Walking with Ghosts - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries)

by Jean G. Goodhind

  Honey gritted her teeth. The City of Bath was passing in a blur of scattered pedestrians and honking car horns. Her eyes were narrowed slits and her teeth were on edge. When it came to white-knuckle rides, Disney World had nothing on Mary Jane.

  After the trip to Northend, Honey had worked out that the best course of action when travelling in Mary Jane’s car was not to talk. Lindsey had worked that one out too. If any talking was to be done, leave it to Mary Jane. She kept her eyes on the road when she was talking.

  At present everything was fine. Most of the conversation coming in was directed at the traffic. Mary Jane had comments to make on other people’s bad driving habits. She was blind to her own. The same applied to her dress sense.

  ‘Will you look at that cycling get up? Purple and grey Lycra! You can see the guy’s credentials! Where the hell d’ya think he’s going dressed like that?’

  Honey squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘I don’t care. All I care is that we get to the sausage shop in one piece.’

  Lindsey’s shoulders began to shake.

  Gritting her teeth, fingers clinging to the back of Lindsey’s seat, Honey rolled forward. ‘Stop thinking sausages.’

  While Mary Jane drove, health and safety were top priority.

  It was something of a relief to make it to the car park in one piece.

  ‘Was there somewhere special you had to go?’ Honey asked Mary Jane.

  ‘No. I just enjoy driving. It makes me feel so invigorated. So alive!’

  Honey glimpsed Lindsey making a choking action. The words death defying came to mind, but remained unspoken.

  Mary Jane added that she was quite happy to give them a hand with their shopping.

  ‘And then I’m going to buy you coffee and doughnuts. Or giant teacakes in Sally Lunn’s tea shop.’

  Lindsey smiled weakly. ‘Today’s unwind day. We do the Pump Rooms on sausage day.’

  From the car park to Green Street was a short walk. The three of them strolled, looking in shop windows. Honey remained thoughtful.

  They waited outside a needlework shop while Mary Jane went in to browse through a rack of pink silks.

  Lindsey noticed her silence. ‘Something bugging you?’

  Honey breathed a deep sigh. Should she tell or shouldn’t she. Yes. She had to.

  ‘I did mention about being stalked.’

  ‘Oh yeah. This Warren Price guy.’

  ‘No. He was caught. But there’s still someone …’

  They moved aside to let a mechanical road sweeper through, then like the Red Sea after Moses, merged again. In that short space of time, Honey had come to a decision.

  First she told Lindsey about Doherty, the jogging, the blonde, and him not telling her that Warren Price had been picked up.

  ‘He liked me being jealous. Do you think I should dump him?’

  Lindsey pulled the kind of face that made Honey feel decidedly un-knowledgeable on the relationship front. ‘Men are so touchy about their weight and fitness. Far more so than women.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So if it was a lie, how come you still think you’re being stalked?’ Lindsey felt obliged to ask it, even though she thought she knew the answer.

  ‘I keep seeing this guy. A motorcyclist wearing wellington boots. How bizarre is that?’

  Lindsey stood there gaping. Her cheeks were turning pink.

  Honey frowned. Never mind little grey cells, straightforward female instinct was kicking in here.

  She stopped in her tracks, placed a hand on Lindsey’s shoulder and turned her so they faced each other.

  ‘You know a guy who wears wellington boots?’

  Lindsey bit her bottom lip. ‘Well, actually … Hey! Look at that book on Catherine di Medici. It’s on special offer.’

  ‘What about …’

  ‘It’ll have to wait,’ said Lindsey. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The shops in Green Street still displayed unwrapped wares. A lot of products were still made on the premises without preservatives or additives. Most still boasted the original façades, and there was barely room between the pavements for a car to squeeze through.

  The sausage shop was easy to find merely by following the delicious aromas escaping from within.

  Sausages and some goggle-eyed fish were bought and delivery arranged.

  ‘Juice,’ gasped Lindsey. ‘I need juice.’

  ‘Coffee!’ Honey’s feet were already heading towards Bath Abbey.

  Mary Jane added her choice. ‘I’d love a cup of Earl Grey.’

