Shrine to Murder Read online

  Angel nodded. ‘Right. Now Lamb was the last…er…candidate to be brought in, so…stabbing Peel and getting the van in the canal would have taken at least 30 minutes. I estimate that if Lamb is the murderer, Peel would have been murdered by him sometime between 5.16 and 8 o’clock, at a stretch.’

  Carter nodded.

  ‘Making the same sort of calculation re Margaret Ireland,’ Angel said, ‘Peel would have been murdered by her between 5.16 and 8.10, and Franks, between 5.16 and…if my memory serves me right…6.30.’

  ‘So Lamb had a bigger window of time to commit the murder and drive the van into the canal,’ Carter said.

  ‘You could say that, yes.’

  ‘Can’t see a woman wielding a dagger and dumping the van in a canal, like that, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘True,’ Angel said. ‘But we must keep all options open. Women have been known to commit crimes even more odious and requiring much more mechanical expertise than driving a van into a canal.’

  ‘Mr Franks is much more of a gentleman than Mr Lamb, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘But, I know, we can’t let external impressions affect our judgement either.’

  Angel nodded, then he said, ‘We now have to see what alibis they have.’

  There was a knock at the door. It was Crisp.

  Angel glared at him.

  Crisp’s eyes were shining. ‘I’ve got something that you will be very interested in, sir. You know I was called in by a shop on Market Street that was having white bed sheets lifted repeatedly.’

  ‘Yes, lad?’ Angel said.

  ‘The shop has tables outside on the pavement with all kinds of textiles piled up on them, sir. They were stolen from there.’

  Angel’s face suddenly changed. ‘White sheets, lad? Did you say white bed sheets stolen?’

  ‘There’s CCTV, sir. From inside the shop. I’ve been going through it in the theatre. I am sure I recognize the thief.’

  The team bounded down to the theatre and crowded round the 30” screen as Crisp ran the tape. At the bottom-right hand corner of the picture was the time and date: 13.01. 28.05.09.

  The CCTV camera was positioned inside the shop looking outside through the window at several tables piled high with towels, tea towels, pillow cases and sheets in white and all colours and sizes. Each pile had a cardboard price ticket stuck on the top. The pile of white sheets were at the end, wrapped in cellophane and tied with a broad band of red ribbon. Crowds of people passed by on the pavement without even glancing at the merchandise, but occasionally a shopper, usually a woman or two women together, stopped, looked at the stock, read the price tag, dallied a while then moved out of the picture. Whether they sallied into the shop and bought some or simply ambled along the pavement was not clear. However, unusually, the figure of a tall man in a large overcoat and trilby hat suddenly appeared out of the crowd. He shuffled by the table, quickly reached out, deftly pulled two packs of white sheets from the pile on the table, tucked them under his overcoat and was gone. Although he had been surrounded by people, nobody in the crowd seemed to notice what had happened.

  In the theatre, with one voice, the team said, ‘It’s Lamb!’

  ‘Run it back, Trevor,’ Angel said. ‘Run it again.’

  Crisp ran the tape back and then replayed it. At the point where the man’s face was the most exposed, Angel said, ‘Stop the tape.’

  Crisp pressed the button.

  Everybody stared at the screen. They all agreed it was Lamb.

  Angel shook his head. ‘Looks like Lamb,’ he said. ‘But he doesn’t look to see if he’s being seen by anybody. He doesn’t even check to see if there’s any CCTV. He doesn’t attempt to hide his face with a handkerchief as if he was wiping his nose, or lower his head to avoid being seen. There’s something wrong.’

  Crisp frowned and looked at Carter and then at Ahmed.

  They all stared at the screen again.

  ‘I do believe it’s Lamb, sir,’ Crisp said.

  Carter said, ‘Or his twin brother.’

  Ahmed nodded.

  Angel said nothing.

  ‘Shall I interview him, sir?’ Crisp said. ‘See what he has to say about it?’

