The Dog Collar Murders (14 page)

He agreed, then silently reckoned he needed all the help he could get.

‘It would be worthwhile having a photograph of it in the
Bromersley Chronicle
, Flora,’ he said. ‘If we could recover it, even if it had been discarded empty, we might get some DNA that could lead us straight to the thieves. Get Ahmed to photograph it.’

‘Right, sir. But there’s something else.’

He looked up.

‘That American, Ben Wizard character, ex-partner of Felicity Kellerman, sir. Got his email address from her.’

‘Yes. What about him?’ he said.

‘I managed to catch up with him, sir. He said that he has a
two-week
booking at the Cat and the Canary, Washington Avenue, in Seattle. I asked him where he was at three o’clock on Monday
afternoon
, the time that Harry Weston was shot, and he said on a train travelling down from Liverpool to London, on his way to Heathrow.’

Angel sighed. ‘That’s not good enough, Flora. He could have shot Harry Weston at the ticket office at three o’clock, taken a later train via Sheffield to Euston, then on to Heathrow.’

She nodded. ‘I’ll check on the CCTV, sir?’

‘It will be too late for that. British Rail won’t have kept tapes since then. You could try Heathrow. See what flight he was on, and the time of its departure. That might confirm his story. If he was in the air before, say, seven o’clock, Monday night, he couldn’t possibly have murdered Harry Weston, or the two priests, and he couldn’t have been the one who turned Father Riley’s place
upside-down
.’

‘I’ll get straight on to it, sir.’

She went out.

The arrival of Flora Carter with the suitcase reminded Angel that he was in possession of three exhibits that were actually used by the robbers in the security van robbery. He swivelled round in the chair to the small table behind him and picked up two evidence bags. He looked at the labels. In one bag was the screwdriver used to short circuit the key switch on the crane, and in the other bag the two that had been sharpened and used to puncture two of the tyres of the
stolen furniture van. SOCO had been unable to find any prints or DNA on any of them and they had been on the table behind him for the past two days.

He took them out of their bags and examined them carefully. The three screwdrivers matched each other. They were ten inches long, the handles were made from a dark burgundy-coloured rubber
material
and had six sides. On each of the sides was a tiny logo composed of five white rectangles, three black rectangles and the letters MO scrolled over them all.

Angel looked at the logo, trying to work out what it might
represent
. He pulled open a desk drawer, rummaged around inside it and brought out a jeweller’s 8x loupe. He fitted it into his eye and peered closely at the screwdriver handle. He went over to the window for the best light and turned it over for different angles, but he couldn’t work out what the logo represented. He looked at it with the loupe again. The phone rang. He returned to his desk and dropped into the swivel chair. He picked up the receiver and got a loud blast of a man coughing loudly into the earpiece. He knew it was Harker. The coughing persisted. Angel held the phone away at arm’s length until it stopped.

‘Are you there, Angel?’ Harker said, clearing his throat. ‘I want you in my office, now.’

‘Right, sir,’ Angel said.

Harker banged down the phone.

The muscles of Angel’s face tightened and he rubbed his chin hard. He had no idea what the superintendent wanted to see him about. It was probably to chivvy him up about his lack of progress with the case. He always had a go at him about two or three days into a murder investigation. Whatever it was, it would be annoying, difficult and unhelpful. It always was. He dropped the loupe back into the drawer and closed it, but left the screwdrivers and
everything
else as it was. He dashed out of his office, up the corridor, knocked on Harker’s door and went in.

The superintendent was sitting at his desk behind piles of papers, wiping his purple nose.

‘Come in, lad,’ Harker said. ‘Keep that door shut, and sit down.’

Angel quickly closed the door and turned round into the room. A shaft of warm air hit him in the face. He blinked. The office was
hot enough to grow mushrooms. Angel soon found out why.

Harker had a large portable fan heater behind the desk about a yard away from his feet and legs. He grunted and said, ‘There’s a flour bin occupying a cell. The duty sergeant said that it was yours, and that you’re hanging on to the key.’

