The Fruit Gum Murders (18 page)

‘No, sir. Otherwise a quiet day on the whole.'

‘Who was sent down to the George?'

‘Erm … Sean Donohue and Cyril Elders, sir.'

‘I spoke to them last night around ten. They'll be off-duty now.'

‘No, sir. They're doing a double shift. Summer holidays and all that. If you want to see them, I can call them in.'

‘Right, Bernie, do that. I'll be in here in my office.'

There was a knock at the door and a face appeared. It was PC Weightman.

‘Got a message you wanted me, sir.'

‘Come in, John. Sit down. I want to ask you about yesterday's fire. I understand that you were the continuity officer.'

‘Yes, that's right, sir.'

‘I was away, you know. Tell me all about it. Leave nothing out. Where were you when you got the call, and who called you?'

‘I was in the locker room, sir. It was about nine o'clock. I got a call from Inspector Asquith via the Operations Room to attend a triple-nine call to a fire at Truelove's on Station Road. I took the station car and went straight to it. There were flames coming through the windows and the door. And there was the unmistakable smell of petrol. There was a small group of onlookers and one came up to me and said that she had seen a man inside. He'd apparently gone in, left the door open, presumably intending to come out again, but she said he was still in there. But now you couldn't get near. There were three tenders there. I found the fire chief and told him what the woman had told me about a man being in there. He said it would be suicide for them to go in at that stage. But they'd go in as soon as they could, which they did. SOCO duly arrived with DS Taylor, and later the mortuary van. They eventually brought the body of the man somebody had identified as Enoch Truelove. It was wrapped up in an oilcloth on a stretcher and taken away in the mortuary van. By about two o'clock, they had it well under control. One of the tenders left. Inspector Asquith sent me a relief, but I didn't leave. I sat in the car and had my sandwiches and a drink. Nothing much happened for the next six hours or so. The flames were out, but the fire tenders kept pumping water into the building to cool it down. It was burning hot, even on the pavement. I had another word with the fire officer. He said that he thought that the fire was caused by the deliberate exposure of petrol fumes. The signs were that an excessive amount of petrol had been poured into the front of the shop, probably through the letterbox. He did not know what ignited it. It could have been done simply with a match, but the friction of two metal objects together, even horses' hooves on cobblestones, would have been sufficient to ignite such an inflammable atmosphere. Anyway, he left at about six o'clock, so did the second tender and SOCO. Then a patrol car team came to relieve me. I reported in at the station and signed out at about 6.20 p.m. I've had a quick look in there this morning. The lads reported a quiet night. The building is still warm but it looks a horrible mess. I expect it will have to be demolished. The woman who rented the shop upstairs as a fancy dress hire shop was there. She said even her diary and bookings and everything has gone up in smoke. She didn't know where she was. And that's about it.'

Angel nodded. ‘Thank you, John. Do you know of any motive for the fire? Was anything stolen?'

‘Nothing to steal as far as we know, sir. A sack of Maris Piper would be the most valuable thing there.'

Angel shook his head.

‘If there's anything else, sir?' Weightman said.

‘No, lad. You get off.'

‘Right, sir,' Weightman said.

‘Come in,' Angel called.

It was Patrolman PC Sean Donohue. He was still in uniform, carrying his hat. ‘You wanted to see me and Cyril Elders, sir? Sergeant Clifton caught me but Cyril had already gone. Did you want to see us about last night, sir?'

‘No. Sit down, lad. I want to ask you about the call-out you had yesterday to the George Hotel.'

Donohue blew out a cheek full of air, and sat down.

Angel sensed that he was relieved. He looked as if he had expected being disciplined for something.

‘Oh, that, sir? Well, we were on patrol on Park Road and got an urgent shout from Control to respond to an anonymous call that Harry “the hatchet” Harrison and a little man, thought to be Mickey “the loop” Zeiss, had been seen coming out of the King George hotel with a girl.'

‘You were in a marked car?'

‘Yes, sir. Our patrol car. So we made haste down to Main Street. At the roundabout we slowed down, and made our way slowly along Main Street to the George. Didn't see anything conspicuous … stopped outside the front … I went inside the pub, looked round the bar, everything was quiet. The landlord, Jack Vermont, asked me what was wrong. I told him. He didn't seem to know anything.'

