He rubbed his chin. He mustn’t let that annoying business divert him from the task in hand.
He consulted his notes, then reached out for the phone. He tapped out two single digits and put the phone to his ear.
‘Control Room, DS Clifton,’ a voice said.
‘Bernie,’ Angel said. ‘Have you any transport going anywhere near the hospital?’
‘No trouble to organize that, sir, if you’re not in a hurry,’ Clifton said.
‘Sometime this morning would be fine, Bernie. I want some small items picking up from Dr Mac in the mortuary there, and delivering to me.’
‘Leave it with me, sir.’
Angel replaced the phone. He then looked at the small piece of paper Susan Fairclough had given to him. It had a London telephone number and the name John Hooper. He picked up the phone, tapped in a nine for an outside line, then followed it with the number.
A pleasant young woman’s voice said, ‘Indemnity and Life. Can I help you?’
‘Mr John Hooper, please.’
‘Thank you. I am connecting you.’
A man’s voice came on. ‘John Hooper, can I help you?’
Angel introduced himself and told the man the tragic event that had happened the previous day. It came as a shock to Hooper but when he recovered he became an excellent witness.
‘Ian was expected here first thing on Wednesday morning,’ Hooper said. ‘When he didn’t arrive I thought he must be ill, but when I hadn’t heard anything by yesterday, I phoned his home but I could not get a reply.’
‘His wife was sleeping at a neighbour’s,’ Angel said. ‘And I believe that she has now returned to work. I wondered if you could throw any light on the situation. As far as you know, was Ian Fairclough involved with people who walk about armed with guns?’
‘Certainly not,’ Hooper said. ‘Not that I am aware of, anyway. He walked, talked and behaved like the respectable gentleman I am sure he was. This is a long-established family insurance company, Inspector. We deal in domestic house and contents, motor vehicles, holiday and life cover. He has to deal with ordinary members of the public, family men and women, and their children and sometimes grandchildren. They have to trust him to provide the right policy that they need and can afford. We wouldn’t have employed him if he had been the slightest bit iffy.’
‘Have you any ideas of anyone who would want Ian out of the way?’
‘No, Inspector. Certainly not. He was a very hard worker. We were very pleased with him. I cannot imagine him involved with anybody with a gun. It would be so out of character. We are sorry to lose him, particularly in the tragic way you have described.’
‘He was away Tuesday night, the 4th. Have you any idea where he might have spent that night?’
‘None at all. I left him to make his own arrangements.’
Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Did he come up to town often?’ he said.
‘About four or five times a year, depending on the need.’
‘Well, did he not have a regular place where he stayed?’
‘I expect he did, Inspector. Yes, of course. I will have to check when he last came, then check on his expenses claim. It will just take me a couple of minutes.’
‘I’ll hold,’ Angel said.
Several minutes later, Angel had an address and a phone number for a small two-star hotel in WC1.
He thanked Hooper, ended the call and tapped in the phone number of the hotel.
‘The De Coverley Hotel,’ the lady said.
Angel introduced himself and asked her if Ian Fairclough had stayed at the hotel the previous Tuesday night.
‘I will have to look. One moment, please … Yes, he did,’ she said.
Angel said, ‘And can you tell me if he was on his own?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘Well, yes. He was in room number 114, which is a single room. It also looks as if he was originally booked in for last night as well, that would have been two nights, but he must have cancelled.’
‘Have you any idea why he cancelled?’
‘Sorry, sir. No idea. We are rather busy here.’
‘That must have put you out quite a bit?’
‘Not at all. If somebody wants to cancel, we don’t question why. Provided they clear the room by 10 a.m. and pay their bill. We normally have no difficulty reletting it.’
‘Was there anything unusual about his behaviour?’
‘Nobody said anything, sir. We don’t pry. But I really don’t know. Sorry.’
