‘The DNA on the bed linen at Moss End checks out as Rhino’s.’
‘He was in hiding, or rather being hidden. He knew something Boris and Doris wanted kept secret until they’d made a clean getaway.’
‘I don’t think it would be a bad idea to pay a visit to Mr Belper to double check the facts. It wouldn’t be the first time a company director has under-declared a company’s capital – and therefore its tax dues.’
Just as Honey was about to invite herself along for the ride, both their phones gurgled into life.
To Honey’s surprise, she found herself talking to her mother.
‘I need to speak to you. It’s about Bert Watchpole.’
Honey pulled a scary face to convey who it was to Doherty, but he was too involved in his own call, face intense and looking bloody angry.
‘Are you listening to me, Hannah?’
Her mother’s voice was shrill and she’d referred to her as Hannah – not darling or daughter. Rarely did she call her Honey.
‘Yes. I’m here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘With a friend.’
‘Is it that policeman friend of yours?’
The tone was mercurial, as though Doherty was a sex maniac and Honey an unwilling sex slave – which wasn’t exactly correct … well, the sex bit was.
‘What’s this about Bert Watchpole?’
‘Ah, yes. Antonio has been making enquiries on my behalf …’
‘So that’s where you’ve been. In the arms of your Italian stallion!’
‘Hannah! That is so vulgar! Antonio is a charming and kind man.’
‘He’s swept you off your feet, which is why I haven’t heard much from you in the last few days.’
‘You’re old enough to look after yourself. Anyway, as I was saying, Antonio has been making some enquiries on my behalf and it seems that the woman who was carted away by ambulance the same night as Bert disappeared, has gone back to her apartment in Lansdown Crescent. I’ve promised Rhoda that I will pay this Maggie Stripes a visit and ask her whether she saw what direction Bert went in. There’s even a chance she might know where he’s gone. Apparently they were both keen on china figures – you know – Dresden, that kind of thing.’
‘My mother has become an amateur sleuth,’ Honey mouthed to Doherty, her hand over the phone.
Normally he might have rolled his eyes in disbelief. Not on this occasion.
Her mother was giving her an order. ‘I want you to come with me. Antonio is driving us. I’ll be round for you at eleven sharp.’
The phone went dead. No argument.
Honey eyed Doherty. ‘Is the world about to end?’
He grunted. ‘The guard I placed outside our street dweller’s hospital ward decided he needed a leak. Rhino’s gone.’
Chapter Twenty
‘Hey. Remember the vibes I received; small men in pointy hats,’ shouted Mary Jane as Honey, her mother and the suave Antonio set off in his car for Lansdown Crescent. ‘This I gotta see. Gotta see if I was right.’
Antonio’s driving was far superior to that of Mary Jane. Honey sat relaxed in the back seat. Although she’d not been that keen to do this trip, once they started all the cares of the hotel fell away. Thinking came easily when the driving was smooth and hosts of car horns weren’t honking and terrified pedestrians running for their lives.
Weak winter sunlight attempted to break through the grey day. Trees stripped of the last of their leaves waved skeletal branches in the biting east wind.
‘It feels cold enough to snow,’ remarked Antonio.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Honey. ‘Too early.’
Antonio shrugged his shoulders. ‘It smells like snow.’
Feeling relaxed and self-assured, Honey went on to tell him that snow rarely fell before Christmas. Seeing as he hailed from sunnier climes perhaps he didn’t know that.’
‘I have lived here for forty years,’ he told her. ‘I think it will snow.’
Gloria Cross turned the collar of her fur coat – the real thing – up around her face and leaned towards Antonio.
‘If it does snow, we’ll just have to cuddle up with something warm.’
He grinned lasciviously. ‘Or something hot.’
Compared to the naked trees they’d passed, the bay trees still sporting their neat leaves, looked like plastic, unmoving in their pots.
‘This one,’ said her mother, pointing at the same door Honey had entered with Doherty only a short while ago. She hadn’t let on that she had visited Mrs Nobbs and didn’t intend to. The case seemed too trivial and her mother would probably agree with the vandal who’d mutilated an army of plastic gnomes.
