They went into a clinch the moment they’d closed the door on Honey’s private accommodation.
‘Can’t stop long,’ she said to him. ‘I’m wanted by a sack of Brussels sprouts.’
He stopped backing her against the kitchen units and did what he could to make the lunch break worthwhile. For a moment the sprouts took a back seat. Once they broke for lunch and a breather she told him about checking method of payment for the Mallory and Scrimshaw office jamboree.
Between mouthfuls of smoked salmon, she said, ‘If he was that tight with his cash, why not get his employees to pay for it themselves, like a lot of firms do?’
Doherty frowned. ‘I agree with you. Seems out of character.’
Honey took a bite of her sandwich. The salmon was left over from the last party but was still tasty. The bread was fresh and spiked with nuts and crushed olives.
She chewed before she spoke. ‘It occurred to me that someone else might have used his bank card. Was it with his personal effects?’
Doherty got out his phone and punched in a shortcut.
‘Casey. Refresh my memory as to the contents of Scrimshaw’s wallet.’
The response was fast. Doherty looked over at Honey as he repeated what had been said.
‘He used a leather purse. It was empty except for a library card and membership of the Automobile Association. He didn’t have a wallet.’
‘And no debit card? There had to be one. He paid me with it.’
Doherty asked the question of Sergeant Casey, the man in charge of recording that kind of thing. ‘I see. So all he had on him was a bank debit card. Where was it found?’ He nodded as he took in the details, his eyes still fixed on Honey who was silently munching on. ‘In his coat pocket. Outside pocket or inner pocket?’
Honey waited.
‘I see.’ He nodded in response to what was being said on the other end of the phone. ‘Thanks, Casey. How’s the hip?’
Charlie Casey was an aging sergeant who had been dragged back from retirement in order to keep the records in order. He was a dab hand with both computers and paperwork. Nothing dared slip out of place under his watch.
‘Keep going, buddy,’ Doherty said before severing the connection. ‘Coat pocket. Outside.’
He took a bite of his lunch and chewed slowly. His head was down and so were his eyes. Honey regarded him thoughtfully, knowing for sure that the bread and leftover smoked salmon didn’t deserve that much scrutiny. Doherty was chewing over more than some leftover salmon. He’d made a judgement and was taking his time sharing it. Patience was far from being her greatest virtue. Her fingers started to tap dance along the table.
‘So. Where do you keep your bank cards?’ she asked him.
‘I have a wallet.’
‘And if you didn’t?’
‘Inside breast pocket. It’s safer.’
Their eyes met. ‘Clarence Scrimshaw was careful with money. He’d also be careful with his bank card,’ Honey remarked.
There was no need to say anything else. Clearly, Clarence Scrimshaw had not booked or paid for the meal of his own volition. Someone else had done it.
‘So they stole it, paid for the hotel, then returned the card to his pocket.’
Doherty agreed. ‘That’s about the size of it. So was the card returned to his pocket whilst he was still alive or once he was dead?’
Honey scrutinised what was left of her lunch with one eye closed. It helped the thought process.
‘Someone had to have lifted it. The phrase “over my dead body” springs to mind before Clarence Scrimshaw would willingly hand over his bank card.’
The question still remained: just when had the card been lifted and returned? Before the murder? During the murder? Or after it?
The reservation had been made before the murder, but by whom? It could just as easily be an employee as anyone else, though making the reservation would have definitely been to the murderer’s advantage. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, he – they presumed it was a male – would have wanted everyone out of the way. No point in having an audience around to witness the deed.
Chapter Twenty-four
She’d told Doherty that John Rees had mentioned Scrimshaw being a collector of old Bibles. None had been found at the office.
Before night and the falling snow got heavier, Honey made her way back to Cobblers Court for the very last time. Her hair was back to its normal self and for that she felt she owed a debt of gratitude to the staff at Bee in the Bonnet. At this time of year chocolates would say it all.
Armed with two boxes of Thorntons’ seasonal selection, she headed up the creaking staircase.
