Wicked Words: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries)

by Jean G. Goodhind

  WICKED WORDS

  A Honey Driver Mystery

  Jean G Goodhind

  A sense of justice is felt amongst Bath hoteliers when an unpopular hotel reviewer is found dead stuffed inside a giant teddy at the bottom of an open grave.

  As the Hotels' Association police liaison officer, Honey Driver is expected to help solve his murder – even though she's something of a suspect herself.

  On top of that, she's lumbered with a distant friend's incontinent dog – and when it gets kidnapped, she hopes it doesn't come back …

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter One

  The bucket of the digger had wicked-looking teeth along one edge that made a grating sound as it tore into the concrete slab protecting the top of the cesspit. At first there was only a crazy paving effect, a profusion of cracks and crumbling like crushed bits of bone. The concrete was roughly three inches thick, the metal mesh that kept it together becoming gradually exposed.

  The cesspit was no longer used; the washrooms in St Luke’s Church next door in the parish of Much Maryleigh were now connected to the main sewer and water supply. The cesspit was on the field side of the churchyard wall, away from the graves of villagers past and present. The field itself was no longer a field but an environmentally friendly burial site. There were no gravestones, only saplings sprouting from the graves of the newly dead. In time the field would become woodlands.

  There were two men overseeing the job; one was driving the digger, the other was looking on. This latter man, the older one, looked up on seeing a man he recognized as Peter Pierce. His bottom lip curled in contempt. Pierce was one of the new arrivals in the village. He was running across the field, waving his arms.

  His face taking on a deep scowl, the older man signalled the younger man to switch off the digger while he turned to face their neighbour.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Pierce shouted as he came to a stop, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his face flushed and his mouth wide open. ‘That’s my piece of land. It’s on my deeds,’ he shouted breathlessly. ‘You’ve had a letter about it from my solicitor.’

  Ned Shaw made no effort to look anything except hostile. Pierce was bluffing. When his sort disagreed with something, they resorted to a lawyer’s letter, an injunction, in fact anything that would prevent an enterprise going forward.

  ‘This was my field, Pierce. Long before you arrived it was my field.’

  ‘It was common land,’ Pierce retorted. ‘Everyone used it.’

  ‘Including you,’ Ned said with a scowl. ‘I had no problem with people using it when we weren’t using it. Now it’s sold.’

  ‘But it has historical significance,’ Pierce blurted.

  Ned’s look hardened. ‘Bullshit!’

  His family had lived in the village for generations. He made no secret of his dislike for new arrivals like Peter Pierce. He blamed them for his change in drinking habits. In the past he’d taken his custom to the Poacher but it was a smarty-tarty place now, all posh nosh and muted lighting. He now drank at the Rose and Crown, a more traditional place where they still played darts and the height of cuisine was steak and chips.

  Leaning on his shovel, he addressed Ned in a no-nonsense manner. ‘Unless you want to end up buried before your time, get the hell out of here. The land’s sold, you can no longer use it, and no matter how hard you try this field was always on my deeds. It’s not common land. It’s my land and I can do as I please with it.’

  Peter Pierce was unfortunate enough to have a pink, Cupid’s bow-shaped mouth. He pouted like a girl.

  ‘The people at the university said there could be important artefacts buried here …’

  Ned Shaw sneered. ‘They did a dig years ago. Nothing was ever found.’

  ‘There could still be …’

  ‘Bullshit! There’s only bodies here now.’

  Peter Pierce looked as though he were about to explode.

  ‘You had no right to sell it to these people, these hippies!’ he shouted. He glared at the driver of the digger, eyes blazing, his cheeks puffing in and out like a pair of pink bellows.

  Ned Shaw stood his ground, shirtsleeves rolled up ready for action, exposing his dark, hairy arms.

  The hippy comment was obviously intended for the digger driver, one of the people who had bought the land from Ned.

  The Shaw family had owned the land for generations using it as grazing, ploughing it up when they felt moved to, and letting it go to seed for the rest of the time. As he’d explained to Pierce, he’d had no problem with people using it when he wasn’t using it; the kids had gone playing there, the courting couples had lain there in August when the grass was tall and golden and the ground warm.

  Ned had not been entirely convinced that their venture into an environmentally friendly burial park would work, but they’d showed him the colour of their money and he’d sold the field. Following their purchase they put work his way. The cesspit was on the land he’d sold them. He had rights to do as he liked with it, but Peter Pierce was adamant, insisting the land was his, purely because of the shape of it and a wall. On Peter’s side of the wall beyond the church boundary was a stone lean-to that he’d converted into a pump room for his swimming pool. According to him it meant the wall was his.

  ‘Look, I’ve already told you,’ Ned began, his patience grating along with his voice. ‘The wall and this land …’

  Peter Pierce shook his head so hard it looked in danger of falling off. ‘Well I don’t know about that!’ he snapped. ‘I’m going to see my lawyer. I’ll have this sorted. You just see if I don’t. Until then, stop or I’ll get an injunction. You can stop taking this cesspit apart right now!’

