‘I would never have guessed.’
Honey couldn’t help the vinegar-laced response and the sour look. She was still wearing it when she went through the door into the kitchen. Lindsey, her daughter, was heading in the opposite direction.
‘I suppose you know that our dear Mary Jane has found some more friends. They’re all drunk. I think I’m going to have to get Smudger to throw them out,’ said Honey, her face set firm as she marched towards the kitchen.
Lindsey took a glimpse through one of the round portholes in the double doors. ‘Have they paid their bill?’
‘They have. Their great day and early evening with Mary Jane has left them potless.’
‘Right,’ Lindsey said with an air of confidence that only the young can contemplate. ‘Leave it to me to get rid of them.’
‘I think Smudger would be best …’
Bouncing along on the balls of her feet, Lindsey had swung out into the restaurant with a smile on her face and a wiggle on her hips.
‘My daughter is so cute,’ said Honey, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘And plucky,’ Smudger added.
They held the door open ever so slightly so they could hear what was being said.
‘OK guys,’ they heard her say. ‘Would anybody like to go outside with me?’
The response was overwhelming. All four guys struggled to their feet, swaying like willows in the wind once they’d got there.
Surprised that all four guys were following Lindsey outside, their female companions sprang to their feet too, possessiveness lighting their eyes.
‘Hey! Wait for us.’
Honey could see their point. After all, wasn’t one guy enough for each girl?
The guys went out. The girls went out. Lindsey came swinging back through the revolving door.
‘They’re gone. Simple.’
Honey shook her head. ‘Are you sure of your age?’
Dimples appeared at the sides of Lindsey’s mouth when she smiled.
‘I’m reliably informed that I’m nineteen.’
‘Darn. Could have sworn you were forty-seven.’
If ever an old head had got placed on young shoulders, then Lindsey had it.
‘Those guys are a hoot,’ said Mary Jane who had got to her feet, meaning to aim for the stairs and her bed as quickly as she could without facing the music she knew was coming.
‘They’re drunk,’ Honey reiterated. Sometimes it seemed that Mary Jane just didn’t hear or didn’t remember what had been said. Possibly both. She also got over being told off pretty quickly, as though there’d never been a problem.
‘They were telling me about what they did earlier,’ chuckled Mary Jane. ‘This guy was giving them some real stick in the Roman Baths. He was drunk as a skunk and passed out because of it, so they stuffed him …’
‘OK, OK,’ Lindsey murmured. ‘Let me get you up to bed, Mary Jane. If you’re good I might read you a bedtime story.’
‘Hold it right there. What was that you said?’ Honey was all ears, pretty certain she’d been about to hear something important and very relevant to the death of C.A. Wright.
Mary Jane threw back her head and laughed. The veins and tendons of her neck were like fine twigs poking through her skin.
‘Oh my dear. I do so love young people.’
Mary Jane looked at her blankly. ‘What was that I said, my dear?’ she said in that soft Californian drawl she used when she wanted to be forgiven.
Placing both hands on Mary Jane’s shoulders, Honey turned her round so they were eyeball to eyeball.
‘You said something about a man they’d met in the Roman Baths. You said something about him being stuffed in somewhere. Was it inside of a giant teddy bear, Mary Jane? Think. Think carefully about this.’
A pair of pale blue eyes widened, staring at her as though this was some kind of quiz and she didn’t know what the prize was.
‘I need to know,’ Honey said reassuringly, purposely distressing her voice. Mary Jane, the sensitive soul she was, didn’t respond well to shrieking.
Nothing in Mary Jane’s face diminished as she nodded slowly. She was all eyes and awe-struck puzzlement.
‘They said it was just a joke.’
‘Right.’ Honey found herself mentally counting to ten. ‘Now. Do you recall the names of your friends?’
Mary Jane opened her mouth as if to speak.
Honey held her breath and prayed.
Mary Jane shut it again.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Not even one name?’
