Angel and the Actress (12 page)

He picked up the phone, explained what was required,
and a few minutes later a young man came into the office with two tapes in his hand. The manager introduced the two men and then settled back in his chair and watched the proceedings.

The young man dropped one of the tapes into a projector, switched it on, then, pointing to a seat facing the office wall, said, ‘Would you like to sit here, Inspector? You will see better.’

Angel settled into position in a chair facing the wall.

‘This is the recording of yesterday morning’s CCTV of the main door, Inspector,’ the young man said.

A picture suddenly appeared on the screen.

The manager closed the office blinds.

The picture simply showed a steady flow of people coming in and going out of the store through the big automatic sliding doors. The time of the recording was shown on the corner of the screen. It said 9.30 a.m.

Angel said, ‘Can you run it on to about 10.15, please?’

‘Certainly,’ the young man said. The picture skidded across the screen. ‘What exactly are we looking for, Inspector?’

‘A man with a green vacuum cleaner leaving the store.’

The manager said, ‘Hmm. Did he pay for it?’

‘I don’t know,’ the young man said.

Angel said, ‘So sorry. I have no idea either.’

Then he heard the manager behind him pick up the phone. ‘Mrs Rubens, please … Ah, Mrs Rubens? I have a police inspector in my office. He is urgently trying to trace a man who left the store with a green vacuum cleaner yesterday morning between 10.15 and 11 a.m. He doesn’t know whether he paid for it or not. Let’s assume he did.
Will you quickly check the till receipts in the electrical department and tell me the exact time on the receipt? … Yes, the
time
. And ring me back. Quick as you can, Mrs Rubens, thank you.’ He replaced the phone.

The young man slowed the tape; the time showed 10.25 a.m.

‘That’s fine, thank you,’ Angel said, and he stared at the screen. It mostly showed women with children, pushing shopping trolleys laden with purchases. The store became busier and busier and customers were crowding in and out at the same time. Then suddenly in the fray was the back view of a big man in a dark overcoat with a lot of black hair holding high a green vacuum cleaner. In a second he was enveloped into the crowd that flowed through the door and out of the picture.

Angel could hardly control himself. There was a solid drumming in his chest. ‘
There
he is,’ he said. ‘That’s the man. Can you stop the tape?’

The time on the tape was 10.29 a.m.

The young man looked at him and smiled. He replayed the tape, but Angel had to be content with only the back view of the man holding the vacuum cleaner.

Angel looked at the store manager and said, ‘Will you send me a copy of that piece of tape, sir?’

‘Indeed I will, Inspector,’ the manager said. ‘In fact you can take the whole tape with you now.’

‘That’s very kind. Thank you,’ he said.

‘If I now run the tape from the electrical department and fast forward up to, say, 10.15 a.m.,’ the young man said, ‘that would be about the time he was there, wouldn’t it?’

Angel nodded. ‘I should think so,’ he said, rejuvenated by the shot of adrenaline surging round his system.

As the young man began to change the tapes the phone behind them rang. The manager reached out for it.

‘Yes, Mrs Rubens,’ he said. ‘Oh good … yes, got that … and it
was
paid for, good … And how was it paid? … Right.’ He replaced the phone.

‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that the vacuum cleaner was paid for in cash at 10.26 yesterday morning.’

‘Thank you,’ Angel said; however, he would have much preferred the transaction to have been executed by credit card or cheque. The documents would have given him new avenues to investigate.

‘10.26,’ the young man said. ‘Let’s start around 10.20.’

‘Right,’ Angel said.

The tape was soon run on and they carefully watched it up to and including the time the till receipt was printed. There were pictures of other customers in the department but there was no sign of the big man with a vacuum cleaner. The young man ran the tape forward and backward several times covering earlier and later times, but the big man was not on the screen.

Angel gritted his teeth and ran his hand through his hair.

The manager said, ‘Have you got the right
day
? It was only yesterday, Wednesday.’

The young man said, ‘Yes. He must have been aware of this particular camera and been working round it.’

‘That is possible,’ the manager said. Then he turned to Angel and said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I hope we have been
of
some
help.’

Angel stood up. He waved the tape he had been given and said, ‘Indeed you have.’

