The Dog Collar Murders (10 page)

‘A disruption of some sort happens every four or five months, Inspector,’ Mr Fiske said. ‘As you may know, a mutual arrangement has been made whereby the children at my school are protected while they are buying ice cream from Grogan’s ice-cream van. From time to time, it parks at four o’clock at the front of the school in a place agreed with Health and Safety. The driver serves from the near side of the van only and passing traffic can see the children and the van clearly enough. I don’t like it. I don’t agree with it but Health and Safety have sanctioned it, so I live with it.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ Angel said.

‘The problem, my dear inspector, is that, in addition, a Grogan’s van has now started parking up the side street, on Moon Street, at noon some days, so that when the children are out of the classrooms for their lunch break, instead of going out of the front gate, which anyway is against school rules unless they are going home or have special permission, they scale the wall which is nearly six feet high. This is obviously extremely dangerous. In addition, after they have bought their ice creams from the van, they play around on the verge, sometimes meandering on to the road, before scaling the high wall to come back. Now while the majority of miscreants are boys, there have been seen some girls, which is very unseemly in their uniform of chocolate brown skirts and chocolate-brown socks, tights or stockings.’

Angel took the point. He rubbed his chin.

‘Where exactly does the van park? Is it on the road or does it straddle the road and the pavement?’

‘Neither. It is on a piece of the verge, which has become packed down by cars and vehicles waiting there, so that it is now quite hard. It is only a few yards from the school wall.’

‘What do Health and Safety say about it?’

Fiske’s face went redder. ‘I haven’t been there. If I go there, they will only put me on to you.’

Angel knew that what he said was almost certainly true. ‘Well, Mr Fiske, what do you want me to do?’

‘Stop the ice-cream van parking on Moon Street at lunchtimes or
at any time for that matter. The driver will know he shouldn’t park there, enticing the children over the wall …’

‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ Angel said.

‘Why ever not?’

‘There is a limit as to how much we can and should interfere with a man who is simply plying his trade. The owner of the van might justifiably argue that his driver is there to sell ice cream to the people in the flats close by and the employees at the glassworks and the cardboard box factory on the other side of the road. And that it is
your
responsibility – not theirs – to keep your children inside the playground and not scaling high walls.’

‘Huh. I see that it would have been better for me to have gone to Health and Safety. I see you are not the slightest bit interested in the safety of the children at my school.’

‘Of course I am. I am only trying to be fair. This ice-cream
manufacturer
pays his rates to this council and gives employment to the people of the town so he is entitled to some consideration. Now I don’t know all the facts of the case, Mr Fiske. I will look into it tomorrow and get back to you. In the meantime, you should direct your pupils not to scale that wall to take a short cut to the ice-cream van or for any other reason.’

Fiske slowly blew out a yard of breath while shaking his head. ‘I thought it would be a simple matter of warning the driver off.’

Angel pursed his lips. Nothing was simple any more. He only wished that it was.

Fiske said: ‘I hope you are not going to be a long time getting back to me.’

‘Give me your phone number,’ Angel said, ‘and I will get back to you as soon as I can.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ Flora Carter said. ‘Got a message you wanted me.’

‘Yes. Come in, lass,’ Angel said. ‘Sit down. You were looking up Madeleine Rossi and her wonderful new boyfriend.’

‘It’s a Clive Grogan, son of Raphael Grogan, the ice-cream
manufacturer
,’ she said.

‘Yes, I know. Felicity Kellerman told me.’

‘Strange woman, Felicity Kellerman. Do you think she’s for real, sir?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I was thinking … She could have had a strange influence on Harry Weston.’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘Well, she could have, but she isn’t the murderer. It was a man of about forty wearing a dog collar.’

‘She gives me the creeps.’

‘You’re a copper, for God’s sake. That aura and crystals is just so much tripe. The world is full of it. Now, never mind about her, did you meet this … Clive Grogan?’

‘Yes sir,’ she said. ‘He works for his father. Good-looking, well-turned-out young man. Says he didn’t know Harry Weston, though.’

Angel nodded. ‘Did you interview Madeleine Rossi?’

‘Yes, sir. I caught her coming out of the bookies on Dunscroft Street, where she works. She said she knew nothing about Harry Weston’s murder. She admitted to shedding a tear or two when she heard about it. But she was still vindictive about his relationship with Felicity Kellerman, which she described as an affair, and she insisted that it was going on at the same time that he was regularly courting her. She said that he was lying.’

Angel smiled. ‘In those words, Flora?’

‘Well, all right, sir. Her language was a little more colourful.’

‘I bet it was. I know her father.’

‘And she said that she still believes that Harry is responsible for Kellerman being pregnant.’

