The Big Fiddle (13 page)

Christine Elsworth went red and then purple. She turned to Mackenzie, who looked confused. Some fervent whispering ensued.

Angel quietly turned away.

At that morning’s sitting of the magistrates’ court, Christine Elsworth was summoned to attend the crown court on a date to be determined, charged with handling the money, with bail set in her own recognizance at £5,000. The magistrates also issued a court order for possession of the stolen money.

Angel came out of the court with the chief clerk to the court, solicitor Mr Cresswell, and the CPS barrister, Mr Twelvetrees. Both legal eagles agreed that the crown court would find Christine Elsworth guilty when the case was heard later in the year.

Angel made his excuses courteously on the steps of the court and rushed over to his office in the police station. He was pleased to see that Ahmed had brought in the reel-to-reel recorder and put it on his desk. He would have to get to it as soon as he possibly could.

He picked up the phone and tapped in DS Taylor’s mobile number. ‘Don, when you have checked over those plastic bags of money, I want you to take them to the magistrates’ court office. The magistrates have issued a court order for possession of the money, so it will all have to be delivered to the clerk of the court, Alan Cresswell, ASAP. And be sure and get a receipt. All right?’

‘Right, sir,’ Taylor said.

‘Tell me, have you found anything else of interest to us in her house?’

‘Only that Yogi Bear mask, which we have carefully bagged. If she’s anything to hide, she’s made a good job of it.’

‘Right, Don. Keep at it.’

Angel returned the phone to its holster. It immediately began to ring. He reached out for it again. It was DS Crisp.

‘Yes, lad,’ Angel said. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.’

Crisp sounded breathless. ‘It’s Charles Morris, sir. He’s gone. The flat has been vacated. Apparently he left yesterday, although his rent is paid up to the end of the month.’

Angel was speechless. He was kicking himself for not being quicker in reacting to the man’s reluctance to come forward to leave his fingerprints. Morris could be the murderer and Angel had so easily let him slip through his fingers.

‘Are you there, sir?’ Crisp said.

‘How do you know he left yesterday?’ Angel said.

‘The neighbours told me. They’re two old biddies who would never miss anything. They saw him loading his bags and stuff into his car.’

‘And how do you know his rent is paid up?’

‘The church apparently still owns the old vicarage and lets it out, and the rent is paid monthly to a church warden, Mr Timms, who told me.’

‘Mmmm. See what else you can find out about Morris. Ask around the village locals, his neighbours, anybody he might have come into contact with. Morris might have dropped some titbit of information in an unguarded moment.’

‘Right, sir. I’ll give it a try.’

‘I wish we had a photograph of him.’

‘He’d be very chary about that, particularly if he’s on the run.’

‘Aye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Tell you what, Trevor, I’m going to send a fingerprint man up there immediately, so stop anybody going into the flat. Also, find Morris’s refuse and guard it with your life until Don Taylor and his lads get up there. Then report back to me. All right?’

Angel then promptly instructed DS Taylor to send a
fingerprint
man to Morris’s flat in Tunistone directly, and then for the rest of the SOCO team to join their man in Tunistone as soon as they had finished searching Christine Elsworth’s property. He
needed to know as much as possible about the mysterious Mr Morris.

He then turned his attention to the reel-to-reel recorder on his desk in front of him. He connected it to his landline phone, switched on the recorder, cleared his throat to check the sound level indicator needle, then he tapped in Edward Oliver’s mobile number.

As he listened to the phone ringing out, he felt his mouth go dry and his pulse rate quicken. After all, he was about to speak to a murderer.

A man’s voice all of a sudden said, ‘Hello?’

‘It that Mr Oliver?’ Angel said.

‘Who wants to know?’

The owner of the voice was fairly well spoken. He was either educated or giving a good imitation of someone who had been educated.

‘I understand that you were interested in 22 Jubilee Park Road?’

There was a pause, then the voice said, ‘I might be. Who
is
this?’

