‘I thought he was toast,’ Honey muttered through gritted teeth.
‘He is, but I want to tell him so.’
Honey wasn’t entirely sure that was the whole reason. Her mother was a tough old bird, but fragile emotions were at stake here. Complete forgiveness could be only a bouquet and a bottle of champagne away.
There was a click and the ringing tone was a hesitant buzz rather than the more familiar UK ring. Someone answered. She didn’t recognise the language.
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes. Who is this please?’
Honey thought on her feet. ‘Ministry of Food and Fisheries, London. Do you have a Mr Mead there?’
‘He has just left.’
‘Do you know where he has gone?’
‘London.’
She thanked whoever it was and terminated the connection.
‘Well?’ demanded her mother.
‘It wasn’t London.’
Her mother frowned. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t London?’
‘I’m sure. If that was a Cockney accent then I’m a Red Indian! Sounded eastern European to me. His London number must be forwarded to somewhere over there. An office?’
Her mother’s true feelings were seeping into her expression. She was crestfallen, she was livid, but she certainly wasn’t entirely finished with Roland Mead. Especially on one particular count.
‘He had such a lovely big, white Rolls-Royce.’
The comment came as no surprise. Gloria Cross was covetous when it came to luxury items. What use was a big man with a big bank account balance if he didn’t have a big car? And a Rolls-Royce was numero uno on her ‘must have’ list.
‘A big car isn’t everything.’
Gloria pouted. ‘I love men of international standing.’
Honey frowned. ‘He doesn’t exactly boast about this eastern European operation.’
‘He told me,’ said her mother almost indignantly.
Honey heard her, but didn’t answer because her thought processes were in overdrive. There was something in that fact. Mead was a braggart, and yet he didn’t boast about the international side of his business. ‘I wonder why,’ she mused, so deep in thought that she failed to notice the blob of cream on the end of her nose. Lindsey swiped it off and sucked her finger. ‘Hmm. Lovely.’
Not noticing the cream, her grandmother gave her a withering look. ‘Lovely? He’s not lovely. The man’s a bum!’
Lindsey chuckled. ‘A cream bun.’
Chapter Thirty-three
Steve’s place, eight o’clock, come prepared. That was how Honey presented the occasion to her mature but still active hormones.
Dressed to knock Steve Doherty out of his socks, she was poised on the curb like a ballet dancer about to leap into action. The pavements were still wet but the rain had stopped. Cue right a big car going too fast and heading her way. He skirted the red and white cones left by council workmen. The workmen had also left a hole; not just any old hole, but a deep hole, a hole that had filled up with water. The wheels hit the water; the water hit Honey.
‘Thanks.’
She stood there doused in water. It trickled from her hair and through her make-up leaving sooty streaks down her face. Her freshly-pressed clothes were soaked and limp. And why had she brought her ‘day’ bag? It was big and tan and not at all suitable for an evening out. She undid the zipper and peered inside. She groaned. The big pink brassiere was taking up most of the room. Tomorrow, she determined, tomorrow it was off back to auction.
She rolled her eyes. What sort of night was this going to be?
She considered calling the whole thing off. Her body responded, or rather her right foot moved. Her left stayed put. Par for the course. Half of her wanted Steve Doherty, the other half wanted to leave well alone. Her track record with men influenced the latter response but what was left of her hormones were willing and able.
So she stayed. And waited.
Steve drove up, carefully avoiding the temporary lake. He peered out of the wound-down window, briefly surveying her from top to toe. ‘Is the wet look in just now?’
She jerked the car door open and got in. ‘Drive.’
‘OK.’
She sat silently and sullenly. Seductive was no longer a word anyone could use to describe the way she looked. Steaming might be better; steaming temper, steaming clothes as she began to dry out, AND she was steaming up the windows.
Steve adjusted the air conditioning so that it blew directly on to the windscreen. He could see she was annoyed. Bide your time, he told himself. She’ll soon calm down.
