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  BROTHERLY BLOOD.

  Book 13 Honey Driver Series

  Jean G Goodhind

  Chapter One

  SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF MAN FOUND ON RAILWAY LINE

  ‘The body of a man found buried in mud close to the railway line in Bradford on Avon has been identified as that of Caspar St John Gervais, owner of the La Reine Rouge Hotel in Bath …

  No! Surely not!

  In the process of reading the headline news for the second time – Honey Driver had almost choked the first time – she tripped over the cat which was odd because she didn’t own a cat. Where the cat had come from, she didn’t know and what it was doing in her downstairs hallway in her private residence, she hadn’t a clue. However, a stray cat having wandered in was too trivial to distract her from the newspaper article. Caspar was dead? How? Why?

  Numb with shock Honey dropped her hands, the paper crumpling in the middle. If a photographer had been handy he would immediately have snapped her face, the round eyes, the perfect ‘o’ shape of her mouth. It was such a picture but scary, reminiscent of The Scream without the artistic merit.

  Tearing the front page away from the rest of the paper, Honey Driver, owner of the Green River Hotel and Bath Hotels Association Crime Liaison Officer, headed to where she’d flung her trainers. For some daft reason the cat appeared to have adopted the idea the trainers were personal territory and in need of being defended against all comers.

  Snarling and spitting it sat between Honey and her trainers. She’d only just kicked off on her return from a one-mile run that should have been two miles. The run had been halved by virtue of a sudden urge for a chocolate digestive. Being fit and being famished fought for a nanosecond. The chocolate digestive won the day.

  If she hadn’t been so upset, she might have given the cat a piece of her mind plus the toe of a trainer up its backside, but she had received a terrible shock. Caspar St John Gervais, chairman of Bath Hotels Association, was the man who had handed her the job of Crime Liaison Officer on behalf of the association. She had reluctantly accepted the poisoned chalice – nobody else wanted the job. In return for her acceptance Caspar had promised to keep her letting rooms full during the winter.

  She’d been going through a sticky patch at the time so extra business was not to be sniffed at.

  The position had proved interesting on a number of counts; firstly getting involved in crime got her out of the hotel and into the world. Secondly she met and fell into the arms of Steve Doherty, her police liaison contact.

  It hadn’t been all wine and roses. When serious crime occurred, Caspar was on her back until it was solved.

  ‘We must not allow crime to destroy this fair city and its unique heritage,’ he had said to her.

  He didn’t add that crime could have an adverse affect on hotel takings, but she knew it was true.

  Now he was dead. OK, death comes to everyone, but Caspar wasn’t the kind you found dead adjacent to a railway line. He was the kind of man who made the grand entrance, so it stood to reason he would be inclined to make the grand exit. She couldn’t imagine him dead and the newspaper article didn’t specify how he’d died. Suicide? An accident? Murder? Buried in mud. Had he slipped? It all seemed very vague.

  The cat having adopted the trainers as its day bed, Honey pulled a pair of two-tone brown ankle boots from the wardrobe. Hair awry and face devoid of make up, she slammed the door behind her and skidded across the flagstones to the back door of the hotel.

  Smudger Smith, her head chef, was in the kitchen, his face pink with effort and the heat of the flat top range. The smell of fried bacon made her stomach rumble and normally she would have indulged in a couple of crisply fried slices served with eggs and toast. Caspar’s death had ruined her appetite.

  ‘Boss,’ Smudger exclaimed, one hand raised in a kind of salute. Judging by his action it seemed he wanted a word.

  She raised her hand in the universal stop mode – palm facing him. ‘Not now. Leave any problems until I get back. Something very bad has come up. Very bad indeed.’

  ‘There are no problems. Well. Nothing I can’t deal with. I just thought you looked…’

  She sensed he was about to say you’re looking pretty pale, almost as though you’ve seen a ghost, but stopped himself. People living in Bath were always seeing ghosts.

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  With that she was gone.

