Death of a Diva: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 9)

by Jean G. Goodhind

  Doherty stood squarely between the estate agent and his car.

  ‘Just one thing, Mr Halley. This house is on the market for two and half million. That’s a lot of bread. How much commission do you charge?’

  Glenwood looked very much affronted. ‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t think …’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Three percent. It’s a little above the norm, but we do give a top drawer service. We have our clients’ privacy to consider and we do place advertisements in very upmarket glossies …’

  ‘I bet you do. It seems common knowledge that Mrs Rolfe – Arabella Neville – was not keen to leave this place. If she had somehow got the means together to pay her husband’s creditors and stop the sale, you stood to lose a great deal of money. How do I know you didn’t bump her off to hold on to your commission?’

  There was no mistaking the sudden flush spreading up from Glenwood’s ultra-white shirt and on to his cheeks.

  ‘How dare you! I didn’t kill her. I had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all!’

  Honey listened with interest. She hadn’t considered the motive that Doherty was now expressing, but it seemed perfectly logical. Money was always a good motive.

  Doherty was into his stride. ‘How many buyers do you have for the house – besides Mrs Driver that is?’

  Glenwood hesitated. ‘One or two …’

  ‘Specifically?’

  Again that nervous licking of lips. ‘There’s been a great deal of interest. Cobden Manor is suitable for a variety of uses …’

  Doherty persisted, edging that little bit closer so that their chests almost touched and Glenwood could see the glittering determination in his eyes. Doherty was good at passive intimidation. Halley had to cave in.

  ‘Ten. Six very interested.’

  ‘I doubt I will need to question them but I definitely want a list of the guests who attended the do at the Roman Baths. Names and addresses. As quickly as possible.’

  ‘Why? I mean, what do you want them for?’ Glenwood’s eyes were round with horror.

  ‘Mrs Driver attended the Roman Baths event. She overheard a woman threaten the deceased. I may need to contact them. Plus the names of those people who have already viewed the property. I take it there have been some?’

  Glenwood sucked in his breath. ‘Well, yes …’

  ‘I want them.’

  ‘But our clients don’t always handle a purchase personally,’ Glenwood protested. ‘Sometimes they use a buying agent in order to keep their identity a secret. Indeed, buyers of such a mammoth property without an agent are the exception, and they are usually trade and on a tight budget.’

  ‘Ouch,’ whimpered Honey.

  ‘Their names too. The agents, I mean. Anyone who viewed the property fairly recently. Say two months. You do keep records of viewings, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then get them to me.’

  Chapter Nine

  News spreads fast in Bath. By the time Honey got back to the Green River Hotel, her employees and Mary Jane were hovering around, desperate to know the gory details, faces bright with interest.

  She couldn’t oblige them. She felt distinctly sick and was still shivering.

  ‘She looks very pale,’ she heard Mary Jane say as she let herself into her office.

  She double checked the door was tightly shut before she sat down in her big old comfortable leather chair, lay her head on her folded arms and closed her eyes.

  At the sound of the knob turning, she opened her eyes. It was Lindsey.

  ‘Mother, you’ve had a shock, so I’ve brought you a drink.’

  ‘If it’s sweet tea, you can take it out again.’

  Wasn’t sweet tea the antidote to all shocks and traumas?

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s vodka and tonic. A large one.’

  Leaving one arm curled under her head, she reached out, grasped the glass and knocked the lot back in one.

  Lindsey perched herself on the corner of the desk. Honey felt her eyes looking down on her.

  She repeated what she’d said to Doherty. ‘I’ve never found a dead body before. Not someone who’s been murdered.’

  ‘A once in a life time moment, never to be repeated.’ Hopefully Lindsey was right.

  ‘I didn’t like the woman when she was on telly, but I didn’t wish her any harm. All I wanted was for her to get out of my TV set.’

  ‘Well she certainly did that – if you don’t count the repeats.’

  Lindsey poured her another vodka and tonic.

