A Taste To Die For - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) (22 page)

‘I wouldn’t put anything past that man,’ her mother snarled before sliding back on to the settee, her head sinking into a plush velvet cushion.

There was no point in waking her up. Dinner was still on and gooseberries were not welcome.

Chapter Thirty-four

Tired of living in a city flat, Steve Doherty had purchased a small cottage on the Wellsway, the main road connecting Bath with the ancient city of Wells. Both cities vied for trade in the tourist market, Bath boasting its Roman baths and Wells its thousand-year-old cathedral.

A continuous stream of traffic passed the front of the property during daylight hours, dwindled at around six thirty and happened in spasms for the rest of the night.

It boasted a rear entrance with convenient private parking. Steve drove round the back and parked nose up against his garden wall. A dozen stone steps descended into a small but pretty garden.

Two more steps took them into an octagonal conservatory; two steps more and they were standing in the dining/kitchen area.

Honey eyed her surroundings with interest. She’d expected a muddled, masculine interior with no thought given to design or tidiness; somewhere to sleep and unwind. It wasn’t like that. Spotlights had been set into the floor and ceiling, their focused beams the only barrier between the cooking and eating area. The sitting room was forward of that.

He told her it had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. ‘You can try them later.’

That cheeky grin again.

This was the point at which a woman of mature years and rounded body got cold feet. Cover of darkness was best before she considered taking a bedroom test.

Perhaps her nervousness showed, or perhaps he was nervous too. She wasn’t just one of his colleagues who he took out on a date. They had a relationship going on here – both working and otherwise.

Talking about work formed the breathing space for both of them.

As Honey washed and prepped the lettuce, Steve added olive oil to the pasta and a dash of Valpolicella to the sauce.

‘We’ll drink the rest,’ he said, filling two glasses near to the brim.

Honey eyed the generous glassfuls. ‘Well, they’re certainly more than the advised daily measures!’

Steve handed her a glass. ‘You can cope. You can cope with more than you think you can. Cheers!’

Their eyes met as they took the first sip. The wine was rich and rounded and rolled around her tongue. They were so close. Too close. Her nerves were in knots. Just a little more time … Like a tennis pro at Wimbledon, she took the initiative and batted a safe return.

‘So! Was there anything on the security tape?’

‘From the Beau Brummell?’ He looked away. ‘No. Mainly because the tapes were not running during the early hours of the morning.’

Honey frowned. The nervousness lessened. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Definitely.’

‘That tape would have shown the murderer! Where is it, I wonder.’

He shook his head as he stirred the sauce. ‘You’re not listening, Honey. The tapes are run every night and kept for a week. But there were none – none at all for that week – between the hours of one and six in the morning. They were switched off.’

A pillow and a rolled-up sleeping bag popped into her mind. ‘The security guard was asleep in the rear bathroom.’ She explained about washing her injured hand on the day he’d interviewed Stella Broadbent and seeing them there.

‘But when I first met him, Francis implied that, when he’d crept back, there
was
a security guard on duty.’

Steve offered her a taster of sauce from the wooden stirring spoon.

‘Which means that he’d either forgotten to switch it off …’

‘Or,’ said Honey sucking back the hot sauce, ‘there was a second security guard.’

Steve drank more wine. ‘Like I said before,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘there are too many people in fancy dress around here.’

Honey nodded. ‘And pork pretending to be chicken.’

‘What?’

‘And foreign truck drivers …’

Honey’s voice trailed off into nothing. Her thoughts were going full pelt. ‘What was that my mother said?’

Steve too was looking thoughtful. Honey guessed that his thoughts were racing along the same track as her own.

‘Money changing hands at a meat warehouse,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And who was SAP?’ Steve added.

Honey frowned. ‘SAP?’

‘It was written in a notebook we found with Richard Carmelli’s things.’

Suddenly all thoughts of going to bed with him flew out of the window. Being bedraggled and carrying the wrong bag with her outfit now seemed to fit the occasion. This was all wrong. It should never have happened.

‘I thought we were supposed to be sharing information.’ She sounded and felt quite hurt.