Antonio insisted on accompanying them.
‘How can I possibly leave two lovely ladies without a male escort? Anything might happen.’
‘Looks like it already has,’ murmured Honey, noting that Antonio’s palm was placed in the vicinity of her mother’s bottom.
The woman who answered the door was the same one Honey had seen in Mrs Nobbs’ apartment. Her hair was as sleek as on the last visit and her pale pink knitted suit was complimented by a triple strand pearl necklace.
On seeing Honey and recognising her, she said, ‘I don’t know anything about the gnomes!’
Gloria Cross dismissed the woman with a wave of her hand. ‘Good grief, woman. Gnomes are neither here nor there. We’re here about a man, not a gnome. You are Maggie Sinclair I take it, lately of Flat 22, Overton House?’
The woman answered with a feeble nod, then peered at Antonio.
‘If it’s anything to do with the selling of my flat, you’ll have to deal with my solicitor. I just want to get rid of it.’
Antonio was charm itself. ‘You are looking as lovely as ever, Mrs Sinclair. We were worried about you when the ambulance came. We had no idea it was coming.’
One wrinkled hand resplendent with some very expensive rings, nervously fiddled with the strands of pearls.
‘It was a private ambulance.’
‘Ah! That might explain it, though we have had private ambulances call before …’
‘I … my son arranged it specially …’
Honey stood silently taking everything in. The more she took in the more puzzled she became. Something here was not quite right. Mrs Sinclair was not right … Mrs Sinclair …
‘Maggie. May I call you Maggie?’ asked Antonio, his voice as smooth as olive oil.
Maggie? Maggie Sinclair?
Honey recalled what Mary Jane had said. The initials M and S. She’d thought Mary Jane was referring to the Marks and Spencer’s cakes. M and S also stood for Maggie Sinclair. And the small men with pointy hats? The gnomes!
Maggie didn’t look pleased to be called by her first name. In fact she didn’t look at all pleased that they were there.
‘I don’t know what you want here …’
Gloria adopted an efficient but senior sympathetic stance. ‘Look, my dear. We’re not here to harass you and neither am I interested in purchasing your latter abode. So be a dear and concentrate on what I am saying. We’re looking for a man who disappeared from Overton House at the same time as you were taken away by ambulance. All we wish to know is whether you saw him at the time of your sudden departure.’
‘Why would I?’
The worm had turned. A scurrilous look had entered the velvet brown eyes. The rose pink lips, glossy as a plastic, fixed into a defiant line.
‘Oh come on, sweetie! You and he were interested in antiques. His wife told me so.’
‘So who can blame him for leaving her? The only interest that woman had was in eating.’
Like most people who are guilty and turning nervous, Maggie was fidgeting, first with her hands, then her necklace, then glancing furtively over her shoulder.
‘What woman?’ Honey asked.
Maggie Sinclair turned to her wide eyed. ‘What?’
‘What woman? You described Rhoda Watchpole perfectly as a lady of rotund figure who si
ts eating all day. We did not mention either her name or her husband’s name yet you knew who we meant.’
Gloria adopted an ultra-superior attitude. ‘I think we should come inside and discuss this further. Nobody wishes to air their dirty linen on the doorstep.’
‘No! Go away. Go away before I call the police.’
Maggie attempted to close the door, but the pointy toe of Gloria’s pink leather boot was made of stern stuff.
The two women glared at each other, senior savagery in all its primeval – and pensionable – glory.
‘Remove your foot!’ shouted Maggie.
Gloria Cross could be a pitbull when she wanted to. ‘You know more than you’re letting on, Maggie Sinclair! Let us in or I’ll hit you with my handbag!’
Honey flattened herself against the wall. Antonio was flapping his arms as Italian are wont to do and saying, ‘Ladies. My beautiful ladies …’
His appeals not only fell on deaf ears but were stopped in midstream by the backswing of Gloria’s handbag catching him across the mouth.
