Hearing the first notes of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, the man who had thrown the shadow spun round like a top. Never mind Queen belting it out, her screaming into the phone was much louder than that. Doherty was on the other end.
Her heart lurched painfully when big hands grabbed her arms and flung her hard against the wall. She slid down it, dazed and seeing stars of all colours, vaguely aware that someone had come to rescue her, that doors were opening, that Doherty was finally there asking her if she was all right.
‘Is she OK?’
It was Jake Truebody asking the question.
‘Just a bump on the head,’ said Doherty.
‘Is he gone,’ asked Honey?
Doherty held her close as he helped her to her feet. ‘Yes. What happened? Do you know who it was?’
‘No. I only saw a shadow. Nothing else.’
She leaned on him heavily as he guided her to his room. Her legs were like jelly; her head felt as though a West Indian combo were playing reggae on an ancient set of oil drums.
‘You’ve got no clothes on,’ she said, doing her best to focus on the most interesting aspects of his body. They seemed a little fuzzy, but the light wasn’t good and her eyesight was blurred.
‘Wrong place, wrong time for us to do anything about it,’ he said grimly. At the same time as holding her upright, he was giving directions into his phone.
‘I presume whoever it was jumped out of the window,’ he said.
Honey realised she was lolling a bit, but there was nothing much she could do about it, not until her balance came back on stream. In the meantime her robe was parting over her thighs. Doherty took a good look.
‘I like the look,’ he said with an approving nod. ‘Bath robe and knee-high boots does it for me.’
Chapter Thirty-one
Despite a wide search, there was no trace of the phantom burglar.
‘Not even a footprint.’ Doherty frowned. ‘There should have been. There’s a patch of frost at the bottom of the fire escape.’
Honey thought for a minute that he didn’t believe her.
‘I did see someone – only a shadow, but someone was there.’
He stroked her cheek as she lay in his bed with the duvet up to her nose.
‘I believe you,’ he said and kissed her forehead. ‘Oh, by the way, Mary Jane insists there’s a bad spirit at large. A spirit from the past.’
Honey made a grunt of disbelief. ‘This bump on my head says otherwise. Bad spirit or not, they don’t usually clobber you with something lethal.’
‘No. They don’t.’
There was something in Doherty’s tone that made her sit up and take notice.
‘You’re thinking deeply. I always know when you’re thinking deeply.’
‘How come?’
‘I’m lying naked in bed and you’re not in here yet.’
He grinned. ‘You know me well.’
It was early next morning when the phone rang. Doherty told her to get dressed. They were off to visit Clarence Scrimshaw’s house.
‘He didn’t just have the flat above the office. We had a good look round there and found nothing. He also has a house in Beaufort East.’
The dressing gown, boots, and a few things of Doherty’s were enough to keep her warm rather than having to wake Lindsey up.
The journey to this other property turned out to be much shorter than she’d envisaged. Along the A36 and over Cleveland Bridge, then right onto the A4.
‘How come nobody knew about this house?’ she asked.
Doherty was grim faced. ‘He didn’t come here that often and when he did, he was always alone.’
They pulled up outside a long terrace in Beaufort East.
‘This isn’t what I expected,’ she remarked. ‘I thought he’d lived in something grand if he had a private home besides the flat.’
‘He had the money to do that,’ murmured Doherty. ‘We’ve checked with his accountancy firm and his lawyers. But old Clarence wasn’t materialistic as such. In fact he was quite the opposite. In a way, quite spiritual.’
‘Religious?’
‘In a way.’
‘What are you not telling me? The place is stuffed with old and very valuable Bibles?’
He placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’
Typically for Bath, the slip road running between the building and a strip of lawn where trees and bushes attempted to thrive was chock-a-block with cars. Doherty double-parked and stuck his ‘police on duty’ badge on the dashboard.