  Back in the kitchen Smudger shook his head. ‘I was going to ask her if she minded my cat moving in,’ he said to Lester, his commis chef. ‘Looks a bit shaken up though, don’t she?’

  Lester was slicing a cucumber with astonishing speed and great verve – like an executioner on piece work.

  ‘A member of the family?’

  Smudger shook his head. ‘Nobody I can think of. Her mother’s getting on a bit but she’s too busy to die.’

  La Reine Rouge looked happily summery, trailing lobelia, geraniums and other colourfully dramatic plants spilling from hanging baskets set at equal distances all along its brave façade.

  Knees weak from the bad news and the fact that she was pounding pavements wearing a pair of winter boots, she almost collapsed before the white oak reception counter.

  Kevin the freckle faced receptionist looked down at her, his nose quivering above his pale cream cravat. His expression was one of exaggerated blandness.

  His sandy coloured brows arched halfway to his hairline. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Honey’s jaw dropped. How could he sound so unconcerned at a time like this?

  Mouth too dry to explain in great detail, she handed him the newspaper, tapping at the self explanatory headline.

  ‘This!’

  Kevin took the newspaper, delicately holding it with the tips of his fingers as though it were contaminated with something highly contagious, i.e. reality.

  On reading the content, his jaw dropped and his tentative clutch tightened.

  Honey took charge of the moment. ‘Tell me it isn’t true.’

  Kevin’s head jerked up so sharply it looked in danger of snapping off from his neck.

  ‘It isn’t true. I’ve just taken him a cup of coffee – thick and black, just as he likes it.’

  Honey grabbed the paper back and without asking to be announced, dashed off down the stairs leading to Caspar’s basement office.

  Large as life – and his usual colour coordinated self in a pale shade of yellow – Caspar was behind his desk perusing his computer screen. A cool draft of air blew through a pair of newly installed French doors from a courtyard garden planted in Japanese style. Caspar’s partner was Japanese and had been around on and off for about five years. Caspar’s passion was for clocks. Takardo’s passion was gardening.

  A medley of clock chimes sounded eleven as Caspar glanced up long enough to assess her expression.

  ‘Dear me. Your complexion is white as snow. Either you’ve seen a ghost or your mother has moved in with you.’

  ‘No to the first question and, thankfully, no also to the second.’

  She barely suppressed a shiver. Her mother moving in would be quite an ordeal, though not as shocking as this.

  She pushed the newspaper headline under Caspar’s nose.

  ‘According to this headline you’re dead!’

  Caspar’s calm demeanour was unchanged as his eyes caught the headline.

  ‘The first paragraph,’ said Honey, her finger stabbing the shocking words.

  The calm expression stiffened to waxy paleness. Once he’d thought about it, the stiffness and paleness remained. Caspar was not a man to be easily ruffled.

  ‘I want this man’s phone number! I want his editor’s phone number! This is all very unfortunate.’ A well manicured fingernail jabbed at the newspaper.
‘Now, where is it?’

  ‘Inside the front page?’ suggested Honey.

  Caspar checked. She was right. Armed with the editor’s details, he reached for his phone.

  The usual dial one for this department, two to place a classified and three for a marriage announcement etc., were quickly dispensed with. After being passed around the block a bit, he was at last speaking to the man at the top – the editor.

  ‘Look, you stupid man. It’s not me. I’m not dead. I’m alive. You can hear me can’t you? I’m alive!’

  Caspar stormed up and down, phone clutched tightly in one hand, the crumpled up newspaper clutched in the other.

  ‘Dead? I’ll give him dead!’

  ‘Perhaps it was a genuine mistake…’

  ‘I call it careless. He could have rang here to make sure.’

  ‘Yes, but if you were dead…’

  ‘I AM NOT DEAD!’

  His voice was louder than usual, but Caspar was not one to lose control. His tone was cold and extremely exact.