  Angel blinked a few times then said: ‘All right. Why not? You can ask him about taking the sheets. See how far you get. Then you can see what sort of an alibi he puts up for the time from 5.16 and 8 o’clock last night. Record the interview. Do it to the letter. You’ll have to find him a solicitor. Get Bloomfield unless he has one of his own. Ahmed can sit in with you. It’ll be good experience.’

  Ahmed smiled.

  ‘Crack on then, lad. Don’t mess about.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Crisp said and he dashed out of the theatre. Ahmed hovered. He wasn’t certain whether he should stay there with Angel or go now with Crisp.

  Angel saw the hesitation. ‘Go on, Ahmed,’ he said. ‘Stick with him.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and dashed off.

  Angel turned to Carter. ‘I want you to go to Dr Suliman and get a warrant to search Lamb’s house. The duty sergeant will give you his address. In particular, look for these stolen bedsheets, of course, and a trilby hat and an overcoat to match these on the tape, but much more importantly a silver dagger, a laurel bush and a pair of sandals. Also look in his garden. See if the ground has been turned over recently…if any bloodstained sheets have been buried. Take Ted Scrivens with you.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said, her eyes shining, and made for the door. Then she stopped, turned back and said, ‘How do you know it’s a silver dagger, sir?’

  ‘Ask me again when time isn’t at such a premium. Now shoo!’ he said and out she ran.

  Angel was in the theatre alone. He promptly moved to the seat in front of the console. He ran the tape back, then played it on slow. He peered closely at the screen as the pictures clicked slowly past. Several times he stopped the movement of the tape and peered at the picture. When he had run it to the end of the piece, he rewound it and ran it back again. He did this for more than an hour, when Inspector Asquith from uniformed division came into the theatre wanting to use the screen. Angel was surprised to see that the time was 5.45 p.m.

  Chapter Eleven

  The week end. Eight o’clock on Saturday morning, 30 May. Angel was still in bed, wide awake, looking at the ceiling. Summer had arrived. The sun was shining, the birds were coughing, the Rottweilers barking, thieves were stealing, prisoners were planning to escape.

  Mary appeared round the door. He heard the rustle of her housecoat and turned to look at her. She was more beautiful than a bower of fresh flowers.

  ‘The shower’s free, darling,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  She went out.

  ‘Breakfast in ten minutes,’ she said as she glided along the hall.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, without commitment, as he swivelled round to the edge of the bed and dropped his feet into his slippers.

  The weekend…well, this weekend anyway, was a…a disruption.

  He wrinkled his nose, sniffed, stared briefly at the white anaglypta, stretched out his arms and ran a hand through his hair.

  This break from work served no useful purpose whatsoever. It was an unnecessary and annoying disruption to his search for the serial killer. There were all sorts of inquiries he should be making. He wanted to listen to some of those recorded interviews again. He wanted to get his mind clear for Monday morning. Harker wanted those cells empty by then. God knows he didn’t want to let a murderer go free but that seems what he might have to do.

  He had been considering whether he might risk suggesting to Mary that he might go into the office. She got very ratty if he suggested that he went in when he was off duty. He couldn’t quite understand her. It wasn’t that she wanted him for any particular reason. He reckoned that it was simply that she didn’t want it to seem that he preferred his work to her, which wasn’t the case nor ever could be. Mary was the moon with jam on it, and he didn’t want to hurt her. Nevertheless, it would be g
reat if the duty sergeant phoned to say that some emergency had cropped up to give him the excuse he wanted.

  He looked at the phone at the side of the bed, but it didn’t ring, nor would it.

  He ambled to the bathroom, rinsed his face in cold water and cleaned his teeth.

  Over breakfast, Mary said, ‘Are you cutting the lawn this morning, Michael? It needs it.’

  ‘Oh? I hadn’t noticed,’ he lied.

  ‘Ideal conditions. Nice and dry. And the borders need weeding.’

  ‘Oh? Yes, love.’

  ‘The hedge needs trimming too.’

  Angel sighed. He knew that Mary had skilfully hijacked his weekend.

  *

  When Angel went out of the front door of his bungalow on the morning of Monday, 1 June he felt like a rat that had been let out of a trap.

