Blood and Broomsticks

by Jean G. Goodhind

  Honey sniffed at the towels and wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Not a very fresh smell. A bit damp, in fact, as though they haven’t been used for ages. The bed linen too. I don’t think any of these has been touched since the last owner moved out.’

  ‘No key though,’ said John, reminding her of their purpose for being here.

  The door on the right opened onto a flight of steps.

  ‘A cellar,’ said Honey and called out, ‘Is there anybody down there?’

  ‘I’ll go see,’ said John.

  He sprinted down the steps and just as nimbly sprinted back up again.

  ‘Nobody. Just wine racks – and they’re all empty.’

  No food. No wine. Moss End Guest House was hardly a going concern.

  Back in Reception, Spiderman was hammering at another door marked private, the one Honey had seen Doris Crook come out of.

  ‘Hey. Come on, people. Let us out of here.’

  At the same time somebody shouted from the room where the party had been held that a key to the French doors had been found.

  In a hungry tide, the guests flowed from reception back into the dining room.

  A man wearing bandages and being a very animated Egyptian mummy, explained the situation.

  ‘There’s a small wall between the patio and the front path that we’ll have to scramble over and a bit of a drop the other side. We can all manage that, can’t we?’

  There were shrill protests about the likelihood of laddered tights and damaging clothes from the ladies present. Most were easily persuaded with the promise of a fish and chip supper and full use of the credit card the following day to repurchase whatever got snagged.

  Honey’s attention settled on a door off Reception marked private, the same door Spiderman had attempted to open. The door was old, the brass knob worn and loose.

  ‘It’s been tried,’ said John.

  ‘Leave it to me. Old doors have character. Each one was hand-made. These aren’t reproductions produced in a factory in the Far East. You have to treat them as individuals.’

  She pulled the door towards her before turning the knob. The lock made a scrunching sound as though it were chewing its metal parts – then it opened.

  The room couldn’t be anything but the owners’ quarters. A rust-coloured settee sat between two dark mustard armchairs and a large TV screen hung from the wall to her right.

  The place was neat and tidy, though strangely bereft of creature comforts; surely if this was to be their home for any length of time, it would have pictures hanging from the walls? Magazines on the dark oak coffee table? The odd plant or two? There was nothing to soften the bare emptiness of it all.

  ‘Anyone here?’ she called, though not harbouring any hope of being answered.

  A lovely chiffonier sat against the end wall.

  ‘There’s something odd about this room. It looks as though it belongs to an old person. The previous owner was elderly. I would have thought the Crooks would have thrown this stuff out.’

  ‘Perhaps they wanted to get a feel for the place first,’ offered John.

  Honey was about to try the door to the left of the chiffonier when John interrupted her.

  ‘The key fitted OK. They’ve managed to get out of the French doors. Do you really need to bother looking further?’

  ‘Call it professional curiosity. Know the competition.’

  The door next to the elegant piece of furniture opened into the owners’ bedroom. John was right behind her. It was the first time she could ever recall entering a bedroom with him. Oh well. Another time, another bed.

  Besides the bed there were closets fitted into the wall, a dressing table, a stool, and a single chair. There were also four suitcases at the end of the bed and a fifth lying open on the bed itself.

  ‘Looks as though somebody’s got long distance plans.’

  She turned to see him lifting one of the cases at the end of the bed. ‘Heavy. This weight doesn’t say short haul to me.’

  ‘And this one was in the process of being packed,’ Honey added, her eyes scrutinising the neatly folded lingerie, rolled tights, scarves, and short-sleeved cotton tops. This was a woman’s suitcase and a woman packing it. The clothes didn’t look typical for an English summer. Mediterranean? Caribbean?

  Honey looked around for any clue as to where they were going; perhaps airline tickets or evidence of a hotel booking.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why there was nothing in the fridge. They were off on holiday tomorrow. Though that is odd. As far as I know, they’ve only just moved in’

  She turned to see John in nonchalant pose with one arm raised above his head and leaning against the door surround.

