He opened a leather-bound folder lying on his desk. ‘I most definitely recall you saying that a block booking had been cancelled and you had rooms to let. Could you find eight rooms for more or less immediate occupation?’
Her voice resumed normal service. ‘When?’
‘The tenth?’
‘Just a minute.’
It was hard to keep breathing. Her fingers were all thumbs. This was a result, the type that put money in the bank.
Without thinking of the consequences, she heaved her extra large shoulder bag onto the leather-topped desk. She should have known better.
‘Off!’
Casper’s face was a picture of wounded dignity.
‘Do you realise this desk was once owned by Lord Berkeley?’ Out came the feather duster again.
The feather duster had a strong enough head to sweep her bag onto the floor, but not before the nebulous knickers had spread over the desk.
Casper’s raised eyebrows looked in danger of sliding upwards over his shiny forehead. He pointed a trembling finger. There were broad gaps between each word.
‘What … .are … .those?’
Honey muttered vaguely about them having belonged to Queen Victoria and being a collector’s item, ‘And where the bloody hell is my diary?’
While she rummaged, he picked them up. Eyes poker-wide, he held the waist strings between finger and thumb, peering through the centre of what must have been a singularly draughty garment. No crotch.
‘Sorry, Casper. I can’t seem to find … Ah! Here it is.’
Her mind was on business, and this was serious business – especially as far as room bookings were concerned. Once she was all set, she faced him.
It was hard not to laugh.
With a look somewhere between distaste and true blue respect, Casper let the bloomers fall onto the desk, his delicate, white hands remaining at shoulder level.
‘What utterly dreadful items! They’re big enough to form the mainsail of a decent yacht!’
Honey stuck to the subject in hand. ‘So what were those dates?’
Sighing as though life had become terribly difficult, he repeated them.
Honey checked her diary. The tenth had a thick, ugly line crossed through it. Someone had cancelled, and at this time of year she could have sold that room over and over again.
‘No worries!’ Her face was flushed. Her pulse raced. ‘How many did you say?’
‘Eight rooms. All singles mark you.’
Singles! Only two thirds of the normal price, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers; and she was certainly a beggar, thanks to the upgrading of the attic rooms and a deaf bank manager.
He passed her the letter and booking form. ‘Here you are. As I said, I think it only fair that you should gain something from these extra duties. We must not allow crime to rise in this city as elsewhere in the western world. We have an image to maintain.’
‘Not to mention a bank balance and a lifestyle,’ Honey muttered, still scribbling in her diary.
‘Exactly. People expect certain standards. Ambience, good service and the standard of personal safety one would associate with …’
He studied the ceiling as he searched for the right word.
‘Disneyworld?’
‘Exactly! Therefore, a Crime Liaison Officer can only be a good thing.’
‘Oh, I agree.’
Of course she did.
She wasn’t quite thinking on the same lines as him. Filling up eight rooms in one fell swoop was fantastic. The alternative would have been to accept lower priced guests from the Tourist Information Office, and even then they would only come in dribs and drabs.
After folding the forms inside her diary, Honey grabbed the escaped undergarment and stuffed it back into her bag.
‘So who’s been mugged, diddled or been sold a duff budgie?’ she said lightly.
A puzzled stiffness came to the face of the chairman of Bath Hotels Association. Street cred and slang were low on Casper’s need to know list. If anyone could truly look down their nose at you and make you feel you’d been peddling your body on the street all night, Casper could.
‘I’m not sure you’re entirely aware of the seriousness of the situation.’ His tone of voice was as sonorous as the clock in reception.
Honey felt warm. Things looked on the up and up. She’d made a good bid at auction, the dishwasher man should have finished repairing the blasted machine by the time she got back, and the rooms she envisaged staying empty or selling cheap were full again. It was just a case now of doing this job Casper had landed her with. Surely her first assignment wouldn’t be too difficult?
‘So what’s the problem?’
The way Casper lowered his eyelids, so that she couldn’t read his thoughts, sowed the first seeds of worry in what had initially seemed a very fruitful morning.
‘I’m afraid an American tourist has disappeared. Not from one of our more refined establishments, mark you. For some odd reason he chose to stay in a bed and breakfast on the Lower Bristol Road .’
Casper said the words ‘bed’ and ‘breakfast’ as though he were spitting out broken teeth. It was nothing compared to how he pronounced the word ‘Lower’ in Lower Bristol Road.
No matter. Honey didn’t care. She held on to that warm feeling and set about looking seriously engaged with the situation. ‘Are we sure of that? Couldn’t he just have gone home early or done something unusual, like visiting Wales?’
‘He left his luggage behind.’
‘Oh.’
‘And his passport.’
Steepling his fingers, he leaned forward. His tone was low, almost secretive. ‘Let’s look into this ourselves shall we – before we go to the police?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
When he threw her a warning look, the eight people in eight rooms melted away to nothing.
It hurt to smile, but needs must. ‘On reflection, I think you’re quite right. I’ll see what I can do.’
Chapter Two
Casper was OK about her checking things back at the Green River Hotel before pursuing the case of the missing tourist.
