Death of a Diva: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries Book 9)

by Jean G. Goodhind

  Honey gave the production company a ring. ‘I’m working with the police on the murder of Arabella Rolfe, or Neville to use her professional name. I understand that quite a few of the production team had worked with her on the first programme of the series. Would it be OK if I talked to them?’

  The person she was speaking to asked her to wait while she checked. ‘Greensleeves’ played as she waited – a pleasant dreamy tune that made her eyelids turn heavy.

  The response was snappy. ‘Yes. You may ask questions.’

  ‘Great.’

  The spokesperson went on, ‘Though only about Arabella Rolfe of the people who knew her, NOT, repeat, NOT about the private lives of any of the psychics taking part.’

  Honey made a promise that she would stick to the point.

  Mary Jane was bubbling with excitement. ‘So where’s the party? The programme’s always made outside. Where is it?’

  Again Honey reviewed the card. ‘Bulwark Castle. Can’t say I know it.’

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Mary Jane, her face pink with enthusiasm. ‘Wow and wow again. Bulwark Castle! It’s only the most haunted castle in the country. I’ll wear my best for that one. Sure as hell I will.’

  ‘You’ll love it,’ said Lindsey when her mother told her about the two tickets. ‘Who’s going with you?’

  ‘Mary Jane.’

  Lindsey sniggered. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Lindsey …’

  Her daughter’s grin was wide enough to crack her face. She made an attempt to be serious.

  ‘You’ll love it. Of course you’ll love it.’

  Honey pointed an accusing finger. ‘One of these days I’ll come back and haunt you.’

  Heaven knows where the notion came from, but Honey couldn’t help thinking that Mary Jane’s car ran on autopilot like an aircraft or a boat. Mary Jane drove her car as though it had eyes and could think for itself. On the whole, Honey hoped that it did. It made her feel safer thinking that.

  Honey hung on, knuckles white and totally unable to take her eyes from the road figuring she might as well face her fate head-on. What will be will be – especially when Mary Jane was in the driving seat.

  Her only consolation was that she was a passenger rather than a pedestrian. Bunches of innocent tourists dived for cover. The elderly found a greater spring in their step than they’d had for years, and persistent jaywalkers gained the kerb in double quick time once they realised the pink Cadillac Coupe was as brazen as they were.

  Mary Jane was talking excitedly about being on the set of Past Lives and Prophesies.

  ‘I hope it’s good. None of this pseudo mumbo-jumbo. It has to be the real thing.’

  She went on to describe the downfalls of some programme she’d watched on TV the night before.

  ‘I’m going to give that cable TV station a ring and give them a piece of my mind. Hell, some facts were just not true. There is no such thing as death. Any medium worth their salt knows that.’

  ‘Good to know,’ said Honey.

  Mary Jane’s pronouncement was reassuring seeing as they were diving into gaps in the traffic too small for a Mini, let alone a Cadillac Coupe. Luckily the tyres screeched at their approach so nobody got killed, not today anyway.

  But something was bound to give – and it did.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ said Honey. ‘How about we have a coffee break? We’re not far from the Mall. We can go there.’

  Mary Jane was all for it. ‘Sure. A little comfort break wouldn’t hurt before we get to the shoot.’

  They had to be there on the set at four; there was just enough time to grab a coffee.

  As they swerved into the Mall’s copious car park, Honey squeezed her eyes shut, half opening them as they finally screeched into a parking place, where something dull red in colour caught her eye.

  ‘You’ve run over a carpet,’ she said.

  Mary Jane was instantly impressed. ‘Gee! Isn’t that the height of luxury? Carpeting a parking spot!’

  Honey looked around them. All the other parking spots were plain concrete, not a carpet in sight.

  ‘Only this one, I think,’ she said feeling distinctly uneasy, after all, nobody placed a carpet on the ground for no reason.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a man wearing a long white robe. He was jumping up and down, waving his arms and shouting in careful English.

  ‘Look what you have done, you stupid woman! My prayer rug! You’ve run over my prayer rug!’

