The Money Tree Murders Read online

  ‘Oh,’ he said, pulling a disappointed face. He switched off the vacuum and looked up at Angel. ‘There’s something up there that the brush can’t get round, sir.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh yes?’ he said. He came closer to the fireplace.

  ‘Can I do anything, Mr Goode?’ Helen Rose said.

  ‘No, ma’am. It’s all right. Just a minute. I have to get something from the van.’

  Two minutes later Goode returned with a rod around six feet long. At one end were two rows of teeth that had a grabbing action operated by rotating the handle at the bottom. He soon had the brush disconnected and the grabber through the opening in the fabric in its place. He switched on the vacuum and attempted to reach up to the obstruction.

  ‘It seems soft,’ he said. ‘Oh dear … I can’t get a grip … it slips through … oh dear … ah! Yes, I think I’ve got it … yes, I have.’ He locked the grabber at the end and began to pull hard. His forehead showed lines of perspiration loaded with soot.

  Angel watched him. He thought it must be something substantial.

  ‘There is something there then, Inspector,’ said Helen.

  Goode was pulling hard and then it suddenly gave way. There was the sound of something relatively soft falling in the grate.

  The fabric round the grate billowed out and the sucking noise of the vacuum increased to a high pitched scream.

  Goode turned it off. The silence was welcome.

  He looked up at Helen Rose. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll now be able to sweep your chimney. I can tell from the sound of the vacuum.’

  Angel came across and said, ‘Let’s see what you’ve brought down.’

  Goode took the end of the sticky tape and peeled it from the bricks round the fireplace, taking the fabric with it.

  Angel squatted down to see but it was a bit difficult because whatever it was was covered in soot. Goode’s fingers were all over it. It seemed to be a coat of some sort wrapped round something heavier. ‘Leave that there, lad,’ Angel suddenly said. ‘Don’t touch them any more, Mr Goode. I want to take these items to be examined forensically. Won’t be a minute.’

  Angel rushed off to his car and returned with a brown paper sack with the word EVIDENCE printed in red on each side.

  ‘Put that bundle in there, please, Mr Goode,’ he said.

  The sweep put the black soot-covered bundle in the sack. ‘There you are, sir. I don’t know what use that will be to you, but good luck to it, I say.’

  Then he looked in the fireplace grate. There was a small layer of soot, but nothing else.

  Goode took a torch out of his pocket and shone it up the chimney. He reached up and looked at it from all angles. At length he said, ‘Well, there’s no gap, no marks, no damage or nothing. Some people think that it’s all right to stuff anything up a chimney … I don’t know … Chimneys is not rubbish dumps. There’s nothing more nice than a clean chimney. That’s what I say.’

  He re-stuck the sticky tape on the black-painted bricks around the fire grate, switched on the vacuum and continued with the sweeping operation.

  After a few minutes, Angel turned to Mrs Rose. ‘Everything seems straightforward now,’ he said. ‘I’ll be on my way to get this stuff looked at by forensics.’

  She nodded and smiled at him. ‘Do you mind seeing yourself out?’ she said.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. He picked up the brown paper sack and made for the door.

  THIRTEEN

  DS Trevor Crisp and DC Edward Scrivens were in the observation van in the leafy suburbs of Birmingham. Scrivens was loading the video machine with new tape, and Crisp was looking through the binoculars at the side door of Josephine Huxley’s house while tapping a loud and regular beat on the bench top with his free hand.

  ‘Come on. Come on,’ Crisp said. ‘It’s two o’clock. Where is she? Come on. Come on. Damn it. It’s time she was off to that library.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have to do it, Sarge, do you?’ Scrivens said.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Crisp said. ‘In fact if Angel told me I had to, I wouldn’t. And he couldn’t do a thing about it.’

  Scrivens nodded thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I would do the same as you, if I was in your shoes.’

