The Man Who Couldn't Lose (5 page)

He shook the brown envelope and a folded document typed on heavy-duty paper dropped out on the desk. He unfolded it.

‘And you are the officer in charge of the investigation?'

Angel nodded and said, ‘Have you any notion as to who would want Joshua Gumme dead?'

‘Goodness me, no, Inspector. He was sometimes impatient, irritable, abrupt even. But I cannot imagine any circumstances that would ever have justified him being murdered.'

Angel sighed.

‘Somebody did.'

‘Quite so. Quite so. Now, you wanted to know the beneficiaries?'

‘When was the will drawn up?'

‘June 2005. It was a very hot day, I remember. I can still see Mr Gumme being wheeled in here to sign it. Remarkable man. He was perspiring and grumbling about the heat, I recall. He was being pushed around, by his very attentive chauffeur.'

Messenger opened the document and peered closely at it.

‘Hmmm. Yes,' he mumbled.

Angel rubbed his chin and looked round the little room at the shadows on the walls cast by the desk light.

‘Yes. Here it is,' Messenger said. ‘He left the house and contents, worth at that time around a million, and an annuity of thirty thousand, and the snooker hall and the printing business, at that date, valued at an estimated two million, also to his wife, Ingrid; and he left a package, a small package, at that date value estimated at six pounds to his son, Edmund.'

Angel frowned.

‘Six pounds, did you say, Mr Messenger?'

He nodded.

‘I have the package in our strong room. Regrettably, Inspector Angel, it has to be given to Mr Edmund personally, in front of two witnesses who will have to attest to it.'

Angel frowned.

‘No other bequests?'

‘No, Inspector.'

He sniffed.

‘And what was the estimated total value of his estate?'

‘On that date, well over three million pounds.'

Angel let out a silent whistle and rubbed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb. His eyes glazed over.

‘I understand,' Messenger said, ‘that the majority of the estate comprises a town centre property on Duke Street including a snooker hall, a printers, laundry, restaurant and a block of eight flats. Property prices have increased greatly over the past few years. That figure might be a lot more. But against that, there is inheritance tax mostly at forty per cent …'

Angel didn't hear him. The solicitor could have saved his breath. He might just as well have been talking to a pet poodle called Fifi. Angel was still wondering what sort of a man would leave his son six pounds out of an estate over three million.

The phone was answered, there was a click and a voice said: ‘Mortuary. Good morning. Who is calling?'

‘DI Angel. Can I speak to Dr Mac?'

‘Hold on, please.'

‘Right, thank you,' Angel said, then he hunched up a shoulder to hold the phone to his ear while he reached out to get a note pad from a desk drawer. He rummaged in his pocket for a pen, then took a sip of his tea. He heard the unmistakable clearing of the throat of the Glaswegian, so hastily returned the cup to the saucer with a clatter.

‘Good morning, Michael. What's the matter wi ye? It's not eight-thirty yet. Can't you sleep?'

‘You're not very charming this morning, Mac. Sorry if somebody has been eating your porridge, but I've a helluva lot on.'

‘You're not on your own, Michael. So have I. We are rushed off our feet here. The throughput here is getting like Smithfields. Now what can I do for ye?'

‘Have SOCO delivered a body to you, a Joshua Gumme?'

‘Yes. Yes. I've done him. Report coming through by email. You'll get it this afternoon.'

‘I'm not asking for the full SP now, Mac, but just need to know a couple of things.'

‘Yeah? What?'

‘What killed him?'

‘A bullet straight through the heart. Looks like a .32.'

‘Could it have been a Walther PPK/S .32 automatic?'

‘Certainly could have been.'

‘From what distance?'

‘Hard to say. Could have been very close. Some powder has most likely been disturbed. The tide will have swilled some of the powder away. The River Don is no respecter of crime scenes, you know.'

‘Ta. And did Gumme have any other injuries?'

‘No.'

Angel sensed that Mac's patience was running out.

‘Right, Mac. Thanks very much. Goodbye.'

‘Goodbye.'

He replaced the phone and rubbed his chin.

He knew he would get all the details later that day, but the profile of the murderer was taking shape. He nodded with satisfaction, and reached out again for the phone and tapped in a number.

A familiar voice answered: ‘SOCO. DS Taylor.'

‘Good morning, Don. Michael Angel. That man you pulled out of the Don on Wednesday, Joshua Gumme …'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Did he have a weapon on him? A gun, a knife?'

‘No, sir.'

‘No gun? The Leeds underwater team
did
have a good look round?'

‘They were searching for the rest of the day. They pulled out his wheelchair … we have it here. Seems to be in good nick. Not damaged at all.'

‘But nothing else, eh?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Right, Don. Ta.'

‘You'll get our report and his personal effects first thing Monday morning, sir.'

‘Right, Don, goodbye.'