  Glad for the respite from Mary Jane’s driving, Honey was willing to face anything.

  ‘I’m not the driver.’ She pointed at Mary Jane. ‘She is.’

  Mary Jane towered over the man. He looked up at her

  ‘Well that’s a pretty stupid place to put a prayer rug,’ said the septuagenarian Californian. ‘Haven’t you got a mosque somewhere you could take it?’

  The man’s eyes were blazing. ‘I am at work!’

  ‘So why not pray indoors? What if it rains?’

  Mary Jane was nothing if not persistent when it came to matters of religious or spiritual trivia.

  ‘I cannot pray indoors. When I face east indoors in the staff canteen I am facing the men’s lavatories. That would be disrespectful to Allah. When it rains I use an umbrella, and I have a plastic rain mac,’ he added. ‘Look.’

  They looked. The clearness of the plastic was scattered with bright pink sunflowers with impossibly lime green leaves.

  ‘Nice mac,’ said Mary Jane, instantly smitten by her favourite colour combination. ‘Did you buy it at John Lewis?’

  More calmly now, he shook his head. ‘No. My brother-in-law owns an import/export warehouse. He gives me a very good discount. Can I get one for you? Orders taken.’ He got out a small notepad and stubby pencil. ‘I have many satisfied customers.’ He held up his hand as a trim Chinese lady scuttled past. She was wearing the navy blue uniform of a famous chain store beneath a see-through plastic raincoat covered in multi-coloured butterflies.

  They declined his offer but said they would no doubt run into him again.

  ‘I know her,’ said Mary Jane, her eyes following the scuttling Chinese lady. ‘I’ve seen her somewhere before, though I’m jiggered if I can remember where it was.’

  Mary Jane had a habit of making the acquaintance of people in passing, so Honey took little notice. Besides, she needed a coffee fix.

  ‘Let’s give the man his carpet back.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Doherty’s call came through just as they were crossing the Severn Bridge.

  She explained where they were going and asked him what he wanted.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said. ‘An update. We’ve fished Arabella’s phone out of the river. It was a massive stroke of luck. The weir was being cleaned. The cleaners use nets on the end of poles – like kids who are looking for tadpoles. In their case, amongst other things they came up with Arabella’s phone. It was in its own case and had her name inside.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but will it need drying out before you have the last number that called her?’

  ‘I will not correct you. You’re not wrong!’

  ‘So where are you?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not far from you,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  The events of the day had gone much better than Doherty could possibly have hoped. The dead man, Adam Rolfe, had been found in a truck belonging to the Welsh National Opera. His wallet had revealed his identify.

  The truck was parked in a lay-by close to Chepstow, a border town like Tijuana, but without the sombreros, the street pedlars, and the muggers pretending to be tour guides. Chepstow, the first town in Wales, was respectable and long colonised from just over the border by upmarket English.

  ‘Once the scenery has been unloaded, we leave the back of the trailer open to advertise the fact.’

  Doherty nodded. Leaving the back doors open was common practice. It saved the thieves wasting their time and big repair b
ills as a result of forced entry.

  ‘Glad we’ve got a confirmed identification,’ said Detective Inspector Emlyn Morgan, who had come up from Cardiff. Doherty himself had identified the body. He did this after he’d arranged for someone from Manvers Street to call in and inform the first Mrs Rolfe that her ex-husband was dead.

  ‘Ask her about her alibi. Ask her if she was telling the truth.’

  Now he was there, near Chepstow, taking a look at the scene of the crime.

  Apparently it was a regular occurrence for two of the Welsh National Opera trucks to park in the lay-by overnight on their way back from London.

  ‘Glad you sent for me.’

  ‘No problem. The driver is pretty sure that the body wasn’t there before he went to sleep. They were late leaving London last night and too tired to go on. He found the victim at around eight this morning. Gave the poor man quite a fright.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Multiple lesions and bruises, plus one big lump on the back of the head. It looks as though he was knocked unconscious first, then run over a few times. Not here though. Not on the main road. It was done up in the forest somewhere. There’s plenty of forest round here. Lot of it in England.’

