The Curious Mind of Inspector Angel

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘He’s obviously of Chinese descent, but he’s American. Born in Seattle in 1958. Married an American woman. Three kids. Lives over there on the west coast. Works mainly for studios in Hollywood. He travels for the big money. Regarded in film circles as one of the world’s best cameramen. Doesn’t socialize. Keeps himself to himself. Seems to be the essence of respectability.’

  Angel pulled a face. Anyone described as the essence of respectability probably wasn’t. Like those clean-cut, professional charmers in the entertainment business and politics who claim to be ‘born again Christians’. In his experience, everyone who had ever made that claim, always turned out to be a conman or a thief, or both. ‘By their fruits shall ye know them’, was the only dependable way of judging the worthiness of a man, Angel reckoned, but he never talked about it. There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed. He came in, all smiles. ‘I’ve been in touch with the credit card office of the Northern Bank, sir.’

  ‘Aye? That tramp, lad. What about him?’

  ‘The man, Alexander Bernedetti is well respected by the bank, sir. His credit history is excellent. He’s got one of what they call a diamond card. Only given to the very rich. They couldn’t give me a physical description of him because, of course, they don’t know him. His regular account is held at their branch in High Holborn. So I went through to them. One of the tellers said he was about fifty, average height, well built but not fat, dark hair, greying.’

  Angel nodded. ‘That fits. So far.’

  Ahmed said, ‘They believe he is an actor. Very successful. Something to do with Euromagna, and—’

  ‘Euromagna!’ Angel said screwing up his face. ‘That’s the outfit that’s making that film up at Tunistone that Johannson was directing.’ The wheels and cogs in his mind began to whiz round.

  ‘Alexander Bernedetti?’ Gawber said slowly. ‘Oh yes. It’s a famous name in the film world. Just remembered. I think he was supposed to be in the cast of the film they’re making up there: the biography of Edgar Poole.’

  ‘Then what’s he doing dead, in tramp’s clothes, with a sovereign in his mouth, and a diamond credit card sewn into his coat?’

  The phone rang again. It was a few minutes before 5.00 p.m.

  The civilian on the station switchboard said that it was a Sister Josephson from the Bromersley General Hospital asking to speak to him.

  Angel frowned. He didn’t know her and he wasn’t aware that anyone he knew was in hospital.

  ‘I have a patient here, Inspector,’ Sister Josephson explained. ‘Admitted last night. He’s quite poorly. Appears to have been living on the streets. We’ve done the best we can with him. I’m afraid he could still be cleaner. Had to put him in a room on his own. Anyway, he says he has no next of kin and, I must say, nobody has been asking after him. Not had any visitors, and he’s asking for you. His name is Harry Hull. Says you know him. Says he has something very important to tell you.’

  Angel rubbed his mouth. That was unusual. He knew Harry Hull very well. He was a small-time burglar. He had been in trouble most of the time Angel had been on the force, and had been in and out of prison frequently. Angel had been responsible for sending him there on some of those occasions. He couldn’t imagine why he should be asking for him. He couldn’t understand why Hull was living the life of a man on the road either. The last time Angel had anything to do with him, he was married and had two sons grown-up sons.

  ‘Yes, I know him, Sister,’ he said unemotionally.

  ‘Sounds important, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘If you are able speak to him, I should come as soon as you can. He is on ward eleven. You can visit any time.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Angel said, and he slowly replaced the phone in the cradle. Her last few words lingered in his mind. She had made it sound as if Hull wasn’t here for long. The call had come at a very inconvenient time. He was up to his neck in two nasty murders and a very strange robbery. He really hadn’t the time to be running after a ten-a-penny tea leaf.

  He went through the door marked ‘ward eleven’, spotted the nurses’ station and went up to it. The nurse looked up.

  ‘I’ve come to see a man called Hull, Harry Hull,’ Angel said. ‘Sister Josephson said—’

  ‘You must be Inspector Angel? He’s asking for you, but don’t stay too long. Don’t tire him.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He needs a lot of rest,’ she said vaguely in the best tradition of the medical profession.

