He pursed his wide sensuous mouth when he nodded. ‘They always were. There must have been some reason, perhaps that they were abroad at the time. Sir Andrew did serve in the army I believe.’
‘Did Elmer have children?’
‘No. I did ask him, you know, out of interest as one does in the course of a conversation. He said something about his wife having had an inherited disease, so they’d chosen not to. Apparently she died some time ago. He’s alone now. Or was. I did hear of his demise.’
It was on her tongue to ask him to look up Lance Charlborough’s birth date, when the woman who’d been arranging the flowers called down the stairs.
‘There’s a phone call for you vicar. I took it in the study.’
‘I’ll be right there,’ he called back.
He grinned ruefully. ‘Sorry about this. I quite often put my phone on divert so I can take it on my mobile, but Mrs Quentin puts her trust in God not modern technology. She picks up the receiver within the first three rings.’ He sighed. ‘Oh well. Sorry about this.’
‘Never mind.’
‘I’ll look it up for you and give you a call. Shouldn’t take too long. Is that all right with you?’
‘Of course.’
Mrs Quentin, the swift-moving flower arranger, escorted her down the aisle to the church door – a bit like a wedding in reverse.
‘The vicar’s a bit lax when it comes to security,’ she said quickly as though impatient to get back to her flowers. ‘But I like to make sure that anyone who comes visiting is properly interrogated before seeing the vicar and shown off the premises if they’ve no business being here.’
‘You’re a gem, Mrs Quentin.’
She meant it. Women like Mrs Quentin didn’t need a computer-based diary when it came to recalling who had visited, where they’d come from and what were their intentions. The naturally nosey had a ten megabyte memory installed at birth.
Honey asked the obvious question.
‘Do you recall an American who came checking out his family tree?’
‘Ooow, yes. Mr Maxted. He came here three days on the trot poring over the old registers and asking questions. He snooped around a lot. I caught him behind the church. That was when I realised he wasn’t just interested in his family tree,’ she said, her voice falling into a disdainful hush. ‘She was there. I saw her out back on t’other side of the fence. Hussy, she is. Lady Charlborough indeed. No lady her! The first Lady Charlborough, now she was a lady. But that one!’
A woman! Was Elmer having an affair?
‘Did you happen to overhear what they were talking about?’
The baby pink lips pouted with disdain. ‘Certainly not! I am not in the habit of listening in on private conversations!’
Honey mumbled an apology.
‘Besides, they were talking normally, not like that man who came along after him that day. Scruffy-looking individual he was. Perhaps that’s unfair. Not so much scruffy as pallid and bland. And loud. ’Twas a wonder they didn’t come to blows. The American was none too happy with him I can tell you.’
The sun warmed the coldness of the crypt from her back, but a fresh chill ran down her spine. The description was familiar. Dare she ask?
Mrs Quentin shook her head. ‘No. But I saw his car.’
It was hard not to cross her fingers and wish or shout Hallelujah, but Honey contained herself. ‘You don’t happen to remember what make or colour of car.’
The powdered cheeks puckered into a knowing smile. ‘I do indeed! One of them cars that keeps the lights on all day. And it was dark blue. And an estate. Let’s see, it begins with a ‘V’ … ’
‘A Volvo?’
‘V for Volvo. That’s the one!’
Honey resisted the urge to skip all the way back down the churchyard to her waiting car.
‘Home,’ muttered Casper, who was laid back in his seat, his hat pulled down over closed eyes.
‘Not yet,’ said Honey, hardly able to control her excitement. ‘I think our American might have been having an affair with Charlborough’s wife.’
Casper peered out from beneath the brim as she swung the car away from the kerb.
‘Steady on old girl. Still, could be to our mutual advantage. If old Charlborough finds out and shows her the door, he might need some money for the impending divorce and sell me the clock.’
Honey made no comment. Accelerator stabbed to the floor, they were off down the road heading back to Charlborough Grange.
