The Cuckoo Clock Scam (4 page)

‘What about his eyebrows? What colour were they? Were they thick?’

‘Thick, and black.’

‘Brown black, grey black or jet black?’

‘Jet black,’ Bailey said, then he opened his eyes and blinked several times. ‘There’s nothing else. If I have my eyes closed any longer, I shall be asleep.’

‘Can you hold that picture in your memory? It’s vitally important. We’re on the hunt for a gunman who might be a murderer.’

The front door banged.

Angel looked round, and when he saw who it was, his face brightened. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Bailey. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

He stood up and crossed the floor.

‘I found out about the nightdress, sir,’ Gawber said quietly. ‘Pure silk. Got the assistant who actually served Santana. Lucky, that. She said that I wasn’t the first person to be inquiring about Mr Santana’s purchase. She said she thought that Mrs Santana must have been very pleased, and that he wasn’t at all fussy about the colour, but that he wanted it to be silk, roomy and sleeveless.’

Angel said: ‘Confirmation he bought the thing.’

‘Where does that get us, sir?’ Gawber said.

‘Damned if I know.’

Then out of his pocket Angel pulled the scrap of paper Scrivens had given him. He gave it to Gawber.

‘Here, Ron. These are the names and addresses of the three witnesses who were seated with Doonan. Call on them. See what you can find out.’

Gawber took the list, glanced at it and rushed off.

DS Taylor stuck his head through the door. ‘We’ve finished here, sir, and we’re all packed up. We’re off back up to Tunistone.’

Angel acknowledged him with a wave of the hand. He turned back to Bailey. ‘Still holding that picture of the gunman’s face,’ he said, ‘I want you to come back to the station and look at our rogues’ gallery, see if you can pick him out.’

Bailey looked pained. ‘I won’t be able to do that. I haven’t seen my bed for nigh on twenty-four hours.’

‘It won’t take long. I’ll take you up and I’ll bring you back here. Won’t take long, I promise.’

Bailey yawned then shrugged. ‘If it’ll help.’

Angel nodded, pulled out his mobile and phoned Ahmed.

‘I’ve got an address for Vincent Doonan, sir,’ Ahmed said.

‘Good. Hang on to it. Got another urgent job for you, lad. I want you to set up a laptop of our head and shoulders rogues’ gallery photos, showing only the area of the face from two inches above the eyebrows down to just below the nose, and blanking off the ears. Can you do that quickly and set the laptop up in my office?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

He closed the phone, but it rang immediately. He reopened it and pressed the talk button. It was Crisp. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m at the hospital, sir.’

Angel frowned. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Go on.’ He steeled himself for what he thought was to follow.

‘I managed to get to Vincent Doonan, sir,’ Crisp said. ‘I
asked him … I had to ask him several times … who had shot him and he eventually … simply said, “It was Liam Quigley” … and then he died.’

Angel identified a tremor in Crisp’s voice. Angel blew out a long breath, then said, ‘Right, lad. Come back to the station. I’ll meet you there.’

He slowly closed the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

He remembered the man called Liam Quigley. A big, ugly lump of a man, a small-time crook mostly involved in stealing and selling stolen property in public houses and fleamarkets. Murder was a big step for him. Angel sighed as he considered how many small-time crooks graduated into committing the worst crime of all. He looked up at Bailey and said, ‘It’s a case of murder now, Clem.’

Bailey’s mouth tightened. The tragic news made him more than willing to look at the rogues’ gallery. ‘All right then, let’s go.’

They both stood up to leave, just as the whirring sound from the mechanism of the cuckoo clock on the wall behind him began its hourly cycle and vulgarly proclaimed that the time was ten o’clock.

Angel looked round at it and frowned.

Ten minutes later, Angel and Bailey were coming down the station corridor as Ahmed was coming up it.

Ahmed said: ‘The laptop’s ready on your desk, sir.’

‘Right,’ Angel said and he ushered Bailey into his office.

The two men were soon seated in front of the laptop screen.

Angel expected Liam Quigley to be among the selection of pictures but he couldn’t be certain. Quigley had not been in
trouble for several years. It was possible his picture had been removed. Altogether, at that moment, there were 108 faces registered, six to a page. Parts of all the faces had been duly blanked off as Angel had instructed. There were no names under the photographs, just numbers.

Bailey began eagerly studying the photographs closely but, not seeing the one he could identify among the early ones, he soon became less intense and clicked the mouse to move on to the next page at his own pace.

Angel watched him as he clicked on page after page. He himself only recognized a few of the villains from their eyes and noses; it wasn’t easy, but he had high hopes.

The page with the photograph of Liam Quigley eventually came up. Angel recognized it: the big head was, he thought, a positive giveaway. The photograph had the figure ‘92’ neatly printed in the middle in black underneath. He waited like an excited child on a Christmas morning for Bailey to pick it out.

