The Cuckoo Clock Scam (6 page)

Quigley shrugged. ‘It’s my business. I didn’t think it would get this far. You are going to let me go now?’

‘If I get satisfactory confirmation of this from … Miss Freedman.’

The interview with Quigley was terminated at 0922 hours. Liam Quigley was taken back to a cell in the station, Mr Bloomfield left immediately, presumably for his office in the town, Crisp left the station to begin his undercover job looking into the background of Felicity Santana, while Angel drove down to 11 Bull’s Foot Railway Arches on Wath Road on the outskirts of Bromersley to interview Miss Juanita Freedman.

Number eleven was next to a scruffy little antique shop which was the end shop of a small, busy frontage of shops. It had a large estate agent’s ‘For Sale’ sign secured to the front. At the side of the shop window was a door, which had an
illuminated
bell-push button on the jamb. Underneath it was a small neat handwritten label that read, ‘No 11. Juanita Freedman’. He pressed the button, and as he waited he stepped back and looked into the window of the antique shop next door. He peered closely through the glass and saw a woman in a black dress leaning on the counter reading something. She was surrounded by old pictures, old
furniture
, old stuff of all kinds. There were no customers in the shop, the shop front needed a fresh coat of paint and the stock seemed dusty. He wondered if the owner had lost interest. He pressed the bell at number eleven again. There was still no reply. He grunted. Miss Freedman was obviously out. He turned and made his way back and past the shop window and through the door. The jingle of a bell on a spring, triggered by the opening of the door, caused the woman to
look up from her reading matter. She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. Angel guessed she was about fifty, desperately trying to look thirty.

‘I am looking for Miss Juanita Freedman,’ he said. ‘I believe she lives in the flat above this shop.’

‘I am Juanita Freedman,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘How can I help you?’ She had a pleasant, warm, deep voice.

‘DI Angel, Bromersley police, Miss Freedman. I am making inquiries into the whereabouts of Liam Quigley last Tuesday night.’

‘Tuesday night?’ she gasped. Her eyes flashed then closed. The smile vanished. She put a hand up to cover her face, which flushed up the colour of a judge’s robe. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Oh dear.’ After a moment, she took her hand away, opened her eyes, lifted her head and said, ‘You
know
already, don’t you? He’s told you.’

Angel stared at her, trying to look expressionless. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said.

‘He was with me, Inspector,’ she said in a small voice.

Angel nodded. ‘He was not out of your sight, the entire evening? I am particularly concerned about the hour, say, between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.’

‘He was here. Every minute. He was concerned about his daughter, Sonya. He was telling me all about her. He came at teatime and left at …’ Her voice became almost soundless. She looked at the floor and then added, ‘And stayed until about eight o’clock Wednesday morning.’

‘Thank you,’ Angel said, rubbing his chin.

He wrinkled his nose. He took a sidelong look at Miss Freedman. She wasn’t that unattractive. She spoke nicely and sounded well educated. She must have been pretty desperate to want to spend time with Liam Quigley. Angel
squeezed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb. The alibi was something of a setback. He would have to start looking elsewhere for the murderer of Vincent Doonan. Even though Crisp could say on oath that Doonan had told him that it was Quigley who had shot him, there was nothing and nobody else to support the fact. The CPS simply wouldn’t have sufficient evidence to make a case strong enough to get a conviction.

After a few moments, in a soft, genteel voice she said, ‘Is Mr Quigley in some kind of trouble, Inspector?’

‘He might be, Miss Freedman. He might very well be. I am looking into the murder of Vincent Doonan. Do you happen to know anything about it?’

She blinked. Her face changed again. ‘Murder?’ Her lips moved silently before she added, ‘Certainly not.’ Her chest heaved several times. ‘And I shouldn’t expect Mr Quigley to have anything to do with … anything like that either.’

Angel noted her earnestness and nodded in
acknowledgement
.

She looked relieved and eventually forced a smile.

He glanced round. He liked Victorian and Edwardian furniture and almost everything else he saw in the shop. ‘I see the business is for sale?’

‘Sadly, yes,’ she said. ‘The property also.’

Then he heard a short recurring mechanical buzzing sound. It reminded him of the ticking of the detonator of a time bomb he had heard in his training on an explosives course sixteen years ago. It was a noise he had heard several times over the past two or three days. He quickly found the direction from where it came and was looking square on at a cuckoo clock.

The cuckoo showed eleven times.

