Her mother was weeping buckets. Half of her wanted to give her a damned good shake and tell her that crocodile tears would do no good. The other wanted to apologize for being so insensitive.
Because Honey was basically too soft-hearted for her own good, the second alternative seemed to be winning through. Her weeping mother made her feel guilty. It wasn’t often she saw her mother distressed and looking small and old – though she wouldn’t dare say that to her face – at least not the looking small and old bit.
But it was one of those days; there was nothing she could do but capitulate purely for the sake of peace on earth.
‘OK. Have it your way. I’ll take her, but you have to understand that it’s only temporary. Is that clear?’
Her mother shot up from her seat. ‘I am so grateful, my darling,’ she cooed, the tears drying up as fast as they had appeared. She patted her daughter’s face. ‘You’ll get points in heaven for this. I imagine that Dora is looking down at this very moment, flapping her angel wings with delight.’
‘They’d have to be pretty big wings,’ said Honey. ‘Not exactly jumbo-jet size, but way above the norm for angels; unless, that is, Dora has lost weight since entering the Pearly Gates.’
‘That’s my darling daughter,’ said her mother, her face wreathed in smiles, her hands, the fingers sparkling with gems, clasping her daughter’s shoulders.
She was ebullient. Honey was far from that. As a precaution against strangling somebody, she tucked her hands beneath her armpits.
‘Cheer up. Bobo is a sweetie,’ said her mother.
Her daughter glared at her, wanting to say, ‘Well why don’t you have her, then?’ but the words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. In order to hang on to her self-control no smile dared mar her expression of reluctant surrender. If she forced a smile it would look like a sneer.
‘So when do I get the pleasure of welcoming Bobo into the Green River Hotel?’ she asked, her jaw aching with the effort of asking.
Her mother gave a nervous laugh. A suspiciously nervous laugh.
‘Well, actually she’s already here. I left her outside attached to the door handle. I thought it only fair that I asked you first before bringing her in.’
Ask was hardly the right verb, but Honey jerked her head in an understanding, though as it transpired, a rather naïve nod.
She followed her mother out of the office, wondering how she was going to cope, where the creature would sleep and how often it needed to go for a walk. Top of the list was how she could avoid little puddles appearing all over the hotel.
There were double doors opening immediately into the reception area of the Green River. Beyond that was a set of revolving doors of chocolate brown mahogany with shiny brass handles. The revolving doors were divided into four equal quarters; a person entered, pushed, and the door went round, leaving an empty quarter for the next person to enter.
Honey could hardly believe her eyes. Her mother had fastened Bobo’s leash to one of the brass door handles. Someone at some point had entered without noticing that the little dog was there. Bobo had somehow slipped from the quarter where Honey’s mother had left her and become entrapped in the one behind.
Honey dashed forward. ‘The poor thing. It could have been strangled.’
Restricted by the leash, the dog’s little nose was pressed flat against the door, the length of its leash stretched across the preceding quarter. Bobo couldn’t move.
‘Now how did that happen?’ Honey’s mother queried as Lindsey fought to untie the poor creature. ‘Is she hurt? I hope she isn’t hurt. Dora would never forgive me. Never mind. I’ll leave you to it. I must go to the little girls’ room and powder my nose.’
Lindsey tucked the wagging little dog beneath her arm. ‘Hi there, sweetie,’ she said, tickling the little dog under the chin.
The dog was ecstatic, eyes bright and tongue drooling from an open mouth.
‘Now what’s there not to love about a little mite like you,’ Lindsey went on.
‘The fact that she has a bladder problem,’ Honey said with a grimace.
Lindsey put the dog down and dragged it outside so it could pee in the gutter. By the time Bobo had finished her business, Gloria Cross had emerged from the powder room, her tears dried up and her make-up touched up.
Honey knew better than to check for any signs of distress, but just on the off-chance …
There were none. Her mother was bright as a button, far brighter than when she’d arrived.