  He’d come out with exactly what Ned had been expecting. His patience snapped. His fist shot forward, grabbing a handful of Peter Pierce’s cashmere sweater. They were nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball.

  Anger simmered in Ned’s voice.

  ‘If you don’t get out of my bloody sight you’re going to be in that cesspit wallowing around in the shit that you say is yours. Right?’

  The suddenness with which Ned let him go took Peter by surprise. It was as though he’d been held in a very large elastic band that had suddenly let go and sent him stumbling. He was sent sprawling in a pile of leaves and rubbish, the basis for this year’s compost heap.

  ‘Your missus won’t like the smell of you when you get ’ome,’ Ned shouted.

  Scrambling to his feet, Peter pointed at him with a shaking finger. ‘I’ll have you, Ned Shaw. I’ll have you yet.’

  Ned made a sudden dash – only a few steps but enough to send Peter Pierce running awkwardly but swiftly backwards.

  ‘You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,’ he shouted once he was safely out of the reach of Ned’s fearsome hands. ‘And I’ll report you to the police. Assault and battery.
Let’s see what you’ve got to say then.’

  The younger man, Gary, jumped down from the cab of the digger, tossed his dreadlocks out of his eyes, and gave Ned a friendly slap on the shoulder.

  ‘Take no notice of that wanker,’ he said.

  Ned’s eyes were narrowed, his countenance concerned. He shook the hand from his shoulder and remarked glumly, ‘It ain’t you with the police record.’

  Chapter Two

  Gloria Cross was looking a dream in a black suit with a crisp white blouse, black and white kitten-heeled shoes, and matching handbag.

  Her daughter, Hannah Driver, Honey to her friends, was standing opposite her in a white cotton apron splattered with ketchup and brown sauce.

  ‘You’re looking good, Mother. Black suits you.’

  She was merely telling the truth. When it came to choosing clothes and looking good, Honey’s mother was top of the tree. Honey, on the other hand, could never find the time to look that good. Or smell that good. Her mother smelled of a very expensive French perfume.

  ‘Lovely perfume,’ she said.

  ‘Can’t say the same about yours,’ responded her mother, wrinkling her nose. ‘You smell of grilled bacon and sausages.’

  Honey took a sniff of her sleeve. Her mother was right.

  Smoothing her skirt elegantly over her slim thighs, Gloria Cross settled herself more comfortably in the best chair her daughter’s office could offer. In fact it was the only chair at present. Honey was perched on the corner of the desk.

  Her mother’s countenance was somewhat downbeat; what with that and the black outfit, Honey guessed that bereavement was on the agenda.

  Out it came.

  ‘Sean O’Brian is dead.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘But at least he died with a smile on his face.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘He was in bed with his wife on honeymoon. You do know he remarried, don’t you? I did tell you so.’

  ‘Yes. Of course you did,’ said Honey sounding suitably morose, folding her arms and nodding as though she was feeling his loss greatly – which quite frankly she was not. In her opinion Sean O’Brian had been an ageing lecher; she had the bruises on the bum to prove it. Old he might have been, but he had the wandering grip of a manic tarantula.

  ‘He’ll be greatly missed,’ sighed her mother.

  Out of sight of her mother, Honey rolled her eyes. Here was one girl who most definitely would not be missing him. It crossed her mind that her mother had never said whether Sean had tried out his lethal pinch on her rear. She wouldn’t dare ask, and besides, the man was deceased. He would be pinching no more and it was bad luck to speak ill of the dead.

  She made an effort to sympathize. ‘I’m sure he will be, Mother. His wife will be missing him for a start. What a rotten thing to happen on honeymoon.’

  A knock at the door preceded the arrival of Steve Doherty looking a little paler than normal, and also terribly neat and clean-shaven. Despite the absence of his usual two-day stubble and the fact that her mother was likely to cramp their style, Honey noticed a promise of things to come in his eyes.

  She smiled at him.

  He smiled back, though more nervously than usual.

  ‘Hope I’m not late.’

  He managed to overcome the nervous bit, his smile braver than it had been.

  She liked that and threw in a wink to help him along.

  ‘I appreciate you doing this.’

  He shrugged. ‘No problem.’

  She’d asked him to do something, something he’d never done before. And here he was. He was going to do it.

  ‘Have you had coffee?’ Honey asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’ll pass on that. Saw Smudger on his way out. He said to tell you he’s off to take a look at a salamander. I didn’t know he was into reptiles.’

  Honey grinned.

  She’d enlighten him later that their steak grill – termed a ‘salamander’ in the trade – was on its last legs.

  Her mother interrupted. ‘We were talking about Sean until we were interrupted.’

  Gloria Cross did not like being ignored. Her Botoxed lips were clamped into a ruby red line and she gave him only the briefest acknowledgement – a slight jerk of the chin – before prattling on as though he wasn’t there.

  ‘Oh yes. Sean was a very dear man. Such a romantic and an out-and-out gentleman.’

  ‘Still waters run deep,’ Honey responded.

