As it turned out it seemed the whisky was the muse behind his articles. That was the conclusion he came to after getting a drubbing from one of his regular editors.
‘Where’s the cutting-edge criticism? Where are the dirty sheets, the grimy bath, and the cockroaches running through the foyer?’
This particular editor had once been a ‘gore and guts’ journalist. He’d been good at reporting the grisly details in murder cases. Sweetness and cute were not part of his creed. ‘We’re doing a feature in our weekend magazine. Get something a little spicier, more cutting-edge, more critical! OK?’
Wright, who was now firmly off the wagon and drinking like a fish, knew exactly where to go to get the quality accommodation and the vast range of small hotels and guesthouses that he could pull apart at will; something dirty and grimy, huh? The description was in place. Now all he had to do was find the hotel to suit it, not that it would really fit the bill, of course, otherwise he wouldn’t damn well be staying in it. He wouldn’t dream of staying in a downmarket dosshouse, a place that really did deserve a dressing down. Oh no. Not C.A. Wright. He had standards. He had taste.
Bath was a world heritage site and a great favourite with him, and he’d been here before, which meant he had to be careful not to stay in a place he’d stayed in before. If his name and the resultant review from his last stay were mentioned, he could be thrown out on his ear pronto. All he had to do was find the right place that suited all his needs. It shouldn’t be too difficult.
He’d breathed a sigh of relief on finding the Laurel Tree Hotel, a little place with only eight bedrooms and run by well-meaning amateurs who wouldn’t know anything about passing a bung.
Strictly speaking the place wasn’t really big enough to call itself a hotel. For a start it had no proper bar complete with barman dispensing cocktails with a simple flick of the wrist. But there was an honesty bar in the lounge as well as in his room which Wright had every intention of using – and bugger the honesty.
Mr and Mrs Dodd, the couple running it, were middle-aged. They’d retired from their former careers, him as a master builder and her as a secretary with Dorchester Town Council, in order to work for themselves.
‘We thought it would suit us in retirement,’ they’d said, beaming at him innocently as he checked himself in, not guessing for one minute what he was about to do to their reputation.
He’d asked them if they were enjoying the hard work.
‘It’s hard, but yes. We enjoy it.’
Their naïvety was breathtaking. New to the trade, they were only just beginning to find out how much work was required catering for other people. They weren’t ground down just yet. Give them two years max and the Laurel Tree would be on the market.
He smiled and agreed with them how very nice it would all be and how lucky they were to own such a lovely place in such a lovely city.
Fools, he thought to himself, their naïvety filling him with disdain. They were amateurs in a professional world. In time they might get things right, not that it would make much difference to him. Whether it was now or later they were susceptible to the poison that dripped from his pen.
One side of his face lifted in a self-satisfied smile. Writing a bad review was so much more fun than writing a good one, though in all honesty this place was above average. The room was pretty and clean. Pale lemon-striped curtains hung at the window. The pillowcases were crisply white. An upholstered armchair sat in one corner, a stool that looked as though it had once accompanied a grand piano was pushed under the dressing table. The bathroom had a separate shower and bath and big fluffy towels were folded neatly on a towel radiator which was switched on.
The tea- and coffee-making facilities were well-appointed, the teacups mismatched but purposely so. The Laurel Tree boasted a quirky though elegant shabby-chic style. Such a style was the worst mistake these people could make. Not everyone appreciated its quaint homespun charm. Keep it modern or keep it stately-home elegant – don’t muddy the waters.
Folding his arms beneath his head and replete with sufficient booze, Wright sighed with satisfaction. Despite its many attributes, the Laurel Tree was about to get a drubbing. What fun!
He slept like a baby, happily contented with his surroundings and his plans.
When he awoke it was six o’clock and his mouth was as dry as the bottom of a birdcage. He needed a drink.
Not a man to drink his own supply when he could drink someone else’s, he raided the drinks from the small fridge, noted the honesty list complete with pen, but didn’t bother to write anything down. The one thing he did do was to boil the kettle and make a pot of tea – not for drinking, of course. He would leave the tea to stand overnight. By morning it would be cold enough to pour into the empty whisky bottles and put them back in the fridge.
That night he went out. The hotel didn’t do evening meals but that didn’t matter; he had a little restaurant in mind, a new place where he’d make himself known and possibly get the meal for free. A few more drinks and he would turn in, though not before having a quick nightcap before bedtime.
At breakfast he ate half of the full-English – bacon, sausage, eggs etc. – then complained that he thought the oil his breakfast had been fried in might be a bit off. A pale-faced Mr Dodd apologized profusely and offered him a fresh plateful. Wright accepted.
By the time he’d finished he was set up for the day. After lunch he was off to Chepstow and Tetbury, Welsh and English towns respectively, where small hotels proliferated. Once again he had done his homework, researching online for those under new management.
Before and after breakfast he dictated notes on his digital voice recorder, relishing words like ‘pathetic’, ‘calamitous’, and ‘amateurish’ – that was besides imbibing his first drinks of the day.
Before leaving he transferred some of his remaining whisky supply into a plastic lemonade bottle which he secreted inside his jacket, though not before taking another nip. Then he was ready.
