The Cuckoo Clock Scam (10 page)

Later that day, she had left the house to undertake various shopping jobs and had returned two hours later with a turkey joint bought from Marks and Spencer.

Angel loved Christmas, but the domestic arrangements preceding the great day he found rather tedious and endless. He was glad to get away from them that Monday morning and return to the business of solving crimes.

He put the bundle of files on the corner of his desk, threw off his coat and settled down in front of a pile of envelopes fresh in that morning.

He appreciated that Scrivens had done an excellent job in reporting a précis of what Santana had written during the last very industrious month of his life. He had missed nothing important. The only items Angel had extracted from the files that had any bearing on the investigation, as far as he could see, were that Santana had thoughts about setting up a trust which required the partial rewriting of his will, and the only reference to any dead pig was in the short
incongruous
list, which appeared in isolation in Santana’s notes.

He gazed at the list again. It seemed to him to be associated notes related to some specialized operation, which
presumably
Santana had planned to take place on ‘Monday night next’. The evening before or the day that he died. Whilst the last three items were directly associated with the actual murder scene, the first two items could not as yet be
reconciled
to anything at all. There had been no signs of the ether or the cotton wool at the murder scene, or indeed anywhere else. Santana surely didn’t plan to organize his own death in conjunction with somebody else? The ether to make him unconscious? No. He quickly dismissed the thought. Santana’s writings in no way depicted a man ready to leave this life. His stories – however extreme – ended full of
optimism
, with healthy ideals, good overcoming evil, the baddy being condemned to something horrible and the goody sailing off with the girl into the sunset, or some similar ethic.

There was a knock at the door.

He looked up. ‘Come in.’

It was Scrivens. He was carrying a plastic bag bulging with tennis balls.

‘Where do you want these putting, sir? And you were going to tell me about the scam that Laurence Smith was into, you said, when you had time.’

Angel frowned. He didn’t like being accosted in that way.
‘Not just now, lad. I’m up to my eyes. And I’ve got a job for you. Take those balls out. I don’t want them littering up my office. Dammit, it’s small enough.’

Scrivens’ mouth opened. He wasn’t pleased either. ‘They’re bunging up my locker, sir.’

‘Well, I can’t do with them in here. Take them out and come back here – smartish.’

Scrivens went out and Ahmed, seeing the door open, came in. ‘Good morning, sir. Can I have a word?’

‘What is it?’

‘You know that cuckoo clock that you bought for only £10?’

‘Yes, lad. What about it?’

‘I took my mother to Leeds on Saturday to do some Christmas shopping, and they’re all over the shops there at £120.’

‘
All
over the shops?’ he said. He didn’t like exaggerated generalizations.

‘Well, at least three different places, sir. Allbright’s and Brown, Tompkins and that supermarket Cheapo’s.’

Angel licked his bottom lip. ‘The identical same clock?’

‘I haven’t seen any others, sir,’ Ahmed said as he took a small scrap of paper out of his pocket. ‘Anyway, I wrote the make down as I knew you would want to know.’ He unrolled the paper and read: ‘The Tikka Tokka Cuckoo Clock Company, Reebur, Suisse.’

That was the one.

Angel rubbed his chin. He couldn’t understand the massive difference in the price and £120 did seem more
realistic
. ‘Can you leave that paper?’

Ahmed smiled and put it on the desk.

‘Ta,’ Angel said.

Ahmed turned to leave.

‘Just a minute. I’ve a little job for you.’

He gave the young man his car keys, told him briefly about Fairchild’s fingerprints being on a gin bottle in a paper bag securely wedged between the spare wheel and a safety red triangle sign in his boot. He instructed him how to handle the bottle without smudging or adding his prints to it, and told him to bring it into his office.

Then he phoned Don Taylor, told him about the gun and the prints, which he would get Ahmed to bring up to his office forthwith. He asked him to check urgently if that was the gun that was used to murder Santana, and also to see if there were anybody else’s prints besides those on the bottle or the gun.

Taylor said that he would deal with it straightaway.

Angel replaced the phone.

He leaned back in the chair. He was thinking that he could do with a bigger team. He recalled that he had sent Ron Gawber to search into the background of the
clockmakers
; he wondered when he might return. He liked to have Gawber at his side, particularly when a case was difficult.

