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

by Jean G. Goodhind

  He frowned and looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know, but I know something about Arabella’s dad from when I worked in London. No one’s seen him for years, though there are rumours he shot off for one of the Spanish Costas. Could be he’s running rackets in Malaga. On the other hand he could be there for his health. So he was her father-in-law. Not the sort you upset if you want to keep breathing.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  It wasn’t just the information that was interesting. The bedclothes only reached his chest. His shoulders were bare. She guessed the rest of his body was equally bare. It was hard, but she resisted temptation.

  ‘Me or the information?’

  ‘That was some. But there’s got to be more. I won’t come any closer until you give me anything that might be useful.’

  ‘And then? When I’ve been a good boy and handed it over …’

  Already warming to a few ideas, she folded her arms and smiled. ‘Let’s see where it leads.’

  He grinned. ‘I’m at your mercy. Do with me as you will.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘OK. Arabella Rolfe was done up to the nines when she was stuffed up the chimney at Cobden Manor. Right. I’ve told you mine, now you tell me yours.’

  ‘I already knew that. I told you that myself.’

  ‘His children were not allowed to visit. The eldest is eighteen and strong. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that he shoved his step-mom up the chimney.’

  ‘I know she hated the kids.’

  ‘You know?’ He looked surprised, raising his eyebrows so much that it caused a twinge in his back. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Serves you right. You shouldn’t try and play with the boys. You’re not a boy. You’re a middle-aged man.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, pointing sharply. ‘I resent that.’

  ‘So who is prime suspect?’

  ‘My bet is still on the husband. Has to be.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he is, so can’t ask him outright.’ She began pacing the room, eyes down, fingers thoughtfully tapping her lips.

  ‘No. But we do know there was a big insurance policy on her life.’

  Honey looked at him, thought about it then shook her head. ‘I don’t buy it.’

  Doherty winced as he folded his arms behind his head and frowned. ‘Why not? You know damned well that the husband is always the prime suspect, especially when there’s a prospect of financial gain.’

  Honey shook her head again and continued to pace, flipping the embroidered pouch over alternate shoulders as she did so. Where did John Rees figure in all this? He’d acted oddly towards her, seemed distracted, not at all his usual self. OK, if he didn’t come clean when she asked him direct, she’d investigate indirectly.

  Honey took a deep breath. ‘So Arabella Rolfe used to be known as Arabella Neville, but was born plain old Tracey Casey and was married before. Back then her name was Mrs Tracey Dwyer.

  ‘And the ex-husband is dead. If I recall, the word along the Old Kent Road was that Tracey’s father didn’t take kindly to Mr Dwyer beating up on his daughter and meted out his own brand of justice.’

  Doherty fell silent. Honey looked at him and saw that the serious face was in situ; he was staring at the ceiling, chewing things over.

  ‘How about the showbiz side?’ he asked.

  Honey filled him in on the details.

  ‘Ms Neville – or Mrs Rolfe if you like – made a lot of enemies. She had a chat show at one point. A very cultured chat show. She was rude to the crew, rude to the sponsors, and rude to the people she interviewed. Seems she thought herself better than all of them.’

  Their eyes met. ‘It’s perfectly believable that someone might hate her enough to kill her,’ said Honey. ‘What’s the feedback?’

  A number of Doherty’s colleagues had been out and about asking questions of people who had worked with Arabella. They’d all been pretty much agreed that she was far from being the nice girl next door.

  ‘I still think she was meeting a lover. It’s a no-brainer. Lacy thong, stockings, perfume, and ridiculously high heels. She must have been meeting someone pretty special. Not her husband. Stockings are only worn for lovers.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Doherty looked hurt. ‘So when do I get that sort of treatment?’

  Honey got up from the bed. ‘I will if you want me to. But not when I’m working. Anyway, you’ve got a bad back. I wouldn’t want to cause permanent injury?’

  Doherty’s grin said it all. He was perfectly happy to accept permanent injury if the moment was worth it.

