A Taste To Die For - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Under cover of darkness, Richard Carmelli made his way through Larkhall to the lock-up garage where he kept his motorcycle. He reasoned that a motorcycle could give him a better edge than the car.

A streetlight behind him glinted on the black fairing and chrome bodywork. He checked the fuel tank. Plenty. He got his helmet from where he usually left it on the workbench at the rear of the garage and put it on.

Once he’d donned his leather gloves, he rolled the bike out, sat astride and turned the key. The powerful Kawasaki engine purred into life. Sliding his visor down over his eyes, he turned the throttle. The sound changed from a purr to a roar. He set off back the way he came, speeding along the M4 then branching off on to the M5 and finally the Avonmouth turnoff.

During the day the motorways were chock a block with traffic. At this time in the morning his route was unobstructed. The wheels ate up the empty miles. Flat-roofed units dealing in car tyres, hydraulic hose and second-hand office furniture lined St Andrew’s Way. Only the watered-down orange of sodium streetlights lit his progress, them and the lights of twenty-four hour garage forecourts, lighthouses in a city asleep.

He took a turning off towards the docks and passed blank metal walls of prefabricated warehouses. There was a truck ahead of him with a Czechoslovakian number plate. He glanced up even though he guessed what it was carrying and where it was going; the same place as him.

There had to be somewhere to hide his bike. To his right was a privet hedge and tough railings around an electrical sub-station. To his left was an empty yard in front of a darkened building – empty that is except for two waste skips. The property, like most of those on the industrial estate, had been built in the sixties or early seventies, and was being renovated.

Sliding off to his left, he drove in between the two metal skips. The haulage truck had swung across the road, its unit nosing into the gate of the next property, its rig running at a right angle.

Keeping low, Richard crept towards the side wall of the warehouse. Like others around, it was constructed of metal sheets, a modern building designed to be maintenance-free. The sound of the truck braking and stopping mixed with that of the cooling units above his head.

Still keeping low, he squeezed through a gap in the railings. The truck cab was only feet away. He saw the driver get out of the left-hand door. Not a British truck where the steering wheel was on the right.

He got out his phone and took a quick shot of the printing on the side of the truck. It said R W Mead, International Meat Packers and Warehousing. He added the text, ‘Check this out,’ and sent it to Smudger. He trusted the chef to understand its significance, then asked himself why he’d done it. Why couldn’t he check it out himself?

Creeping along with the railings against his back, he kept low and listened. Two men came out of the warehouse. There was conversation going back and forth, mostly in English. He strained to hear what was being said and chanced getting closer.

Not looking where he was going, he stepped on a sheet of bent iron. The upright end clanged against the railings.

A voice rang out. ‘Who’s there?’

Richard fled, squeezing himself back through the gap in the fence. He heard running feet, the sound of a car starting up. He ran faster, slithering to a halt next to the waste skips. He considered lying low. No. Not a good idea, he decided. He leapt into the saddle. The motorcycle burst into life and he was gone.

Empty roads meant he could get up speed, but then so could the car that was following him.

He sped back towards the motorway, frequently glancing over his shoulder. There were headlights. No details. He didn’t have time for details.

There was some traffic on the motorway. Weaving his way through, he kept up the pressure until Junction eighteen and the A46, accelerating the last two hundred feet to the slip road before dropping the revs. The speed dropped with them.

The traffic lights at the exit stayed green until the very last minute when they flashed amber. He was through! He almost whooped with joy. The lights had changed to red. Whoever was pursuing him would have to stop.

Richard didn’t bother to take the Kawasaki back to the garage in Larkhall, heading straight for Charmydown. It was where he felt safe.

Once there, he turned off the engine. Ripping off his crash helmet, he sighed with relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Carefully, he peered out at the road from between the two bulldozers. Nothing. Not a car in sight. He smiled. Thank God for the traffic lights!

Letting out a whoop of joy, he headed inside for his sleeping bag and the comparative safety of his tumbledown haven.

His stomach chose that moment to rumble. He was hungry. Perhaps there were a few crumbs of Coronation Chicken left in the plastic box. He grinned. Coronation Chicken? That was a laugh. Chicken it most certainly was not.

