The sales assistant had purple hair and a double chin but was very apologetic. ‘We have a very wide range of cooking utensils, but …’ He shrugged his shoulders and flapped his hands apologetically. Honey’s mother was most put out. ‘I know she really needed a pair of fish tweezers. Now what do I get her?’
‘Perfume?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want to encourage her wayward lifestyle.’
This was the first time Honey had heard that her mother’s oldest friend had a wayward lifestyle.
‘Are you saying there’s more to the Bath Senior Citizen’s Club than old-time dancing and playing bridge?’
Her mother made a so-so kind of face and waved fingers heavy with diamond rings.
‘Cecily has been sowing wild oats like there’s no tomorrow. She can’t help it. In fact she hasn’t been right since finding Eric dead in bed.’
Honey couldn’t argue with that. The circumstances of Eric dying in bed were enough to unhinge anyone.
On the night in question, Eric had gone to bed early complaining of a sore throat. Two hours later, Cecily had joined him. Before switching off the light she’d asked him how his throat was. He’d made a sort of gargling sound that to her ears was confirmation that his throat had not improved. In the morning she’d asked him if he wanted a cup of tea but got no reply. Thinking a lie-in would do him good, she went downstairs, made a cup of tea for herself and took one up to him an hour later.
He didn’t answer when she spoke to him. Neither did he respond when she shook his shoulder. At that point she called the doctor and after the briefest of examination, he had confirmed what she had failed to notice; her husband was dead and had been for some hours.
‘Well,’ said Honey’s mother. ‘Poor Cecily. Fancy waking up to a stiff one!’
Judging by the sucked-in lips of the sales assistant, his interpretation of what constituted a stiff one differed from that of her mother and he was barely suppressing his amusement. Honey managed not to laugh, but it wasn’t easy so she was glad when her mother picked a plastic apron, one emblazoned with a female figure of ample proportions and wearing nothing but a garter belt. That, her mother had decided, would do just as well for Cecily’s birthday.
A cup of coffee and piece of carrot cake in the in-store cafe, a trip to the ladies’ loo, and they were ready to head home.
The return journey would have been uneventful if her mother hadn’t had second thoughts about the apron; not the nude torso, but the fact that it might have a label saying ‘Made in China.’
‘I need to check. I don’t want her to think I was a cheapskate,’ she said resolutely.
‘Mother, it cost you forty pounds.’
‘I know, but the right label says it all. I’d prefer if it said “made in England” or even “made in Europe”. Not China. Only cheap stuff is made in China. Everyone knows that!’
The traffic was heavy, cars darting on and off to the main island in the centre of the shopping complex. All roads led to the shopping mall and the profusion of shopping outlets that had burgeoned around it like fungus on a compost heap. Honey concentrated on her driving because, after all, this wasn’t her car and Doherty loved his car almost as much as he did her – maybe more. The jury was out on that one.
Then she remembered she could do with a box of screws, so quickly aimed the car towards the B&Q superstore.
Leaving her mother in the car, she dashed in, bought the screws, dashed out again, started up the car, and headed for the exit.
The car park exited onto a busy road where she found herself waiting in a queue to get out.
Grumbles and sharp words about idiot drivers were hard to keep in check. A few cars and cusses later and they’d at last reached the white line. Honey turned right out of the car park at the exact moment that her mother got the apron out holding it up against the windscreen. The voluptuous torso faced forward while she searched for the label.
‘Great,’ she said after some close scrutiny. Her tone veered towards sarcastic. ‘It says made in India.’
‘Mother!’
There was a screeching of brakes then a bang that jolted both of them.
Honey groaned.
Her mother was all hurt indignation. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I should give that man a piece of my mind.’
Honey buried her face in the airbag that had conveniently cushioned the blow.
Doherty’s car!
The man in the car that hit them wore an expression of total surprise, but apologised profusely, squinting through the side window at them.
‘I was just thinking of how sexy my ex-wife was, when bam! There she was in your car windscreen. A well-built woman with nothing on. Sorry love, but you flashed at me and I was in heaven.’
