DI ANGEL’S OFFICE, BROMERSLEY POLICE STATION, SOUTH YORKSHIRE, UK. 1400 HOURS. TUESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2008.
Felicity Santana parked her racy new Jaguar next to Angel’s in the police station car park and then accompanied him, causing a great buzz of excitement and a shower of testosterone from the men, gliding through reception and down the green corridor. The WPCs looked with interest and envy as she passed them by. Everybody noticed her great beauty and many remarked afterwards on how small she appeared to be in real life.
Angel closed the office door, made Felicity Santana as comfortable as possible in his little office and then settled himself down in his chair behind the desk.
‘I’m all right now, thank you, Inspector,’ she said, pushing a moist tissue back into her handbag. ‘I’m a tough bird. It takes more than the death of my husband and the knowledge that after ten years of marriage he had an unusual predilection for a pig … to floor me.’
Angel pursed his lips. ‘I am sure that is not the case, Mrs Santana.’
‘A pig. It’s disgusting. What sort of a person will people think I have been married to? I would rather have had Peter caught in bed with a pretty, young actress. Dammit, there are plenty of those who would have been glad to have obliged. I could have dealt with that. It would have been simple competition. But I can’t compete with a pig. Just think what the tabloids will make of that, Inspector? My God. They’re going to have one hell of a party when that comes out.’
She sighed and shook her head.
He nodded sympathetically.
‘There are some questions …’ he said.
‘Of course. Let’s get it over with. I’m bound to be the chief suspect. Young wife. Successful actress. Married ten years to world-famous multi-millionaire producer and writer, Peter Santana. Co-respondent, a pig. I’m here to be shot at, Inspector. Fire away.’
‘Was your husband at all interested in pigs? Was there something pointed about the animal being a pig, do you think? Did your husband have any interests in animals at all?’
‘None at all, Inspector.’
‘Was he into “Save the whale” or “Stop puppy farming” or anything like that?’
‘No.’
‘Did he support any animal charity?’
‘No.’
‘Did you have any pets? Cats or dogs?’
‘Not a flicker of interest in them, Inspector. All the years I’ve known him. No. Not even a goldfish. I find this pig business utterly unbelievable. Dammit. He didn’t even eat meat anymore.’
‘He was a vegetarian?’
‘Only since his heart attack.’
‘Oh. It wasn’t to save the species or…?’
‘It was to save Peter Santana, Inspector.’
He stifled a smile.
‘No interest in anthropology?’
‘Not unless it was profitable, or you could make a film about it.’
‘Your husband was a great writer. He’s written some best-selling books which have been made into blockbuster films. Could this pig in a bed have anything to do with a plot he was working on?’
‘My husband could – in his imagination – have written about a human couple being miniaturized to the size of microbes, strapped to a bee’s leg and deposited next day into the flower of a hollyhock without even moving from his laptop, so I am damned certain that he didn’t need to get a pig into his bed to heighten his imagination.’
Angel shook his head. He was getting nowhere.
‘How do you explain it, then, Mrs Santana? A pig dressed in a nightdress in …’
‘I can’t, Inspector. I can’t. He’s never done anything like this before. Although Peter wrote some highly original fiction, he was essentially a practical man with his feet firmly on the ground. He was a businessman first and a creative man second. He simply had the skill or the luck to create and produce what people wanted to see and hear. He understood entertainment, when so many writers and producers did not.’
Angel decided on another tack. ‘He was working on something?’
She sighed. ‘He was always working on something. I don’t know what it was.’
‘He was writing for you?’
‘There would probably have been a major part in it for me, yes. Ever practical was Peter. Keep the money in the family, you know.’
‘What was it about?’
‘I don’t know. He never spoke about it until it was finished. I would be the first to read it. He valued my opinion. He didn’t always act on it, but I flatter myself that he was always interested to know what I thought.’
‘About your own part, or the whole thing?’
‘Both. Naturally I was interested in the character that he had written for me, but that wasn’t it all. I wanted to know what the thing was all about.’
‘So you have no idea what your husband was writing?’
‘Sorry.’
Angel knew that there was a highly skilled computer team from specialist police agencies that he could call on; they could soon review Santana’s latest writing and see if it related in any way to a pig in a nightdress in a bed.
