Caribbean Sunset with a Yellow Parrot (The Belchester Chronicles Book 5)

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Did he take something for it?’ asked Windy.

  ‘For what?’ That vodka must have been taken in double measures.

  ‘For his headache, silly.’

  ‘Sorry. It must be the wind that’s distracting me. Now, where was I?’

  ‘I rather think it’s my turn now. Listen to this. After the mass viewings, both Droopy-Drawers and Fflageolet have approached me about buying the villas they’re staying in. Obviously they won’t be able to give us a deposit at the moment, because all communications with the island are down, and both want to speak to their bank managers first, just to confirm that it’s alright to take such a large sum out of the country, but this is really good news for me and Beep-Beep.’

  Lady Amanda swallowed hard. Things were further advanced than she’d hoped, but they’d have to do something before the island got its communications back. Those two old girls were just ripe for being persuaded that they could transfer the money for the deposit without consultation with their financial advisors, and she wasn’t letting these two fraudsters get away with any more money than they had done already.

  ‘Knowing the shambles they can make with communications on the island, it’ll probably be a couple of days before anything’s up and running again, but that’s not too much time. We can wait.’ The last three words were uttered with little conviction, and Lady A’s mind began to swirl with a seething mass of thoughts.

  She, Hugo, and the Beauchamps were going to have to talk to those two would-be investors and warn them off. If they blew the gaff, then so be it, but she couldn’t permit them to put down a deposit on villas on a plot of land that had such a short lease. If the four of them got together and talked it through, they might be able to get the old girls to wait a bit, so that they could alert the authorities to what Windy and Beep-Beep had been up to, and maybe even get them arrested.

  That still left the problem of the monies already paid, but that would have to wait till later. They could only solve one crime at a time, and passing on what they knew would be future crime prevention. And they’d have to persuade those who were proposing to purchase not to let on to the others who already had. Blast! Life could be really thorny at times.

  ‘Would you like to come here for supper instead of fighting your way over to number eight?’ asked Windy, who was feeling rather sociable, what with her good news, and the effects of the rather vermouth-free martini she had just imbibed.

  ‘Oh don’t worry about us; we’ll be fine. If Hugo’s not feeling up to going to the Beauchamps’, I shall have an early night, and if he is, we’re both of us far too heavy to get blown away.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at how strong the wind can get here,’ Windy countered.

  ‘We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s been a busy few days, and if we can’t get out, it would be nice just to relax a bit and have an early night. You have kept us to a pretty tight schedule since we got here,’ said Lady Amanda, looking entirely innocent.

  ‘I needed to get you all to fall in love with the island in general, and with the villas in particular, so I wanted to keep you as busy as possible and not have any annoying bridge parties, or have you get up to any other antics that didn’t involve Caribbaya and Parrot Bay’s lovely homes.’

  ‘Well, thanks for the tea. I’d better be getting back now, to see if Hugo is awake enough to handle a cup of tea.’

  ‘If you must.’

  Lady Amanda left Cocktails with a feeling of great relief washing over her. She had managed to extract the information she wanted, and had managed not to let anything slip about what was known about the background of embezzlement: but she definitely shouldn’t have had that second vodka and tonic.

  After her return, she and Hugo managed quite a good scratch tea between them, just using bits and pieces left in the fridge and the larder, and were sitting digesting this when there was a furious knocking on the door, barely audible what with the noise of the wind and the lashing rain.

  Hurriedly ushering in Fflageolet, Lady Amanda noticed the woman’s concerned face, which was deathly pale, and asked her whatever the matter was. ‘It’s Horseface: she seems to be in dreadful pain, and she won’t tell me what’s wrong. I simply don’t know what to do with her. She’s just curled up on her bed holding her stomach and groaning with pain, muttering, “No, no, no, not now, not yet.” You don’t think she could be pregnant, do you?’

