Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) (12 page)

Chapter Twenty

A downcast Casper opted to stay in the car.

‘Walk it off,’ Honey said to him.

He glowered.

She persisted. ‘A bit of fresh air will do you good.’

‘I don’t want to be done good! I want that clock!’

‘Children,’ she breathed quietly and headed for the arched and ancient entrance to the parish church.

The interior was very dim by virtue of its narrow Saxon windows. The walls were whitewashed but looked ice blue as the light diffused through the stained glass.

A woman arranging flowers told her where she could find the vicar.

‘Through the chancel and down the steps to the crypt.’ She pointed a skeletal finger tipped with bright pink nail varnish. ‘He’s got an archive down there.’

Apart from her painted fingernails, the woman seemed a sensible sort. She wore a flowered dress and lace-up shoes. Her eyes darted over Honey as swiftly as her fingers did over the flowers.

‘You could do with wearing something warmer. Cold as death it is down them steps – though only to be expected I suppose. It’s only a skip and a spit from the crypt where they’re all cold and bones.’

‘Charming. What better way to spend a warm spring day?’

Stone steps led down into the chancel. Cold air met her at the bottom and she shivered.

The Reverend Reece Mellors was bending over what could only be a parish register. It was huge, big enough to make a tabletop – a coffee table at least.

‘Reverend Mellors?’

He looked up.

She beamed warmly. ‘I’m Hannah Driver. I rang you.’

‘Well good afternoon!’

His deep baritone ricocheted off the cold walls and coffins. His hand swallowed hers.

The Reverend Mellors was something of a surprise. She’d expected a pasty-faced vicar with horn-rimmed spectacles and a vague look in his eyes. Instead she was confronted with a tall man who had to stoop beneath the vaulted roof. Black was the best way to describe him; black hair, black eyes, black bushy eyebrows, and dressed in black. The blackness contrasted eerily with his pale complexion. Like Count Dracula, she thought, and found her gaze fixing on his mouth when he spoke. No sign of fangs though – and that name was vaguely familiar.

‘I spoke to you about an American tourist, a Mr Elmer Weinstock, though he may have used the name Maxted.’

The vicar’s smile lifted his saturnine features. ‘Ah yes. Interesting chap. Couldn’t quite get out of the habit of using a pseudonym I think. He told me both names and that he had his reasons. He also swore me to secrecy as to his real name. I had no problem with that. In my opinion I think he liked the excitement of having two names. I can’t think of any other reason for him doing so unless he didn’t like the one he was given. Still, we can’t help the names we’re given, can we?’

Honey conceded that vicar could be right. It was just the habit of a detective’s profession.

‘Were you of any help in his quest?’

‘Oh, I think so, although he had done quite a bit of groundwork himself.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought either of those names would be very common around Bath.’

‘They’re not. He wasn’t tracing his own kin. He was tracing his wife’s, and even then only by marriage. His wife’s cousin married Sir Andrew Charlborough in this very church.’

‘Is that so?’

Now this was interesting.

‘That is so.’ His finger traced a relatively late entry in the parish register.

‘She died about twenty years ago.’

Honey recalled the photographs: black and white of Charlborough and his lady and a child, then a later one of a young man, presumably the child grown into manhood.

‘And the son? Is his name and birth date listed?’

The Reverend Mellors slammed the book shut. ‘Not in this one.’ He reached for another hard-covered book. ‘His baptism would be in here.’

She watched as he rustled through the pages.

‘Ah! Here it is. Lance Charlborough was baptised eighteen years ago.’

Honey’s thoughts returned to the photographs of the handsome young man. Some had been fairly recent. And his mother had died twenty years ago. She was just about to point this out, but Mellors beat her to it.

‘Not his birth date, you understand,’ said the vicar having noted the expression on her face. ‘That would be in that book,’ he said, patting the former epic tome he’d been perusing.

‘Aren’t baptisms or christenings usually done within a few weeks or months of birth?’ she asked him.

He pursed his wide sensuous mouth when he nodded. ‘They always were. There must have been some reason, perhaps that they were abroad at the time. Sir Andrew did serve in the army I believe.’

‘Did Elmer have children?’