‘I suppose some other person could have put the pig in your bed.’
She nodded. ‘I can’t think who.’
She suddenly looked up and blinked thoughtfully several times. ‘You know, Inspector, Peter was not very strong. He was seventy-two, had heart disease. He thought he hadn’t long to live. Did an hour in the gym and walked an hour or more every day. He was determined to regain some of his strength after his heart attack. I don’t know the weight of that pig, but I doubt very much if he could have carried it by himself.’
Angel wrinkled his nose. ‘That we may never know, Mrs Santana. And there is the business of the nightdress. The pig was dressed in a nightdress. Putting a dead weight of a pig into a nightdress would have been quite a job, I must say. That may have been a job for two people. We’ll see.’
She held up her hands and shrugged.
‘Can I have the name of your husband’s GP?’
‘Of course. Dr Prakash. Very good man. He has a surgery on Bond Road.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, scribbling the name on an envelope taken from his inside pocket. He looked up and said, ‘Would you say you had a happy marriage, Mrs Santana?’
‘As happy as most people,’ she replied.
Angel noticed that there was a slight tightening then relaxing of the lips. She clearly didn’t like the question.
Angel rubbed the lobe of his ear between finger and thumb.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘The difference in our ages.’
‘That’s a start. Mr Santana was seventy-two. I won’t ask you your age.’
‘I’m forty-two,’ she said boldly. She was only small, but she was very confident about her looks.
Angel said: ‘And you look younger.’
‘Thank you. I have taken care of myself. And that’s why I am still in work and at the top of my profession. Some people would say that it was because I was Peter’s wife. I don’t deny that it helped, but Peter was such a man, Inspector, that if there had been somebody he had preferred in any part in any film he had written, he would have had her in and cut me out without a second thought.’
‘But that never happened?’
‘No.’
‘Your husband was a very wealthy man. Do you know how he left his will?’
‘I certainly do, Inspector. Nothing complicated. Nothing tedious. He left everything to me.’
Angel blinked. She had said it quickly, smoothly, unemotionally, like a scalpel cutting through an umbilical cord.
He narrowed his eyes then licked his lips before he said, ‘I need to ask you about your movements and your husband’s movements yesterday.’
‘Certainly. Nothing very interesting, I can tell you, Inspector. We were at our house on Creesforth Road in Bromersley. We sleep in separate bedrooms these days. Peter doesn’t sleep very well, so that when he is awake he might tap away at his laptop that he has on a table he can swivel across the bed. He was working at that when the studio car arrived to collect me at 7.45 that morning. I knew our housekeeper would arrive at nine o’clock. He seemed happy enough when I called out, as I left the house. I did my stint at the studio. Everything went well. Got back home about one o’clock. Peter was up and dressed. Had lunch with him in the kitchen. It was only fruit and coffee. He asked how the shooting had gone. I told him. I reminded him that I would be out that evening – provided the sky stayed clear – for the night scene. He said he would remember. Then we began to discuss domestic matters … staff arrangements for Christmas. His PA arrived in the middle of it. He took his apple into his study with her. Then a man from the accountants called. Then the phone began ringing; it seemed non-stop. I finished my lunch and carried on with my own work. I had some lines to learn and rehearse for the night’s shoot.’
‘Was all that usual?’
‘Oh yes. Everybody wanted to see Mr Santana. He was quite masterful at seeing only those people he wanted to see. His PA was good at marshalling everybody. At about three o’clock, it quietened down, and he came out of the study into the kitchen. I was talking about Christmas with the housekeeper. He grunted the usual thing about going to bed to write, took a bottle of his favourite water out of the fridge and went upstairs.’ She sighed then bit her lip. ‘That was the last I saw of him.’
‘Why was he out at Tunistone? Did he go there to write or what?’
‘I don’t know. It’s very odd. Completely out of character. When I left at six o’clock, it was pitch black, of course. I thought Peter would stay there in bed, either writing or sleeping, or reading or watching TV for the evening. I expected him to stay in his bedroom for the entire night. When I came home at about eleven o’clock, his room was in darkness, so I assumed he was asleep.’
‘Did you did notice his car was missing?’
‘No. I was brought home in a studio car. I didn’t go in the garage.’
‘So you thought he was in the house asleep?’
