‘They actually suspected that someone was using those cellars without their permission. The big boss – the Russian dude that made his money from copper smuggling, so I hear – gave orders to confiscate whatever was in there. What a crack!’ He began chuckling. ‘Imagine the surprise of whoever it was using the place. All their gear gone in one swift move.’
He chortled.
She smiled. Another turn of the screw; the Russian had confiscated the illegal loot from the people who had stolen it in the first place.
‘So what kind of things were stored there?’
‘Paintings, antiques … that kind of thing. Stolen I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Very likely. And what happened to it?’
‘It got loaded on to a truck and taken away. The Russian’s got a palace back in Russia. Well he would do, wouldn’t he,’ he added, grinning at his joke. ‘He’s Russian.’
Honey fingered the fork she’d been using to eat her salad. It was tempting to dig the prongs into Mr Smug’s knee, but on reflection it was a bad idea. Keep all informants on board. Be nice to them.
Once lunch was over she checked things back at the hotel. With an air of regret, she read the note her Frenchman had left for her. ‘Sorry. Couldn’t wait. Had to catch the Bretagne back to St. Malo.’
Oh well. She still had Doherty.
Lindsey was behind the reception desk looking agitated.
‘Grandma’s in conference with Mary Jane. They’ve asked not to be disturbed.’
‘You look disturbed.’
Lindsey was wearing a concerned expression.
‘They were talking about drugging somebody. I overheard them. Do you think Grandma’s going a bit gaga, or do you think Mary Jane has something to do with it?’
Honey checked through the mail as she answered. ‘I’m not sure which one is nuts and which one is crackers.’
‘You’re distracted.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘You’ve looked through that mail seven times. They’re bills. You can see they’re bills.
‘Oh! Too bad.’
Honey slapped the lot down. ‘I’m not concentrating. I’m trying to decide whether to go interfering out at St Margaret’s Court or not. The police are out there making enquiries. I don’t wish to intrude, but I wonder …’
She told Lindsey about her conversation with the soft-drinks salesman.
‘Slippery Sid told you that, did he?’
‘Slippery Sid? I thought his name was Errol.’
Her daughter had an expressive face. She could talk with it. No need to open her mouth at all. This particular look said, ‘Come on. Are you that stupid?’
Honey conceived that her daughter was wise beyond her years. ‘OK. I get your point. Slippery Sid suits him down to the ground. Have you heard that my mother and Mary Jane are on a mission?’ It wouldn’t hurt to get Lindsey’s opinion.
Lindsey rolled her eyes. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that my grandmother and Mary Jane are very alike?’
The question brought Honey up short. Her mother had exquisite taste in clothes, a questionable taste in men, and a very healthy respect for money. Mary Jane, on the other hand, wore anything that came to hand as long as it was pink or pistachio, thought men were merely a useful appendage to the female race, and only spent what she needed to spend. The clothes were usually bought from charity shops or car boot sales. It was colour and the way she threw things together that mattered, not the source of the items.
Pondering produced a surprising result. When it really came down to it, she supposed they were alike in having their own point of view on a multitude of subjects. They both adhered to their own particular image: her mother’s straight from the catwalk; Mary Jane’s courtesy of the Cats Protection League.
‘You could be right. They’re both set in their ways.’
‘But different ways,’ added Lindsey.
Honey eyed her lovely, logical daughter. She’d grown her hair long of late. It was presently tied back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. This month’s colour was red streaked with blonde. It matched the red and white striped Regency wallpaper in the upstairs corridor.
‘Everyone has a point of view of the world, but can come together on common ground. For instance, Grandmother is very worried about Miss Camper-Young’s behaviour and Mary Jane, although harbouring differing views to Grandmother, understands her concern.’
‘So you think it’s a good idea to hypnotize good old Cybil?’
Honey couldn’t help worrying about the fallout. Mrs Hoffner’s ‘away with the fairies’ expression was still fresh in her mind.