The air in the salon was thick with the scent of conditioner and the heat droning in waves from the hi-speed hairdryers. Bee in the Bonnet was living up to its name; it was a hive of activity. Every stylist’s chair was taken; busy hands were skilfully weaving the dryer in one hand, a circular brush in another.
Honey paused for a moment, admiring the deft way they handled their tools. It all looked so easy. She’d bought a circular hairbrush herself, thinking she could ape their actions. Ape was the right word. Her dexterity was no match for the flick of their wrists, the synchronisation between twirling brush and buzzing dryer.
The pink faces that jerked in her direction said it all. No more work. We’re all worked out!
‘I just came to thank you,’ she said boldly and loudly. ‘My hair is great. Happy Christmas to you all.’
First she gave a box of chocolates to Ariadne, the salon owner of steely countenance and rattling hairdo. Ariadne’s initial surprise was swiftly replaced with abrupt efficiency. She had a brush in one hand, a dryer in the other. ‘Put them on there, will you?’
Ungrateful bitch, thought Honey, but in view of the hectic time of year, she decided to believe it was all a front.
The dangling multi-coloured beads of Ariadne’s shoulder-length hair clattered like clogs over cobbles as she nodded towards a place next to a pile of hair style magazines.
‘Thanks. Can’t stop. Too busy.’
She carried on blow-drying her customer’s hair.
The friendly junior, Tallulah, was checking a head full of hair dye wrappers in her spot by the window. The dark circles beneath her eyes were a dead giveaway that she hadn’t slept too well for a while. What with Christmas parties, a busy salon, and the bullying from Ariadne, it was a wonder she was still on her feet. Her eyes, bright blue in their pools of purple eyeshadow, brightened when she saw the box of chocolates.
‘Oh, Mrs Driver!’
It was a pleasant surprise that Tallulah actually remembered her name; nice to think she might have made an impression.
‘Thanks for giving me my hair back, Tallulah.’ She handed her the box of chocolates.
Tallulah grinned with delight. ‘It was no bother. Anyway, it wasn’t just down to me,’ she said shyly, though judging by the colour of her face she relished the praise. ‘Look. I have to give you a Christmas card,’ she added, laying down her brush and her pot of colour.
‘You really don’t need to. I was just grateful you sorted me out.’
‘It’s no bother. I have to sign it first. Just wait a minute until I can find a pen.’
It seemed the establishment was short of pens so whilst Tallulah searched Honey waited. While waiting, her attention flipped to the office windows across the way.
The windows were casement and set in stone mullions. Their panes were pitch black, though that was no big surprise. The place was empty. The staff had been banned from entry until the police said they could re-enter. Time of year dictated that wouldn’t be until the first few days of January. The employees had no problem with that. They were still being paid, though how secure their jobs were now the boss was dead and gone was anybody’s guess. Someone was bound to take it over. There had to be an heir – somewhere.
The light from the old gas lamp hanging on the wall flickered on the lower corners of the panes. The light was constant, n
ever leaving that position – at least, that was the way it seemed at first. Then, suddenly, the light moved, but not outside – not the old gas lamp. Someone inside the building opposite was using a torch!
Narrowing her eyes, Honey made a snap judgement. If either Scrimshaw or Mallory had come back as ghosts, they wouldn’t be using a torch. Someone was in there. Someone who shouldn’t be in there. Anyone legit would have turned on a light.
Tallulah thrust a card into her hand. ‘Here you are, Mrs Driver, and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.’
‘Same to you.’
‘And thanks for the chocolates.’
Honey’s heart was hammering and her feet were twitching. She took a step back, then another, desperate to get away, determined to discover who the hell was mooching around over the way.
‘Thanks for the card. And a happy New Year to you, Tallulah. To all of you.’
Most of the staff returned the greeting, Ariadne in her usual off-hand manner. Honey wondered what Ariadne’s regular clients thought about her. She was hardly top of the tree when it came to interpersonal skills. What a woman would do for a good hair cut!
