The Man in the Pink Suit

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘Right. Put him through.’

  ‘Inspector Angel?’ the young man said breathlessly.

  The policeman sensed that something else was wrong. ‘Yes, Mr Tabor.’

  ‘I want to report a robbery.’

  *

  Angel’s car reached the hatched area outside the front door of Tabor Industries in a record six minutes. He slammed on the brakes, dashed through the automatic doors, ran up the steps, along the landing and into the front office. Mark Tabor was alone, in his shirtsleeves seated at his late father’s desk, holding his head in his hands.

  He looked up as Angel walked in.

  ‘There is about one hundred and five thousand pounds missing, Inspector. How am I to replace that?’ he wailed. ‘Some of that cash was for the wages. They are due to be paid on Friday.’

  ‘Where was it stolen from?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Mark Tabor pushed back the swivel-chair and swiftly slipped round the desk to the Chinese cabinet in the corner of the room. The black-lacquered door and the heavy safe door inside it were wide open. The safe was empty apart from several dusty envelopes wrapped in pink tape in a corner at the bottom. He held out both hands, pointed towards it and said: ‘In there!’

  Angel looked briefly at the empty safe.

  Mark Tabor shook his head, returned to the desk and sat down.

  ‘And it was locked,’ he continued. ‘It’s been locked all night. It takes two long keys to open it. They go deep into the casing of the safe. And the alarm was on. There is a special magnetic switch across both locks. You wouldn’t get a key or anything else metal near it when the alarm was set. And there’s no way it can be opened without the keys.’

  ‘And where are they kept?’

  Mark Tabor picked up and waved two keys with shafts twelve inches long from the desk.

  ‘Dad kept them on the desk, while he was here, but he would always take them with him whenever he left the office.’

  ‘Have they been here all night?’

  ‘Oh no. I took them home with me,’ Mark Tabor said quickly. ‘But they would have been on the desk yesterday, when Dad was shot. They would still have been here when your men were here yesterday and during the time I was at the hospital. They would have been here all the afternoon until I returned. That would have been about five o’clock. They were still on the desk. They were covered in fingerprint powder. When I left for home, I picked them up and took them with me.’

  ‘So the keys were unattended between the time my men left, which was about four o’clock and the time you got back from the hospital?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Angel looked up at the CCTV camera directed at the desk. ‘Won’t the videotape tell us anything?’

  Mark Tabor ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘The tapes were taken out for your sergeant to take away. We haven’t any replacements. They run for twenty-four hours on a continuous loop system. Oh dear!’ he groaned. ‘That’s something else I’ll have to see to.’

  ‘Who would have access? To this office and the safe, between four and five o’clock yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘As news filtered down to the assembly line, production ground to a halt,’ said Mark. ‘There were apparently discussions among the staff. The shop-floor was in some confusion. During that time, anyone could have come up here without being missed, I expect. I suppose the four girls in the general office and the receptionist might have seen anybody who shouldn’t have been here, but they left early.’

  ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘I suppose it could have been anyone or a group of people — employees — who had the nerve and who knew that there was a worthwhile amount of money in the safe.’

  ‘They would have needed to know about the safe keys. That they were on the desk.’

  Mark Tabor nodded

  ‘And you are sure the money was in there at the time your father was shot?’

  ‘It must have been. I had brought a hundred thousand pounds from the bank yesterday morning. So much happened yesterday. It must have been. Could Jones have stolen it? Perhaps that’s what he came for.’

  ‘No. That’s one chap we can eliminate. It would have shown up on the tapes. Why was there so much cash on hand?’

  ‘Dad had said he had a big deal coming up. He always used to say that he could negotiate better with cash. Don’t know what it was.’

  ‘Will your father’s secretary know? What’s her name?

  ‘Ingrid Dooley.’

  ‘Ay, will she be able to throw any light on this?’

  Mark shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She couldn’t tell me anything. I’ll get her.’ He crossed to the door, opened it and called: ‘Ingrid.’