The sound of the front door opening and a draught of outside air preceded somebody yelling, ‘Hey! Hey! Is this Lansdown Crescent or Soho on a Saturday night?’
‘Aubrey! You’re back!’
Maggie Sinclair threw her hands to her face.
‘Not to stay, Mother.’
His tone was grim and his face was long enough to trip over. ‘I’ve just come to fetch a few things. I take it he is still here?’
The bitterness of the man’s voice and the look on Maggie Sinclair face said it all.
‘Aubrey! There’s no call for you to behave like this. I always said that I might not stay at Overton House. I went there purely for the social scene.’
‘Which you brought home with you,’ her son said bitterly. ‘Another man to fill your lonely days.’
‘And you attempted to discredit him …’
Suddenly, as though becoming aware of what she’d said, Maggie heaved a big sigh.
‘Why don’t you let them all in, love. Might as well get everything out in the open.’
An upright man of senior years stepped into the hall behind her.
‘Excuse me,’ muttered Aubrey, and swept in before anyone.
They were shown into a room that shone with light thanks to the three huge Georgian windows which graced it. There was a roll-end sofa in front of the windows, a breakfront bookcase, elegant lyre-ended side tables, deeply upholstered chairs of Sheraton design, and carpets rich with colour.
There were also lots of china ornaments; Dresden, Royal Doulton, and Worcester.
Bert Watchpole, for it was definitely he, made them tea which he brought in on a beautiful white tray with gilt edging. The crockery matched the tray.
The old nursery rhyme popped into her mind.
Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean …
Whereas Rhoda was fat, Bert was exactly the opposite. His long, lined face dropped at least two inches at mention of his wife.
‘Bert, she’s missing you.’
‘Who said my name was Bert?’
‘Maggie did – in a way.’ Gloria Cross was astonishingly forthright. Honey thought it quite admirable.
‘You don’t have to tell her that you’ve found me,’ he said. His eyes, as pale as sparrow’s eggs, looked at her imploringly and then at Maggie. ‘We’re in love,’ he added.
The two lovebirds groped for each other’s hands. ‘You don’t have to be young to be in love,’ said Maggie. ‘And the young aren’t so good at judging when it really is true love. Older people have a lifetime of experience behind us, we know the real thing when we come across it and seeing as we’ve only got a few years left, we might as well have what we really want; don’t you agree?’
Honey folded her arms and studied the pale pink and green Chinese carpet. Five thousand pounds was a lot of money, but hey, could she really be that cruel to this old couple?
‘Aubrey is my son by my first marriage to Bert Abingdon. When we divorced I married Bert Sinclair. Pure coincidence of course. It’s not really that I have a weakness for the name Bert.’
She and Bert were sitting on the roll-end sofa holding hands. They exchanged a sugary smile.
‘I moved into Overton House because I was lonely after my late husband died. I wanted to meet people and lovely as this place is, there’s nobody here during the day and when they are home at night, all of them are tired after working – those that are here. Some people only live here intermittently – a great shame. These houses were made to be lived in. So dull without people.’
‘So you met Bert at Overton House,’ said Honey.
‘Yes.’ Another exchange of sugary smiles. ‘We fell in love. I’m surprised you didn’t notice, Antonio. I would have thought that seeing as you are a member of the most romantic race in the world – well in my opinion anyway – you might have noticed.’
‘I should have, I should have known,’ murmured Antonio with an apologetic shake of his head and a wave of his hands.
Honey was intrigued. This old couple had fallen in love but had contrived to keep it secret. What a sneaky old pair.
‘So it was all a smokescreen. Mrs Sinclair was whisked away in a private ambulance. While everyone watched the drama, Mr Watchpole sneaked away. Would you like to elucidate?’
Bert Watchpole leaned forward, seemingly eager to divulge his clever plan.
‘I got the ambulance from a firm that hires them out to TV and film production companies. Nobody checked whether an ambulance had been called and I still had my driving licence …’
Suddenly Maggie’s son came charging in, his face contorted with anger, one arm waving towards the door and something that was creasing him up.
