Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) (7 page)

Chapter Nine

It was gone midday and Lindsey was on reception when she got back. She looked extremely business-like, a pen in one hand and a pile of invoices in the other. Her eyes slid sidelong in the direction of the lounge.

‘Grandma’s in there. She’s got a man with her,’ hissed Lindsey.

Honey hunched her shoulders questioningly.

Lindsey mimicked the same action. ‘I’ve no idea who he is.’

Forewarned but wary, she followed the smell of fresh coffee.

Her mother was semi-prone on a settee, bandaged ankle resting on a stool.

Someone was sitting on a chair opposite her. She purposely refrained from looking at him, positive it was bound to be the professor from wherever; the one her mother wanted her to meet. The one she
didn’t
want to meet.

If she didn’t look, perhaps he would disappear.

Her mother looked up. ‘So! You came back to see how I am.’

‘You look good.’

‘My ankle doesn’t.’

‘I suppose it could be better.’

‘You bet it could!’

Normally she avoided the men her mother chose for her. On this occasion the set of his shoulders and the casual demeanour attracted her attention. She forced herself not to give in and faced directly forward.

Her mother didn’t leave things there.

‘Hannah? This is John Rees.’

‘Mother, I can’t stop …’

Her first inclination had been to throw a killer look at her mother and a contemptuous one at the man she’d found for her. Instead she found her brittleness melting away in the warmth of his smile.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi.’

American.

‘John’s just opened a bookshop in Rifleman’s Way. He’s from Kansas.’

John took her hand and shook it firmly. ‘Originally from Kansas. I live in San Diego nowadays. Or rather, I did. Now I live here. In Bath. Best little city in the world.’

His voice was like silk. His hair was light brown shot with just a little white at the temples.

‘Well that’s …’

She was about to see how nice that was, but the first notes of Beethoven’s Fifth were throbbing against her chest.

‘My phone,’ she said, inwardly groaning as she plucked it from her bag.

Making sincerely meant excuses she backed towards the door.

She recognised the rough-diamond copper’s voice. ‘I thought you’d like to know; we’ve found Elmer Maxted.’

‘Great! How is he?’

Her eyes strayed back to John. He was tall and lean and had a merry look in his eyes – not at all the dusty professor or accountant sort her mother kept digging up. For once this could be fun. And she had time now didn’t she? The case of the missing tourist was all but over, wasn’t it?

The police officer – Doherty – was saying something.

‘Sorry. Can you repeat that.’

‘He’s not OK. He’s dead. Murdered. I need to talk to you.’

Honey placed her hand over the phone. Her smile flew like a bird to gorgeous John.

‘I’m sorry. I have to take this call, but if you’d like to leave your details, perhaps we can get in touch. Unless you’d like to wait.’ She bit her lip. Business and pleasure were colliding here. She was presuming he was here to arrange a conference or something. Anything. He looked interesting.

‘Honey? Are you still there?’

The sound of Steve Doherty’s voice seeped through her fingers.

Reluctantly, she bent her lips back to the mouthpiece. ‘Sorry, I just had something to arrange.’

‘Can you meet me at the place where he was staying? What was it again?’

‘Ferny Down Guest House on the Lower Bristol Road .’

‘That’s it. I’ll see you there.’

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed to the delectable John Rees. She wriggled her fingers in a wave at her mother.

‘What about my ankle?’ her mother called after her.

‘Ask Chef for a bag of frozen peas.’

She tried to phone Casper to see if he’d heard the news but he was out of the office and never, ever used a mobile. She asked Neville where she could find him.

‘Not a clue.’ Neville sounded snappy. They rowed infrequently. It had to be about something important. She made the mistake of asking him what was the matter.

‘He wanted harvest beige in reception and I wanted blush pink.’

‘Heavens! Who won?’

‘He did.’

‘So where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh come on. Casper tells you everything. You’re his bosom buddy.’

She sensed the stiffening on the other end of the phone. ‘Not all the time! Sometimes he’s in a world of his own. No consideration. None at all!’

Casper was aloof, superior, elegant, efficient and homosexual; she’d never known before that he could be secretive.

‘Tell him …’she began, meaning to convey that Maxted was dead.

Neville interrupted. ‘I suggest you tell him yourself!’

The connection was terminated with an angry click.

So Casper has secrets. The fact surprised her. She wondered at his response once he knew that their missing American had turned up dead.

Her mother had got to her feet. ‘Are you staying for lunch, dear?’

Honey glanced down at her mother’s ankle.

Her mother noticed. ‘I have good genes. I heal quickly.’

