Caribbean Sunset with a Yellow Parrot (The Belchester Chronicles Book 5) Read online

  Make that three, for she would dearly love to know what Windy’s dark secret was. There had to be one or there would not have been a letter in the first place. What had she and Beep-Beep got to hide that couldn’t be made public to her old chums? Rubbing her smarting leg, she moved on to the next occupied property.

  Meanwhile, back at the party, Wuffles was in combative mood, and had, by now, button-holed Windy, and was challenging her about why she had to share a villa with Longshanks. She didn’t mind Droopy-Drawers, who was also staying in the same villa: in fact, she wouldn’t have minded anyone else, but surely Windy remembered how at daggers-drawn those two had always been at school.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Wuffles, old stick, but I’d simply forgotten. It was so long ago that it had completely slipped my mind,’ she apologised. ‘I’d forgotten the childish animosity about Horseface and Fflageolet as well, and look where that got me.’

  ‘How on earth could you forget that dorm fight where we ended up bursting half a dozen pillows and ripping one mattress almost to shreds, as well as tearing out each other’s hair? Or that scrap on the hockey pitch, where we gave each other simultaneous concussion with our sticks?’

  ‘I can’t imagine how I didn’t remember those two events, but unfortunately, I forgot. If you’d like me to move you to an empty property, I’ll be happy to do so, but I don’t think I can disturb Longshanks, as she hasn’t made any complaint.’

  At this offer, Wuffles looked sulky, and said she would sleep on it and let her know the next day. ‘I don’t want to cause any bad feeling,’ she muttered.

  ‘I would have thought staying on in the same villa would have been more of a recipe for disaster,’ opined Windy, and Wuffles shuffled away to get herself the solace of another of Beauchamp’s excellent cocktails.

  Windy sighed with relief, only to espy Fflageolet heading in her direction with a determined expression on her face. Oh, God, what now? she thought, and grabbed a glass of ready-mixed patience from the table to sustain her through her next ordeal.

  Fflageolet, her emotions stirred up earlier by the murder of Adonis, had distracted herself by remembering Horseface’s accusation of the theft of her diamond tennis bracelet. All this had done was get her temper up, and she was determined to have a damned good word with Windy, for although the ex-head girl had broken up the fight, she felt she was due an apology from somebody – anybody – but Windy was the nearest to her, and she’d do as well as anybody, the mood Fflageolet was in.

  ‘You owe me an apology big time,’ she said in a rasping voice, pointing a finger at Windy aggressively.

  ‘Whatever for, Fflageolet? What have I done now?’

  ‘It’s what you haven’t done. You came over and broke up that fight between me and Horseface, and you found her bracelet safe and sound, but I don’t remember you saying sorry to me.’

  ‘I had nothing to apologise for. It wasn’t I who accused you of stealing anything,’ replied Windy, retaining her dignity. ‘I’m sure Horseface apologised very nicely when she realised she was in the wrong. Did she?’

  Fflageolet’s face was a mask of confusion. ‘I can’t … I can’t actually remember,’ she stuttered.

  ‘Bet she did. It’s just the drink. Relax, enjoy yourself, and just let everything go for tonight,’ Windy advised, and Fflageolet wandered aimlessly away towards the bar. The sound of swearing drifted through the open patio doors from some distance away, but Windy just assumed that it was some of the locals in horseplay.

  Meanwhile, Hugo had been completely unaware of the lanky figure of Horseface creeping up on him, and it was only when she let a hand drop on to his shoulder that he knew there was anybody behind him. ‘Dance, Hugs?’ the figure enquired, and she grabbed Hugo and began to sway to the quiet strains of the old-fashioned wind-up gramophone player which Beep-Beep had started up in the back garden.

  Hugo was too polite to refuse, but after what she asked him next, he wished he had done. ‘How’s your dribbly bum?’ she asked forthrightly. ‘I hear you had quite a time on the old latrine the other night.’

  Blushing a bright shade of scarlet, Hugo explained rather haltingly that his problem was completely better, and that he would be grateful if she wouldn’t mention it again, as the memory was still too vivid.

