‘Put your hands up! Now!’ Angel repeated.
Youel’s hands flew upwards. ‘I thought you had searched him, you imbecile!’
‘I did, Mr Youel. He can’t have a gun,’ Poodle whined.
Angel felt his pulse drum in his ears. His face went white. ‘You should have been more thorough,’ he snapped.
Gawber slowly stood up and looked across at Angel. He wondered just how bold he could be.
Poodle’s hand was shaking. He turned from Gawber to Youel, his face a picture of confusion.
‘Don’t point that thing this way, you fool!’ Youel bawled. ‘Point it at him!’ he added nodding towards Gawber.
Gawber put up his hands, but remained standing.
Through clenched teeth, Angel said to Youel: ‘We are going to move back to the wall. If you don’t want to live in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, you’ll come straight backwards with me, now.’ The two men edged back together until Angel felt the ridges of the radiator press on his legs. He stopped, released the grip round Youel’s neck, but kept the battery pressed firmly into his back.
Poodle stared hard ahead at Gawber, his gun hand still shaking. A shiny surface of perspiration glistened on the big man’s forehead. ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Youel?’
‘Nothing,’ he said evenly, then he looked towards Gawber and added, ‘Shoot him if he moves.’
Again Angel pushed the battery into the little man’s spine.
Youel screamed. ‘No. Don’t do anything! Don’t do anything, until I tell you. Have you got that, Poodle? Don’t do anything.’
‘Right, Mr Youel,’ he said, licking his fat lips.
There was a natural pause.
Angel wondered where he was going from there. Any second now, Joshua was going to come in through the front door looking for Youel, and Sebastian or Cynthia might come up stairs to see what was happening. Either intrusion, if mishandled, could end in his death and Ron Gawber’s. It was a Mexican stand-off that depended entirely on bluff, but he could not maintain the bluff forever, and Joshua might just be the one thick enough to call it!
The front door suddenly opened. It was Joshua. Without looking round the hall, he turned, pushed the door almost shut and then, hanging on to the knob, peeped back outside through the gap. ‘We’ve no transport, Mr Youel,’ he yelled frantically. ‘All four tyres in both cars and the police car are flat. They’ve had the valves taken out. There’s somebody out there. Must be. Can’t see them. Can’t see anybody. What are we going to do?’ He banged the door shut, turned the key and looked round. His jaw dropped when he took in the scene.
‘Stay where you are,’ Angel said commandingly. ‘Put your hands up.’
Joshua took a step forward.
Angel jabbed at the battery.
‘Stay there, Joshua,’ Youel screamed. ‘Stay there. He’s got a gun in my back. Do as he says.’
Joshua stopped instantly. He stood there, his feet apart. He looked at Youel and Angel, then at Poodle and the Walther, and then at Gawber with his hands up, then back at Youel and Angel. He raised his hands slowly. ‘He didn’t have a gun when he was searched, Mr Youel,’ he said evenly.
Angel felt his heart flutter. His collar was tightening round his neck. ‘Is he calling me a liar?’ he heard himself call out.
Youel quickly said, ‘No. No. You’re not, are you, Joshua? You’re not calling Mr Angel a liar?’
‘No. No,’ Joshua said uncertainly. ‘No.’ His mouth dropped open, he looked across at the bizarre sight of Angel rammed up close behind Youel and frowned.
Angel tried to look more dangerous. He had to make the bluff last as long as possible. He reckoned if he was exposed, Joshua was strong enough to take Gawber and himself on and squeeze them both to death with one hug. He didn’t want to get in a tangle with him. He glanced at his watch. It was over thirty-two minutes since he had sent Ahmed the text message. He hoped nothing had gone wrong. He tried to swallow. His mouth was as dry as a shroud. Sebastian and his mother wouldn’t stay downstairs with the injured Smithy forever … if they came upstairs …
Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the front door. ‘Open up. It’s the police!’
Youel noisily sucked in a bucketful of air: Angel blew out a barrel’s worth.
It was the FSU: better late than never!
Joshua’s head swivelled round to the door. The whites of his eyes caught the light as he checked everybody’s face in quick succession. Poodle renewed his tight grip on the Walther and licked his lips. Gawber stood helpless, facing him, hands still in the air.
