The Dog Collar Murders (16 page)

She looked carefully at King, who now showed himself off as if he was a male model.

The men in the gallery stared down at the pantomime.

Zoe Costello soon turned away from him and moved on to the man in the first position, by the door.

Harker put his hands up to each side of his head and groaned.

It was virtually all over.

Angel sighed but kept his eye on the action in the room below … just in case.

Zoe Costello gave a cursory glance at the first man again, then with a slight shake of the head looked at Crisp and walked out of the room. Crisp followed her.

That really was it.

Angel saw Bloomberg pick up his briefcase. He thought he would want to rush off and tell King that – thanks to his efforts! – he was free to leave, which indeed he was.

Angel didn’t quite know what to say to King’s solicitor. Bloomberg
might
allege that the identification parade was invalid but Angel didn’t think that likely because the witness had not
identified
his client as the murderer. If Bloomberg
did
claim that the parade was invalid, Harker would know exactly the course of action to be taken. He could leave them to chew the rag about that and decide what to do. Angel had enough trouble. Harker, of course, would not be pleased with the outcome either. He had hoped for the ID parade to have produced a positive result and it hadn’t. Harker had hoped to see Peter King put away for a twenty-year stretch at least and it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. Angel could not see how they could possibly go through the exercise again.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Angel said. ‘Must catch up with the witness.’

He dashed down the steps and through the door into the green corridor. He could see Zoe Costello, escorted by Crisp, stepping towards his office as arranged.

By the time he caught up, Crisp was leaving his office and closing the door.

‘The witness is in your office, sir,’ Crisp said.

Angel nodded.

‘What happens to King now?’ Crisp said.

‘For the time being, we have to accept the witness’s judgement that King isn’t the murderer. So ring Kathy Ellison at the Probation Office and tell her that he is no longer an official suspect in this case, and then release him.’

‘Release him?’

‘Yes, lad.
Release him
.’

Crisp looked thoughtful but said, ‘Right, sir.’

Angel cocked a thumb at his office door and said, ‘How is she? Zoe Costello? How did she take it all?’

Crisp smiled. ‘I think she’s cooled down now, sir.’

It was eight o’clock on Saturday morning, 16 January, and Michael Angel was still in bed asleep. He was dreaming of a hot sun, a golden beach and a turquoise and aquamarine blue sea. He was dreaming of willowy girls with no hips, in minuscule bikinis, carrying trays of champagne cocktails. There was laughter, gentle string music and the swishing sound of the sea. One of the girls lay next to him. She snuggled into his arms. He kissed her tenderly on the lips. It was a warm kiss. A kiss full of promise. He gently manoeuvred his arms under hers and pulled her to him. She didn’t resist. She was soft and compliant. She was totally under his spell.

‘Michael,’ she said appealingly.

He didn’t reply.

‘Michael,’ she said again. This time there was an urgency about it.

‘Be patient, my beautiful one,’ he murmured.

Then he felt a strong tugging sensation at his shoulder. ‘What did you say, Michael?’ she said.

It was a voice he knew well.

He opened his eyes.

Mary was tugging at his shoulder. ‘Whatever are you doing with that pillow? It’s one of the new ones, you know … filled with goose feathers. I thought you were going to eat it. And what was it you said?’

He rubbed his eyes, sniffed and said, ‘I must have been dreaming.’

He noticed that Mary was fully dressed. He glanced at the clock.

‘It’s Saturday, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘It
is
,’ she said, surprising him with a quick kiss. ‘And I want you to get up now.
Your
breakfast’s ready. I’ve had what
I
want.’

Angel frowned.

‘Come on, love,’ she said. ‘Hurry up. Bathroom’s free.’

He looked up at her. She didn’t look back. She rushed off.

His eyes followed her out of the bedroom.