Angel watched the chiming with interested amusement, then he frowned, turned back to Miss Freedman and said, ‘May I suggest that that cuckoo clock is not antique?’

‘Indeed it is not, Inspector. It’s brand new. The justification for it being on show in the shop is that it is – as we say – a curio.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ he said and he walked up to the clock. On the wall next to it was a neat handwritten ticket that said: ‘Cuckoo Clock £10’.

He frowned again. Ten pounds? He wondered if a nought had maybe dropped off the end of the ticket.

‘Ten pounds? Seems a fair price,’ he said, to verify the cost.

‘I think it’s a bargain,’ she said.

‘I’ll take it,’ Angel said, pulling out his wallet.

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll get you one in a sealed box.’

She turned away from the counter and opened a door into a room behind her. Angel noticed that it was stacked from the floor to the ceiling with cardboard boxes of the same shape and design. She reached in, picked up the nearest box and returned to the counter.

Angel took a £10 note out of his wallet.

A
ngel picked up the phone and tapped in a number.

‘DS Taylor, SOCO,’ a voice answered.

‘Angel here. I hope you’ve finished going over Quigley’s drum.’

‘Just making out the report, sir. We found nothing
incriminating
there. You only asked us to search it?’

‘And repair the door.’

‘That’s done.’

‘Because I’m releasing him.’

Taylor’s voice went up an octave. ‘I thought you had evidence, sir?’

‘Got an alibi,’ Angel said with a sniff. ‘Now what about your findings on the Santana place?’

‘It’s all done, sir. Just needs typing up.’

‘Bring your notes down. There are some things I need to know urgently.’

‘Right, sir. I’ll come down straightaway.’

‘Make it ten minutes,’ he said and replaced the phone. He went out of the office down to the cells. He asked the duty jailer to let him into Quigley’s cell.

When Quigley saw Angel he got to his feet. ‘Now what?’ he said. ‘What new caper are you going to be putting me through?’

‘I’ve spoken to Miss Freedman and … she confirms your statement. You are free to go.’

‘I should frigging well think so.’

Angel led him out of the cell and up to the duty sergeant, where he sulkily collected his possessions and some
paperwork
was dealt with.

As they walked to the front door of the station, Angel said: ‘Do you need transport home?’

Quigley’s eyes flashed. ‘What? In one of your bloody police cars?’

‘Well, you’re surely not expecting us to hire a stretch limo for you, are you?’

Quigley glared at him and said: ‘I can get a taxi, and pay for it myself.’ Then he pushed his way through the glass door and outside to freedom.

Angel watched him go.

Quigley walked quickly to the end of the street then round the corner towards town.

Angel sighed then returned to his office. He found Ahmed waiting at the door. ‘What is it, lad? Come in.’

‘I’ve got that stuff on Laurence Smith, sir,’ he said, opening a cream file.

‘Ah, yes,’ Angel said. ‘Let’s see. Does it say how tall he is?’

Ahmed blinked then delved into the file. ‘Six feet, two inches, sir.’

Angel pursed his lips. ‘That was the same height as Liam Quigley,’ he said, mostly for his own benefit.

Ahmed nodded.

But Angel couldn’t remember any other feature that was similar. His hair was a much lighter brown colour for one thing, he recalled. But even so, that wasn’t relevant to the ID in this instance: the killer’s hair was covered with a woolly hat.
He looked up at Ahmed. ‘What’s Smith’s address now?’ he said.

‘Last known address 36 Sebastopol Terrace, sir.’

‘Leave the file with me and ask DI Asquith if he could possibly spare two men to go down there and bring Smith in for questioning.’

‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said and dashed off, as DS Taylor came in.

‘Ah, Don,’ Angel said. ‘Sit down.’

‘I’ve brought that report on Quigley’s house, sir, just for the record,’ Taylor said.

‘Leave it there, Don,’ he said, pointing to the other file on his desk. ‘I’ll read it later. Right now, tell me about Peter Santana’s Mercedes.’

‘There was nothing surprising there, sir. Santana’s
fingerprints
were on the door handle, gear stick, handbrake and steering wheel. They were also on the catch on the boot. I did a swab on the floor area of the boot, and can confirm that the dead pig had been there.’

Angel nodded. It was only what he expected. ‘There were some threads or something on the catch where the boot lock is.’

‘Yes, sir. They were threads from the cheesecloth that the pig was wrapped in.’

‘Ah yes. And the mark on the polished floor of the hall?’

