The Donaldson Case Read online

  “Everything is fine,” Robert told her. “I’ll stop by to see you both tomorrow. I haven’t done that for a while.”

  “I’ll bake something special,” Joan told him.

  “I’ll stop by around two,” the policeman replied before putting up his window and driving away.

  “He thinks we were being nosy,” Joan said in a cross voice.

  “We were, rather,” Janet replied.

  “It’s worrying when there are police cars in our neighbourhood,” Joan said. “Of course we wanted to know what was going on.”

  “Maybe we should just ask Michael,” Janet suggested.

  “Oh, no, we can’t do that,” Joan said, clearly shocked by the suggestion.

  “Why on earth not?” Janet demanded.

  “It would be, well, nosy,” Joan told her. “If he wants us to know what’s going on, he’ll come and talk to us about it.”

  “I was thinking I might stop over and ask him if he recognises our mystery key,” Janet said. “Stuart didn’t, but maybe we should ask Mary as well.”

  “Is Mary here?” Joan asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Janet said in a determined voice. Before Joan could stop her, Janet turned and made her way to Stuart and Mary’s door. She knocked loudly, ignoring the disapproval that was radiating off of her sister when Joan joined her on the doorstep.

  “Good evening, ladies. This is a pleasant surprise,” Stuart said when he opened the door. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re still trying to work out what the key we found in the piggy bank might open,” Janet told him. “I know you took a look and didn’t have any ideas, but I wondered if Mary might recognise it.”

  “She’s visiting her youngest this week,” Stuart told her. “His wife is away for work, so it seemed like the best time for Mary to visit.”

  “Oh, well, we can ask her when she gets back,” Janet said, eager to have a chance to talk to Michael. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Did you want to come in for a cuppa?” Stuart asked.

  Janet exchanged glances with Joan. It was clear from Stuart’s voice that he was hoping they’d agree. The man must have been lonely with his wife away. The ringing of a telephone saved Janet from answering.

  “Oh, that’ll be Mary,” Stuart said brightly. “I’d better go and answer it. See you soon.”

  He very nearly shut the door on Janet’s nose in his haste. She stepped back quickly and then shook her head. “It’s just as well we didn’t want to have that cuppa,” she muttered as she turned away from the door.

  “We shouldn’t bother Michael,” Joan said now.

  “Nonsense,” Janet replied. “We’ll just ask about the key. It won’t take more than a minute or two.” She could tell her sister was going to protest more, so Janet hurried across the small space between the two front doors and knocked on Michael’s door.

  A moment later the door slowly swung open and Janet gasped. “Michael, what’s wrong?” she asked, staring at the man, all thoughts of the odd key gone as she took in his appearance.

  Michael blinked back at her and then shook his head. “You should come in,” he said, stepping backwards to let the sisters into the house. They followed him down the short corridor into the kitchen, where Michael fell heavily into a chair.

  “Please, sit,” he said, waving a hand.

  Janet sat down across from him while Joan took a seat next to him. As she shifted in her chair, Janet took a good look at the man. She’d always considered him rather handsome, but tonight he was pale and looked several years older than normal. He looked like a man who had had just been given some shocking and bad news. Janet began to feel guilty about their suddenly dropping in. Sometimes being nosy wasn’t a good thing, she thought.

  Michael sighed deeply and then took Joan’s hand in his. “I’m glad you stopped by,” he said.

  “I could make some tea,” Janet suggested.

  “That would be perfect,” he replied.

  No one spoke while Janet filled the kettle and switched it on. Michael answered her queries with monosyllables as she searched the cupboards for cups and teabags. Eventually, Janet managed to assemble everything and serve the tea.

  “Have extra milk and sugar,” Joan told the man. “You seem to have had a shock.”

  “I have, rather,” Michael agreed, spooning sugar into his cup with grim determination. Joan finally took the spoon away from him after he’d added a seventh spoonful.

  “Did you come over because you saw the police were here?” he asked after a few sips of tea.

  “Not at all,” Janet replied with forced cheer. “We found this key, hidden in a piggy bank, and we were hoping you might know what it’s for.” She held up the key.

  Michael barely glanced at it. “I’ve no idea,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Joan asked in a quiet voice.

  Michael sighed. “I assume you saw the police cars,” he said.

  “We did,” Joan confirmed.

  “They wanted to ask me a few questions,” Michael said. “Questions about, well, my work.”

  “Has something happened at the shop?” Joan asked.

  “When the man from the head office arrived, the first thing he did was an inventory. Apparently there is a somewhat large discrepancy between his inventory and what the shop’s records show should be there.”

  “And he contacted the police about it?” Janet thought that seemed like an overreaction to what might be a simple accounting error.

  “When it comes to controlled substances, it’s wise to involve the police at the earliest possible moment,” Michael told her.

  “Even if someone just hasn’t been keeping very good records?” Janet asked.

  “It’s more than just bad record keeping,” Michael told her. “As chemists, we’re trained to keep very detailed records, anyway. Bad record keeping is almost as much of a crime as stealing drugs.”