  I wouldn’t be that cool thought Honey. I’d be livid. I’d want somebody’s hide, plus an apology.

  ‘I’d want an apology,’ she whispered. ‘Caspar, you are so cool.’

  Whatever it was about her comment, Caspar responded. Suddenly he was swearing a great deal, his face livid with extreme anger, so much so that he could barely speak. He began to splutter so much he passed the phone to Honey.

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  It was all quite surprising.

  A fit of coughing followed and he pummelled his chest with his clenched fist. ‘Bloody coffee gone down the wrong way…’

  Honey told the editor what was happening, that Caspar St John Gervais was almost choking on his anger. She also confirmed that the identity they’d attached to the dead man was incorrect. Caspar St John Gervais very much alive. ‘And there couldn’t possibly be two people with the same name. I mean, it’s not as though Caspar St John Gervais is very common.’

  Caspar glared at the very thought of it.

  The editor was apologetic. ‘Look. I’m sorry, his death – sorry – the death was reported to us by a reputable source.’

  ‘Then your source was wrong.’

  Caspar interjected, grabbing the phone back from her at the same time activating the loudspeaker button.

  ‘I want that source. I want his address. Now!’

  ‘I’m sorry, we can’t give out details of our sources and staff to the public...’

  ‘I’m not the public. I’m me. I have connections in high places. Titled connections. Now come along. Give me his name.’

  ‘I would like to point out, Mr Gervais, that his name’s on the article.’

  Both Honey and Caspar took another look at the newspaper. Geoffrey Monmouth.

  Honey pointed. ‘Ah yes. There it is.’

  Caspar wasn’t usually so unobservant, but the article had upset him. It wasn’t every day you read a newspaper article reporting your death and leaving a question mark over the details.

  The editor was unrepentant. ‘We can’t give you his address. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is he there? I’ll come there.’

  ‘Not here.’

  Honey detected panic entering the editor’s voice. ‘He’s a freelance. We only use him occasionally.’

  Honey couldn’t blame him for not wanting the chairman of the Hotels Association barging into his office. When Caspar had the bit between his teeth – as he did now- he was like a bob sleigh going down hill without a brake handle.

  Honey flicked the paper into readable flatness again.

  Caspar took another look at the front page. ‘I see from this he’s written another article for you about the two thousand year old body that was dug up from the Torrington Estate some time ago. It’s on the same page. Are you sure the body really was dead too? Not sat up in bed somewhere is he?’

  ‘There’s no need to be facetious.’ The editor’s tone was sniffy.

  ‘I could sue you for this. In fact I am going to contact my solicitor the moment I put this phone down.’

  The editor’s apology and vow to make amends was immediate and heartfelt. ‘Look. I’ll get it retracted. I’ll publish an apology saying that it was all a mistake. How would that be? After all. No harm done. You’re still alive.’

  ‘I am.’ His eyes narrowed maliciously as they met Honey’s. ‘So who was it really, this body you were told was me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask Monmouth to contact his police contact. They might know more.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ said Caspar.

  The call was swiftly terminated.

  Honey saw the look on Caspar’s face, the fact that his presence had become alarmingly overblown as though he’d done the Alice in Wonderland eat me thing and was about to become too big for the room.

  She immediately knew what was coming next.

  ‘Until this moment I have refrained from getting involved in the sleazier side of life. It does not constitute part of my character. I have always left that to you.’

  ‘Thanks a bundle,’ murmured Honey.

  Caspar did not appear to notice he’d been a tad insulting.

  ‘I would obviously like to seek out this Monmouth character and convey my hurt feelings. I will also expect some form of redress. I will attend to sending notice of my intention to sue the newspaper to the editor.’

  ‘It’d probably a genuine mistake, though science and DNA stuff being what it is, I wonder how come they got it wrong. I wonder who it really is?’

  Caspar tilted his head back, his eyes scouring the ceiling as though his decision was floating there, waiting to be plucked.

