Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall (15 page)

“By boat.”

“How? When?”

“Not when your father was alive, obviously,” said Mum. “I was quite surprised to find I had a lot more money than I realized. I just take the ferry from Weymouth. It only takes four hours both ways so I am back in time for tea. It's very civilized.”

I tried to take in yet another detail of my mother's secret life. “And you bring the money back—how?”

“In my suitcase.”

I looked at Mum in horror. “You're smuggling!”

“Rubbish,” she cried. “I can bring in ten thousand pounds every time and not declare it. I know my rights! It's all aboveboard.”

“But it's not aboveboard,” I protested. “Otherwise you would have the money in a bank account here. You know as well as I do that there are strict tax laws about keeping money in the Channel Islands. It was one of Dad's pet projects.”

Mum didn't answer.

“And where do the bank statements get sent?”

“I don't get them sent. I signed up for online banking.”

“You don't have a computer, let alone the Internet.”

“Why would I need either?”

“Because that's what online banking is,” I said, exasperated.

Mum shrugged again. “I keep my own records. I have a little cashbook. What does it matter to you anyway? It's my life.”

And the truth was, it shouldn't matter but it did. I wasn't clear how Mum's arrangement worked but it sounded very dodgy.

“You're right. It is your life,” I said wearily.

“Good. Now that we're clear, shall we go downstairs and have a spot of lunch?”

Mum breezed on by and I followed her down the stairs and headed for the kitchen.

“Just help me understand,” I said. “You bought this place for cash.”

“Correct.”

“And I know you spent a lot of money putting in a new bathroom.”

“Correct.”

“So you had to have smuggled in more than ten thousand pounds. Something doesn't add up here—” I pushed open the kitchen door. “Oh! Hello, boy.” Mr. Chips was dancing around the kitchen table and seemed more excited than usual. “What are you—?”

“Angela!” Mum shot me a horrified look that had “
did she hear us
” written all over her face.

“Hello. What's happened?” she said. “You both look as if you've been in the wars.”

“You could say that.” We must have looked a sight. I was sure my cheek was swelling nicely and Mum's foray into the filthy loft had coated her clothes with cobwebs.

“Oh! Is that a spider?” Angela pointed to Mum's hair.

“It's only a money spider,” I said and gently removed it.

“How apt,” Mum said dryly.

“You've got to kill it!” Angela exclaimed.

“It's bad luck to kill a money spider,” said Mum.

“Bad luck?” Angela shrieked. “But … there were hundreds of them when I cleared out the larders. I … I swept them away with my broom.”

“I heard you sat in Sir Maurice's chair, too, so you'd better watch out then, hadn't you?” said Mum rather unkindly.

“What's wrong with Mr. Chips?” I asked.

The Jack Russell was frothing at the mouth and scrabbling the table leg. Loops of drool dripped onto the floor.

“He can smell the meat.” Angela pointed to the brown paper bag on the kitchen table. “Mrs. Cropper gave me a raw steak for your eye.”

“A packet of peas will do just as well,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Is that what you've got there?” Angela stared intensely at the blue packet in Mum's hand. Even I could see the imprint of a banknote through the transparent plastic.

Angela stepped closer. “Is that money? Did you rob a bank?”

“Money? Money! What a silly thing to say. These are peas,” said Mum hastily. “Kat was just putting them back into the freezer. Here, Kat—catch!”

Mum tossed the packet. Badly. I fumbled. It fell to the floor. Angela made a lunge for it but was foiled when Mum inexplicably kicked the packet away. It skittered across the floor where—to our shock—Mr. Chips snatched it up and tore out of the kitchen at high speed.

“Oh! The dog! The dog!” shrieked Mum. “Quickly, Kat. Hurry.”

“Excuse me.” I raced after him leaving Angela standing with her mouth open.

To my dismay, the front door had been left ajar. I ran outside just in time to see Mr. Chips squeeze through the hedge and into Eric's scrapyard next door.

“Mr. Chips!” I yelled out. “Here, boy! Here!”