The door knob rattled. Loud banging followed. ‘Open up! It’s the police.’
‘You’d better unlock the door and open it, Joshua,’ Angel said evenly.
The big man looked at Angel, then at Youel. But he didn’t move and stayed frozen to the spot.
Angel jabbed the battery into Youel’s spine; the little man gasped but didn’t speak. Angel’s heart began to thump. He could hear drumming in his ears. He jabbed the battery harder.
Youel responded. ‘Open the door, Joshua. For god’s sake!’ he squealed.
Joshua shook his head slightly but didn’t move anything else.
Poodle stared straight ahead at Gawber; he gripped the Walther so tight his hand was shaking like butterfly wings. Gawber stood there licking his lips with his hands up and praying for a miracle.
The noise at the door grew louder. ‘Police. Come on! Open up!’
Angel jabbed the battery fiercely into Youel’s back again and said, ‘You’d better get him to open the door if you don’t want hot lead in your colon!’
Youel couldn’t hold out any longer. ‘Open the door, Joshua! Open the door!’ he shrieked.
‘He hasn’t a gun, Mr Youel,’ Joshua yelled, lowering his hands. ‘He can’t have. He’s bluffing.’
Youel began to shake.
Poodle said, ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Youel?’
He didn’t reply.
Joshua said, ‘I’m not going back inside for nobody!’
Angel pressed the battery hard into the little man’s back again and shouted, ‘Get him to open that door, or prepare yourself for a one-way trip in a hearse!’
‘Open the door, Joshua,’ Youel wailed. ‘Open the door!’
The man didn’t move. He just stood there, his eyes glazed. He started to flap his hands by his sides, glancing alternately at the door and then at Angel.
Angel’s brain raced. He was worried about Gawber. He was directly in the line of fire.
The police were still clamouring at the heavy door.
‘Shall I let him have it, boss?’ Poodle said, staring at Gawber, his hand shaking.
‘If you do, he gets it,’ Angel bawled. ‘Open that door now, Joshua, or this man never walks again!’
Angel heard footsteps and voices on his right coming up from the basement. The arrival on the scene of Sebastian Youel and Cynthia Fiske now would be disastrous.
Angel was desperate … out of ideas, out of fighting talk and losing credibility faster than a PM in his third term. Joshua was about to call his bluff and escape. Poodle would certainly pull the trigger on Gawber if he did.
Suddenly, through the open basement door, five men clad in navy blue and black uniforms, wearing helmets with ‘Police’ marked on them and brandishing Heckler and Koch carbines piled in. They yelled, ‘Police. Police. Stay where you are. Get down on the floor. On the floor. On the floor. Down! Down!! Down!!!’
Angel sighed with relief as he saw DI Waldo White dash boldly over to Poodle and relieve him of the Walther.
One of the policemen opened the front door and two more FSU men rushed in. There was the rattle of handcuffs and the swishing sound of webbing against satin-covered body armour.
Angel relaxed his grip on Youel, who lowered his arms and gasped. A policeman jabbed him in the arm with a Glock 17. He glowered, bent his knees and crawled to the floor.
Angel sighed with relief. He was desperately anxious to r
each Ron Gawber and looked across the sea of helmets, uniforms and guns.
Then, amidst all the yelling, rattle of rifles and jingle of handcuffs he heard his name being called, ‘Mr Angel. Mr Angel.’ It came from a voice at his feet.
He looked down at the toothy horror and shook his head in disgust. What a boon to the boatmen of the Zambesi Youel would be, frightening the crocodiles.
‘We can still do a deal, Mr Angel,’ he said looking up with froglike eyes. ‘It’s not too late. You can get me out of this. Make it fifty thousand!’
‘No thank you,’ he sniffed and waved his hand. Then he realized he was still holding the double A battery. ‘But I’ll leave you with his,’ he said quietly and, opening his sweaty hand, he let the battery drop to the floor by Youel’s head. ‘You might need it, for your calculator,’ he said, with a nod, ‘to add up the number of years you’re going down for.’
12
‘Come in lad. Shut the door.’
‘Did it go all right, sir?’
Angel pursed his lips. ‘It was a close call. FSU were late.’
