Murder in the Mail: A Diane Dimbleby Cozy Mystery

by Penelope Sotheby

  “Little man with a big image of himself. Not worth worrying about.”

  That seemed to end Dolly’s interest in the topic as she leaned forward to open a wooden box resting upon the desk she was seated before. She flicked on the desk lamp and turned the box for Diane to see.

  “New stock,” she said. “I’ll have first look before they go on display.”

  “Take your pick,” said a portly man in a dark brown suit, his red cheeks matching the red handkerchief in his breast pocket. He had a smile that seemed permanently attached, his eyes half closed due to his cheeks pushing up from below.

  “Billy!” exclaimed Dolly. “That wicked boy is trying to keep you for himself.”

  “I can’t fault him for trying to keep customers in the shop, can I?” He shrugged playfully, and his eyes disappeared behind his cheeks.

  “I’m just a customer to you?” pouted Dolly.

  Diane winced to see Dolly switch to her playful man-killer mode so quickly. Such talk made the skin on her neck crawl, and she distracted herself by picking up a ring from the box.

  “Oh no no,” said Billy soothingly, placing a hand on Dolly’s shoulder. “Of course you’re not, my dear.”

  Dolly covered his hand with her own and turned her eyes up to look at his face.

  “Billy, my friend needs your help. This is Diane. Diane, this is William Hoskins, owner of this marvellous shop.”

  Billy stepped around Dolly’s chair and extended his hand to Diane, who gripped it gently for a moment.

  “A pleasure. How may I assist, my dear Dolly’s friend?”

  “There’s a ring, Billy,” said Dolly. “Show him, Diane. There’s a ring, and we need to know who bought it.”

  “You’re not squeamish, I hope,” said Diane as she produced her phone and pulled up the image of the finger.

  “The poor girl,” said William under his breath. Then after a moment, “Have they found the poor child yet?”

  Diane shook her head solemnly.

  “We were hoping that is where you could help us, Mr. Hoskins.”

  “I know this ring. It’s definitely one we have had in stock. How did you get this?”

  “It was brought to me by a young woman this morning.” Diana retrieved the phone and changed the image, handing it back to William. “Have you seen her before?”

  “She doesn’t look like anyone I’ve dealt with, but there have been so many customers, and I rarely spend time in the shop except for my special clients.” He turned a twinkling eye upon Dolly who became coy under his gaze.

  “Is there any way you could tell us who bought the ring?” asked Diane.

  “Usually I wouldn’t hand out such information, but due to the nature of the situation and that you are a good friend of Dolly’s, I think I can make a justifiable exception. Please, give me a few minutes to look through our records.”

  Diane sat in silence as Dolly looked over the new arrivals, tutting in places when she saw something not up to her extreme standards. A small clock on the desk ticked away to itself and Diane found herself looking at her phone, hoping for a message from Albert. Dolly’s flirtations with “Billy”, while a little gaudy, made her wish she could discuss the situation with Albert. Not for his insight or knowledge, but more for the unspoken reassurance he gave to her when things became difficult.

  “I think we have a candidate here,” said William as he thrust into the room, his hand waving a sheet of paper before him. He made for leather wingback chair on the far side of the desk and dropped into it. There was a redness to his cheeks that glistened from a sheen of sweat. “I never knew we had so many boxes of records.”

  “Technology would help with that,” said Dolly. “You really should come over to this century.”

  “I’d still keep paper files because you can’t trust all those electronic devices not to crumble under a moment of pressure.” He pulled in a large breath, as if carrying the paper across the room had winded him. “So, we have a very recent customer, not three days ago actually. A young man by the name of Gary Sandrake. I didn’t deal with him, of course, but we can ask around in the shop.”

  Pulling a small sticky note from a thick pad beside the stained blotter, he wrote down the name, address, and telephone number and passed it to Diane. She unzipped an internal pocket on her jacket and made sure the information was secure inside.

  “Let’s talk to the staff, shall we?”

