A Taste To Die For - A Honey Driver Murder Mystery (Honey Driver Mysteries) (3 page)

They were halfway through the bottle of wine, but she knew by the look in his eyes that they wouldn’t be finishing the rest right now. She eyed him speculatively. His expression had changed. A dark thoughtfulness appeared in his eyes. It meant trouble.

‘What is it?’

His phone snapped shut. His eyes held hers. ‘We’ve got a murder at the Beau Brummell Hotel.’

Don’t be silly, she told herself as a cold shiver ran down her back. ‘It wouldn’t be a chef by any chance?’

He frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

‘I didn’t.’ In her mind she was wondering where Smudger had got to. ‘Just guessing,’ she said with a nervous smile. ‘It’s been that kind of day.’

Chapter Three

Beau Brummell was a Regency buck and social climber, a Mr Fixer to the gentry; whatever they wanted, he could get or fix.

The hotel bearing his name was a Victorian architectural hotch-potch of fake Florentine and wedding cake madness. It was situated in Weston Lane on the eastern side of Bath. What it lacked in Georgian elegance it made up for in amenities, chief among them being its own car park. What she wouldn’t give to have a hotel car park at the Green River, mused Honey. But sadly car parks hadn’t been pencilled in on the eighteenth-century city plans.

Honey counted the cars with undisguised envy. It helped to keep her mind off Smudger, the chicken breasts and the unbridled rivalry between those two, and, dare she think it, the question of murder.

‘Damn the woman. She’s full! Why couldn’t the chef have got killed when it was empty?’

Doherty attempted to hide his amusement and kept walking. ‘So you could gloat that she wasn’t full?’

She glowered at him, noticing the smirk playing around his mouth.

‘She would if it was the other way round. Bling Broadbent is a cow.’

‘Now, now, Honey. You’re on official business. Serious business. Time to put the claws away.’

‘It won’t matter to Bling Broadbent. She’ll smile and ask how I’m doing and I’ll say so so, and she’ll say “Well, actually, dahling, I’m terribly full at the moment.” It’s dahling when she’s sober. An earful of expletives when she isn’t.’

She shoved her hands in her pockets, a symbolic act that wasn’t lost on Steve. He smiled. ‘This business is more cut-throat than mine.’

He didn’t meet her eyes: best to plead ignorance rather than sour a blossoming relationship.

It was two in the morning and although blue lights flashed from police cars, most hotel guests continued to slumber on.

A disgruntled security guard wearing a surprised expression and a wrinkled uniform heaved a wooden barrier to one side.

A glow of amber light fell through the plate glass doors of the hotel entrance. A policeman stood guarding it. All attention and their footsteps were diverted to a sign marked
Tradesmen’s Entrance
, beneath which a figure bobbed about like a plump hobgoblin.

‘Here! This way,’ said Stella Broadbent in a loud whisper. She was waving her arms. Gold chains flashed around her neck; diamonds the size of grapefruits sparkled on her fingers. Her face was pink. She smelled of French perfume and strong wine.

‘Bling Broadbent? I’m Detective Sergeant …’

Stella Broadbent’s eyes fixed him with a stare sharp enough to nail bare feet to the floor. ‘Incorrect, Sergeant! My name is
Stella
Broadbent.’

Steve apologised. ‘This is a night for corrections,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I should have said Detective
Inspector
Steve Doherty. My promotion was only recent.’

‘Congratulations.’ Her eyes narrowed and her pursed lips reminded him of a cat’s rear end.

‘Follow me. The rest of your men are already here causing bloody havoc. It’s most disconcerting and bloody inconvenient.
Hic.
’

Steve raised his hand in a drinking motion to his mouth and looked at Honey.

‘You bet,’ she murmured. Gossip was rife that Bling Broadbent had a drink problem. And relationship problems, though sadly no money problems.

‘This way,’ she repeated ushering them down the side of the building. ‘I apologise for using this entrance, but I can’t have you disturbing my guests. It’s bad for business.’ She gave a brief nod in Honey’s direction. ‘It’s good to see that the Association is keeping its finger on the pulse.’

Honey gave a weak smile back. ‘I think we all know how important it is.’

‘More important than whose chicken breasts belong to whom,’ said Stella with a haughty toss of her head. She turned back to Steve. ‘My chef was threatened today by her bloody chef. He’s a temperamental sod! You should arrest him right now. Stands to reason. That’s who did it all right.’

Honey didn’t meet Steve’s questioning look. To his credit, he handled the situation pretty well.

‘All avenues will be explored,’ he said firmly.

