Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery)
Page 1
SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD
A HONEY DRIVER
MYSTERY
JEAN G GOODHIND
Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2013
ISBN 9781909520202
Copyright © Jean G Goodhind 2013
First published by Severn House as
Something in the Blood by J.G. Goodhind
The right of Jean G Goodhind to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY.
Cover design by Joelle Brindley
This book is dedicated to
Hazel Godwin, dearly departed,
but bubbling with life during the Bath years
More titles in the Honey Driver series
For more information about
Accent Press titles
please visit
www.accentpress.co.uk
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter One
‘Murder, robbery and any other kind of mayhem must be kept at bay in this fair city, my dear girl; hence your appointment as Crime Liaison Officer acting on behalf of Bath Hotels Association.’
Hannah Driver, called Honey by those that knew her best – except her mother who revelled in being different about everything – eyed Casper St John Gervais with incredulity. He was elegant, eccentric and terribly effete, but was he also a little mad?
‘Why me?’
‘Your experience, my dear girl.’
‘I’ve never been a policeman … woman,’ she corrected.
‘We – the association – just want you to act as liaison point between us and the police. You know, my dear girl, how a city’s reputation can affect tourism. We have to keep the lid on crime in all its forms. Crime must be swiftly and effectively dealt with. Anyway, besides you having an interest in bed occupancy, I understand you used to work with criminals.’
‘I worked for the Probation Service – as a Senior Clerical Officer.’
‘Precisely my point.’
‘Casper, that means I used to type Social Enquiry Reports, a compilation of circumstances and excuses as to why the client shouldn’t be banged up and the key thrown away.’
Casper had a very aquiline nose, very thin at the bridge and widely flaring at the nostrils. When he fixed his gaze on her, his eyes seemed to close together, as though a pair of pince nez were perched on his nose. His nostrils flared into black chasms.
‘But you’re all we have, my dear girl. No member of the association has that kind of experience. And think of the good you could do … Hmm?’
She only vaguely remembered agreeing to it. Bath Hotels Association had been holding their annual AGM when Casper had made the suggestion. As usual the stuffy bit was followed by a bit of a party – quite a sizeable party in fact.
A well-known wine importer had supplied the drink, and a local caterer the food. Honey regretted arriving early because that meant sitting through the AGM. The bulk of the membership didn’t arrive until the meeting was over, heading straight for the bar. Not that the meeting wasn’t entirely without refreshments, thanks to a friendly waiter who used to work for her at the Green River Hotel. A few glasses of Australian Shiraz had helped alleviate her boredom. She might have fallen asleep. She hadn’t snored – at least she didn’t think so.
Casper had taken full advantage of the situation. He’d whispered something in her ear. ‘I guarantee that the Green River Hotel will benefit if you agree to this.’
Some semblance of that promise had stayed with her. Upgrading a few bedrooms at the Green River had left her with a chunky overdraft. Running a hotel in a beautiful city was not a bed of roses. Roses had thorns and Casper’s promise had poured like honey into her ear. Drat!
Lindsey, her daughter, who was far too mature for her age, offered consolation when she told her.
‘Relax. Consider the positive side. It could add a pinch of spice to your life. You need to get out more.’
Honey watched as Lindsey cleared down the bar and locked up.
‘Are you going nightclubbing tomorrow night?’ she asked her.
Tomorrow night, Thursday, was Lindsey’s night off.
Her daughter shook her tawny head. ‘No. I’m going to a concert at the Abbey.’
‘Pop?’ Honey asked with a hopeful lifting of eyebrows.
‘No. Medieval tunes for lute and lyre.’
‘My, you are such a wild child. When I was eighteen …’
‘You were irresponsible.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Grandma.’
‘She’s a bright one to talk …’
Lindsey kissed her forehead. ‘I’m off to bed. Now don’t worry. Like I said, you could do with a little pinch of spice in your life.’
The little pinch of spice came at the wrong time. Honey loved auctions, especially when there were antique clothes up for grabs. Today there’d been plenty.
Collecting clothes from the past helped her keep sane. Musing over who might have worn those gloves, that button-up boot, that lace trimmed chemise made her forget that the laundry service had mislaid two dozen tablecloths, or that the honeymoon couple in room three had done irreversible damage to the bedsprings.
She had a small but interesting collection of lace mittens, silk stockings and garters plus some very interesting underwear. Today she had hit the jackpot and would have gone one better, then Casper phoned.
‘Your first case,’ he said. His voice was like tin on the end of the phone. The auction ran full throttle around her.
