The Snuffbox Murders

by Roger Silverwood

  Angel blinked. ‘So it looks like his death was, presumably, accidental … or suicidal?’

  Donohue nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Neither spoke for a moment, then Angel suddenly said, ‘Did you say that a light came on when you and Elder first arrived at the Razzle’s front door?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It also went on when the engineer left at about five-thirty. It was obviously a heat-sensitive light.’

  ‘Did you see any CCTV cameras anywhere?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Angel reached out for the phone and tapped in a number.

  Don Taylor answered. He was the sergeant in charge of SOCO at Bromersley CID. His team was already at work at the house.

  ‘Don,’ Angel said, ‘I want you to look round for any CCTV. We could be lucky and find one in the workshop. I want any tapes you find, asap.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘No sign of a suicide note, I suppose?’

  ‘Not up to now.’

  ‘Let me know if one turns up. And let me know as soon as I can get on to the scene.’

  He replaced the phone and looked up at Donohue. ‘With everything he had going for him, it would be tragic if a man as young and talented as Charles Razzle had taken his own life.’

  Donohue shrugged then nodded.

  ‘Thank you, lad,’ Angel said. ‘Now off you go and get some kip.’

  Donohue went out. Angel watched the door close.

  He was considering what next he might do to progress the case. Forensics must finish the sweep of the scene before he set foot in the place. He considered the situation for a few moments, then reached out for the phone and summoned PC Ahmed Ahaz, a young man in his twenties.

  ‘I want you to find out if there’s anything on the PNC, Ahmed, on Charles Razzle, and his wife, Rosemary. Also see if you can find out where an old lag called Peter Queegley is these days. I saw him at Pinsley Smith’s auction last Saturday. I thought he should still be serving a stretch for handling stolen paintings. I tried to get to him but he slipped away in the crowd. It was either him or his double.’

  ‘Peter Queegley, sir?’

  ‘Local lad. Used to live in Hoyland or Hoyland Common.’

  ‘Right, sir. As a matter of interest, there’s a piece in the National Daily Press and Advertiser about that auction. Have you seen it? It was on the front page.’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed briefly. Bromersley almost never hit the front page of any newspaper. His face brightened. ‘Really? No, lad. Must see that.’

  ‘I’ll fetch it, sir.’

  Ahmed dashed off.

  The phone rang. Angel reached out for it. It was the civilian woman on the switchboard. ‘There’s a Mr Hargreaves, funeral director, on the line.’

  Angel blinked. He had been the man who had organized his father’s funeral, that was the only contact he had ever had with the man. ‘Right. Put him through.’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Inspector,’ Hargreaves said. ‘I have had a burglary … I didn’t know who I could speak to about it. I’ve never had to bother the police before.’

  Angel frowned and said, ‘That’s all right. You can speak to me, Mr Hargreaves. What’s happened? What’s been taken?’

  ‘My workshop and garage have been broken into. I have had a look round. It looks as if thieves have taken three of my oak coffins, silk lined, varnished and complete with best plated carrying-handles and lids. Broken into a garage and then through an internal-door into the workshop.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Sorry about that, Mr Hargreaves. Three coffins? What can you do with coffins except bury people in them?’

  ‘Sell them, I suppose. They are quite expensive. Cost four hundred and eighty pounds apiece plus VAT, and I have no idea what a new garage door will set me back.’

  ‘I’ll send a man round straight away. Don’t touch anything. There might be some fingerprints.’

  He replaced the phone. He wondered whether the coffins had been stolen by young drug-and-booze-soaked villains on a whoopee trip, or by others with a more serious intention.

  Ahmed reappeared with a copy of the National Daily Press and Advertiser. ‘Front page, sir. There,’ he said pointing to the corner of the folded newspaper, which he passed across the desk.

