The rest of the morning and afternoon, he spent a thoughtful and busy few hours making his plans. He briefed Gawber and then went home for a shower and an early tea.
At 5.25 p.m., Angel left home and drove the BMW to the end of Victoria Crescent, a side street in Bromersley. He parked it in such a position that he could see down Victoria Road; the road comprised Georgian stone-built houses which had been converted over the past century or so to offices mostly occupied by solicitors, accountants, estate agents and building societies. He particularly wanted to clock all the comings and goings from the offices and small private car park of Prophet and Sellman. He looked at his watch. It was 5.32 p.m. He did not expect that he would have to wait long.
At 5.35 p.m. Charles Prophet strode confidently out of the big blue door, crossed the car park to his car and drove away in the direction of The Feathers Hotel on Market Street. Seconds later the elegant figure of Karen Kennedy appeared on the front step. She looked round, turned back, put a key in the door lock, turned it, withdrew it, stuffed it into her swish Gucci handbag and strode swiftly the few paces across the car park to her white Mercedes. Seconds later, she drove away from Angel with a roar of the engine and turned in the opposite direction towards Jubilee Park on the other side of town, where she lived in a new block of flats on the main Doncaster Road.
Angel started up his BMW and followed her. She lived less than two miles from the office and she had, on good days, been known to walk the short distance. Today she was driving her white Mercedes competently through the side streets of Bromersley, skirting the busy shopping areas and eventually turning onto Doncaster Road. Angel kept a discreet distance behind her until she reached her block of flats. She pulled up on the main road, switched off the ignition, got out of the car and made her way towards the main door of the flats.
Angel followed her and was slowing his car, when, at the last moment, he touched the accelerator and the BMW jerked forward which caused his front bumper to hit the rear of the beautiful Mercedes making an unpleasant, expensive crashing noise.
Karen Kennedy heard it. She looked back angrily, took in the situation and stormed back down the path towards him.
Angel frowned and bit his bottom lip. He reversed the BMW back a few feet from the Mercedes, stopped the car and got out.
Karen Kennedy stood on the pavement edge, hands on hips and surveyed the damage. Then she stared at Angel and said: ‘Oh, it’s you. I might have known it. A stupid policeman! Haven’t you any brakes on that car?’ All the charm so well controlled at the office of Prophet and Sellman had completely disappeared.
Angel said: ‘I am very sorry, but you did stop rather abruptly and without any signal.’
Karen Kennedy’s face went scarlet. ‘There was no need for a signal,’ she stormed. ‘My brake lights would tell you I was stopping. Anyway, I had locked the car and was ten feet away, when you crashed into it!’
‘I didn’t know you were going to stop and park here on a main road,’ he said calmly. ‘And I don’t think your brake lights were working.’
‘They were working perfectly well yesterday when the car was returned after a service.’
‘And look how far you are from the kerb. A traffic policeman would book you for being more than ten inches from the kerb. It’s not safe for other traffic.’
She looked down at the distance the wheel of the Mercedes was away from the kerb. ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Must be only five or six inches, that’s all.’
Angel looked shocked. He shook his head. ‘Be reasonable. It’s at least eighteen inches, Miss Kennedy … far too far … if this matter was taken to court, you’d have a job to prove the actual distance.’
She looked up at the sky and fumed: ‘Huh! Give me strength. Wait there, Inspector Angel,’ she said determinedly. ‘Wait there. I won’t be two minutes.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Angel said evenly. ‘I’m not leaving here until I have details of your insurance company.’
She stormed off through the main door into the flats. When she was out of sight, Angel turned away from the door, dived into his pocket and pulled out his mobile.
He tapped in a number. The phone was promptly answered.
‘In position, sir,’ Gawber said. ‘We can be there in a minute.’
‘Right,’ Angel said. ‘When I send you a text, come in fast.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘Out.’
Angel cancelled the call and set up his phone to send the letters ‘OK’ to Gawber by text and held it in his pocket ready.
A moment or two later, Karen Kennedy appeared through the door. She had discarded her handbag and was bearing down on Angel with a small camera. Her face was grimly set, determined to win the argument.
