The Dog Collar Murders Read online

  ‘What the hell?’ he said.

  Steam hissed and billowed over the bonnet. The windscreen shattered. Their vision ahead was entirely blocked. The driver struggled to open the cab door to make his escape but he could not budge it. They heard the crunch of metal behind them as the van sides were being pierced by two other giant metal claws. The noise grated on their ear drums.

  The vehicle was on the move upwards. It was swinging from side to side.

  ‘God. What’s happening?’ the driver said, his chest banging like a Salvation Army drum.

  ‘Press the automatic raid transmission advice, John,’ he managed to remember to say.

  The driver’s mate pressed a red button on the radio transmission set. It was programmed to send a standard recorded emergency message that the vehicle was being raided to the branch office in Sheffield. There was already an automatic live twenty-four-hour satellite navigation system link that advised them of the vehicle’s location at all times.

  The van then suddenly rose upwards.

  The two men looked at each other. Their eyes showed stark fear.

  The van swung to one side, clipped a parked car then rushed straight upwards as if it was a bouncing ball on the rebound. The men’s stomachs dropped as it gained momentum. Through a broken side window the driver could see some first-floor office windows. The van was swinging away from them. They were sailing through the air as if in a hot-air balloon.

  They stared at each other, their mouths open and their eyes the size of traffic lights. ‘What’s happening?’

  There was the screech of torn metal as the giant claws opened to release their grip.

  The van was in freefall.

  ‘Hold tight, John.’

  ‘God help us.’

  The driver grabbed hold of the steering wheel. His mate grabbed the door and the handbrake cowling, preparing himself for a hard landing. The front of the van landed first. It made a hell of a racket and jarred every bone they had. But they were back on the ground. They were grateful for that, but their arms and hands were shaking. They tried to open the cab doors. They had to push and kick them. It was hard work but they eventually prised their way out. The van was a wreck. They looked round. They were in a small private walled car park, but there were no cars there and the gate was closed. The crane grabber was rapidly retreating into the sky. Several men in balaclavas and carrying guns were busy at the back of the van. One of them saw them, left the back of the van and dashed up to them. They knew he meant business. He herded them together to the corner of the car park well away from the mangled van. He told them to take off their helmets and lie face down on the ground. It was cold and hard. The van driver looked back to try to see what was happening.

  He felt a gun in his back.

  ‘Look down!’ an angry voice yelled.

  Suddenly, there was a loud explosion. They felt it through the ground.

  A few seconds later, men’s voices shouted jubilantly.

  One of the men said, ‘Fill that case. Hurry up.’

  There was a lot of activity and noise. Heaving and banging, metal on metal. A few moments later, the same voice said, ‘Don’t mess about. Come on.’

  Another man came across to the van driver and his mate. He had a roll of two-inch-wide black sticky tape. He quickly wrapped it tightly round the two FSDS men’s wrists behind their backs, their ankles and across their mouths and eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ the voice said. ‘Two minutes forty-five. It’s time we were out of here.’

  And they were gone.

  It was only a very short time afterwards that police cars screeched up to the car park, and five uniformed officers and three in plain clothes battered their way through the old wooden gate, rushed to the two men tied up in the corner and cut them free.

  DI Michael Angel was the senior officer there and quickly took in the scene. ‘Are you men all right?’

  ‘Think so,’ the FSDS driver said, rubbing his wrists.

  ‘Yes,’ the driver’s mate said, getting to his feet. His hands were still shaking.

  Angel looked round the car park. ‘What happened? How did you get here?’

  The FSDS driver pointed up in the sky. ‘That crane. The van with us inside was lifted out of the street, over the wall and dropped – literally – here.’

  Angel blinked, then stared briefly at the massive builder’s crane towering above the super structure of the multi-storey hotel building in progress two streets away.

  He called across to one of the patrolmen, and pointing towards the construction site, said, ‘Quick, Sean. Get the man who has been driving that crane.’

  Patrolman Donohue nodded and rushed off.

  Angel glanced at the FSDS van and saw that one of the rear doors was hanging precariously on one hinge and the other was on the ground twelve feet away. In the side of the van there was a black hole. He knew it must have taken four sticks of dynamite at least to have caused that much damage. The van was a write-off.

  Angel looked at the FSDS driver. ‘How many were there?’

  ‘Four or five. They had guns.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Can you give me a description of them?’

  ‘Don’t know. Ordinary. Wearing balaclavas. Jeans, T-shirts, dark jackets or overcoats and trainers. One was in a dark suit. Black shoes.’

  ‘Did they have a car? Which way did they go?’

  ‘Didn’t see. Don’t know.’

  ‘How long have they been gone?’

  ‘A couple of minutes before you arrived.’

  Angel turned away and addressed the patrolmen. ‘Right, lads. Not much to go on. See if you find any of them. Anybody who looks guilty, or starts to run when you get near. Concentrate on the town centre for a start. Then work outwards. Constable Weightman, take the bus station. Hurry up. But be careful. They are armed. I don’t want anybody hurt.’

