Murder in Bare Feet (17 page)

‘I’m making inquiries about a Miss Penelope Furnace,’ Angel said. ‘Does she work here?’

The man smiled. ‘She certainly does, Inspector. She’s my fiancée.’ Then his face changed. ‘Is she in any trouble?’

Angel’s eyebrows shot up. Now there was a surprise. How many fiancés does she have? He rubbed his chin. ‘Is she here now?’

‘She’s part time. Doesn’t start until 10 o’clock. Is there anything wrong?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, Mr Markway. This is just an inquiry. All I really need to know is whether she was at work here at 4.20 last Sunday afternoon?’

‘She certainly was. That was the day of the heatwave.’

The pupils of Angel’s eyes rose up and then down. His pulse began to race. This may be the breakthrough he had been looking for. There was an uncontrollable fluttery movement and warmth in his chest, accompanied by a regular thumping of his heart. He always had a reaction like this when he sensed that he was near solving a difficult case. He had been like this ever since he had caught his first murderer as a sergeant in 1988. He hoped that he was able to conceal his excitement from Roland Markway. He took in a deep breath and tried to breathe out slowly and evenly.

‘Are you certain?’ he said. ‘At 4.20?’

‘Oh yes. She was here all day from ten o’clock until eight in the evening. Penny worked jolly hard. Everybody was here. Sales were an all-time record. I didn’t get home myself until almost eleven o’clock. Is she in any trouble?’

He hesitated before replying. ‘No. No,’ he said, feigning unhurried serenity and benevolence. It wasn’t true, but he had no choice. He didn’t want Markway alarming Penny, then her tipping Abe Longley off and him legging it away. Villains can be in Rio de Janeiro in ten hours these days if they have it planned ahead.

Angel thanked the young man, left the café and returned to his car.

Things may be moving at last.

He took out his mobile and tapped in Gawber’s number.

‘I’m in Sheffield, Ron. Drop everything. Find Scrivens or a PC, bring a plaster cast of the footprint of the murderer – there’s one in my office – come over here and see if it fits Abe Longley. If it does, arrest him, book him and take him back with you. He’s probably at his flat.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘According to her boss, who strangely happens to be her boyfriend, Penelope Furnace was working all day Sunday the 5th, serving up ice cream at the time she said she was having tea with him and her parents. Now, if the parents change their tune, we could have our murderer.’

Gawber whooped with joy. ‘Great stuff, sir. I’ll leave straightaway. We should be there in twenty-five minutes.’

‘I’m now going straight to Penny Furnace’s parents. See what they have to say. Keep in touch.’

‘Right, sir.’

He closed the phone and drove determinedly up Barnsley Road to the flats. He was there in seven minutes. He parked up the BMW, went up the concrete steps and along, passing Abe Longley’s flat number 112, to the Furnaces’, number 114. He tapped on the door. It was answered by Mrs Furnace. When she saw Angel she smiled but it wasn’t the same smile she had greeted him with four days previously.

‘Mr Angel? Good morning. What brings you here? I’m afraid our Penny has just stepped out to the shop.’

He looked her straight in the eye and said: ‘It’s you and your husband I have come to see. May I come in?’

He noticed the looks that were exchanged between the husband and wife as he stepped into the tiny living room. Mr Furnace was sitting in a chair by the fireplace and the television was blaring away, the big slim screen dominating the room. Mrs Furnace invited him to sit by the table and then turned the television off.

‘Now what is it, lad?’ Mr Furnace said.

‘It’s about the whereabouts of Abe Longley a week last Sunday, the 5th.’

Mr Furnace rubbed his chin vigorously. Then he looked into his wife’s sad eyes and said, ‘It’s no good, love. We’ll have to tell him.’

She nodded.

‘It was for our Penelope, really,’ she said. ‘We wanted what we thought was the very best for her.’

Angel nodded gently and said, ‘Of course. Tell me all about it.’

