The Cuckoo Clock Scam (5 page)

‘Right. I’ll follow you in my car.’

The two cars glided quietly up to the front door of Quigley’s terraced house in the Canal Road area of Bromersley. There was a light showing through thick curtains drawn across the downstairs front room. Two constables moved swiftly through the ginnel to the back of the house, while Angel, Crisp and a constable with a battering ram approached the front door.

Crisp began to bang loudly on the door. ‘Police, Quigley. Open up. It’s the police. Come on, Quigley. Open up. Open up.’

Angel rubbed his cold hands together to try to warm them up, while the constable and Crisp maintained the racket at the front door. Then Crisp gave the signal and the constable let heave with the battering ram and the door flew open.

They rushed out of the cold into the front room, but there was nobody there. They dispersed rapidly throughout the little house, switching on all the lights. The men covering the back door rushed back down the ginnel and into the house through the front door. Every room was checked but nobody was found.

Crisp was last down the stairs. ‘He’s not here, sir.’

They all congregated in the kitchen.

Angel looked round the tiny room. It was clean and tidy. There were no pots in the sink; everything was washed up.

Suddenly they heard the whirring sound from the
mechanism
of the cuckoo clock on the wall beginning its hourly cycle.

Angel recognized the noise, turned round and stared at it. He rubbed his chin. He looked closely at the weights to note which weight fell as the cuckoo proclaimed that the time was five o’clock. It was the weight on the shortest length of chain, an inch or so from the underside of the clock. The other weight was almost at the floor. From that he knew that the clock had only recently been wound up.

He said nothing. They had searched the place and Quigley wasn’t there. He ran his hand through his hair. He turned round and realized also that the room was warm. He saw a radiator on the kitchen wall covered with a towel. He put his hand on it and found that it was damp. Then he spotted an electric kettle. He patted it carefully. It was warm. The muscles in his jaw tightened.

He
knew
that Quigley was there.

Angel, Crisp and the constables searched the ground floor again. There was no cellar, just a hallway, two rooms and a pantry. Then they went upstairs and carefully looked through the two bedrooms and the bathroom. Angel even
opened the cistern cupboard. There was not so much as a hungry spider.

The squad gathered on the small landing. Angel signalled to one of the constables, who leaned across to him; he
whispered
something in his ear. The man immediately went downstairs and returned with a long-handled sweeping brush, which he silently handed to him. Angel took it and pointed it up to the ceiling and pressed it against the wooden trapdoor that led to the loft. He pushed but it did not give. He tried in several other positions, but with the same result.

‘He’s up there,’ Angel said at length. ‘He’s either holding the door down or he’s put some weight on top of it.’

‘How did he get up there?’ Crisp said.

‘Got a ladder and pulled it up behind him, I expect,’ Angel said.

‘What can we do, sir?’

Angel pointed downstairs and put his first finger
vertically
across his lips.

The squad made their way downstairs to the kitchen.

‘He may be able to hear all we are saying.’ He turned to the constable who had driven the van. ‘Nip back to the station to the stores and bring back some steps or a ladder, sharpish.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said and he was gone.

‘He may have planned this way of escape and could have victuals and supplies up there to last for days,’ Angel said.

The men waited patiently in the kitchen. Angel looked at his watch. He pulled out a chair, sat down, picked up his mobile and tapped in his home number.

‘Hello, love. Are you all right?’

‘Where are you?’ Mary said. ‘You’re not ringing to say you’re going to be late again, are you?’

‘Something came up. I might be an hour or two. Anything in the post?’

Her voice went up an octave. ‘An hour or two? And I’ve made a beef casserole with onion and kidney and mushroom. It’s been slow cooking for three hours. I timed it for six o’clock. After that it will start drying up. What am I supposed to do about it, Michael? Tell me that.’

‘I’m sorry, love. It’s unavoidable.’

Angel noticed that Crisp was smiling down at him. He looked away.

Angel’s fingers tightened round the phone. ‘Put it on a low light,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get back as soon as I can.’

‘It’ll dry up. It’s too bad, it really is.’

‘Is there anything in the post?’

Her voice lightened. ‘As a matter of fact there is. We’ve got a wedding invitation. Who do you think is getting married?’

The guessing business always rattled him. ‘I don’t know, do I?’ he growled.

‘Don’t be so irritable. Why, little Timmy, of course.’

The pupils of his eyes made a quick sweep of their sockets. He licked his lip quickly then said, ‘Who is little Timmy then?’

‘My godson, Timothy, of course.’

Angel frowned and shook his head. ‘I don’t know any Timothy.’

‘My sister-in-law’s cousin’s youngest boy, Timothy Joseph Stolworthy. Of course you do.’

