The Fruit Gum Murders (12 page)

‘I'd like to have a quick word with one of your chambermaids, Monica Spalding, Mr Blacklock,' he said.

‘Oh yes, of course,' Blacklock said as he reached out for the phone. ‘She'll be on the first floor, Inspector. Please go up on the lift and I'll get her to meet you at the top.'

‘Thank you,' Angel said.

The lift whizzed Angel up to the first floor and true to Blacklock's word, as the doors opened, there stood Monica Spalding.

Angel got out of the lift.

‘You wanted me, Inspector,' she said, standing there, her hands shaking and her wide eyes flitting here and there.

Behind her were two smartly dressed men, edging to get into the lift. They pushed past her. Then a young couple came hurrying along the corridor also intent on catching the lift.

‘I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, Monica. Can we go where we can talk?' Angel said.

She pulled up her keys which were on a chain, and opened the nearest bedroom door and showed him in. He looked round. The room was clean, smart and ready for occupation.

‘Will this do?' she said, closing the door. ‘We'll be all right here until the guest arrives.'

Angel nodded. ‘This is fine,' he said. Then he turned back to face her. ‘I am just checking about some flowers that may have been in room 201, last Sunday night, the night Norman Robinson was murdered. There is evidence that there were some flowers – oriental lilies actually – in the room. I wondered if you had seen anything of them.'

‘No. No, I didn't see any flowers.'

‘Did you remove any flowers to tidy up the place, because they were dead or for whatever reason, after you found the body?'

‘No, Inspector. I've already told you that. I told you that when I realized he was dead, I just wanted to get away from him. I didn't take anything out of the room, flowers or anything else. I still don't like cleaning that room. It gives me the willies.'

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Sorry about that, Monica. I can understand that. Tell me, was it possible for anybody else to have removed anything – I'm thinking particularly of the flowers, but anything – from that room after you had found and reported the man dead?'

‘No, Inspector,' she said. ‘Definitely not.'

Angel blinked. ‘What makes you so … positive?'

‘Well, I didn't want anybody else to get the same shock I got when I found him like that, did I? So I hung about the lift door opposite 201 until your men arrived.'

‘You're quite positive about that, Monica? You'd be quite prepared to say on oath in court that nobody entered the room between the time you reported finding him dead and when the forensic police team arrived?'

‘Well, yes. But I hope I don't have to.'

‘It probably won't be necessary, Monica, but you
may
have to.'

‘Well, yes, I would.'

‘Good. Thank you, Monica. That's all I wanted to know.'

There was a knock on the office door.

‘Come in,' Angel called.

It was Ahmed. He was carrying several sheets of A4. ‘I've finished checking off Johnson's calls, sir.'

Angel beamed. ‘Ah yes, lad,' he said, ‘you couldn't have come at a better time. What you got?'

‘Well, Johnson isn't a big user of his mobile, sir. There are a few shops he has called and a local bookie. No family or women friends. The only number I couldn't properly fathom was a mobile number. Which he rang frequently, sometimes three times in a day, and so might be of interest, sir. I phoned the number and asked who they were and a man gave me a very frosty reply, so I said I had the wrong number and hung up.'

‘Quite right. No need to arouse their suspicion.'

‘I went through to the phone company, sir, and they say that it's not possible to trace the owner of the number because it is a “pay as you go” phone.'

‘Is that all, then?'

‘That's the phone number at the bottom of the sheet.'

There was a knock at the door.

‘Right, lad. See who that is, will you?'

Ahmed opened the door. It was DS Carter.

‘Come on in, Flora,' Angel said. ‘Ahmed was just leaving, weren't you?'

‘Er, yes,' Ahmed said. He made a quick exit and closed the door.

Angel looked up at Flora and indicated a chair. She sat down.

‘Now then, Flora, have you managed to organize it?' Angel asked.

‘Yes, sir. I've had a new transmitting bug partnered to my mobile fitted to his mobile, and I have put it back in the envelope with the other stuff from his pockets in the charge room. He won't suspect a thing.'

‘Let's hope so. You know what we want, anything that will indicate his involvement in the murder of Norman Robinson. All right?'