He hadn’t noticed a rear light glowing on one of the ʼdozers, and that the light it emitted was falling on to the chromium plating at the rear of the bike. But the driver of the car that had jumped the red light did see it. It had been a helter-skelter of a ride. He’d driven fast to keep up with his quarry. Now he stopped and spoke into his phone.

‘Boss? I know where he is.’

Chapter Twenty-seven

Mary Jane kept a low profile until the time came when she forgot that she’d muddled up a message and sent Honey diving into despair. A few hours later she was practising her tai chi movements out in the garden.

On coming back from parking the car, Steve had been amused at Warren Slade’s plight but relieved for Honey that Lindsey was safe.

‘He asked me out,’ said Lindsey referring to Warren Slade. A wicked smile played around her mouth.

Honey thought twice about asking the obvious question, but couldn’t help herself.

‘Tell me you turned him down.’ She felt her temperature plummet as she said it. The fact that she’d seen Slade in the nude would wash over her – as long as Lindsey didn’t date him.

‘He’s interested in medieval tapestries.’

This was bad.

‘But I turned him down. I told him I’ve got a reaction to dust mites in carpets; tapestries come under a similar heading.’

Honey breathed a sigh of relief. She had invited Doherty down to the coach house to discuss their progress with the case. ‘I need to relax,’ she said by way of an excuse. ‘Is that OK with you, Lindsey? Can you cope?’

Lindsey was still smiling, amused that she’d managed to wind her mother up, but her face softened when her mother asked her. ‘You don’t need to get my approval. Hurry along, Mother dear, or I’ll take him there myself, gorgeous dish as he is.’

Steve grinned. ‘Thanks Lindsey. It’s nice for an old man to feel wanted.’

Once in her private accommodation, Honey poured them a glass of chilled Chardonnay, sat herself down and kicked off her shoes.

‘I never want another day like today.’ She swigged at the glass and raised it. ‘Here’s to Warren Slade and his leather jockstrap. Far preferable to Richard Carmelli and his very sharp knife!’

‘We’re still looking for him,’ Doherty said. ‘No luck so far.’

‘Have you asked Mrs Pardoe? She’s his sister. It’s all to do with her, more so her than anything else, I think, so it stands to reason they’re close,’ said Honey looking worriedly up into his face.

Sighing he plunged his finger into his whisky and began swirling it around.

‘We’ve asked her. She says she doesn’t know. I’m not sure that she’s telling the truth, but her husband sticks around. I get the impression he doesn’t want her to trip over her words and tell us something that would crack this case.’

Cradling her drink with both hands, Honey nodded. ‘Her husband is extra-protective.’

‘You can say that again.’

They both fell to silence, absorbed in their thoughts.

Honey began voicing her thoughts. ‘Judging by attitude alone, Pardoe is as much a suspect as Carmelli. Remember, they had a fight, according to Eric.’

‘I take it you mean your man in the tri-corner hat and satin britches.’

‘The sedan chair bearer.’

Steve smirked. ‘Strikes me that there’s too many people wearing fancy dress in this city.’ He swigged his drink. ‘We need a break. We need something to happen that might point us in the right direction. Time I was going.’ He got to his feet.

‘Can’t you stay a bit longer?’

There it was, her neediness burst out of her mouth before she could put the brakes on.

‘Duty calls,’ he said, setting his glass back down on the table.

‘Oh well.’

She swooped on the empty glasses and headed for the kitchen. Steve followed her.

‘I could do with a snog before I go.’

She put the glasses down, turned and looked at him. The kitchen counter dug into her back, but she didn’t care, and who gave a toss about dirty dishes in the sink. They could wait. Her neediness couldn’t. Steve Doherty was here and close and about to give her the snog of her life.

It all went according to plan; hot lips, hot bodies and breast pressing against breast. This was as close as bodies could get, her rear flattened against the kitchen sink and everything else flattened by him.

‘That was good,’ he said breathlessly as they came apart.

Honey took a big gulp of air. ‘One more,’ she said, her lips diving forward and instantly connecting with his.

Unfortunately, they kind of collided with each other, nose to nose, mouth to mouth though not with resuscitation in mind. On impact they both sprang back. The pocket of Honey’s jeans caught on a drawer handle. The stitching parted with the cloth. There was a loud ripping sound.

‘Did I do that?’ he said, his palm lingering over the ripped pocket and the rounded flesh beneath it.