‘Mother! There are frogs in the garden! Stone frogs! Does that woman not have any taste …’
He was livid.
‘Aubrey! Please stop shouting and leave. Please! You have caused us enough pain! Leave Mrs Nobbs to put whatever she likes into the garden.’
‘First it was bloody gnomes. Now it’s bloody frogs. Has nobody any taste!’
‘Aubrey. Do you want me to tell the police that you’ve wasted their time?’
Maggie’s face held no motherly love for her son. On the contrary, she looked as though she meant what she said, her eyes almost disappearing beneath her bundled brows.
Aubrey, being the age he was, read the signs, sniffed, and left.
Maggie, poor woman, for Honey now pitied her, apologised for his behaviour.
‘I know he’s my son, but sometimes he’s quite obnoxious. Anyway, I think it will do him good to find his own way in the world. He’s been living on my money and in my house for long enough. Hopefully he’ll find a nice woman and settle down – if he can find one that will have him.’
Maggie chuckled.
Honey thought how much she liked the woman. She could see what Bert had seen in her, though wasn’t quite sure what Maggie saw in him. He was hardly handsome in the way that Antonio was handsome. But he seemed a kind man; a patient man. I suppose he had to be, putting up with Rhoda and her rolls of blubber, thought Honey. Still. That was their business. They were all too old to be told what to do.
On the plus side, she now knew who had vandalised Mrs Nobbs’ garden gnomes. The other parts of the jigsaw fell into place once Maggie told them of how Aubrey had tried to get Bert arrested.
‘He pretended we’d had a burglary and blamed it all on Bert. Aubrey collected up a few things and hid them in the shed. Anyone else would have sold them off, but my son merely hid them in the garden shed. Quite pathetic really.’
Honey decided it would do nobody any good to mention Aubrey’s part in the desecration of the plastic gnomes. Not to Maggie.
She did mention it on the way back into town. ‘So much for men in pointy hats.’
‘Mary Jane. A first-class performance,’ declared her mother.
Mary Jane beamed.
Gloria Cross sighed. ‘But what abo
ut poor Rhoda. What will she do with herself?’
Honey had that one worked out. ‘Pile on the pounds thanks to Marks and Spencer cream cakes.’
‘I think you too are a genius, my darling Gloria,’ said Antonio. ‘Tell me, would you ever consider moving into Overton House? There are flats available. Some are suitable for two.’
‘Well …’
Honey cringed. Could she cope with having an Italian stepfather who gushed over every woman he came into contact with – even those not far off receiving their centenary birthday card from the Queen?
The question was shoved on hold when her phone rang. It was Doherty.
‘No news on Rhino and I’ve been to see Boris’ business partner, John Belper. Care to meet up and discuss ongoing strategy?’
‘Professional strategy or pleasure?’
‘We can diversify depending on how the mood takes us.’
Chapter Twenty-one
The Zodiac Club was the haunt of the hospitality trade and as such only came alive after most tourists were tucked up in bed.
A vodka and tonic appeared under Honey’s nose with plenty of ice and lemon. Doherty was drinking Jack Daniel’s.
‘John Belper and Boris Crook had been in business for some years selling internet advertising, which included mailing lists. They’d gather email addresses, package them, and sell them on to marketing firms. A lucrative business, so he told me. With the profits they made they began investing in property and in a rising market did very well. Then the partners had a bit of a fall out and Boris did a midnight flit taking a chunk of the firm’s profits with him. He used those profits to purchase the property in Northend.’
‘It didn’t take long to find him.’
‘Apparently not. That’s where the water gets muddy. Yes, we know Boris Crook had a deal going with Rhino with regard to collecting discarded paperwork. It seems he had it in mind to set up a new internet venture independently along the same lines as the other. But he couldn’t possibly have acquired the money to repay John Belper in such a short period of time. Yet Mr Belper was adamant that’s exactly what had been promised. In fact it was Boris Crook who contacted him and told him so. Why would he do that?’
Blood and Broomsticks Page 20
