The Snuffbox Murders Read online

  Scrivens nodded, went out and closed the door.

  Angel then pressed the button on the phone. ‘Angel.’

  It was a young PC on reception. ‘There’s a woman here asking for you, sir. Says her name is Elaine Dalgleish.’

  ‘Good. Show her down here, lad, smartly, will you?’ Angel said and replaced the phone.

  He sighed. He needed to collect his thoughts.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Ahmed.

  ‘Ahmed, I want you to put a poster on the noticeboard.’

  He screwed up his face. ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘About three coffins stolen from Hargreaves the undertakers.’

  The constable blinked. ‘Coffins?’

  ‘Yes. I want to know if anybody comes across them in their travels. Get a photograph and description from Ted Scrivens.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ He went out.

  A few moments later a PC showed a woman into the office.

  ‘Please sit down, Mrs Dalgleish, or is it Miss?’ Angel said.

  ‘Thank you, and it’s Mrs Dalgleish,’ the middle-aged woman said as she settled into the chair nearest the desk.

  ‘How long have you been housekeeper to Mr and Mrs Razzle?’ Angel said.

  ‘Three years, Inspector.’

  ‘Are they good employers?’

  ‘They’re all right. But listen here, Inspector, are you going to tell me if what I hear is right?’

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘That Mr Razzle pointed the gun of his robot on to himself and took his own life?’

  ‘It certainly looks like that, Mrs Dalgleish. Who told you he took his own life?’

  ‘Mrs Razzle. But, I must say, I don’t believe it. Not Mr Razzle. He’s not the type. I reckon you’ll find out who did it … it’ll be somebody else who managed to take over control of his robot. You’ll soon find him. You are that Inspector Angel, aren’t you, who is said to have the mind of a criminal, who always gets his man, like the Canadian Mounties? I’ve read all about you in the papers. They say you’ve never had a murder case that you haven’t solved. You’re that Inspector Angel, aren’t you?’

  It wasn’t easy for him to avoid her eyes. Eventually he looked up and said, ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘And I expect you’re married, Inspector, aren’t you?’

  He hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I can do that, you know. I mean on the telly. When I’m watching a murder film on the telly. I can nearly always pick out the one who done it. It’s the one least likely. The one who is supposed to be a good sort.’

  Angel gave her a polite smile.

  She smiled back, followed by a nod.

  There was a short pause, then Angel said: ‘Do you know of anybody who would have wanted Mr Razzle dead?’

  ‘No. He was a fine, upright, hard-working man, and very clever with it. He had several inventions to his name, you know.’

  ‘So I have heard.’

  ‘He was a lovely man. He does get a bit ratty when he’s busy in the workshop and someone wants to see him. When I’m there, I always try to put callers off, or put them on to Mrs Razzle.’

  ‘Did someone … anyone difficult call recently, then?’

  ‘Only a salesman trying to get Mr Razzle to change who he gets his gas from. We get them at home every week.’

  ‘Have you been in his workshop?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve seen the robot he was building. I don’t like it. It might be very clever, but I don’t like it. I think the idea of building an artificial man is … is against nature. Nothing good will ever come of it. It will murder again given the opportunity. You’ll see.’

  Angel noted her indignation. He wasn’t inclined to say anything.

  ‘Did Mr and Mrs Razzle get on well together?’

  ‘As well as any other married couple, and better than most, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, did you ever see them have a row or an argument?’

  ‘No. Not them. Mindst you, they seemed to have the ideal arrangement. He worked all day down in his workshop, while she was on the floor above learning lines, exercising, or topping up her tan under a sunlamp. I think they usually spent the evenings together, when she wasn’t working. She is a very successful actress, you know. Never off the box. Comes from a well-to-do family. Her uncle is Sir Jack Prendergast, boss of Frescati Fashions. They often go to posh dinners and dos like that.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose. He was grateful for the information. Then he remembered that that name, Sir Jack Prendergast, had appeared recently in Police Review. Sir Jack had been one of the victims of a spate of country-house robberies. He had been robbed of five million pounds’ worth of antiques including paintings, and gold snuffboxes.