But he didn’t.

Bailey clicked the mouse to move on to the next page, and Angel didn’t so much as blink.

Bailey clicked on to the end and then back to the
beginning
.

He turned to Angel and said, ‘No, Mr Angel, he’s not there.’

Angel sighed. There was no hiding his disappointment. He stood up. ‘Go through them again, in your own time, Clem, will you? This is very important. I’ve a little job I want to do. I won’t be a minute.’

Bailey wasn’t pleased, but he turned back to the screen and reached out for the mouse.

Angel went out of the office and closed the door. He crossed the corridor to the CID office and peered through the
door. It was unusually quiet. There were two detectives arguing about something at the far end of the room, and Ahmed at his desk by the door. He saw him, stood up and said, ‘Looking for me, sir? I want to tell you about Vincent Doonan. I got his address.’

‘Ah, yes?’

‘He lived on his own at 11 Edward Street.’

‘Right, lad. I’ve got it. Thank you, but right now I’m looking for DS Crisp.’

He looked round. ‘He’s been in, sir. Not long since. Probably in the canteen.’

‘Right, I’ll find him. Take two teas into my office, will you? I’ve left Clem Bailey still looking at the rogues’ gallery. There’s one for him.’

Ahmed nodded.

Angel went further down the green corridor and pushed his way through the swing doors into the canteen.

He found Crisp on his own at the far end. There was an empty cup and saucer in front of him and his nose was buried in a newspaper.

‘Are you all right, lad?’ Angel said.

Crisp looked up. He blinked. It was unusual to see Angel in the canteen. ‘Oh? Yes, sir.’

Angel dropped into the seat opposite him.

Crisp smiled. ‘You’re in the papers again, sir.’ He pointed to a headline on an inside page and read it out. ‘Murdered millionaire in bed with pig in nightie. Super sleuth Angel investigates.’

Angel pulled an angry face and swiped out at the paper, hitting it with his fingertips. ‘I wish that rag would get its facts right.’

Crisp grinned.

‘I want you to find Liam Quigley and bring him in for questioning. Be careful. He could be armed. Take somebody with you.’

‘Right, sir. Where will I find him?’

Angel’s fists tightened. ‘I thought you were a detective?’

Crisp frowned.

Angel glared at him, then stood up. ‘I should try the PNC. If that doesn’t help, I should try Confused dot com.’

Crisp shook his head.

Angel returned to his office.

Bailey was drinking the tea.

‘I’ve found him,’ Bailey said brightly, putting down the cup. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

Angel’s face brightened. Good. Good.’

‘I’ve found the man.’

Bailey clicked the mouse a few times, found the page and said, ‘There, that’s the one there, number twenty.’

Angel stared at the photograph and wrinkled his nose.

A
ngel drove the BMW through the converted farmhouse gates and saw DS Taylor and a PC both in white boiler suits, rubber boots and caps poking around the modern double garage built at the side.

He stopped the BMW behind SOCO’s van, which in turn was behind Santana’s silver Mercedes, still parked at the front door.

Taylor saw him, came out of the garage and crossed the drive to greet him.

Angel nodded towards the garage as he got out of the car and said, ‘Anything in there?’

‘Just a can of petrol, sir. Nothing else.’

‘Petrol?’ Angel said, rubbing his chin. ‘Not diesel?’

‘It’s definitely petrol. No petrol stations up here. I suppose it’s an emergency stock in case they find themselves stuck here with an empty tank.’

Angel frowned.

‘Personally I wouldn’t like to be stuck here
any time,’
Taylor added. ‘It’s so … so quiet.’

Angel smiled. He thought he might like it, in small doses. ‘That’s the beauty of the place,’ he said.

Taylor looked up at the black cloudy sky over the distant mountains. ‘And it’s so eerie.’

They arrived at Santana’s car. The door handles, boot catch and the area round the cover of the fuel-tank cap were covered with silver aluminium powder.

Angel nodded towards the car and said, ‘It’s already been dusted?’

‘The outside was done before we broke off to go to the Doonan job, sir.’

‘Is it locked?’

Taylor shrugged.

Angel gripped the handle of the driver’s door and pulled. It opened. His eyebrows shot up. He looked at Taylor.

‘That’s how it was, sir.’

Taylor walked round the car and tried the other doors. They were also unlocked.

Angel nodded and peered inside the car. It was clean and tidy and there was nothing untoward. He closed the door.

‘You’ll dust the steering wheel, handbrake and gear stick?’

‘Yes, of course, sir.’

He went round to the boot and opened it. It was big and empty, but around the catch where the lock fitted he saw several strands of an off-white textile. It was much thicker than traditional cotton thread. Angel crouched down to peer at it, but didn’t touch it.