Once his bag was packed he looked out of the window on to the fountain in the middle of Laura Place. All around Regency buildings and mansard roofs, landmarks of a cultured age, stretched into the distance. Beyond were the green hills.
It had been a while since his last visit here. He smiled at the thought of it. Gone but not forgotten. He’d stayed in another small hotel that had suited his needs; that was what was so special about the city of Bath. The big groups were represented but the smaller places were unusually good – despite what he wrote about them.
Like the Laurel Tree, that hotel he’d stayed in back then had also been run by a middle-aged couple. Apparently they’d sunk all their savings into it; that’s what he was told by the man who’d phoned him, begging him to retract, screaming at him, ‘Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve ruined us, bloody ruined us.’
‘No,’ he’d replied tersely. ‘You’ve ruined yourself.’ Then he’d put the phone down, picked up his keys, and gone for lunch.
Before leaving he opened his laptop, tapped in a few notes – enough from which to build a reasonable draft before embarking on the full thing. It was his experience that terse points led to a biting review and was his preferred way of working.
Before shutting down his laptop he checked his bank accounts. He had one for his business, one for domestic use from which he paid his utility bills, and another account, a savings account that only had money paid into it by those he fondly regarded as his ‘clients’; rarely did he pay anything out.
Focusing his eyes on the last entry on the online statement, his thin features hardened. A large credit he’d been expecting had not been paid in. One of his clients had defaulted. He was not pleased. Small indentations beneath his cheekbones heaved in and out like the gills of a fish.
The client was relatively new and he’d only come across him by accident. His other clients were small fish in comparison with this one. Well, he thought, looks like I need to send a little reminder.
He phoned the number he’d
been given – not a personal phone but one in an out-of-the-way place that was untraceable – he presumed a phone box, still around though less used than they used to be.
To his surprise an old-fashioned answerphone clicked in. So it wasn’t a phone box. But at least it wasn’t a mobile phone. He trusted that it wasn’t traceable. He didn’t deal over traceable phone lines.
‘You haven’t paid me,’ he said into the answerphone. ‘You’ve got until six o’clock, and then, my friend, your neck is in the noose.’
Satisfied that all was well and that the problem with the missing credit was purely an oversight, he closed down everything, stretched his arms above his head, and thought about what he would do today.
He was feeling good; the sky was blue and liberally decorated with powder puff clouds. Why not do the tourist things, he thought to himself? How about playing at being a tourist and enjoying the sights?
Mr Dodd was manning Reception. His smile was broad.
Wright paid him with the credit card he used for his business expenses. The newspaper would ultimately pick up the tab.
‘I trust you’ve enjoyed your stay?’ Mr Dodd, the proprietor, smiled in the hopeful way of someone fishing for compliments.
Wright was not the man to dish out compliments that easily. Scrutinizing the figures before pocketing the receipt, he noted with pleasure that the drinks he’d consumed had not been added to his account. The cold tea had done the trick.
‘It’s a fine day,’ Mr Dodd added when Wright failed to respond.
Now it was Wright who smiled. ‘Yes. Very fine.’
Slinging his overnight bag over his shoulder, he left the hotel behind him and headed into the crowds, crossing Pulteney Bridge and heading in the general direction of Bath Abbey.
C.A. Wright could do smug big time. He wore smug like a cloak around his shoulders. He beamed it from his thin-lipped mouth and it oozed like mildewed seaweed in his watery blue eyes. He’d hit the hotel for his booze and the suckers didn’t even know it. He’d even managed to empty one of the ridiculously small sipping bottles before leaving. Soon he’d have to sip some more, but not just yet and anyway he carried his own personal supply with him; he always did.
The tourists were out in force and easy to recognize, a hindrance to his progress. He thought how wonderful it would be if he had the city entirely to himself – except for those who could aid his comfort, of course. Lackeys were in such short supply nowadays. They had to be found. They had to be worked on. Still, if there were no tourists he could live here like a lord.
One or two bumped into him. Tourists never looked where they were going. They strolled languorously as though the city was not a living, breathing thing where people went to work or school, or to shop and do their daily business. To them the city was like a theme park, a Disneyland constructed of wire mesh and stucco and built purely for their entertainment.
Wright, being a severely selfish man, wished that they’d all drop dead around him and not get in his way. What with people bumping into him and the sun getting hotter, he began to feel thirsty.
Veering away to the right at the last minute he cut through the Corridor, glad of the shade though finding it too crowded for comfort. The Corridor was a popular shopping arcade where specialist shops, cafés, and the odd building society did business.
Reaching the end of the walk-through, he paused and considered his options. Shopping wasn’t his thing; he could do that anywhere.
Taking another nip from his apple juice bottle – the whisky he’d filled it with looked similar to the juice – he considered his options. In his mind he reviewed the list of attractions he could visit. The first place a tourist would visit when in Bath was the Roman Baths.
The hot springs had always bubbled up through the earth. The Celts had thrown in offerings to the god of the steamy waters. The Romans had channelled the warm water into a pool, a lido where they could submerge their aching Italian bones, not used to the colder, damper climes of what they had then called Britannia.
