The Ghost of Christmas Past: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 8)

by Jean G Goodhind

Her protest was ignored. Her mother was nothing if not persistent.

  ‘You ought to check it out. I’ve pulled no punches. I know you’ll be pleased when you see it. I’ve used a few photos of you that I already had.’

  ‘Please. Not the one of me when I was nine months old and naked on a sheepskin rug?’

  ‘No.’ Her mother paused. ‘Still, it is pretty tasteful, and you were only young. It’s not as though it would be considered erotic, now, would it?’

  Honey rolled her eyes and mouthed, Give me strength!

  ‘Mother, I’ve already told you that I’ve got a man in my life. I don’t need another.’

  Her mother wasn’t really listening. ‘Things are really going well and your details did attract interest. I’ve put them in the pending folder for now until you get chance to have a look. They seem pretty keen; pretty well-heeled too.’

  Honey was mortified. ‘I feel like a set of crockery on eBay: “a bit chipped, but useable”.’

  Her comment was totally ignored. ‘I’ve got a counter on it that measures the hits I receive. Fred set it up that way. He’s very good. He learned all about computers at U3A.’

  U3A was University for the Third Age. The over-sixties were well-catered for in Bath.

  Honey scrunched up her features and squared her shoulders. She looked and felt ready for a fight. All to no avail of course. Her mother was blind as well as deaf when it suited her.

  ‘Take a look at the site. I’m sure you’ll change our mind,’ she was saying.

  ‘I will when I can. I’m a little busy right now. We’ve got a full complement for lunch tomorrow and the kitchen is in need of help.’

  The last bit was a lie. They had no more busy lunches now until Christmas Day. She felt guilty about lying at Christmas, but hoped she’d be forgiven. Her mother’s relentless determination was enough to try a saint.

  ‘And there’s still lots to do for Christmas Day,’ Honey added.

  At the mention of Christmas Day, her mother changed the subject.

  ‘I’ve got a great dress for Christmas Day. It’s silver. I look svelte in it and I have to stay that way. We don’t give our last performance until the fifth of January, so I can’t eat much. I have to get into my costume. I can’t possibly disappoint my fans. Now just remember not to be late for tonight’s performance.’

  Being beautifully turned-out was very important to Gloria Cross. Honey would be wearing a little black dress on Christmas Day. It clung in all the right places and happily avoided the wrong ones. A simple set of large pearls would set it off. It was all she’d have time for.

  Honey promised she would not be late for the opening night of Cinderella. Her mother was starring in the title role. OK, she was a tad old for the part, but so were the rest of the cast. Bath Senior Citizens’ Drama Society made up for lack of youth with oodles of enthusiasm.

  She would be at the panto and Doherty was going with her – though he didn’t know it yet.

  In the meantime, she made the decision to keep her finger on the pulse of this murder and not just because of her plans. Being murdered once was pretty gruesome; getting murdered three times over was downright unusual. She mentioned the fact to Mary Jane, at the same time swearing her to great secrecy.

  ‘I’ve heard of something like that before,’ said Mary Jane. ‘The ancient Britons used to do it. They did it to Pete Marsh.’

  Honey frowned. ‘Never heard of him. When did that murder happen?’

  ‘Round about the time when Queen Boudicca went on the rampage.’

  Honey didn’t ask why the man had been called Pete Marsh. She had enough on her mind, though she was open to any theory, however outlandish.

  The ultimate in best-laid-plans entered her head; what if she was the one to solve this crime? She could see the headline now. Hotelier Nabs Scrimshaw Slayer. What a boost to earnings that would be!

  John Rees phoned to ask if she’d like to pop in for a pre-Christmas drink. ‘I have sherry. I know you Brits like sherry.’

  She said she’d be right round, but only a small sherry, please. She didn’t tell him that she didn’t like it. Sherry was very sweet, but so, for that matter, was John.

  Cobblers Court was not far from John’s bookshop. She decided to call into the bookshop first, then wind her way to Cobblers Court.