‘Understandable and not entirely your fault,’ said Honey while throwing a killer look at her mother.
Insurance details were exchanged.
Gloria Cross shook her head. ‘Never mind. There’s no point crying over spilt milk. These things happen.’
‘Don’t they just,’ growled Honey wondering what the current sentence was for wilful matricide.
Swallowing her urge to commit murder, she sucked in her breath and punched in Doherty’s number. There was no point in putting off the dreaded moment. He answered before she’d mentally rehearsed a really sexy, seductive line that might make his response less angry.
‘Hi!’ The sexy seductive line stuck in her throat and led to a lengthy pause. A telling pause. Doherty could read a silence as swiftly as he could a lie or a guilty expression.
‘What have you done?’
‘Well. It’s more a kind of learning curve. A bit of information that you’ll be really glad to learn about.’
‘Aaand?’
The response was drawn out. On top of that she fancied he was counting – three beats to give her the benefit of the doubt.
At last he sighed, resigned that he was going to hear something he wouldn’t like. ‘Go on.’
The apprehension in his voice was palpable, like when the blue touch paper of a firework smoulders for a bit before exploding.
There was nothing for it but to swallow and dive in.
‘I thought I’d just ring and tell you that the air bag on your car works perfectly. So do your crumple zones.’
Chapter Three
Honey made the decision that there was nothing for it but to put Bert Watchpole on the back burner. Wondering if Doherty would ever speak to her again, she set out for Alison Brunton’s birthday bash alone, sleekly attired as Morticia Addams in a slinky black dress, a long black wig, and shoes with silver buckles. The shoes also had four-inch heels and were killing her. If only Doherty was here to lean on – literally.
One look at the manic glint in his eyes had been enough to tell her that he wasn’t in a party mood and wouldn’t be in one for a while to come – at least until the damage to his darling car was repaired.
She could tell by the way his mouth lurched from side to side that he was clenching his jaw to stop a few choice expletives coming out and flying her way. He’d even turned his back on her when she’d offered to buy him lunch, shoulders hunched, fists clenched.
‘OK. I’ll go alone,’ she shouted after him. ‘It’s not that I can’t take care of myself. Or won’t have anyone to talk to.’
No response. So that was it. I’ll have a great time, she thought to herself. I mean, it isn’t as if I can’t live without him – is it?
In time everything would be back where it was before the accident. The car would come home and they’d be back together.
Her own car still being indisposed, she took a taxi to the venue. Anyway, she recalled that Moss End Cottage Hotel only had a small car park. Six cars and it would be stuffed full.
After giving her wig a tweak and bending down to rub her aching toes, she was ready to roll.
The building dated from the early eighteenth century or at least the middle part did. A wing had been added on each end in Victorian
times. The building was big lengthwise but of shallow depth. The centre and original part of the house had three floors topped by a Welsh slate roof – the shape resembling an upturned boat and named after a French architect named Mansard. Two adjoining dormer windows stuck out like an afterthought from a bank of grey-blue slates.
The wings on either end only had two floors and pantiled roofs that glowed orange in sunlight, but were dull at this time of night and weren’t named after anyone. The whole was surrounded by a high wall split by a single gate as blank and protective as the wall. Someone had stuck a handwritten notice on it saying ‘Entrance’. Half a dozen balloons dangled over it.
Smoothing her dress down over her hips and hoping none of the lumpy bits were noticeable, Honey teetered up to the front door. Her shoes were still killing her, but once inside she vowed to grab a chair and sit down. Sitting instead of mingling wasn’t usually a good idea at parties, but she had a plan. Folding one leg over the other, she would sit there looking sexy.
The front door of the building was protected from the elements by a stone vestibule. It was just about big enough to house a lone sentry complete with bearskin.
Muted noise filtered from inside. Leaning to her left gave her a good view through a pair of French doors. Judging by the condensation misting the glass, the party was in full swing.
