The Murder List

by Roger Silverwood

She looked up from her coffee.

  ‘It’s gone up. It’s not less. It’s more! The damned thing is more! How is it a company like that can get away with making claims like that, that are blatantly untrue?’

  ‘I expect the basic cost of gas has gone up,’ Mary said. ‘That bill is probably thirty-six per cent less than it would have been if we still had the old boiler.’

  Angel stared at her open-mouthed. ‘Whose side are you are on?’ he said.

  ‘I’m on the side of sweet reasonableness, I hope,’ she said.

  Angel’s fists tightened. ‘Sounds as if you are one of the overpaid majority that work for the gas company.’

  ‘Not at all. To be scrupulously fair you have to take all factors into consideration. Also, I think it was much warmer last April than this April, which means our consumption is much higher.’

  ‘I haven’t told you,’ he said, ‘but I’ve turned the thermostat down two degrees, to save us a few pounds.’

  ‘And I haven’t told you that I knew,’ she said, ‘and I turned the thermostat up two degrees to prevent us dying from pneumonia!’

  ‘Huh. You’re the only person I have ever known who turns up the central heating and then wants the windows open! I am not paying out good money to heat up next door’s garden.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Michael. You’ve got to have fresh air.’

  ‘If you want fresh air, you should put on your overcoat and go for a brisk walk.’

  Mary’s eyes flashed. ‘Oh!’ she said. She gulped the last drop of coffee, banged the cup on to the saucer, stood up and rushed out into the kitchen.

  Angel looked up at her, frowned and watched her leave. Moments later, he heard the running of water, followed by a banging of pots and pans and a loud slamming of kitchen cupboard doors.

  He licked his bottom lip thoughtfully, rubbed his chin, stood up, picked up his empty coffee cup and saucer and went into the kitchen.

  Mary glared at him, snatched the cup and saucer out of his hands and plunged them into the water in the sink.

  Angel walked away from her thoughtfully. He went into the sitting room for a few seconds then he came out, back up to the sink, and said, ‘Would you like me to dry for you, love?’

  It was seven o’clock, the same day, and Cliff Grant was in the little dining kitchen at the back of the shop, stretched out on the settee, his head on one arm and his feet overhanging the other. He had a pack of six cans of Monty’s lager on his stomach and was steadily progressing through them, while impatiently pressing buttons on the TV remote. He was desperately trying to get away from the yakety-yak of clean-shaven men in suits, and women with straight dark hair who were talking politics and nothing but politics ahead of the general election the next day.

  At Cliff Grant’s side, the kitchen table was covered with dirty plates, dirty cutlery and dirty pans as well as opened packets, boxes, tins and jars of all kinds of foodstuffs.

  The shop bell rang. He looked at the clock. It said twenty past seven. He tossed the remote onto the table, dragged the part pack of lager off his stomach and allowed it to drop onto the floor. Then he pushed himself off the settee and ambled into the shop.

  Looking at him across the counter were the twinkling and tantalizing eyes of Maisie Spencer, the one of the low cut blouse and short skirt tradition. The one who claimed that they had been engaged. She was smiling.

  Cliff Grant looked her up and down and grinned.

  Neither seemed to be in a hurry to speak first.

  ‘Hello,’ Grant said.

  Maisie said, ‘Hello.’

  Grant said, ‘Well, well, well, what brings you out of the house at this time of night?’

  Maisie Spencer came up close to the counter and still smiling, said, ‘Would you believe I have been cooking beef stew … it’s been in the oven for almost three hours and I thought of you.’

  ‘Now why would you think of me?’ Grant said.

  ‘Oh, I thought of you … all on your own, stuck here, doing your own cooking … and there’s far too much beef stew for one.’

  ‘That’s nice of you to think of me.’

  More smiles. More silence. He looked at her ample bosom, and grinned all the more. She looked at his strong tanned face, fabulous physique, thick shiny hair, big grin and faultless teeth.

  ‘There was another reason I thought of you,’ Maisie said, then she giggled.