‘John – I think. And Emma. I think there was an Emma. Yes,’ she said, nodding vigorously. ‘There was definitely an Emma.’
She went on to ask Mary Jane if she recalled them being students.
‘They were here studying something, that’s for sure.’
‘Great.’ Honey could feel her excitement rising. If she could at least point Doherty in the right direction …
‘They all went for a drink afterwards,’ Mary Jane went on. ‘When they got back the teddy bear was gone.’
‘How do we know that for sure?’
Mary Jane sucked in her lips. ‘Is there something going on here?’
Honey sank down into a chair, put down the glasses she’d gathered and stroked her hair back behind her ears.
‘The man inside the teddy bear was found dead.’
‘Oh my!’
‘He was found at the bottom of a grave where someone was about to be buried. I was there. I saw it all.’
‘Oh my!’
Mary Jane’s eyes were now almost popping out of her head.
‘So who did it?’
Honey was speechless. Mary Jane hadn’t grasped what she’d been saying, that her newly acquired friends may very well have had something to do with it. Friends of hers just couldn’t do things like that.
‘They’re suspects, Mary Jane. How long have you known them?’
‘I know good people when I meet them,’ Mary Jane replied hotly. ‘I can tell whether they’re the sort to go around killing people and they’re not that sort. Trust me on this.’
Exasperated, Honey buried her face in her hands.
‘I’ll see you in the morning. Everything will look better in the morning. You just see if it doesn’t.’
There was no point in trying to get Mary Jane to see reason. She saw the world her way and that was all there was to it.
Peering out from between a gap in her fingers, Honey’s gaze dropped to the quarter bottle of wine remaining. Reaching for a clean glass she poured until it was skimming the brim. Then she drank it. Alcohol cures nothing, but then neither did trying to reason with Mary Jane. And both were capable of giving her a severe headache.
Chapter Nine
Lindsey helped her to clear away the detritus.
‘Then I’m out clubbing,’ said Lindsey, flicking her hair back from her eyes. ‘I’ve got a hot date.’
The clubbing was expected; the hot date was not. This was the first Honey had heard of it.
‘Anyone I know?’ She said it casually.
Lindsey went on clearing up at a rate of knots not looking likely to divulge anything interesting. ‘Of course not. I wouldn’t go out with anyone you knew. You’re not quite up there with my grandmother’s taste, but I prefer to feel my way with a guy – not literally of course. Well, not yet,’ she added with a wicked grin. ‘I take it you’re off to meet your devil-may-care policeman.’
‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘You don’t need to.’
Lindsey paused. She was wearing that certain look, the one that made Honey feel as though her daughter was older than she was.
‘He’s shy. You know that, don’t you?’ Lindsey said.
‘Pah! Of course he’s not. He’s anything but.’
Of course Doherty wasn’t shy. She’d know it, wouldn’t she?
‘He’s shy about me being your daughter, about me knowing that he’s sleeping with my mother – well not exactly sleeping
– I’ve seen that cat that got the cream look in your eyes the morning after. It embarrasses him that I know what you two get up to. Old-fashioned, isn’t it? Quaint in fact. Quite endearing.’
‘I’ll tell him that.’
‘Don’t! He’ll curl up with embarrassment.’
She wouldn’t have told him anyway but it was all she could think of to say.
He phoned her just before ten to confirm.
‘Look sexy for me.’
The request brought a smile to her face.
‘I’ll do my best. I take it you’ve had a hard day.’
‘Not good. Wright’s death seems to have caught the headlines. There’s an endless list of who would have wanted to kill him, though I suppose that doesn’t surprise you.’
Honey grimaced. ‘I have total empathy with my associates in the hospitality trade. Did you get my email?’
In the email she’d outlined as much as she knew about the students stuffing Wright inside what turned out to be his shroud.’
‘I did. I’ve interviewed the people at the Devlin Foundation including the girl collecting for money. She confirms going off with the students to the pub but swears she only knew their first names. She was adamant that Wright had been alive when he got stuffed inside the teddy bear and the post-mortem bears that out. I got the impression she was hiding something but wasn’t about to tell me.’
