Walking with Ghosts - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) (19 page)

Chapter Fifty-two

The shops in Green Street still displayed unwrapped wares. A lot of products were still made on the premises without preservatives or additives. Most still boasted the original façades, and there was barely room between the pavements for a car to squeeze through.

The sausage shop was easy to find merely by following the delicious aromas escaping from within.

Sausages and some goggle-eyed fish were bought and delivery arranged.

‘Juice,’ gasped Lindsey. ‘I need juice.’

‘Coffee!’ Honey’s feet were already heading towards Bath Abbey.

Mary Jane added her choice. ‘I’d love a cup of Earl Grey.’

A trio dressed in period costume were playing Mozart.

Mary Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘I can almost imagine a few Gainsborough-type ladies seated at these tables.’

Honey and Lindsey exchanged a knowing look. Mary Jane was having one of her crossover periods. This was when she swore she could see ghosts from the past. It wasn’t so much a trance as a blurring of the edges between reality and imagination.

Honey saw nothing. As it was, the tourists were at odds with elegance. They had a determined look about them, prepared to tramp the streets, and soak up the sights.

‘Nice trainers,’ said Lindsey, nodding at the Reeboks on a pair of feet beneath the next table.

Mary Jane’s eyes began closing and she started to make one of her ‘crossover’ noises. ‘Hmm.’

Mother and daughter exchanged another swift and more anxious glance.

‘Well!’ Honey slapped her palms together; louder than a clap. ‘So what was it you wanted to tell me, Mary Jane?’

At the clap, Mary Jane opened one eye. Once the question had sunk in she opened both.

‘I was worrying about this poor woman that got murdered. And on our ghost walk!’

Mary Jane rolled her eyes upwards until the whites showed; another eerie state she drifted into now and again.

Lindsey gave her a nudge. ‘Mary Jane?’

Mary Jane came back to earth, her eyes flashing wide and as normal as they were ever likely to be. ‘I enrolled for another walk. I didn’t like that one we went on, Honey. It was too wet.’

‘I thought you said that ghosts and spirits didn’t mind the rain,’ said Honey.

‘They don’t, but I didn’t feel anybody on that walk was there to see ghosts. No chance of spirits or ghosts coming through to a mind that isn’t in tune with them and their feelings.’

Honey nodded as though Mary Jane was merely rubbishing her cellular phone connection.

Lindsey looked confused. ‘Wait a moment here. Aren’t ghosts and spirits the same thing?’

Mary Jane shook her head adamantly. ‘No, no, no! Ghosts are still suffering from the method of their death. It’s usually a violent death, if you like. Call it post-traumatic stress disorder. Spirits just live in a parallel world. They’re all around us. It’s just that you can’t see them, but they can get in touch now and again.’

Of course.

Their order arrived. A different waiter.

Mary Jane took a swig of Earl Grey with lemon followed by a deep breath. ‘So, as I was saying, I arranged to go on another ghost walk. I presented myself at a quarter past eight, the time the walk started. As I paid my fee I mentioned about the wet night of the previous walk I’d been on, and what a disappointment it had been. The guy was real surprised. He asked me what day and date that was. I told him, explained it was raining heavily and blowing a gale and that the streets were deserted. There was only one night that bad. He remembered. Boy, was I surprised when he told me they’d called off the walk that night. He was amazed that anyone had turned up. He said he’d put a notice on the pub door. Either the wind blew it away or someone removed it.’

‘It was a dark and dirty night,’ Lindsey mused. ‘The opening line of many a dire novel.’

Honey tapped her spoon against her saucer as she thought this through. ‘Or our dear little Pamela took it down. So the people who did turn up: were they genuine ghost walkers, or were they there by arrangement – for something else?’

Lindsey put her tumbler of juice back down on the table. ‘That is a possibility – far-fetched, but nonetheless, a possibility.’

‘Except for one or two diehards,’ Lindsey added.

‘Yours truly, and friend,’ said Honey. ‘Plus a couple of Australian women who had spirits of their own.’

Honey stopped herself from piling a third teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. She didn’t take sugar. The characters on the ghost walk drifted in and out of her mind. A whole group of people there by arrangement?

‘So was Pamela Windsor a genuine ghost-walk guide? Was she known to the organiser?’

‘Well, we’ll soon find out.’

Mary Jane got her phone out and phoned him.