  Grant looked at her more closely, and she giggled even more. She couldn’t stop herself. The giggling became worse. She put a hand over her mouth. He laughed with her but he didn’t know the reason for it.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he said. ‘What was the other reason you thought of me?’

  Amidst more giggling, she said, ‘It was because I wanted—’

  She broke off again with the giggles.

  Grant lifted up the hinged piece of counter, opened the little door and came through to the customer side. He put both of her hands round his neck, put his own hands round her shoulders and gave her a powerful, lingering kiss on the lips.

  When they eased back from the kiss, the giggling had stopped. She looked both stunned and stunning. She was breathing quickly. Her bosom was rising and falling. She stared into his soft blue eyes.

  Grant’s pulse was racing. ‘Oh, Maisie,’ he said. ‘Oh, Maisie … can you … can you stay a while?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘A couple of hours. Must get back for ten. Mum phones me at ten. She’d be worried if she didn’t get a reply.’

  He tightened his hold around her, squeezing her breasts against his chest. She ran her hands up and down his thick, brown muscular arms.

  He slackened the hold and began to undo the buttons of her blouse.

  ‘Not here, Cliff,’ she said, gently taking his hands in hers.

  He agreed. He looked at her and said, ‘Upstairs?’

  She nodded.

  Then he pointed to the gap in the counter and said, ‘Go on through, Maisie,’ he said. ‘Straight through the sitting room and up the stairs. You’ll see. I’ll be right behind you. It’s quarter to eight. What’s fifteen minutes? I’ll lock up. Turn out the lights.’

  Maisie squeezed through the break in the counter.

  Grant quickly turned the sign in the glass door round to show CLOSED outside, turned the key in the lock and withdrew it, shot the bolts across at the top and the bottom, dashed through the break in the counter and switched off the lights.

  SIX

  It was 8.28, Thursday morning, 7 May.

  Angel was already in his office at Bromersley Police Station. He was preparing the lines of action he intended to pursue and he had just phoned DC Ahmed Ahaz in CID to come into his office.

  There was a knock on the door and the young man appeared. He was carrying his notebook.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes, Ahmed,’ Angel said. ‘I want to see Don Taylor as soon as he gets here. That’ll take about ten minutes. Then at about 8.40, I want to see Flora Carter, Trevor Crisp and Ted Scrivens. Put the word out.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘And then I want you to phone Mixendon’s Glass Works on Wells Road. Speak to the CEO and find out where their employee Lance Hough is and how he can be contacted urgently. Don’t tell them anything about the reason we need to know. Just say it is very important and that it is police business, all right?’

  ‘Got it, sir.’

  ‘Then I want you to see if you can trace a Philip Grant. He lived at 83 Sebastopol Terrace, Bromersley. Ran a small grocer’s business from there. Now around thirty years ago, he divorced or deserted his wife, Gladys Grant. Her maiden name was Hemingway. I am told that he died ten or fifteen years ago in Leeds, aged around fifty or sixty. It’s not much to go on, but see what you can do. I should start at Bromersley’s Births Deaths and Marriages. I assume he married Gladys around 1984. Have you got all that?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’

  ‘No, lad. That’ll do for starters.’

 
; Ahmed grinned and dashed off.

  A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. It was DS Taylor.

  ‘Come in, Don,’ Angel said. ‘Sit down. A couple of things. First of all, that rice?’

  ‘It’s regular rice, sir, sold in packets in grocery outlets usually, and imported by the shipload mostly from Thailand, but also from Burma and China. There would be no chance of tracing it.’

  Angel nodded and pulled a sour face. At every turn, he felt thwarted. It would have been difficult for him to pretend that he was not disappointed.

  ‘What about the graphologist? Have you heard from him yet?’

  ‘Just come in, sir. He knew it was urgent so he phoned me a few minutes ago. I made some notes.’ He took out a little notebook and referred to it. ‘He said that it was extremely difficult for him to work without several samples. A formal letter would have been ideal—’

  Angel eyes flashed. The muscles in his face tightened. ‘We haven’t got a formal letter. If we’d had a formal letter, we would have known the killer’s name and we wouldn’t have a need to waste time bothering him, would we?’