‘I declare I am totally wearied by all this detective work,’ muttered Casper. ‘I only asked you to liaise with the police, not run the case.’
‘I never do things by halves, Casper.’
He waved a hand in surrender. ‘Please yourself. But don’t expect me to go back into his superior presence. He is not the type I would wish to include among even on my “b” list of acquaintances.’
Now that was a turn up for the books! Casper was a born snob.
‘Never mind him. Now listen to this Casper. According to the vicar Elmer was Sir Andrew’s brother-in-law by marriage, but not the present marriage. The first marriage.’
‘You’re suspecting familial skulduggery,’ he said profoundly. ‘Or might I suggest, that you hope it is.’
‘Do I sound as though I do?’
‘Yes. Like a bulldog. You have sunk your teeth into this bone and you’re not letting it go.’
‘There’s more. One of the women who does the flowers in the church heard Elmer having an argument. Guess who with?’
‘Go on. Tell me,’ Casper said wearily, the brim of his hat bouncing on his nose.
‘Mervyn Herbert!’
‘Ah! We have our murderer.’
‘We would if we knew where he was.’
Swinging the car down the drive, she targeted the gap between the stone pillars on either side of the entrance.
‘Elmer also met Pamela Charlborough.’
‘At the Grange?’
‘No. At the church.
‘Just the church?’ asked Casper in that sharp, sudden way of his.
‘Just the church,’ she replied grimly. ‘Ivor said he was there for hours, three days on the trot.’
‘Pretty church,’ said Casper. ‘I took a walk all around its perimeter.’
Honey remembered thinking the interior was a bit gloomy.
‘It was dingy inside.’
‘As I said, my dear, I walked around the perimeter. There’s a very neat graveyard surrounded by ivy-covered walls and laurel hedges.’
‘How very Gothic.’
‘There’s also a stile and no more than two fields between it and Charlborough Grange.’
Honey’s hands tightened over the wheel.
‘So Ivor, the taxi driver, wouldn’t have known if he’d visited Charlborough Grange or that he met Pamela Charlborough. He couldn’t have seen from where he was parked.’
‘Should you not be calling her Lady Charlborough?’ said Casper in a passable resemblance to Noel Coward.
‘From what I’ve heard, she’s far from that!’
‘You’re prejudiced. And don’t think I am not aware of where your thought process travels. You are assuming she was having an affair with our American friend.’
‘Right. If he wasn’t having an affair, then why did he make her acquaintance?’
‘The meeting could have been prearranged or it could have been by chance. Either way, there’s still our missing Mr Herbert to consider. Mr Maxted is found murdered and Mr Herbert has disappeared. To use detective parlance, I think it’s an open and shut case, guv.’
Honey shook her head. ‘I can’t see that it’s that simple. If his wife’s cousin was dead, what was the point?’ A spine-chilling answer sprang into her mind. ‘Unless he hadn’t known she was dead. Unless he suspected …’
‘Now you’re talking pure fiction. You’re making up the plot as you go along.’
She wasn’t listening. Absorbed in ‘what ifs’ and ‘whys’, she shot past the main gate o
f Charlborough Grange. Casper cried out in alarm as she spun the car round on the spot.
‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
Casper righted himself and readjusted his hat.
‘So was I. If it wasn’t for my seatbelt I would have flown through the windscreen.’
This time no one answered the front door of Charlborough Grange.
Honey looked down towards where she’d left the car parked on the gravel drive at the bottom of the steps. Casper looked comfortable enough, his arms folded over his chest. His hat was pulled down over his eyes, but she knew he was brooding. He’d lost the clock and he was pig sick about it.
The door stayed shut. The windows looked out sightless over the warm stone terraces simmering in the afternoon sun. The shadows of trees were growing longer across the lawns and the heads of flowers quivered with honey-seeking bees. The air was ripe with floral perfume and ripe green leaves, the smell of grass gently baking in the summer sun.
