Skirting the heap of dug up earth, they made their way to the far end of the garden where a plastic garden gnome peered through a canopy of rhubarb leaves.
Honey folded her arms. ‘What’s this all about?’
Doherty adopted a blank look. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Liar!’
He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘What?’ The innocent look just didn’t wash.
Honey eyed him accusingly. ‘OK. Don’t explain. Let me guess. Your last case was a shambles and so when the Hotels Association asked for a police officer within the force to work with them on their idea, you were ordered to volunteer. And then …’
He opened his mouth to protest.
‘And then,’ Honey went on, determined to have her say, ‘when Elmer Maxted’s body was found, you determined to hold on to the case. You saw it as a means to repair your reputation. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? You don’t like it, but I’m tolerated.’
He began to laugh, bending from the waist, lower arm across his belly.
Honey was unmoved. ‘And now we have the laughing policeman!’
The look in his eyes contradicted what the rest of his body was doing. The eyes certainly had it, and that was what she would judge him by.
She headed back to the conservatory, satisfied that the air between them was at last clear.
All the same, she was feeling uneasy. The whole scenario had changed. This wasn’t just about a misplaced tourist. It wasn’t even about the likelihood that Elmer had been mugged and murdered purely by chance. Such things rarely happened in Bath. For the most part the city was peopled by the cultured, the civilised and the upwardly mobile.
On the face of it this second murder had nothing to do with tourism and made her nervous.
‘I’ve had second thoughts,’ said Doherty from behind her as they headed back. ‘Mrs Herbert has to be the prime suspect. Who else would plant their husband in their own garden?’
Although tempted to slam the door on him, Honey left it open. Irritating as he was, Cora’s cigarette smoke was worse.
Cora was sitting in exactly the same position as when they’d left her. Goodness knows how many cigarettes she’d consumed in their absence. She was on a chain-smoking marathon and her eyes were watery. Despite the make-up, her complexion was greasy and white.
‘I didn’t do it,’ she said before anyone had asked her. I didn’t kill ’im and I didn’t bury ’im in the garden. I loved that rockery.
‘So how did he get there?’ asked Doherty.
Cora’s eyes popped like marbles. ‘How the hell should I know?’
Honey was aware of Loretta leaning against the wall behind them, arms folded, her expression as dark as her mother’s flaking mascara.
Doherty was sounding serious. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to come into the station for further questioning.’
Honey could find no words of sympathy and nothing helpful to say like, ‘It’s surely a mistake,’ or ‘I shouldn’t worry if I were you.’ The evidence was damning. Like Doherty had said, who else would plant their husband in the garden?
‘I’ll walk back,’ Honey said once they were outside and Mrs Cora Herbert had been helped into the back seat of a police car.
Doherty shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’ He turned to Loretta. The girl’s face was expressionless, as though she were still digesting what was going on.
‘What about you?’
Loretta’s bright eyes narrowed and her red lips twisted into a contemptuous snarl. ‘I don’t travel with pigs. I’ll be down to visit her, give her a bit of moral support and all that.’ She stood on tiptoe and shouted at her mother. ‘I’ll be down to see you, Ma! You can count on it!’
Honey caught the sob in her voice. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘I’ll bloody well have to be. Mum would want me to take care of things.’ She jerked her head back at the ‘No Vacancy’ sign. ‘We’re expecting paying guests. Have to look after them, don’t I?’
‘You’re a good daughter. It must be upsetting. I think you’re very brave.’
Loretta shrugged again causing the straps of her top to slide down over her thin shoulders. ‘Not really. I know she didn’t do it. There’s no evidence.’
The statement was made confidently. She was standing with her arms still folded protectively across her chest, her head held high. Was that a smile Honey could see wavering around her lips?
Her smile vanished when she saw the enquiring look on Honey’s face.
‘Don’t look at me like that!’
‘I’m sorry.’