‘Certainly not. I think the poor old dear may very well be a bit off her trolley, but that doesn’t mean they should intervene. She might very well enjoy being a cat for the remaining months of her life. If that’s what she wants to be, then so be it. Who are we to intervene?’
Honey’s attention was drawn to one particular aspect of her daughter’s statement.
‘Months? Cybil has only months to live?’
‘You didn’t know?’
Honey shook her head. ‘No. What’s the matter with her?’
‘A brain tumour.’
‘The poor woman.’
‘Indeed. Do you know she’s had a very adventurous life? That’s what Gran told me. She was a secret service agent in the Cold War. She spent a lot of time in Moscow and Berlin and she speaks German and Russian fluently. Did you know that?’
Surprised, Honey nodded silently. In the era Cybil had been in Moscow, the normal height of a woman’s civil service career would have been as a clerical assistant, typist, clerk; perhaps a little higher, but not much. Cybil, it seemed, might very well have done a lot more.
Lindsey went on to list the other things Cybil had done. ‘Grandma reckons that Cybil was trained as an assassin. Besides that she’s sailed, and flown aeroplanes single-handed, and driven racing cars … there’s nothing that woman hasn’t done. She must feel pretty fed up with her lot at present. I know I would.’
No, it couldn’t be easy, but Honey’s thoughts were elsewhere. It didn’t do to barge into St Margaret’s Court and start asking questions about the antiques found stashed in the disused cellar. Hopefully the two paintings she’d bought for reception would be amongst the haul. But there was nothing to stop her from asking Miss Camper-Young what she knew about it. With a bit of luck the security cameras would have been blinking in that direction on the night everything was loaded into the truck. It could even be that they had recorded an image of the person who had knocked out the Hoffners, tied them up and booked them a one-way ticket to Russia.
Chapter Forty
First, to Lobelia Cottage to ask Cybil if she could check the security cameras. Hopefully this time she would be at home.
The cottage glowed like a large slab of honeycomb. The sun had deigned to come out from behind a smattering of gilt-edged clouds and spring flowers were dancing in the breeze. Clinging to the trellis work forming an arch around the front door, an early clematis waved a fragile welcome.
Lobelia Cottage was ripe to put in an appearance on a chocolate box; it was pretty and untouched by the modern urge to insert double-glazed windows and a plastic-framed conservatory. Miss Cybil Camper-Young preferred the older styles and way of doing things.
Honey climbed the steps and lifted the cast-iron knocker. In response two flat feline faces appeared at the window to her right. Orange eyes glowed and small mouths opened, making sounds she could not hear. She briefly wondered where the other cat was lurking; possibly skulking on a mantelpiece. Like Cinderella it was an intruder in the Persian sisters’ household.
She bent and made cooing noises and tapped her fingernails on the windowpane before giving another rap on the knocker. As she waited she glanced back at the gates opposite, a shivery feeling creeping down her spine. Doubtless she was being watched with their own security cameras. That was when it struck her that Miss Camper-Young and the Russian owner of the hotel were like gunfighte
rs egging each other on, each watching what the other was doing.
Cybil, a female James Bond. It didn’t seem possible, yet it was. Honey was damned certain it was. A trembling wisteria, its buds bright green, caught her eye at the end of the cottage where the terracotta paving disappeared around the side to the back of the house. Honey had seen the creepy bits in enough thriller and horror movies to know that she probably shouldn’t go in that direction. Yet it was broad daylight and this was St Margaret’s Valley and three miles from Bath. The chances of meeting a mad axe murderer were virtually nil. She went there.
The path narrowed and funnelled beneath a trelliswork arbour supporting the ancient wisteria. Leaves brushed her face. She wondered about spiders. Her voice echoed when she called out. The tiles beneath her feet were green with moss. She thought that odd. Miss Camper-Young always seemed such a fastidious person, the sort who was good at gardening. Not like herself. One word to a plant and it died.
She was pondering the whys and wherefores of this when the leaves to her left sprang open. Something brushed her face. She cried out. She raised her hand. The perpetrator had already gone.
