The Diane Dimbleby Murder Collection Volume 2

by Penelope Sotheby

  Crothers shrugged in response.

  “You’re ascribing rational behaviour to a human, you know.”

  “Right, right. If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s people acting irrationally when things get out of a routine.” Mills shook his head, still bemused by Monique’s reaction to the situation. For all the years he had been a policeman and all the people, criminals, and witnesses that he had interacted with, they could still act in ways that confused him.

  “Anything out of the ordinary otherwise?” asked Crothers, who was scanning his phone for messages from Detective Sergeant Barnes.

  “Nothing leaps out at you. We’ll have to run a timeline with the neighbourhood, though. Someone else could have picked him up after all.”

  The implication was clear. Anyone whose timeline did not match the codes would have some serious questions to answer about their interactions with the Carstairs. Jonathan had probably made some enemies, other than Matthew Buchan, with his plan for the estate. You don’t kick people out of their homes without making people angry at you, thought Crothers.

  “Ready to look at the house?” asked Mills as he put the papers into a folder on the backseat of the car.

  With a nod, Crothers and Mills exited the vehicle and walked up to the house, past the formerly-harassed constable. Crothers noted the twitch of a blind at the house across the street, just enough for someone to get a glimpse of the police activity but not to show a face.

  The door of the house stood wide, and Crothers could see several individuals in white plastic suits taking photographs and working with fine brushes. One officer was scraping the wall where the spray paint had been used to spell out ‘TRAITOR’ in jagged lettering. He held a small plastic bag under the scrapings to capture anything he dislodged for later analysis. Cases had been broken on less than matching paint to a paint can.

  As they entered the living room area, a figure rose from pondering an oil painting covered in a translucent layer of black powder. He placed his gloved hands on his hips and addressed the Inspectors without looking away from the painting.

  “One set of prints on all the hanging art, Ollie.” He rotated in place using a hand to indicate all of the paintings that were sitting on the floor around the walls. “The thumb seems to match the ones I got from a frying pan that hadn’t been touched. So that would suggest it’s one of the homeowners, which isn’t unusual.”

  “We’ll get the wife fingerprinted as soon as possible to get them ruled out. Anything missing that you can tell?” Mills stood rooted to the spot just inside the doorway with Crothers standing at his shoulder. “This is Inspector Crothers from Telford. He’s looking for the missing husband. Crothers, this is Tim Mayhew, best Crime Scene Investigator I’ve ever met.”

  Mayhew waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Crothers while his gaze continued to sweep over the room.

  “Nothing of value missing that we could find. We were able to find a list of property for the insurance company in the study. Upstairs was untouched. One or two necklaces are missing which I bet we’ll find on the wife.”

  “Nothing at all? Doesn’t that seem a little odd?”

  “A little,” replied Mayhew as he ran his gloved fingers through a thin covering of hair. “A lot. I don’t know, there’s something….“ He smacked his lips loudly. “A bad taste from everything I see.”

  “Mixing your senses, Tim. Old age finally getting to you.”

  “Synesthesia can be a very powerful tool,” replied Tim without a trace of humour. “Blues are cold, sounds are soft or hard, it’s embedded in our society. And something I see doesn’t taste right.”

  “Crime scenes have a taste. And I thought I’d heard everything,” said Mills as he looked over his shoulder to give a sly wink to Crothers. “I said he was a good Crime Scene Investigator. Licks all the evidence, though.”

  “Scoff all you will, Ollie. I’m telling you that this is an unusual scene. I just can’t tell how.”

  Mayhew looked down at the painting he had been examining.

  “Is this the only room that was damaged?” asked Crothers.

  “Hmmm,” said Mayhew after a moment. Another moment had lapsed before he replied. “The study, a total mess.” He pointed past their shoulders. “You can reach it along the hallway, door at the end. I’ll meet you there.”

  The Inspectors backed out of the door and headed along to the study.