‘Glad to bloody hear it,’ said Stella and hiccoughed again. She threw a sour look at Honey before motoring on towards the kitchen.

‘I thought you said her name was Bling,’ Steve whispered as they followed the hotel owner past an army of green wheelie bins and a large bottle bank.

‘Bling is what she wears,’ Honey whispered back. ‘Didn’t you see it flashing?’

‘Ah!’

Ungodly hour though it was, Honey flicked through the numbers on her phone. Casper didn’t know about this yet. Tourists getting murdered was one thing; that sort of thing really could affect trade. But the murder of chefs – even obnoxious ones – wouldn’t cause a devilish fall in profits, would it? There was no answer from Casper’s phone.

The tape around the crime scene fluttered like bunting at a second-rate carnival. The police were on one side of the tape; the specialists, Scene of Crime officers and the Forensics team, were on the other.

The kitchen had a red-tiled floor; Honey looked for the bloodstains, but there were none. So where was the body?

She craned her neck. The usual gang in jumpsuits were hunting around for evidence. Centre of attention was a flat-top Falcon heavyweight commercial oven. There were two of the sturdy metal beasts standing side by side. The other had five burners. Saucepans could be moved from the cooler edge of the flat top to the red hot middle, a boon to a busy chef. The last of kitchen heat hung in the air lying heavy on the chest. So did the smell of the kitchen waste spread over a stainless steel worktable.

The oven door on the flat top was open. A body was being eased out of the oven and into a body bag.

Had he been cooked?

No! Please!

‘Carefully now.’

The head of the corpse flopped back as he was lowered into place. A collar of blood seeped from a deep neck wound, staining his chef’s whites.

‘I won’t faint,’ muttered Honey, once she was convinced that Oliver Stafford didn’t resemble a well-roasted suckling pig.

‘What?’ asked Steve.

‘Oliver Stafford,’ she said.

‘And Smudger didn’t like him?’

Honey didn’t answer.

Zip
went the body bag.

‘Thank God for that.’

‘For what?’

‘That I didn’t know him very well. I’d hate to think of anyone I know well having their throat cut.’

‘My mother used to cut chickens’ throats,’ said Fleming, the on-duty pathologist, who was already drawing his pension but still remained committed to his work. ‘She used to knock them on the head with a piece of wood to stun them. Otherwise they run around without their heads.’

‘Is that right?’ said Doherty, with surprising curiosity and not a hint of revulsion. ‘Would the deceased have done that, then?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

Honey blinked. Did they have to be so off-hand about it all? She felt as though she were standing in the midst of a freezing cold cloud, puffy and floating and no longer attached to the earth.

Steve noticed. ‘You all right?’

‘Is this a nightmare or is it real?’

Someone chose that moment to drop a load of knives that were being taken for testing. The clatter of steel against tiles did something to her nervous system. The cloud rolled away.

She found her voice. ‘So you’re looking for a murder weapon?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Steve.

Stella Broadbent’s impossibly high heels came clattering down the corridor. She looked what she was; pompous, plump and pickled to the eyeballs.

‘Excuse me, officer, but I do require you to be finished and off the premises before my guests come down for breakfast. Now do hurry up. There’s a good fellow.’

Honey’s jaw dropped, though not for long once she’d reminded herself that sensitivity wasn’t part of Stella’s make-up. Still, at least the bad language had ceased.

Doherty had been dealing with the public too long to be surprised by her attitude. He responded curtly. ‘No. I won’t. I’ll do my job, thank you.’

He turned his back on her and addressed Honey. ‘I think Forensics will agree that a pretty big knife was used, one with a thick blade if that neck wound is anything to go by.’

Stella tugged at his sleeve. ‘Don’t turn your back on me, you bloody wanker. I want you to sod off. I’ve got a bloody business to run.’

Steve was as cool as iced Coca-Cola. ‘Madam, if you continue to use that language I’ll have to arrest you for being drunk and disorderly.’

Stella’s eyelids flickered like the pop-up numbers on an old-fashioned cash register.

‘But …’

Steve was adamant. ‘You can have your kitchen back when I’m good and ready. And not before!’

Stella made an effort to drag herself up to her full five feet four inches. ‘I don’t know that I will acquiesce to your demands!’

Steve frowned.

‘
Agree
,’ said Honey. ‘She’s not willing to agree to your demands.’

‘I know that,’ he muttered.

‘Sorry. I thought you were having another
bling
moment.’

An angry flush seeped through the Esteé Lauder foundation and rouged cheeks. ‘Stop this muttering. Get out of here and arrest that obnoxious sod she employs in her kitchen!’