‘No. I did ask him, you know, out of interest as one does in the course of a conversation. He said something about his wife having had an inherited disease, so they’d chosen not to. Apparently she died some time ago. He’s alone now. Or was. I did hear of his demise.’

It was on her tongue to ask him to look up Lance Charlborough’s birth date, when the woman who’d been arranging the flowers called down the stairs.

‘There’s a phone call for you vicar. I took it in the study.’

‘I’ll be right there,’ he called back.

He grinned ruefully. ‘Sorry about this. I quite often put my phone on divert so I can take it on my mobile, but Mrs Quentin puts her trust in God not modern technology. She picks up the receiver within the first three rings.’ He sighed. ‘Oh well. Sorry about this.’

‘Never mind.’

‘I’ll look it up for you and give you a call. Shouldn’t take too long. Is that all right with you?’

‘Of course.’

Mrs Quentin, the swift-moving flower arranger, escorted her down the aisle to the church door – a bit like a wedding in reverse.

‘The vicar’s a bit lax when it comes to security,’ she said quickly as though impatient to get back to her flowers. ‘But I like to make sure that anyone who comes visiting is properly interrogated before seeing the vicar and shown off the premises if they’ve no business being here.’

‘You’re a gem, Mrs Quentin.’

She meant it. Women like Mrs Quentin didn’t need a computer-based diary when it came to recalling who had visited, where they’d come from and what were their intentions. The naturally nosey had a ten megabyte memory installed at birth.

Honey asked the obvious question.

‘Do you recall an American who came checking out his family tree?’

‘Ooow, yes. Mr Maxted. He came here three days on the trot poring over the old registers and asking questions. He snooped around a lot. I caught him behind the church. That was when I realised he wasn’t just interested in his family tree,’ she said, her voice falling into a disdainful hush. ‘
She
was there. I saw her out back on t’other side of the fence. Hussy, she is. Lady Charlborough indeed. No lady her! The first Lady Charlborough, now she was a lady. But that one!’

A woman! Was Elmer having an affair?

‘Did you happen to overhear what they were talking about?’

The baby pink lips pouted with disdain. ‘Certainly not! I am not in the habit of listening in on private conversations!’

Honey mumbled an apology.

‘Besides, they were talking normally, not like that man who came along after him that day. Scruffy-looking individual he was. Perhaps that’s unfair. Not so much scruffy as pallid and bland. And loud. ’Twas a wonder they didn’t come to blows. The American was none too happy with him I can tell you.’

The sun warmed the coldness of the crypt from her back, but a fresh chill ran down her spine. The description was familiar. Dare she ask?

Mrs Quentin shook her head. ‘No. But I saw his car.’

It was hard not to cross her fingers and wish or shout Hallelujah, but Honey contained herself. ‘You don’t happen to remember what make or colour of car.’

The powdered cheeks puckered into a knowing smile. ‘I do indeed! One of them cars that keeps the lights on all day. And it was dark blue. And an estate. Let’s see, it begins with a ‘V’ … ’

‘A Volvo?’

‘V for Volvo. That’s the one!’

Honey resisted the urge to skip all the way back down the churchyard to her waiting car.

‘Home,’ muttered Casper, who was laid back in his seat, his hat pulled down over closed eyes.

‘Not yet,’ said Honey, hardly able to control her excitement. ‘I think our American might have been having an affair with Charlborough’s wife.’

Casper peered out from beneath the brim as she swung the car away from the kerb.

‘Steady on old girl. Still, could be to our mutual advantage. If old Charlborough finds out and shows her the door, he might need some money for the impending divorce and sell me the clock.’

Honey made no comment. Accelerator stabbed to the floor, they were off down the road heading back to Charlborough Grange.

‘I declare I am totally wearied by all this detective work,’ muttered Casper. ‘I only asked you to liaise with the police, not run the case.’

‘I never do things by halves, Casper.’

He waved a hand in surrender. ‘Please yourself. But don’t expect me to go back into his superior presence. He is not the type I would wish to include among even on my “b” list of acquaintances.’

Now that was a turn up for the books! Casper was a born snob.

‘Never mind him. Now listen to this Casper. According to the vicar Elmer was Sir Andrew’s brother-in-law by marriage, but not the present marriage. The first marriage.’

‘You’re suspecting familial skulduggery,’ he said profoundly. ‘Or might I suggest, that you hope it is.’