  ‘’S nothing to be ashamed of,’ she continued, refusing to leave the situation alone. ‘A lot of people suffer from a form of Delhi Belly when they go away to foreign climes. I’ve been quite loose myself, to be honest. You’re certainly not on your own. Hey, everybody, Hugs’s dribbly bum’s better,’ she concluded, raising her voice so that as many guests as possible could hear this important announcement.

  Excusing himself as the tune ended and his embarrassment rose to crippling proportions, Hugo agreed that this was indeed so, and he removed himself so that he could be just that – alone and undisturbed for a while. He was of the opinion that some of the old girls were already the worse for wear, as far as cocktails were concerned, and it wasn’t just his stomach that was easily upset.

  Meanwhile, back in the rear gardens, Lady Amanda swore loudly again as she knocked over a dustbin. The light of her torch had just started to fail, and it had blinked out altogether for a few seconds; just long enough for her to stumble over the dustbin, sending both it and her sprawling on the grass.

  ‘Bugger! Damn! Blast! Merde!’ she finished, in French, thinking that swearing in another language wasn’t so bad as swearing in one’s parent tongue. Lady A then clapped a hand to her mouth, and listened intently to discern whether anyone had heard her incontinent language. All was quiet, however, so she inspected the contents of the bin she had knocked over which, fortunately, didn’t include any messy food scraps, then moved on to the next one.

  She didn’t actually enter the garden of number seven, for from this close proximity, she could see a light moving inside number five, the villa Douglas Huddlestone-Black had been using, and she was quite sure that if the police wanted to search it at this time of the evening, they would not be doing so with a torch, There was someone in there who had no right to be and, as far as she knew, all the old girls were at the cocktail party at her and Hugo’s place.

  Making as little noise as possible, she began to creep closer and closer to the back gate, hoping that she could surprise whoever was in there, at the same time, hoping that she wouldn’t, for there was no guarantee of a good outcome to the situation.

  As she opened the back gate, she could see that the back door was not properly shut. She also heard the most awful screech from the hinges of the gate, and froze, lest her presence be detected. Immediately the torch, or whatever it was, was turned off in the interior of the villa. She heard the sound of the front door opening with some force, as it bumped back against the wall in the hall, then she heard footsteps disappearing away from the villa.

  Feeling that it was now safe for her to enter, she did so, going straight to the open front door and seeing the silhouette of a tall figure just disappearing round the end of number one, the last house on this side. Who was it, and what had they been looking for?

  It was the same figure she had seen watching the boat and the dinghy from the beach, and the same one she had seen disappearing into the undergrowth at the lagoon. She just could not put an identity to it. Were all the girls at her place, or had one of them slipped out, as she had done? The only one tall enough was Horseface, who wasn’t exactly the most feminine of women and, in the dark, could easily be mistaken for a man. On the other hand, she was quite sure Horseface had been at the lagoon when she saw that furtive figure amongst the huge ferns that grew around its shoreline.

  Her memory wasn’t as exact as she would like, and she’d have to leave that thought to work away at itself while her mind was elsewhere. For the moment, she went round to the back of number one, but there was no sign of anyone. Now, Horseface lived in number one, so she might just look through the windows of that particular abode, to see if she had come back, but she could detect no movement
or light inside, and was sure the place was unoccupied.

  Going back to the garden of number five, she found a very large refuse container, and had to stand on a handy lump of stone to look inside it. It really was cavernous, she thought, as she bent her head, then the top of her body inside, trying to identify if there were any discarded newspapers or magazines in the bottom.

  At that moment the garbage can literally ate her, as her centre of gravity shifted from outside the container to inside, and she tumbled in head first, pulling the thing over on its side as she went. Ah, so there had been something in there after all, she thought, as a certain stickiness made itself known at her midriff.

  She crawled backwards to escape her prison and, having done so and put on her penlight, she found that the three old girls who were staying at number five must have had doggy bags from one of their meals out: doggy bags containing ribs in hot sauce. Her middle section was smeared with the stuff, one of the ribs actually sticking to the front of her immaculate silk kaftan.