It wouldn’t do to leave on a negative note. She forced a smile while her eyes dropped back to the flashing diamond.
‘That’s a pretty ring,’ she said, trusting her instant change of subject didn’t sound too contrived.
The comment lifted Loretta’s heavily made-up face. ‘Nice, ain’t it?’
She flashed the ring. ‘My dad gave me it,’ she said in a strange and dreamy kind of way.
Honey’s first thought was that Robert Davies had come into a nice sum of money to have afforded such a flashy ring.
‘That’s nice. Were you close to your dad?’
‘Yep!’
‘But not to Mervyn.’
Loretta’s expression darkened into a deep scowl. ‘A prime-time creep!’
Honey imagined the affect Loretta’s skimpy attire might have had on Mervyn Herbert.
‘Did he bother you?’
‘No,’ she said, her eyes blazing. ‘He didn’t
bother me! He
raped me!’
Chapter Twenty-three
Honey stretched her tired body and plunged headfirst into sleep and a very scintillating dream. She was lounging beneath an azure sky by the side of a lagoon which in turn was fringed with waving palm trees.
The sound of surf brushing over a golden beach changed suddenly.
Funny, she thought languorously. The sea sounds just like my telephone at home …
Just at the point when a gorgeous hunk was handing her a long, cool drink, the dream was broken.
Swearing under her breath, she switched on the light and reached for her watch. Twelve thirty-two. The phone was still purring.
Drawing her other hand from beneath the thick layer of sheet, blankets and satin eiderdown; an old-fashioned eiderdown; she so loved old-fashioned. She eased herself up against the pillows and reached for it.
‘Hope you weren’t doing anything special?’
Doherty!
‘Just sleeping.’ Well actually, the lean torso of her dream reminded her of him, but there was no way she would tell him that. His ego was big enough.
She rolled over on to her side, cuddling the phone against her cheek.
‘I do sometimes go to bed before midnight!’
‘Do you?’
He sounded genuinely surprised. The truth was she was tired out after serving a party of history buffs holding their annual bash. History was sometimes viewed as dry; the historians ensured their throats were always wet. Dreaming of him had provided a little light relief.
‘Look, Steve, running a hotel and being a sleuth …’
‘Doherty. I prefer to be called Doherty.’
‘OK. Doherty. Being a sleuth is quite burdensome. Anyway, what do you want?’
There was a pause. ‘I’ve had a heavy day. You know, Mrs Herbert and all that. I thought you might feel the same.’
Honey pulled herself up into a more comfortable sitting position. She told him that she’d rung the station earlier to enquire what was going on. Cora was still being questioned.
She frowned at the thought of poor Cora ending up in a cell on a bed that wasn’t her own.
‘There have been developments.’
It was a case of ‘pigs might fly’ to hope that Mervyn Herbert had been a random killing. And did Doherty know that Mervyn had raped his stepdaughter?
‘Steve …’
‘Doherty. Call me Doherty.’
; ‘Doherty. Loretta told me something, something that she may also have told her natural father that would make him real mad.’
She told him what Loretta had told her. ‘I’m not sure whether her mother knows.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
He sounded genuinely sorry, almost as though he could really empathise as a parent. He’d mentioned having once been in a long-term relationship. He hadn’t mentioned having children.
The likelihood of Cora killing her husband wasn’t that far fetched. The option of her first husband, Loretta’s father, having done the job, was also possible.
‘Besides keeping me informed of developments and feeling mutually drained, what else did you want?’
‘Company. How about we meet up at the Zodiac.’
‘Now?’
‘As good a time as any.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘The night’s still young. And so are we.’
‘I don’t feel young.’
‘I’ll make you feel young.’
Something electrical steered a southerly course to erogenous areas she hadn’t used in a long while.
She swung her legs out of bed. ‘Give me twenty minutes – no – thirty. It’s a pretty long walk unless I get a taxi.’
‘No need to do either. I’m parked outside.’
