Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

Back at the Green River Hotel, things only
appeared
to be running smoothly.

Honey walked into the dining room and instantly felt an undercurrent of something askew.

Her mother was standing in front of a table, taking linen squares from one side of the table and folding them into table napkins.

Straight from the laundry and stiff with starch, they usually stood crisply upright. Today the folds were haphazard and the fan shapes they were supposed to represent flopped this way and that.

Normally meticulous about presentation, it was obvious to Honey that her mother’s mind was elsewhere.

‘Lindsey didn’t come home last night. I don’t think it’s right.’

Lindsey’s movements and behaviour continued to be a bone of contention between them. Honey thought Lindsey should be allowed free rein to make her own mistakes. Her mother thought she should have more boyfriends and even be thinking of getting engaged.

Honey had got into the habit of playing the problem down – because really there was no problem.

‘Oh, I don’t think she was that late. She was out with friends and told me she would be late coming in. It’s no big deal.’

Her mother threw her an accusing look. ‘Hannah, I may be on the downhill run to the time when I receive the centenary birthday card from the Queen, but I am not gaga. I still have all my marbles and I know that my granddaughter did not come home last night. I know this because I went in to make her bed this morning, but didn’t need to. It hadn’t been slept in.’

‘She slept at Sam’s,’ said Honey.

‘Sam? Who’s he?’

‘She. Samantha.’

She wasn’t too sure whether Lindsey had a friend named Samantha, but it was as good an excuse as any.

A friend made up is a friend indeed.

The truth was that Lindsey had phoned and left a message on the answer phone saying she was sleeping at Sam’s place. She didn’t know of a female friend named Sam. No way was she telling her mother that.

The pinched lips straightened. ‘That’s all right then.’

Her mother’s next subject was that Mary Jane was organising a séance in the hope that Sir Cedric would manifest himself on a more visual plain.

‘I think she’s nuts,’ said her mother. ‘But there. What can you expect from a woman of her age who dresses like a refugee from a Cindy doll factory?’

The phone burbled against her hip. She eyed the caller’s number, didn’t recognise it, but pressed receive anyway.

‘Hi. This is John Rees.’

Flip went her heart. The day was turning brighter. What was it Lindsey had said? Better to be desired by two men rather than one.

‘Just a minute.’ She turned her back, her feet heading for the far corner of the restaurant.

‘Who’s that?’ her mother called after her.

She took the phone outside where sun-dappled leaves rustled against a powder blue sky.

‘I thought we needed to finalise things regarding the Victorian evening.’

‘Of course.’

Swooning time. His voice reminded her of the southern guys in Elvis Presley’s backing group – the sort of huskiness that comes down the nose rather than out of the mouth. Her legs turned to jelly.

‘How about we meet up this evening. Have some dinner. Talk about all things Victorian?’

‘Especially underwear. And foundation garments in general. The historical perspective.’

‘Yes. The historical perspective. Nice angle.’

They arranged to meet at the George at Norton St Phillip, an ancient hostelry a few miles outside the city.

Both a brewery and inn for close on a thousand years, the place was a living museum. Leather harnesses, old flintlocks, rusty farm implements and bright brass lanterns hung from every beam, every spare bit of ceiling space. A pile of leaflets stating that the hostelry had been brewing since the fourteenth century steadily dwindled. A Japanese group were in, cameras strung around their necks, faces full of enthusiasm. One after another they went to the bar, scrutinised the leaflets and took what they wanted.

North American accents blended easily with those from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. French, Italian, German and Dutch gabbled alongside Japanese and Spanish. The place was busy – as usual.

‘Wow! Can you beat this!’ John exclaimed, head back and eyes wide with wonder. ‘Everything is so … old! Don’t you just love it?’

‘England’s like that. Old, I mean.

‘No point in visiting England if you don’t like old,’ he said, his smile warming parts some people’s smiles couldn’t possibly reach.

‘Are you interested in history …?’ she asked, then felt stupid. ‘Sorry. Of course you are. That’s the whole point of the exhibition, isn’t it?’

If she’d been younger she would have blushed. The thought was whimsical and fluttered around her mind pushing aside the remaining impetus to go knocking on doors bearing the numbers six and nine, at least for now. It wouldn’t go away completely. She felt an affinity with Elmer Maxted. He’d come looking for his roots. She understood that. Daughter of an American father and an English mother, she’d floated between the two worlds not knowing quite where she belonged. Once he’d blotted his copybook her mother had blocked out her father’s memory.

Like Carl and me. Could behaviour towards men be hereditary?

