Murder in Bare Feet Read Free Page A

The women in twos and threes were stood there with fat arms folded, watching as if it was a street entertainment.
    Angel turned the BMW round the corner of Sebastopol Terrace, put his foot down on the accelerator and rocked his way along the uneven road up to the big white SOCO van and parked his car behind it. Then he made his way towards the crowd of rubberneckers to get to the centre of the activity. As he pushed his way through, his lips tightened back against his teeth. When he finally arrived at the DO NOT CROSS tape and dodged underneath it, he sighed and leaned over to one of the patrolmen, PC Donohue, and whispered something in his ear.
    The policeman nodded knowingly. He turned, took the notebook out of his breast pocket and looked at the nearest of the young men and said, ‘Now then son. What’s your name and address?’
    The young man shrugged, then turned away and kicked an invisible ball casually along the road.
    ‘Did you see what happened?’ Donohue said, following behind him.
    The young man walked more quickly, then took his hands out of pockets and began to run down the street.
    Donohue turned to the next young man. ‘And what did you see?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘What’s your name, sonny?’
    He also shrugged, turned away, took his hands out of his pockets and began to run. Some of the others heard and saw what had taken place and also turned away and began to drift slowly away. Donohue approached a man in his twenties and said, ‘Did you see what happened, sir?’
    The young man pulled in his stomach, stuck out his chest and with his eyes half closed, looked down at the flagstones and said, ‘No. I didn’t see nuthin’.’
    ‘Do you know the man?’
    ‘It’s old man Pleasant, isn’t it?’
    ‘What’s his first name?’
    The man nodded in the direction of the sign. ‘It’s up there. Charles Pleasant.’
    Donohue nodded. ‘You could do an official identification of the body then, for us, down at the station, couldn’t you?’
    ‘S’pose.’
    ‘Right. What’s your name and address, sir?’
    There was a thoughtful pause. The young man shrugged. ‘Naw. It’s all right,’ he muttered, then he turned and walked slowly away. When he was about thirty yards up the road, he also began to run.
    Donohue turned back to another group of four. As he approached them, they turned and walked off. The other lookers also walked away.
    Angel noticed, caught Donohue’s eye, nodded approvingly and turned back to check over the dead man in the driver’s seat. There was a spray of blood on the windscreen and an oval hole in the glass, reasonable to assume it was made with a gun. The dead man had dark hair with speckles of grey. Angel thought he might be in his fifties. The hair was sticking up in places, as if it was soaked in brilliantine.
    The SOCO team finished securing the marquee, which completely covered the Bentley. It had a flap that was temporarily fastened open with ties to the scrapyard railings. The arrangement provided a shield from prying eyes whilst still permitting the team access, especially convenient when carrying anything. They set up powerful lights inside, and after the SOCO photographer had completed all his work and had withdrawn, Angel went into the marquee.
    Dr Mac, the pathologist, was still examining the head and shoulders of the body through the driver’s window, which he had apparently found in the lowered position.
    Angel pushed up to him. ‘What you got, Mac?’
    ‘Nothing very helpful, Michael. Only what you see,’ he said, and with a gloved hand, he gently took hold of the dead man’s hair, pulled his head upwards and backwards for him to see the face.
    Angel had seen plenty of bodies in his time; each one was different. It was never pleasant. In this instance, the mouth was turned down, the eyes fully open, staring as if still alive.
    It sent a tingle down his back.
    Angel nodded and Mac let go of the head. It flopped as relaxed as a puppet down across the steering