The Money Tree Murders Read online

  ‘Well past,’ one of the men said. ‘She’s very cold.’

  ‘Right. Leave her there then. She can go in the mortuary van, after SOCO have seen her.’

  ‘Righto,’ the spokesman said, and they set about packing up their gear.

  Angel went over to the wrecked car, which was impacted into the tree. The front of it had concertinaed into about three-quarters its length, and the steering wheel was only about ten inches from the driver’s seat. Most of the windows were shattered and there was blood on the upholstery and the seat belt.

  There was a handbag on the driver’s seat. The contents were strewn about the navy blue upholstery. He looked for a wallet or purse. There was neither, nor were there any keys. He looked at the car’s ignition. The car key was in position, and there were several other keys hanging down on the ring.

  He rubbed his chin then swiftly turned to Flora Carter and said, ‘Get SOCO out here smartly, Flora. And we’d better get our transport department to look at this car urgently. Tell Martin Edwards I want him here in ten minutes, and tell him I don’t want any faffing about.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said. She stabbed her finger on the pad of her mobile and then put it to her ear. She looked at Angel and said, ‘Something the matter, sir?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Aye. She’s been robbed,’ he said.

  Flora Carter looked shocked. ‘Huh?’ she said.

  Angel quickly added, ‘Take the car reg and find out the name and address of the owner. I’ll just have a look round …’

  He wandered off thoughtfully, across a small paddock of grass spotted with several trees and brambles. He saw something shining: it was a small empty whisky bottle. He managed to poke it towards his feet with a twig. The screw cap was missing. He bent down, stuck the end of the twig into the top and lifted it up to look at it. The bottle wasn’t dirty and it didn’t look as if it had been there long. He carried it like this, carefully clambering over the damaged wall to his car. He opened the boot, found an evidence bag large enough, then carefully slid the bottle in and sealed it.

  Meanwhile the ambulance men had loaded their gear and were on their way back up Dog’s Leg Hill.

  DS Carter came up to him. ‘I spoke to Don Taylor, sir. SOCO on their way. And Martin Edwards said he’d be here in ten minutes. He said should he bring a low loader. I said yes.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Good.’

  ‘The owner of the car is a Jeni Lowe of The Cottage, Frog Lane. That’s further along Long Lane towards the moors, about a mile. Frog Lane is on the map but it must be very narrow. Do you want me to go?’

  He wrinkled his nose. He didn’t fancy breaking the news to her family or whoever she lived with, but he believed it was part of his job. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘We could do with some uniformed to attend here, sir.’

  ‘Aye. Ring the control room. We shall need them until the car has been recovered and SOCO has completed a full search of the field.’

  TWO

  Frog Lane, Bromersley, South Yorkshire.

  Monday 11 November 2013, 10.00 a.m.

  Angel pointed the bonnet of the BMW along Long Lane, the narrow bottom road away from town. He passed a small single-storey stone-built house on the corner on his left. Unusually, he saw smoke issuing out of the chimney. He turned on to a narrower road, which was Frog Lane. A few hundred metres down there was a small house on the left that had the sign ‘The Cottage’ fastened to the front gate. It had a small front garden and double gates to a very short drive, which led to a wooden garage erected at the side of the house. He looked up at the windows. They seemed to be intact; that was a good sign. He went up the little path to the front door and banged the knocker several times. There was no reply. He banged the knocker again. He stood back from the door and sighed, then went round to the back of the house. He was not surprised to see a downstairs window hanging open. The glass in the window had been smashed.

  He peered through the window into a small kitchen. Cupboard doors were wide open. The drawer in the sink unit was pulled out. Tins and packets of groceries, pots and cutlery were strewn around. Some packets had been opened and the contents spilled on the worktops and floor.

  Angel’s lips tightened back against his teeth. Sadly, he had seen houses of murdered people practically pulled to pieces before, having been rigorously searched to remove any reference or clue that might identify the murderer. It was wicked, evil and monstrous, but it happened.

  Angel reached into his pocket for his mobile.

  Ten minutes later, a police car dropped off a uniformed constable at The Cottage.

