Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery) (17 page)

Amos nodded to Swift, whom he could now see and who broke off from the half-hearted interrogation and slid past him out of the room. Amos stepped neatly inside and closed the door behind him.

"I don't have time to mess about," he said briskly. "I want the set of keys you have to all the flats."

Foster was visibly taken aback. "What do you mean? What keys? All the residents have their own."

"But you keep a set from the days when this block belonged to the council. Are you going to hand them over or do I have to take them?"

Foster stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Amos demanded sharply.

"For the keys," Foster replied simply. "They're hidden in my bedroom."

Thank goodness, Amos thought to himself, Foster didn't try to call my bluff. Getting a search warrant would have left him the inspector too tight for time.

“You don’t normally keep them in your bedroom, do you? Where are they normally kept?”

By way of answer, the caretaker pulled open the top right hand drawer of the desk then closed it again.

Foster pushed back his chair and squeezed out from behind the desk. A door to his right led through into the tiny rooms that formed his modest living quarters. A few moments later he returned dangling the precious keys from one hand. It was a heavy bunch held together on a length of grubby string.

Amos had taken a plastic bag out of his pocket and indicated to Foster to drop the keys into it. It might be vital to know if there were any prints on them other than Foster's. Amos slipped the bulky bag into his pocket with some difficulty. It left quite a bulge.

"Thank you," he said, "for this evidence."

The accent was on the word evidence. The officer was trying not to betray the haste with which he needed to move. He didn't want Foster dragging his feet on purpose.

Amos continued, "now you will take your brush and mess about near the bottom of the stairs. When my constable comes to the landing and signals to you, you will tell the sentry to leave the barrier up and to go round the back for a smoke. Tell him those are my orders."

Then the next bit deliberately, "you will go round the back with him and stay out of sight. Neither you nor the guard will tell anyone we have been here this afternoon. Is that all clear?"

Foster grunted grudgingly. Amos left the room satisfied that the caretaker would follow.

"This way," the inspector said to his two accomplices. "One more visit."

Swift and Martin glanced at each other but neither guessed where they were going. Amos led them up to the first floor of flats, now numbered level three, and pressed the lift button. They could hear the lift whirr into action.

When the doors opened Amos was inside in a trice and pressed a button even before Swift or Martin could see which one. Martin, the last one in, was almost caught by the closing doors. The sensors picked up his movement and the doors opened again.

Amos stabbed the "close doors" button two or three times impatiently. There was no immediate response. Then suddenly the doors jerked and started to close. All three officers watched the strip of numbers over the lift door that indicated which floor they were at.

As the lift moved up, 3 went dead, then 4, the floor where Joanne Stevens lived, lit up. This was not, however, their destination for the lift continued to rise: 4 went out and 5 came to life.

This time the lift did stop. Amos stepped out and purposefully headed for flat 5B. He rapped sharply on the door, following this with a ring on the door bell. There was silence.

Elsie Norman, they knew, had seen them come in and clearly did not wish to receive them.

"Open the letterbox, Martin, and tell her we saw her at the window," Amos ordered wearily. Martin bent forward and did as he was asked.

Amos's patience snapped and, bending to the letterbox himself, added coldly: "Do you want us back with a search warrant?"

That did the trick, for Norman was immediately heard bustling up to the door. The clink of the chain being undone could be heard clearly and Norman pulled the door a couple of inches ajar.

Amos had his right hand on it, pushing Norman back until the gap was wide enough to slide through. He advanced on the helpless woman, forcing her to retreat so that the other two officers could gain admittance.

"Shut the door behind you," he instructed Martin curtly.

Norman was giving no more ground than she could help.

"What's the fuss?" she asked cantankerously. "I was coming. I was just in the kitchen making a cup of tea."

"Nice of you to offer," Amos remarked sardonically, "but we've no time for a brew."

Then he turned deadly serious: "Elsie Norman, I am arresting you in connection with the murder of Raymond Jones."

Chapter 37

Norman stared at Amos in silence for a few seconds before letting out a low gasp. Then, recovering from the momentary shock, she laughed mockingly into his face.

Amos could not return her stare. He turned away to the window and looked out.

“Read her the caution,” he ordered the constable without turning.

Martin supplied the necessary words but Norman was becoming increasingly truculent.

“You haven’t got anything on me,” she exclaimed scornfully. “Are you seriously arresting me? Come on then, let’s get down to the police station. We’ll see how long you can hold me.”

Amos glanced down at the chair and table near the window. A pair of knitting needles held three badly knitted rows. Progress seemed to be rather slow considering the amount of time she apparently devoted to the task.

Perhaps she spent all her time admiring the view. She could certainly see some way, into the entrances to buildings on either side of Killiney Court and those across the road.

Amos suddenly strode past Norman and flung open a bedroom door. He had moved to a second door before Norman had a chance to move or call out.

This room was in darkness except for the glow of a dim red bulb. Norman leapt at Amos, preventing him from opening the door more than a few inches. She slammed the door shut.

“What do you think you’re doing, poking round my flat?” she demanded angrily. “Have you got a search warrant? Well, have you?”

Instead of replying, Amos sent Martin off to remove Foster and the guard. Amos, Norman and Swift waited in silent until Martin returned to give the all clear.

“Let’s move quickly,” Amos said to Norman. “I don’t suppose you want to be seen being taken away by police officers.”

The small party quickly entered the lift and made their way to the ground floor. There was no-one around as they slipped into the waiting car and nipped out through the open barrier. 

Chapter 38

Amos knew it was too much to hope that his luck would last all day. The Chief Constable was back sooner than anyone expected, the Nottingham meeting having found the four leaders in general agreement. To make matters worse, he had been listening to Radio Lincolnshire on the car radio on his way back to headquarters.

