If you don’t want me for anything else, sir, I’d like to go home and get tidied up.’

‘Yes. You’d better. Got to maintain standards.’

Angel turned to go. He opened the door.

‘What about this four hundred pounds?’ Harker fumed, his face as red as a judge’s robe. ‘I can’t put an expense through like
that
. It’s down to you, you know.’

Angel sighed.

‘Why don’t you knock it off the two million I found under the floorboards, sir?’ he said and he closed the door.

Ahmed saw the imposing figure whiz past the window panel in the CID office door. He caught up with him and followed him into his office. He was carrying two EVIDENCE envelopes and an A4 paper file.

‘What’ve you got, lad?’ Angel boomed.

‘From DI Taylor, sir. He found a fingerprint on the lager can; it’s of a prisoner on the run, Eric Oxenhope, otherwise known as “Ox”.’

Angel’s eyebrows shot up. He took the file, opened it and began reading it aloud. ‘28 years of age. Last known address 266 Gosforth Road, Whitley Bay; 12 previous convictions for … oh … erm … yes.’ His voice dropped as his interest waned. He turned to the next page in the file and read: ‘ “Oxenhope’s prints were also all over newspaper. Also one other first finger and thumb from right hand of person unknown, thought to be female. Put on file. Handwritten number in pen in margin of page 2, might be helpful.” ’ Angel dropped the file grabbed the thinner EVIDENCE envelope, opened it and pulled out a well thumbed, dried out newspaper in a cloud of aluminium powder. He turned to page 2. Sure enough in the margin was a six digit number. It was written in large handwriting with a blue felt pen.

‘ “603670”, Ahmed. Does that number mean anything to you?’

‘No, sir. Is it a phone number?’

‘It could be. Find out what it is, lad. I’m going home. Be back in an hour or so. Ring me if anything urgent comes in.’

It was 10.22 a.m.

After a shower, a shave, a clean shirt, two cups of tea and two slices of fresh toast and butter, Angel was as pleased with life as a man guilty of murder, being awarded an ASBO.

He got in his car and returned to the station.

As he opened the office door, the sun was shining in through the window. The shadow formed a hopscotch pattern on the parquet floor. The room smelled of microwaved dust and fingerprint ink. He realized how hot it was. He opened the window and part closed the Venetian blinds. He took off his jacket and put it on a coat-hanger on the side of the stationery cupboard.

The phone rang. He leaned over the desk and picked up the receiver. It was Taylor. He sounded pleased about something.

‘I have examined the clothes and personal effects of Simon Spencer, sir, and have taken various specimens and examined them, but found nothing to link him with Harry Harrison.’

Angel was deflated.

‘Oh?’ he said, wrinkling his nose. ‘Right, Don.’

‘But I
have
found tiny spots of blood on both the left and right shoes of a pair of trainers taken from the farmhouse,’ he added brightly. ‘And I have managed to isolate a sample of the blood and can confirm that it is from the dead man, Harry Harrison. I don’t know who the owner of the shoes is, but they are size 10, and they were found at the right hand side of the hearth in the kitchen.’

Angel’s face brightened. ‘Ah. Right, Don. Thank you. So that definitely puts Spencer out of the frame. The murderer of Harrison is the owner of that pair of trainers.’

‘That’s it, sir, exactly, and my money’s on Eddie Glazer.’

Angel smiled, thanked him again and replaced the phone. He rubbed his chin a moment and then picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

Ahmed answered.

‘Is DS Gawber there?

‘No, sir.’

‘Put a call out for him, and then come on in here.’

‘Right, sir.’

A minute later a smiling Ahmed came into Angel’s office. ‘I must have missed you coming in, sir. I think I have found an answer to that number.’

‘Right, lad. Good. What is it?’

‘The telephone company say that that number is almost certainly a Bromersley subscriber because it doesn’t fit any other exchange in South Yorkshire.’

‘Right, Ahmed,’ he said. ‘Well done. Now go to the officer on the front desk and ask for a charge sheet for a Simon Spencer at present in Bromersley General and address unknown. The charge is fraud. I might find a few other charges to add onto it, but that’ll do to hold him, when the hospital discharges him.’

Ahmed made for the door.

‘And see if you can find Ron Gawber on your travels,’ he added as he reached out for the phone.

‘Right, sir.’ The door closed.

Angel tapped in 9 for a dialling tone for an outside line, then 141 so that the station number wouldn’t be given out, then the six-digit number. He sat back in the chair and rubbed his chin. He had no idea who might be answering. He had no idea whom he was calling, but he had been through this exercise a thousand times in this business.

The phone was soon answered. A pleasant-sounding woman’s voice said, ‘Webster’s Holiday Caravans. Can I help you.’

Angel frowned. ‘Can I speak to Harry, please?’ he said.

There was a short pause and then she said hesitantly, ‘Did you say Harry?’

‘Yes, please.’

He licked his lips as he wondered what she was thinking.

There was another pause.

‘I think you must have got the wrong number. There’s nobody here of that name, now, sir.’

Angel smiled: he wasn’t a bit surprised.

‘We did have a Harry Shaw working for us, but he left two years ago,’ she added.

‘No. That wasn’t the name,’ Angel said. ‘But anyway, I
was
thinking about a caravan holiday,’ he lied.

‘You need to speak to our Mr Webster. He’s busy with a customer. Can I get him to call you back?’

‘Is that Graham Webster?’

‘No. It’s Mortimer, actually.’

‘Oh? Mortimer Webster, of course. No. I’ll ring back later on today. Or I might call in. What’s the exact address again, Miss?’

‘Goat Peg Lane, off Kingsway. We are at the end. You’ll see a lot of caravans on your right hand side. Sheltered on three sides with trees. It’s a lovely site. You can’t miss us.’

‘Right. Thank you. Goodbye.’

He replaced the phone slowly and thoughtfully.

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

‘Come in, Ron. Right on cue.’

He updated him. He told him about the number in the newspaper and said that the gang might be connected with Webster’s caravans.

‘But it may have nothing to do with it, sir. That number might be the combination number of a railway station security locker, or some other locker, or a bank account, or just about anything.’

Angel wasn’t pleased. He knew that what Gawber had said was perfectly valid. But he was desperate. Clutching at straws.