‘She doesn’t trust policemen,’ Honey suggested?
He shrugged. ‘That’s the way it goes.’
After lunch she took a stroll to her favourite auction house where they were holding a preview of lots for the next day’s sale of collectibles. There was no mention of collectible clothes or underwear, but she loitered anyway. There were so many different things going on in her life at present and an hour loitering amongst old items would give her something to think about.
‘Are you coming in or what, hen?’
She smiled at the sound of Alistair’s familiar voice.
‘Is there anything in there for me?’
He winked one bright blue eye at the same time as stroking his copper-coloured beard.
‘’Tis mostly collectible coins and weaponry, but there is one particular item that might take your fancy.’
She followed his crooked finger into the cool interior that was Bonhams Auction Rooms. Prospective bidders browsed amongst the locked glass cases displaying the more valuable items. Those of a more bloodthirsty persuasion slid daggers in and out of ancient leather or metal sheaths. In quick succession two men who might have fancied themselves as William Wallace balanced a claymore across their fingertips. Others who preferred percussion rather than cold steel cocked pistols over their forearms. One over-enthusiastic soul shouted ‘stand and deliver,’ which sent every person in the room freezing on the spot or ducking for cover.
‘This way,’ said Alistair, after threatening the would-be Dick Turpin with immediate expulsion from the premises. The threat was rendered with undisguised amusement and received in the same vein by the man it was said to. A known antique pistol dealer, he knew Alistair was only having fun.
The item Alistair had referred to was balanced on top of something round and wooden.
‘It’s a rum cask,’ said Alistair on seeing her puzzled expression. ‘But this,’ he said. ‘Am I right in thinking what I’m thinking?’
It was similar in shape to an apron and just like an apron had strings to tie it around the waist. The rest of it was covered with frills and it was padded – quite heavily padded.
‘A bustle! And I don’t have one like this!’
‘That’s what I thought. You could get it cheap. It’s the only item of ladies’ attire here. Do you want it?’
He said it with a twinkle in his eye. It sometimes occurred to Honey that Alistair would be more than a friend if she wanted him to. So far they’d never crossed that bridge and she couldn’t ever see it happening. They enjoyed being friends; they enjoyed the banter and all the innuendo they sometimes threw at each other. Things were good as they were. She wasn’t going there unless Alistair mentioned it, and he never mentioned it.
The bustle was made of linen and in good condition. On top of that it was doubtful whether there would be any other bidder seeing as it was a one-off item of clothing. Clothes dealers would only attend the auction if there were more than a single collectible. Honey’s mind was made up.
‘I’ll leave a bid.’
‘Fine by me, hen.’
The atmosphere of the auction house was calming. She found herself looking around, not wanting to leave just yet but merely to wander.
Alistair picked up on her mood.
‘Wander at will. It’ll do your blood pressure the world of good.’
‘Wander with me. Tell me what’s been going on. Any good gossip?’
Alistair knew everything that went on locally in the antique world. He knew who was buying, who was selling, and who was trying to pull a fast one.
‘Business is up and down, but then, what’s new? There’s a lot of stuff coming in from Russia, some of it a bit dubious. Difficult to prove whether it’s legally acquired by the owners, but we’re getting there. I blame it on metal detectors. Every shade of villain from here to Vladivostok can buy one on eBay.’
‘Best to stick to the home-grown stuff then?’
Alistair made a clicking sound with his teeth. ‘We have to have a care there too. The metal detector is more widespread in the British Isles than anywhere else in the world, and, to be fair, I can understand that. We have more precious metals buried in the earth than most countries. Take these, for instance …’
He stopped at a glass cabinet in which ancient silver and gold coins were displayed on a background of dark blue velvet.
Her eyes flickered over the coins of varying age, size and colour. ‘They’re very old.’
