‘What is the smell then?’
She leaned out through the door and inhaled through her gigantic nostrils. ‘I can smell nothing but good, healthy Yorkshire air, straight from the moors,’ she said then closed the door with a loud bang.
But that wasn’t what Angel could smell. He stood on the step and looked down the yard at the three barns for a few moments. He turned, gave a last sniff round the area, but the saccharine aroma had disappeared into who-knows-where.
11
‘You’re late,’ Mary said. ‘Tea’s ruined.’
‘It’s only six o’clock,’ Angel said as he removed his coat. He took it through to the hall, returned, crossed quickly to the sink, turned on the tap and reached out for the soap.
Mary looked across from the oven, saw what he was doing and said, ‘Why don’t you wash your hands in the bathroom? This is my working area.’
‘I always wash my hands here,’ he said.
‘Sit down. I don’t know what it’ll be like. It’s ruined.’
‘Go on. Slap it out on the plate. I’ll eat it, whatever it’s like.’
She glared at him and said, ‘We don’t slap it out in this house. We serve it.’ She jostled up to him carrying a hot pan of cauliflower.
He reached out for a tea towel to dry his hands.
With her free hand, she snatched it off him and pushed a hand towel at him.
He turned away from the sink, drying his hands and said, ‘Why don’t you just serve up, and stop being annoying?’
‘You’re in my way,’ she said. ‘Go and sit down.’
He went to the kitchen table which was already set. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He checked the cutlery, side plates, salt and pepper, then looked across at Mary and watched her bend down to take something out of the oven. It was then that he noticed the high-heeled shoes, the tights, the dress and, as she moved to the sink, the make-up and the hair.
He frowned. ‘What you all done up for?’ he said. ‘Are you going out?’
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she said, as she banged an extra spoonful of mashed potato on a plate.
He rubbed his chin. She was not in high-heeled shoes at 5.30 in an afternoon without good reason. Somebody must be coming. He hoped she had not invited another villain like last time. She needn’t have got dressed up for him. Or, of course, she could be planning to go out. If that was her plan, he couldn’t think where she might be going. He definitely had no intention of turning out. It was raining hard when he arrived home and there was a strong wind blowing up. This was a night for staying by the fire.
They ate in silence which was unusual.
When Angel had cleared his plate, he put his knife and fork down together and said, ‘Thank you. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and catch up with the news.’ Then he pushed his chair away from the table.
Mary knew he was still tetchy because he always said something about the meal, usually complimentary.
He went through the hall into the sitting room and switched on the television.
Mary pushed two sprouts and a potato to the side of her plate, got up from the table, switched on the kettle, and made the coffee.
The television picture came up showing President Obama again speaking about the huge oil leak off the south coast of the US and again insisting that the entire cost of the clean-up and compensation claims be paid by the giant BP oil company.
Angel yawned, pressed the mute button on the TV remote and closed his eyes.
Mary came into the room with two cups of coffee and put them on the library table. She looked at Angel and wondered if he was asleep. She sat down in the easy chair at the other side of the library table, glanced across at him again, took a sip of coffee, hesitated a few moments then in a very soft voice, she leaned over towards him and said, ‘Too tired to talk?’
‘Just resting my eyes,’ he said.
‘There’s something I want to say,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want you jumping down my throat.’
He couldn’t imagine what it was. But he wasn’t in any mood for any argument. He’d had a heavy day and was whacked, and he wasn’t pleased the way the case was going. Nothing made sense. With very little real evidence, he was working on the slender assumption that Ephemore Sharpe was in some way responsible for the deaths of Julius Hobbs and Wendy Green. He needed a positive lead to advance that theory, and he needed it quick.
Suddenly the front door chime sounded, ding dong, ding dong.
Angel’s eyes clicked open. His nose turned up. ‘Who the blazes is that?’ he said.
Mary was on her feet. She rushed out into the hall.
He looked across at the clock. It was half past six.
The door chime sounded again.
He frowned. ‘If it’s somebody selling something,’ he called, ‘get rid of them.’
