Murder By Mudpack: A Honey Driver Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries)

by Jean G. Goodhind

  It was hard not to throw back her head and moan, so she didn’t try to stop it.

  ‘Of all the people to have die on me!’

  ‘Are you in charge here?’

  The two occupants of the police car left parked outside had been whiling away their time in the dining room with cups of tea and buttered scones. The evidence – the butter from a toasted tea cake – had made their chins shiny.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can we have a word?’

  ‘Certainly. I’m Mrs Hannah Driver. I’m the owner.’

  ‘Just a few details, Mrs Driver. Can you tell us what time the body was discovered?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t here.’

  ‘I was.’ Lindsey offered her services.

  While Lindsey helped the police with their enquiries, Honey phoned Doherty, taking her phone into the restaurant where she proceeded to help herself to a buttered chocolate croissant, two slices of cold bacon, and a large cup of regular black coffee.

  Detective Inspector Steve Doherty answered on the third ring.

  ‘Steve? We’ve had a death at the hotel.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  He sounded casual, as though bodies found dead in hotels was happened all the time – which presumably they did, though not necessarily drowned in a bowl of porridge.

  ‘Good job I left the clinic when I did. Not that I could have stood it there for much longer. They took away my phone. I’ve only just got it back. And my clothes.’

  ‘And your cookie jar?’

  ‘I didn’t take a cookie jar. I took packets of cookies – and other things. The cheese was going a bit ripe.’

  ‘Naughty girl. So. How did you get on?’

  ‘The mud bath made me itch.’ She scratched at the memory of it. ‘You wouldn’t believe the red mark I’ve still got on my derrière.’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’ve got just the thing for itchy derrières.’

  The lechery of his smile came full throttle down the phone.

  ‘I know your game.’

  ‘Good. Then you know it takes two to play it.’

  The thought of playing at his place following drinks at the Zodiac Club was very appealing. However, although she’d sensed things weren’t right at The Beauty Spot Clinic, she didn’t really have anything concrete except that Serena Sarabande had walked straight out of a freezer. Although she’d seen Dr Dexter, she didn’t really have anything on him except that he was balling Serena on a regular basis.

  ‘One of the girls there is or was friendly with Magda Church, the girl who discovered the body. I know you’ve already interviewed her, but I thought she might be worth a visit. I got her name from Karen Pinker.’ She frowned. ‘Funny, I didn’t see Karen before I left. It must have been her day off or something.’

  But what was it Karen had said? She was working five or six days a week at the moment, seven if they could twist her arm. On the way out she’d asked the girl at Reception where she was. The girl had been offhand.

  ‘I think she’s left, but I wouldn’t know for sure. I’m new here.’

  Karen’s departure from the clinic was too sudden to be taken as pure chance. She’d been sacked. Honey was sure of it, and suspected it might have been her fault.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Honey slipped off one shoe and rubbed her aching sole.

  ‘Hey ho. Running a hotel is such a soothing pastime!’

  ‘You love it really,’ muttered Lindsey from the corner of her mouth.

  Honey was thinking that she should have stayed resting up at the beauty clinic for a bit longer. But here she was, back into the nitty-gritty of hotel life, and she was run off her feet.

  A group of accountants were busily spending their clients’ money in the restaurant as part of their conference passage.

  Following five courses they were now downing liqueurs. Drambuies, sambucas, tequilas, and B-52s were being ordered in quick succession.

  Also in quick succession dirty crockery and glassware was piling up in the kitchen.

  Smudger Smith, head chef and one time all-in wrestler, was getting red in the face, growling like an out-of-sorts Rottweiler as he paced from one end of the kitchen to the other.

  He was waiting to clean down, close the door, and shove off to the pub. Unfortunately the dishes and glasses kept coming.

  The hold-up was also due to the fact that Clint had done a runner halfway through scraping the residue of steak and kidney pie from an oven dish.

