The Dog Collar Murders (20 page)

Angel’s pulse was racing. He reached out for his coat. He hoped it was not another murder. That would be
too
much.

‘There is a patrol car on its way there,’ Harker said. ‘I will contact Asquith promptly and get him to divert some more uniform from town centre duties.’

Angel passed him at the door. ‘Right, sir.’

‘Approach with caution. Report to me as soon as you have the facts.’

The service station was on the fringe of the town on the Wakefield side. It took Angel only five or six minutes to reach it. He pulled on to the forecourt and immediately saw the damaged vehicle. He recognized it as a retail ice-cream van of Grogan’s, battered almost out of existence and parked next to one of the pumps. It looked as if it had been driven under a bridge only a metre high. All the glass windows were broken and the bodywork had been severely battered. Broken glass was scattered around the forecourt.

Angel’s heart sunk. He expected to find another body.

Several customers were on the forecourt, standing by their cars with pump nozzles in their hands, looking at the unattended wreck and then up to the cashier’s office window.

A police patrol car was parked by the pay office door. Angel parked his BMW behind it and got out. He dashed across to the wrecked ice-cream van and looked inside at the crumpled mess, expecting to see a victim in a sea of blood. There was no body there and no sign of any blood. There was only broken glass, twisted metalwork, a towel and empty ice-cream cones scattered over the driver’s seat and in the footwell. There was no sign of any armed men anywhere.

He breathed out heavily. He was relieved there was no corpse. He turned towards the pay office. Then his mobile phone rang out. He wasn’t pleased. He reached into his pocket and checked the LCD. It was Ahmed. He briefly considered whether to ignore it or not. He clicked the button. ‘What is it, lad? Make it quick.’

Ahmed was taken aback. ‘It’s … there’s something on, sir,’ he said.

‘Something on? What do you mean?’

‘Everybody’s been put on standby, sir. We’ve been ordered not to
move out of the building and not to make outgoing phone calls. I’m not supposed to be phoning you.’

Angel’s screwed up his face. ‘Who says?’

‘The super says … something to do with security. I thought you’d want to know.’

This was a new experience. It had never happened to Angel before. That sort of order was usually reserved for the
announcement
of the outbreak of a war, but on that morning’s radio news there had not been any hint that any kind of national emergency was imminent. He knew a General Election was expected to be called soon but he couldn’t think that that had anything to do with it. He pursed his lips. It must surely then be something local but very important.

‘Yes. Right, lad, thank you. If you find out anything else, give me a ring, if you can.’ He pocketed the phone and rubbed his chin.

While he had been on the phone, a police patrolman had noticed him and had run out of the office and across the forecourt towards him.

Angel recognized him. It was PC Donohue. ‘Any injuries, Sean?’ Angel said.

‘No, sir. The cashier was scared but I think she’s all right now. The van is the only casualty here,’ Donohue said, pointing at it. ‘They certainly meant business.’

Angel glanced back at it, pursed his lips and blew out a length of air. ‘What happened?’

‘The cashier said that the driver of the ice-cream van drove up to that pump, got out and then disappeared. Shortly afterwards, four men in black balaclavas and gloves came in here and demanded to know where he was, and threatened her with a gun. The cashier said she didn’t know. So they left her and set about attacking the van with iron bars and hammers and in a minute or so they reduced it to that. Then they ran off. Then the cashier locked the office door, switched off the pumps and dialled 999.’

Angel saw two more police Range Rovers arrive and several uniformed policemen on foot.

‘Right, Sean,’ he said. ‘Liaise with the other lads and ask those customers – politely – if they saw anything. If they didn’t, ask them to leave. And tape off the entrance and exit. There might be some
closed signs you can put up. Then see if you can see anything around that might have belonged to the vandals – weapons, balaclavas, gloves or anything they might have dropped or discarded.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said and dashed off.

Angel went back across the forecourt up to the pay-office door, opened it and went inside.

He saw a young woman standing behind the counter talking on the phone. She nervously looked across at him and frowned. Her hands were shaking and her face was white – whiter than the walls in the loos at Strangeways.

‘I don’t care about all that,’ she said into the phone. ‘I want my money up to date and my cards. I’m leaving and I’m leaving
tonight
.’ Then she banged the phone down into the cradle.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

Angel held up his warrant card and badge and said, ‘I’m Detective Inspector Angel, miss. What’s your name?’

She looked at the warrant card, nodded and said, ‘Another policeman! Julia Makepeace.’

‘What exactly happened, Julia?’

‘I’ve already been through it twice.’

