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

by Jean G. Goodhind

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  He threw her a hard look. ‘Once the professional questions were over, they moved on to the personal ones. They wanted to know if I was married.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve got the beginnings of a harem,’ Lindsey sniggered.

  Honey jammed an elbow in her daughter’s side. Her own lips were doing a kind of soft shoe shuffle as she tried to stifle her own amusement.

  ‘OK, OK. It’s not that funny,’ said Doherty, sounding a little off. ‘And there was a phone call at first. Not a big case. Just something of an emergency. I just hung it out a bit. I have to get away.’

  ‘OK,’ said Honey, straightening both her navy blue shirt and her expression at one and the same time. ‘So! What’s the emergency? Anyone got murdered?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but no, They have not. It’s a case of kidnap.’

  Honey frowned. He sounded terribly light-hearted about it, but surely kidnap was a serious offence.

  ‘Anyone we know?’ asked Lindsey.

  ‘You might do. Apparently Teddy Devlin’s gone missing.’

  ‘Who?’

  Both women said it in unison.

  ‘Girls, you are so ill-informed,’ he said, looking at them with amusement. ‘Teddy Devlin is the eight-foot-high mascot of the Devlin Community Project. They use him for fundraising events. You may have seen him propped up near the Abbey with people milling around him collecting money for good causes.’

  Lindsey clicked her fingers. ‘I’ve got it. He’s a teddy bear! You’ve been called in on a case of a missing teddy bear – correction, a kidnapped teddy bear.’

  Doherty grinned and his eyes twinkled. ‘My dates for lunch were charming, but a teddy bear? I just cannot resist.’

  Chapter Five

  Smudger was still annoyed about the salamander.

  ‘I went there in good faith and he wasn’t there. I’ve phoned him and he apologized, but the thing was I took time off and my time is valuable.’

  ‘So what’s happening?’ Honey asked him.

  ‘He’s sending someone round with it.’

  Salamander sorted, it was time for Honey to put her mind to other things. Her mother had need of her. Her mother’s friends had need of her. The dreaded day had dawned when Sean O’Brian, beloved of many of the SASAs of the city (as in senior and sexually active), was being planted in fertile earth. It was a Friday and the funeral was to take place in the pretty country church next door to Memory Meadow, the modern and ecologically friendly way to be buried. On top of that it was raining.

  ‘The great outdoors, mud and rain. Now isn’t that just my luck?’

  ‘Sometimes I think you’ve got your own personal raincloud following you around,’ Lindsey remarked. ‘Hope I haven’t inherited it.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The sun shone when Lindsey went for a day out. If she went skiing the snow was always the right depth. If she went abroad for a holiday in the off-season the sunshine was guaranteed to be as bright as on a summer’s day.

  Honey sighed into her morning coffee. There’d been no chance of getting out of it though God knows she’d tried, but here she was, suitably geared out in black, hanging around until the last possible minute. She’d phoned her mother the night before in an effort to wriggle out of her promise. Citing illness, lack of staff, and dying from some dreadful disease had cut no ice. Her mother was adamant.

  ‘Hannah! You promised. The girls are already gathered. We’re taking tea.’

  The phone rang. Lindsey took the call.

  She could tell from what Lindsey was saying that her mother was on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Why didn’t I offer to pay for a taxi?’ she groaned.

  Lindsey put down the phone. ‘She says to remind you.’

  Honey sighed.

  Lindsey went back to her computer screen. ‘Mother, it’s water under the bridge,’ she said over her shoulder.

  ‘You’re right there,’ Honey remarked gloomily. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’

  Lindsey’s attention was fixed on the computer screen. She seemed far more enthralled with that than with her mother’s reservations and moans about attending a funeral.

  Her eyes were bright with interest. ‘Hey, look at this lot.’

  Honey watched as a series of emails were deleted by her daughter’s swiftly moving finger.