  With a snort of disgust, she picked it away, inserted it back in the bin and righted the bin, before deciding to abandon her task. Not only had she been away long enough from her party, but she urgently needed to change. She smelt hot and spicy, and could remain in her present state no longer without feeling slightly sick.

  On the other hand, if she had a quick rummage through the refuse at number two, she would have finished this side, and that would only leave her with Cocktails itself, which she couldn’t search, what with the party going on next door. Apart from where she and Hugo were staying, the only occupied villa on this side of the road was Beauchamp and Enid’s, and she was sure those two hadn’t had the time, let alone the knowledge, to send an anonymous letter to Windy.

  Nothing suspicious discovered in the last bin of her investigative trip, Lady Amanda made her way back to number fifteen, wondering how she was going to explain the state of her kaftan to the others, who hadn’t even known she’d slipped out, let alone why.

  She was lucky, in that most of the party-goers had gone out into the garden to enjoy the nostalgic music and the tropical night air, and that Hugo, who had just come out of the downstairs facilities, saw her shape through the glass of the front door. Opening it, he looked at her aghast, and asked her what the heck she had been up to.

  As Lady Amanda entered the hall and inhaled a large breath to explain her sticky and messy condition, Windy and Beep-Beep strolled back into the villa and saw her. She immediately made a ninety degree turn so that she was facing the wall, and answered their greeting from this position.

  ‘What on earth are you doing, Sniffy?’ asked Windy.

  ‘I was … I was … just considering that this piece of wall would look good with a picture hanging from it,’ she improvised, then sidled her way along the wall muttering, ‘And here … and here,’ until she reached the foot of the staircase. ‘Well, I just want to go up to my room to freshen up,’ she declared boldly, and began to mount the staircase. Unfortunately, about five steps up, it turned sharply to the left, and she went up the remainder of the steps in a strange crab-like shuffle, keeping her front deliberately away from prying eyes.

  ‘Are you all right, Sniffy?’ called Windy after her, and Hugo put out a hand to restrain her from following.

  ‘She’ll be fine. She probably just needs to take one of her indigestion tablets. Alcohol sometimes does that to her.’ Hugo was quite good at making up stories too, but he’d have to remember to tell Manda that she took the medication when he got the chance to speak to her again in private.

  Gently he guided Windy and Beep-Beep back to the heart of the party, and snuck back to the hall to see if Manda had come down yet. He found her just arriving back on the ground floor, now wearing a locally-bought kaftan, with no sign of the filthy silk she had arrived in at the front door.

  ‘What on earth had happened to you?’ asked Hugo, determined to get the truth out of her.

  ‘I just had a run-in with the contents of a dustbin,’ she whispered, looking from side to side to see if anyone could overhear her. ‘Wait till everybody’s gone, and I’ll fill you in on the details.’ And with this, he had to be content for now. She was evidently not going to spill even one bean while everyone else was in the house.

  Although some of the old girls remarked on her change of kaftan, they were in such a state of relaxation by now that they merely took it as normal that she should change mid-party, and for this, she was relieved. Only Windy went that little bit further, and fixed her with a steely gaze of interrogation. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Lady A hissed at her in an undertone, and wafted off majestically like a proud galleon in full-sail.

  The first to leave was Fflageolet. So small was her build that she was easily carried home by Horseface, dead to the world, drowned in a sea of alcohol. Longshanks wasn’t long behind her, carried by her arms and legs like an upturned turtle by Wuffles and Droopy-Drawers. They’d feel awful in the morning, but nothing that couldn’t be cured by a hair of the dog that bit them and a damned good fry-up.

  The others dribbled off in ones and twos, and soon, only Windy and Beep-Beep, Beauchamp and Enid, and Lady Amanda and Hugo remained, and Beauchamp shut the open patio doors to keep out any more insects than had already joined them for a feast on very well-hung meat.

  The six of them settled down in the sitting room, the ladies with a Yellow Parrot each, the gentlemen with Caribbean Sunsets to hand, and Windy felt bold enough to ask, in this reduced company, why Lady Amanda had acted so strangely in the hall and on the stairs, and why she had changed her kaftan.

