It was hard not to blush. This was her daughter offering to keep her on track in the modern world of relationships.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she murmured, her pink cheeks hidden behind her flopped-forward hair.
Honey had always held the belief that there were few secrets between her and her daughter, though actually it seemed like one-way traffic of late. Lindsey was as outspoken as ever about her love life; the latest in a long series of boyfriends was named Archie.
‘The last of the Goths,’ Lindsey had told her mother before bringing him home for coffee.
There was no need for her to explain further. Archie, who bore a glancing resemblance to Johnny Depp and his character in Sleepy Hollow, had not shaken off the black clothes, silver studs, and ring-through-the-nose fashion first introduced in the eighties. Back then Honey had taken the view that the Gothic punk phase was a natural reaction to the sleek looks and sweet harmonies of Abba. She’d been keen on the darker look herself but that was years ago. Bearing in mind the generation gap, she had not expected ever to see the like again. Now there was Archie: black clothes, black hair, black eyeliner, and what looked like a small bedspring inserted into his right ear. Another one hung from his nose.
Lindsey was cool about Archie. ‘It’s just a phase. I’m intrigued as to how he’ll come out of it and what he’ll turn into, so for now I’ll hang in there, just to see what develops.’
Her mother wasn’t at all sure what Archie would turn into, and whether she would find out was up to Lindsey having the patience and curiosity to hang on in there.
As far as her own relationship was concerned, she couldn’t be cool about Doherty, at least not in front of her daughter. ‘I’m just sensitive,’ she’d said to her friend Rachel who she’d had lunch with the day before.
‘You’re old-fashioned, Honey. Do you remember Pauline Palmer? She’s had at least four live-in lovers since divorcing good old Dave the builder. And that’s a woman with three kids.’
‘And you?’
Rachel had paused. ‘Justin is at college. I mostly confine my liaisons to the times when he’s away, but things have gone a little awry. He caught me unawares. Came home unexpectedly.’
‘And?’
Again there’d been a pregnant pause. ‘He pointed out that chlamydia is very prevalent among the over-fifties. I was livid! I’m only forty-six!’
Old friends were not the best people to talk to about relationships. Rachel was a case in point. She couldn’t stand the course – and she couldn’t be faithful.
‘I get bored easily,’ she stated whilst stuffing a spoonful of clotted cream and rum and raisin cheesecake into her mouth.
Lunching with Rachel more than once a month was hazardous to the waistline; on the advisory, agony aunt front, it was a dead loss.
Sighing, Honey cupped her face in her hands and went back to scrutinizing the marketing plan for the coming year.
An instantly recognizable voice came winging through the air. ‘Good morning, everyone.’
Mary Jane, a permanent resident of the Green River Hotel, was floating down the stairs and would have looked like some ancient apparition if it hadn’t been for the clothes she was wearing. She was tall, thin, and had pale blue eyes that could fix you with a frightening stare when she got intense about something – and she got intense a lot.
Her fashion sense was stuck in a time warp and on two favourite colours – pistachio green and shocking pink. Today she was wearing a tracksuit made of some shiny velvet kind of material that had been the in thing along with platform shoes and fluffed-up hairdos several years ago. Though dated, the upside of wearing luminescent outfits was that she was never likely to get run over by a bus on a moonless night.
Taking great strides with her overlong legs, she almost seemed to float across the room. She was on them before they expected her. Despite the avalanche of face powder and as many wrinkles as you’d find on a shrivelled apple, there was an intensity to those sharp blue eyes that couldn’t be ignored.
Her voice was hushed as though she didn’t want anyone else to hear.
‘I had a dream,’ she said breathlessly, her long, skinny fingers gripping the reception counter. ‘I dreamed I was flying over the rooftops in my car and finally came down to earth in the middle of the Royal Crescent. Unfortunately the car landed on a passer-by. I think it was that Casper fellow friend of yours. I must say I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen. I wouldn’t want to be locked up for manslaughter. Do you think it possible?’
Honey patted her hand. ‘Did you have blue cheese for supper last night?’
Mary Jane nodded. ‘I only had fish for main course so had cheese and biscuits afterwards to fill me up.’
‘Then that’s the cause of your dream.’
‘Ah,’ said Mary Jane, holding erect one thin, pointed finger. ‘I was just wondering about that old saying, a Friday-night dream on a Saturday told, will come true be it never so old.’
Mother and daughter froze – mother more so. Bearing Mary Jane’s driving in mind, it wasn’t beyond belief that this particular dream might come true.
However, nothing much got past Lindsey and her sharp-eyed observation that it was Tuesday and she probably had no need to worry.
Mary Jane’s narrow chest heaved as she sighed with relief. ‘I’m really glad about that. At my age I couldn’t cope with a careless driver cutting me up in their car.’
‘That would be worrying,’ said Honey, wearing her sweetest smile. The fact of the matter was that Mary Jane had to be the worst driver in Bath. If anyone was going to be careless and cutting other drivers up, it was her.
Honey shook her head in exasperation. Some days the Green River seemed more like an asylum than a hotel. But never mind. Keep your head and soldier on.