She paused for breath, hand on breast. ‘Be still, my racing heart.’
It was a blackbird. Just a blackbird leaving its nest.
She came out of the arbour into a clear space where the practicalities of life overrode the prettiness. A washing line was strung from a fixing in the back wall, down along another path and across to a tree. A few coloured plastic clothes pegs clung to the green wire line.
The apex of a shed roof poked out from beneath a tangled canopy of some sort of climber that was only just coming into bud.
There was no reason why she should go on; it was patently obvious that Miss Camper-Young was not at home. But she couldn’t help herself. Lobelia Cottage was the land that time forgot. It was a delight, pretty and practical, guarded by hi-tech security cameras yet possessing the silence of the centuries, its small windows squinting warily at the outside world.
She would have liked to wander around the cottage itself, peering at the wealth of old things gathering dust inside, things that would fetch a good price at auction. With that in mind, she tried the back door. As expected, it was locked. Her attention turned to the shed.
Fortunately it wasn’t locked. She peered inside, fully expecting to find only a lawnmower, a pair of shears and perhaps some potted geraniums waiting to be transplanted to a hanging basket.
All those things were there, – with the exception of the geraniums. A roll of garden hose bumped her on the head. A number of items were hanging from nails set into the roof: a watering can, a hoe, a garden rake, and a piece of rope looped neatly into a figure-of-eight. She recalled the framed knots hanging on Miss Camper-Young’s wall. Honey had expressed her inability to tie a decent knot.
‘Sailors are very good at knots,’ Cybil had replied.
Honey closed the shed door behind her. At the back of the house she peered into a small window. Next to it was a small wooden door set at the bottom of some steps. She concluded it probably opened into a cellar.
Peering through the small window produced no results except finding out that a lot of spiders lived in webs suspended from the frame.
But no Miss Camper-Young.
She found it odd that the elderly resident of Lobelia Cottage was not in residence. A worried thought sprang immediately to mind. Had Cybil Camper-Young’s Russian neighbours lost patience with her snooping and done away with her?
She stopped at the garden gate. A cloud covered the sun as she eyed the ornate gateway across the road.
Miss Camper-Young could be in deep trouble. Enquiries had to be made and the sooner the better. She considered contacting Doherty, but St Margaret’s Valley wasn’t phone-friendly. A bit of foot slogging was in order. Questions needed to be asked.
Honey got back in her car and headed for the village pub. If there was one place where she might get answers, it was there.
She pulled in. The lunchtime trade was in full swing. A few old-timers sat drinking cider in the corner next to a huge inglenook fireplace. She could tell they were drinking cider by the colour and shape of their noses: raspberry red and bulbous. A few workmen hunched over their lunch. Two were eating something with chips to be washed down with what looked like shandies. The oldest was tucking into a prawn salad accompanied by an orange juice.
A bespectacled man was standing behind the bar wiping glasses and looking decidedly fed-up. He beamed, though, at seeing another customer coming through the door.
‘What’ll it be?’
Information was valuable, but didn’t run to a full three-course meal. She ordered a diet drink.
‘Nothing to eat?’
There was a hint of accusation to the way he asked the question, as though merely coming into his bar warranted more than a meagre drink.
‘A ham sandwich?’
‘If you like.’
She paid him. He had a cocky assurance about him, without the good looks to match. Lank greying hair that hadn’t seen a barber for years was swept back from a thin face. His body was bony and had about as much shape as a lollipop stick. His pallor was symptomatic of the pub trade: hours spent behind the bar, the only outing being a trip to the wholesalers to stock up on snacks and frozen chips.
If there was one thing the hotel trade taught a girl, it was when to butter up and when to pounce.
The best of buttering up had already taken place in that money had changed hands in exchange for a drink and a sandwich. Depending on the tactics she used, she figured the time had come to pounce.