The sensational news about the murder inquiry was, not surprisingly, the lead item in the local news bulletin, pushing the collapsing price of pork and its disastrous consequences for local pig breeders into second place.

Fortunately Fletcher was chauffeur driven or he would have become one of the accident victims that caused him so much anguish. He stormed into the building, shouting for the wretched press officer as he came.

Poor David had been dreading this moment since the Lincolnshire Echo had arrived half an hour earlier and he had seen the front page lead. He had taken the evening newspaper into Fletcher's office half a dozen times, putting it on his desk, turning it round, straightening it, picking it up and taking it out again.

David met Fletcher in the corridor. The chief constable wrenched the paper from the press officer's paralysed hands and marched without a pause into his office, reading the headline as he went. It confirmed the outrageous radio report.

Fletcher slammed the paper down on his desk.

"Where had they got all this from?" he demanded.

"I ... I d-don't know," stammered the quaking David.

"They can't both have made it up," snapped Fletcher. "Where's Amos."

"He's been out all afternoon, sir," David blurted out. "I've been trying to get hold of him."

“Ah, here’s Swift,” the chief constable interrupted. “Perhaps she can enlighten us.”

Swift had indeed been entrusted by Amos to head off wrath and interference. She smiled sweetly at Fletcher.

“Oh, good, you’re back Sir,” she remarked as if previously unaware that the officer had returned from Nottingham. “I was just coming in to brief David but I can give you the good news first hand.

“We have made an arrest in the Ray Jones case. Amos is interviewing her now and we should have everything wrapped up by tomorrow morning when she will appear in court. There’s tons of evidence in her flat and we expect to have a full confession when she is confronted with it. There’ll be no point in denying what she has been up to.”

“She?” asked Fletcher, taken by surprise at this unexpected but favourable turn of events.

“One of the women in the flats. Amos said to assure you he will fully update you personally as soon as he can. He can’t break off at the moment as he is at a crucial stage in the interview,” she added hastily.

Chapter 39

It was Amos who nearly gave the game away. The constant, intense pressure of the past few days, the lack of sleep, had finally caught up with him. Lulled by the boredom of waiting in the dark, unable to do or say anything, he dosed fitfully. A couple of times Swift had nudged him firmly but gently as he built up to a snore. Each time Amos awoke with a start then settled back again.

No-one spoke.

The clink of metal brought him in from his reverie. Half asleep, he grunted instinctively and shifted uneasily. There was silence. For a few seconds he wondered if he had scared off his quarry with his involuntary noise.

Amos was soon reassured. A somnolent sound in the dead of night was hardly untoward. There was another click as the front door was pushed, only for the chain to pull taut.

The inspector had hesitated over putting the chain on. It represented an obstacle to the intruder, who might panic and flee. Yet surely this simple precaution would be expected. It could have raised suspicion to leave the chain off.

There were more indeterminate and very quiet noises. With luck, someone was levering out the end of the chain from the door jamb.

“Come on,” Amos urged silently. “Don't back off.”

Silence returned but now Amos was alert, striving to hear any movement. There was nothing.

Then suddenly came the sound of frenzied blows crashing down on the bed accompanied by the grunts of the assailant. The unseen stranger paused, panting a little. Then there was silence again.

Amos gripped Swift's arm in case she moved precipitously. “The light,” he willed the stranger. “Switch the light on.”

Nothing happened. Yet Amos knew the intruder was still there, breathing heavily with the exertion but gradually more steadily, hardly daring to switch the light on after the previous disaster of breaking into the wrong flat and killing the wrong person.

Finally came the sound of someone feeling around and catching things in the dark. An ornament crashed to the floor and shattered, making Swift jump. Amos gripped her arm more tightly.

Suddenly the bedside light was on.

Amos stepped forward and opened the kitchen door that he had hidden behind. Swift stood looking apprehensively over his shoulder. Before them stood the dismayed figure of Jim Berry.

Chapter 40

Berry stood there, stunned for a few seconds. His eyes went from police officers to the bed. There was no tell-tale patch of oozing blood.

He looked back at Amos, then at the bar now lying where he had dropped it half way down the bed.

“Don't bother,” said Amos quietly. “There are too many of us.”

Martin appeared through the front door of the apartment even as he spoke. Two of the larger members of the uniformed branch followed him.

Berry grabbed the sheets in fury and yanked them back ferociously. Beneath them sat a row of cushions. A wig lay on the pillow, now only partly covering the crushed remains of a dummy's head.

“Oh dear,” said Amos coldly. “I shall have to buy the hairdressing salon a new one.”

Then turning to Martin, he said: “Give him the caution.”

Berry was not listening. He was transfixed by the ludicrous sight of the shattered inanimate objects on the bed.

“You understand?” Amos asked when Berry failed to respond to the caution. There was no response.

“Do you understand?” Amos asked in a louder tone.

Berry nodded, though Amos doubted whether he had taken in what Martin had said, or even quite taken in that he had been tricked.

“You should have let me kill her,” he said sadly. “She was evil.”

Berry used the past tense, Amos noticed, perhaps still not accepting that he had failed for the second time to rid himself and the world of Elsie Norman.

Chapter 41

“So how do we stand?” the chief constable demanded when Amos arrived at headquarters next morning. “Are you in a position to charge Elsie Norman?”

“Yes,” Amos replied simply.

“Has she admitted killing Raymond Jones? How much evidence have you got against her to make a murder charge stick?”

Amos had had no more than four hours sleep, having escorted Berry back to the cells, and was enjoying the pleasure of winding up the chief constable, safe in the knowledge that a successful conclusion to the case, plucked almost out of thin air, would afford him adequate protection.