  He reached his office at 8.20 and immediately reached for the phone to summon Ahmed. While it was ringing out, there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  It was Ahmed.

  Angel banged down the phone. ‘I was trying to reach you, lad.’

  ‘I was in reception, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘There’s a woman, Rosemary Underwood, wants to see the person in charge of the investigation into her mother’s murder.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh yes. Mrs Underwood’s daughter, next of kin. It’s about time she showed up. Poor lass. She might be able to throw some light on things. Have you made her comfortable?’

  ‘Put her in the front interview room, sir. She didn’t want a cup of tea or anything.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see to her. She’ll have to wait a bit. She’s picked a busy day.’

  Ahmed pulled a curious face and then said, ‘There’s something I’d like to say, sir.’

  Angel looked up at him. It was an unusual comment for Ahmed to make.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about something over the weekend,’ he said.

  Angel looked at him curiously. ‘Yes, lad?’

  ‘On Friday afternoon, in the canteen, sir,’ he said. He looked at Angel again, sheepishly, then looked down. ‘There was…there was something…going on.’

  ‘What?’ Angel said more loudly and sharply.

  ‘In the canteen, sir,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this,’ he said. His face showed he regretted having begun the story.

  Angel looked up at him and frowned. He had never seen Ahmed like this. He had been on his team for four years and he had not behaved in this way before.

  ‘What is it, lad?’ Angel said quietly. ‘For goodness sake, spit it out.’

  ‘It’s a bit…distasteful, sir. And I am not going to name the man…the man who started it. I couldn’t do that.’

  The muscles round Angel’s mouth tightened. ‘All right. It’s distasteful. Now are you going to tell me or not?’

  Ahmed took in a deep breath and said, ‘They’re taking bets in the canteen on which one is the murderer, sir. I don’t know how they found out, but they know that the two men in the cells, Lamb and Franks, and the woman up at the safe house, Margaret Ireland, are the three suspects. They don’t seem to know that they are also the possible victims. They asked me about the case. I didn’t say anything. I said I had to go, and I came out.’

  Angel pursed his lips briefly then said, ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It’s not right, sir. I didn’t think they should be taking bets’ on people’s reputations, sir. Two of those people are innocent, totally innocent, aren’t they?’

  Angel nodded. ‘You’re right. But don’t let it worry you. I’m sure they mean no harm. The two innocent ones will leave with a clean sheet and be returning to their own homes today, anyway. None of them has been charged. I am expecting the report from the lab at Wetherby, the DNA result on those hairs found on Redman. It will tell us the one we want. Nobody outside the station will know that any of them were under suspicion.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘So don’t give it another thought. All right?’

  Ahmed breathed out an uneven sigh.

  Angel moved on quickly. ‘Today’s the day that crane will be hoisting the van out of the canal. I want you to liaise with DS Taylor and get a time when they actually expect to make the lift. I want to be there.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And tell DS Carter and DS Crisp I want to see them straightaway.’

  ‘It’s only just half-past, sir,’ he said as he made for the door. Angel’s eyes flashed. ‘I know. I know,’ he said, ‘but there’s a lot to do.’

  Ahmed blinked. He could see that the inspector was irritable. He would have to be careful. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said and made for the door.

  DS Carter was standing outside in the corridor. She must have just arrived. He stood back and pulled open the door wider.

  ‘The inspector was just asking to see you, Sarge,’ he said.

  She smiled back at him.

  ‘Yes. Come in, Sergeant,’ Angel called.

  Ahmed went out and closed the door.

  Carter stepped up to the desk.

  Angel looked up at her.

  She smiled at him sweetly. She was very nicely turned out. He thought she was attractive, too attractive. He wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Did you find anything I’d want to know about in Lamb’s house?’ Angel said.

  ‘No, sir,’ Carter said.

  ‘No new bedsheets or excess of bedsheets, no silver dagger, sandals or laurel bush?’

