Murder at Honeychurch Hall: A Mystery (2 page)

“Where the hell is Little Dipperton?”

“Devon.”

“
Devon?
” I sputtered.

“Near Dartmouth. Very pretty little fishing port. You’ll love it. I’ll take you there for a cream tea.”

“Devon!” I said again. “That’s over two hundred miles away.”

“Yes, I am aware of that. I just moved here.”

“But you don’t even like the countryside.”

“Your father didn’t but I do,” said my mother cheerfully. “I love the countryside. I’ve always hated city life. Now I wake up to the sound of the birds, the smell of fresh air—”

“But … Devon.” I felt dizzy at yet another revelation. “What about Dad’s ashes? I thought we agreed we’d put him in Tooting Crematorium? You’ll never be able to visit him.”

“I changed my mind about Tooting Crematorium. He suffered from claustrophobia, you know.”

“Mum, he’s in an orange Tupperware container right now,” I exclaimed. “What’s the difference?”

“It’s too final.”

I tried a different tack. “What about all your friends?”

“Your father worked for HM Revenue & Customs,” said Mum. “We didn’t have friends.”

“You don’t even drive.”

“I’ve always been able to
drive
. I just liked your father driving
me
.” Mum chuckled. “In fact, I’ve just bought myself a nice MINI Cooper in Chili Red.”

“How can you afford a new car? A house—and a grand house by the sound of things—in the country?” Alarm bells began to ring in my head. “How did you hear about this
carriage
house in the first place?”

“I have contacts.”

“But you must have viewed it? How? When?”

“I don’t have to answer any more questions from you,” Mum said. “I can do what I like.”

Another ghastly thought occurred to me. “You’ve spent all of Dad’s money, haven’t you?” There was an ominous silence on the other end of the phone. “He said you would.”

“Katherine, there’s something I need to tell you—”

“You
have
spent it!” I exclaimed. “You only call me Katherine when you’re about to give me bad news.”

“Does the name Krystalle Storm mean anything to you?”

Thrown for a moment, I said, “No. Why? Who’s she when she’s at home?”

“Critics say she’ll be even bigger than Barbara Cartland.”

“Who?”

“The romance writer. Barbara Cartland.”

“What’s that got to do with Dad’s money?”

“Her books are everywhere. Over half a million sold worldwide,” Mum enthused. “I’m surprised—”

“You know I don’t read that kind of rubbish, Mum. What did Dad call it? ‘Penny Dreadfuls for pathetic old ladies,’” I said. “And don’t try to change the subject again.”

“Fine,” Mum snapped. “You know what, I don’t think I need your help after all. I can manage on my own.”

“Now
you’re
throwing a wobbly. I’m happy to come. In fact, I quite fancy a cream tea.”

“No,” said Mum coldly. “I don’t want you here. I already have someone who is
longing
to lend me
his
hand. He’s very kind. Very kind indeed.” And before I could utter another word, my mother hung up.

I was deeply perplexed. It was clear that Mum’s grief had made her rash and impulsive. What had possessed her to move so far away from London? The fact that she’d managed to get into my father’s carefully protected pension fund was extremely worrying. My mother was notoriously hopeless with money. It was a family joke. Dad and I had gone to great lengths to make sure that she’d just receive a monthly income so she couldn’t spend it all at once. I felt I’d let him down and he’d only been gone four months.

There was nothing else for it. I’d have to drive to Little Dipperton, wherever that might be, and make her see sense.

Chapter Two

I made a quick stop at my garden flat near Putney Bridge to throw a few things into a suitcase including brochures of some properties I was determined to show Mum. I also decided to take the two boxes of vintage teddy bears and Victorian toys that I’d purchased that morning.

“Ready Jazzbo Jenkins?” I said to my lucky mascot, a six-inch-tall Merrythought “Jerry” toy mouse from the 1940s that I kept on my car dashboard. It had been given to mum as a child, and she had given it to me. “Let’s go and sort out my mother.”

It was a gloriously sunny day in August and—according to the temperature gauge inside my car—a stifling eighty-five degrees. Everything in England always seemed ill equipped to deal with heat waves and my car was no exception. The cold-air fan just sucked in the hot air from outside. Even with all the windows open, sweat trickled down my back. It was going to be a long, sticky drive.

