The Diane Dimbleby Murder Collection Volume 2

by Penelope Sotheby

“Don’t get worked up, dear. It could be anything. Try not to get your hopes up too high.”

  Monique gave Diane a weak smile and collapsed back into the sofa.

  “It’s hard not to. I’m not sure I can sit still until he gets here.”

  Diane sat beside Monique and proceeded to distract her with a practiced ease that came from years of calming overwrought parents and agitated teachers. Without much effort, Monique did not realize what had happened until the doorbell rang loudly, breaking Diane’s spell.

  Albert let Inspector Crothers in and then disappeared upstairs. Monique tried to rise from the sofa, which Diane gently discouraged with a hand on her shoulder, herself rising to offer the Inspector a chair. With a sheepish look at Diane, Inspector Crothers broke the news of the discovery of Jonathan’s body.

  Monique did not respond at first, her queries being about how sure they were, where had he been found, were they really sure. When the Inspector had reassured her several times that all signs indicated it was her husband, Monique let out a wail and her body folded forward, knees buckling so that she fell to the ground, her hands covering her face. Diane joined her more slowly, an arm around Monique’s shoulders while she softly whispered words of comfort. She knew the words would fall on deaf ears for the newly grieving but continued anyway, for lack of anything else she could do.

  Over time, the Inspector and Diane were able to get Monique back on to the sofa and, after a few words from the Crothers, Monique seemed to get herself under a form of control. Crothers saw the hysteria stalking the edges of Monique’s emotions and tried to find a way to keep her mind occupied elsewhere.

  “Did you ever see your husband with a large sum of money?” asked the Inspector.

  Sniffs punctuated each word of Monique’s response and tears still streaked slowly beside her nose.

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so. He never liked to carry cash.”

  “I’m interested if he had sums larger than a wallet would hold.”

  “Oh, then definitely not. Jonathan,” Monique took a deep intake of breath as she spoke her husband’s name. “Jonathan never had to handle actual money in his job.”

  “You haven’t seen any transactions in his bank that would suggest he had access to a significant sum of money?”

  “Not at all, Inspector. He let me keep the books of our bank accounts as a small thing to keep me aware of our finances,” said Monique as a ghost of a smile brushed her lips. “He was always trying to make me interested in money and numbers.”

  “I know this is a horrible time to ask, but we need to be sure. Do we have your permission to look over the bank accounts you both had? We need to see if there were any anomalies that you didn’t notice.”

  “Of course, Inspector. I’ll sign anything you need.”

  Inspector Crothers thanked Monique and made to rise. Diane stopped him before he could move away from the chair.

  “And you have people looking for the murderer? This Sarah Dunsten?”

  Crothers looked at Diane, a little startled that she was trying to delay him and talk about the murder in more detail. A little ball of outrage formed in his chest with the thought that Diane had some ghoulish need to know.

  “Yes,” he said abruptly. “And we can’t divulge to name of any suspects at this moment.”

  “Oh come now, Inspector,” said Diane, not being deterred. “It’s obvious, isn’t it. He was having an affair with…”

  “Miss Dimbleby, this is not the time or place to be discussing details of the case. Especially in front of his wife.” The words came out forcefully, anger at the inappropriateness of the comments.

  “Oh, so you think it was Mr. Tomkins, the nasty real estate developer. I mean, if you think Jonathan had a large sum of money, there’s really only one place…”

  “I won’t discuss it anymore,” said Crothers, pushing past Diane, shocked that he had let himself be lured in by this callous old woman. He made for the door, but as if on cue, Albert stumbled through dragging a substantial case and blocked his way out.

  Monique was starting to say something, but Diane overrode it all as she pursued the Inspector.

  “I thought it might be someone on the estate. That was my pet idea, really. Anger can come from all directions, especially if someone is threatening family homes. And Betrayer…such a powerful word.”

  “This is not satisfactory,” said Crothers, turning on Diane. “This is not some game. A man has died, and you’re being disrespectful to his wife with your random speculation.” He walked toward Diane who retreated back into the perimeter of the sofa and chairs. His anger rose to a new high as his words were met with a smile across the old woman’s face.

  “Oh Inspector, you’re getting so worked up over nothing. Truly.”

  Nothing, she says. Crothers fumed and turned to apologize to Monique, to offer her an escape from this horrible situation. However, Diane beat him to the first word.

  “Don’t worry about Monique, Inspector. You can’t be too upset when you’ve killed your husband.”

  A pin dropping would have been as a volcano bursting in the silence that met that comment. Diane moved around the furniture to stand in front of Monique who just gaped at her.

  “What did you say?” she asked quietly.

  “I said that you killed your husband, dear.”

  “Ms. Dimbleby,” sputtered Crothers. “You really need to stop.”