Anna, a very willing Polish girl, was running reception. She was sleek, blonde and had a shiny smiling face that nobody could help but warm to.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Honey.
‘Very good, Mrs Driver. Are you OK?’
‘Yes, though I have acquired an extra string to my professional bow. I’ve become an amateur sleuth.’
Still smiling though looking slightly puzzled, Anna remarked, ‘That is very nice for you. Does this mean the hotel gets an extra star?’
No, it was not some kind of quality rating, but Honey couldn’t be bothered to explain.
‘Let’s put it this way. It can’t do the Green River any harm. And I’ve bought Queen Victoria’s bloomers.’
Anna’s big brown eyes were totally non comprende. Honey sensed she would have preferred the hotel to have acquired another star. It would probably look better on her cv.
‘Never mind.’
Feeling just slightly apprehensive at what she was likely to find, Honey marched to the kitchen and was welcomed by the sound of the dishwasher gyrating with water. Great, that meant she could get on with a few things before paying a visit to Ferny Down Guest House, the bed and breakfast where the American tourist had chosen to stay.
She glanced furtively at the dishwasher which spent more time broken down than actually doing the job it should be doing. She lowered her voice in case the blasted machine heard her and chose to be contrary.
‘Fixed?’ she asked Smudger Smith, the chef.
‘Fixed,’ he said without looking up.
Honey sighed. ‘Thank God for that.’
He was poking around in the tray of fresh meat just delivered by the butcher. In Smudger’s estimation steaks without the right amount of fat threading through them were only fit for the pet food trade.
The dishwasher continued to burble l
ike a bonny brook.
Smudger glanced over his shoulder. ‘Your Mother’s here.’
Her mother had her own flat at number two, Squires Mews just behind the Theatre Royal. That didn’t stop her turning up unannounced and mucking in. Sometimes she was a help, but most of the time a hindrance. Basically it all boiled down to clothes. Her mother was always superbly dressed, not a crease, not a mark defiling her catwalk image.
‘Hannah!’
The voice of doom! Her mother was one of the few people who still called her Hannah, but only when she had something serious to say – or at least something she considered serious.
Honey made a beeline for the bar, the only place her mother refused to enter unless it was a life-or-death situation.
Honey made the bar area just in time. The tap tap of kitten heeled shoes moved unrelentingly in her direction.
‘Hannah, come out of that den of iniquity. I want to talk to you …’
‘Sorry, Mother, but I’ve got some important business to do on behalf of the Hotels Association.’
The door at the back of the bar was a quick escape route. Although a Catholic, her mother had a Methodist aversion to alcohol – probably because her husband, Honey’s father, had had such a liking for it. She never entered the bar. However, she was getting better. Time, as they say, is a great healer.
Lindsey, Honey’s daughter, was behind the bar replenishing bottles of mixers. She didn’t stop what she was doing when Honey entered, but did throw her a quick grin.
‘Grandma’s heard about you becoming a private detective. She thinks you might get involved with a policeman and end up drinking in bars all night.’
Honey grimaced as she stated the perfectly obvious. ‘I already drink in bars most of the night. I run a hotel!’
‘Grandma says she reckons you’re no good at finding suitable men. She reckons she’s going to find one for you.’
Honey lowered her voice. ‘Your grandmother’s idea of suitable is someone with broad business interests and the personality of a hamster.’
Lindsey smirked. ‘And yours is?’
Honey gave a ‘don’t know’ kind of wave of her hand. ‘I can go with broad shoulders?’
‘As good a starting point as any.’
Honey fidgeted. Lindsey saw her. ‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘Make your escape. I’ll make the excuses.’
Honey kissed her daughter’s cheek. ‘Did I ever tell you that you’re the best daughter in the world?’
Lindsey pretended to think about it. ‘Only when I don’t ask you for a pay rise.’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘But you never call me that at three in the morning when I have been out clubbing.’
Honey threw Lindsey a long-suffering look.
‘Mmmm!’ She ruffled her daughter’s tawny crop. ‘It’s just that you don’t do it often enough.’
The door slid silently shut behind her, the car started first time, and although it was parked in a tight space, necessity boosted her driving skills. She pulled out and headed for the other side of town. Things were looking good.
It was midway through the afternoon, so the traffic wasn’t too bad. She kept to the inner circuit road, skirting the city and sweeping towards the Wellsway then bearing right and immediately left on to the Bristol Road .
Heavy engineering works, scrap yards and devastation had once lined the road on the side fronting the river. They’d since been replaced by swank apartments in former warehouses, smart offices and landscaped car parks.
The other side of the road was unchanged; lined with Victorian villas, some advertising bed and breakfast.
Ferny Down Guest House was one of these. Someone had followed the kerbside attraction rule. Hanging baskets full of purple, mauve and pink flowers hung from ground floor to guttering, obscuring the dirt-streaked façade. A low wall divided a tiny front garden laid with red glazed tiles from the busy road.
She found a parking space wedged between a van advertising carpet cleaning and a truck belonging to the City Council.
There was no garden as such at the front of the guest house. The distance to the front door was no more than two yards and the front door was plastic, totally out of sync with the Victorian brickwork.
