Angel and the Actress

by Roger Silverwood

  He slowly got out of the car, turned to face Flora and said, ‘What’s up? What do you want, darling? I fink you fancy me, don’t you?’

  Flora’s face muscles tightened. ‘Turn around. Put your arms behind your back and put your wrists together.’

  ‘Chatting me up, are you?’ he said. He turned round and looked back at her over his shoulder. ‘Wanna go out wiv me, do yer?’ he said. ‘What’s your name, darling?’

  Flora wrinkled her nose. She sighed loudly. ‘Put your wrists together.’

  Angel heard all this. ‘You’d better do as my sergeant says, lad,’ he said, ‘before she kicks it out of you.’

  ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘And they say there’s no police brutality.’

  He slowly turned and put his hands behind his back.

  She produced a pair of handcuffs and had them tight around his wrists quicker than a pickpocket can take a wallet.

  ‘What is your name?’ she said.

  ‘Well, my friends call me David, but you can call me Mr David,’ he said with a snigger.

  ‘And what’s your last name?’

  ‘Beckham,’ he said with another inane snigger.

  ‘David Beckham,’ she said. ‘I’ll book you in that name if you want to be seen as a real idiot.’

  Angel said, ‘Book him in that name for now, Sergeant. I have a feeling that we’ll soon know his name when we’ve taken his fingerprints.’

  ‘You’re not taking my frigging fingerprints. What do you want to know for?’ he said.

  Flora said, ‘You are under arrest for the murders of Joan Minter and Ian Fairclough.’

  ‘What? No, not me. I might a done a bit of feefing, in my time. I might put my hand up to that, but not murder, no, not me.’

  Angel took out his mobile and scrolled down to a number and clicked on it.

  A voice said, ‘Control Room, DS Clifton.’

  ‘DI Angel, Bernie. All right, send the Black Maria now.’

  ‘Immediately, sir. It is standing by. Everything go to plan, sir?’

  ‘Perfectly, Bernie. Perfectly.’

  It was 4.40 a.m. on Saturday morning, 8 November. In the cold stark lighting of the charge room, under the super -vision of DI Angel, the four men were processed one at a time by Sergeant Clifton and two PCs. They were photographed from the front and in profile, then fingerprinted; the contents of their pockets were taken and they exchanged their clothes for denims provided by the police. Their own clothes were separately bagged, labelled and taken down to the SOCO office for examination.

  Angel’s face brightened when a part pack of Adelaide cigarettes and a silver cigarette lighter were taken out of Antonio Fachinno’s pocket. Angel had them transferred to a separate evidence bag, which he labelled himself, then stuffed into his pocket for his early attention. He also took temporary possession of the silver skull ring, which was on the getaway driver’s finger.

  Flora Carter took the gun that had been in the possession of Roberto Fachinno alias Robert Jones out of her handbag. It was an old Smith & Wesson with a crude 2¼-inch-diameter silencer screwed onto the barrel. She opened the gun, spun the magazine and shook out the three remaining bullets untouched into an evidence bag. She looked on the body of the gun for the registration number. It was below the barrel. Under the mark MADE IN USA was stamped a long maker’s number. She recorded it in her notebook.

  Then she put the gun into another bag, labelled both bags, sealed them and brought them into Angel’s office.

  Angel did the same thing with the gun taken from Antonio Fachinno, which was a Beretta, a much smaller weapon but just as deadly. He then took them to the duty sergeant, instructing him to send them by courier to Ballistics in Wetherby, with a request that they report on them urgently by phone. He needed a comparison of the impressions the handgun firing pins made on the spent shell cases in each instance in order to verify that the particular shell came from the particular gun. The Glock he returned to the station armoury complete with the full magazine of seventeen unspent rounds.

  Meanwhile Flora Carter emailed the photographs and the prints of the four men to Records, requesting information. She then sent the make and registration number of the two recovered guns to Records, both emails calling for an early response.

  Then she went into Angel’s office.