  ‘Well, why not?’ Crisp said. ‘Look, we’ve cased the joint for two days. I know there are only two people living there. I know where she goes and for how long, and that the son works at Cheapo’s and finishes at five, so he couldn’t get back here before ten past five at the earliest. And I know it’s an easy lock cos I’ve had a look at it close up. It’s easy peasy. Couldn’t be easier.’

  Scrivens nodded

  ‘What is the exact time?’ Crisp said.

  Scrivens looked at his wrist. ‘Two o’clock on the button.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve got. Where is she? Now that I’m all geared up for it, looks like Josephine Huxley is changing her plans. That’s the trouble with women, Ted. You can learn from this.’

  ‘Learn what?’

  Crisp didn’t hear him. ‘Do you know what, the lenses on these binoculars are all steamed up,’ he said. ‘Have you got a cloth?’

  ‘A cloth?’ Scrivens said. ‘There’s one in the cab.’

  Crisp reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. ‘Never mind, I’ll use this.’

  He gave each lens a quick wipe, shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket and returned to concentrating on Josephine Huxley’s house.

  ‘I reckon I’ve spent at least half my life waiting for women. Do you know that, Ted?’

  Scrivens had completed aligning the direction of the lens on the video recorder and began to watch the side door of Huxley’s through a smaller pair of binoculars.

  ‘No, never,’ Scrivens said with a grin.

  ‘It’s true. For a start, the first nine months of my life I spent waiting on my mother, didn’t I? Then as an infant I was always waiting to be changed or bathed or fed or something, always by a woman. At school we had to wait in line for everything, roll call, books, school dinners, almost always for a teacher or a playground supervisor, who were almost always women. And if I ask a girl out, she might be on time the first time, but when she thinks she’s got you, thereafter you have to wait. So how long do you think you’d have to wait if you were married to one?’

  ‘Is that why you’re not married, Sarge?’

  ‘Naw. The point is that now, even in this job, at thirty-two years of age, I am still waiting for a woman.’

  Scrivens suddenly lowered the binoculars, switched on the video recorder and said, ‘You don’t have to wait any longer, Sarge. She’s coming out now.’

  Crisp’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I see her,’ Crisp said. ‘Aaaah. At last.’ He continued watching her. He wanted to check that she was carrying the carrier bag that he believed was filled with books, which she was, and that she was intent on turning in the direction of the library, which she did.

  Crisp looked up from the binocular stand at Scrivens. ‘Right, Ted. I’m going in right away,’ he said as he reached out for his raincoat. ‘I have all I need in my pockets. I only need about five minutes in the house. I’ll phone you on the house phone to test it and for you to get the number. In the unlikely event of anyone approaching the house, ring me on my mobile. OK?’

  ‘OK, Sarge, good luck.’

  Crisp buttoned his coat, pulled on his gloves, got out of the van, crossed the road and walked up the street towards Mrs Huxley’s house.

  Scrivens took up the position behind the binoculars in the back of the observation van and carefully watched Crisp’s progress.

  Crisp reached the front gate, opened it and went through it. He went straight up to the side door and rang the bell. He waited a respectable few moments then, resisting the temptation of looking round, he pulled out of his pocket a thin piece of sheet plastic about eight inches long by one inch wide. He entered it between the door and the door jamb by the lock, gave it a sharp tap with a closed fist and the latch slipped back. He the
n turned the knob and pushed at the door and it opened. His heart began to pump hard as he went inside. He didn’t waste a moment. He found the telephone. It was in the hall on an occasional table. It was staring at him as soon as he opened the door. He dug into his pocket for a small box and took out a miniature transmitter and from a pad pulled off a small piece of Blu-Tack. He unscrewed the earpiece cover of the telephone, tucked a tiny transmitter into the cavity then screwed the cover back on. Then he dialled Scrivens’ mobile.

  It was answered on the first ring. ‘Yes, Sarge?’

  ‘Everything OK. Record this phone’s number, Ted.’