Taylor went to the SOCO van behind them and returned with a holdall. He took out a pair of white plastic disposable tweezers in a hermetically sealed bag. He unravelled the strands of thread and carefully inserted them in an ‘EVIDENCE’ bag.

‘Take a swab of the floor of the boot,’ Angel said. ‘I believe that that pig was transported here via this car. I want that determined, if it’s possible.’

‘Right, sir. You think somebody else might have brought it here?’

‘No, but it’s pretty heavy for Santana to have been able to manage on his own.’

Taylor nodded his agreement.

Angel closed the car boot, noted that the model was the S320 cdi, reflected briefly on how much it must have cost and went inside the house. Taylor followed.

The plastic trail of floor covering had now been removed and Angel looked down at the polished parquet floor in the hall and along to the bedroom. ‘Did you retrieve any
footprints
or marks from here?’

‘There were lots of shuffle marks but nothing we could use. There was a mark about an inch wide on the floor, rubbing off the polish … couldn’t make out what it was. It was in a more or less direct line from the front door to the bedroom door.’

‘Was it the pig?’

Taylor’s mouth dropped open. ‘Could possibly have been the pig … You mean being dragged along?’

Angel nodded as he opened the bedroom door.

The body of Peter Santana had been removed. There was a big ruddy-brown stain where it had been. There were blood spatters on the pretty wallpaper by the door opening and on the white paintwork.

‘The shooting must have taken place here, by the door,’ Angel said, thinking aloud.

Taylor nodded.

‘The body was found fully clothed on the floor just inside the door. He put up a gallant fight before he was shot. Maybe he was defending the pig. It was in that bed, covered over.’

‘Defending a dead pig, sir?’

‘I mean trying to hide the fact that he had a dead pig in his bed. It could have been an … embarrassment?’

Angel rubbed his chin a while then looked across at Taylor. ‘Where was the wrapping from the nightdress?’

‘In a wastepaper basket by the dressing table, sir.’

Angel meandered further into the big room. He spotted the empty wastepaper basket.

‘Was there anything else in it?’

‘No.’

Angel came back towards the bed where the pig had been. Clearly it had been removed and the bed remade.

He stared at the Laura Ashley bedspread then turned to Taylor. ‘Have you ever tried to put clothes on to somebody or something unconscious, or inanimate, Don?’

‘Can’t say that I have.’

‘It isn’t easy.’

‘Do you think that more than one person put that
nightdress
on the pig, sir?’

‘I really don’t know,’ Angel said. ‘I really don’t know.’

He caught sight of the silver candelabra with the pink candle wax hanging off the three holders, and he
remembered
how cold he had been when he had first entered that room earlier in the day. It was still very cold. He turned to Taylor. ‘Is there no heating on?’

‘I wanted you to see this, sir,’ Taylor said, directing him to the hall. ‘If you’ve finished in here.’

He’d finished there for the time being, but he wasn’t happy. He gave the room a last look round. This was not promising to be an easy case. His pulse was steady, his eyes slightly narrowed as if in pain, his mind like a box of assorted cogs, each trying to find another to mesh into smoothly, and failing at every attempt.

They left the bedroom and returned to the hall.

Angel noticed a large clock on the wall. It showed the time at eight minutes past twelve. He looked at his watch and found the correct time to be 1.15 exactly.

‘The clock’s wrong.’

Taylor looked up at him.

Angel put his ear to the face of the mechanism for a few moments. Then he went down on his knee and found a wire feeding out from the back of the clock to an electric socket. It was a very fine antique reproduction clock run from mains electricity.

‘The power must have been switched off at eight minutes past twelve. That would be midnight, last night?’ Angel said.

‘Looks like that, sir,’ Taylor said, then he pointed to a table against the wall. On it were four electric fuses. Above the table was a fuse box screwed on to the wood panelling on the wall; it had a door on the front of it, which was partly open. Inside was a line of a dozen fuses and spaces for the four fuses on the table below.

‘That’s why it is cold everywhere, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘Those fuses put half the house in darkness and knocked off the central heating. We’ve checked them for fingerprints and they’ve been wiped clean.’

Angel raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘Wiped clean?’

‘Yes, sir. The murderer must have come in the front door,’ Taylor said, ‘pulled the fuses, wiped them clean of his prints. That would put the place in darkness. That’s why Santana was using the candles.’

‘That means the murderer must have been in the house … hiding, while Santana found the candelabra and lit it. And
Santana would have had to pass the fuse box to get it from the dining room. Also the intruder would have been wiping the fuses in the dark. I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe he had a torch?’

‘He’d need three hands then. He’d have to put the torch down, and anyway, the light would have told Santana of his presence. Have the fuses been photographed?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is there a fault?’

‘Don’t know. With your permission, sir, I’ll put the fuses in now and … see what happens.’

Angel nodded. He turned back to Taylor. ‘Why would they be wiped clean?’

Taylor busied himself pressing the fuses into their
respective
holders.