‘Just to be on the safe side perhaps you’d care to stick to walking today – just long enough to settle your nerves,’ said Lindsey, eyeing Mary Jane from beneath the fringe of her carrot-coloured hair. Lindsey adopted a different colour for every season – sometimes for every week.
‘That’s a very good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?’ The answer was obvious; Lindsey was a very rational person. Honey was more ‘seat of the pants’ kind of thinking. However, Honey was proud of her daughter’s logical mindset. She was the anchor to her gas-filled balloon of a brain.
‘So what are you up to today, Mary Jane?’ Honey asked her.
‘I’m off to the country. I want to find somewhere tranquil to be buried once I’ve crossed over. Bearing in mind that I’m an ethereal creature in touch with her earth as well as her air side, I’m off to see this place called Memory Meadow. It’s environmentally friendly, and I’m all for that.’
Lindsey pointed out that she’d said her spirit would roam the Green River along with Sir Cedric, her long-dead ancestor.
Mary Jane agreed that this was true. She had indeed suggested that her spirit would forever haunt the Green River Hotel. It was a family tradition to haunt the place and she intended upholding that tradition.
‘However,’ she went on. ‘My spirit will be resident here most of the time, but the rest of the time it’ll be moseying around wherever my earthly remains are interred.’
To Honey’s ears it sounded like some kind of dead souls’ retreat, a place where they could lie around a swimming pool, play poker with friends, and have all the time in the world to complete The Times crossword.
‘Is it really possible that when you cross over you can book in and out of a place at will?’ she asked.
Mary Jane looked affronted. ‘Of course it’s possible. In fact it’s perfectly logical. You send messages from your phone, don’t you? The message goes out there, but the phone is still in your pocket. Right?’
Honey felt a silly smile creep on to her lips, disrupting the professional stance she daily fought hard to maintain.
Lindsey had sucked in her breath. If she didn’t let it out pretty soon she was liable to pass out. But if she did exhale she’d
probably burst out laughing.
Mother and daughter therefore made the effort to look as though messages from the ‘other side’ were not really that much different to your average phone call. Dealing with Mary Jane had never been easy. She had an ‘otherworldly’ logic which sometimes bordered on cuckoo. But Mary Jane was a guest at the Green River and the customer is always right. It was Mary Jane’s logic so they had to accept it.
With a sweeping movement of her very long right arm, Mary Jane threw a soft pink pashmina around her scrawny neck.
‘Right. I’m off to pick up your mother. It was her that thought this Memory Meadow place was right up my street,’ she declared with an air of self-importance. ‘Gloria is expecting me at twelve. Toodle-oo!’
Mary Jane swept through the first people emerging from the conference room.
Lindsey shook her head despairingly. ‘I really don’t know what’s happening to the older generation. What happened to the little old grannies baking cakes and knitting oversize sweaters?’
‘They’re all dead.’
The thought of her mother, Gloria Cross, knitting or baking anything was totally off the wall. She didn’t do either. She shopped if she wanted warm woollen sweaters and ate out if she wanted a decent piece of cake. Much the same applied to Mary Jane but for different reasons.
The revolving doors swung into action. In the process they belched out the head chef, Smudger Smith, a dab hand with a meat cleaver and a pretty good one with a frying pan too.
Without glancing to either side, fists clenched tightly, he ploughed through Reception with rounded shoulders and a severe frown on his face. He glowered just in time for Honey to notice and worry that she may have done something wrong before he disappeared through the double doors leading to the kitchen. Chefs were prickly and arrogant, but if they were good you did your damnedest to hold on to them. Honey had every intention of doing that.
She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong.
‘Don’t ask,’ he snapped.
She thought about it but decided that she was the employer, he was the employee and she had every right to ask, so she did.
‘I take it the salamander wasn’t up to much.’
‘Don’t ask,’ he snapped again, and headed off to the kitchen.
Lindsey pressed the button on the Dragon voice recorder she was only just getting used to. The unit would record and could be transferred on to the computer. It was really for taking verbal bookings. Lindsey was testing it out.
Smudger’s words were repeated.
‘Oh dear. I’m afraid harmony is going to be in short supply in the kitchen today,’ she remarked.
Honey had to agree with her. ‘And all over a salamander.’ She pulled a face. ‘I wonder what went wrong? I’d better ask him – when he’s calmed down a bit.’
Charles Sheet came up to confirm that an extra place had been set for Doherty for lunch with his association. Honey said that it had not and apologized for the oversight.
‘I’m sure he’d love to join you.’
She wasn’t really sure about that at all, but as a seasoned hotelier she knew that the first rule of thumb was to tell the guest what he or she wanted to hear. For a time at least, everything would be fine.
Lindsey was nothing if not a seasoned co-conspirator. ‘I’ll make sure it’s done,’ she said with the kind of sincerity that becomes part of the professional persona.
Neither hoteliers nor chairmen of fan clubs could account for the unexpected. Honey espied Doherty coming out of the conference room. He was wearing a serious expression and had his phone flat against his ear.
‘Well he looks relieved,’ Honey remarked. ‘Though engaged.’
Lindsey eyed him too. ‘You can say that again. Before he went in he looked as though he’d seen a ghost.’