‘I wonder if you could help me …’
Adopting the fragile female face wasn’t easy, but she did her best. The pub landlord looked up from polishing yet another pint glass. The eyes behind the thick spectacles were not exactly friendly, more cautious as though he were afraid she was going to ask him for the loan of a twenty-pound note.
‘An old relative of mine lives in Lobelia Cottage. I’ve knocked on the door but I can’t seem to make her hear. You don’t happen to know where she might have gone, do you?’
‘Ah!’ He held the glass up to the light, brought it back down and proceeded to polish at a perceived smudge. ‘Well. Lobelia Cottage and the elderly lady who lives there! Now what do I know about her?’
His tone gave her the impression she was about to get a lecture or receive some pearl of wisdom that only he possessed.
‘Her name’s Miss Camper-Young. She has cats.’
Too much information! Why had she added the comment about cats? It was totally irrelevant. The pub landlord seemed to think the same too, one eye narrowing as though he were using a microscope and she was the microbe.
‘I really don’t know about the cats. All I know is that she didn’t come in here to take a drink or sample our culinary offerings. She wasn’t a customer. I don’t take much interest in people who do nothing towards maintaining village life, i.e. supporting local businesses.’
Honey felt obliged to defend the old girl. ‘I don’t think she drinks. You know how it is. One schooner of sherry and old folk tend to fall asleep or fall over.’ She added a light laugh. A means to an end.
The landlord wasn’t impressed.
‘A drink or two never hurt anyone. In fact the latest medical findings stipulate that it can, when taken in moderation, do the heart a power of good. I can personally introduce you to seniors who’d swear by having a drop a day.’
His look veered to the two elderly men with the cider-induced noses.
‘Women are different.’
The scrutinizing eye swung back to her. ‘I’ve noticed,’ he murmured, one side of his mouth curling into a sneer.
A middle-aged blonde woman came out with her sandwich. She had a pleasant expression, soft brown eyes and was wearing an over-large white apron. It was fair to guess that, besides being the cook, she was also the landlord’s wife. Her smile was friendly.
‘Hello, dear. Just passing th
rough are you?’
‘Sort of …’
‘She’s visiting a relative,’ explained her husband.
‘In the village? That’s nice. Who might that be then?’
‘Miss …’
‘The old dear in Lobelia Cottage.’
It was like being at a tennis match. The questions and answers were batted back and forth at speed.
The landlord’s wife looked surprised.
‘She’s bin there a lot more of late than what she used to be. Nobody seems to ’ave seen her for years. We all thought she’d died and that the place was in probate or something. Then suddenly up she pops like a Jill-in-the-box. Some reckoned it was the first time they’d ever seen her.’
‘She likes to keep herself to herself, and she does have cats,’ Honey explained.
The landlord stated the obvious. ‘You can’t hold much of a conversation with a cat.’
‘I think she likes peace and quiet,’ Honey offered.
‘Like this bloody pub,’ the landlord snapped gloomily, his eyes following the three workmen who’d downed their food and drink and were off out the door.
Having no wish to hang around in unfriendly company, and left wondering about Cybil, Honey started on her sandwich.
The landlord went to the cellar to change a barrel. The old men with the bulbous noses wanted another round.
The landlady poured herself a glass of soda water.
‘Are you the lady’s niece?’ she asked.
Honey said that she was. A little lie wouldn’t hurt.
‘It’s quiet here,’ she added.
The landlady shrugged. ‘Always the same on a lunchtime. Hardly worth opening, dear. Everyone’s at work in Bath or Bristol or whatever. If I ’ad my way I wouldn’t bother, but my Les, well, he’s a stickler for form and wanting to please everyone. Won’t ’ave it, he won’t. Got to be open for the regulars, he says.’ She leaned forward with a secretive look on her face. ‘As if the likes of them two old buggers is going to put much in the till. Look at ’em. Tweedledee and Tweedledum. It’s different on a night of course, when people are home. People come in then, though not as many as my Les would like. Never is enough for ’im.’
Deadly Lampshades (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 5) Page 21