  Honey eyed the glass stealthily. ‘If I go on like this I’ll be in bed before midnight. That’ll certainly make a change.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt. You’ve had a rotten experience.’

  Honey took a sip from the glass. The chilly feeling was leaving her bones, but something else was taking over. Unlike all the other investigations she’d been involved in, this one was personal. She was the one who’d found the body.

  She pushed the glass away. ‘Do you know what the worse thing is about this case?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I feel as though the murderer did this on purpose to upset me.’

  Lindsey folded her arms. ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You’re taking it personally. I know you are which means you’re going to be like a hound after the fox until the killer is found.’

  Honey nodded. ‘Hmm.’

  Smudger was next to appear, his golden-red hair flattened onto his head by sweat and the chef’s toque he’d just removed from it.

  ‘Hey boss. Is that right you found somebody famous stuffed up a chimney?’

  ‘Arabella Neville’s dead body, no less,’ said Lindsey.

  Smudger looked unimpressed. ‘Arabella Neville?’ He shook his head. ‘Never heard of her.’

  Footballer or pop star. That was the limit of Smudger’s interest. The door slammed behind him.

  The phone rang. Even before Lindsey had picked it up, her mother instinctively knew that it was either Casper St John Gervais, chairman of Bath Hotels Association, or her mother.

  The chairman of Bath Hotels Association made it his business to keep on top of criminal matters that dared to occur in a city as elegantly civilised as the one he lived in.

  However, when it came to gossip, Honey’s mother, Gloria Cross, was second to none. If anyone was ever to give her an apt title, it was chairperson and general news and gossip gatherer of Bath Senior Citizens Conservative Association.

  ‘Hannah. I’m ringing you from Top to Toe TLC. You’ll have to speak up because I’m having my nails painted in rainbow hues with gemstone inserts and Courtney has to hold the phone against my ear. The polish isn’t dry yet. She dialled the number too.’ There was a pause. ‘That is you, Hannah isn’t it?’

  Mouthing, it’s grandma, Lindsey handed the phone to her mother.

  Honey rolled then closed her eyes. This she could do without.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, good. Now you haven’t forgotten to buy the present for Wilbur and Alice, have you?’

  Wilbur and Alice? Who the devil were Wilbur and Alice? Was he or she a relative? Were either or both of them old friends of her mother? And why was she buying them a present? A golden wedding perhaps? She didn’t have a clue but hated to admit it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother. It’s been an extraordinary day. I’m really having trouble getting myself together …’

  ‘You’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Mother, how can you say that?’

  ‘A wedding. The first wedding between two of my clients and you’ve forgotten! I’m hurt, Hannah. Extremely hurt.’

  Honey slapped her forehead. ‘Of course. The wedding. Wilbur and Alice. I bought them Champagne.’

  ‘They don’t drink.’

  Her mother’s tone was icy cold.

  ‘Of course not! Silly me. I bought them …’ She paused while making frantic sign language to her daughter. Lindsey wav
ed a copy of the hotel brochure opened to a very lovely photo of the honeymoon suite.

  ‘The honeymoon suite. Free overnight accommodation in the honeymoon suite.’

  Her mother’s response was damning. ‘Oh, that’s no good at all. They can’t possibly sleep together. He’s got arthritis and she’s prone to night sweats. People have delicate bodies once they reach their eighties.’

  Although tempted to ask her mother why these two were bothering to get married, she didn’t go there. The details might be too lurid.

  Lindsey was banging her head against the wall in mock exasperation. But she was laughing as she did it. Honey contemplated doing it for real. No hotel guest could be as exasperating as her mother. Her mother made a career out of being exasperating.

  There was nothing for it but to admit defeat and hope for forgiveness.

  ‘So what do you suggest, mother?’

  ‘A footbath. One of those that vibrates and aids circulation.’

  ‘A footbath. What a good idea.’

  Honey nodded at her daughter. Lindsey stopped banging her head and sniggering. She made the OK sign and slid in front of the computer terminal.

