She blurted the truth. ‘It’s being performed by the Senior Citizens’ Club and my mother is playing Cinderella.’
‘What was that you said?’ he called from beneath the tumbling warm water.
She barely stopped herself from chewing her lip again. Going on like this she’d have no bottom lip left and then what would she look like? A gargoyle?
Doherty not hearing her brave declaration was a bad thing. Her courage went. She’d saved it all up and now she was going to chicken out.
Tell him. Go on. Tell him.
Gathering all her courage, she opened her mouth, the words ready to come out – though not very willing.
‘We’re going to a show.’
What a chicken!
‘Great! That’s great,’ he shouted back.
Honey puffed air then addressed her cowardly image in the big mirror above the fireplace.
‘Honey Driver, you are going to regret that lie.’ She studied her reflection, winked, and clicked her tongue. ‘But your hair looks great.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Honey felt guilty about dancing around the truth, but told herself she’d make up for it. Sitting through a pantomime where Cinderella was in her seventies and Prince Charming was wearing a truss beneath his tights would certainly be an experience, though not necessarily a good one.
Doherty and her mother didn’t get on. Once he knew where they were going, he would groan, and even contemplate rushing to Manvers Street where he could lock himself in a cell.
Once she got him inside and seated, things could get even worse. Seeing her mother dressed cavorting around the stage as the traditionally youthful Cinderella would probably send him into fits of laughter. He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face and her mother would be livid afterwards. Gloria Cross didn’t think of herself as old. She didn’t act it. She didn’t really look it and as long as she could afford things bearing a designer label, she would go on forever.
You’re overreacting. Stay calm. He’ll be OK about it.
There was no guarantee that he would, but thinking the thought helped seemed to make things OK.
Wearing a black dress beneath a grey wool coat, and wine-coloured boots on her feet, Honey reckoned she looked good and could do just about anything. Convincing Doherty that it made sense for him to sleep in the honeymoon suite fell a bit flat.
‘But I’ll be patient and understanding,’ he’d said to her after he’d showered, and she’d helped him rub him dry, and applied his body oil, and they’d had the sort of time where one thing consequentially led to another.
Things will work out.
The night air promised a widespread frost, with ice on the pavements and white roofs by morning. Venturing out in the comfort of a low-slung sports car was preferable to walking. The pantomime was being held in a de-consecrated church across the road from Waitrose and not far from the central post office.
‘You smell good,’ he said as she slid into the front seat.
‘French perfume. I figured you might want to smell that I was here even though you can’t really see much of me bundled up against the cold.’
‘So I notice. Getting through all those clothes to your bare flesh would be like going on safari. It would take some time but I would get there in the end.’
He was keeping quiet about the honeymoon suite. She took it that he’d accepted the situation and that was it.
David Longborough opened the door of his apartment in Newbridge on the western side of the city.
‘About time.’
He sloped off into the living room, leaving Sam Brown to close the door and follow him.
When they’d first met, she’d been attracted by his offhand manner, thinking that it represented him being hard on the outside and soft in the middle. Even now she made excuses for his rudeness, telling herself that clever people were often rude because everyone else wasn’t up to speed. David himself had told her that.
‘Because I’m clever, I can bend the system. And I get away with it. Wear confidence like you would a coat, Samantha, and you’ll always come out on top. Everyone will believe anything you say.’
She was one of those who really had believed whatever he’d told her. Only recently had she harboured some misgivings about his nature – mostly with regard to his feelings for her.
He poured himself a Jack Daniel’s, turned, and slugged it back in one.
‘So what did they ask you?’
‘The police, you mean?’
‘Who the bloody hell do you think I mean? Of course I mean the bloody police! What did they ask you?’
As she had been Clarence Scrimshaw’s secretary, with access to his movements, contacts, and daily diary, Sam was one of the employees who’d been summoned for an interview at the station.
‘Just general things, David. About Mr Scrimshaw’s habits. I told them what you said for me to say. I told them he liked a bit of nookie, pinching my bum and that kind of thing, when nobody was around. Not that he did, of course,’ she added quickly, suddenly worried that he might believe the lies and be jealous. Not that he should. The lies had been concocted between them, though mostly by him. But David was funny like that.
Suddenly he gripped her shoulders. ‘You’d better have done it right, girl. You’d better not have opened your mouth and said the wrong thing.’
‘I didn’t. Ouch! Don’t do that.’
His fingers were digging into her shoulders. His breath was heavy with Jack Daniel’s.
‘Just you make sure you keep to that story. He got fresh with you after you came back from an errand. That’s the story you’re to stick to. Right?’
‘I told them that. I told them he’d always fancied his chances. That day I’d just come back from the dry cleaners …’
‘You stupid bitch!’
The slap was hard, jolting her head. She heard her neck crack. She cupped her aching cheek, already turning red from the force of the blow that had sent her sprawling onto the sofa.
‘There was no need to do that.’ She turned scared eyes on him. He’d never hit her before. He’d threatened, but never had.
His expression was as hard as stone.
‘There was no need to mention where you’d been. All you had to say was that you’d been on an errand.’