  Angel took it and looked at the piece headed: ‘Future king’s mistress goes down for £1,000.’ Underneath was a two-inch double-column photograph of the gold-plated plaster statue of Dorothea Jordan. The article gave her history and her relationship with the Duke of Clarence in brief. The piece was saying essentially that the price paid for the figure should have been much higher considering Dorothea Jordan’s place in history, and suggested that the item should have been sold in a prestigious London auction house by a more responsible and competent auctioneer, and not ‘given away’ in a marquee sale in an insignificant northern town to a maiden bid. There was a comment from Pinsley Smith, who was quoted as saying, ‘I am fully aware of the obligation to my vendors, and considered that while one thousand pounds was a low price, I seriously had not expected the item to have fetched very much more whether sold in London or anywhere else.’

  The piece ended with the words … ‘When asked the name of the purchaser, Pinsley Smith said, “That is a confidential matter. I never divulge information of that kind about my clients.”’

  ‘I’m afraid poor old Pinsley Smith doesn’t come out of it too well … and it doesn’t reflect well on the town, either.’

  ‘It’s mentioned in the other national papers, sir.’

  Angel sniffed. ‘Aye, well, they must be short of something to write about then. I thought the silly season was August. Thanks very much, lad,’ he said. He handed the paper back to Ahmed. ‘Find Scrivens and send him to me, and didn’t I ask you to check on Charles and Rosemary Razzle?’

  Ahmed’s mouth dropped open.

  Angel parked the BMW on The Feathers’ car-park and pushed his way through the revolving doors. The hotel was Bromersley’s only three star hotel.

  Angel made for the reception desk and caught the eye of the desk clerk, who tilted his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Mrs Razzle,’ Angel said. ‘What room number is she in, please?’

  ‘Mrs Razzle is in suite number 1, sir,’ said the clerk. He reached for the phone and tapped in a number. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’ he said, looking up.

  But there was nobody there.

  Angel had already passed through the double doors, and was making his way up the stairs to the first floor to suite number 1. When he reached the sitting room door, he knocked on it and waited. It suddenly opened.

  He saw the most beautiful woman in a frothy pink house coat. Her long blonde hair fell irregularly over her shoulders. She was exactly as he remembered seeing her many times on television.

  She looked Angel up and down, and smiled. ‘Were you knocking?’ she asked.

  ‘Mrs Razzle?’ Angel said. ‘Of course. I am so sorry to disturb you. Detective Inspector Angel.’ he said.

  The smile dissolved. She hesitated, then pulled the door open wider and said, ‘Oh yes. Please come in.’

  The sitting room was decorated in cream and gold, with two sofas, a sprinkling of easy chairs, a coffee table with a large dish holding a mountain of fruit. There were two full-length windows leading to small balconies overlooking the town and hills beyond.

  She pointed to an easy chair. He sat down and watched her climb on to the large sofa opposite.

  ‘I didn’t much like being evicted out of my house so abruptly in the middle of the night, I must say,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry. Your house has become a crime scene. It is necessary.’

  ‘That sergeant wouldn’t even let me pick up any clothes or collect a toothbrush or anything.’

  Angel knew it would have been so. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘I couldn’t even take my own car. I had to dash round the shops in a taxi and buy some bits to get me by. When will I be able to return?’

&
nbsp; ‘Very soon. A few days. In the meantime, I have a few questions I must put to you, if you are up to it?’

  ‘Of course. You must. Fire away.’

  ‘When did you last see your husband?’

  ‘Very early Sunday morning … it would be a few minutes to four … I brought him a cup of tea in bed before I left for the studio. A car picked me up at four o’clock on the dot to take me up to London to rehearse and then to record a play I am in. I had to be in make-up for eight o’clock.’

  ‘PC Donohue said you told him you arrived back at half past midnight on Tuesday morning, this morning.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It was a long day. A very long day.’

  ‘Doesn’t often happen like that, Inspector. Once a month, maybe. Better than staying in hotels. I can hire a car and driver, there and back. I can nod on the back seat, then arrive home and sleep in my own bed. Why wouldn’t I do that?’

  Angel nodded. ‘Can someone vouch for you being in the studio all that time?’

