Angel and the Actress Read online

  Angel frowned and looked at him closely.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Jones, the caterers, are still here feeding the guests and they should be paid,’ Trott said. ‘And they need to know how much longer they are required to be here. After all, they were only contracted to supply and serve four meals, three yesterday and one today. They’ve already been here two nights. All the guests are still here and have to be catered for.’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed. ‘Two nights?’ he said.

  ‘They came Saturday to check out the facilities, the electric sockets for their cooking equipment and hotplates and the layout of the rooms and so on. They now need to restock with victuals. They cannot manage any longer without going to the market and they also need some money to be able to pay for what is needed. The question is, how much longer are they to be here, and who is going to pay them? In addition, the house being full of guests, I am now also urgently in need of the services of a housekeeper and a chambermaid. I cannot on my own maintain the standard of cleanliness and service that Miss Minter would have expected from me.’

  ‘Well, Mr Trott, it really has nothing to do with me. If the guests were not eating and sleeping here, they would be eating and sleeping somewhere. It just happens that they were away from home when this murder occurred. I think this matter should be worked out between Miss Bell, you, the Joneses and the guests. Perhaps each guest would like to pay an appropriate sum for their keep, or maybe Miss Bell has access to some petty cash of Miss Minter’s. I really have no other suggestions to make.’

  The corners of Trott’s mouth turned downward. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said without conviction. ‘Could you say how much longer it will be necessary for the guests to remain here?’

  Angel wrinkled his forehead, then sighed and rubbed his chin. ‘I believe that I have now seen everybody. I am only waiting for the gunshot residue results from Wetherby lab, which could be here sometime tomorrow.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ he said. ‘That does mean we will have to manage another two meals and another night at least. I shall immediately convene a meeting between the parties you suggest and see what can best be done. Thank you, sir.’

  He turned towards the door.

  Angel said, ‘Mr Trott?’

  He turned back.

  Angel said, ‘I seem to have overlooked a question I should have asked you earlier.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘When Miss Minter was on the piano addressing the guests, just before she was shot, was the front door locked?’

  ‘I have to confess, sir, that I don’t actually know. It should have been, but as I did not check it myself I don’t expect that it was.’

  ‘I’ll take it that it was not locked, then.’

  Trott nodded, looking forlorn.

  Angel said, ‘In the drawing room, you were standing quite close to the piano, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was, sir.’

  ‘So you had a similar view of the guests to that that Miss Minter had?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Well, yes, sir.’

  ‘Was there a stranger, a person who should not have been there or anybody you didn’t know among the guests listening to her?’

  ‘I didn’t see anybody, sir, but you will understand my eyes were more on Miss Minter than the guests. I was concerned that she did not fall. The piano was highly polished and she was standing on the top in very slippery silk stockings.’

  Angel sighed. ‘Right, thank you, Mr Trott.’

  The butler went out and closed the door.

  Angel pulled a face. None of Trott’s answers had actually been helpful. He looked at his watch. It was 5.15 p.m. He had had enough. It was time he was going home.

  Angel arrived home at 5.35 p.m. He locked the BMW in the garage, walked quickly along the path to the back door and let himself in. The door opened straight into the kitchen. It was warm and a pleasant smell of cooking pervaded the kitchen. The lids of two pans on the gas oven were rattling, giving out a lot of steam. He peered down at the rings, turned them down a little, then noticed a light showing through the glass door of the oven. He could see a casserole dish inside. He smiled, then pursed his lips and began to blow a tune through his teeth. It was vaguely like ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story. He reached into the fridge for a can of German beer, found a tumbler in the cupboard and poured some out. He took a sip, nodded approvingly, then ambled into the hall. He looked in the sitting room. There was nobody in there. He went to the bottom of the steps and called out.

  ‘Mary. Mary.’

  ‘Coming, love,’ she called.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ he said.

  Mary came to the top of the stairs. ‘You’re early,’ she said as she ran down.

  She was smiling.

  He looked at her and thought she looked as alluring and desirable as the day they were married.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Am I?’ he said.

  They kissed. It was just a peck.

  ‘Any post?’ he said.

  ‘On the sideboard,’ she said as she made for the kitchen. ‘It’s always on the sideboard.’

  Angel screwed up his face. He went into the sitting room. On the sideboard he saw a colourful envelope. He reached out for it. ‘I know it’s always on the sideboard,’ he said, ‘except when it’s in your coat pocket, between the pages of your library book, behind the clock, on the kitchen table or in your handbag.’

  ‘Oh. I’ve had a letter from Miriam,’ she said.

  Angel ambled into the kitchen and tore into the colourful envelope he had picked up. ‘Where is it? What does she want this time?’

  ‘I’ve got it. I want to talk to you about it.’

  Angel pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes. ‘Oh,’ he groaned. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  Mary hesitated. She breathed in through her nose loudly to show her annoyance, then snappily she said, ‘There’s nothing the matter with her. You haven’t read the letter and you are already making judgements.’

  He sighed, turned away and took the letter out of the envelope he had just torn open. He quickly read it, sighed, then read it again. Then, holding it up to her, he said, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Excuse me, love,’ Mary said. ‘Tea will be ready in a couple of minutes. Tell me about that later, do you mind? Would you like to set the table?’