‘That was where the pig was dragged into the downstairs bedroom. There were a few tiny pieces of gravel from the drive outside consistent with the pig having been rested in the drive momentarily before it was dragged into the house.’

‘And there were no indications to suggest that anyone other than Peter Santana had been in or anywhere near his car the night he was murdered?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So, we now know that the pig was put in that particular car at the abattoir as the man had said, that Santana drove it up to the lodge and, heavy though it is, he apparently single-handedly dragged it out of the car boot, along the hall, into the bedroom.’

Taylor nodded. ‘It’s a fair assumption, sir.’

‘Now then.’ He stopped and sighed. ‘Did he put the
nightdress
on the pig by himself, or did the man who murdered him assist him first?’

Taylor watched a fly flitting round the office window and hoped for inspiration. Angel rubbed his chin.

‘Perhaps we’ll never know,’ Taylor said.

Angel said: ‘Were there any other prints on the fancy
cellophane
wrapping that the nightdress was wrapped in?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then it’s a fair assumption that Santana dressed the pig in the nightdress by himself.’

‘Surely the more important question is
why
?’ said Taylor.

Angel nodded. ‘When we know that, we shall know who murdered him.’

‘Well, it’s got me beat, sir,’ said Taylor.

‘At the moment, it’s got me beat, too.’

Taylor smiled. ‘You’ll solve it, sir. This is just your cup of tea, isn’t it?’

There was a compliment in there somewhere. Angel didn’t feel like acknowledging it. He had doubts. He had the
reputation
of always solving his cases; this might be the one that would spoil that record.

‘We’ll see,’ he muttered.

‘All that we have to deal with now, sir, is Vincent Doonan’s house,’ Taylor said. ‘We should be able to start that tomorrow.’

Angel nodded. ‘As soon as you possibly can.’

‘Of course,’ Taylor said and stood up to go.

‘Just a minute, Don,’ Angel said and he leaned down to the floor and picked up the cardboard box he had brought back from the antique shop and put it on the desk. It was still sealed.

Taylor looked at it and frowned.

Angel said: ‘You will have seen the latest report from the Drugs and Abusive Substances Squad. The one about heroin being found inside children’s toys, hollow wooden toy forts and other wooden objects, ornaments and household
paraphernalia
.’

‘Yes. I’ve seen it, sir.’

‘In here is a cuckoo clock,’ Angel said.

Taylor shook his head. ‘A cuckoo clock, sir?’

‘The town is flooded with them. Everywhere you go, there’s one of these on the wall. There’s a shop downtown with hundreds in stock. They’re pushing them out at a tenner a time.’

Taylor’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Ten pounds? Cheap enough. Do they work, sir? Do they keep good time?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Where do they come from? Taiwan? China?’

‘Switzerland. I want you to take this one and have a good look at it. See if there are any hollow places where drugs, particularly heroin, are stashed or have been stashed. There must be some reason why there are so many over here, and why they are being peddled so cheaply. And I want you to find out what it is.’

‘Right, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘If there’s anything concealed in it, I’ll find it.’ Then he picked up the box and left.

Angel watched him close the door. He rubbed his chin. He
was still wondering and worrying about Peter Santana and the business with the pig. He stood up and walked around the tiny office for a few minutes. His eyes caught sight of the two new files on his desk. He reached out for the one about Laurence Smith, created by Ahmed, extracted from the NPC. He opened it up, sat down and began to read it.

Essentially, it said that Smith had been found guilty with two others in 2001 of stealing 120 yards of copper wire from a stretch of the signalling system than ran alongside the railway line between Bromersley and Wakefield. Smith was awarded six months, which he had served in HMP Lincoln. Interestingly, his two accomplices were Vincent Doonan and Harry Savage. Subsequently, Smith was found guilty on his own in 2002 of robbing a petrol station in Sheffield of £1,200, for which he had served four years in Strangeways.

Angel blew out a length of air noisily. Doonan and Smith had done a job together. That was something of a surprise and maybe a coincidence. Thieves often fall out among
themselves
. But it confirmed the possibility that Clem Bailey could have made an accurate identification.

Angel knew that Harry Savage was on the run following his dramatic escape from the Magistrates’ Court at Shiptonthorpe in March last. He recalled the crime of the stealing of the copper wire, the subsequent offence of conning an old lady out of her £8,000 savings with a fake insurance scam, and there was another unusual job. He stole a load of special paper from a delivery lorry parked outside a transport café on the A1 near Scotch Corner in April. They knew that that job was down to him because he left
amazingly
clear moving pictures of himself on a CCTV camera on the car park.