‘I’ll wear it with pride,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I’d better go before I’m tempted to carry out an in-depth inspection.’

‘I’ll keep them just as they are. You can do one another time.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

‘Hannah, darling, I need to get over to Roland’s place.’

Honey ground her teeth in response. Up until now Roland had picked her mother up from her flat in Cavendish Crescent in his Rolls-Royce. He’d driven her everywhere on fun days out. Honey resented the fact that her mother had a habit of finding her things to do. Just because she had the full responsibility of running a hotel, didn’t mean she couldn’t find a minute to ferry her mother around. That was her mother’s opinion. Honey merely boiled with resentment and kept her opinion to herself.

‘Mother, I
am
busy.’

Her mother’s sigh sounded down the phone like a small hurricane. ‘It’s not often I ask you for favours, darling.’

In response to the old guilt surge that her mother was so good at stirring up, her stomach threatened to throw up on the carpet.

Lindsey distracted her, choosing that moment to wander by, a picture dressed in a white tracksuit trimmed with pink.

‘Perhaps Lindsey …’

Her daughter’s alarm was instant, obvious and written all over her face. ‘I’m off to the gym. I’m meeting people.’

Honey thought about using that old guilt trick on her own daughter. No. Certain things in one’s genes were best bred out of existence.

‘So where are you?’ she asked her mother after wishing her a daughter a good time.

‘Here. Look.’ She was on the other side of the reception doors waving her mobile phone in the air. ‘I’ve got myself a new phone. A load of different coloured covers came with it so I can coordinate with my outfit.

The main door swung open. If Vogue ever did a style mag for the over sixty-fives, then her mother would have been in it. Colour coordination figured high on her mother’s agenda. Even her dusters and dishcloths were colour coordinated – not that she used them. She had a ‘daily’ who came in to indulge in domestic tasks.

Mary Jane was ‘helping out’. Honey had asked her to replenish the brochure rack and generally tidy it up. It kept her out of the restaurant and from hogging the phone.

Honey smoothed down her skirt and straightened her blouse. Her mother had that effect on her. She noticed a smear of something prawn-coloured on her sleeve. She swivelled it around so that it didn’t show.

‘So where’s Prince Charming?’ she asked her mother.

‘His Roller’s in the garage having something done to its big end or what-have-you – something mechanical anyway,’ she said, dismissively waving her hands. ‘So we decided to have a night off.’ Her mother’s eyes twinkled and her lips, presently coloured with ‘Perfect Peach’ lipstick and liner, spread in a conspirational smile. ‘But I thought I would go over anyway and surprise him. Look. I’m all prepared.’ She brought out a bottle of champagne, a tin of caviar and a packet of luxury crackers from a carrier bag. ‘Aren’t Marks and Spencer wonderful?’

Honey wasn’t thinking of the contents of the carrier bag. Alarm bells were ringing.

‘Mother, do you want to reconsider that idea?’

A face carefully made up with only top-flight foundation crumpled and a suspicious look came to her eyes.

‘Why?’

She couldn’t bring herself to say what she was thinking, that perhaps Roland was trying to let her down gently. Perhaps Lindsey was right, and he really had been after the meat order. Butchering was literally a cut-throat business. But it was no good. She couldn’t bring herself to say that.

She shrugged. ‘Well, Roland might want a night off. You know, to wash his hair or something.’

Honey cringed. It was a pretty lame excuse.

‘I’ll wash it for him. I like toying with men’s hair.’ She winked and made a little clicking sound at the side of her mouth.

The permutations of that particular comment were endless. Honey resigned herself to the fact that her mother’s hormones had not yet gone walkabout. There was no getting out of this.

‘OK. I’ll get Anna to take over Reception.’

Mary Jane who had finished sorting out the brochure racks and was all ears collared her before she could escape.

‘I’ve got a table-tapping session with the Psychic Development lot down at the college. Can I cadge a lift?’

‘How can I refuse?’

As she drove, the two senior citizens chatted in the back, mostly about men, although true to form Mary Jane did bring the less physical sort into the conversation.

‘I expect Sir Cedric and your darling departed have made acquaintance on the other side,’ said Mary Jane. ‘I expect they’re meeting on common ground.’ Gloria fixed her with a jaundiced eye.

‘Common tarts more like! That’s how my ex-husband died; on top of a tart.’