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the anaglypta and scratching his stomach. There was something unusual about Mary’s behaviour. Something was afoot … very definitely afoot. He
recognized
the scenario. She had some plan, some horrible idea on her mind. Something she knew he wouldn’t like and would object to. She wouldn’t want to drop it on him all at once. She would have planned to feed titbits out to him as necessary as the plan progressed. In that way, he would be cushioned to the shock when the full scheme became known.

It would be as well if he could have some idea what she was up to. It would almost certainly involve spending money. All Mary’s schemes and plans involved spending money. And that always came at a bad time. It certainly was a bad time on this occasion, just after Christmas. Funds were very low indeed. Her last idea was buying that bed for her sister, a bed which they didn’t need and couldn’t really afford – and which he had not yet assembled due to shortage of time, a certain lack of know-how and because he didn’t want to do it.

‘Michael! Michael!’ she called from the kitchen.

He reached down for his slippers. ‘Yes? Yes?’

‘Are you moving?’

‘Yes, love,’ he called. ‘I’m coming.’

‘Are you in the bathroom?’

‘Yes,’ he lied.

He took off his pyjama jacket, stood up and crossed the landing to the bathroom. The room seemed brighter. He didn’t need the electric light. He looked out of the window; the sun was trying to be seen. The big freeze had taken a breather and most of the snow that had been gripping the fields and hills for the earlier ten days had gone and the rest had turned to grey slush and soaked into the grass or
disappeared
into the brooks, becks and streams or down the drains.

The sight of the bright sky and the green fields made him wash and shave with enthusiasm. He even found himself humming, ‘Oh What A Beautiful Morning’.

He walked into the kitchen wearing a dressing gown.

Mary gawped at him but said nothing. She put the teapot on the table. The muesli was already in a dish. He sat down, poured the milk over it and took a mouthful.

‘You’re not dressed,’ she said.

Without looking up, through the muesli he said, ‘It’s Saturday.’

It had taken her long enough to state the obvious, he thought. She must be wanting him to get dressed and smarten himself up to go out somewhere. Perhaps take
her
out. He wouldn’t mind that, now that the weather had changed and the roads would be clearer. But he wondered where she would be wanting to go.

She poured out two cups of tea and passed one over to him.

‘Thank you, love,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘I thought we might go out somewhere nice.’

He nodded.

She didn’t want him to do anything in the garden. That was good. It was far too cold and everything was soaking. He was pleased about that.

‘Have lunch in a nice restaurant somewhere?’ he said.

‘We haven’t done that for ages.’

‘How about The Feathers?’

‘I thought we might have a run out in the car. Make a day of it.’

Angel’s face brightened. ‘You mean the seaside? Scarborough? Bridlington? Skegness? Blow the cobwebs away?’

‘I wasn’t thinking of going
that
far,’ she said. ‘I was thinking that there are some lovely places to eat at Meadowhall.’

‘Meadowhall?’ Angel looked hard at her. ‘That’s just shops,’ he said. He knew it. That was Mary’s game. She wanted to go to one of the biggest shopping centres in the country, to eat.

Mary kept a dead straight face and said, ‘There are all kinds of restaurants there.’

‘I don’t want fish and chips again!’ he said. ‘We are not going
there
.’

It was half past two.

Michael Angel followed Mary Angel across the busy tarmac of one of the packed car parks in Meadowhall to the BMW. He was carrying a parcel of five rolls of wallpaper. He sighed with relief as he lowered it into the car boot. Mary added two plastic bags
containing sachets of paste and other bits and pieces. She hadn’t planned on buying anything other than wallpaper and paste, but she had seen all sorts of knick-knacks in eye-catching wrapping on the shelves, had picked them up, decided they could be useful and popped them in the wire basket.

Angel had discovered, of course, as he knew he would, eventually, the con Mary had in her mind to work across him. It was the burning necessity, she reckoned, which hadn’t been apparent to him (and probably never would have been), that the bedroom that was to be temporarily occupied by her sister, Lolly, very much needed refreshing and brightening with new wallpaper.