Angel ended the call. He rubbed his chin with his fingertips and nodded. He was satisfied that Ian Fairclough had spent the Tuesday night he was missing at the De Coverley Hotel in London. That was clear enough. Angel leaned back in his chair. His face creased and he wrinkled his nose. He was thinking that it didn’t explain why Fairclough came back a day early, why he came to be found murdered in his own home the next day, nor why there was a new, unwanted vacuum cleaner found in the house.
The phone rang. He reached out for it. ‘Angel,’ he said.
It was Flora Carter. She sounded as if she had been running. ‘I’m on Melvinia Crescent, sir, catching up on the on the door to door. I’ve come across a witness who said that at about ten o’clock yesterday morning she was in her front bedroom when she saw a salesman walking up the path of number 33. He was a big man with broad shoulders, in a black or dark-grey overcoat. She saw him knock at the front door.’
Angel’s eyebrows shot up. A tiny volcano erupted in the middle of his chest, spreading hot lava throughout his upper body. ‘What else did she see?’
‘That’s all, sir.’
‘What was the colour of his hair?’
‘She didn’t notice.’
‘Was he in a car or a van?’
‘She doesn’t know, sir,’ Flora said. ‘I’ve got as much out of her as I can.’
Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Right, Flora. Thank you. That’s great. Finish off the rest of the houses. Somebody else might have seen him. Then come back here.’
‘Right, sir,’ she said.
Angel ended the call and returned the phone to its cradle. He rubbed his hands. It was a breakthrough, at last. The news restored his faith that he could solve at least one of the murder cases.
It was more than an hour later when Angel’s phone rang out.
He snatched it up. ‘Angel,’ he said.
It was the civilian receptionist, Mrs Meredew. ‘Sorry to bother you, Inspector, but I’ve had lots of enquiries from the press and television news companies for information about the Joan Minter and the Ian Fairclough murders. They usually ask for you. I’ve always told them what you instructed me to say, that you are out and that I never know when you are coming back in. However, some of them are getting impatient and suspect that you are avoiding them. I know you like to keep the right side of them, so I wondered if you wanted to speak to any of them, or if you wanted to change the instruction?’
Angel creased his eyes and went through the motions of whistling silently. Then he said, ‘You’re quite right. I don’t want to antagonize any of them, but I really haven’t the time. I suppose you can say that when I have made any progress in either case, I’ll be making a statement or calling a press conference. That should keep them happy.’
‘That sounds better, Inspector,’ she said. ‘All right, that’s what I’ll say from now on. Thank you.’
She rang off. As soon as he cancelled the call, the phone rang out again. It was Susan Fairclough.
‘I thought I should ring you and let you know that I’ve been back to my house,’ she said. ‘I steeled myself this morning and went back in there. I wanted to get myself and my home back into something like order. I can’t spend the rest of my life being a moping widow.’
‘That’s good,’ Angel said, ‘but there’s no real hurry, Susan. You must take your changed life a day at a time, as they say.’
‘Yes … well, I’m glad that I did. Because I’ve realized that the overnight case that Ian took with him to London
is missing. It’s not in the house anywhere.’
Angel pursed his lips. His eyebrows went up. ‘Hmm. Was there anything valuable in it?’
‘No. Just what you’d expect for two nights away on business. Nightclothes and washing and shaving tackle, toothbrush, clean shirts, that sort of thing.’
Angel ran his fingers across his forehead. ‘Was Ian a forgetful sort of person? Did he leave things behind on the train or in the hotel or…?’
‘No, Inspector, not at all. He was likely to consider them far too costly to treat casually like that.’
Angel nodded. ‘Hmmm. I can’t think of the significance of that, if there is anything, but thank you, Susan, for letting me know.’
They ended the call.
Angel replaced the phone and scratched his head. Successful insurance was a bit like successful detection work. It was all about detail, and Angel was thinking that the Indemnity and Life Insurance Company would not have been so delighted with Ian Fairclough if he had not paid proper attention to the nitty-gritty details of his customers’ needs and the myriad conditions and exceptions of insurance companies’ policies. Likewise, he was positive that the man would not have been casual about the whereabouts of his overnight bag of clean clothes and washing tackle.
