The Snuffbox Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel turned to the constable on Jail duties. ‘Who is in there with Farleigh?’

  ‘His barrister, sir. Mortimer Selmer.’

  Angel blew out an imaginary candle. He thought he looked more like a bouncer from the ‘Red Devils’ night club.

  ‘Did you search him?’

  The constable looked insulted. ‘Of course.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose, then rushed off.

  It was only a two-mile drive to Underwood’s and it took him only five minutes. As he approached the bottom of the drive he was amazed to find it filled to the gate with cars, and then more cars on the highway. He stopped the BMW where he could at the side of the main road and made his way on foot along the pavement and up the drive.

  Much to his surprise he saw a crowd of a dozen or so men and a couple of women outside Underwood’s front door, peppering him with questions and, at the same time, taking his photograph. He was looking somewhat forlorn, hanging on to his front-doorknob and saying, ‘I’ve answered all your questions. I’ve nothing more to say. Thank you so very much, now please would you go? Thank you so much. No. I’ve nothing more to say. Absolutely nothing. Thank you so much. Please go, and don’t damage the hollyhocks. Please walk round them. Thank you so much. Good day.’

  They were filtering away, but some watched Angel curiously as he walked straight up to Underwood.

  Angel and Underwood didn’t exchange words, just looks. Underwood quickly opened the door wider, and Angel nipped into the hallway.

  Shirley Vance came into the hall, saw Angel and screamed.

  Underwood promptly shut and locked the front door, then looked back to see what the scream was all about.

  ‘You’ve let one in, Alec,’ she said looking at Angel suspiciously.

  Angel pulled out his warrant and said, ‘I’m a policeman, miss. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  She didn’t look comforted. She turned away quickly, reached for her handbag and began ferreting about in it.

  Underwood looked at Angel and, with a look of distaste said, ‘Now, what is it you want, Inspector?’

  ‘Where is it, Underwood?’ Angel said. ‘What have you done with it?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The gold statue.’

  Shirley Vance said, ‘Oh that. That’s what all those newspaper men want to know.’

  ‘What’s your name, miss?’ Angel said.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘I’m Shirley Vance, I’m a moggle.’

  Underwood said, ‘Shut up, Shirley. I’ll handle this.’

  She pulled a face, found a packet of cigarettes in the bottom of the bag, took one out and lit it.

  Angel said: ‘Come on, Alec. Don’t mess me about. Where is it?’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ he said.

  Shirley Vance stared at Angel, her fingers twitching as she took a draw from the cigarette.

  ‘You know where it is?’ Angel said.

  ‘No,’ Underwood replied. ‘It could be anywhere.’

  Angel turned to Shirley Vance. ‘What do you know about it?’

  She looked at Underwood who shook his head.

  She pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and said, ‘Nothing. But he hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  Angel said: ‘All right, Alec, is that your last word?’

  Underwood stuck his chin out and said, ‘My first and my last.’

  ‘You give me no choice,’ Angel, said. ‘Alec Underwood, I am arresting you for the robbery—’

  Underwood pulled back his shoulders and said, ‘No, you’re bloody well not.’

  Then Underwood aimed a powerful punch with his right hand at Angel’s head. Angel quickly bobbed down and Underwood’s hand went straight into the doorjamb. He yelled and put it in the other hand to nurse it.

  Shirley Vance screamed.

  Angel then swung behind him and jabbed the back of Underwood’s legs with his foot, causing him to drop down on to his knees, then Angel clapped Underwood’s head between his forearms, causing him a dizziness he didn’t expect. Angel followed this with a knee in his back to send him forward on his face. When Underwood became fully alert six seconds later, he found that he was on the floor, his arms behind his back and his wrists in handcuffs.

  Shirley Vance rushed over, crouched down, showed a lot of thigh, grabbed his arm and said, ‘What’s happening, Alec?’

  Underwood’s face was scarlet. His eyes glowed like searchlights. ‘Help me up,’ he said.

