The Fruit Gum Murders (23 page)

‘Is that you, Michael?' he said. ‘Have you heard about Lydia Twelvetrees, young Stewart's wife?'

Angel's face changed. Mac sounded very solemn. ‘No,' he said. ‘What's happened?'

‘She is
here
– well, her body is, for a post mortem, which I have just finished.'

‘Oh dear,' Angel said. He thought of her beauty and her sparkle being lost to the world, and she was so young. ‘Whatever happened?'

‘A witness said that she ran into the road behind a waiting bus and was hit by a furniture van. An ambulance was called, but it was too late. Her remains were sent here – I'm in the mortuary – for a post mortem.'

‘How awful, Mac,' Angel said. ‘And how particularly unpleasant for you, knowing the woman … well, she was hardly a woman … how old was she? '

He thought about Stewart Twelvetrees, a bright, hand-some young man, who would now become a widower at about thirty. Then he remembered her poor sister, Nadine. Whatever was to become of her? And Stewart's father, Marcus Twelvetrees, head of the CPS, would naturally be upset.

‘Hardly twenty-four. Married about six years.'

‘And what did you find, Mac? Is there anything criminal about her death?'

‘Oh, no. She had some terrible injuries, but they were all the result of the impact with that van.'

‘Is there anything I can do?'

‘No, Michael. No. I thought you'd want to know, that's all.'

‘Well, yes. I'll have to go to the funeral, and Mary will want to go.'

‘Aye,' Mac said.

It was Monday, June 24th. It was dry and sunny, and the day of Lydia Twelvetrees' funeral.

Angel and Mary arrived at the Brambles on Old Horse Lane, a mile or so outside Bromersley town, at 11.30 a.m.

The Brambles was an old farmhouse with a large cobbled area in the front. There were already sixteen or seventeen cars parked there.

The front door was open and a young lady greeted them, offered them coffee and then suggested that they might care to join the other guests in the drawing room.

Angel and Mary, carrying their coffee, passed through the hallway and glanced up the aged wooden staircase at Lydia's old wooden rocking horse. It stood halfway up on a wide part of the staircase where it widened as it turned at right angles. It had been the only memory of her struggling years as a child, living with her mother and Nadine in a little terrace house on Canal Street.

Angel and Mary went into the drawing room, which was quite full. People were sitting and standing around, talking quietly among themselves. He saw many faces he knew and exchanged smiles and nods with them. Mrs Mackenzie gave them a gracious nod as if she was royalty. They found themselves standing next to Tina, the chubby receptionist at the CPS. She was next to the beautiful Juliet Gregg, who looked stunning in a little black lace number. Mary made some small talk with them both. Angel smiled, nodded politely as he sipped his coffee.

One of the mourners remarked on the fact that a hearse and several black limousines were arriving. Everybody looked through the big windows and watched the hearse reverse up to the front door. Shortly afterwards the undertaker and pall-bearers assembled in the hall and then went upstairs.

Moments later, Marcus Twelvetrees and his wife appeared and in a low voice he said, ‘Thank you all for coming. I do hope the coffee is … to your liking. At least the sun is shining and it's not raining. Stewart and Nadine will be down directly. Our dear daughter-in-law's remains are in their bedroom … the undertaker's men have gone up to collect the coffin and bring it down to load it into the hearse. We will then be leaving for the church.'

Marcus Twelvetrees and his wife then turned and went into the hall, then Nadine Tinker came down the stairs followed by Stewart Twelvetrees. Nadine didn't look up at anybody. She stood next to Mrs Twelvetrees. Stewart didn't speak but he waved to everybody and took up a position next to his father.

Angel and Mary and most of the mourners in the drawing room drifted into the hall as they heard the murmurs of the funeral director on the landing instructing the pall-bearers.

The coffin appeared inch by inch and was maintained in a horizontal position throughout as the men slowly descended backwards. Then as they reached the turn in the stairs, the leading pall-bearer, who was holding the coffin chest high, backed into the head of Lydia's rocking horse and caught it with the heel of his shoe. There was the sound of a click and the head of the horse dropped down. Suddenly, gold chains, rings, brooches, glittering diamond rings, Victorian earrings with pearls, loose emeralds and rubies fell out onto the stairs.