‘Mother, he married her!’ Honey knew her reminder would cut no ice.

‘You always defend him,’ her mother snarled, the accusation burning in her eyes.

‘He was my father. And she
was
his wife. Eventually.’

‘Yeah. Eventually is the word! There she was, all in white, when he’d been bonking her for months. Trooping down the aisle like a born-again virgin.’

Mary Jane patted Gloria’s hand as she got out. ‘Life’s too short to be bitter, Gloria. You must have cared for the man once.’

Gloria growled under her breath.

Undeterred, Mary Jane patted her shoulder. ‘Never mind, gal. What say you I try to get Herman to rock my table? What would you like me to tell him?’

Gloria’s scowl was as dark as Bodmin Moor at midnight. ‘Tell him that rocking your table is about as close as he ever got to making the earth move for me.’

Gloria’s mood had lightened the moment there was no one to remind her that her husband had walked out for a bimbo with a Barbie-doll figure. The past was dead and buried. She was not.

‘Roland will be surprised,’ she said as they headed up towards the Royal Crescent.’ Lowering her head, she peered out and up at the elegant façade of perfect houses set in a perfect crescent. Even a one-bedroomed flat here could cost close to half a million pounds. To own a whole house would cost a fortune. ‘I wonder whether he’s furnished his place with antiques,’ she said.

Honey sensed refurbishment plans were being made, though something else was more pertinent. ‘So you’ve never been inside his place?’

Her mother smirked in a manner far too salacious for a woman of her age. ‘Not yet. We’re sort of building up to it. There’s a great deal of mutual respect between us. We’re not the kind that jump in the sack and jump out again. We’re looking at long-term commitment here. And once I’m married and happy as Larry …’ she patted her daughter’s arm. ‘Then I can get our home the way I want it, and then I can turn my attention to finding a nice man for you.’

Honey suppressed a shiver. ‘Don’t rush into things, Mother. There’s a lot to be said for a long engagement.’ She felt like a coward and a killjoy and, last but not least, a woman who wanted to run her own life.

The sun was setting in a rosy glow and throwing long shadows. During the day the crescent had soaked up the sun; now at sunset those same stones released the trapped warmth. It made you want to cuddle up and lay your cheek against the warm stone.

Above all there was a grandeur. To Honey’s mind, Bath’s Royal Crescent resembled a grand tiara, elevated as it was, slightly above the rest of the city. For the most part, traffic was banned from trundling over the cobbled road. She spotted the blue sedan chair belonging to Harold and Eric at one end of the crescent. Aubrey and Bert, their business rivals who ran a green sedan chair, were at the other end.

Honey drove around the back and found a parking space. ‘Do you know which number it is?’

Her mother angled her slim legs out of the car. ‘Of course I do.’ This evening she’d donned a little black dress, and real pearl earrings with a matching necklace and bracelet. Her heels were high and Honey noticed the fishnet stockings and red shoes.

Her mother straightened her skirt and lifted her head. ‘Do I look good?’

Fishnet stockings and red shoes might have screamed ‘I’m a tart and I’m dirt cheap’ on some women. On her mother they looked fabulous. Age had nothing to do with it; she had the knack of throwing the right things together.

‘You look great.’ Honey meant it. There were times when her mother made her feel proud. There were other times Gloria made her feel two inches tall and ready to drown herself in a puddle.

Her mother smiled then looked her up and down. ‘We’ll have to do something about those jeans, Hannah. They’ve seen better days.’

The puddle had followed the proud moment. Honey managed a tight smile. ‘Yeah.’

She didn’t go into detail about them having seen some action, and Steve Doherty having ripped them. Things would get too complicated.

Honey handed her mother the carrier bag of goodies. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

Her mother glared. ‘Certainly not. This party’s strictly for grown-ups.’

Gloria tottered off. Honey lingered, strolling into the crescent and heading for Harold and Eric.

‘How’s business?’

Harold tried to put on a happy face. ‘OK.’

Eric, on the other hand, had the expression of a squashed walnut. ‘Foul. There’s nothing but couples.’

The solution seemed simple. ‘Why don’t you team up with Aubrey and Bert? They can take one, and you can take one. That makes two.’

‘We can count,’ said Eric, his dour manner unchanged. ‘It’s a matter of principle. We started first and they copied us.’

