The Fruit Gum Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  FIFTEEN

  It was noon the next day, Wednesday, 12th June.

  On the first floor of the Feathers hotel was Suite 1, which had been reserved for the ‘MacDonald’ party. Opposite the main door to that suite was the door to a service room, which was where early-morning teas and room service were provided. In the corner was a dumb waiter used for delivering food and drink directly from the kitchen to the room service staff. The room was also used also for storing clean linen, table napkins, cutlery, coasters, breakfast trays, small pots of jam and marmalade, spare bedside cabinets and so on.

  On that Wednesday afternoon, eleven men and one woman were crammed into that little room. There were the eight men from the Firearms Security Unit comprising six PCs, a sergeant and DI Waldo White. Each man was armed and wearing navy-blue uniform, body armour and helmet. The PCs and the sergeant carried Heckler & Koch repeater rifles, the Inspector had a Glock handgun in a shoulder holster. In addition, there were three men and one woman from the Bromersley station. The men, Crisp, Scrivens and Angel, were dressed in striped grey trousers, white shirts, waistcoats and dicky bows. Each man carried a crisply laundered serviette over his arm. The woman was Flora Carter, dressed in a plain blue skirt and white blouse with a long chain leading from her waistband to keys in her pocket.

  Downstairs, DC Ahmed Ahaz was behind the reception desk in the Feathers Hotel. He was in his best dark blue suit, white shirt and tie. He was rubbing shoulders with two regular receptionists. He tried to look busy and act the part. Whenever a visitor came forward, Ahmed took a step backward and a genuine receptionist dealt with any inquiry.

  Ahmed was there to monitor the arrival of Harrison, aka Mr MacDonald, Mickey ‘the loop’, Thomas Johnson, the girl with the orange lipstick and any other crook that he might recognize from the photographs on the PNC.

  At 12.30 p.m., a big man arrived at the reception desk in a Reid & Taylor suit. He was carrying a pigskin suitcase.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ one of the genuine receptionists, a woman called Jane, said.

  ‘My name is MacDonald,’ the man said.

  Ahmed’s ears pricked up. His heartbeat quickened. It certainly looked like Harrison. He hardly dare risk looking directly at the man. He pretended to be checking a bill.

  ‘My secretary reserved a suite for me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine, Mr MacDonald. Everything is prepared for you. Suite 1 on the first floor. If you’d care to sign the book?’ she said as she swivelled it round on the turntable.

  The man put his suitcase down on the carpet. Then, as he brought his hands up to the counter, his coat sleeve fell back and Ahmed noticed a gold Cartier watch with a crocodile strap on his wrist.

  The man signed the book, Jane banged a bell and said, ‘If you need anything, Mr MacDonald, just pick up the phone in your room. The porter’s coming.’

  Harrison nodded, and turned away towards the body of the hotel. As he did so, Jane saw a short, miserable-looking little man who had been standing directly behind Harrison, with his hands in his pockets.

  She thought he seemed strange. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she said.

  He reached down for the suitcase. ‘No, I’m with him … Mr Donaldson,’ he said.

  His eyes half-closed except when he spoke. His voice made her hair stand up at the back of her neck. The colour drained from her face. He was oily and menacing … like a snake.

  ‘There is a colour television in the room, isn’t there?’

  She gulped. ‘Yes. Oh yes, sir,’ she managed to say.

  The man turned away and caught up with Harrison, who had been looking for a sign to the lifts.

  Jane found a tissue and held it across her mouth.

  A liveried young man appeared, and looked around the reception area, then up at Jane, who was holding out a key. He took the key, then she pointed at Harrison, but she couldn’t speak.

  The young man said, ‘What room number?’

  Jane turned away from him.

  The porter’s fists tightened. ‘What’s the flaming room number?’

  Ahmed came to her rescue. ‘Suite number 1,’ he said.

  The porter gawped at Ahmed. ‘Well, where’s the luggage, then?’ he said.

  Ahmed said, ‘The other man with him has taken his case.’