‘Now I must be going dear,’ she said to Honey, offering her cheek for a kiss. ‘Do look after Bobo, won’t you? I’ve left her things in there somewhere.’
She pointed in a vague direction to somewhere in Reception. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘I’ll let you know how she gets on, Gran – sorry – Gloria,’ said Lindsey.
‘No need. I know she’s in safe hands.’
‘Thought you might say that.’ Honey glared at her mother disapprovingly though she knew full well it was water off a duck’s back. An old duck. A wise old duck.
With a wave and the swiftest footsteps this side of the London Marathon her mother tottered purposefully off. Within seconds she was gone, lost amongst a crowd of American tourists trooping along behind a guide who was holding a pink umbrella aloft.
‘Follow me, follow me,’ the guide was shouting out. The tourists did just that, fearful of getting lost in an alien city where nothing was very far from anything else and their hotel was most likely just up around the corner.
The reception was new territory for the little terrier and Bobo reacted accordingly. True to form, she got overexcited, standing on her hind legs, little pink tongue flicking out in the direction of Lindsey’s face. The excitement at one end was duplicated at the other.
Honey groaned in despair. ‘She’s leaking again.’
‘Just over-excited,’ said Lindsey, plucking the little dog from the pavement and holding her out from the door so that her tinkling fell on to the pavement.
‘We’re going to spend a bomb on disinfectant and air freshener.’ Honey couldn’t help sounding exasperated. Having Bobo come to stay was both annoying and unexpected. She didn’t want her here. She had other things with which to exercise her body – one thing in particular.
‘I’ve got work to do,’ she grumbled.
Lindsey followed her back in holding the little dog out at arm’s length with both hands.
‘Oh what a nice little dog,’ said Mary Jane, who was just on her way out, dressed in something that resembled a stick of rock – well, it was pink anyway.
‘No. It isn’t a nice little dog,’ Honey snapped back.
Mary Jane looked shocked though not for long. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It must be the time of year. Or the time of the month.’
‘Have a nice day, Mary Jane.’
‘You too, Lindsey.’
The polished wood of the reception desk was cool beneath Honey’s forehead. She made a wish. Please make that dog disappear. If there are any magical spirits in this hotel, please make that blasted dog disappear.
She didn’t hear anything, not even the panting little mouth of the mutt she’d been landed with. It occurred to her that it might have run away before Lindsey could bring it back in.
Suddenly she heard a bark. Her spirits sank back to somewhere around her ankles – as if they weren’t swollen enough!
She sighed and looked up at her daughter. ‘How about you tell me that it ran away like Little Bo Peep’s sheep and we don’t know where to find her.’
‘No such luck.’
Honey sank her forehead into her hands. ‘How am I going to cope with this creature?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘And the toilet problem?’
‘Don’t worry, Mother. I have a plan. Everything will be hunky-dory. Won’t it, Bobo? Once we get you kitted out.’
Chapter Thirteen
Doherty’s plan was to interview Tracey
Maplin, the fundraiser who happened to be the last person to see the giant teddy bear before it had gone missing. She had also made the acquaintance of the students who’d stuffed Wright inside the teddy bear, thinking it great fun.
Seeing as Wright had hit his head the actions of the young men had to be condemned. He could have been suffocated, though the post mortem had stated otherwise: C.A. Wright had been skewered through the neck. The young men would have noticed that.
An appeal had been made for them to come into the station to help with police enquiries. No one had turned up. Doherty had even interviewed Mary Jane, hoping she’d remember something more about them. She proved just as unhelpful as the media appeals except that she’d insisted they were very nice and that her psychic powers judged them to be above reproach. She’d come into the office specially to offer him her unusual powers.
Blissfully unaware of his scepticism she’d breezed into his office and declined coffee, saying it clogged the psychic corridors. She’d nabbed the best chair in the office and fixed him with her unblinking eyes.