  Angel was on the phone. ‘Tell Ted Scrivens, Leisha Baverstock and Don Taylor and the SOCO team I want them down here asap.’

  When DC Scrivens and WPC Baverstock led Alec Underwood and Shirley Vance respectively out of 29 Bromersley Road, Cadworth, to a police car outside, the press corps had doubled. Four TV news companies’ transmitting vans had arrived, had set up their aerials and the camera mechanisms were making their humming sound. Commentaries in Spanish, German, French and English could be heard jabbering competitively against each other.

  Reporters surged up successively to everyone who came out of the house.

  ‘Sorry. Can’t say anything,’ was the reply from the police personnel.

  Underwood had a lot to say. ‘This is a wrongful arrest,’ he said. ‘I have done nothing wrong. No. I have no idea where the statue is. I’ve never touched it. It’s all down to the auctioneers, Spicers. They were responsible for the security of the statue, not me. Yes, I was interested in it. Who wouldn’t be? It was so beautiful. This is a wrongful arrest. Don’t worry. I’ll soon be free. They’ve nothing to hold me on.’

  PC Baverstock brought Shirley Vance outside; she was hanging tightly on to Underwood’s arm. She was overwhelmed by the reception. Her big frightened eyes looked in all directions and when asked anything, said, ‘I don’t know nothing. I’m with him.’

  When the police car had sped away, the press corps took very little time to pack up and leave. They knew they weren’t likely to find out anything from SOCO or Angel, who were still searching Underwood’s house for the statue. It didn’t take them long to discover that the gold-plated statue was not there.

  When Angel arrived at the station, there was a group of national and local reporters hovering round the front door and reception area. He drove directly round to the back, let himself in with his swipe card and went straight to his office. He had Shirley Vance brought to his office. She looked nervously round the little room. He invited her to sit down, then he said, ‘Now then, Miss Vance, what is Alec Underwood to you?’

  She looked serious and afraid. ‘He’s my man, you know. We’re going steady.’

  ‘Do you want to go to prison?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Well, tell me all you know about this gold-plated statue.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘The statue is reputedly worth millions. If you have been in any way co-operating with Alec to steal the statue you could finish up spending a long time in prison. If you know where it is and you tell me now, you might be saved a long time behind bars.’

  ‘I haven’t been to prison, Inspector, and I don’t want to go there, but I don’t know nothing about stealing the statue. And Alec hasn’t stolen it either, I’m sure of that. He wouldn’t steal anything. He’s a lovely, proper, decent man who wouldn’t take nothing that wasn’t his.’

  Angel knew different but he didn’t enlighten her. He rubbed his chin. He wondered where they could have hidden it.

  ‘Whereabouts do you live?’

  ‘I live with Alec, of course.’

  ‘Where did you live before that?’

  ‘I was a chambermaid at the Feathers Hotel in town for two years, I lived in there.’

  ‘Where did you live before that?’

  ‘I shared a room with a girl in Dublin. I was chambermaid at the Dublin Schooner Hotel in Ireland for four years. That was another living-in job.’

  ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘No. Can’t drive, Inspecto
r.’

  ‘Does Mr Underwood have another garage or lock-up besides the one at the house?’

  ‘Not that I know of … shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Right. Thank you very much, miss. You can go.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I can go? What about Alec? Are you letting him go?’

  Angel shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. I need to know a lot more from him yet, miss.’

  The following morning, the radio, television and newspapers were full of pictures of Alec Underwood being dragged into Bromersley police station accused of stealing the missing statue. The pictures were accompanied with columns of copy about the case and the searching of his house at Cadworth.

  As soon as Angel arrived at the station, he was summoned into Harker’s office.

  ‘Don’t like all this publicity, Angel. I don’t know what you’ve been doing to create all this hullabaloo. There’s a photograph of Underwood in every UK paper, and I even heard it on CNN this morning. It’s only a gold-plated plaster statue that’s missing, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not anything I’ve created, sir. Intrinsically it is only a gold-plated plaster statue, but it is an important antique surrounded by a lot of authentic royal history. They say it’s worth millions.’