‘Do I sound as though I do?’

‘Yes. Like a bulldog. You have sunk your teeth into this bone and you’re not letting it go.’

‘There’s more. One of the women who does the flowers in the church heard Elmer having an argument. Guess who with?’

‘Go on. Tell me,’ Casper said wearily, the brim of his hat bouncing on his nose.

‘Mervyn Herbert!’

‘Ah! We have our murderer.’

‘We would if we knew where he was.’

Swinging the car down the drive, she targeted the gap between the stone pillars on either side of the entrance.

‘Elmer also met Pamela Charlborough.’

‘At the Grange?’

‘No. At the church.

‘Just the church?’ asked Casper in that sharp, sudden way of his.

‘Just the church,’ she replied grimly. ‘Ivor said he was there for hours, three days on the trot.’

‘Pretty church,’ said Casper. ‘I took a walk all around its perimeter.’

Honey remembered thinking the interior was a bit gloomy.

‘It was dingy inside.’

‘As I said, my dear, I walked around the perimeter. There’s a very neat graveyard surrounded by ivy-covered walls and laurel hedges.’

‘How very Gothic.’

‘There’s also a stile and no more than two fields between it and Charlborough Grange.’

Honey’s hands tightened over the wheel.

‘So Ivor, the taxi driver, wouldn’t have known if he’d visited Charlborough Grange or that he met Pamela Charlborough. He couldn’t have seen from where he was parked.’

‘Should you not be calling her
Lady
Charlborough?’ said Casper in a passable resemblance to Noel Coward.

‘From what I’ve heard, she’s far from that!’

‘You’re prejudiced. And don’t think I am not aware of where your thought process travels. You are assuming she was having an affair with our American friend.’

‘Right. If he wasn’t having an affair, then why did he make her acquaintance?’

‘The meeting could have been prearranged or it could have been by chance. Either way, there’s still our missing Mr Herbert to consider. Mr Maxted is found murdered and Mr Herbert has disappeared. To use detective parlance, I think it’s an open and shut case, guv.’

Honey shook her head. ‘I can’t see that it’s that simple. If his wife’s cousin was dead, what was the point?’ A spine-chilling answer sprang into her mind. ‘Unless he hadn’t known she was dead. Unless he suspected …’

‘Now you’re talking pure fiction. You’re making up the plot as you go along.’

She wasn’t listening. Absorbed in ‘what ifs’ and ‘whys’, she shot past the main gate of Charlborough Grange. Casper cried out in alarm as she spun the car round on the spot.

‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

Casper righted himself and readjusted his hat.

‘So was I. If it wasn’t for my seatbelt I would have flown through the windscreen.’

This time no one answered the front door of Charlborough Grange.

Honey looked down towards where she’d left the car parked on the gravel drive at the bottom of the steps. Casper looked comfortable enough, his arms folded over his chest. His hat was pulled down over his eyes, but she knew he was brooding. He’d lost the clock and he was pig sick about it.

The door stayed shut. The windows looked out sightless over the warm stone terraces simmering in the afternoon sun. The shadows of trees were growing longer across the lawns and the heads of flowers quivered with honey-seeking bees. The air was ripe with floral perfume and ripe green leaves, the smell of grass gently baking in the summer sun.

She made a snap decision and followed the path along the front of the house, through an arch and into a rose bower. A tunnel of blooms heavy with scent, yellow roses vying with white ran the full length.

Through a gate and she found herself in a walled garden where fruit trees clambered over warm, red brick. Such gardens had existed in medieval times; perhaps this one predated the present house, the house itself standing on the ruins of an older dwelling.

The workmanlike surroundings, the rubbish bins, a small cement mixer, a ride on lawnmower waiting to be put away, led her to the tradesmen’s entrance. The rear of the house was as silent and bereft of human contact as the front.

‘Hello?’ she called out.

The sound was lost in the warmth beating against the red brick walls, the sturdy metal objects standing sentinel at the side of the path.

She stood absolutely still drinking in her surroundings. If you listened hard enough and were very observant, you could almost smell danger. She did just that, bringing all of her senses into play.

Nothing!

No surprised countenances appeared at the windows; no curious eyes watched as she found a back door, opened it and went in.