  The young man pulled an angry face, turned away and rushed in front of Harrison and the short man.

  ‘This way, gentlemen, please,’ he said.

  As they went into the lift, Ahmed picked up the phone.

  ‘There are two men on their way up now, sir,’ he said. ‘Harrison, who has signed in as J. MacDonald and party, and the other, who is only short, seems foreign, I expect he is Mickey “the loop”.’

  ‘Yep. That’s them, Ahmed,’ Angel said. He put the phone back in its cradle on the wall in the service room and turned round to the team.

  ‘Harrison and Mickey are on their way up, so quiet, everybody, please.’

  Angel then opened the door an inch and listened.

  The lift doors whooshed.

  ‘This way, gentlemen,’ he heard a voice say.

  It was followed by the rustle of clothes as the men ambled the few yards of the corridor from the lift to the main door of the suite. Then he heard the rattle of a key hitting wood, the sound of its withdrawal from the lock, the swish of the door opening, more rustling of clothes, and then the bang of it closing.

  Angel closed the service door, turned to DI Waldo White and said, ‘Right, that’s the first two.’

  ‘How many do you expect, Michael?’ White said.

  ‘There’s Thomas Johnson and the girl. Four altogether. It would be a nice catch, if we can pull it off.’

  ‘You’ve nothing on the girl?’

  ‘No, but she might make a nice witness, Waldo. Excuse me.’

  He’d seen DS Carter looking inside her handbag.

  ‘Flora, do you happen to have any mascara … and a brush?’

  ‘Mascara?’ she said, smiling. ‘You, sir? Of course. Do you want some?’ she said with a laugh.

  Some of the FSU lads heard the exchange and grinned.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Angel said with a perfectly straight face.

  The phone on the wall rang. He squeezed through to the place on the wall and took it out of its holster.

  ‘Room service,’ he managed to remember to say. But it was Ahmed. ‘Yes, lad?’

  ‘Thomas Johnson and that girl with the orange lipstick are on their way up, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘Right, thank you.’

  He replaced the phone, squeezed his way across to White and told him the news. Then he said, ‘Quiet, everybody, please, while I open the door a minute.’

  He listened through the tiny gap.

  He heard them arrive in the lift, come round the corner, knock on the door, which opened and closed without any conversation. Then he closed the door.

  ‘The four of them are in position.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. After a while, he went over to the cupboard where the cutlery and pots were stored. He looked on the shelves at all the stuff that appeared on the hotel table. He frowned until he found himself looking at the cruets. He picked up a salt pot, looked at it. It had a silver lion, an anchor and the date letter ‘S’ in an italic font, so it was silver and hallmarked in Birmingham in 1970. He pressed it into the palm of his hand. He put it back, then he did the same with a pepper pot. He nodded and picked up another three identical pepper pots and dropped them into his pocket. Some of the FSU squad saw him and looked puzzled. He had seen them but said nothing and gently squeezed past them to get back to DI White.

  ‘I hope we don’t have to wait long,’ White said.

  Angel nodded. He gestured towards the phone and said, ‘We only have to wait until they want something from room service, Waldo.’

  ‘
Michael,’ White said. ‘Suppose they don’t ring?’

  His heart fell into his boots. He rubbed his chin. Eventually he said, ‘Well, we’d have to think of something else.’

  At three o’clock that afternoon, a bell rang. Twelve eager faces in the first-floor hotel service room turned to the phone on the wall.

  Angel took a deep breath, cleared his throat and picked up the phone. ‘Room service. Can I help you?’

  ‘I want a bottle of good whisky, bottle of Bacardi, bottle of lime juice, soda water, ice and four glasses straightaway.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Angel said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. An assortment of sandwiches. A big assortment of sandwiches. For four. All right?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Angel said. His stomach was like a hornet’s nest that had been knocked over.

  ‘What room number are you, sir?’ he added, although he knew full well it was Mickey ‘the loop’ Zeiss speaking.