  ‘I’ve sent the emails,’ she said.

  Angel looked at his watch. It was 6 a.m. It was still pitch black outside.

  He yawned and said, ‘I think we can a call it a day.’

  ‘Call it a night, sir.’

  He smiled, stood up, reached out for his coat. ‘Day or night, it’s a job well done, Flora. Thank you.’

  They made for the door.

  Angel awoke at 1.30 that Saturday afternoon. He had to look at the clock on the bedside table and his watch next to it to confirm the time. Then he remembered why he was still in bed at that curious time. He’d had five hours’ sleep and although rested, he had the feeling he had run a marathon.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at the Anaglypta and scratched his chest.

  Bright daylight was peeping around the curtains.

  He suddenly turned round and checked the duvet cover. It had bullet holes in it. So had the duvet, the sheet, the cover and the mattress. They would have to be replaced with new before Mary returned. He stood up and scratched his head. He surveyed the room. Everything else seemed to be in order. He pushed back the curtains, letting full daylight into the room. He had a quick wash in the bathroom, put on his dressing gown, then went downstairs.

  The house was eerily quiet. He suddenly realized how much he missed Mary.

  He ambled into the kitchen, switched on the radio, took a beer out of the fridge, a glass out of the cupboard and looked round for the frying pan. He looked on the gas hob, inside the oven, on the pan stand, round the kitchen; he even opened the pantry to see if it was in there. He couldn’t see it anywhere. He stood in the middle of the little room and scratched his head. Then he sighed, shrugged, pulled the ring on top of the can and poured out the beer. He ambled into the hall, picked up the telephone directory and the phone, went into the sitting room and sat down in his usual chair. He looked up a number, tapped it out on the key pad and had a sip of the beer while it rang.

  It took a long time but it was eventually answered.

  The call was to Cheapo’s, the hypermarket. He ordered a mattress and a duvet, both for a double bed, and a pair of sheets because they were not sold singly. He paid for them with his credit card, and they agreed to deliver them the next day even though it was a Sunday.

  He looked at the oven again. He knew they had a frying pan. He had recently seen Mary using it. He stood there with his hand on his chin and his head tilted trying to think of where he had seen her put it. He didn’t like to be beaten. But it was no good. He couldn’t recall anything helpful.

  He went over to the fridge and opened the door. It was bulging with food. He could see tomatoes, lettuce, celery, milk, margarine and so on. He wrinkled his nose and closed the door. He leaned down and pulled on the freezer door. Then he opened the top drawer. He picked up the nearest frozen lump. It said: ‘Chicken breast. Thaw for twenty-four hours before cooking.’ He threw it back in and fished around the rock-solid blocks of food. His eyes alighted on a pack of sausages. His eyebrows shot up. He picked it out and read Mary’s label. ‘Thaw for twenty-four hours before cooking.’ He pursed his lips, dropped it back in the drawer, pushed it shut, then closed the freezer door.

  He looked at his watch. It said ten minutes to two. He made a decision. He finished off the beer, pushed the can into the waste bin, rinsed the glass and left it to drain on the draining board. Then he dashed upstairs, shaved and dressed and came down as smart as paint.

  He was at the door of the restaurant at The Feathers at five minutes past two. But he couldn’t open it. He thought it might be stiff, but it wasn’t. The door was locked.

  He went into the bar. A barman came over to him.

&n
bsp; ‘Is the restaurant not open?’ Angel said.

  ‘It was, sir. It closed at two.’

  Angel clenched his fists.

  ‘We can do you a snack in here, sir,’ the barman said, reaching for a menu.

  ‘Er, right. No, thank you,’ Angel said.

  He came out of the bar. He sighed noisily. Then he dashed out to the car and pointed the bonnet of the BMW to his home. He was annoyed that he was having so much difficulty just to feed himself. He had driven about a mile when he remembered that up a side street in the middle of an estate was a small frontage of five or six small shops. One of those shops was a fish and chip shop. He turned off there and found the place. It was open. And there wasn’t a queue. He leaped out of the car and bounded up to the counter.