‘No,’ she said after a short conversation. ‘He doesn’t know her.’ She shook her head, her long fingers tapping along the edge of the table. ‘She wasn’t genuine. I should have known it when she left us to our own devices. Left us standing there in the pouring rain.’

Honey jerked round to face her. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

Mary Jane shrugged. ‘Nobody asked me. Is it significant?’

So Pamela Windsor had wandered off. Where had she gone?

Mary Jane explained. ‘She disappeared just before we turned down past Great Western Antiques. Came back saying she thought she’d felt a ghostly energy field and had gone off to investigate. Hell, if anyone was going to feel an energy field, it was me. Not her!’

Although Mary Jane was showing definite signs of professional jealousy, Honey felt a sense of misgiving. Pamela had disappeared in the vicinity of Great Western Antiques, a stone’s throw from where Lady Templeton-Jones’s body was found.

Pieces of puzzle began slotting together in her brain. Keeping the brain active was, so she’d heard, the secret of living to a ripe old age. If that were so, then the position of Crime Liaison Officer was doing her the world of good. Initially she’d been hesitant when offered the job. Now she was finding that a mind used to juggling guests requests, chefs’ tantrums, and a complex laundry list, suited the gathering and sifting of clues.

On the night of the ghost walk, Pamela Windsor had come across as a timid, plain little thing. At Bradford-on-Avon she’d transformed into sex on legs! Was it possible she was also a murderess?

A sudden movement – the arrival of two people at the next table – drew her attention. A Kashmir jacket in a soft lemon shade was the first thing she noticed: expensive, pastel, and eminently Casper St John Gervais. To her surprise he was accompanied by Alistair McDonald from the auction rooms.

Casper gave her a nod of acknowledgement. Alistair waved, got up and came over while Casper turned his attention to the wine list.

Honey smiled. ‘I didn’t know you two were close.’

The big Scotsman’s face remained its impassive self. ‘Don’t let the wearing of the kilt fool you. This is business. I keep him informed.’

He meant with regard to what was coming into the salerooms. In the stock exchange they called it insider dealing and it was illegal. In the world of antiques, it was not.

‘You’d better get back. He’s giving me the evil eye,’ said Honey. ‘And I’d better be going before he grills me on what’s happening about our murdered lady.’

‘That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.’

The legs of a chair scraped over the floor then creaked beneath Alistair’s weight as he sat down. ‘If you remember rightly, hen, you asked me about that catalogue a while back and the gaps beside the numbers. I said I didn’t know.’

Honey leaned forward, interested. Mary Jane rested her chin on a bony hand and listened intently. Lindsey sipped at her tea. For some reason her eyes never left Alistair’s face.

Honey urged Alistair to go on.

‘Sebastian Gaunt, one of the newest additions to our illustrious house, was clearing out his desk.’

‘Fired?’ Honey raised her eyebrows.

‘Double-barrelled fired. Eton educated but a bungalow if ever I met one.’

Mary Jane opened her mouth to ask the obvious question.

Lindsey enlightened her. ‘Nothing upstairs.’

Big as he was, Alistair had a gently courteous way of explaining things. ‘He was a non-event, hen. A disaster with excellent connections. I found this amongst the rubbish he left behind.’

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a roughly printed list of about four A4 size pages. ‘It’s the prelim. – the rough list of items scheduled for auction. This one’s for the auction of marine collectables. It’s a special. Once a year only. Quite a feather in the cap for a provincial auction house like ours. Most of that kind of thing only happens in London.’

He pushed the list over and pointed to where she had last seen gaps. Three items were listed.
Photographic Reel 1, Photographic Reel 2, Photographic Reel 3.
But it was the heading for the three that caught her eye.
Taken by an amateur photographer on board … 
TITANIC
!

Honey’s head jerked up. Her eyes locked with those of Alistair.

He nodded, his thumb stroking his plush red beard.

‘But they never turned up.’ Her voice sounded a mile away.

‘No. And the auction’s come and gone.’

Their eyes held again. Honey voiced what was going through her mind. ‘And they’d be worth a small fortune.’

Alistair nodded. ‘True, hen. Absolutely true!’

Honey scanned the auction lists. ‘Lucky he got the boot from the firm.’

