The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2)

by L. B. Hathaway

  An apprentice who was lurking behind the man from Fortnum’s suddenly darted forwards nervously, his arms filled with a bouquet of exotic purple roses, an exact match for the mauve-coloured long silk dress Posie was wearing.

  ‘These are for you, Miss,’ the boy muttered, checking a form in his hands.

  ‘Oh no,’ smiled Posie distractedly, ‘there must be some mistake. I’m not a bridesmaid! There are no bridesmaids! So I’m sure we didn’t order these.’

  She checked her wristwatch and shifted Dolly’s bouquet onto her hip, crossing to the door of the bedroom, knocking sharply, starting to panic somewhat. Dolly was an orphan, and had no sisters or brothers either, and Posie had somehow stepped into the role of making sure that everything ran smoothly at the wedding today.

  ‘Dolly, are you ready yet?’

  They really had to get a shuffle on: Rufus and all the guests would be taking their places in the wooden pews at St Bride’s by now, fanning themselves with the Orders of Services to keep cool, admiring the banks of white roses and gypsophila which studded the dark interior like little stars. And it would take Dolly and Posie at least fifteen minutes to cross London to get there, even in a police car!

  The senior florist from Fortnum’s took the order form from the boy and studied it, frowning.

  ‘No mistake, modom,’ he said certainly, setting the bouquet of purple roses down on a coffee table. ‘There’s even a note with it for you. I’ll just leave it here and we’ll be off: I can see you’ve got your hands full.’

  Suddenly Dolly emerged and all eyes in the room turned and stared at the future Lady Cardigeon.

  Dolly, as befitted her former career as a Wardrobe Mistress, looked simply stunning in an ankle-length white silk dress. Swathes of silver veil and tulle cascaded down her back from a white skull-cap and tiny silver stars covered the outfit and caught the sunlight like winking eyes as she moved. Not many would have been able to pull off such an exotic, crazily off-beat gown, but for Dolly, who was tiny, like a little doll, and sported a racy peroxide-blonde bob, it was the perfect thing. Posie had no doubt that Dolly’s bridal outfit would be splashed all over the London newspapers tomorrow, raising eyebrows and hemlines within days, and wedding-dress ateliers across the country would be taking orders for exact copies before the next week was out.

  ‘How do I look, darling?’ Dolly whispered hopefully from under silver-painted eyelids and thick eyelashes made black with lashings of Maybelline mascara.

  Posie passed her the bouquet. ‘Like an absolute dream,’ she answered.

  ****

  Museum Chambers seemed awfully quiet when Posie returned home later from the Wedding Reception, stripped now as it was of friends and florists and flowery offerings.

  She had stopped on the way back at her office on Grape Street, just around the corner from her new flat, and fed Mr Minks his usual prime piece of chicken for supper. Try as she might (and she had tried several times now over the month she had been living in her new home), she couldn’t get the haughty Siamese to move in with her.

  Mr Minks had clung in anger to his ripped-up shabby velvet curtains which Posie had installed specially for him to climb on in the kitchen at the Grape Street Bureau, and when she had had the bright idea of removing the curtains and placing them in her new flat and thus tempting him over in that way, he had simply sulked and starved himself for several days, refusing to look Posie in the eye and cowering in a corner of the new flat.

  In the end she had had to admit defeat and had wearily traipsed back, carrying curtains and cat and all, and had re-installed Mr Minks at the office, which he obviously felt was his own private and sacrosanct domain. She knew enough about his personality to realise she would never try to move him again.

  Posie sank into an armchair and kicked off her high-heeled shoes. She surveyed the apple-green living room and smiled with pleasure: buying the three-bedroomed flat in Bloomsbury on her return from Egypt had proved so much easier than she had ever thought possible – easier than choosing a hat when it came to it – because it had so ostensibly been the right place for her. And she was relieved to finally be in her own space and away from the old bedsit in Nightingale Mews. At last Posie felt she had a place to come home to; to enjoy coming home to.

