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

by Jean G. Goodhind

  ‘Well, go on. Don’t keep us waiting.’

  A frown appeared on the fresh and slightly pink young face, but he didn’t linger. He’d received an order from a superior officer; he had to obey.

  Doherty flicked the switch on the recorder. It was an old model in that it still used tapes. An order had been put in for a new one but due to an overstretched budget, the purchase had been put on hold.

  ‘Damned thing,’ Doherty muttered, all the while aware that Ned was watching him do it through slitted eyes. Ned was trying to get the measure of him, wondering what he was going to ask now they were off the record.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Ned,’ he said. ‘Off the record.’

  Ned grinned knowingly. He’d had a few brushes with the law before the rape charge: petty crimes mostly, enough to make him familiar with the process of police interrogation.

  ‘I s’pose you’re gonna offer me a ciggie next,’ he said.

  ‘The rules on no smoking are pretty strict. Sorry if I can’t offer you one.’

  Inside Doherty was almost whooping with joy. The man was speaking. Nothing serious, but it was a step in the right direction.

  Body language was everything. He kept his cool, hands no longer clasped tightly together but resting palms down on the desk. His expression was neutral.

  ‘Look, Ned. I’m asking you whether you’d seen the girl, who she might have been friendly with, who she argued with. All that kind of stuff.’

  What Doherty had interpreted as a nervous tic stiffened into a sneer.

  ‘She was a cock teaser!’

  The terminology wasn’t exactly unexpected. Ned Shaw had maintained that his rape victim was just that. The woman – aged twenty-one – had protested that she was no such thing; the jury had found him guilty, and Ned had done five years with good behaviour.

  Doherty polished the edge of the desk with his finger, watching it leave smudges along an area of about twelve inches. A little movement helped ease the atmosphere before he made the number one statement.

  ‘So she led you on, things got out of hand, and you killed her. Dropped her into that cesspit and attempted to fill it in to hide her body.’

  ‘Like hell I did!’

  ‘You were there the other night. You were disturbed. I was there and saw you running away.’

  ‘Not me, you didn’t.’

  Ned’s face was turning redder and his eyes, which had been slits, were bulging.

  ‘She led you on. You just said so. Things went wrong …’ Doherty shouted.

  ‘Not me. It wasn’t me she was leading on. It was him, that bastard Pierce,’ Ned shouted back.

  Doherty could smell the other man’s sweat. Ned wasn’t just angry, he was scared.

  ‘I did my time, Mr Doherty. My family went through enough. I wouldn’t go there again. I didn’t touch Cathy Morden. I swear it.’

  There were times when just the tone of a man’s voice was enough to make Doherty assume innocence rather than guilt. Vice-versa too.

  ‘OK. OK,’ he said slowly. ‘You reckon Cathy was leading Pierce on.’

  Ned nodded. ‘He boasted about how young girls fancied him. Silly sod. She was just a kid away from home for the first time and out to enjoy herself. Feeling the power of freedom. That’s all. I reckon she laughed at him behind his back …’

  ‘But you’re the one with the track record, Ned,’ Doherty pointed out.

  Ned stared at him like he had before, everything about him tensing.

  The constable edged his way back in with the coffee.

  ‘Sorry, guv, I think I put sugar in both,’ he said as he put the coffee down on the table.

  Ned didn’t seem to notice that anyone had entered. He was frowning and shaking his head, leaning forward suddenly as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was thinking.

  ‘Christ. That was why he didn’t want us to rip it out.’

  Without Ned noticing, Doherty switched the recording machine back on and nodded to the constable to stand by the door. Ned Shaw wasn’t out of the woods yet and anything could happen if the decision was made to keep him in all night.

  ‘You knew Cathy Morden. Do you know where she is?’

  Ned blinked. Doherty had surprised him.

  ‘I thought she was in …’

  ‘No,’ Doherty snapped as he shook his head. ‘She is not.’

  Ned Shaw stared at him. He was sweating, his tongue flicking over the moisture hanging on his top lip.