‘I understand that, sir.'

Angel said, ‘Now you can release Johnson. And remind him that he must keep his nose clean and that he will eventually be charged with resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer and damaging police property.'

‘What about that £780 that was found in his house?'

‘We can't prove it was stolen, so he's entitled to have it back,' Angel said, then he wrinkled his nose and added, ‘for the time being.'

It was 8.28 a.m. Thursday morning, 6th June 2013.

The sun was shining. The birds were coughing. Police dogs were barking, and patrol car sirens could be heard racing up and down Bromersley in the police's perpetual bid to fight crime.

In the police station, Detective Inspector Angel was already in his office at his desk. He was gazing at the monstrous pot ornament and still wondering what animal it was or what it represented. He moved it from the top of his growing pile of post and reports, and began fingering through the envelopes.

There was a knock at the door. It was DS Crisp.

‘Good morning, sir,' he said.

‘Ah. You're back from haggis land, lad. Good. I've got another urgent job for you.'

Crisp frowned. ‘I've a lot of paperwork to catch up, sir. And I've to sort out my expenses.'

Then his eye caught the pot monster on the desk.

‘And, erm, what's that, sir, a new paperweight?'

‘What, lad? Oh that. It's a figure in fine china.'

‘Can I pick it up, sir?'

Angel passed it to him.

Crisp looked at the head thoroughly, then its stomach and then its feet. ‘Is it a gorilla on all fours?' he said. ‘They always look a bit odd. Or a reindeer? Hmmm. Very … er, smart, sir,' he said, placing it back on the desk.

‘Would you like it for your desk, Trevor?'

‘Oh no, sir. Thank you.'

‘For your mantelpiece at home?'

‘Looks very good on your desk, sir. What sort of animal is it?'

Angel clenched his fists. ‘I don't know,' he snapped. ‘Let's get on.'

He brought Crisp up to date with the Robinson murder and explained how they had discovered that the murderer had brought oriental lilies to the scene.

He continued, ‘So I want you to call on all the florists and places where they sell flowers nearest to the Feathers between 5.10 p.m., the time the train came in, and 6.00 p.m., when he arrived at the Feathers. There can't be many places that were open on a Sunday. It's absolutely vital. There may have been other flowers included in the bunch or bouquet. But whoever bought those lilies is the murderer, so we need a full description of him. All right?'

Crisp screwed up his face and shook his head. ‘It's a long shot, sir,' he said.

Angel said. ‘I know it's a long shot. But this is a difficult case. Now, buzz off and get on with it.'

Crisp wasn't best pleased. He went out and closed the door.

Angel watched him go and shook his head, then reached out to the pile and pulled it towards him. He was about to open an envelope when the phone went. He reached out for it.

It was Superintendent Harker. ‘I've just had a triple nine. A man has been found dead in a first-floor bedroom of the King George hotel on Main Street. Reported in by the manageress, Mrs Vermont.'

Angel's heart began to thump. His chest was on fire. ‘Right, sir,' he said, but Harker had already hung up.

Angel rang DS Taylor of SOCO, then Dr Mac, then Inspector Haydn Asquith, then DS Carter.

Then, when he had chance to think, he realized that on the face of it, there were similarities to the Robinson case: man's body found dead in a hotel. He was anxious to find out all the details of the man's death, but he must give SOCO time to make the initial scientific inspection of the site unhindered. The uncontaminated forensic evidence they might uncover could save him weeks of work, and perhaps produce an easy conviction.

He then busied himself with attempting to reduce the pile in front of him and made a little progress.

About an hour later, his phone rang. He snatched it up. It was Don Taylor ringing from the crime scene at the King George.

‘Right, Don, what have you got?'

‘You're not going to like this, sir.'

Angel's face muscles tightened. He sighed and said, ‘Spit it out, Don. What is it?'

‘We've got a body, male, sir, aged about fifty or fifty-five, name of Patrick Novak, found in a bedroom on a very disturbed bed, half-dressed, staring eyes, just like Norman Robinson. Something else – you won't believe, sir – there's a fruit gum on the carpet at the side of the bed.'