Honey took a deep breath then rang the doorbell. Heard it echo inside.
There were other noises, but not the sort associated with someone coming to answer the front door.
Stepping back, she looked up at the windows. Like the door they had plastic frames and were double-glazed to keep out traffic noise. The door remained steadfastly closed.
Honey stepped back from the door and strained to hear something – anything – above the noise of passing traffic.
Grunting sounds accompanied by a few shouts of encouragement came from the alleyway between Ferny Down and the house next door.
Well she didn’t have all afternoon. Back she went turning right then right again into the alley.
Three men were manhandling an old chest freezer out of the back gate.
‘Careful with my fence,’ one of them said. This had to be the proprietor. She’d memorised the details. His name was Mervyn Herbert. Good looks and dress sense were not on his list of priorities.
Overweight, but not obese, he had the worn-out look of someone trapped in a routine he didn’t want to be in – like life.
‘Mr Herbert?’
She ducked to one side as the men carrying the freezer squeezed out through the gate.
His eyebrows beetled when he looked her up and down. ‘You from the council?’
‘No. Hotels Association. I came to see you about your little problem.’
For a moment he looked as though she was talking about something personal, i.e. a bad dose of piles or a highly infectious disease, both of which might be of interest to that TV show, Embarrassing Bodies.
Sensing he wasn’t keen to air his carelessness in public, i.e. losing a paying customer, she mouthed the words, ‘your missing guest’.
There was a wary look to his eyes closely followed by relief when he nodded. ‘You’d best see the wife. Come this way if you like.’
Once the freezer was on its way to the council truck and the local landfill site, she edged her way around the path carefully avoiding a pyramid of stones that appeared to form a rockery.
Mr Herbert pointed to a plastic-framed conservatory. Through the misted glass she detected a blob of colour moving in a chair.
‘She’s in there. I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got to make sure this lot from the council don’t do any damage.’
He was gone in a jiffy, more concerned with the freezer than he was with her.
‘Ere!’ she heard him shout. ‘Go easy with that!’
She wondered why the men who collected disused domestic items needed to go careful with something obviously discarded. Perhaps because it still belonged to the owner until it was out of sight?
The blob of colour she’d seen in the conservatory, Mrs Cora Herbert saw her, got up from her chair and with a jerk of her head and a hissed command, beckoned her over. ‘You from the Association?’
Her perceptiveness took Honey by surprise. She managed a smile. At the same time she took in the too-tight T-shirt, too-tight skirt, black shiny tights and killer-heeled shoes. Mrs Herbert was mutton trying to be lamb.
They shook hands. ‘Yes. I’m Hannah Driver. Everyone calls me Honey.’
‘Oh! That’s a nice name. Yes. I like that.’
Cora Herbert looked impressed, almost as though she wished she’d thought of the name herself.
‘Are you American?’
‘My father was.’
‘I thought you was,’ she said, beaming from ear to ear. ‘I bet you look like him.’
‘I can’t remember. He died when I was young.’
Cora’s face crumpled with sympathy. ‘Accident was it?’
‘You could say that.’
Meeting a twenty-two-year-old model at a business do was accidental. It was ha
rdly an accident that he’d lusted after her, divorced her mother then dropped dead on honeymoon.
Honey took in her surroundings. She’d seen better.
A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on the table. So did an ashtray containing cigarette stubs stained with pink lipstick. The room reeked of tobacco and cheap perfume.
Holding her breath was out of the question. She’d keel over.
‘My den where I can do what I bloody well like,’ said Cora Herbert as if guessing what Honey was thinking, shooting her down before she raised an objection. ‘Are you dry?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Do ya wanna cup of coffee?’
‘No thanks.’ Café Latte was one thing. Café Nicotine was another. When she left here she’d stink of stale tobacco. Her hair and her clothes would need instant washing. Dry cleaning bills and suede skirts came to mind. Today she wore linen, thank God.
She got out her notebook and a pen – first requisite of a decent detective. ‘So this American …’ she began.
‘Mr Weinstock. At least that’s what he said his name was. But that isn’t the name on his passport, nor the address he gave us.’
‘Didn’t you check his passport details against the address given when he checked in?’
Without so much as a bashful blink, Cora took a cigarette from a packet and lit up. Thankfully, she turned away when she exhaled.
‘What for? He paid me cash up front.’
‘Ah!’ Honey nodded. No point the taxman checking Cora Herbert’s records. The passport details had not been entered and neither had the money.
‘How long did he stay?’
‘A whole week!’
Cora Herbert’s tone was the oral equivalent of rubbing her hands together. Her face glowed with satisfaction.
‘Unusual for somebody staying in a bed and breakfast.’
‘A guest house! We are a guest house,’ Cora Herbert snapped, sending whorls of smoke escaping from her mouth.
‘Sorry.’ Such were the sensitivities of guesthouse landladies, Honey reminded herself.
‘Still – a good booking. Few Americans take that long to look round.’
The golden triangle, London, Stratford-upon-Avon down to Bath and back to London; that was the norm, and all done in two weeks with Oxford thrown in.
Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) Page 2