  She poured herself a small sherry and closed her eyes and thought about the day which had passed. It had been a wonderful wedding. The service had been impeccable, the church beautiful, the bridal pair radiantly happy. Even Rufus’ father, the curmudgeonly Earl of Cardigeon, had been on his best behaviour and had joined in the singing and the throwing of silver-painted confetti with as much gusto as anyone.

  The reception at the Savoy Hotel had been wonderful too, and Posie felt relieved that it had all passed off without incident. She had enjoyed seeing Inspector Lovelace and Inspector Oats sitting proudly in the congregation dressed in their very best, their wives nervous and twitchy beside them, and she had smiled to see Sergeants Binny and Rainbird rendered almost unrecognisable, wearing top hats and tails. She had loved watching the outfits and antics of Dolly’s many friends from the theatre, who made a wonderfully irreverent contrast to the legions of Rufus’ straight-laced aristocratic cousins, whose disapproving stiff upper lip demeanour had given way to a more relaxed and approachable manner as the day wore on and the alcohol flowed in ever-increasing quantities.

  But Posie had less enjoyed having to skirt diplomatically around Len and his wife Aggie, and it had been very awkward.

  It turned out that Dolly and Rufus had issued invitations to their wedding back in May, as custom dictated, and unbeknownst to her, they had sent an invitation out to Len in his own right, assuming of course that he would accompany Posie. But things had changed, and how wrong they had all been!

  The invitation had obviously sat unread in Len’s in-tray during the months he had been away in France, and when he had returned to the Grape Street Bureau while Posie was in Egypt he had opened the Wedding Invitation and decided to accept, and bring his wife. Posie had no idea why Len had decided on such a strange and hurtful course of action, for Dolly and Rufus were her friends, after all. She had a horrible feeling that it was Len’s wife who had pushed him to accept, snobbishly desperate for a chance to attend a society wedding.

  Dolly and Rufus had been livid with Len when Posie returned and told them what had happened at the Cap d’Antibes, but they couldn’t ‘disinvite’ him and his wife. Posie had found herself laughing and somehow convincing everyone that she was over it, that she was a grown-up, that she could manage one single day in the presence of Len and his wife.

  But it had been hard watching the sharp-faced Aggie, limpet-like on Len’s arm, giving off mock-haughty glances to all of Dolly’s theatrical friends, no doubt thinking she was a cut above them. She had given Posie herself a withering and dismissive look, a curt nod and a screwing-up of the mouth being the only signs that she had actually deigned to notice her at all. Len had been embarrassed at Aggie’s behaviour, Posie felt. But what on earth did he think he was playing at by inviting her along anyway?

  Their working relationship at the Grape Street Bureau over the month that Posie had been back had proved workable; cool, calm, rational. They had slipped back into their work routines comfortably, with Len picking up his usual heavy workload of juicy divorce clients to shadow, and Posie taking whichever cases passed across her desk and took her fancy. They had even got back into the habit of sharing a cup of tea or coffee together at eleven o’clock in the morning, but now they took great care to sit together with Prudence in the waiting room, and neither disturbed the other in their private offices.

  No mention was made again of the incident at the Cap d’Antibes, or of Aggie, or of the months which Len had spent in France and why he had not updated Posie on what was happening there. Similarly, no mention of Posie’s reward from the Earl of Cardigeon for finding the stolen Maharajah diamond earlier in the year was made again, which was just as well, as Posie had sunk it all into buying her new bac
helorette flat in Museum Chambers. On the whole, their working lives had been restored fairly easily, and Posie wished it were the same with her heart.

  The wedding had also been interesting because Posie had seen Alaric again for the first time since the big meeting at Boynton Hall, and in the last month he had been trying desperately to sort out his family affairs; he had telephoned Posie when he could, but he had not had time for a social call. Not even to see her new flat.