He heard the sound of the door opening followed by the gruff voice of a man. He couldn’t identify the voice nor tell what was being said, but he detected that Mary was giving the caller a friendly reception. He heard the front door close, followed by footsteps along the hall.
‘Please go through,’ Mary said. ‘First on the right. My husband is in there.’
Angel frowned as he looked toward the doorway.
The beaming face of an elderly man peered round the door jamb at him. ‘Well, good evening,’ the man said. ‘Remember me?’
Angel recognized him instantly and he wasn’t pleased. He sat upright and said, ‘Geoffrey ‘Gelly Roll’ Rollings.’
‘You have a good memory,’ Rollings said.
Angel’s lips tightened. ‘How could I ever forget?’ he said.
In 1990, Angel had been responsible for Rollings being imprisoned for blowing open a safe in a glassworks. Also, Rollings’s son was currently serving time in Marshgate Prison, Doncaster, for a similar offence. The family were well-known crooks and had a reputation for being able to open the most unyielding safes.
‘What are you doing here?’ Angel said.
Mary gently pushed past the old man and said, ‘I invited him to come, darling, to look at the safe. I have explained everything to him.’
She then rushed back into the hall, opened the door under the stairs, pointed inside and said, ‘There it is, Mr Rollings.’
‘Ah!’ Rollings said. His eyes twinkled like fingerprint powder as he looked at the maker’s brass plate on the safe door. He dropped a small bag of tools onto the hall carpet, reached into his top pocket for his spectacles and put them on, wrapping the old-fashioned curled wire ends carefully round his ears. He then took a small torch out of his pocket and shone it into the keyhole.
Angel stood behind him rubbing his chin. His forehead creased and his nose wrinkled upwards. He made a decision and said, ‘I am sorry, Geoffrey, don’t do anything to that safe. I will have to ask you to leave.’
Rollings’s jaw dropped. He turned and said, ‘Don’t worry, Michael. I don’t intend charging you. Your missus said that you wanted this tin box opening. Well, you know, I’d be happy to do it for you. It would be in the way of a thank you. It’s fifteen years since I came out of Lincoln. It was no fun, but I retired then. You taught me a lesson. I’ve been as straight as neat whisky ever since. And I’ve no hard feelings towards you, honest.’
Angel said, ‘What you say might be the gospel truth, Geoffrey, but I can’t be seen to exploit my position to get a favour from a villain.’
‘Ex-villain, Michael, if you please.’
Mary came forward and said, ‘While you two are settling world peace, I wonder if Mr Rollings would like a drink?’
‘Yes, please,’ Rollings said.
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Angel said.
Mary looked at Rollings and said, ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘He doesn’t want anything, thank you,’ Angel said. ‘He’s leaving.’
‘A small brandy would be most acceptable,’ Rollings said.
Mary’s eyes opened wide, she smiled and said, ‘Coming up.’
She rus
hed off to the sitting room.
Angel glared down at Rollings. He smiled back.
Angel said, ‘I want you to go.’
‘I thought you wanted this thing opening?’
‘I’ve told you. I can’t ask you to do it, and I’ve told you why.’
‘I can open this thing in three minutes, Michael, for nothing,’ Rollings said. ‘And to think, I used to get paid twenty-five per cent of what’s inside! And I assure you, my dear Michael, I won’t be telling anybody. Nobody would know.’
‘That’s not the point. I would know. So thank you for turning out, drink up your drink and then hop it.’
Mary appeared with a tumbler containing two fingers of brandy and handed it to a delighted Rollings.
Angel observed the glass, pulled a disapproving face and glared at Mary.
‘Are you two getting along better now?’ she said.
‘No,’ Angel said.
‘Yes,’ Rollings said as he took the glass. ‘Of course we are.’
Rollings flashed a row of choppers as white and even as a line of urinals in Strangeways.
‘When he’s drunk that,’ Angel said, ‘He’s leaving.’
Mary glared across at her husband. ‘If Mr Rollings can open that safe in three minutes why not let him?’
Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’ve been earwigging,’ he said.
‘Of course I have,’ Mary said.
‘It will take a quarter of gelly,’ Rollings said. ‘And I bought a new battery this morning. I’ve got all I need except a pillow. An old blanket would do.’
Angel’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve got some gelignite? Where did you get it from?’
Mary’s eyes flashed. ‘Michael, Michael!’ she said. ‘Mr Rollings is a guest in this house. I invited him to come. You are not to behave towards him as if you were still on duty.’
Angel’s lips tightened. ‘All right, Mary,’ he said, running his hand through his hair. ‘All right, but we cannot ask a known felon to help us in this way, or in any other way. You should be able to understand that. You and he are jeopardizing our livelihood. He shouldn’t even be in my house.’
‘Our house,’ she said.
‘All right, our house,’ he bawled. ‘Now please, Mary, ask him to leave, before I throw him out!’
Rollings heard Angel’s threat. He emptied the glass and handed it back to Mary. Then he quickly took off his spectacles and closed his bag. He looked up at Angel and said, ‘All right, you miserable bleeder. I’ll go. I would have liked to have helped you, but I understand exactly what you mean. It’s called principle. And there aren’t many people with any principles these days.’
Mary looked from one to the other with her mouth open.
Rollings turned and made his way down the hall. He stopped with his hand on the door handle and looked back. ‘You know, Michael, you’re too bloody good for this world. But I’ll beat you yet.’ He turned to Mary and winked. ‘This old Phillips safe only needs the lock blowing. That’s all. And I’m going to tell you what I would have done.’
‘I’m not going to listen to you, Rollings,’ Angel said. ‘You are wasting your breath.’
‘Don’t care,’ Rollings said. ‘What have I to lose? This is for the benefit of your good lady.’
Angel stormed off into the sitting room and slammed the door.
Rollings looked at Mary, smiled and said, ‘Now, Mrs Angel. I would have pushed a quarter of a stick of gelly through the keyhole into the lock of the safe, fed the two wires with bare ends into the jelly so that they are only about a sixteenth of an inch apart. I would then damp the jelly down with about a pound of Plasticene inside the keyhole and on the outside of the lock and then covered that with a cushion or a folded blanket stuck on with sticky tape to muffle the sound.’
The sitting-room door opened. Angel put his head through and said, ‘Mary, come in here!’
Mary looked from Rollings to Angel and back. ‘I’m just showing Mr Rollings out,’ she said.
Angel slammed the sitting-room door.
Rollings grinned and continued, ‘Then, taking cover round the back on your stairs, I would have put the other bare ends of the wires to my torch battery terminals. There would have been a bit of a pop, some smoke, and hey presto, when it cooled down, you would be able to turn the safe handle and pull open the door.’
He finished, looked at her, flashed the urinals at her and said, ‘Have you got it, lady?’
She nodded uncertainly, looked towards the sitting-room door and said, ‘I think so. Thanks very much. And thank you for coming. I am so sorry, but you’d better go.’
‘Aye. All right,’ he said, then he added with a giggle, ‘He-he, thanks for the brandy.’
‘Good night,’ she said and he was gone.
12
It was Friday 29 October. Dark clouds filled the sky which matched Angel’s mood as he tramped down the police station corridor to his office.
The unexpected arrival the previous evening followed by the abrupt departure of ‘Gelly’ Rollings from the Angels’ house had resulted in the most almighty row in the Angel household.
Angel repeated the point he had made that policemen can’t be seen to use crooks for their own ends, and that it could lead to all sorts of embarrassment and the possible watering down of police authority. In reply, Mary said that that was bunkum, that ‘Gelly’ Rollings was now an ex-crook, and that a new age of understanding, maturity and forgiveness was due, also that Angel’s behaviour in sending ‘Gelly’ Rollings home abruptly without thanking him and apologizing to him for a wasted journey was rude, unforgivable and stupid. She said that Rollings would have opened the safe there and then at no cost, and without any obligation, and that would have been the end of it. As it was, the safe was still locked and they had no idea how they were going to open it.