  ‘That’s hardly likely, given her advanced years, is it?’ barked Lady Amanda, sounding unsympathetic in her worry. ‘We’ll come back with you, but go and pick up Beauchamp on the way. He’s done a first aid course, and he might be able to work out what’s wrong with her, or what might help with the pain. Ignore that. I’ll collect Beauchamp. You’re of such a slight build I’m surprised you didn’t get blown away on your trip over here. Just hang on to Hugo. He’ll make a pretty effective anchor.’

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered Hugo under his breath. ‘So that’s what I am now, is it, an anchor for light old ladies?’

  ‘Come along, old chap. Pay attention, and escort this lady back home. Number one, isn’t it?’ she asked Fflageolet, who nodded in agreement.

  Without another word, Lady Amanda let herself out, pushing the door closed as Hugo fumbled for his jacket – as if that would do anything to protect him in this maelstrom – and shambled as quickly as she could across to number eight to alert Beauchamp that they had a medical emergency on their hands.

  Fflageolet and Hugo found the situation to be just as Fflageolet had described, with Horseface writhing in pain on her bed, still moaning in denial of something. ‘What is it, old girl?’ asked Hugo taking what he considered the considerable liberty of sitting on the edge of her mattress. ‘What has made you so ill?’

  ‘What was in that dish you made at lunchtime,’ she managed to gasp out.

  ‘It was just a bit of tomato sauce with garlic and pasta,’ replied Fflageolet.

  ‘It was more than that. Think!’

  ‘I put in a dollop of the local hot sauce, as there was a bottle of it in the larder. I didn’t want it to go off.’

  Horseface gasped, then gave a loud hollow moan and clutched at her middle. ‘You stupid fool! You’ve no idea what you’ve done, have you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  A chorus of yells interrupted this interesting but uninformative conversation, announcing the arrival of not just Lady Amanda and Beauchamp, but of Enid as well. She had insisted on coming with them, as she’d had all those years of experience looking after her mother: and also in case it was anything delicate that Horseface didn’t want disclosed to her old school friends.

  Having been admitted to the house by Fflageolet, they went upstairs to join the throng, only to have Beauchamp take in the seriousness of Horseface’s plight, and send her housemate, Lady Amanda, and Hugo downstairs, so that he and Enid could try to find out exactly what had got her into this situation.

  They left a little grumpily at not being involved in the action, but appreciated that there was not room in the bedroom for them all. Fflageolet allayed her fears with the distraction of making tea, while Hugo sat patiently, Lady A impatiently on a sofa to await any news.

  Back in the bedroom, Enid sat down on the edge of the bed, held Horseface’s hand, and asked her what had caused this parlous state of affairs. ‘Can’t tell you,’ she wailed, clutching at her middle again, then whimpering, ‘Oh no, oh no, not now. Please God, not now.’

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ asked Enid in a soft, concerned voice.

  Beauchamp sat on the other side of the bed and took the woman’s other hand, now not wrapped round her middle. ‘Is it something you’ve eaten?’ he asked.

  Pulling both hands down to the lower end of her abdomen, she cried out in anguish, and grunted, ‘Yes. Hot sauce.’

  ‘Then, you’re probably just in for a bout of the runs, like Hugo had. Let’s get you to the bathroom,’ advised Enid.

  ‘I can’t! I can’t! Not on the lavatory. I just ca
n’t,’ Horseface cried out, clutching once more at the lower end of her body.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Beauchamp.

  ‘He’ll kill me for sure. And if he doesn’t, someone else from above will,’ was grunted at him.

  ‘Whatever are you talking about? Who will kill you? And what’s this about someone from above?’ asked the butler, in a reassuring voice.

  ‘Get her to get a bucket,’ Horseface enunciated with difficulty. ‘I’ll tell you, but I don’t want anyone else to know; only you,’ she informed Beauchamp.

  ‘Do as she says,’ he said, turning round to look at Enid, ‘and when you get back, hand it through to me, then join the others downstairs.’ Enid did as she had been instructed. It would seem that her husband had won the poor patient’s confidence, and she had to talk to someone. Whatever had she done to herself?