  ‘Whatever, but I’m uncomfortable invading a guy’s personal space.’

  ‘I know what you mean, but you have to agree that it’d odd.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, his arm sliding around her waist. ‘We can talk about it over supper. I know it’s late, but I’m starving. You’re starving …’

  This is it, thought Honey. How have I resisted this man for so long? The answer blasted in like a Force 12 hurricane.

  Because of your involvement with Doherty.

  Ah yes. But Doherty had admitted to Ahmed that he was in love with his car. Not her. His car.

  Darling John had thrown his hat into the ring. Why not pick it up?

  They joined the tail end of those exiting by the French doors, a press of people dedicated to getting some food from a late-night takeaway. First the wall, although it wasn’t just a wall. A row of ornamental pots were ranged in front of them. They looked like the offspring of the two big urns either side of the front door though less shiny and of rougher material.

  ‘I hear Miss Porter attended auction on a regular basis. She obviously liked pots.’

  ‘Big pots. You have to climb and stretch at the same time,’ advised John.

  Honey hitched up her skirt. ‘Here goes.’

  ‘Keep your eyes on your hands. Your knees will follow.’

  Dear John. He was so sensible and probably right and she would have done exactly that if she hadn’t suddenly remembered her shoes.

  ‘My shoes. I have to go back for my shoes!’

  Going forward over the wall wasn’t easy. Getting half way and suddenly going into reverse was worse. Part of the course was back over those pots which meant her knees sinking into the damp dark dirt.

  ‘I bet there’s lots of worms in these pots. Horrible wriggly things. I’ve never liked them.’

  John was right behind her. ‘They don’t bite. At least I don’t think they do. They’ll probably just leave a little worm curd and dive for cover.’

  ‘Ughhh!’

  One knee went into one pot, one in another. The pot wobbled. She let go one pot rim and grabbed another while backing into John’s waiting hands – and groin.

  One leg bent, knee half-buried in thick black earth, and people behind her shouting for her to get on with it failed to help her overcome her phobia.

  ‘I hate worms!’

  Panic set in. The pot, perhaps because its base was broken, wobbled and fell over. Honey ended up flat on her back staring up at John Rees. He bent over her, one hand to either side of her shoulders, his legs between hers.

  ‘My,’ he said. ‘This is fun.’

  Normally she might have agreed with him, but her head was hanging over the wall.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, then stopped. Something about the scene between her and the overhanging room was far from right.

  Above her to the left of John’s shoulders, she could see something sticking out of one of the giant urns. She deduced it wasn’t a plant. Too dense. Too dark and too much like a man’s leg. Definitely a man. The feet were wearing dark socks and size twelve shoes.

  Blissfully unaware of what she was looking at, John Rees was gazing rapturously into her eyes.

  ‘Can I kiss you now?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. This is neither the time nor the place
.’

  She pointed to the sight above her head.

  ‘It’s a foot and it’s attached to a leg.’

  John glanced at what she was staring at before helping her to her feet.

  ‘Well that’s a spoiler. I suppose he’s dead.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘Retribution from dissatisfied customers?’

  John groaned.

  ‘Sorry, John. I hate having to do this. Perhaps we can do supper another time.’

  Honey fetched out her phone. Whether he liked it or not, Steve Doherty was going to have to speak to her tonight.

  Doherty swooped out of an unmarked police car and headed straight for her.

  ‘I might have known.’

  ‘You were invited too. If you’d come it would have saved this journey.’

  He shook his head despairingly and looked away. He’d never wanted her on board as Crime Liaison Officer – not at first anyway. He thought the interfering prima donnas of the Bath Hotels’ Association should keep out of police business. So far he couldn’t complain that Honey had been anything but helpful.

  That was until she’d pranged his car.

  ‘I want to speak to all you people,’ he shouted. ‘Sergeant. Stop everybody from leaving. Now!’