  Today he had been acting as a groomsman for Rufus and he had looked happy and smiling and in control, but Posie had known what an effort it must have been costing him. She noticed with fresh surprise how a great many people gravitated towards Alaric, anxious for a smidgen of his celebrity glitter to rub off on them. Indeed, spilling out of the church onto Fleet Street after the service she had been surprised anew at what a magnet he was for the press, almost in danger of eclipsing the bride and groom by being in such demand.

  ‘OVER HERE! ALARIC!’ shouted the photographers needily. Alaric had doffed his top hat and laughed and smiled, but Posie had seen him stiffen and his face become a sad mask when those same journalists shouted out comments about Violet.

  ‘TELL US HOW YOU FEEL! WHAT IS IT LIKE WAITING FOR YOUR SISTER TO HANG?’

  Goodness only knew how he could be feeling, Posie thought to herself. And the wedding had been so busy, and there had been so many things to do for Dolly, that she had not had much of a chance to ask Alaric how he was faring. She vowed to send a note to his club the next day, inviting him for a catch-up lunch; they both needed cheering up.

  In the last month the Court had, as Inspector Lovelace had predicted, passed a speedy and certain sentence as to Lady Violet’s guilt. She had been sentenced to death for the murders of Ianthe Flowers, Binkie Dodds and Harry Redmayne. Added to this was a charge of manslaughter for the killing of Bernie Sharp and a charge of attempted murder for trying to kill her own brother, Alaric Boynton-Dale.

  While no doubt it was the right conviction and the Judge and Jury could not be faulted, there was no doubt that it was painful for Alaric. No-one knew when she would die, but it was surely any day now. Lady Violet was being kept as a maximum security prisoner in the new jail for women at Holloway. She had not received any visitors, and Alaric had told Posie that it was with a very hard heart and with much resolve that he ignored the begging letters which came to him daily from her.

  A soft knocking noise came from the front door.

  Surprised, Posie checked her wristwatch and roused herself from the comfort of her armchair. Midnight! Who on earth would call at this time of night?

  She rustled across the small hallway and stood on the parquet floor in her violet ball gown and achy stockinged feet, checking the spy-hole.

  It was Alaric.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed in pleasure, unhooking the safety chain on the door. ‘It’s you! What a nice surprise! Come in!’

  ‘Forgive the lateness of my call,’ he muttered, hanging his top hat on her hat stand in the hall and peeling off his black tail-coat.

  He followed Posie through the hallway and into the living room, throwing himself down in her just-vacated armchair. He barely looked around him, not even at the hieroglyphic painting by Harry Redmayne which Posie had rescued from the fire and had had framed and mounted in pride of place over her fireplace. Something was wrong.

  Instinctively she moved to the drinks cabinet and poured a good two-fingers’ worth from a bottle of single malt whisky which she kept as an emergency reserve. She passed the tumbler to Alaric.

  ‘It’s going to be tomorrow,’ he said desperately and his coin-coloured eyes burnt with grief. Posie didn’t need to ask what was going to be tomorrow: it must be the day for Violet’s sentence to be carried out.

  ‘Lovelace told me this evening just before I left the reception,’ he continued. ‘He didn’t know whether I’d want to know or not, but he thought I probably would. I’m glad he told me.’

  ‘Why on a Sunday?’ Posie asked, stupefied.

  ‘Less press interest outside of the prison. And fewer journalists hanging around. Sensible, really.’

  ‘Oh Alaric, I’m so sorry.’

  He shrugged and swigged the whisky. ‘I hope you didn’t mind my coming here. I couldn’t bear to be alone tonight at my club, and I hardly got a chance to talk to you all day. I’ve missed you, you know. Don’t you wish we could just jump in some old plane and fly off away from all of this?’

  Posie, who didn’t share Alaric’s immensely itchy feet syndrome, half-laughed:

  ‘No! Nice though our adventures were, I’ve just settled in here, thank you very much!’

  Alaric looked around him deftly, as if only just realising where he was for the first time. ‘Nice place,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before. Ass that I am!’ His eye caught the bouquet of purple roses on the coffee table.