‘I’m speaking for Adrian Potter, estate agents, Ernest Potter and Son, Victoria Road. He wondered if you wanted to view the house?’

‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I know who you are. You’re that nosey detective who is always getting his name in the papers. The
know-all
who reckons he hasn’t lost a case yet. Detective Inspector Michael Angel, isn’t it? Look, Angel, I’ve given you one warning. And from me, one is enough, I promise you. Keep out of my way.’

‘You don’t frighten me – whoever you are, just because you murdered a young woman. Why don’t you give yourself up? You’re obviously sick.’

‘You don’t understand. And you never will understand. I loved that girl, but she wouldn’t tell me where the money was hidden.’

‘Maybe that was because she didn’t know.’

‘
She knew
. Anyway, I am warning you, Angel, keep out of it, or you’ll go the same way she did. You’ll never catch me.’

‘I am only a footstep behind you. Give yourself up before you hurt anybody else.’

‘Oh, I’m not scared of you, Angel. Now, this is your last warning. I haven’t finished yet and you’ll be next if you don’t keep out of my way.’

‘Huh! I don’t think so.’

The line went dead.

Angel knew he had gone. His heart was beating like a Salvation Army drum. He replaced the phone in its holster, ran back the recording and listened to the playback. He was quite disturbed by some of what he heard.

Firstly, he realized that the man recognized him solely from the sound of his voice, therefore he must have heard him speak several times at least. A voice could not be remembered after a short, casual exchange. He must have heard Angel speak at length, perhaps in an interview, or several interviews, or in court. The policeman had interviewed hundreds of witnesses and villains over the years, and been interviewed himself many times in court. It was disturbing. And there was something else: if the murderer knew him, then Angel must know the murderer.

Secondly, there was the threat to keep out of his way or he would murder him. Over the years Angel had had so many threats from all sorts of villains and brushed them aside as merely words. On this occasion, it seemed different.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in.’

It was Ahmed.

Angel looked up at him.

‘I can’t find any trace of an Edward Oliver, sir. I’ve also tried Ted Oliver, T. Oliver, Ed Oliver and Eddie Oliver. I can’t find a thing. Do you want me to extend the area or try another name?’

‘No, Ahmed, thank you. It is obviously a waste of time.’

‘Is Edward Oliver the name of the murderer of Nancy Quinn, sir?’

Angel nodded. ‘It’s an alias he has used, Ahmed. I’d give anything to know his
real
name. I now have his voice on the recorder. Will you take that machine into the CID office and ask the officers to listen to it? If anybody thinks they recognize the voice I’d be pleased to hear from them.’

‘Right, sir.’

Angel stood up and reached out for his coat.

‘Oh yes, Ahmed. There’s another thing.’

Ahmed reached for his notebook and pen.

‘Can you get in touch with Scrivens on his mobile?’ Angel said as he pushed an arm through the coat sleeve. ‘I’ve sent him off to get some info on a character called Ronald Arthur Bottomley. Will you tell him that Bottomley was one of the two robbers caught after the big robbery from Royal Westminster Bank in 1983. If he comes across it, the other one’s name was Vernon Almond. Got it?’

‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said with a knowing look. ‘So you managed to get through that email from the bank, then, sir?’

‘Aye. I make a point of reading everything to do with the case that is put in front of me, Ahmed. I look at everything and
everybody
concerned with the case. It’s sorting out what’s significant to the investigation, and what is not, that’s important.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said thoughtfully. ‘I see what you mean.’

‘I’m going up to Tunistone to Charles Morris’s flat. If you want me, you can get me on my mobile.’

A
ngel found the flats easily. He only had to look for a church steeple, to find St Peter’s Church, and the old vicarage was only thirty metres away.

The ground floor had only two flats on it and Morris had been living in flat 2. Angel knocked on the door, opened it and looked inside.

DS Taylor in his white paper overalls and four other men dressed similarly looked across at him.

‘Oh, it’s you, sir,’ Taylor said.

Angel nodded.

Taylor came across the big room towards him. The other three SOCO men carried on with the searching operation.

