Free The Dog Collar Murders by Roger Silverwood Page A

eyes steadied. The time fitted perfectly. Things were getting better. ‘I want to speak to him,’ he said.
    Donohue nodded then led Angel along the pavement. Ahead on both sides of the street were long lengths of terraced houses.
    As they walked, Angel said, ‘What sort of a chap is this witness, Sean?’
    ‘Elderly, sir, retired, used to work at the glassworks. Name of Cyril Wade.’
    Angel nodded.
    Donohue stopped at the fourth house on the left, which had a white plastic number eight screwed on to a creosoted paling gate. He knocked on the door.
    The door opened. A small man looked up at the two policemen.
    Donohue said, ‘Mr Wade, sorry to bother you again. This is my boss, Detective Inspector Angel. Would you mind telling him what you saw outside the vicarage door this morning?’
    Wade hesitated. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘You’d better come inside. It’s cold with this door open.’
    When the three men were seated in the tiny front room of the little house, the man began. ‘I was a bit late getting up this morning. Well, I live on my own, I can do what I like, I reckon. When I got downstairs I remembered that I hadn’t any milk, so I threw on some clothes and went out to the corner shop. I got a bottle and was coming back past the church gate when I thought that out of my eye corner I saw a strange figure at the vicarage door. Being a bit nosey, I stepped back and saw a man in a long bright shiny white coat knocking on the door. I thought it was odd. I gawped at him for a second, I suppose, then walked on.’
    ‘You didn’t see his face?’
    ‘No. He had his back to me.’
    ‘What else was he wearing?’
    ‘I don’t know. The white coat almost covered him.’
    ‘Was it white towelling?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘Was it the sort of coat a surgeon or a scientist might wear?’
    ‘No. Nothing like that.’
    ‘You said it was a long bright shiny white coat.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘It wasn’t a woman’s dress, was it? It wasn’t a man in a woman’s dress? You get all sorts these days.’
    Wade’s expression answered the question.
    ‘Not the sort of coat, or garment, you’d wear in the street?’ Angel said.
    ‘Oh no. Not round here anyway. They’d laugh you to scorn. It were white and shiny. Like a silk dressing gown, but better.’
    ‘Did the man have a car or any means of transport?’
    ‘I didn’t see any.’
    ‘Was the man short or tall?’
    ‘Average.’ Cyril Wade said.
    Angel and Donohue exchanged glances. Angel rubbed his chin.
    Cyril Wade suddenly shook his head irritably. ‘Now look, I’ve told you all I know. Can’t we leave it at that?’
    Angel said, ‘Mr Wade, you may have heard that the vicar of St Barnabas’s has been murdered in the vicarage this morning. Well, it seems that you were passing the vicarage shortly before he was murdered and the man in the white gown may well have been the murderer.’
    Wade’s eyes shone. His mouth dropped open. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.
    ‘So you will understand that we need to know every possible scrap of information that there is to know about that man. You see why every detail is so important to us?’
    ‘Oh yes. Yes. But I think I’ve told you all I know.’
    ‘And we are grateful, Mr Wade,’ Angel said. ‘Very grateful.’ He looked at him, then said, ‘And there is nothing else you can add to the description of the man in the white gown then?’
    ‘No,’ Wade said. ‘Did I say he had very dark hair? Black probably ?’
    ‘Black hair,’ Angel said, writing it on his notes. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘No. I don’t think so.’
    ‘Thank you, Mr Wade. Thank you very much. Now, I want to ask you about the poor victim. What do you know about the vicar and his wife?’
    ‘I don’t know nothing about them, really. Them and the church was more the wife’s province, you know. I’ve not been to church since her funeral. I used to go regular when she was alive but somehow I lost interest since … and I drifted