  William heaved himself up from his chair and assisted Dolly from her seat. Then he opened the door and let the ladies precede him back into the main store.

  “Jeremy,” he barked.

  At that moment Jeremy was standing on the left side of the horseshoe of glass cases that lined three walls of the shop. He seemed to be gazing into the air above the head of a small blonde woman who was staring at a series of small diamond rings. He did not look especially pleased to be dealing with her, but the other three staff members were busy shuffling padded cases back and forth before customers.

  “Jeremy, come over here a moment,” said William again. Turning to the small woman, he said, “This will only take a moment. I’m sorry to take him away from you.”

  The woman gave a charming smile and nodded briefly before returning to the rings, slightly steaming the glass as she tried to look more closely.

  “Sir?” said Jeremy, his tone deferential but his eyes conveying boredom.

  “Did you sell a ring recently to this gentleman?” William waved the paper before Jeremy’s face.

  Gripping the sales sheet so that he could look at it clearly, Jeremy quickly scanned the information and said, “No sir. That wasn’t me.”

  “How about this lady? Have you seen her around here with anyone?” asked Diane as she held up the phone.

  “No, I haven’t seen her either. I would suggest asking the other staff.” The boredom was still in his eyes, and now it passed into his voice. “Can I get back to the customer?”

  “Of course,” said William, dismissing him with a turn of the shoulder.

  They went around to each of the other three attendants, interrupting their sale each time and the response was exactly the same.

  “Sorry sir. It wasn’t me. I haven’t seen her either.”

  Diane’s hopes of a quick solution faded slightly, her prospects now pinned on the note in her jacket.

  William showed both women to the door of the store.

  “There are a couple of girls, Sarah and Molly I think they were called, that left in the last week or so who might know something and I have their information in my office. I will call them and then let Dolly know should they have anything to add.”

  “You have been most helpful,” said Diane, taking his proffered hand and shaking it slightly. “I will get this information into good hands as soon as possible.”

  “I can only hope that the situation is resolved for the better,” said William. Turning to Dolly, he took her hand and bent over it to kiss a large ruby on her knuckle. “My dear, it has been marvellous to see you. We shall have to have dinner sometime this week.”

  Dolly smiled at William’s offer and said, “I think we shall, Billy.”

  He stood at the open door as Diane and Dolly walked back into the main concourse of the shopping centre. He was still there as they rounded a corner towards the exit.

  Chapter 3

  Diane had left Dolly at her car with the assurance that she would let her know how the finger hunt went and that they would get together for a proper catch-up the following week. She had then gone to her own car and, while watching the splash of rain on the windscreen, had called Inspector Crothers to inform him of the information she had obtained. A mechanical female voice on the other end of the line had informed her that the caller was not available and that the voicemail was full.

  “You really do need to become more organized, Inspector,” she had said to herself as she hung up.

  Next, she called the Shrewsbury police station and this time a male human voice had told her tha
t the Inspector was unavailable but that he was expected to arrive shortly. She left her number and the name and address that she had been given at the jewellery store.

  The police station was located only a few miles from where she had parked at the shopping centre. She knew it wouldn’t take her long to drive over there but noon was fast approaching, and the streets were filling with the cars of people on their lunch breaks coming to the centre to eat and spend a few minutes picking up a gift or a grocery item for dinner. If there was something Diane was not especially confident with, it was driving in town traffic. Apple Mews and the surrounding area suited her to a tee with its quiet streets and leafy vacant back roads. When they visited larger towns, she always made Albert drive. He was much more proficient, and he rarely became rattled by rude and distracted drivers. She wondered if it was her eyesight, which had never been good, though her lens prescription had become progressively worse as age had taken its toll. The glasses she was forced to wear seemed to warp the world a little at the edges, stretching out images and making them shift in peculiar ways. Albert had suggested she get contact lenses, and she had joked that she wouldn’t be able to blink because they would be so thick.

