A Taste To Die For - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) (19 page)

Honey’s curiosity intensified. The instinct of a hotelier is sharper than that of lesser mortals; has to be. Judging a book by its cover was right out of the window. You had to be able to get to the first page if nothing else.

‘Sounds as though you’ve seen her sound off pretty passionately.’

‘That I have.’

‘Must have been some scene.’

Her mother was almost spinning on the spot, wanting to go. ‘Passion? Fishwife more like!’

Honey bit her lip. The woman was far from being a fishwife; too glittery; too gorgeous. Her mother wouldn’t thank her for showing any signs of pity. But she did. She couldn’t help it.

Eric made a clicking noise at the side of his mouth. ‘That chef went knocking at that door. Gave ʼim ʼell, she did.’

‘That chef?’

‘One of them I ʼad fighting in my pub.’

‘Pardoe?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right. Sylvester Pardoe.’

Chapter Twenty-nine 

It was dark out, but cosy and warm inside the old building at Charmydown. Richard Carmelli spread his last portion of Coronation Chicken onto a hunk of wholemeal bread. He eyed it cautiously before spreading it, telling himself that he should make it last and not eat this much all at once. He washed it down with a can of Seven Up.

A wind got up. The trees on the other side of the fence began to rustle and creak. Most of the glass was missing from the windows and the doors were ill-fitting. Richard tucked himself into his sleeping bag. No point in staying up. No point in sitting and freezing his arse off.

He dozed off.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept, but he woke up aware that the walls around him were shaking. Bits of loose plaster trembled and fell to the floor. Even the floor itself was vibrating beneath him.

The wall at his head shook as something clanged against it. He blinked himself to wakefulness. Logic kicked in. Someone had started up one of the machines outside. Kids probably, joy-riders wanting a change from nicking motors; heavy plant was far more exciting. You could knock a building down with one of the buckets on those machines.

‘Oi!’

He shouted as he struggled out of his sleeping bag. Clang! Another hit. Old bricks were dislodged and old plaster crumbled to dust.

He struggled to his feet, aware he wanted to pee but having no time.

He dragged open the old door and swore beneath his breath. The bucket of the earthmoving machine was hanging in mid air. The air was thick with diesel fumes.

He shouted and waved at the windscreen of the cab. Someone had to be in there, but he couldn’t see him. Again the bucket hit the side of the building.

‘Oi! Knock it off! D’you hear me? Knock it off.’

The bucket seemed to tremble. The engine accelerated. The air was filled with exhaust fumes, stinging his eyes, filling his lungs.

There was barely time to see the bucket swing, barely time to get out of its way.

Accompanied by a cloud of diesel smoke, it swung again, stopped above him, then dropped.

Ernie Kemp rented a transport yard down near the motorway interchange where the passing traffic sounded like a rushing wind and the hedgerows were thick with dirt and discarded crisp bags. The yard was surrounded by high wire fences and filled with oily black puddles. Steep-sided tipper trucks – great big ones with motorway maintenance written across the back, were parked side by side like a herd of snub-nosed triceratops. But there were some trucks he didn’t have room for; that was why today he was off up to Charmydown to make room for one that wasn’t being used at present. It just meant moving the other truck already up there. He muttered under his breath as he drover over the rutted track leading to the old RAF yard.

‘Fred Foster, can’t you park your bloody plant gear a bit bloody better than that?’

Bloody was his favourite swear word; it had been ever since he’d married Pauline. She’d baulked at his vast itinerary of unmentionable words that rough men in rough company tended to use, but bloody was just about acceptable. And he needed to use rough words. Fred Foster never parked any of his machines very tidily.

Ernie came to a stop, shut off the engine of his sleek silver Mercedes and got out. He frowned when he saw the car parked between the buildings.

‘Fred?’ he shouted.

He looked at the car again. No! An old Ford? Fred was careful, but not that careful. He did like a bit of something decent around him. A Ford, maybe, but not an old one, and he’d definitely choose top of the range if he did. And whose motorbike was that? Surely it was something way beyond old Fred’s capabilities?

He called out again. A few rooks took off from the nearby trees. The sound of a tractor filtered up from the valley. A host of squalling seagulls followed the machine as it trekked backwards and forwards.

He headed for the nearest machine. Its tail end was sticking out into the yard. Its heavy metal bucket was lowered between the two buildings.