‘Yes. That’s right, sir.’

‘I presume there’s a reason for it. It’s not that flour is going to be in short supply and it would interfere with your cake baking, is it?’

Angel wasn’t pleased. He quickly told him what was inside the bin, and that it belonged to Miss Wilkinson and that she was due there that morning to take responsibility for it and organize the counting and payment of it into a bank.

‘We’re not Securicor, you know, lad. Get shot of it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now how’s the murder case coming along? Who have you got in the frame?’

Angel didn’t want to answer him. ‘Nobody, actually, sir.’

‘
Nobody
?’

‘There are several people who might have a motive for murdering Harry Weston, but no
one
suspect stands out.’

‘Who, for example?’

He would ask that, Angel thought. ‘Well, sir, witnesses have said that Harry Weston had relationships with two girls at the same time. I don’t see that as a motive for murdering anybody, but some people do. Matter of pride. So there’s Angus Rossi, father of the girl Weston had been seeing on a regular basis until two weeks ago. Angus Rossi is a hot-tempered, uncouth and proud sort of man. Then there’s Ben Wizard, partner or ex-partner of the girl Weston had abruptly befriended a few months back. But Ben Wizard has a beard and whiskers, and the murderer is clean shaven. Or there’s Clive Grogan, son of Grogan, the ice-cream manufacturer, now courting Madeleine Rossi. He might be under pressure from Madeleine to prove his love for her by shooting the young man who she says was cheating on her, except that he’s far too civilized, well brought up and, I think, too young. And there is a man of the road, known as Irish John.’

‘Is this Irish John known to us?’

‘No, sir. I’ve got Crisp trying to find him. He hasn’t reported back yet. He might be having a difficult time. I thought it might be possible that he might have called for a handout at each of the two vicarages, had the gun and shot each priest, robbed him and then turned their places upside-down looking for more money. Also, there might be other men of the road I may have to find and interview. I’m hopeful of turning up a discretionary payment record at one of the churches that might produce information about other regulars calling at the vicarages, manses and
presbyteries
.’

Harker’s ginger eyebrows floated upwards. ‘Is that the extent of your progress?’

Angel wasn’t pleased. ‘Well, I have been diverted by other cases and security matters,’ he said.

Harker sniffed. ‘What about the murderer of the other two men?’ he said.

‘I’ve nothing new on that, sir.’

‘What forensic have you got?’

‘Only a white thread found on the body of the priest, Raymond Gulli of St Barnabas’s Church. I am waiting for SOCO to report further on it, if there is anything more to say. They confirm that it has definitely come from the murderer’s clothes because there aren’t any textiles in the vicinity that match it.’

‘And what’s this about the suspect always seen in a white gown? What sort of a white gown?’

Angel shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know, sir. I really don’t know.’

‘Why would a man walk around in white, in Bromersley?’ Harker said. Then he suddenly looked up. ‘I suppose it is a man, and not a woman?’ he added.

‘It’s a man, sir,’ Angel said.

‘A man in a dog collar?’

Angel nodded then said, ‘I have a witness. She says she saw a man in a dog collar leaving the scene.’

‘Well, have you evidence to show that the murders were committed by one and the same person?’

‘No, sir. But I do know that the victims were all killed by the same gun. Last night, Peter King made an attempt to get into St
Joseph’s presbytery. At first I thought he could have been the murderer but I don’t know. He’s such a liar. He might even confess to it but it wouldn’t necessarily be valid. He confessed to murdering and raping that girl in Leeds just before Christmas but of course he didn’t do it.’

‘You have an eye witness, a woman, Zoe Costello?’

Angel shrugged. ‘Yes.’

‘Have you had King in a line-up?’

‘I considered it, sir. He’ll probably invalidate it by making himself conspicuous. He always looks guilty.’