  When she got back downstairs and sat down beside Hugo, Fflageolet asked, ‘Is she being sick now? At least it’ll get whatever’s upset her out of her system.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on up there. I was definitely persona non-grata, but we can leave it to Beechy. She’ll confide in him. He has that sort of effect on people, getting them to tell him their troubles.’

  Lady Amanda winced as she heard this abominable diminutive of her butler’s name, but realised that things were out of her hands now. As far as Beauchamp was concerned, she only had domestic power over him. It was Enid who would be the mainstay of his life, now they were married.

  In the bedroom, Horseface was very slowly giving up her tale of woe and the perilous situation in which she was going to find herself. Beauchamp’s first question when Enid discreetly handed the bucket round the door was, ‘Do you want to be sick?’

  ‘No,’ came the reply, filled with pain.

  ‘What do you want to do, then?’

  ‘Can’t tell you.’

  ‘I think you realise that you have to. If you’re in any danger, you need as many people fighting for your corner as you can get,’ he warned her.

  Slowly, her tale of troubles began to unravel, in between waves of pain.

  Horseface had been a probation officer in her working life, and had recently been sought out by one of her ex-regular ‘clients’, a fearsome gangster that she’d been in such terror of that she’d eventually handed his case on to one of her colleagues. He had always been involved in drug distribution, and he told her that he wanted her to do a ‘little job’ for him.

  Somehow, he had heard about her upcoming trip to Caribbaya, and he had been given the name of a contact on the island. Knowing that she’d always feared him, he’d informed her that she was wanted as a drugs mule, being of a perfect age to avoid suspicion, and that if she didn’t comply, then he’d make sure that drugs were found in her home, following an anonymous tip-off to the police. That would really mess up the last quarter of her life, and she would lose any respect she had enjoyed from her family and friends, he’d sneered.

  When that didn’t quite work, he’d simply threatened to cut her face off.

  That had been enough to convince Horseface to come over here and make the required contact with the person next up the chain. At the moment, she wasn’t willing to divulge who that was, but what she did tell Beauchamp was that she had been persuaded to swallow a number of condoms stuffed with heroin.

  Not only had she been foolish enough to ingest them before she went to bed for a few hours’ sleep the night before, but then she had honestly believed she could get a ferry to the north island the next morning, and pick up a direct flight back to England. Then Fflageolet, in her innocence, had spiced up their lunch with a liberal helping of hot sauce.

  At this point, the pain became much worse, and Beauchamp needed no telling what she needed the bucket for. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he assured her, and went to stand just outside the door for events to develop.

  Having heard the door opening and closing, Fflageolet called upstairs, ‘Everything alright, Beauchamp?’

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ called up Lady Amanda.

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ he called back. ‘Just leave us up here until the crisis passes, then I’ll let you know what’s happening.’ There was a commanding tone to his voice that it was as well to obey, but he left the others with all sorts of thoughts going through their minds.

  ‘He can’t actually remove someone’s appendix, can he?’ asked Fflageolet, crediting the butler with considerably more medical knowledge and skill than he possessed.

  ‘Not as far as I know, but you never know with Beauchamp. He has all sorts of unexpected and unusual skills,’ replied Lady A, with pride in her voice.

  Back up on the landing, there was a considerable amount of grunting coming from behind the closed bedroom door, and Beauchamp stood outside with an impassive face, his mind focused completely on how he was going to get the evidence out of the house without Fflageolet being aware of what he was up to. Presumably, Horseface didn’t want what she’d done bandied all over the close.

  As he mused on this, a tiny voice from within informed him that ‘they’ were all out now’, and he re-entered the room to find Horseface very red in the face, not just from her exertions on the bucket, but with embarrassment, the contents of the bucket covered with a handful of tissues she had used to clean up her rear end.

  ‘Now what do we do?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘What we do now, is that I call down for my wife, and she sneaks the bucket out of the house – thank God this isn’t one of the open plan ones. Is the key still in the lock of the back door?’