Savage’s disappearance had been a thoroughly smooth
job; no positive sightings of him had been made and there was a UK all-stations call-out for him. If he did turn up, he might be able to throw some light on the relationship between Doonan and Smith. As Angel was looking through the window, he also supposed he could see a herd of pigs flying past.

There was a knock at the door. It was Scrivens. He was clutching an armload of A4-size paper files to his chest.

‘Is it convenient to see me, sir?’

‘Come in, lad. I was wondering where you had got to.’

The files slid about precariously in Scrivens’ arms as he closed the door.

‘Put the stuff down there,’ Angel said, pointing to the corner of his desk.

Scrivens was relieved to unload the files. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He placed them down carefully and squared them off.

Angel leaned towards him with eyes narrowed and said: ‘Now, what have you got?’

Scrivens said, ‘The computer geeks recovered all the work, including the deletions, Peter Santana had tapped into his three computers over the past month, sir, that is, since 15 November, and I have printed it all out. I have also printed out all of his files that were open on that date and since. And I must say, sir, that the bulk of it consists of scene after scene of scripts, with instructions for the characters and the cameraman. Also plots in abbreviated form. I suppose they were ideas and thoughts he had had as he was pressing along with writing other things. And then there were loads of short notes, obviously to remind him about something or to tell somebody to do something. And there are lists. And drafts of business letters. Boring stuff like insurance. And there’s also—’

‘Insurance? What’s this with insurance, Ted?’

‘He wanted to make changes. Increase the cover on the farmhouse up at Tunistone. I think it was insured for one and a half million, but he wanted to double it … increase it to three.’

Lot of money for a farmhouse, Angel thought, out in the wilds. Mind you, it had a swimming pool, lots of land, a magnificent view. But he wouldn’t like to live there. Most of the year it would be too cold. He shuddered as he thought about it.

‘It’s in there, sir,’ Scrivens said. ‘As near as I can remember. Apparently there had been some earth
movement
, and the letter to his insurance broker said something about the risk of fire had therefore greatly increased. If
electric
cables were severed by earth movement, it could lead to explosion or fire … that sort of thing.’

Angel screwed his face up and rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve not heard of any earth movement up there.’

‘Nor have I, sir.’

Angel wrinkled his nose and sniffed. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, sir. I found the partial drafting of a will.’

Angel looked up. ‘Really? What’s that?’

‘His will, sir. It looks like he intended changing it.’

‘Right, lad. What were the changes? Who was to inherit what?’

Scrivens shuffled through a file, sorted out a sheet of A4 and handed it to him.

‘It’s not that straightforward,’ Scrivens said. ‘All his estate, at the time, was left to his wife, Felicity. He wanted to split it fifty-fifty and create “The Peter Santana Trust”. He wrote: “I want the Trust to be run by a small committee, say three, with Bill Isaacs in the chair. It is to be for the benefit
of writers/producers of original ideas who have the talent, but not the funds, to develop them and take them through to completed satisfying entertainment on tape or film.”’

Angel took the sheet of paper and read the paragraph for himself.

‘Is it significant, sir?’

‘When did he write this?’

Scrivens looked at the cover of the file. ‘Monday 8 December, sir.’

‘Hmmm. It’s significant that he was thinking about his last will and testament only a week before he was murdered. And that he must think well of Mr Isaacs.’

‘He’s the boss of the studio.’

‘Was there anything about a pig?’ asked Angel.

‘Not much, really, sir.’

His face brightened.
Anything
was better than nothing. ‘What is there?’

Out of the same file, Scrivens pulled out another sheet of A4 and handed it to him. ‘It’s just a simple list, sir. It was tapped out on the same day.’

It read:

Angel read it twice, then copied it out. When he had finished, he rubbed his chin and frowned.

‘What’s it mean, sir?’ Scrivens said.

‘Don’t know, lad,’ he said. ‘Ether is a bit old-fashioned.
Doctors and dentists used to use it as an anaesthetic. I am not aware of anything else you might use it for. The pig was dead so I can’t see that he would want to anaesthetize it. A “dead pig, fresh, 100 lbs”, is self-explanatory, as is a “silk nightdress”.’

‘Why do you think he decided on silk, sir?’

‘Why indeed, lad? Why not cotton? It’s cheaper. Does the same job on a dead pig. Covers it up. Silk might be more glamorous, but whatever you dressed a dead pig in wouldn’t make it any the more interesting, would it?’