Strangled in the Sauna: Dodie Fanshaw Mystery

By Marina Oliver

Why do the owners of fabulous jewels refuse to have the police called in when they are stolen? How could a thief open a bedroom safe?
Dodie has an aversion to exercise – and even more to massage. But she is persuaded to go to the Yorkshire health spa by Elena, whose boyfriend is a cousin to the owners.
Suspicion obviously falls on the maids, but other staff have legitimate reasons to visit guest rooms.
But how they dispose of such well-known jewels?
Then a murder happens and the plot thickens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belgrave House
• Release date: Jul 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781610846646

Marina Oliver

Most writers can't help themselves! It's a compulsion. Getting published, though, is something really special, and having been so fortunate myself I now try to help aspiring writers by handing on tips it took me years to work out. I've published over 60 titles, including four in the How To Books' Successful Writing Series, and Writing Historical Fiction for Studymates.I have judged short story competitions, been a final judge for the Harry Bowling Prize and was an adviser to the 3rd edition of Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers 1994. If you want to find out more about your favourite authors, consult this book. I once wrote an article on writing romantic fiction for the BBC's web page, for Valentine's day.I have given talks and workshops for the Arts Council and at most of the major Writing Conferences, and helped establish the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual conference. I was Chairman of the RNA 1991-3, ran their New Writers' Scheme and edited their newsletter. I am now a Vice-President.As well as writing I have edited books for Transita, featuring women 'of a certain age', and for Choc Lit where gorgeous heros are the norm.I was asked to write A Century of Achievement, a 290 page history of my old school, Queen Mary's High School, Walsall, and commissioned to write a book on Castles and Corvedale to accompany a new circular walk in the area.Most of my Regencies written under the pseudonym Sally James are now published in ebook format as well as many others of my out of print novels which my husband is putting into ebook format. Our daughter Debbie is helping with designing the covers. For details of all my books and my many pseudonyms see my website.

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STRANGLED

IN THE

SAUNA

BY

MARINA OLIVER

Author Note

I like putting Dodie in different situations and places, and the Yorkshire coast is somewhere new, as is a health spa. Neither are her usual habitats, but she's a game creature and willing to help out Jamie and Elena, even if it means subjecting herself to massage and other esoteric tortures (which she discovered were not so dreadful after all!)

CHAPTER 1

'When are the two of you going to make it legal?' Dodie Fanshaw asked as she set wine glasses on the table.

Elena da Rocha glanced at her mother and grinned. 'Fishing?'

'Yes. Are you biting?'

Elena continued spinning the salad greens and looking out of the window towards the river as she replied.

'I want to marry Jamie, but he thinks it would be unfair.'

'Unfair? On you or him?'

Elena shrugged. She dropped the greens in the salad bowl and began to chop tomatoes, peppers and cucumber.

'I'm rich, and by comparison he's not. He says he won't live off his wife's money.'

Dodie frowned. She could understand Detective Inspector Jamie Morton's reservations. It was a pity. He was tall and dark-haired, with the sort of craggy good looks she had always admired in her own husbands. In addition he was kind, and clever, just the son-in-law she would have chosen. Elena had plenty of admirers, for she was beautiful as well as wealthy, with her black wavy hair and olive skin. The pale green dress she was wearing fitted well, showing her slim but shapely figure. Even in her prime she could not have matched her, Dodie thought with an inward sigh. Elena's father, her third husband, had been a Brazilian millionaire, a successful businessman as well as a rancher, and had left his only daughter a huge fortune plus extensive cattle ranches in Brazil that brought in more income. Though Elena's house in this pretty Thames-side village was modest, it was probably far bigger than a policeman, however high in the hierarchy, could ever afford. She wondered what sort of house or apartment he currently owned. Then she began to plot ways and means. Surely she could come up with a reason to overcome his reservations. When he arrived for this meal Elena was so carefully preparing she would ask a few discreet questions.

Elena was before her. She shook her head at Dodie. 'You're not to start an inquisition, Mama,' Elena said. 'I know you.' She added the other ingredients to the salad, poured on her own dressing and tossed it, then set the bowl on the table.

'As if I would!'

'You would if it suited you. It's not just the money. He's concerned about how his job would affect me, whatever I can say,' Elena said. 'He is always telling me that policemen have a high rate of divorce, especially detectives who may have to work long hours, and cancel arrangements. Wives begin to resent it. And they need to focus totally on their job when they are involved in a case. It can be hard on wives with broken engagements, the men working all hours, exhausted when they can come home and still thinking about their cases.'

Dodie shrugged. 'That sounds like special pleading. Is it worse than you already have to endure?'

Elena turned to get the cold meat and salmon from the refrigerator. Her voice was muffled as she replied.

'Perhaps. But it's all I'm likely to get, and I don't expect more.'