  Miss Dooley glided in. She was as pretty as yesterday although Angel had then no time to notice. She stood by her office door, soberly dressed in a tight black dress. She flashed her big, brown eyes across at the policeman and smiled briefly.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Dooley. Can you help us? A brief question. Where were you yesterday afternoon?’

  Her moist lips smiled. ‘After you interviewed me, I went out for a walk. I needed some fresh air. You took over my office and I needed to go somewhere, away from all this for a while.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Where did you go?’

  ‘Nowhere particularly. Just round the estate.’

  ‘What time did you get back?’

  ‘About five o’clock, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s right, Inspector,’ said Mark Tabor. ‘Ingrid got back just after I did.’

  ‘During the few days leading up to, and indeed on the day of the murder did you see anybody hanging around this office at any time? Anyone who shouldn’t have been here?’

  ‘No, Inspector.’

  Angel nodded. ‘We believe there is a lot of money missing from the safe, Miss Dooley. I wonder if you can help us?’

  She touched her lips with the tip of her tongue, then said: ‘Yes, Inspector. Mark’s already told me.’

  ‘Do you know how much there was?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mr Tabor dealt with the money himself. I never had anything to do with it.’

  Mark looked up from the desk.

  ‘That’s right, Ingrid, but there was usually a lot in there, wasn’t there,’ he said nervously. ‘Tell the Inspector.’

  ‘Oh? Yes. There was.’

  ‘But you have no idea how much?’

  Ingrid hesitated and looked across at Mark Tabor.

  ‘It’s all right. Tell him, Ingrid,’ he urged.

  She shrugged, then said: ‘Well I don’t know exactly, but well over a hundred thousand pounds.’

  Angel puckered up his lips and made a silent whistle. He saw Ingrid look at Mark, who nodded approvingly.

  Angel rubbed his chin.

  ‘Why did he need that sort of cash on hand?’ he asked.

  ‘There was the wages, and the petty cash.’

  ‘Petty cash?’ Angel’s eyes opened wide.

  Ingrid Dooley’s mouth tightened briefly and then relaxed. She looked away.

  There was a sudden clatter of metal hitting metal and a thud.

  Angel turned to find out the cause of the noise.

  ‘I’m sorry. It was me. I am all fingers and thumbs,’ Mark Tabor said, as he bent down and picked up the safe keys from the carpet and put them back on the desk.

  Angel had been fully engaged watching the dimple on Ingrid Dooley’s cheek form and then vanish as she answered his questions and had not been aware that Mark had been fidgeting with the keys.

  Tabor ran his hand through his hair.

  ‘Excuse me, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I really must get on.’ He reached over the desk and picked up the phone. ‘I have to try the bank for a loan.’

  Angel looked from one to the other.

  ‘There appears to be nothing more I can do about it at the moment. But I’ll certainly look into it. Now, if there’s nothing else, I must go.’

  SIX

  Angel stopped hi
s car outside the little shop on the Mawdsley Estate. Two fourteen-year-old boys with hair sticking out in all directions, wearing jeans purposely torn at the knees, were leaning against the shop window. They had their hands in their pockets and were conspicuously looking nowhere. They couldn’t speak, either, because their cheeks were bulging as their mouths opened and closed unpleasantly in a puzzling, laboured, rhythmical time. It was impossible to determine what they were chewing, but it was red, luminous and would have served well as a tail-light on a 707.

  They eyed Angel suspiciously as he walked across the concrete space, which had once been a patch of grass, to the shop door, accidentally kicking an empty lager-can that was in his path. The door was wide open and propped back by a flat-iron, which was on a handmade rug made from scraps of old clothes. The shop was the converted sitting-room of a terraced house and was stuffed to the ceiling with every kind of food and drink, enough to feed the Eighth Army. It was so crammed that there was only enough floor-space to allow three small customers inside the premises at a time.

  Fortunately for Angel, nobody was requiring the shopkeeper’s attention as he stepped down into the room. He was not surprised to see the heavy woman behind the brightly illuminated glass counter. She wore a woollen cardigan, a headscarf banded her hair, and she had gold rings on every finger. She was the centre of the congestion and the creator of it.