Angel pressed the button on the phone in his pocket and sent the text.
Karen Kennedy stormed up to him waving the camera.
‘This will settle all argument, once and for all, Inspector. Don’t think that because you’re a policeman that you’re above the law.’
‘I don’t,’ he replied. ‘I just don’t think that you have any idea about driving a car.’
Her beautiful eyes glared at him. ‘I have passed the advanced driving test and I have the certificate to prove it,’ she said confidently. ‘Please move out of the way. Let me take a photograph of this. My car is very properly parked and no more than six inches from the kerb. Eighteen inches indeed, huh!’
Angel stood back to allow her access with the camera.
She photographed the two cars from various angles and was busy lining up a shot of the damage to her car resulting from the crash when a Panda car pulled up quietly behind Angel’s. Gawber, SOCO’s Taylor and WPC Leisha Baverstock got out and came up to Angel.
Karen Kennedy was intent on taking the photographs and didn’t seem to notice them at first, then she suddenly spotted the uniform on the WPC.
‘What’s this?’ she said, her eyes darting from one to the other and then back to Angel. ‘Called for reinforcements, have you?’ She waved the camera at him. ‘It won’t do you any good, Inspector. The camera doesn’t lie.’
DS Taylor looked at Angel who nodded for him to proceed.
The policeman took out his warrant card, showed it to her and said, ‘I am Detective Sergeant Taylor. Is that your camera, Miss?’
‘Of course it is,’ she snapped.
‘Do you own any other?’
‘No. Why?’
He held out his hand. ‘Will you give it to me, please?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Certainly not. This is evidence. Your inspector is not going to get away with this.’
‘I am a forensic officer and I need to examine it, in connection with the murder of Alicia Prophet.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Alicia Prophet?’
The colour drained from her face. She stared at him, then at Angel. She swallowed and said, ‘But I have nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with me.’
Taylor stood there with his hand held out.
‘May I have the camera please?’
Karen Kennedy handed him the camera.
WPC Baverstock stepped forward and got hold of her by her elbow. ‘Come along with me, miss.’
Angel returned to the station in his car with Gawber, WPC Baverstock and Karen Kennedy, while Taylor rushed off with the camera in the Panda car.
At the station, Angel told Karen Kennedy that he would be inviting her to make a statement under caution, and suggested that she contacted her solicitor. He then left her in an interview room in the competent hands of WPC Baverstock and made his way up the green corridor with Gawber to his own office.
Gawber closed the door and they both sat down.
‘Whatever made you suspect that it was Charles Prophet dressing up as Lady Blessington then, sir?’ Gawber said.
Angel breathed in deeply, sighed and said, ‘The very first thing was that curious photograph of his wife, Alicia and Lady Blessington cosily having tea together on the patio. It was, I expect, taken shortly before the murder, only hours or days, and placed casually among the other photos to help try to establish the authenticity of Lady B. Prophet said it had been taken about six months earlier. If it had been, it would have been in January, and it would have been almost certainly too cold for tea in summer clothes outside on the patio, with flowers, trees and shrubs, rich in foliage, and some rose bushes and other flowers in full bloom. So I knew that it was a lie. I began to wonder why he needed to lie about a trivial thing like that. I got to thinking that he was about the same height as Lady B. Once I went down that lane, I was well on the way to solving the riddle. The fact that Prophet’s wife was blind made me realize that she never knew what he was dressed in or what he looked like. I was puzzled when he said that he had taken the photograph. Obviously, I knew I had to check that out closely. If it was another lie, then it indicated that he must have had an accomplice. There was no camera in the Prophets’ home. I checked with SOCO. And there were no other recent photographs anywhere in the house. They were not a family that habitually took photographs as some families do. So I had to widen the search. Karen Kennedy was the first obvious suspect. I had to get possession of her camera without raising her suspicions, hence the contrived accident with her Mercedes. I thought she’d be just the sort of person who would have to win a dispute. Photographs were the obvious proof, and if she had a camera, she’d have to use it.’