  ‘You even have fresh flowers! Very nice! But isn’t this place a bit big for you? You’ll be rolling around in here alone like a marble in a glass jar! How many bedrooms are there?’

  Posie smiled. Was that a hint that he wanted to stay over? She didn’t mind: she was too old for having scruples about what the neighbours might say anyway.

  ‘You’re welcome to stay here tonight,’ she said easily. ‘The spare bedrooms are all made up and waiting. You even have a choice of room. Take your pick! You may be right, the place does feel a little bit too big; even my wretched cat doesn’t want to live here with me. But I love it. It feels like home.’

  Alaric finished the whisky and leaned over, replacing his glass on the table.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’ve ever known what “home” feels like,’ he said sadly.

  He leant over and kissed Posie lightly on the cheek.

  ‘But you always seem to make me feel at home, somehow,’ he said, as if surprised at himself. Posie flushed at the unexpected compliment.

  ‘Let’s have a good lunch out somewhere tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Just the two of us. Mayfair, perhaps. My treat. I promise we won’t speak about Violet. Or Cosima, or anything else which belongs in the past. We’ll talk about the future.’

  He reached for Posie’s hand and gripped it tightly in his own. ‘Do you ever wonder what Ianthe’s lost book was about at all?’ he asked, fixing her with his intense gaze. ‘You only read the start, didn’t you? I wonder why she called it The Tomb of the Honey Bee. Do you think she knew what was going to happen in Egypt? Do you think she had second sight?’

  Posie stared up at Harry’s bee hieroglyphs.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, shaking her head and letting Alaric continue to hold her hand. It felt quite nice, actually.

  ‘I don’t know why she called it that, or what happened in the book, but Ianthe did manage to give us the end of the story, didn’t she? She knew how it would end. Whether that was at a tomb in Egypt or in a tomb of her own making, Violet was destined to trap herself in the end.’

  ****

  When Alaric had gone to bed, Posie moved around the flat, shutting windows and tidying up and taking pleasure in putting things back where they needed to go. She was just about to go to bed herself and dim the light in the living room when she caught sight again of the purple roses on the low table, and she saw the edge of a note poking out from among the blooms. She cursed, having forgotten all about it before. Snatching up the note she read quickly:

  Posie,

  It’s been a while now. A while too since I sent you mimosa from the South of France to remember me by.

  I am very well, flourishing in fact.

  I hope you enjoy the wedding today of your two dear, brave friends. My associates in London tell me that these roses should be an exact colour match to your outfit and I wish I were there with you to tell you how delightful you look. For now the flowers will have to suffice.

  Yours, until we meet again (which I hope will be very soon),

  Caspian della Rosa

  Posie scrunched up the note, throwing it to the floor, starin
g at the strange-coloured flowers in horror.

  Caspian della Rosa! Her old enemy! The man who had declared himself her nemesis! The man who had snatched the Maharajah diamond from the Earl of Cardigeon and left a trail of bloodshed in his wake when he had disappeared from under the noses of the police back in February. The man who had threatened to kill Dolly Price and who had begged Posie to come away with him and become a partner in his international crime ring! A man who had sent her flowers to tell her he was safe, and all the time she had mistakenly thought they had come from Len…

  And here he was, if not in person, then with other people’s eyes still following her every movement. He even knew her new home address. Posie shivered. Caspian della Rosa gave her the creeps.

  Posie picked up the ruined note and pressed it flat, willing herself not to panic, breathing slowly. She had to be clear-headed about this. It was not a disaster.

  She vowed that she would send the note across to Inspector Lovelace at Scotland Yard first thing on Monday morning, and see if he and his boys could somehow put a trace on the person who had bought the flowers. For now she would not let it spook her.

  Besides, she was well protected with Alaric sleeping just down the hallway. Unconventional, perhaps, but handy nonetheless. And as she turned out the light, she remembered Alaric’s comment about it being a remarkably big flat for her to live in alone.

  Good job then that she was going to ask him to stay on.

  Indefinitely.

  ****

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