The lights came on, and the hum of some sort of machine from the pool room started behind them. They crossed the hall and looked through the glass at the turquoise water.

Angel opened the door and went in. The hum was louder.

‘A water pump, I expect.’

Chlorine in the air made Angel wrinkle his nose.

The big, inviting-looking swimming pool was screened by large windows on two sides. He saw that they looked out on to heather-covered mountains and a grey cloudy sky. At the far end of the room on a tiled area was a massage table and four body-building machines. He looked at them enviously and thought that they would have provided a thorough workout for the most ardent bodybuilder.

Angel came out of the pool room and closed the door. He turned to Taylor and said, ‘Check if the appliances or lights extinguished by pulling those four fuses are in safe working order. There must have been some reason for the murderer
putting half the place in darkness. And by the way, whose prints were on the candelabra?’

‘Santana’s, sir. Clear and distinct.’

‘Hmmm. And there were no signs of an intruder breaking in?’

‘There were no signs of anyone breaking into the house
anywhere
, sir. The front door was closed but not locked. It surprised the housekeeper. She said that Mr Santana was usually so careful, and he was a creature of habit.’ Angel nodded. He knew what that meant. He was a creature of habit himself. His mobile began to ring. He fished into his pocket and pulled it out.

It was Crisp. ‘Liam Quigley lives at 24 Sebastopol Terrace, sir. I’m standing on his doorstep. I’ve been knocking on the door for the past ten minutes. There’s no sign of life. Of course, he might be out. What shall I do?’

Angel’s lips tightened back against his teeth. ‘Don’t mess about, lad. Get a warrant for his arrest. He’s been identified as the murderer of Vincent Doonan, hasn’t he? It was
your
ear Doonan whispered his name into, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, Quigley might be dodging us. Get a warrant to search his house. Then get in there. If he’s there, bring him in, and look sharp about it.’

He closed the phone with a click, blew out a foot of air and stuffed the mobile back into his pocket.

He turned back to Taylor and said, ‘What else is there to see?’

Together, they visited the other rooms in the house. Angel had a general trudge round. He saw nothing remarkable in any of them. He checked on the windows, which were all closed, locked and secure.

It was becoming clear that the murderer must have entered the house by the front door, that he knew his way around the house and had therefore been well known to Peter Santana. It must have been somebody who would benefit from his death. As Santana was enormously rich, a motive shouldn’t be difficult to find. He ruminated on these matters as he returned silently to the hall and up to the front door.

He thanked Taylor and went outside. It was now quite gloomy and in the cold air he could see that fog was not far away. He walked all round the lonely house. There were no trees on the moors, the strong winds had seen to that, but there was a good stone wall around the house. He trudged up the drive looking in every direction. He went through the open gates, which appeared to be left permanently open. He peered round the stone pillars from which they were hung. At the base of one of the pillars he saw several recently snapped twigs of dormant gorse. He wandered further around the area, across more gorse, some heather and grass, but found no other signs of disturbance. He pursed his lips and, standing in the cold, considered the
explanation
. Someone had been standing there, very recently … could have had binoculars and been watching the house. He crouched down hopeful that the snooper might have dropped something or left a heel mark or something. But there was nothing.

He returned to his car.

It was only a ten-minute drive to the police station, and Angel spent most of the time thinking about the murder of Peter Santana. It was such an unusual and disconcerting case. The newspapers were having a great time, with headlines
such as, ‘The pig and the producer’, ‘Hamming it up’, ‘How millionaire brought home the bacon’, and so on. Angel knew he ought to be in and among the people associated with Santana to find out what had made him tick, but they would have to wait. There were more pressing matters. He had a lot on his mind.

He walked quickly down the green-painted station corridor to his office, picked up the phone and tapped out a number. Ahmed answered.

‘There was a villain picked out by Clem Bailey yesterday from our rogues’ gallery, Ahmed. Number twenty,’ he said while unbuttoning his raincoat.

‘Yes, sir. I looked it up. That was Laurence Smith.’

Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Laurence Smith? Larry the Liar?’

‘I don’t know about that, sir.’

‘Well, get out all you can on him for me, pronto.’

‘Right, sir.’

Angel knew Laurence Smith, a difficult man who had the reputation of being an habitual liar. He had served time for robbery and dealing in stolen goods.

Angel peeled off the raincoat threw it over a chair and looked down at his desk. At the top of a pile of post and reports was an email from the Drugs and Abusive Substances Squad, London. It was addressed to senior
officers
at each of the forty-three police forces in the UK.

The following paragraph caught his attention:

As he was re-reading the email, the phone rang. He reached out for it.

‘Angel,’ he growled.

‘Crisp here, sir. Got the warrant. Got a squad of four men together at the front of the station to mount that raid on Quigley’s pad. Just filling up with diesel. Will be leaving in two minutes.’