  “A medical option then,” he had said. “They’re doing wonderful things with lasers these days. My daughter had a friend that had it done, and now they can spot at gnat on a postage stamp from a hundred paces.”

  “I think not,” she had responded. “I remember when little Tommy Watkins was acting the fool in the science class at school and shone one of those lasers into his eye. The poor silly boy couldn’t see right for a week.” She tapped the frame of her glasses with a short nail. “I may be old-fashioned, but I’m also stubborn. I’ll stick with the bottle bottoms, thank you.”

  Albert had tried opening his mouth to respond but decided against it, seeing the hard edge come to her mouth that signalled he had done all that he could. He had taken her out for dinner at the pub instead. A much better outcome for everyone, she had decided.

  An angry honk from a nearby motorist made her decide that she would rather walk to where she needed to go than risk being the brunt of some road rage. The rain had slowed to a light sprinkle, so Diane reached behind her seat and grabbed her umbrella.

  “You haven’t had your morning walk yet,” she said to herself. “And there’s still plenty to do.”

  ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠

  Inspector Darren Crothers sat down heavily into his office chair. The appearance of this woman’s finger had been another straw that was straining the camel’s back. In the previous three weeks, there had been an unusually high incidence of serious crimes, and he had spent less time at home than he had in a car with Sergeant Webster.

  Some people in the department bantered about it being a full moon, or that the planets were aligned in Uranus, but Darren just scowled and went back to bury himself under the stack of reports that teetered precariously on his desk. He had no time for flippancy. He barely had time for a coffee. Yet here he was with a severed finger and nobody to connect it to.

  He had sent Sergeant Webster off to collect information about local missing persons, and also to get a call out to neighbouring constabularies so that they could collate all the potential victims before whittling it down again to only those that fit the finger’s description. Yet he still wasn’t sure what a finger could tell him. That would have to wait on the report for the coroner and the blood, DNA, and hopefully, approximate age information. He guessed it was a mid-twenties female, not much older, from the nail polish colour and the overall appearance of a well-manicured fingernail. The skin had been a little shrivelled, though he accounted for that with the time it had spent unattached from its owner.

  He had also set Webster to organizing teams of constables and special officers into search groups to canvas locations from which the ring may have been purchased. This seemed a fruitless process with the large shopping centre of the city of Birmingham being so close and the Internet connecting all areas of the world so easily. But a local search was expected and, while a fairly traditional approach, had more often than not produced useful information.

  There seemed little else he could do until he had information from these avenues of inquiry. He looked morosely at the stack of manila folders with sheets of blue or green paper poking through, stacked irregularly like stale and mouldering layers of pastry. His hand reluctantly reached for the topmost file, a set of witness statements about an arson at a warehouse. He wrinkled his nose, almost smelling the charred wood and smouldering plastic, as his fingers gripped the smooth folder’s edge.

  A blinking light on his desk phone distracted him, almost eliciting a thankful sigh, and he left the folder where it was.

  “Phone first,” he thought to himself. “Might be urgent. The folders will be here when you get back. They’ll always be here, waiting.”

  “Crothers,” he said as the cold receiver touched his ear.

  The tinny voice of PC Foster greeted him.

  “A Miss Diane Dimbleby called for you, Inspector. She seemed to think it’s rather urgent, and she left some information.”

  Darren held in a sigh as he closed his eyes. He should have expected it. Why did the girl have to go to her? She would be like a terrier latched onto a postman’s trouser leg until the case was solved. He couldn’t quite decide whose trouser was going to get savaged, but he had a feeling it might be his.

  Reluctantly, he said, “What did she have to say?” and jotted down the name and address on the corner of a stray sheet of paper. Replacing the phone, he leaned back into his chair, his eyes closed with his fingers rubbing on his temples. He couldn’t decide whether he had a headache coming or if he was mentally preparing himself for another long day.

  ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠

  Inspector Crothers looked at the picture of Gary Sandrake.

  “You never can tell,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Tell what, sir?” asked Sergeant Webster.