He did a circuit of the inner city; over Pulteney Bridge, past the old Admiralty Building now turned into luxury apartments, over the river, back over the river, turning back into the city.
Once she had noticed that they were going around in a circle, Honey frowned. ‘Where are you going?’
‘You tell me. You phoned me. Told me we had to call in on someone before we went to dinner. You didn’t say who.’
Honey apologised. ‘My mother wants to unburden herself. Again.’ She said it with a groan. She was so looking forward to an evening with Steve at his place. Her mother’s phone call had scuppered that.
Steve made a face. Tell me.
‘In order to get him out of her system, she’s going to pick Roland Mead to pieces.’
‘Like a vulture?’
Honey grimaced. ‘Hell hath no fury like my mother scorned.’
Steve shivered. ‘Jeesh!’
Her mother’s flat had cost around the same as a detached farmhouse with forty acres. Not that her mother would have ever considered living in a farmhouse surrounded by all that grass and mud. And the green wellies? She was more a kitten-heel-type.
They heard her just as they were approaching the front door. She was looking down at them from her balcony. Built in the early nineteenth century, the balcony was constructed of wrought iron. It had a Napoleonic look about it, a bit like those found in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and it was crammed with flowers.
‘About time. I’ve poured three sherries.’
‘I hate sherry,’ Steve murmured.
‘Humour her,’ muttered Honey from the corner of her mouth.
Honey stepped back so she could see better. Her mother’s face was framed by pink geraniums and purple petunias.
She did her bit on Doherty’s behalf. ‘Steve doesn’t drink when he’s driving, so no sherry for him.’
Her mother’s head bobbed in acknowledgement before disappearing.
‘Thanks,’ said Steve as Honey punched in the security number.
‘No great shakes, except that I’ll probably end up swilling yours back as well. Not good. I hate the stuff.’
As usual, her mother was impeccably dressed in a navy and white top, trimmed with red buttons on the sleeves and in a diagonal line across her chest. Her trousers were red and matched her toe-nails and her lipstick.
Gloria’s eyes, outlined with the best Esteé Lauder could produce, gave Honey the once over. ‘You look terrible.’
Honey didn’t dare smile. It would crack her face. Clothes grim; face glum. ‘It wasn’t intentional. I looked good when I started out.’
Her mother’s look of horror was undiminished. ‘Who did it?’
‘A car went through a deep puddle.’
Gloria handed her a schooner of sherry. Wanting to get it over with quickly, she downed it in one. Like Steve, Honey found it too sweet and too rich. Her mother knew this, for she’d told her enough times. But Gloria didn’t pay much attention. Sherry and cod liver oil came in the same category; Gloria considered them good for you. Normally she was totally opposed to alcohol, but for some reason sherry and port wine had always been exempt. Things had changed on the alcohol front recently, mainly thanks to Roland Mead.
‘You could do with another.’
Dark liquid glugged like oil into the glass.
‘Drink it.’
Holding back a grimace, Hone
y gave in, this time sipping, making it last in case she got poured a third.
Steve sipped at his orange juice. She envied him.
Her mother had become silent, her eyes downcast and her lips pressed tightly together.
‘Aren’t you having one,’ Honey asked her?
‘Certainly!’ Snapping out of her reverie, she reached for the decanter.
‘Allow me,’ said Steve.
Her mother raised her finely plucked eyebrows, looking surprised that someone who disliked shaving could be such a gentleman.
‘Say when,’ he said.
‘When’ didn’t happen until the dark red liquid was a hair’s breadth from the rim of the glass.
Honey exchanged a surprised look with Steve. She was deeply unsettled when her mother tilted the glass and drank the lot! Roland Mead was responsible for transplanting an alien – a drinking alien – into her mother’s body.’
‘Right!’ said Gloria Cross, firmly setting the glass back on the tray. ‘Now let’s dish the dirt! I’ll teach you to cross me, Roland Mead!’ She held her daughter’s eyes and shook her head. ‘I knew I should never have trusted a man with tattoos.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘My own mother told me never to trust a man with tattoos, especially when they were hidden from view.’
