Shrine to Murder Read Online Free PDF

judiciary. There wasn’t the time to go into that.
    ‘ Was he generally popular?’ Angel said.
    ‘ I don’t suppose so, no.’
    ‘ Do you know of any member of staff who might have taken a serious dislike to him?’
    ‘ Just about all of us, I should think, at the time. But, I mean, he had to keep discipline, Mr Angel. Managers are responsible for every coin in the strong room. The local directors in Nottingham know exactly how much there is. Then there’s the necessary requirement of accounting for it accurately. Besides that, each branch is expected to make a handsome profit.’
    ‘ Quite so. But was he so unpopular?’
    ‘ In my experience, he was, but it would be ridiculous to suppose any member of staff disliked him enough to want to murder him.’
    Angel nodded. ‘What about the clients? There might have been somebody he wouldn’t loan money to, for example. Or somebody on whom he may have foreclosed with possibly dire consequences?’
    ‘ I am sure there were, Inspector, but none of them that I know of who would want to see him dead.’
    *
    Angel returned to his office and was sitting at his desk thinking over his visit to the Northern Bank. It hadn’t produced a single suspect. According to manager, Blamires, Luke Redman would not have won any popularity contest, but there was nobody he could suggest who might have wanted him dead. Angel reasoned that that was only Blamires’s judgement, and he was wondering how he might economically spread the inquiry further afield to other Northern Bank branches or other banks where employees who had known Redman might still be working. It also seemed to him, in view of the time span of twenty-two years, that the likelihood of finding an employee who had worked with Redman and was able to supply any useful topical information about him was fairly remote. He had to consider the cost of manpower and the odds of achieving a positive result. He was still mulling over the question when there was a knock at the door. It was DC Scrivens.
    ‘ Come in, lad. Sit down.’
    When Scrivens was settled, Angel said, ‘I want you to get some background on a man called Redman.’
    He brought him up to date with the murder and the fact that there were no suspects. He told him about the meeting with Blamires and said, ‘I want you to contact all the local branches of the Northern Bank, and any other banks around South and West Yorkshire, and see if you can locate anybody who had known Redman and had a motive strong enough to want to murder him. All right?’
    *
    ‘Good morning, sir,’ Taylor said. He was carrying a bundle of plastic bags and a yellow folder file.
    ‘ Come in, Don. Close the door. Have you brought all of it?’
    ‘ All that the cleaners sucked up, sir,’ he said. ‘Every room separately marked. And the photographs.’
    ‘ Put the bags on here,’ Angel said pointing to the top of the desk.
    Taylor lifted up seven transparent bags, each containing small amounts of grey fluff and dust.
    Angel raised his eyebrows.
    ‘ I said there wasn’t much,’ Taylor said.
    ‘ Have you separated anything out?’
    ‘ Nominal amounts, to see if there was anything unusual.’
    ‘ And was there?’
    ‘ No, sir. It is all carpet fibre, human dust and common earth fibre typically found in domestic premises. Plus a solitary green leaf, presumably blown in through an open door or window or brought in accidentally by an animal or a human on clothing.’
    ‘ Let me see that,’ Angel said.
    Taylor sorted out the bag and pressed the plastic bag hard against the leaf inside.
    Angel peered at it. ‘It’s an evergreen. Mottled. It’s a laurel leaf, Don.’
    ‘ Yes, sir.’ He showed him the label on the bag. ‘It’s from the master bedroom.’
    ‘ The room where Redman was murdered,’ Angel said.
    ‘ Probably blown in through the open window, while the murderer was climbing in.’
    ‘ Do you have a photograph of it in situ?’
    ‘ Yes, sir. It was on the carpet at the side