She made a snap decision and followed the path along the front of the house, through an arch and into a rose bower. A tunnel of blooms heavy with scent, yellow roses vying with white ran the full length.
Through a gate and she found herself in a walled garden where fruit trees clambered over warm, red brick. Such gardens had existed in medieval times; perhaps this one predated the present house, the house itself standing on the ruins of an older dwelling.
The workmanlike surroundings, the rubbish bins, a small cement mixer, a ride on lawnmower waiting to be put away, led her to the tradesmen’s entrance. The rear of the house was as silent and bereft of human contact as the front.
‘Hello?’ she called out.
The sound was lost in the warmth beating against the red brick walls, the sturdy metal objects standing sentinel at the side of the path.
She stood absolutely still drinking in her surroundings. If you listened hard enough and were very observant, you could almost smell danger. She did just that, bringing all of her senses into play.
Nothing!
No surprised countenances appeared at the windows; no curious eyes watched as she found a back door, opened it and went in.
She found herself in a conservatory where the greenery was as vigorous as in the Amazon rain forest.
‘Who the hell are you?’ A female voice.
Even before she turned round, Honey guessed she was in the presence of Lady Charlborough.
She was sitting in a wrought iron chair, her finger poised over what appeared to be a diary or address book. A gold sovereign hung from a chain around her neck. She wore a gold belt, gold high-heeled sandals and earrings to match. Despite the contempt in Mrs Quentin’s voice, Honey had expected a mature Chelsea rather than Essex girl. It was hard to keep the surprise from her voice.
‘Are you Lady Charlborough?’
The woman, whose hair was Scandinavian blonde, had a tan only obtainable from somewhere like southern Spain. She was holding a glass in her free hand. The liquid in it was clear and sported a slice of lemon. Gin rather than water.
Plucked eyebrows rose, and dusky rimmed eyes opened wide with a mix of street acquired caution and upper crust disdain.
‘Yes. I’m Lady Pamela Charlborough. Who the hell are you?’
‘Honey Driver.’ Her hand shot forward. It wasn’t taken.
Pamela Charlborough threw the book she’d been reading to one side. ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’
‘I suppose not. I really wanted to ask you about your brother. You know he’s dead, don’t you?’
‘My brother? What brother?’
‘You don’t have a brother?’
‘That’s right. I don’t.’
‘Ah! And I suppose you’re not the first Lady Charlborough?’
It was something else Honey already knew, but it seemed best not to let on that she’d been prying.
The expertly made-up face stiffened. ‘No! I am not. I’m the second wife,’ Lady Charlborough said. ‘The trophy wife you might say.’
The words chipped and tarnished trophy came immediately to mind.
Lady Pamela slugged back the remains of the cut-glass tumbler, took out the lemon and ate that as well.
‘So what the hell do you want?’
‘An American tourist was fished out of the river the other day. I was under the impression he visited you here. His name was Elmer Maxted, though he did sometimes call himself Weinstock. You might have him written down in your address book.’
Lady Charlborough tapped her pen on the chair arm, her glazed expression as brittle as old glass.
‘I’ve never had the pleasure.’
‘No?’ Honey sounded surprised. ‘So do you often go hob-nobbing over the church wall at the bottom of your land? Or were you just passing by? You were seen talking to him.’
The pink lips twisted into a snarl.
‘Old Mother Quentin. Nosey cow! Time she was pushing up the daisies in that bloody churchyard instead of putting them in pots!’
‘Were you having an affair with Elmer?’
Lady Pamela’s jaw dropped. ‘How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are!’
‘I’m working hand in glove with the police. I can’t help the questions being asked. The police will ask the same once it’s confirmed by Mrs Quentin that she saw you with him. Still. Your choice. Maybe it’s better if you told me the truth rather than them.’
‘You’re not the police?’
Honey didn’t flinch. OK, it was all bluff, but bluff might baffle brains, that’s if Pamela Charlborough had any.
For a brief moment the flesh beneath the made-up face squirmed as though Lady Pamela’s skin had got too tight to cope with. Telling the truth and saving face were fighting it out.