The town hall clock struck ten as Angel turned his BMW into Duke Street and parked it in the only available space in front of Baileys the bookies. A neon sign flashed the word ‘Snooker' alternately in red and yellow over a narrow ginnel between the bookies and the Bromersley Building Society. Angel locked the car and walked purposefully under the sign and down the ginnel to the end of the iron railings then turned right and through the open door into a big dusty hall packed out with thirty-six snooker tables with overpowering light units covered by big lampshades suspended over them. It was early, so there weren't many customers; eight young men were standing round holding cues, drinking lager and occasionally sticking their backsides in the air as they attempted to pot a ball.

There was a drinks and sandwich bar on a raised dais located in the middle of the room, and a skinny man with a trilby hat and a harelip was hanging over the serving side of it. He was talking to a huge man with long hair, wearing a check suit. He was standing next to a mop bucket with his hands resting on the handle of a mop. An unopened can of Grolsch was sticking out of his pocket. They saw Angel approaching. They stopped talking to each other. The skinny man nodded towards Angel in acknowledgement.

‘Take over, Bozo,' he said to the big man, then he came quickly round from behind, stepped off the dais and rushed up to Angel's side.

‘I'm Horace Makepiece,' he whispered. ‘You the copper that phoned?'

Angel nodded. ‘Can we go somewhere … private?' he said.

Makepiece swivelled his skinny neck around the place.

‘Yeah. Sure. I'd rather it was that way.'

He waved a finger to Angel to follow him, and they moved quickly between snooker tables still covered with grey linen sheeting to the far end of the hall, where there were two doors in the wall. One had the word ‘Private' marked on it and a simple Yale lock to secure it. Makepiece produced a bunch of keys on a chain fastened to his braces, selected a key and unlocked the door. Then he pressed the switch by the door, and a bright light suspended from the ceiling illuminated the room.

At first sight, Angel thought it was a storeroom. It was dark and smelled of wet clothes that had been dried. Parts of damaged snooker tables leaned against the wall. Packs of snooker cues were piled against boxes of chalk. A wheelchair stood significantly in the corner. There was a large square sink with a draining board. Next to it was a long table covered with a linen sheet draped over the items on it like a contoured model of the Alps not succeeding to conceal a makeshift bar. In the centre of the room was a large circular table with six chairs round it.

He held his hand out grandly towards it.

‘OK?'

Angel nodded and pulled out the chair facing the door.

Makepiece sat opposite him.

‘We call this the back office. To tell the trute, we ain't got no front office.'

Angel pulled out an envelope from his inside pocket and clicked his pen.

‘Now, you're Horace Makepiece?' He didn't mention that he knew his nickname was ‘Harelip'.

Makepiece pushed the trilby to the back of his bony head, put his hands on the table and said: ‘It'll be about the boss. Isn't it? It's scary, very scary. I know I should've stayed wid him, but I didn't know anything bad was going to happen, did I? And he kept telling me to leave him and go home. And he don't like being argued wid, especially in front of people, you know. He'd get all het up and nasty. So I said, “OK, if you're sure.” He swore at me, so I got in the car and brought it back and that's all I knew, until I went to the house in the morning. He'd said to pick him up at nine o'clock. But he wasn't there. Hadn't been home. Ingrid … Mrs Gumme was chewing the rag and getting onto me. I told her. She didn't want to know. She kept onto me. It wasn't my fault! I kept telling her. She's afraid too, you see, Inspector. They might be back. To tell the trute, Inspector, I ain't feeling so brave myself.'

Angel sighed.

‘Better start at the beginning, Mr Makepiece. Who might be back?'

‘Yeah. Sure. Well, this was Tuesday, about eight o'clock. I was doing some printing in the print shop next door. It's chiefly for all the stuff we use in the hall, games match lists and stuff. This was some menus for the Chinese restaurant opposite. I also do letterheads by direct mail. Advertise in magazines. Anyway, the boss phones and says I've to take him to The Feathers straight away. So I switched everything off, locked up, told Bozo, on the way through, that I had to go out for a few minutes.'

Angel was listening and making notes on the back of the envelope in very small writing. Names, he liked to print out.

‘Who is Bozo and how do you spell it?' he said craftily.

‘Bozo Johnson. I don't know. I don't go for spellin' much. Everybody knows Bozo. That big chap. I was talking to him when you came in. He was just going to do the latrines. He's my number one. Looks after the place when I'm not here. Yes. Mmm. I expect I'll have to make him manager now that …'

He raised his eyebrows, rubbed non-existent dust off the top of the table with the palms of his hands and shook his head. He sighed and looked across the table at Angel.

‘You know, I never thought we'd lose the boss, Inspector. Not like that.'

‘No,' Angel said quietly.

There was a moment's quiet.

Angel waited.