  Huddling deep into her coat, she ventured out into a wintry evening. The mist was coming down again like a piece of damp muslin. The air was getting colder, the moon was coming up, and a heavy frost was promised.

  The shop windows were still blazing with light, prettiest when those windows were bow fronted. Narrowing her eyes, she imagined that the shoppers peering into window displays were wearing crinolines and poke bonnets. The task proved pretty difficult seeing as even the prettiest young women were dressed in black leggings, heavy boots, and padded jackets.

  She sighed. Oh well. That was progress for you.

  Cobblers Court was a different matter. Was it her imagination, or was it darker and mistier here?

  Two policemen were standing to either side of the door to Mallory and Scrimshaw. There was a fair chance that they’d be standing guard duty all over the holiday, stamping their feet to keep the blood circulating.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ somebody shouted.

  As if on cue, a light flurry of snowflakes fluttered like confetti from the narrow strip of sky between the buildings.

  A figure hovered at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Bee in the Bonnet, bearing two steaming cups of hot drinks. The policemen needed no encouragement, stomping over to cup their hands around the hot mugs.

  The odd pedestrian wandered past, but the initial interest in the murder had waned. Last-minute shopping had a lot to answer for, as did the signs going up for the January sales.

  Just as she was debating whether to sneak into the Mallory and Scrimshaw building, she became aware that she was not alone.

  Another figure was standing at the entrance to the alley leading into Cobblers Court. Tall and broad shouldered, she thought at first that he was watching her. On further observation, she realised he was watching the policemen, standing quite still and pensive, as though chewing through his thoughts.

  Then suddenly he wasn’t alone. Lindsey joined him. The man was Professor Jake Truebody.

  The urge to rush out and warn her daughter that this man wasn’t right for her was very strong. But she couldn’t do that. On the other hand she didn’t want to be here and be accused of being the interfering mother. For goodness’ sake, she knew how it felt to have one of those.

  She saw Lindsey was holding her camera. Judging by her actions and the little she could hear, her daughter was trying to take Jake’s picture. The professor wasn’t having it. She saw him mouth no; heard him protest, his refusal louder now.

  ‘No.’

  This time Lindsey seemed to accept that he was unwilling to be photographed. Her daughter looked disappointed. Truebody was unruffled. He looked confident; triumphant.

  Preferring to remain unseen, she drifted away down the short alley that sprouted off the main one. Narrower than the main alley, it ran between the buildings and felt as though it were being squashed even smaller by their presence. She’d get to John’s bookshop that way – a little longer, but needs must.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lindsey had done her best to take a photograph, but Jake would not allow it.

  He was looking up at a battalion of starlings sitting high above on a stone parapet.

  ‘It’s very Dickensian,’ he said loudly. His voice echoed around the old stonework that surrounded them. It was like being inside a very large box with very high sides.

  The starlings on the ledges rustled their wings and shifted at the noise. A few dropped baggage. He saw it coming and stepped smartly aside.

  Lindsey Driver was perusing the guide book. ‘It dates from much earlier than the reign of Queen Victoria. Years ago it was an Inn of Court.’

  ‘Hell, you don’t say. What does that
mean?’

  Not totally surprised by his ignorance, she looked at him, her expression blank. Her mind was not blank.

  ‘A place where lawyers had their offices.’

  He was standing there with his hands in his pockets gazing upwards, still apparently studying the starlings.

  ‘Is that so?’ He smiled when he looked at her. ‘You’re a smart kid.’

  ‘I’m not a kid.’

  ‘No insult was intended. You have a youthful countenance. Don’t knock it. Even in old age you’ll still look young. How good is that?’ His tone, along with his smile, could charm the pants off an aged grandmother. Lindsey suspected doing the same to her was very much part of the plan, but Jake Truebody was out of luck. He’d met his match but just didn’t know it yet.