  Angel took it to mean, ‘We are not telling you, so do what you have to do, quietly, then go away.’

  ‘He’s in there,’ she added, pointing to an open door just behind him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. He turned round, went across the corridor to the doorway and peered inside the little room.

  There was a small man with long hair, a beard and a moustache in a bed. He had wires, pipes and tubes leading away from various orifices and places. At the head of the bed was an illuminated screen with a graph and markers and numbers, which changed regularly to the rhythmical accompaniment of a bleeping sound. The wall facing the door was made of glass and looked over the town of Bromersley. Opposite that was a wall-fitted hand basin and in the corner stood a chair.

  Angel reached out for the chair, pulled it to the side of the bed, sat down and looked at the whiskered man. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep. His face and stringy neck were red and chapped, the result of the English winter. He bore only the slightest resemblance to the Harry Hull that he had frequently hunted, caught and sometimes charged over the twenty-four years he had been on the force.

  Hull made a slight movement, cleared his throat and then slowly opened his eyes. He saw the big face of somebody looking at him. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with clenched fists, then looked again.

  ‘It’s you. Dear old Inspector Angel,’ he said hoarsely in a voice that sounded as if he’d been gargling on petrol.

  Angel looked down at him. ‘You asked to see me, Harry,’ he said with a snigger. ‘The very first time in your life you actually asked to see me.’

  Hull managed a brief smile. It quickly left him. ‘You’ll be surprised to see me in here, Inspector … like this?’

  Angel nodded his head slightly.

  Hull hunched up the bed a little and said, ‘You haven’t got a ciggie on you, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  Hull looked disappointed but not surprised. ‘The truth is, Mr Angel, Marlene walked out on me. After twenty-eight years of happy married life. I can’t understand it.’

  Angel knew his history. He could easily understand it. He shook his head wryly.

  ‘I got back to my house after that stretch in Durham,’ Hull continued. ‘I had only served eight months of it. When I got back to the house, it was filled with strangers. Strangers! They told me they’d been there three months. No Marlene. All my stuff gone. No clothes. Nothing. No forwarding address. Went round the Probation. They fixed me up with temporary bed and breakfast. But that was no good.’

  ‘You’ve two sons, haven’t you?’

  He pulled an unhappy face. ‘Don’t know where they are. Been gone eight years. Both married. Got kids of their own now. They pushed off after the newspapers printed that photograph of me with that model who was found dead in Big John Lucas’s swimming pool.’

  Angel remembered it and nodded.

  ‘But I was found not guilty of any wrongdoing by a jury and Judge Casilis, Mr Angel. You know that! It was all written up in the newspapers. I told them that, but they didn’t believe me. I haven’t seen either of them since.’

  Angel felt sorry for the man but was determined not to get involved with his domestic relationships. ‘What did you want with me, Harry? I tell you, I’m no use at marriage guidance. Or “Happy Families”.’

  ‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘I know. I’m not going there, Mr Angel. I know what you’re best at, and I think I can help you.’

  Angel raised his head. This wasn’t the Harry Hull h
e had grown to know, dislike and distrust over the years. He frowned as he thought about it. ‘Not going straight, at last, Harry?’ he said wryly. ‘Now why would you want to do that?’

  ‘Look at me, Mr Angel. Do I look as if I’m about to go out and do a bank job or something? Nah. I’ve run out of choices. And I’ve run out of steam. I’m nearly at the end of the line. I’m going to be lucky to get out of this butcher’s shop alive.’ He shuddered as he spoke those words. He wiped his nose on the pyjama jacket sleeve and then continued. ‘And if I do, what am I going to be fit enough to do? Weave a few baskets for the hospice for a month or two? Nah. I know the score. Before I go, I might as well try and earn a few merit marks … from him up there.’ He glanced momentarily up at the ceiling. ‘Besides there’s nobody else I can tell, is there? And although I reckon you’ve cost me about eight years liberty during my life, I’ve deserved it, and you’ve always been fair and given the evidence as it was and not exaggerated anything. And when that smart-arse barrister tried to get me on fencing as well as burgling, you got that charge of fencing dismissed, because you knew it was Dollie Reuben. That saved me an extra two years in the pokey.’

