Angel smiled at her. ‘You’ll be all right, just for a night.’

She wasn’t happy.

‘I don’t want to go. Carl won’t settle.’

‘Just one night,’ he said gently. ‘It’s for his and your safety.’

She nodded.

Angel glanced at an open door. ‘Can I have a look around while I’m here?’

‘Of course.’

He opened the door behind him. It was the kitchen. There were a few pots in a bowl in the sink, otherwise unremarkable. He came back into the room and looked at the next door. It was ajar.

‘That’s my bedroom,’ she called out unnecessarily.

He didn’t look back. He stepped forward a pace and pushed at the door. The hinges squeaked as it slowly swung open to reveal an unmade bed, a baby’s cot with a mobile hanging over it and clothes strewn everywhere, both on the furniture, on the bed and on the floor. Then there was something that made Angel suck in a short intake of breath and which set his pulse racing. On the wall above the head of the bed was a picture. It was the painting of a young woman in a long blue frilly dress. She had blonde hair and a straw hat.

Margaret Gaston came forward. She saw that something had startled him.

‘I haven’t had chance to tidy round yet.’

He took a couple of steps up to the picture, pointed to it and said, ‘Who is that?’

She looked up at it as if she’d never thought about it. ‘I dunno. It was there when I took the flat. It’s nobody. It’s only a print.’ She looked round the room at the explosion of clothes. ‘I can tidy up. It won’t take me long.’

Angel ran his hand through his hair.

‘Do you mean it’s always been there?’

‘Since I’ve been here, it has. Do you want it, Michael? It’s of no value, you know. It belongs by rights to Mother Reid, I suppose. If you want it, take it up with her.’

He sighed. He unhooked it off the tiny nail in the wall. It left a white mark on the dusty distempered wall. It weighed very little and was only about 20” by 30” on stout cardboard, framed by a thin wooden dowelling. He turned it over. There was a gold-coloured sticker on the back with black printing on it. ‘1930s Lady of Leisure. From the library of Joshua Pickering Galleries, 120-132 Argument Street, Farringdon, London. Stock No. 2239429.’

‘What?’ Angel bawled. He was surprised. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Scrivens stood by the office door looking like a man who had won the lottery but lost the ticket.

‘I said there’s no such thing as 212 Huddersfield Road, sir. The numbers finish at 210. What’s the point of that?’

Angel’s lips tightened against his teeth. ‘The point of that, Scrivens, is to validate Simon Spencer’s existence dishonestly to the welfare state for free doctoring, free hospitals, subsidised dentistry and whatever other handouts he can get, without the exchequer and the judiciary being able to get back at him for taxes, fines and in this particular instance, fraud. And fraud big time.’

Scrivens raised his head.

‘We have ourselves a very ambitious crook,’ Angel said. ‘And, I think, a murderer.’

‘He may have murdered his partner in crime, Harry Harrison, sir?’

‘It’s getting to look that way. So hop off down to the Northern Bank. See the manager, Mr Thurrocks. Get the best possible description of Simon Spencer, you can. And get a photograph of him. Get a hundred prints of it with his description on it run off in time for this meeting at four o’clock, all right?’

Scrivens looked up as if a Roman candle had been fired up his trouser leg.

‘Four o’clock, sir!’ he cried, looking up at the wall clock. ‘That only gives me an hour and a half.’

‘Well, later than four would mean that the meeting would be pointless, wouldn’t it? Come on, lad. Chop. Chop.’

The door closed.

Angel rubbed his chin. It wasn’t looking good for Simon Spencer. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out an envelope. There were some notes on the back of it. He ran down a list. He seemed satisfied that he had checked off all the points he needed to cover in preparation of the four o’clock briefing. He pulled out another envelope and began to check down that one. He found something. It was a telephone number. He picked up the phone and tapped it in.

‘A1 Taxis,’ a pert woman’s voice replied.

‘I want to speak to Maisie.’

There was a second’s hesitation, then she drawled, ‘Where do you wanna go?’ She probably thought she was talking to a stranger who had discovered her name and was emboldened to speak familiarly to her after becoming shored up by the partaking of a few pints of some alcoholic beverage.

Angel squared up to phone. ‘This is Detective Inspector Angel of Bromersley Police. I want to speak to the dispatcher who was on duty on Monday. One of your driver’s, Albert Amersham, said it was a lady called Maisie. Is that you?’

The woman’s voice changed. She suddenly became vital. ‘Oh. Yes. Yes, sir. I’m Maisie Evans. I was on duty on Monday from ten until six. Yes. What can I do for you, sir?’

‘This is a police inquiry, young lady. Someone booked a taxi from Wells Street Baths to The Beeches, 22 Creesforth Road. Your driver picked up the fare from the baths just before two o’clock. What can you tell me about the booking? Presumably it was phoned in. Who phoned it in and where did they phone from?’

‘It should be in the book. Please hold on, I’ll look it up.’

She wasn’t long. ‘It was me, sir, and I remember it now, because the caller said she was Lady Blessington or some such. She spelled the ruddy name out for me. We don’t get many “Ladies” ringing in for taxis here, I can tell you. She was very snooty. She rang in herself. One of those strained, clever dick voices straight from Panorama. At first, I thought it was somebody fooling around. I logged it at 1.40 p.m. I radioed it straight through to number eight, that was Bert Amersham. We had a bit of a laugh about the ladyship bit. I’ve no idea where she phoned in from. We don’t keep no records of that.’

‘Thank you, Maisie,’ he said and replaced the phone.

It wasn’t much help, but it did at least confirm the fact that a taxi had been summoned to Wells Street Baths at that particular time, and by the mysterious Lady Blessington. Angel liked to build his cases on facts.

There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed. He was carrying a sheet of paper.

‘What is it, lad?’ Angel grumbled. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough on my plate?

‘Only take a second, sir. You wanted me to make a thorough search of the NPC. See if there were any female villains on the loose. Done that. There’s only one, who has been released recently, and who has been known to carry a handgun. She’s Lily Frodsham, 37, blonde. I’ve made inquiries and she’s in a hospital in Manchester.’

Angel sighed.

‘Thanks, Ahmed. It’s not her. I know of her. That’s light-fingered Lil. Confidence trickster par excellence. Marries anything with money. Fills her bank account, her handbag, her boots and her pockets and then disappears. She’s in hospital because one of her husbands had caught up with her and tried to murder her with a swimming pool rake.’

Lines of bewilderment appeared on Ahmed’s forehead. He dared not ask Angel for more details.

Gawber’s face appeared beyond Ahmed’s.

‘You wanted me, sir?’ He asked.

Angel put up a finger. ‘Yes. Come in, Ron.’

Ahmed quietly closed the door.

Angel had been eagerly waiting to see him. He reached down the side of his desk and pulled up the print of the 1930s Lady of Leisure and rested it on the desk. He explained where he had found it and said: ‘This print appears to be a near representation of the mysterious Lady Blessington.’

Both Ahmed and Gawber stared at it open-mouthed.

‘How is it possible that Margaret Gaston has been living with the picture for nearly two years and yet knows nothing about the woman in real life?’ Angel said.