Angel’s pulse began to race.
Gawber and Angel exchanged glances.
‘There’s one of them,’ Angel whispered. ‘Did you recognize the other man?’
Gawber shook his head.
This was an important discovery. It looked as if they had found the headquarters of the armed gang who had raided Harrison’s flat the previous night. This journey was proving very profitable.
Angel reached into his pocket for his mobile and dialled a number.
‘Keep an eye out. I’ll get some back-up.’
Eventually he got through to his old friend Waldo White. He was the Detective Inspector in charge of the Firearms Support Unit at Wakefield. After they had exchanged pleasantries, Angel put him in the picture and told him their location.
‘There are four men, at least, in the gang, and they are all armed. A head-on confrontation would result in the exchange of fire. I want to avoid that.’
Angel explained that they were up the cart track and at the entrance to Grock’s Rhubarb forcing sheds. They agreed to meet there.
White said: ‘We’ll come straightaway.’
Angel closed down his phone and was about to drop it into his pocket when they suddenly heard a loud and disagreeable voice just behind them say, ‘What are you doing here? Don’t you know you’re trespassing?’
They looked round to see a tall, slim man with heavy five o’clock shadow. He was pointing a hand gun at them.
Angel could see it was a Walther PPK/S. Deadly and accurate from twenty or thirty feet. Angel’s and Gawber’s hearts started thumping.
Angel’s recognized him as another member of the gang. His heart leapt. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. He had a natural aversion to firearms … especially when they were in the hands of somebody else and were being pointed directly at him. He still had the mobile in his hand. He opened his fingers and deliberately let it fall to the ground. It landed silently in a tuft of grass. He hoped that that it might be discovered by Waldo White and that he might realize he had been there.
‘Put your hands up,’ the man growled. ‘I’ve had a good look at your car, so I know you’re coppers.’
‘What’s the gun for?’ Angel said.
‘Shut up, put your hands up, face your front and get over that stile.’
‘What do you want with us?’ Angel said.
‘Shut up,’ the man said.
He marched them across the field to the barn.
Angel’s mind was working overtime. They were in a fix and he couldn’t see a way out.
The man with the gun directed them into the barn. The young man in a suit whom they had seen being frog-marched from the house, was being tied up by the big man. His hands were being secured behind him in a standing position to a sturdy pole, one of four, which supported the barn roof. The young man stared across at Angel and Gawber with glazed eyes but without any emotion. His pasty face had grey patches under the eyes. Angel knew he had been drugged. He thought he had seen a photograph of him recently, but he couldn’t quite place him.
The thug finished tying the man up and turned round as he heard their footsteps. His eyes opened up like bus headlights being switched on. His jaw dropped. ‘Who are they?’ he growled.
‘Coppers. Snooping around.’
‘Coppers!’ he shrieked. He raised the Sten gun. His hands were shaking. ‘What you brought them here for? What are we going to do with them?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied the slim man angrily. He pointed a thumb towards the open door. ‘Tell Eddie. Tell him we’ve got company.’
The big man rushed out of the barn, shaking his head and muttering expletives.
‘What do you want with us,’ Angel said to the man with the Walther.
‘Shut up,’ the man said thrusting the gun into his Angel’s stomach. ‘Don’t you understand plain English?’
Angel’s faced reddened. He could hear his pulse banging away in his ears.
Seconds later, three men and a young woman appeared at the open barn door; they stared open-mouthed at Angel and Gawber. The two heavies with menacing expressions, their stock-in-trade, carried old Sten guns and pointed them at them. The third, an older man with a face as hard as a life sentence, waved another Walther in their general direction.
Angel wished he was anywhere but there. His eyes darted round their sockets. He was seeking and searching for any opportunity to get away.
The older man with the Walther stared angrily at the younger man and said: ‘What you got here, kid? Ox said they are coppers. Are you completely off your trolley?’
‘They were snooping round. I had no choice, Eddie,’ he said.
Angel clocked the name ‘Eddie.’ He remembered the prison photograph of the man in the Police Review. It took only a second to work out that it was the Glazer gang, on the run. It was Eddie ‘The Cat’ Glazer, his wife, Oona, and his younger brother, Tony. He didn’t know the two big men, though he had just heard one of them referred to as ‘Ox’.
The younger brother, Tony, continued: ‘Their car was parked at the farm gate. They were snooping through the hedge at the house.’ There was a whine in his voice. He was clearly afraid of his elder brother.
‘Have you searched them?’ Eddie snapped.
‘How could I? I was on my own. He dropped this,’ Tony said, handing him the mobile which Angel had discarded in the long grass. ‘Thought I hadn’t noticed.’
Angel bit his bottom lip. He didn’t know that Tony Glazer had found it.
Eddie took it, glanced at it then at Angel.
‘Clever copper. I don’t want it,’ he snarled. ‘No use to me!’ he added and threw it angrily into the straw at the back of the barn and glared suspiciously at Angel and then at Gawber.
Angel sighed inwardly. He didn’t like the situation one bit. He hoped that when Waldo White discovered that they weren’t at the rendezvous, that he would hunt around for them, find them and that that would be sooner rather than later.
‘Well bloody well search them then now,’ Eddie yelled. ‘They might be armed, or wired up and telling the world where we are.’
Tony stuck the Walther into his waistband and began to pat Angel down.
Eddie glared at Ox and waved the gun in the direction of Gawber. Ox dropped the Sten so that it hung loose on the strap from his shoulder. He turned Gawber round and began to pat him down.
Tony took out Angel’s wallet, badge and ID card. He passed them to Eddie, who angrily snatched them from him.
Eddie glared at Angel and said, ‘How did you find us, copper?’
‘Fancied rhubarb pie for tea, but there was nobody about, Mr Glazer. You know, you’ll never sell rhubarb if you keep the place shut.’
Eddie glared at him as he fingered roughly through his wallet and ID.
The girl Oona was terrified. Her hands were shaking. Her face was redder than a monkey’s backside. She grabbed Eddie by the arm. ‘He knows who you are! What are we going to do?’ she wailed. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Shut up. And get off,’ he said, pushing her away. ‘Detective Inspector Angel,’ he said scornfully, reading from the ID. He threw the wallet, badge and ID angrily into the straw behind them. ‘Well, well, well. You’re the smart-arse inspector looking for the murderer of Harry Harrison, aren’t you?’
Angel looked at him.
Eddie pointed to the man tied up with his head bowed. ‘Well there’s your murderer. Spencer’s his name. I’ve done your job for you.’
Angel looked across at the man tied to the post. His eyes were closed. He seemed to be asleep. He hoped he was asleep. Angel had to agree, the man did look a bit like the photograph of Spencer, which Thurrocks, the bank manager had supplied.
‘He and Harrison worked a scam across a rich punter at the Northern Bank called Smith,’ Eddie continued. ‘Harrison got greedy and tried to put one across Spencer. He got wise to it and threatened to cut him up if he didn’t tell him where he’d hidden the money. Harrison refused. Spencer went in a bit too heavy, and Harry died before he told him where he’d hidden it. That’s what he said, anyway. Stabbed him five times.’