‘Sorry.’ She hung her head, tears stinging her eyes.
‘You coming to bed now?’ he said brightly. David Longborough could change his mood to suit. It was as though nothing much had happened, certainly not clouting her hard enough to take her head off her shoulders.
If she was sensible, she would get out now. She used to be sensible, but that was before David Longborough had come along. Doing what David wanted had become a habit, one that she was having trouble breaking. The cracks were appearing, but for now she would go along with what he wanted – at least, until she didn’t love him any more.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Doherty was looking slightly dazed. ‘A pantomime!’ He sounded exasperated.
‘Half a pantomime. We’ve missed at least half of it.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘Oh come on. They’re fun. Don’t deny that you enjoyed them when you were a kid.’
‘That was different. Your mother wasn’t playing Cinderella.’
St Michael’s Church had a rounded front with handsome pillars. The walls to left and right of this ran perpendicular to Walcot Parade and Broad Street.
Crowds of people seemed to be milling around at the front of the building, the lights were still on, making the stained glass windows shine in the darkness.
Honey glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sure she said that they wouldn’t be finishing until ten thirty.’
‘You mean we’ve missed all of it?’
Honey snarled and gave him snake eyes. ‘Stop sounding so pleased about it.’
He was craning his neck, seeing something over the crowd and the roofs of cars that she couldn’t see. At 6’1 he could do that.
‘This pantomime �
�� was it likely to cause a riot or offend public decency?’ He sounded half curious, half amused.
Honey tried standing on tiptoe, but couldn’t see much at all. What was he talking about?
‘Of course not. Cinderella only lost a glass slipper, not her underwear!’
‘Well, they’re not here to catch the show.’
He nodded to a police car – all warning stripes, blue light currently unlit.
Two policemen were heading for their car, carrying between them what appeared to be a yellow and purple spotted parcel.
Doherty waited until they’d stuffed the bundle into the back seat as best they could. He knew the two uniforms as Humpty and Dumpty. KFC was their obvious lunch of choice. Both were a bit overweight and in danger of being ordered on a Police Federation fitness course.
Honey saw what had been stuffed into the back of their car. ‘What’s with the horse? Are the mounted police short of horses at the present time?’
‘Hey, guys!’
The two uniforms acknowledged his presence.
‘So what’s going on?’ he asked them.
One of the policemen, the one Doherty called Humpty, pushed his hat onto the back of his head and wiped his brow with a man-size tissue before he answered. Meanwhile, his colleague, Dumpty, who was bent double complaining about his back, declared his intention to go back in and make an arrest.
‘Not until I get some details,’ said Doherty.
‘Well,’ said Humpty, still mopping his brow. ‘It appears that this horse was stolen from the back of the Theatre Royal. The actors playing the front end and rear end of this horse were both smokers so they went outside to have a puff. No problem with that, they were merely obeying the smoking laws. They were still half-clothed – in their outfit,’ he said, nodding and looking Doherty straight in the eye in an effort to make him understand. ‘As a horse.’
‘A pantomime horse.’
‘Correct, sir. They were still wearing the lower half of their costume – the legs that is, but had taken off the upper part, the head etc., which they were carrying between them under their arms.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, his red face steadily abating. ‘They then decided that they wanted to use the lavatory and they couldn’t go there dressed in their respective lower halves of the costume, which would of course get in the way. So, accordingly, they disrobed, leaving the two bottom halves of the horse outside, plus the upper half which forms the body, head, and tail of the horse. Unfortunately, when they got back, it was were gone.’
Her ears tuned to the conversation, Honey kept her eyes fixed on what was happening outside the church. What she saw next confirmed that peace at Christmastide wasn’t likely to be on the menu at the Green River.
The policeman who’d gone in with handcuffs at the ready, was now heading their way and was not alone. He had a tight hold on her mother’s arm and she wasn’t going quietly.
‘This is police brutality! You are contravening my human rights and I shall sue you for millions!’
Her mother had obviously been interrupted before the clock struck twelve because she was still wearing what passed for glass slippers (a cool pair of glittery Manolo Blahniks) and a sumptuous tulle dress that looked like something Norman Hartnell might have designed for the Queen back in the mid-fifties.
Honey let out a heartfelt sigh, backing it up with a good slice of indignation. ‘My mother did not steal that horse!’
‘She’s right,’ shouted her mother. ‘I did not!’
The policeman was unimpressed. ‘Put that in the statement.’
Some policemen had the wrong attitude, but they had a hard job to do. Honey didn’t begrudge them their off days. However, although there were times when she could happily cover her mother in concrete, this wasn’t one of them. Besides, she felt responsible for this happening. The horse had been requisitioned from her premises. She shoved her face up close to the red faced copper.
‘There is no way I am allowing you to arrest my mother. Your own common sense should tell you that she couldn’t have stolen it. It’s heavy. You know that, and look at her. She’s an old lady, too weak to carry two bags of Chinese takeaway, let alone a thing like that.’
‘I resent that comment!’
Trust her mother not to swallow that one. Comments about her age were never well received.