  Honey gave him the evil eye. ‘Stick to the subject.’

  He sighed. ‘OK. We’ve asked the first Mrs Rolfe, who has now returned home, where her husband might be hiding. She says she doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and is having a party to celebrate the fact that the second Mrs Rolfe is dead. She reckons they’ll probably have a bonfire and burn an effigy of her.’

  ‘No love lost between those two then. Do you think she did it?’

  ‘Who knows? And there is the son to consider. At this stage everybody that knew her is a suspect. What’s that?’ Doherty nodded at the pouch Mary Jane had given her.

  ‘A talisman, a totem if you like. According to Mary Jane I have to hang it above your bed and then this fairy … well not exactly a fairy – a spirit – will come along and massage your muscles while you’re asleep.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ he said, warily eyeing the bag as she hung it on a nail above his head.

  ‘What’s in it?’

  She sniffed the contents, sneezed and blew the whole lot over him. Peering inside confirmed that there was nothing left in it.

  She heaved a big sigh. ‘I’ll hang it up anyway. I wouldn’t want to go back to the Green River with just an empty bag. Questions would be asked.’

  They agreed he would keep his phone by his side and she would contact him.

  Kissing him was kind of dangerous on account there was nothing wrong with his hands, but she kept it cool, ducking back at the right moment.

  She told him to rest.

  ‘I could do with a massage?’ he said and grinned.

  ‘Just lie there and let nature – and Mary Jane’s dream catcher – do its work. Your back will be fine in no time.’

  His grin widened. ‘I wasn’t talking about my back.’

  Honey was still grinning on her walk down Lansdown Hill when the phone rang. It was John Rees. ‘Honey. I need to speak to you in confidence. Can we meet?’

  He sounded anxious. She guessed the subject matter wasn’t going to be books.

  Intrigued, she agreed to meet him.

  ‘Though not until this afternoon. I’m having lunch with my family. It’s my mother’s birthday.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mrs Gloria Sabine Cross, Honey’s mother, had expensive tastes. Not for her the close proximity to other diners, wipe-down tables, or three-ply paper napkins offered by a high street restaurant such as Café Rouge. There was only one place that suited her tastes; the Dower House of the Royal Crescent Hotel.

  The Dower House restaurant was approached via the main entrance to the Hotel. The hotel takes up a large portion of the middle section of the crescent with its sweeping views of the city. A more direct entrance existed at the rear off Julian Road. Honey knew her mother well. There was no way she would enter at the tradesmen’s entrance. She entered via the front door or not at all.

  Dressed to impress in an outfit usually reserved for evenings; the dress was of olive green silk, its plainness offset by a gold brooch pinned to one shoulder. Her shoes and handbag were navy blue and matched the stones in her gold earrings.

  Mother, daughter, and granddaughter greeted and kissed, and Gloria cooed over the presents they’d bought her. Nothing cheap would do. Honey’s mother didn’t do cheap, and there was no getting away with pooling funds and purchasing just one expensive present. Gloria Cross expected separate gifts from her daughter and granddaughter. Just because they might be strapped for ca
sh was neither here nor there.

  The late eighteenth-century miniature of a sweet young woman in a blue dress had gone down well. Alistair at the auction rooms had tipped her the wink that it was for sale and at a very fair reserve. Unable to attend the auction herself, Alistair had bid on it for her.

  ‘You’ll not be disappointed, hen,’ he’d said to her in his broad Highland accent. Honey knew the accent was mostly put on and that he came from Glasgow, but what was a bit of fantasy between friends?

  ‘Never mind me. As long as my mother isn’t disappointed.’

  He captured the gravity in her voice and assured her that she’d made a canny purchase.

  ‘How’re you going on with the murder case?’ Alistair asked her.

  ‘My workload has doubled. Doherty’s laid-up after playing rugby. I’m on this alone as far as the Hotels Association is concerned.’

  ‘Rugby’s a tough game suited to younger laddies,’ said Alistair, his Scottish accent accompanied by a sage shaking of his head.

