The Murder List

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Well … erm, just do it for me, will you?’

  ‘I can wear it when we’re together in the house, can’t I?’

  ‘Yeah. Just make sure other people don’t see it. That’s all I’m asking.’

  She wrinkled her nose then she looked fondly at the ring again. ‘It’s wonderful. And it’s so unusual.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I’ve never seen a ring with two diamonds on it,’ she said. ‘Does it have any special significance?’

  Angel arrived home on Saturday afternoon at six o’clock. He was not particularly pleased with life. A fourth body had been found and he was really no nearer to finding the murderer than he had been three murders back. Solving murders those days usually happened when the criminal made a mistake or when science came up with some irrefutable forensic evidence. At that moment, Angel had no knowledge that either had occurred.

  Mary saw the mood he was in and tried to shake him out of it by playing a recording she had made of an old Doris Day and Rock Hudson film on the television, which he seemed to be pleased about. However, after about an hour, she looked across at his chair and found him fast asleep. She sighed and stopped the playback. She thought they could watch the remainder of it together the following day, Sunday, possibly at lunch time.

  Sunday arrived and so did the newspapers, which Angel read eagerly until Mary pointed out that the lawn needed cutting before it rained. He had hoped she hadn’t noticed, but that was only wishful thinking so far as Mary Angel was concerned.

  As rain had been forecast for late in the afternoon and evening, Angel gave the lawn its first cut that year and managed to get the mower back in the shed just as the first spots of rain arrived. He then went into the sitting room, sat in his favourite chair, and looked out at the garden. He immediately began thinking about the murders … he was thinking that he had never before come across a female killer who was systematically murdering women according to a prepared list. If only he could reach into her mind and know what evil she was planning.

  His thinking was interrupted by the ever serene Mary, who came in carrying a tray of tea.

  ‘Songs Of Praise is starting in five minutes,’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to see it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  He found the remote control and switched on the TV.

  They usually enjoyed the programme even though it had drifted a long way from the great programme it used to be.

  Mary sat down next to him and said, ‘Dinner will be in about an hour.’

  He reached out and put his hand on hers. She looked at him and smiled.

  TWELVE

  It was 8.28 on Monday morning, 11 May and Angel was in his office, having a quick glance through the mail. There were a couple of letters requiring prompt attention, which he would deal with, but there was nothing else requiring urgent attention, so he pushed it all to one side.

  He picked up the phone and summoned Ahmed.

  Ahmed came in. He didn’t look happy, and, in a subdued voice, said, ‘Good morning, sir.’

  Angel looked up at him, frowned and said, ‘Sit down, lad. Now what’s the matter with you this morning?’

  Ahmed didn’t smile. ‘Nothing, sir,’ he said. ‘Did you say you’d some jobs for me?’

  Angel noticed that Ahmed had had his hair cut. ‘Oh,’ Angel said knowingly. ‘You’re still concerned about the fact that the Chief wants to see you on Thursday?’

  ‘I’m very worried, sir. I can’t think of what he could possibly want. You don’t think that a member of the public has complained about me, do you? I’ve been trying to remember anything I might have got wrong or said wrong or something.’

  ‘No. Not at all. It might be that a member of the public wants to congratulate you for something. Had you thought of that?’

  He blinked and smiled briefly, then he reverted to wrinkling his nose and turning the corners of his mouth down. ‘Oh, no, sir. I can’t think of anybody wanting to do that either.’

  ‘Well, you don’t know. Look, I had to see him about something a few days ago. It was just something he wanted my views on, nothing very earth shattering. I have frequently been summoned to see him over the years. It is part of the job of being a policeman. The longer you have been a copper, the more times it will happen that he needs to see you. I must have been up there three hundred times in twenty years, and I’m still here. He won’t bite. Now forget about it until Thursday. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

  Ahmed looked up. He smiled. ‘That’s from the Bible, isn’t it?’