The rank of houses had once been surrounded by lush greenness. Nothing much remained except for a sliver of scrubby lawn between them and the road. To the rear was the river, hidden behind a series of low-rise accommodation. Out front beyond the strip of grass the traffic lumbered along the A4, heading out of the city. The road was still called London Road although most of the traffic was heading no further than the suburbs or villages to the east of the city.
The buildings were tall and mainly late Georgian. Originally built as town houses for the gentry most, if not all of them had long since been turned into flats. Clarence Scrimshaw’s two-bedroom flat was situated on the second floor. Doherty informed her that the cleaning lady who looked after it would be there with the keys.
Mrs Florence Withers was waiting for them in the ground floor hall. She was small, of pensionable age, with darting eyes and bright orange hair. The hair colour made Honey consider taking in a second box of chocolates to the stylists at Bee In A Bonnet. She had so much to be thankful for. Mrs Withers gave Doherty a set of keys. They were a spare set and she said he could keep them in case of need.
‘I’ve got other gentlemen to look after, so I can’t be running along behind you all the time,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘And when I say I have gentlemen to look after, all it means is that I do their cleaning. No hanky-panky, so don’t go thinking it. I’m not that sort of woman.’
‘As if,’ Honey whispered.
Mrs Withers got out her key, turned it in the lock and opened the door into a carpeted hallway. As with the rest of the building, the carpet had seen better days.
Two doors went off to left and right, another was straight ahead. Mrs Withers took them into a living room of reasonable size. Two large sash windows looked out into the bare branches of a tree. Beyond that a fire engine was charging along the road heading out of the city, siren blaring. Nobody spoke until the sound had faded.
‘Probably a cat stuck up a tree,’ remarked Mrs Withers dismissively and sniffed her disdain.
The living room was of reasonable size. Having been expecting good quality old furniture, perhaps even the odd antique, Honey hid her surprise at what she saw.
There were the usual things one expected to find in a living room; two armchairs, one sofa, a coffee table, small fold-down dining table, and two dining chairs. The carpet was green and the original cornice ran along three walls. A cheap paper lampshade hung from the ceiling and an ancient print hung above a well-polished though old-fashioned sideboard. The whole lot was more junk shop than Antiques Roadshow.
A smell of beeswax hung in the air. Mrs Withers was the reason this furniture was still here. She looked after it.
‘Things have been moved,’ said Mrs Withers. ‘I noticed it right away.’
Honey and Doherty looked around. There were few ornaments. A pair of Staffordshire dogs sat either end of the sideboard. A red and white cut-glass fruit bowl sat between them. There was no fruit in it.
Honey turned slowly around, her eyes alighting on this and that, but not really finding what she was looking for.
‘Something is definitely missing, besides taste that is,’ said Honey, her eyes scouring the room.
Mrs Withers fixed her with a stern eye. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Unwilling to upset the woman, Honey found an excuse for her comment. ‘Men don’t usually have much taste, do they?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything? It’s clean and tidy!’
Mrs Withers said indignantly.
‘Got it,’ said Honey. ‘There’s no television. No DVD player. No anything.’
‘Mr Scrimshaw didn’t believe in television,’ said Mrs Withers. ‘Said it was a waste of money.’
‘OK,’ said Doherty. ‘We’ve established that there was no television and no recording and viewing devices, so no-one broke in to take those. So tell us what is missing, Mrs Withers.’
Honey heard the impatience creeping into his voice. The room looked untouched. The lights of the city flickered beyond windows that showed no sign of having been forced. Neither was there any sign of splintering on the front door, and the lock was still in place.
Doherty asked Mrs Withers why she insisted that someone had been snooping around.
‘Everything’s been put back too tidy,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t the way Mr Scrimshaw liked things. He liked to know he could put his hand on something if he wanted to. It was a mess but a man’s got a right to live in a mess if he wants to.’
Doherty opened a drawer on an old sideboard. ‘Knives and forks,’ he said. There was a slight tinkling of metal against metal as he trailed his fingers across the cutlery.