‘One ghost around here is quite enough,’ Honey said with reference to Sir Cedric.
‘I’d like to see him sometime,’ said Lindsey, whilst thoughtfully nibbling the tip of her pen.
‘So would I.’ Honey’s remark piggybacked on a deep sigh.
‘You’re talking about Doherty. I’m talking about Sir Cedric.’
‘Yep! I’ll be right there,’ Doherty was saying.
He sounded serious and he certainly looked serious, but Honey had known him long enough to be suspicious. Although she was familiar with his serious expression, she could tell when he was bluffing. Where was that tiny tic he tended to get beneath his right eye when something big was going down, i.e. murder most foul?
Looping her arm through his, she held him tight against her. With her free hand she stroked his face. At the same time she smiled up at him in such a way as to lull him into a false sense of security.
He smiled back at her, his voice softening as he did so.
‘I won’t be long. Just a personal matter to attend to and I’ll be right there …’
‘Personal matter, my foot,’ she said quietly.
‘Well … yes …’
His words were aimless and he hadn’t the bird of prey look in his eyes. That was how she’d likened his look; when there was a job to be done, a killer to apprehend, his eyes took on a bird of prey look, the colour intensifying, the look sharp and far-reaching before getting his talons into the killer.
At present she didn’t believe he was anything of the sort. His mind certainly wasn’t on work. Neither was the phone call but it wouldn’t hurt to get it confirmed.
‘Now tell me, sweet thing,’ she said in her sweetest, sexiest voice. ‘Are you really speaking to somebody on the other end of that thing or are you trying to avoid having lunch with the Agatha Christie enthusiasts?’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said before taking the phone away from his face. ‘There’s been an emergency,’ he said to her.
‘Of course, darling.’ Her fingers traced the edge of his jaw.
‘Look, I have to …’
He couldn’t help tripping over his words though only admitted to himself that he was putty in her hands. It happened only rarely and usually following some serious sensuality. On this occasion she’d only implied sexuality, acting sensual, acting as though every wish was her command. The subterfuge was enough for him to loosen his grip on the phone.
Honey grabbed it, turned it over and looked at the screen. She pointed. ‘The screen’s dead. It’s not even switched on.’
He snatched it back. ‘Bear with me on this. Please.’
He went back to what he’d been doing, pretending to be on the phone. He paced purposefully to the other side of Reception. Honey went back behind the reception desk.
‘What’s he up to?’ asked Lindsey.
‘He’s taking evasive action.’ She nudged her daughter with her elbow. Lindsey took in the scene outside the conference room. The reasons for his behaviour were spilling out of the door to the conference room and flocking like pigeons. Most of them were heading for lunch in the restaurant. Three ladies were hanging back, politely waiting for him to finish his call.
One of them, a lady in a floral dress with a matching band holding back a square-shaped bob, tottered across to the reception desk and whispered behind a cupped hand, ‘We insist he sits on our table for lunch. We want to get hold of him before anyone else does.’
So do I, Honey thought, but no worries. I’m OK to stand in line.
Her smile was broad and beaming. ‘The company of three ladies for lunch. How wonderful. He won’t believe his luck.’
‘So. Fame at last. Doherty has his own team of groupies,’ murmured Lindsey.
‘He’ll be thrilled,’ Honey murmured back.
The moment he’d finished the call, the women were upon him. The likeness to pigeons went out of the window. It was now like seeing a flock of hyenas circling a wounded buffalo.
‘We insist you have lunch with us,’ cried one in a high-pitched voice.
‘We absolutely insist,’ said another.
‘We won’t take no for an answer,’ trilled the third.
Doherty shook his head sadly. ‘Sorry, ladies. Duty calls.’
Honey watched impassively, her elbow sliding slightly on the polished reception counter top, hand across her mouth so that no one could see her smile.
They accepted his declining of their invitation stoically though she fancied she saw their eyes fluttering and the odd blush spreading over their silky soft faces. Old memories never die, she thought, and neither do old passions.
Their expressions were full of disappointment.
‘What a shame. We could have given you the benefit of our experience,’ said the first, who wore a beret and had wrinkles as deep as tramlines.
‘No doubt you could,’ Doherty said gallantly.
‘Of course we could,’ said the second. ‘We’ve read all of Agatha’s books. We know how to look out for bits of cloth left on bushes and footprints in the rose beds.’
‘Great,’ said Doherty, maintaining a smile on his lips though his eyes said ‘Get me out of here.’
The three ladies began heading for the restaurant, but paused before they got there and turned to face him. ‘Just you remember that if you ever need us to help you with one of your cases, feel free to get in touch.’
‘I will.’
Lindsey folded her arms on the counter and dropped her head on to them, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
Doherty was grim-faced. ‘Very funny.’
Honey cocked an eyebrow. ‘You passed up on a date with three women? They were gasping for your company. You must have seriously impressed them.’
Heaving a deep sigh, he looked skywards. ‘Quit the funnies. I did what you asked me to do.’
‘They loved it?’
‘Thoroughly,’ he said, not without some smugness. ‘They enjoyed it but they asked a lot of questions.’
Wicked Words: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) Page 5