Neither side was prepared to move in the argument; there was not even a willingness to agree to disagree, a formula that had settled the very few disagreements they had had in the past. Consequently both antagonists went to bed angry and, regrettably, the difficult atmosphere still persisted throughout breakfast the following morning.
Angel duly arrived at the office at 8.28 a.m., threw off his coat and rang for Ahmed.
‘I want to see Don Taylor as soon as he comes in,’ Angel said.
‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said.
‘And get a warrant started to search Ephemore Sharpe’s house and outbuildings, find out the duty JP, and —’
There was a knock at the door. It was DS Carter.
‘Come in,’ Angel said. ‘What is it, lass?’
‘Can I see you briefly, sir?’
He nodded, pointed to a chair then turned to Ahmed and said, ‘Right, crack on with all that and then come back.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said and he went out.
Angel looked across at Flora. He couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was. He watched her sit down and cross her legs. At that moment she looked a damned sight more attractive than Mary; of course, she was several years younger.
‘I’ve completed my inquiries into Celia Hamilton, sir.’
‘Oh yes, lass, and what’s the score?’
‘She was in St George’s Hospital, Maidenhead, having her appendix removed on the day in question. It was an emergency job. A doctor was called to her home early Sunday morning, the day Julius Hobbs died. She was whisked into hospital, had the op at ten, and she’s still there, possibly coming out today or tomorrow.’
‘Sounds like a rock-solid alibi. Anybody corroborate it?’
‘Half the world. It was all over Monday’s papers.’
‘I didn’t see it.’
‘But anyway, sir, I spoke on the phone to the actual surgeon. He confirms the time of the op and said it would not have been possible for her to have been anywhere else but in a bed all of Sunday. Her face is so well known, if she had been up here some news reporter would have spotted her. Do you want me to take it any further?’
‘No,
Flora, that sounds conclusive. I’ll accept it for now. Don’t spend anymore time on it. There are two more reports to go.’
‘You really think the two were murdered by Ephemore Sharpe, sir, don’t you?’
‘It’s very confusing, Flora.’
Her mouth dropped open slightly as she looked at him. ‘Well, if they are murders, sir, have you been able to discover the motive?’
‘Ephemore Sharpe might have had sufficient motive to want Julius Hobbs out of the way,’ he said, ‘and she certainly didn’t care much for Wendy Green, but if we can’t show and prove how she managed it, then we’ve no case against her.’
‘She seemed to dislike the children she taught, sir.’
‘I think she did.’
‘She had the opportunity, sir?’
‘Yes. She had.’
Flora nodded. ‘But however it was managed, after the killing of each victim, there would have been the dangerous business of rounding up the wild cat and caging it.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Only someone who knows about wild animals could have done that, Flora. The MO of the killer, in respect of both victims, whether it involved a human or not, appears to be very similar, if not the same. Therefore the two victims must have something in common. It would be helpful if we knew what it was. Now, I want you to take that on, Flora. See what you can find out. See where their paths crossed.’
Her eyes darted thoughtfully from side to side. She was pleased to be given the job.
‘Right, sir,’ she said. She jumped up from the chair. ‘I’ll get right on it.’
She went out as DS Taylor came in.
‘You wanted me, sir?’
‘Yes, Don. Come in. Sit down.’
Angel snatched up the phone, tapped in a number and as it rang out, he turned back to Taylor and said, ‘It’s time we got this case moving. It’s time we heard from Mac. He should have something useful to tell us by now. If I can get him, I will put the phone onto speaker so that you can hear what’s going on.’
Taylor nodded and leaned over the desk towards it.
‘Mortuary,’ a voice said.
‘Dr Mac, please.’
There was a short delay before the Glaswegian medic said, ‘Mac speaking.’
THE CHESHIRE CAT MURDERS an enthralling crime mystery full of twists (Yorkshire Murder Mysteries Book 18) Page 12
