Brotherly Blood

by Jean G. Goodhind

  Wyvern Wendell was hardly the liveliest of places to live, but it was pretty and had a shop that doubled as a post office. Rows of lop-sided grave stones surrounded the church, its square tower dominating the village skyline. She passed the garage with the old fashioned petrol pumps out front and an ancient enamel sign advertising Castrol Oil. The pub was at the heart of the village, the eaves of the roof frowning over square windows, its lead panes sparkling like diamonds.

  She glanced in her mirror and although she did glimpse the odd set of car headlights, nobody appeared to be following her. Reassured that she was safe, she headed for the pub.

  Everyone knows that the pub is the centre of village gossip. If you can’t gather local knowledge there, you can’t get it any where.

  The village was quite large and rapidly being eaten up by a suburb of the nearby market town. The pub was a welcome remainder of what the village had once been like. The walls were far from plumb, the windows small and the roof thickly thatched.

  The woman behind the bar had dark hair and brassy earrings big enough to hold a pair of velvet curtains.

  Honey ordered a white wine spritzer. She could have murdered a vodka and tonic, but wine diluted with soda water was best, considering she was driving. The woman added two chunky slices of lemon from a plastic container. Honey grimaced but made no comment. She liked lemon but that container looked old, the lemon not often used.

  She asked a few customers about mining thereabouts. Thoughtful frowns were followed by a shaking of heads.

  ‘Not ‘round ‘ere.’

  Honey asked the woman behind the bar the same question.

  Bright red lips were pursed in concentration.

  ‘No. No,’ she said, repeating the word with a brisk shaking of her head.

  Honey sighed.

  ‘Perhaps they haven’t got round to it yet,’ the woman suggested.

  Honey had to concede she had a point.

  The barmaid/landlady was curious. ‘Are you working for the new bloke up at Torrington Towers?’

  Honey conceded that she was.

  ‘Fancy that. I wouldn’t want to step into the shoes of a bloke who was murdered even if he was family. The place is cursed. Stands to reason don’t it,’ she suggested whilst tugging at one pendulous earring.

  The landlord barrelled forward, in the process nudging the landlady to one side.

  ‘Don’t listen to ‘er. We’ll welcome the new bloke whenever he gets here.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘You bet we will. We want the safari park and the house to stay open. Have you any idea how much business it brings to the village?’

  ‘I can only guess.’

  ‘A bloody good living. That’s what. There was sod all in this village before the old lord set it up. It was a pound to a penny that all the small businesses ‘ere – including this pub – would have been gone bust by now.’

  Two old men were bent over a table in front of the window playing draughts. Two others were flinging darts into the dartboard. There was something about their flickering eyes, and Honey instinctively knew that neither was concentrating on the game.

  Both darts players were heavy set with hard faces. Neither looked the sort you’d want to bump into on a dark night.

  Another man was hunched in a chair pulled close to the fire where a single log glowed in a bed of embers and smoke, his gaze fixed. A Jack Russell cowered beneath his chair. When Honey returned its stare the dog curled back its lips showing a formidable set of teeth, number eight on a scale of nought to ten.

  ‘Don’t touch the dog,’ hissed the woman behind the bar when she noticed Honey eyeing it.

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘It has a bit of a bite.’

  ‘So does this lemon.’

  Her tongue prickled. Her lips tingled. The lemon had been incarcerated in that plastic tub a long time, floating in a bath of citrus extract.

  The fact that the men at the dart board and those at the table were all listening and watching made her want to throw something into the midst of them, something to make them move. Resisting that urge, she concentrated on what she was there for.

  ‘So you’re certain there are no mines around here.’

  The landlord shifted slightly. The landlady picked up a cloth and began polishing the brass beer pumps.

  ‘Might have been. Years ago.’ He spoke like a heavy smoker.

  ‘How long ago?’

  He shrugged. One of his rolled up shirt sleeves rolled up further. Honey spotted a tattoo of a naked lady and the name Rita. The nude bore little resemblance to the blousy bird behind the bar.

  He pursed his lips and shrugged again. ‘Maybe fifty. Maybe a hundred years ago.’

  This wasn’t the answer that was likely to make sense. The rights were leased only twenty years ago and there was only five years to go, longer if the Government had their way.

  ‘What did they mine?’ Honey asked.

  ‘Stone. Bath stone. They used it to build the posh houses in Bath. the Georgian crescents and all that. Other cities too. Even London.’

  Even London. He said that as though Honey should be awestruck by the fact.

  ‘Interesting.’ Actually it wasn’t really that riveting except that Honey couldn’t understand why anyone would lease such an underground facility unless they were using the stone, especially the Government. Perhaps they were repairing the buildings in Whitehall. That didn’t seem likely. So what would they want with it if it wasn’t stone? There would be nothing left. Just caves, great big open caverns...

  ‘Miles of them tunnels, there are. Some says that in ancient times people lived down there – in the caves and all that. And some even says there are drawings round there.’

  ‘Was that what Professor Collins was investigating?’

  He looked at her blankly. At the same time she got the impression that her question had put off the aim of the men throwing darts. They stood stone like, still listening.