  ‘The sermon on the mount,’ Angel said, ‘I think. Now can we get on? There’s such a lot to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry. I feel a lot better now.’ He had changed. He was his usual self. Smiling and alert.

  ‘Good,’ Angel said. ‘I have some jobs for you.’

  Ahmed took out his notebook. ‘Right, sir,’ he said.

  Angel reached into his inside pocket and took out the photograph he had chosen from the box in the drawer at 13 Creesford Road.

  ‘That’s the late Michele Pulman,’ he said. ‘Do you see the two stone diamond ring she is wearing?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Can you get a decent sizeable picture of that so that it can be reproduced in a newspaper? I need it in about two hours.’

  Ahmed blinked. ‘I think so, sir. It may lose focus and want defining a bit by hand … I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Great stuff. Then I want you to go down town to the Barnes and Barnes office on Victoria Road, and collect a copy of Michele Pulman’s last Will and Testament. It should be ready waiting for you. They are expecting someone from here to collect it. Then see what you can find out about the deaths of Dominic Pulman aged in his early to mid fifties, and his and Michele Pulman’s daughter, Annabelle, aged about twenty. I understand that they were in a road accident and died ten years ago. You might try the Births, Deaths and Marriages office, first.’

  ‘Right, sir. Is that it?’ he said, looking up from his notebook.

  ‘Yes, Ahmed. As soon as you can,’ Angel said.

  Ahmed dashed out.

  Angel then consulted his notes. There was so much to do. It was a question of priorities … which job to do next.

  There was a knock on the door. It was DS Carter.

  ‘Can I have a word, sir?’

  ‘I’m a bit pushed, Flora. But come in, sit down, and keep it short. What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, sir. The murders only seem to occur between five and eight in the morning, when the victim is on her own.’

  Angel nodded. ‘It had not escaped me, Flora.’

  ‘Also, because the four victims were precisely sixty or just sixty-one years of age, isn’t it likely that their deaths had something to do with school? I mean, when was one year more critical than when we were at school? It was used as a gauge to compare how clever we were, and that determined which class we were put in. Couldn’t we find out which school each victim had belonged to? It might be that they all went to the same school and were all in the same class.’

  ‘That’s a very good point, Flora. And perfectly valid, but it is forty-five or fifty years ago, and we are fighting time. For all I know, there could be a fifth and a sixth victim before we found out which school the first four went to. But it’s a perfectly valid idea. Look, grab hold of Ted Scrivens, and get him onto it. And you supervise him. Tell him that to be of any help at all, he will have to move very fast. All right?’

  She smiled and her eyes shone. ‘Right, sir,’ she said.

  She stood up to go.

  Angel took out the brown envelope backs on which he made his notes and began to read through them. ‘Just a minute. I’ve got another job for you.’

  She sat down.

  Angel then looked up from his notes and quickly briefed her about the salacious photographs found on Saturday afternoon at Michele Pulman’s home and the story told to him by Miss Cole. Then he said, ‘I want you to f
ind out what happened to this Rupert Homer and his wife, Ernestine, and I want it quick. If they are dead, I want copies of their death certificates. If either is alive, I want their present address and ideally, their phone number. All right?’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Flora said.

  ‘You have no idea how precious time is now, Flora. There are two women near here who are sixty or sixty one years of age who may forfeit their lives any second. Nobody has come forward in response to our appeal, even though it was quite intensive. Bear that in mind as you make those inquiries.’

  ‘I will, sir,’ she said and she went out.

  Angel watched the door close and then returned to his notes.

  The phone rang. Angel picked it up. It was Don Taylor.

  ‘On Friday, you asked me about the rice and the cauliflowers, sir. You wondered if SOC has spent enough time looking at them. So I instructed a couple of men to have a considered look at the samples. Now, forensics has no standard schedules for comparing a food substance such as dried rice and fresh cauliflowers, so we have just used our eyes, our taste buds, and our common sense, and arrived at the conclusion that all four samples of foodstuffs recovered from each SOC are identical and have come from the same source.’