  Apparently this sudden incident had occurred when someone had delivered a note to the barman. The barman had passed the note on to Clint, who had immediately vanished, muttering something about not wanting his assets cut off and made into a pudding.

  Honey, flustered from doing what all hotel owners have to do at certain times – wait on tables, serve drinks, and keep one step ahead of drunken diners hoping to give her a grope rather than a gratuity – was told what had happened.

  ‘Saturday night is music night in my books,’ grumbled Smudger, whipping off the red bandana he wore around his head and looking as though he might strangle somebody with it – Clint at this moment in time.

  The fact that chefs could expect to be at their busiest on a Saturday night cut no ice with Smudger. Getting to the pub to meet his mates was a ritual not even the Queen would dare to interrupt.

  Rubbing her forehead with one hand and her pinched posterior with the other, Honey sighed.

  ‘Run along and play. I’ll finish off here.’

  She regretted the words the minute they were out, but had no chance to retract them. Smudger was already unbuttoning his splattered chef’s jacket.

  ‘You couldn’t just stay …’

  He stiffened, his eyes diminishing to pinpoints of inner angst. His look said it all.

  She waved him off. ‘No. Forget it.’

  ‘Here we are again,’ she said to herself as she tackled the clearing up while Smudger headed for the nearest pint of beer.

  It was after midnight by the time she’d finished. Some of the accountants had stumbled up to bed. A few hardened conference delegates were balanced on bar stools, treating each other and the long-suffering barman to clichéd jokes and anecdotes from other accountancy conferences they’d attended.

  The kitchen was preferable before one of them began their ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ routine.

  She did what she had to do until the kitchen was pristine. After that she went out for some air in the back yard.

  The air was chilly, the sky was bright, and the shadows thrown by bushes and rambling roses were sooty black.

  The sound of the city hummed like an idling lawnmower on the other side of the wall. A bush on this side of the wall rustled.

  ‘Psst! Psst!’

  To an untrained ear it sounded like a gas leak, but Honey Driver knew better.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake … Clint! Cut the impersonation of Hissing Sid and come out here. Do you realize you dropped me in it tonight? Look at me. Hotel owner covered in sweat when I should be floating around playing at being hostess with the mostest.’

  Clint’s expression was unflustered. ‘Your flattery is formally accepted. Now, what is it you want in return?’

  She fancied she saw him grin but it was too dark to be sure.

  He stepped out into the light, his eyes flickering nervously towards the kitchen door.

  Clint’s neck was covered in tattoos, mostly of spiders’ webs. Centred on his skull was something resembling a large black tarantula.

  Striking and somewhat frightening as his tattoos were, Clint was something of a pussycat. He was also almost always available when it came to being short of someone to wash the dishes. He would do anything asked of him, the original Jack of all trades. Nothing he was asked to do required great skill, but he was willing, which counted for a lot in the hospitality trade. He led a flexible working life. At the last count he had four different jobs, one as bouncer on the door of the Zodiac Club, the smoky, open late hours haunt o
f pub landlords and off-duty hotel owners and managers …

  ‘It’s like this,’ he began. ‘I need a favour. A really big favour.’

  Honey eyed him sceptically. She was under no illusion. Clint was a shadowy character and some of what he did wasn’t entirely legal.

  ‘If it’s illegal, don’t ask me.’

  ‘No! No! It’s nothing like that.’ He swallowed hard, his eyes still flickering towards the kitchen door. ‘I was wondering if I could stay with you tonight.’

  ‘Is that a proposition?’

  He chuckled. ‘No, of course not!’

  She folded her arms, hands still slightly damp from a surfeit of washing up. He read her look, stammering something that was almost an apology.

  ‘I wasn’t meaning that you’re too old to go to bed with. I mean a few years ago you must really have been …’

  ‘Thanks, Clint. You really know how to flatter a woman, you know that?’