He wasn’t pleased about this. He had slapped it on his credit card and had no organized thought-out way in which he was going to repay it without paying the bank’s exorbitant interest. The gas bill was still not paid and was about a month overdue. But since the early days of their marriage, he had always said that Mary could have her own way, and without abusing the privilege, she always got it. Naturally, she was delighted and had pledged to do the
paperhanging
herself, thereby saving that expense.

Angel slammed down the boot lid and they got into the car. They had had a passably good lunch at an expensive restaurant in and among the myriad of lanes of shops and were on their way home. Angel had nothing much to say in the way of conversation. It had all been exhausted in the earlier abandoned argument about the
unnecessary
wallpapering of Lolly’s room, as it had become known.

As Angel reached the outskirts of Bromersley, he saw one of Grogan’s ice-cream vans parked near the gates of a small park off Sheffield Road. Two girls aged about fourteen suitably dressed in warm boots, overcoats with furry hoods and gloves, were walking away, laughing and licking on ice-cream cones.

He slowed the BMW down, pointed to the van ahead and said, ‘Would you like an ice cream, Mary? Never tasted Grogan’s ice cream. I wonder what it’s like?’

‘No, thank you, love,’ she said. She pretended to shiver. ‘It’s too cold.’

He smiled. ‘When was the last time you had a cornet?’

‘A cornet?’ she said, her eyebrows rising upward. She considered the suggestion. ‘Are you having one?’

‘Why not? Be a devil.’

‘All right, love,’ she said.

He stopped the BMW just behind the smartly painted ice-cream van and went round on the pavement to the serving window.

The salesman slid open the window. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Now what can I get you?’

‘Two vanilla cornets, please.’

‘That’s two pounds, please,’ the man said.

As Angel dug into his pocket and fingered through his change, the salesman reached into a box, pulled out two large orange cones then deftly scooped large semi-spheres of ice cream and perched them on top of each one.

Angel put the correct money inside the window.

The salesman handed him the two cornets. As he did so, he quickly turned away as if he didn’t want his face to be seen.

‘Thank you,’ Angel said.

The ice-cream man then picked up the money and said, ‘Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.’ He closed the window, put the server into a drawer and made his way to the driver’s seat.

Angel nodded and wondered where he had seen the face before. He turned away from the van window to find himself facing the gate to the small park, which was wide open. Looking through it and along the path towards the swings was a strange sight he had heard reported before. About ten feet from the entrance, at the side of the path, was a small puddle of melting ice cream with six or seven cones sticking out of it. He went into the park and down the path. He crouched down to have a closer look. The ice-cream cornets appeared simply to have been discarded. Perhaps because they were sour or didn’t taste right. He couldn’t think of any other
explanation
. He looked at the two cornets he was holding. They looked identical to the ones thrown away. He straightened up and stood there a few moments, struggling for a reason, but none came.

He returned to the car. He noticed Grogan’s van had packed up and gone.

He handed the ice cream to Mary, who took it eagerly. ‘I don’t think I’ve had a cornet for ten years or more. Thank you, darling,’ she said.

He smiled and the couple began to lick the white stuff.

Mary dived straight in, and after a few preliminary licks made a suitable hole in the dome shape.

Angel didn’t know what to expect. He started cautiously,
considering
each lick, ready to dispatch the cornet to a waste-bin if necessary.

Mary soon licked through the ice cream, reached the biscuit, crunched all the way through that, reached for her handbag for a handkerchief, wiped her lips and fingers with it, and said, ‘Thank you, Michael. That was quite the nicest ice cream I have ever had.’

Angel had to agree. It really had tasted remarkably good. He started the car engine and pointed the car bonnet towards home.

However, the identity of the driver salesman in a Grogan’s van and the reason for the ice-cream cornets being placed upside-down in the discarded ice cream around the town monopolized his thoughts throughout the weekend and beyond.

S
unday came. It was cold but there was no snow. Angel avoided looking at the clocks because although he was up early enough to go to church, he didn’t really want to go. Mary said nothing. He thought that she probably felt the same.