‘Yes, and I didn’t know otherwise until about 9.30 this morning. I took a tray of tea into his room and he wasn’t there. I was very surprised. It was completely out of character. I phoned the studio first. Spoke to William Isaacs. He knew nothing. Then I phoned his PA. She usually knows what’s going on, but she knew nothing. I never thought he would be at Tunistone. He’s fallen out of favour with the place lately and was thinking of buying somewhere in a warmer climate. Even when I discovered that his car had gone, it didn’t occur to me that he might be up there … not at this time of the year anyway. I waited a little while. I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself. Then when he didn’t turn up and I had run out of ideas, I phoned the police station. The rest you know.’
Angel nodded, not to convey that he was in agreement. There was a lot he didn’t know. But he thought it was a good point at which to break off.
‘You wanted me, sir?’ Angel said at the door.
He noticed a strong smell of Vick. There was often a pong of a menthol medicament in Detective Superintendent Harker’s office.
‘Yes. Shut the door,’ he said. ‘Keep the warmth in, for goodness’ sake.’
Angel noticed Harker’s nose was red and his forehead perspiring. If he had a cold or flu, he didn’t want it. Angel was determined to keep as far away from him as possible.
Harker reached out for an A4 sheet of paper in a wire basket on the desk in front of him. It looked like an interoffice memo.
‘Sit down. What I have to tell you is very important and highly confidential.’
Angel undid his jacket pocket and sat down on the chair facing the desk.
Harker cleared his throat and looked up from the memo. ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘You know the chief constable has just returned from an ACPO meeting in Northampton?’
Angel didn’t know. He didn’t care, but he nodded so that Harker would move on.
‘Well, there was a big noise from the Home Office there. He dropped something privately to the chief … He didn’t want to overstate the case, but … there are forged ten-Euro notes floating about the north of England. They are being picked up all over Europe, causing the Bank of England no end of difficulties. They are quite excellent forgeries, superficially. No rubbish. Difficult for the man in the street to detect at first sight. Perfectly printed. Works of art. However, they have no watermarks or metal strips, and they are not numbered progressively, so a simple examination will detect them. Now, Bromersley seems to be geographically in the centre of where the counterfeit currency is distributed. If it is so, you can see that it is very embarrassing for us. The Home Office don’t want the media to get hold of it. So it must be kept low key. The bank doesn’t want our partners in Europe to become aware of it either, not until we have traced the source and closed the printing press down. All right? The forgeries are driving the Bank of England crackers. Euros are no use at a retail level on the UK mainland, of course, but exceedingly useful in travel agents, banks and so on.’
‘Anything to go on, sir?’
Harker’s bushy eyebrows went up. ‘I’ve told you all there is.’
Angel had never heard of currency forgeries in Bromersley before. He had once arrested a man forging sovereigns out of melted-down wedding rings. It was hardly profitable for the old lag because it took him too long to produce examples good enough to be passed. Paper currency, however, was something else. Once set up, huge quantities could be quickly counterfeited, limited only by the accessibility of suitable paper and ink.
He shrugged; he couldn’t see how he could initiate any inquiries without a specific report where the forged stuff had actually changed hands.
Minimally, such an enterprise these days needed an underground printing press with photographic resources, a skilled printer, or an eager amateur with the ability to match ink colours, plus some sort of a distribution set-up. The location could be anywhere, but he couldn’t think of any possible culpable party at that moment. He wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t get into all that. He had a murder on his hands, a very peculiar murder. And murder was his business.
‘Right, sir,’ Angel said and stood up to leave.
‘Just a minute,’ Harker said.
Angel sat down.
‘How are you getting along with that Santana case?’
Angel pursed his lips. He knew the super of old. This could be a trick question.
‘Straightforward, is it?’ Harker added, looking at him with one eye slightly closed.
Angel wondered what Harker was getting at. ‘Too early to say, sir,’ he said cautiously.
‘I see that you’ve got a pig in the case.’
Angel thought he detected the beginning of a smile from the man. That could be dangerous. Harker was not inclined to smile and when he did, something calamitous always happened. Last time, it was July last year. There was the big flood and almost a hundred Bromersley residents became homeless overnight. Nevertheless, he would have to answer him.