  ‘Good morning, Kathleen. Can I see Irish John?’ Angel asked equably.

  She was squeezing loaves of bread from a baker’s tray into shelves improvised from packing cases set on their sides. She blinked at the sight of the policeman and opened a mouth big enough to bite off a Catholic’s head. ‘Naw. He doesn’t larve here onymore,’ she hollered in a peaty Belfast accent.

  She returned to stacking the bread.

  Almost immediately, the head of a man with a face like a ferret appeared slowly round the doorjamb behind the woman. Seeing the inspector it swiftly slid back.

  Angel spotted him.

  ‘Hey, John. I want you,’ he called.

  There was a three second delay and the head slowly reappeared.

  Kathleen saw him. She turned back to Angel. ‘Glory be. He’s retorned. It’s a miracle,’ she exclaimed without any emotion.

  Irish John squeezed up to the counter and stood next to Kathleen. He was a tall, skinny man with a small head. He had a white scarf round his neck and was wearing a trilby that didn’t need any further camouflage. He looked pleased with life and smiled slightly. He had a very thin cigarette between his brown stained fingers. It gave off blue smoke and a strange smell.

  ‘Well now, it’s Inspector Angel,’ he said slowly. ‘Now what would you be wanting me for now?’ He took a small drag from the spindly cigarette.

  Kathleen turned quickly and deliberately caught him on the ear with a loaf of bread.

  ‘There’s no room for the boath of us behind this counter, John. Oive told you that before, I have. And there’s no smoking about the food.’

  A little woman came into the shop and rammed a pushchair into the back of Angel’s legs. He turned round to see what was happening. The little woman looked up at him.

  ‘Are you being served, mester?’ Before he could reply, she called out: ‘Kathleen, I want a bottle of vinegar and twenty ciggies.’ Then she held out her hand to Angel and said, ‘Here. Give her this. I can’t get round you.’

  Angel declined the money.

  ‘If you back off with that pushchair, you can come up to the counter.’

  She didn’t move.

  Angel glanced back. John had gone and Kathleen’s big, podgy face glared across the room at him.

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Angel.

  ‘He’ll be out the bark,’ she said loudly and pointed a banana-sized finger to the shop door. ‘Outside and up the ginnel.’

  Angel made a mighty stride over the pushchair. A child’s face with chocolate round its lips and cheeks, and big eyes, looked up in amazement at him. The policeman managed to untangle himself from the pushchair and stepped out through the open door. The little woman leaned back against the wall, folded her arms, stared at him and sniffed.

  He turned immediately right and then right again up a passageway in the terrace block. It led to the backyard of the shop. It was an untidy patch of overgrown grass and weeds. He turned to the back door and tapped on it. It was immediately opened by a boy aged eight years.

  ‘Are you a capper? ’Cos moy dad don’t live here onymore,’ the lad said in an accent learned at his mother’s ample knee.

  Before Angel could respond, the door opened wide and there stood Irish John. The little boy scurried round his legs into the house.

  The man was still smiling. His head was shaking a little and he still had the spindly cigarette dangling between his fingers. He hung on to the door as if it needed his support.

  ‘You wanted me, Mr Angel, did you now?’

  ‘Just calling round to see how you’re getting along, John.’ John smiled. ‘Oh? I didn’t know you was running a benevolent soarvice for ex-prisoners,’ he said slowly.

  Although he spoke in a light-hearted way, Angel knew there was a deep-seated potential malevolence in every word. ‘You’ve been out about two months now haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said John, taking a pull at the cigarette, blowing out the smoke and licking his lips with a blue tongue. ‘And I haven’t had a visit from the local fuzz. Where’ve you all been? I was beginning to feel neglected, Mr Angel. It’s as if you weren’t interested in me onymore.’

  ‘You’re not the only villain on the patch you know.’

  ‘Oh? Is that right?’ John took a drag from the spindly cigarette and produced another cloud of blue smoke and a peculiar smell.