‘I phoned them just as you instructed sir. They got lost.’
‘Lost!! Some folks’d get lost in their own bathroom! How did the super take it?’
‘He was furious,’ Ahmed said evenly.
Angel smiled.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
It was DS Crisp.
Angel looked up. ‘Come in, lad. Come in. Did Pogle give you any trouble?’
He shrugged. ‘It was a bit awkward arresting a DI. But when I’d got the cuffs on him, and he understood that we meant business, he calmed down.’
Angel nodded.
Crisp pulled a small polythene bag out of his pocket. ‘What shall I do with these, sir?’
‘What are they?’
‘Valves from the car tyres.’
Angel smiled. ‘I told you it would be easy. Give them to Ron. Some of them are from his car.’
Crisp grinned. ‘Never thought you could do it with a hairgrip.’
The inspector smiled. When the phone rang, he reached out for it. ‘Angel.’
It was superintendent Harker.
The smile vanished.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ he growled. ‘Bring yourself down here.’
Angel pulled a face. ‘Right, sir,’ he said and replaced the phone. He pursed his lips and sighed. He knew he had to take his medicine sometime, so he was down the green corridor straightaway. He tapped on the door.
‘Come in,’ the superintendent bawled. Looking up at him, he frowned. ‘Sit down.’ Then his eyebrows shot up. ‘Where are your crutches?’
‘They took the plaster off yesterday, sir.’
‘Oh?’ he sniffed uncertainly. ‘You can walk all right now then, can you?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Hmmm. So you didn’t actually need crutches this morning, then?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Hmmm.’ The superintendent sniffed and slowly reached forward on the desk and opened a thin cream file. He appeared to read a few sentences before looking up. His face had changed from basic ugly to advanced repulsive. He took in a deep breath, looked Angel in the eye and said, ‘What’s the idea of going off half-cock on a job, unarmed and unbriefed, to capture a dangerous hoodlum like Youel? Who the bloody hell do you think you are, James Bond?’
Angel’s mouth dropped open. He was not really surprised at the superintendent’s outburst. Knowing him well enough, he also knew he couldn’t be in that much trouble because he had Youel and his gang — and Pogle — in custody and there weren’t any casualties.
‘Haven’t I the authority to mount an assault, when I have good reason to believe I know where a wanted criminal is in hiding?’
Harker stuck out his lips like a pig sticks out its snout. ‘I’m saying there wasn’t any proper coordination and cooperation in the planning. I didn’t know anything about it, for one. And you deliberately blew Pogle’s obbo without consulting me. If you had been wrong about him, you would have made a right mess of things.’
‘You didn’t want to hear anything wrong about Desmond Pogle, sir. I sounded you out on that specifically. You wouldn’t have given me your cooperation to set up a trap to —’
‘I wasn’t in possession of all the facts then, man!’ he bawled. ‘That’s why I wouldn’t go down that path!’ He began grinding his teeth. ‘And you admit you deliberately went behind my back because you didn’t get my agreement to this unsupported idea?’
‘No. Not at all. I told you all I knew. And it was necessary to contain that intelligence. The operation was carried out by me and four men only at very short notice, because I couldn’t risk Youel bunking off, or Pogle getting wind of it in the canteen or somewhere. And, it was a golden opportunity to catch two birds with one stone. There wasn’t much time. It was a cheap, quick, small, successful operation, without any casualties. We winkled out a bent copper and got Harry Youel and his gang off the streets inside two hours.’
The super wrinkled his nose. He didn’t want to agree, but he was having difficulty finding anything more to gripe about. Yet, he continued. ‘A man’s in hospital in a serious condition,’ he added, pretending that he cared.
‘That was nothing directly to do with the operation. It was a family row over drugs.’
He sniffed, then nodded slowly. ‘You were very lucky. Very lucky! There were a million things that could have gone wrong. You’d absolutely no back-up, and I wouldn’t have been able to support you if anything had gone wrong.’
Angel knew that was true and it was typical that now, knowing that everything had gone right, he still didn’t choose to support him!
‘Yes sir,’ he agreed, to try to draw the subject to a close.
