The Fruit Gum Murders Read online

  ‘That wasn’t me, sir, that was Dr Mac,’ the DC said and then he added, ‘I didn’t know you were into modern art, sir. Some works of art sell for thousands.’

  Angel blinked. ‘Do you reckon that animal in best china is in that category?’

  ‘It’s not what I think, sir. It’s a matter of what the market decides. Personally I think it’s hideous, sir, but what do I know?’

  He turned to go. He looked back. ‘I hope that photograph fits the bill, sir.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Thank you, lad.’

  The DC went out and closed the door.

  Angel picked up the monster and glared at it. It didn’t matter whichever way he looked at it, it was ugly. He pulled a face and quickly put it down on the desk. Then, armed with the photograph, he went straight out of the station and into the BMW. He started the engine and headed towards Enoch Truelove’s shop.

  Angel handed Enoch Truelove the photograph. The old man took it to the shop window for more light. ‘Yes. That’s the man, Inspector,’ he said.

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘That’s the man who bought a bunch of white oriental lilies from you last Sunday teatime?’

  ‘Yes. And he didn’t quite have enough money.’

  ‘And so you let him off a few bob?’

  ‘I thought the girl must be very special for him to spend his last penny on her.’

  Angel’s face creased. He was going to have to change his mindset. At the beginning of this investigation, he had instinctively assumed that the murderer was a man. But now it looked as if Truelove’s evidence turned that assumption upside down.

  Truelove said: ‘Most customers are, what you might say, reluctant customers. They don’t want to spend anything. And when they see something at a price they might be willing to pay they start bargaining with you, trying to get it even cheaper.’

  ‘Would you be prepared to go into the witness box and swear before a judge and jury that that was the man?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t time for that, Inspector. I’ve a business to run. Who would mind the shop while I went to court?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want the man’s murderer to get away free, would you?’

  The old man looked at Angel with a pained expression on his face.

  Angel returned to the BMW and went to the town’s general hospital on Carlton Road. He was lucky to find a convenient parking spot. He went through the main door, where he turned left, then right, along a very long corridor to the mortuary at the end. As usual, the door was closed and locked. He rang the bell and eventually was admitted by a man in blue overalls and green wellington boots. He was shown into Dr Mac’s little office, which had internal glass windows overlooking an operating theatre. The outline of a body covered by a white sheet was on a table. The smell was horrible and too awful for words.

  Dr Mac looked up from his computer screen. ‘Come in, Michael. This is a surprise. What brings you up here?’ he said.

  ‘How you work in this stink is beyond me.’ Angel said.

  ‘It’s your fault, laddie. If you didn’t keep finding dead bodies, we could soon hose the place down, open the windows and have it permanently smelling of heather and wild thistles.’

  Angel shook his head and smiled.

  Mac said, ‘Anyway, what are you wanting? I have just finished the examination of the body of Patrick Novak, if that’s what you’re about?’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Good. Anything unusual?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned. Novak was poisoned in the same way, and to approximately the same degree, as Norman Robinson. There’s nothing else that I think will cause you to raise an eyebrow, Michael. I’ll email my report to you later this afternoon.’

  ‘Thanks, Mac,’ he said. He thought a moment and then said, ‘Two men, murdered in hotels with the same poison, by a woman.’

  ‘A woman now, you say?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said with a decisive nod. ‘The only clues: marks of a bottle and two glasses, and a fruit gum. What’s the point of the fruit gum, Mac?’

  ‘Does there have to be a point to it? Maybe she just likes fruit gums.’

  Angel said. ‘Nobody goes around poisoning a man, thoroughly cleans up all the evidence but allows a fruit gum to be left behind. It’s not as if it is the sign of the Mafia or a triad or something.’

  Mac shook his head. ‘Fruit gums only show the sign of a man or woman with a sweet tooth,’ he said.

  ‘You must be right, Mac. A woman who likes fruit gums.’