  ‘Right, Sarge. Be careful.’

  Crisp smiled and quickly replaced the phone. He had a quick glance at the downstairs accommodation. In the room at the back of the house he saw a big slimline TV, two comfortable easy chairs and a sofa. There were three books open on the floor at the side of one of the chairs. Squeezed in the corner was a small table on which there were piles of more books and newspapers, and a computer keyboard, screen and tower. He decided that that was the room Josephine and Tom Huxley were likely to occupy more than any of the others. He rolled a small piece of Blu-Tack round a second transmitter, borrowed a chair from the kitchen and stuck it on the top side of a small chandelier that was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He had just returned the chair to the kitchen when his mobile rang out.

  The shrill noise made him gasp and breathe more quickly. He looked at the LCD on the phone and it told him it was Scrivens calling. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Josephine Huxley is on her way up the garden path.’

  Crisp gasped. The sound of his increased heartbeat thrashed in his ears. He closed the phone. He heard a key enter the lock. He dashed out of the kitchen to the sitting room and stood behind the door.

  He heard her open the side door and come into the hall.

  He peered at her through the crack between the door and the door jamb. She was carrying several bags of shopping. She went into the kitchen and heaved them on to the table. He heard her fill a kettle and the click of a switch. Then he heard light music, presumably from a transistor radio. She began to put the shopping away. She looked as if she had come to stay. He wondered how on earth he was going to get out of the house before she saw him. If Angel knew about this, he would probably kill him.

  Meanwhile Scrivens’ heart was thumping. He was wondering what he could do to get DS Crisp out of this mess. He couldn’t just sit there looking at the house through binoculars. He sighed and hurriedly reached out for his coat. He locked the van then legged it across the road and up the street to the house. His mouth was dry. He had never been in a predicament like this before. He had no idea what he was going to say or do.

  Mrs Huxley had made herself a hot drink and was finishing tidying up the kitchen. She took some books out of a bag and looked at the titles. She advanced towards Crisp. He saw her through the slit. He held his breath. He darted away from the back of the door to the floor behind the settee. She came through the hall into the sitting room and put the books on the table where the computer was. Then she saw the books on the floor. She picked them up, closed them and put them on the table. Crisp’s heart was pounding. She left the room.

  As she arrived in the hall on her way to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. She turned back and opened the door.

  It was Ted Scrivens.

  She looked him up and down.

  He remembered a trick played on householders by villains to rob them. He hoped it might work equally well to get Crisp out of the house.

  Scrivens said, ‘I was just passing and I noticed your chimney pot. I am a builder, you see. I thought I should tell you about it before it does you any damage.’

  Mrs Huxley frowned and put her hand to her chin. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with it?’

  ‘Well, it’s not safe. You need to see it,’ he said, edging away from the door and hoping she would follow him. ‘I’ll show you, if you follow me.’

  She came down the step and followed him up the path, through the front gate on to the pavement.

  ‘You can see it from here best,’ he said.

  He edged up the road a little so that she was just out of vision of her side door but he could still plainly see it. ‘We need to be about here.’

  He looked up at the roof of her house and said, ‘Now, you see that chimney pot on your house? The one on the left? It’s sloping.’

  She looked up, frowned and was very uncertain. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, in the wind, it rocks because it has no cement holding it. The years and weather have weakened it and worn it all away. One day, when it is really windy, it will blow off and possibly crash through your tiles into the house causing untold damage, or it might roll down the tiles and crash on to somebody below.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crisp come out of Mrs Huxley’s door and dash down the back yard and out of her back gate. Thank God for that, he thought. He sighed. He turned back to the woman.

  She still had her hand to her face. ‘Well, what do I ought to do?’

  ‘Tell your husband. He needs to get a builder go round your chimney pots with some cement and see that they’re safe. That’s all.’

  Mrs Huxley looked up at the roof again. ‘Which chimney pot did you say is unsafe?’