Honey looked beyond her mother’s shoulder into the lounge. John Rees was finishing his coffee. She was sorely tempted, but Doherty and a dead body awaited her. She shook her head.

‘I can’t.’ She threw a smile in John’s direction. ‘Sorry I can’t stay, John. Duty calls. Another time perhaps?’

He got to his feet on incredibly long, strong legs.

His smile was to die for.

‘Sure. I’ll make a note of your number.’

For the second time that day she was in two minds about a situation. Lunch with a charming guy or suffer the dead ash in Ferny Down Guest House, courtesy of Cora Herbert. Curiosity overwhelmed temptation. She couldn’t resist.

On passing through reception she remembered Jeremiah Poughty. Lindsey traced his number and asked him if he knew where she could find Casper. He told her. 

Chapter Ten

Casper St John Gervais appreciated balance and having things in perfect order. He also found it mesmerising just how quickly one minute flowed into another. That’s why he collected clocks. Clocks were one of the reasons he visited Simon Tye. Simon was as at home with the underworld of a small city as he had been in a large one. In London he’d upset the wrong people – which is why he’d headed west and opened a clock shop.

Tye’s Timepieces was tucked away in a bow-fronted shop down a set of damp green steps. Only crumpled pavements and a mass of wandering tourists separated it from the sticky aspect of Sally Lunn’s teashop.

Casper paused before pushing the door open. Already his heart was beating faster. What would he find inside – Simon Tye of course. But what gems of mechanical chronology would he have there to tempt him?

‘Get a grip,’ he muttered into his impeccably knotted tie.

He smoothed his hair back from his forehead in an effort to calm his nerves. Once properly under control, he pushed at the door.

An old-fashioned doorbell clanged overhead. Mechanical whirrs, taps, ticks, scrapings and dull thuds filled the air. So did the pungent, cloying smell of bees’ wax and linseed oil. No matter how hard he attempted to maintain his self-control, something akin to passion clutched at his heart.

Brass, mahogany, oak, maple, and marble decorated with French Ormolu, the clocks surrounded him, their ticks and their chimes as sweet as words of love to his keen ear and knowledgeable mind. Instinctively, he knew there was something special for him here.

It was set on a chest of drawers with a serpentine front and hanging brass handles, as fragile as fine string. Simon always did have a way of showing things off to best advantage. ‘Presentation is what matters, guv,’ he always said. He was right. The honeyed glint of the satinwood emphasised the ice-cold perfection of white porcelain. It was brilliant, four feet wide and three feet high Dresden figures grouped around a china-faced clock figured with brass.

He ran his fingers over the beautifully defined muscles of the crisply carved shepherd. ‘Divine,’ he breathed.

‘You wan it?’

Like a grinning satyr, Simon Tye’s face appeared over the top of the clock, one bony elbow close to the porcelain shepherdess who leaned nonchalantly against the round barrel of the clock face.

Casper stepped closer, his eyes taking in every intricate detail; the shepherd, a lamb flung around his shoulders, the shepherdess, a crook in her dainty hand, her skirts piled like a pumpkin between her narrow waist and her graceful little ankles. Sheep and lambs gambolled before the pair and graceful naiads held the clock above them on porcelain ribbons.

It was gorgeous and there were myriad questions he’d like to ask about it, but knowing Simon Tye of old, his mind calculated the price. ‘It’s very nice, but not the best I’ve seen.’

He was lying and he could see from the shopkeeper’s face that he knew it. Never mind. He would brazen it out.

Simon grinned as though he were looking through him and knew the truth. He looked almost part of the clock itself, yet a lot less beautiful. Wide mouth, almond-shaped eyes with straggly mass of blue-grey hair that hid a hunk of reddened gristle and gaping hole; all that remained of his left ear. That’s what came of grassing up blokes in the East End of London. No wonder he’d headed west and opened up a clock shop.

‘I knew you’d want it the minute you saw it, Mr St John, sir.’

Casper licked the dryness from his lips. Damn the man! He tried to ignore the smile that was spreading across Simon’s face like melting cheese. To hell with it! Unable to resist, he reached out and trailed his fingers over the gleaming glaze. A thrill shot through his body. He breathed deeply before he asked the first question.

‘Dresden?’

‘Dead right!’ Simon’s smile was unaltered. Someone else’s discomfort, especially someone as wealthy as Casper, was incredibly enjoyable.

‘Made for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Brilliant, ain’t it!’

Casper squirmed inside but hell’s bells, he certainly wasn’t going to take it all without giving some out.

‘Did you get it legally, Mr Tye?’