  Harker wasn’t impressed. He wrinkled his nose then said, ‘Well get him charged, in court, bailed and out of the station asap. I don’t like this place being turned into the X-Factor.’

  Angel agreed. It would suit him fine. He nodded. ‘Right, sir.’

  He went out of Harker’s office rather surprised. It wasn’t often he was in agreement with the superintendent, in fact he couldn’t recollect any previous occasion. He returned light-heartedly to his own office and phoned the CPS. He wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be any difficulty in presenting Underwood before the magistrates’ court that morning for bail to be set and a date for a hearing to be fixed. Apparently Twelvetrees was engaged with somebody else and he sent a message back to say that he would phone back in a few minutes as soon as he was free.

  Angel wasn’t pleased but there was nothing he could do about it. He busied himself looking through the morning’s post. As usual, most of it was inconsequential bumf. He was in the middle of shredding a letter when the phone rang. He reached out for it. ‘Angel.’

  It was the superintendent.

  He was coughing noisily down the phone before he managed to say, ‘That chap Underwood, I want you to withdraw the charge, set him free and get him out of the place asap.’

  Angel’s face creased. ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘You heard. There’s no case to answer. Just … discharge him and let him go.’

  ‘What do you mean, there’s no case to answer?’

  ‘Don’t argue with me, lad,’ Harker said. ‘Withdraw the charge and do it now!’ Then he slammed the phone down causing an uncomfortable and annoying click on Angel’s eardrum.

  Angel banged down his own phone, got to his feet and charged up to Harker’s office. He didn’t bother to knock. He simply barged in and went straight up to the skinny man’s jumbled desk.

  Harker looked up at him, absolutely furious. His face was as red as a lobster’s belly and his lips and eyebrows twitched as if they had been connected to each other by invisible wire.

  ‘What are you doing here? I have told you what to do, lad,’ he bawled, waving a skinny arm. ‘Now get on with it.’

  Angel forehead creased into a dozen lines. ‘Are you all right, sir,’ he said. ‘You’re not being got at, are you?’

  ‘No. Go and do it.’

  ‘I am at least entitled to some explanation, sir.’

  ‘I don’t recall where it says that in your terms of employment.’

  Angel stared at him for a moment, still hopeful of an explanation as to why he should release Underwood. When he realized that none was forthcoming, he shook his head, ran his hand through his hair, stormed out into the corridor and back to his own office.

  PC Ahaz was there. ‘Can I have a word, sir?’

  Angel was too angry to speak. He waved him away.

  ‘Can I get you anything, sir?’

  Angel shook his head.

  Ahmed didn’t like leaving him. He knew something was wrong. He hesitated but went out and closed the door.

  After five minutes, Angel went down to the cells. He took the key to cell number 3 off the board and unlocked it.

  Underwood was reading a newspaper when Angel went in.

  He looked up. ‘Ah, the mountain has come to Mohammed,’ Underwood said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m letting you go.’

  Underwood frowned then sniggered. ‘Couldn’t find the evidence, eh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘When can I go?’

  ‘Now. Push off. We probably haven’t finished with you. Wasting police time, assaulting an officer in the course of being arrested. There will no doubt be more.’

  Underwood smiled. His lips twisted cruelly. ‘What’s that worth?’ he said. ‘Twenty hours community service? Congratulations.’

  Angel pulled the cell door open wide for him.

  ‘What about transport?’ Underwood said.

  ‘What about it? You can organize that when you get your personal stuff back at the desk. Follow me.’

  Angel led him up through the green corridor to the desk sergeant and asked for his possessions to be brought out of the safe in the stores.

  The desk sergeant looked surprised at Angel releasing the man without charge after all the trouble they had had bringing him in. He remembered that three officers had had almost to drag him down to that cell, accompanied by newspapermen and photographers.

  The desk sergeant began filling in the release form, and addressed one of the questions to Angel. ‘Am I putting you down, sir, as the officer authorizing the discharge of the prisoner?’

