The Diamond Rosary Murders (17 page)

Angel stared at her. The crying ceased. The tears dried up. The shaking had stopped. She yanked the anchored wrist with the handcuffs hanging from it free, turned away and started to run off.

Trevor Crisp and Flora Carter came running up.

‘Stop her,’ Angel called.

They caught her in their arms.

‘Hold her, but be careful,’ Angel called. ‘She is probably armed.’

‘Are you all right, sir?’ they said in unison.

Angel ran up to them and quickly grabbed the hanging
handcuff
and the free wrist. She fought like the she-cat she was, but eventually he managed to secure the cuffs and fasten them with her arms behind her back.

‘Take hold of her, Flora,’ Angel said. ‘Don’t let go.’

Flora Carter grabbed the woman at the back by the cuffs.

Marcia Moore glared at Angel and said, ‘You’re like all men. Frigging pigs!’

Unmoved at the outburst, Angel looked at her and said, ‘Marcia Moore, I am arresting you for the murder of James Argyle, Lee Ellis, Charles Domino and probably Joseph Memoré. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence
if you do not mention when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used in evidence.’

Flora’s eyes stood out like elderberries on stalks. ‘She’s the Chameleon, sir?’ she said.

Crisp looked as if he had been whacked on he head with a barrister’s briefcase. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

Angel said, ‘It’s true. And she needs to be searched very carefully indeed. I believe you will find one or more stilettos, which will prove it,’ he said. ‘You’ll also probably find the Rosary.’

‘Ridiculous,’ Marcia Moore said. ‘It is Joseph Memoré who was the Chameleon. He was going to murder
me
! You heard him, Mr Angel. He said so, several times.’

Angel shook his head. ‘Save it, Miss Moore,’ he said. ‘You can tell it to the jury.’

A uniformed man carrying a Heckler & Koch rifle, and wearing a gun holster and a helmet with the word POLICE on it, rushed up behind them. It was DI Waldo White of the FSU.

Angel looked up at him and sighed.

White said. ‘Is everything all right, Michael? Sorry we’re a bit late. To tell the truth, we got lost.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Angel said without conviction. He noticed two khaki Range Rovers loaded with armed police parked at the kerb. He turned back to White and pointed up to the flat behind him and said, ‘There is a man in there, Waldo. He is probably armed. This woman says she shot him and that she thinks he is dead, so I need to get up there fast.’

‘We’ll see to it, Michael,’ White said.

‘It was self-defence,’ Marcia Moore muttered, her head now bowed. She was shivering and her teeth were rattling. Her eyes resumed the half-closed state. ‘Anybody got a cigarette?’ she added.

Angel looked at White and said, ‘Have you any women in your unit?’

‘Yes. Two. Why?’

‘This woman is The Chameleon.’

White’s jaw dropped open. He stared at Marcia Moore. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

‘She needs very careful searching,’ Angel said. Then he nodded towards Flora and added, ‘With my sergeant, here, do you think you could organize that?’

‘Sure,’ White said. He turned and waved towards the first Range Rover. A man also wearing protection gear and carrying a rifle came running up. White told the man what was required. He ran back to the Range Rover and the doors of the two vehicles opened and some of the armed police rushed across the yard and swarmed around White. He quietly told them what was required.

At the same time, Angel grabbed Flora by the sleeve and pulled her away from the others. ‘Stay with her,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t leave her side until she’s in a cell at the station. And if she wants to talk, record everything she says.’

Flora nodded grimly.

An FSU woman escorted Flora and Marcia Moore across to the Range Rover.

‘I had to do it,’ Marcia Moore whined. ‘He would have killed me. Anybody got a cigarette…?’

White turned back to Angel, nodded towards the flat and said, ‘Now leave it to us, Michael. He might not be dead, and we have the protection of our body armour.’

White then lead eight armed police up the steps to the flat.

Angel stood at the bottom and waited.

I
t was 8.28 a.m., on Friday, 16 December 2011.

Angel bustled through the station back door, past the cells, and along the busy main corridor leading from the rear door all the way down to his office. The dozen-or-so police or civilian staff he passed, without exception, smiled, or nodded or spoke. He beamed as he acknowledged the courtesy. The attention was a little exceptional and was an understood appreciation that he had uncovered the identity of the Chameleon and what’s more, that he had her stashed away so that she could not kill again!

He glided into his office, threw his overcoat at the hook on the steel cabinet and slipped into the swivel chair.

There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed. He came in all smiles. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘DS Carter asked me to give this to you.’ He put a small pile of coins on Angel’s desk. ‘It’s the change from the cigarettes, sir.’

Angel frowned, picked up the coins, counted them, blew out a foot of breath, looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘Good grief. Cigarettes? She must have got her a box of Havanas!’

He put the money in his pocket, turned to Ahmed and said, ‘I want to see Don Taylor as soon as he comes in.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said and he went out.

DS Taylor arrived several minutes later.

‘What about Memoré then, Don?’