Damn and blast
. I was wearing my house moccasins so I gingerly picked my way around the puddles to the makeshift corrugated iron gate. Ignoring the spray-painted crimson warning of T
RESPASSERS
W
ILL
B
E
P
ROSECUTED
& P
OACHERS
W
ILL
B
E
S
HOT
, I spent ages trying to unhook the elaborate chain contraption that Eric used to keep the gate standing upright. Dragging the wretched thing open, I peeped into the scrapyard. My worst fears had been realized.

Mr. Chips had vanished.

Damn and blast,
I muttered again, looking down at my feet. My moccasins were already splattered with mud and if I ran back to the Carriage House to get my Wellies, I'd never catch up with him.

I hesitated for a moment. I hated going through Eric's yard but, given that his Land Rover wasn't outside the old caravan, he was obviously not around.

Slipping through the gate, I manhandled it back into place, hastily rehooked the chain, and squelched my way through Eric's scrapyard.

Surely, once Mr. Chips realized that there was no juicy steak in the packet he'd drop it. No, wait. He wouldn't do that. He'd most likely bury it.

Oh
God
. How infuriating! I felt a spot of rain and, looking skyward, saw a blanket of dark clouds overheard. Typical. I hadn't thought to take a coat, either.

“Mr. Chips!” I yelled as I caught a glimpse of tan and white pushing through the undergrowth on the far side of Eric's scrapyard.

Damn and blast!
I muttered for the umpteenth time and set off after him at a jog, sticking to the hedge boundaries and keeping an eye open for burying locations like badger setts and rabbit burrows.

Two fields later there was no sign of Mr. Chips or the blue packet.

My feet were wet and I was cold. I was extremely hungry, having run off on this wild-goose chase before lunch. I was also irrationally angry with my mother for not just keeping the money in the house in the first place but for reacting the way she did with Angela.

When I clambered over the stile and stepped down into Cavalier Copse, I was about to give up and trek home when I saw something laying in the grass that made my blood run cold.

It was Valentine's ox bone walking cane with the distinctive French bulldog handle.

Looking up the valley, I was suddenly gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding.

Valentine's SUV was still visible, parked by the five-bar gate.

A wind picked up and a chill swept through me. Something felt horribly wrong.

Retrieving the ox bone cane I headed up the hill to his car—Mr. Chips and Mum now forgotten.

As I expected, Valentine's SUV was locked. I peered through each window but other than a pair of brown leather gloves and the sale catalog for Chillingford Court, the car was empty. I tried calling Valentine's phone again. It clicked straight into a generic greeting that announced his voice mailbox was full.

I was in a dilemma. My first reaction was to call the police. I knew that my inquiry would sound lame and would run along these lines—”How well did you know Valentine Prince-Avery?”
Less than twenty-four hours.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Yesterday. When he ran out of a protest meeting.
“Why do you feel he is missing?”
He left me a strange message and then didn't return my phone calls. I found his walking cane in a field and his car is still parked on the top road.
“Where is he staying and have you tried contacting him there?”
The Hare & Hounds, and no, I have not.

Perhaps I was overreacting. Valentine had been drinking heavily the night before and he did drive off somewhere in his car. Maybe he'd decided he was over the limit and just abandoned his car and walked back to the pub. It wasn't far. But surely he wouldn't have left his great-grandfather's ox bone cane lying in a field.

Since I was already halfway to the village of Little Dipperton, I decided to walk on to the pub regardless of my moccasin-clad feet. At this point I'd given up caring.

And then, just as I was walking past Bridge Cottage, it began to rain.

Perhaps I could borrow an umbrella from Patty—she might even lend me a pair of Wellies.

I knocked on the front door but there was no reply so I went around to the rear of the cottage where a raised vegetable plot, abandoned and strewn with weeds, shared the tiny strip of land that passed for a garden. A concrete coal bunker stood next to a tiled outhouse that I suspected still incorporated an old loo. The cottage had a catslide roof built on at a later date. Underneath the broken guttering was a moldy-looking mattress and rusting coil-spring bed. It was as if someone had just opened a top window and pushed the whole thing out.