  ‘So who was it?’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Poacher was pretty busy during a lunchtime, filled mostly with locals, mainly the retired plus a few that were merely passing through.

  Honey made herself comfortable in the window seat, a good spot from where she could watch happenings within the bar plus the comings and goings outside.

  There was only space for two people or one person and a very large handbag, and seeing as she didn’t want anyone joining her, she spread herself out a bit.

  ‘All right there, me dear. Ain’t I seen you ’ere before?’ The speaker was tall with rounded shoulders. He was wearing a green padded waistcoat and matching wellies. Both were very clean and looked new which made her decide they were worn more for show – to ‘fit in’ rather than go muck-shifting or driving a tractor. He swept a corded green cap off his head in gentlemanly fashion.

  She hadn’t wanted to be recognized as having visited before, but he was old and probably only vaguely recalled seeing her before. Anyway, she looked up and smiled. ‘You could have done.’

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  She didn’t usually accept drinks from strangers, but in his case she did. Besides, he was white-haired and around her mother’s age, so no threat whatsoever.

  ‘So,’ she said after sipping her orange juice. ‘I take it you’ve lived here a long time.’

  He chugged back a mouthful of strong cider, his flaccid lips almost covering one side of the glass.

  ‘Seventy-five years man and boy. I was born ’ere.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve seen a lot of changes over that time.’

  He grimaced his disapproval. ‘You bet I have. Suburbans. That’s what we’ve got ’ere.’

  His tone was enough to tell her that he didn’t approve of smart new houses and smart alec people from the towns.

  After some rummaging in his inside coat pocket he brought out a pipe – one of the old briar types that used to make men look brainy but now made them look like dinosaurs.

  ‘I don’t think you should be …’

  Honey was just about to point out that smoking was no longer allowed in bars, when he tipped the pipe so she could see inside the bowl. There was nothing in there.

  ‘I just like to feel the stem between me teeth,’ he explained.

  Village pubs were hotbeds of village gossip, which was why Honey had come here today all by herself. She figured Doherty had already got himself known with the locals. Although she’d stayed here overnight with Doherty, she hoped she wasn’t so clearly remembered.

  Sam Trout, as the old gentleman was called, went on to tell her about how he’d protested when the posh houses for ‘pen-pushing toffs’, as he’d put it, were built.

  ‘Used to be the village green. Kicked footballs about on it when we were boys. Went courting there too,’ he added with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Got my first kiss there. Much more besides.’

  The twinkle was building to starbursts of fondly remembered lusts. Honey cleared her throat and prepared to get him back on the right track.

  ‘What about the people who live in the new houses; do you know any of them very well?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ His expression changed, his bushy grey eyebrows lowering over bloodshot eyes. ‘I lives in one of them with me daughter and her husband. That’s what you have to do when you’re older – live with yer family; once the wife was gone it was all I bloody well could do. Had to live somewhere. Couldn’t do all that housework by meself. I’m not that sort of blok
e.’

  Honey nodded in understanding. Not only did blokes of Sam’s generation consider themselves above doing domestic work, they lacked the skills. Brought up to be head of the household and to go out and earn the daily bread while the wife stayed at home, their mothers had looked after them when they were younger.

  Listening to old Sam brought a terrifying thought to mind: how long until her mother got to the stage when she could no longer live alone, in other words, how long before she moved in with her? She shuddered at the thought of it. Hopefully the dreaded day would never come. Who knows, Gloria Cross, the glamourpuss of the Darby and Joan Club, might be swept off her feet by some millionaire octogenarian and flown off to somewhere like Tampa or Orlando – a place of sunshine where all the snowbirds go for the winter.

  Sam got the drinks. She thanked him before taking a sip of orange juice.

  ‘Well not all your neighbours can be that bad,’ she remarked.

  ‘Just some.’