Before Dodie could respond Jamie arrived. After giving Elena a hug he turned to Dodie and hugged her too. She couldn't help thinking that perhaps Elena was right to be content with having this small part of him. He looked relaxed, accepted the glass of wine Elena handed him, and suggested they sat on the patio.

To Dodie's inner amusement, while they sat outside enjoying the spring sunshine, and later ate, Jamie kept the conversation firmly on her affairs, deflecting with considerable skill all her attempts to turn the conversation onto his own life. She decided he was an expert and his criminals must be thoroughly bemused when he was interrogating them. It wasn't until they had moved into the drawing room with their coffee that he changed the subject.

'Did you enjoy your week at The Crags?' he asked Elena.

She grimaced and shook her fist playfully. 'It was tough! You didn't tell me the half of it. I haven't had so much exercise for years!'

'The Crags?' Dodie asked. 'Elena mentioned it but only to say she'd spent a week there. I still don't know why.'

Jamie turned to her and grinned. 'Elena is exaggerating. The Crags is a health farm on the Yorkshire coast. A week there couldn't do anyone anything but good.'

Dodie's eyes widened, and she looked at her daughter with considerable respect. 'You never enjoyed games at school. It sounds more like a prison than a spa, and isn't it always freezing cold in Yorkshire? Are the patients forced to bathe in the sea? When it's not frozen, that is.'

'They are not patients, Ma,' Elinor said, laughing, 'and Yorkshire can be very pleasant. Bracing, near the coast, but pleasant.'

Dodie shuddered. 'It sounds cold, windy, fit only for sadists. And you went there? At this time of year? Elena, you must have been mad.' Then she had a sudden thought. Why was Jamie interested? Had it been for him Elena had braved the far north?

'Not at all. You can join in whatever you wish. I just wanted to experience all it had to offer, so perhaps I did do everything on offer. Yoga, massage, swimming, exercise bicycles, dumb bells – '

'Stop it! I'm exhausted just listening to you!'

'Have you ever been to a health farm?' Jamie asked, laughing.

'Once was enough. My experience was of people wandering around in bath robes, having a stick of celery and glass of carrot juice for lunch, and being forced to prance around in shorts and t-shirts in time to mournful music. The only health farm I know was at least down in Devon where it was warm, but after a miserable week I lost two pounds, and promptly put it back on the day I left.'

'Jamie's cousins own the Crags,' Elena said.

Jamie was grinning. 'Then I suppose there is no possibility of your turning your expertise onto an investigation?'

Dodie frowned. 'Investigation? Of what? And why me? Why not some of your police pals?'

'It's complicated. Let me explain.'

* * *

Elena poured more coffee and they each had brandy. Then Jamie began to talk. Dodie listened with growing fascination. Mysteries always intrigued her and it was true she had solved several mysteries.

'My cousins, daughters of my mother's older sister, set up The Crags as a health farm when they inherited the house from an elderly uncle a few years back. It was too big and gloomy to live in without some income to finance it, and as Joan was a nurse and Sheila a nutritionist they felt they had enough knowledge to manage a health farm, for which there seems to be an insatiable appetite. They have modernised it, extended it to provide hotel rooms for the guests, treatment rooms and so on, including a heated swimming pool and saunas,' he added, grinning at Dodie. 'But they have had problems for a couple of months and asked my advice.'

'And so you went there to do some detecting?' Dodie accused Elena. 'Why couldn't Jamie go?'

Jamie replied. 'It's not my patch, and they can't involve the local police. The people concerned all had reasons for secrecy. I could not even go in a private capacity, it's against etiquette.'

'Why not involve the police if some crime has been committed?'

'I'll explain. There have been at least three crimes we know of, thefts of important jewels, but for various reasons the owners refused to tell the police.'

'Then how do they expect to get the jewels back?'

'I know.' He sighed. 'Perhaps you can understand a woman's logic.'

'Careful!' Elena said, laughing. 'They had what they considered good enough reasons for secrecy.'

Jamie grinned at her. 'Let me tell Dodie the circumstances. The first theft was some gaudy engagement ring. I have seen a photograph, a huge diamond surrounded by rubies and sapphires. Ghastly, but impossible to mistake, and it was once the property of some Arab sheik's wife, and well known. It belonged to a small-time actress who had captured the attention of one of London's bankers. He's in the process of divorcing his wife – the third, I believe – and if it comes out he's already chosen wife number four she could get a bigger settlement. That's the story, anyway. So our little actress says she dared not publicise the loss of the ring, for she is in the news at the moment, it would be pictured and he'd discover she'd lost it. I suspect she's afraid of losing him and his millions more than distressed by the actual loss.'

'But if she's not wearing it he'll know, surely?'

'She was on her way to Hollywood, for a small part in some film, so she won't see him again for a couple of months. She's hoping it will be found before then, and she does not suffer the wrong kind of publicity.'