  The patrolmen ran to their cars.

  Angel dived into his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone. He tapped a number into it. It was soon answered.

  ‘PC Ahmed Ahaz, sir.’

  ‘Ahmed. I’m in a private car park on Almsgate. It’s empty. It was all locked up. Had to force open outside doors. The offices are unoccupied. It’s that narrow little twisty lane at the back of Western Avenue … a sort of service road. I want some transport urgently to take two men to hospital. Phone Transport. Speak to Sergeant Mallin. Also, I want you to contact Don Taylor in the SOCO office and tell him I want him down here pronto, to look at a security van that’s been hijacked. All right?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Angel closed the phone and shoved it in his pocket. He glanced at the sad excuse for a van. There was very little bodywork that was unmarked. All the windows were shattered. The front wheels were at unseemly angles. Wisps of smoke were still filtering out of the black hole in the back. A trickle of water was running down the car park from its radiator.

  He went back up to the two FSDS men.

  ‘The van safe is empty. How much was in there?’ he said.

  ‘Over four million,’ the driver replied.

  Angel frowned then shook his head. After a moment, he said, ‘It’s a lot of money to be dragging around the streets. Was it all paper money?’

  ‘Yes. All sterling paper currency, fifties, twenties, tens and fivers. All used notes. No coins,’ the driver said. ‘It’s not usually that much. It’s because people have spent their Christmas money and because of the sales, I expect.’

  ‘No chance of finding out any numbers on any of the notes?’

  The driver shook his head. ‘Sorry. It was all used notes.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘Yes. Mmm,’ he said. He went quiet for a few moments, then he said, ‘Did you hear any of the villains speak?’

  ‘One of them told us to come into this corner, to take off our helmets and lie on the ground,’ the driver said.

  ‘Did you recognize any accent?’

  ‘I never noticed. I had a lot on my mind. It all happened fast
er than it takes to tell it.’

  ‘Must have been local or Yorkshire anyway. You would have noticed if it was Cockney or Irish or something like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I would.’

  His mate said, ‘I heard one man call out instructions to the others to fill a case. I suppose he meant them to put the money in it.’

  Angel’s face brightened. ‘You mean in a suitcase?’

  ‘I don’t know. Could have been.’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed and he rubbed his chin. ‘A suitcase,’ he said. Then, suddenly, he reached into his pocket, took out his mobile, ran down his directory, found the name PC John Weightman and clicked on it.

  A few seconds later, a voice answered, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘John. Where are you?’

  ‘Bus station, sir. Nothing suspicious to report.’

  ‘Witness says one of the men could be carrying a suitcase, John.’

  ‘A suitcase?’ Weightman said.

  ‘Take a look at the rail station next door. A suitcase might blend better in a railway station.’

  TWO

  Detective Inspector Angel’s office, Police Station, Bromersley, South Yorkshire, UK. 3 p.m., Monday, 11 January 2010

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Angel called.

  It was DS Carter, one of Angel’s two sergeants. She had joined his team six months earlier. He much preferred men on his team but Flora Carter had proved herself to be both intelligent and brave, so he forgave her for smelling sweetly of soap, frequently wearing a smile and for being invariably optimistic.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’ she said.

  ‘Aye. Where’s Trevor Crisp?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. Haven’t seen him.’

  Angel wasn’t pleased. DS Crisp, his other sergeant, always seemed to be missing when there was an emergency. He was also remarkably good at providing excuses.

  ‘The patrolmen I sent out round the town looking for the robbers are now phoning in,’ Angel said. ‘Not one of them has seen anything.’

  Flora nodded sympathetically.

  ‘Get them together,’ Angel said, ‘and organize a door to door on Almsgate. There are a lot of windows looking down on the road as well as the car park where the van was lifted.’

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

  Angel reached out to the phone and tapped in a number. It was to DS Don Taylor, head of SOCO at Bromersley force, who was at the crime scene on Almsgate.

  ‘What have you got, Don?’

  Taylor was reluctant to answer. ‘They haven’t left anything here, sir.’

  Angel’s face tightened. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Nothing, Don?’ he said.

  ‘The villains seem to have worn gloves throughout, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘No blood, urine, saliva. Also, being outside, it is much more difficult to find samples positively attributable to the crime.’

  Angel grunted then said, ‘No DNA then?’

  ‘And the ground is hard and bone dry, so there are no footprints either.’

  Angel frowned. It wasn’t looking good.

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. ‘So what’s the use of that expensive training you’ve had and all that sophisticated and pricey equipment you’ve got down there in that glorified lavatory?’

  ‘The explosive charge was dynamite, sir,’ DS Taylor said. ‘About four sticks, I should say.’

  Angel frowned. ‘I knew that from the smell,’ he said. ‘Where did these smart boys get four sticks of dynamite from, Don? A few years back we could say that they’d been lifted from a local coalmine, but now there are no mines left. And none have reported any missing. And they all have to account for every stick.’

  ‘It’s easy enough to fiddle, sir.’