  ‘Cod and chips, please,’ he said to the man with the scoop.

  ‘No cod,’ the man said. ‘It’s haddock, is that all right?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Angel said, his face glowing.

  The man doled out a generous portion of chips, pulled a fish on top of them, wrapped them tightly and placed them on the counter.

  Angel smiled, paid him and came out of the shop.

  Angel had had a quiet Sunday, apart from the delivery of the new mattress, sheet, duvet and duvet cover, which he duly assembled on the bed. The pattern of the duvet cover was a similar floral pattern and he hoped that Mary wouldn’t notice until he’d been able to give his whitewashed account of what had happened in the house while she had been away. He would only mention it if she spotted the difference.

  It was 8.28 a.m. on Monday, 10 November when he made his way down the station corridor to his office where he took off his coat and hat and sat down at his desk. He reached out for the phone and tapped in the number of the CPS and made an urgent appointment to see Mr

  Twelvetrees at 2 p.m.

  Then he phoned the CID office.

  Ahmed answered.

  ‘I want you to find DS Crisp and DC Scrivens and send them to my office ASAP.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  Angel replaced the phone. It immediately began to ring. It was the superintendent.

  ‘Angel?’ Harker said. ‘You’re always on the bloody phone when I want to reach you.’

  Angel pulled a face. ‘It was only an internal call, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t time for complex explanations, lad. Bring yourself up here, smartly!’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said, but the phone was already dead.

  Angel’s muscles tightened. He really detested meetings with the superintendent. His daily reports managed to avoid face-to-face contact much of the time. But Harker was his boss and contact was inevitable.

  Angel trudged up to his office. He really did have some very good news to report. He had solved at least one of the murders and had the men responsible locked up.

  He knocked on the superintendent’s door.

  ‘Come in,’ Harker called.

  The room reeked of menthol and the superintendent’s desk was the usual chaotic mess.

  Harker looked over the piles of papers, files and medications and said, ‘You needn’t sit down, Angel. You’re not stopping long.’

  Angel wasn’t unhappy about that.

  ‘When I came in this morning, I saw that four of the cells were occupied,’ Harker said. ‘Four!’ he bawled. ‘In addition, I discovered that they had been in use since early on Saturday morning. We can’t be catering for four villains for days on end like this. What do you think this is? The Dorchester? It ties up a man running after them and it costs hard cash to feed them, and that all comes out of our general account, which is sadly in the red again for this fiscal year. Have you got good, solid cases against all four?’

  ‘I have a rock-solid case against all four for armed robbery of the Slater Security van, sir. I also have a rock-solid case against one of them for the murder of the actress, Joan Minter. And I expect to have enough evidence soon to make a case against another of them for the murder of Ian Fairclough.’

  ‘If they are rock-solid cases, why have the villains not been charged?’

  ‘We haven’t had the time, sir.’

  The skinny man’s eyes almost popped out of his head. ‘Time? It only takes a few seconds to tell a man he is being charged with murder.’

  ‘We didn’t get away from here until after six o’clock on Saturday morning, sir.’

  ‘If you really have solid cases against them, then they can be booted out of here and put on remand. They can eat and be looked after out of a prison’s budget. Have you seen the CPS?’

  ‘I have an appointment to see Mr Twelvetrees later today.’

  Harker wasn’t pleased. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes tight shut. ‘You’ll miss the magistrates’ court this morning, then?’ he said.

  The answer was obvious. Angel breathed in and out heavily. He didn’t reply.

  ‘Well, make sure they attend court tomorrow morning,’ Harker said.

  ‘I’ll try,’ Angel said. ‘But they haven’t seen their solicitors yet, sir.’

  ‘Excuses. Excuses. That’s all I get from you. I said make sure that they attend court tomorrow morning, and that’s an order.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, sir. There’s something else I have to report.’

