The Auction Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel nodded and pressed on. ‘You were at the auction yesterday, weren’t you? Can you tell me what you saw?’

  ‘Oh?’ Lady Ogmore shook her head, her lips tightening. ‘I thought I wouldn’t be able to face it. Seeing so many things I had lived with, known and handled over the years, being sold under a hammer to strangers was not something I relished. However, I was curious to see whether the sale was realizing good prices and was pleased to find it was doing quite well. I was also mildly interested to see if I knew anybody there. Indeed I spotted Sanson and I went over to him and said a brief ‘hello’. But I didn’t stay long.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else, you knew?’

  ‘Old Snatchpole, of course. That’s all, I think. I had a word with the girl in the bob hole, thingie, place … just to see how things were going. Then I came out and left quickly.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything or anybody that you might have thought was suspicious?’

  ‘No. Nothing,’ she said, blowing out a length of smoke. Then she suddenly stopped. She pointed with the cigarette. ‘There were two men … just behind me, I saw them at the cashier’s desk … portly … with ponytails. Yes, ponytails. They looked quite incongruous at a country auction. I thought that at the time … very well turned out though. I’d take money they were in Savile Row suits.’

  Angel frowned. ‘Ponytails?’

  4

  ‘Come in,’ the superintendent called.

  Angel pushed open the door with a crutch and manoeuvred his way into the room, reversing and turning to close the door behind him.

  The superintendent looked up. ‘Sit down, Michael,’ he said gently. ‘Take your time. Put your sticks down there.’

  Angel pricked up his ears. It was unusual and worrying when Horace Harker spoke politely and called him ‘Michael’. He also noticed he wasn’t grinding his teeth and that he was behaving almost like a human being. Angel didn’t like it at all. Something fishy was going on. He eased down into the chair, put the crutches on the floor beside him and eyed him curiously.

  The superintendent reached forward, picked up an A4 sheet of paper from the pile in front of him, and went through his repertoire of face-pulling as his watery eyes skimmed the contents. ‘Ah. Hmmm. Yes. Here it is. Something here, right up your street, Michael. Just come in.’

  Angel nodded. It didn’t sound good. He was all ears.

  ‘You may be aware that there’s a circular from London about a big, new ATM fiddle in the offing,’ he began.

  Angel didn’t know. He shook his head.

  ‘Yes. The banks are wetting themselves. They already lose millions a year from minor fiddles; well this is mooted to be the biggest clean-up since Catherine Zeta-Jones married Michael Douglas. It’s possible they may have to shut the system down until the leak is stopped up. If one bank decides to, they all will, and that will be very embarrassing for them and damned inconvenient for the millions who depend on the hole in the wall to pay their weekly Tesco bill. They have said stand by for action. Though what they would want us to do, god knows. We couldn’t covertly or openly monitor every punter at every ATM in Bromersley on our strength. I think the commissioner thinks we’ve nothing to do here but fetch cats down out of trees. Anyway, as it happens, I’ve got Desmond Pogle and a team running an obbo outside the new Multimass Supermarket. They’ve got the van with a video camera watching the ATMs. They’ve spotted a couple of villains working a diversion of attention scam. A new one.’

  ‘Oh?’ Angel’s interest was aroused now. He liked to keep abreast of the latest tricks.

  ‘It’s quite clever,’ Harker sniffed and emphasized the point by stabbing his finger in the air several times. ‘As the punter enters her PIN into the ATM, the crook looks over her shoulder and records it on the keypad of his mobile phone. That looks innocent enough; he could be dialling his grandmother. Then, at the critical moment, his accomplice drops a ten-pound note on the deck behind her and says something like, ‘Is this yours, love?’ She turns away to look, and bends down to pick it up. The crook then leans over, takes the returned credit card out of the machine and skims it on the pocket sensor inside his jacket. It only takes a couple of seconds. She turns back to the machine, sees her cash sticking out of it and naturally reaches out for it. While she’s occupied putting it safely in her purse or wherever, the crook tosses her card down to the floor by the till and leaves the scene. The accomplice points to the ground and says, ‘Is that your card?’ She picks it up. He then closes in on the machine, to frustrate her departure and facilitate his partner’s getaway. The punter has her card, her cash and ten pounds besides, so she’ll likely toddle off delighted, blissfully unaware of what has happened. The crooks meet up later; they have her card imprint and her pin number so they’re happy. They make a card up from the imprint, and they’ve got her pin number so they can empty her account anytime they like.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Very slick. You got them both?’