  ‘No. Detective Superintendent Harker,’ Angel said.

  ‘And are you signing him out, sir?’ the desk sergeant said.

  Angel had no choice. ‘Yes,’ he said and signed the sheet.

  Underwood picked up the contents he had had in his pockets on admission, signed the receipt and curled his lip in cruel pleasure as he turned away from the counter and noticed Angel watching him.

  ‘Goodbye, little man,’ Underwood said.

  ‘You’ll be back,’ Angel said. ‘And I’ll be waiting for you.’

  Underwood curled his lip again, then immediately made for the pay phone on the wall in the reception area.

  Angel slowly walked through the security door and along the green corridor. He turned left and along to the superintendent’s office. He knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Harker said.

  When he saw it was Angel, he wasn’t pleased. ‘Have you come here to argue some more, lad?’

  ‘No, sir. No.’

  ‘Have you let Underwood go?’

  ‘Yes, sir. All the documentation is done. I left him phoning for a taxi. I’ve come to say that we should inform the press. Tell them our side of the case. We can charge him for wasting police time. Resisting arrest. Can’t let him make monkeys out of us.’

  ‘No. The one you’ll embarrass is the chief constable,’ Harker said. ‘Just shut up and that’s an order. The stolen item, if it was stolen, has been returned. No offence has been committed. Let’s keep it like that.’

  Angel’s mouth dropped open. His eyes darted about as he tried to make sense of what he had been told and what it implied. What was happening?

  ‘Now buzz off, lad,’ Harker said. ‘I’ve a lot on. Last quarter’s figures have to be finished by Friday.’

  Angel came out of the superintendent’s office in a daze. He walked slowly down the corridor to his own office for a bit of quiet to try and sort this mess out. He arrived at his office and slumped down into his chair. PC Ahaz followed him in. He was touching his lips and blinking intermittently.

  Angel wrinkled his nose. He wanted to send him awa
y.

  Ahmed sensed it. He came up to him quickly. ‘I’ve something I must tell you, sir,’ he said. ‘I tried to tell you before.’

  Angel pulled a pained face. ‘What is it, lad? Make it quick.’

  ‘Well sir, you know that I went to school with Clive Exham. His father is the chief constable’s driver and handyman.’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Angel said.

  ‘Well Clive told me that early this morning a big crate was delivered to the chief constable’s house by a man in a hired van. The crate was so big it had to be put in the garage. When it was unpacked it was found to be the missing gold-plated statue that all the fuss is about. Well the chief was furious, and Clive’s dad got a rocket from him for accepting delivery of it. Anyway he was told to pack it up again, which he did, and half an hour later it was collected by Express Carriers to be transported to Spicers’ auction house in London.’

  Angel could hardly believe what he had heard.

  ‘Are you sure, Ahmed?’ he said.

  He nodded.

  Angel rubbed his chin. So the statue had not been stolen. But if so, what was the point of the exercise? What was happening?

  ‘Well, thank you for that, Ahmed,’ he said.

  Angel began to rub his earlobe.

  The phone rang.

  It was the desk sergeant. ‘Thought you’d like to know, sir. Underwood hasn’t yet left the premises. His girlfriend has arrived, and a dozen news reporters – national and local – have turned up from nowhere. They’re asking why he has been released. Nobody has an answer.’

  Angel shrugged. He didn’t know either.

  ‘He’s giving interviews and posing for photographs at the front of the station, sir,’ the desk sergeant said. ‘Just thought you’d like to know.’

  Angel frowned. He was intrigued and curious. ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I’m coming up straight away.’

  He replaced the phone, turned to PC Ahaz and said, ‘Come on. Let’s see what’s going on.’

  As the two men rushed up the green corridor to reception he told Ahmed about the reported activities there. By the time they arrived, the gathering had moved outside to the bottom of the front steps. Alec Underwood and Shirley Vance, surrounded by reporters with flashing cameras, were climbing into the back of a large estate car like a couple of Hollywood film stars who have just been awarded a shelf-load of Oscars.