  ‘Let me ask you, Michael. Have you got anybody in the frame for these murders?’

  ‘Well, not seriously. If it’s a woman, I may very well have to look closely at Michelle Brown from Glasgow. She was the partner of Norman Robinson. It might be seen that she had a motive. Norman leaves her, comes south to collect some money to take back up there. He doesn’t tell her who he is collecting it from. At the same time, she is getting angry with him because she believes he has another woman in tow. You never know what other skeletons there are in her cupboard.’

  ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘No. Not yet. And that’s if it is a woman. Now, if it turns out to be a man, then it must be Thomas Johnson. In the case of Norman Robinson, he was in the Feathers on the night of the murder, and he’s a thoroughly bad lot. He was also found in possession of the same fruit gums that were found by both victims.’

  ‘I see,’ the old doctor said.

  ‘If only I understood why a fruit gum was found at each of the crime scenes. Any ideas, Mac?’

  ‘No, laddie, no. I’m afraid I canna help you with your sweeties just now. Now, if you have anything forensic or scientific, I might be able to help.’

  Angel smiled. ‘As a matter of fact there is something,’ he said as he took out his wallet. ‘It’s your advice I want as an obstetrician now. That was one of your roles in a previous life, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, and happy days they were, although I had to leave Glasgow and move east to the strange folk of Edinburgh to get my degree.’

  Angel grinned. He opened the wallet and out of one of the small pockets he produced a small photograph and handed it to him. ‘I found that in Patrick Novak’s wallet,’ he said. ‘I have no idea who it is. What can you tell me about it?’

  Mac licked his lips, peered at it and said, ‘It was taken by an amateur, in a bad light with a cheap camera. I can tell you that.’

  ‘I daresay. But what can you tell me about the baby?’

  The doctor looked at it a little while before he spoke.

  ‘I would say firstly that this looks like the bairn is in a hospital incubator, and is very underweight and extremely young. I am inclined to suggest that it is only a day or two old and is premature by between thirty and fifty days. It would have been, or should have been, in intensive care, judging by the need for a mask. It obviously had breathing difficulties. Also, at the time, it was being monitored for oxygen saturation and the checking of its blood. I reckon the bairn was in pretty bad shape. The photograph not being in colour, I am unable to offer any other concrete observation.’

  ‘Thank you, Mac. That might be very helpful. Is there anything there to indicate the child’s sex?’

  ‘No,’ he said as he turned the photograph over and looked at the date pencilled on the back. ‘May 2nd 2002,’ he said. He looked up at Angel. ‘Is that the date of the photograph?’

  ‘I expect so, Mac. What do you think?’

  ‘Aye. I think it most probably is. If it was, the child would be eleven years old now. Who do you know, connected with this case, who has a child of eleven?’

  ‘Nobody. It’s probably one of Patrick Novak’s. I’ve that to find out.’

  ‘Good luck with that, Michael.’

  Angel wrinkled his face. ‘Aye. Well, thank you. I need as much luck as I can get.’

  It was Friday mor
ning, 7th June.

  Angel was in his office early. He was trying to make a reduction in the pile of accumulated post and internal mail on his desk. He was engrossed in a complex pamphlet written by a prosecuting barrister about the status of the police called to a domestic incident between a woman and her bed-sharing partner, where the bed-sharing partner was a serving police officer. It was just getting to the interesting part when there was a knock on the door.

  He wrinkled his nose. He looked up. ‘Come in,’ he called.

  It was Don Taylor.

  ‘What is it, lad?’ he said, closing the pamphlet.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘I have just completed tests comparing the marks made by the two glasses and the bottle on the bedside cabinet we took from the Feathers hotel with the marks on the sink shelf we took from the King George hotel.’

  ‘And?’ Angel said.

  And they match exactly, sir,’ Taylor said.

  ‘Good,’ he said and he pointed to the chair opposite.