  She threw him a weak smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Entering and searching his room hadn’t been as successful as she would have liked. The real man beneath the name – she was pretty certain it wasn’t his real name – was locked in that computer notebook he carried in his bag. She was sure of it.

  Basically, he could tell her pretty much what he liked about Carl Driver. She hadn’t known her father for that long or that well. Most of the details she had were second-hand, passed down by those who had known him – mostly her mother.

  And he’d turned up at Christmas. Why Christmas? Why here? Why had he homed in on them? And why had she been so accommodating, offering to give him a guided tour.

  The fact was that he’d turned up just before the news about her mother and Steve Doherty. OK, there was an element of pique here. She’d gone out of her way to accommodate his request for a tourist guide, firstly because of his connection with her father, then because her mother had not faced her with the facts about her and Doherty. Not that she really minded – not deep down. It was just that she felt a need to prove herself, to make them see that she was not a child.

  They descended the steps at the side of Pulteney Bridge and strolled along the towpath. The night was drawing in, but people were still out and about, some the worse for drink, others overburdened with shopping.

  Jake sighed and looked up at the stars. ‘Look at all those stars. Tonight reminds me of a childhood Christmas. I was seven. It was just me and my Mom.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘They’d parted. I’m not sure how old I was when he lit out, but according to my mother I was about five.’

  ‘Did you ever see him again?’

  ‘No. He died. Some kind of accident. Right on Christmas. Pretty dreadful, huh?’

  She agreed with him that it was pretty dreadful.

  ‘So you lived in Maine.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Not all the time?’

  ‘Depended on work and relatives around to take care of me. Not that my mother left me alone a lot.’

  ‘She cared for you.’

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘How did you manage for money?’

  ‘We managed.’

  Up until this moment, she’d prodded without seeing any adverse reaction. Now she sensed he was clamming up. The last thing she wanted was for him to be suspicious. There was so much still to find out.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t guess what she was up to. She couldn’t afford to lose his trust – not if she wanted to uncover his secret.

  ‘So you’re a professor of history. What’s your speciality?’

  ‘American history, of course! Especially Native American. I just love that whole period from the landing of the English at Plymouth Rock, to the defeat of Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It is indeed.’

  He went on a bit about Jamestown and also the Native American princess, Pocahontas.

  ‘How far is Gravesend?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Is it close by?’

  She explained that Gravesend was on the eastern side of the country close to the mouth of the River Thames.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m asking.’

  ‘Yes.’ Actually, she knew very well why he was asking, but he went on to explain anyway.

  ‘Princess Pocahontas. That’s where she was buried when she came to this country with her husband, John Smith. She died of smallpox. I personally think that her body should be returned to her people.’

  Lindsey hid her twitching lips in the comfort of her high collar. She was almost laughing. She knew the history; Pocahontas, or Rebecca as she came to be known, had married John Rolfe, not John Smith. The latter was the man she’d rescued; the former the man she’d married.

  In fact there had been excavations around the church where Rebecca Rolfe – Pocahontas – was said to have been buried. No trace of her was ever found.

  She didn’t voice the real facts to him. It occurred to her that now might be the right time to tell her mother of her misgivings, but something was holding her back. Perhaps curiosity was passed through the genes; her mother had a mind for sleuthing. Perhaps she did too.

  They circled back up and walked again through Cobblers Court. Everything was quiet now.

  ‘This place is pretty old,’ she said. ‘A murder happened here the other day.’

  ‘Is that so? It’s damned cold here, I’ll give you that,’ he replied.

  Jake Truebody was presently feeling the benefit of a long grey coat, a thick grey scarf, and a black hat with a broad brim. The latter was not exactly a Stetson. The curved crown and broad brim was more Deep South preacher than Midwest cow-poke. The scarf was held in place with a shiny pin shaped like a leaping buffalo. When she’d admired it he told her it had been a gift form a Native American.

  ‘Shall we move on?’ His voice sounded as though it was growling from the back of his throat.