What he saw next made him stop in his tracks. Two legs – two human legs – plus the lower part of a torso stuck out from beneath the bucket.

Shaking from his head to his boots, Ernie pulled out a small container of tablets from his pocket. His heart was hammering against his rib cage, his blood rushing into his ears.

Poor old Fred. He should have been more careful. I told him to be more careful.

That’s what he thought. Poor old Fred. And then he heard a car, turned and saw the familiar black Land Rover Discovery pull into the yard. Ernie recognised the face behind the wheel.

‘Fred!’ he shouted, running forward on shaking legs. ‘Fred. Call the police! And an ambulance, and … everybody!’

Chapter Thirty

‘I like scraping Jersey Royals,’ said Honey in answer to her chef’s searching look. She’d phoned Steve telling him about Sylvester Pardoe’s visit to the address in the Royal Crescent. Roland Mead’s address. Why had he gone there?

Steve said he would investigate. Once that was done she’d headed for the relative safety of the kitchen. Her mother had stayed overnight, in too much of a state to go back to her own place. Murder most foul was definitely on the menu. Gloria Cross was vengeful and didn’t care who knew it.

Said potatoes were small, covered in flaky skins and a devil to scrape, but she had to take her annoyance out on something – or somebody.

Smudger was having none of it. He stood looking at her, waiting for the rest of the reason.

‘And I’m out here avoiding my mother.’

He nodded in mute understanding and got on with what he was doing.

The woman scorned had nothing on her mother. When treated kindly she could sometimes be a pain in the neck. Make her look a fool and things could get deadly.

Mary Jane, bless her, was doing her best to make her mother feel better. ‘Now come on, Gloria honey, pull yourself together.’

Mary Jane had managed to persuade her to have a Tarot reading. Her mood hadn’t improved much even when Mary Jane had explained that the fool suspended upside down didn’t mean what she thought it did. There was no placating her.

‘I know,’ said Mary Jane. ‘Take a snifter of my tonic. I guarantee it’ll make you feel better.’

The last Honey had seen of the pair of them, was her mother taking more than a snifter of Mary Jane’s tonic and Mary Jane telling her that she had plenty.

She’d whispered her thanks to Mary Jane before scooting away.

‘You carry on, Honey,’ said Mary Jane. ‘Me and your mother will be just fine.’

‘I wouldn’t want a sip of that stuff,’ said Smudger when she told him.

Honey attacked a potato. ‘It looked like syrup of figs. Smelled like rubber sports shoes.’

Smudger dipped his finger into the roux he was making. ‘Hmm. Not quite haute cuisine then?’

‘No. More like eye of newt and leg of frog … Still, if it does the trick. I don’t want her to go on until her dying day about what she’d like to do to him. I warned her. Didn’t I?’

Smudger grimaced. ‘The bloke’s on a roll. He thinks he can do as he likes.’

Honey nodded and attacked a particularly evasive blemish in a small potato. ‘I won’t hear the last of this for a while. She’s sworn revenge; breach of promise even.’

‘Breach of what?’

‘It’s an old law. I told her it was no longer on the statutes, but she didn’t care. She wants his ass!’

Chuckles and sly grins ran around the kitchen, but didn’t last. Today was a very important day. Everyone fell silent and carried on with the tasks allotted to them.

Honey adjusted her very white hat and brushed an imagined smut from her very white overall.

She glanced up at the clock.

‘He’s late.’

Smudger threw his head back and closed his eyes. ‘Prolonging the agony. Typical!’

The phone burbled.

Like a pack of wary meerkats, everyone turned to face it. No one rushed to pick it up until Smudger made a dash, sliding the last few feet.

‘OK.’ He looked at Honey. ‘Mr Westlake. Look busy,’ he added. The last order was directed at the kitchen staff. Heads down, they laboured on with their work as though the Environmental Health Officer was no big deal. If only!

Adopting her best welcoming smile, Honey met him at the door. He was a while appearing, but at last there he was. ‘Mr Westlake, how nice to see you. Do come in.’

Mr Westlake had never shown any signs of having a nervous disposition – until now. There was a haunted look in his eyes, and he seemed almost relieved when the kitchen door was safely closed behind him.

‘Right. Shall we start?’ said Honey in the most sugary tone she could muster.