‘Roman. Part of a cache found in a field near Cirencester. A bloke with a metal detector went wandering in a ploughed field one morning and came up with this lot and some jewellery. The theory is that the people who hid them were Romano-British round about the time the Romans were scurrying back from whence they came. In the meantime the Sassenachs – begging your pardon – the Anglo-Saxons, the English, were coming. People were hiding their loot in the hope that the Romans would come back to protect them. Unfortunately they had a long wait. It never happened.’
‘Hmm,’ Honey murmured, her breath misting the cold glass as she peered closer. ‘I thought it was only the Vikings who came pillaging and raping.’
‘Not so, but mind you, they were famous for it. If you or I should ever be so lucky as to find buried treasure, we’re not likely to receive the full benefit. The Crown gets first shout. The treasure trove, as it’s called, must be proven to have been buried by owners who can’t come back to dig it up.’
‘Dead for over a thousand years being a pretty good reason …’
‘Correct.’
They came to an empty display cabinet, the velvet within rumpled and wearing thin in places.
‘Somebody nick the contents?’ Honey asked.
‘You could say that. They made the mistake of counterfeiting the provenance in order to avoid declaring the treasure trove to the Crown. We employ someone to check up. The whole lot got confiscated.’
Honey pursed her lips and nodded. ‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘Time to get going.’
Alistair winked. ‘I’ll keep an eye on your bustle.’
Honey smiled. ‘I’m counting on it.’
Chapter Ten
Doherty had requested that she look sexy, so she went all out to knock him dead.
The skirt was tight, the heels were high, and the white open-necked shirt was only buttoned as far as decency allowed. She was particularly careful to wear her best brassiere – the uplift and push-them-together type. That alone should boost Doherty’s spirits.
On the walk through the cooling streets to meet her ‘sleeping partner’, she thought about what Lindsey had said. Beneath Doherty’s
hard, streetwise surface lurked a squashy marshmallow of a man.
She was also thinking about Mary Jane’s friends – the students she’d invited back for a meal and a drink. Students were famous for living on baked beans and beer. They must have thought Christmas had come with Mary Jane’s offer of a meal and a bottle or two of wine.
Stuffing Wright, injured as he was, into the teddy bear was a typically student thing to do and she didn’t doubt it had only been done in fun. Even the teddy bear going missing hadn’t fazed them that much – not until the body was found. No doubt they’d presumed that Wright had walked off with the teddy in revenge for what they’d done to him – which was why they hadn’t owned up to the joke in the first place. Owning up to it now, they could well be charged with murder. They must be pretty scared.
It was close to midnight and the Zodiac Club was jam-packed with members of the hospitality trade. Hoteliers, pub landlords, and restaurant managers were pressed up against the bar, dining on steaks the size of the plates they were being served on, and gossiping and moaning about every aspect of their respective trades.
Money, mostly the lack of it in sufficient amounts, was the chief topic of conversation. Hotel guests and restaurant diners rated pretty highly too.
The place didn’t get lively until after eleven o’clock at night, when sensible tourists were tucked up in bed and pubs were closing with the exception of those catering for the young – but that was mainly at weekends, and besides, they were run by junior managers not yet jaded by the trade.
Those who frequented the Zodiac on a regular basis revelled in its dark smoky atmosphere and the strong smell of steaks cooking and garlic prawns oozing with butter. It made you hungry. On many an occasion Honey had come out smelling like a garlic prawn, but nobody minded that too much. Once the smell hit, sticking to a diet was a non-event.
One trick Honey adopted to prevent her instantly devouring one of the huge plates of food was to hold her breath. Another was to eat before coming, then order a drink at the bar and content herself with devouring the little dishes of nuts and nibbles placed there.
She was currently on her third bowl of cashew nuts thanks to a friendly barman who kept replenishing them for her. The barman knew her, knew she’d been working her ass off all day, and also kind of fancied her. Not that he was likely to make a move; gossip had it that she was currently in a relationship with Detective Chief Inspector Doherty.
Wicked Words: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) Page 10