  “It sounds like Tim needs to clean his teeth,” said Mills quietly. “Last night’s pizza making his breath a crime, I bet.”

  Crothers smiled back as if joining in on the joke, but the living room was having a similar effect on him. It certainly looked like someone had ransacked the room. There was something about how it had been done that did not sit right with him though. Not a bad taste; more of a distant dull headache, a confusion that would not resolve into view.

  The study door opened, and a gloved hand restrained them at the threshold. Once he was sure they would not enter, Mayhew stepped backwards and, with a slight bow, allowed them to view the devastation.

  “Christ, it’s like a tornado hit a paper factory!” said Mills.

  There was no floor visible, so thick was the covering of papers of all kinds. Bills, letters, contracts, lists, and so much more were strewn around as though an overstuffed filing cabinet had exploded. There was even a filing cabinet with drawers flung outward, papers hanging over the edges like seasick passengers on a cruise. A dark wooden desk jutted out of the mess and across the surface, on top of even more paper, were scattered shiny metal pieces that clung to a board case by what appeared to be black and red veins.

  “That used to be a computer,” said Mayhew, spotting where their gaze had fallen. “The hard drive has been obliterated; with a hammer is my guess.”

  “Nothing salvageable?” asked Crothers. Someone had wanted that computer destroyed because of its contents. Was the rest of the house a decoy for that?

  “I’ve got a lad working on it but we found a magnet stuck on the side of what remained of it, so I’d say the chances of anything meaningful being pulled off are slim to none.”

  “Someone didn’t like the latest Windows update, I guess,” said Mills as he turned away from the room and looked at Crothers. “Done here?”

  “If there’s nothing out of place upstairs…“

  Mayhew shook his head slowly while rolling a mangled bracket around on his fingers.

  “Then I’ve seen enough.” Crothers backed against the wall to let Mills through, and both men thanked Mayhew as they made for the front door.

  “It certainly looks like the computer was the main target,” said Mills as they strolled back to the car. “So why not just steal it? Why do the rest? It’s not like they’re covering it up.”

  “Decoy for burglary, maybe,” pondered Crothers. “Though if it’s something that’s not easily missed, then you’d just steal that without spending so much time destroying the place.”

  “It looks, smells, and tastes unusual. Hell, it probably sounds weird too.”

  Crothers inclined his head to the house opposite to the Carstairs’ home.

  “We should probably talk to the nosey neighbour. They’ve been watching us since we arrived.”

  Chapter 7

  A precisely-dressed woman, Mrs. April Mullins, in her mid-fifties answered the detectives’ knock. She had a round head with waves of firm brown hair cut to a style that was two decades past. A crisp beige blouse merged with the parallel lines of a pair of light brown trousers, which blended seamlessly with tan house shoes. Her manner was as clipped as her style.

  Within twenty minutes, Crothers and Mills emerged having been subjected to a bland, watery tea and a thin solid biscuit that would have been more at home as roofing material. But, with their damaged taste-buds, they had gathered enough information to muddy the investigational waters like an off-roader through a mountain stream.

  Sergeant Barnes had called as they walked through the door, allowing Crothers to s
tay behind in the hallway while Mills was given clipped instructions that were disguised as questions such as, “Would you like to sit down?” Mills did not reply before more sharp words were fired at him.

  “Like being interrogated by a grim business mannequin,” he had commented afterwards.

  Jonathan Carstairs had made the train at Birmingham but had not left the train at Telford. Barnes had gone over the footage from the period his train would have arrived, and no-one matching Jonathan’s description had left the train unless he had disguised himself thoroughly. The surveillance footage had been examined for the later train that Jonathan was supposed to have been catching and, again, no-one seemed to match the description.

  Crothers joined Mills’ torture-by-tea and helped turn the tables on the situation. They asked the rudimentary introductory questions:

  “Where were you yesterday evening?”