Honey felt a deep warmth creep up her neck. Was her mother saying what she thought she was saying? Come to think of it, she’d never noticed tattoos on any exposed surface of Roland Mead’s body.
She and Steve exchanged looks of surprise. They were reaching the same conclusion.
Her mother leaned close – surprisingly close – to Steve, the man who didn’t shave enough for her liking. Her eyes narrowed. ‘For a start, he has too much to do with foreigners. In and out with their vans and their trucks down at that new frozen place of his in Avonmouth. My, you ought to see that place. It must have cost him a small fortune. He’s always on about it. And all those vans he has. He bought twelve new ones this year alone. Can you imagine that?’
Steve frowned. ‘I don’t quite get the gist of what you’re saying.’
‘It’s obvious,’ said Gloria, shooting him an ‘I know better than you’ look. ‘He’s overstretched himself and he’s cutting corners to keep the bank manager happy. That’s why he’s importing from over the water. It’s cheap and he can sell it dear. But he keeps pretty hush-hush about it. But I worked it out. I put two and two together.’
‘Where do the trucks come from?’
Gloria thought about it. ‘I think he said from all over Europe; a lot from eastern Europe. He’s got a plant there you see, what they call a processing plant.’ She nodded emphatically and a hard gleam came to her eyes. ‘I saw cash change hands. A driver was mouthing off. He was speaking foreign, but I caught the English words. Roland didn’t know I overheard. I was supposed to stay in the car.’
Steve rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands beneath his chin and fixed his eyes on her face. ‘So what was said exactly?’
Steve could do wonders with his eyes. For a start, Honey was overwhelmed with a sudden urge to confess – not that she had anything much to confess – except for a conclusion creeping into her mind. Was it a wild guess, or was she finally on the right track? One person might be able to help her. While Steve and her mother continued to talk, she rang Casper. Neville, his receptionist answered at first. She told him who she was and that she wanted to speak to Casper.
‘He’s in the bath.’
What was it with that man?
‘He’ll wash all his natural oils away.’
‘I don’t think that will cut much ice,’ murmured Neville. ‘He does a lot of thinking in the bath.’
‘It can’t be helped. I have to interrupt his train of thought. Ask him to put down his loofah and concentrate.’
‘Not beyond the bounds of possibility,’ he replied in a superior tone. ‘Ask me and I’ll ask him.’ Neville gave the impression of being a bulldog guarding his master’s territory. His talents were actually more in the fields of flower arranging and interior design.
‘Can you ask him whether he was first choice to head the judges at the Bath Extravaganza, the one Oliver Stafford won, or whether he was called in as second choice?’
Neville coughed nervously. ‘I don’t think that is quite the way to put it.’ There was something about the way he said it that made her think she’d hit treble top.
‘Was he?’
Neville lowered his voice. ‘Well … he was, in a way. There were some who said he had far too distinguished a palate for such a commercial venture. You know of course that our chef, Jean Pierre, did not enter?’
She knew of course. Jean Pierre was of the opinion that any chef who wasn’t French was a cook. Entering competitions was not part of his remit.
‘So who was supposed to be chairman of the judges?’
Neville’s deep sigh of relief reverberated out of the receiver. ‘Sylvester Pardoe. He has his own restaurant and hotel in Oxford. At the last minute someone pointed out that he knew too many of the contestants to be impartial, so Casper took charge. Is that all you wanted to know or do you still need to disturb Casper?’
There was no need. She already knew who had taken over and why. The only person who might have warned Sylvester off was Richard Carmelli. Or Smudger …
‘Can you tell me who pointed out the fact?’
‘No. No idea. Someone with a vested interest?’
After thanking him, Honey switched off her phone. She knew her eyes were shining. She could see the fact just by looking at Steve. His were shining too, reflecting hers because he knew she’d learned something important.
‘Sylvester Pardoe was supposed to be head judge at the Bath Extravaganza competition.’
