The mechanical requirements took up most of the day but there was enough time left before five thirty. The coach was moved into the area reserved for cleaning interiors with vacuum cleaners and upholstery sprays.
The team of young men charged with the cleaning work weren’t greatly enamoured of the task they had to do. It was steady work but not well paid. Nobody moved quickly to get started.
One of the youths was talking on his mobile phone. His girlfriend was on the other end. She’d popped out from her office for a smoker’s break. The youth, whose name was Ahmed, didn’t mind a bit; he wasn’t looking forward to crawling into the cavernous luggage bay. Time-wasting suited him far better.
He was leaning against the back of the bus, unseen by Rod, the foreman – or so he thought.
‘Oi!’
A stout finger stabbed at his shoulder, almost causing him to drop the phone. He was jolted forward as the rear luggage door jerked open. Rod had used the remote.
‘Christ!’
It was Rod who exclaimed, Rod who stepped back as a foul odour wafted thick and strong from the rear opening. ‘Something’s dead in there.’
Ahmed wrinkled his nose. He could hear his girlfriend on the other end of the phone asking him what the matter was. Hand shaking, he raised the phone to his ear. ‘Something’s happened. I’ll phone you back.’
Resting his hands on bent knees, Rod the foreman was peering into the rear of the coach. Ahmed stooped and did the same, but warily, half guessing what Rod was going to ask him to do.
‘Get in there and take a butcher’s.’ He gave the Asian lad a push.
Ahmed stooped and leaned as though he were going to, then reeled back as the full impact hit him.
‘Not bloody likely.’
He didn’t care if he did lose his job. That sickly sweet smell told him something was bad – very bad.
‘Soft sod,’ Rod grumbled. He got out a small torch. The luggage area took up around two-thirds of the bus, immediately beneath where passengers sat. The other third was taken up by the engine.
Covering his mouth with his hand, he put one knee on to the rubber seal that stopped the hatch from rattling, took one look then retreated.
A few others, sensing that something was going on, had gathered round. Ahmed was still at the front of them.
‘What is it?’ he asked, as if he didn’t already know.
Rod took a deep breath, though the smell of decay lingered in his nostrils.
‘Something’s dead in there all right. It’s a bloke and he stinks something rotten!’
Chapter Thirty-six
Wandering around the auction rooms and Bath’s many and varied antique shops helped Honey think. For the second time in two days she was accosted by Doherty.
‘We’ve found Rodrigues.’
Doherty was sitting in his sports car with the top down. Sparkling chrome dazzled the eyes.
He had pulled in on double yellow lines, but Doherty wasn’t staying long enough to incur the fury of a traffic warden. The look of enlightenment was in his eyes. He was off somewhere – and in a hurry.
‘Where did you find him?’
‘At a bus garage near Slough. He was found in the luggage compartment of a tourist bus that was in the workshop for repairs and cleaning. Judging from what I’ve heard so far, he’d been in there a long time. The differential went AWOL on the bus some time ago on its way back from Bath to London. SOCO are doing their stuff. I’m up there to poke my nose in.’
‘Is there any chance …?’
‘If you’re asking to come along, I think you already know the answer to that. Let’s not tread on the forensic boys’ toes. I’ll come round to see you the minute I get back.’
He waved as though this brief conversation had been a very casual interlude in his professional life. Yet it wasn’t casual. He’d taken the time to stop. She appreciated that. Yet again it set her to wondering. Was she reading more into their relationship than she should? Or was she on the right track? Were his quips totally sincere, although spoken in jest?
Never mind that, she told herself. Stick to the job in hand.
The crime scene was all very well and good, but she was unsettled that it was so far away and she was here, feeling as though she were holding the threads to it all. There could be some hard evidence right under her nose. You could never really tell about things and people unless you dug deeper. It was like her mother’s friend, Miss Camper-Young. Who would have thought that the old dear kept a gun handy? She hadn’t yet mustered the courage to go out and see her about it, and try to persuade her to hand it in to the police. After all it was pretty obvious that she was a sandwich short of a picnic; a shilling short of a pound. Who knows what she might do?
Yes, Honey thought, she needed to snoop a little more on a local level. Anyway, it wasn’t enough to depend on forensic science to prosecute. Motive and some idea of how the waiter had ended up where he did would also be helpful.
‘Excuse me!’
A young woman pushing a double buggy pushed past, almost knocking her into the road.
‘These pavements aren’t wide enough,’ cried the young woman when Honey dared to cast a glance in her direction. ‘I’m going to write to the council about it. You’re my witness, Trace! OK?’
The young woman’s companion agreed enthusiastically. She would back her friend.
Once they’d passed, along with the rest of the mix of shoppers and tourists, Honey stepped back on to the pavement. Home was where the heart was, or in her case a never-ending list of chores and staff who sometimes seemed more capable than she was. Basically she was too soft with her staff, too willing to jump in and help out. She would always run it in the one man and his dog mode. However, though she might not always shine in the catering and hospitality trade, her mind was doing whiz-bangs on the crime scene.