‘Well, sir, subject to anything that Dr Mac may come up with, it’s
straightforward enough. Memoré was shot once in the chest with the Beretta, which we know from past experience was Memoré’s favourite weapon. His prints are all over the shell cases. And Marcia Moore shot him, as she freely admits. Her prints are on the trigger and the butt. There is no forensic to indicate that anybody else was at the scene, before or after the gunshot. So that’s about it.’

Angel nodded. ‘All nice and tidy.’

‘What about the Rosary, sir?’ Taylor said. ‘Where was it exactly?’

‘Flora found it. It was wrapped in a gent’s handkerchief and tucked in the top of one of her stockings. In the top of the other stocking was a stiletto. And in a leather sheath sewn inside the collar of her dress was another one.’

Taylor winced. ‘Deadly.’

‘Evidence enough to convict her of the murders,’ Angel said.

Taylor went out.

Angel leaned back in his chair and squeezed the lobe of his ear between his finger and thumb as he went through a mental
checklist
. He reckoned that he had done everything he could do up to that point to progress the case against Marcia Moore. So he turned round to the table behind his chair and picked up a red file. It was the file with the six transcripts of the interviews between Haydn King and Mrs Lin. It looked like around a hundred and twenty pages of closely typed A4 sheets. He wasn’t looking forward to the read. It looked very wordy and uninteresting.

He had to try and get into the mind of Haydn King to try to understand how it was possible that he could repeatedly dream of meeting his death in his swimming pool and then two days later, for the nightmare to become a reality. He also hoped to discover the reason why King had employed actor Reuben Paschal, who had looked so very much like him, also he wanted to know why Paschal appeared to have been shaved after he also was murdered.

There was a knock at the door.

He looked up. ‘Come in.’

It was Flora Carter.

‘Have you a minute, sir. I’ve something you’d be interested in.’

Angel was relieved. It delayed him from having to delve into the potentially boring state of Haydn King’s mind. He pointed to the chair, then he closed the file, tossed the wadge of A4 back onto the table behind him and turned back to face her.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘What is it? By the way, has that solicitor arrived for Marcia Moore?’

‘He’s in the cell with her now, sir.’

‘Ah. Good.’

Flora took the seat opposite him.

‘I would have thought you would have gone home by now,’ he said. ‘Catch up with some sleep. You were here with her till very late last night.’

Flora smiled. ‘It was all worthwhile, sir. Those cigarettes worked wonders. She’d do anything for a cigarette. Last night she talked almost non-stop. Mostly about men. She doesn’t think much to men.’

Angel gave a wry smile. ‘Did she confess to anything, or make any admission of any guilt at all?’

‘She’s too clever to confess to murder directly, sir,’ Flora said, taking a tiny audio recorder out of her handbag. ‘But she did say something interesting. I thought you’d like to hear it.’

He nodded approvingly.

She put the recorder on his desk and pressed the play button.

Angel closed his eyes as he listened.

The playback was tinny and distorted but it was clearly Marcia Moore’s voice.

Flora reached out and switched the recorder off and looked across the desk at Angel. ‘There was a lot more, mostly
denigrating
James Argyle, Charles Domino, Joseph Memoré and men in particular.’

Angel thought a moment and then said, ‘Hmm. That was worth knowing, Flora. Great stuff. That puts Harry Wiseman in the clear. And we can add shopbreaking and burglary to her charge sheet.’

She gave a small smile. ‘I’ll go home for a couple of hours, sir … if you don’t mind?’

‘No, lass. You’ve earned it.’

She went out and Angel returned to the wodge of paper from Mrs Lin. He looked at the front page of the top one. It said: ‘Transcript of first interview with Haydn King, The Old Hall, Pine Avenue, Bromersley. 8 p.m. November 1st 2011.’ Then he looked at the others. He checked the dates on the title page of each interview and was about to return to the first, when it came to his mind that the date of 6 December 2011 on the last one, was two days before Haydn King was found dead in his swimming pool.

Angel leaned back in the chair. That date reverberated in his mind for a while. December 6th. December 6th. He recalled that it was St Nicholas Day and that that old saint was the model for the character that became known as Father Christmas. But that wasn’t it. It was something far removed from that. The date would bug him until he remembered.

He decided to read the last interview, the one dated December 6th, first, as it might save him reading the other five. Then it dawned on him; he suddenly knew the significance of December 6th. That was the date the superintendent had said he had visited Haydn King. And that had also been at eight o’clock in the evening. He pushed back the swivel chair and mooched out of his office across the corridor to the CID room.

Ahmed and two other detectives were in there gazing at their computer screens when Angel went in. They looked up at him. He didn’t address them so they continued with their work.

Angel stared across at the whiteboard covering most of one
wall of the room. On it were all the known facts of his current cases, dates, times, places, including photographs of Haydn King, Vincent Fleming, Judy Savage, Lee Ellis, Reuben Paschal, James Argyle, Joseph Memoré and Marcia Moore.