  Angel realized that Hull must have something really significant to say. ‘What is it, Harry? Are you going to come to the point?’

  ‘Yes. Sure. Well, the thing is, about a week or ten days ago, I can’t exactly remember which day. It was about six o’clock in the evening, I suppose. It was pitch black, I knows that, and I was knackered. I wasn’t well. I was full of cold. I was trying to get tolerably comfortable to rest under the railway arches on Wath Road with a half bottle of rum. I’d got one of those thick cardboard boxes, so I was well off the cold concrete. There were four others sheltering in there under the arches. Five of us altogether. Sammy the smell, Dennis the drunk, the Professor and the Duke. We’d settled down for a spell, when a flash car pulls up on the pavement. I couldn’t see it, but I could tell by the sound it was posh. The sound of the brakes, the hum of the engine, the clunk of the door as it shut. I saw the shadow of a man put his head through one of the arches. He come through, waving a flashlight about. Well, of course Sammy, Dennis and the Professor takes up and leaves straight away. Men of the road don’t like light, where it’s meant to be dark, Mr Angel. I was hid away behind and leaning up against a pillar, and I was dead beat. If you gets there early, you can get a pillar. I was too ill. I’d taken a few sleepers and had a slug or two of black rum. I wasn’t in no state to be beetling off to look for a new hole to rest in, so I stayed. I snuggled down a bit and didn’t move. I knew that the Duke knew I was there, but he seemed to be decent enough. He wouldn’t do me no harm. The man called out a name – Alex, I think. The Duke answered him. He didn’t seem pleased to see him. I think maybe you chaps were after him. He was on about the posh man breaking his cover. I wondered if he was a copper. The posh man said something about pulling out of the Agapoo project and that if he did, he’d give him half a million quid. The Duke said no. Straight away. I couldn’t believe it. There he was, on the bones of his arse, refusing an offer of half a million quid! He said he could pretend to be ill or something, or go off his rocker, anything that would stop the Agapoo, whatever it was, from going ahead. Anyway, Duke says no. But the man couldn’t believe it. He said he’d get more for throwing a sickie than he would for completing the whole project, and he’d have to do nothing for it. The posh man said he could easily find a quack to certify his illness was genuine. The Duke got angry. He didn’t like the man, his idea, his Agapoo or nothing. He told him to sod off. The posh bloke tried to smarm round him, said that only he could help him out, that he had serious woman trouble.’ Hull grinned. ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘Did he say her name?’

  ‘No. Not as I can remember. Anyway, the Duke told him to push off, that he was risking blowing his cover. The posh man was all worked up. He said he was at the end of his tether, that he owed him a favour and that if he wouldn’t pull out, voluntary like, he’d have to assist him. The Duke said in what way? This way, the man said and then I heard two gun shots, and I saw the flashes. In that place, they were very loud. Echoed round them arches something frightening. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my body. It shook me rigid, I can tell you. I dared not move, couldn’t risk being seen by him. I froze on the spot, pulled a rag over my face, slid down inside my overcoat and concentrated on breathing silently. I was afraid my hooky chest might give me away. But the man then ran straight out of the arches. I heard the car start up and race away. I lay there shivering. I was too afraid to do anything for a bit. Nobody came, so after a while, I crawled over to where the Duke was. I called his name, shook him. But I knew he was dead. I went through his pockets for any smokes or money. There was about a hundred quid, a pen knife, a tube of mints and a handkerchief. That’s all. I took them. I don’t mind telling you. If I hadn’t, the next man on the road would have frisked him clean, so might as well have been me.’

  Hull stopped. He leaned over to the locker at the side of the bed. A skinny hand slipped out through a wide pyjama sleeve and picked up a plastic glass. He took a sip of water.

  Angel said, ‘Is that it? Is that all you wanted to tell me, Harry?’