Honey hadn’t been too sure how long she’d take to snap, she just knew she bloody well would.
‘OK. I saw this bloke on the other side of the wall and we passed the time of day. There’s no law against that, is there?’
Honey shook her head. ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence. I would have believed your story except that Elmer Maxted married a cousin of Sir Andrew’s first wife. Now that’s what I call too strong a coincidence!’
Lady Pamela raised herself from the chair. Her botoxed lips curled back displaying perfect teeth.
‘That’s the way out,’ she snarled, wobbling slightly as her legs took her weight. ‘Now get out before I call the police!’
‘You can if you like, bearing in mind that I’ve already told you that I happen to be working with the police.’
‘Don’t care! Clear off! Go on! Clear bloody off!’
Honey paused. ‘OK, Mrs Charlborough. I’m off.’
‘Lady Charlborough, if you don’t mind!’
‘Are you kidding? As long as you’ve got two nostrils in your nose, you’ll never make a lady!’
Her ladyship clutched an empty wine glass. Honey shut the door just before the glass hit.
‘Temper, temper,’ she muttered to herself.
While retracing her steps through the warren of passages, she tapped in Steve Doherty’s number on her phone, determined to tell him all she knew. There was no signal. She needed to get outside. Surely in these spacious gardens there should be somewhere she could pick up a decent signal.
There was a kitchen to one side, an empty place with deep white sinks and the sort of atmosphere left over from the Victorian age when servants outnumbered the family they served.
Turning away from the kitchen and the house, she made her way down the path and out of the walled garden. On the other side of an arched door, turned silver by centuries of English weather, she found herself in a vegetable garden. A path led back round to the front terraces and she would have tried phoning again, but the greenhouses caught her eye.
They were huge but dominated by one in particular much bigger than the others. The greenery pressed thick and dark against the glass or plastic material that held it. Like plants from The Day of the Triffids, she thought, about to pull up their
roots and escape.
Like the house, the place seemed deserted. Pots of fresh earth waiting for new bulbs or seeds for next spring sat on tables just inside the door. There were seed trays, specimen pots, cardboard boxes of plants, packets of seeds and bulbs pulled from the earth and nestling in brown paper bags tied up with string.
The smell of turned earth mingled with the stink of a compost heap. Mildewed cabbages leaves lay like a floppy hat on top the rotting pile.
Wrinkling her nose, she stepped past it and headed for the second greenhouse, then the third – the most interesting.
Sandbags were heaped around the door. She remembered they used to pile them around bomb shelters and gun posts in the Second World War. They were meant to protect a place from bomb blasts. A first aid box was nailed to a post which stood near to a jeep covered with a camouflage net – all terribly military.
The wall of sandbags hid a Perspex door. Sacks. She wondered if they had held something else before they’d held sand. There was no way she could check. Her attention turned to the door. It had a handle, and handles were meant to be used. Like Alice she pushed it open and entered Wonderland – of a sort.
Moist air hit her face like a damp blanket taking her breath away. The smell of vegetation growing thickly and roof high was so strong, the humidity was too thick to breathe – exactly like a jungle.
The effect was so real that she stopped and listened, half expecting the chattering of monkeys or the screech of parakeets.
‘Me Jane. Where’s Tarzan?’ she whispered under her breath.
She looked up. Thankfully there was no sign of beefcake wearing nothing more than a pillowcase around his loins.
The humidity seemed to solidify as the door slid silently shut behind her.
The narrow path between the tropical greenery petered out just a few feet from the door. If she was to go on, she would have to part the thick foliage Great White Hunter-style; a machete would have been useful.
No, she decided stepping back. It was too dark in there. Too real.
It suddenly occurred to her that Charlborough might keep wild animals in here. The Marquis of Bath kept a whole menagerie at Longleat; lions, tigers and leopards prowled the grounds. Who knows what you could keep in a small jungle!
Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) Page 13