Angel frowned when he saw that there was no mention of Superintendent Harker’s meeting with Haydn King on December 6th.

Ahmed forsook his computer and came up to him. ‘You all right, sir?’ he said.

Angel’s knuckles tightened. ‘That meeting the super had with Haydn King on December 6th isn’t up there.’

Ahmed blinked. ‘It
was
, sir. But the super saw it and told me to take it down because he said it had nothing to do with the
investigation
.’

Angel became grim. ‘
What?
’ he bawled.

The other two detectives in the room turned round to see the reason for the outburst. He glared at them and they turned back to their screens.

He exhaled noisily, turned towards the door, stopped, turned back to Ahmed and quietly said, ‘Er, right. Er, thank you, lad. Carry on.’

Then he steamed determinedly out of the room.

Ahmed frowned then settled back down at his desk.

Angel stormed straight up the corridor to Superintendent Harker’s office. He banged on the door and walked in. He was met by the usual excessive heat and smell of menthol.

He saw Harker at his desk behind a pile of books, ledgers, papers and Kleenex boxes. He looked more ghastly than usual. His head was like a skull with ears.

Harker looked up, sniffed, turned down the corners of his mouth and said, ‘It’s you, Angel. I was about to send for you.’

He threw his pen down onto the desk. ‘Sit down,’ he added.

Angel took the chair opposite and glared back at him.

Harker peered between the piles of books, papers and stuff. ‘Do you know what rules are for, lad?’ he said.

‘That’s just what I wanted to speak to you about, sir.’

‘What?’ Harker said, his eyes bigger than gobstoppers. He couldn’t believe that Angel had come voluntarily to make his excuses. ‘Yes, lad?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Angel said. ‘I have just noticed that your meeting with Haydn King is no longer on the case board in the CID room, and that it was removed on
your
instructions.’

It took Harker a couple of seconds to catch up. ‘I thought that you … Well, yes. I told PC Ahaz to remove it because it has no bearing on the case. As superintendent of this station, I
considered
that it was most inappropriate for reasons of discipline to have my name on a case board in company with witnesses, crooks, suspects and dead bodies.’

‘But it has a bearing on the case. Also, it would have been appropriate to have told me that you intended removing it. I am supposed to be in charge of the case. Its absence could have resulted in an important fact being overlooked.’

‘
Important fact.
What important fact?’

‘The fact that you may have the date wrong. On the date that you gave me, Tuesday December 6th, Haydn King apparently had an evening appointment with his psychiatrist, Mrs Lin.’

Harker didn’t reply straightaway. He leaned forward to look at his desk diary. He turned several pages back, then a page forward and then muttered, ‘Mmm. Tuesday December 6th. Oh dear. It’s not entered in here.’ He looked round a pile of files and papers at Angel. ‘Oh yes. I remember now,’ he said. ‘It was in the evening, wasn’t it? I went there from home. Eight o’clock. Yes. Well, lad, if I
said
it was that Tuesday evening, Angel, it
was
that Tuesday evening.’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘That means that his psychiatrist is in error, sir.’

‘Obviously,’ Harker said. ‘Go and sort it out with her.’

Angel shook his head. He stood up to go. Harker waved a hand directing him to sit back down.

‘Just one moment. I have something to say to you. It is
something
very important. I thought that that was what you were coming in to explain.’

Angel’s forehead made more lines than there are on a charge sheet. ‘Explain, sir?’

‘Yes. There are 86 of them in this station. There are two in reception. One in the briefing room. One in this, the CID room. One in this office. One in each cell. I do believe there is one in your office …’

Angel shook his head, then suddenly his face brightened and he said, ‘Fire extinguishers, sir?’

Harker’s face went as red as the positive light on a breathalyser. ‘I’m not referring to fire extinguishers, lad. I’m talking about “No Smoking” signs.’

Angel nodded as it came to him what the superintendent, in his circuitous route, was alluding to. He pursed his lips and waited for the onslaught.

Harker said, ‘It came to my notice last night as I looked in on the prisoner, Marcia Moore, that she was smoking a cigarette. And she was sitting not three feet away from a “No Smoking” sign. I asked the duty jailer what he thought he was doing allowing the prisoner to smoke, and he told me that you had not only authorized it, but that that you had actually bought the
cigarettes
for the prisoner, and a full box of matches, and sent them in.’

Angel knew there was no chance of winning this argument. He decided to keep
shtum
and sit it out.

Harker, having got his second wind, continued: ‘So there was a prisoner in a cell in my station, being in possession of a banned tobacco substance, supplied by a senior officer. And not only that,
she was also in possession of a box of matches, another banned item, an item capable of burning the station down. What would I have said if the Inspector of Constabulary had called in
unexpectedl
y? How would I have got out of that?’

Angel realized that Harker now wanted his involvement, so he would have to give some sort of an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I have never known an Inspector of Constabulary come down to the cells before introducing himself to the Chief Constable and—’