  Sam Trout’s red-rimmed eyes homed in on a guy at the bar who had knocked back one pint after another. Such heavy drinking seemed inappropriate seeing as it was only lunchtime. The man was middle-aged and dressed in a pale green polo shirt with almost-matching trousers and two-tone loafers. His shoulders were hunched and his folded forearms were resting on the bar. Like some kind of fairground fortune-teller he was staring into his drink as though trying to find the future.

  ‘He’s certainly knocking them back,’ Honey remarked.

  ‘Stupid sod,’ Sam spat. ‘He thinks he’s a bit of a Jack the Lad, a dead cert with the women. Silly sod. He wants to take a look at ’imself in the mirror. Look at that gut he’s got already – and it’ll be getting bigger the way he’s knocking back the booze. Don’t know where he gets all his money from. Not legally, I should think. He’s got the look of a villain, that one.’

  Sam wasn’t that quiet a talker. The bloke at the bar heard something if not all of his comment and turned his head. Strands of dark blond hair straggled over a pinkish forehead. Bright dots of colour sprouted on each cheek and seemed to be spreading.

  His bleary eyes fixed on Sam.

  ‘There’s an old saying about not bringing your own idiots to a country village. The village have got plenty of their own. Isn’t that right, Sam?’

  The barb hit home and hurt. Eyes blazing with indignation, Sam Trout half rose to his feet and pointed a bony finger.

  ‘Well you’re something worse than a village idiot, Peter Pierce,’ he shouted. ‘Peter the Pervert. That’s what they call you.’

  Sam’s voice had got louder. The knives and forks of lunchtime diners paused midway to open mouths. All eyes were turned in the direction of Sam Trout and the man at the bar.

  Honey was fascinated. Amazing what lurked between the quiet facade of a country village, she thought.

  The man at the bar turned red with rage, specks of saliva foaming at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘If you were a few years younger, Sam, I’d take you outside and punch your bloody lights out!’ he shouted.

  ‘Well come on then. You wouldn’t hold back from beating an old bloke anyway – not from what I ’eard,’ Sam shouted back.

  The man at the bar began to lumber forward, his face red and his fists clenched and tight to his chest – like a boxer about to land a killer blow.

  The barman, who had seen and heard everything, moved with purposeful intent. Raising the flap at the end of the bar, he rushed through, his strong hand outstretched to cup the elbow of the man at the bar. ‘No more drinks for you, Peter. Time you were going home. Go quietly or you’ll never find a welcome in here ever again.’

  ‘I can find my own way,’ snapped the man addressed as Peter, shaking the barman’s hand from his elbow. He made as though for the door, but did a sudden sidestep, lashing out and crashing against the table Honey and Sam were sitting at, sending their drinks tumbling to the floor where the glasses smashed.

  ‘I’ll have you, Sam Trout,’ he said, thrusting a finger just an inch or so away from a spot between the old man’s eyes.

  Sam’s old face set into a fierce glower. ‘You better be careful what you’re saying, Peter Pierce. This here’s the girlfriend of that copper that was here. I’ve told her about you. Told her about the way you chases young women half yer age. Disgusting it is. Plain disgusting. And I told her about you protesting about that cesspit. There was no need of it. Church funds would have benefited from the sale of that, but you weren’t having it, were you? That’s the bloody trouble. You newcomers thinks you rule the bloody place. Well piss off, Peter Pierce. Piss bloody off!’

  Honey was on her feet, making the brave move of standing between the two warring men. ‘Sam. Calm down. There’s no point in getting flustered about this.’

  Absorbed in calming the old chap down in case he gave himself a heart attack, she didn’t at first notice the look of alarm on Peter Pierce’s face. If she had she would have realized that referring to her policeman boyfriend hadn’t gone down too well.

  ‘You’d better go,’ she said turning to Pierce.

  The look he gave her was unexpected. He looked terrified, his eyes glassy and his pink cheeks steadily paling.

  Without another word he slunk swiftly away, the door hushing closed behind him.

  Eating, drinking, and talking steadily resumed while Honey sat collecting her thoughts, one finger tapping thoughtfully on her knee. Why the worried look? It had to be Sam mentioning that the last time she’d been here Doherty had been with her.