  “At dinner. Salarino’s in Shrewsbury.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “My husband.”

  The responses came in an almost aggravated tone, as if the role-reversal was not something to which she was accustomed. Her words were fired back rapidly and in a direct manner.

  “Do you know Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  After the last response, Crothers and Mills waited, partially stunned by the unhelpful situation they had become embroiled in and partly due to the answers giving no direction to move off in. However, the silence seemed too much for Mrs. Mullins, who began to elaborate.

  “He seems a decent young man. Always working and busy. Even if he is selling our property. It’s all good business, though. So we cannot fault him. His wife is a harridan. I see her snapping at him in the mornings from the front door.”

  Her tone did not change during any of the statements to indicate her emotions. Just short, sharp responses fired off like a ticker tape disgorging stock prices.

  “They were having marital issues?” asked Mills.

  “That is unclear. They always turned up to meetings together. Never apart. So how bad could it be?”

  “Did you see anything unusual around here yesterday? Or perhaps this morning?”

  “No. The same cars and people. Until your police arrived.”

  “Nothing at all?” queried Crothers. “No-one leaving unexpectedly, lingering too long?”

  Mrs. Mullins paused for a moment, and her eyes twitched from side to side while she stared over Crothers’ left shoulder. Finally, with a blink, she returned to the real world.

  “Not unusual. Though there are people on holiday. Which I find odd at a time like this for their homes. Priorities seem skewed in some these days.”

  “Do you…” Mills had started but was abruptly interrupted by Mrs. Mullins.

  “The Smalley family left for Tenerife last week on Tuesday. He lives two doors north of here. Sarah Dunsten departed two days ago for parts unknown. She lives at the end of the road. Graham Chestnut and his,” Mrs. Mullins made air-quotes with her fingers, “’assistant’ left last night for some hidden spot. When they’re here, they’re directly behind this house.”

  Crothers and Mills made furious notes in their matching little books before Mills continued by handing Mrs. Mullins a sheet of paper.

  “Do any of those codes look familiar to you?”

  Her eyes were already scanning the page, line by line, her head barely moving throughout the act.

  “These are useless.”

  “Useless? But doesn’t everyone…”

  Mrs. Mullins rolled her eyes and sighed as she interrupted Mills.

  “No. Everyone’s numbers are known to everyone else. The security is a joke here. Within days of moving in, people were using their codes in a lottery for frivolous goods set up by that odious buffoon Buchan. Typically of mediocre minds, everyone got a prize. Anyone paying attention would know all of the codes.”

  In a staccato machine gun of words, Mrs. Mullins had shredded a key piece of evidence. Mills stared at her, jaw slack as his mind took in the implications. She returned his gaze without blinking, a look of slight annoyance in the lines around her eyes. Crothers maneuverer around the silence and said:

  “Did you observe any interaction between Mr. Carstairs and another resident that might have been, maybe, inappropriate?”

  Swivelling her head, Mrs. Mullins forgot Mills and focused heavily upon Crothers.

  “I do not have all day to spend observing my neighbours, Inspector. But you seem to be implying impropriety between residents and I can safely say that it occurs. Rather regularly.”

  “And Mr. Carstairs?”

  “I cannot say. He works and is at home. There is little time he is not in either place. Unless his dalliance is near his workplace, which I would not observe, I doubt very much he had an opportunity at home.”

  “And how about Mrs. Dunsten?”

  “Miss,” hissed Mrs. Mullins who dragged on the ‘s’ for a little too long. “I am not the keeper of private lives, and I rarely interact with anyone here except at the meetings.”

  Crothers nodded solemnly. He had hoped that a connection between the Carstairs and someone inside the estate would have been a poorly kept secret.

  Rising from their respective seats, the Inspectors placed the cold teacups upon a dazzlingly silver tray and thanked Mrs. Mullins for her hospitality. Frost gleamed around the edges of her dismissive response.