Honey could see that he was thinking this through. Doherty was doubly attractive when he was in thinking mode. It was as though he’d broken out in a streetwise hardness that toughened his features and upped his masculinity. She did a quick appraisal of how he looked and just what was turning her on.
He was wearing a dark green shirt beneath the customary leather coat – a reefer-style with a slit up the back, double-breasted. He loved that leather coat even though it was a bit scuffed in places and the collar curled up at the ends. The shabby jacket matched his jeans.
Summer and winter he wore that coat. If things had gone according to plan, he would have dressed up a bit; worn a suit or some tidy casual. A warm coat perhaps? But though the weather was cold, that wasn’t Doherty’s way. It didn’t look as though he were feeling the cold. Even in this weather she suspected his body would still feel warm. The opportunity to confirm that suspicion would have to wait until later.
Mrs Withers folded her arms over her knitted jacket and beetled her brows. ‘Someone’s tidied everything up, and it wasn’t me. ‘
She said it as though she were the keeper of a kingdom. Mr Clarence Scrimshaw’s little kingdom.
‘There’s nobody else likely to tidy things up – a relative for instance?’
‘Not that I know of. Certainly not locally, though if one does turn up I’d appreciate you telling me. The old goat owes me for doing his cleaning and bits and pieces. Comes in handy at this time of year.’
‘Is that so?’ Doherty was all attention.
‘Certainly is. We have – or rather we did have – an arrangement. I gave him a time sheet for the year and he paid me at Christmas.’
‘I can see it would be useful at this time of year,’ said Doherty nodding in agreement. ‘I presume you have a family to buy for.’
She almost spat her contempt. ‘Presume all you like. I didn’t spend it on Christmas!’ Mrs Withers exclaimed. ‘I used it to pay for my summer holiday. I always book it the day after New Year’s Day. That was why me and Mr Scrimshaw got on so well together. Neither of us liked Christmas. Neither of us liked relatives much either.’
‘So who else has a key besides you?’ Doherty asked her.
‘Only me as far as I know.’
There was no point in Mrs Withers staying and Doherty told her so. ‘We’ll take a look round, look for clues, and lock up when we go.’
Mrs Withers said that would be alright and stressed once again that if some long-lost relative turned up, to let them know she was owed a tidy sum of money.
‘They had to have had a key,’ mused Doherty reflecting exactly what Honey had been thinking. ‘But why tidy up?’
The second bedroom was securely locked.
While Doherty scrutinised the outline of each key, Honey grabbed the handle and gave the door a good shake.
‘It’s locked for a reason,’ said Doherty, one eye on the keys and one on her.
‘OK, there’s something he doesn’t want Mrs Withers to see. The family jewels perhaps?’
Doherty began thinking aloud. ‘So what’s in here and where’s the key? I wonder if there’s a safe somewhere …’
Honey pointed out that Clarence had been a skinflint. ‘A safe? Just to keep a key in? Not here. In the office there’s probably a very old safe stuck in a dark corner. Business dictates that. But not here.’ Honey shook her head. ‘Safes cost a bundle of money. He’d stick to something old-fashioned, simple, and extremely cheap.’
Doherty looked at her as he thought about it. ‘I go mad for a girl with brains.’
She smiled. ‘Lucky for you I’ve got the brains and the looks.’
He started to open drawers, looked beneath ornaments, felt behind the frames of the few pictures hanging on the wall.
‘Should you be doing that?’ she asked. ‘What about fingerprints?’
He knew where she was coming from. ‘Mrs Withers only has a suspicion that things have been moved. She can’t prove anything and there are no signs of a break in. Nothing taken – as far as we know – and we don’t know whether the victim entertained visitors here.’
Honey leaned against the door with her arms folded, watching him. This was one of those moments when a special person with special connections was needed. Basically, you needed to have had a slightly dotty grandparent. Honey could hold her hand up to that one; on her mother’s side of course.
Aware that she wasn’t moving much – well, not moving at all in fact, he looked up. ‘Well? Are you going to give me a hand here or what?’