There was a gasp from many of the mourners.

Angel saw it all and shook his head. It explained most of the robberies that had occurred in and around Bromersley over the past ten years or so.

Nobody said anything about it.

A car rug was thrown over the rocking horse and the spilled jewellery by Mr Twelvetrees Senior before he left for the church.

After the church service and the burial, most of the congregation returned for a light buffet lunch, then soon began to take their leave.

Twelvetrees Senior came up to Angel and said, ‘Will you hang back, Inspector? We'll have to sort this rocking-horse business out.'

Angel said, ‘Yes, of course.'

‘Come in,' Angel said.

It was DS Taylor. ‘Good morning, sir. We got comparison prints from the hairbrush on her dressing table.'

Angel said, ‘And Lydia Twelvetrees' prints were the only prints on the jewellery, the gemstones and the rocking horse?'

Taylor nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I'd say it was conclusive.'

Angel sighed. ‘Aye, and she was working alone. Her sister said she knew nothing about the robberies nor about the rocking horse being hollow, and I believe her.'

‘So it puts to bed all those jewellery robberies, sir.'

‘It will be no comfort to the Twelvetrees family.'

‘And you can't charge anybody.'

‘No.'

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,' Angel said.

It was Crisp, who was carrying a sheaf of papers.

Angel looked at him and what he was carrying and frowned. He turned to Taylor and said, ‘Right, Don. Thank you. List and photograph that jewellery. We'll have to have a try at finding the owners. All right?'

‘Right, sir,' Taylor said, then he went out.

Crisp watched Taylor leave and then he said, ‘Was Lydia Twelvetrees the jewellery thief then, sir?'

‘She was.'

Crisp shook his head in disbelief.

Angel was going to comment further, but changed his mind. ‘Are you still on with those hospital records?' he said.

‘Yes, sir. And I want to ask you a question about them. I've been on them ten days now.'

‘I know, lad. It's time you'd finished them.'

‘Well, there are thousands of them, sir, literally. It's like looking through a telephone directory except much worse, and they're not in alphabetical order. Your name – or the name Angel – has come up a few times. And my own name Crisp, I have seen, but I didn't bother checking it. I checked the name of the first Angel and it was to do with a man in North London paying for cosmetic surgery on his wife.'

‘I've no relations there, as far as I know, but what about names of villains like Johnson, Harrison, Zeiss, or that landlord of the King George, Jack Vermont?'

‘I thought you said it was a woman, sir.'

‘I did … anyway, it's the surname that matters. We can't know the gender of the patient until we turn up the invoice. Look, lad, I feel it in my water that both Norman Robinson and Patrick Novak were most cruelly poisoned because they knew something about somebody that the murderer didn't want making public.'

‘Blackmail, sir.'

‘Exactly. And that that photograph of the baby is the key to the puzzle. And Trevor, that hospital is a private hospital, not your National Health. So it would have to be somebody with a few bob, who had a secret of some sort.'

‘Even if the “few bob” came out of a racket of some sort, sir?'

‘That's right.'

‘And liked fruit gums?'

‘That's right.'

Then Angel suddenly looked up at him and said, ‘But just a minute, lad. When you came in you said you wanted to ask me a question.'

‘Well, you've sort of answered it, sir. It was to ask you if you still wanted me to carry on searching the list?'

Angel's face went scarlet. ‘Of course I want you to go on,' he roared. ‘You have in your hands possibly the only lead to finding the murderer.'

EIGHTEEN

Angel picked up the phone and tapped in Ahmed's number. When he answered Angel said, ‘Ahmed, find DS Carter and tell her I want her.'

A few minutes later DS Carter arrived.

‘Ah, Flora,' he said. ‘Come with me.'

He dashed up the corridor to the back exit of the station into the car park. Flora followed behind.

They got into the BMW and he drove it through the town.