‘Luckier still that he kept these,’ said Alistair, flicking a finger at the papers. ‘We’ve got eco-friendly so most of our old paperwork goes for shredding before it’s recycled. These listings were scrapped and never used, so they got dumped straightway. Lucky for you that we employed a numpty who couldn’t tell his Hobart from a horse’s rear end.’

Honey scanned the sheets. The name ‘Sir A. Bridgewater’ leapt out at her. Her heart beat faster. That creep! That slimebag! He was the one who’d put them in the sale.

The teacups rattled as Alistair raised his big frame from the table.

Honey looked up into his red beard. ‘So why were they withdrawn?’

‘Something legal from what I can gather. They weren’t entirely his to sell.’

Casper called across with a request to keep him up to speed on the matter of Lady Templeton-Jones. She told him she’d be in touch. Inside she was whooping like a Red Indian in a John Wayne film. Bridgewater and his cousin Lady Templeton-Jones had been sole beneficiaries of the will.

She phoned Doherty but got only his answerphone service. She left a message with someone at the station who promised to let him know.

The lunchtime crowd bustled around in front of the abbey and the Pump Room. People were posing beneath the fancy lights outside. A whole coach party were having their smiles saved for posterity using the arched entrance as a backdrop. Honey hardly noticed them. She stopped and took a big breath. ‘Wow!’

‘Even I know the value of stuff from the
Titanic
,’ said Lindsey.

‘I’ve been in touch with a few poor souls who lost their lives,’ said Mary Jane. The shape of the blusher applied to her cheeks reflected those strawberries on her tunic. ‘I wonder if I’d recognise anyone from the film.’

She sounded pretty excited at the prospect.

Honey’s mind was whirling. She remembered the old cameras and photographic equipment in the house at Northend.

She got out her phone.

‘Who you calling?’ asked Lindsey.

‘Doherty. I need to look at that …’

She got him on his mobile. He sounded dour. She had no time to ask him the reason why. ‘I need a lift to Northend. Now! Bridgewater has got a whole lot of photographic memorabilia that has a direct bearing on …’

‘Whoa!’

‘And it’s imperative that I get back out there …’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m outside the Pump Room.’

‘Alone?’

‘No. I’m with Lindsey and Mary Jane. Mary Jane gave us a lift.’ The thought of the inbound journey made her wince. Enduring the same journey back gave her goosebumps.

‘Can Mary Jane take you?’

‘I’d be fit for nothing by the time I got there.’

Doherty fell in to silence.

She knew … she knew instinctively that she’d interrupted something.

‘Are you kind of indisposed?’

The pregnant silence positively fizzled with potential. ‘You could say that. I’m at the Theatre Royal. One of the customers found the show strangely riveting. So riveting in fact that he’s skewered to his seat.’

‘Christ! Anyone I know?’

That pause again. ‘Simon Taylor.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Chapter Fifty-three

‘So tell me, Lindsey. Who is that guy in the wellingtons?’

Lindsey turned her head as they marched along. Honey hoped he wasn’t anything too outlandish. She also hoped the reason she kept bumping into him was straightforward. No skeletons – human or otherwise – in locked cupboards.

‘He’s a great guy but a little shy. He wanted to introduce himself, but can’t quite get up the courage.’

‘What are you telling me? That he’s your boyfriend?’

‘Um  … yes.’

‘So where’s the kilt?’

‘What?’

For a moment Honey held back the words. Lindsey was becoming more and more evasive about her love life. Perhaps it was an age thing, then told herself an obvious truth.

Let’s face it, you don’t tell your mother everything.

‘You told me he played the bagpipes and wore a kilt.’

Lindsey’s hair was blowing over her face so it was difficult to read her expression. She was slow in answering.

‘Well?’

‘It’s a very delicate situation.’

How delicate could a man in wellies be?

The area around the Theatre Royal was cordoned off. Scene of crime tape fluttered in the breeze. Curious tourists – probably thoroughly bogged off with Jane Austen, John Wood, Beau Nash, and the sulphurous waters of the Roman Baths – aimed their cameras.

Honey eyed them ruefully. Never mind genteel, she thought, give them gore every time.

Lindsey had opted to come with her. Mary Jane had fallen in with a crowd of people from Manitoba to whom she was giving an outline of her ancestry.

Doherty waved to her from the other side of the tape.

‘I can’t let you through until we’ve sucked the SOC dry.’

‘Scene of crime,’ Honey said to Lindsey by way of explanation.