  The fine afternoon was turning into evening. It began to rain.

  Not good. Driving in the dry with Mary Jane was bad enough. Driving in the wet was much worse.

  Just before leaving The Mall, she’d phoned Lindsey.

  ‘If I’m not back by midnight, my last will and testament is in the safe underneath the I Love Chocolate annual.’

  Lindsey informed her that Alistair from the auction rooms had popped in and asked that she gave him a call.

  ‘Auction of ladies’ personal items on the twentieth. I thought you might be interested.’

  Alistair was big, broad, and Scottish. Sometimes he excited the female bidders at auction by appearing in his kilt, so much so that the firm he worked for actually encouraged him to wear it. Not so much on aesthetic grounds, but it seemed that bids – from the female clientele – went twenty per cent higher when he did. They put this down to them losing their concentration, allowing themselves to get carried away in the bidding due to the sight of Alistair’s muscular calves.’

  Honey took on board what he told her. There was a very nice flapper corset from the twenties. It had a flat front and straps at the back, designed to flatten the bust. Added to that was a single lot of nylon pants from the late fifties and early sixties. Luminous, was how the auction house described the colours. It occurred to Honey that Mary Jane would probably have worn the same colours in her youth.

  ‘Not for me,’ said Honey with regard to the multi-coloured panties.

  ‘How about the Brigitte Bardot pink gingham bikini and the generously proportioned brassiere, a la Jane Russell,’ asked Alistair? ‘Or how about the rubber roll-on from the fifties?’

  ‘My mother used to wear a thing like that. She reckoned that putting it on was like giving birth, and taking it off was like peeling a superglued banana. Terrible things.’

  ‘Talcum powder. That’s what she should have used. Talcum powder,’ said Alistair.

  Honey opened her mouth, about to ask how come he knew that. Then she thought of his kilt and decided not to go there.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Bulwark Castle dominated a cliff overlooking the river. It only took forty minutes to get there, though it seemed like a lot longer.

  Honey spotted someone she knew from the Bath Film and Television unit. She waved. He waved back.

  Crispin was in his mid-twenties, had patrician good looks, and spoke with languid confidence as though everything in the world was his for the asking. With his money it possibly was.

  ‘Honey! Darling!’ She got the air sucked from around each ear and his goatee beard – no more than a thin line on his chin – tickled.

  ‘How’s Lindsey?’

  ‘Fine.’ She gave him a big hug. ‘If she’d known you were here, she might have come too.’

  ‘Never mind, Honey darling. Give her my love. Just for the record I’m now in a steady relationship. His name’s Cecil.’

  He did a little finger wave to a guy with chocolate-coloured skin and an ear pierced with a whole railing of rings.

  Shame, she thought. She’d had hopes for him and Lindsey at one time. Crispin had a title. Her mother would have been well pleased, strutting around the Senior Citizens Club like a dowager duchess.

  Honey explained to him how come she was there.

  ‘Crime Liaison Officer! Well, holy cheesecakes. Lindsey’s mum is a private detective.’

  ‘Well, not exactly …’

  ‘Oh come on. Don’t be bashful. And let me help you in this. I’ll fix things up with the team with regards to your asking them questions.’

  ‘Only those who were there that night.’

  ‘Absolutely, dahling. In the meantime you must come to the front. You’ll be able to see and hear better what’s going on. Your friend can come too.’

  ‘Everyone to the castle,’ shouted one of the TV team. ‘Be warned, the rain is likely to get heavier. Umbrellas would be useful.’

  In a wafer-thin crocodile, they wound out of the hall in which they’d been gathered, and across the road into the car park of Bulwark Castle.

  The old battlements were silhouetted black against the lead-grey sky.

  ‘That old place has got a host of stories to tell,’ muttered Mary Jane. ‘Did I tell you that it’s the most haunted castle in the country?’

  ‘You did.’

  Was she hallucinating or were the VIPs taking part – the Very Irritating Psychics – all wearing plastic raincoats with brightly coloured motifs?