Angel closed the door and looked round. It was a big, sparsely furnished sitting room with French windows both sides of the
fireplace
which opened out to a long, well-maintained garden. On the chimney breast was hanging an old French clock with a face the size of a dinner plate. It showed the time at 10.58 a.m.

‘Got anything of interest, Don?’

Taylor smiled. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘and I think you’ll like it.’

He reached into a large white shoulder bag at his feet, unzipped it, took out a polythene evidence bag and held it up.

Angel could see that the bag contained a plastic Yogi Bear mask, identical to the one he’d found with the money in
Piddington’s loft. His pulse began to race. ‘Where did you find that?’

‘In the wheelie bin, sir. Morris had obviously discarded it.’

Angel smiled. ‘That would be another one of the three masks worn during the robbery in 1983, and it lends credence to the hypothesis that Charles Morris knew about Ernest Piddington and the ten million quid. However, it seemed that he didn’t know it was sitting in his loft disguised as a water tank.’

‘I knew you’d be pleased.’

‘Any prints on it?’

‘There are some smudges, sir. We haven’t had chance to make any comparisons yet. And we haven’t been able to pick up any of Charles Morris’s fingerprints either.’

Angel looked at him strangely. ‘But the man lived here for a few months. Don’t tell me he’s been eating, sleeping, washing and doing whatever else people do with gloves on?’

‘Every surface, ridge, doorknob, door handle, grip and ledge we can think of has been wiped over with a cotton vest soaked in white spirit. It’s as if he knew we would be looking for them.’

Angel frowned. ‘How do you know it’s a vest?’

‘Because we found it in the waste, sir. It was at the top of his wheelie.’

Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Is it all right if I walk about the place?’

‘Yes, sir. The vacuuming is done, the photography and the floor are finished. All we have to do is a finger search and a final look round for his prints.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Taylor said, and he went across the room and opened the door.

‘Come in, Mr Timms,’ Taylor said.

A big man with a face like a worried hippopotamus came in. ‘This is most irregular,’ Timms said. ‘We’ve never had a tenant
who dashed off leaving us with a flat to let like this. It is most irregular. And I’m afraid that he paid his rent in cash.’

Taylor looked disappointed. ‘Thank you for checking anyway,’ he replied. ‘Meet my boss, Detective Inspector Angel. He’s in charge of the case. This is Mr Timms, church warden of St Peter’s. Mr Timms has been to see how Morris paid his rent. I thought if he had had a bank account, we could possibly have been able to trace him that way.’

Angel nodded. Then he smiled courteously at Timms and said, ‘I am sorry that your tenant has run out on you. We are also very interested in catching up with him. Can you tell me? … When he applied for the tenancy of the flat, how did he hear that it was coming vacant?’

‘We ran an advertisement in the
Bromersley Chronicle
,’ Timms said.

‘And in response to that, he wrote to you?’

‘No. He phoned.’

‘Did he say where he was living at the time?’

‘I believe he said he was staying in a hotel.’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘A hotel? In Bromersley or … or some other town?’

‘I don’t believe he said, Inspector. If he did, I don’t remember.’

‘Mmm.’

The clock on the chimney breast began to strike. Angel looked at his watch. It said 11.05. ‘I think it’s slow,’ he said.

Taylor said, ‘Yes, sir. It is.’

Timms looked at his watch. ‘Five minutes. Can’t abide a slow clock,’ he said and went up to the wall to take it down.

Angel said, ‘Leave it, sir, please.’

Timms’s jaw dropped. ‘I just want to put it right, Inspector.’

Angel turned to Taylor. ‘Has it been checked for prints, Don?’ he said.

‘Don’t know, sir. We don’t usually check stuff on walls like clocks for prints. I’ll find out.’

While Taylor rushed off to consult the member of the SOCO team who had been responsible for checking for fingerprints throughout the flat, Angel turned back to the church warden and said, ‘Sorry, Mr Timms, for being so abrupt, but we are anxious not to miss any place where this chap Morris’s fingerprints might be.’

