The Snuffbox Murders Read Free Page A

doesn’t answer.’
    Donohue picked up the phone, tapped in the single digit and listened. After a few moments, he pulled the phone away from his ear and said, ‘Can’t hear it ring out.’ He put his ear to the steel door.
    Rosemary Razzle said, ‘You can’t hear anything through that .’ Then she breathed in noisily and said, ‘Oh. This is useless. You’re not doing anything. Time is going on. My husband might be in there dying.’
    ‘What else can we do, miss?’ Donohue said, replacing the phone.
    She turned away and ran her hand through her hair. She turned back. ‘I’ll have to get the man out that built the thing. He’ll surely know how to get the door open.’
    ‘If we phone him, he might turn out more quickly for us. What’s his number?’
    Her face dropped. ‘Oh dear. I don’t remember his name. He works for a security business in Sheffield. It’s his business, I think.’
    ‘Try Yellow Pages.’
    She rushed off.
    The two policemen looked at each other, looked skywards, then shrugged. Donohue grabbed the door handle and yanked it several times. He fiddled with the combination lock and tapped in a few random numbers and tried the door handle. Nothing happened. He kicked the door. It didn’t budge.
    Donohue’s RT blared into his ear: ‘Sixty-two, come in sixty-two. Where are you?’
    He told the sergeant where he and Elder were and explained the situation. He was told to stay there with Elder as long as they could be useful, but to keep in touch, then they made their way up the steps into the kitchen.
    Mrs Razzle came in from the hall while looking into the phone book. She lowered the book on to the kitchen table, feverishly whipping the pages backwards and forwards until she found the page she wanted, then ran her finger down the small print. She stopped as she found a particular name, and read off a number. She then reached out to the phone fixed to the wall next to the large American refrigerator and tapped in a number. It rang a long time. As she waited, her eyes flitted across the room at the brightly lit, spotless kitchen and the two policemen standing by the basement door looking at her.
    They stared at her, noticing the sculptured silver-blonde hair, the slim figure, the long legs covered by a white dress and the necklace with the big diamonds twinkling in the light.
    A man suddenly answered the phone. ‘Yeah?’
    She caught her breath. ‘Is that Farleigh Security?’ she said.
    ‘Yes. Brian Farleigh speaking.’
    ‘This is Mrs Charles Razzle, you might remember building a security workshop in the basement of our house for my husband?’
    ‘And security lights outside the house, sure do, Mrs Razzle. But, what’s the matter? What you ringing me at this time of the night for?’
    ‘My husband is in the workshop … the door is locked … and I can’t get in.’
    ‘Maybe … maybe he wants to be on his own?’
    ‘You don’t understand. He doesn’t answer the phone. He must have been in there hours. I think something may have happened to him.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘You don’t know the combination?’ he said.
    ‘He keeps changing it. Is there another way in there?’
    ‘No, Mrs Razzle. I think you know that there isn’t.’
    Her face went scarlet. Her lips tightened. ‘There must be something you can do?’
    Farleigh sighed. ‘I’ll come straight over. You’re the big house at the far end of Creesforth Road in Bromersley, aren’t you?’
    ‘Please be quick,’ she said and slammed the phone back on to its hook.
    The two policemen had made some tea for Mrs Razzle and themselves, and were sitting at the kitchen table drinking it. Mrs Razzle had left hers and was walking up and down holding a glass of brandy and sipping from it from time to time in silence, occasionally darting out of the room to check on the front door.
    The police officers had tried talking to her about her life and work, and about her husband, but she mostly answered in monosyllables. They had managed