  She nudged Mary Jane. ‘Look at what they’re wearing. I bet they were all at The Mall before driving here and all bought raincoats. I bet that guy keeps a secret stash there.’

  Mary Jane was struggling to get her umbrella up but managed to cast a glance in their direction.

  ‘Darn it. We should have bought some, though he might have charged us over the rate seeing as I ran over his carpet.’

  Honey asked Crispin. ‘How come the psychic team are all wearing the same raincoats?’

  ‘Honey, darling, there’s nothing sinister in that. The production company probably sent somebody to the Mall to buy wet-weather gear.’

  ‘And met the same guy we did,’ said Mary Jane

  ‘But didn’t run over his prayer mat.’

  A single person with blue-black hair sidled over from out of the crowd.

  ‘I saw you at the Mall. You were talking to Ahmed.’

  Honey recognised the pretty Chinese girl.

  ‘You are interested in the occult?’ She addressed Mary Jane.

  Obviously she can tell that I’m a trifle on the sceptical side, thought Honey.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mary Jane, ‘though I prefer to think of it as communication.’

  ‘We have met before,’ she heard the Chinese girl say. ‘At the ghost tour.’

  Nobody could fail to forget someone who dressed like Mary Jane.

  Snapping her umbrella into up mode, Mary Jane narrowed her eyes and took a good look at the psychics who would be appearing on programme.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Will you just look at that! Four of a kind, and I don’t mean a good hand in poker. They’re all members of The Midas Circle. Why am I not surprised that they’re all appearing on the same programme at the same time?’

  Honey shook her head. ‘Why aren’t you? What, when it’s at home, is the Midas Circle?’

  While production staff shepherded them into position – ghost hunters beneath the postern gate, audience corralled in the open, Mary Jane explained.

  ‘Haven’t you ever watched Ghost in the Pantry? Come Haunt with Me? Or read Arm Yourself to Ghost Hunt?

  Honey shook her head to each one. ‘You’re telling me this Midas Circle is about ghost hunting?’

  Mary Jane’s eyes usually sparkled when she smi
led. On this occasion they did not. Her smile had meaning, mostly disapproval.

  ‘From what I hear, the Midas Circle has nothing to do with being professional about what they do. They’ve gone commercial; their aim is to further their careers. There are about eight of them in all. When a TV programme on haunting or other paranormal stuff is scheduled, the Midas Circle is in there. One gets offered a role and if more psychics are needed, that one recommends another member of the circle. They keep the goodies in the family so to speak.’

  ‘Ah! I see,’ said Honey, nodding as the idea took hold. She managed to waylay a member of the production team. ‘Excuse me. Who is actually presenting this programme?’

  ‘Arthur King,’ said the gum-chewing girl. ‘He stepped in at the last minute after Arabella Rolfe died.’

  ‘How sad.’ Honey adopted a suitably sad expression.

  The girl’s face seemed to freeze. ‘For some it was.’

  ‘Are you Denise Sullivan?’

  The girl had been about to move on, but stalled when asked the question.

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘I understand you got on with her pretty well, that you were close in fact.’

  The girl hesitated to answer. ‘You’re the police person, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Liaison Officer.’

  Honey was purposely oblique, not wanting any probing as to her official capacity.

  There was just a beat of hesitation before she answered. ‘I did for a time, but there, you find people out don’t you.’

  ‘Would I be right in guessing that Arabella was your mother?’

  The girl’s face froze beneath her rain-soaked hood. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Arabella – in a manner of speaking. Your real name’s Dwyer, isn’t it?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Even beneath the shadow of her rain hood, Honey could see the sudden taut expression.

  ‘I understand she insisted you keep it a secret – from everyone.’

  ‘She insisted on keeping it a big secret – even after we found out from our grandmother.’

  ‘Your grandparents kept it from you?’

  She nodded. ‘Arabella – our mother – tried to make amends by getting us a job with this production company. Both of us had a degree in media studies and both of us had worked in production before, so it was no big deal.’