  ‘I told him that.’

  ‘So how goes the purchase of a country hotel?’

  ‘Not very well. I think I would have gone for Cobden Manor, but finding a dead woman in the chimney flue put me off.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Alistair with a backward flick of his head. ‘Cobden Manor. Of course. They were moving to smaller premises and had to get rid of a lot of furniture. Nice items for the most part, but a few rum ones too. We’re putting them up for auction.’

  ‘You would be.’

  There didn’t seem much point in knowing anything more about the furniture. It couldn’t have any relevance to the case. Anyway, she had a present and that was all that mattered.

  Lindsey had dared to be more practical in her purchase of a birthday present. She’d purchased an option for chauffeur driven car to be used on twelve separate occasions.

  Honey admired her pluck and guessed it came from being one generation removed from her mother – granddaughter rather than daughter.

  ‘What is this,’ her mother said when she first perused the stiff piece of card with embossed lettering. Her frown was deep enough to plant potatoes in.

  All was sweetness and light once Lindsey had explained what it was.

  ‘You can take your friends,’ said Lindsey.

  Gloria looked absolutely appalled at the idea. ‘Certainly not. I shall indulge alone.’

  The meal was pleasant, the surroundings elegant and everything went swimmingly. The conversation was mostly about her mother’s online dating business and obviously got round to the wedding that had turned into a funeral.

  ‘Poor Wilbur. He was so disappointed that I just had to do something to ease his pain. Losing Alice on the day before the wedding.’

  ‘Rotten luck,’ said Lindsey. ‘So what did you do to ease his pain?’

  ‘Free introductions for twelve months. I assured him that women looking for men far outweighed men looking for women. He bucked up at that. It was the least I could do.’

  It was on the tip of Honey’s tongue to point out that good old Wilbur Williams was knocking on a bit and not likely to last twelve months. On reflection she decided that her mother was shrewder at business than she was. If Wilbur didn’t last twelve months – highly probable at his age – then her mother had lost nothing; plus she’d placated a client.

  ‘We’re in the process of joining a group relationship site. It’s when all different groups of like-minded people intermingle online and attend each other’s social events.’

  Honey was poking at an escargot that was proving reluctant to emerge from its shell. A quick slurp of the Krug she’d ordered to celebrate her mother’s seventy-fifth year – exactly the same figure as last year – was a welcome alternative.

  ‘That sounds fun,’ she said casually with another poke at the snail.

  She meant what she said. Her mother’s latest business venture was going pretty well. OK, so it hadn’t quite worked out for Wilbur and Alice. Win some, lose some. Literally.

  The plus side as far as Honey was concerned, was that she didn’t get so many visits from her mother, and she didn’t have to go round there so often. It was good that her mother was busy.

  ‘I could do some good for you, Hannah,’ her mother was saying.

  Honey cringed. ‘No you could not. I’m already spoken for.’

  Her mother turned to Lindsey. ‘How about…’

  ‘Me too, Gran.’

  ‘Don’t call me Gran!’

  ‘Sorry, Gloria.’

  Gloria Cross could not envisage herself as either old or a grandmother, hence she insisted her Lindsey called her by her first name.

  Lost in myriad thoughts, Honey looked out of the window. A man and woman were making their way along the path leading away from the Dower House to the rear of the main building. Along a corridor, through reception would take them out onto the cobbled crescent itself.

  They were holding hands. The man was dressed in light blue trousers. The woman was wearing stockings – seamed stockings, just like the ones Arabella Rolfe had been wearing.

  It was no big surprise that Arabella Rolfe had had a lover. Everyone she’d spoken to acknowledged that she’d played the field. The trick was to track him down. The personal trainer had been something of a surprise. She’d fully expected him to be all meat and no brains. He’d certainly looked the part in his tight black vest, Spandex shorts, brown hairless legs, and top of the range training shoes – that was when he was wearing clothes. Without them, he probably had a hairless chest, the result of regular exfoliation, plus honey-brown skin made glossy by the application of olive oil … but to find out that he was squiring – if that was the right word – an Italian opera singer of generous proportions and with the lungs to match was a shocker. Sofia Camilleri. That was her name.