  Suddenly she was gripped in a moment of unexpected nostalgia remembering the first time she’d held that finger, wondered at its size and how perfectly formed it was. She’d wanted to share that joy, but had no one to share it with, certainly not the other person who had contributed to her daughter’s existence. On the day Lindsey was born her father was away sailing and Honey was alone. She’d never forgiven Carl for that. He should have been there, if not for her then at least for their daughter.

  Absorbed in what she was doing, Lindsey didn’t see the look on her mother’s face, her attention riveted on trawling and deleting.

  ‘Look at some of this rubbish. Shall I read it to you?’ Her voice was full of contempt.

  ‘Just one,’ said Honey, still full from the warmth of the memory.

  Lindsey chose a message. ‘This one should hit the spot.’ She went on to read the email purporting to be from the brother of an assassinated African politician with money in a bank account who would share the proceeds if you would use your bank account to get around some legal wrangle.

  ‘Then they’ve got your bank account details and clear out your money,’ Lindsey went on.

  ‘Or in my case they get my overdraft and a warning letter of closure from the bank,’ Honey commented wryly.

  ‘You’re not the ideal victim, Mother. They try and target people with money in the bank. Sometimes they go amiss. Everything’s OK as long as the banks cover the loss.’

  The thought of stuffing her bank – and more specifically her bank manager – was intriguing. She peered more closely at the screen just in case one of these scams had actually found money in her account that she didn’t know she had.

  ‘So what’s that one about?’ She pointed at an email that Lindsey was about to delete. The subject was listed as ‘Save for your Grave. Your Plot Number 172341.’ The deal was that you paid for a plot online at a graveyard of your choice. All you had to do was pay a £300 deposit. ‘Your last wishes observed putting your mind and your family at ease.’

  ‘Hmm!’ exclaimed Lindsey, sitting upright and viewing the message with downright scepticism. ‘You pay £300 and that’s the last you see of your money. There’s no plot. No such company. Nice deal, huh?’

  ‘Well, it is for the recipient of the money,’ said Honey. ‘What’s commonly called a nice little earner.’

  Computer technology was something she tolerated, used, but didn’t want to go into big time. She trusted that her daughter could go through all the stuff that arrived and only delete the ones she recognized as spam or scam.

  Her gaze and her thoughts wandered away from the computer screen to this damned funeral she had to go to. How the hell could she get out of it?

  Propped up on one elbow over the reception desk and already kitted out in black, her mind was ticking with possibilities even at this late stage. ‘I mean, if I could come up with a good enough excuse …’

  Lindsey’s face burst into a big grin. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘Just reluctant,’ Honey responded.

  Lindsey shook her head disapprovingly. ‘I know what you’re thinking, A whole day with a group of old ladies and you’re thinking of saying, “Mother, I can’t possibly leave Lindsey alone to manage this place by herself.” Well, cut it out. You know damned well I can manage.’

  Honey considered other excuses. ‘Perhaps if you said you were ill …’

  Lindsey shook her head. ‘Now, now, Mother. I’m not going to pretend to be ill. I’m not going to pretend to be incapable. You should have let Mary Jane take them in your car.’

  Honey gasped. ‘I couldn�
��t! You’ve seen the way she drives.’

  ‘The car would have survived.’

  ‘But would your grandmother have survived? Would her friends? God knows but they’re pretty decrepit as it is without travelling with Mary Jane.’

  ‘It’s no good. You’re too late to back out now. You should have been thinking on your feet.’

  Honey heaved a heavy sigh. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to take my place?’

  Lindsey shook her head. ‘It’s no good. Anyway, I know you’ve got ulterior motives. There’s a great auction going down at Bonhams and you’d prefer to be there.’

  ‘I’ve got a hole in my umbrella.’ She held it up tellingly, wriggling her finger through the said hole like an agitated earthworm.

  Lindsey pointed out that even Smudger, head chef and one-time all-in-one wrestler, had total faith in her capabilities. According to him Lindsey could run the place standing on her head – and had, many times.

  Heaving another elephantine sigh did nothing whatsoever to attract her daughter’s pity or spur her into changing places. Children could be so exasperating at times.