He was still thinking about this when there was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed. He was carrying a polythene bag with the word ‘Evidence’ printed boldly across it, another small bag and some sheets of A4 paper.
‘I’ve got those six copies of the photograph of Ian Fairclough you wanted, sir,’ he said. ‘And a patrolman handed in this evidence bag and this little bag from the mortuary.’
‘Thank you, Ahmed,’ Angel said.
The young man went out.
Angel looked at the button in the small bag first. It was totally unexceptional. He stood up and crossed to his own overcoat that was on the peg secured onto the side of the green stationery cupboard. He compared the button to those on his own coat. It was near enough the same colour and appearance, but looking at it closely, there were several small differences in the shape, size and patination. He wrinkled his nose, dropped the button into his pocket and returned to the desk. He opened the evidence bag and tipped the contents out. There was a key that looked like a house key, several coins, a mobile phone, a car key, a handkerchief, and a leather wallet containing cash, driving licence, two credit cards and several business cards. He looked at the contents carefully, then checked over everything again. It all looked perfectly ordinary. There was nothing there to suggest anything different.
He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his chin. His mind wandered away from the contents of Ian Fairclough’s pockets. There were so many loose ends. He wanted to go to Bromersley railway station with the photograph of Fairclough. But something was niggling him. It was something that Flora had said about an hour ago. He remembered the words. They were: ‘A witness had said that at about ten o’clock yesterday morning, she saw a salesman walking up the path of number 33. He was a big man with broad shoulders, in a black or dark-grey overcoat.’ That wasn’t right. It needed some explanation.
He took out his mobile and phoned her.
‘You wanted me, sir?’ Flora said.
‘About what you said earlier,’ he said. ‘How did the witness know that the big man with the broad shoulders was a salesman?’
Flora hesitated. ‘I suppose she assumed he was, sir,’ she said.
Angel squeezed the lobe of his ear and pulled it a few times and said, ‘What’s the name of the witness, Flora?’
‘Mrs Emily Watson. She lives at number 30, next door to Bella Beasley.’
ELEVEN
ANGEL RANG THE doorbell and a wide-eyed woman opened the door.
He smiled at her and said, ‘Mrs Watson, Mrs Emily Watson? I’m DI Angel, Bromersley Police. I believe my sergeant came earlier this morning.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Oh yes. It’s good that we have such wide-awake and observant citizens like you around to assist us in our work.’
‘Come in, Mr Angel,’ she said, standing back and pulling the door handle.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘There’s just one little thing about your statement. You told my sergeant that the man you saw was a salesman. I just wondered why you said that.’
‘Well, I believe he was. He was dressed the part and he was carrying something. I couldn’t see exactly what it was. It could have been a garden hosepipe with a spade or a fork. From the angle I was seeing him, his body was shielding it as he walked up the path. He carried it in his right hand, you see. Does it matter? I’m sure he was a salesman.’
Angel felt his pulse quicken. He felt a lightness in the chest. ‘Will you show me the window you saw this through?’
‘Certainly. It’s up the stairs. Will you follow me?’
He was shown into the front bedroom and saw that Mrs Watson would have had an excellent view of a man walking up the path. But her view of what he was carrying, if it had been in his right hand and held close, would be mostly out of sight.
‘What makes you think it might have been a garden hose?’ he said.
‘Well, the colour. It was a bright green.’
Angel grinned. ‘Bright green?’ he said.
‘Well, green anyway. There are a lot of greens.’
Angel scratched his head. ‘Indeed there are,’ he said. Then he added, ‘Are you going out at all, Mrs Watson?’
‘No. I shall be in all day, why?’
‘I want to show you something. I’ll be back in ten minutes or so,’ he said. ‘Will that be convenient to you?’