  Angel heard him say away from the phone, ‘He say what room number we are?’

  ‘Suite 1,’ a voice said.

  ‘Suite 1,’ Mickey ‘the loop’ Zeiss said.

  ‘Right away, sir,’ Angel said.

  He cancelled the call, then dialled the number for reception and gave the details of the order to Ahmed to organize. ‘As quick as they can, lad, please.’

  He replaced the phone and Angel put the final touches to the plan. It began with Flora Carter.

  She picked up a pile of clean towels and went out of the service-room door and down the corridor a little way to the door to Suite 1. She knocked on the door, waited for a reply and there was none. They must be in the sitting room. Relieved, she let herself in with a pass key. She was pleased to note that the door to the sitting room was closed although she could hear voices. She was making her way to the bathroom when she heard the toilet flush, the door opened and out came Mickey ‘the loop’.

  He blinked, staggered and shoved his right hand into his pocket when he saw her.

  She stood by the door, gripping the towels, and froze.

  He looked at her closely.

  ‘What you want?’ he said in that snake-like voice.

  She breathed in and said, ‘Excuse me, sir. I was just bringing you fresh towels. Sorry if I disturbed you.’

  Mickey walked round her, still staring at her, looking her up and down and smiling.

  Flora didn’t like being stared at in such a way and for such a length of time.

  She forced a smile and said, ‘Excuse me,’ and she went into the bathroom.

  She heard an impatient voice from the sitting room call out, ‘Mickey, come on. We’re waiting for you.’

  She heard him say, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming,’ and then the door to the sitting room closed.

  She exchanged the towels there with the ones she was carrying and came out, being careful to leave the door into the corridor unlocked.

  She walked the few steps back to the service room.

  Angel let her in. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes. I bumped into Mickey “the loop” Zeiss,’ Flora said. ‘He’s awful. Undresses you with his eyes.’

  ‘He didn’t suspect anything?’

  ‘No, sir. The four of them are now in the sitting room.’

  He nodded approvingly. He wanted them all in the sitting room. It was necessary for the plan to succeed. The plan had to succeed or there would be a bloodbath.

  Angel said, ‘So that the four of us act in unison when we are in there, I want you, Trevor, to arrest Mickey “the loop” Zeiss. He’s only a small man but he’s vicious and not easily subdued. Keep his hands out of his pockets. There is probably a gun in each. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Crisp said.

  ‘I want you, Ted, to take on Thomas Johnson. He’s a big lump, probably not armed, but don’t take any chances. The trouble is that Johnson knows me. I am hoping that he won’t recognize me in this dress and in this context.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Scrivens said.

  ‘And you, Flora, I want you to take on the girl. Now, she’s an entirely unknown quantity.’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘I’ll take on Harrison. I’ll go in first and I want you to line up behind me, with Flora at the back. Obviously you’ll need to position yourself as close to your target as you can. I will try and take note of that before I give the signal.’

  A single ping informed them that the dumb waiter had arrived with the order. Angel produced four small silver salvers from the cutlery cupboard and distributed the order of drinks and glasses fairly evenly across the trays.

  The sandwiches were on a platter under a large silver cover. He would carry that in.

  He quickly applied a small moustache to his face using Flora Carter’s mascara brush, distributed the pepper pots from his pocket, one to each of the other three, and then they lined up as a procession. Angel took the front, then Crisp, then Scrivens and lastly, Flora Carter. They put the serviettes smartly over their right arms, and held the trays up high on their left hands.

  ‘Remember, the cue is when I remove the silver cover off these sandwiches. All right?’

  The three nodded.

  Angel then opened the room service door, and out the four processed to the main door of Suite 1, while the eight FSU men led by DI White stealthily moved down the corridor a few yards to assemble outside the door to the bedroom.

  When everybody was in position, White gave a thumbs-up, and Angel knocked on the main door.

  Angel could hear voices but what they were saying was indistinct. He waited a little, then knocked louder.

  ‘There’s somebody at the door,’ a voice said.