He felt in his pocket for the card William Isaacs had given to him on Friday afternoon last. He took it out, looked at it, turned it over then turned it back again. From the back he copied Albert Broome’s name and address on to a used envelope.

A few moments passed and Scrivens arrived.

‘Come in, lad. Shut the door. Sit down. I want you to look this man up, Albert Broome.’ He gave him the envelope. ‘He drives for the big noise at the studio, William Isaacs. Isaacs says he took him home about midnight, the night Santana was murdered. That’s part of Isaacs’ alibi. Check it out. And
see if you can find out what sort of a relationship Broome has with Isaacs’ housekeeper, Mimi Johnson.’

‘Right, sir.’

T
he BMW slowed as Angel braked at the black
wrought-iron
gates of the Mansion House on Creesforth Road. He pointed the bonnet of the car between them and down the long winding drive cut through a big lawn and curtain of evergreen trees and bushes planted to mask the big house from the road.

He climbed out of the car, made his way up the four steps to the front door and pressed the bell.

A tall, skinny, blonde woman of about fifty, wearing a skimpy bright yellow dress, an ugly large-flowered apron and slippers, answered the door.

She smiled when she saw Angel, who introduced himself and showed his warrant card.

‘Yes, I’m Mimi Johnson,’ she said. ‘Do come in. Please go straight through that door. That’s the lounge. Please sit down … anywhere you like.’

‘Thank you.’

She followed him in, tugging at the apron fastening as she walked.

There was plenty of choice of where to sit. It was a huge room with four outsize sofas and twenty or more large easy chairs arranged in circular groups of four or six around low coffee tables.

He chose the nearest easy chair.

Mimi Johnson disposed of the apron behind a chair with the dexterity of a magician and sat opposite him.

‘It must be ever so exciting being in the police force,’ she said, pushing her lips forward then turning them into a smile.

Angel smiled to save the embarrassment of answering.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee … or anything, Inspector?’ she said, with a long, lingering smile.

‘No, thank you, Mrs Johnson.’

‘You can call me Mimi. Everybody does.’

‘Thank you,’ he said quickly. ‘I want to ask you about the whereabouts of Mr Isaacs last Monday night, the fifteenth.’

‘Oh yes. That was the night Mr Santana was murdered and William, Mr Isaacs, worked late, to catch the natural moonlight, wasn’t it?’

Angel nodded.

‘Well, that’s easy,’ she said, running her hands down her waist and legs, ostensibly to straighten her dress.

Angel didn’t notice. All he wanted were the facts.

‘He got back here about midnight,’ she said. ‘Albert brought him in. That’s his driver. Took his briefcase into the study … what he calls the den … then he left. William – Mr Isaacs – said he was too much awake to go straight to sleep. He would do some work in the study. I said I would make him something to eat. He said no. I offered to make him a milk drink. He said no to that too. I hung around for a while. He stayed in the study and had a few slugs of whisky … he calls it bourbon. He didn’t know that I knew, but I heard him pouring it. He was irritable. I went in to see if I could do anything to help settle him down. I asked him what was wrong. He said it was work. It wasn’t going right. I suggested
that he took one of his sleeping pills. He told me to mind my own business. I said that he shouldn’t drink so much, that the whisky would keep him awake. He didn’t like that either. He bawled and shouted at me, because I questioned what he was doing. Then he got another glass and poured some whisky into it, about half full. He told me it was good for me, to drink it and go to bed. He knows I enjoy the occasional drink, but not neat whisky and not that much, nor to drink it in a hurry like that. It wasn’t like him. Anyway, at first I refused, but with him, it’s easier to do as he says. He went on and on about it, so I said if I could add some soda to it, I would drink it. So he let me fetch some from the bar in the dining room, then I drank it in front of him and went to bed. Funnily enough, I was soon asleep, and that’s the last I knew until my alarm went off at seven o’clock next morning. I got up straightaway. He doesn’t like to be late. Albert always picks him up at ten to eight. I went to his room about a quarter past seven with a beaker of tea. I had to waken him. He hadn’t heard his alarm or it hadn’t gone off. He was still irritable because he thought he was going to be late. But it was all right. Albert called as usual on time, at ten to eight, and I had him ready for him. I expect he got there on time. And that’s about all I know.’

Angel nodded. ‘What time did you say you fell asleep?’

‘It must have been about one o’clock or a few minutes after.’