  It was true enough. Nobody knew exactly how many sticks would be required to execute a particular job.

  ‘All right, Don. When you’ve finished there, go to the driver’s cab of that big crane you can see behind you. The driver may have been careless, thinking we wouldn’t bother looking up there. You might get prints from the controls. It’ll be a bit of a climb. And while you’re there, find out how a villain was able to gain access to it and operate it. Doesn’t expensive machinery like that require a key to start it up?’

  Taylor was suddenly silent. The idea of climbing up into the cold, blue sky was obviously not being greeted with joy.

  Angel visualized him looking up at the crane driver’s control cab.

  ‘Sean Donohue missed the man by only a minute or two,’ Angel said.

  ‘It’s a helluva way up there,’ Taylor said.

  ‘If you find anything interesting, give me a ring,’ he said. He replaced the phone, leaned right back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. He was thinking about the likely characters who would pull such a brazen robbery as that in broad daylight and not leave any DNA behind. It would have taken some planning. He couldn’t think of anybody. All the brains for jobs like that were behind bars. It must have been a new face pushing his luck.

  There was a sudden knock at the door.

  Angel leaned forward and called, ‘Come in.’

  It was DS Crisp. The Don Juan of his team. He came in with a bright face and all smiles. ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  Angel screwed up his face and eyed him closely. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I got stuck with Peter King.’

  ‘I never get stuck with anybody I don’t want to get stuck with, except the super and the chief constable.’

  Peter King was a local man who occasionally confessed to committing murder even though he was completely innocent. It was his hobby … a very dangerous hobby. One day he was going to be found guilty of some serious crime he didn’t do.

  Angel’s face relaxed. ‘What’s he confessing to this time?’

  ‘Murder of that prostitute in Leeds, just before Christmas.’

  ‘Why didn’t you kick him out?’

  ‘I couldn’t find a suitable question about something that was not in the newspapers. The reporters had been very thorough … reported every detail. And Peter had certainly done his homework. Anyway, I eventually caught him out, then I took a written confession statement from him, emailed it to Leeds and put him in the reception cell with a cup of tea.’

  Angel shook his head. ‘All very time-consuming to achieve nowt. Leeds CID had better come back soon. The super won’t want to be giving him hospitality a moment longer than necessary.’

  Crisp said, ‘Democracy at work, sir.’

  Angel sighed and slowly rubbed his chin. ‘Now, lad, I’ve got a job for you.’ He quickly briefed Crisp about the robbery of the security van, then said, ‘I want you to find out about the black furniture van that was slung across Almsgate, the one that blocked up the road and brought the FSDS van to a halt. And I want to know everything about it. Absolutely everything. Got it?’

  Crisp nodded pensively. ‘Right, sir,’ he said and went out of the office.

  Angel sat back in the chair for a couple of minutes, his eyes almost closed, his fingers clasped. Then he leaned forward, reached out for the phone and tapped in a number.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said.

  ‘See if you can find a quarry or a demolition contractor or … really anybody who has reported the stealing or loss of any sticks of dynamite in the last few weeks or days.’

  ‘Just locally, sir?’

  ‘No. The whole country,’ he said and replaced the phone. It rang as soon as it hit its cradle. He blinked in surprise and snatched it up. ‘Angel.’

  It was Superintendent Harker, breathing heavily. ‘It’s a triple nine, lad,’ he said. ‘A clerk at the railway ticket office at the station. Shot in the chest by a man with a handgun.’

  Angel looked up and sucked in air.

  ‘Ambulance on its way,’ Harker said. ‘There is a witness. A woman. A Zoe Costello. She’s waiting down there for you.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said and slammed dow
n the phone.

  He didn’t like shooting any time. In broad daylight in the town centre it was damned audacious – like Chicago in the twenties. But it was great to have a witness.

  He dashed out into the green corridor, leaned through the open doorway of the CID room and caught Ahmed’s eye.

  ‘Come with me, lad.’

  Ahmed turned away from his computer and grabbed his hat. He was delighted to be escaping the office; made a change from routine filing, dealing with ad hoc inquiries and being general dogsbody. In addition, it made him feel important to be with Angel. He wasn’t quite so pleased when he realized it was because almost everybody else on the team was taken up with inquiries to do with the security van raid.

  As Angel raced the BMW through the streets with Ahmed sitting next to him hanging on to the seatbelt and his helmet, he repeated the message he’d had from the superintendent, and told Ahmed to contact DI Asquith on his mobile. ‘Give him my compliments, lad. Tell him we have a possible murder situation at the railway station and ask him for immediate uniformed assistance there. Then phone Don Taylor, tell him the same and that his services are also urgently required, then phone DC Scrivens and tell him I want him there smartly, also. Right?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  They had arrived. Angel followed an ambulance into the small yard. Its red brake lights suddenly shone. It stopped on double yellow lines under the ‘Bromersley Station’ sign. Angel stopped three yards behind it and ran after the two paramedics who dashed into the small covered entrance way, pushing their way through a crowd of fifteen or so people, and past two windows to the ticket-office door.