He smiled at her gently and said, ‘I know, Julia. I know. But this is absolutely necessary, I assure you. You want us to catch the thugs, don’t you?’

She shrugged awkwardly then said, ‘I s’pose.’

Then she began to tell him just what PC Sean Donohue had said, but more colourfully.

Angel rubbed his chin and said, ‘Did you know the driver of the van?’

‘I never actually saw him, Inspector. I saw the van arrive and stop at pump number two. I noticed it was one of Grogan’s vans. Then a customer came in to pay. I attended to her. When I looked back, he was not around. Couldn’t see him anywhere. Then those thugs arrived. At first they crowded round the van, looking at each other, then they started crossing the forecourt in this direction. I was terrified. They came in here. It was horrifying. They came through that door … all in black, their eyes and lips showing through the knitted balaclavas, one of them carrying a gun.’ She shuddered.

Angel nodded. He understood how frightened she must have been.

‘Then what happened, Julia?’ he said.

‘The one with the gun wanted to know where the driver was. I couldn’t speak, I was that scared. He screamed the question at me again and waved the gun in front of my face. Eventually, I managed to get out that I didn’t know.’

‘Do you remember the exact words he used, Julia? It could be important.’

She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Yes. I’m pretty certain he said, “Where’s the driver of Grogan’s van?”’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. He yelled it out loud two or three times. “Where’s the driver of Grogan’s van?”’

Angel nodded. ‘Was there anything unusual about his voice or his clothes or any of the other men’s clothes and voices?’

‘The one with the gun was the only one who spoke,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t from round here. I’m pretty sure it was a cockney accent.’

Angel nodded. ‘Then what happened?’

‘They ran out of here and began to trash the van.’

Angel rubbed his chin. After a few moments, he glanced over the counter at the cash till. He pointed at it with his thumb and said, ‘There’ll be a few quid in there, I expect, Julia?’

‘Over a thousand pounds,’ she said.

‘Didn’t your friends in the balaclavas show any interest in it at all?’ Angel said, raising his eyebrows.

‘No. I thought that that’s what they wanted when they came into the office, but no. And for all I care, Inspector, they could have had it too. I’m not brave. I’m not paid for dealing with men with guns.’

‘Did you see if they had a car?’

‘No. They seemed to arrive from nowhere, did what they did and then dashed off. I don’t know which way they went. I was too scared to look.’

Angel wasn’t learning much. The villains had pretty well covered themselves.

He thanked Julia Makepeace for her patience and left the office. He noticed that the uniformed constables had cleared the forecourt of the general public, taped off the area and formed a line of eight,
and were methodically crossing the forecourt with their heads down, searching for clues. He nodded approvingly and crossed the
forecourt
to reach the constables just as they had completed their search.

He looked at PC Donohue and said, ‘Did you find anything, Sean?’

‘No, sir.’

He wasn’t surprised.

‘Well, thanks anyway, lads,’ he said. ‘Wait until SOCO get here with DS Taylor then return to your normal duties. I’ll get off.’

He turned and made the few steps across the forecourt to his car. He had just fastened the seatbelt and was reaching for the ignition when his mobile rang. It was Harker. He sounded strange. His voice was an octave higher than usual.

‘Ah yes, Angel,’ he said. ‘The chief constable has declared that Bromersley Constabulary is formally on standby. You are to stay exactly where you are until you receive further instructions. And you are to keep your phone line open to receive further orders. So carry on working on your cases, but stay put, so that I know exactly where to find you. All right?’

Angel blinked. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘But why is—’

Harker had gone. The line was dead.

Angel closed the phone and dropped it into his pocket. Those were exactly the orders Ahmed told him that he had received in the CID office. Angel frowned. It wasn’t likely that the authority of Bromersley Constabulary had been rescinded. Bromersley was a totally responsible force with a high success rate. It must be some significant political or criminal activity that needed the intervention of other specialized organizations such as MI5 or the army.

Angel’s mobile rang again. His hand shook as he opened it. It was Ahmed.

‘What’s happening?’ Angel said.

‘I’ve got this from a constable in the control room, sir. It should be reliable. Apparently, at about nine o’clock this morning there were several big explosions at Grogan’s ice-cream factory. There was a lot of damage to the building and the plant, and there were some injuries and some dead, including Mr Grogan himself. The chief constable promptly decided to bring in the Special Unit of Operations. It was apparently the SUO’s directive that for our own
safety we were to keep well away from the site and continue with our routine work. Some members of the gang responsible for the explosions are thought to be still in the building, and the SUO have brought in a team of armed men, track vehicles, even a helicopter. And I understand that there are fire engines from all over … Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield. And ambulances from Bromersley General and Barnsley General. And that’s about it, sir.’