  ‘Some have already left,’ Honey informed him.

  ‘Then I want a guest list,’ he shouted to the shivering throng who had wanted to be home by now following a takeaway supper to fill their grumbling tums. He eyed the crowd dispassionately. ‘So who did it? Frankenstein’s monster, the mummy, or the Wicked Witch of the West?’

  ‘A few witches, green monsters, and Morticia Addamses have left; and a few ghosts,’ she added suddenly remembering the late arrivals wearing bed sheets.

  The usual scene of crime team were already at work, sifting, what evidence they could.

  Flasher Gibb, the official police photographer so called because he liked the old-fashioned flashlight cameras rather than modern digital ones, climbed up a ladder to take a photograph of the deceased. The ladder was an aluminium fold up type that he used on a regular basis.

  He liked to take photographic evidence from a number of angles. The flash went off. First shot taken. He came down the ladder, moved it further around the urn, went back up, and took another.

  Finally he moved the ladder around the other side of the urn so he was facing the front door. Poised to take a shot, he suddenly spotted something.

  ‘Oi,’ he shouted, his white jump suit crackling with excitement. With one arm around a rung of the ladder, hand holding the camera, he shouted down and pointed at the other urn.

  ‘There’s another one in there. Looks like a woman.’

  A quick inspection by the Scene of Crime Officer confirmed that it was.

  The woman’s legs were resting against the wall, half obscured by a virulent climbing laburnum.

  ‘Both dead,’ said the Chief Medical Examiner. ‘Quite a drop of blood swishing around the bottom here.’

  Honey eyed each of the urns in turn, noted their position, then took a step back and looked up at the roof. The main roof of the house was directly above them. The two wings were two-storey and had ordinary sloping roofs, one of slate, the other of clay-coloured pan tiles. The middle of the house was three storey, the oldest part and crowned with an impressive Mansard roof.

  She pointed. ‘They fell from up there. One from one attic window, and one from the other. Each one’s aligned with the urn, so they slid down the Mansard roof, over the guttering, and into a pot. Each of them.’

  Doherty observed the trajectory. ‘Thank you, Mrs Driver.’

  Mrs Driver? He’d never called her that before.

  ‘How very formal.’

  ‘How very sick my car looks,’ he muttered, his jaw clenched to breaking point. ‘Nobody heard them falling from the roof?’

  Honey clenched her jaw, unwilling – yet – to comment on his ungratefulness.

  ‘We had just enough drink, barely any food but plenty of loud music.’

  ‘Rave?’

  ‘Rocky Horror Show.’

  ‘Not exactly hip.’

  ‘Neither were the guests.’

  Up until this point, Honey had considered begging forgiveness, but his attitude grated. He sounded aggrieved. OK, he still hadn’t got over her bashing up his car, but hey, live and let live. At least communicate.

  She was about to suggest him letting bygones be bygones, when Doherty’s sergeant, little more than a spotty-faced youth, joined them.

  Warren Watkins oozed enthusiasm, chewed gum, and fingered ears, nose, or chin incessantly as if wanting to confirm he hadn’t misplaced them.

  ‘So. Looks like the original Hallowe’en Horror,’ he offered with over-zealous enthusiasm. ‘Did you see the film? That one with Jamie Lee Curtis being stalked by that bloke with the white face? Bloody great. Trick or treating with gallons of blood. Fantastic!’

  Doherty fixed his youthful sergeant with a scornful look. Watkins swallowed his enthusiasm along with his gum.

  Doherty turned to Honey.

  ‘Did you know these people?’

  ‘Not really. Their names are Mr and Mrs Crook.’

  ‘First names?’

  ‘Boris and Doris.’

  ‘How much do you know about them?’

  ‘Only that they bought Moss End from Miss Porter a short while ago. From what I can gather, they kept themselves very much to themselves. I think they only attended one Hotels’ Association event.’

  ‘Any enemies that you knew of?’