‘So you cannot say for certain that Mr Isaacs was here from that time until seven o’clock on Tuesday morning, can you?’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘Yes, he was. Where would he be?’

‘If you were asleep you wouldn’t know, would you?’

She looked confused. She put her hand to her face. ‘Well, I don’t suppose—’

‘Does Mr Isaacs drive?’

‘Yes. He has a new Chevrolet in the garage. Takes it out for a run most Sundays.’

Angel screwed up his face. He wasn’t pleased. The alibi was useless. There were so many suspects in this case.

‘I phoned the Swiss police in Geneva,’ Gawber said. ‘They speak very good English, I’m glad to say. They have passed the query down the line over there, and a few minutes ago, this email arrived.’

Angel took it and read it.

Angel lowered the paper and looked up at Gawber. ‘Well, that seems pretty conclusive.’

Gawber nodded. ‘Where do we go from here, sir?’

‘I don’t know,’ Angel said as he ran a hand through his hair. ‘Why is there a roomful of cuckoo clocks for sale in that antique shop at £10 a time when they must cost more than double that to make?’

‘There’s a “For Sale” sign up on those premises, sir. Maybe they’re reducing their prices to get shot?’

‘Who would buy a roomful of one particular clock anyway? It’s only a little shop in a backwater, not a high-street
supermarket
with a footfall of thousands.’

The phone rang. It was Taylor from the SOCO office. He had some information on the Walther. Angel was all ears.

‘An attempt had been made to file off the registration number, sir,’ Taylor said. ‘I have managed to bring it back with a drop of the old nitric. It was one of a batch of forty sold by the makers to the Dutch police in 1970. It turned up in England in the hands of a villain in 1978 who has since served his time and is now dead. It was secured with four other handguns in a Royal Army Ordnance Corps depot in North Yorkshire, but that was broken into and this gun stolen from there in 1980 and there the record of it ends.’

Angel frowned. That wasn’t much help. ‘Was it the one that murdered Peter Santana?’

‘Looks like it, sir.’

Angel breathed more deeply. Here was progress, at last.

Taylor said, ‘There were seven rounds in the cartridge. It holds eight, so presumably the one round that had been spent had been the one that killed Peter Santana. There are no fingerprints on the rounds. But there are prints on the barrel, the trigger guard, almost everywhere else. They all match the prints on the gin bottle.’

Angel’s jaw tightened. That was the news he didn’t want to hear.

Taylor said: ‘I’ll put those prints on record, sir, if you want. I’ll need the name of the man.’

‘Samson Fairchild,’ Angel said. ‘He was the one who says he found the gun. They are his prints on the bottle.’

Taylor’s voice changed. It was higher and he spoke quickly.

‘Samson Fairchild, the film star?’ he said. ‘
The
Samson Fairchild?’

Angel wrinkled his nose.

‘I shouldn’t think there’s anybody else in the country with a name as poncey as that.’

‘What’s he like, sir? Have you met him?’ he said quickly.

‘He’s got two legs and one head, lad, what do you think?’

Gawber looked across at Angel with eyebrows raised.

Taylor said, ‘I’d like his autograph. For my daughter.’

‘If he murdered Peter Santana, that’s about all he could give you. In the meantime, did you find out anything else from the gun?’

‘Yes, sir. You’ll like this. I found specks of a powder here and there in the nooks and crannies on the gun, as if it has been left uncovered while powder had been applied to the face or the body. I thought it was flour at first but there’s no gluten in it and it’s tinted with carmine, I think, so it is very likely face powder. I could identify it positively if you could get a specimen for comparison.’

Angel’s face lit up. His brain jumped about like the ball bouncing round the electric bagatelle board in the screws’ recreation room at Strangeways. He replaced the handset in the cradle, still keeping his hand on it. He looked across at Gawber and said, ‘Must get in touch with Trevor Crisp right away.’

He tapped in Crisp’s mobile number. Of course there was no reply. He was working, but Angel was soon through to his voicemail. ‘It’s Angel. This is urgent, lad. Call me on my mobile, ASAP.’

He replaced the receiver, stood up, looked across at Gawber and said, ‘Come on, Ron. Let’s sort those cuckoo clocks out.’

They made for the door and Angel opened it as Scrivens was poised to tap on it from the outside.

‘What you doing there, lad?’ Angel said.

‘I was coming to report on that chauffeur chap, Albert Broome, sir,’ Scrivens said.