Angel looked through the windscreen along the grey bonnet of the car and slowly shook his head. It was a sad day.

‘Does anybody know why?’ he said.

‘No, sir. They don’t know anything more in the control room.’

Angel rubbed his chin, then said, ‘And did you say Raphael Grogan was dead?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Angel said, ‘Right, lad. Thanks very much.’

He closed the phone and slowly dropped it into his pocket. He sighed deeply. His mind was racing as he assimilated the amazing news. He needed to know what was happening. All the action was at Grogan’s ice-cream factory. Although he had been ordered to stay at the service station his investigation there was completed and he had no intention of hanging around wasting time.

He pulled the seatbelt round and clicked the chromium plated lip into position. Then he reached forward, turned on the ignition and the car engine purred into life. He let in the clutch and drove the BMW towards the exit and the blue and white DO NOT CROSS tape. A constable lifted the tape for the car to pass under and then threw up a salute. Angel waved a hand of thanks and pressed on across the pavement and into the main Wakefield Road.

A
s Angel drove the BMW up Wakefield Road towards the Fitzallan Trading Estate he saw a black funnel-shaped cloud directly over the area. The sight made him gasp. As he got nearer, he could see the upward movement of a black column of smoke and then the billowing out creating a mushroom shape. He turned on to the ring road then soon reached the short road on to the Fitzallan Trading Estate. He passed the signboards showing the layout of the estate and the 10mph speed restriction sign. Ahead he heard a short burst of four shots from a gun or a rifle.

His heart began to thump.

He slowly turned the curve in the road and saw an unbelievable sight. Grogan’s factory lay in ruins. Some of the walls were reduced to piles of bricks, the building had no roof and there were black holes where windows and doors had been. The stream of black smoke generating in the middle of the building continued to ascend into the sky. He heard another burst of four rifle shots followed by a response of seven or eight. He couldn’t see the source of the exchange.

Three firemen’s ladders were suspended over the factory roof directing water hoses into the middle of the factory. There were two cars and two three-ton lorries in khaki livery parked on the front of the neighbouring factory unit. A Daimler track vehicle with tin helmets bobbing out of the top of it raced past the side of Grogan’s factory, ripping up the carefully maintained turf. Near them, a group of men were sheltering behind an armoured car. Some of them seemed to be consulting a map, while others had their rifles set in firing positions.

Angel bit his lip uneasily as he sat there, mesmerized by the sight. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and cut his speed.

Suddenly from nowhere out stepped a man in an army uniform gripping a rifle. He briefly put out a hand with palm facing to
indicate
that he wanted Angel to stop.

Angel braked and saw that the man was fully kitted in army khaki, a steel helmet and holding a menacingly dangerous SA80 A2 Heckler and Koch rifle.

Angel lowered the car window.

The soldier kept his eyes on him and ambled round the car to it.

‘No entry here, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to turn round.’

Angel said, ‘I am a police officer. Detective Inspector Angel, Bromersley Police.’ He pulled out the leather holder that held his warrant card and badge and showed it to the soldier.

The man merely nodded towards it and said, ‘I don’t care if you’re Ann Widdecombe, sir. You can’t come past this point.’

Angel pocketed the leather case and said, ‘Why, what’s happened?’

The soldier shook his head. ‘A gang of villains has blown up a factory and we’re clearing up after them, that’s all. Now just turn round and go away, sir,’ he said, with a wave of the rifle. ‘
Please
.’

The sound of a distant siren grew louder. An ambulance was coming straight towards them from the direction of Grogan’s factory. The soldier dashed round the back of the BMW to give it more room as it roared past.

The soldier watched it go, then took up a position in the middle of the road in front of the car. He readjusted the helmet strap under his chin, stared at Angel and alternately tightened then slackened his fingers round the grips on the rifle.

Angel could see that he had no alternative but to take his leave. He reversed back a short way to a junction and turned round. When he was out of sight of the soldier and could see the ring road ahead, he stopped the car and pulled on the handbrake. He rubbed his chin as he gazed out at the brown fields on each side. There was nothing he would be allowed to do at Grogan’s factory so he may just as well leave. He would have liked to return to his office but Harker had rather put that out of bounds. The superintendent believed that he was at the service station on Wakefield Road but it was pointless going back there. Everything that he could do had been done. He could go home but Mary would insist that he got that bed assembled in time for Lolly’s visit. She was arriving the following day, and he
feared the bed would not be assembled in time. Even so, he wasn’t up for doing it.