  He looked up at the roof of the house and said, ‘I thought it was the one on the left. Actually, it doesn’t look too bad from here now. You might get through this winter all right. Anyway, I must be off.’

  ‘Well, thank you, young man,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Not at all. Good afternoon.’

  She frowned and shook her head as she walked back down her garden path.

  Scrivens moved quickly up the road away from the scene. He was thinking that Crisp would get back to the observation van before him and he hadn’t a key.

  Angel was at his desk reading a small booklet headed ‘New guidance for entering all households’. It was issued by ACPO’s National Community Tension Team. Angel found it very boring. It related to all race and faith communities and applied chiefly to police personnel involved in counter terrorism operations. It was at pains to point out that it was a counter terrorism unit of MI5 that quelled a prison riot involving prisoners taking two officers as hostages at York prison earlier that year. It was the sort of thing every policeman was obligated to read and observe.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  He looked up. It was DS Taylor clutching an A4 sheet of paper.

  ‘What you got, Don?’

  ‘That stuff you took out of that chimney, sir … it was a long brown linen coat, a sort of overall, the kind that warehousemen used to wear thirty years ago. And wrapped inside it was a pair of old shoes. They had been good quality all-leather shoes, but they were very worn and burned in places.’

  ‘Well, they did come from a chimney.’

  ‘Oh no, sir. They weren’t burned from being up the chimney. They were burned, I suspect, from molten gold.’

  ‘Molten gold?’

  ‘Yes. As it’s being poured it sometimes spits out a spot or two that lands still molten and makes odd shapes wherever it cools. And there are minute traces in the soles of the shoes and gold dust in the pockets of the coat.’

  Angel sat back in the swivel chair. ‘Somebody been melting gold down to reform it into something else?’

  ‘If they weren’t making it into jewellery, then it was possibly being formed into ingots and sold to bullion dealers.’

  ‘Yes but why stuff the coat and shoes up there?’

  ‘Was it to hide them to conceal the fact that a home furnace was in operation here, or simply to bung up the chimney so that a fire couldn’t be lit?’

  ‘A bunged-up chimney wouldn’t cause the sticks and paper to be wet, would it?’

  ‘Don’t see that it would, sir.’

  ‘Hmm. How long do you think th
e coat and shoes have been there, Don?’

  ‘It’s very hard to say, sir. I could only guess at sometime between say two years and twenty years. I could be wrong.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable, lad. Whichever it is, it would put it in the time of the previous owner of the house, Hubert Price. He was the owner of Aladdin’s Cave on Market Street. It was a sort of antique and curio shop. His slogan was “I buy owt”. I bet he bought plenty of gold over the years – stolen or bought honestly. He used to have a sign up, I remember. I bet those shoes and coat belonged to him. Is there any way we can check on that, Don?’

  ‘Not unless we had his DNA and I could find a hair or a spot of dried blood on the coat to compare. I might be able – with a lot of luck – to find a hair on the coat but I doubt we could get any DNA from him without digging him up.’

  ‘And he was probably cremated. Anyway, if we could prove it, we couldn’t bring anything against him now.’

  ‘Do you want me to do any more work on these items, sir?’

  ‘No. I think it’s a safe bet to assume the coat and shoes were his. Put them somewhere safe for the time being. They may be needed as evidence. Thank you, Don.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Taylor said.

  It was three o’clock on Thursday afternoon, 21 November, and DC Ahmed Ahaz was on his rounds as post clerk in Studio Two at Zenith Television. It was unusually quiet because the studio was not in use at that time.

  From the working lights up in the gods, he was navigating his trolley between furniture, scenery, back projection screens, props, banks of lighting and technical equipment. It was his last tour delivering and collecting letters and packets for that day. He was heading for the three small offices at the far side of the floor when suddenly he heard somebody say, ‘You said I’d be amply rewarded, but I haven’t been.’