  He blinked. ‘Eh? Oh yes. All right.’

  He stuffed the letter back in its envelope and put it on the table. He opened a drawer in the kitchen table and took out some cork mats with hunting scenes on them, and the cutlery, and set them out. He stood up and took the cruet and the side plates from the cupboard, then put them also in position on the table.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Oh, it’s lamb shanks. You might want the mint sauce.’

  He turned back to the cupboard and found the mint sauce, then he rummaged around in the table drawer for a suitable spoon and put it by the jar.

  Mary began serving out.

  Angel stood up, took off his suit coat, went into the hall and hung it on the newel post. Then he returned to the kitchen rolling up his shirtsleeves. He ran the tap, found some soap and washed his hands enthusiastically.

  Mary arrived at the sink with a pan of boiling cabbage and a colander. She looked at him and breathed in through her nose noisily. ‘You could have done that job in the bathroom,’ she said.

  ‘I only want to wash my hands,’ he said.

  Angel reached out for the tea towel. Mary snatched it off him and pushed a hand towel at him.

  ‘You could have done it earlier,’ she said, pushing steaming potatoes onto the plates with a fork. ‘Now sit down, out of the way,’ she said.

  Angel thoroughly enjoyed the lamb and afterwards the fresh raspberries and ice cream. He moved into the sitting room carrying two cups of coffee. He settled down in his favourite chair and reached out for the Radio Times. As he scanned the programme pages, he could hear Mary in the kitchen, banging pots and pans and sla
mming cupboard doors.

  He couldn’t find anything on the television he wanted to watch. He tossed the magazine to one side and called out, ‘Your coffee’s getting cold.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said.

  He reached into his pocket, took out the letter, reread it and clenched his teeth. ‘Huh!’ he grunted.

  Mary arrived. She quickly sat down in the other easy chair and lifted her feet onto the pouffe, then reached out to the library table and picked up the coffee cup and saucer. She took a sip, swallowed, smiled and said, ‘Ah.’

  She looked at the television screen, turned to Angel and said, ‘Nothing on?’

  ‘No.’ He waved the letter he had been looking at. ‘I want to talk to you about this.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Let me show you Miriam’s letter, first.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  She leaned forward, twisted round and took a blue handwritten envelope from behind a cushion.

  Angel smiled. That was another place that wasn’t the sideboard. He held his hand out.

  Mary saw it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me read it to you.’

  ‘I can read it myself,’ he said. ‘I’ve been able to read for years!’

  ‘No. No. No.’ She pulled out the single sheet of notepaper and began to read:

  ‘Darlings,

  I do hope you are both OK and that that genius of a husband of yours isn’t working too hard.

  Both Katy and Will are doing well at school and often ask after you. The thing is, you remember saying that you’d like to come down for a few days? I said you are always welcome here, but I would especially like you to come down for a few days (or as long as you like) this week, if you can possibly manage it. You see, I have the chance of having my boobs done at forty per cent off early next Friday morning, the 7th. The surgeon has an open morning then, and Sarah, a girl I know who works there, told me about it. So I went to see him. The preliminary consultation was free, and he’s ever so nice. He’s measured me up and so on and the clinic is very up to date and sterilized and all that. I know several friends who have been there. And they look fantastic! But I need somebody to see that Katy and Will are safely taken to school and brought back and fed while I am sore. He said that would only last two or three days at most.

  Anyway, let me know if you can manage it. If you can that would be absolutely marvellous. It will save me a fortune.

  Love to you, my lovely sister, and bro-in-law – what would I do without you both?

  Miriam. XXX

  PS. Katy and Will can’t wait to see you.’

  Mary put her hand with the letter in it down on her lap and said, ‘What can I do?’

  Angel wasn’t pleased. He ran his hand through his hair. Then moistened his lips. ‘It’s a long way up to Edinburgh, but you’ll have to go, I suppose,’ he said.

  Mary nodded. ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose.

  She said, ‘You could be more gracious about it.’

  ‘Gracious?’ he said. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  ‘Is it all right, then? Will you able to manage? If I thought for one moment you wouldn’t be able to manage, I wouldn’t go.’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ he said. ‘Of course, I’ll manage. I’ve managed before. But your sister’s a pain in the backside. Ever since she kicked that poor bloke out, she’s—’

  ‘What poor bloke? You mean Angus?’

  ‘No. That painter-and-decorator chap.’

  ‘He was an architect. You mean François?’

  ‘No, her husband. The first one. Rupert, or whatever his name was.’

  ‘You mean Robert? That was her first husband. Rupert McGee was her solicitor at the time. He was dreadful. They both were.’

  ‘He was all right. If he hadn’t caught her messing about with that painter and decorator, they could have still been together.’

  ‘He was an architect. Oh, it’s a long story. There’s a lot more to it than that. He was dreadful. The things he said to her.’

  ‘She wasn’t exactly incapable of dishing out a tongue-lashing, was she?!’

  Mary sniffed, then said, ‘Trust you to be pulling her to pieces.’