‘Have you got a resident hypnotherapist?’ she’d asked in the spirit of helpfulness. He’d replied that this particular police force didn’t hold with stuff like that.
‘Not even on a casual basis?’
He’d wanted to say, ‘we’re talking weirdness here, not sex’ – the words ‘casual’ and ‘sex’ seemed to invite the comment – but he didn’t go there.
‘Not even on a casual basis,’ he’d stated emphatically, settling himself as comfortably as he could on the corner of the desk.
‘Well, I won’t pretend that it’s easy, but if that’s the case I’ll have to do it myself. If there is any chance at all of me remembering something, we might as well go for it.’
Mary Jane had the sort of eyes that never seemed to blink but fixed on you as though you were a rodent momentarily cornered but just aching to get away. She was eccentric, and getting on in years, but Doherty knew better than to underestimate anything she did.
Scratching at two days’ growth of stubble had helped him consider whether he really wanted to go down this route. Stopping her would be easy. He could just get her driven home, but what the hell did it matter? The four young men were bound to show up eventually. If Mary Jane brought that moment a little nearer, then he’d live with it.
His reservations had kicked in right away. Mary Jane was tall, bony, and colourfully dressed. She dominated his office, her bright colours lording it over the metal filing cabinets and the grey blandness of a wooden desk and a two-year-old computer.
He’d felt like Alice in Wonderland, shrinking in size and not likely to get back to normal until Mary Jane had gone home.
‘First I have to make myself comfortable. I have to relax. Can you please close the door?’
While Mary Jane had made herself comfortable in a red plastic chair, he’d shut out the sound of police officers walking past, rustling paper and talking.
Doherty was cool enough not to appear uncomfortable with what she was doing. It paid to have an open mind in today’s police force, plus a good understanding of body language. Her head was back, her mouth was open, and her eyes were shut. For a moment it looked as though she were about to slide off the chair. The only thing that stopped her was the size of the room. Her feet had jammed up against the side of the desk.
Opening one eye she’d asked him if he had a pocket watch.
Doherty shook his head. ‘I’m all digital.’
She’d pointed to his wristwatch, a nice stainless steel number that showed the date as well as the time.
‘Well, wave that around in front of my eyes. Dangle it from one of your fingers. It might work.’
Confessing he had no faith in this exercise whatsoever might have upset the old girl so he’d gone along with it. The wrist strap wasn’t the open-ended sort but he waved what he could in front of her eyes.
‘You have to say the words.’
‘The words.’
‘You know the ones.’
Sure. He knew the ones and steeled himself for what he had to do.
‘Right. You are feeling tired. You are falling asleep.’
In his mind he’d been thinking that he sounded a right prat, but it had seemed to float Mary Jane’s boat. Her faded blue eyes were flicking backwards and forwards with the motion of the watch.
‘Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier. You are now falling asleep.’
Her eyes had closed. It looked like it was working – something of a surprise seeing as he didn’t have faith in all this mumbo-jumbo.
Still, there was such a thing as beginner’s luck, or even inherited skill. Hadn’t one of his family been a bit that way inclined – having some kind of gift for it?
Whatever. He didn’t know for sure, but hey, he congratulated himself that he’d seen all the right movies and observed how this way-out stuff was done.
Then it was time for the questions.
‘Now think back to the other day when you met four young students. You picked them up at Sally Lunn’s … then what happened?’
He’d kept his voice steady.
Mary Jane frowned. Her hypnotized state seemed real enough. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘Think carefully. Think about their names …’
Christ, he’d thought. If I do get a result, how the hell do I explain it to the Crown Prosecution Service? Hey, there was this weird American woman who agreed to be hypnotized in order to make identification of suspects. Was a traditional line-up not possible, some Tricky Dicky would ask? The lately-earned promotion could soon go due west if he didn’t watch it.