‘You'll be looking it up, so I may as well tell you,' Makepiece said. ‘Bozo Johnson has served time in Durham for manslaughter. Bozo is short for Benjamin, he was named after some guy that wrote a book what made him famous, but that was years ago. Now Bozo has a bit of bad luck. He gets into an argument with a punter, who reckons he's got hiccups and makes a noise to put him off every time he goes for a black. Now there's a twenty on it, so it's serious. Bozo asks him to be quiet … time after time. At least six times. The punter says he ain't doing nothing. Bozo bawls him out. The punter gets rattled and belts him one. Bozo pushes him away. He falls over a bar stool and hits his head on a set of wheels they use for moving barrels and crates. He's rushed to hospital and dies next day. Bozo gets tried for manslaughter. He gets twelve years. But he's out in four because he behaves himself. When he comes out of prison, nobody would look at him. He couldn't get a job anywhere. So the boss gives him this new name, Bozo, and sets him on here to help me. He's only a caretaker really, but the boss reckoned it would make him feel good if we called him “the assistant manager”. That's all right by me. He does all the dirty jobs that I used to do. He keeps the place clean and tidy, and the washrooms straight. They're always clean and there's always paper in the lavs, soap in the dispenser and paper towels in the box. He does a good job for me. He's no trouble.'

Angel stifled a smile. That wasn't how he remembered the Ben Johnson case, but he let it go.

‘Did you pick Mr Gumme up at his home, then?'

‘Yeah. A few minutes past eight, it would be. He was ready waiting for me. Ingrid wasn't pleased about it. Yap, yap, yap. But it had nothing to do with me. The boss wanted to go. That's all I needed to know. I got him there in no time. It's only a mile, I guess. I got his chair out. He said to leave him there and go. Pick him up at home in the morning at nine o'clock. I wheeled him … well, no, he pulled away from me. He wheeled himself up to the reception desk. I watched him. He waved me away … impatient, like. I came back. Put the car in the garage, as quiet as I could. Didn't want to disturb Ingrid … Mrs Gumme. Walked here. Went back to the snooker hall, into the print shop, finished off Mr Wong's new menus. Helped Bozo to finish off the evening, lock up, banked the money in the night safe and went home.'

‘At The Feathers, did you see who he was going to meet?'

Makepiece said, ‘No. And it's maybe a good job too.'

Angel frowned. ‘Why do you say that?'

Makepiece breathed out a length of air and shook his head at the same time.

‘It was a contract job, wasn't it? Whoever shot the boss was a professional.'

Angel noticed Makepiece's left hand shaking very slightly.

‘They don't leave witnesses,' he continued. ‘If I had seen him, and he
knew
I'd seen him, I would be dead now.'

Angel ran the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip.

Makepiece's eyes suddenly lit up.

‘Hey. I just thought. Maybe the boss has saved my life. Maybe he didn't want me to see whoever he was going to meet for that very reason!'

He smiled as he thought more about it.

Angel frowned. He wasn't sure the reasoning was good logic.

‘Who would want to kill Mr Gumme? You said they might be back? Who did you mean? Someone from the old days? Mrs Gumme thought that it could have been someone from the old days. Who was she referring to?'

Makepiece's face assumed a frightened rabbit look. He shrugged and looked away.

‘I dunno, do I?'

‘You've known him a long time. Twenty years? Thirty years?'

‘More than thirty.'

Makepiece shrugged again. He took his hat off, ran his hand over the bald top and put it back on again.

‘All right. The boss wasn't always quite so legit,' he said, licking his lips. ‘You can't book a man for jobs after he's dead, can you, Inspector?' he added.

‘No,' Angel said.

‘Well, the boss … must be twelve years or more ago … used to run a little girlie shop over the bookies next door, until a man called Spitzer, Alexander Spitzer, came on the scene. He was a bad lot from Leeds way. You may have heard of him.'

‘No,' Angel lied.

‘Don't know what happened to him. Anyway, Spitzer wanted in on it, make it bigger and bring some foreign girls in. The boss was talked into it, I reckon. Anyway, apparently he agreed and Coulson, that's one of Spitzer's boys, brought four girls in from somewhere foreign … I don't know where. They jointly bought the old laundry next door, knocked a wall through and began setting it up. Then I heard Myra, his first wife, found out and went ballistic. Also, I think the boss saw his money going out, and not coming back in so soon. Now, I know the boss. He don't like that sort of arrangement, so he wasn't happy. He never really liked Spitzer anyway. He said that he was a bit too flash; also he found out that unbeknown to him, the whole idea was wrapped up in a heavy drugs deal. Spitzer's idea was that the girls could be on their backs at night making money, and in the daytime leaning over factory and school gates and wherever, flogging H. That was going to be great for him at twenty-five quid a throw. And the girls were to get a tenner out of every wrap, Inspector Angel. Think of that! A tenner. Of course, they were up for it. When the boss found out that Spitzer and Coulson was planning this move on the side, he wanted out. He didn't want any truck with them thereafter either. He said he'd rather die than share divs with them.'

‘So you think that Spitzer and Coulson might be responsible for Joshua Gumme's murder?'