  Angel was waiting for him at the kitchen window. He pointed to it and said, ‘Somebody has gained access there, lad. There’s a possibility that the intruder is still inside, so keep your eye on it. SOCO will be down later to go over the place. All right?’

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said.

  Angel returned to the BMW. It was warmer in the car out of the wind. He took out his mobile to speak to Flora Carter.

  ‘Flora,’ he said. ‘I’m still here at The Cottage. It has been broken into. Tell Don Taylor that when he has finished there I want him and his team to check over this place.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’ve rung. DS Martin Edwards wants a word. He’s here.’

  Angel blinked. ‘Put him on, Flora.’

  Edwards took over the phone and said, ‘I thought you’d want to know, sir, that there is brake fluid all over the place underneath this car. On closer examination I found that one of the car’s brake cables has been severed with a serrated blade.’

  ‘Do you mean a hacksaw?’

  ‘Probably a hacksaw, sir. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be accidental, it has to be deliberate.’

  Angel blew out a yard of air, then heavily said, ‘Right, Martin. Thank you for that. Put me back to Flora.’

  ‘I’m here, sir,’ she said. ‘I heard what Martin said.’

  ‘Well, you’ll know the significance of that then, Flora. I’m going to call on the other house down here so I’ll be a little while yet.’

  Angel reflected for a moment that he was now definitely investigating a case of murder, then he shoved his mobile phone determinedly into his pocket, sighed, started the car, and headed for the house on Long Lane.

  As he pulled up outside the front of the house, he noticed a sign screwed to the grey stone wall: ‘The Bailiff’s House.’ Beneath the sign, against the wall, was a wooden packing case. The case was set on what looked like old pram wheels, and it had a piece of rope fastened to it in two places to enable it to be towed around like a box cart.

  He made his way up to the front door and banged on the knocker. While he was waiting, he peered inside the box cart. He could see small pieces of coal, coal dust and fragments of dead twigs. Nobody answered the door. He was about to bang again when a grey-haired man peered round the corner of the house.

  ‘What do you want, old chap?’ the man said.

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. An elderly man with a military moustache was shuffling along in a pair of woolly slippers. He had an accent that seemed very much out of place in the backwoods of a South Yorkshire village.

  Angel pulled out his ID and said, ‘I’m Detective Inspector Angel, Bromersley police. Can I have a word with you, sir?’

  ‘Of course. Of course. Come on in. Put that away, old chap. I can’t see the damned thing anyway. I haven’t got my glasses. Follow me. We’ll go in the back door, if you don’t mind. Don’t know where the key to that front door is anyway. Lost it ages ago.’

  Angel followed him along the path at the side of the little house to the back door.

  ‘Well, well, well. A policeman, are you? We don’t see many bobbies down here. You must be freezing. Come inside. You’ll have a cup of tea or coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Can’t have that, old chap. I make a good cup of tea. I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything stronger. Ran out last night. I’
ve nothing warmer till the damned shop delivers, you know.’

  Angel looked round the cosy, tiny kitchen. He particularly enjoyed the big red glowing fire in the black kitchen range.

  ‘Sit down, old chap. Don’t stand on ceremony. Now what is it all about?’

  ‘Can I have your name, sir?’

  ‘Antony Edward Abercrombie, sir. Used to live in the hall up the road, you know.’

  Angel pursed his lips. ‘What, Abercrombie Hall?’

  ‘That’s the one. Exactly. I was born there. So was my father, my grandfather and even before that, but some chap came along and my father did some deal with him and then suddenly died – my father I mean – and the bums came in and put me out. I’ve lived here ever since. I have to pay rent for this little hen coop to the Abercrombie estate. I thought I was the Abercrombie estate, but in the eyes of the law, I’m not. Different entity altogether. But look here, old chap. You didn’t come here to listen to me rabbiting on. What did you want?’

  Angel wanted to get on. ‘Last night, sir, did you see or hear anything unusual happening round here?’

  ‘No. I sleep like a log. Wouldn’t hear Niagara Falls, old chap. No. Like a log. Why?’