Dodie sighed. 'Idiot! How some of these girls ever make a living by themselves I'll never know. They have no common sense. Yes please,' she added as Elena offered more brandy. 'I'm going to need this.'

Elena nodded as she gave Jamie more brandy, then topped up her own glass.

Dodie drank deeply. 'You said three thefts?'

'The second, a week later, was another gaudy but well-known piece. This was an emerald necklace and bracelet, an heirloom belonging to a minor branch of a ducal family. The wife had borrowed it from her husband's safe while he is on business in China. He doesn't know she has the combination of the safe, and he forbids her to take the damn thing out of the house. She's only permitted to wear it for parties at their own home. He says he is the custodian of an irreplaceable heirloom, and if it is lost misfortune will hit the entire tribe, from the Duke down to latest infant. If he finds out she swears he'll divorce her.'

'It sounds as though she might be better off if he did,' Dodie commented. 'He is a businessman, successful, I take it? Yet superstitious?'

'So she maintains, but we think she added this. My cousin says she is a stupid woman who says one thing one day, and the opposite the next.'

'Then it's a wonder she could remember the combination of the safe! So what about number three?'

'You need to understand The Crags is a very exclusive affair,' Jamie said. 'They never advertise, depend on word of mouth for recommendations, and are inclined to say they are unfortunately full if they receive an application from anyone they consider undesirable, like journalists, or the hoi polloi. The fees, therefore, are astronomical.'

'Are you saying the third victim was an undesirable who crept under their radar?'

'Yes. She was a hairdresser who won some money on the lottery, and decided to splurge on a week at The Crags, enjoying what she thought of as the high life. She said she thought it would be friendlier than staying at an hotel or going on a cruise.'

'Making pals in the yoga class, stumbling over millionaires on exercise bikes? She doesn't sound too bright either! What a trio of idiots you've found for me! They almost deserve to be robbed.'

'That's as may be. She'd heard of it from some of her clients and was envious. She sometimes does house calls when her clients are ill, and this time the stupid woman, who had broken her leg, asked her friendly stylist to put away her brooch in the safe, to which she gave her the combination. It had, she explained, been a gift to one of her ancestors from some royal scion, and was in the form of a multi-jewelled bird in a golden cage. It's horrible, but also a well-photographed piece. She'd said she wouldn't need it again until she went on a private cruise in the autumn. The girl put away the box, but borrowed the brooch, thinking she'd have plenty of opportunity to replace it another time when she went to the house. She took some headed notepaper from that house to make her booking, which is why Sheila accepted her.'

'I assume Sheila sent a confirmation by post to the house? Why did no one there suspect?'

'One of the maids had been told, by the girl, that she was moving house, and didn't want an important message delayed. So the maid passed it on to her.'

'What a collection of idiots! So none of them want to involve the police. That I can understand,' Dodie said. 'Your cousins know, of course, but who else at The Crags is aware there have been thefts?'

'No one, apart from the thief.'

Dodie was starting to become interested. Three important and presumably well-known jewels had been stolen. They would be difficult to sell, so had the thief some private client? How did they know what to steal? And was the private client, if he existed, willing to accept anything? It seemed unlikely he would know in advance about the jewels being at The Crags. So why were they the ones stolen?

'Have other things been stolen? Or just these three rather conspicuous pieces, all of them well known so difficult to dispose of?'

Jamie shook his head. 'No more thefts have been reported. As for these, either they will be taken out of the country and sold privately to some millionaire, or broken up and the gems sold separately at a big loss.'

'Could they have been taken away already?'

'None of the staff have left, and the three thefts took place in different weeks. There were no clients at The Crags in every week, so we can discount them. It must be one of the staff. It's possible the thief had an outside accomplice, but Sheila's hunch is that the jewels are still there.'

'Because the thief might have left with the loot? Unless they are planning more thefts, I suppose. Can't she search the staff rooms?'

'She could, but then the reason would emerge, and she thinks the staff would leave en masse. This would also mean the thefts would become known, which her clients were desperate to avoid.'

'Difficult.'

Jamie gave her what Dodie though of as his most irresistible smile. 'So will you go to The Crags, with Elena, and see if you can discover anything?'

* * *

Dodie shivered. She hated the cold, and Yorkshire, especially here on its northern coast, was much colder than London. It had been a long drive and the temperature seemed to drop with every mile, especially when the rain began. It was still drizzling, and the clouds were low and dark. It was exactly as Dodie had expected, but the thought of being right did not cheer her. The village they passed through looked gloomy, but that might be because of the rain and the granite most of the houses were built with. Then they turned off the straggling village street into a narrow lane. To either side were fields where cattle and sheep grazed, and one recently-cut hayfield. A few clumps of windblown trees stood looking miserable, and behind one of these was a square, granite farmhouse surrounded by sheds and barns, some of