  ‘No.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No?’

  ‘We’ve got the accomplice. The real villain got away. He could run faster than Desmond Pogle. Hmm. He needs to take a couple of stones off, does that lad.’

  Angel nodded. It was probably true.

  ‘So now,’ the superintendent said, smiling at Angel with the look of an uncle buying his favourite nephew an ice cream, ‘I’m looking for a volunteer.’

  Angel quickly shook his head. ‘I’ve got a lot on, sir. With that Sanson murder.’

  ‘And you’re the one.’

  The corners of Angel’s mouth turned down. He didn’t want lumbering with a piffling credit card fiddle and an obbo outside a supermarket. He had plenty on. He had a murder to solve. ‘I haven’t finished the preliminary interviews in this Sanson case yet, sir.’

  The super began to grind his teeth. ‘You’ll soon catch up with that. You’ll have to put a whip across the backs of your lads. This villain we’ve caught is potentially the key to much bigger fish than the killer of an out-of-work butler!’

  ‘Oh?’ Angel said thoughtfully. He didn’t quite know what he meant; he certainly couldn’t agree to any downgrading of the Sanson murder. ‘Well sir, I can’t run with crutches anyway, can I?’

  ‘It’s not about running. This lad has been processed. Pogle’s interviewed him. Found virtually nothing out at all about him, except his name and his address in London. I should have let you at him. Anyway, he’s been before the magistrates this morning, and was released on bail.’

  Angel blinked. ‘Released?’ he said incredulously.

  ‘Yes. But he’ll be back. It’ll be heard in Sheffield, in a couple of months.’

  Angel shook his head. He was thinking, they would be lucky to see him again!

  The superintendent recognized the look. ‘Oh yes, Michael,’ he sneered confidently. ‘Oh yes. He’ll be back. And do you know why I’m so positive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because the name of this lad is Youel. Sebastian Youel,’ he said with heavy emphasis. He was expecting a lively reaction from the other side of the desk.

  Angel’s face remained deadpan, while his mind clicked through his memory bank. There was a remarkably evil, big-time crook with that surname wanted for robbery and violence, aggravated burglary, armed bank robbery and extortion. It was an unusual name. ‘Related to Harry Youel?’

  The super nodded. ‘His son.’

  Angel looked the superintendent in the eye. ‘And you have him under surveillance in the expectation of netting his father?’

  The superintendent nodded with a smile bigger than Nero’s on the night he murdered his own mother. ‘Let’s say, we’re hopeful. But that’s only partly correct.’

  ‘I didn’t realize he had a son.’

  ‘Spitting image of his father.’

  Angel shook his head. ‘Nobody could be as ugly as Harry Youel.’

  ‘You can see the lad for yourself in the flesh. I want you to look at Pogle’s videotape. And you can get to know his face
, and you can do it without him getting to know yours. You might even be able to identify his partner in crime.’

  ‘Hmmm. And is Sebastian Youel to be kept under surveillance for the next two months?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘It depends. But this is where you come in.’ Angel knew there would be a catch.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t seen you. He’s seen Pogle. He wouldn’t know you from a stick of celery. With those crutches, you’ve got a perfect cover. I want you to call on the place, posing as somebody else. Confirm he’s there and that he looks settled. Or not. And of course, anything else you can. You never know, his father could even be with him already! We could summon a couple of ARVs and bottle both of them, and manage without the SFO. It would be a tremendous feather in our caps, wouldn’t it, Michael?’

  Angel frowned. ‘The SFO?’

  ‘Aye. It’s not difficult, lad. I know where he is. I know exactly where he is.’

  Angel brightened.