‘Kellerman insists it is her partner, a man with the unlikely name of Ben Wizard, who she says is currently in the States.’

‘That’s what she told me, sir.’

Angel licked his bottom lip for several seconds, then said, ‘Well, however spiteful Madeleine Rossi felt towards Harry Weston, our witness has said that the murderer was a man, so
she
couldn’t have murdered him.’

‘Anyway, there’s no link at all between her and the two murdered priests, sir.’

‘The only link we have between them and Weston at this time is the gun. We know that the same gun was used to murder all three, but we don’t know that the trigger was necessarily pulled by the same person each time.’

‘You mean the gun used to murder Harry Weston could
subsequently
have been stolen or sold on?’

‘Or discarded then found. Yes. Could have been.’

Flora Carter nodded. ‘Well, sir, do you want me to see if I can contact this Ben Wizard character, sir?’

‘Of course. Got to keep it tidy. But something else has cropped up, Flora.
That
will have to wait.’

Angel then told Flora Carter in detail about the conversation he had had with headteacher Fiske the previous afternoon. Then he said, ‘So I want you to drive up Moon Street shortly after twelve noon today, and observe. See if there’s one of Grogan’s vans parked up there, and see if there are any school kids coming over the wall. Note where the van is parked. Also take a discreet look at their behaviour. Are they a danger to themselves or anyone else? All right?’

‘Right, sir.’

She went out.

A
few minutes later, the phone rang. Angel reached out for it. It was the desk sergeant. ‘You asked uniform to bring Peter King in, sir.’

‘Yes, sergeant. That was yesterday. Have you got him?’

‘Yes, sir. Is he to be charged?’

‘Not yet. Put him in an interview room but don’t leave him
unattended
. There’s no telling what he might nick or damage. I’ll be along in a minute.’

‘Right, sir.’

Angel replaced the phone then set off up and went up the green corridor, past the men’s locker room to the interview rooms. He glanced through the small glass window at eye level in the door of interview room number one and saw a man in a shiny dark suit sitting in a chair by a table. That was Peter King. A uniformed constable was sitting opposite him. Angel opened the door and went in.

The constable jumped to his feet. ‘Sir,’ he said.

‘Thank you, lad,’ Angel said as he cocked a thumb towards the door.

The officer nodded, went out and closed the door.

Peter King looked up at Angel and, through his unwashed and unshaven features, smiled like a baby at its mother’s wedding. ‘Hello there, Mr Angel,’ King said.

Angel didn’t smile back. He didn’t reply. He pulled out the chair and sat down opposite him.

King said: ‘They said you wanted to see me. They brought me here in a car.’

Angel looked at King and said, ‘I suppose that, now you’re here, you want to make a confession?’

King blinked. Angel had clearly caught him offguard. He thought a moment then said, ‘What about?’

‘You tell me.’

He licked his lips and said, ‘Well, I raped and murdered a girl in Leeds before Christmas.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I did. They haven’t got anybody else for it, either.’ His eyes took on a glow. ‘Her name was Sharon. She was very slim. I did it under the railway arches that Saturday night before Christmas. She was willing at first, but when I began to—’

‘Don’t bother lying, Peter. Leeds tell me that it couldn’t possibly have been you. Now what else do you want to confess to?’

King’s eyes flitted to the left, the right and then downwards. After a few moments he said, ‘Can’t think of anything.’

Angel thought that it was a good start and said, ‘Well, where were you on Monday afternoon?’

King peered at him briefly then said, ‘Don’t know.’

‘All right,’ Angel said. ‘Where were you on Monday evening, Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning?’

Again, he didn’t answer immediately. He looked round the room, eventually arriving back to look into Angel’s face. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Have you no idea? Were you at home? In the pub? With your friends?’

‘I don’t have any friends, and I don’t have any money to go to the pub with, until Friday when I get my money from the post office, and anyway Joe Morrison, the landlord, won’t let me in The Fisherman’s Rest unless I buy a drink.’

‘Would you have been at home then?’

‘Might have been.’

‘Anybody with you?’

‘No.’

Angel wasn’t pleased. He looked as if he’d been to the Police Dog Awards ceremony and trodden in something.

He continued. ‘So you can’t prove where you were on Monday afternoon, Monday evening, Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning?’

‘No. Why? Has somebody done something? Has it taken them
all
that time?’

‘Have you got a gun?’

King’s eyes glowed like traffic lights. ‘No. Yes. Well, not now. I threw it away.’

‘What sort of a gun?’

‘A handgun. I don’t know what sort it was, Mr Angel.’

‘How many bullets did the cartridge hold? And what was the calibre?’