‘OK.’ She headed for the kitchen.
Alice Fairbairn, her mother’s mother, entered the kitchen with her, though only in her head as she’d been dead for years. Her grandmother had been something of a rebel in her youth. For a start, she was possibly the first woman in the town she’d lived in to wear trousers. Trousers were for men back then. Women who wore trousers were considered ‘fast’. Alice had also run her own business, a greengrocery in the centre of town; that was besides bringing up a family and serving in a bar.
She’d been described as ‘sharp’ for most of her life which meant she’d been careful with money. Careful meant that she hadn’t liked to let it out of her sight. In turn she’d also been influenced by the Great Depression and the Wall Street Crash. Distrusting banks, Alice had secreted her money under the mattress. Jars and tins marked coffee and tea was where she had kept loose change and the money needed to pay bills. And keys. She’d also kept keys in jars and tins.
Honey’s logic was simple. Clarence Scrimshaw had been well into his dotage, which meant he had been influenced by the old school of money management and basic security. One look round the kitchen told her what he’d been like. The cupboards dated from the seventies; not exactly up to date but they were clean and serviceable.
She hunted through an assortment of blue striped Cornish Ware. Had Scrimshaw been a tea-drinking man or had he preferred coffee? Somehow she figured him a tea drinker.
Her fingers skipped over the jars. She lifted the lid from the jar marked tea and dug in.
Her fingers should have touched the soft dryness of unused tea bags. Whatever she was touching was lumpy and damp. She pulled one out, holding it delicately between finger and thumb.
‘Yuk!’ She turned up her nose. Old Scrimshaw was frugal in the extreme and used his teabags more than once. Some were distinctly on the furry side, clustered together like baby mice.
There were limits to what her stomach could stand. Digging back in was definitely off the menu. She upturned the jar. The teabags landed in a damp heap. The key fell out with them.
‘Bingo!’
After wiping the key off in a tea towel, she headed for the locked door.
Doherty heard her cry out and came out of the living room.
‘Was that a whoop of triumph I
heard?’
‘Bingo is as good a word as any.’
‘You’re looking pleased with yourself.’
‘I deserve to be.’
He was shook his head as he smiled that disbelieving smile of his. He’d never exactly openly admired her feminine logic, but that smile said it all. Her toes curled up in delight.
He stood close behind her, his front brushing her back. It was like having a shield behind her; a warm shield.
‘He’s got a safe in the kitchen?’ He looked hopeful.
She shook her head. ‘In the tea caddy. And, seeing as I found it, I should be the one to shout open sesame. Right?’
He shrugged resignedly. ‘You’re the one with the key.’
Honey breathed a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Now what will we find? Gold or guilty pleasures?’
The door opened on a room that was in total darkness. The light switch was on the wall. Doherty reached around her to switch it on. A single lightbulb suspended from the ceiling blinked into light. The bulb was far too small for the size of the room, but the only source of light in the place.
‘It’s a library,’ said Honey.
‘It’s a gloomy library,’ remarked Doherty, wrinkling his nose as he took it all in.
He was right. The single lightbulb was fighting a losing game, but she could see the books. Lots of books.
A heavy oak table, its legs carved and bulbous in the middle, sat in the centre of the room. Two chairs, both with barley twist backrests, sat on either side of the table. There were various things piled on it, mostly lever arch files of varying styles and colour.
Books sporting the entwined M & S of the Mallory and Scrimshaw logo on their spines took up three quarters of the room. The other was filled with cloth-covered books, their gilt titles still shiny despite their age.
Recalling what John Rees had told her, Honey inspected them closely. She hadn’t a clue whether they were valuable, but most were pretty old. Not all of them were Bibles, though most were about belief. All of them were too old to have been published by Mallory and Scrimshaw.
Honey walked slowly, eyeing each shelf as she went. ‘They’re divided into subject matter. See?’
The Ghost of Christmas Past: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 8) Page 20