  The door found its jamb solidly as the Inspectors were halfway to the road.

  Mills shivered briefly in the afternoon sun.

  “She should open a bed and breakfast. That hospitality would be legend.”

  Chirps came from Crothers’ pocket, and he reached in to grab his phone.

  Chapter 8

  Diane Dimbleby sat in her car outside of the home. Monique Carstairs had been seen safely inside by Albert who had prowled forth with the gait of a prowling tiger. The phone pressed to her ear was briefly forgotten as Diane scanned the mirrors of her car for any activity.

  “Ah, Inspector. I have some news for you.”

  Diane waited while the Inspector regaled her with all of the reasons that she should not be getting herself involved past keeping Mrs. Carstairs safe. She held her tongue in the way she had when a student had given an excuse for breaching school rules. The words entered her ears but were not processed into a recognizable pattern. When she heard the noise end, she began again.

  “I have news for you. We paid a small visit to a rather unsavoury man, Eddie Tomkins. He’s in charge of the MizzenMount takeover.”

  Diane waited for a response as there was a muffled discussion on the other end of the line. She clearly heard teeth being sucked followed by a brief exchange.

  “Diane, you need to stay away from that man. He’s got underworld connections and is suspected of some pretty serious things.”

  “Like the disappearance of Jonathan Carstairs maybe?”

  “Maybe, now we know he is involved. Just go home and lock the doors until you hear from me. You’re not messing with a village pickpocket. This guy is dangerous.”

  “Everything is fine, Inspector. There’s no need to worry. We just arrived, and Albert has secured the perimeter. Now, have there been any other developments I can pass on?”

  “You know I can’t tell you much, this is a police inquiry.”

  “Well, at least tell me if anything was missing from the house so I can pass it on to Monique. She’s awfully worried about it all.”

  Inspector Crothers paused, and Diane could almost hear the internal discussion that was taking place. She wished he would see the futility of holding back information from her. It had almost cost a life before now.

  “Nothing was missing that we have found,” said the Inspector finally. There was a cautious tone to his voice, as if he were still unsure of passing on the information. “The main damage was to a couple of pictures and the laptop computer.”

  “The computer? Well, that’s a little unusual. Surely someone would have take
n that in a robbery.”

  “Exactly. But instead it was destroyed beyond possible recovery, according to our people.”

  “And nothing else missing or damaged?” Diane asked as she frowned at her reflection in the windscreen.

  “The graffiti. A cracked picture or two. The rest of the mess is just that, a mess. Things have been moved around, but little else is damaged.”

  “Very interesting, eh Inspector? I wonder what that computer held that needed to be destroyed.”

  “We may never find out, unfortunately.”

  A flicker of activity in her mind brought a memory to the fore. A book she had been researching that had a similar situation: computer lost, all of the important law documents missing, and she had found a way. The answer had come when she had put a call into the school’s old IT technician, Tony Eccles, a retired insurance salesman who had trained himself in electronics to keep himself busy and “to keep the Devil away from my idle hands.”

  “Inspector, there was a printer, yes?”

  Inspector Crothers grunted an affirmative.

  “Excellent! Now listen carefully. Have your forensics team check if it still has power. If it does, there’s a flash memory in the printer that should still hold information about a document or two that it printed last.”

  Diane continued with the details, making sure that the Inspector had time to scribble everything down. When she had finished, Diane waited as the Inspector spoke to someone on the other end of the line and there was a ripping of paper. Finally, he returned:

  “One final thing. Has Monique ever mentioned a Sarah Dunsten during your talks?”

  “Not that I recall, Inspector. I’ve been trying to distract her for the majority of the time to keep her mind off the situation. Not that I’ve been wholly successful. But no, to answer your question: no Sarah Dunsten.”

  “Thank you, Diane. I’ve got to get these instructions to the lab boys. I have to go.”

  “You see, Inspector? I can be very useful to you if you keep me informed.”