  Taylor waited.

  Angel wiped a hand across his mouth and chin. ‘Did he say anything positive?’

  ‘He said it was definitely a man—’

  Angel’s eyes flashed again. ‘A man?’ he said. ‘But the witnesses have told us they saw a woman!’

  Taylor lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders a little and turned the palms of his hands upwards.

  Angel breathed out noisily then said, ‘Anything else?’

  ‘And that he would be of a mature age. Also that there are certain distinctive aspects of the upper loops of the lower case letters f, h, k and l that puzzle him and make him wonder if the writer is not emotionally unstable.’

  ‘Ah,’ Angel said. ‘So we agree on one thing, then. Our murderer is emotionally unstable. Surprise, surprise!’

  ‘And that’s it, sir,’ Taylor said closing the notebook.

  Angel sniffed. ‘Graphology is supposed to be a respected profession.’

  Taylor said, ‘It was very helpful in that Aspinall case, sir. The info given was correct in every particular, if you remember.’

  Taylor was quite correct, Angel remembered.

  There was a knock at the door and it was DS Carter; she was closely followed by DS Crisp and DC Scrivens.

  ‘Come in. Come in,’ Angel said, then he turned back to Taylor and said, ‘Are we done, Don?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll push off, if that’s all right.’

  Taylor went out and closed the door.

  Angel looked round. ‘Will you sit down, Flora?’ He turned to the two men standing. ‘Sorry, there are only two chairs. You two lads will have to fight over who sits down and who stands.’

  DC Scrivens said, ‘It’s all right, sir, I’ll stand.’

  When they were all settled, Angel turned to Flora and said, ‘Did you finish the door to door?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘There are only six apartments on that floor. We called on the other five. And nobody saw or heard anything. Everybody there seemingly keep themselves to themselves so we couldn’t find out anything about the Houghs.’

  Crisp said, ‘Nobody I called on saw or heard anything. Of course it was early in the morning. They’re mostly elderly people in those flats. They don’t get out of bed until about eight o’clock.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘What about newspaper deliveries?’

  Flora and Trevor Crisp glanced at each other.

  Crisp said, ‘Newsagents don’t deliver newspapers these days, sir.’

  ‘I am sure some do,’ Angel said. ‘Depends on where you live. Anyway, did either of you check on it?’

  They both shook their heads.

  Angel wasn’t pleased. He shook his head in surprise then looked at Scrivens. ‘Right, Ted. Head off and see which newsagents deliver newspapers to that building, then interview all the kids that made any delivery early yesterday morning. And find out who they saw in the building, or entering or leaving the building at the critical time. And get a full description. Do it quickly, while it’s fresh in their minds. Off you go.’

  Scrivens nodded. ‘Right, sir,’ he said and he went out.

  Angel then looked at his two sergeants and said, ‘Right. We have to move fast. We have two murders on our hands. Both committed by the same woman in the same way. And you have both seen the notes or copies of the notes left by her. They clearly indicate that she intends to murder six people. Now the murderer must have a motive, grudge or whatever against those six women. She must have had – or still has – some sort of a relationship with them. So, maybe the seven were in the same bus, house, home, family, institution, hospital, school, work, doctor’s waiting room, train, plane, ship, hotel, whatever when something happened. Maybe if we can find out what it was, or where it was, we can prevent the rest of the women on her list being killed. So we need to find the common denominator between the two victims, which should of course, apply to the other four intended victims and possibly, the murderer as well.’

  Angel stopped. His face shone with enthusiasm. He was optimistic about his plan to discover the identity of the murderer. And he hoped that they would be. He looked at them and rubbed his chin. ‘Are you with me so far?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Flora said.

  Crisp said, ‘But sir, there doesn’t on the face of it seem to be much similarity between the lifestyles of Gladys Grant and Fay Hough. Mrs Grant was a widow bringing up a child, and working as a self-employed shopkeeper living in what would now be regarded as sub-standard housing. Mrs Hough was the wife of an executive in a big company and living in a luxury apartment. It’s difficult to imagine where their paths crossed.’