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

  ‘I’m going to get her to stick it in our outdoors storage cupboard, then come back in and make as if she’s coming down the stairs and not been downstairs and outside, or gone anywhere. I’m then going to give her a minute, and flush the lavatory a few times, and go down myself.’

  ‘What about the bucket? Whatever are you going to tell them about it being missing?’

  ‘I’ll say I had to have several goes at flushing away what was in it, and it smelled so disgusting, that I put the vomit-soiled receptacle out on the flat conservatory roof for a minute, and that the wind whisked it away, but I’m sure Windy won’t mind providing another one, as it was, after all, only a cheap plastic bucket. And I’m going to tell them that you’ve been sick, rather than tell them what actually happened. Just remember to stick to that story, and we’ll be alright. We’ll get this sorted together. Then you’re going to have to talk to me some more.

  ‘We can’t dispose of the drugs, because that will leave your life in danger. What we can do, is clean up the full condoms, and return them to whoever gave them to you, and let whoever it was give them to another mug to take through Customs for him. But it’ll have to be in the very near future, because whoever it is, is going to be bound to find out that you haven’t actually left the island because of the weather.’

  ‘It was Short John Silver,’ she whispered in an almost inaudible voice. ‘Can I come and talk to you tomorrow, please?’

  ‘Of course you can. Now, try to get some sleep. You’ve been through a terrifying experience, and are probably suffering from shock at the cancellation of the ferry and the lack of available direct flights back to England, not to mention the danger from one of the swallowed condoms bursting and killing you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, shivering with shock, getting back into her rumpled bed, and pulling the thin duvet back over her shoulders, resuming the position in which they had originally found her.

  Beauchamp went out on to the landing and called down to those waiting, asking Enid to come up and assuring the other three that they would be able to come up too and see the invalid in about ten minutes’ time, and to stay where they were for now.

  So worried were the other three that they did as they were told, and Enid dealt with the bucket and its contents, being used to emptying commodes for her elderly mother when she had lived with her. Following her husband’s instructions to the letter, sh
e crept back in and up to the landing again, while Beauchamp went into the bathroom and flushed the lavatory three times in succession, also opening the window for a few seconds, and pulling it shut again, just for the sake of veracity. He had no idea how sound would carry in this sort of modern structure, and he didn’t want to be caught out in his lies and duplicity.

  Closing the door softly behind him, he went down the stairs and told the other four, now that Enid had re-joined them, that Horseface was perfectly alright now she’d got whatever had disagreed with her out of her system, but they’d better leave her, as she was completely exhausted.

  ‘Where’s the bucket?’ asked Fflageolet, ever vigilant about possessions.

  ‘I’m afraid there was a bit of a mishap with that,’ explained Beauchamp, with a perfectly straight face. ‘I don’t know whether you heard me opening and closing the window in the bathroom, but what was in the bucket did smell foul. I didn’t think, and slipped it out on to the flat roof , but the wind caught it as soon as I got it over the sill, and just whipped it away. I last saw it flying over to the jungle, where it’ll probably land right in the canopy of the trees and disgust some wildlife with its pong.’

  ‘Never mind. You meant well,’ replied Fflageolet, just relieved that her housemate wasn’t going to die, ‘and it was only a plastic bucket, so it won’t cost much to replace.’

  Beauchamp sighed with relief, and collected the other three members of his party, leading them back to number eight, where they could have a private discussion without interruption, for who, in their right mind, would disturb a pair of honeymooners?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back in the love-nest, the butler told his tale, and Lady Amanda had to be physically restrained from going off to Old Uncle Obediah’s Rum Keg Landing Beach Bar immediately. ‘We can’t go at this time of day while the storm is still high. We have to leave it to when the weather has calmed down and we can confront him without having to shout above the accompanying tympani and lights departments,’ he advised, both he and Hugo holding on to an arm each until their temporary captive calmed down.