  ‘Only themselves. Oh, plus the guests that attended the do. Food was sparse. Drink sparser. Going without party victuals makes people mean enough to murder.’

  He arched one eyebrow that she recognised as his tell me more look.

  Honey obliged. ‘Let’s put it this way, they weren’t going to make Friendliest and most Hospitable Hoteliers of the Year. If there had been any real ghouls at this party, mine hosts would have been mincemeat by now – literally.’

  Doherty nodded slowly, as he did when he was digesting information.

  ‘I need you to answer a few questions.’

  ‘Leading questions?’

  ‘Yes. You and everyone else. I want to know if there was anyone here who harboured a grudge against the murdered pair.’

  ‘I’ve already told you that. Everyone.’

  He ran his fingers across his chin. As usual there was the faint rasp of two- or three-day-old stubble. Honey loved the sound of it, wanted to rub her fingers across it herself, but wouldn’t offer. He hadn’t phoned since the car accident. Or returned her calls. The message was obvious. She had injured the love of his life; the one with two headlights and a curved rear end. OK, she had something similar, but hey, how can a girl compete with a sports car?

  She shook their personal relationship from her mind and went with it.

  ‘It was a terrible party. Not enough food or drink. The guests got so desperate they had to repair to the Northend Inn for emergency supplies.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘That bad.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Mr and Mrs Crook?’

  ‘When I arrived. He opened the door and just before I went into the party, she appeared from out of the door leading to their private quarters. She asked him whether he’d got round to doing something. She didn’t sound too happy. She stopped dead when she saw me.’

  ‘What had she asked him to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. After that they disappeared into the door that leads to the kitchen. Goodness knows what they were doing out there. It certainly wasn’t preparing food. We were all starving and later when I went to look for them because the front door was locked and we couldn’t get out, I checked the fridge and freezer. There was nothing in them. Nothing in the cupboards either except a few tins. No cereals at all. I’m presuming there were no residents in the bedrooms either – I didn’t check up there,’ she added pre-empting what he
was about to ask her.

  ‘Care to take a look now?’

  She glanced beyond Doherty’s shoulder to where John Rees was giving a statement of events to a svelte policewoman who appeared to be hanging on to every word he was saying. She was also barring the route to where Honey and Doherty stood talking business.

  Her eyes met his, and even though she should hate Doherty for not returning her calls, she went inside the house.

  The stairs to the first floor were carpeted in an expensive pale green carpet. The upper walls were pale green too, and a thick brass handrail ran up one side of the staircase. The latter was a Victorian addition, as were the pine-panelled walls themselves. The Victorians didn’t go in for light colours or redecorating every few years. Decor and furnishings were supposed to last a lifetime.

  The stairs came out onto a quarter landing, the first bedroom on their left.

  Doherty tried the door. It wasn’t locked.

  A draught of cold air rushed out.

  Honey wrapped her arms around herself.

  ‘The central heating’s not on.’

  Doherty fingered a radiator. ‘Cold. The thermostat’s turned off.’

  A brass four poster bed dominated the room. The ceiling was vaulted and lined with the same pine panelling as the stairway, although this was in its original colour. Not that the dark varnish mattered that much in what was obviously the Victorian west wing of the house. The ceiling was about fifteen feet above them.

  ‘Somehow I expected a mirror,’ mused Doherty.

  ‘A lost cause in this temperature.’

  One door to the left of the bed opened into a Victorian style bathroom. The cast iron bath had lion’s claw feet, the loo had an overhead flushing system, and the basin was big enough to bath a baby in. There was also a very modern shower cubicle lined with the same Delft tiles as the bathroom itself.

  The bed was not made. Just a bare mattress.

  ‘No paying guests,’ remarked Honey.

  The passage along the landing swooped in a dog leg from west wing to east, passing the older rooms in the original building. None of the beds were made. None of the radiators were turned on.

  Another set of stairs led up to the attic bedrooms.