  ‘He was a funny bloke. Used to eat his supper here most nights. I didn’t like him much,’ said the woman who Honey was now certain was the landlady. Rita. She was shaking her head as though she were being offered some foreign muck on a plate. She didn’t look the sort who ate foreign muck; strictly a fish and chip or Cornish pasty type.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘His eyes were too close together. And he used to get drunk.’

  ‘Well, this is a pub.’

  ‘And lewd,’ said the landlady lowering her voice to such an extent Honey wondered whether he’d had a naughty grope of ‘Rita’ when she was bending down changing a beer barrel. Her next comment scuppered that particular image.

  ‘He liked the company of men, if you get my drift. Definitely a left ‘ooker.’

  The woman meant he was gay which seemed odd giving his behaviour when she’d dined with him. It didn’t seem like the same man. The landlady had to be mistaken.

  ‘Do you buy your pork pies locally?’

  Honey had no particular reason for asking the question. Just something dumb to round things off.

  ‘No. Nobody makes pork pies locally.’

  The response struck her as odd seeing as there was a pork pie and sausage factory locally. Should she mention it? She decided not. Pies and sausages were not a priority issue.

  Lindsey had not gone the university route when she’d left school. Her busy mind was not made for channelling into any one subject or a syllabus as tight as a whalebone corset. Her mind was free, her friends were varied and she loved running her mother’s hotel. Honey Driver would never admit that her daughter was a better manager than she was, but Lindsey knew, and that was all that mattered. Meeting people from all over the world fed her mind as much if not more so than any textbook. Dozens of tourists came tripping into reception, characters of every persuasion. She’d studied them all. Some of them were easily read, the majority were quite charming, but there were always the exceptions. Getting to know them and read them took h
er a little bit longer than the others, but doing so had made her quite instinctive about their guests’ characters.

  To this end she had also became very good at reading her mother’s mind. She knew when she was glad, when she was happy and when she was frightened. At present her mother was frightened. Worse than frightened. Scared! She was so jumpy and although Lindsey had thought about mentioning it, she knew it would be denied.

  Her first instinct had been to ask her outright what was going on. Her second was to sit back and wait to be told.

  Her mother had worried about other crime cases she’d worked on, but this time Lindsey sensed something different and far more serious was going on. She’d never showed such anxiety about a case before and she wasn’t so forthcoming with the detail. To Lindsey’s mind she should be, seeing as it involved Caspar St John Gervais and from her mother’s notes left casually on her desk, there was a circle around the name Professor Lionel Collins. The name rang a bell and by the end of the day she would have made the connection.

  Her grandmother also seemed to be keeping things close to her chest. She’d even forgotten to rebuke Lindsey when she’d inadvertently called her grandmother instead of the customary Gloria. She’d told her granddaughter long ago that to be called Grandmother, Gran or even Nan, made her feel very old.

  She’ll never be any different, Lindsey thought to herself, even when she is ninety.

  There was nothing for it but to work things out for herself and to her mind it all began and ended with Caspar St John Gervais.

  Lindsey took it into her head to pop around to La Reine Rouge and speak to Caspar, but first she had a lunch date.

  The name Professor Lionel Collins finally rose to the surface. Daphne, one of her old school friends, had a degree in geology and archaeology, and had studied under the professor. On the pretext of catching up on old times, she invited her out for lunch.

  The Boathouse Pub nestled on a riverside curve just off the main A4. The car park was large, and although it wasn’t quite midday it was half full.

  Lindsey parked her bicycle against a post beneath a tree.

  Daphne gave her a little wave from a table as far from the bar as it was possible to be.

  At least it’ll be quiet, she thought to herself. The bar had the atmosphere of a mother’s meeting. There was a number of ‘yummy mummies’ indulging in an early lunch along with their pre-school offspring.

  They greeted each other with air kisses and brief catch-ups before ordering a light lunch and mineral water.

  It did not escape Lindsey’s notice that Daphne’s gaze frequently strayed to the mother and toddler groups.

  ‘Am I reading your broody gazes right?’

  Daphne blushed at being discovered.

  ‘I’m about three months. You didn’t notice?’

  ‘Not your bump,’ Lindsey admitted. ‘Just the bloom on your face. There was a time when your gaze only strayed to shoe shops or rugby players with tight butts and firm thighs. Now it’s straying to the under fours.’

  Daphne shrugged. ‘I decided it was time to settle down. Is there anyone special in your life?’

  Lindsey was forthright. ‘Yes. There is. He’s asked me to go travelling the Andes with him. In fact the idea is to replicate a trip done years ago by an explorer and two horses. He’s got it in his head to do something similar - to travel the whole range of mountains from the far north of the North American continent to the far south.’

  Daphne’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘Are you going to do it?’

  Lindsey thought of her mother, the hotel and the familiar surroundings of the city of Bath. She also thought about Sean. He wore glasses, a dreamy look and mismatched clothes underneath which was pure masculinity.

  ‘I’m tempted. Very tempted.’ She thought about her mother, the fear she was presently wearing in her eyes and not admitting to. ‘But I have a few things to deal with before I commit.’

  Daphne shook her head. ‘You always were more responsible than the rest of us.’