‘I dunno for sure. At least six. It was a .32.’

Angel wrinkled his nose. King could guess a minimum of six. That was the smallest number of rounds a handgun cartridge might hold. .32
was
the calibre of the bullets that killed Harry Weston, Samuel Smart and Raymond Gulli but he could possibly have gleaned that info from the newspapers.

‘You get an automatic sentence of five years for possession of a deadly weapon such as a gun,’ Angel said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Yes. Of course I knew that, Mr Angel. That’s why I threw it away. I’m not daft. Huh.’ He grinned.

Angel frowned. ‘Where did you throw it?’

‘I threw it where you can’t get at it. And I wiped off my
fingerprints
. You’d never be able to trace it back to me.’

‘If you threw it where I can’t get at it, it doesn’t matter if you tell me where you threw it, does it?’

King put his fingertips to his mouth. He chomped briefly on his fingernails. His eyes flitted in different directions. Eventually he said, ‘I threw it into Woolley Dam.’

This was a big stretch of water between Barnsley and Wakefield with a busy road bridge by it.

Angel thought a moment. The answer to his next question could possibly eliminate King from suspicion. ‘When?’

‘Some time ago. You’ll never find it.’

‘When exactly, and was anybody with you?’

‘No, I was on my own. And it was after dark about six o’clock on Tuesday evening. That’s almost thirty-nine hours ago. By now it will be swallowed in tons and tons of mud, about a mile down now, I should think. You’ll never find it. Water sucks stuff down, you know, and the dam is ever so deep. There’s a whole village under that water.’

Angel shook his head slowly. ‘You’d be surprised, Peter. We could
have Woolley Dam completely drained. We wouldn’t have need to search for it with handtools using our naked eyes. These days, we have giant electromagnets powerful enough to work through rock six feet thick, and we can utilize powerful X-rays to pinpoint its exact position. Believe me,’ Angel said, ‘if it was there, we would find it.’

He looked closely into King’s eyes. There was very little truth in what Angel had just said. The cost would run into millions. Superintendent Harker would probably have a terminal heart attack at the thought of it.

Angel noticed that instead of getting King worried, which had been his intention, the young man was sitting there still smiling. His face was glowing, and his eyes shone like traffic lights. He must be visualizing such a scene and enjoying the chaos that he would have caused.

‘Why did you throw the gun away on Tuesday night? Why not Monday night or Wednesday night?’

‘I didn’t want it any more. I had finished with it. It wouldn’t have been safe for me to hang on to the gun a moment longer than necessary. Your cops might have been round and found it in my pocket.’

There was coincidence or logic there. The third murder, Raymond Gulli, took place on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night would possibly have been the earliest the murderer could have disposed of it using the cover of darkness.

‘If you had a gun, what did you want it for?’

King’s nails went back up to his teeth again. His eyes narrowed. The pupils travelled to the left, to the right, then back again several times. Eventually he said, ‘No comment.’

Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No comment?’ he said. He frowned and added, ‘Why no comment, Peter?’

‘No comment,’ he repeated.

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘You mean you don’t know what you wanted the gun for?’

‘Naw,’ he said, screwing up his face impatiently. ‘I mean, no comment. I’m allowed to say no comment, if I want to.’

Angel pursed his lips. Of course he was. Experienced crooks do it all the time. Some don’t even admit their name.

‘How did you get the gun?’ Angel said.

‘Found it.’

‘Where?’

‘In the park. In Jubilee Park. In the rubbish bin at the entrance, by the iron gates.’

‘Anybody with you or saw you, when you found it?’

‘Naw. I was just walking through and happened to see it,’ he said with a grin.

Angel shook his head. ‘On top of the empty ice-cream tubs, the lager tins, the cigarette packets and the sweet wrappers, a loaded gun happened to be there. People walking past all day and don’t see it. You come along and happen to see it.’ He shook his head again. ‘Where do you get these tales from, Peter? I wish you would give it a rest and start living in the real world.’

The smile left King’s face. ‘It’s true, Mr Angel, every word.’

‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you,’ he said, rubbing his hand across his face. ‘You know, Peter, I like the one about the three bears better.’

‘That’s where it was. It’s absolutely true, Mr Angel. Honestly.’

Angel’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘Don’t tell such lies! You’ve always been a liar. One of these days, lad, you’re going to finish up doing life – and I mean life – in Wakefield. Don’t you realize that?’ Angel then stood up. ‘This interview is over,’ he said, then he fastened the middle button of his jacket and made for the door.

King reached out and grabbed the cuff of his sleeve. ‘Well, all right, Mr Angel,’ he said. ‘Maybe it wasn’t
exactly
like that.’