Lifting the big brass knocker, she knocked, glanced again at the French doors and froze. The ultimate faux pas had occurred. Alison – unmistakeably Alison – was looking out and giving her one of those silly little finger waves that people of petrified immaturity are wont to do. She was wearing a black dress, a long black wig – and very pale makeup.
Same outfit! Oh hell! Still, there was no going back. Luck of the draw. Who would have thought it? But never mind.
She thought about scraping off some of the anaemic make-up Lindsey had plastered on her face. If she did that, maybe she could convince them that she’d come as the wicked queen from Snow White.
There wasn’t time. The door was pulled brusquely open by a man who was so tall the top of his head was cut off. Honey did a double take. Was he for real or in costume?
‘Let me guess,’ she said, cheerfully pointing a finger. ‘You’ve come as Frankenstein’s monster as portrayed in Hammer Horror films of the sixties. Am I right?’
Honey felt her neck crick with the strain of looking up at him.
‘No. I am the owner.’
She bent her knees slightly so she could see him full stretch. He was tall. Very tall.
‘Sorry. My mistake. I’m here for the birthday party.’
‘You couldn’t possibly be here for anything else,’ he said coldly, his voice a dull monotone, his expression as hard as stone.
He stepped to one side and held the door. His eyes were like glass.
‘In there,’ he said, pointing to a door on the left hand side.
‘Have you come as Herman?’ she asked, referring to the Frankenstein-ish dad from The Munsters, another American show. ‘You even sound like him. Very good, I must say.’
‘You’re not the first one to joke about that,’ he said humourlessly. ‘This is how I always sound and always look and I don’t think it’s funny.’
‘No. I can tell you don’t.’
What a misery!
‘Been long in the hospitality trade, have you?’
‘Six years,’ he mumbled from beneath an iron grey moustache that covered his upper lip and hid his mouth. ‘Worked for one of the big groups. Small ones too. All sorts of jobs in the hospitality trade; barman, waiter, beverage manager. I’ve done it all in my time.’
He made it sound as though it were a prison sentence and didn’t even attempt to adopt the bonhomie necessary for someone who was meant to welcome people to their humble establishment. A few minutes with him and most people would want to check out.
‘Won’t be in it much longer with your attitude,’ she muttered. She’d met a lot of people in the trade who didn’t have the right attitude but did it anyway, perhaps because it was all they knew.
He didn’t hear her because at that moment a top-heavy woman came blustering out of a door to the rear of the reception hall. She was wearing a white apron and her face was flushed.
‘Boris! Have you done anything about it? Well, have you?’ She froze on seeing Honey. A plastic smile, the sort she must have practised in front of a mirror, stiffened her lips. ‘Good evening. Lovely to see you. Come far did you?’
‘Bath. The Green River Hotel actually, I own it so like you …’
‘Lovely. The party’s in there.’ Her voice had gone from shrill to sickly cheerful in the space of a nanosecond.
‘So I understand,’ said Honey, noting that the fists on the ends of Boris’ long arms swung like lumps of lead. She wondered if he wanted to knock her head off. Very likely.
‘Well go on then. Shoo!’
Honey made as if to enter the noisy room, though one ear was definitely tuned in to this odd pair. What was it he hadn’t done?
The woman, a blonde rinse covering the emerging grey and with huge boobs above narrow hips, opened a door marked private to the rear of the hall.
‘Boris!’
There was a great sense of urgency in the way the wife – Doris if she remembered rightly from their Bath Hotels’ Association membership application – hissed her husband’s name.
‘I’m coming,’ he snarled shrugging his square shoulders so that they looked in danger of smothering his ears.
The door closed behind the pair of them. Which one, she wondered, would hit the other one first?
It turned out to be a squeeze getting into the small room where the birthday bash was being held. On pushing open the door she managed to squash Spiderman against the wall.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘No prob,’ said Spiderman in a distinctly Australian voice that betrayed the fact that he was three sheets to the wind. ‘Bit crowded in here. Turns out mine hosts the Crooks thought it was a party for fifteen people, not fifty.’