  A trio dressed in period costume were playing Mozart.

  Mary Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘I can almost imagine a few Gainsborough-type ladies seated at these tables.’

  Honey and Lindsey exchanged a knowing look. Mary Jane was having one of her crossover periods. This was when she swore she could see ghosts from the past. It wasn’t so much a trance as a blurring of the edges between reality and imagination.

  Honey saw nothing. As it was, the tourists were at odds with elegance. They had a determined look about them, prepared to tramp the streets, and soak up the sights.

  ‘Nice trainers,’ said Lindsey, nodding at the Reeboks on a pair of feet beneath the next table.

  Mary Jane’s eyes began closing and she started to make one of her ‘crossover’ noises. ‘Hmm.’

  Mother and daughter exchanged another swift and more anxious glance.

  ‘Well!’ Honey slapped her palms together; louder than a clap. ‘So what was it you wanted to tell me, Mary Jane?’

  At the clap, Mary Jane opened one eye. Once the question had sunk in she opened both.

  ‘I was worrying about this poor woman that got murdered. And on our ghost walk!’

  Mary Jane rolled her eyes upwards until the whites showed; another eerie state she drifted into now and again.

  Lindsey gave her a nudge. ‘Mary Jane?’

  Mary Jane came back to earth, her eyes flashing wide and as normal as they were ever likely to be. ‘I enrolled for another walk. I didn’t like that one we went on, Honey. It was too wet.’

  ‘I thought you said that ghosts and spirits didn’t mind the rain,’ said Honey.

  ‘They don’t, but I didn’t feel anybody on that walk was there to see ghosts. No chance of spirits or ghosts coming through to a mind that isn’t in tune with them and their feelings.’

  Honey nodded as though Mary Jane was merely rubbishing her cellular phone connection.

  Lindsey looked confused. ‘Wait a moment here. Aren’t ghosts and spirits the same thing?’

  Mary Jane shook her head adamantly. ‘No, no, no! Ghosts are still suffering from the method of their death. It’s usually a violent death, if you like. Call it post-traumatic stress disorder. Spirits just live in a parallel world. They’re all around us. It’s just that you can’t see them, but they can get in touch now and again.’

  Of course.

  Their order arrived. A different waiter.

  Mary Jane took a swig of Earl Grey with lemon followed by a deep breath. ‘So, as I was saying, I arranged to go on another ghost walk. I presented myself at a quarter past eight, the time the walk started. As I paid my fee I mentioned about the wet night of the previous walk I’d been on, and what a disappointment it had been. The guy was real surprised. He asked me what day and date that was. I told him, explained it was raining heavily and blowing a gale and that the streets were deserted. There was only one night that bad. He remembered. Boy, was I surprised when he told me they’d called off the walk that night. He was amazed that anyone had turned up. He said he’d put a notice on the pub door. Either the wind blew it away or someone removed it.’

  ‘It was a dark and dirty night,’ Lindsey mused. ‘The opening line of many a dire novel.’

  Honey tapped her spoon against her saucer as she thought this through. ‘Or our dear little Pamela took it down. So the people who did turn up: were they genuine ghost walkers, or were they there by arrangem
ent – for something else?’

  Lindsey put her tumbler of juice back down on the table. ‘That is a possibility – far-fetched, but nonetheless, a possibility.’

  ‘Except for one or two diehards,’ Lindsey added.

  ‘Yours truly, and friend,’ said Honey. ‘Plus a couple of Australian women who had spirits of their own.’

  Honey stopped herself from piling a third teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. She didn’t take sugar. The characters on the ghost walk drifted in and out of her mind. A whole group of people there by arrangement?

  ‘So was Pamela Windsor a genuine ghost-walk guide? Was she known to the organiser?’

  ‘Well, we’ll soon find out.’

  Mary Jane got her phone out and phoned him.

  ‘No,’ she said after a short conversation. ‘He doesn’t know her.’ She shook her head, her long fingers tapping along the edge of the table. ‘She wasn’t genuine. I should have known it when she left us to our own devices. Left us standing there in the pouring rain.’