What a ridiculous state of affairs.

He gazed out of the windscreen. The snow had almost melted away but there were still strips of the dirty white stuff in the prickly, black hedge bottom.

Suddenly, he thought he saw something moving. He focussed his eyes on it. It was on his left about forty metres away, close to the hedge bottom. At first he thought it was a fox or a dog, crawling slowly along, as if it was injured, but then it stood up, looked around, probably saw the BMW and quickly flopped back down full length into the snow and stayed motionless. Angel realized it was a man, a man who didn’t want to be seen. The man didn’t stay still for long, and began to crawl slowly further along. Angel assumed that he was making for the ring road. He could see an aluminium gate on the corner of the field that he should easily be able to open or climb over, then a few steps and he would be at the side of the ring road. Angel estimated that at the man’s present rate of progress, he would be there in three minutes and he decided to act as a reception committee and meet him at the kerbside.

At due time, Angel started the BMW and drove the short distance out of the estate and on to the ring road where he stopped, turned off the ignition, took out the keys, then ran round the front of the car and up to the aluminium gate.

The man seemed to be well dressed in a suit, collar and tie with a thin dark raincoat on top. However, he was soaking wet and his face and head as well as his clothes were daubed with streaks of mud. He didn’t speak even though he must have felt Angel’s grip. He pulled the man over the gate, carefully arranging to have his right arm up his back when his feet landed on the ground.

‘Are you in a hurry, sir?’ Angel said.

‘Let go of me, for goodness’ sake, Angel,’ the man said. ‘I’m Raphael Grogan.’

Angel stared at the man. The voice was right. But he had been told he was dead. He released the hold. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Grogan. Didn’t recognize you under all that mud … Come along. I’ll give you a lift. You must have had a terrible time.’ He pointed to the car. ‘Jump in.’

It was then that Angel saw blood on the fingers of his left hand and realized that he must have caught it from some place on Grogan.

Grogan saw the blood and said, ‘I have a cut on my shoulder from a big piece of plaster that fell on me. It’s nothing much. Nothing at all to worry about.’

Angel assisted Grogan into the car and got into the driving seat. Grogan was having difficulty fastening his seatbelt because of the injured shoulder, so Angel pulled it across him and pressed the tab home.

‘I have some tissues somewhere,’ Angel said and he began searching the glove shelf behind the steering wheel. ‘Clean you up a bit.’

Grogan smiled. ‘Thank you, Inspector. That would be nice.’

Angel shook his head as he fiddled with some dusters and a sign with the word POLICE printed on it and a pair of handcuffs.

‘Don’t know where they are,’ he said. ‘Will you look in the glove box in front of you, Mr Grogan? That might be where I put them.’

Grogan nodded, leaned forward, pressed the catch and busied himself among maps, charts and police pamphlets with titles such as: ‘BROMERSLEY POLICE PROCEDURE. Leaflet No. 465 –
procedure
on being in collision with wild animals such as tiger, lion, elephant, et cetera. Note: this does not apply to wolves or foxes under two years of age or over twelve years of age.’

‘I have them, Mr Grogan,’ Angel said, pulling a big box of Kleenex tissues off the shelf, waving them in triumph and handing them to him. ‘They were behind the tachometer all the time.’

Grogan took the box and thanked him.

Angel then started the car.

‘I’ll take you straight to the hospital,’ Angel said. ‘Have that shoulder seen to, a general check-up and a wash, and if you’re all right, then I’ll take you home.’

‘No thanks, Inspector,’ Grogan said. ‘It’s very considerate of you but it is nothing, I assure you. Would you please take me to the railway station?’

Angel frowned, shook his head and said, ‘The railway station? I couldn’t do that, Mr Grogan. You must have been through a terrible time. Please don’t worry. I will see you right.’

Angel turned off the ring road on to a short link road called Wells
Road. Bromersley General Hospital was on a crossroads off Wells Road.

Grogan said, ‘Well, then, if you won’t take me to the railway station, please stop and let me out here.’

‘Can’t do that, Mr Grogan. You are in my custody. You are wanted for the murder of four men, for armed robbery and for dealing in cocaine.’

Grogan stared at him; his jaw dropped. ‘Ridiculous. You must be out of your mind.’

‘But I wouldn’t want you to die on us from septicaemia before you are tried, so we are going to the hospital to have that bullet taken out of your shoulder before we go straight to the station.’

‘There is no bullet in my shoulder! I told you it was—’

‘Come on, Grogan. You can’t fool me. If it was a flesh wound it wouldn’t be bleeding so profusely. It has never stopped since you got in the car. It’s a good job this upholstery is genuine plastic. Besides, you have a small hole in your raincoat that exactly matches that of a bullet hole.’

