‘It’s hallowed ground. Those who hadn’t been christened or were too poor to pay for their own plot were buried over there,’ she said, jerking her chin towards the area where the long grass whispered in the breeze. ‘Smothered in grass and weeds.’
Honey could see that the grass seemed longer there, the ground and the wall falling away down a steep incline behind the church.
‘That’s where Harold Clinker was found bound, gagged and naked. I suppose the village was shocked at that too.’
‘A disgusting man!’
‘You met him?’
‘Only at first. He took advantage of peoples’ good nature. Once he got the lay of the land, so to speak, he used everything he learned to his own ends.’
As she digested what Hermione was saying, Honey let her gaze wander. Sunlight dappled the grass. The smell and sound of summer was in the air, cornflowers and poppies growing in the oldest part of the churchyard, the place where the grass was longest. If she recalled rightly, it was also the place the vicar had wanted cleared and was opposed in that pursuit by Mrs Flynn.
‘So only poor people were buried over there,’ said Honey, nodding towards the place Hermione had indicated.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Nobody in recent years?’
Hermione frowned. ‘Why should there be?’
Honey shrugged. ‘Just a notion.’
The more modern graves were all set out in neat orderly lines, the grass around them cut short, flowers sprouting from marble and pewter urns.
‘It’s a lovely church,’ Honey persisted. ‘No wonder so many people want to get married here. Did you get married here?’
‘No!’
Her tone was abrupt and when she turned her back to the breeze and bent down to turn on the cold-water tap to refill the vase, her flyaway hair hid her expression.
Honey sucked in her bottom lip as she thought carefully about what to do next. There was one question she was burning to ask but wasn’t at all sure she would get an answer.
‘I know you say it was nonsense, but do you think it might have appeared to other people that Mrs Flynn tended to pick on you. More than one person thought so,’ Honey put in quickly before Janet Glencannon was again accused.
Hermione Thompson straightened up sharply, both hands around the cut glass vase. Eyes that were usually pale and impassive were now as hard and sharp as the cut glass vase she held to her breast.
‘It was mmmmmy own...mmmmmy own...fault. I made mmmmistakes sometimes.’
Honey felt her blood turning to water. Hermione’s sudden stuttering and her overall reaction was that of a typically abused wife, yet she seemed to be referring to her mother.
Suddenly she saw Doherty waving at her from the side of his car. Before joining him, she walked into the long grass, almost as though just being there might give her that bit more insight into what had gone on here. As it turned out there were a few nettles amongst the grass and she got stung.
‘Shit!’
Another pound for the swear jar!
She looked for Hermione Thompson meaning to thank her for her assistance, but she’d already gone back into the church, the door slamming behind her.
Doherty was looking pleased with himself. ‘We’ve found Alice Flynn, Mrs Flynn’s daughter.’
‘In Scotland?’
‘No. She was staying with a friend in Keynsham.’
‘A friend? Anyone we know?’ Somehow she had already guessed the answer.
‘Geraldine Evans. I’ll let you know how we get on.’
There was a lot to do at the Green River, so Honey wasn’t that put out when she wasn’t invited to attend Doherty’s interview of a woman they knew slept most of the day and worked most of the night.
It wasn’t just that she had paperwork to sort out and emails to send to people who had enquired about rooms; there was also her mother to contend with.
It turned out that she could send an email to her mother aboard the cruise liner.
‘They have satellite phones and other sophisticated communications equipment,’ Lindsey told her.
‘Are you going to tell me how it works?’ Honey asked her daughter.
‘Same as it always works,’ Lindsey responded. ‘Don’t worry, mum, you’re not suddenly going to hear something like ground control to Major Tom. It’s pain free.’
Lindsey gathered up her things from behind the reception desk.
‘You’re going?’ Honey asked her, slightly alarmed at having to deal with new technology and her mother herself.
‘Yes. I’ve got a special meeting to attend.’
Her attitude was uncharacteristically brisk as though she had no wish to be asked where she was going. Anna had come in specially to take her place.
‘Mrs Gloria has big energy,’ she said when peering over Honey’s shoulder at the wedding picture that Lindsey had installed as a screen saver. ‘I have big energy too,’ she added. ‘We are very alike where men are concerned. We both have big energy.’
Honey blanched at the thought that her mother could have anything in common with Anna. On reflection she realised that Anna was right. They both liked men, Anna’s taste resulting in a number of children by different men, and Gloria having had substantial pay-outs following each of her four divorces. Both of them had made fruitful marriages, though not bearing the same fruit.
So what about this one?
Anna jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘Oh! It is him!’
Honey stared at the screen.
‘Him? Who?’
‘The man who did tricks.’
Honey’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. ‘Tricks? What sort of tricks?’
Tricks was a bad word in Honey’s books rating alongside tricksters, scams, scammers, crooks and crooked. Dishonest was only a mild description to add to the list, but still worth considering.
‘He did card tricks when he stayed here. You must remember him Mrs Driver. They called him the Prince of Cards.’
‘Anna, I don’t understand what you’re talking...’ Then it came to her. ‘The Conjurors Convention?’