An aspect of the brief communiqué between the two young women stayed with her. Having a witness was useful to the buggy pusher. Not so to whoever had murdered Philippe Fabiere.
‘Yes!’
She stopped dead in the middle of the street. A host of French students piled in behind her.
‘Excusez, madame!’
There were a few more apologies as she was tugged to her feet and brushed off. A man with dark brown eyes and the sort of face one might dream of alongside chocolate cake and a magnum of Bollinger smiled at her.
‘Mademoiselle, are you injured?’
He was using both hands to hold her up, one arm wrapped around her back so that both elbows were held. His palms were warm. So was his voice. He might just as well have said, ‘Mademoiselle, would you like to come to bed with me?’
‘Yes,’ she gulped, then, realizing she was answering the imagined question rather than what he’d actually asked her, she altered her reply. ‘No! I’m fine. Really I am.’
‘Are you quite sure? I would hate to think that you have been bodily injured by my students’ enthusiasm to get to the abbey.’
‘That’s nice.’ Her voice was as wobbly as her legs. That voice! Did it come mail order? She’d love one, preferably on a CD so she could play it throughout the night.
‘Would you like to come with us on a tour of the abbey? I am presuming you are a local, Mademoiselle, so your input would be very useful to us. You would be most welcome.’
The question came out of the blue and took her completely unawares. She realized her mouth was hanging open and soundless, but she had to catch her breath. As she did so, she took the opportunity to notice a few other nice things about him. His hair was thick and dark, grey streaked from his temples in two thick seams. There were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His mouth was wide and sensuous – and was opening and closing again. He was saying something. Gathering her senses, she fought to listen.
‘It is a recital. Bach,’ he was saying.
The last thing she’d had planned for today was to spend lunch time sitting in Bath Abbey listening to a Bach recital.
‘Yes,’ she
replied, her body outmanoeuvring her common sense. ‘I’d love to.’
He took her by the arm. How gentlemanly was that?
The abbey had a hushed aura about it. The organ was playing softly. She asked herself, what the hell am I doing here? As it turned out it was quite the thing to do. Listening to music helped her focus on the job in hand. It was also quite nice to feel the heat of Jean-Claude’s thigh against hers. That was his name, Jean-Claude. And contrary to first impressions, he wasn’t here to listen to music. He taught at an architectural academy in Lyon and was here to study Bath’s fine buildings, while also attending a workshop on interior design. The recital and her agreement to accompany him were added extras.
The course on interior design caught her attention. She asked him the names of the workshop leaders. They turned out to be Camilla and Julia. He explained that it would have been Philippe Fabiere, but that he had met with an accident.
‘We would have preferred a Frenchman. It would have given us greater insight. We would have been viewing the city and its interior furnishings through privileged eyes. Philippe Fabiere would have been ideal.’
She didn’t enlighten him. Whatever Philippe had told him was OK by her; neither did she tell him that Philippe’s ‘accident’ had been far from accidental and very terminal.
As the lilting music rose to the apex of the arched nave, she considered what to do next. It wasn’t for her to go to St Margaret’s Court asking the staff and management for the last date and time they had seen Aloysius Rodrigues. That was Doherty’s job. Still, it would be good to know what was going on. A burning curiosity smouldered inside, growing steadily bigger as the evening progressed.
At the close of the recital, Jean-Claude asked her if she would care to accompany them to Café Rouge.
‘Allow me to recommend something to make you glow.’
‘I would love you to make me glow!’
His voice and those soft brown eyes were doing that. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to hear more about the workshop he was attending. On the other hand she also had an urge to go snooping at St Margaret’s Court and at the Olsens’ place. At least the crime scene boys had more or less finished with the latter. Besides, Doherty was ever present in her mind.
It was hard, hard, hard, but she had to take a rain check.
‘Look,’ she said, hardly believing she was saying this. ‘I’m going to have to decline your invitation. How about if you come along and have morning coffee with me tomorrow?’
She didn’t say ‘How about you and your students coming along?’ She’d kept things pretty general. The students looked a nice group, but she’d prefer him to be there by himself.
She gave him her business card.
‘Say about eleven?’
Her eyes sparkled when she smiled and her fingers lingered on his as she handed over the card. Hopefully he’d get the message.
‘I will check my diary and if I can, I will be there.’
Her feet felt as though they were encased in lead as she dragged herself away, groaning deep in her throat and not daring to look back. All being well she’d see him tomorrow. Duty called. Or was it pure curiosity, or even a determination to crack this case before Doherty did? Or was it much, much more? Was it a case in which she wanted to impress him to such an extent that he could never ever work another without her? She sorely wished this was the case. Whichever way, there was St Margaret’s Court for questions, and Lobelia Cottage, of course. There was still that little talk with Miss Camper-Young regarding a gun.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Purple trailing lobelia added to the freshness in the air outside its namesake cottage. Spring was in the air, though a chill breeze still nipped at noses. Birds were twittering as they gathered items for their nest-building and the earth smelt fertile. Before long there would be a lot of reproduction and growing going on.