  The air between Doherty and her mother was as potent as static in nylon underwear, though when it came to lightning hits, her mother was the one throwing it. Since the demise of Carl, Honey’s husband, Gloria Cross had made it something of a crusade to find a suitable replacement – suitable in her eyes, that was. Even though the man was dead, she was still waxing on about Sean O’Brian and his considerable assets.

  ‘Of course, it could have been your honeymoon last week if you’d played your cards right. If you recall, he did offer to escort you on that Arctic cruise we all went on – us from the over-sixties club. You should have come. Sean was very well-heeled you know.’

  Honey rolled her eyes in Steve’s direction. Reference to Sean O’Brian’s interest in her was intended for his ears. Steve didn’t come up to the standard of husband required for her daughter. He didn’t wear a Rolex, drove a Japanese car, and had an inbuilt aversion to shaving.

  But Doherty knew how to take a punch. He also knew how to fling a few, only at present it wasn’t a punch, it was a finger. Stern of expression, he was wagging it directly beneath Honey’s nose.

  ‘Honey, you should have listened to your mother. That man had everything you could possibly want – including his own teeth. And he could fasten his own truss.’

  Honey stifled a giggle.

  Her mother’s face was like thunder. ‘Well that’s typical of Mr Plod the Policeman. Making jokes at a dead man’s expense, a man who would have defended himself if he were here! Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, so I hear.’

  Doherty held up his hands in surrender but failed to look contrite. He looked more as though he wanted to laugh out loud.

  Her mother arose from her chair and stood formidably at five feet three inches – five feet five if you counted the kitten-heeled shoes.

  This was one of those regular moments when Honey wanted to stuff her fingers in her ears. She’d heard all this advice and criticism before and recognized the coming storm and the lightning strike opinions that went with it.

  In her mother’s opinion a beefy bank account made up for a man’s age, looks, or general behaviour, though she might draw a line if the guy was a slob. The jury was out on her views regarding any other odd predilections.

  Honey was under no illusions; Sean O’Brian had been a man with an eye for the ladies and a habit of chancing his luck. Hope springs eternal, so they say, and whatever was springing about Sean O’Brian’s person should have stopped doing it long ago.

  Honey remembered him with a shiver of embarrassment. He was the sort of guy who still thought himself a wizard on the dance floor though he was older than John Travolta and actually too old for the discos even when Saturday Night Fever was in vogue.

  He still tried to hold everything together, wearing tight jeans when they were in fashion and two-tone shoes. White locks hung like strands of un-braided rope to his shoulder blades, usually tied back into a ponytail. He’d also been partial to open-necked shirts and had sported a gold medallion amongst his pure white chest hair.

  Having been roughly five-feet-four in a pair of elevated heels, Sean O’Brian had also sported a bald patch in the middle of his head, the straggly hairs brushed over in an effort to hide it.

  A girl’s vision of heaven he hadn’t been. Still, she mustn’t appear heartless. She composed her expression behind the coffee cup before she made comment.

  ‘So,’ she said brightly, though in all honesty she was aching to get Doherty alone, to give him a pep talk and anything else that might make the task she�
�d given him easier to confront. But first things first. Keep her mother sweet. ‘How old was dear old Sean?’

  Her mother sighed. ‘Not so old.’

  Honey fixed Steve Doherty with a warning look. His earlier exuberance had modified because he had other things on his mind, namely that very special task she’d asked of him, a very special task that only a very brave policeman could do. In fact, a task he had never done before and he was doing it just for her.

  But the question she’d asked had hit the right note. Her mother’s face lit up at the prospect of handing out information that only she could give. It was something to do with priding herself that she still had a memory. ‘As sharp as when I was twenty,’ she’d proclaim to anyone who dared think otherwise.

  ‘He was born in ’35,’ she reliably informed them whether they wanted to know or not.

  Honey nodded. ‘Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.’ Too damned old for me, she thought. ‘So. How’s the widow?’

  Her mother nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘So-so. They had a good marriage though not a long one. Arlene is younger than him of course, but very active. Really sexy for her age.’

  Honey was pretty sure that Sean’s second wife – now his widow – was old enough to have a bus pass – sixty at least. Their honeymoon had been an all-inclusive deal to some island in the Mediterranean when old Sean had popped his clogs.

  Honey hadn’t gone to the wedding. Her mother had.

  ‘He’s still good in the sack,’ she’d informed her. ‘Arlene will be good for him. She does like a man who’s active in that department.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue for Honey to remark that being sexy had been the death of him. She could see by Doherty’s face that great minds – namely theirs – were thinking alike.

  ‘So when’s the funeral?’ asked Honey, refusing to meet Doherty’s gaze because she knew his expression would mirror what she was thinking. And then all respect for the dead would fly out of the window as they burst out laughing.

  Thankfully, her mother didn’t seem to have noticed.

  She was already rummaging in her handbag for the taxi fare to her next destination – lunch with friends. She lunched a lot with friends. That’s when she wasn’t helping out at Secondhand Sheila, the used designer clothes shop that she ran with a bunch of other elderly ladies.