He munched his way through his muesli and drank endless cups of tea, his mind on the upturned cone biscuits stuck in the melting ice cream. At the same time, Mary was wondering where she had put the paper scrapers after decorating the kitchen the previous spring, and how she could talk her husband into helping her to scrape paper off the bedroom walls. There was now less urgency to assemble the bed. That would be a job to do after the decoration had been completed.

They spoke only in monosyllables through breakfast until Mary said, ‘Look at the time. Quarter past ten. We can’t possibly get to church now.’

‘No,’ Angel said. He felt a little uncomfortable as he knew he had connived at being too late.

He left the breakfast table, taking his tea cup with him, moved into the sitting room, turned on the gas fire and switched on the TV. Up came the sound of a church organ followed by the picture of stained glass windows, candles and a choir in full voice. He watched it with interest. He could see it was an Anglican church and wondered from what part of the country it was being broadcast. He reasoned that if he watched that, it might mollify his conscience. Halfway through the second hymn, he began making notes about what he had to do the next day, Monday.

Angel arrived in the office at 8.28 a.m. as usual that Monday morning and was looking through the pile of envelopes and reports on his desk when there was a knock at the door. It was DC Scrivens.

‘Good morning, sir. You said you would tell us whether you still wanted us to continue keeping obbo on those two warehouses.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten, Ted,’ he said. ‘Sit down. The super insists that the intelligence was from a very reliable source. Is it possible the delivery in some way got passed you chaps?’

Scrivens blinked. ‘I don’t see how, sir. We were in position before 8.30 until after five each day. Those were the times both warehouses were advertised to be open. All delivery vehicles were videoed. Every driver and any crew were photographed and were not recognized by the ARS. Every licence plate was logged and checked with Swansea while the vehicle was still at the warehouse. Details of every
consignment
were checked with the vehicle owners, and none of the vehicles delivered any biscuits.’

‘Right, Ted. Well, stand down. We can’t afford any more time on that. If a load of cocaine arrived packed as biscuits in Bromersley last Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, I don’t know where it was
delivered
to.’

‘Nor do I, sir,’ Scrivens said, standing up.

‘Sit back down a minute, there’s something else,’ he said. He reached behind him to the small table on which there were two
polythene
EVIDENCE bags. He opened the one with only one screwdriver in and passed it over to him.

‘This is one of the screwdrivers used in the robbery of the FSDS van, isn’t it, sir?’ Scrivens said.

Angel nodded. ‘If you look carefully on the handle, there is a tiny design or logo constituted from five white rectangles, three black rectangles and the letters MO embossed over the design.’

‘Yes. I can see it, sir.’

‘Does it mean anything to you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ask around … try the library. Maybe garages might know. See if you can find out what it means.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘And don’t mess about. Put your mind to it. It’s got to mean
something
.’

Scrivens went out and closed the door.

Angel picked up the phone and tapped in a number. It was soon answered.

‘Ahmed,’ Angel said. ‘I want to speak to the office, department or authority that checks on the purity and quality of dairy food
products
such as milk and ice cream here in Bromersley. Find out who that is, will you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said and rang off.

Angel leaned back in the swivel chair and looked up at the ceiling. He had three murders and the robbery of a security van on his plate and he wasn’t making any progress with solving any of them. For the first time he noticed a ring of black all the way round the rose directly above the frosted glass globe which illuminated the room. He was thinking it must be ten years since his office was decorated.

There was a knock at the door. He leaned forward in the chair. ‘Come in.’

It was DS Taylor waving a sheet of paper.

‘I’ve got a report back from Wetherby, sir, about that thread found on Raymond Gulli’s sleeve,’ he said.

He offered it to Angel.

‘You read it, lad,’ Angel said. ‘Save time.’

‘Report on textile sample submitted 13 January 2010.’

‘Yes. Yes. I know that. Get to the meat of it, Don, if there is any.’

‘Well, sir, it says sample is 4.2 centimetres long, and is described as a thread of tussore that contains traces of oxidized borate with a peroxide linkage of sodium salt used as bleach.’