‘Never mind that. Put him in a line-up and go for a confession.’

Angel’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘I don’t want a false arrest,’ he said.

‘I don’t,’ Harker said quickly.

Angel didn’t believe him.

‘Peter King is a bloody nuisance,’ Harker continued. ‘He’s
responsible
for half the petty crime in this town. If he wants a spell inside again, he can have a spell inside. We’ve got to get our figures up. There are too many criminals in Bromersley.’

Angel was outraged. He had difficulty remaining seated. His eyes shone like lasers and he had to consciously regulate his breathing to control himself. He’d known Harker eleven years and he knew he couldn’t reason with him but he would have to think very carefully indeed about what his boss had just said. He felt uncomfortably hot, and it wasn’t entirely caused by the fan heater. He ran his fingers round his shirt collar, pulling it away from his neck. It didn’t afford him much relief. He knew he must change the subject, move on and get out of Harker’s office.

‘About that cocaine intelligence, sir,’ Angel said.

Harker’s bushy eyebrows shot up. ‘Aye. What about it?’

‘How long do you want to maintain the surveillance? I have had two teams outside those warehouses for two days now. Could be getting risky.’

‘Mmm,’ Harker said, nodding. He pursed his thin blue lips.

Angel watched him and waited. Harker wouldn’t be pleased if his posh mate in the Met had fed him duff information.

‘Call the surveillance off at the end of today’s shift, lad,’ Harker said.

Angel looked up, his mouth open. He was amazed to find that
there was something they agreed on. It was years since that had happened.

Then Harker started coughing. He quickly took two pills with a sip of water. The coughing continued. Angel waited. Harker went red in the face. As soon as the coughing subsided, it started up again. Eventually, Harker picked up a throat spray, pointed to the door and waved Angel away. He didn’t need telling twice.

He came out of the sweatbox and made his way down the green corridor to his office. He slumped down in the swivel chair. His face was a picture: he looked like he’d bitten into a Jaffa and found it was a lemon. He leaned back in the chair, rubbed his face and considered what exactly had happened in those last few minutes. Harker had instructed him to organize an identity parade, and he wanted him to fix it (if it needed fixing) so that Peter King was picked out as the murderer by the witness, Zoe Costello, then to build a case against him to make sure he was convicted. And he wanted him to do that to increase the clear-up rate, because King was a nuisance when he was out of prison and because Harker considered it would be relatively easy to build a case against him as King was so desperate to be a famous criminal, even a multiple murderer.

Angel didn’t like it one bit and he knew he couldn’t do it. He mulled over the problem a little while then made a decision. He would do all that Harker had said, go through all the motions, but stop before actually charging the man. If King was innocent, there were bound to be big holes in the case. Angel could highlight them to Mr Twelvetrees, the barrister at the CPS, if needs be. He would reject the case and hopefully that would be the end of the matter. Of course, a more certain way of preventing Peter King being charged, tried and imprisoned was for Angel to find and charge the actual murderer.

His thoughts were disturbed by a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ he called.

It was Ahmed. He was holding an envelope. ‘There’s a young lady at reception, sir. She sent this letter down for you. There’s a man with her. I think he’s her driver.’

Angel tore open the envelope. The letter was handwritten on blue letter-headed notepaper. It read:

Angel looked up at Ahmed. ‘Good,’ he said and he patted his jacket pocket to check that he had the key to cell two. ‘Come with me, lad.’

They trudged up to the reception office and Angel peered through the partially obscured striped glass window to check that it was Elaine Jubb who had brought the letter, and also to clock in Quentin Lamb and make sure that everything was above board. Then Angel gave the key to cell two to Ahmed and instructed him to hand the sealed flour bin over to them, return the key to the duty jailer and report back to him ASAP.

Ahmed rushed off in the direction of the cells, while Angel went back down the green corridor. When he arrived at his office, Angel picked up the phone and tapped out a number. It rang out a long time but was eventually answered by Crisp.