‘That’s all right, Inspector. I didn’t realize. But you do have to take the clock off the wall to adjust the time. I am used to it. I am afraid it seems to lose about three minutes a week.’

Taylor returned with one of his SOCO team, a young
detective
constable in white paper overalls and rubber gloves carrying a pot of aluminium powder and a soft brush. The young man deftly applied thin amounts of powder with the brush on the glass and wood face of the clock, and peered at the result from different angles using a small hand torch. Apparently finding nothing usable, he carefully removed the clock from the wall and did the same to the back of the clock. His face brightened when he peered closely at his handiwork with the torch, and he reached into his pocket for a roll of clear tape.

Angel read the signs. ‘What you got, lad?’ he said.

‘Eight fingertips. Four at each side. Must have been made while taking the clock off the wall, sir,’ the detective constable said. ‘There were corresponding thumb prints on the face of the clock, but they were smudged.’

‘Are they recent?’

‘They seem to be, sir.’

The young man lifted the prints with the tape and applied the tape to stiff card, then he made some notes on the card, returned the clock to the wall, and went away into another room.

Angel turned to Taylor and said, ‘Get him to email those prints to Records immediately, Don.’

‘Right, sir.’

Satisfied that the search for the ID of Charles Morris was moving along satisfactorily, Angel left Taylor and his SOCO team at Morris’s flat and returned to the station.

He was sitting at his desk trying to make sense of all the details accumulated in the two murder cases. It was difficult trying to distinguish between inconsequential information, and vital,
meaningful
evidence. He considered the facts. A beautiful young woman, Nancy Quinn, carer to old Mr Piddington, was savagely murdered by stabbing which seemed to have occurred during sexual intercourse. The man known as Edward Oliver boasted as much, and Angel had a description of him from two witnesses. They had said that he was tall, dark and handsome with a cherubic face. In addition, while speaking to him on the phone, Oliver had quickly recognized Angel’s voice, which meant he must have known Angel and in turn Angel must know him, at least to have spoken to him several times. However, Angel couldn’t bring him to mind. There were so many people he had spoken to over the years.

Then Angel turned his thoughts to the murder of Ernest Piddington.

His first suspect was Piddington’s daughter, Christine Elsworth, suspicious because she wanted to keep the existence of the money secret and thereby retain it entirely for herself? Perhaps she was worried that in his ramblings, old Mr Piddington might have let out the secret of the money in the loft to some villain.

His second suspect was the man purporting to be Charles Morris, who was courting Moira Elsworth possibly to get near the money. An individual who had now vanished. Angel had told
Moira that her fingerprints
and
his would be required. When she conveyed the message, Morris seemed to have run off, dumping the 30-year-old mask on the way.

Angel was thinking about that when he recalled that Moira’s fingerprints had still not yet been obtained. Also, it was quite possible that she could assist them in their search for Morris.

He reached out for the phone and tapped in Crisp’s mobile number.

‘Where are you, lad?’

‘In my car, just pulling into the station car park, sir.’

‘Come straight up to my office. I’ve got a job for you.’

A few minutes later, Crisp knocked on the door.

‘I want you to pick up Moira Elsworth,’ Angel said. ‘I asked her to call in so that we could take her fingerprints a few days ago. She never arrived. Also I want to interview her. I don’t have her address, but you know where her mother’s flower kiosk is, don’t you? Start there.’

‘Yes. Right, sir.’

‘Now look, Trevor, she’s a strikingly beautiful young woman. All I want you to do is deliver her here and let me interview her before you start making any romantic advances towards her.’

‘I don’t chase
every
woman that comes along, sir.’

‘If they’re under fifty and don’t have a face like Red Rum you’re after them as if sex was going out of fashion.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘It might not be fair, but it’s true. Now hop off, lad, and bring in Moira Elsworth.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Crisp said and made for the door, when somebody knocked on it.

‘See who it is, lad.’

It was DC Ted Scrivens.