‘Well, we wanted her to find a nice young man and settle down. We thought she’d found one. We understood Abe’s father had died and left him over a million pounds. He bought us this television set. It’s very, very nice, but we thought it was a bit fishy. He doesn’t look or seem like a millionaire’s son.’

‘His father is alive in Wakefield prison, Mrs Furnace. But he is innocent and shouldn’t be there. I intend to have his case re-tried. But he isn’t a millionaire. Never was. Like his son, he was a butcher.’

‘Oh. A butcher? He said his father was dead,’ she said and she looked at her husband.

Mr Furnace said, ‘He said his father had been a property developer!’

He shook his head. ‘The money he’s throwing around is part of the proceeds of an armed bank robbery.’

The couple stared at each other open mouthed.

‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Furnace said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Well, tell me about that Sunday afternoon, the 5th.’

‘Oh dear. Well, he came here all flushed, late that Sunday night. Said that that afternoon, he’d been to a car boot sale, while our Penelope was at work. He said that while he was looking round for a present for her, his car was clamped, and that it was going to cost him £160 to pay to get unclamped. Anyway, he hadn’t got the £160 on him. He said he was angry. He said that he had a hacksaw in the boot of his car and managed to remove the clamp and throw it over the hedge. Then he said that if the clamping company found out who he was they could fine him for damaging their clamp. On the other hand, as nobody had actually seen him, he could get away with it if he could say that he was with us. So with pressure from our Penelope, we agreed, but we hadn’t realized that … oh dear.’

‘Where is your Penelope now?’

The room door opened and she stepped inside. Her face was red, she was wiping her eyes. ‘I’m here,’ she said. She was wearing the white overall dress with Moo Moo embroidered on the lapels. ‘I had a text on my mobile from Roland. I’ve just rung him. He told me you’d been asking about that Sunday. And I heard it all. Every word.’ She looked at Angel. ‘No. I wasn’t with Abe Longley having tea at 4.30 a week last Sunday. I was down at that rotten ice cream shop, slapping out ice cream sundaes and banana splits till gone ten o’clock.’

Angel nodded.

‘Thank you, Penny,’ he said. He knew she must be smarting at the embarrassment.

Her mother went over to her, but she shrugged her off.

He was sorry that there had to be so much pain in this business, but he was excited that he’d had confirmation that there was no alibi.

Angel suddenly looked up. ‘Does anybody know where Abe Longley will be at the moment?’

‘He’ll still be in bed,’ Penny said as she looked at her watch. ‘Oh! I’ll be late for work, ’she said. Then her face brightened. She was a different woman. She dashed round the room, gave her mother and father each a quick peck on the cheek, and then crossed to Angel. She stretched up on to her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek, laughed and went out, closing the door after her.

Angel smiled and dug into his pocket for his mobile.

H
e arrived home at six o’clock. It had been a busy, tiring day.

Mary was in the sitting room on a lounge chair with her legs up on a matching stool, watching the news on television.

‘I’m in here,’ she called when she heard the back door close.

‘Right, love.’

He came in, leaned over and gave her a kiss.

She smiled at first then her face straightened. ‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘I’ve had a couple in the Fat Duck.’

Her jaw dropped. Then she said, ‘You’ve got somebody for that murder?’

He smiled. ‘What’s for tea?’

‘You’ve got the gang who robbed the Great Northern Bank?’

‘Tell me what’s for tea and I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘It’s salmon and salad. It’s in the fridge. We can have it whenever we like.’

‘Good. Let me get a beer and take my coat off.’

He went into the kitchen and the phone began ringing.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said and came back into the hall.

Mary switched off the television.

He picked up the phone.

It was Ron Gawber.

‘What’s wrong, Ron?’

‘Nothing wrong, sir. Thought you’d like to know that Abe Longley’s shooting his mouth off. He’s hinted that he knows who did the Great Northern Bank Robbery and he wants to do a deal.’

‘No deals, Ron.’

‘He wants to tell us how the robbery was done and the names of the gang.’

‘I know all that. No deals, Ron. Goodbye.’