  Lindsey didn’t deny it. Anyway, she wasn’t here to talk about the way they used to be. There were more pressing matters.

  ‘You once mentioned a Professor Lionel Collins you used to study under. I can’t tell you why I want to know, but I wonder if you can tell me anything about him.’

  A small frown appeared between Daphne’s finely plucked eyebrows accompanied by a barely discernible shrug.

  ‘He was a dish, but wasn’t interested in us girls. Can you give me a hint as to what this is about?’

  Lindsey shook her head. ‘Not really. It was just that his name came up.’

  ‘In connection with...?’

  Lindsey chewed it over. There seemed no harm in hinting.

  ‘The death of a friend’s brother. His name was linked.’

  Daphne grinned. ‘Was your friend’s brother very good looking?’

  This question coupled with Daphne’s earlier comment about the professor not being interested in girls brought instant enlightenment.

  ‘He was gay?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Somehow this didn’t quite sit with things. Lindsey’s grandmother had intimated the professor had taken her mother out to dinner.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. One hundred per cent.’

  Cycling from The Boathouse to La Reine Rouge, Lindsey considered her friend Daphne. She was reaching forward into a new life. Okay, having a baby didn’t float her boat, but it made her think. She was no longer a child and her mother was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

  It hadn’t always been that way. She’d been like a twirling top after Lindsey’s father had died, not sure of where her life was going. The only thing she had been sure of was making a decent living in order to bring up her child.

  Lindsey knew how much her mother had put into the hotel even though it wasn’t a career she’d willingly gone into. She’d done it for her daughter. Gratefulness flooded over her as never before. Should she take up Sean’s offer or continue to be a dominant presence in her mother’s life. The jury was out. She’d think about it.

  Caspar looked surprised to see her.

  ‘My dear. To what do I owe this rare occurrence?’

  As usual he was smartly dressed, not a thing out of place; crisp white shirt, mottled cravat at his throat, blue striped blazer and dark blue chinos. His dress sense and presentation was directly opposed to her darling Sean. In a way she found it quite funny and it made her smile. However, she saw dark circles beneath his eyes that had not been there before.

  He indicated she take a seat in an off-white armchair. It looked early eighteenth century.

  Lindsey thanked him. ‘I’m concerned about my mother.’

  He nodded silently, eyes averted and a tightening around his mouth. She knew immediately that he knew more than he was letting on.

  ‘I want to know what this is really all about.’

  The first flush of guilt was quickly quashed and replaced by a bland and uncompromising stiffening of his jaw. If Caspar hadn’t decided on the hospitality business, he could easily have gone on the stage.

  ‘My dear!’ He chuckled softly. ‘I really don’t know...’

  ‘Professor Lionel Jefferies. Do you know him?’

  ‘Now look here...’

  ‘No! You look here. I can’t help getting the feeling that my mother’s been steamrollered into a situation in which she’s out of her depth. I’m concerned for her. I want to know what this is really all about.’

  ‘My dear...’

  ‘I’m not your dear, so please don’t keep repeating yourself and stop buggering about. My mother went to dinner with a man claiming to be Professor Lionel Jefferies. She reported to my grandmother that he was all over her like a rash.’

  Caspar sat bolt upright. Lindsey guessed he’d always considered her the beating heart of the Green River Hotel. The backroom girl, eyes fixed to a computer screen.

  ‘I really cannot comme
nt on your mother’s choice of male companions...’ He recovered quickly, throwing in the chuckle that smacked of evasion.

  Lindsey’s stance remained adamant. ‘Don’t play ignorant. I happen to know something of the professor’s history. A good looking man according to a friend of mine, but not at all responsive to the interest of his female students. From what I’ve learned, there is no way he would make overtures to my mother. So what’s the truth? What’s going on here?’

  Caspar’s shoulders slouched. He looked deflated and unsure what to do next.

  ‘Excuse me. I need to make a telephone call.’

  He left her alone in the room sitting stiffly upright in the handsome antique chair. Her face was stony and pale, her jaw painfully clenched. She was afraid for her mother. Very afraid.

  Instinct was like a cold frost gradually creeping over her skin. Something bad was about to assault her ears and she found herself wishing that Mary Jane was here to translate what was happening to her. The professor of the paranormal regarded instinct as part of a person’s natural makeup before it had taken a backseat to reason.

  The sudden chiming of a grandfather clock startled her, but the instinctive fear remained. So did the conviction that Caspar knew a lot more than he was letting on.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t quite think why. Just tension, said the voice inside her head. You could do with a good cry.

  By the time Caspar came back from making his private call, her eyes were moist and a stray tear had trickled down one cheek.

  ‘My dear, I’m afraid...’ Caspar curbed whatever excuse he’d been about to use. Lindsey, Honey’s daughter was crying and no matter what he’d been told to say, he swiftly backtracked.

  With a flourish, he retrieved a white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.

  ‘My dear child. Please. Dry your tears.’

  He looked out of the French doors to the beautifully kept courtyard garden, his hands clasped behind his back. The sight of Japanese maple and a host of other plants whose names he did not know helped him make a very serious decision, one that might cost him dearly.