‘Do you mean he denied it?'

‘No, sir. He didn't deny it. He just didn't seem to know who Harrison or Mickey were.'

‘What about the girl? Did you ask him about the girl?'

‘Yes, but he said he hadn't noticed anything.'

‘Was the pub busy?'

‘Not particularly. There'd be about a dozen men in there.'

‘Any women?'

‘I don't think so.'

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘And did you believe him?'

‘Don't know, sir. I had to act on what he said.'

‘If there'd been two men and a girl in a pub with another twelve men, would you have noticed the girl?'

Donohue hesitated. ‘Probably, sir.'

Angel's jaw muscles tightened. ‘I'm damned certain you would, lad.' He rubbed his chin harder. ‘Do you know what Harrison and Mickey look like?'

‘I saw them on a handout on parade about three months ago.'

‘Could you describe either of them to me?'

Donohue frowned. ‘Erm, well, they are rather ordinary, sir.'

‘Aye, well that's true. Neither wears an eyepatch, has a parrot on his shoulder or walks with a crutch.'

It was one o'clock.

Angel put the ever-growing pile of papers into a drawer, glanced round the little office, then closed the door. He was going home. He had finished all the jobs he had set himself to do, and he was determined to make the most of the rest of the weekend. He had promised Mary he would cut the lawn, and the borders at the front of the house needed weeding.

On the way home it clouded over and started to rain. He wasn't too disappointed. He put the BMW in the garage, locked it and let himself into the house. Unusually, Mary was nowhere to be seen. He went to the fridge and took out a can of German beer. Then he thought he could hear her banging around upstairs. He went to the bottom of the stairs and looked upwards.

‘Mary,' he called. ‘Light of my life. Mary, where are you? My little cuddle bunch.'

She was in the bedroom. She smiled. She knew why he was calling her like that. He wanted some lunch.

‘I'm coming,' she called. ‘Have you been drinking?'

He smiled. ‘If you mean alcohol, darling, no. If you mean drinking in your beauty … well, that's a very different matter.'

Mary smiled, shook her head and quickly prepared a snack lunch of tomato soup with brown bread followed by two sweet and juicy Conference pears.

They ate without talking until Angel, apropos of nothing at all, said, ‘You know, old man Truelove must have known something that worried the murderer.'

‘What do you mean, darling?' Mary said. She finished peeling a pear and added, ‘He's hardly likely to have gone into his shop and said, “I'll take those flowers. These are for my friend Charlie Smith. He is going to poison me.” Would he?'

‘You've forgotten, sweetheart, that we now think the murderer is a woman.'

‘All right. “These are for my friend Agnes Smith. She is going to poison me.” '

‘No. No. He wouldn't know she intended poisoning him, would he?'

‘No. Of course not. Well, she may have seen Trevor Crisp or you visiting him, and knowing you were the police. …'

Angel's face straightened. ‘I should hate to think I was in any way the cause of his death,' he said.

‘I don't suppose you were for one moment, love. But you can't tell how people will react. And it's only conjecture anyway.'

‘You can't. You're right,' he said and helped himself to another pear. He pulled out the stem and began to peel it. ‘It was a terrible fire,' he said.

‘Yes. I understand that it was so intense, it burned everything in Mr Truelove's shop as well as everything in the fancy dress hire shop above it?'

‘Nothing left in either shop. All her stock went up in flames. I hope the poor woman was insured.'

‘Yes, love. I expect she was … well, that actually leaves us in a bit of a mess.'

He frowned. ‘Eh?'

‘I had hired a fez, a cummerbund and a big curly moustache for you from her for next Saturday's Fancy Dress Ball. In your new dark suit, I had a great vision of you being somebody Turkish. You would have looked fantastic as “the Turkish Ambassador”.'

Angel's eyes shone like a cat's in the dark. ‘Oh my goodness! I would have looked a right Charlie!'

She laughed.

He put another piece of pear in his mouth. ‘What were you going as? The Turkish Ambassador's wife?'

‘I was going as a slave girl.'

He smiled. ‘You might be the prettiest female there, sweetheart, but you're a bit old to be a slave girl.'

‘Steady on, Father Time,' she said. ‘The thing is … what are we going to do about our fancy dress now?'

