Vampire Murders in Morocco

By B. F. Cayzer

Happy Harrow, a Kentucky hills jockey who moonlights as a sleuth, is married to Rick Harrow, an Eton-educated English racehorse trainer. Their training stables and home are in Epsom, England, a delightful and picturesque area. Their newest owner, Achilles Pinot, a tycoon of France's perfume industry gave

• Language: English
• Publisher: WordHouse Book Publishing
• Release date: Nov 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685470326

B. F. Cayzer

Beatrice Fairbanks Cayzer is a member of the Adams family. Her direct ancestor, who immigrated from England to America in 1634, was Henry Adams, whose only daughter married George Fairbanks. Her mother was a member of the Adams-Fairbanks family and often recounted secrets of that family. Her father was a United States Ambassador three times and negotiated the treaty that ended the war between Peru and Ecuador at the urging of President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt. She has lived in South America, as well as forty years in England, and still maintains a home in France. She is in love with a scientist who has twice been nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Book preview

Books by Beatrice Fairbanks Cayzer

TALES OF PALM BEACH

THE PRINCES AND PRINCESSES OF WALES

ROYAL LOVERS (with Barbara Cartland)

THE ROYAL WORLD OF ANIMALS

DIANE, PRINCESS DE POLIGNAC

MURDER BY MEDICINE

THE HAPPY HARROW MURDER TRILOGY

VAMPIRE MURDERS IN MOROCCO

KENNEDYS IN LOVE

THE SECRET DIARY OF MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

KIDNAPPED IN JERUSALEM

LOVE STORIES IN AFRICA

This book is dedicated to Oprah Winfrey, for the great work she has done for Africans.

I continue to dedicate my work to H.M. Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.

List of Characters

RICK HARROW

A British race horse trainer and the books narrator.

HILLARY HARROW

Rick’s wife nicknamed Happy, a racehorse jockey and sleuth.

ACHILLES PINOT

Rick’s newest owner, who had recently bought a yearling that Rick believed, would be a winner.

YOLANDE PINOT

Achilles’ childless wife, an elegant French woman of breeding.

PRISCILLA PINOT

Achilles’ niece, who picks up men from the street.

AGATHA BRUCE

A widow who had a suite in the same hotel where all the above had rooms.

KEITH BRUCE

Agatha’s twenty-five year old son who is mother-smothered, working with her in their family pharmacy, and whose only escape is to go surfing at resorts around the world.

DR. ROUSSEAU

The Pinot’s closest friend, known as the ‘feel good’ doctor, because he gave Achilles daily injections that buoyed him.

GISELLE ROUSSEAU

Divorced wife of Dr. Rousseau

IAN MCNAB

A practicing psychiatrist at Edinburgh, who had a lifelong crush on Agatha, rents rooms in Marrakech.

MAHEEN PALAZZO

Happy’s bestfriend.

LUCA PALAZZO

An Italian policeman and Maheen’s husband.

Table of Contents

Chapter One 1

Chapter Two 7

Chapter Three 11

Chapter Four 19

Chapter Five 25

Chapter Six 33

Chapter Seven 37

Chapter Eight 39

Chapter Nine 49

Chapter Ten 59

Chapter Eleven 67

Chapter Twelve 73

Chapter Thirteen 81

Chapter Fourteen 87

Chapter Fifteen 91

Chapter Sixteen 97

Chapter Seventeen 103

Chapter Eighteen 111

Chapter Nineteen 113

Chapter Twenty 121

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 128

SUMMARY 130

Chapter One

Boom equals doom. That’s what Happy and I learned when we were given a vacation in Morocco’s booming resort town, Agadir.

To thank us for winning two glorious races with his horses, our newest owns, elegant perfume industry tycoon Achilles Pinot, had sent us the airplane tickets and pre-paid accommodations for two weeks at a resort hotel in Agadir, on Morocco’s lower Atlantic coast.

My wife and I hadn’t had a vacation in the six years we were married. We were gently anticipating fun on this holiday when we left our home in Epsom England with our three children.

My name is Rick Harrow. I’m a British trainer of racehorses, none of which has ever won the English Derby, although a horse I’d prepared did take a derby, in Arkansan, in the United States. My Kentucky-hills born wife, Hillary, aka Happy, works as an apprentice jockey. Neither of us makes enough money to meet our expenses. I don’t have enough owners in my stable, and Happy doesn’t get rides in the big races that pay real money. My upper is sex with my wife. Her upper is sleuthing.