  ‘Fancy a chew?’ It was Sam.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of my pipe. A pipe does wonders for the mind. Helps sort yer thoughts, it does.’

  Honey barely glanced at the chewed end of the pipe as she shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Suit yerself.’

  ‘I was wondering. You said something about that man protesting about the cesspit being filled in.’

  ‘That’s right. Said it was his. Said something about it being on his deeds, though that’s a load of old cobblers.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘When they were first going to build the houses, they would have started them next to the church right where that cesspit is. His house – the one he was going to buy – would have had that in his back garden. But the protests kept going and we got the builders to build the houses where they are now. He didn’t argue about it then so why the bloody hell – begging yer pardon – he started moaning about it now I don’t know. But he’s got a thing about that cesspit. Got a thing about that field if you ask me. He were always in it, wandering around with that damned metal contraption of his.’

  ‘Contraption? What metal contraption was that, Sam?’ she asked.

  ‘One of them things for finding old coins with.’

  ‘A metal detector. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, with a jiggle of his pipe. ‘That would be what it were called.’

  ‘You do know that the police have found a body in the cesspit.’ Honey was presuming it was a young girl, most probably Cathy Morden, though Doherty hadn’t confirmed yet.

  The pipe jiggled in Sam’s mouth before he replied. ‘A young woman, so I hear. No wonder he didn’t want them to demolish that pit. That’s where he must have put her – young Cathy. Killed her and buried her there after she’d resisted his advances.’

  It wasn’t beyond belief that what he said could be right, on the other hand rumours fly like sparrows around a village. If the man Doherty was interviewing – Ned Shaw – hadn’t done the job, then Peter Pierce might well be a possible contender for prime suspect.

  ‘Does Mr Pierce have any family?’

  Sam took the stem of the pipe from between his teeth. ‘His wife Carol – though of course she ain’t his first wife. And two boys. Just like ’im they are. Big ’eaded. Not like village lads at all. Think they never got over their mother leaving ’ome, though you couldn’t blame ’er you
know – being married to ’im. Peter Pierce. Peter the Pervert.’

  Honey cleared her throat and reminded herself that she wasn’t here to listen to village gossip. However, giving someone a nickname like that you had to wonder – didn’t you?

  ‘Liked the young girls,’ Sam repeated, clamping his teeth down tightly on his pipe.

  ‘Did he like Cathy Morden?’

  Sam eyed her wickedly and chuckled. ‘She was a right little charmer. Could wind him round her little finger, she could. And he fell for it. Silly bugger. As if she’d be interested in the likes of him.’

  Honey thought of Cathy’s mother. Agnes was beside herself, waiting for confirmation that the body in the cesspit was her daughter, praying it wasn’t but doing what she could to prepare herself for the worst.

  ‘Was she seeing any of the village boys?’

  He looked at her with a lopsided smile, the pipe fixed at a jaunty angle; a bit like Popeye the Sailor.

  He shook his head. ‘Not that one. Used to meet them in that old tomb …’

  ‘The mausoleum?’

  ‘That’s the one. It’s a grand place for meeting a lass; used to do the same meself in days gone by. That old door never did shut right, but it was warm if you jammed it in the ’ole.’

  He tipped her the wink. What he said contradicted what the waitress had told her, but villages are ripe with gossip. Cathy Morden could have been nobody, anybody, or everybody.

  She looked at her watch. Old Sam would tell her some juicy tales of his youth. It might be fun to hear them, but not now. Not when she was getting some insight into village life.

  She checked her phone, half expecting to see a message from Doherty, but there was none. She took another sip of her drink.

  ‘Was the present Mrs Pierce a village girl?’

  ‘Not bloody likely.’ Old Sam looked repugnant at the very thought of a village girl marrying the likes of Peter Pierce. ‘He got her the same way he got his first wife: went to one of them dating agencies. Not natural as far as I’m concerned. I mean, you might look at a catalogue to choose a new washing machine, but not a woman. That ain’t right.’