‘OK,’ she said, one eye on the auctioneer and the Victorian corset that was up for grabs – all whalebone and laces and made for a waist of less diameter than a modern thigh.
She was almost salivating.
‘Where are you? Are you close by?’
Honey looked around her with furtive intent. Should she lie?
‘The truth, d
ear girl,’ said Casper as if reading her mind.
‘I’m in Bonhams Auction Rooms.’
‘Good. Be here by eleven-thirty.’
Here meant his office. The phone pinged like a bouncing bullet. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.
And what about the corset?
‘Gone!’
She waved at the rostrum.
‘Sorry, madam. You’re too late.’
Blast! It had been such a pretty little corset, red satin edged with black lace. Definitely French. Definitely provocative.
‘But not for you,’ she muttered as she pushed her way through the dealers, the curious and the bargain hunters.
She glanced at her watch on the way out.
First she had to settle her bill and collect her purchases. They were large; so was the price.
‘Not for you, are they hen?’ smirked the cashier.
Alistair was huge, hairy and Scottish.
‘Yep! I’m making a tent.’
‘Once outside she shoved the Victorian bloomers into her Moroccan leather bag. They’d been listed as having once belonged to Queen Victoria – hence the price. The bag was copious, but the bloomers were more so. A sliver of cotton knicker leg fluttered like bunting between the gaping leather.
The sun came out as she passed the Pump Rooms, turning the elegant façade the colour of honey. Inside a quartet was playing Handel to those taking tea from real crockery with real tea leaves and real cream oozing from Scottish scones and sugar doughnuts. The music drifted on the air, but did nothing to soothe her slightly savage breast.
Missing the corset rankled. Red satin! And over a hundred years old! Now how rare was that?
Drat Casper St John Gervais! If he hadn’t insisted she meet him at eleven-thirty precisely, the corset would have been hers.
It would have fitted me.
Well, ten years ago it would have. She smiled to herself. Call yourself voluptuous rather than slender, dear. There again, wasn’t everybody’s waist way beyond the Victorian eighteen inches?
Bath city centre was busy, but it was June and only to be expected. Baskets bursting with geraniums adorned the fronts of offices, banks and shops. Wisps of variegated ivy and purple aubrietia fluttered from lampposts. The stonework of elegant buildings forming Regency crescents and squares turned cowslip yellow when the sun came out.
Month after month the tourists flocked in from all over the world to gape at the Roman Baths, eat the massive buns on offer in Sally Lunn’s Teashop and have their pictures taken in front of the Abbey, in the heart of the
Royal Crescent or at the end of Pulteney Bridge. The tourists were the city’s lifeblood, the fertiliser that had caused a flowering of aged and listed buildings to convert to hotels, restaurants and guesthouses.
By the time she got to Hotel La Reine Rouge, an elegant edifice overlooking Pulteney Bridge, and within walking distance of the Roman Baths, it felt as though she’d weaved her way through every nation in the world.
The La Reine Rouge was even more elegant inside than out, thanks mainly to its owner/manager’s exquisite choice and eclectic mix of antiques, colour and sophisticated lighting.
She patted the arm of a turbaned statuette, one of a gloriously crimson, black and gold pair standing at the bottom of a sweeping staircase that led up to the exquisitely presented accommodation.
‘Hi chaps. Is the boss in?’
Neville, a real, life chap with bleached blond hair and wearing a burgundy waistcoat with a gold watch chain answered her question.
‘He’s waiting for you, sweetie. He’s got his manicurist with him. He’s terribly tense you know, what with everything that’s been happening.’
‘Happening? You mean he’s broken a nail?’
He threw her a sideways sneer. ‘You’re a very naughty girl, Honey.’
His attention returned to the trio of white lilies he was placing in a tall green vase. Clucking at them when they failed to fall the way he wanted, he picked them out one by one and started all over again.
‘Neville, I hear you can be naughty when tempted.’
Neville blushed. ‘Stop teasing me, Honey. You do it on purpose.’
The long case clock standing on a thick Turkish rug chose that moment to chime the half hour.
The flowers continued to behave badly. ‘Oh bother!’
Neville’s vocabulary was as delicate as his appearance.
Honey considered how much it might cost to have a manicurist call then looked down at her fingernails. The varnish was chipped. What else could she expect? Being a hotel owner meant filling in when the dishwasher broke down or chambermaids didn’t turn up.
Tucking her arm through the handles of her bag, she hid her fingers in her pockets and made her way along the thickly carpeted corridor and down the stairs to Casper’s office.