Simon looked hurt. ‘Mr Tye is it, not Simon, my dear friend as it usually is? Are you tryin’ to throw me off balance, get the better of me an’ ’ave it away for nix? It was a legitimate purchase. Cross my ’eart.’

He made the usual sign on his narrow chest in the place where his heart might have been.

Casper took advantage. ‘So?’ He lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

‘To tell you the truth I bought it off a lady who brought it ’ere in her car. Said the ’ouse was cluttered with stuff and she needed the room. Took a song for it she did – though, I shouldn’t be telling you that.’ His eyes narrowed.

Casper shook his head and tutted reproachfully. ‘What sort of person would want to get rid of a lovely thing like that?’

‘A woman who don’t like too much dusting, I s’pose, though mind you, she didn’t look the type that got her ’ands dirty too often.’

‘No taste,’ said Casper, his eyes fixed on the clock.

‘No shame,’ echoed Simon.

‘How much?’ he asked, the words spitting from his mouth as though he had no control over his tongue at all.

Triumph shone in Simon’s watery grey eyes and slinked in shiny wetness along his wide, flaccid lips.

‘I could get seven at auction.’

‘Hundred?’ said Casper hopefully.

‘Leave it out! Thousand,’ Simon retorted feigning insult.

‘Exorbitant!’

Simon’s eyes were pinpricks in narrow slits. ‘No it ain’t, and you know it ain’t.’

He was right. Casper laid a well-manicured hand across his chest. His heart was racing like an express train. It was now or never. He braced himself to forego the temptation. He even made a half turn towards the door.

Alluringly, the clock began to chime its siren song, the note lucid – heavily seductive to a clock collector’s ear.

He stared at it, aware that Simon was watching him like a hungry hawk, his fingers thoughtfully tapping at his bottom lip, scratching at his chin. But his eyes stayed fixed on Casper’s face.

His self-control wobbled like a jelly and finally toppled. ‘I’ll give you five.’

‘Well …’ said Simon thoughtfully. His eyes were hooded. He was looking downwards so Casper couldn’t see how delighted he was. ‘Let’s say five thousand five hundred shall we?’

Not to be outwitted, Casper fixed his gaze on Simon and set his jaw in a firm, determined line. ‘Let’s say five thousand two hundred.’

Simon chuckled and shook his head. For a moment Casper was almost panicked into raising his offer. He forced himself to hold out though his mouth was as dry as the bottom of a birdcage.

‘It’s a deal!’ Simon spat on his palm and reached out.

‘Fine,’ said Casper, declining to shake a hand smeared with spittle. ‘I’ll get it collected,’ he said before the brass bell jangled and the door chamfered shut.

Simon Tye’s warm smile melted the moment the door was closed. The clock was sold and he was damned glad it was. He hadn’t found out the provenance of the timepiece until after he’d paid the asking price. The clock was worth twice what he’d just accepted, but he wanted it gone – before the rightful owner came calling and police got involved; both were things he could well do without.

Casper was dead pleased with his purchase. Wonderful day, he thought to himself, smiling at the world that eddied and flowed around him.

A coachload of German tourists was taking photographs of the flowers, the edifice of the Guildhall, the entrance to the Roman Baths.

He beamed at them as they methodically set up their shots, checked their lighting and posed their portraits.

This year would be a very good year for the city and for La Reine Rouge.

The day was a good one and remained so – until he sauntered into his favourite restaurant.

The Saville Roe, which served all manner of seafood, nestled beside an alley of polished cobbles just behind the Theatre Royal. Panelled walls, alleviated by the use of white damask tablecloths and silver-plated cruets, gave it a rich, Gothic-style ambience. The clientele were well-heeled and on a lunchtime businessmen outnumbered tourists. He was shown to his usual table in the far corner. A menu card and wine list as white as the table linen was brought within a minute of him sitting down.

Just as he was deciding between a goat’s cheese and salmon concoction and slices of sea bass flambéed in pear juice, the waiter brought him a cordless telephone.

‘For you, sir,’ said the handsome Italian as he handed him the phone.

It was quite usual to receive calls at his favourite haunts from those who knew him and also knew of his distaste for mobiles. He only spoke into proper phones. A cordless just about met his approval.

For a brief moment he eyed the proffered receiver with something close to disdain. He was also slightly miffed that his habits had become so – well – habitual that people knew where he could be contacted.

Never mind, he told himself as he accepted the call; you’ve had a good day. It’s June and the sun is shining, business is good and you’ve had a stroke of good luck. That clock is worth far more than you paid for it. You’ve done well and all is well with the world.

Then Honey spoke and told him about Elmer Maxted. Suddenly the June sky dulled to November.