‘Aye. Well, what about him?’ Angel said, holding the door. ‘Did he drop Isaacs at his house on Creesforth Road at about midnight on Monday the fifteenth or didn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir, he did.’

‘And did he pick him up at 7.50 the following morning, Tuesday?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Angel shrugged. He looked at Gawber and then turned back to Scrivens. ‘Then there it is. In normal circumstances a perfect alibi. Except that Isaacs can drive, he has a perfectly good car in the garage at his house and he could have dosed his housekeeper with a tranquilizer and a stiff measure of whisky that would have made her sleep a good six hours. He could have shot Peter Santana easily, returned home and nobody’s the wiser.’

Scrivens blinked. ‘I didn’t know that, sir.’

‘No, lad, I know. I didn’t. Did Broome drive him anywhere else at all that day?’

‘No. He says he just took him back to his house at five o’clock that evening. That’s all.’

‘Anything else?’

‘You asked me about his relationship with Isaacs’
housekeeper
, Mimi Johnson.’

‘Yes. What you got?’

‘He sniggered when I asked him what he thought about her.’

‘Broome’s young, is he?’

‘About twenty-eight, sir. And he’s happily married to a very pretty young woman – I’ve seen her – and they’ve got two kids. I shouldn’t think he’s at all interested in this Mimi Johnson. I pressed him further and he said that he believed his boss and Mimi had something going. He said that on one occasion he’d caught her and William Isaacs at it in the drawing room. Also that some Saturday nights, he drove them out to a hotel in north Derbyshire where they had a meal and more than a few drinks, and then played
hanky-panky
in the car as he took them back to Creesforth Road.’

Angel frowned and wrinkled his nose. ‘I’ve got the idea,’ he snapped. ‘That’ll do. Thanks very much, lad.’ He didn’t
want
to linger over the scene. ‘But don’t go away. There’s something else you can assist DS Gawber and me with. Grab a roll of that broad plain parcel tape from the stationery cupboard and join us at the front of the station in my car, smartish.’

Angel stopped the car outside the antique shop. The ‘For Sale’ board was still across the window. The old fashioned doorbell rang as Angel opened the door. The three policemen went inside.

Juanita Freedman appeared from behind the counter, where she had a single-bar electric fire warming her feet.

Angel noticed that there were empty spaces in the window and around the shelves and walls of where stock had been sold and nothing had been put in its place.

There was still a cuckoo clock on the wall where one had been before when he had called. And it still had a ticket marked £10.

Juanita Freedman looked surprised and ill at ease at seeing the three men. She recognized Angel and flashed a quick welcoming smile.

He introduced her to Gawber and Scrivens and got straight down to business.

‘I see you’re still selling the cuckoo clocks at £10, Miss Freedman?’

‘I’m trying to, Inspector. Still selling a few, but after a very good start, sales seem to have dropped off. I may have to consider advertising them in the
Bromersley Chronicle
.’

‘How many did you have originally?’

‘Two hundred and fifty.’

Angel looked at Gawber and indicated the room at the back with the door open. It still seemed to be crowded with boxes of cuckoo clocks.

He turned back to Miss Freedman. ‘And how many have you left now?’

‘All those. About a hundred, I guess.’

‘Do you mind if we take a closer look at them?’ he said, edging behind the counter towards the storeroom door.

She frowned. ‘Not at all. Please go inside.’

Gawber and Scrivens closed up behind Angel.

The room had a big packing table in the middle. That was partly covered with the boxes and there were many of the same underneath. He selected six boxes at random and pushed two each at Gawber and Scrivens and kept two for himself. He turned to Juanita Freedman and said, ‘As part of our ongoing investigations, we’re going to open these six boxes. You will be here, witness to whatever we find.’

She shrugged. ‘Yes. All right, Inspector. As far as I know, they have cuckoo clocks inside them. I don’t know what you expect to find.’

Angel didn’t reply.

The three men opened the boxes, which were securely sealed with an excess of brown sticky tape. It took a little
while to cut through the tape and pull back the flaps. Each man took the actual clock out of the wrapping and removed the cardboard frame from the inside. They looked inside the back of the clock and around the cogs and wheels inside. They examined the weights, which were in separate
partitions
, then checked that the cardboard box had no false bottom or unnecessary packing to it. They checked
everything
there was in front of them, but could find nothing untoward.