Murder in Bare Feet Read online

  Angel took the sheet of paper. On it was printed a photograph. It was in colour and it showed the head and shoulders close-up of two men, taken from a low angle. Behind them was a clock hanging high up on a wall that showed the time to be 4.30 exactly, and a banner underneath it that read: ‘Congratulations to Potts for 20 years security’.

  ‘That was taken at The Feathers Hotel last Sunday afternoon.’

  Angel recognized the hotel ballroom. He had been in there many a time. The Police Federation held local meetings there, and he’d been there as a wedding guest not long since. His eyebrows shot up when he saw that the two men, standing side by side, raising champagne glasses, were Emlyn Jones and Detective Superintendent Harker.

  Angel stared at the photograph and noted thankfully that Harker was in civvies, and not in uniform, even though it looked like he was wearing an ill fitting dark suit that he had seen him wear sometimes in the office that had been his grandfather’s.

  ‘I took that photograph,’ Jones said, sticking his chin out. ‘Got the original on my computer.’ He put his finger on the Superintendent and said, ‘And he’s one of yours.’ He forced a smile and a snigger. ‘I spoke to him. He spoke back to me. Not very bright for a copper, though.’

  Angel didn’t comment. He peered closely at the photograph again. It was printed on regular computer photocopier paper and certainly seemed to be the genuine article.

  ‘Take it. It’s yours,’ Jones said and ran his hand over his shiny black hair. ‘I can give you as many copies of it as you like. Anything else you want to know, Inspector?’ he said cockily.

  It certainly seemed to be conclusive. It needed checking out with the Superintendent, of course. If it was as genuine as it seemed, neither Emlyn Jones nor his son, Stanley, could have murdered Charles Pleasant.

  Holding the paper, Angel stood up. ‘That’s fine for now,’ he said. ‘Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.’

  Jones smiled at him with his mouth but not with his steely black eyes. He crossed the little room, grabbed hold of the knob and pulled the door open widely.

  Angel nodded, slowly crossed over to the doorway and turned.

  ‘Anything else?’ Jones snarled.

  ‘No,’ Angel said. ‘Thank you.’ As he spoke, he noticed out of his eye corner that the parsnip that had been on top of the coat on the piano was no longer there. It had mysteriously disappeared. His eyebrows shot up uncontrollably.

  It was seven o’clock when Angel arrived home.

  Mary Angel was not in her usual pleasant frame of mind.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to start coming home at this ridiculous time on a regular basis again,’ she said, whilst banging pans, rattling pots and jangling cutlery as if to emphasize her mood. ‘Sit down. I couldn’t possibly keep your dinner from shrivelling up.’

  Angel poured himself a cold German beer straight from the fridge. Then he pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Couldn’t be helped, love.’

  ‘That’s what you always say.’

  She dropped something dark brown and solid on to a plate.

  He thought it clattered on to it like a pair of handcuffs.

  ‘If you can’t eat it, I suppose I can do you some eggs.’

  He looked at it quizzically. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  She turned back to the oven top and took off a pan lid. She looked inside. ‘You wouldn’t think so to look at them, but these were boiled potatoes.’ She slapped the mush on to his plate. Then returned to the oven top for another pan. She slapped something out of that pan on to his plate.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Parsnips.’

  He smiled. ‘Parsnips!’ He shook his head and said, ‘I knew it would be.’

  ‘What do you mean? I thought you liked parsnips?’

  ‘I do. I do.’

  ‘Gravy?’

  ‘Ta, love.’

  He dug into the meal. The vegetables and gravy were tolerably edible, but the handcuffs were too tough to cut through.

  She sat at the table with him sipping a glass of tonic water.

  He told her about seeing the bunch of parsnips in Emlyn Jones’s office, and the single one in his son Stanley’s house, and how in both instances the men had promptly hidden them away from him as if, in some way, they were an illegal substance.

  ‘Maybe they were a bit self-conscious, and thought that it was wrong to have vegetables anywhere but in the kitchen.’