  Honey jerked round to face her. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  Mary Jane shrugged. ‘Nobody asked me. Is it significant?’

  So Pamela Windsor had wandered off. Where had she gone?

  Mary Jane explained. ‘She disappeared just before we turned down past Great Western Antiques. Came back saying she thought she’d felt a ghostly energy field and had gone off to investigate. Hell, if anyone was going to feel an energy field, it was me. Not her!’

  Although Mary Jane was showing definite signs of professional jealousy, Honey felt a sense of misgiving. Pamela had disappeared in the vicinity of Great Western Antiques, a stone’s throw from where Lady Templeton-Jones’s body was found.

  Pieces of puzzle began slotting together in her brain. Keeping the brain active was, so she’d heard, the secret of living to a ripe old age. If that were so, then the position of Crime Liaison Officer was doing her the world of good. Initially she’d been hesitant when offered the job. Now she was finding that a mind used to juggling guests requests, chefs’ tantrums, and a complex laundry list, suited the gathering and sifting of clues.

  On the night of the ghost walk, Pamela Windsor had come across as a timid, plain little thing. At Bradford-on-Avon she’d transformed into sex on legs! Was it possible she was also a murderess?

  A sudden movement – the arrival of two people at the next table – drew her attention. A Kashmir jacket in a soft lemon shade was the first thing she noticed: expensive, pastel, and eminently Casper St John Gervais. To her surprise he was accompanied by Alistair McDonald from the auction rooms.

  Casper gave her a nod of acknowledgement. Alistair waved, got up and came over while Casper turned his attention to the wine list.

  Honey smiled. ‘I didn’t know you two were close.’

  The big Scotsman’s face remained its impassive self. ‘Don’t let the wearing of the kilt fool you. This is business. I keep him informed.’

  He meant with regard to what was coming into the salerooms. In the stock exchange they called it insider dealing and it was illegal. In the world of antiques, it was not.

  ‘You’d better get back. He’s giving me the evil eye,’ said Honey. ‘And I’d better be going before he grills me on what’s happening about our murdered lady.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.’

  The legs of a chair scraped over the floor then creaked beneath Alistair’s weight as he sat down. ‘If you remember rightly, hen, you asked me about that catalogue a while back and the gaps beside the numbers. I said I didn’t know.’

  Honey leaned forward, interested. Mary Jane rested her chin on a bony hand and listened intently. Lindsey sipped at her tea. For some reason her eyes never left Alistair’s face.

  Honey urged Alistair to go on.

  ‘Sebastian Gaunt, one of the newest additions to our illustrious house, was clearing out his desk.’

  ‘Fired?’ Honey raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Double-barrelled fired. Eton educated but a bungalow if ever I met one.’

  Mary Jane opened her mouth to ask the obvious question.

  Lindsey enlightened her. ‘Nothing upstairs.’

  Big as he was, Alistair had a gently courteous way of explaining things. ‘He was a non-event, hen. A disaster with excellent connections. I found this amongst the rubbish he left behind.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roughly printed list of about four A4 size pages. ‘It’s the prelim. – the rough list of items scheduled for auction. This one’s for the auction of marine collectables. It’s a special. Once a year only. Quite a feather in the cap for a provincial auction house like ours. Most of that kind of thing only happens in London.’

  He pushed the list over and pointed to where she had last seen gaps. Three items were listed.Photographic Reel 1, Photographic Reel 2, Photographic Reel 3. But it was the heading for the three that caught her eye. Taken by an amateur photographer on board … TITANIC!

  Honey’s head jerked up. Her eyes locked with those of Alistair.

  He nodded, his thumb stroking his plush red beard.

  ‘But they never turned up.’ Her voice sounded a mile away.

  ‘No. And the auction’s come and gone.’

  Their eyes held again. Honey voiced what was going through her mind. ‘And they’d be worth a small fortune.’

  Alistair nodded. ‘True, hen. Absolutely true!’

  Honey scanned the auction lists. ‘Lucky he got the boot from the firm.’