  “Really?” Joan asked.

  Michael shrugged and shook his head. “No, not really, but it is very serious. The items we dispense are carefully controlled for a reason, or rather many reasons. It’s vital that we always know exactly what we have and what we’re giving to our customers.”

  “I assume something is missing, rather than there being too much of something,” Janet said, earning a “hush” look from her sister.

  “Actually, it’s a bit of both,” Michael said with a frown.

  “That suggests it really is bad record keeping,” Janet said, ignoring yet another look from her sister. “Like maybe someone isn’t tracking the incomings or the outgoings properly.”

  “Yes, that’s what worries me,” Michael said with a sigh.

  “I thought Owen always seemed incredibly professional,” Janet said. “I can’t imagine he’d make mistakes.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes now and again,” Michael replied. “And Owen hasn’t been feeling quite right in the last few months. It’s easier to make mistakes when you aren’t one hundred per cent.”

  “So the police think Owen is behind the problem?” Joan asked.

  “The police are investigating,” Michael replied. “Which means they are looking at Owen, but they are also talking to everyone who has worked in that shop in the last couple of months.”

  “Which includes you,” Janet said.

  “Indeed, I’ve covered for Owen several times due to his poor health,” Michael agreed.

  “But you aren’t the only one,” Janet said. “There was some strange little bald man in there one day when I was there.”

  Michael chuckled. “George Hawkins, though he won’t thank you for describing him that way.”

  “He was rather, um, different,” Joan said. “He kept humming and talking to himself the whole time we were there.”

  “George is a lovely man, but he’s quite eccentric. He had his own little shop on the outskirts of Derby and his regular customers loved him. Unfortunately, his wife became quite ill and he ended up selling the
shop and looking after her full-time until she passed away. Now he fills in at various shops around the area when people are ill or on holiday, although there are a few shops that won’t have him back because of his, well, oddness.”

  “That’s a shame,” Janet said. “I didn’t mind him being a bit peculiar. He gave me excellent advice about a cream for my dry skin.”

  “He’s very good at his job,” Michael said. “But these days that isn’t enough for the big chain stores. They want you to interact with your customers, and persuade them to buy lots of extra things they don’t need. It’s a very different job to what I did when I had my little shop.”

  “Is there anyone else who’s been filling in besides you and George?” Joan asked.

  “Ethan Bailey did a week or two last month,” Michael replied. “I don’t know if you were in the shop while he was there or not. If you were, you might not have noticed him.”

  “But surely he was the only one in there,” Janet said. The tiny local shop didn’t get enough business to have a shop assistant in addition to the chemist. The chemist was expected to handle all transactions, from filling prescriptions to ringing up nappies and baby food.

  “Well, yes, but I’ve always thought of Ethan as an almost invisible person,” Michael said. “He’s just the sort of man who blends into the background wherever he is. I’ve never heard him raise his voice or seen him get flustered or upset about anything. Every time I see him I spend several minutes thinking he looks familiar before I finally work out who he is, and that includes days where I know we’re going to be working together. He just has the most unmemorable face and personality of anyone I’ve ever met.”

  Janet laughed. “Now I hope I get to meet him at some point. You must let me know the next time he’s going to be working locally.”

  “I don’t know that anyone will be working there for a while,” Michael said gloomily. “The police have shut the whole place while they do a more thorough inventory.”

  “That sounds a lot more serious than I was thinking this was,” Joan said thoughtfully.

  “It could be very serious,” Michael replied.

  “So could George or Ethan have been the making all of the mistakes?” Janet asked.

  “The mistakes don’t look genuine to me,” Michael told her. “That’s why I’m so upset.”

  “What do you mean?” Janet demanded.

  “From what the police told me, it seems like the mistakes aren’t really mistakes,” Michael explained. “It looks more like someone has worked very deliberately to make it appear like random mistakes have been made.

  Chapter Four

  “Who would do that? And why?” Janet asked.

  “For the moment, the police have to question everyone who might have done it,” Michael told her. “That means I’m as much of a suspect as Ethan, Owen and George. As for why, there is a huge market on the street for controlled substances.”

  “Someone in Doveby Dale has been stealing drugs from the local shop and selling them on the street?” Janet took a deep breath when she realised she was almost shouting. Joan glared at her.

  “Of course, whatever is going on is nothing to do with you,” Joan said to Michael in a soothing voice.

  “Unfortunately, that isn’t true,” Michael said sadly. “I’ve worked in that shop quite regularly lately. It was my shop, after all, before I sold it to the big chain. Luckily, when I sold it they did a very thorough inventory and everything came back exactly right.”

  “Of course it did,” Joan said stoutly.

  “The police can’t seriously suspect you,” Janet said.

  “They have to suspect everyone. That’s their job,” Michael replied. “Oh, young Robert Parsons has been very nice about the whole thing, but really, he has to do his job.”

  “Robert is very nice and he seems very good at what he does,” Janet said.

  “From what I’ve seen, I’d agree,” Michael replied. “He’s just awfully young, that’s all.”