  She explained about her investigations in the gardens, drawing sympathy for her barked shin, and horror that she had entered a house which probably contained Adonis’ murderer. Having told them that the place was in even more of a state than it had been when they had gone there to view the newly discovered corpse, she gave her opinion that someone was looking for something that they hadn’t found yet, and reiterated her recollections of having seen the tall figure before, but not being able to place exactly who it was.

  When she got to the part of the story where she fell into a bin, they all hooted with laughter, and were most unkind about her hot sauce-stained kaftan. ‘I’ll bet you haven’t looked so hot or smelt so seductive in years,’ commented Beep-Beep, earning himself a savage scowl. Beauchamp cleared his throat in embarrassment at this uncalled for and insulting remark, and knew that Lady Amanda would, somehow, get her own back on him.

  ‘Will we be going round for viewings tomorrow, then?’ asked Lady Amanda, out of the blue, and Hugo spiked her with an inquisitive eye. She was up to something; he was sure of it.

  ‘I expect we’ll be bothered by the police in the morning, but I see no reason why we can’t go round them in the afternoon. Beep-Beep and I will lead separate parties, so that there aren’t too many of us in one house at any time. I’ll give you a tinkle about the timing,’ replied Windy.

  ‘Could you be sure and put Hugo and me in the second group, and Beauchamp and Enid in the first?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course. I’m sure you have your reasons,’ Windy responded, hoping that these would be revealed, but no dice there, though.

  ‘Oh, I do. And I should like us to look at all of the villas: even the ones the girls are staying in. I expect they’ll all want to look in this one, and we don’t mind, do we Hugo?’

  ‘Uh?’ Hugo hadn’t been paying attention.

  ‘We won’t mind if the girls all look round this villa if they’re viewing tomorrow, will we?’

  ‘Er, no,’ he muttered, thinking that he’d have to make sure there was no way they could go through his underwear. He wouldn’t put it past them, so he’d better lock personal items like that in his suitcase and make sure he had the key with him, when they were going round.

  ‘Do you remember that girl, Fiona, with the braces and the waist-length hair at school?’ asked Windy, the final drink of the evening suddenly making her come over all nostalgic.

&n
bsp; ‘I believe I do,’ replied Lady A. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Did you ever hear the story of her baby blankets and the nanny?’

  ‘No. Go on.’

  Windy started to chuckle as she remembered. ‘When she was born, her mother did her best for family politics. As she had had a girl, she called her Fiona after her own mother, with the middle name Olivia, after her mother in-law, but she completely disregarded her married name. Do you remember the family name, Sniffy?’

  ‘Finlay-Finch, if my memory serves me correctly,’ replied Lady A, with a small smirk of triumph. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Her mother only went and had the kid’s initials embroidered on the top right-hand corner of all her pram blankets, and when Nanny saw the child all tucked up in her perambulator with that sewn on, she fainted away, and had to be roused with smelling salts.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Hugo, who still wasn’t giving the conversation his full attention, as it was well past his usual bedtime.

  ‘Her mother had had her initials embroidered on her pram blankets, Hugo,’ explained Windy slowly and carefully, ‘and her name was Fiona Olivia Finlay-Finch. Just think of the initials.

  Hugo’s ears went pink, as realisation dawned, and he said, ‘Didn’t her mother notice?’

  ‘She had led too much of a sheltered childhood to realise what it meant,’ said Windy, finally driving home the final nail in the coffin of what she had considered a quick and amusing little story. Hugo had certainly put paid to that.

  When it was just the two of them again, Hugo asked her what she intended to do on these proposed viewings. ‘I’m going to hang around at the back of the group, especially in those properties that are occupied at the moment, and have a little riffle through their pedal bins, or wherever they put their domestic rubbish. I’m also going to go out into all the back gardens again and see if I can see signs of anyone having burnt anything. In my opinion, that would be the sensible thing to do with any newspapers or periodicals from which letters had been cut.’