  The face on his phone was a little puffy, like he was recovering from an allergy to a wasp sting. The eyes were large and gazed simply into the camera. The nose seemed too small for the face, and there was a hint of thinning hair around his temples. He looked like an average young man living a quiet life with normal aspirations for the future.

  “You never can tell,” said the Inspector again. He had learned by now that looks were the least effective indicator of a disturbed mind. The less outward deviance, the easier it was to lull the world into thinking you were harmless. Like Gary.

  “He doesn’t look like the type of fellow to be cutting off fingers and sending them first class, does he?”

  “No sir,” said Sergeant Webster, who was concentrating on the afternoon traffic around the centre of Shrewsbury. Their vehicle didn’t have the lights and siren blaring, so they were just another inconvenience to all of the other road users, to be honked and gesticulated at with wild abandon.

  After receiving Diane’s information, Inspector Crothers had dispatched a PC to the jewellery store to verify the information while he had sent a car to sit at the end of the street and observe the address. He and Webster had pulled up the slim file on Gary Sandrake and found a picture from a few years prior when he had been reissued his driving license after losing his original.

  The file had made slim pickings with little more information than an average member of the public. There had been a drunk and disorderly charge which was from long enough ago that it was probably a university student doing what they do best: drinking and throwing up on someone’s doorstep. A more recent record showed that he had been issued a speeding ticket by the Shrewsbury traffic police, which seemed unusual as he had no car listed under his name. However, the vehicle he had been driving was a small maroon saloon car, and Crothers had issued the license plate and description to all cars and constables on the beat. The car was registered to a Tabatha Stein, Gary’s mother. There had been no word on its location, and it was not at the house. A patrol was he
ading to his mother’s home, but Crothers did not hold out much hope that it would be there either. He knew that if Gary was the digit mailer, he would be long gone by now, the car parked in a quiet road somewhere miles away.

  Traffic began to ease as they cleared the roads around the town centre. There was still an hour before mothers would fill the residential streets as they jostled to collect their children from school. Sergeant Webster turned onto a road lined on either side with cars, half on the pavement, and negotiated the uneven alley that passed between them, his speed reduced and his senses keen for any animal or small child that might spring from between the cars.

  The area was roughly middle-class, the residents enjoying a comfortable life without the ostentation that excess wealth encouraged. Semi-detached houses faced each other across the lines of vehicles. Low walls and hedges failed to give privacy to the front of the houses whose upper windows seemed to gaze down sadly upon the small gardens. Roughcast covered the upper half of the buildings like a cosmetic cream trying to smooth out the brick wrinkles around the aging eyes. The odd Union Jack flag fluttered weakly from makeshift poles that protruded from walls like a stray unshaven hair.

  Crothers stared through the side window, his mind superimposing his own home upon those outside. He smiled softly and reminisced on the times he used to visit it, times that were ever more sparsely scattered. He could see Gunner, their spaniel that his son had named after his favourite football team, Arsenal. The name could not have been less apt for the dog that greeted everyone, friend or foe, with whips of the tail and drool by the lickful, and who ran for cover when the fireworks began. His wife, Jodie, shooing Gunner from around her legs as she placed her small briefcase on the kitchen table, her other hand cradling a bag of Chinese food to her chest. He could smell the chow mein and feel the crackle of prawn crackers on his tongue, and he swallowed down the saliva flooding his mouth.

  He resolved to make it home for dinner that evening, no matter what the job required. He had spent too many evenings with a limp sandwich spat out of a vending machine that he washed down with coffee so dark and bitter that he almost gagged with each swallow. He knew that his job needed him, people needed him. He helped the thin blue line push back at the evil of the world and give those hard-working people the opportunity to live oblivious to the darkness that threatened to wash down their streets. He would have guilt at leaving files untouched for one evening to enjoy some of that same peace himself, but he could feel his weariness from the recent weeks putting lead into his shoes and ice in his mind.