‘I hope you catch the man, Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’

A
NGEL RETURNED TO
the station. He was working in his office when there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Angel said.

It was Don Taylor. He was holding a letter.

‘Yes, Don,’ Angel said. ‘What’s that you’ve got?’

‘It’s a report from Ballistics, sir. Just come in by courier from Wetherby.’

‘What’s it say?’

‘Well, sir, it goes around the houses a bit, but essentially it says that the firing pin in the Walther matches the bullet case found in Joan Minter’s drawing room …’

‘In other words it proves that the Walther was used to kill Joan Minter.’

‘Yes, sir, but we had already assumed that, hadn’t we?’

Angel pulled a tired, unhappy face. ‘When are we going to get a break with this case?’

Taylor knew the feeling. It had happened many times. ‘It will come, sir. It will come. For you, sir. It always has.’ He turned and made for the door.

Angel looked at him and smiled, then said, ‘I’ll tell you
something, Don. You’ve got more confidence in me than I have.’

Taylor smiled and went out.

Angel sat back in the chair, closed his eyes and massaged his temples with his fingertips. He stayed like that for a few minutes. Then he slowly opened his eyes, got to his feet, put on his coat and hat and left the office.

He passed the cells to the back entrance straight onto the police car park. He got into the BMW and drove it to 24 Ceresford Road. The gate was open so he drove straight onto the long gravel drive, round the cluster of pine trees and bushes of rhododendrons and all the way up to the front of the house. He got out of the car, walked across the gravel and up the stone steps to the door and rang the bell.

The door was a long time being answered. It was eventually opened three inches on a chain by a woman.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’ the voice said.

‘Mrs Sellars?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Angel introduced himself and showed her his ID and his badge through the gap. ‘I wanted to ask you about the robbery of your handbag,’ he said.

She took off the chain and pulled open the door. ‘I am so sorry to appear to be so unfriendly, Inspector, but after my experience I am very wary.’

‘Quite right too,’ he said.

‘Please come in.’

She showed him into the sitting room and gestured to him to take a seat. She sat in the easy chair opposite. On the carpet by her chair he saw a black leather handbag.
She reached down for it, opened it, took out a lighter and a packet of cigarettes. She opened the packet and offered him a cigarette.

Angel put up a hand and said, ‘No, thanks.’ Then he noticed the word ‘Adelaide’ printed in dark blue on the packet.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she said.

‘No, thanks,’ he said.

She put a cigarette in her mouth and clicked the lighter.

He stared at her and then at the pack of cigarettes in the top of the open bag. He had been thrown somewhat off his stride. He hadn’t heard of the Adelaide brand until a butt had been found by SOCO in the back of the Slater Security van at Hemmsfield.

She inhaled the cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, sighed and settled back in the chair.

Angel pursed his lips. ‘I wonder if I may look at the cigarette packet,’ he said, pointing towards the handbag.

She frowned, then smiled. She leaned forward, picked it out of her bag and passed it to him. ‘Am I tempting you, Inspector? Please help yourself.’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I stopped smoking around ten years ago. It was a great struggle. I would never start again.’

He took the packet, pushed open the bottom, took out a cigarette to see that it was branded at the top like the butt found. It was. He replaced the cigarette, closed the packet and checked the printing on it. It said: ‘Made from pure blended Virginian tobacco. Packed in Adelaide, Australia, for export.’

He looked at Mrs Sellars and said, ‘Do you mind telling
me where you bought them?’

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘They were a present, actually. My son brought them back for me from Australia. He went on a working holiday down there. Came back a week ago. They are very nice … quite mild.’

Angel handed her back the packet. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I have never heard of them.’

‘Nor had I,’ she said. ‘My son said that they’re only sold in Australia.’

Angel nodded. ‘Now, Mrs Sellars, I have read the statement you gave to my sergeant on Monday and he told me you had looked through our rogues’ gallery and not found the thief who knocked on your front door.’

‘That’s right. I’m sure he wasn’t there.’

‘I wonder if I could ask you – in your own words – to describe him to me.’

‘Well, Inspector, he was just a young man, in the inevitable jeans, plain blue T-shirt, fawn-coloured car coat, thin build … and that’s about it.’