Ten minutes later he rang Mrs Watson’s doorbell again. He smiled at her and said, ‘I have organized a re-enactment of what I believe you saw yesterday. Can we go back upstairs?’
Mrs Watson’s forehead creased. ‘Well yes, erm, I suppose.’
‘It won’t take above a couple of minutes,’ he said.
When they were in position, Angel opened his phone, scrolled down to a number, clicked on it and said, ‘Right, John. Carry on.’ Then he closed the phone.
He turned to Mrs Watson and said, ‘Keep your eye on the path to number 33.’
Immediately they saw a big man in a raincoat arrive at the gate of the Faircloughs’ house. He was carrying the green vacuum cleaner in his right hand and keeping it close to his side. He opened the gate, walked up the path to the front door, rang the bell, waited, then walked into the house.
Angel looked at Mrs Watson.
She was frowning. She didn’t look happy.
He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Isn’t that what you saw yesterday?’ he said.
‘No. The man I saw was wearing a black coat. And he was bigger than that man.’
‘I understand that,’ Angel said. ‘That raincoat was the only coat we could get to fit at short notice, but is that what you saw being carried up the path?’
‘Oh yes. And that’s exactly the right shade of green.’
Angel smiled. He felt a slight flutter of excitement in his chest. He now had an eye-witness account of a man (and a basic description of him) entering the victim’s house at the time of his murder.
He thanked her, left the house, got into his car and went straight down to Bromersley railway station. He went up to the ticket-office window, showed his badge and ID and said, ‘Can I see the station manager, please?’
The clerk turned to a man behind him. ‘There’s a policeman to see you, Stan.’
The door at the side of the window opened and another man came out. He wore a hat that had the word ‘Stationmaster’ in gold on it. He looked at Angel, took the hat off, scratched his head, put it back on again and said, ‘What’s the matter, Constable?’
Angel produced a picture of Ian Fairclough and showed it to him. ‘Do you recognize this man? I believe he travelled by train from here to London on Tuesday morning and then returned probably yesterday morning.’
‘Come on in,’ the statio
nmaster said.
Angel stepped into the office and closed the door.
The stationmaster looked at the photograph and said, ‘No. I don’t remember him. We see hundreds of faces every day. Can’t remember them all, you know.’
Angel wrinkled his nose.
‘Just a minute,’ the stationmaster said.
He took the photograph to the man on the stool at the little window. ‘Hey, Jim. He’s asking if we’ve seen this joker anywhere lately.’
‘He’ll be that guy with the fancy suitcase that big detective was looking for. He looks as pure as the driven snow, but underneath I bet he’s a real monster.’
Angel pursed his lips. He tilted his head to one side. ‘What’s all this?’
‘Yesterday, it was,’ the man on the stool said. ‘One of your lot came with a photograph of a crowd of people. Looked like it was taken on a station platform somewhere. Probably blown up from a CCTV picture. There was this man in the distance carrying this brown and white suitcase. I didn’t remember him, but I remembered the suitcase.’
‘What did this man who said he was a detective look like?’
‘You’ll know him. He’s one of your lot. He was big. Broad in the shoulders. He wore a black overcoat. Looked as if he’d been hit in the face with a shovel. He said that he was looking for the man with the brown and white suitcase. Looks like it’s the same man you are looking for.’
Angel’s heart began to race. ‘And were you able to help him?’ he said.
‘Yeah. I had seen the man – well, I mean I’d seen the suitcase – arrive on the 10.13 from Doncaster. I took his ticket. I seem to remember it was from King’s Cross.’
‘You told him that?’
‘Yeah. Then I saw him make for the taxi rank. So he pushed off straight to the taxi rank.’
‘What did he do then?’
‘I don’t know. I was busy checking off all the tickets … make sure I hadn’t missed anybody.’
‘Right. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’
The man on the stool grinned and said, ‘Well, tell your patrolman not to give me a ticket if I happen to be going at thirty-two miles an hour on the ring road in the middle of the night.’
Angel and the Actress Page 11