John was ordering food. She’d been running on automatic when she’d told him what she wanted – King Prawn salad in Cajun spices.

They were both driving so they stayed with soft drinks. Once that was done they got down to serious conversation – or as serious as it needed to be.

‘So how long have you been running the hotel?’

She fingered her glass then took a sip.

‘Two years now.’

‘You must enjoy it.’

‘Sometimes I enjoy meeting people. Sometimes I want to hide away from them.’

He made a so-so kind of face.

‘Understandable. I suppose you don’t get too much time off.’

‘Not nearly enough. At least this police thing gets me out of the place. It’s an interesting other dimension to the hospitality trade. She surprised herself by burbling on about the murder case and what Steve had said, and what she had said. She stopped herself when she thought she was giving too much away.

‘I met your mother and your daughter.’

Honey smiled. ‘The sugar and spice in my life – though don’t ask me which is which.’

‘Your daughter looks like you. Your mother …’

She held up a warning finger. ‘Please don’t mention anything about broomsticks! OK?’

He grinned. ‘I was going to say that she’s quite a character.’

‘That’s a thought-provoking description.’

‘Hey! You make her sound like Cruella de Ville.’

‘No, my mother would never make a coat of puppies, though she might make a stew.’

He eyed her speculatively. Speculation and truth-seeking about her family was the last thing she needed.

‘Only joking. She’s just getting old and cantankerous,’ she said lightly lowering her eyes as she sipped her drink.

Heaven help her if she ever found out she’d said that.

Over plates of magnificently pink prawns speckled with spice, their conversation turned to the exhibition. She watched his lips move as he told her about the guest list. They were strong lips, supple with words. And kissing, she thought. I bet they’re good at kissing.

He told her the names of the wines he’d chosen and the fact that his sister-in-law had taken charge of the catering. She wanted to ask why his wife, the ice queen he’d brought into the restaurant, wasn’t doing it, but it was none of her business. Keep to the facts, she thought to herself.

Be a pleasant girl, Hannah!
Her mother’s voice again. On this occasion she decided to take her advice.

‘So what other historical artefacts have you managed to get hold of?’

He finished chewing a particularly fat prawn before he answered.

‘A suit of armour, a sedan chair and a clock. Each represents a certain aspect of history. The suit of armour represents military history, the sedan chair represents the history of transport and the clock represents industrial history – the crowning glory of the industrial revolution.’

Her hair tickled her shoulder as she tilted her head to one side.

‘So where do Queen Victoria’s unmentionables fit in?’

‘Simple. They represent women’s rights, the march towards emancipation.’

Honey coughed into her drink.

John looked surprised. ‘Have I said something funny?’

Regurgitating her drink and in danger of having it come down her nose, Honey pinched her nostrils quite fiercely. It took a few seconds before she could answer.

‘I can’t quite see the connection between a massive pair of crutch-less bloomers and the onward march of women’s emancipation.’

‘Big underwear. Big skirts. Women’s movement was restricted by their clothes. Then came the twentieth century and – WHAM – everything changed.’

‘Though not very quickly.’

‘OK, no. Not very quickly, well not until the twenties, the Charleston and the flappers. But it happened. Women finally escaped big skirts, tight corsets and big underwear.’

‘So my pair of bloomers are the before part of the equation.’

‘Right.’

‘Imagine all the things you wouldn’t be able to do if you wore a big skirt.’

She was thoughtful as she watched him mop up the remains of his meal with a piece of granary bread.

As she raised her glass to finish off the last of the wine, she caught sight of a familiar face. Loretta Davies saw her, pushed back her chair and marched over.

Loretta was drunk. The smell of wine fell from her mouth and her eyes were bright with too much of it.

She was wearing an embroidered tunic and green leggings. Rings still adorned her fingers and dangled from her ears. Honey gave silent thanks that her pasty belly was covered.

‘You know they’ve arrested my father.’

Honey half rose. ‘Yes, I’m so sorry, Loretta.’

‘He didn’t do it.’ She shook her head slowly as she said it, each individual movement coinciding with each spoken word. ‘He didn’t,’ she added defiantly, as though those two last words confirmed everything not contained in the evidence.

Other diners cast looks in their direction.

Honey looked across in the direction Loretta had come from to check who she was with. Cora had kicked back her chair and was on her way over.

‘Come away, girl. You’re making a scene. No point in doing that, and anyway, Mrs Driver can’t help you. She’s not police. She don’t carry any weight at all.’

Loretta calmed down. Cora took hold of her hand and began to guide her away.

She paused suddenly and eyed Honey over her shoulder.