Dumpty rolled his eyes. ‘That’s all I need. An eccentric old lady stealing pantomime pieces.’
‘How dare you!’ He grimaced as the toe of a top of the range designer shoe met his shin.
‘That does it! I’m arresting you …’
Reaching too swiftly and too sharply for the pair of handcuffs fixed to his belt, proved a bad move; his back kicked in again.
‘Jee-sus …’ he groaned. He looked as though he might kick a cat if there happened to be a conveniently placed moggy handy.
‘Look, lady, I’m having difficult times of late and I’ve no time for hard luck stories from tottery old ladies …’
‘Tottery! Listen, sonny, I can walk in these shoes. You certainly couldn’t!’
Everyone took a look at the high-heeled shiny shoes. Honey shook her head. ‘You’ve got to give my mother credit,’ she said to the policeman. ‘She copes with those shoes. Anyone else would be tottery wearing those shoes. I would be tottery. But stealing a pantomime horse while wearing them? No way!’
The policeman about to put her mother in cuffs looked less sure about how to proceed.
‘I don’t suppose it would look good for the police, especially at this time of year.’
Honey looked to Doherty to intervene, but he was having none of it. He was leaning back, elbow resting on the car roof, probably to stop himself collapsing with laughter.
Humpty, the policeman with the tissue, brought a couple of grey cells into play. ‘Well I have to agree with you there. We could barely lift it between us. Anyone old wouldn’t be able to manage it.’
He yelped as her mother clocked him around the head with the fairy godmother’s wand which somehow she’d ended up with.
‘I’m not that decrepit!’
‘Madam, I must warn you …’
This was getting out of hand. Honey addressed Doherty. ‘Well? Are you going to say something?’
Doherty straightened and took his hand away from his mouth. Just as she’d figured, he was on the verge of laughing.
‘Look, Adge,’ he said, addressing the big man with the sweating forehead by his real name. ‘You’ll feel like a right fool when word gets round that an old dear got the better of you. You’ll be the laughing stock of Manvers Street, besides which, guys, you could be speaking to my future mother-in-law.’
‘Is that right?’ said Dumpty, the one with the bad back and a pained expression. His eyebrows were arched almost to his hairline and he was looking at Honey’s mother as though he didn’t envy Doherty’s predicament.
Honey squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Doherty shook his head. ‘I take it your mother’s in the dark too?’
‘Kind of. She’s just ignoring the obvious.’
On reopening her eyes she saw that her mother was wearing a shocked expression and her wand no longer resembled a lethal weapon. It was bent in the middle and the star was dangling from the end.
‘Abracadabra,’ said Doherty, smiling as he lifted the star with the tip of his finger. ‘Look guys. Can we leave this until after the holidays?’
The two constables looked at each other. Doherty knew that one of them was a stickler for never changing his mind about an arrest – even if there was a fair chance that the perpetrator turned out to be innocent. Humpty was famous for sticking to his guns.
Honey was entertaining visions of her mother locked up over the Christmas period, sleeping on a thin mattress, covered only by a plain blanket, not her usual chintzy rose-patterned bedspread trimmed with Nottingham lace. Nor would there be a hint of Chanel No.5 hanging in the air. Instead she’d have to endure the smell of boiled c
abbage and sickly sweet custard.
Honey ran through the various options she could do about this. Smuggling in a file hidden inside a roast capon wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility, but the hiding place would be pretty obvious. There had to be a better course of action.
‘Look, constable. Can’t we be reasonable about this?’
She didn’t usually resort to female seduction, but her mother and jail just didn’t mix. She fluttered her eyelashes and stroked his arm.
Doherty’s expression made it clear she was doing the wrong thing. The man she was doing it to might like it, but he didn’t.
‘We all want to get home, Adge,’ he said to the policeman.
‘Certainly, Steve, but there was a complaint and we do have to do something.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘We have to ask how the object in question ended up on this stage and not the one at the Theatre Royal?’
All eyes turned to Gloria for the answer.
Honey decided that this was the right time to offer a defence. ‘She saw it at my hotel, and asked if the senior citizens could borrow it …’
Both policemen looked at her. ‘Is that so?’ said Adge.
Doherty rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘Oh, Lord. Here we go.’
Honey was forthright. ‘It’s just a prop. Get it back to the Theatre Royal and there’s no harm done.’
Humpty turned his attention to Honey. ‘So you were the one who stole it.’
‘Oh, come off it,’ she yelled. ‘Do I look the sort of person in need of a pantomime horse? Do I look as though I can carry it? Get real!’
‘You’re yelling,’ Doherty said to her, placing his hand on her arm and gently pushing her to one side. He promptly placed himself between her and the uniform. ‘Hey, Adge. Get into the Christmas spirit. Take the horse back and it’s all over. Right?’
It was hard to judge what the policeman was thinking, but his eyes went shifty, sliding from left to right and back again like an observer at a tennis match.
‘You know how it is, Steve. A crime has been committed. This woman has admitted that the stolen item was taken to her hotel. She’s made a confession. She could go down for this.’
The Ghost of Christmas Past: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 8) Page 18