  FOUR

  Angel drove the BMW to The Manor House on Creesforth Road. He parked it behind SOCO’s big unmarked white van next to a Range Rover. A uniformed PC on the front doorstep threw up a salute as he approached the house.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Constable,’ Angel said.

  The front door opened and another PC dressed in white disposable paper overalls, boots, cap, face mask and gloves came up to him and said, ‘I heard your car, sir. This way, please.’

  Angel nodded, stepped into the house and said, ‘Have you any gloves for me?’

  The SOCO opened a patch pocket on his chest and withdrew a thin sealed white paper packet.

  ‘Ta,’ Angel said. He tore the packet top and pulled out a pair of white rubber gloves and put them on as he stood there looking down the long hall.

  The uniformed PC closed the door behind them.

  The constable walked down the middle of a one-metre-wide plastic roll laid down the centre of the hall. Angel followed at a more leisurely pace, looking round at the many pictures and paintings on the walls above dark oak panelling. He was also taking time to absorb the atmosphere of the house. He stopped after a few yards, looked back, lifted his gaze above the front door lintel and said, ‘Hey, lad. Where is the CCTV camera?’

  The constable stopped, turned and walked back up to Angel. ‘There’s no tape in it now, sir.’

  ‘No. I daresay. But where is it, exactly?’

  The constable pointed in the general direction of the area above the door. ‘There, sir.’

  Angel stared and stared. All he could see were pictures and picture frames. He walked back towards the door and eventually made out its characteristic shape among all the framed art. He stared at it a moment, grunted and moved on.

  The constable directed him into the kitchen and through the door to the basement.

  As Angel stepped down the wooden steps, his eyebrows lifted when he saw the big open door of the cellar workshop.

  DS Taylor came out to meet him.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘A very impressive door, Don.’

  ‘Protecting very expensive technical equipment, sir. There’s stuff here they probably wish they had at NASA.’

  ‘Where’s the CCTV camera? The one supposed to be covering this access.’

  ‘In the corner, behind that cowling.’

  Angel peered up and saw a small sheet of card or tin or aluminium that had been secured to the ceiling and painted white. It partly hid the camera, which he noted was also painted white, the same colour as the walls and the ceiling. As he looked closely at it, he also noted that the camera bracket was fastened to a small-bore vertical pipe that ran from a radiator in the basement upwards, then out through into the floor of the kitchen.

  He frowned, shook his head and stood there a few moments before he followed Taylor into the workshop. Standing in the doorway he took several long looks round the place. The sight of the blue plastic robot (now without lights flickering in the head or a gun in its hand) caused him to stop briefly to take it in. He stared at it thoughtfully for a few seconds, then shook his head.

  ‘Where was the body?’ he asked.

  Taylor pointed to the area on the floor in front of the desk. ‘
Full length down there, sir. Three bullets. One in the chest, one in the head and one in the stomach.’

  Angel wrinkled his nose as he visualized the scene. ‘You’ve plenty of photographs?’

  ‘Stacks, sir.’

  ‘Mmm. The gun. Any prints?’

  ‘A Walther PPK/S, sir,’ Taylor told him, opening an evidence bag, taking out a handgun from it and handing it to him. ‘No prints on the gun. Razzle’s prints were on three of the rounds. The clip had five rounds when I checked it. Three had been fired, so the clip had been full.’

  Angel saw the three shell cases on the floor near the robot.

  ‘Those from this gun?’

  ‘Yes, sir. No prints. Everything checked. Absolutely in perfect order.’

  Angel nodded and returned the gun. ‘Now the remote control. Tell me about it.’

  Taylor picked up a crudely made piece of equipment that appeared to be a cross between a TV remote and a string puppetmaster’s control bar.

  Angel looked at it, blinked and said: ‘He’d presumably not finished this part of his handiwork?’