‘They’ve told me not to touch any of Mervyn’s stuff until you lot take another look at things. Robert didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.’

Honey couldn’t think of a single solitary thing to say that would help. But somehow she felt Cora deserved some help; she deserved it, married to the likes of Mervyn.

She sipped at a glass of water as she thought it through. What piece of evidence was there that could possibly let Robert Davies off the hook?

The only thing that sprang to mind was the impression of a number in a piece of wood.

John’s voice suddenly invaded her thoughts.

‘Judging by the look on your face, I guess we’d better call it a day,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry.’

Her gaze strayed to the heavy oak door shutting behind Cora and her daughter.

‘They need support as much as sympathy.’

And I have plans to make, she told herself.

First she had to go back to Charlborough Grange and ask if Elmer Maxted had visited the house itself, not just the church or talking to Pamela Charlborough over the wall.

She sighed. Not this afternoon. She still had a business to run. Tomorrow would do, and she didn’t need to go alone.

She was aware that John Rees was studying her closely, a slight frown feathering his brows.

‘Are you doing anything tomorrow?’ she asked him.

A lock of fair hair fell over his eyes as John shook his head.

‘Fancy a drive in the country?’

He grinned. ‘Sure. Where to?’

‘Charlborough Grange. Do you know where it is?’

‘Sure. Of course I do. That’s where the guy lives who’s loaning me this very clock, one that was first shown at the Paris Exhibition.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

A summer shower had come and gone and the sun had stepped out from behind a pink puffy cloud.

The main A36 that ranged out of Bath and up through Freshford was as wet and shiny as a docile river. A rainbow stretched from one side of the valley to the other. The road, the valley, the river and canal snaked towards it.

‘It’s not really true to say that this is an afternoon drive,’ she said to John Rees.

To her surprise he agreed with her.

‘It’s a great opportunity to finalise arrangements for the loan of the clock. Business and pleasure; what could be better?’

Her phone rang just as they pulled up outside. It was Steve Doherty.

‘Guess where Davies has been living?’

She didn’t want to guess. From the moment she’d squeezed into the bucket seat in John Rees’s Austin Healey, the real world and her concerns had folded in on itself – a bit like the way she’d folded into the seat, skirt thigh high and knees slightly apart and pressed against the dashboard. Elegant she was not!

The warmth of John’s thigh was pressing against hers. Who cared that the day was warm? A little more heat of this type was perfectly acceptable.

She thought about hitting the ‘busy’ button. Doherty pre-empted her action.

‘Honey? Are you there?’

Too late!

‘Go on. Hit me.’

‘Prior to the narrow boat, Davies was living in a flat in Charlotte Terrace. Right next to the river. Number SIX Charlotte Terrace! We’ve got him!’

She could imagine his face, the wide-open eyes, the smile fixed like that of a painted clown. No. Clown was wrong. He was a man doing his job in a straitjacket. He had rules and guidelines, the media and a demanding public to deal with. He was also quite dishy, an uninvited thought that had the effect of making her remove her thigh from that of John Rees.

‘Did you find any evidence?’

‘Circumstantial, but enough. See? I told you he was the right man.’

Doherty was cock-a-hoop that he’d found the culprit. Either he hadn’t latched on to the note of misgiving in her voice, or he’d ignored it. The inclination to tell him she was still unconvinced played second fiddle today. He deserved support.

Once she’d conceded that he was right, the connection was terminated.

‘All set?’ said John.

Rose petals disturbed by the wind were blowing across the gravel driveway at the front of Charlborough Grange.

Mark Conway was standing in front of the main door. He looked as though he’d been expecting them.

There was hostility in his eyes, but, my, he certainly knew how to control it, Honey thought. His mouth smiled independently – almost as though they were long-lost friends.

He listened attentively as John explained why he was there.

‘The clock …’ He expressed himself eloquently and was straight to the point. Mark Conway nodded.

He nodded. ‘Ah, yes, sir. I am aware of the arrangement. Please come this way.’

If Mark Conway had recognised her as having visited before, he did not acknowledge it.

They were shown into the conservatory and invited to sit on Lloyd loom chairs. Gratefully they sank into cushions covered in heavy cotton on which huge roses flourished. Mark went off to alert Sir Andrew.

‘It’s pretty hot in here,’ said John, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. He looked around pop-eyed. ‘Hey. Look at this. A genuine Victorian conservatory.’

With Honey it wasn’t so much the history that made the impression.

‘This place gives me the creeps. Don’t you think those plants look like refugees from
The Day of the Triffids
?’

He eyed them sceptically. ‘I have to say that this place grows on you. Like moss might grow on you if you were dead. It’s probably just its age.’