At one time the wine cellars beneath La Reine Rouge had stretched the whole length of the basement. After the builders had finished the basics, Casper had turned the area into offices for him and his staff, papering the newly plastered walls with expensive hessian in a rich sienna colour. The furniture was a mix of minimalist settees, Georgian break-fronted bookcases and ethnic artwork. Oh, and clocks. Casper loved clocks. They were everywhere; wall clocks, grandfather clocks, grandmother clocks, skeleton clocks, carriage clocks, all ticking away together. They even chimed together. Casper insisted they all chimed together in unison. He hated untidiness.
‘Come in, my dear girl.’ His voice rang like the sharp chime of one of his clocks.
The manicurist was buffing the smallest finger of Casper St John Gervais’s right hand when she entered. He waved the woman away once that was done.
‘Another day, another finger job,’ he said with a demure smile.
The manicurist hurried out; no doubt on her way to Neville who would settle the bill. Casper’s patrician sensibilities prevented him from anything as plebeian as physically dealing with money.
He was sitting in a honey-coloured leather chair behind a mahogany desk that might once have belonged to Tennyson or Wordsworth. Casper loved items with provenance, a proven history and famous connections. He loved auctions as much as she did, though his preference was for mahogany chests of drawers rather than the cotton type with two legs and a crotch that she favoured.
She smiled at him and brought on the flattery. ‘You’re looking as lovely as ever, Casper.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’
Casper was the prima donna of the catering industry and adored flattery. He sounded like Noel Coward at the height of his success but looked like a rather muscular version of Randolph Scott.
While she stood there, he brought out a feather duster from a drawer and proceeded to flick it at the imagined dust the manicurist had left behind. Casper hated dust and dirt. His hotel, his office and his person were immaculate.
‘I trust you have heard the news, so I will not go into detail except to say that your services are required much earlier than one could possibly have anticipated.’
‘Well, actually, I’ve been so busy …’
She didn’t get chance to explain that the dishwasher had thrown another tantrum or that a couple from Leicester had climbed out of the window of their ground-floor bedroom that morning without paying their bill. Drat, if only she’d put them on the third floor. That would have foxed them.
Casper was holding forth about the meeting of Bath Hotels Association the week before.
‘As you may recall, the meeting took a unanimous decision to appoint a Crime Liaison Officer, someone who could deal with the police on their level and keep the rest of us informed. In view of your credentials, it was agreed that you were the right person for the job.’
‘Yes, a little paperwork, a few meetings with the police, and some room occupancy,’ she added brightly.
‘I think the problem brought to my attention this morning needs a hands-on approach.’
She felt her face tightening as her eyebrows rose up into her hairline.
Having secreted the feather duster in his top right-hand drawer, Casper used his elegant fingers to flick at an imaginary dust spot on his shoulder – too small a spot for Honey to see even though she narrowed her eyes.
‘I mean, my dear, that a little detective work would not come amiss. I think you’d be quite good at it – better than the police in fact. You know how slow they can be, shackled as they are to European guidelines and the Court of Human Rights.’ His face stiffened with seriousness. ‘I … we want results, Honey. Fast results.’
In her mind she saw herself knocking on doors just like the police did in their hunt for witnesses, hunting down muggers in their lairs – probably in neighbouring Bristol.
The tingle of excitement melted at the thought of confronting big bruisers with muscles the size of beer barrels.
Her protests were sudden, strident and heart-felt.
‘But Casper, I have a job … I’ve got a hotel to run and I don’t really think …’
‘As you may recall,’ Casper was saying, ‘we agreed that crime was the greatest threat to visitor numbers. This honey-coloured city, this haunt of Jane Austin, Beau Brummell and … and …’
He looked up at the ceiling in his search for another famous name.
‘Jane Seymour?’ said Honey in an effort to help him out.
He frowned. ‘Did she live here? I never knew the Tudors graced us with their presence.’
‘Not Henry the Eighth’s wife. I meant the actress – you know – Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman?’
He gave her a Paddington Bear-type of stare, hard and vacant. He hadn’t a clue who she was talking about. He resumed his diatribe on why she had been lumbered with the job.
‘As I was saying, someone with your background …’
‘I was nothing very …’
‘There are perks of course. You do recall me telling you that?’
Her jaw stopped where it was, her mouth half-formed around a word.
‘Yes. You did say so.’
‘As I outlined to you, it’s only fair that the time you put into this should be recompensed in some way.’