Angel took out the old brown envelope from his inside pocket and made notes on it in very small neat writing.

‘No shoes? No hat?’

‘I think he was wearing trainers … white trainers … well, they had once been white. Yes, he was. No hat. He had dark hair. He had a beard – well, no, not a beard, a few days’ growth.’

He shook his head. ‘The girls like that unkempt look. In my day, we would have been called scruffy. Anything else?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘How old do you think he was?’

‘About thirty, I should think.’

‘Thirty, right,’ he said, and put it in his notes. ‘Any tattoos, jewellery, earrings, medallions…?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said, her eyebrows lowered and her face tightened. Then she added, ‘He had an awful ring on his right hand. It was a skull … in what looked like silver.’

Angel’s face brightened. ‘That could help,’ he said. ‘How big was it?’

‘About as big as a ten-pence piece.’

‘Thank you very much,’ he said.

Angel arrived back at his office at three o’clock. He hung up his coat and hat and sat down at his desk. He picked up the phone and dialled Ahmed. ‘Come into my office.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said, and a minute later he was there.

‘Ahmed, I want you to get onto the PNC website and check villains who are known to wear a silver ring – or any jewellery or symbol – in the form of a skull.’

Ahmed blinked. ‘A skull, sir,’ he said. ‘Have you found a suspect, sir?’

‘I might have. See what you can find.’

Ahmed nodded and rushed off.

A few moments later there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Angel called.

It was DS Flora Carter. ‘I’ve finished the door to door, sir. I’ve covered every house now. I went back to number 31 just to make sure. There was nobody in the house the morning of the 5
^th
, so they wouldn’t have heard anything anyway. And the man in number 35 said that they may have heard a gunshot, but there were bangs celebrating
Guy Fawkes all day and most of the evening and night, so they really couldn’t be sure.’

‘Right,’ Angel said. ‘I think we are now assured that the only neighbour to see anything was Mrs Watson across the road from the Faircloughs.’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Right. Now let’s move on. Sit down a minute.’

When she was settled, he said, ‘I’ve been to see Mrs Sellars.’

She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Yes. And I noticed she smoked Adelaide cigarettes. I don’t remember you making any mention of the fact.’

Her forehead creased, she shook her head and said, ‘Only because I didn’t know, sir.’

‘Have you the list of—’

There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Angel said.

It was DC Scrivens. He was carrying a pickaxe. ‘Oh, sorry to interrupt, sir.’

‘You’re not interrupting, Ted. Come in. Hang on a minute.’

He turned back to Flora and said, ‘Have you got that list of the contents of Mrs Sellars’ handbag?’

‘No, sir. It’s on a statement form. On my desk.’

‘Fetch it, will you? I need to see it.’

Flora Carter stood up, went out and closed the door.

Angel turned back to Scrivens. ‘Now, Ted, what success have you had with those pickaxes?’

‘None, sir. I’ve called on every hardware shop, garden centre, supermarket and shop I could think of. It occurred to me that they may have been bought online.’

Angel breathed in and out noisily. ‘Maybe, lad,
maybe. Well, we can’t contact every outlet on the internet that might sell pickaxes. There will be an appeal in the
Bromersley Chronicle
on Friday. That might produce a result. Right, well, leave that pickaxe here and get back to what you were doing.’

‘Right, sir.’

As Scrivens went out, Flora Carter came in, waving a sheet of paper. ‘Got it here, sir,’ she said, passing the single A4 page of the witness’s statement over to him.

He turned over the page and found the list. He noticed the length of it, looked up at Flora and said, ‘All this in
one
handbag? Is it … er, usual … er, normal?’

Flora smiled. ‘Well, there was nothing there that surprised me, sir,’ she said.

Angel’s eyes scanned the list rapidly, looked up at Flora, then scanned it again. ‘There’s no mention of cigarettes, or matches or lighter.’

‘They are not there, sir, because
she
didn’t mention them.’

‘But she was puffing away when I saw her,
and
she was smoking those Adelaide-brand cigarettes.’

Flora swallowed several times, then put her hands out palms uppermost. ‘I don’t have an answer, sir. I can’t explain it. She simply didn’t mention them. If she had I would have written them down.’