  ‘There’s your mate, Tiny McCallister. For instance.’

  ‘Never hoard of him, I haven’t.’

  Angel gave him an old-fashioned look.

  ‘You went down with him for two years for extortion with menaces. You’ve had the doubtful pleasure of his company at Strangeways during that time. There were three of you. You, him and Spotty Minto. The three stooges. Where is Spotty, by the way?’

  ‘Never hoard of him. That I haven’t.’

  Angel rubbed his hand across his chin. He made a disagreeable face.

  ‘I haven’t patience to talk to you,’ he said angrily. ‘I’ll find him. You can be sure of that.’

  Irish John smiled. ‘Now you’ve found me, Inspector, what is it you’re wanting?’

  Angel pulled himself to his full height and stabbed a finger into the lapel of Irish John’s navy-blue jacket.

  ‘I’ve come round to tell you to keep your nose clean. You will, no doubt, know that your friend McCallister has taken a beating. So if you’re thinking of retaliating on his behalf, do it in Leeds or Manchester or somewhere else, because I won’t tolerate it here. Do you understand?’

  Irish John raised his eyebrows. The smile had disappeared. His mouth opened and stayed open.

  ‘We are watching you,’ Angel continued, ‘and you can tell your mates. One sign of trouble — from you or them — and you’ll go down for five years. I’ll see to it personally.’

  ‘You’ve got nuthin’ on me, Inspector,’ said John slowly in a sing-song voice.

  Angel looked down at the spindly cigarette.

  ‘I could book you right now for possession of cannabis.’

  John’s jaw dropped. He glanced down at the fag and then put it behind his back. He hesitated and then said:

  ‘It’s proscribed for me by a doctor.’ He nodded slowly for emphasis. ‘I have to have it. It’s for my illness.’

  ‘What illness,’ Angel snapped.

  Irish John rubbed his chin with four fingers and a thumb.

  ‘Erm. I forget.’

  ‘You forget? Well don’t forget what I’ve told you. Keep out of trouble.’ Angel turned to go.

  ‘Er — Mr Angel,’ Irish John called.

  The policeman turned back. ‘What now?’ he growled.


  ‘I’ve remembered.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve remembered what it is I had forgotten … what I have the stuff for,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Oh? What?’

  ‘My memory.’

  Angel glared at him. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. So you see it was no surprise was it, that I had forgotten. Indeed, I have a lot of things the psychiatrist in Strangeways said I should forget. Things from when I was a child in County Cork. The potato-famine, the troubles, the unemployment, the poverty, being an orphan, and my father who was always drunk. It was terrible.’

  John shook his head and looked down.

  Angel took a step back from him.

  ‘What are you talking about? You don’t come from Ireland. As far as I know, you’ve never been to Ireland. Your record says you were born in Glasgow. And you weren’t an orphan either. Your father was a very stupid conman and thief. Your mother was from a very well-regarded family. She was a qualified chemist. Your maternal grandparents were very respectable people. Your grandfather was a member of the Salvation Army and was teetotal. You lived with them and your mother. You ran away from them when you were fourteen to join a gang of shoplifters. You got caught and put on probation. The court delivered you back home and your mother was pleased to have you back — I don’t know why. But you didn’t stay long. You defied a court order saying you had to live at home until you were eighteen. A few months and you were off again, in spite of pleadings from her and her parents, and you’ve been in and out of remand homes and prisons ever since. You had endless ‘second chances’. You came to live in Bromersley about ten years ago and you’ve been a damned nuisance to all and sundry here ever since.’ Irish John stood with his mouth wide open.

  ‘That’s not true, Mr Angel. I was in Belfast in 1994,’ he said indignantly.

  ‘Were you? Were you on a day-trip?’

  ‘I was there for tree months. Tree months! I met Kathleen and her mother there. So what you say is not true. And what’s more, I’ve married her. An Irishwoman. Kathleen Docherty. That’s proof. You’ve met her. That’s our son, Liam.’

  ‘You’re not married.’

  Irish John hesitated.