‘We thought it was something to do with Pardoe. Except that he doesn’t have a middle name.’

‘It’s not a name. It’s a programme!’ Honey put down her glass and picked up the phone. Mary Jane answered. Honey made impatient sounds and insisted on speaking to Lindsey.

‘What’s the name of the programme big companies use on their computers?’

‘SAP.’

‘Can we get into that programme and find out something about a company’s dealings?’

‘We don’t have SAP on our system. It’s multi-platform; human resources, building maintenance, supplies, tax etc., etc. We’re not big enough. What are you up to?’

‘Is there any way we can get into someone else’s system and find out their international dealings?’

‘You mean is there any way yours truly can do that?’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘No.’

‘Drat!’

‘But I know a man who can. Whose system are we hacking into?’

‘Roland Mead, International Meat Products and Warehousing.’

‘Sounds about the right size and type of operation. I’ll get back to you.’

Steve looked puzzled. ‘What are you up to?’

‘As my beloved daughter has just pointed out, SAP is a multi-platform computer system used by large companies.’

‘You sound very informed.’

Honey made a face. ‘I’m only repeating what I’ve been told.’ Her thoughts began having their own Derby Day, racing around her mind. This time Steve’s thoughts weren’t with her but on a track of their own.

He stroked a lock of hair back from her forehead. ‘Look, let’s enjoy tonight and get back to work in the morning. What do you say? Hmm?’

His touch made her tingle, but the thought that he’d kept something so vital from her left her feeling annoyed.

‘While we’re waiting for a result, I think we should take a look at Roland Mead’s warehouse in Avonmouth,’ she said. She watched closely for his reaction.

‘Christ!’ He brushed his hand over his eyes. ‘Look, Honey …’

She pressed on. ‘My mother said he has regular deliveries through Harwich and Felixstowe. Once a week, and one’s due tonight. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get over there and check it out?’

Steve sighed and looked her up and down. ‘I could think of other things I’d prefer to check out, but …’ He shook his head disconsolately. ‘I take your point.’ Sighing again he turned off the glow beneath the sauce and the pasta and set down his spoon. He then proceeded to make a big show of tidying things up. He was neat, but she guessed he wasn’t always THAT neat.

She knew he would question going. And why not? After all she was mostly going on gut instinct. He’d have to dig for her Achilles heel to dissuade her. But first he had to find it.

Knowing how much she liked her food, he gave it one more try. ‘I take it dinner can wait?’

Honey grimaced. She hadn’t expected him to home in that accurately, but prided herself on swift counteraction. ‘My waistline can go without.’

Unfortunately, her stomach was not in unison with her waistline and wouldn’t stop rumbling on the journey from Bath to the Severnside port of Avonmouth. She had considered getting a Mars Bar in a service station on the main road close to the port. Sheer willpower and pride held her off. Plus she knew Steve would say ‘We should have had dinner and let this be until tomorrow.’

As it was, he’d hardly spoken a word since they’d got into the car. Grim-faced, he stared over the steering wheel at the pitch-black night and the dour surroundings.

Transport depots, warehousing and industrial units, some new and some square and flat, dating from the sixties, lined each side of the road. Thinking of Richard Carmelli with his head crushed quickly dispelled all her hunger pangs.

The main gates were open.

Steve’s gaze searched the perimeter. ‘There’s bound to be a security guard.’

Just at that moment an articulated truck with foreign number plates rolled in through the gate. The name Roland Mead, International Meat Warehousing, was emblazoned along the side.

They pulled into the same car park next to the same rubbish skips where Richard Carmelli had parked. Like him they crept towards the fence and the gaping entrance to Roland Mead’s cold store.

The stench of hot diesel fumes from the truck that had just pulled in drifted over them.

Four men stepped forward expectantly, their figures silhouetted against the bright light from within. The driver jumped down from the cab and joined them.

Steve crept further forward. Honey followed him to cower behind a dusty bush next to a gap in the railings. As he stepped out of the brightness, she recognised Roland Mead. He was smiling and slapping the men on the back; he shook hands with the driver. Something was said. She couldn’t hear what it was.