  He wrinkled his nose. He didn’t think that was the explanation at all.

  ‘Is there anything else useful you can do with a parsnip besides eating it?’ he said.

  ‘There’s parsnip wine.’

  ‘Ah yes. Potent too, I believe,’ he said. But that wasn’t the explanation either. He knew human nature. There was something more significant that that.

  ‘Parsnips are not involved in the preparation of medicines are they?’

  ‘I don’t imagine so.’

  ‘Or poisons? They don’t represent a particular symbol of anything to gypsies or witches or the occult? There are lots of young lasses running round with crystals and amethysts and candles, making all sorts of smells and weird claims. There’s apple bobbing—’

  Mary looked at him and smiled. ‘Michael. A parsnip is simply a vegetable. That’s all.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘I seem to remember something about cutting up carrots and boiling them in water for a long time … six hours, I think,’ she said.

  Angel pulled a face.

  ‘You were supposed to drink it … as a protection against the plague.’

  ‘Yes, but that was carrots and four or five hundred years ago,’ he said.

  ‘Well I have no other suggestions, Michael. As I said, a parsnip is simply a vegetable. That’s all.’

  He nodded but he wasn’t convinced. ‘The Joneses were up to something, Mary. They may have murdered Pleasant, or they may not. Whatever they were up to somehow, somewhere, in some way, it involved parsnips, or why would they attempt to hide them from me?’

  Mary Angel was bored with the subject. She picked up the magazine with the quiz in it.

  ‘There’s one I can’t do, Michael. You might know it.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s the collective word for a gathering of crows or ravens?

  He knew this from way back. ‘A murder,’ he said.

  Her face brightened.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said, digging her ballpoint into the magazine.

  ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘It’s a quiz in this magazine. The first prize is £50,000.’

  He sniffed. ‘It would pay the gas bill, anyway.’

  ‘And get me a new coat.’

  ‘And pay the council tax.’

  ‘Dream on.’

  Angel arrived at the station the following morning at 8.28 a.m. and went straight up to Superintendent Harker’s office, handed him the computer-printed photograph and asked for confirmation that it was indeed a true picture of him standing next to Emlyn Jones.

  Harker stared at the picture for a full half minute, while, at the same time sticking a white menthol inhaler up his nostril and sniffing. At length he said: ‘Yes. That’s Emlyn Jones and that’s me, but I hardly exchanged six words with the man throughout the entire afternoon. That photograph must have been taken by young Jones without my noticing. He was flying around the room all the time with a camera, I remember.’

  Angel sniffed.

  ‘The Chief Constable thought that someone should accept the invitation from Councillor Potts and attend as an observer,’ Harker continued. ‘It’s as well to know what’s going on in the town. I didn’t attend Potts’s function to be seen to approve or support his business or his friends in any way, you know. I really have no idea how effective Potts’s company is. All I know is that I see his annoying little advertising signs of a man in a quasi-police uniform with a German Shepherd dog next to him, fastened to fences
and hammered on to doors and gates all over the place.’

  ‘As evidence, it really is quite significant, sir,’ Angel said. ‘Charles Pleasant’s partner, Jazmin, is the mother of Stanley and was once the wife of Emlyn Jones.’

  ‘Mmm. I see the clock shows 1630 hours. The anonymous phone call was timed in at 1625 hours, so the actual moment of death was obviously even earlier than that.’

  ‘Mac was very quickly on the scene. Blood from some of the wounds was not congealed. He agrees the time was around or even a little before 1620.’

  ‘That’s near enough. There’s no question of Jones, or his son, being able to be at the scrapyard on Sebastopol Terrace at 1620 hours and then back at The Feathers at 1630.’

  ‘No, sir. But I will check up on the accuracy of that ballroom clock.’

  Harker’s head came up. ‘Why?’

  ‘Jones had a powerful motive. I’d like to be absolutely certain. If the clock has been interfered with, it would invalidate Jones’s photograph as an alibi, wouldn’t it?’