He remembered. ‘Oh, him!’

He remembered him as a baby, and that it cost Mary £25 every Christmas and every spring, for the little monster’s birthday, and he never replied, never phoned and they never ever saw him. Mary used to pay it out gracefully.
Angel had said it was like throwing money down a black hole.

‘Such a nice little boy.’

‘I have never seen him,’ he said.

‘You saw him at Grace’s wedding,’ she snapped.

He didn’t remember. He didn’t want to argue, and he couldn’t have cared less. ‘Right. Well, where do they live these days?’

‘Cornwall. They’ve always lived in Cornwall.’

‘Well, we can’t go down to Cornwall,’ he said.

‘The wedding’s in Las Vegas.’

‘
Las Vegas
!’ he bawled. ‘We’ll talk about this later.’

‘We’ll have to buy them a present.’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Send them money.’

‘Can’t send
money
for a wedding present.’

He had had enough of this irritating and potentially expensive chatter. He was relieved when he heard some noise in the next room. Crisp and some others dashed out of the room.

‘Duty calls, love. Got to go. Goodbye.’ He closed the phone with a snap and thrust it back in his pocket.

The squad driver had returned with a ladder, which he quietly manipulated up the stairs with difficulty and
eventually
rested against the trapdoor over the landing. The squad followed him upstairs. The constable with the battering ram went up the ladder first and removed the door with surprising ease. He pushed the door cover to one side and came down the steps.

Angel took up the position on the ladder. He took his powerful torch with him, put his head through the hole and shone the flashlight around the cobwebby beams, slates and brickwork. The beam caught a big man in his underpants
and vest crouching down in front of a roughly cemented redbrick-built chimney stack at the far end of the dusty space. He was attempting the impossible. He was
desperately
trying to hide in a place where there was no cover.

‘Come on out, Quigley,’ Angel said. ‘You’re copped.’

A
n hour later, Angel re-read the report he had just finished on the day’s events, pulled a face at it, and yawned as he rammed it in the desk drawer. He glanced at his watch, put on his coat, came out of the office and was met by Crisp coming up from the direction of the cells.

‘He’s been checked by the MO, sir. I’ve got his clothes organized. He’s had some fish and chips and two mugs of tea. And a KitKat.’

Angel shook his head. ‘And are you going to offer to read him a bedtime story?’

Crisp’s eyes flashed.

Angel glared at him and said, ‘Does Quigley know that his solicitor, Bloomfield, is coming to see him any time now, and does Bloomfield understand that his client will be formally interviewed at nine o’clock tomorrow morning?’

‘Not yet, sir. No.’

‘Well,
tell
him, lad.
Tell
him. And have you left a note and the warrant for Don Taylor requesting SOCO to search Quigley’s house ASAP tomorrow?’

‘Not yet, sir. No.’

Angel sighed. ‘Well,
do
it, lad. Do it now. And do you know where you have to be at 8.28 in the morning?’

‘No, sir.’

‘In my office.’

Crisp’s jaw dropped.

‘Any questions?’ Angel said.

‘No.’

‘Right. Then I bid you good night.’

Angel went down the corridor, past the cells and out through the back door. It was getting quite cold. He drove out of the police car park, through the town centre. He saw a brightly illuminated fish and chip shop as he stood at traffic lights. The smell of vinegar dribbling over hot batter sneaked through the car ventilation system. The bouquet was more seductive than Chanel to a weary copper on a freezing cold December night. There were only two customers at the counter, and he didn’t really fancy
warmed-up
stew and cabbage.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Good morning, lad. Come in. Sit down. Now, about Felicity Santana.’

‘Yes, sir. Felicity Santana. She’s rated as being in the top ten most glamorous women in the world. I’d personally put her in the top three.’

‘Thereby is the problem,’ Angel said with a sniff. ‘Even with your way with the ladies, I don’t think you could get anywhere near her.’

Crisp was not pleased but he managed a controlled smile.

Angel added: ‘There would be intense competition from some of the film world’s leading men … with bulging wallets, and fast cars, and with diamond bracelets and giant solitaire rings dripping from their pockets.’

‘I’d enjoy giving it a go, sir.’

‘I expect you would. And then there’s her entourage of fans, managers, make-up, hairdo and beauty wallahs and so on.’

Crisp still looked at Angel across the desk with a confident smile. ‘I’d be willing to try, sir.’

Angel shook his head. ‘Just think about this, lad. The problem is that it is almost certain that she had something to do with her husband’s death. The marriage didn’t seem to be much. The age difference. His health. His total
attachment
to his business, his stories and his films. Even when she returned home late at night, she didn’t hesitate to admit to me that she didn’t look in his room to see if he was awake to say hello, or good night, or to see if he was all right.’