  ‘I suppose I’d better be off.’

  ‘I suppose you’d better.’

  Using both hands, she pulled her hat firmly down on to her head and left the hotel feeling beaten and bettered. Once outside neither the hat nor the umbrella were equal to the pouring rain. Water dripped through the hole in the umbrella all the way to the car park. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat didn’t help matters because the broad brim kept connecting with the umbrella spokes. It was a job to keep it on and gradually, very gradually, the sweeping brim was becoming waterlogged and starting to flop.

  Getting into the car was some respite. It was dry, she didn’t need her umbrella, and she didn’t need her hat. The car was in the multi-storey, dry and protected from the rain – unlike herself who’d got sopping wet on her way here. Once the heater was switched on and directed at her feet she felt a hell of a lot better.

  Traffic beetled its way through the inclement weather. Tourists huddled in shop doorways along with the policeman who should have been on traffic duty. Progress was slow but Honey didn’t feel much like rushing anyway.

  The building where her mother lived came into view, splendidly archaic and hinting at the elegance of a bygone age. Unlike some of her friends, Gloria Cross had not moved into a flat for the over-55s, preferring something more traditional, more elegant, and a lot more expensive.

  Built around 1800, the building had at one time housed a lord and his family, their second home which they used when accompanying the Prince Regent to Bath. The conversion to luxury apartments had taken place in the eighties, but the elaborate ironwork balconies – reminiscent of those in New Orleans – were still in situ and combined favourably with the modern interiors. The flats having such balconies were more expensive than others in the building and even those on the ground floor.

  Hanging baskets bright with scarlet geraniums, trailing aubrietia, and variegated ivy hung from the ironwork and greenery planted in pots peered over the balustrade.

  As though trading on instinct, her mother’s head bobbed over the balcony. ‘Ah. You’re here at last. You’re cutting it a bit fine, you know.’ The voice was ripe with reprimand.

  ‘The traffic was heavy because of the rain,’ Honey shouted back. The excuse sounded lame but on this occasion was the absolute truth.

  ‘Dora’s coming down in the lift with us but she’ll need some assistance getting into the car.’

  Typical. A good excuse and it was totally ignored. It just didn’t pay to tell the truth.

  ‘OK.’

  Her mother had already disappeared, gone inside to inform everyone that her daughter was late, but there, it was only to be expected. She never could be on time. Never could be as perfect as she had wanted her to be.

  Honey glowered up at the sky. The rain had eased but still threatened. Getting another soaking should be avoided at all costs and the only way to do that – besides purchasing a new umbrella – was making a direct appeal to the powers that be.

  ‘God, would you please hold off until I get Dora into the car. It could take some time and I don’t want this hat brim to get any floppier than it already is.’

  Dora was plump and walked with two sticks and owned a Norfolk terrier named Bobo that wasn’t properly house-trained. Bobo was of the persuasion that if you gotta go, you gotta go. And she did.

  The lift doors opened, revealing four women all dressed in black. Even the horrendous Bobo sported a black bow tied to her collar.

  On sight of Honey, the little dog wagged from head to tail. Unfortunately its warm welcome had a downside. As it wagged it trickled urine all over the marble tiles of the foyer.

  ‘Bobo is so excited to see you,’ trilled Dora, seemingly unaware of the dog’s lack of good manners.

  Feeling she should appear delighted to see the dog even though she was not, Honey gave the little bitch a cursory pat and a few words of endearment.

  ‘Bobo. How lovely to see you.’

  ‘Once she was out of Dora’s earshot her tone changed. ‘If you pee in my car you’ll be running behind – at the end of a very long leash.’

  Umbrellas went up the moment the gang of four hit the outside air. The rain was back with a vengeance. Their feet sloshed over the wet pavement as they scuttled to the car.

  Honey was lumbered with the task of getting Dora and her dog into the front passenger seat. Being of medium size or smaller, the other three piled into the back, their umbrellas sticking out through the back doors like porcupine quills as they shook rainwater all over the place.