Angel’s jaw dropped. ‘It’s a thread of strong silk that has been bleached, at least twice.’ He gave a heavy sigh.

There was no hiding his disappointment.

‘Why might it have been bleached twice, sir?’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘I suppose because the weaver or thread maker wasn’t satisfied with the shade the first time.’ Then his face lit up. Something dawned on him. ‘The thread must have been needed for something very special.’

Taylor frowned. ‘What sort of thing?’

‘Well, not some humdrum inconsequential garment or trimming. No. But for something that was going to be used for important
ceremonial
purposes, such as a garment for a monarch or archbishop at
a coronation, or for special garments for priests to wear when
consecrating
the bread and wine. The thread needed to be whiter than white, purer than pure.’

Angel’s eyes glowed. He looked at Taylor. ‘You know what this means, Don.’

‘That the thread is, after all, from a priest,’ Taylor said.

‘Yes. Now I believe that the garment the murderer was seen wearing, variously described by witnesses as a gown, a cloak and a coat, was in fact a scapular. That’s the very special garment a priest wears over his other attire when he is consecrating the bread and wine.’

‘But this thread is white, sir. I’ve seen priests in green and purple and scarlet.’

‘They
wear
different colours, but at Christmas and just after, they always wear white. All three witnesses agree that the colour of the mysterious garment was white.’

‘Do you think that the murderer is a priest, sir?’

Angel’s face creased with distaste. ‘All three victims were shot with the same gun, and all three murders were the same MO. We know that much for certain. The murderer at the railway station was in a dog collar, and is presumably the same man. I’ve always fought against it, but I am sadly coming to the conclusion that all three murders were committed by a priest who has gone out of his mind.’

‘Good morning. This is Detective Inspector Angel at Church Street Police Station. Have I the right extension number? Is that Mr Jarvis? Is your office responsible for checking the quality and purity of food products sold in the town?’

‘It is, Inspector, why? Is there an item you want us to look into?’

‘No, not specifically. I need some general information.’

‘Has there been a complaint?’

‘No. This is in the nature of a personal inquiry, but it
could
become an inquiry in the public interest. I’m not sure that I want to complain about anything at all, Mr Jarvis. All I really need at this stage is some information.’

‘Ask away, Inspector.’

‘My wife and I had an ice-cream cornet from one of Grogan’s mobile vans on Saturday. And I have to say how very nice it was.’

‘It’s a bit cold for me is ice cream at this time of the year, but I had some in the park with my children several times last summer and we enjoyed it too. So what’s the problem?’

‘I need to know if you make tests on the ice cream.’

‘We certainly do. Being a milk-based item, produced in the town, we take random samples twice a year, which are sent to an
independent
laboratory for analysis and report.’

‘And what do the reports say?’

‘Well, I can’t remember any details without looking them up, Inspector, but Grogan’s reports are and always have been quite excellent. I would have remembered if we had had to submit a warning or take any disciplinary action. And I wouldn’t be buying any of
their
ice cream for my children, I can tell you.’

Angel nodded. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Jarvis. Goodbye.’

He replaced the phone.

It rang immediately. It was Crisp.

Angel’s lips stiffened. He clenched the phone tightly. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to clock in, lad. I thought you’d emigrated. Where are you? You’re supposed to be looking for Irish John and any other tramp-like character who just might be able to give us a lead.’

Crisp’s voice was stark. ‘I think I’ve found “Irish John”, sir. Fits the description. Behind some rubbish bins at the back of All Saints and Martyrs Church on Sebastopol Terrace. He won’t be able to help us much. He’s been shot in the chest and he’s dead!’

Those last two words echoed in Angel’s head.

It was an hour later when Dr Mac, in white disposable overalls, carrying his bag, came out of the canvas marquee which SOCO had erected over part of the back yard of All Saints and Martyrs Church, Sebastopol Terrace. Mac lifted the blue and white DO NOT CROSS tape and passed a small line of women onlookers who were standing shivering on the snow-covered pavement. He was making his way to his car when Angel arrived in the BMW and stopped behind it.