‘I thought she was in the studio at the time of his murder?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘At this stage, I don’t know, but you are moving away from the plan.’

Crisp looked up. ‘Oh? A plan, sir?’

‘There’s always a plan. Can’t work without a plan.’

Crisp’s face brightened.

Angel said: ‘In any group of people, any gathering, any assembly, any team, there’s always one sad little person who works hard, is full of enthusiasm but is never appreciated. They’re always at the bottom of the pile … always being walked on.’

‘Yes, sir. That’s me.’

Angel’s eyes flashed and he glared across the desk at him. ‘I am not talking about
you
, lad,’ he bawled. ‘It
isn’t
you. And I’m
not
talking about
here
. I’m talking about the likely
situation
at the Top Hat film company. I’m referring to Felicity Santana’s personal gofer, or whatever they’re called.’

Crisp frowned. ‘Oh? What’s she like, sir? And what’s her name?’

‘I don’t know. That’s for you to find out. I don’t even know if it is a girl. Boys often do the job.’

Crisp’s jaw dropped. ‘But, sir. I can’t make up to a boy.’

‘That’ll be the one who sees everything, knows what’s going on, has nobody to confide in because nobody notices him or her. A bit of appreciation and they’ll happily
cooperate
. You know what I want?’

‘You want the dirt on Felicity Santana.’

‘You don’t have to be so crude,’ he said and sighed.

Crisp stifled a smile.

‘The situation clearly is this. Felicity Santana is a very beautiful woman. We know that she picked out Peter Santana ten years ago and got him to marry her. We know he was a tough nut. So he presumably knew what he was letting himself in for. That also shows that she must be a shrewd operator too. Anyway, I believe that after ten years, she thought that Peter Santana was lasting too long. Maybe she had plenty of money in her purse, but she never got the time to spend it. She never had any time to play. She wanted out of the marriage, so she started looking around and met another sucker and set up a deal. Made promises to some money-grabbing male with a big enough ego that if he disposed of Peter Santana for her, that would secure his rights to the key to her bedroom, a pretty lump of her lovely millions and a share in whatever she earned in the future. They shook hands on it, and the deed was done. Santana was murdered. She may even have helped the new man. Anyway, when her husband took his last breath, she became a very
rich
, beautiful woman, who has a pile of money as high as Strangeways tower. There’s also a man somewhere who has won the right to put a ring on her finger and everything else that goes with it. Any questions so far?’

‘No, sir.’

‘We don’t yet know who he is. It isn’t him we have to watch. She’ll have been super selective. Remember, she could have had the pick of the field. But she will have tended to seduce someone she knew
well … very
well. The last ten years Santana worked her so hard that her range of suckers must be among the men she worked with. There was no time or opportunity to develop a relationship among the Hollywood set, or even here in the film-producing belt in the home counties. I believe it has to be here in her husband’s own business, here, at Top Hat. All right?’

Crisp nodded.

‘I have prepared a list of characteristics that would fit the man she might have made such a pact with. He would be dishonest, ruthless, handsome, rich and probably older than her. Write them down. They are tremendously important. Find the man with those attributes and you’ve found the murderer.’

‘That’s a profile, sir,’ Crisp said.

‘Call it what you like. Just find the man that it fits. That’s your brief.’

‘You make it sound simple, sir.’

‘It is simple. What
I’d
do is apply for a job at the studio, see what happens. It’s a start. It would get you through the gates. From then on I’d play it by ear.’

Crisp looked as if he’d bitten on a lemon thinking it was an orange. He was rubbing his cheek.

‘You needn’t report in until you’ve got some useful
information
,’ Angel added. ‘But don’t mess about. We’ll contact each other on our mobiles. Leave yours open as long as you can.’

‘What do I know about making films?’

Angel looked across at him, shook his head and breathed out a sigh. ‘You wouldn’t even make a good crook, would you, lad?’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s nearly nine. Come on. Time for that interview with Quigley. Sit in with me before you go. There’s nobody else.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said.

‘And try and look intelligent.’

He switched on the recording machine. ‘Interview 9.02 a.m. Thursday 18 December. Present Liam Quigley, Mr Bloomfield, DS Crisp and DI Angel.’

Angel turned to Liam Quigley and said, ‘Now then, you’ve slept on it, lad – what can you tell me about the shooting of Vincent Doonan in the Fisherman’s Rest on Tuesday night?’

‘Nuttin’,’ the big Irishman said. ‘I told you that last night.’

‘And I told you that your name was whispered by Doonan to one of my officers as the one who fired the three shots into him that eventually killed him.’

‘I dunno. He must have had a grudge against me.’

‘Why? Why would he have a grudge against you?’

‘He had a thing going with my daughter.’