With most of the trees devoid of leaves, the view from the garden looked straight across the fields to Cavalier Copse. I still kept hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Chips but suspected he'd probably be back at the Hall by now—with, or without, Mum's money.

Fifteen minutes later I walked into the pub feeling like a drowned rat. Although Doreen and Stan were “open all hours,” the bar was relatively empty. Fred the duck was in his usual spot nesting at the end of the counter next to the donation bucket.

“You're soaked!” Doreen exclaimed. “And what have you done to your face?”

I'd forgotten all about my fall. “I fell off Duchess.”

“You need to put a nice steak on that eye,” said Doreen. “I'll see what I can find.”

“No need. Mrs. Cropper already gave me one.”

“Good heavens, girl!” Doreen suddenly spied my sodden footwear. “What were you thinking?” She gave me a peculiar look. “Surely you didn't walk here in
those
?”

“Actually, yes, I did,” I said brightly. “I've got this really painful ingrown toenail and these are the only shoes I can wear.”

“And you've no coat!”

“It wasn't raining when I set out,” I said.

“You could do with a hot toddy,” said Doreen.

“I would
love
a hot toddy,” but then I realized I had come out without any money, either. “Never mind. Actually, I've got to get back.”

Doreen gave me another peculiar look. “So, what can we do for you? Have you come to see Patty?”

I hadn't. “Poor Patty,” I said. “How is she holding up?”

“So-so,” said Doreen. “She insisted on spending the night at Bridge Cottage though. Stan picked her up this morning. Did you want to speak to her?”

“No—that is to say I'm actually here about Valentine Prince-Avery,” I said.

“He went back to London this morning,” said Doreen.

“This
morning
?” I was taken aback. “I found his walking cane in the field and wanted to return it.” I brandished the cane feeling more than a little foolish. “He told me it was of sentimental value.”

“Not that sentimental if he left it laying in a field,” said Doreen. “No, he just cleared off. Didn't even say good-bye. He already paid in cash up front. I reckon we frightened him off last night, don't you?”

“It certainly looks that way,” I said. “Did he leave an address?”

“I'll ask Stan.” Doreen disappeared into the kitchen.

I waited and scanned the room. The notice board at the end of the bar bore Angela's Ravishing Romantics Book Club and an enlarged color photocopy of the
Gypsy Temptress
book jacket.
Yet another disaster waiting to happen,
I thought.

The front door opened and Benedict and Eric strolled in, deep in conversation. Benedict was holding a high-end Nikon camera that I suspected cost thousands of pounds.

“There she is!” beamed Benedict. His face dropped when he saw mine. “What happened to you?”

“I'm sorry. As you can see, it doesn't look like I'll be able to do the photo shoot.” I explained how I'd fallen off Duchess.

“We could meet in London,” said Benedict. “I think that will be a better idea. I'll take you to dinner and we can discuss the auction. I'll be going back early next week and your mother mentioned you would be there, too.” Benedict turned to Eric. “We're not having much luck today, are we?”

“Where did you hide the placards, Kat?” said Eric with a tinge of annoyance.

“Placards? I thought you took them.”

“No. They were gone when I went up there this morning.”

“Maybe it was someone else from the village?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” said Eric dubiously. “Like who?”

“Never mind,” said Benedict. “I've got a better idea. A friend of mine owns a chopper. We could get some aerial shots. He owes me a favor. All we pay for is fuel.”

“That's a bit extravagant,” I said.

Eric's eyes widened. “I've never been in a helicopter before.”

“We'll need those aerial shots anyway to give to my chap who is working on the new route and possible tunnel—ah, Doreen!”

Doreen returned from the kitchen with Patty in tow wearing yellow Marigold gloves. I was surprised to find her actually working. Eric mumbled something that sounded like, “I'm sorry for your loss.”

Benedict echoed the sentiment leaving an awkward silence all around.