She made a stab towards Honey with a red-tipped fingernail.

Steve squared her up. ‘All in good time, madam. First, I want you to round up all members of staff and guests who were on the premises tonight.’

‘My guests?’

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

‘Your guests.’

‘But what’s it got to do with them? Most of them were asleep in their beds when this happened.’

‘Then they can sign a statement saying so. If they’re still in bed, do it in the morning.’

Stella exhaled a deep breath, so deep she resembled a deflated beach ball. ‘Right. I will gather everyone still up together in the lounge …’

‘And your staff.’

‘Yes. My staff.’

‘And yourself.’

‘Myself? But I’m the hotel owner!’ Her head spun round as though it were fastened on a clockwork spring. ‘Honey! You represent the Association. Do something!’

Smarting from the accusations and implications already being flung around about Smudger, Honey resisted the urge to scratch Stella’s eyes out. Instead she’d enjoy the damned woman’s discomfort.

‘Stella,’ she said, adopting a soothing, sugary tone even though it threatened to choke her. ‘Look at it this way. You can make a statement in your own place or make one down at the police station. Imagine if anyone sees you down there! What are they going to think? Your social standing will be ruined for ever.’

Stella’s eyelids fluttered nervously.

Honey continued, her sugary voice becoming as gooey as melted toffee. ‘Now, tell me truly, which would you prefer?’

‘A few questions to kick off,’ said Doherty. ‘Did the deceased have any enemies?’

Stella held her hand out in front of her. A huge diamond, the one Honey thought was the size of a grapefruit, flashed on her finger. ‘See that diamond? That’s what Oliver was. A diamond among chefs. The best in Bath, perhaps even in the country. That’s why other chefs hated him. Isn’t that right, Mrs Driver?’

Stella’s scarlet lips curled back from her ultra-white porcelain. It wasn’t a smile, more of a snarl. Bling Broadbent had seen and heard everything that had gone on at the competition, and she was going to make sure that the police did, too.

‘Anyway, I told you who did it. Speak to her chef,’ she spat, one polished talon pointing at some place between Honey’s eyes. ‘He threatened to kill Oliver earlier today. Ask her! She knows it’s true!’

‘He didn’t mean it like that,’ Honey said to Steve. ‘He was upset because Oliver had stolen his breasts.’

Doherty’s eyebrows jerked upwards.

Honey explained. ‘Chicken breasts. Smudger said Oliver had swapped them. Ours were best quality and theirs were …’

Stella sprang from a deflated crouch into a feline attack. ‘How dare you! What would we want, stealing from a second-rate establishment
and
a second-rate chef!’

Now it was Honey who sprang. Steve got in between them.

‘Now, ladies!’

With a bit of help from the other officers, the two women were prevented from clawing each other’s eyes out.

‘Take her through there,’ said Steve nodding towards the hotel reception. ‘I’ll take this one outside.’

‘No fornicating with floozies on my premises!’ shouted Stella as she was propelled politely but firmly out of the room.

Steve wrapped his arms around Honey, lifted her off her feet and took her outside.

‘Put me down.’

He let her go. She landed with a scattering of gravel.

‘Cow,’ she muttered to herself. ‘She ought to strangle herself with that bloody gold chain. Or put it through her nose, like they do with cows!’

‘That’s bulls,’ said Doherty. ‘They put rings through the noses of bulls, not cows.’

‘Well,
that
one’s a cow,’ said Honey, thrusting her arm in the direction of the hotel entrance. A light went on in a ground floor room. She could see right into the bar through the hugely elegant oriole window. Stella was perched on a bar stool, accompanied by a bottle of something and a large glass. She poured, drank, and poured again.

‘
And
a lush,’ she added.

Steve was uninterested. She felt his eyes on her and knew they were full of questions. She knew he’d taken on board everything Stella had said. Too many witnesses had heard Smudger threaten Oliver Stafford. But surely Smudger couldn’t have been the only one. Chefs were competitive by nature. They made enemies easily. She imagined Steve’s questions. How many people had wanted to see Oliver Stafford dead? Is it true that your chef threatened to kill him only a few hours ago?

Drat! She hadn’t spoken to Smudger yet. Could she hold Steve off long enough to speak to Smudger first?

‘I haven’t congratulated you on your promotion,’ she said suddenly, smiling and throwing her arms around him. ‘How would you like to celebrate?’

She kissed him long and deep. Although looking taken aback, he kissed her back, the tip of his tongue tickling the back of her throat.