  Harker looked up at Angel and blinked. ‘Yes, of course.’

  CHAPTER 9

  * * *

  There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed.

  ‘Good morning, sir. I have been to the Highway Cleansing Department on Victoria Street and spoken to the manager. He said that none of the twenty-four cleaners had come across any black leather shoes in the last few days. They come across all sorts of things in their job, including discarded trainers and cheap shoes, usually odd ones, but none of them had come across any black leather shoes as described. However, they said they’d keep looking.’

  Angel grunted and wrinkled his nose. It had been a long shot anyway. ‘Right.’ He couldn’t hide his disappointment.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Ahmed said and turned to go.

  ‘Hang on a minute. There’s something else.’

  Ahmed turned back.

  ‘I want you to go to The Feathers Hotel. Ask to speak to the manager, and ask him if you may go into the ballroom. When you get there, look at the clock high up on the wall facing the door. There’s only one. See if it tells the right time. All right?’

  Ahmed frowned.

  Angel said, ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And before you go, find Ron Gawber and Trevor Crisp and send them in.’

  Ahmed closed the door.

  A few moments later Gawber arrived.

  ‘Ah, Ron. It’s time we got down to finding a motive for this murder. Obviously Emlyn Jones is the front-runner, but the super confirms that Jones and his son were at the Potts do at that time. It’s looking certain it couldn’t be either of them.’

  ‘It must be somebody Pleasant crossed in his business dealings, sir. He wasn’t robbed.’

  ‘True. He’d eight thousand quid on him. But that jade head is still missing.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to show that he ever had the thing, is there, sir?’

  ‘No, there isn’t. There’s only that Gold character who said that he had. If it had been there, I wish I knew where it was now.’

  ‘SOCO are going through the Pleasant house now, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. I know if it’s there, they’ll turn it up. You’d better check on the phones at Pleasant’s scrapyard and at his house on Creesforth Road. I want to know everybody he phoned over the last two weeks, particularly on that last day of his life, Sunday.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Gawber rushed out.

  Angel watched the door close then wiped a hand over his mouth. He really began to think that the older he got the more difficult solving cases had become. He really would like to find the motive for Pleasant’s murder. After Bridie had been found butchered and dumped in an oil drum, her sister Jazmin left Emlyn Jones and moved straight in with Charles Pleasant. That would certainly make Emlyn Jones, if he was a normal man, the natural enemy of Pleasant. He couldn’t reach into Jones’s mind and know what he thought, but that would be most men’s feelings. He nodded and then rubbed his chin. However, the photograph of Jones’s presence in The Feathers with the superintendent apparently showed that he could not possibly have murdered him, and the taker of the photograph, his son, Stanley Jones, was also in the clear. So he must look elsewhere. A thought occurred to him. He reached out for his address book on the table behind him, looked up a number, grabbed up the handset and tapped a number on the telephone pad. He was soon through to the assistant governor of Wakefield Prison.

  ‘The prisoner you have, Larry Longley, Governor, I would like to visit him. He might be able to help me with some inquiries I am making in connection with another case.’

  ‘I’m afraid he won’t be any use to you at the moment, Inspector. He is very ill. He is being treated for clinical depression. He won’t talk to anybody. Hasn’t spoken for the last three months or more. He won’t speak to the prison psychiatrist, and in response to simple domestic questions from the officers about his food or clothes he only grunts.’

  Angel sighed. He could see another door closing on him.

  ‘In addition,’ the assistant governor said, ‘I don’t think the doctor would permit questions to do with criminal activity. Longley has always maintained his innocence, you know.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Don’t all prisoners do that?’

  ‘Yes, but Longley has declared it, shall we say, with more conviction and persistence than most.’

  ‘He lost both his appeals.’

  ‘I know. I know. You could have a word with the psychiatrist, if you wish. But I am pretty certain you would be wasting your time.’