‘That is it. The men who do tricks with cards and swords and pull rabbits out of hats. They were all very good, but the Prince of Cards was the best.’
‘Ah!’ Honey let the recollection flood over her. The Green River had played host to a convention for conjurors – stage acts mostly who came together to exchange ideas or show off their latest trick. So her mother had married a conjuror, a stage magician.
‘You do not look very happy about it, Mrs Driver. He was a very nice man. I liked him too.’
That did it. Honey sat back in her chair puffed cheeks gradually diminishing as she expelled a deep breath.
It was true. Really true. Anna and her mother had the same taste in men. Following the failure of their respective relationships, both had been left to their own devices. In Anna’s case it was coping with the resulting children of her unions. With Gloria Cross it was a pre nuptial agreed account limit with American Express.
Honey took a deep breath as she thought about what to say in the message. She’d already sent one of congratulations via an email greeting card website, but that was before she’d learned that Stewart White was more – or was it less – than a bookie, an owner of a train of betting shops.
Lindsey had promised to do some research on line, but that could take time. In the meantime she couldn’t really accuse her mother of being duped. This email would be of the common type asking her mother on what date she expected to return and where the newlyweds would live.
She sent it off as per normal then proceeded to stare at the screen as if the reply would appear by return of post. Lindsey reminded her mother that it was email.
‘You’ll get it when you get it.’
‘She’ll have her phone with her. I’ll give it a try.’
Lindsey shook her head and muttered, ‘You’ll be lucky.’
Her daughter turned out to be right. Honey found herself listening
to a recorded message saying, ‘I’m on my honeymoon. I’ll be in touch when I get back.’
Honey told herself she needed comfort and that meant comfort food. Her recent denial in the hope of being a slim line version of herself gliding down the aisle had disappeared over the horizon along with her mother and a stage magician who might also own a chain of betting shops.
She told Anna she would check later, and then balancing a cup of coffee and a cream bun in one hand, she closed her office door behind her giving instructions that she was not to be disturbed.
The coffee went quickly enough, though not as fast as the cream bun. She needed it.
In an effort to take her mind off whether or not her mother had married in haste and might very well repent at leisure – if she lived long enough – she forced herself to think of other things.
Number one was Mrs Flynn. It now seemed certain that it wasn’t her who had been running through the village in a wedding dress. Nigel Brooks made a habit of it.
Number two, they also knew that Mrs Flynn had been jilted at the altar and still had her wedding dress. Had the vicar known that she kept it in the old coffer and came in regularly to try it on and sit there as though she were still waiting for her long lost husband?
And what had happened to the husband? Had he ever come back as Alan Price, one of the villagers had suggested, and if so, what had happened to him?
The more she thought about Mrs Flynn sitting there in her wedding dress, the sadder she became. Being jilted had ruined the woman’s life. Luckily she had had open access to the church so it was logical to suppose she could sit there in that dress whenever she liked. But surely somebody would have known. Somebody would have seen her.
It seemed somehow odd that the vicar had never seen her sitting there. She decided to run her thought past Doherty.
Doherty’s phone was shut off. Well it would be seeing as he had gone to speak to Geraldine Evans and ask the whereabouts of Alice Flynn.
Her own car being at the garage in the tender hands of Ahmed Clifford, she put her life on the line and asked Mary Jane if she could oblige her with a lift to Wainswicke.
‘I’d love to. Just give me a minute whilst I get all my notes together. I need to have a word with that vicar one more time and take a look at some of the old papers she keeps in that vicarage and the parish register which is more than likely kept in the crypt.
Mary Jane was still tracing her family tree. It seemed to Honey that the amount of stuff Mary Jane had gathered was enough to a forest let alone a single tree!
‘Here we go,’ cried Mary Jane as she nudged her way into the traffic and floored the pedal on the first piece of straight road they encountered.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘Alice Flynn. I’m looking for Alice Flynn.’
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, the blue sky had turned a disgruntled grey and the woman who answered the door at number six, Rochester Gardens looked disgruntled too.
‘She ain’t ‘ere.’
Geraldine Evans began shutting the door. Doherty jammed his foot into the gap and flashed his warrant card.
‘Then I’ll wait.’
The door was partially reopened.
‘Got a car to wait in?’
‘No. I’d prefer to while away my happy visit by asking you some questions.’
‘Look, I’ve only just got up. I’ve got to work tonight.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘Bristol. Red Cross Street.’
‘On the street?’
Her scowl matched the bags under her eyes; deep and black. ‘Do I look like a tart?’
Doherty thought she did, but knew if he said so she’d be even surlier than she was now.
‘I’d take a guess you work at the Lemon Tree. Am I right?’
The Lemon Tree was a nightclub housed in a red brick building sandwiched between the old Central Commercial School and the back of the buildings that fronted Old Market. In years gone by Old Market had been just that; a market. Gone now, given over to a traffic system that did nothing for the quality of life round there and precious little for traffic efficiency.