  All went quiet. Angel’s heart pounded like a Salvation Army drum.

  Suddenly it was whisked open by Mickey ‘the loop’ Zeiss.

  He looked up at Angel strangely. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  In a voice like a theatrical butler, Angel said, ‘Your refreshments, sir.’

  Mickey grunted and opened the door widely.

  Harrison said, ‘Yes, come in, come in.’

  The other three were seated in a semi-circle in front of a coffee table. The unoccupied chair nearest the door appeared to be Mickey’s chair.

  ‘May we serve you, sir?’ Angel said.

  Harrison hesitated, flashed his big teeth, shrugged and said, ‘Why not?’

  The team put the trays onto the coffee table, while eyeing up their targets and closing in on them. Crisp took the whisky bottle and began to open it, Scrivens took the Bacardi and opened that, and Flora took the lid off the ice bowl. Angel slowly edged up to Harrison, then glanced at the others, bent down, then lifted the cover with a flourish, and said, ‘Your sandwiches, sir.’

  At that moment, the four took the pepper pots out of their pockets and rammed the tops of them hard into the stomach of their personal targets.

  ‘Don’t move any of you or you will be shot,’ Angel said in a loud voice. ‘This is a police raid.’

  Harrison glared at Angel and said, ‘You frigging bastard.’

  The girl screamed.

  ‘It’s bloody Angel,’ Thomas Johnson said.

  On cue, the eight FSU men dashed through the door from the bedroom, waving their Heckler & Koch rifles.

  It was all over.

  SIXTEEN

  As Angel walked down the corridor at the police station the following morning, he received smiles and nods from almost everybody. Inspector Haydn Asquith from the uniformed side of the force was behind him. He caught him up and said, ‘Morning, Michael. Congratulations. Hear you arrested the hatchet man and his gang yesterday. That’s great stuff.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t arrest them. It was a team job, Haydn, and we had the FSU behind us.’

  ‘I heard you got a bug fitted in the phone of one of them?’

/>   ‘That’s right. DS Carter did that.’

  ‘Flora Carter?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Huh. You’re lucky getting brains and beauty on your team. All my female officers have to shave and wear size 8 boots.’

  Angel smiled. He reached his office. Ahmed was outside waiting for him, so he waved Haydn Asquith goodbye.

  Ahmed had a bundle of newspapers under his arm. He was quite breathless and smiling from ear to ear.

  ‘It’s in all the papers, sir,’ he said. ‘Many of them on the front page. I told my mother that you’d arrested that gang and that I was there at the time.’

  Angel smiled. Then his phone began to ring. ‘Better take this call,’ he said.

  ‘Right, sir. I’ll come back later,’ Ahmed said.

  He nodded, dashed into the office, reached out for the phone and said, ‘Angel.’

  It was the civilian switchboard operator. ‘There’s a man from Reuters news agency wants to interview you about the hatchet man arrest,’ she said. ‘I’d like to take this opportunity of congratulating you on that too, Inspector.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but it wasn’t—’

  ‘And there’s been four earlier calls from different newspapers,’ she said.

  Angel rubbed his chin. He couldn’t spend all day repeating what had happened. Everything that could be told had already been told. There was nothing new to report. But he mustn’t seem to be rude or offhand. There were times when he needed their help and cooperation and occasionally a reporter had given him a useful tip-off.

  ‘Would you please tell him that I am out and that you don’t know when I’ll be back?’

  ‘Do you want me to say that to all the media?’

  ‘Yes, please. But only today. The arrest will be history tomorrow.’

  It was Saturday night, June 15th, the night of the Fancy Dress Ball in the grand hall of Muick Castle. Everybody who thought they were somebody in Bromersley was there. Most were dressed in exceedingly interesting hired or home-made costumes.

  In the big oval-shaped hall, there were lots of small tables and chairs arranged near the walls, to leave the centre for dancing. At one end of the hall was a six-piece orchestra, playing a waltz, and a few couples were taking full advantage of the occasion.