Angel blinked, shook his head … then rubbed his chin. ‘Anything else?' he said.

‘Dr Mac wants a word, sir.'

‘Put him on, Don.'

‘Mac here. Yes. It looks like a repeat of the Robinson case, Michael, except this victim is about thirty years older.'

‘Are you ready for me yet?' Angel said. He was anxious to get to the scene and see the situation for himself.

‘Come on over, Michael, I'll be ready for moving the body in a few minutes.'

‘Right, Mac. I'll be about ten minutes.'

Angel cancelled the call and left his office as it was. Closing the door, he looked into the CID office, caught DS Carter's eye, and twelve minutes later they were travelling upwards in the rickety lift of the King George hotel. Angel noticed the absence of CCTV cameras in the lift and along the corridors.

The clunking and rattling stopped. They were at the first floor.

It was easy to find the room they wanted.

A uniformed policeman was standing at the door of room 114. He recognized Angel, saluted, knocked on the door, turned the handle and pushed it open.

‘Thank you,' Angel said, as he and Flora went into the room.

It was a small single bedroom, decorated in wallpaper fashionable in 1949 and furnished with odds and ends from archaic workhouses.

Angel wrinkled his nose.

There were three SOCO men in whites. One was taking photographs of everything that didn't move, another was on his hands and knees under the bed, and another, Don Taylor, was removing the dust-collecting unit from a powerful vacuum, transferring it to an evidence bag, sealing it and entering the sector it had swept and the present time and date.

Dr Mac, also in whites, was on his knees at the side of the bed, packing an anal thermometer into a sleeve and putting that into a large bag.

Don Taylor looked up, and acknowledged Angel and DS Carter.

‘Good morning, sir. Good morning, Flora,' he said, and he put his pen in his pocket as he walked up to them.

‘Have you finished the sweep and the vacuum, Don?'

‘Yes, sir,' Taylor said. ‘And Dr Mac's ready to have the body moved.'

‘I am that, Michael,' Mac said, looking up.

‘Right. Won't keep you, Mac,' Angel said as he approached the bed.

He saw the body of a man crouched in a foetal position. He was dark-haired going grey, about fifty or sixty, his eyes were open, apparently staring into space. He was wearing only a shirt, vest and socks. The buttons on his shirt were undone. The bed was in great disorder, the blankets, sheets and pillows strewn about in a chaotic fashion.

‘No sign of any lipstick on this man, Mac?' Angel said.

‘Couldn't see any,' the doctor said. ‘Have you seen all you want to see of him, Michael?'

‘Oh yes, Mac. Thank you.'

The doctor nodded, then turned away, took out his mobile and began to make a call.

Angel saw a white chalk mark on the carpet just under the edge of the bed. It was there to indicate a shiny red fruit gum.

He looked at Taylor. ‘Is that fruit gum exactly the same as we found under Norman Robinson's bed, Don?'

‘It certainly looks like it, sir.'

‘No sign of the bag or packet anywhere? In his pockets or the wastepaper basket?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Hmm. It means – like the Robinson case – it must have been brought in by the murderer.' He turned to DS Carter. ‘Make a note of that, Flora.'

‘Right, sir,' she said, pulling out her notebook and fumbling in her pocket for a pen.

Angel looked round the room … the wardrobe … chest of drawers … luggage stand with small case on it … ancient washbasin with mirror above it … window looking out onto the back of the box factory … bedside locker and a chair at the other side of the bed with the rest of the dead man's clothes thrown onto it.

He turned back to look at Taylor. ‘Any sign that they had been drinking?' he said.

‘Yes, sir. There are marks where glasses and a bottle have stood on the white porcelain shelf above the washbasin. It is detachable, so we are taking the shelf with us. In the lab, I'll be able to completely dry the shelf, then maybe get a photograph of the marks left. They might match the marks left by the glasses and the bottle found on the bedside cabinet from the Feathers.'

Angel squeezed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb. ‘It would be good if they
did
match, Don. What else have you got?'

Taylor referred to the clipboard he had been carrying.