Her eyes had suddenly flashed open. ‘I didn’t go to Sally Lunn’s. I met them at the Poacher in Much Maryleigh. It was a nice day so I thought I would have a change. I drove there. I had a very nice portion of venison pie followed by gooseberry fool. It was pretty crowded so I had to share a table with them. They didn’t mind at all and I gave them a lift back. Then we got talking. They’d Greyhounded around the States, three weeks in order to see as much as they could, which wasn’t much, but hey, they were happy. For some reason the trip back into Bath got to them a little. They said they needed a drink after that so I offered to buy them one. That’s what happened.’
Doherty had nodded and looked down at his folded arms. Most people needed something to calm their nerves following being a passenger in Mary Jane’s car.
‘And their names?’ he’d asked hopefully.
The painted wooden parrot earrings rattled as she shook her head. ‘Not a clue.’
There was only one thing for it. Clint had given him the name and address of Tracey Maplin. She was the main path to these guys and Mary Jane’s intrusion and insistence on being hypnotized had only slowed him up. He could have sent a subordinate to interview Tracey, but he preferred to do the job himself. Besides, she wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry; she was ill, wasn’t she? She’d declined his request for her to come into the station stating that she’d fallen down and sprained her ankle that morning so it was more convenient for him to visit her.
‘She’d better be bloody ill,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Say something, guv?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Nothing.’
His assistant was still ploughing her way through the backlog of filing, plus entering the details of the present case on to the computer database. There should have been more civilian clerical help, but due to cutbacks jobs were being doubled up.
Guessing that Casper was on Honey’s back about the case, it seemed sensible to invite her along. Besides, he was getting used to having her around and it wasn’t just because she was becoming his right-hand man. Things had moved on.
He caught her at the hotel.
‘Are you available?’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls. You’ve caught me wearing rubber gloves and carrying a sink plunger.’
‘My kind of outfit.’
‘You have a fetish for sink plunger
s?’
He laughed then told her what was on his mind. She told him to come on over. She’d be waiting outside. ‘I might not be alone,’ she added.
‘Are you two-timing me?’
‘Far from it. I’m bringing a friend – sort of.’
He’d caught the laughter in her voice, the kind of restrained laughter people have when the joke is as much on them as on anyone else.
He hadn’t known what to expect but hey, he was cool, so Lindsey or Smudger the chef tagging along was no problem.
She was waiting for him outside the hotel entrance and waved as he brought the Toyota MR2 to a halt. The two-seater had grey bodywork and a black interior. It was cosy, the modern equivalent of a bicycle made for two.
‘You look good,’ he said to Honey as she slid into the passenger seat.
She was dressed in a black sweater, faded jeans, and trainers with flashing blue lights in the heels. She said she felt like a mobile Christmas tree. There were reasons for her choice of clothes: number one, the black sweater made at least the top half of her body look slimmer. Number two, the jeans clung nicely in all the right places. Number three, the lit-up running shoes brightened the denseness of black and ordinary-looking jeans. She hadn’t bothered with jewellery so the shoes made up for that; not that she explained any of this to Doherty. Such details would be lost on a man.
Doherty’s attention had shifted to what he had first thought was a bundled-up cardigan sitting on her lap. No cardigan he’d ever seen had beady eyes and a black button nose. He eyed Bobo with something akin to alarm in his eyes. The kiss he gave Honey landed on the tip of her nose mainly because he was taking in the details of the dog. He wasn’t usually so distracted when he kissed. ‘That’s a dog.’
‘There’s no fooling you, is there?’ she said, rubbing at the tickling sensation his kiss had left on her nose.
‘I wasn’t expecting a dog.’
The truth of the matter was that he hadn’t expected the dog to look like it did. Steve Doherty wasn’t often lost for words. He prided himself on being a man of few words – why use a long word or sentence when a short expletive did the job? But he was rarely, if ever, speechless. It took a great deal of searching to find his voice.
Wicked Words: A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) Page 13