‘What sort of a thing?’

He hesitated. ‘Whenever things got umpty, she used to leave my house to go and stay with him.’

‘How old is she?’

‘That’s not the flaming point,’ he roared. ‘She was my daughter. She was all I had. We were great pals, and were very close when her mother left. He had no right to … He had no right to entice her away.’

‘Where is she now?’

Quigley rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

‘Got a photograph?’

Quigley reached into his pocket, fished into his wallet and put one postcard-sized photograph on the table. Angel reached out for it. She was a pretty girl with long red hair.

‘We’ll copy this and return it to you, Mr Quigley. How old is she?’

‘Eighteen, but she was only seventeen when this all started. Vincent Doonan was fifty years old. Nearly old enough to be her grandfather. I have been down to his mucky little house more than half a dozen times to bring her back. He hated my guts.’

‘When was the last time you went there?’

‘Tuesday, except that she wouldn’t come back.’

‘What happened?’

‘She wouldn’t come back.’

Angel’s fists tightened. ‘You said
that
.
Why
wouldn’t she come back?’

‘It’s got nothing to do with it. It needed hardly any daft little ting and she’d take off down to Doonan’s. It got to the stage where I could hardly say anyting to her. The other day I said that the milk was off, which it was. She took that as a criticism of her management of the catering. It wasn’t. She didn’t see it like that. She used it as an excuse. And she was off like a loose horse at the Kilkenny races. I have provided well for her, Mr Angel. You’ve seen my house. She’s got a nice room of her own; she needs for nothing.’

‘Except perhaps a mother figure.’

‘Not my fault the cow went back to Ireland.’

‘We shall have to find your daughter … interview her. What’s her name?’

‘Sonya, but she won’t be able to tell you anything. And she’s done notting wrong … notting you can touch her for. This is all Doonan’s fault. He used to give her ciggies with
grass in them. If I found any on her I used to burn them. He was a bad influence all round.’

Angel shook his head. He could have spent all day talking to Quigley about his relationship with his daughter, and her relationship with Vincent Doonan. It didn’t promise to prove useful. And Quigley himself was no saint. He’d served time for robbing a Lion Security van outside a bank in Wakefield, as well as a large computer and TV warehouse on a
commercial
estate in Bromersley. He was also suspected of being involved in other major robberies but as yet nothing could be proved.

Angel was resigned to moving the questioning onwards.

‘Where are you employed at the moment?’

‘Huh. You know damned well that I haven’t a job. You know I couldn’t get a job to save my life, and that I’m living on the unemployment money.’

People who sponged off the state always annoyed Angel. ‘Seems to me you’re living better than I am,’ he said.

Bloomfield looked up with a severe face. He stared hard at Angel to catch his attention.

Angel gave a slight shrug, acknowledging that he may have gone a little too far. But he could see that even at a time of high inflation, Quigley’s standard of living indicated that money was entering his pocket faster than it was leaving it.

‘I’m good with money,’ Quigley said. ‘Always been able to save. My house is paid for. I don’t need a lot to … get around.’

‘How much is the insurance on your new Range Rover?’

Quigley’s eyes flashed. His head and hands made small rapid movements as if he’d had a charge of electricity through him. ‘Don’t know.’

‘More than your dole money, I’d wager,’ Angel said.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I do. Why did you run away from us and hide in your loft when we knocked on your front door?’

‘I knew you were the bogeys and that you were going to run me in for something … something I didn’t do.… You always do.… Like this murder you’re trying to stick on me.’

‘Where were you last Tuesday night at nine o’clock.’

‘This is an intrusion of my privacy,’ Quigley said and he looked at Bloomfield for support.

There was none coming. Mr Bloomfield shook his head and with a finger indicated that he should answer the question.

Angel also noticed the gesture.

The muscles on Quigley’s face tightened. He was an angry man. He looked down.

‘Well?’ Angel said.

Quigley rubbed his chin several times, then he said, ‘I was with a … a friend.’

‘Who, and where? From when until what time?’

He wrinkled his nose and didn’t look up. ‘Her name is Juanita Freedman if you must know. She lives at 11 Bull’s Foot Railway Arches on Wath Road. I was with her from about six o’clock in the evening, and I stayed all that night.’

Angel wrote the name and address down. It sounded unlikely. He couldn’t imagine who would want him staying with them, especially through the night but in his job, Angel had found that all manner of people made strange
bedfellows
. Obviously he was going to be speaking with Miss Freedman, and Quigley knew that he would.

Quigley added: ‘I don’t want that bandying about the place, you know. Technically, I am still married. If my missus got to know, it could cost me a fortune, you understand?’

‘Yeah. Yeah,’ Angel said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this last night?’