Angel stopped and looked at him.

‘Well, maybe the gun wasn’t on top like that,’ King said. ‘Actually, I had to rummage around a bit. Sometimes somebody throws away a sweet bag with one left in the bottom. Or a ciggie packet with a dog end in it. I once found an envelope with a photograph and a five pound note in it. Anyway, I was hungry.’

Angel wasn’t sure whether he believed him or not, but he sat down again.

King smiled. ‘I actually found a sort of badly packed parcel, right underneath, near the bottom … a small sheet of brown paper and a short knotted-up piece of string wrapped loosely round it. As I picked it up, the gun slipped out. I saw it and put it into my pocket
and went out of the park to the bus stop. As I stood in the bus shelter I took it out and looked at it again. It was the real thing. Fabulozo!’

‘What did you intend to do with it?’

King thought a second and said, ‘Turn it into cash. Sell it. Yes.’

‘Would you be able to identify the gun if you saw it again?’

He smiled. ‘If you can get it out of Woolley Dam, I’d know it for certain, yes.’

Angel sighed. ‘If I showed you photographs of different guns, would you be able to pick it out?’

‘I dunno. No, I don’t think so. They all look alike.’

‘They usually have a maker’s name stamped on it, sometimes a number. Did you notice anything like that on the gun?’

‘It might have. I didn’t notice.’

‘What do you mean, “I didn’t notice”? If it was there, you couldn’t
miss it
!’

‘You know I am dyslexic, Mr Angel. I’m not good with letters and numbers and reading. I wanted to be a history teacher but I couldn’t read, and besides you’ve got to remember stuff … like dates.’

Angel sighed again. ‘Can you remember any of the letters?’

King brought his fingers up to his mouth again. He closed his eyes briefly then said, ‘There might have been an “m”, or it might have been a “p”. I am not sure.’ Then the smile returned.

Angel brushed his hand through his hair. He licked his lips. His patience was deserting him. He really wanted to charge King with something or else get him out of his sight. But the interview had to go on.

‘Did you know Harry Weston?’

King frowned then said, ‘No comment.’

‘What do you mean, no comment? He’s that ticket clerk who was shot dead in the ticket office at the railway station.’

‘Oh, him?’

‘Yes, him. Do you know him?
Did
you know him?’

‘I saw him around. I didn’t know him. He used to go with Madeleine Rossi but chucked her to go with that singer, Felicity Kellerman,’ he said, then with a snigger added, ‘Did you know she’s pregnant?’

‘Yes, I know she’s pregnant,’ he said quickly. ‘What do you know about that?’

He grinned again, dirtily, almost obscenely. ‘Nothin’.’

‘So you knew Harry Weston?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘How did you come to know him? Was he a friend of yours?’

‘No, Mr Angel. I didn’t know him to talk to. He had been dancing with Felicity Kellerman at the
Scheherazade
. I had been watching her. She looks … very nice. I was just interested.’

‘But how did you know the man she had been dancing with was Harry Weston?’

‘I asked the barman.’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘But why would you want to know who he was?’

King frowned. ‘I dunno.’

‘When was this?’

‘Ages and ages ago.’

Angel’s neck went red. He dragged down on his collar to loosen it. ‘What do you mean, ages and ages ago? Do you mean two years ago? Ten years ago? 1939? 1066? At The Flood? When?’

King looked shocked at Angel’s reaction. It took him several seconds to answer. ‘Seven or eight months ago, I suppose, Mr Angel,’ he said.

Angel reckoned that King’s answer was in accord with the facts. At least the maths were correct. Felicity Kellerman had been in Bromersley since late March, and her pregnancy would not have been showing at that time.

Angel sighed. King had not said anything that he could check on, which would have enabled Angel to charge him. Nor had he appeared to be so scrupulously snow white that Angel could have sent him back home. Angel had had times like this with King before, and invariably finished up without finding a single offence he could make stick.

Angel wondered if he should stick a priest’s collar round King’s neck and have Zoe Costello look at him in a line-up with nine other men dressed the same. The trouble was, she might artlessly pick King out. That wouldn’t help at all if he was innocent. That was the way things seemed to go. The case against him might then zip along out of Angel’s control. Meanwhile the real murderer would get away scot free.

There had been too many cases of wrongful arrest and
imprisonment
because the accused simply couldn’t tell the truth, and there was no system in place to protect the man against his own ignorance or stupidity. Angel didn’t want this to happen if King was innocent. He shook his head and turned back to King, who was still smiling. Even though his intellect was limited, King knew the chaos he was capable of creating in his interviewer’s thought processes.

Angel must continue the questioning. Something irrefutable might come out of it.