Read Online Something in the Blood (A Honey Driver Murder Mystery) by Jean G. Goodhind - Free Book Online

Zodiac?’’
    Doherty covered the mouthpiece and swore. Wanting to get her alone had backfired. The Zodiac was a restaurant beneath North Parade. A set of narrow steps led down to a barrel-roofed cellar that swept out beneath the road. At the other end to the entrance a glass-covered archway looked out over NorthParadeGardens. Laid out in the eighteenth century, the gardens were below the level of the road.
    It was a lovely spot, the green lawns plastered with tourists by day sitting on the benches, rubbing their bare feet and swearing not to go on any more ghost walks, Austen Walks, and tours of the Roman Baths.
    Trouble was the Zodiac didn’t open until nine o’clock at night, and didn’t shut until three in the morning. Hence the city’s hoteliers and publicans, their only free time being between midnight and dawn, frequented it. Like vampires, thought Steve Doherty, they only come out at night.
    Doherty visualised his duty roster. On duty until ten tonight, and on again at six tomorrow …
    ‘OK,’ he said, cursing himself for being so easily led. ‘I’ll be there.’ He pulled his face out of shape as a thought occurred to him. Sian Williams would be on duty with him tonight and a bird in the hand …
    Honey made things easy for him. ‘But not tonight. Not this week in fact. How about Friday week?’
    His whole body relaxed. That was when the roster changed. At least he’d get a lie in the following morning. And Sian Williams would be on a different shift. Best to keep women divided. It kept them interested.
    ‘Suits me fine.’
    There was no one hanging around in reception except for Mrs Spear pushing the vacuum cleaner. She was singing along to whatever she was listening to on an iPod.
    Honey gave her a wave. She didn’t notice.
    A totally frameless conservatory, an extravagance she’d never regretted, led off the reception area. Through its unsullied glass she could see the abbey, the mansard roofs, the tall chimneys framing the green hills circling the city like giant arms.
    This was the view that tourists came to see; so why had Elmer Maxted stayed at a cheap guest house frequented by those on a very tight budget? His luggage was expensive and although private detectives were portrayed as dirt poor in TV programmes, it wasn’t necessarily true and certainly not in his case.
    Her thoughts were interrupted.
    ‘Honey! Honey, darling!’
    She recognised the voice of Mary Jane Jefferies, who’d been a regular visitor to the Green River for years.
    Wearing a pink caftan over equally pink trousers, the tall woman floated towards her waving a copy of the BathCity bus timetable.
    ‘I have a problem,’ she said. Five amazingly long fingers dug into Honey’s shoulder. Firmly gripped, she was steered into the sitting room.
    ‘Or rather, I think you have a problem,’ said Mary Jane, her voice dropping to not much more than a whisper. ‘Take a seat.’
    Mary Jane was a doctor of parapsychology a ghost goddess as she’d explained to Honey when they’d first met.
    ‘Which is why I keep coming back here, Honey. You have a resident ghost.’
    That little morsel of wisdom had been exclaimed in one of Mary Jane’s earlier visits.
    Honey had accepted the fact without argument. Yes, she knew the place was old and it creaked and groaned through the night, but then, didn’t all old buildings do that? And yes, it was old, but not old when compared with Stonehenge or the Roman Baths. The outside was imposing but promised comfort; the large, oblong windows glowed amber with inner light at night and by day sparkled in sunlight. The décor was fresh and fitting for the age of the house. Honey had no trouble sleeping between its aching walls. What was two hundred years in the great scheme of things?
    As Mary Jane chattered on, talking about her relative that just happened to live in the same room she was currently staying in, a retired university professor from Connecticut strolled past the window, her mother walking