There was some hesitation before Gawber said, ‘Goodbye, sir.’

He replaced the phone.

Mary heard the clunk. ‘Who was that?’ she called.

‘I’m coming,’ he yelled. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge, a glass out of the cupboard and came into the sitting room. ‘It was Ron Gawber. A prisoner wanted to grass on his mates and tell us how the robbery was done.’

‘You mix with some nice people.’

He poured the beer, took a sip and put it on the coaster.

‘So what are you going to do?’ she added.

‘I know how it was done.’

‘Oh? Are you going to tell me then?’

‘Of course. You remember that overpumped costume play you saw last night and enjoyed so much.’

‘And you didn’t. The only part you saw was the beginning. The hat pins.’

‘Yes. The hat pins. And last week, I told you about the parsnips I saw in both the Jones’ – father and son – houses. Well, I worked out that, as daft as it sounds, a parsnip would be a safe, suitable and cheap holster in which to carry a hatpin around.’

‘Mmm. I suppose. Yes, but what for?’

‘I’m coming to that. A hat pin would be a very suitable tool with which to puncture the plastic ball cock in a lavatory cistern, which would result in the water seeping into it, causing it slowly to sink and stay sunk. Subsequently, the water filling the cistern would then overflow and flood the place out.’

‘The Great Northern Bank?’

‘Precisely. All it left for forensic and the plumber was a pinprick in the ballcock. No wonder they were bewildered. All of this dawned on me when I remembered that I had seen a set up in Jones’s shop without realizing that that’s what he was doing. There were a series of bowls and chamberpots with plastic balls, one in each, some sunk and some floating. He was experimenting with different hat pins, making different diameter holes in rubber balls to determine which hat pin to use to sink a ballcock in a specific length of time. I realized later that it was a timing experiment. I had asked him what they were and he told me some rubbish about checking whether the pots leaked or not. It has been at the back of my mind ever since.’

‘He must have a devious mind.’

‘Anyway, the robbery worked like this. Chantelle Moses arrived at the bank, padded up as a pregnant woman. She carried a long hat pin safely stuck into a parsnip somewhere on her; also a glass vial containing sulphretted hydrogen stuck to a piece of sticky tape. She conned her way into the lavatory. With the hat pin she made a miniscule hole in the floating plastic ballcock in the cistern, which we now know caused a flood ten minutes after she had been taken away by Stanley Jones and Abe Longley dressed up as ambulance men in charge of a fake ambulance. She placed the vial in the hinge of the door, and she clocked the position and height of the CCTV cameras for her partner and his cousin for when they made their second entrance as plumbers later. The telephone calls, the interceptions and the voices were being appropriately managed by Emlyn Jones on a stool outside the solicitor’s office next door to the bank. He was also, of course, the mastermind behind the whole thing. The rest you know. At 6 o’clock tomorrow morning, three of the four of them will be arrested simultaneously, and charged with bank robbery.’

‘That’s great, Michael. But why only three?’

‘Because we already have the fourth in custody charged with murder.’

Her face glowed. ‘Really? Well, who is it? And why did he murder him in his bare feet?’

‘Well, it was Abe Longley.’

‘Really? Abe Longley? I thought he had an alibi with his girlfriend and their parents?’

‘It was a lie, and we broke it.’

‘But why did he murder him in his bare feet?’

‘I’m getting there. I’ll tell you.’

‘And why was Charles Pleasant driving without shoes?’

Angel smiled. ‘In 2003, Jazmin left her husband, Emlyn Jones, to live with Charles Pleasant. Emlyn Jones hated Pleasant for taking her away from him and their son Stanley. Likewise, Larry Longley hated Pleasant for taking his wife, Bridie, away from him and their son, Abe. And I suspect that Jones had for some time egged his nephew on to get even with him. He had said he couldn’t himself. As the deserted husband, he’d be bound to be the prime suspect. Anyway, as his father was suffering and getting weaker in prison, Abe must have eventually agreed, a plan made and alibis set in place.