  ‘There’s no indication which shop or supermarket that they were presumably bought from?’

  ‘No, sir. In addition, in the case of the cauliflowers, they were all bought, or harvested, we think, at the same time. In other words, a fresh cauliflower was not bought for each victim.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘That means the killer bought six cauliflowers in one go. Or cut six cauliflowers out of his or her garden or allotment at the same time.’

  ‘That’s about it, sir,’ Taylor said.

  Angel rubbed his chin hard. He was wondering if there was anything he could do to take advantage of what SOC believed to be a fact, and that it would certainly be unusual for anybody to buy six cauliflowers at a time. Although supermarkets, shops, cafes, restaurants, schools, hostels and nursing homes might well do. In addition, there were all the allotment holders and keen gardeners who sometimes sell their excess produce, and they would never admit to taking payment for anything in case HMRC were secretly observing them. And there were a lot of allotment holders. To check on all those vendors of vegetables would be a colossal job. After some thought, he decided that there were too many outlets selling the item. There could be twenty more murders committed before they could complete the questioning and then the party they were seeking might have bypassed the screening.

  ‘Right, Don. Thank you,’ Angel said.

  ‘There’s something else, sir. Might be inconsequential. Did you know that Miss Cole was selling her house?’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head. ‘No, Don,’ he said. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I was out walking with my wife yesterday, and Lorna was curious to know which was Michele Pulman’s house and which was Miss Cole’s. So we came out of the park by the back gate and I pointed them out to her. I remembered the address of Miss Cole’s was 6 Orchard Grove. We soon found Orchard Grove, which is a beautifully quiet side road. It was then that we saw the for sale sign in the garden of number six. I found it interesting, sir. Might be nothing.’

  ‘Are you and Lorna interested in buying it then?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. It’s out of our league. We could never afford that.’

  Angel licked his bottom lip then said, ‘Did you see who was selling it, Don?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was Watts and Wainwright on Church Street.’

  ‘Thank you, Don,’ Angel said. And he replaced the handset.

  He was still mulling over what Taylor had said about the cauliflowers. He was still wondering if it really was possible to isolate the one person in or around Bromersley, who had bought six cauliflowers before the death of the first victim, Gladys Grant, on 5 May, when the phone rang. He reached out for it. It was Dr Mac.

  ‘I said I would let you know if the wounds on the body of Michele Pulman were the same as the other three victims. Well, they are. And I can confirm that those wounds were the cause of death and that the dear lady died immediately.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Mac. Did you discover anything different or unusual about the crime or the victim?’

  ‘Michael, you know if I knew anything helpful, I would have told you straight out but I am sorry to say there was nothing.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Right, Mac,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Goodbye—’

  ‘Just a wee minute,’ Mac said. ‘You didna ask me what I caught on Filey Brigg.’

  Angel sighed. ‘Mac,’ he said. ‘I’m up to my eyes in it. But tell me. You’ll tell me anyway.’

  ‘I caught six mackerel. And I’ve sent a pair by my wife to your Mary as an apology for being so grumpy.’

  Angel smiled. ‘Well, that’s very nice, Mac. Thank you. Thank you very much. Goodbye.’

  He replaced the phone. It rang again before he had the chance to take his hand away. It was hot this morning! He snatched it up. It was DS Taylor.

  ‘I think we’ve got something, sir,’ he said. He sounded quite excited for a man who is normally placid and takes things as they come.

  Angel blinked. His pulse went up twenty beats. He could do with a breakthrough. ‘Yes, Don?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We took the waste bin as it stood from the kitchen at Michele Pulman’s house, sir. And we’ve been going through it systematically, item by item. Near the top was an empty can of Monty’s lager. We’ve checked it out and there are stacks of prints on it as clear as they come. They are not the deceased’s, Michele Pulman’s, nor Emily Cole’s. In fact, from the size, they look like a man’s. Anyway, I’ll put the prints through our records and then through the national system and see if we come up with anyone.’

  Angel smiled. ‘Great stuff, Don. Let me know.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. I will. I certainly will.’