  Taylor sat down. ‘I thought you’d be pleased, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Well, yes Don, but I expected it. It further strengthens our theory that the murders were committed by the same person. It’s a pity we can’t find the actual glasses and bottle.’

  ‘Probably never will, sir. After all, there are millions of glasses and bottles out there in pubs, clubs, hotels, bars, as well as in domestic situations.’

  ‘True, but nevertheless we are making progress, Don. We know the murderer is a woman and that she almost certainly committed both murders. We also know how they were committed, and have identified the poison. What we don’t know is the motive.’

  ‘You’ve got nowhere with that, sir?’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘No.’

  ‘About the fruit gums, sir.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I was thinking, perhaps the fruit gums have nothing to do with the two murders.’

  Angel frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s just a coincidence that there was one at each scene.’

  The muscles round Angel’s mouth tightened. ‘A coincidence?’ he said. ‘Two men murdered by the same poison in hotel bedrooms in the same town in the same way in the same week and a solitary fruit gum of the same make in the same colour is found near each body, and you think it might be a … a coincidence?’

  Taylor shuffled in the chair uneasily. ‘Ah, well, I didn’t quite mean it like that, sir. I meant, are we not putting too much emphasis on the fact that they were there? I mean, what were they there for? Why were they there? What do they represent?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angel said, ‘unless it was the intention to push the blame onto Johnson. He was found to be eating them and he had a bagful in his pocket when he was brought in. If it was, she was wasting her time.’

  Taylor was overwhelmed by Angel’s positive attitude so strongly put. ‘It was just a thought, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right, Don. Now push off and let me get some work done.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and went smartly out of the office and closed the door.

  Angel watched him go and the door close, then he looked up at the clock. It was 9.00 a.m. He tossed the pamphlet back onto the pile, picked up the phone, found Crisp’s number and clicked it in.

  It was soon answered.

  ‘Now then, lad,’ Angel said. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Crisp said. ‘Nothing very illuminating. I went straight to the house and found that it was a big old detached house owned by a woman, Mrs Rimmington-Jones, aged about sixty, who had had the house divided into several flats. She let one out to Patrick Novak, and he had lived there on his own for more than twelve years. She wasn’t much bothered about his death. All she was worried about was how soon his stuff could be moved out to allow a new tenant in. She said that he was two months behind with his rent and that she was getting fed up with him. She knew he was away and she had expected him back on Saturday or Sunday. He had told her that he had gone to collect a debt and that he expected to bring his rent up to date when he got back.’

  ‘Did you get into his flat?’

  ‘Yes. It was a bit tatty. I had a good look round, but I didn’t find anything that you might call incriminating.’

  ‘Did you find any photographs?’

  He hesitated then said, ‘No, sir. I don’t think so.’

  Angel squeezed the phone tightly and bellowed, ‘What do you mean, “I don’t think so”?’

  ‘I mean … as far as I can remember. …’

  ‘It was only last night, for goodness’ sake!’ he roared. Then he said, ‘Did you find a camera?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Several … old ones … and a tripod.’

  ‘But no photographs. Didn’t you find that odd?’

  He hesitated. ‘Erm … well, now that I come to think about it …’

  ‘I’m coming down,’ Angel said. ‘Book me a room for tonight.’

  The train slowly pulled into platform one, Norwich railway station, at 3.45 p.m. Angel was standing at the open window of a door, as it glided past the few people on the platform. When the train stopped, Angel opened the door and came down the step onto the platform, carrying a valise.

  Crisp appeared from nowhere and came rushing up to him. ‘There you are, sir.’ He reached out for the valise. ‘I’ll take that, sir.’

  Angel gently resisted him. ‘No. That’s all right, lad. Thank you. Where’s the car?’

  ‘At the front, sir. Not far. Just through the barrier and round the corner.’

  When they were settled in the car, Crisp said, ‘Where do you want to go first, sir?’

