Bloody Ham: A Belinda Lawrence Mystery

By Brian Kavanagh

The third adventure for Belinda and Hazel continuing the pace and humour that readers have come to acknowledge and appreciate. Excitement and tension begin on the first day of filming a Restoration drama on location at the historic Jacobean mansion, Ham House in Surrey when one of the leading players collapses and dies. With the death ruled non-accidental the director, producer and members of the cast are all suspects.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781922204622

Book preview

Epilogue

Prologue

In the darkened cinema, Hazel Whitby’s fingers transmuted into an unctuous bejewelled spider, Jungle Red fingernails covertly testing the chocolates for hard or soft centres.

The crimson blood dripped relentlessly from the ceiling of the old house.

Amanda looked up at the horrifying sight and realised the attic contained the answer to the secret for which she’d been searching all these years. She ran to the ladder leading to the trapdoor, the entrance to the mysterious loft. Steadying herself against the wall Amanda quickly mounted the steps. The vermilion blood-soaked ceiling edged closer, ever closer as she ascended. A hairy hand lunged from the shadows and grasped her ankle.

Hazel grinned and sank unsparing teeth into a caramel chocolate.

Amanda screamed and turned to find the deformed old man, his eyes ablaze with lust, lunging after her. With a swift stroke of the heavy iron poker she carried, she defended herself and struck the vile creature a blow that sent him reeling. He collapsed against the mildewed and now blood-smeared wall, his hate filled eyes gradually losing their focus as death swiftly engulfed his impotent frame.

Hazel gave a chocolate coated giggle.

Gasping for breath, Amanda reached the top of the ladder and, with a screwdriver she carried, forced the lock of the door. It swung upwards. Her heart in her mouth, Amanda clambered into the pitch black of the attic. She switched on the torch she carried and the white beam of light flashed around the evil smelling room.

A form, dark and unspeakable, swung towards her and she hit out at it with her torch. The wavering beam of light revealed in nightmare sequence the still, dead accusing eyes of skinned animals, sheep, foxes, goats, their blood covered cadavers swinging from rusty hooks.

Hazel sniggered loudly and nudged her companion.

Nauseous and disgusted, Amanda backed down the ladder, down to the comparative safety of the old house. As she reached the bottom rung her blood froze as she saw a moving shadow slither across the hallway.

In blind terror she realised there was still another living being in the house.

Suddenly the black shape leapt at her and Amanda plunged the formidable carving knife she carried, deep into her assailant’s chest.

Again and again and again she wielded the bloody weapon.

With a cry the man fell back into the light and Amanda saw, as the life spilled from his body, that she had killed her father.

In the already departing audience, Hazel discharged a loud guffaw.

Finally Amanda realised that her father had been responsible for all the murders and now at last she was free. Free from the horror of his unnatural love and free from the terror of his vicious hatred.

The End. Fade to black.

One

To the accompaniment of screeching violins – a cacophony that should have had the ghost of Bernard Herrmann speed dialling his LA attorney and screaming Plagiarism! – the film’s credits rolled relentlessly on. Embarrassed, red plush curtains swished to a close as though to hastily cover a crime, in this case a cinematic one, allowing pale Odeonesque light to saturate the cinema and dissolve the tawdry atmosphere created by the economical film production.

As she stepped out into late afternoon light of the warm Somerset evening, Hazel Whitby was still chuckling aloud. She slipped her arm through that of her young male companion and gave another loud guffaw.

The silly bitch must have had a hardware shop hidden somewhere on that ladder. Every time she turned around she had something different in her hand. A torch. An iron poker. A screwdriver. And finally a bloody great carving knife. She punched the man on her arm on his. Really, Tim. Didn’t you have a continuity girl, or whatever you call them?

Tim Hindley, a good looking, well-developed thirty-five year old, scratched his blond head and replied mock defensively: Well, I told you it was a low budget picture.

"Low Budget? No budget, more like." Hazel sniggered as they turned towards Lansdown Road and fought their way through a group of bilious looking tourists fresh from partaking the slightly disgusting waters in the Bath Pump Room adjoining the Roman Baths.

Hazel had met the young film editor during a recent visit to London and as he had a few spare days before starting work on a new film he’d gladly accepted her invitation to stay with her in her flat in Bath. Being Australian he had not visited the West Country before and Hazel was more than happy to show him the local sights, which included quite a detailed study of the landscape within her bedroom. If people looked askance at the younger man on the older woman’s arm, Hazel, at least, gave no validation to their criticism.

What she did with her life was her affair, and she’d had quite a few of those she thought smugly. Not bad for a fifty… er… forty year old divorcee whose husband, after thirty years of marriage, had made off with the common or garden blonde bimbo.