‘They knew Pleasant was dealing in stolen valuables, antiquities and so on, so somebody, Jones probably, disguised his voice, phoned Pleasant and made a deal to offer to sell him something interesting for £8,000, and an appointment at the scrapyard for 4.30 p.m. was duly arranged. Now, Emlyn Jones, Stanley and Abe Longley had to have good alibis. Abe had worked hard at creating a relationship with Penny Furnace and her parents, and Emlyn Jones planned to be photographed by his son, with the super, at the Potts gig at 4.30 exactly. It was this exactness that started me thinking. The murder actually occurred ten or eleven minutes earlier than planned. As you remember, it was a very hot summer Sunday afternoon … hottest day for fifteen summers. Anyway, sometime that afternoon, before 4.00, I suppose, Abe Longley arrived at Sebastopol Terrace … he was early … he had time on his hands … decided to take shelter out of the sun and out of the way of potential witnesses. He rented a room in the lodging house next door to the scrap metal dealer’s, which very suitably had a bird’s eye view of the yard. It was very hot. He was uncomfortable, maybe he … looked at the time … decided he’d time to take a cool shower. He stripped down and got in the shower. While enjoying the coolness of the water, he heard the sound of a car arriving. He leaped out of the shower, looked through the window, saw the car drive up below … it was Pleasant’s Bentley arriving at the scrapyard. He was undressed and wet through. He pulled on his trousers and shirt and grabbed his gun and dashed into street, leaving the room with the shower running and his pants, shoes and anything else behind. The puddles complained about upstairs in the hotel weren’t made by water leaks or imagined dogs, they were made by Abe Longley. When he reached the pavement outside the front of the lodging house, Pleasant had already got out of car, unlocked the padlock, pushed open the gate, returned to the car, got in, closed the car door, and was about to drive into the yard. It was at that moment that Longley, in wet clothes and no shoes, arrived. He dodged behind the cement mixer and fired four shots from a gun fitted with a silencer. Pleasant flopped over the steering wheel, dead. Longley then started to run off, he realized he had no shoes. There was nobody around. He didn’t want to waste time going back upstairs. So he rushed over to Pleasant’s car, opened the car door, removed his shoes, closed the door, wiped the door handle clean of his prints, put on the dead man’s shoes and ran off.’

Mary’s jaw dropped. ‘And that was it?’

Angel nodded.

There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other. They weren’t expecting anybody.

‘I’ll go,’ Mary said, pushing herself out of the chair.

‘I’m having another beer. Do you want anything?’

‘Just a tonic water, love.’

Angel went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. From the front door, he heard Mary say, ‘Thank you very much.’ The door closed and then he heard her whoop with joy. ‘I’ve won! Michael. I’ve won,’ she dashed through to the kitchen tearing into a colourful overprinted envelope.

‘What’s that?’ he said turning away from the cupboard. ‘Who was that?’

‘John from next door,’ she said. ‘Just got in from work and found this on his mat. Addressed to me. The postman must have pushed it through the wrong letterbox. I’ve won fifty thousand,’ she said, her face glowing.

Angel looked blank.

She looked at the tonic bottle and then at her husband and said, ‘I’ll have a gin in it.’ She read the letter with shaking hands and then passed it over to Angel. ‘Read it. Isn’t it wonderful? We can go to Florida this Christmas. I’ll have some new curtains in here and in the bedroom. That bathroom needs decorating. We can get a man in to do it. Where’s my gin?’

Angel frowned. He’d heard the words, ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘It’s that quiz, I entered. Don’t you remember? I got all the answers correct. It says one hundred per cent. Here. Read it,’ she said thrusting it at him impatiently. ‘First prize fifty thousand. It’s got my name all over it. I’m the winner.’

Angel read it.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Mary said, as she took a swig from her glass.

Angel shoved the letter into her hand, sniffed and said, ‘You’d better read it again, then tell them to deduct the hundred and twenty-four pounds from the fifty thousand and send you the difference!’