The night was closing in. A few footprints blemished the light smattering of snow. One set led into the porch of Mallory and Scrimshaw.
The police officers supposed to be guarding the door were nowhere to be seen. The scene-of-crime tape was unbroken. Honey ducked underneath it.
The door to the building was deep set within a stone porch graced by a pair of Doric columns. The columns were a later addition to the building. Someone in the Georgian era had made an effort to bring the old place up to date. Still, she counselled, it could have been worse. The Victorians would have simply knocked it down.
Just as she’d expected, the door was unlocked. Familiarity with police procedure told her that they would not have left it that way. It was possible that the policemen had come inside out of the cold. It did cross her mind that the torch might have belonged to one of them.
If Honey’s curiosity hadn’t been so all-consuming, she would have reported the possible intruder to Manvers Street police station. But she was curious.
She hesitated in the darkness of the porch in front of the main door. Common sense told her not to venture in. Did she want to get herself killed – by three different methods like poor old Clarence Scrimshaw? But her curiosity was too strong.
The porch door opened into a dark hallway. The light from a wall-mounted alarm system blinked intermittently. Shapes and shadows moved around her, on and off with the blinking of the light; one moment everything was well-defined, and the next minute gone.
Suddenly the light seemed to flicker even more. Perhaps something was reacting to her presence; that was before she realised that she was blinking in time with the blasted thing. If only she’d brought a torch.
Whoever had divided the fine old rooms into offices had done it some time ago. Nowadays they would never have got listed building consent. Glass-panelled doors interspersed the old panelled doors with their heavy locks and dark paintwork. Scrimshaw, it seemed, had changed nothing if he could help it.
Honey mused on the skinflints she’d known in her time. Thinking of something else helped keep the heebie-jeebies at bay. There was Rigby, that grotty man who used to own a five-storey Georgian building down in Green Park. How he’d ever afforded the place was a riddle in itself. Though on second thoughts, the fact that he wore the same clothes year-in-year-out and drove a vehicle that could easily earn the title ‘Rustbucket of the Year’ might have had something to do with it. He’d never spent money on anything, and that included the building he owned. Like a lot of multi-storeyed properties of historical importance, the spacious rooms had been divided up into bedsits. Bedsits were at the bottom of the barrel in the letting market. Apartments had a movie-star connotations; flats were perfectly acceptable, but bedsits? Bedsits were small rooms with a bed, a chair, and a kitchen in the corner, and a tiny shared bathroom at the end of a corridor.
In Rigsby’s case (they’d named him after Leonard Rossiter’s dodgy landlord in Rising Damp), the hot water heater over the sink had been positively medieval, and the gas fire downright dangerous. The decor could best have been described as severely decrepit.
Skinflints! She’d known a few. There’d been a bed and breakfast owner who …
The sound of creaking floorboards from upstairs brought Honey round to the job in hand. She had decisions to make. Firstly: should she flee or fight? The latter was definitely a last resort. She could run far better than she could fight, though she didn’t do either particularly well.
Assumptions came thick and fast. There was a maniac shuffling around upstairs. Thinking of the intruder as a maniac caused a sensation similar to cramp in her feet. The cramp was crimping her toes, making her feet seem as if they would make for the exit by their own volition.
Alternately, the intruder might be someone with a right to be there, but who was scared of upsetting the police. There were various innocent possibilities. Someone could have left their lunchbox behind, and wasn’t keen on leaving limp lettuce to slither into sliminess over the Christmas period. Slime and mould wreaked havoc on lunchboxes.
Dim as it was, Honey glimpsed a flight of stairs to her left. Like a lighthouse it signalled her. The meaning was clear; someone was padding around upstairs, so upstairs was where she had to go.
Feeling a fluttering in her chest, she took a deep breath, then reached out and folded her fingers over the newel-post.
She found herself imagining how many hands had worn it smooth. Lots. Hundreds. Thousands. And it was warm. It might take only one hand to make it feel warm. The intruder …?