It had taken quite a sizeable financial settlement to assuage Hazel’s hurt, but the pain had been alleviated by investing the money in her antique shops and by investing her well-preserved charms in a string of strictly non-antique gentlemen friends. She had kept her figure and appearance more by good luck than by design, although cosmetics and designer clothes had certainly played their part. This summer her hair was red. What colour it was to be in the autumn was yet to be decided – and not by nature.

And this is the fourth film you’ve made with this Australian director? What’s his name? said Hazel as she turned the key in the door of her flat.

The one he’s shooting here next month will be the fourth, said Tim, stepping into the Lansdown Crescent apartment. His name’s Giovanni Pergolesi. Gio to his mates. The Slug to those whose life he has ruined.

Charming. But if he’s so horrible why do you keep working with him?

Gio’s the sort of director who shoots the arse out of every scene and lets the editor put it together. He doesn’t understand editing and leaves me pretty much alone, which means that I can get on with the job without him breathing down my neck all the time. Plus, he pays well.

Pergolesi doesn’t sound very Australian, said Hazel while she collected her mail from the mailbox. But it seems vaguely familiar.

Same name as an eighteenth century Italian composer, said Tim, as he stood at the window and looked at the beautiful Georgian city spread out before him. Gio’s family is Italian. Arrived in Australia after the war. Had a small vineyard just outside of Melbourne. Gio was born there and eventually worked at a local television station as a floor manager until he scraped together enough to make his first film. Largely autobiographical, about a migrant Italian family starting a new life in Australia.

He turned and walked back to join Hazel, giving her a kiss on the back of her neck. Hazel glowed. Until then he was always called plain John Bertoli, but when he started getting publicity he thought Giovanni had more class. He added Pergolesi after he saw the name on a record cover and thought it sounded more creative, you know, like Antonioni or Zeffirelli. Not that it did him any good. He still turned out rubbish.

Are all his films as bad as the one we’ve just seen? said Hazel, wrinkling her nose as though to confirm a bad smell.

Some. He made a name for himself with a few early films that were quite good but then started to believe his own publicity.

How? Hazel began to pour two gin and tonics.

He thought he was better than he was. And he was seduced by offers from Los Angeles, but they were all pretty much standard Hollywood crap. Lately his career’s hit rock bottom and with four wives and countless kids to support he desperately needs a hit.

Oh, so he’s a ladies’ man?

In his opinion.

Hazel handed him his drink and took a heavy duty swig of her own. Which means you don’t think he is?

She reached for the telephone. It was her turn to cook dinner so she was about to ring and make a reservation at a favourite restaurant, which was her equivalent of tying on an apron and turning on the oven.

As I said, he believes his own publicity.

Hazel chortled and rang the restaurant. The reservation being made she sank onto the sofa and flicked idly through the day’s mail. So tell me about his love life.

"Unofficially anything that moves and what doesn’t he kicks until it does. The official list is his first wife, a young girl he knew from school days. The Italian girl next door, that sort of thing. Probably set up by the family. Divorced once his so called career began to take off. She and the babies were considered an embarrassment to his image.

Then came a young model who was as power hungry as himself. That lasted until she found someone with a bigger income. In Hollywood it was the mandatory star who turned out to be a transsexual.

That must have been a surprise to him.

To them both, I suspect. The fourth and last was an heiress from Italy but her family had it annulled.

He’s been a busy little bugger, hasn’t he? Hazel smiled. A post card from Melbourne showing an omnipresent cuddly Koala fell onto her lap. Expect me on Friday morning, she read aloud, before flicking the card across the room.

Expect…? said Tim, stretching his legs and arms wide giving Hazel the luxury of feasting her eyes on his young energetic body.

Belinda. My business partner. She was constantly amazed how easily the sight of the male form – even clothed – unhinged her attention. She’s a compatriot of yours.

Australian?

Raised there. Naturalised but has lived here near Bath for the past few years. She inherited a cottage from an old aunt.

Lucky girl.

Luckier than you think. Hazel rose and began to pour a fresh gin. It turns out that a couple of hundred years ago a very famous landscape gardener designed the garden on the property. One of the few small gardens he designed, apparently. Belinda had it restored and now makes quite a nice living permitting horticultural freaks from around the world to pay for the privilege of traipsing through the muck and mud.

You sound as though you have no interest in gardening.

Hazel turned up her nose.

So how come she’s your business partner?

Her old house is open to the public as well as the garden, and I’ve furnished it with some of my antique bits and bobs to promote my shops. Furniture, bric a brac, that sort of thing. Dressing the place up to look like it would have in the past. Set dressing I suppose you’d call it in your business. She also helps me with the shop here in Bath and the one in Wells. She glanced at her watch. We’d better head off to the restaurant. I’ve booked my favourite table.