She noticed he was particularly preoccupied and had nothing to say until he turned into Sheffield Road, then he opened up. ‘You know a bit about plants, don't you, Flora?' he said.

‘A bit, sir. Not much. Why?' she said.

‘You know what monkshood looks like, don't you?'

‘Oh yes, sir.'

‘Well, I'm going to drive around the posh parts of the town and suburbs, and I want you to take a note of the gardens where you see monkshood growing. And when you do, shout up.'

She thought it was a bit strange. Of course, she knew the significance of monkshood to the Robinson/Novak murders, but she could easily do that job on her own and presumably the inspector could easily have done it without her. And besides all that. …

‘Don't you think it's rather a long shot, sir?' she said.

Angel's body tensed up. The BMW screeched to a stop.

Carter was expecting a vehicle to run into their rear. She looked round. There was nothing close behind.

She looked at him. He had his eyes closed. He opened them, looked back at her and through tight lips he said, ‘Of course it's a
long
shot. What else have we got?'

Before she had chance to answer he said, ‘I'll tell you, Flora. We've got two men with only half their clothes on, in their hotel bedrooms, cruelly poisoned with monkshood. We've got a solitary fruit gum on the floor by each of the beds, the photograph of a baby with a date on the back, a bunch of lilies bought from a shop that subsequently was fired by an arsonist. And … and … and that's about all I can think of.'

She stared at him with her mouth open.

But before she could reply he said, ‘And talking about long shots, I've got Trevor Crisp wading through thousands of names of patients who were at that hospital in Norfolk since 2003, in the hope that he comes across the name of somebody connected with the case. That might be a longer shot than looking for local growers of monkshood! So I
am
backing long shots, Flora. What would
you
do?'

‘I don't quite know, sir, but I do know there's no need for you to chauffeur
me
round. I am perfectly capable of finding gardens in and around the town that have monkshood in them, and then tripping off to the council tax office to find the owners of the gardens. And I'm sure that you
know
that.'

His lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘I
do
know that,' he said. ‘The trouble is, Flora, I'm running out of lines of inquiry. I am getting quite desperate. I'm on edge in case I can't solve this damned case.'

‘You've always succeeded before, sir. Why do you think you won't solve this one?'

‘Doors are closing, Flora … time is going on … I can't explain.'

‘We'll get there, sir.'

Angel sighed. ‘Maybe. Look, I'm sure you'd rather do this on your own.'

He reached forward, put the car in gear and the BMW set off again. ‘I'll take you back to the station,' he said evenly.

He pulled into his parking space near the rear entrance to the station. He stayed in the car as she got out and went to her own car. Angel watched her. She was soon behind the wheel of the Ford and driving out of the yard.

Even on that short journey round Bromersley, something had occurred to him. Monkshood wouldn't be grown in the back streets. You wouldn't find monkshood in Canal Street or in terraced rows that didn't have gardens. The murderer would be relatively well off. At least he or she would live in a house with a garden. And he or she must have had access and privacy to a kitchen or scullery or similar to prepare the poison. And it still seemed logical (thinking back to the oriental lilies in Robinson's hotel room) that the murderer was a woman.

He thought he was part of the way there to solving the murder. He was looking for a well-to-do woman. Someone who was masterful and strong-willed. A woman who had something to hide.

An idea occurred to him. He started up the engine and put the car in gear. He went off to the Northern Bank and made some inquiries. He was in there half an hour. When he came out, he was much more settled. His breathing was steady and even. He looked happier and more content than he had for a week or more.

He got in the BMW and returned to the station. When he reached his office, he picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

A voice said, ‘DS Carter.'

‘Ah, Flora. How's it going?'

‘Oh, hello, sir. There are loads of people with monkshood in their gardens up here.'

‘Where are you?'

‘High Bromersley. There's Lady Muick's castle gardens, Mrs Mackenzie, Sir Rodney Stamp and Mrs Truelove, widow of old Mr Enoch.'

Angel smiled. ‘Great stuff.'

After a refreshing evening cutting the lawn and thinking things through, Angel arrived at his office full of optimism and go.