The super cleared his throat noisily and said, ‘Aye. Right. Well, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Pogle has been charged, I’ve seen to that. We had to have something to hold him on, but of course there’s a lot more than disciplinary charges involved here. It will have to go to the divisional commissioner.’ He turned the corners of his mouth down. ‘I want Pogle moved out of this station today. He can go to Doncaster after he’s been to court, or anywhere, the further the better. I want him out of my sight. I never could stand the man. I always thought there was something not quite above-board about him. It was a good job we caught him when we did. You know, he came from a very unsavoury family. His grandfather was always on the take when he was mayor,’ he said, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head.
Angel blinked in astonishment but didn’t say anything.
‘Get Todd to clear his office and stuff,’ he said pursing his lips. He reached out for his pen and looked down at the file. ‘Right. Now, have we anything on this Fiske woman?’ he asked rubbing his chin. He looked up. ‘Is she his wife or his fancy woman or what?’
‘They’re divorced, sir. She’s his ex-wife and mother of Sebastian.’
‘Oh.’ The superintendent shook his head. ‘He’s an ugly man,’ he said pulling a face like a tray of tripe.
Angel stifled a smile. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Can’t see what she saw in him,’ he muttered. ‘Is there anything to charge her with? Harbouring? Aiding or abetting? Or —’
‘I don’t think we’d make anything stick. She clearly didn’t want her ex-husband and his gang there. He was simply taking advantage of their past relationship and the fact that their son, Sebastian, was visiting her.’
The superintendent frowned. ‘Hmmm. How on earth did Youel manage to bag a well-set-up woman like Cynthia Fiske? I mean, she’s not bad-looking, well educated and she’s obviously got a bob or two? And taller than him as well.’
‘The stuff on the NPC said she was university-educated, a teacher, good family. Did voluntary work … a prison visitor, and she met Harry Youel while on her rounds at Brixton in the eighties … eventually married him in ’83, she helped him get on his feet on his release … no doubt thought she could civilize him and
has probably regretted it ever since. Of course, they had a baby … just the one. But he was always in jail for robbery as a young man, lately much bigger jobs and thuggery. She divorced him in 1988 and reverted to her maiden name. Then she bought the school in Littlecombe well away from London, after her parents died. It would be because of Sebastian, I suppose, that Youel eventually traced her there.’
‘Some women are just plain stupid,’ Harker said grinding his teeth. ‘They panic like hell when they reach thirty-five and they haven’t had a baby. Anyway, I’ll have a word with the CPS, see if there is anything. Now what about the lad, Sebastian?’
‘Nothing new on him, sir. Might get him on possession of Class C. Difficult to prove. His father going down might be enough to scare him off? I reckon his mother, given half a chance, could straighten him out.’
The superintendent looked down at the notes in the file. ‘Hmmm. And the lad that’s in hospital. What’s his name? Smith?’
Angel frowned. ‘Possession of Class C. Again, it would be hard to prove. Might be something in his past. Nothing else known.’
‘Really? Right. That’s it, then,’ the superintendent said as he threw his pen down.
They both sighed.
Angel thought Harker was pleased. He should be, but he’d never say it.
‘What’s going to happen now, sir? There’s a lot of paperwork to see to, sorting out the charges with the CPS, and follow through, and tidy up. Pogle can’t do it. Are you going to finish it off, sir?’
‘Oh no, lad. You’re the one that knows most about it,’ he said, handing him the file.
*
‘Ahmed, I asked you to get me a list of the phone calls made by that charlatan, Selina Bailey, for the past month …’
‘It’s on your desk, sir. There. Somewhere.’
‘Where?’ Angel barked impatiently. He shuffled through the pile of envelopes and papers that had come in that day. ‘Aye. It’s here.’
‘I’ve had a look at it, sir,’ Ahmed said pointing at the paper. ‘It’s not a long list. I’ve written in, in pencil, where she rang. She doesn’t seem to phone anyone who isn’t in business. I don’t think there are any calls to family or friends. I didn’t think you’d be interested in local calls to shops, an optician, the chemist’s. And the only non-local she made was to Leeds … to a chemical company … Schofields Yorkshire Chemicals. Now, she rang them each Thursday morning. Can’t think what she’d want with them.’
The Auction Murders Page 14