  ‘There was an audience of three hundred and a crew and cast of about forty.’

  ‘I just need … a couple of names….’

  She reached down to a small leather case on the floor by the sofa, quickly yanked out a plastic ring-binder that was bulging with the script of the play she had recorded. She opened it and snatched out the top page. ‘Take that. That’s got all the cast, the director and the crew with their phone numbers or their agents’ phone numbers. They were all there.’

  Angel hardly glanced at it. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He folded the paper roughly and pushed it into his pocket.

  ‘And you dialled triple nine, five or ten minutes after you arrived home?’

  ‘About that. As soon as I realized that something was … seriously very wrong.’

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘I am sorry that I have to ask you, but is there any reason at all why your late husband would have wanted to take his own life?’

  She breathed in quickly and swallowed. ‘I can’t think of any. Certainly not.’

  ‘You see, there was a gun … it was in the robot’s hand.’

  ‘Yes. It was his plan to build a robot to do all the usual boring repetitive household chores in the house. He hoped to extend its use to factories and so on.’

  ‘It was in the robot’s hand pointing at him. Your husband was believed to be holding the remote control.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Horrible.’

  ‘Have you any idea what must have been in his mind?’

  ‘There’s no explanation I can come up with, Inspector, except that from time to time he got depressed. He said that he craved adventure, exploration and new places.’

  Angel rubbed his cheek. He felt like that every day.

  ‘Did he have any money troubles?’

  She laughed. Too much, perhaps. ‘Good lord, no.’

  ‘Did you know that he owned a handgun?’

  ‘I had seen it … a long time ago.’

  ‘Where did he get it from?’

  ‘He’s had it ever since I can remember. He thought it was a good idea … if we were attacked or … whatever. You hear some ghastly stories these days.’

  ‘Have you ever seen him fire it?’

  ‘I didn’t even know it was loaded.’

  ‘Where was it normally kept?’

  ‘In the drawer of the bedside table on his side.’

  ‘Who will benefit from your husband’s death?’

  She stared hard at him. There was a pause, then she said, ‘I am the main beneficiary, but my husband made an enormous allowance to his daughter, Jessica, my stepdaughter. There’s nobody else. He also gave her a capital sum. She may be paid additional subsistence from his estate if she needs it.’

  Angel’s eyebrows went as high as the scales of justice on the roof of the Old Bailey. He pursed his lips. He was wondering whether it was really necessary to ask the next question. At length, just for the hell of it, wearing the expression of a prize poker player he said, ‘And who will decide if she needs it?’

  ‘I will,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ he said, unsurprised.

  Rosemary Razzle did not react to his reply.

  ‘You’ve been in touch with Jessica?’ he asked.

  She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure where she is. She’s on a sort of working holiday in the States. She doesn’t stay long anywhere. Last I heard she had a job doing something with horses … looking after a small stable for a family in Texas, I think it was.’

  ‘I’ll need her address.’

  ‘It’ll be among my husband’s papers. I know they were in touch by email quite recently.’

  Angel nodded and made a note on the back of an envelope he carried for that very purpose.

  ‘Was there anybody else regularly in the house?’

  ‘Yes, we have a housekeeper, Mrs Dalgleish, Elaine Dalgleish. She comes in part time.’

  ‘I shall need to speak to her. Ask her to come down to the station and tell her to ask for me, will you?’

  ‘I’ll phone her, Inspector. Oh dear. She will have been to the house … and wondered what’s happened. I must remember.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed as he licked his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Is that it, Inspector?’ she said.

  He stared hard into her eyes. ‘Not quite, Mrs Razzle. Not quite. Just one more question. But it’s a very important one.’

  She lifted her head and looked back at him evenly, her face set.

  Angel said, ‘Did your husband have any enemies?’

  She sighed. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Everybody liked Charles, Inspector.’

  He nodded, then said, ‘Think about it, Mrs Razzle. Are you really sure?’

  ‘He was generally easy-going. He would be difficult to fall out with,’ she said, then she frowned and added, ‘but he took his own life, Inspector, didn’t he?’