Steve’s happy look of impending enlightenment disappeared, replaced by a questioning look. ‘And?’
‘Just a minute.’
She pressed a familiar key on her phone. Smudger answered.
‘What sort of dish was Oliver Stafford cooking up at the contest?’
‘Something with chicken, same as the rest of us.’
‘Cut-up or whole chicken breasts?’
‘Um.’ Smudger thought about it. ‘His dish consisted of cutting up the breasts. I think it was some kind of variation on Chicken a La King, though not so mundane as that. Mundane enough, though,’ he added with waspish disdain.
Steve was eyeing her expectantly. ‘Well?’
Although a bit squiffy, her mother was eyeing her expectantly too, though through a sherry-induced haze. ‘Well, Hannah, darling. Spill the beans!’
‘The meat. That’s what this was all about.’ She turned to Steve. ‘You found ground mixed meat in Richard Carmelli’s stomach. I know for a fact that his last meal was Coronation Chicken. I saw him ladling the portions into cartons, and he told me himself that he was having some for lunch. He said he had loads of it to get rid of and was taking some home with him. And before he shot off to Charmydown, he cleared his fridge out. There was nothing in it when we checked.’
Steve looked incredulous. ‘And someone killed him for taking his work home? I can’t see it. Stealing, yes, but nicking a chicken is pretty low in the crime pecking order.’
He grinned and tugged at the lock of hair falling over his forehead.
Honey fixed him with narrowed eyes that dared him to continue joking. ‘Very droll. But that was it. It wasn’t chicken; it was a mixture of ground-up chicken and pork. It’s cheap and comes in from Eastern Europe. My EHO told me all about it.’
Visits from environmental health officers were never welcome. A prerequisite for the job was the ability to get chefs and hoteliers backs up. Mr Westlake was retiring and perhaps it was out of a sense of remorse that he’d accepted a cup of Earl Grey and talked of the derring-do going on in the industry.
Carried away with this train of thought, Honey failed to control the right hand that reached for the sherry and topped her glass up. She was on a roll.
‘The meat comes in
from Eastern Europe,’ she was saying. ‘Mead has a processing plant there. Standards are not as high as here. To save time and money, some white meats like poultry and pork are shoved in together, especially when it comes to ground meats used in pies and curry-type dishes. No one can really tell the difference – which is why Smudger was right in saying that Oliver Stafford had stolen our chicken breasts. Oliver and Stella had found out that Casper had replaced Sylvester Pardoe at the last minute and Casper would taste the difference! Casper St John Gervais is the most fastidious, discerning epicurean I know.’
Steve looked at her blankly.
She explained. ‘An epicurean has a very discerning palate. It’s Roman. A god of food or something – I think.’
He nodded good-naturedly. ‘I can live with that. And the murderer is?’
Honey didn’t answer. Steve followed her sidelong gaze to her mother.
‘I wouldn’t put anything past that man,’ her mother snarled before sliding back on to the settee, her head sinking into a plush velvet cushion.
There was no point in waking her up. Dinner was still on and gooseberries were not welcome.
Chapter Thirty-four
Tired of living in a city flat, Steve Doherty had purchased a small cottage on the Wellsway, the main road connecting Bath with the ancient city of Wells. Both cities vied for trade in the tourist market, Bath boasting its Roman baths and Wells its thousand-year-old cathedral.
A continuous stream of traffic passed the front of the property during daylight hours, dwindled at around six thirty and happened in spasms for the rest of the night.
It boasted a rear entrance with convenient private parking. Steve drove round the back and parked nose up against his garden wall. A dozen stone steps descended into a small but pretty garden.
Two more steps took them into an octagonal conservatory; two steps more and they were standing in the dining/kitchen area.
Honey eyed her surroundings with interest. She’d expected a muddled, masculine interior with no thought given to design or tidiness; somewhere to sleep and unwind. It wasn’t like that. Spotlights had been set into the floor and ceiling, their focused beams the only barrier between the cooking and eating area. The sitting room was forward of that.
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