Angel lowered the window and called out, ‘Have you finished, Mac?’

Mac took the few steps up to the car and said, ‘Aye, I have that, Michael. And do you know, it’s as cold as Hogmanay in the Cairngorms.’

‘Jump in a minute,’ Angel said. ‘I’ll keep the engine running, warm your little haggis-filled toes.’

Mac opened the car door, put his bag in the footwell, climbed in and quickly closed the door. He peeled off the rubber gloves and briskly rubbed both the palms and backs of his hands.

He looked at Angel. ‘You’ve got me in here under false pretences,’ he said with a straight face.

Angel turned the heater blower up to the top setting and put his foot on the accelerator. ‘I’m trying to save you from getting
pneumonia
,’ Angel said with a grin.

Mac held his red hands out to the warm vent on the dashboard, and with a sober face, he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s the same MO, Michael. He was shot, at close range, in the heart. Don Taylor found one bullet case. It’s a .32. Same as the other three victims.’

Angel put a hand up to his chin and rubbed it. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why murder a tramp?’

‘Why murder anybody? Your lad, Crisp, said that his name was Irish John.’

‘That’s all I know. It was a nickname given to him by Sam Smart from St Mary’s. It was told to me by his housekeeper. I’ve no idea what his real name is.’

‘I’ll put that on the docket for the time being.’

‘But why murder a tramp? The only reason I can think of is because he knew too much. He saw or heard something that
jeopardized
the murderer’s anonymity.’

Mac nodded.

‘Well, it certainly wasn’t to rob him,’ Angel said. ‘He had nothing.’

He looked at Mac. ‘Was he shot in situ?’

‘I believe so. Can’t be sure until I’ve got him on the table.’

Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘The sound of the shot? It would waken the universe, wouldn’t it?’

‘There was a kneeling pad … a thing you kneel on in church … cast away on top of him. It has powder burns and a hole through it. It was used to deaden the noise.’

‘A kneeling pad? From out of the church? You mean a hassock?’

‘All right, posh boy, a hassock. Not being high church and with a free church background, I wasn’t brought up to call things by fancy names. It’s about fourteen inches long by ten inches wide and about
one inch thick. Call it a hassock if you like. I call it a kneeling pad or even a kneeler.’

‘Yeah, that’s a hassock. I wonder how he came by that?’

‘Simple. The murderer saw his prey, nipped into the church, came out with a kneeler and shot him. He would have to be able to get into the church, wouldn’t he? I thought churches were locked up when not being used for a service.’

Mac was right. Angel rubbed his chin hard. He was conscious that rubbing his chin was getting to be a habit but it helped him with his thinking. He didn’t like what he was thinking.

‘The priest here would have access
all
the time,’ Angel said. ‘What time did the murder take place, Mac?’

‘My sums are a bit rough and ready. I need to know what the temperature was at its lowest last night, but it looks like he died between 7 p.m. and midnight.’

‘At this church, I spotted on the noticeboard that evensong in the winter is at 4.30. That would last about an hour. Half an hour to tidy up, put the lights out and so on. So the church I expect would be locked up by six o’clock.’

‘Sounds as if you’ve solved it, laddie. I must go.’

‘Thank you for the info,’ Angel said.

‘Thank you for the warm. I feel more human now. I will email my findings tomorrow morning,’ he said, and he opened the car door, letting in a blast of Arctic weather, picked up his bag, closed the door and was gone.

Angel switched off the engine and got out of the car as Crisp came running out of the marquee towards him.

‘Ah, there you are, sir,’ Crisp called. ‘Don Taylor wants you to see the scene of crime and OK the removal of the body to the mortuary, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’m coming, lad. I’m coming,’ Angel said. Then when they were up close, he said, ‘Find Father Hugo Riley for me urgently. I want to speak to him.’

Crisp blinked. His face went blank. ‘What’s he look like, sir?’ he said.