‘Come on. It’s creepy. Admit it.’

He gave her a direct look.

‘Sure. I think I’m picking up vibes.’

‘Please. No paranormal stuff.’ She explained about Mary Jane. ‘One doctor of the paranormal is enough for one day!’

Charlborough chose that moment to make an impressive entrance.

Honey could hardly bear the look on his face; the confidence with which he strode towards them, his face a picture of patrician bonhomie.

‘Good day to you both. It’s about the clock of course. Pleased to help out.’

Today he was casually dressed in pale green lambswool sweater and matching trousers. The collar of a checked shirt showed above the ‘V’ neck of his sweater.

‘John Rees, isn’t it? How are you, my dear fellow?’

‘I’m good. Real good. I thought I would drive out and go over the final arrangements with you – if that’s OK with you. If it’s not inconvenient that is?’

‘No, no, my dear fellow! Not at all!’

Perhaps it was the way John said it, or perhaps the way he looked, but Charlborough seemed unable to say no.

Charlborough turned his attention to Honey. John leapt in with an introduction.

‘This is Honey Driver. She collects antique clothes,’ John explained.

They shook hands. Recognition clouded his eyes then was gone. His smile was tight, his grip limp.

‘I came here in my capacity as liaison officer for the Hotels Association. I asked you about Elmer Maxted.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said with a stiff nod of his head. ‘I seem to recall that you’d mislaid an American tourist.’

The terminology irritated.

‘He was not mislaid. He was murdered.’

‘Ah! And the police have arrested the perpetrator?’

She couldn’t help but get the impression that he already knew. News travelled fast – the ‘old boys’ network was rife with senior police chiefs and crown court judges.

‘They have arrested someone. Whether they make the charges stick is, as always, a different matter.’

‘Quite so.’ He turned immediately to John. ‘Now about my clock …’

Honey’s gaze wandered to the gardens and grounds beyond the thick foliage and the stifling conservatory. A church spire pierced the sky above a row of rustling poplars. The humidity, all for the benefit of the monstrous plants, was unbearable. She began dabbing at her glistening cheeks with the back of her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, interrupting their conversation, ‘would it be all right if I went outside for some fresh air?’

For a moment she detected indecision on Charlborough’s face, as he weighed up the consequences of granting or refusing his permission.

‘Sorry for boring you,’ John said as casually as you’d like. ‘We’re rambling into the realms of history.’ He grinned across at Sir Andrew. ‘Not everyone is as fascinated by the subject as we are. A little fresh air helps blow the cobwebs away so they say.’

Charlborough’s expression veered between arrogance and pained forbearance. ‘Of course.’ He turned to Honey. ‘Please keep to the garden area. I have projects under way in the rest of the grounds.’

‘Not more decapitations,’ she said laughingly.

‘No. Not real ones anyway,’ he smiled back.

Her sweat cooled once she was out in the fresh air. Steps led down from the raised area outside the conservatory. Red and orange nasturtiums trailed from weathered urns. A balustrade of moss-covered stone ran around its perimeter.

Manicured lawns of epic size and decorous design swooped between the flowerbeds and trees, like a river running towards the sea. Unlike a river, these lawns ran up against a red brick wall. The mortar joining the bricks was white and smeared, the bricks uneven and irregular, signs of age and aging. An arched wooden door, the sort found in churches and medieval castles, dissected the wall just before it disappeared behind a laburnum. Nothing of a gardener, she vaguely remembered that laburnum flowers were poisonous.

The door might not have beckoned so strongly if Charlborough hadn’t ordered her – yes –
ordered
her to stay within the garden. But there it was, a cast-iron ring hanging there, waiting to be touched, turned and pulled.

The door opened. There again were the huge greenhouses thick with greenery, far more profligate than the huge specimens thronging the conservatory. And the size … a football pitch? At least. It was huge!

The roof curved like those on wartime structures, now disintegrating under the onslaught of the years and the weather. Sandbags piled a dozen or so high protected its entrance. A shovel stood upright in a pile of sand beside a wooden fruit box – the sort used for storing oranges.

Just like the last time, no one was around. She wondered when they actually held these war games that people paid to fight.

The only sound was of birds and bees. Just as she’d hoped there were a few loose sacks on the ground next to the sand.

Sacks!

She grabbed one and shook out the sand. Holding it with both hands, she scrutinised its size. It looked too big. Just to make sure, she took a deep sniff. It smelled of new sacking and the tangy sea smell of sand.

Still clinging to the sack, she turned to leave, her heels sinking into the damp earth.