Her imagination went into overdrive. Blood was warm. Her common sense kicked in at that one. Blood was wet. With her heart in her mouth she took off her glove and fingered the wood. Much to her relief the newel-post was dry; no blood there.
She let out a big sigh, counted to ten, and drew in her breath. ‘Here goes.’ She placed one foot on the bottom stair.
It creaked, or at least it seemed to. No, she decided. It wasn’t her. The sound was too muffled. Too distant.
Honey’s gaze wandered to the top of the stairs; not that she could see that far. The darkness up there was complete. But that sound? It couldn’t have been her foot. It had to be whoever was upstairs.
The footsteps continued.
It wasn’t easy to determine but a sneaking suspicion crept into her mind. The suspicion was probably caused by her applying Murphy’s Law to her circumstances. The law was: that if the worst is going to happen, then it’ll happen to Honey Driver! The footsteps were coming along the landing and towards the stairs.
She slunk back, meaning to flatten herself against the wood panelling and hide herself in the darkness, when old Murphy struck again. There was one spot in that smooth wood that wasn’t so smooth. A splinter of wood embedded itself in her hand.
‘Ouch!’
She couldn’t help it.
‘Hello! Is someone there?’
The voice came from the top of the stairs – a woman’s voice.
Excepting Lizzie Borden and her axe, no infamous female maniacs sprang immediately to Honey’s mind, so she advanced into the light of the woman’s flashlight. Mercifully, there was no axe to be seen.
‘I didn’t think anyone was here.’
‘Right back at you. Who are you?’ The woman’s tone was aggressive. It reminded her of Ariadne.
Honey glanced over her shoulder, wondering if perhaps the rude hairstylist from across the road had followed her in.
‘No one’s supposed to be in here. I saw your flashlight from across the road and came over to investigate.’
‘You sound like the police. Are you police?’
‘Not exactly, but I work with them from time to time and …’
‘Then you have no business being here.’
The flashlight was bright and shining into Honey’s face. In an effort to diffuse its strength,
she raised her hand to eyebrow level. She found herself level with a pair of thrusting bosoms.
‘I could say the same about you.’
The woman had frizzled red hair and prominent teeth, and jangled when she moved. The jangling was due to the trio of chains hanging around her neck. The chains all differed in design. The one thing all three had in common was that the links of each were the size of saucers. The appendages hanging from them appeared to be blobs of turquoise, set in what might or might not be gold.
‘I have every right to be here. I’m Patricia Pontefract. I’m an author. Published by Mallory and Scrimshaw, who, you should be aware, own this building.’
‘A novelist? Romance perhaps?’
Patricia Pontefract huffed and puffed, swelling in size. ‘Certainly not! I write about historical artefacts. I doubt the likes of you would know anything about the subject.’
It was Honey’s turn to puff up and be counted. ‘I think I would surprise you,’ she declared, straightening up enough to avoid the exceptionally bosomy view. This mainly depended on her standing on tiptoe.
Her boast was not entirely without foundation. Her daughter Lindsey knew lots about history. If this woman was at all famous, Lindsey would know all about her.
‘Never mind what you write, what are you doing in here? Didn’t you see the police tape?’
‘I did, but I’ve come a long way. I’ve just returned from a book signing in Maine.’
‘So why sneak in and creep around in the dark? This place is old but it does have electricity.’
‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’
‘And flashlights are the stock in trade of criminals.’
‘The fuse must have failed. Hence that thing.’
‘That thing’ was obviously the emergency light. It was still flashing.
‘What were you doing here?’
‘None of your business.’
Her abruptness again brought Ariadne to mind. It helped harden Honey’s resolve.
‘Tell you what, I’ll phone the police and get somebody round here. You can answer to them.’
She adopted the sort of look TV cops take on when they mean business. Her phone beeped as she opened it. It sounded kind of threatening. It wasn’t really. The reason it did that was because it needed recharging. With all the work she just hadn’t had the time. Still, Patricia Pontefract wasn’t to know that.
The Ghost of Christmas Past: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 8) Page 16