  Angel’s jaw muscle tightened, then he said, ‘Very well, Governor. Thank you.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t be of more help. He might be approachable in a few months.’

  ‘There is something else you could assist us with, Governor. It would be helpful to have a copy of Larry Longley’s visiting list.’

  Visitors to prisons are limited, carefully vetted and a record kept. Each visitor is required to have a non-transferable pass valid for a specified prisoner on a specified day. Wakefield was particularly exacting in this regard.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can certainly organize that, Inspector. I’ll get my secretary to send it in the course of a post or so.’

  ‘Thank you, Governor. Thank you very much,’ Angel said and he replaced the handset.

  He licked his lips. There was progress … maybe. Sad to learn of the condition of Longley, though. Although the man was a convicted murderer, and sinking into depression, it was tragic to think of him being in a cell twenty-three hours a day for twenty years.

  There was a knock at the door.

  It was DS Crisp. He was the second Detective Sergeant on Angel’s team, a handsome man always turned out in a well-pressed suit and sharp-cut shirt and tie. All the girls liked him and he liked them. Angel frequently spotted him larking about with the prettiest girl in the station, WPC Leisha Baverstock. It happened frequently in the canteen and he had once caught them having more intimate contact momentarily behind the stationery cupboard door in the supplies room.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’ Crisp said chirpily.

  ‘Job for you. There’s a man called Stanley Jones. He’s not on the PNC but his father is … for drunken driving and indecency. Stanley lives at Flat 14, Council Close, Potts New Estate. He apparently lives with … maybe married to … a woman. I don’t have any idea what she looks like or anything else. I want you to find out all you can about her.’

  Crisp smiled. This job was something he relished, and would do well, particularly if the woman in question was a good looker.

  ‘Jones works for his father Emlyn at that The Old Curiosity Shop on Old Monk Street,’ Angel added.

  ‘I know it, sir. All sorts of weird and wonderful old things, they sell.’

  ‘Aye. I don’t know what she does. Anyway, see what you can dig up?’

  Crisp grinned.

  As he went out, DS Matthew Elliott from the Antiques and Fin
e Arts squad based in London came in. They had worked together on many a case and were old friends.

  ‘I hope you haven’t come on a wild goose chase,’ Angel said.

  Elliott sighed. ‘I’ve got to follow every lead however slim, Michael. My boss is under great pressure. That jade head is priceless and seems to have inestimable political significance to the people of Xingtunanistan.’

  ‘You’ll want me to show you where it was thought to have been hidden then?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Elliott said, his eyes shining.

  It suited Angel to go back to the scrapyard at that time. He had not had the opportunity to spend much time at the scene of the crime. Just being there, often standing around quietly where a crime had been committed, helped him to get the feel of the case and there usually seemed to be something to learn. It was difficult to say what it might be, but all the most successful detectives had said the same thing.

  They arrived in the BMW, and Angel pulled it up in the same position as Pleasant had left his Bentley three days earlier. He got out of the car, unlocked the yard gate, opened it by walking with it through 180 degrees then returned to the car door. All the while, he had been glancing across at the site of the road works where the murderer had been waiting. Then something dawned on him. Something that made him stop in his tracks. He asked himself why would the murderer wait there, hiding behind the concrete mixer, while Pleasant, the victim pulled up in the Bentley, got out of the car, unlocked the padlock on the yard gate, walked the gate all the way back, returned to the car, got inside it and then closed the car door before opening fire on him? Pleasant would have made a much easier target when he was actually unlocking the padlock on the gate, pushing the gate open, and when he was returning to the car, than ever he made when he was actually in the driving seat with the door closed. Why would the murderer want to make a smaller target for himself? Had it anything at all to do with him being without shoes? Couldn’t see that it had. Couldn’t understand why he was without shoes in the first place. This case was full of incongruities. He wondered about the gun. He must have another look at those shell cases. He needed to confirm that they came out of a conventional handgun and not some unusual weapon.