Basically, the club was typical of a few places round that area, though Old Market in the centre of Bristol was a bit tidier than West Street on the other side of the traffic lights, a one way system bordered by massage parlours, weed shops and lap dancing clubs.
The Lemon Tree opened at around nine at night and didn’t close until four in the morning. Doherty surmised the money must be good though on looking at the outside of Geraldine’s house, she certainly didn’t spend it on property maintenance.
Doherty nodded at somebody taking out their wheelie bin a few doors down. As far as he was aware it was not rubbish collection day tomorrow. The operation was being done slowly. The woman pushing the bin was looking in his direction, curious no doubt as to what might be going on.
Doherty voiced what he was thinking. ‘I expect your neighbour there is wondering what’s going on,’ he said to the pale-faced woman keeping him at bay. Judging by the panda eyes, she hadn’t bothered to take her makeup off last night.
She blinked causing specks of dried mascara to transfer from her lashes onto her cheeks. Her jaw slackened.
‘Nosey cow!’ she shouted, and did a two-fingered salute to her neighbour before letting him in.
The room she showed him into might have been a shrine to IKEA; cheap, square furnishings if it hadn’t been so untidy. Minimalist it was not!
Clothes that might have been dirty though could just as easily have been clean and waiting to be ironed, sat on a dark blue sofa with solid arms. Newspapers, magazines and a collection of handbags cluttered up most of the available surfaces. The room smelled grubby and looked grubby. The carpet looked as though it hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner for months.
A TV guide lay open on the coffee table alongside dirty plates and wine glasses; two of each.
She saw him look.
‘I had a guest last night.’ She snatched at the plates and glasses, holding them against her body, standing there in the middle of the room between him and the sideboard that was groaning with handbags.
He beamed at her as though he understood that she was a busy woman with too much to do.
‘Do you want to take them out to the kitchen? I don’t mind waiting.’
She looked in two minds about doing so.
‘I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea,’ he added. ‘If you’re making one. Then we can sit down and talk about Alice. That’s all I want,’ he said.
Despite his reassuring tone, she still seemed in two minds.
A flick of dried lashes and she did what he was hoping she’d do.
Left alone for what he knew would only be minutes, he zeroed in on the handbags. They were of all shapes and sizes; all different colours too.
He was pushing his luck, but he had to have a look inside one or two. A bright yellow one lay on its side. He pulled one side of it up and looked in. Nothing.
He did the same to a smart tan one that looked as though it was designer label – not that he could tell one designer from another. There was nothing in that bag either.
Working on a hunch, he got out his phone, daring to take as many pictures as he could before Geraldine came back.
The sound of running water came from the kitchen plus the clatter of crockery. At a guess she was washing out a mug or cup. Judging by the debris left on the coffee table and the general air of laziness, whatever his tea might come in had probably been piled in the sink for days.
If Alice Flynn was staying here, why hadn’t she washed up? Not that he had any intention of drinking anything. Geraldine Evans was the sort to spit in a copper’s tea. Hopefully they would chat long enough for it to go cold – a good enough excuse.
‘Here. You can have the piggy one.’ She smirked as she handed him a mug decorated with a pink pig. ‘Don’t mind about me. I’ve just had one,’ she said before he could ask.
She didn’t ask him to sit
down but looked tellingly at her wristwatch.
‘Can we make this quick?’
‘You do know that Alice’s mother was murdered.’
‘Alice told me. That’s why she’s here. There’s arrangements to be made.’
‘Ah yes. The funeral. I take it she’ll be buried in the local churchyard.’
Geraldine snorted. ‘I doubt that! It’s full, and anyway, burying is expensive. Gladys is being cremated. As soon as the body is released of course.’
Doherty nodded. A murder victim was not released until the pathologist was fully satisfied, and even then held onto a bit longer if the body was to be cremated. A buried body could be disinterred whereas ashes could not.
Doherty put his mug down on the table and just as tellingly looked at his own watch.
‘What time did you say she’d be back?’
‘When it suits.’
Typical nightclub woman, thought Doherty. No matter whether she was a dancer or hostess, or even whether she was only a hatcheck girl, the plastic smile broke with the dawn; sex queen at night, sack of spuds during the day.
The tea remained untouched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his card.
‘Can you give her this and tell her I’d like to speak to her?’
Geraldine’s face remained impassive. The card was allowed to flutter down onto the coffee table.
It was possible that Alice Flynn wouldn’t get the card. He promised himself he would give it two days before he called again.
He was just about to get into his car when he saw Reg and Vera walking towards him. He knew them from when they had come into the station to give a statement.
Reg and his wife were loaded down with shopping, one bag in each hand.
‘Thought it was you,’ Reg called out.
Vera’s face was red and as she walked she waddled from side to side.
‘Would you like a cup of tea,’ offered Vera.
Doherty thought of the cup of tea he’d left on Geraldine’s coffee table and decided he was thirsty.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
Reg and Vera’s place was best described as a family gathering spot; their front room cluttered with family photographs and white china rabbits. Doherty surmised that they had plenty of family get-togethers.
Marriage is Murder Page 21