Traffic was heavy as holidaymakers headed for the West Country for the official last week of the school summer holidays. I trailed behind lines of slow-moving caravans and the occasional sight of a car pulled onto the hard shoulder with an overheated engine.

Along the roadside I saw a sign
STRAWBERRIES HALF A MILE.
Tears unexpectedly stung my eyes as I recalled family outings when I’d beg Dad to stop for strawberries but we never did because I always spilled food, drink—or anything really—on my clothes. I slowed down to look at the table filled with punnets of strawberries under a large umbrella and decided to pull over.

Feeling rather guilty, I bought two—one for Mum and one for me to eat right this second. I devoured mine in five minutes flat. The strawberries were sweet, plump, and delicious and unfortunately, the juice dripped onto my white capris. Dad had been right.

By the time I’d driven past Stonehenge on the A303, the sun had vanished and the sky was heavy with dark storm clouds rolling across Salisbury Plain. With a loud crash of thunder, rain started to come down like stair rods. Traffic slowed to a crawl and ceased altogether. Then, just as quickly as it had fallen, the rain stopped and an exquisite rainbow straddled the distant hills.

I pulled into a petrol service station to pick up some flowers and a bottle of Blue Nun for Mum.

Queuing at the register I noticed
Gypsy Temptress
by the author Mum had mentioned—Krystalle Storm—on a revolving stand of paperbacks. Against the backdrop of a church, a scantily clad gypsy girl with raven hair and masses of bracelets leaned against a vast oak tree trunk looking seductive in her low-cut dress. I picked up a copy and read the back cover.
“He was a man of the cloth. She—an outcast from her kin. Can love…”

“It’s good,” said a young woman in her late twenties. “It’s the first in the Star-Crossed Lovers Series—oh! Excuse me. Are you Kat Stanford from
Fakes & Treasures
?”

I smiled politely. “Yes.”

“I love that show!” she said. “It’s your hair.”

Unfortunately television personalities are pigeonholed with certain character traits—Gordon Ramsay and his famous temper; bra-less Charlie Dimmock from the TV show
Ground Force
; and me, nicknamed Rapunzel because of my mane of hair.

“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I will buy this for my mother.”

“Be careful,” she said with a chuckle and pointed to a warning at the bottom of the cover. “See there? It’s categorized as a ‘sizzler.’ Racy stuff.”

“I’m not sure if my mother could handle sizzling,” I said and put it back. Then, on impulse I grabbed it, after all. It would be a peace offering of sorts. Maybe I’d even give it a try.

My spirits lifted as I barreled down the M5. Wiltshire turned into Somerset and then—at last—I flew past a road sign featuring a jaunty tall-ship logo announcing
WELCOME TO DEVON
and the sun came out again.

The countryside was breathtakingly diverse. There were vast expanses of lush rolling fields dotted with sheep and cattle, rushing streams bounded by thick woods or ancient low stone dry walls, gullies, and crags lined with the rich red earth that Devon was famous for. And, amongst all this beauty was another kind—silhouetted on the horizon, stood the dark, sinister tors of Dartmoor with its shifting mists and treacherous bogs.

With a last look at the detailed directions I’d carefully jotted down courtesy of Google Maps, I turned off the dual carriageway and onto a quiet two-lane road flanked by thick pine forests on one side and a low stone wall fronting a bubbling river on the other. Dartmouth was signposted twelve miles and from there, Little Dipperton just two miles farther.

I checked my watch. It was almost four. I’d made excellent time and was feeling thoroughly pleased with myself.

Two hours later I was hopelessly lost and incredibly frustrated.

It would appear that Google Maps had no knowledge of the myriad of tiny, interconnecting, twisting lanes that spread across Devon—90 percent of which had no signposts at all or if they did, ended in impassable tracks. Picking up a mobile phone signal was erratic, too, and when I finally got one and rang my mother, she didn’t answer.

By six o’clock all my good humor had completely evaporated. At last a church spire appeared in the distance so I headed for that.

Navigating a series of dangerous hairpin bends, I narrowly missed following in the footsteps of an earlier vehicle that had smashed through a stone wall and into a drainage ditch. And then, out of the blue, I came upon a small village consisting of whitewashed, thatched, and slate-roofed cottages with a handful of shops and a pub called the Hare & Hounds. There was also a church, an abandoned forge, a greengrocer, a tea shop, and a general store that doubled up as a post office. Outside the latter stood a dirty blue Ford Focus.