Lindsey tutted and pulled a long suffering teenager type face. ‘I know he didn’t mean
sock
.’

‘I tried to ring you,’ Honey said to Doherty. She told him about the tapes. ‘They’re worth a fortune. Bridgewater had to withdraw them from the auction. I presume his co-heir was not keen to sell them.’

‘Money’s always a good motive for murder,’ said Doherty, nodding.

‘So how does Simon Taylor fit into this?’

He made a so-so expression and held his head to one side. ‘I’m not sure. At first glance it seems about the title she bought, but actually it’s not. So why else would did she go there?’

Honey shook her head. Like her brain the city around her was working in overdrive. There was so much stuff rattling around in there.

‘Not exactly,’ Steve clarified. ‘Our friend Mr Taylor took it in the arse, so to speak – a needle entered his nether regions. He was a lardy lad and he must have sat down heavily. The needle went straight in. Some kind of quick-acting poison. Probably potassium cyanide. Nasty. Easily obtainable thanks to the Internet.’

‘Ouch!’

Honey gulped and immediately ran her hands over her behind. Never again would she sit down in the Theatre Royal – or any other theatre for that matter – without checking her seat.

‘What was he doing here?’

Doherty rubbed at his stubble – a thinking action. His brow furrowed. ‘He was meeting someone. But for what?’ He shrugged. ‘I can only guess.’

‘Blackmail?’

‘That was one of my guesses.’

‘It figures.’

‘Why? What makes you say that?’

‘He was involved in this Noble Present scam and he might have found something out about somebody  …’ She stopped. Steve was shaking his head in a negative manner.

‘It wasn’t a scam. Not on his part anyway. It was a scam on the part of our friend Mr George. He was flogging rubbish. Simon Taylor was flogging the real McCoy.’

Honey frowned. ‘How do you know that? Who was he buying them from?’

Doherty flipped open his notebook. ‘Cameron Wallace. Apparently the family inherited a load of titles. He’s actually
Lord
Wallace – it’s an old Hebridean title and he apparently holds a host of others. But he prefers to use plain Mr Wallace. Reckons titles can put people off in business.’

In the last hour or so she’d been bombarded with information. First there was this business of film reels allegedly from the
Titanic
 – the greatest disaster in Anglo/American maritime history. Then there was this revelation about the titles; Simon Taylor’s were genuine articles; those sold by Hamilton George were not. And now Simon Taylor was dead – killed in a most bizarre manner.

So why
had
Lady Templeton-Jones gone to see Simon Taylor? What were they talking about in the Garrick’s Head before she’d been murdered?

Doherty read her mind. ‘We could have done with another word with Mr Taylor.’

She passed on what she’d learned to Doherty.

‘Lordy, lordy,’ Lindsey murmured. ‘What now?’

Small comment, but enough to whip Honey back to reality.

Two police constables not actually involved in the murder but as curious as any passers-by suddenly burst into action just after their radios burst into life.

‘Hello,’ said Steve, eyes narrowing as the two constables broke into a run. ‘A street incident.’

They caught the grin of a nearby bobby who’d also picked up the message. Steve told him to wipe the smile off his face. ‘We’re on the scene of a murder here. What’s so bloody funny?’

The constable’s jaw jiggled as he tried not to laugh. ‘There’s a riot at a teddy bear shop in Queen Caroline Alley just off Milsom Street. Some woman is threatening the manager for kicking her out of her shop. Apparently she’s fetched him a fair clout around the ear with a teddy bear!’

Honey grabbed Lindsey’s wrist. ‘Come on.’

‘Grandma can get quite bloody-minded when she’s roused!’ Lindsey exclaimed as they ran.

Honey scowled. ‘Never mind her mind being bloody. It’s the shop manager’s head I’m worried about!’

‘Catch up later?’ Doherty called after her. She bristled imagining the amused look on his face. No doubt he’d guessed why she was off at the gallop. He’d met her mother, knew about her losing her shop. He also knew she could be a little unorthodox when the mood took her.

Her phone rang. She managed to speak as she ran. That’s what losing weight does for you. Casper was in full cry.

‘This is too bad! One of the most beautiful, the most treasured theatres in the country. How
dare
this man die there! How did he die?’

‘Got stabbed in the arse,’ Honey said breathlessly. ‘Can’t talk now. Speak later.’