  ‘A young woman who lives near here crashed her car through a wall and died.’

  Abercrombie’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really? Dashed awful, I say. Damned dashed awful. Oh dear. Must have been at the bottom of Dog’s Leg Hill. Hellish hill, that.’

  ‘You know nothing?’

  ‘No. Like a log, you know. Who was she? Do I know her?’

  ‘Jeni Lowe.’

  Abercrombie looked down at his feet in thought. He shook his head and said, ‘Jeni Lowe. Not unless it’s that filly from The Cottage?.’

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘No, old chap. Seen her pass by here in a little runabout. Wished I was fifty years younger, what? Oh dear. Very sad.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about her at all?’

  ‘No, old chap, sorry. Pretty little thing. Not a clue. Very sad.’

  ‘She was also robbed,’ Angel said.

  Abercrombie’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘Robbed? Oh, I say, that’s damned bad form. Not the ticket at all.’ He shook his head. ‘Disgraceful. It’s the discipline that’s lacking. Both with their parents and then at school. They were heavy with the stick when I was at school, Inspector. Didn’t do me any harm. I hope you catch the blaggards.’

  Angel nodded. ‘I’ll do my best. You can’t help me then, Mr Abercrombie?’

  ‘Sorry, old chap. No. That’s a bad show. Awful.’

  ‘Very well,’ Angel said, getting to his feet.

  ‘Don’t go, Inspector. I wish I had a bottle of something so that I could offer you a drink but I am afraid this house is as dry as a nun’s wimple.’

  ‘No. No, Mr Abercrombie,’ Angel said with a smile. ‘That’s all right. By the way, for the record, where were you between nine o’clock last night and six o’clock this morning?’

  Abercrombie’s jaw dropped. ‘I don’t know, old chap. Here and there, you know. Most of the time I’d be in bed, I suppose. But I’d go here and there.’

  Angel frowned and turned to look at him. ‘Here and there?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, well, at my age and living on my own, I might go from one room to another to see something or fetch something, and when I get there, I’ve forgotten what I’ve gone there for. Then again I might feel like a shower. I spend a lot of time in the bathroom. Or a drink of tea. The kitchen. I go where I damned well please. Why not? Eh?’

  ‘I meant, did you leave the house between those times?’

  Abercrombie screwed up his face in thought, then he smiled. ‘I see what you mean, old chap,’ he said. ‘Ah. It’s the alibi thing, isn’t it? Yes. No. No. After dark I am always in this house with the door locked until daylight in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you very much. And the barrow outside the front … what do you use that for?’

  ‘Transport, old chap. Don’t have a car. The bums took the damned thing from me. Got to have it delivered or I go out and get it. Wheels, you know. Got to have wheels.’

  Angel took his leave and returned to the scene of the car accident. He parked the BMW behind SOCO’s van and four other police cars.

  DS Donald Taylor, in charge of SOCO, saw him arrive and approached him.

  ‘We’ve finished here, sir. We’ve gone over this field thoroughly and there’s nothing fresh that we could reliably use as evidence.’

  ‘I understand that, Don,’ Angel said. ‘Have you found any man-made prints of any kind, or animal prints?’

  ‘No human prints, sir. A few old hoof prints in the frozen mud by the gate, nothing else.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. It was disappointing. ‘I have an empty whisky bottle I found among the brambles earlier. I’ll let you have it. There’ll be prints on that.’

  Taylor’s face brightened. ‘Right, sir. That’s good. We are moving straight on to The Cottage now, sir.’

  Angel nodded. ‘I’ll be along there later.’

  Taylor nodded and went back towards the SOCO van.

  Angel turned away as Flora Carter approached him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, sir,’ she said. ‘Do you think the victim was carrying something valuable in the car? Something that thieves or a thief wanted?’

  Angel frowned. ‘You mean they fixed the brakes, followed the car, waited for it to crash, then stole the item from her?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Sounds possible, Flora, but she’s only a slightly built young woman. Why not simply push her out of the way and take it? Why kill her? There must be half a dozen different ways of taking something valuable away from her without killing her.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t expect that fixing the brakes would result in her death?’