Tim stretched out on the sofa and unbuttoned his shirt. Pity. I really fancy eating in tonight.

But I’m a lousy cook, you know that, said Hazel with some conviction.

Tim gave a carnal smirk. I wasn’t thinking of cooking anything.

Suddenly Hazel felt she’d lost her appetite – at least for food.

The first class cabin was in darkness when Belinda Lawrence awoke. As she removed her eyeshade and ear plugs the roar of the jet engines increased. She breathed in the scent that greets each new day. Coffee. That meant breakfast was about to be served, and that after the long haul flight from Melbourne they were nearing Europe.

Belinda stretched her long legs, ran her fingers through her silky black hair and lifted the window shade. The sun was just rising, breaking through the clouds, and it flooded the cabin with its warm golden light. A new day and the uncertainty of returning home to England. Home. Strange how a girl raised in the suburbs of an Australian city could call England home but that was how Belinda now thought of her cottage in the village at Milford. The West Country had seduced her and her friendship with Hazel Whitby, together with the antique business they shared, had brought great contentment into her life.

And then there was Mark Sallinger.

Mark and she been lovers now for two years but recently their relationship had shown signs of disharmony. That is why she had decided to go to Australia. To give their relationship some space – and to think.

Mark was keen to marry and now that he had his own successful real estate business dealing in upmarket properties and desirable country houses, he felt the time was right. Belinda was not so sure. She would be thirty next birthday and although she loved Mark passionately she held back from this final commitment. A happy marriage was important to her. By that she meant a permanent marriage. She’d seen too many of her friends marry in haste and repent at leisure. That was not for her and although what she felt for Mark was genuine she still wanted time to be sure. However, the trip to Australia, undertaken to put things in perspective, had done nothing to simplify her problem. Quite the reverse.

It had been interesting to visit and catch up with her old school chums, to observe their wins and losses. At a party in Melbourne she had run across Brad Delaney, now a successful architect with three exciting building projects around the country. Brad and Belinda had both once worked with the University’s theatre group, he in set design and she as Assistant Stage Manager. Often, after the nightly performance, they would jump into his old beaten up car and drive down the bay to Queenscliff and watch the waves roll in from Bass Strait. Over fish and chips and a glass of wine they would map out their futures and their plans to change the world.

The world went its own sweet way unchanged, at least by them, but Brad’s career had flourished and when he asked Belinda to stay on for a few weeks longer to join him in Surfers Paradise, where he was supervising construction of a new apartment block, she jumped at the chance. The few weeks had spread into seven as Belinda soaked up the Queensland sun and enjoyed Brad’s company. Her earlier relationship with Brad had been frivolous. They were young and good mates more than anything. Now there was the prospect of something more. Brad had a promising career ahead of him. He was witty, charming and full of vitality – plus he was a down to earth Aussie bloke. He and Australia had much to offer and for the first time Belinda questioned her commitment to Mark and her life in England.

Frantic messages from Hazel, reminding her of the approaching summer season and the need to open the cottage and garden to the tour groups, finally produced enough guilt within Belinda for her to plead prior commitments and after hurried farewells to Brad, along with exchanged phone numbers, she now found herself about to land at Heathrow with more problems than when she had departed.

Coffee or orange juice? The flight attendant appeared at her side.

Oh, orange juice then coffee, please, Belinda smiled, but first I’d better repair the damage. She rose and headed to the washroom. The cabin was still in a half light but her gaze went automatically to the tall dark form asleep four seats away. He lay back, the blanket pulled down to his waist and his shirt undone to reveal the light tan of his chest.

She hurried on her way and shut the washroom door, as much for privacy as to cover her mortification. The mirror reflected her blushes as she hurriedly set about applying her make-up. Idiot. He must think me a real dill, Belinda thought as she recalled the events of the previous night.

Bored with her selection of films, games and recordings, she had wandered down the cabin in search of a magazine. She was conscious of male eyes upon her as she flipped through Time, Country Life, and Paris Match. Making her selection she turned, and as she did the plane hit clear air turbulence. The floor dropped from beneath her, the ceiling approached and she found herself falling into the arms and the lap of the silver-haired handsome man. His eyes smiled, his grip had tightened and he murmured: May I hold you?

What he had actually said was: May I help you? but in her confusion Belinda misunderstood.

No, she gasped and struggled to her feet. In a purgatory of discomfort Belinda had made her way back to her seat aware of his eyes following her.

Stepping out of the washroom Belinda came face to face with those same eyes.

"Bonjour,