  ‘Hannah!’

  Gloria Cross fixed her daughter with glassy-eyed suspicion.

  ‘Are we acceptable company, or were you expecting somebody else? George Clooney perhaps?’

  ‘My mother is having a frozen moment,’ Lindsey declared to her grandmother.

  The word frozen seeped through, fitting in nicely with what was already in Honey’s mind.

  ‘She was pretty cold though she hadn’t been up there that long according to the Medical Examin …’

  That was when she noticed the catlike expressions – like a pair of Siamese cats, one determinedly inquisitive than the other. Her mother and granddaughter were not amused.

  ‘What?’

  Gloria Cross, never one to refuse a glass of Champagne, waved at the second bottle which as yet was unopened.

  ‘Is that there for decoration or is it about to make a speech?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Honey placing the bottle on the table. ‘My mind was elsewhere, but yes, we’ll drink this one too.’

  The waiter did the honours once Gloria had waved at him. Nobody could wave like Honey’s mother, except the Queen. That wave that wasn’t quite a wave but a regal acknowledgement – or command.

  ‘So?’ said her mother once her glass was brimming with bubbles.

  ‘Yeah, Mother. So?’ echoed Lindsey, for once seemingly swimming in the same stream as her grandmother.

  Heaving a sigh, Honey raised her glass. ‘Why not indulge in a second bottle? It’s not every year we celebrate your seventy-fifth birthday, Mother.’

  She caught a slight uplifting at the corners of Lindsey’s lips. They’d celebrated a seventy-fifth last year and the year before that. Oh, what the hell …? Another one or two seventy-fifth birthdays wouldn’t matter as long as it kept her mother happy. Neither would another glass or two of Champagne. And it was good. Extremely good.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Champagne had, in fact, been uncommonly good. It was so good that she tingled from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

  Even though it was late afternoon, the air was warm or at least it felt warm. Though it could be my cheeks, thought Honey, testing their warmth with the bac
k of her hand.

  No matter. She felt good. Lunch had been good. Now she was back in the swim of things. Crime that is. Not hotel. Not until she’d seen John Rees just as she’d promised she would do.

  ‘That’s funny,’ she muttered. Had John told her that he’d moved his bookshop? She didn’t recall that he had, but it did seem that way. She was having a devil of a job finding it, so decided he must have done.

  Thanks to the fresh air breathed in on a few circuits of Queen Square, her head gradually cleared. The route to the bookshop was finally remembered with greater clarity, though accompanied with a slight wobbliness of the chassis. She put this down to the heels of her shoes, not the Champagne. They were high. Classy and sassy.

  The door to J R Books had withstood three centuries of wet British weather, and no matter how many times John Rees took a plane to its hardwood frame, it was always reluctant to open. Two hands plus a nudge from a shoulder was the norm.

  The old-fashioned brass bell jangled loudly heralding her arrival. The bell had always been there, though John insisted it had been used to summon the butler at a country house. She’d never believed that particular tale. The bell was as much part of the old building as the books were – or John Rees himself come to that.

  Inside the air was thick with the smell of aged parchment and leather bindings.

  John had his back to her, in deep and animated conversation with someone she could not see. He turned at the sound of the bell.

  Honey smiled broadly. ‘You said you wanted a word. It sounded very secret,’ she added.

  The man John was with stared at her unsmiling, his face hard and as serious as his clothes. Expensive clothes with razor-sharp trouser seams and gold cufflinks.

  She smiled at him too. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’

  ‘No matter,’ he said curtly and glanced at his watch. ‘I was just going. I’ll be in touch, John.’

  His smile was tight and he didn’t linger, brushing past her, focused firmly on the way out.

  Honey’s antenna was working overtime. She’d interrupted something.

  ‘Was it something I said?’