She could imagine Casper’s indignation. Normally she wouldn’t dare to cut him off. But this was a family matter.

Happily she was wearing her shopping shoes. They were scuffed, lace-up, and ugly, but boy, at least she could run in them. Jeans were good, as was her black polo neck sweater and green corduroy jacket. The jacket helped offset the scuffed look of the shoes which were of the same bottle green. Co-ordination was good. No one noticed scuffed shoes if you were co-ordinated.

A crowd had gathered outside the teddy bear shop. Honey recognized Neville, Casper’s receptionist. He was in off-duty mode: pink jeans, lime-green sweater and pink silk scarf. He was being as nosy as the rest of them.

‘My, my,’ he said, on seeing Honey. ‘I’ve never seen anyone do that with a teddy bear before!’

Honey ducked her head and pushed through the crowd. She ignored the titters of amusement.

Lindsey followed beaming with a teenager’s quirky pride. ‘Grandma’s drawn quite a crowd.’

‘Let’s hope she hasn’t drawn blood!’

The floor was littered with assorted sizes and colours of teddy bears. There were teddy bears wearing gingham dresses, teddy bears in leather, teddy bears in pale green and smelling of apples, teddy bears wearing artists smocks and floppy berets.

Her attention was grabbed by an assortment of banners draped from the ceiling and along the shelves.

Teddy Bears for all occasions!

Cuddle up to Dudley.

You are never alone with a Teddy.

Take me to bed. Love me.

Well, she thought, if an inanimate teddy bear is all you have  … Perhaps some of them came with batteries nowadays.

Far from being arrested, her mother was sitting on a chair, head back, eyes closed. A shop assistant wearing teddy bear ears, a black plastic nose, and a red gingham dress – a full-size match to the one worn by the teddies – was fanning her with a newspaper.

It appeared the employees of Teddyitis were required to immerse themselves in teddy memorabilia. Honey grimaced, thankful the shop wasn’t in the erotic toys market. Teddies were soft and couldn’t do much harm. Rubbery dildos were an entirely different matter.

Honey homed in on the most senior police officer. She adopted an apologetic tone and tried a bit of eye fluttering. ‘I’m so sorry. I came when I could. I understand my mother had a bit of a turn.’

He was suitably sympathetic. ‘She most certainly has. Does she suffer from some kind of dementia?’

‘Yes. The wilful kind.’

The false eyelashes on the woman sprawled in the chair fluttered over rouged cheeks by Lancôme. Honey wasn’t fooled. Neither was Lindsey. Her right hand was clamped tight against her mouth. If she eased the pressure she’d burst out laughing.

A short, fat man looking a lot like a teddy bear himself was sitting on a second chair holding a handkerchief to his nose.

Lindsey asked him if he was all right.

‘I’ve goth a thinus throblem,’ he said. ‘The theddy bear thumped me.’

Not without my mother’s help, thought Honey wincing.

Smiling and adopting the long-suffering daughter approach, she asked the policeman if she could take her dear old ma home and put her to bed.

His eyes twinkled. ‘The manager isn’t pressing charges – so long as it doesn’t happen again.’

No. She could see that. He was too busy pressing a damp compress against his nose to spend time filling out forms down at the police station.

‘She’s at a funny age,’ said Honey. ‘If she gets any worse I’ll have no alternative but to put her away.’

She saw her mother’s jaw twitch. If there was one thing Gloria Cross certainly was not, it was senile. Not only that but she lived her life no differently than she’d ever done. She still loved shopping for clothes, still wore stockings and waspie girdles, and still had an eye for a good-looking man. Honey blamed the HRT pills for the latter. Putting her in an old folks’ home would be tantamount to burying her alive.

Gloria’s recovery was instantaneous. The groaning and opening of one eye was pure theatre. ‘Where am I?’ she asked. Her voice was weak and watery.

‘You’re in teddy bear heaven,’ Honey growled. ‘Come on. Straight to bed with a cup of hot chocolate and a sleeping pill – or two!’

Gloria Cross was only seven pounds over the weight she’d been at twenty. It was easy to get her to her feet. A path was cleared through the onlookers.

Neville was still there, grinning from ear to ear. ‘This was better than the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. I take it your mother is being let off?’

‘The manager isn’t pressing charges.’

‘Never mind him! How about the teddy bear?’