  The superintendent continued. ‘I got Todd to follow him, and I’m in the process of organizing an FSG from Wakefield to take over full-time surveillance if needs be. We haven’t the manpower and, in any case, the Chief doesn’t want us to throw money about on this long shot. We’ve had a very expensive year and the thought of mounting an operation of this sort would bring back his shingles!’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘You are expecting Sebastian to lead you to his father?’

  ‘Inevitable, I would have thought,’ the super replied with a grin.

  Angel nodded. He could be right. ‘Where is the lad now then, sir?’

  ‘Oh, not far away. Two hours ago, he was traced to that little posh private kindergarten, Littlecombe, on the Huddersfield Road. Young Todd is in an unmarked car on his own, on the road, monitoring him. But what that villain’s doing at a nippers’ school, I can’t imagine.’

  *

  Angel returned to his office and slammed the door. He snatched up the phone and tapped in a number. There was a click and a voice answered: ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘Something’s cropped up, Ron.’ He sniffed. ‘I want you back here, smartish.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Gawber said.

  ‘How’s that listing going?’

  ‘All right. Mr Snatchpole’s here, helping me out. Trevor Crisp and Ed Scrivens are both out on the knocker.’

  ‘Leave them to it. Put your foot down. I’ll be in the viewing room.’

  ‘Right sir.’

  Gawber was back at the station in eight minutes, and joined Angel who was viewing the videotape of the ATM scam.

  The clarity and colour of the pictures was good. Young Youel was a short, well-dressed man in a dark tweed suit and light blue open-necked shirt. His hair was combed down tidily on a head the shape of a football. He rarely opened his eyes fully; the half-closed eyelids sometimes gave him an oriental look. He never smiled, but like the photographs of his father, he had a mouthful of big teeth. Youel’s partner in crime was unremarkable in his appearance: in his twenties, fair-haired, spotty, with scruffy jeans, T-shirt, baseball cap and trainers. Neither of the two policemen knew either man. Angel reckoned they had probably come into the manor from away.

  They moved to Angel’s office and listened to the tape of the interview Pogle had conducted with Youel. The young villain spoke slowly and pronounced every syllable distinctly. He had said he was twenty years of age, although he looked older, and gave an address in south London as his place of residence. He denied the charge of ‘conspiracy to fraud’ and pleaded not guilty.

  Angel phoned the council offices in Croydon and charmingly persuaded a clerk there to consult the electoral roll. The young man duly reported back that a Sebastian Youel had lived in a flat there for the last twelve months and was registered as its sole occupant.

  Angel and Gawber then left the station together for Littlecombe. Gawber was behind the wheel and turned left out of the street and on to Huddersfield Road. They went round the roundabout that sported the fountain known as ‘Victoria Falls’ with its powerful spray of water and colourful show of spring flowers. They shot passed the Ogmore Hall gates and up the hill. Soon they were in the country whizzing past budding hawthorn bushes and bluebells waving at them from each side of the road.

  Angel could only wonder what the villain was doing at this infants’ school in the Yorkshire countryside. There weren’t any rich pickings there.

  He sniffed and turned to Gawber. ‘I went to that school briefly, you know, as a pupil.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Gawber said as he pressed his foot hard on the accelerator to overtake a tractor towing a trailer of artichokes.

  ‘Aye. In the days when my mother thought she would try and make a gentleman out of me … have me learn elocution and botany, and how to play the violin. And avoid getting impetigo and nits from the kids at the wood school. Yes. Learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Not drop my aitches … mix with a better class of infant.’

  ‘Did it do you any good, sir?’

  He paused, rubbed his chin and then shook his head. ‘Still got nits.’

  Gawber smiled.

  ‘There’ll be no kids there, today, sir. It’s the Easter holidays.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. Hmmm. That’s right,’ he said, nodding thoughtfully. He spotted a car with a familiar licence plate parked on a patch of grass at the side of the road. He pointed at it through the windscreen. ‘That’ll be Todd.’

  Gawber slowed down and pulled up alongside the detective constable’s car. Angel lowered the window.

  Todd spotted him and leaned out of the car window.