  Joan nodded. “What about the other people who were with Robert?” she asked. “Who were they?”

  “Investigators from Derby,” Michael said. “They’ve been sent over to help Robert with the case, as it’s rather serious. They were the ones who searched the house.”

  “They searched your house?” Joan asked in a shocked voice.

  “With my permission, yes,” he replied. “I have nothing to hide, after all.”

  “It still feels, well, rather invasive,” Joan said. “But at least they didn’t find anything. That should let you out, shouldn’t it?”

  “I wish it was that easy. If I really was supplying controlled substances to people without prescriptions, I suppose I wouldn’t keep any of the evidence at my own home, would I?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t,” Janet said.

  “It seems likely that all of the sales were simply handled through the shop,” Michael said. “That’s how I would do it, if I decided to turn criminal.”

  “So how can they investigate? Fingerprints on the bottles of missing tablets?” Janet asked.

  “Since all of us who work there have probably, at some point, handled just about all of the bottles in the entire shop, there’s no way to check such things. We’re talking about large dispensing bottles, after all, and fairly common medications. I’m sure I’ve filled prescriptions for most of them most of the days I’ve worked down there.”

  “What makes you think it’s deliberate, exactly?” Janet asked.

  “Robert probably wasn’t supposed to show me the lists, but he let me have a quick look at the inventory that Matthew Rogers took and the report from the main office of what the shop was meant to have in stock.”

  “And Matthew Rogers is who exactly?” Janet interrupted.

  “Sorry, he’s the young man from head office who is here to cover for Owen for the next six weeks. The corporate bosses decided that was preferable to having various different people filling in for him on a day-to-day basis.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Janet replied.

  “It’s somewhat unusual, though. When I first heard that they were sending someone, I thought they were sending him to take a good look at the shop and maybe think about closing it. It can’t be making them much money. Now I’m wondering if they had some reason to be suspicious and sent Matthew to investigate.”

  “Would someone coming in for a short time like that usually start work with an inventory?” Janet asked.

  “It isn’t unusual, and again, if they were thinking of closing the shop, it would be something they’d want done.”

  “What did you learn from the two different lists, then?” Joan asked.

  “I didn’t get to study them at length,” Michael told them with a frown, “but from what I could see, there were discrepancies all over the place. For a few items we had more stock than we should have, but not by much. More often, we were short, in some cases by a considerable amount.”

  “So if someone was making mistakes, they were making a lot of them,” Janet mused.

  “And most of the missing drugs were ones with street value,” Michael added. “All drugs have street value, I suppose, but some are more in demand than others. Nearly all of the missing drugs were what I would consider highly in demand.”

  “And there’s no way to tell from the store’s records when the drugs went missing?” Joan asked.

  “That what the investigator from Derby is going to be doing next,” Michael replied. “He’s going to go through the store sales reports and prescription records with a fine-tooth comb to see if he can spot anything.”

  “So we have to hope that the person who made the pretend mistakes also made some real mistakes?” Janet asked.

  Michael gave her a wry grin. “Something like that,” he agreed. “The more I think about it, the more worried I get, though. In a small store with only one chemist working at any given time, it wouldn’t be all that hard to steal a few drugs now and again. If Owen hadn’t fallen ill, it might
have been some time before anyone did a thorough inventory. Someone could have made themselves a tidy fortune.”

  “So the police will be looking at everyone’s bank balance?” Janet asked.

  “The last place I’d put any illegally acquired funds is in my bank account, but I suppose the police will look at that anyway.”

  “And find out if you’ve suddenly started having exotic holidays or you recently bought a luxury home in the Canary Islands, or maybe a fancy sports car,” Janet said.

  “I think that’s quite enough,” Joan said sharply. “Michael hasn’t done any of those things.”

  “I did go on a long weekend to Edinburgh in May,” Michael replied. “I don’t think that’s especially exotic, though.”

  “Scotland is such a beautiful place, the police can’t be suspicious of anyone going there,” Janet said.

  “Why Edinburgh?” Joan asked.

  Michael flushed. “My wife and I honeymooned there, many years ago. I try to go back once in a while to, well, reminisce.”

  Joan looked down at the table. Michael squeezed her hand, but didn’t seem to know what to say. Janet jumped in before the silence could be more awkward.

  “So, who do you suspect?” she demanded.

  Michael shook his head, looking at her in surprise. “That’s just it, I don’t suspect anyone. There are only four people who could have done it, Ethan, Owen, George, and myself, and until about an hour ago I would have sworn none of us would ever do such a thing.”

  “What about this Matthew Rogers?” Joan asked.

  “Robert said he told them that one of the reasons he was sent was because of the large number of issues the store has been having lately. He came to investigate.”

  “What sort of issues?” Janet asked.

  “Bottles of tablets being reported as damaged and unusable, issues with the till being opened repeatedly but no sales being registered, missing items being reported from our shipments, unusually high levels of returns on merchandise, all sorts of things, really. No one thing that caused any alarm, but all together it seems to suggest that there is something out of the ordinary going on at the shop.”