  Angel dropped the phone back in its cradle and slowly rubbed the fingertips of one hand across his temple. One annoying and confusing point that occurred to him was that the witnesses’ evidence to date had indicated that the murderer was a woman, yet Don Taylor, who certainly knew what he’s talking about, said that the prints on the can appeared to be those of a man. That was something that Angel would have to reconcile.

  He pulled out the old envelope he had in his inside pocket and looked down it for a telephone number. He picked up the phone again and tapped in the number.

  Seconds later he was talking to Emily Cole.

  ‘I was wondering if Mrs Pulman had had any visitors in the last few days of her life, Miss Cole?’

  ‘No, Inspector, she didn’t,’ Miss Cole said. ‘Last week, there was the community nurse who came on Monday, that was the 4th. And she was the only visitor all week apart from me.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? It’s very important.’

  ‘I’m very sure, Inspector. Visitors could only see Mrs Pulman through me, you see, because I have her house keys.’

  ‘Did you happen to stay in the room all the time the nurse was there?’

  She hesitated. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I usually do, in case Mrs Pulman wants my help answering a question or needs something. The nurse is a very nice, pleasant young lass who wouldn’t harm a fly. She had been calling on Mrs Pulman for a few months.’

  Angel licked his top lip. ‘I expect she is, Miss Cole,’ he said. ‘I expect she is. Now I must ask you something else. Do you enjoy a drink now and again?’

  Her reply wasn’t immediate. ‘I expect you mean an alcoholic drink, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, I used to buy a bottle of sherry now and again to keep me warm in the winter, but to tell the truth, I can’t afford it now.’

  ‘So you don’t drink alcohol at all then nowadays?’

  ‘That is correct. And I don’t really miss it.’

  ‘What about Mrs Pulman? Was she partial to a drink now and then?’

  ‘Oh no. Not at all. Anyway, sh
e had some pills that helped her to sleep and the doctor instructed her not to take any alcohol with them as that would make her very ill. So she didn’t. Going without didn’t seem to bother Mrs Pulman, either.’

  Angel pursed his lips. His pulse rate was increasing. His chest was warm and buzzing … it felt as busy as a beehive. ‘Well, DS Taylor has found an empty lager can in the kitchen waste bin, have you any idea how it got there?’

  Miss Cole was briefly silent. ‘I can’t explain that,’ she said. ‘I have no idea. I am the only one that puts anything in there. Mrs Pulman can’t. It’s well out of her reach. That’s very strange.’

  Angel’s stomach rumbled. His chest quivered. Blood rushed to his face. That confirmed it. The empty tin can was the first whiff of a clue. The murderer had supped the Monty’s lager, disposed of the empty can in the kitchen waste bin and had carelessly left his prints on it. Whoever’s prints were on that can was the murderer of four women.

  ‘Right,’ he said, hardly able to conceal his excitement. ‘Thank you, Miss Cole,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  He slowly returned the phone to its cradle and as he withdrew his arm, he noticed that his hand was shaking. It was because he was near to a breakthrough in finding the murderer. It always affected him in that way. Also, he had the additional incentive that if he found the killer before his silver wedding anniversary on Thursday next, then only three days away, his friend Daniel Ashton, ex-cop turned antique dealer, had agreed to letting him have the solitaire ring for Mary for £500, thus saving £300 on his alternative price of £800. He simply had to solve the case by then because there was no way he could ever scrape together the £300 difference.

  He returned to his notes. It was difficult for him to concentrate because he was desperately hoping to hear very soon that the fingerprints on the lager can that Don Taylor was searching for would turn out to be somebody they could quickly identify, charge and lock up, before they could murder anybody else.

  There was a knock on the door. It was Ahmed. He was carrying two sheets of A4. ‘I’ve got a couple of photographs of that ring, sir. I hope they are good enough. I’ve enlarged the photograph as far as it will go before it loses definition, and I’ve darkened some of the detail as it lost considerable contrast.’