It had become something of a holiday town, a spa where citizens and soldiers on leave from the army could take their ease. There was nothing else quite like it in the whole of Romanized Europe and besides, there were dark places in there, places where he could loiter and tip more drink into his throat.
C.A. liked the Romans; no-nonsense types who ruled with a rod of iron and took anything they fancied – a bit like he did really.
Oh yes, he thought with a sigh of selfish nostalgia, Ancient Rome and the Romans would have suited him fine.
It had been a long time since he’d walked around the city’s most famous attraction. He recalled the darkness, the smell of it, the sight of its waters tumbling rust-red and steaming, the air lightly tinged with sulphur. A hint of hell if there really was such a place, which he thought not. He’d chosen his time well. Hopefully he would have the place to himself.
The interior of the Roman Baths had a ghostly quality. The lighting was low, the darkness aiding the imagination. History hung in the very air. The spring came from a source deep beneath the nearby Mendip Hills.
As he walked with bottle in hand he thought about his stay at the Laurel Tree. The review would be printed. There’d been no chance of a trade-off. He might have propositioned Mrs Dodd, told her straight that he’d do a favour for her if she would do a favour for him. Unfortunately Mrs Dodd was one of those ‘domestic goddesses’ whose beautiful cooking is far removed from their physical attractiveness. It was amazing what people would do in an effort to make him change his mind. There hadn’t even been a pretty daughter hanging around. Shame, he thought, as he surveyed the array of delectable flesh on Bath’s busy shopping streets. Pretty girls in abundance. Well dressed, too, sporting fashions that ranged from way-out to high-street to international designer.
All facets of life, culture, and class rubbed shoulders in Bath. Girls, some bare-shouldered, all of them in short summer dresses and showing plenty of leg. Despite the booze the thought of exploring that flesh further kindled a fire in his loins.
Drink had never curtailed either his sexual appetite or his performance, the evidence based on the fact that he hadn’t had any complaints.
Sunshine, ambience and atmosphere all played their part in raising his temperature. He fancied chancing his luck. It was just a case of picking on the right girl.
His eyes darted from one likely-looking damsel to another, trying to catch their eye, looking for a flicker of returned interest.
The day was young. He’d get one. Eventually.
He was passing through the arcade of columns dividing Abbey Churchyard from Stall Street when somebody jangled a yellow plastic pail of coins under his nose.
A mousy-haired girl wearing fingerless gloves thrust out her chin and asked him to give generously. ‘A pound would be nice. Five if you’re feeling generous.’
Despite the hair colour she was pretty, casually dressed in jeans and green waistcoat with fur fringing over a long-sleeved red T-shirt. Her eyes were blue and her fresh-faced complexion appealing. Her hair was long and straight, dark brown and glossy. Her figure was curvy, her T-shirt gaping wide enough to expose a creamy cleavage.
Wright stopped in his tracks. ‘Is that so, darling? So what exactly am I to give you this money for?’ he asked, making no effort to take his eyes from her bosoms.
‘The Devlin Foundation. It’s for disadvantaged kids mainly.’ She wasn’t noticing his lust – not at first.
‘And what do I get out of it?’ he asked, finally bringing his own glassy eyes up from her boobs and on to her face. ‘Go on. Tempt me.’
She didn’t hesitate, her expression bright with self-righteous zeal. She was doing her bit for poverty and feeling good about it. What did it matter that he had whisky breath and had all the attraction of an emaciated leprechaun. He had money, didn’t he?
She pasted on her best smile. ‘Satisfaction that you’re giving to the poor and destitute. But if that’s not enough, you can have your ph
otograph taken with Teddy Devlin.’ She jerked her head to where a huge teddy bear was propped up between two columns.
C.A. Wright was far from being a charitable person. In fact he loathed circulars asking him to give money, he loathed television commercials asking him to give money; in effect he hated being asked to give money at all. On top of that he wasn’t particularly keen on teddy bears.
His bottom lip curled in disdain at the same time as he tried to remain charming. ‘Not my scene. I feel no satisfaction either from giving alms to the poor or being in close proximity to a giant teddy bear. However being close to a lovely young lady – well – that’s a very different matter …’
His smile sent a wreath of wrinkles around his mouth, pulling one side up and the other down.
The girl was streetwise. She saw the inference in that look and knew what was coming. All the same, she made one last effort.
‘Giving to those in need is very satisfying,’ she intoned. Being coached in the right things to say was part of the training she’d received before hitting the streets.
C.A. Wright was all sickly charm as he leaned forward until his lips were close to her ear.
‘I bet you could satisfy me, darling. I’d even give you more than a fiver for that.’
His tongue flicked at her ear.
The girl stepped back. ‘Sod off!’
‘Now that’s not very charitable, and why take umbrage, dear girl? The urban poor and destitute would be very grateful for your honestly earned contribution.’
She gave him the finger, her lips forming silent words that no upright charity collector should really be saying.
Turning her back, she marched off shaking her bucket of coins, hassling other people for contributions and offering the opportunity to be photographed with Teddy Devlin.
Wicked Words: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) Page 3