‘A dead pig was found in Peter Santana’s bed, sir.’
‘Dressed in a nightdress?’ Harker said. ‘Why? What for? What’s the sense in it?’
‘At the moment, sir, I have no idea,’ Angel said.
The smile didn’t develop.
‘Come in,’ Angel called.
‘Yes, sir?’
It was DC Edward Scrivens, an eager young man, twenty-four, who had been a detective two years now. Angel thought he would do well.
‘Aye. Come in, Ed,’ he said. ‘I want you to gather together all the computers, laptops, hard disks, floppy disks, and memory sticks that Peter Santana had used during the past month or so. You’ll need to go to the Top Hat Film Studios, his house on Creesforth Road and the farmhouse place in Tunistone. I’ve got some computer geeks coming over from Special Services in Wakefield. They are going to check on Santana’s work to see if there is anything in the computers that might help us. All right?’
‘Right, sir,’ he said, making for the door.
‘Follow it through. And let me know what they find ASAP.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘When the Wakefield lads have finished, see that any kit we don’t need for evidence goes back to where it came from. All right?’
As Scrivens went out, Gawber came in.
‘There are still wholesale butchers around in spite of all the supermarkets,’ Gawber said. ‘There’s a man runs a small business using an old cold store that was part of the abattoir at Dodworth Bottom. Supplies pubs, cafés, hotels, places like that.’
‘What did he know about the pig?’
‘He got a phone call from a man in the middle of last week inquiring about a whole pig. The butcher thought it was for roasting on a spit. He sells one or two in the summer sometimes to members of the public.’
‘Was it Santana?’
‘Didn’t give his name. A thin, frail, white-haired man, he said, in a very smart suit, collected it, paid cash. Had it put in the boot of his car, a Mercedes.’
‘That would be him. Anything else?’
‘It had to be fresh. Seemed fussy about the weight. Had to weigh a hundred pounds, apparently.’
Angel frowned. ‘A good round number, I suppose. Anything else?’
‘No, sir.’
With a furrowed brow, Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Why would anybody in their right mind dress a pig in a silk nightdress and tuck it in his bed?’
‘I suppose it was Santana who dressed the pig in the nightdress?’
‘Well, he was the one who bought the pig, wasn’t he?’
The two men looked at each other.
Angel said: ‘It doesn’t make sense. Have you seen what a beautiful woman his wife is?’
Gawber’s face brightened. ‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘And being a big film producer,’ Angel said, ‘his wife said that there have always been women eager to throw themselves at him – starlets, wannabes. I bet that was true. These days everybody wants to be famous, but not because they’re brilliant at what they do.’
‘That’s why I think it must be some sort of a deviant practise,’ Gawber said. ‘He couldn’t find anybody willing to do something outrageously abnormal or indecent enough for him for money.’
Angel frowned. ‘It’s a dead pig, Ron. Let’s stay real. I could have introduced him to a dozen or more lasses we’ve had through here in the last twelve months.’
‘Well, maybe he wanted a man, sir?’
Angel ran his hand through his hair. ‘No, Ron. If we go down that road, we’ll have to bring psychologists and all sorts of experts in to get under our feet. Let’s try common sense first. Let’s find out where he got the glamorous nightdress from.’
‘Want me to try and do that, sir?’
‘Aye. There’s a shopping bag and wrapping in the waste at the farmhouse from that big lingerie shop, on Market Street. Exotica, I think it’s called. I should try there first.’
Gawber made for the door.
‘And if you see Trevor Crisp in your travels,’ Angel said, ‘tell him I want him, smartish.’
Gawber nodded and went out.
Angel reached out for the phone. He tapped in a number. He was ringing the pathologist.
Dr Mac answered the phone.
‘What you got, Mac? What did Santana die of?’
Mac grunted. He wasn’t pleased. ‘Oh, it’s you, Michael. Might have known. What do ye think I am?’ he protested. ‘I’m not gifted with second sight. I haven’t even started the PM yet.’
‘Come on, Mac. Don’t mess about. What does it look like?’
‘Obviously murder. One gunshot to the heart.’
‘Did you get any samples from the scene?’
‘No.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Nothing useful to you, I am thinking. Now can I have ma tea?’
‘Thanks, Mac. That’s great. Won’t keep you. Now what about the pig?’