The weekend came and went, and Angel still hadn't cut the lawn because of the rain. It never seemed to stop.

It was 8.28 a.m., Monday morning, 10th June. Angel was in his office trying to decide on his priorities. There was so much to do.

There was a knock at the door.

It was DS Crisp. ‘Good morning, sir.'

‘There you are, lad. Did you have a good journey?'

‘Yes, sir. I got everything done there and I came home on Saturday afternoon.'

‘You got those memory sticks?'

‘Yes, sir,' he said. He put the two penknife-shaped objects on the desk. ‘It will be a daunting job checking that lot off.'

Angel picked them up and looked at them. ‘Often that's what police work is all about,' he said. ‘Here you are,' he added, passing them back to him. ‘Go through them. You know what we are looking for: a name, a familiar name out of all the people we've interviewed or seen or heard of, who might have held a grudge against Patrick Novak and Norman Robinson.'

Crisp wasn't pleased. ‘That'll take ages.'

‘It's a long shot,' Angel said. ‘But it's the only shot left to us.'

‘Right, sir,' he said, and went out.

Angel wondered if he had done the right thing in allocating that job to Crisp. It was a job that might have been better undertaken by Ahmed, who was most careful and systematic. However, Ahmed had a lot on at that time. Crisp was better employed persuading pretty female witnesses to confide in him, or tackling a tricky male suspect who tried to flex his muscles rather than answer awkward questions. He shrugged. All was not lost. It could always be changed.

He pulled the pile of papers with the ever-present ugly ornament on the top.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,' he called.

It was Flora Carter. Her face was red and her eyes were bright.

Angel knew she had something important on her mind. ‘Yes,' he said, pointing to the other chair. ‘What's up?'

She sat down. She waved her mobile phone at him and said, ‘I just overheard a conversation between Harrison and Thomas Johnson. His mobile only seems to be used to communicate between the two of them. And Harrison is very guarded in what he says. He doesn't use people's names, or places. Only letters.'

‘Like a sort of code or shorthand?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘He had a conversation with him a couple of minutes ago. I came straight to you. It seems to me that he wants a certain C to meet him at the G at two o'clock today. Now, sir, I interpret that to mean that he wants a girl called Christine or Carol, or some other girl whose Christian name begins with C, to meet him at two o'clock at the King George hotel.'

Angel frowned. ‘Could be. That C could be that young girl he keeps being seen with. Why do you think he is telling Johnson?'

‘Presumably because Johnson knows the C girl, and can arrange it.'

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘He's already been seen twice in the vicinity of the King George, with a young girl. Don't you think he'd have more sense and change his meeting place?'

‘You would think so, sir,' Flora said. ‘It's only an educated guess on my part, of course. The G could also stand for the gym. There's that gym on that little street off Canal Road.'

Angel didn't reply for a few moments, then he said, ‘Harrison trusts Thomas Johnson, doesn't he, Flora?'

‘He seems to, sir. Yes.'

‘Well, what would he do if he thought Johnson had given him away to the police, for instance?'

Her eyes flashed. ‘Who knows? He wouldn't be pleased.'

‘Right. Let's give him something to be displeased about. At the same time, we can check to see whether your interpretation of their code or shorthand is right or not. Hmm. Two o'clock today, you said?'

FOURTEEN

It was 1.45 p.m. that Monday, when Angel went into Ives the Chemists on Main Street in the centre of Bromersley. He was met by Mr Ives Senior and was immediately shown upstairs into their first-floor storeroom. It had a window through which Angel could see the front entrance of the King George hotel. Angel thanked Mr Ives and then the elderly man went back downstairs.

At 1.50 p.m., two marked police patrol cars, Red Tango 1 and Red Tango 2, took up their designated positions. Each car had a driver and a co-driver who had in his possession a Heckler & Koch G36 C Rifle, which was out of sight of passers-by, but could be accessed by the patrolman in a second. Red Tango 1 drove onto a quiet corner of the big car park of the gym on Sykes Street off Canal Road, while Red Tango 2 drove round the back of the King George hotel. At 1.58 p.m., DS Flora Carter parked her car on a space at the back door of the chemists usually reserved by a car owned by Mr Ives Senior.