‘Come in, Ted,’ Angel said.

Crisp and Scrivens acknowledged each other with a nod. Then Crisp went out and closed the door.

Angel said, ‘Now then, lad, have you managed to trace the family of that chap Bottomley?’

‘Yes, sir. I was glad of that message you sent by Ahmed.’

‘Good. Right, lad. Tell me what you got.’

‘The young priest at St Cecilia’s Church, where Bottomley’s funeral service was held, has only been in the job a year, so he didn’t know the family. I traced the previous priest and he didn’t know them either. There were some records, however. His widow’s address at the time of the funeral was given, but she had moved twice since then. I eventually caught up with her, still living in Bromersley. She was living in Canal Street.’

Angel’s eyebrows lowered and his face creased. Canal Street was the roughest and lowest street in town. He felt sorry for anyone living down there.

‘She denied that she was Bettina Aimee Bottomley at first,’ Scrivens said, ‘as she had reverted to her maiden name. She was eighty-two years of age and lived with her daughter, Patrice, and her son-in-law. When I mentioned the robbery in 1983 she became quite angry. She said that Ronald had got twelve years for robbing the Royal Westminster Bank in 1983, but that she had not seen a penny of it, also that he had died three years later in a hospital while serving time in Franklin prison, Durham. She said that Vernon Almond had also been found guilty with him and that he had been sent to serve his time in Armley. She had heard that he had died last year. His widow sent her a letter from an address in Leeds. She hadn’t heard from her since.’

‘You’ve got the address?’

‘Yes, of course, sir.’

‘They also had a son, Sean. Did she mention him?’

‘No, sir, but I asked her where he was and how he was doing.
And she said that she saw him from time to time and that he was doing very well.’

‘Right, lad,’ Angel said. ‘Great stuff. Did you find out anything else worth knowing?’

‘Don’t think so, sir.’

‘Well, follow up that lead to Vernon Almond’s widow in Leeds. Let’s see if that produces anything more helpful.’

Scrivens grinned, stood up and said, ‘Right, sir,’ and went out.

A few minutes later Crisp arrived.

‘I’ve got Moira Elsworth and Gerald Mackenzie in interview room number one, sir,’ he said. ‘Her mother insisted that she had a solicitor present.’

Angel shrugged. Having a solicitor present meant that he could interview as hard as the solicitor would allow without there being any argument later about who said what, and complaints about bullying and charges that he had taken advantage of her gender and age and all that, so Angel wasn’t put out at all. Anyway, every word uttered would be recorded.

‘All right, lad. You’d better sit in on this with me, Trevor,’ he said, getting up from his desk.

They both made their way out of the office and a short way up the corridor to the brown door marked ‘Interview Room 1’.

Having thanked them both for coming in, Angel sat opposite Moira Elsworth, and Crisp opposite Gerald Mackenzie.

Angel switched on the recording machine, checked that he could see both spools rotating, made the usual introductions and then said, ‘Miss Elsworth, four days ago, on Tuesday, when I saw you at your mother’s shop, I asked you to call here as soon as you could, with Mr Morris, to give us your fingerprints for elimination purposes, but you failed to arrive. Are you prepared to leave your fingerprints with us now?’

‘Yes, of course. I am sorry that I have not been sooner, but to tell the truth, Inspector, I forgot all about it.’

Angel wasn’t very pleased. His lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘Your grandfather had been murdered, and the only thing you could possibly have done to help us find the culprit was to give us your fingerprints for elimination purposes, and you forgot all about it?’

Moira’s face went scarlet. She lowered her head.

‘In addition,’ Angel said, ‘I discover that Mr Morris has left his flat in Tunistone in a big hurry. He has disappeared without trace, without leaving a forwarding address, also without leaving us his prints.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘An apology is hardly adequate, Miss Elsworth. Perhaps you could tell us why he has disappeared and where he is now?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t. He said that he had some urgent family
business
to attend to that wouldn’t wait, but that he would be back as soon as he could.’