  ‘Maybe not but you wouldn’t fix somebody’s brakes in that way if you wanted them to live a long and happy life, would you?’

  ‘I suppose not, sir.’

  ‘Whoever fixed her brakes, Flora, wanted her dead or at least afraid for her life. Martin Edwards says that it couldn’t be accidental, therefore it was deliberate. That means it was murder.’

  It was three o’clock before Angel returned to his office from Dog’s Leg Hill, resigned to the fact that SOCO had not found any forensic at the scene of crime that would be helpful to the investigation. The SOCO team had moved on to The Cottage, home of the victim, and he was hopeful of finding a fruitful line of inquiry that he could follow while the trail was fresh.

  He slumped down in the swivel chair and picked up his phone. He tapped in a number and sighed heavily as he waited for a response.

  ‘Ah, Mac,’ he said. ‘You have the body of a young woman there who, I understand, died from a motor accident late yesterday or early today. Her name we now know is Jeni Lowe. What can you tell me?’

  ‘Jeni Lowe, is it?’ Mac said. ‘Well, I have started on her, Michael. I knew it wouldn’t be long before you would start chivvying me. She seems to have died from a loss of blood due principally to a fresh wound on her chest but she also has a fresh wound on her head. Both wounds as a result of the accident, I believe.’

  ‘Have you got the time of death, Mac?’

  ‘Yes. I have taken a greater margin on this, Michael, because of two unknown factors: the ambient temperature and the strength of the wind. I believe that it was cold but not freezing, and that there was little or no wind. So I reckon she must have died sometime between nine o’clock last night and three o’clock this morning.’

  ‘Right, Mac, thank you.’

  Angel terminated the call and rang Martin Edwards, the sergeant in charge of the station vehicles.

  ‘Michael Angel here. Is there anything new to tell me about the young woman’s car, Martin?’

  ‘Yes, sir. There are lots of fingerprints inside it, sir. They might prove useful.’

  Angel was looking for anything fresh that might point him in the direction of a
specific line of inquiry.

  ‘Send those prints on to SOCO as soon as you can,’ he said. ‘Are there any prints on the braking system that might help us to support the case that it had been tampered with?’

  ‘No, sir. We won’t be able to get any prints from anywhere around there. The system is heavily covered in the brake oil. However I can remove the damaged pipes which clearly show the marks where the saw had been used.’

  ‘Great stuff. It will show that the car had been interfered with. Did you find anything useful in the boot or in the dashboard pockets?’

  ‘Only what you would expect.’

  Angel was disappointed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Be sure to let me know straightaway if you find anything unusual or different. I need some leads and quick, Martin.’

  He replaced the phone.

  He could have thrown it at the wall but instead he tapped in Don’s number.

  ‘Are you on with that house on Frog Lane, Don?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and it’s a hell of a mess,’ Taylor said. ‘Packets of sugar and flour and stuff like that have been opened and scattered around.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Have you finished your sweep for prints and so on?’

  ‘Almost. Another few minutes.’

  ‘I’ll come straight down.’

  Paul Rose was a little exasperated. ‘Oh, Helen,’ he said, as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink at The Brambles, ‘you don’t want to take any notice of what Cora says. She’s not very bright and will repeat any old tale that’s going round.’

  ‘But it’s history, Paul,’ Helen Rose said, holding out her hands for emphasis. ‘It happened here, in this house.’

  ‘Well, people have to be born, live their lives and die somewhere, haven’t they? You could say every house has history, but I am sure that that history is not re-enacted time after time after time. What would be the point?’

  ‘But this is an old house, Paul. It is full of old history.’

  ‘What’s the age of a house got to do with it?’ he said, reaching out for a towel. ‘I was brought up in an old house but there weren’t any spirits mooching around there. Look, Helen, this house was supposed to have been built in the mid-eighteenth century, that’s 1750, isn’t it? It will have been lived in by many families since then. I remember the solicitor said that the vendor and his family lived here twenty-two years. They must have been happy enough. No spooky stories about drunken sex-mad dentists and cattle slaughterers seem to have bothered them.’