The cottage stood silently in the spring sunshine, creaking as its old joints woke up to the growing warmth, just as it had done for hundreds of years. House martins had arrived early this year, darting in and out of the eaves busily building their nests. The swallows would follow.
Honey turned her face towards the sun before rapping at the old front door. Lovely! She waited a while before pressing her ear up against the warm paintwork. Not a sound.
She rapped again. Out of the corner of her eye something moved. One of the blue Persian cats had leapt up onto the window sill. She could just about hear its plaintive meow through the single-glazed pane. The other Persian jumped up too and settled immediately opposite its identical companion so that they resembled a couple of bookends.
No one came to the door. Bearing in mind that Cybil was pretty spry for her age and would have opened the door by now, it occurred to her that the aged spinster might be in the back garden. According to her mother, Cybil was very fond of her sweet peas and her night scented stock. ‘She digs at all hours of the day and night,’ her mother had said with a dismissive look. ‘I couldn’t be like it myself. Especially at night. I can’t imagine what she plants at night.’
‘Unless she digs something up.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ her mother had retorted. ‘Only grave robbers dig things up at night – usually bodies.’ There was no way in the whole wide world that Gloria Cross would ever blemish her beautifully manicured, polished nails in the pursuit of growing green things. Her priorities were different.
It was impossible to get even a glimpse of the garden from the front and although she called out, there was no answer from Cybil. Honey decided that there was nothing for it but to make her way back to Bath, check in at the Green River to ensure everything was running smoothly, then take things from there.
The dishwasher was having one of its off days, so it was all hands to the pump – her hands, as it happened. As she dunked dishes and pots, she thought things over.
Her guess was that Aloysius Rodrigues had witnessed the killing of Philippe Fabiere. Goodness knows how the horses were involved, but there had to be something out at the Olsens’ stable to throw light on the subject. It was worth a trip. Once the dishes were done she headed in the direction of the multi-storey car park where she’d had to park her car on her return from Lobelia Cottage.
The sight of the rush-hour traffic beginning to build up threw cold water on the best of plans, but still the enthusiasm persisted. She puffed out her cheeks as she attempted to cross the road. It was getting busier by the minute, the buses and cars revving and pumping out fumes. No way could she get to her car, get it out of the multi-storey she’d parked it in, and out into this. She needed her car here! Now!
In the process of attempting to cross the road, she heard the sound of a car horn. Not just any car horn. Mary Jane’s car horn.
Looking over the roof of the French Peugeot that was close to running over her foot, she spied Mary Jane behind the wheel of the pink Cadillac coupé, a sight that was beginning to become quite familiar around Bath.
Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat. They both waved.
‘Wanna lift?’ Mary Jane shouted.
‘Only if you’re going my way.’
Mary Jane gestured for her to come over. Accordingly Honey wove around the back of a parked Peugeot and explained where she wanted to go.
‘Hop in.’
Cars were pressed so close that all she could do was, quite literally, hop in.
‘It’s pretty busy,’ said Honey, eyeing the traffic which was presently surging like a wave around them.
Mary Jane laughed. ‘I’ll just wave my magic wand.’
Her long spindly arm was about as close as she could get to a wand. She waved it, at the same time making eerie noises.
Honey’s mother looked over her shoulder. ‘We’ve had such a great day.’
For some obscure reason – perhaps it was the odd sparkle in her mother’s eyes – Honey had no wish to know exactly how their day had been so great.
‘I did your mother a palm reading. I’ve on
ly just started studying how to do palmistry, but your mother was a willing guinea pig, so we went for it.’
‘I’m going to meet a tall, rich, handsome stranger.’
‘Right!’
Honey’s reply was intentionally non-committal. Her mother would always and for ever be a romantic at heart.
‘So! Direct me,’ Mary Jane ordered as the traffic magically began to thin and heave forward.
The good thing about rush-hour traffic was that it didn’t just slow things down in the city, it did the same on the open road. When it came to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Mary Jane would be cast as the hare. It was a miracle she hadn’t received a speeding ticket, but she had not. In her estimation it was something to do with being looked after by her guardian angel. In Honey’s estimation she guessed the police didn’t want to bother with all that paperwork – and dealing with someone who depended on a spirit guide to take her safely along Somerset’s highways.
The Olsens’ place was, as expected, in total darkness. Honey directed both her mother and Mary Jane to stay in the car while she went to investigate.
They didn’t seem to mind. They were giggling together and cracking jokes she couldn’t quite understand.
‘Send in the cavalry if I’m not back within thirty minutes.’
She wasn’t sure whether they heard her or not. They didn’t seem to have. Resigned to the situation, she headed around the back of the house.
The trees surrounding the place threw long shadows over the gravelled courtyard, the vegetable gardens and the paddock beyond. The barn where the horses were kept looked gloomy. There were no lights on and she didn’t intend putting any on.
She resisted the urge to creep low like some kind of top-secret operative, it made her feel stupid. There was nobody to hide from. She straightened. The gravel crunching underfoot sounded so loud. She began going forward on tiptoe, thinking it was more stupid than creeping forward like a praying mantis.
Deadly Lampshades (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 5) Page 19