  ‘Why not? Though I have to inform you that most museums are closed at this time of year, so I’m afraid it’s purely the architecture. And fighting our way through the last-minute shoppers.’

  ‘I’m descended from a long line of pioneer types. I’m sure I can handle a bunch of intrepid shoppers, old thing.’

  I was a young thing five minutes ago, Lindsey thought to herself, though she smiled and made things seem perfectly normal

  ‘So what’s the smile for?’ asked Jake Truebody.

  Lindsey latched on to a reasonable excuse.

  ‘It’s the time of year. Everyone’s happy at this time of year, aren’t they?’

  ‘Some of us,’ he said, ‘but there are always ghosts of Christmases past. Bittersweet memories some of them.’

  Christmas greetings rang around the tiny bookshop. The shop frontage was only about ten feet wide, but inside it sprawled like a narrow and very deep cave. One section of books followed another, the width of shop diminishing with each section traversed.

  John Rees kissed her and pressed a schooner of sherry into her hand.

  ‘Harvey’s Bristol Cream,’ he said, nodding at the blue glass he had handed her. ‘Only the best.’

  ‘So I see. The glasses too. Very nice.’

  ‘Bristol Blue. I bought them from a shop in Bristol.’

  He handed her a vol-au-vent topped with green cheese and a solitary prawn. ‘So how goes life?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How’s your policeman? Are you still going strong?’

  She knew he’d ask. At one stage John Rees had been a definite contender for her affections. Sadly for him, Doherty had got there first.

  ‘Yes. We are.’

  ‘Shame.’

  His expression dropped in mock sadness. Perhaps because of the shape of his beard and his head, he resembled a mask from a Greek tragedy.

  Yes, there was a time in the not-so-distant past when John Rees had been in with a chance of sharing her bed. The warm-voiced American was tall and lean, and his dress sense wasn’t far removed from that of Detective Chief Inspector Steve Doherty. A denim shirt of one colour worn with denim jeans of a different shade. The look was confidently masculine, casually thrown together to be comfortable rath
er than to impress.

  ‘I heard about the murder,’ he said. ‘Poor old Clarence Scrimshaw.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Sure I did. He came in here now and again, though quite frankly he was way out of my league. Big collector. Big money.’

  Honey was instantly confused – and just a little curious. She stopped thinking of what John might have been like in bed, and skipped to a question.

  ‘You mean he actually spent money on something? His staff and everyone else who brushed his way portrayed him as the skinflint to end all skinflints. Scrooge with a capital “S”.

  John sipped at his drink then wiped his top lip with finger and thumb before continuing.

  ‘He collected Bibles.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Very old Bibles.’

  ‘Should I twin old with valuable here?’

  ‘You bet you should!’

  ‘Ball-park figure?’

  He shrugged. ‘Anything from ten thousand pounds to well over a hundred thousand. It all depends on the rarity. Tyndale’s 1537 Bible fetches a good price, though there are rumours of older and rarer. Take Wycliffe. It’s said that his manuscript Bibles were enough to get a contemporary, John Hus, burned at the stake. It was him that forecast the coming of Martin Luther. Now if you could find one of those Bibles, the sky’s the limit …’

  ‘Do you know anything else about him?’

  ‘A little. I know where he lives. I even know a few of his authors. Nothing about his, or even if he had any.’

  She finished her glass of sherry and wiped her lips with one last kiss on his mouth.

  ‘Thanks for the sherry and the nibble. How about I return the hospitality and you come around after lunch on Christmas Day? A drink or two? A mince pie or some butter-rich Scottish shortbread?’

  ‘I’m a pushover for shortbread, but I’m afraid I’ll have to pass. I have a date.’

  ‘Shame.’

  He used his thumb to wipe a crumb from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘But if Starsky ever dumps you, remember where there’s a shoulder to cry on.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’

  On her way back to the hotel, she phoned Doherty.

  ‘Guess what? I know what was in that parcel.’