  ‘Certainly looks like it, Mrs Razzle. Certainly looks like it.’

  There was a knock at Angel’s office door.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  It was Ahmed. He came in carrying a large envelope with the word EVIDENCE printed in big letters across it.

  ‘Thought I saw you come in, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing on the NPC about Charles Razzle or Rosemary Razzle.’

  Angel nodded. ‘Right, lad. What about Peter Queegley?’

  ‘He was released from Lincoln prison last month, sir. Sentenced to twelve months for being in possession of two stolen paintings by Van de Longe. He was charged with another man.’

  ‘Alec Underwood. But he got off. Insufficient evidence.’

  Ahmed’s eyebrows shot up. He was surprised at his boss’s memory. He shouldn’t have been. ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Find out where Queegley is living,’ Angel said. ‘The probation office will tell you. The new lass in charge there … with the stringy red hair … smells of bleach. She’ll know.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘What you got there,’ Angel said, pointing to the envelope.

  ‘DS Taylor phoned to say that he found two CCTV cameras in The Manor House, Creesforth Road, and that they contained twenty-four-hour tapes and that they were actually still running.’ He held up the envelope. ‘A patrolman delivered them five minutes ago. They are marked for your urgent attention.’

  Angel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Two tapes?’ He took the envelope, opened it and slid the video tapes out on to the desk top. ‘That’s great.’

  He picked one up and read out the label. ‘Camera inside by front door focused down the main hall. Tape was running and withdrawn at 1109 hours. 26.5.09. No fingerprints.’ He read out the other. ‘Camera concealed in basement focused on security door. Tape was running and withdrawn at 1105 hours. 26.5.09. No fingerprints.’

  He frowned. ‘Well, Ahmed,’ he said, ‘nobody could possibly dodge those cameras and gain access to Razzle’s workshop. Pity there wasn’t a CCTV camera in the worksh
op itself. I want you to check them off immediately. They’re not run out yet … a twenty-four-hour tape, about three-quarters through…Anyway, mark the tapes and run them through, and we’ll be able to work out exactly the time that they were changed. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘See who it is, then crack on. As soon as you see an intruder, even if you can identify him, let me know.’

  Ahmed nodded and opened the door.

  It was DC Scrivens.

  ‘What is it, Ted?’

  Ahmed rushed out with the videotapes.

  ‘About Hargreaves, the funeral directors, sir,’ Scrivens said.

  ‘Aye. Come in,’ Angel said. ‘They were just referred to as plain undertakers when I was a lad. What about them?’

  ‘Met up with Mr Hargreaves,’ Scrivens said. ‘A padlock on a garage was forced open, presumably with a crowbar and entry gained into where the hearse is kept. There is a door out of the garage into the workshop where all the coffins and parts like coffin handles, trestles and so on are stored. There were piles of coffins, sir, wrapped in bubble wrap and Sellotape … forty or more all different sorts of wood and some painted white. Mr Hargreaves said that three mahogany ones were stolen. He gave me a photograph from the manufacturer’s catalogue, and he showed me the place they had occupied in the workshop.’

  ‘Was there any unnecessary damage or any graffiti left behind by the intruders?’ Angel was wondering whether it was an act of vandalism fuelled by drugs or alcohol, or a serious robbery for gain of some kind.

  ‘Oh no, sir. I don’t think it was kids on a drug trip.’

  ‘Well, what do robbers want with three coffins?’ He rubbed his chin. All the reasons he could think of he didn’t like. He hoped it didn’t augur a spate of grave-digging or worse.

  ‘Don’t know, sir,’ Scrivens said looking at him wide eyed.

  ‘Any forensic?’ Angel said.

  ‘No.’

  The phone rang. Angel reached out for it. ‘All right, Ted,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’

  Scrivens made for the door.

  Then Angel called, ‘Oh Ted.’

  Scrivens looked back.

  ‘Nip into CID and tell Ahmed I want him pronto.’