  There was a pause in the exchange while Angel finished off his coffee and put the cup and saucer on the library table.

  ‘Well, I hope that when she’s parading her new equipment up and down Princes Street, she pulls a bloke as loopy as she is, who will put up with her crackpot schemes and idiotic ideas.’

  Mary’s face went scarlet. She whipped her feet off the pouffe and stood up. She leaned over and snatched up Angel’s cup and said, ‘I hope you don’t want any more coffee, because there isn’t any.’

  Then she stormed off into the kitchen.

  Angel’s watched her go, his mouth wide open and his forehead creased.

  Then he heard the running of water and more banging of pots and pans.

  He pulled the envelope containing the letter that had been addressed to him out of his pocket. He looked down at it, clenched his teeth while rubbing the back of his neck for a few seconds, then stuffed it back in his pocket.

  FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, Tuesday, 4 November 2014, three miles or so from Bromersley, on a country lane leading to the A1, concealed behind a hawthorn hedge was a Volkswagen Jetta. The car had had all its windows removed.

  The driver was wearing a black balaclava underneath a fibreglass helmet, which was securely fastened under his chin, a pair of heavy-duty gloves and thick plastic knee, ankle, elbow and wrist supports over a dark suit. He looked at his watch. It was 8.38 a.m. He started the engine and pressed down the accelerator several times. The car responded with lionlike roars. The vehicle had been checked out most carefully the night before.

  The mobile phone on the shelf in front of him rang out. He snatched it up.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  ‘Just going under the railway arches,’ a voice said. ‘Right behind him. Everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the driver said. ‘Should be visible to you in about sixty seconds.’

  The phone went dead.

  The driver threw down the phone, shuffled in his seat, revved the car engine again and gazed down the road. He snatched up a pair of binoculars, lifted up his eyeshield and peered through them. There was nothing. The road was empty. Then he looked again. He could now see something on the narrow, twisting road. A big blue and white van. It had writing on the side. That was the van! A good two hundred yards behind it he saw the blue Ford Mondeo. His heart banged away like a drum. He breathed faster.

  He kept his eye on the van. It was travelling fast. Too fast, he thought.

  The security van driver had to stop at a halt sign to turn left into the main road north to the A1. The Volkswagen Jetta was waiting up a dirt-track lane, behind a hawthorn hedge, fifty yards away. The driver revved the car one more time, then released the handbrake, let in the clutch and began travelling down the lane. He had to match his speed so that they both arrived at the halt sign together, hopefully with his wheels travelling faster than fifty miles per hour.

  He still thought the van was travelling too fast. He pressed the car accelerator down further. The engine responded. The speedometer showed sixty miles per hour. He thought he was on target. The van showed its side view to him. ‘Slater Security,’ it read. It was slowing down. That was good. His speed was sixty-five miles per hour. He was two seconds away. He braced himself.

  There was an unholy bang followed by the tearing and crunching of metal as the two vehicles became a mass of steaming and hissing scrap in the centre of the road.

  A crowd of starlings flew noisily overhead, protesting at the disturbance.

  There was a smell of scorched rubber. Liquids trickled onto the road, searching their way to the gutter.

  Seconds later, the Ford Mondeo rolled in gently behind the pile up and stopped. Three men in balaclavas leaped out of the car, wielding pickaxes and
heavy hammers. They raced towards the back doors of the van and began to dismantle them with their weapons.

  Meanwhile, the big driver of the Volkswagen managed to kick open the car’s door, which had compacted into the door jamb. He disentangled himself from the wreckage, glanced at the point of impact of the two vehicles, grinned, then pulled out a Beretta handgun from his pocket as he ran round to the offside of the security van to take the driver and his mate in hand. They were still in their seats, shaking their heads and blinking. He saw a red button on the dashboard flashing.

  ‘Oh, hell!’ the driver of the Volkswagen said.

  That was the button to be pressed by the driver in an emergency. It transmitted by radio a pre-recorded distress message with an added map reference to the security firm’s depot. The car driver had hoped to have prevented the call being sent. He quickly looked round for the aerial. He saw two. He reached out and hammered each of them savagely at the base with the butt of the handgun, then grabbed them and yanked them off the vehicle, hoping that he had been able to stop the signal to the security company in time.

  The van driver and his mate looked round and saw him. He waved the gun at them. They saw it and put up their hands.

  ‘Take your helmets off, leave them there and get out,’ he said.

  They slowly obeyed.

  He pointed the gun at a space on the pavement and said, ‘Lie down there on your bellies, close your eyes, don’t move and you won’t get hurt. I’ll be watching you.’

  He then looked towards the back of the van to see what was happening. Suddenly, the three men in balaclavas, jeans and T-shirts jumped out of the van. One of them was trailing a flex of wire and a battery.

  ‘Take cover,’ he called.

  The men ran back about fifteen yards, then squatted on the road with their backs to the van.

  The big man with the gun ran with them.

  The man trailing the wire called out, ‘Heads down. Three. Two. One. Blast!’

  There was a loud explosion in the back of the van, creating a small cloud of white smoke.