He wound an arm around the shoulders of a man wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. Roland’s head was bent close to the other man’s, as though he didn’t want anyone else hearing what was said.

Honey strained to hear. So did Doherty. Something about ‘doing a good job of that one’ was all either of them heard.

Honey tried not to make a judgement on what that meant. Richard Carmelli sprang to mind.

Roland Mead slapped the man on the back then disappeared behind the truck. An engine fired up. Headlights burst into life. The white Rolls-Royce glided slowly out of the compound gates.

The man he’d been speaking to was now making his way back to the other men and facing them.

Honey saw his face. Her heart skipped a beat. She knew him. She felt Steve tensing beside her. He’d recognised him too. It was the security guard from the Beau Brummell Hotel, the one who’d lifted the wooden barrier. There
had
been a second guard, she realised, it was the one whom Francis first encountered who had been asleep in the bathroom.

The men laughed and joked, their voices the only sound on the deserted estate except for the distant hum of heavy traffic on the motorway.

Two of the men did something between the cab of the truck and its trailer where the air and fuel hoses clipped on to the brakes and the diesel tank.

‘Two tanks,’ whispered Doherty.

Honey said nothing, though she knew from the tone of his voice that two tanks had some significance.

The high-pitched sound of a forklift preceded its appearance. It drove up to the area between the truck and the trailer, to the exact spot where the men had been unclipping hoses and other connections. Accompanied by instructions to be steady, slow and back off now, the forklift edged away from the truck, the large fuel tank resting on its metal prongs.

One of the men raised his hand and called a halt. Honey and Doherty watched in amazement as the top of the supposed fuel tank was lifted like the lid of a suitcase.

Honey looked at Steve and read his expression. Fuel tanks didn’t have hinges. They only had a hole where the fuel went in. One tank still remained.

Satisfied by the contents of the tank, the men followed the forklift into the warehouse.

She whispered to Steve. ‘That’s not a fuel tank is it?’

‘Clever. Long-distance trucks travelling all over Europe often have two fuel tanks. That one possibly has one and a half. To avoid suspicion fuel can still be pumped into it but only fills the bottom half. The rest is courier space. And we can guess what that is, can’t we?’

Steve dug into his pocket for his phone. ‘Damn.’ He remembered turning it off, throwing it into a drawer so it wouldn’t disturb their night together. Well that bit was true. It wouldn’t, but he could badly do with it.

He was about to ask Honey for the loan of hers, but she’d already ducked around the hedge, heading for the gap in the fence.

‘I need to call for back-up,’ he said once he’d caught up with her. ‘Can I borrow your phone?’

‘I haven’t got it.’

He groaned.

‘I left it at home so we wouldn’t be disturbed.’ She sounded sheepish and felt stupid that she did, but there was nothing to be done. At least they’d both been of the same mind.

Slinging her big bag more securely behind her, Honey eased her way through the fence. Doherty followed, swearing under his breath. Rules learned on training days specifically stated that he shouldn’t be doing hare-brained things like this. Honey hadn’t been on the same courses. She just flew by the seat of her pants.

He knew where she was coming from. They should take a look, just to confirm their suspicions. Nailing Mead for food description violations was one thing. Nailing him for drug running was quite another. No wonder he could afford a house in the Royal Crescent.

The light pooling outwards from the wide, truck-sized entrance was suddenly dimmed.

Honey paused, narrowing her eyes so she could see better now the glare had subsided.

Steve signalled that they should move to the right.

Honey pointed at the tops of two, perhaps three, heads she could see through a glass partition in a brightly lit office. She hoped all four men were inside. If Doherty was having the same thoughts, he gave no sign of it. They eased away, following the trail of rubberised tyre markings made by the forklift.

A sign just ahead said
Cold Store.
Without saying a word to each other, they headed in that direction.

Other signs saying
Wash your hands before handling meat products
proliferated around a set of double doors. There were glass inserts at eye level. On the other side carcass after carcass hung from metal hooks. To their right the hooks and a row of stainless steel shelving stood empty, no doubt awaiting the delivery standing outside and the morning shift that would unload that particular consignment.

The forklift stood abandoned in front of the shelving, its arms still holding its load.