  ‘It was found on the floor, a few centimetres from his right hand.’

  ‘With his fingerprints all over it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Anybody else’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did it work? Can it operate the robot, make it aim the gun and fire at a target on command?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ Taylor said, pulling a grim face. ‘It works perfectly.’

  Angel sniffed. Technology was reaching a new low in his estimation.

  ‘You have to put the gun in the robot’s hand and set the finger inside the trigger guard, of course,’ Taylor said. ‘Then, by pressing buttons on the remote control, you can raise its arm, manoeuvre the wrist in almost every possible direction, aim the gun and fire it on command.’

  ‘Would you have to press the button that controls the finger on the trigger on each occasion you wanted to fire a round?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where was the gun pointing when you arrived?’

  ‘It was aimed about chest height in the direction of the desk. As the desk is just behind the open door, there was a risk that we might have been in the firing line, so I got the armourer to come – wearing suitable body armour, of course – to make it safe by removing the gun from the robot’s hand.’

  Angel nodded. He was thinking how dangerous this world could become if there was a proliferation in the use of armed robots.

  He rubbed his chin and looked round. ‘The only way in or out of this workshop is through that door?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There are no windows, back doors, trap doors, chimneys, air vents or other possible means of access? I want you to be absolutely sure about that.’

  ‘I am sure, sir. You can rely on it.’

  Angel had worked with Taylor for seven years and always found him thorough and reliable. He nodded.

  ‘Anybody else’s prints or DNA in this place … especially on the robot?’

  ‘No. Every sample we have taken in this place has Charles Razzle’s prints on it and nobody else’s.’

  ‘And you are still going through his desk, then?’

  ‘We’ve just about finished, sir. Nothing criminal, or even interesting. He has a big portfolio of shares and cash savings in dated bonds. Even though I suppose he took a beating last year when the recession began, and bank shares dropped. However, his holdings are so diverse and big that huge dividend cheques have resumed rolling in. He was enormously rich. Whoever inherits his estate – I suppose it’s his missis, Rosemary Razzle, – will be very rich indeed.’

  ‘He has a daughter, Jessica. Turned anything up about her?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I need her address. She needs to be informed. Check his computer. See what’s on the history … and let me know asap. Is there a safe?’

  ‘By the desk, sir. We haven’t been into it yet. I assume the key went with the body, in his pocket. We’ll have to delay opening until Dr Mac releases the personal effects.’

  ‘Aye, Don. I’ll chase him.’

  ‘What I don’t understand, is why on earth would Charles Razzle want to take his own life in such a peculiar way?’

  Angel sighed. ‘Ahmed is going through those tapes now. They’ll tell us who entered the house when Razzle’s wife was up in London doing her acting.’

  ‘He’d need to know the combination or he wouldn’t get access.’

  ‘Maybe Razzle worked with the door open?’

  ‘Or if it was somebody he knew he might let him or them in?’

  ‘Let’s see what the tapes tell us,’ Angel said, then he sniffed and rubbed his chin. ‘Have you found a suicide note … perhaps on a computer or anywhere?’

  ‘No, sir. No, we’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘Well, keep looking,’ Angel said and turned away.

  He looked at the door and noticed a keypad above the handle on the inside. He raised his eyebrows. ‘When that door is closed, you’d need to know the combination to get out?’

  Taylor frowned. ‘I expect so, sir. I haven’t tried it out. I don’t know the number.’

  Angel rubbed his chin. Then he took a last look at the blue, shiny, translucent robot, bit his lip, shook his head and went out.

  Angel returned to the police station.

  He paced smartly up the corridor, head bowed and forehead furrowed. His preliminary examination of the crime scene had disturbed him. He couldn’t accept the idea that a man had been killed by a robot while he had apparently been in absolute control of it at the time.

  He pushed open the CID office door and looked round for Ahmed. There were a few detectives in there, but no Ahmed. Angel grunted. He needed to see urgently what Ahmed had found. He dashed down the corridor to the darkened room called ‘the theatre’, where he snatched open the door and peered inside.