‘I could accuse you of being too sure of yourself.’
‘I could accuse you of being out of your depth and say that I don’t enjoy your company. But I won’t.’
A pale green silk sweater, jeans and loafers, plus a quick brushing of her hair and she was ready. She popped on pearl earrings – a classy afterthought. Classy was good.
As he drove, she blinked at the impatient city where visitors still wandered taking in the atmosphere, and late-night revellers and theatregoers headed for nightclubs or a taxi home.
Doherty was driving extremely steadily. No van drivers were honking horns at him. Not that many van drivers made deliveries at one in the morning.
‘How many have you had to drink?’
‘Two small ones.’
A borderline case of drink-driving? She wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t chancing it.
‘Can we go for a walk?’ she said suddenly. ‘I don’t really feel like a drink.’
He gave in without a fight. ‘OK.’
They headed for Pulteney Bridge, parked the car and got out. He automatically offered her his arm. She automatically took it. Not a word passed between them. Honey was comfortable with that. She presumed he was musing over the day’s events, but also enjoying making her wait for what he had to say.
She studied his profile. Strong silent type with well-chiselled features, a masculine smell and an aura of power. Leather jacket. Stone-washed jeans. Good thighs. Alpha male at his best.
They stopped at the water’s edge, and looked towards the bridge and the river.
Doherty leaned on the parapet. He fixed his gaze on the lights reflected in the river.
‘Mrs Herbert’s out of the picture. Pathology confirmed a time of death when she was out at bingo.’
‘So what next?’
‘We’re looking for Mrs Herbert’s first husband. He’s a dead cert for doing it.’
‘Because of Loretta?’
‘Could be. He’s not long out of prison. There’s nothing between him and the ex-wife, but he’s very protective of Loretta.’
A breeze blowing off the river whipped her hair across her face. It was nice being here with him. Terrible circumstances of course.
Leaning forward, his hands resting on the parapet, he looked up into her face.
‘You feel guilty you didn’t tell me sooner about Loretta’s accusation. I can see it in your eyes.’
‘You can’t see my eyes.’
‘Do I have to beat it out of you? I can play good cop, bad cop if called upon.’
She sighed. ‘Can I call upon you to buy me a coffee instead?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
His gaze turned to the other side of the river. ‘Look at the river. At its edges the current runs faster. I reckon Elmer came down on the current on this side. If the current on the river is just as strong upstream as it is here, then the body could have been put in anywhere along that stretch. But that piece of wood came down with it.’ He stood thoughtfully for a moment.
‘And Mervyn Herbert?’
He shook his head. ‘Another sack over his head and traces of coriander. That’s a spice, isn’t it?’
She told him it was and thought of Jeremiah. The sacks had to have come from him.
Before she had chance to mention Jeremiah’s spice stall and him being a personal friend, Docherty stepped in.
‘We questioned a spice stall in the market about their sacks.’
‘But not the stall owners. They wouldn’t have a motive.’
‘Not at this moment they don’t, but who knows? Something may crop up.’
Honey thought of Jeremiah and Ade. No. There was no possible motive.
She rubbed at her forehead as she tried to work out where this was going. Being dragged out of bed for midnight walks didn’t happen very often. Midnight walks were something lovesick teenagers did when they couldn’t afford anything else after a lively night out.
‘Are you insinuating that Loretta’s father murdered both Elmer and Mervyn?’
‘I think so. The spice sacks link them. And Davies has a record.’
‘So do a lot of people.’
‘Do you?’
‘Not a criminal one. I just carry a lot of baggage – you know – failed marriage, widowed, raising a kid, mad mother …’
‘I wouldn’t say you were mad.’
‘I meant my mother!’
‘No need to snap.’
‘Sorry.’ She rubbed at her frowning forehead again.
‘Right. Now what is it you know that I don’t?’
He sounded insistent. She wondered if he would drag her down to the station for questioning if she didn’t spill the beans. Possibly.