‘I bet that went down well,’ shouted Honey above the noise.
‘Bet your sweet ass it did. He’s been muttering about people not notifying him properly and taking him unawares. Silly bugger. That’s why there’s not much food.’
‘Nor drink?’ It certainly wasn’t going to be much of a party without drink.
‘There wasn’t,’ said the Aussie, his breath capable of igniting a single match held in close proximity to his breath. ‘Me and a couple of the lads went up the pub and bought a few bottles. There’d have been a bloody riot if we hadn’t.’
Honey thanked Spiderman for the information.
‘Nice and cosy though,’ he said, taking full advantage of the crush and pressing his body tight against hers.
‘Too cosy.’
Sliding to one side and keeping close to the wall she sidled further into the room.
She surveyed the gathered horde as best she could and had to smile. The locals at the village pub must have had a laugh, seeing Spiderman and some other blokes, possibly Dracula and the guy with a hatchet through his head, enter the public bar and buy up most of their wine stock.
As it turned out, the wine was palatable, the food miserable, and Boris and Doris Crook never put in an appearance at all.
‘Alison is going to complain,’ somebody said.
Honey nodded. ‘I don’t blame her.’
On top of the lack of decent wine and virtually no food there were too many Morticia Addamses for comfort. Plus the wig was itchy, but what could you expect? Lindsey’s friend happened to have a cat. What was the betting it was partial to sleeping in the wig?
Wine glass in one hand, she scratched with the other. It had to be the wig. None of the other Morticias were having the same problem.
She managed to stop scratching and smiled when Alison came over to air kiss her on both cheeks.
‘Morticia number thirteen, I think.’
‘I apologise,’ said Honey. ‘I should ha
ve known.’
‘Never mind. I think we all wanted to look beautiful,’ trilled Alison.
‘We did indeed,’ said Honey, aware that Alison was trying to put a brave face on the fact that there was barely enough food to satisfy ten guests, let alone thirty.
‘I’m going to sue,’ she said lamely, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Have you paid the bill?’
‘Fifty per cent.’
‘Then don’t pay the rest.’
‘At least the wine’s good,’ said Maurice Hoffman, who had taken the place of Alison’s errant husband and was leaning over her shoulder like half a fur cape. ‘Could do with a few more bottles though.’
Maurice was something in the import/export industry and very hairy. When dressed in shirt and tie, his chest, neck, and back hair were apt to spurt out over his collar, so, according to Alison, he kept it at bay with a razor. Tonight was an exception, because it seemed he’d grown it long for the occasion and come as a werewolf.
‘No need to hire a costume,’ he said to Honey with a toothy grin.
Alison stroked the errant curls as she asked him breathily, ‘Darling, we could really do with some more food. Do you think you could press these people for a bit more than a bowl of crisps and a few sliced chorizos?’
Maurice growled and nuzzled her neck before going off to locate the owners of Moss End, who hadn’t been seen since Honey’s arrival.
Once Maurice was dispatched on his errand, Alison turned to Honey with an errand for her.
‘If you could help me get everyone dancing, Honey, it might take their mind off the lack of food. Do you think they’ll collapse from lack of food if they start dancing?’
‘I doubt it. Wine is made from grapes and we’ve got plenty of that.’
It occurred to Honey that it would be difficult to tell who was dancing and who wasn’t in the small room they were in, but she promised to do her utmost.
After what seemed like a dance with Spiderman – but could just as easily have been an attempt on his part to get to the booze or up close and personal to her intimate parts – Honey found herself wedged into a corner. Clutching a glass of wine tightly to her chest, she found herself wishing she hadn’t come, wishing Doherty was with her, and wishing more than anything that she hadn’t gone with her mother to visit Rhoda Watchpole and smashed up his car. Doherty loved that car. How long before he forgave her – if at all?
Blood and Broomsticks: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 9) Page 4