His hands shook as he arranged his official forms on his clipboard. His pen was fastened by Velcro to the clipboard, but still he managed to drop it.

‘I’m retiring, you know.’ He said it vaguely, as though the fact had suddenly hit him and come as a great surprise. ‘I think it’s time,’ he added, his bald pate gleaming like a freckled bowling ball beneath the stark lighting.

Face full of concern, Honey asked him if he was all right.

He looked back at her blankly. ‘You’re not usually in the kitchen when I call.’

He said it in a strangely searching way, as though he were seeking a kindred spirit who was also suffering the same kind of haunting he was.

There was no way she was going to say that she was hiding away from her mother. She began fabricating a convincing lie. ‘I just thought I’d help out …’

Her interrupted, his voice shaking. ‘Your mother’s been telling me about some problems she’s been having.’

The truth was out. She did her best to paper over the cracks.

‘Well, she is going through a bit of a crisis.’

‘With a man,’ said Mr Westlake. ‘She told me all about it.’

Honey groaned. Smudger rolled his eyes. The rest of the kitchen did their level best to stifle their giggles, though Gayle, the young commis chef laughed so much she had to run for the ladies room. The kitchen porter hid his head inside the dishwasher, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

Honey apologised. Mr Westlake, who was usually such a stickler for getting stuck into the job of rooting out unsafe hygiene procedures, appeared severely unsettled at having landed the job of agony aunt.

Honey broke the cardinal rule and offered him a cup of tea. Mr Westlake broke his own cardinal rule and accepted.

Fearing he might collapse then and there, she offered to accompany him out into the courtyard where he could sit in the sun. He accepted her offer.

She looked askance at her head chef. He looked askance right back. Was it really possible that her mother wittering on about her love life had worn down the inbred contrariness of an Environmental Health Officer? If the skill could be bottled, the catering industry would be queuing up to buy!

They sat down on the nice wooden benches set beside a nice wooden table.

‘Nice,’ he said, looking around him.

‘Yes. Nice.’

Later it might sound trite, but at this moment in time Honey was feeling nice. Nice seemed a … well … nice word. Usually she was on edge when Mr Westlake called. Today, well …

Perhaps it was the calming surroundings, perhaps the cup of tea, perhaps the home-made oat biscuits with real almonds, or perhaps having escaped her mother’s brow-beating oratory, but, whatever it was due to, Mr Westlake began to unwind.

‘I retire at the end of this week and when one is retiring, dear lady, one tends to better evaluate good kitchen practice.’

Her heart sank. He wasn’t going to give her kitchen a good going over once he’d drunk his tea was he? She closed her eyes and prayed. Mr Westlake carried on with his assessment of the rules and regulations, especially with regard to meat.

‘I particularly condone separate fridges for cooked and uncooked meats, and in the case of uncooked, I would even go so far as to divide meat further; i.e. poultry in one, pork in another, beef another, etc.

She wondered about game, but wasn’t going to ask. He carried on.

‘Ground meat is a problem. Ground pork and ground chicken look very much the same. Tons of cheap ground meat is coming in from Europe. Unfortunately, it is not always quite what it seems. Chicken and pork all ground up together. Very worrying if you happen to be Jewish or of the Islamic faith. Are you of either of those faiths?’ he asked suddenly.

‘No.’

He picked up his clipboard, nervous fingers fiddling with the pen.

‘That’s good.’

She glimpsed the reflection of her face in the window opposite. Flummoxed was the only word to describe it. What did any of this have to do with his inspection? Nothing.

‘I’d better carry on.’

He got to his feet and tottered back into the kitchen. His inspection was fast and furious. She could barely keep up with him. At the end of it, everything was in order.

Unseen by Mr Westlake, Smudger did a silent ‘Phew’ and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

‘Just one thing, dear lady,’ said Mr Westlake as she guided him towards the door. ‘Is there a rear entrance I can use?’

She smiled. ‘Of course there is. Follow me.’

She’d fully expected the whole of the catering team to be clapping wildly when she went back in. Instead Smudger was looking grim.

‘Don’t tell me my mother’s made it up with Roland?’

Her head chef was standing with his hands on his hips. He looked down at the floor when he shook his head.

‘Steve Doherty wants to see us. Richard Carmelli is dead. And it weren’t an accident.’