Like in most expensive resort towns, vacationers in Agadir needed plenty of cash. Not even the beaches were free. We thought we could spend our days romping in the sands with five-year-old Tim, four-year-old Dorothy and baby Richard. No way. Tourists had to pay for loungers, beach umbrellas and the use of a roped-in area safe from plundering beggars. Our meager earnings went for those too quickly.

A series of vampire murders plagued Agadir. It had reaped a huge amount of newspaper coverage and television commentary. And wouldn’t you know, we were caught up in that. Agadir had seventy-four hotels and we just had to go to the one where a recent vampire murder had revolted around the town.

In Agadir, the locals believe in vampire like English infants believe in Santa Claus.

Achilles Pinot had a devious reason for wanting Happy and me to be at that hotel during those two weeks. It turned out that Pilot’s niece, Priscilla Pinot, had landed a Temp teaching job in Agadir. Having heard about the vampire murders, and concerned for her safety, Pinot had invited us in order to supervise her comings and goings. I’d hope that Achilles didn’t mean orgasms when he’s said comings.

Not easy. Priscilla was one very independent girl. Her nickname was ‘Pris,’ and it didn’t suit her at all, because she was anything but prissy. She was very blonde, tall, leggy, had a sublime bust and attractively unusual face. Miss Pris had a plenty of comings and goings during our first two days in the resort and she boasted about those to my Happy.

Goings were something I could trail. Miss Pris went for a daily jog before school hours began while Muezzins invoked Allah in their calls for prayer. Only it wasn’t for exercise, it was to pick up suitors.

Totally indifferent that we were in a Muslim country, where many of the women were veiled and wrapped in haiks, she went jogging in the briefest of mini shorts with a braless T-shirt. Not merely whistles were aimed at her. Mullahs stopped her to caution her she could be whipped or worse if she persisted in flaunting her body. As a foreigner she wasn’t obliged to cover her hair, but dire warnings as to what could happen to her knees and neck were voice if she persisted in exposing her body. She was like a gull-sweeping the shore she was only interested in locating prey.

As I’m well used to early morning gallops for my horses, the hour didn’t bother, it was her brazen pick-up style that flummoxed me. Miss Pris, pretending to re-tie her lace-up trainers, would scissor her luscious body and jutting out her provocative butt would stare invitingly at whichever man she was trying to seduce.

Ouch!

Even a happily married man like me couldn’t avoid a hard-on at that sight. Fortunately for our marriage, Happy had taken good care to give me what I needed before those early morning jog sessions.

Again, each evening, Miss Pris pulled the same gig. The result was that the early morning guy and her evening suitor would be in the lobby elbowing each other to get to her room first.

Whichever man she chose, Miss Pris would call out to the unlucky loser, ‘’I can see you later. Why not stop by around midnight.’’

Because I needed to get up before dawn, I liked to go to bed by ten p.m. No chance of that with Miss Pris inviting men to come visit past midnight. And I’ve been given this vacation in exchange for acting as chaperone.

No hope of having enough shut-eye. This vacation was flattened somewhat like Nagasaki after the Atom Bomb.

My head drooping, and my eyes struggling to keep open, I accompanied Happy and the ‘’chillun’’ to the hotel’s beach on that third day. What a waste. We’d paid for an umbrella, with matching beach chairs, and would have bought balloons for Tim and Dorothy but an icy mist developed that sent skeletal fingers of shivers down our backs.

Always well-prepared for outings, Happy had brought sweaters for our two eldest and a blanket for Baby Richard. Nothing helped. Tim and Dorothy had chattering teeth. Baby Richard’s face was turning blue from the cold.

Just as we prepared to leave that unwelcoming beach, one of Morocco’s famously colourful watermen waved to us from the other side of the beach’s barrier. His wide brimmed hat with dancing bells and his coat of many colors in ‘’Prodigal Son’’ style were all fascinating. But Happy was not having any of his wares. He could shake his tin cup until Kingdom Come; Happy wouldn’t buy water from a stranger in this paradise. Even in our hotel room she used the coffeemaker to boil water to sterilize the skins of Richard’s oranges before she cut them to make his juice. We’d lost our youngest daughter to meningitis in Madrid, and Happy was taking no chances in Agadir.

What to do with Tim and Dorothy? They were two hyperactive kids who had run to the beach to try to keep warm, and now were run out.

‘’Come on, y’all,’’ Happy thought she had the solution. ‘’We’ll all go back to the hotel and go to the parlour room to watch TV.’’

The television had nothing but local programs in Morocco’s version of Arabic. There were none in English. Even the Disney cartoons had been dubbed for the Moroccan children.

Neither of us could speak the native language. Happy tried