  ‘No, sir. He has a small garden, but there were no freshly turned-over areas, and no laurel bushes. Though there is a small incinerator at the bottom of the garden. But then, sir, you didn’t expect us to find anything incriminating there, because you don’t think Lamb is the murderer, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know who the murderer is, Sergeant. It still could be him. But I certainly didn’t expect him to have left the dagger, the sandals and a pile of blood-stained sheets on the kitchen table waiting for you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. We searched the house most thoroughly even though the CCTV apparently didn’t convince you it was Lamb stealing the sheets.’

  ‘That’s true. I am still not convinced.’

  ‘Yet you haven’t had Franks’s place searched. Or Margaret Ireland’s?’

  ‘I haven’t had sufficient justification to present a request for a search warrant of either of their premises. If I had, I would. The business with the CCTV outside the linen shop was more than adequate justification to search Lamb’s place. After all, four police officers thought that the thief was Lamb.’

  Carter’s eyes grew bigger in surprise. She thought about it a moment then nodded.

  Angel rubbed his chin. Before she could say anything more, he said, ‘Ingrid Underwood’s daughter is in the interview room at reception. I am very glad she’s turned up. See what she wants, apart from the obvious. See if she knows of anybody who would want her mother dead. Find out who would benefit from her mother’s death? Any connection with Redman and Peel? Also Lamb, Franks and Margaret Ireland? Did they buy flowers from her mother? See if any of those names ring any bells? Anything that will help to build a case round one of them. Anything in her or her mother’s history that might have a bearing on the case? See what you can dig up. Don’t overlook anything. All right?’

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said and she was gone.

  Angel looked after the young woman and rubbed his chin. He would have preferred to have interviewed Rosemary Underwood himself, but she would turn up on such a busy day. He sniffed. The decision was made. Carter had to be tested sometime. He pulled out his notes on the back of a used envelope from his inside pocket and began to look down them.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Crisp. ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Come in. Sit down. I want to know about Kenneth Lamb. Did he have alibis for the times of the three murders? And did he have an alibi for the time of the CCTV recording of the sheets being stolen?’

  Crisp ran a hand across his lips. ‘Well,
yes and no, sir.’

  Angel’s eyes shone and the muscles on his face tightened. ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘His alibi for the time of the murder of Redman, he said that he was at home in bed with his wife. But later, when I spoke to his wife, she said that that night she was away visiting her sister. She spent the night in Stockport, leaving him in the house on his own. Of course, he could simply have got the dates mixed up.’

  ‘So he could have sneaked out of the house, got dressed up in the sheet and sandals, stabbed old Mr Redman and gone back home.’

  ‘Easily, sir. Yes. Now, at the time of the murder of Ingrid Underwood, he would have been on his way to work. If he had the sheet and sandals on him - I don’t know where or how he might have changed both in and out of them - but, in terms of time only, he could easily have managed to dash into her shop, stab her and run off. How long did it take, the whole thing? Less than a minute, I should think. He therefore has no alibi for that murder either.’

  Angel nodded. He would have to work out how Lamb might have managed the quick change of clothes and the clean up after the murder, but he thought it perfectly possible that he could have committed the murder.

  ‘And what about Angus Peel?’

  ‘Lamb said he finished work at 5.30 and went straight home, sir. His wife said he arrived home at about 6.30, which, if he planned it carefully, gave him sufficient time to stab Peel and dump the van in the canal. Canal Road is almost on his way home from the Coop.’

  Angel nodded. It was all very feasible. There were the foundation stones of building a case. Lamb was still very much a suspect.

  ‘Now, what about the time the sheets were being stolen?’ Angel said.

  Crisp’s forehead creased up making more lines than on a charge sheet. He rubbed his chin. ‘That was one o’clock last Thursday, sir. He was in a lunchtime meeting in the boardroom at the top of the Coop building with the CEO, the store manager and twelve heads of departments. He’s head of Carpets. It’s a weekly thing. Lasts about forty minutes. He was definitely there. I saw the store manager and I spoke to the Chief Executive Officer on the phone. They were both quite adamant.’