  ‘I didn’t say it would be easy, Trevor,’ Angel said. He turned away from Crisp and looked at Carter. He wanted to know what she thought about the plan.

  Angel’s phone rang. He glared at it. It always rang at a critical moment. He reached out for it. ‘Angel,’ he said.

  It was Superintendent Harker. Angel knew it was him from the breathy sound he frequently made when inhaling.

  ‘Ah, yes, Angel,’ Harker said. ‘There’s been a triple nine from a man at 62 Cemetery Road.’

  Angel’s heart sunk to his boots.

  Harker said, ‘Name of Lunn, Dale Lunn. He says he’s found his wife, Felicity, covered with blood, on her bed, a few minutes ago. Ambulance on its way. Call timed at 08.40 hours. Get on with it.’

  He terminated the call.

  Angel slowly replaced the phone. He turned to face the sergeants. Flora Carter and Trevor Crisp stared back at him. The blood drained from his face until his cheeks were the colour of chip shop lard.

  Angel soon recovered and triggered the mechanism to begin the investigation into the death of Felicity Lunn.

  Sergeants Flora Carter and Trevor Crisp had been immediately directed onto door to door inquiries along Cemetery Road.

  By the time Angel arrived in the BMW on Cemetery Road, he discovered that all hell had broken loose outside number 62.

  Every possible parking space within a five-minute walk had a vehicle of some sort parked in it. Many had a local or national PRESS card displayed on the windscreen. Some had a TV news company’s logo. Some must have been local residents. There were six marked police vehicles not far from the scene of the crime, also several other unmarked cars on police business, including those of Dr Mac and the CID cars. Angel also saw a white van with a large dish aerial extended on its roof and he wondered what it was that might be in the process of being recorded or transmitted.

  Although Angel had a police pass and could theoretically park where he needed to while on duty, he found it impossible to find a place close to number 62 that wouldn’t also cause a potential traffic hazard.

  He drove slowly round the block for a third time and was then elated when he saw a man walk up to a car quite close to number 62. The man unlocked the car door and climbed into the
driving seat. Angel edged the BMW nearer. The man didn’t seem to do anything for a half minute, then he saw him reach up for his seat belt. Angel sighed and edged even further towards him. Seconds later the car’s amber indicators began to flash. Angel saw a wheel move. Then the car pulled out and the man drove away. Promptly he motored into the space. He parked up, put the POLICE ON DUTY sign on the windscreen and climbed out of the car.

  As he approached the house, he could see that round the front gate was a congested mob of people. Some were holding up their mobile phones. Pressmen and women and photographers (some standing on portable sets of aluminium steps) were pointing their cameras at the house. He also saw several reporters with microphones and at least two handheld television videotape cameras in position on the overflowing pavement.

  There was one lone uniformed policeman standing on the front door step which was about two metres from the gate. He was trying not to notice the mob in front of him. He reacted quickly enough, however, when Angel put a hand on the gate to open it.

  ‘You can’t—’ the police officer said. He broke off. ‘Oh. Sorry, sir. Didn’t realize it was you.’ He saluted.

  Angel heard voices behind him. ‘Who is this? He’s a detective. It’s Inspector Angel. Get him. It’s Angel. Hey, Inspector Angel! Inspector Angel!’

  He turned to face them.

  Cameras began to click. It seemed everybody held up a mobile phone.

  ‘What can you tell us about this murder, Inspector?’ somebody said.

  Microphones of all types, size and colour were thrust under his nose.

  ‘I don’t know if it is a murder yet,’ Angel said. ‘I have only just arrived. It hasn’t been determined.’

  ‘What about the other two women?’ another voice said.

  ‘Were they murdered by the same man?’

  Angel held up a hand. ‘You mustn’t interfere with us trying to do our job. You cannot hold this house under siege like this. I understand your interest, but you are making it difficult here. You are also interfering with the residents’ privacy and peace and quiet on this street. I can tell you that no interviews or answers to your questions will be given from this house. Anybody who does not leave this site within the next five minutes will be arrested and charged with hindering the police in the execution of their business and/or being a public nuisance.’