The Fruit Gum Murders by Roger Silverwood

know who. I couldn’t trace his number back because he’d put a block on it.’
    â€˜Didn’t you recognize the voice?’
    â€˜It was nobody I knew – or could recognize anyway.’
    Angel looked at him slyly. ‘Not one of your private clique of snouts?’
    Policemen were no longer permitted their personal and private informants. It was supposed to prevent dishonest officers defrauding the taxpayer. Cash handouts of that sort had to be declared, and a careful note of the snout’s name, address, time, the information received and the amount of cash handed over was held in a book. Of course, this did not entirely work as it should, and there were plenty of ways an astute policeman could sidetrack the account.
    Crisp said, ‘That’s against the rules, sir, and you know that like you, sir, I would never do anything that was against the rules.’
    He looked straight into Crisp’s eyes. There was a dig in there somewhere that made Angel think.
    â€˜Well, what did you find out, then?’ he said.
    â€˜I wasn’t able to confirm what the informant had said, and Harrison – if it had been him – and his girlfriend had booked out of the King George minutes before I got there.’
    Angel frowned. ‘What do you mean, “if it had been him”?’
    â€˜Yes, well, the witnesses were … uncertain, sir.’
    â€˜You can get some good pictures of him from Records at the NPC. You could have shown them to them.’
    â€˜I know, but as the man had now gone, I didn’t think it was worth spending any more time on them. I’d spent more than an hour on this … and I knew you expected me … and, by this time, I had heard that this was definitely a murder case—’
    â€˜All right, lad, let’s be practical. Do you think there’s a possible lead to the whereabouts of Harrison if I left you to pursue it?’
    Crisp curled his lips as he thought, then he shook his head and said, ‘He’s probably covered his tracks most carefully.’
    Angel nodded. ‘I would think that he probably has. In which case, let’s get on with the case in hand. And don’t go wandering off like that. If I tell you to be somewhere, in future, be there.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Right, lad. Have you ever been to Glasgow?’

    FIVE
    Angel was struggling to reduce the pile of letters, reports and other police service paperwork that was forever arriving on his desk. At that present moment, he was trying to read and grasp the relevance to crime detection of a booklet, one of many, that had recently arrived in the post. On the cover in red in bold print it said: ‘To be circulated to all senior police officers.’ That wasn’t unusual. All sorts of mumbo-jumbo arrived on his desk with statements of that sort clearly marked on them. This particular one was entitled, ‘Home Office study relating to the proposal of granting voting rights of prisoners at UK General Elections.’
    The Town Hall clock struck 5.00 p.m. He heard it and gladly closed the booklet, tossed it into the wastepaper basket, stood up, reached out for his coat and left the office.
    He arrived home a few minutes later.
    When Angel let himself in through the back door, Mary was in the kitchen.
    â€˜Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘Had a good day?’
    He gave her a kiss on the cheek.
    â€˜All right,’ he said. ‘Got a phone call from a friend of yours,’ he said as he hung his coat up in the hall cupboard.
    â€˜Who was that?’ she said as she peered into the oven.
    â€˜The exalted and almighty, Mrs Mackenzie,’ he said as he came back into the kitchen.
    Mary smiled. ‘She’s not exactly my friend. What did she have to say?’
    â€˜She rang up to say that Lady Muick’s necklace had been safely returned,’ he said as he opened the fridge and took out a can of German beer.
    Her eyebrows