  Harker’s fists tightened. ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘The woman in the reception office, Mrs Meredew, has been opening sealed communications that have passed through her hands and reported the contents to the newspaper, the Daily Yorkshireman.’

  Harker’s jaw dropped. He screwed up his face and scratched his left ear.

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Positive. I made a simple, deliberate mistake in a letter sent to the lab at Wetherby by courier. The error was repeated the following day verbatim in the paper.’

  Harker said, ‘Mmmm. That explains a few things. She gave her notice in a week ago. I interviewed her to discover the reason. She simply said she was retiring. Mmmm. Anyway, there is a new woman starting today. But you should not be wasting your time checking out members of staff, Angel. That’s not in your brief. I give you the cases you are to work on. You don’t simply assume them.’

  Angel’s face reddened. His heart pounded like a steam hammer. ‘What was I supposed to do, sir?’ he said. ‘Allow the leak to continue? She was giving away vital information that might have hindered the investigation.’

  ‘You should have reported it to me. If I had decided there was anything in it, I would have instigated an inquiry. Instead you took on the job of investigating officer and now that she has left, it is rather too late. Any action I took against her would be pounced on by the media. And we don’t want that sort of publicity. Would make it look as if we are unable to keep our own house in order. Anyway, as it happens she has already left, and, indeed, been replaced, so I am not disposed to take any action against her.’

  SIXTEEN

  ANGEL STORMED OUT of Harker’s office. He had a face like thunder. He marched down the green corridor to his own office where DC Scrivens and Ahmed were waiting for him.

  He looked at Ahmed and said, ‘Where’s Crisp?’

  ‘I told him you wanted to see him straightaway, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘He said he would be here.’

  Angel gritted his teeth, ‘Right, lad,’ he said. ‘I need DS Carter as well. Ask her to come here ASAP.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘And you’d better come back. There’s a lot to do.’

  Ahmed grinned. ‘Right, sir,’ he said as he went out.

  Angel turned to Scrivens. ‘Ted,’ he said, ‘the super wants those men out of our cells and put on remand post-haste. Will you find out who their solicitors are and arrange meetings ASAP? He wants me to arrange for them to appear before the magistrates tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? That’s a tall order, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t tell me, lad, tell the super.’

  ‘I won’t bother, sir,’ he said w
ith a knowing smile.

  The look from him lightened Angel’s mood and he smiled back.

  He went out as Crisp came in.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  Angel looked at him, then raised his eyes skywards, then shook his head.

  Crisp said, ‘I couldn’t come sooner, sir. I had a member of the public who wanted to know—’

  Angel put up both hands and blew out a length of breath. ‘Don’t bother, lad. Don’t bother. I haven’t the time or the patience.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  Angel turned to look at it and said, ‘Come in.’

  It was Ahmed. ‘DS Carter’s on her way, sir,’ he said.

  Angel nodded.

  ‘And you wanted me to come back, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Ahmed. Come in. Close the door. Wait a minute while I finish with DS Crisp.’

  Ahmed nodded.

  Angel turned back to Crisp. ‘Right, now listen up. This is very important. I want you to go down to SOCO and see Don Taylor. He has a load of clothes and personal effects from the men in the cells. Among them is a large black overcoat. Ask Don to deal with it quickly, then let you have it and take it up to Dr Mac at the mortuary.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Crisp said, and he turned towards the door.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Angel called. He quickly swivelled the chair through 180 degrees to the table behind him, picked up a small polythene evidence bag, turned back and handed it over to Crisp. ‘In there is a very valuable button and some threads of cotton. You can see the threads hanging off the button without opening the bag, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘A man’s future hangs on what forensic science tells us about that button and those threads. Give that bag to Dr Mac also. He’ll be expecting you. This is very, very important – and urgent.’

  Crisp nodded and went out.

  Angel then turned to Ahmed and said, ‘Right, lad. Now what I have for you is equally urgent. Sit down a minute.’

  Ahmed’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm. He leaned forward. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. He enjoyed being a policeman when he was busy doing something other than filing.