  ‘Luckier still that he kept these,’ said Alistair, flicking a finger at the papers. ‘We’ve got eco-friendly so most of our old paperwork goes for shredding before it’s recycled. These listings were scrapped and never used, so they got dumped straightway. Lucky for you that we employed a numpty who couldn’t tell his Hobart from a horse’s rear end.’

  Honey scanned the sheets. The name ‘Sir A. Bridgewater’ leapt out at her. Her heart beat faster. That creep! That slimebag! He was the one who’d put them in the sale.

  The teacups rattled as Alistair raised his big frame from the table.

  Honey looked up into his red beard. ‘So why were they withdrawn?’

  ‘Something legal from what I can gather. They weren’t entirely his to sell.’

  Casper called across with a request to keep him up to speed on the matter of Lady Templeton-Jones. She told him she’d be in touch. Inside she was whooping like a Red Indian in a John Wayne film. Bridgewater and his cousin Lady Templeton-Jones had been sole beneficiaries of the will.

  She phoned Doherty but got only his answerphone service. She left a message with someone at the station who promised to let him know.

  The lunchtime crowd bustled around in front of the abbey and the Pump Room. People were posing beneath the fancy lights outside. A whole coach party were having their smiles saved for posterity using the arched entrance as a backdrop. Honey hardly noticed them. She stopped and took a big breath. ‘Wow!’

  ‘Even I know the value of stuff from the Titanic,’ said Lindsey.

  ‘I’ve been in touch with a few poor souls who lost their lives,’ said Mary Jane. The shape of the blusher applied to her cheeks reflected those strawberries on her tunic. ‘I wonder if I’d recognise anyone from the film.’

  She sounded pretty excited at the prospect.

  Honey’s mind was whirling. She remembered the old cameras and photographic equipment in the house at Northend.

  She got out her phone.

  ‘Who you calling?’ asked Lindsey.

  ‘Doherty. I need to look at that …’

  She got him on his mobile. He sounded dour. She had no time to ask him the reason why. ‘I need a lift to Northend. Now! Bridgewater has got a whole lot of photographic memorabilia that has a direct bearing on …’

  ‘Whoa!’

  ‘And it’s imperative that I get back out there …’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m outside the Pump Room.’

  ‘Alone
?’

  ‘No. I’m with Lindsey and Mary Jane. Mary Jane gave us a lift.’ The thought of the inbound journey made her wince. Enduring the same journey back gave her goosebumps.

  ‘Can Mary Jane take you?’

  ‘I’d be fit for nothing by the time I got there.’

  Doherty fell in to silence.

  She knew … she knew instinctively that she’d interrupted something.

  ‘Are you kind of indisposed?’

  The pregnant silence positively fizzled with potential. ‘You could say that. I’m at the Theatre Royal. One of the customers found the show strangely riveting. So riveting in fact that he’s skewered to his seat.’

  ‘Christ! Anyone I know?’

  That pause again. ‘Simon Taylor.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Chapter Fifty-three

  ‘So tell me, Lindsey. Who is that guy in the wellingtons?’

  Lindsey turned her head as they marched along. Honey hoped he wasn’t anything too outlandish. She also hoped the reason she kept bumping into him was straightforward. No skeletons – human or otherwise – in locked cupboards.

  ‘He’s a great guy but a little shy. He wanted to introduce himself, but can’t quite get up the courage.’

  ‘What are you telling me? That he’s your boyfriend?’

  ‘Um … yes.’

  ‘So where’s the kilt?’

  ‘What?’

  For a moment Honey held back the words. Lindsey was becoming more and more evasive about her love life. Perhaps it was an age thing, then told herself an obvious truth.

  Let’s face it, you don’t tell your mother everything.

  ‘You told me he played the bagpipes and wore a kilt.’

  Lindsey’s hair was blowing over her face so it was difficult to read her expression. She was slow in answering.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s a very delicate situation.’

  How delicate could a man in wellies be?

  The area around the Theatre Royal was cordoned off. Scene of crime tape fluttered in the breeze. Curious tourists – probably thoroughly bogged off with Jane Austen, John Wood, Beau Nash, and the sulphurous waters of the Roman Baths – aimed their cameras.