Angel clenched his teeth, shook the witness’s statement and said, ‘What’s her telephone number?’

‘It’s at the top over the page, sir,’ she said, pointing at the statement.

He found it straightaway, reached out, picked up the phone and tapped it in. It was soon answered.

‘Inspector Angel here, Mrs Sellars.’

‘Back so soon, Inspector. What can I do for you?’

‘Well, on Tuesday last you gave my sergeant a list of the contents of your handbag stolen from your kitchen.’

‘Yes, Inspector, that’s right. Is there anything wrong?’

Angel blew out a length of breath and said, ‘It may not be wrong exactly, Mrs Sellars, but you neglected to include your cigarettes and lighter.’

She didn’t answer straight away. Eventually she said, ‘Erm, well, yes, Inspector. There were two packs of cigarettes, a full pack and a part pack, say around thirty cigarettes, and my old silver Dunhill lighter.’

‘And were the cigarettes Adelaide, the same brand you were smoking this afternoon?’

‘As a matter of fact, they were,’ she said.

He licked his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. ‘Why didn’t you include the cigarettes and lighter in the list of contents of your handbag you gave to my sergeant?’

She took a deep breath, then said, ‘Well, the truth is, Inspector, my husband does not like me to smoke. So I never smoke in front of him. And I wasn’t sure if he might possibly for some reason in the future see that list.’

‘Oh,’ Angel said. ‘So you smoke on the sly?’

‘It’s crude of you to put it like that, Inspector. But yes, that’s how it is.’

‘Right. Thank you, Mrs Sellars. Goodbye.’

As he replaced the phone it immediately rang out. Angel picked it up. ‘Angel,’ he said.

The sound of coughing indicated that it was his immediate superior, Superintendent Horace Harker, on the line. It never was a pleasant experience. Angel’s eyes narrowed.
His face tightened. He rubbed his brow.

‘There you are,’ Harker said between bouts of coughing and wheezing. ‘I’ve been trying to get you for half an hour. You’re always on the phone. I hope you weren’t ringing Hong Kong.’

‘It was just a local call, sir,’ Angel said.

‘Never mind about that,’ he grunted. ‘Come up here.
Now
!’

Before Angel could reply, the line went dead.

Angel gritted his teeth. He replaced the phone and turned to Flora Carter. He breathed out noisily while slowly shaking his head. ‘That was the super,’ he said. ‘He wants to see me
now
. I’ll speak to you later.’

‘Right, sir,’ she said.

Angel detested interviews with Superintendent Harker. They never proved helpful or pleasant. He went out of his office and tramped up the green-painted corridor to the door at the end which had the words ‘Detective Superintendent Horace Harker’ painted on it. He knocked on the door.

‘Come in,’ Harker called.

Angel pushed open the door and immediately found himself in an environment of warm, moving air, reeking of menthol. Although he was not unused to it, his natural reaction was to blink, which he did several times until he became accustomed to it.

He went up to the big desk covered with box files, ledgers, piles of letters, envelopes, pens, pencils, elastic bands, copies of the
Police Gazette
, cotton-wool balls, a bottle of Gaviscon, a jar of Vicks, a telephone, a bottle opener, a telephone directory, box of Kleenex, a box of
Movical, a screwdriver, a pair of woollen tartan socks and so on.

Behind the desk was the superintendent. His head was like a skull with big ears.

‘Sit down, lad,’ Harker said, picking up a sheet of A4 from the many at his fingertips. ‘Now then, you are investigating two suspect murders, aren’t you? Tell me in a few words the progress you are making.’

‘Yes, sir. But you will know all this from my reports. The first case is the shooting of Joan Minter. I cannot claim a great deal of progress with solving this case. There seem to be quite a few people in the business who have an intense dislike of her, but there aren’t any witnesses or corroborative witnesses to anything. Also there isn’t any forensic evidence on which to begin to build a case.’

‘Haven’t you any suspects at all?’

‘Well, yes. There’s Felix Lubrecki, an actor. There was also a man called Charles Fachinno. He had made a fortune out of potted meat.’

Harker looked as if he’d just come out of an exhumation tent and was about to throw up. ‘Potted meat?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir. In those little moulded glass jars—’