  ‘Christ!’ he said, hiding his face with his hands. ‘I’m that bloody wound up and I rattle off insults as though they’re bloody bullets. That ain’t what I meant,’ he said, dropping his hands from his face. ‘The point is I’m in a bit of bother. And it ain’t illegal,’ he added quickly on seeing the look on her face. ‘Fact is that I’ve been a bit of a prat. There was this Italian piece you see. Well, Sicilian really. Her name’s Gabriella. I met her at college –’

  ‘You’ve been going to college?’

  He nodded. He looked a bit bashful. ‘I fancy meself as an artist. Always have been good with a pencil and a few paints. And I’m not bad at it. The teacher said that I was pretty good in fact, especially at life drawing – you know – people and portraits. That’s where I met Gabriella. She was the model and she was …’

  ‘Naked?’

  ‘Well … yes … but it was a life class. I mean it’s not as though it was top shelf stuff. It was art. Proper art.’

  Honey nodded and muttered a soft ‘Of course,’ at the same time thinking how funny it was that a paint brush altered the emphasis of nudity.

  ‘Anyway, we got friendly and one thing led to another.’

  ‘Not in the middle of the class, I hope!’

  He laughed. ‘Nah! Course not!’

  ‘So? What’s the problem?’

  ‘We-e-e-ll … besides the fact that she’s pregnant …’

  Honey closed her eyes. ‘Bad, but not insurmountable.’

  ‘There’s more. There’s worse.’

  She groaned. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Her husband.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘He’s Italian.’

  ‘Dodgy.’

  ‘Sicilian in fact.’

  ‘Worse still.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not funny. Luigi isn’t just the owner of the best Italian restaurant in Bath. He’s more than that. A lot more than that.’

  Honey blinked. Rumours abounded in the fair city of Bath about who was or might be a bit of a crook. Some were true. Some were not. The one about Luigi Benici being Sicilian and therefore a Mafioso had been going the rounds for years. The point was that if what they said was true and Clint had been messing with his wife, the proof of the pudding, as they say, was about to be tested.

  ‘So your relationship was abruptly cut off.’

  Clint balked. ‘It could be more than my relationship being cut off if he catches me. That was what the note was about. They’re out to get me. They’re watching me out front and following me, waiting for the right moment. That’s why I ran out here. I figured that if you could hide me for tonight and smuggle me out tomorrow in your car, I should stand a good chance. Once I’ve gathered up a few things, I’m on the road. I don’t know where I’m going but I sure as hell know it’s time to go.’

  Honey found herself analysing whether her life would become more complicated as she got older.

  ‘My car’s in the garage.’

  ‘We can get round that. Well? Can I stay with you?’

  He looked pretty dejected, so dejected in fact that she could forgive him for not wanting to go to bed with her. In fact it was something of a relief. Doherty was quite enough, thank you!

  ‘OK. But there are rules. Tidiness at all times.’

  He visibly brightened. ‘Right!’

  ‘And pyjamas. I insist you wear pyjamas.’

  He blinked, not quite working out that much as she liked him, she had no wish to see any more of his many tattoos than she was used to. However, there was one query.

  ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ she began slowly, tilting her head to one side. ‘Is it true about the fox and the hounds?’

  She was referring to rumours that he had a famous tattoo – the fox seemingly disappearing between his buttocks, the hounds following on behind.

  His hands dived to his waistband. ‘Do you want to see it?’

  She shook her head. ‘A simple yes or no will suffice.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next day Clint asked if he could stay a bit longer. Honey looked at him. She liked her place to herself, but couldn’t see him out.

  ‘If you have to.’

  An employee of Luigi Benici came calling at noon.

  Mother and daughter had helped themselves to salad. Honey had followed hers with a freshly prepared rum baba and Lindsey had gone for a quick jog around the block.

  Reception was fairly quiet, though cutlery clinked reassuringly from the restaurant. Twenty people. Not bad for a lunch time.