  Dora, being of copious proportions, squeezed herself into the front, the very excitable Bobo on her lap.

  The French are not known for making limousines; Honey’s Citroën was spacious enough for five normal-sized people. Dora was not normal-sized. Her lap was copious and her whole body was big. Bobo was perched on Dora’s belly, her front paws rested on the dashboard.

  Feeling the rain soaking into her back, Honey took Dora’s walking sticks and put them in the boot along with her umbrella, there being no longer any room at the front.

  Her black hat, a really nice felt trilby style with a black ribbon around the crown, was getting distinctly droopy. So was the skirt of the black suit she was wearing. Luckily she’d opted for boots, a little over the top perhaps in the middle of June, but she’d never trusted the weather gods since a sailing trip with Carl from the Isles of Scilly to South Wales. Her ex-husband, now deceased following over-confidence while sailing in the teeth of a North Atlantic gale, had assured her that everything would be all right because all the weather forecasts on his electronic gizmos had said it would be so. It hadn’t been. Far from it, in fact. Unluckily for him he’d drowned. Luckily for her she hadn’t been with him.

  The windscreen wipers swished all the way to Much Maryleigh. It was as though somebody was throwing buckets of water at the screen.

  Oblivious to the weather, the girls in the back and Dora in the front were discussing the attributes of the deceased. It was unanimously agreed that Sean O’Brian had loved the ladies – a lot!

  ‘He knew how to give a girl a good time. Money no object,’ said her mother.

  Sean was a retired bank official operating on an international level and was known to be wealthy.

  ‘His pension alone was six figures a year,’ said Amber. Amber sported an orange wig beneath her cloche-style hat. The hat was purple but Amber had become eccentric with age. She didn’t believe in conforming. Her real name wasn’t actually Amber at all, but Millicent. She’d decided at seventy to change her image and her name. The sparse grey hair had been hidden beneath a wig and her name had gone west too.

  There was something to be said for sporting a wig, thought Honey. Having glanced in her mirror she’d noticed that Amber’s hair was still dry and shiny, its nylon content leaving it untouched by the dampness. The purple hat had a feather in it.

  ‘He al
so had a very large stock market investment portfolio,’ Edith, the fourth of their party, added.

  ‘According to rumours, that’s not all that was large,’ sniggered Dora.

  The others joined her. They sounded like schoolgirls. Honey found herself blushing.

  ‘Arlene Tipping was always very lucky. I knew her when we were at school together,’ said Edith, a lithe woman with pursed lips and big earrings.

  Honey recalled Arlene as being tanned with striking blonde hair and two-inch long fingernails. Why anyone, least of all somebody of her age, would want fingernails like that, she didn’t know. It brought too many difficulties to mind.

  ‘Of course, my Hannah had her chance,’ declared Gloria Cross.

  Honey cringed. ‘Mother!’

  ‘He offered to partner her on a Saga cruise. It was obvious he was interested. I tried to persuade her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Children never do, do they?’

  The others shook their heads in sombre agreement and murmured exactly what Honey’s mother wanted to hear.

  ‘That’s kids for you.’

  Honey gritted her teeth. Best not to make comment that Sean was years older than her with a body that had seen better days. Best not prolong the agony.

  The subject of conversation altered though for no particular reason as far as Honey could work out.

  ‘My money’s on a walnut casket with solid brass handles,’ Dora declared. ‘Don’t you think so, Bobo?’ she added in a high voice, chucking the little creature under the chin.

  Bobo wagged her tail, tongue hanging out as she looked up into the fat face of her mistress.

  Honey thought of her car seat. Hopefully any wetness would be absorbed by Dora’s dress. Besides, it could never get through that enormous lap, could it?

  St Luke’s church loomed up before them through a curtain of pouring rain. Umbrellas mushroomed around the church door, everyone trying to push through into the dry.

  Bobo bared her teeth when Honey tried to help Dora out of the car.

  ‘She’s just being playful,’ trilled Dora when Bobo snapped her jaws less than an inch from Honey’s fingers.