‘Does that matter? I mean, if my place is full and I’ve got people wanting rooms, I send them on to other hotels. It works both ways. When they’re full, they send them on to me.’ Honey thought she sounded pretty eloquent, even wise. What she said was quite true. She’d send on business to anyone who might need it and the favour was often reciprocated. Hoteliers were basically generous people. Except for Stella Broadbent. That one wouldn’t have passed anything on, thought Honey, except perhaps a severe case of influenza.

She smiled sweetly. ‘So how about you guys burying the hatchet and forming a cooperative? United we stand. Strength in numbers and all that.’

The reasoning seemed to work – at least with one half of the business.

Harold jerked up his britches and looked at Eric. ‘I reckon we should try and come to some arrangement.’

Eric glared at him. ‘Traitor.’

Harold sighed and shook his head. ‘Eric, I’ve got to earn some money.’ He paused as if churning things over in his mind. ‘If I don’t earn anything, then I’m going to have to relinquish our business partnership and get a proper job.’

Eric’s head swivelled round in double-quick time. ‘You wouldn’t!’

‘I’ve got no choice.’ There was nothing threatening in Harold’s tone; he laid it on the line flat and without embellishment.

Eric’s expression turned from downright stubbornness to outright shock. Laid-back Harold stood his ground.

‘Well,’ said Eric. ‘Well …’

It might have been fun seeing how the forthcoming amalgamation of two separate businesses would come about. But their crisis meeting was over. Honey’s was about to begin.

Heels tip-tapping like an out of control metronome, her mother was heading her way apace, far quicker than when she’d been going in the other direction. Humiliation coloured her Esteé Lauder foundation. Something was wrong! Badly wrong.

Her mother came to a halt. Her face was like stone. Her bottom lip trembled. ‘He doesn’t live there.’

Best not to force it, thought Honey. All in good time. She peered into her mother’s face with what she thought was a sympathetic expression.

‘He told me he lived there.’

‘But you never went in. Did you see him go in?’

Her mother turned angry eyes on her. ‘I’m not that senile.’

She took hold of her mother’s arm. ‘Let’s go for a coffee.’

Her mother shook her off. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Honey looked over her mother’s head to Harold and Eric. They looked concerned.

‘Is there a problem?’ asked Harold.

‘My mother was calling on a friend. It doesn’t look as though he’s at home.’

In all honesty, she didn’t know whether she’d got the wrong end of the stick, but her mother wasn’t being very forthcoming. She looked livid, she looked shell-shocked; she looked small.

‘A woman answered the door,’ growled her mother. She looked up suddenly. Honey’s gaze travelled in the same direction.

A tall woman, in her late forties with Latin looks and a swaying derriere was striding towards them. A black patent belt cinched in the waistline of a red, wraparound dress. If sex really did come on legs, then she was it.

She came level, an amused smile playing around her lips. She stopped but wasn’t completely still; undulating, thought Honey; her curves just wouldn’t stay still. Except that they didn’t wobble. Ouch! How did she do that? One slinky leg rested provocatively against the other in classic seductive pose.

‘My apologies, signora. Are you all right?’

Gloria’s red lips were compressed in a tight straight line. She nodded brusquely.

‘If I offended you in any way …’ The woman’s voice was as languorous as her looks.

Jaw stiff as iron, her mother nodded again, mouth tightly buttoned.

Honey said nothing as she attempted to size the situation up.

The glamour-puss departed with a final smile of bright red lips and a huskily whispered, ‘Ciao.’

The eyes of the sedan chair bearers followed the rolling rump until it was out of sight.

Honey waited for an explanation. It was slow in coming and hissed through tightly clenched teeth. ‘She thought I was Roland’s mother.’

‘And I don’t suppose she was the housekeeper.’

Her mother scowled. ‘Depends what you mean by keeping house.’

‘That woman had the same effect on me last time,’ said Eric, pushing his hat further back so he could mop the sweat that had broken out on his brow.

There was something about his tone of voice that made Honey curious.

‘Do you see her often?’

He smirked and winked at her. ‘Not as often as I’d like. That one’s as fiery as they come. Latin I bet. Hot-blooded like, you know, in the right department. Though there’s something about someone shouting and swearing at you in a foreign language, or with a foreign accent. It’s passionate, ain’t it? Know what I mean?’