At first, I thought everything was closed until I noticed the door to the general store was ajar. Parking behind the Ford Focus, I went inside.

“Hello?” I cried. “Anyone home?”

There was no reply. Pushing my sunglasses on top of my head, I moved deeper into the gloom and tripped down a step. It was like descending into the black hole of Calcutta.

The place was jammed to the gunnels with items ranging from tiny sewing kits to flyspray killer. Shelves were haphazardly stacked with pliers, tinned goods, jigsaw puzzles, and hemorrhoid cream. A revolving wire display stand offered picturesque postcards of Devon for sale—three for two pounds.

In one corner a Plexiglas window encased a small cubbyhole that bore the sign
POST OFFICE.
A notice board was covered with colored flyers and handwritten cards offered a variety of services and local events—“Babysitter Wanted!” “Need Someone to Wash Your Car?” “Women’s Institute Jam Making Competition.”

Behind the counter and along the back wall were shelves filled with large glass jars containing sweets that I thought went out with the ark—Sherbet Pips, Fruit Chews, Black Jacks, and the kind of treacle toffee that removed dental fillings in one bite.

Strolling over to the counter I noted the old-fashioned cash register and a brass bell. In front stood a low bench spread with a selection of trashy magazines and national newspapers. To my dismay, the store carried this month’s
Star Stalkers!
My photo was in the bottom right-hand corner on the cover. It had been taken at a charity event and the article was written by my nemesis, Trudy Wynne. The caption said,
GOOD-BYE RAPUNZEL, HELLO LADY GODIVA! TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT—TURN TO PAGE
5
.

Of course I knew what happened next. It was the deciding factor in my decision to quit
Fakes & Treasures
and escape the public eye.

Quickly, I covered the offending magazine with the local newspaper, the
Dipperton Deal.
I swept my hair up into a coil and wondered not for the umpteenth time if I should just cut the lot off.

“Anyone home?” I called out again, now aware of voices coming from behind a red-and-white plastic fly curtain that presumably led to a storeroom.

“She was a tart and a thief, Muriel,” cried a female voice. “I knew she was trouble the moment she arrived.”

“I find that hard to believe,” came the reply. “Gayla seemed such a nice girl.”

“Well she wasn’t.”

“I thought Gayla came through one of those posh London agencies?” said Muriel. “Don’t they do background checks?”

“Why don’t you just go ahead and say it?” There was a pause and then, “You think this has something to do with my Eric, don’t you?”

“Vera, dear, when it comes to the two of you, I don’t know what to think anymore.” There was a heavy sigh. “Come along, I really want to lock up and—”

I gave a loud cough. “Hello? Hello?”

The two women emerged through the curtain. One was in her late sixties with a tight gray perm and wearing a sleeveless floral dress. She was holding a paperback book. The other was in her mid thirties, with blond hair that was in dire need of a root touch-up, scraped back into a ponytail. She was dressed in a pair of tight leather trousers, a scarlet V-neck T-shirt with matching acrylic nails that grasped the handles of a bulging plastic carrier bag.

“Enjoy the private conversation, did you?” the younger woman said, swaying slightly due to excessively high heels—Louboutins, I recognized the signature red soles.

“Vera, don’t be rude.”

I felt embarrassed. “I just got here. I heard voices.”

Vera looked me up and down, taking in my stained white capris. “Had an accident, did you?”

“I’m rather fond of strawberries and they’re rather fond of me,” I said with an apologetic smile.

“I’m afraid we’re closed,” said Muriel.

“I don’t want to buy anything,” I said. “I’m lost. There don’t seem to be any signposts around here.”

“They were all taken down during the war and never replaced, luv,” said Muriel.

“That was over sixty years ago,” I exclaimed.

“We’re a bit of a forgotten corner down this way and that’s the way we like it,” said Vera. “We don’t take kindly to strangers.”

I noticed Muriel was holding a copy of
Gypsy Temptress.

“I love Krystalle Storm,” I said desperately.

“Vera told me to read it,” said Muriel. “She said it might liven up my marriage though frankly, I’m not sure whether my husband would remember what to do.”

“You should.” I smiled again. “It’s a bit racy though, isn’t it, Vera?” Sensing Vera thawing a little I added, “Apparently, Krystalle’s got a new book coming out in the—” I wracked my brain. “Star-Crossed Lovers Series.”