Suddenly the door to the greenhouse made a wheezing sound. Humid air poured out tainting the freshness of a day after rain.

The fact that someone had come out with the tepid air did not register as quickly as it should have done. The sandbags were piled high and hid him until they were facing each other, each taken off guard, each unsure of how to proceed.

‘You.’

The same man as the time before. The man Sir Andrew had referred to as Trevor. Some kind of butler. Some kind of nightmare. Big, broad-shouldered and seemingly devoid of coherent speech.

She brazened it out. ‘It’s OK for me to be here. I got a little hot in the conservatory. Sir Andrew said I could go outside.’

He had a square face, a down-turned mouth, deep-set eyes and shoulders that, although wide, totally lacked muscle definition. It was as though they had been cut out of stone and the sculptor had not as yet chiselled in the bodily details. Eye colour was hidden in the dark hollows beneath his brows.

He scared her. It was like coming across Frankenstein’s monster on a dark and dirty night, except that it was daytime.

She sensed for her own protection, that she was the one who should first offer an explanation.

She held the sack behind her back, letting it fall slowly to the ground.

‘I’ll make my way back now. I was promised a pot of tea.’

Not the entire truth, but close enough.

The man standing before her shifted his weight on to the opposite leg; either his tension was dissipated or he was about to make a grab for her.

Discretion immediately became the best part of valour. Her legs propelled her back to the door and the manicured lawns, the house and the overpowering heat of the conservatory.

Hidden behind a sweet-smelling bush, she took the opportunity to catch her breath, daring to look behind her when she was sure no one was following.

Sir Andrew had said that Trevor was just a gardener tending the greenhouse. But the unease remained. Was it really only for war games, or was it something more sinister? Drugs were the obvious answer if she cared to take a jaundiced view of Sir Andrew. But what sort of drugs grew to that height?

‘Better now?’ asked John when she got back.

She forced a casual smile, the sort that worked well with pink cheeks and being slightly breathless.

Sir Andrew eyed her with distrust. ‘I’m so glad you feel better.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

She wondered if he had guessed that she’d disobeyed his orders, but wasn’t given the chance to find out.

The sound of a woman’s voice seemed to splinter the beams of weak sunlight that had managed to shine through the canopy of plants.

‘Darling, I didn’t know we had visitors!’

Pamela Charlborough’s hair was Helsinki blonde. Her face was Bermuda bronze. She wore a red silk dress that rustled when she walked and her perfume smelt of money.

Her bare arms were covered in freckles and her toenails were painted the same colour as her dress and the high-heeled mules she wore. A gold chain glistened around her ankle.

Gold and good make-up wasn’t all she had on board. Flushed cheeks and a saucy swaying of her whole body betrayed that she’d been drinking.

‘Booze for breakfast, booze for lunch and booze for dinner,’ she said raising a very full wine glass. ‘It’s basically replacement therapy. It replaces sex. Can’t get any of that in this house, can I, darling?’

‘Pamela, you’re drunk,’ growled her husband.

Pamela appeared not to have heard him, her flushed face turned to the American bookseller.

‘And who might this be? Another of your little soldier friends? My, but he’s out of uniform! You should reprimand him at once, darling. Bend him over your lap, pull down his trousers and smack his tight little bottom!’

Her attention transferred to Honey.

‘Oh! A little woman soldier perhaps?’ Her features screwed up like discarded paper as something occurred to her. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘Pamela!’

The broken veins in Charlborough’s cheeks spread over his face like a raging forest fire.

Lady Pamela looked surprised. ‘Have I got the wrong end of the stick, darling?’

Sir Andrew’s face was like thunder. ‘Go away, Pamela!’

John was looking embarrassed.

Honey found herself feeling embarrassed that she was of the same sex as the sun-tanned blonde.

Once she was within range to see Honey’s face more clearly Lady Charlborough’s eyes narrowed.

‘Didn’t you come here before? Yes! I’m sure you did.’ She turned to Sir Andrew. ‘Oh, my dearest, darling, what have you been up to now?’

These two were far from being dearest, darling to each other.

Sir Andrew looked daggers. ‘You are drunk!’

‘Oh, am I, darling? Then I’d better stop at once.’

She laughed, took a few steps forward then poured her wine into a potted plant. The wineglass followed its contents, the bowl breaking from its stem.

Her husband was far from amused.

‘Pamela! For God’s sake, that’s Waterford Crystal!’

Smirking stupidly, Pamela Charlborough hid her mouth behind her hand.

‘Silly me. Should not have said those dreadful things should I. Naughty, naughty things.’ She laughed again.