  ‘Take me to Novak’s flat. I suppose we can get into it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Crisp said and he let in the clutch. ‘I’ve got a key, so we needn’t disturb Mrs Rimmington-Jones.’

  ‘I’d like to see her anyway. She seems to know more about Patrick Novak than anybody else.’

  Crisp turned into Thorpe Road and twenty minutes later arrived at 12, Lilac Avenue, Coalsden.

  It was a huge house set in a vast garden. The house had grey stucco walls, cracked and falling away in places. The windows were small and from the outside looked dark. The entire garden needed weeding, the lawns required cutting, the roses should have been dead-headed, many plants needed pruning and splitting, and the paths and driveway were in need of plentiful applications of weedkiller.

  Crisp stopped the car at the side door and let himself in. Angel followed and the two men made their way up the narrow stairs to a long corridor of many doors. At one of the doors, they stopped. Crisp inserted a key in the lock. The door opened onto a small room with a table, bed, television set, several chairs and a chest of drawers. There was a door in the wall opposite, which was open, and a small window with the sun streaming through facing the garden. Angel looked through the door and saw a sink, a gas oven, a fridge, a small worktop area and another door. This led to a compact bathroom and toilet.

  Angel turned back and went straight to the chest of drawers. The top drawer contained clean shirts, underclothes, socks and so on. The middle drawer was full of dusty and scratched photographic tackle. There was a Leica camera and a Baldini, an enlarger, two light meters, flash bulbs, a tripod, developing and fixing dishes and two unopened packs of roll film dated up to July 2001. There was also a roller for producing glossy prints and a small guillotine for trimming them. Angel closed that drawer and opened the bottom one, which contained boots, old shoes and slippers. He quickly closed the drawer and turned to Crisp.

  ‘Is this all there is, Trevor?’

  ‘Yes, sir. There’s a suit of clothes and a raincoat hanging on a coathanger on the back of the door.’

  Angel went into the bathroom. It was dark. There was no window allowing natural light. He fumbled
around the doorway, looking for the light switch.

  Crisp saw him. ‘It’s a pull-switch just inside, sir,’ he said.

  Angel found it, pulled it, then turned back to him and said, ‘Thank you. Did you come across a red electric lamp when you were searching the place?’

  ‘A red electric lamp? There’s one resting on a dusty dry flannel on top of the bathroom cupboard, sir. I think you can just see it.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Angel said. He reached up, took down the lamp, looked at it, replaced it, found that his fingers were covered in dust and hairs, ran his hand under the sink tap and wiped it on a towel. Then he opened the bathroom cupboard door, glanced inside and closed it.

  He came out of the bathroom, looked across at Crisp and said, ‘So … Patrick Novak had been a keen photographer … he took photographs, developed them, enlarged them, trimmed them … and then hid them.’

  Crisp looked at him and frowned.

  Angel rubbed his chin and said, ‘But where?’

  ‘And why?’ Crisp said.

  ‘I daresay we’ll know the why when we know the where.’

  There was an unexpected knock on the door.

  Angel frowned and looked at Crisp, who shrugged. Angel waved a hand towards the door and Crisp stepped forward. Before he could reach the handle, the door opened and a woman looked in.

  When she saw him, she smiled and said, ‘Oh, Mr Crisp. I thought I heard voices.’ Then she looked at Angel.

  Crisp smiled, then he said, ‘Mrs Rimmington-Jones, this is my boss, Detective Inspector Angel.’

  She looked surprised. ‘Oh. I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Rimmington-Jones,’ Angel said. ‘I’m on a flying visit to support my colleague, DS Crisp. There are a few matters you might be able to help us with. And I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  She looked Angel up and down. A smile slowly developed across her normally tight and downturned lips. ‘With pleasure, Inspector. How can I help?’ she said.

  Angel smiled and nodded. ‘In particular, I need to find out Patrick Novak’s next of kin.’