  ‘The wedding’s at eleven. You do remember that, do you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ She didn’t have any recollection of the details, but followed the old adage, if in doubt, lie! Or make a shrewd guess.

  ‘This Saturday, eleven o’clock, Bradford on Avon.’ It was a good guess, but not the right one.

  ‘No. This Thursday at eleven o’clock. Wear something suitable.’

  ‘What’s not suitable?’

  ‘White. The bride’s wearing white so nobody else may.’

  ‘Just like Miss Havisham,’ Honey murmured.

  ‘I don’t know any Miss Havisham. Is she a member of the Conservative Club? Did I go to her wedding?’

  Honey answered no to each question. Her mother had obviously never heard of Great Expectations.

  Once the connection was cut, she leaned against the wall with her eyes closed. ‘Wrinkles in white. It’ll look like a shroud.’

  ‘Handy if the bride drops dead at the altar,’ Lindsey observed. On seeing her mother’s expression, she apologised.

  ‘I’m sorry. It was the wrong thing to say.’

  Honey said nothing. A vision of a dead woman had flashed into her head. Her thoughts went back to the very dead Arabella Neville and the glossy photos in Hello! She too had been wearing a white dress, though her face was unwrinkled. Was her death a revenge killing for splitting up a family? Or was there something else going on here?

  Lindsey was offering her a penny for her thoughts.

  ‘You’re looking dour,’ she said to her.

  ‘I could really do without attending a wedding, especially a wedding where the bride and groom are total strangers and likely to keel over before they’ve even had a honeymoon.’

  ‘Well you certainly can’t wish them a long and happy marriage – well you can – but it doesn’t really suit.’

  Honey sighed, her shoulders aching with the weight of it all. ‘I was thinking about Arabella Rolfe nee Neville. She got married in white. I bet she had a load of luxury wedding presents.’

  ‘But not the ultimate wedding present. I bet they didn’t have a footbath – pink for her, blue for him.’

  Later that evening, once the diners had finished dining and Mary Jane had read the last palm and made her way to bed, Honey phoned Doherty. She asked him about the preliminary results of the autopsy.

  ‘Arabella Rolfe was strangled with a strip of pink material before being stuffed up the chimney,’ said Doherty. ‘Most of the scratches and bruising came from being wedged against the old stonework. The ligature marks were totally consistent with death by strangulation. She was also dressed to the nines and wearing sexy underwear. I thought I’d just mention that in passing.’

  ‘Not quite the occasion she was dressed for.’

  ‘Clarify that statement,’ said Doherty.

  ‘Well she was beautifully dressed. Wish I could afford her style, but I can’t. Just seemed odd to me that she was dressed up like that if she knew she was going into that dirty old place. My thinking is that she was meeting someone. Someone special.’

  Doherty was in agreement. ‘Women like to dress to suit the occasion. Dress to impress. We checked her movements prior to the murder. She was at a programme rehearsal, but took off in a tantrum. No one’s quite sure why except that she did accuse somebody of stealing her handbag.’

  ‘Did you find a bag with her?’

  ‘A small one containing money and credit cards.’

  ‘Not a receptacle.’

  ‘There’s a difference?’

  ‘A woman of means needs a travelling office.’

  She asked how the husband had taken it.

  ‘I can’t say. We can’t find him. Looks like he’s done a runner, which of course makes him prime suspect. I’m interviewing some of his business colleagues tomorrow once I’ve checked out the possibility that Arabella was insured and he would benefit from her death. As far as I can make out, they kept their finances separate. He went bust; she held on to her cash. Not so much cash as him, but enough to keep them in smoked salmon and silk bed sheets.’

  ‘Did they really have silk bed sheets? I’ve always wondered what they felt like to sleep in.’

  ‘Something to be explored,’ said Doherty.

  ‘How about the woman I overheard? Any fix on her yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m waiting for the guest list. In the meantime I’ll ask the work colleagues and the relatives, the ex-wife for a start. I’ve pinned her down to tomorrow morning. Care to accompany me?’