‘Loretta Davies was raped by her stepfather, her stepfather has been found with a spice sack over his head, and I know the bloke in the market who runs the spice stall. That’s all.’
Doherty raised his eyebrows. ‘Jeremiah Poughty?’
Honey looked at him. ‘You know him?’
‘Who doesn’t?’
Honey frowned. ‘I wonder if Loretta’s mother knows about the rape?’ Girls didn’t tell their mothers everything. Neither did they always tell the truth.
‘It happens. She might not have known. And who could blame the man? But Mervyn deserving what he got won’t keep Loretta’s father from prison.’ Doherty grunted. ‘At least he’s used to it.’
Late-night revellers chose that moment to come skipping along the promenade like six-year-olds. Every so often they leapt up at the flower baskets hanging from the lampposts, hitting them with their hands and sending them swinging.
Doherty waited until they’d gone by before explaining.
‘Mrs Herbert told us at first that Mervyn had gone to the pub. The Green Park Tavern, a favourite of mine, it so happens.’
Honey nodded. The Green Park Tavern was a fair walk from the guest house towards the viaduct and the train station.
‘She told me that,’ said Honey. ‘He did it quite regularly apparently.’
‘When did she tell you?’
‘On the first occasion I went there when Mr Weinstock, as he was then, went missing. Mervyn shot off at the same time. I presumed he was avoiding me – you know – just another busybody to blight his days. Obviously that wasn’t quite the case.’
Suddenly the scene that day came back in full clarity. ‘Oh my God!’
‘God’s not here. Just me. What’s the problem?’
‘He was helping some men from the council take out a large chest freezer. It was being dumped. I never saw him after that.’
‘The chest was checked when our American friend went missing, then left unattended and unoc
cupied. Just enough room for Mr Herbert – if only temporarily.’
Doherty flicked open his phone, punched the shortcut button and immediately introduced himself and what he wanted.
‘Check the file. Where’s Davies working?’
There was a pause as the lowly police officer on the other end obeyed and checked the particulars.
Something was said that she couldn’t hear. Doherty didn’t look too pleased.
‘That’s all it says? The council? Didn’t anyone think to check which department?’
Obviously not. He slammed his phone shut.
‘Chimps. The lot of them. Qualified by a bit of paper and they’re all bloody chimps!’
‘Never mind. You already know that there’s nothing in the freezer now.’
‘Absolutely. But there could have been.’
Doherty’s arm brushed around her back. She took it as a signal to resume their walk. He was surprisingly serious as he talked, his eyes now fixed on the ground in front of them. If he was being ‘fresh’ as her mother used to say, he showed no sign of it apart from the encircling arm. He was into his subject, recounting what had happened – as related by Mrs Herbert.
‘Sometimes, when he’d had enough of Bath and tourists, or when her former husband was threatening to bash his head in, Mervyn used to jump on a train.’
‘Where to?’
‘Anywhere. Two days or so and he returned. But not this time. Then Davies turned up and was more than pleased that it seemed he wasn’t coming back. Offered to move back in. Loretta was all for it. Cora didn’t seem too bothered about it. They could have worked in collusion.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘He’s scarpered! That’s a sign of guilt if ever there was. Probably in Mervyn’s Volvo estate. We haven’t found that either.’
‘So the murderer could be driving around in a Volvo estate.’
Doherty pulled a face. ‘Some people have no taste.’
Chapter Twenty-four
Honey smiled as she greeted diners arriving for dinner in the restaurant of the Green River Hotel. Most were guests, but Smudger the chef knew his stuff, so there was always a smattering of locals wanting to sample his seafood thermidor or his heaven-sent white chocolate mousse with orange liqueur.
Mary Jane came floating in wearing strawberry pink chiffon, her long feet encased in Roman-style gold sandals the straps of which finished in a knot halfway up her shins.
Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) Page 15