  Honey got on with the things she had to do, including entering the calorific value of a rum baba in her diet diary. Some of the women at the clinic kept a diet diary and swore it aided their eating habits and therefore weight loss.

  Even the words ‘rum baba’ sat lumpy under the simple word ‘salad’. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t sin, which in dietary terms was eating anything that a rabbit wouldn’t eat.

  Her decision to cross it off and forget it was interrupted by the opening of the double doors leading out on to the street.

  A man entered. For a moment he held both doors wide open, his dark eyes raking the place as though checking it was safe to enter.

  Honey sized him up. He had to be something to do with Luigi Benici. He had the strutting, confident look of somebody who demands answers or promises blood on the carpet.

  He gazed round for a second time, head high, nostrils dilated. He looked as though he expected to see Al Capone sitting there reading a newspaper.

  The Japanese couple looked up, voicing a lilting good afternoon.

  He nodded and responded while heading for Reception.

  Honey exchanged greetings with him.

  He got to the point quickly.

  ‘My name’s Carlo Pratt. I work for Luigi Benici.’

  She guessed his mother was Italian, his father British. He had the look.

  Clint was in the coach house, well out of reach. For that she was thankful.

  However, there was no doubt in her mind that anything to do with Luigi Benici meant trouble. Wasn’t it Luigi Benici who’d threatened Casper with the rough end of a pineapple at a charity event?

  It had been all to do with seating arrangements. Luigi didn’t like the table he’d been given. Unnerved by Luigi’s colourful threats – and the sure knowledge that he was likely to carry it through – Casper had caved in. Luigi had got the seating arrangements he wanted.

  There was no doubt in Honey’s mind that he would want the same level of compliance from her.

  Still, she reckoned she could hold out for a while. Until mention of torture or torching the premises.

  A beaming smile might help.

  Grinning like a Cheshire Cat she asked, ‘So what can I do for you and Mr Benici?’ As if she didn’t know!

  His smile was seductive. His teeth were white against the olive tint of his skin. He ogled her like the Big Bad Wolf. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood, or worse still Grand
ma.

  What big teeth you have, grandmother.

  ‘Let me explain, dear lady.’

  He attempted to cover her hand with his. She snatched it back, at the same time giving him a sour look.

  Unfazed, still smiling, Carlo Pratt (now what sort of a name was that?) explained his business and lied as though he were telling the truth.

  ‘The young man is a friend of my employer,’ said Pratt, his teeth flashing and smile fixed on his face. ‘There is a query about a job he did for my employer. There are items outstanding that need immediate attention. We would very much like to locate him as quickly as possible. I hear that he sometimes works for you.’

  ‘He sometimes works for a lot of people. I believe I’m one of many.’

  ‘Quite so. Quite so.’ His teeth gleamed. His hair glistened.

  Honey eyed him warily, not able to make up her mind about his provenance. Was he really half Italian or Sicilian as his first name suggested, or had he taken it on to diminish the plainness of his surname?

  She decided on the former. His classic good looks and confident style evinced the Italian stallion type. Women usually dropped at his feet because he insisted they did. Well she wasn’t one of them, even though his clothes shouted money. The cashmere sweater, matching powder-blue trousers, and white leather loafers, didn’t look as though they’d come from a Sunday market.

  ‘Well if you’d like to leave me a phone number, I’ll give you a ring the minute I hear from him. In the meantime, do you happen to know anyone skilled at scrubbing pans?’

  There was no kidding this guy. The smile went on hold for a split second before resetting into something halfway between sincere and sadistic. Powder blue might be his colour of choice, but he was no pastel on the pushy front.

  In a flash he’d grabbed her hand, and none too gently. His fingers were like a vice and her hand was being crushed.

  ‘Don’t treat me like a fool. You treat me like a fool, you treat Mr Benici like a fool. He will not like that. Now. Where is he?’

  ‘You’re hurting me.’ She struggled to throw him off. It didn’t work.