  ‘I gave him something back,’ he said, replacing the glass with a shaking hand.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I had a gold sovereign in my sock. I kept it for when I thought my number was up. I put it in his mouth to pay his way over the Styx. Which reminds me. I hope I recovers out of here, so that I can get myself another sov for when I breathes my last.’

  Angel rubbed his chin and looked into Hull’s watery eyes. He was thinking. For once, one of Harry Hull’s stories had the ring of truth about it. There were one or two things he wasn’t quite sure about though.

  ‘The man with the gun called the Duke Alex?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Alex or the Duke didn’t address him by any name at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They obviously knew each other very well?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘His voice. What sort of an accent was there?’

  ‘No accent. Well spoken. Posh even. That’s all I can say about it.’

  ‘And what was this Agapoo?’

  Hull shook his head. ‘No idea, Mr Angel. No idea.’

  FOURTEEN

  * * *

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Angel said as he closed the door. ‘You wanted me?’

  Harker was seated behind his desk. He looked as miserable as a man with toothache sitting in the waiting room at the Inland Revenue. ‘Aye. Sit down. One or two things. How are you getting along with the tramp murder?’

  ‘Haven’t had a chance to write up my report on that, sir. There were a few developments yesterday. The so-called tramp turns out to be a very successful actor and a bit of a leading light in the film world. His name was Alexander Bernedetti.’

  Harker wrinkled his nose. ‘Name sounds familiar. What was he doing squatting in the arches?’

  ‘Maybe he was down on his luck.’

  ‘Or taken to the bottle.’

  ‘We have a witness who overheard the actual murder.’

  ‘But didn’t see it, I suppose?’

  ‘No sir. An interesting fact has come up. Bernedetti was in the cast of the same film Johannson was working on.’

  ‘Two men in the same film shot dead?’

  ‘And it looks like the same MO, sir.’

  ‘What did you get from the witness?’

  ‘Only that the man who shot the victim was male, well spoken, drives an expensive car, knew the victim well enough to call him Alex, and seemed to be in a gang or something referred to as “Agapoo”.’

  ‘Agapoo? Nonsense. Doesn’t make sense.’ Harker did his impression of an orangutan and then said, ‘And what about Johannson’s murderer? Who do you suspect? Whoever you suspect of the one murder, may have committed the second.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir. Well, nobody seems to have liked Joh
annson. The people who have no alibis are Otis Stroom and Harry Lee.’

  ‘The actor, Otis Stroom, I remember. Very famous. Who is this Harry Lee?’

  ‘American cameraman. Highly rated in the film world.’

  ‘What about the actress’s boyfriend, Hugo Moss.’

  ‘He’s too lightweight, sir. Besides, he has an alibi. He was with Nanette Quadrette all night.’

  ‘So she says,’ he said heavily.

  Angel nodded in agreement.

  ‘Well, it’s high time you had a firm line of enquiry,’ he said, then he added, ‘Mmm. Very well. I’ll let you get back to it.’

  Angel stood up.

  Then Harker said, ‘Ah,’ as he suddenly remembered something. ‘Where is it?’ He leaned forward and ferreted in a wire basket on his desk. He eventually found a pink expense voucher. He looked at it again. His mood changed. He began waving the paper about. ‘What the dickens is this £200 about?’ he said.

  Angel knew exactly what it was, even though it was being fluttered over the desk like a Union Jack at the Queen’s visit. ‘It’s what I paid out to DS Crisp for him to entertain Flavia Radowitz to try to obtain information about her relationship with the victim, Mark Johannson, sir. If you remember, she was seen going to his room on two occasions shortly before his murder.’

  Harker sniffed. ‘And what did he find out?’

  ‘As it happened, the explanations she gave me were subsequently proved to be true and wholly innocent.’

  ‘I asked, what did he find out?’

  Angel had to think quickly. ‘Crisp softened her up for my interview where she said that she discovered that Johannson only fancied her and was trying to get … friendly.’

  Harker nodded knowingly. ‘I thought so. Crisp didn’t find out anything. So you didn’t get any hard evidence about the murderer of Johannson from her?’

  ‘He covertly obtained her fingerprints. Fingerprints that have turned up on a candlestick in Mace’s house.’