  Honey felt the apprehension building in her stomach. She could guess what was coming. And it did.

  ‘Yes. I think it appropriate. Yes. I need clarification. I want to know who this man is. Drop everything. I want you to make in depth enquiries.’

  ‘I do have a hotel to run...’

  ‘Never mind that. Take a break. Follow lines of enquiry. If there are problems at the Green River, I will send somebody over to help out.’

  She knew he would be true to his word. She was already getting quite excited at the prospect. The case might prove quite interesting. First she had to find out exactly how the man had died. Why mud? Surely nobody could commit suicide in mud? She smelled the stench of foul play. Her mind was already whirring with what she should do next.

  ‘Doherty is bound to know something about it and I’m meeting him later…’

  ‘No! Not later. Now. I want you to apply yourself to this matter as quickly as possible. Go to the place where this man died and get a feel for it. There’s not a moment to lose. My disposition is shocked to the core. I need closure. Now. Apply yourself now!’

  Caspar was always brusque, but in this instance his insistant attitude was sharp enough to slice off her head. Still, just his way. There was only one Caspar St John Gervais and there certainly wasn’t room for two in his world.

  Chapter Two

  Recovered somewhat from the shock of reading that Caspar was dead and then seeing him very much alive, Honey marched along the pavement, through the motley crowd of shoppers, sightseers and people taking selfies beneath the floral baskets hanging from lampposts.

  Doherty, her police liaison officer who also shared her bed on occasion, wasn’t answering his phone. Exasperated, she kept trying. Still no answer. She knew he was due to attend a team building course, but was pretty sure he hadn’t yet left.

  Again she tried, gritting her teeth whilst muttering, ‘Where are you, Steve Doherty?’

  ‘You trying to get me?’

  His voice taking her by surprise she spun on her heels. It was easy to miss seeing people in Bath, especially in the height of the season when it was swamped by tourists.

  She stopped in her tracks correctly guessing that if he wasn’t in front of her then he had to be behind her. She turned that abruptly they collided nicely, slap bang up against his us
ual black tee shirt and scruffy jeans, his finger hooked into the loop of his trademark scuffed leather jacket hanging nonchalantly over his shoulder.

  His arm was warm around her. His lips were cool. She closed her eyes. The affect was like drowning in scented water.

  ‘I need you to tell me something,’ she said, her voice low and husky.

  He raised his eyebrows, a cheeky smile on his lips, and one hell of a lot of promise in his eyes.

  ‘Is it a secret made for two?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s national news – in a way. It’s Caspar. The Western Daily Press have suggested that he’s dead.’

  The cheeky smile was close to outright laughter.

  Before he could say something totally unsuitable, she added, ‘They thought he was the body found buried in mud near the railway line in Bradford on Avon. Was it an accident? Suicide or murder?’

  He shrugged. ‘No idea. From the little I know of the case, suicide would be a big surprise. I suppose he could have slipped in the mud and got himself buried that way. Perhaps he was drunk and couldn’t get out. Or somebody could have had a hand in it. Only the boys in the lab can work that one out. What do you know so far?’

  ‘One thing only. It wasn’t Caspar. He’s in shock – or as near as possible as he can be, bearing in mind how he usually is. I was shocked too. First the headline saying he was dead, then seeing him sipping coffee behind his desk.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Doherty’s expression turned serious and then he shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with me I’m afraid.’

  She took it he meant another detective was dealing with it.

  ‘But you can find out.’

  ‘I could. If I wanted to.’

  ‘I suppose it’s understandable. Time off, so you’re too relaxed just yet. How did the hang gliding go?’

  He shrugged. ‘So-so.’

  ‘When are you off on the team building programme?’

  ‘Shortly.’

  They’d been having a mutually agreed cooling off period of late. It was basically meant to see if they could really live without each other for more than a few days. She’d missed him but wasn’t going to say so – not unless he said so first. The alternative had been to go hang gliding with him and the fact was that she hated heights.