  Arthur King told lies as easily as he told the truth. What’s more, he told them with a smile on his face which was also reflected in his eyes. This in itself was very unusual. It made him that much more convincing, so people believed everything he said. That was why he was such a successful psychic, beloved of cable TV, talk shows and whistle-stop psychic fairs.

  At present he was doing his best to charm the producer of Fate and Fortune, a new series being made for one of the satellite channels.

  ‘I did a spot on Most Haunted and my books have done very well, also, my speaking tours have been sell-outs. Standing room only. Even if I say so myself, I’m one of the top, possibly THE top psychic in this country. You couldn’t do better than to have me present the whole shebang. What do you say, Paulette?’

  He heard an intake of breath, a sure sign of impatience. Paulette Goodman was the television producer he most wanted to impress. The fact that she was a total stranger to him was neither here nor there.

  ‘So what do you say,’ he added after pressing as much information in her direction as he could. This was the first time he’d ever spoken to her, but Arthur King didn’t believe in letting the grass grow under his feet. He was first in, had got her mobile phone number purely by chance from the little pink diary he held in his hand. No way was he letting a good chance pass him by.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said the young hussy on the other end of the phone. Anyone under thirty was a young hussy and in need of a good rogering as far as Arthur was concerned.

  ‘Let me give you my direct line and my mobile number,’ he said, and instantly did so, then added, ‘Is there anyone else in line for presenting the programme?’

  He heard her hesitate. Arthur sensed she was holding her breath while deciding whether she told him or not.

  ‘Well, I suppose I can tell you. It’s likely to be Arabella Rolfe. She’s well known and is looking for something like this to re-launch her career.’

  The young hussy on the phone would not be aware that he was grinding his teeth at the mention of Arabella. Neither would she know that he hated her, though she wouldn’t be that surprised. Arabella had never been the most popular of people with past production teams. She was one of those people who loved herself above all others.

  ‘Ah, yes. I did hear she was looking to re-launch h
er career. There’s no doubt that she’s been on the slide for some time. But I don’t think you’ll get her to do it. I think in fact, you’ll find she’s unavailable.’

  ‘Oh. What makes you think that?’ Paulette sounded surprised.

  Arthur King threw a small pink diary into the ladies handbag he gripped between his knees. ‘Just call it a professional premonition. It’s what I’m known for.’

  Doherty arrived early the next morning looking tired and scruffy.

  ‘Too many hours,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Here. Take a shower. You’ll feel better.’

  She handed him the key to a room plus a bottle of pine-scented shower gel.

  He sloped off, bereft of his usual energy, just glad to be able to take his clothes off and stand being buffeted by a torrent of warm water.

  ‘Won’t be able to do that when we move to this country house hotel,’ said Lindsey.

  ‘I’m not sure …’ Honey began.

  ‘Good,’ said Lindsey, butting swiftly in. ‘I wasn’t sure from the start.’

  ‘How did you know what I was going to say?’

  ‘You’re my mother,’ said Lindsey, slapping a pile of brochures down on the desk. ‘You get an idea in your head that won’t really suit, but you have to work it through for yourself. It’s the only way.’

  If Honey had had any doubts about her future, they were all done with now. Who knows what might have been? The fault lay with the murderer of Arabella Neville.

  ‘It could have been good,’ she muttered. ‘Just wait till I get my hands on whoever did it.’

  ‘Cream them,’ said Lindsey, and went off looking a lot happier than she had for a long time. The funny thing was that Honey hadn’t noticed she’d not been looking too happy. Her daughter was right; she’d persuaded herself that developing a country house hotel was a great idea without really planning things.

  Would have been an experience though, she thought to herself. Would she have gone for it? It was hard to say, though very likely. It had taken a murder to stop her in her tracks

  Doherty reappeared smelling good though still looking dishevelled; shirt crumpled, jeans creased, hair clean but uncombed and leather jacket slung over his shoulder. The casual street cred look came naturally to him. It was his personal look, it suited him, and it suited Honey too.