Angel pulled on to the frontage of the hospital and began looking for a place to park. It was very busy. An ambulance man at the Accident and Emergency entrance was delivering an elderly man on a stretcher. Two nurses were getting an elderly woman out of a car. There were NO WAITING signs everywhere.

Angel looked round in every direction. There was simply nowhere to park the BMW.

Grogan’s eyes were shining like landing lights on a 747. Suddenly, he reached into his left-hand raincoat pocket, pulled something out and pointed it Angel.

Angel noticed the movement and turned to see what was happening. He found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. His eyebrows shot up. His heart began to thump like a steam hammer.

‘I see that you know what this is,’ Grogan said, shaking the gun at him.

Angel nodded. ‘A Walther PPK/S .32 automatic.’

‘Good. Now drive me out of this frigging place. I told you I didn’t want to be here, and I frigging well don’t. I want to get well away from here and it now looks like you have frigging well volunteered to be my frigging chauffeur.’

Angel breathed deeply several times. He noticed how Grogan had changed. He sounded different. He even looked different. Deadly, awful and brutal.

Angel drove the BMW round the semi-circle past the main doors of the hospital and stopped at the exit road.

‘Turn right,’ Grogan said.

Angel pulled the wheel round to the right. ‘Where are we going?’ he said.

‘I’ll tell you all you need to know,’ Grogan said.

Angel drove the car along the road in silence. He drove straight ahead unless told otherwise. They seemed to be headed for Barnsley.

After a few minutes, Grogan said, ‘What made you think I was dealing in cocaine?’

‘I first got the idea when we had notice that 250 boxes of cocaine in the form of biscuits were heading for a customer in Barnsley.’

‘That didn’t have to be me.’

‘No, it didn’t. But when I saw that many of your teenage customers were indiscriminately dumping your exceedingly delicious ice cream and the cones on paths and grass, it got me thinking. Cones are, of course, biscuits. Maybe the 250 boxes of cocaine in the form of biscuits were delivered to you, and maybe in the bottom of each ice-cream cone was a twist of cocaine, so that it could be distributed discreetly and in a big way. That would explain why your ice-cream salesmen could still find it worthwhile to stand outside a school or a park in the middle of winter and still make a profit.’

‘Ridiculous. You will have to prove it.’

Angel smiled. ‘When the judge and jury find out that your salesmen are mostly unemployable crooks, such as Angus Rossi and the lad who stood outside the park last Saturday afternoon, Johnny Oxford, it won’t be difficult. That name only came to me this morning. He did three years for handling stolen goods – I put him away myself. Were the rest of your salesmen ex cons?’

‘They worked cheap, Angel. And they kept their frigging traps frigging shut.’

Angel came to a junction. The sign ahead said ‘Barnsley 4 miles’. Angel drove the BMW straight on.

‘Something else has just occurred to me,’ Angel said. ‘250 boxes of 500 ice-cream cones to a box, with a twist of cocaine in each
cone, would amount to a huge amount of money … in the region of four million?’

Grogan said nothing.

‘And if you were dependent on the proceeds of the raid on the First Security Delivery Services van to
pay
for it, and you lost those proceeds, you would make some unsavoury people very, very unhappy – so unhappy they might want to murder you and your gang and blow up your factory.’

Grogan said, ‘You will have to prove this, you know.’

Angel shrugged. Then his eyes shone briefly. ‘That explains
something
else. That’s why you are hell bent on getting as far away from here as possible. That’s not an MI5 or a Special Unit of Operations bullet in your shoulder, it’s come from one of your Colombian friends. I suppose you are lucky to escape with your life.’

‘It’s another frigging figment of your imagination,’ Grogan said.

The traffic lights on Market Hill in the centre of Barnsley had just turned to red as Angel drove the BMW up to them. He pulled on the handbrake and looked up at the shops, the bank, the town hall. This was familiar territory. But contact was denied him. Angel had a quick look down at the Walther being held steadily in Grogan’s left hand and he sighed. The muscles of his jaw
tightened
. He looked thoughtfully along the bonnet of the BMW. If he had reached for the door handle he would have been dead in seconds.

‘Get on to the M1,’ Grogan said.

The traffic lights went to green. Angel eased off the handbrake, let in the clutch and turned the corner. Ten minutes later, they were on the M1 travelling northwards at 60mph. Angel had no idea of Grogan’s destination or how much longer they would be travelling. He hoped, however, that throughout the time he would be able to keep Grogan talking.