  ‘Now lad,’ Angel said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘He’s still in there, sir,’ Todd said indicating the road ahead with his thumb.

  ‘Did you actually see him arrive and go into the school?’

  ‘Yes sir. He came from town by taxi. I saw him pay the taxi off and walk straight in through the front door.’

  ‘He didn’t knock?’

  ‘No, sir. Just walked straight in.’

  ‘Right,’ Angel said frowning. ‘And he didn’t see you?’

  ‘No sir,’ the young man said confidently. ‘I dodged behind a tree.’

  Angel hoped he was right. ‘Right, lad.’ He nodded to Gawber to drive on. Two hundred yards further along the road, they reached a large stone-built house surrounded by tall, leafy trees, a high wall and open iron gates supported by two stone pillars. Gawber slowed down at the entrance where there was a neat wooden signboard, painted white on green. It read: ‘St Veronica’s School, for Boys and Girls between the ages of six and ten. Headteacher and proprietor: Cynthia C. Fiske MA, BA, Oxon.’

  Gawber drove through the gates, round to his right by a neat lawn bordered by wallflowers and then pulled on the brake by the front steps.

  Angel opened the door. ‘Wait here for me.’

  Gawber switched off the engine and passed him the crutches. Angel took them. He sensed Gawber was apprehensive so he nodded reassuringly. He made his way across the drive and struggled up the three steps to a stone-flagged area covered by a green-timbered canopy overhanging the front door. He pressed the shiny brass button and heard the bell ring inside. He took a step backwards and waited … and waited. There was no reply. He pursed his lips and kept repositioning his fingers round the grips on the crutches. Meanwhile he looked down over his shoulder at Gawber who was peering up at him. Angel turned back to the door, leaned forward and was about to press the bell push again when he heard a few rapid footsteps. The big door opened ten inches, and a head appeared in the gap. It was unmistakably Harry Youel’s son, Sebastian. The round head and the big teeth were not a pretty sight.

  Angel’s pulse raced and his chest burned inexplicably.

  The young man’s expressionless face looked out at him. No smile. Eyes half closed. ‘What can I do for you?’ he said in a dreamy, continental voice.

  ‘Good afternoon. My name is Angel, Michael Angel. I would like to speak to Miss Cynthia Fiske?’ he asked looking confident. H
e hadn’t the slightest idea of what he was going to say to her.

  The door was suddenly pulled open more widely by an unseen hand to reveal a dark-haired, tall woman aged about forty-five. She was neat and smart, in a plain, dark dress and black low-heeled shoes. She had not a hair out of place and had that freshly scrubbed appearance of a no-nonsense, no-frills, professional woman.

  She looked enquiringly down at him. ‘I’m Cynthia Fiske. Good afternoon. What can I do for you?’ she said with a practised smile.

  Sebastian stared at her briefly. He wasn’t pleased. He said nothing but quickly turned away and charged up the staircase opposite the door, two steps at a time.

  Angel pursed his lips. He wasn’t certain what he wanted to say next. The aim was to get into the house. He wanted to see what was happening.

  ‘I wonder if I could see you about my son?’ he said, surprised at his spontaneous creativeness.

  She hesitated for a moment, then glancing at his crutches, she stepped to one side and said, ‘Of course, Mr Angel. Please come in.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Angel said with a smile. She seemed wholly taken in by the deception. It was looking good. He swung the crutches on to the wooden floor. The hall was much smaller than he remembered it, but the dark oak panelling, paintwork and stained floorboards seemed to be exactly the same.

  ‘Do please follow me,’ she said after closing the door. She led the way across the hall, past the bottom of the wide staircase and the doors to the basement and schoolroom, into a comfortable room with a French window. He remembered that it used to be the headmistress’s study but now it seemed to serve as a multi-purpose reception room.

  She held the door open for him and closed it when he had swung the crutches inside.

  ‘Please sit down,’ she said gliding across to a chair by a small desk against the wall.

  ‘It’s a lovely house you have here,’ Angel remarked as he eased into an armchair opposite her.

  ‘I like it,’ she said smiling easily, but he thought it might not have been the genuine article.