  Ahmed was there, alone in the small, dimly lit room. He was seated in front of a console looking at a screen. He stood up when he saw it was Angel.

  ‘Ah,’ Angel said, pleased to have found him. ‘Sit down, lad. Sit down. Carry on.’

  Ahmed was looking at a video picture showing the open workshop door in Razzle’s cellar. Through the door and a little out of focus was the blue robot with the gun drawn, pointing at the camera.

  Angel slid into a seat next to him. ‘What have you found?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing untoward, sir.’

  ‘What?’

  Ahmed blinked. He knew Angel wouldn’t be pleased. ‘That is, nothing until Mrs Razzle arrives, sir.’

  Angel frowned. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘There’s no audio, sir, but it is obviously night time. She enters by the front door, seems to call out something, then goes briefly through a door on the right, then returns and runs down to the cellar. Sometime later, PC Donohue and PC Elder arrive, then the engineer arrives, wires a machine of some sort to the keypad of the workshop door. It takes for ages, but he eventually seems to unlock it. Then Mrs Razzle, PC Donohue and PC Elder come into the picture briefly. PC Donohue lifts Mrs Razzle away from the doorway in a hurry. She seems to object … and they all go out of shot. I’m running the tape on fast from there.’

  Angel’s jaw tightened. ‘I mean before all that. Somebody else. An intruder. The murderer. Isn’t there anybody else on either tape?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Have you checked both tapes?’

  ‘I’ve checked the first. Just finishing the second one, sir.’

  Angel’s face dropped. His mind was all over the place.

  He went out of the room, into the corridor, and slowly closed the door.

  It was another blow. A blow he had not expected. There were no intruders or potential murderers showing on the tapes. That was in addition to the fact that there were no fingerprints on the trigger of the gun and the dead man was found alone in the workshop that was locked.

  He was left with the inevitable conclu
sion that the robot had somehow shot Charles Razzle.

  An hour later Angel summoned DS Crisp to his office.

  Crisp was a great success with the ladies and, on occasion, had charmed guilty pleas out of some of the most hardened female criminals. He had also been seen occasionally with PC Leisha Baverstock, the station beauty, but nothing ever quite seemed to come of it.

  ‘You wanted me, sir’ he said bouncing into the room.

  Angel pointed at the chair nearest the desk.

  ‘It’s this Razzle case,’ he began.

  Crisp’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What, sir?’

  ‘I want you to make a close observation of Rosemary Razzle.’

  Crisp frowned. ‘You’re not going to ask me to make up to her, are you, sir?’ he said, looking down and shaking his head. ‘She won’t look at me. She must be worth a bomb. I can’t compete with her diamond-and-pearl world.’

  ‘Do you think you’ve lost your touch, Sergeant?’

  Crisp looked thoughtful then shook his head. ‘No. I just know my limitations.’

  Angel took his point. ‘Start by observing her.’

  ‘Why do you want her observing, sir? Didn’t the robot kill her husband, then?’

  Angel’s eyes narrowed, then he said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You mean she murdered him?’

  ‘I am led to believe that she was in London when her husband died. She has what seems to be a good alibi. She says she was in a TV film studio. I’m checking it out.’

  ‘Oh sir,’ Crisp said, ‘she’s famous, she’s rich and she’s a cracker. If she’s in need of a man, sir, there are probably a dozen hanging around in the wings … and a queue of others … all hovering around with their tongues hanging out.’

  ‘Probably,’ Angel said. ‘Your tongue will need to hang out a bit further, then. That’s all. Start tomorrow morning first thing. She’s staying at The Feathers until we’ve finished sweeping the house. I want to know who visits her, how long they stay and so on.’

  Crisp shook his head. ‘Oh sir,’ he said running his hand through his hair.

  ‘All I need is a name,’ Angel said. ‘That’s all. Right. Now you’ve got her address, you know who she is, get on to it.’