The doctor sniffed. ‘Aye. What about it?’ he said sharply. ‘You’re not expecting me to carry out a post mortem on a pig, are ye?’
Angel stifled a smile. ‘No. But you have had a look at it?’
‘Aye. And it was a good, fresh, female beastie.’
‘Was the pig complete?’ Angel said.
‘Complete? Complete? You mean had it been gutted or whatever they do with pigs?’ Mac said quickly with a raised voice.
‘Yes?’
‘Apart from a great loss of blood from a butcher’s cut at the throat, it was sound in every particular.’
‘Were there any wounds at all on the pig? I was thinking of gunshot wounds, for instance?’
‘Certainly not, and that’s all I have to say on the matter.’
‘It had been refrigerated?’
‘Yes. It had been refrigerated, and if you need to know anything else, you need to apply to the Fatstock Marketing Board or bring in a veterinarian. You have exhausted my knowledge on dead pigs.’
‘Thank you, Mac.’
There was a loud click as the doctor replaced his phone.
Angel rubbed his chin. He seemed to have ruffled Mac’s feathers. He regretted it. He got on well with the doctor who had been pathologist at Bromersley for more than fifteen years. He liked him because he was good at his job and was to be relied on absolutely in the witness box.
He reached into a drawer and pulled out the telephone directory. He was looking for the number of Doctor Prakash, Peter Santana’s GP. He remembered he was on Bond Street. He soon found the number. He got through to the doctor and told him about the death of Santana.
‘I am extremely sorry to hear that, Inspector,’ the doctor said. ‘I am both surprised and shocked.’
‘I would like to speak to you further about him, Doctor.’
‘Of course. When would you like to come?’
‘As soon as possible.’
Ten minutes later, Angel was in Doctor Prakash’s surgery.
‘Thank you for seeing me so promptly. What I need to know firstly, Doctor, is the general health of Peter Santana.’
‘Well, he had an inoperable heart condition. A leaking valve. He needed a replacement. He might have survived the operation, but perhaps not any rejection, which initially always happens. Also it was felt that he would not have had the strength to survive any infection, which is also common. However, all his other major functions were working perfectly well, therefore it was thought that, with careful management, he may have survived another two or ten or even twenty years. His changed lifestyle, diet and exercise routines were rigorously maintained, and his physical strength was increasing every time I saw him. For a small, elderly man he was quite strong, and the prognosis was satisfactory.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I see him quite often.’ Prakash looked down at his notes. ‘The tenth of this month, only a week ago.’
Angel’s eyebrows went up. He nodded. ‘And what was he like?’
‘He was very unusual, Inspector. Always polite and quietly spoken. Clear thinking. Decisive. Tremendously industrious.’
‘A busy man?’
‘I suppose it was necessary for a man to become so successful?’
Angel pursed his lips and blew out a length of air.
‘His wife, Felicity … she is also a patient of yours, Doctor. What can you tell me about her?’
‘Nothing much. Hardly ever saw her. She seems to enjoy rude health. A lot younger than Peter, of course.’
Prakash thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘Like her husband,’ he said, ‘except that she was more excitable and tended to speak forthrightly.’
‘Were you ever consulted by either or both of the couple on any matters that may have arisen due to the significant difference in their ages?’
The doctor considered his answer carefully. ‘No. But I must say, Inspector, if they had, I would not have been willing to discuss the matter with you. But I repeat, they did not.’
Angel shook his head and said, ‘A strange thing has happened in this case, Doctor Prakash. It is bound to come out in the newspapers, so there is no necessity to keep it secret. When the fully dressed body of Peter Santana was found on the floor in the bedroom of his house in Tunistone, in the bed was a dead pig, a 100 lb sow, dressed in a pink silk nightdress. I can’t make any sense of it. As Mr Santana’s GP, can you offer any kind of explanation?’
Prakash’s eyes glowed. He was clearly amazed. ‘No, I cannot.’ Then he added, ‘Of course, the pig is an offensive symbol in the Jewish faith.’
‘That’s right, but Peter Santana was not Jewish…. Anyway, we know that he bought the pig himself.’
Prakash shook his head. ‘Really? I am sorry, Inspector. I can’t throw any light on the matter.’