  “I’ve stopped at just the right moment, Inspector. Get your handcuffs out and take your murderer into custody. She sits right in front of you, crocodile tears smudging her makeup.” There was a sneer in the last sentence that made Crothers pause.

  “You almost had me believing you, Monique,” said Diane as she watched the seated woman. “But you tried just too hard to implicate everyone else. But the first clue came when we went to see Ed Tomkins. I almost missed it too. You said that you’d never met him, and yet as soon as we arrived, you knew exactly who he was.”

  “I was just lucky,” said Monique, a look of bewilderment on her face. “He was just the first person we saw that looked like he might be in charge.”

  “So you say,” said Diane, who looked over at Crothers. “Inspector, I believe you did not find anyone else but Monique’s fingerprints in the break-in at the Carstairs home.”

  Crothers found himself nodding in agreement.

  “And you noted that nothing valuable was broken, even though the house was a mess.”

  Crothers nodded again.

  “What troubled me was, if your husband was already missing, why would they break into your house and make the mess? If the break-in had happened before, that made sense. But afterwards, it was out of place. It only made sense if it was to implicate someone on the estate, probably the manager.”

  Diane looked back at Monique, and her smile was cold.

  “You didn’t want the police to find your husband too quickly, did you? So you could make off with the money while everyone was distracted. You fed them contradicting leads and information so that they would have enough suspects to keep them occupied while you made you getaway. They may even arrest the wrong person, and you’d be free to spend all of that money without a care.”

  “I don’t know what she’s saying.” Monique was looking at the Inspector. “I won’t be talked to like this. You know who did it, don’t you Inspector?”

  Crothers looked from Monique to Diane and back again. Diane was pulling on the threads that had sat at the edge of his own thinking. Even Mayhew had said there was something wrong about the house. There were things that did not fit if Sarah was responsible for the murder and the break-in. And the coincidence of the two happening together was too extreme.

  “You knew your husband was going to return the money to Ed Tomkins. He was too good of a man to take the bribe and feel good about it. Not you though, Monique. You decided to take the money and leave that weak husband of yours. But how to do it without anyone knowing, that’s the key. That’s why Jonathan had to die, a
nd the computer destroyed and Sarah to be implicated. So you could have the money all to yourself.”

  “I won’t stand for this,” blurted Monique. “I won’t sit here and be accused of killing my beautiful Jonathan.” Monique rose and pushed past Crothers who was still processing the information. “I won’t stay here another minute.”

  Reaching Albert, she shouldered him aside and grabbed the handle of her case.

  “And the case!” said Diane triumphantly. “Why do you have a case? Either you stayed in your ransacked house to pack a case before coming to me, which hardly seems the act of a distressed woman, or you already had the bag packed because you had planned in not staying at home.” Diane took a step toward Monique, looking past Inspector Crothers. “A case of that size, there would have been no need or time to pack it so full.”

  Monique turned from Diane, not crediting her with a response, just a swish of her hair, and jerked the case towards the front door. The sudden movement put pressure on the zipped lid which, in turn, flapped open and clothes spilled onto the floor of the hallway.

  “I think you might have forgotten to zip it properly,” said Albert with a coy smile. “Diane called me when you got back to check on the zip, and you know, I just forgot.”

  Albert stood aside as Crothers stepped forward to help Monique gather her belongings. Kneeling with a blouse in one hand and a shoe in the other, Crothers looked up at the case and strapped safely to the inside base was an array of clear bags containing stacks of fifty-pound notes. Snuggly wedged between the case and money, the crimson of a passport peaked out with the unmistakable documents of airline tickets clamped inside.

  Monique blustered for a moment before lunging for the front door. Crothers was on her before her hand had reached the handle. With practiced ease, the cuffs were out, and a snarling Monique was fighting them.

  “That’s my money!” she screamed, as Crothers guided her into the front yard. “It’s mine!”

  Before long, two police cars with sirens blaring appeared in the street and, while Monique was struggling against officers trying to get her into one of the cars, Crothers, and another policeman came inside and put the case in a large plastic bag which they took to the other car.

  “I would never have guessed,” said Albert. “She was so nice and so sweet. She seemed genuinely upset.”

  “But she tried to be too clever, which is often a criminal's downfall. KISS, Albert.”

  “Kiss back at you, Diane,” replied a confused Albert.

  “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Diane smiled at the fake hurt look that spread on Albert's face.

  “Well she’s a cold fish, there’s no doubt.”

  “And a good man fell afoul of her. All for some paper and a wicked heart.”

  Inspector Crothers walked back up the path towards the house, astonished at the rapid turn of events. He was glad to have misjudged Diane and that she had shown herself to be as brilliant as he had ever seen. His head was in a slight spin due to the speed of the changes that had been forced upon him and he hoped that Diane would lay it all out clearly for him. Preferably with diagrams. It had been a long day, after all.

  The End of Murder in the Development

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