Caribbean Sunset with a Yellow Parrot

Book 0: The Belchester Chronicles

by Andrea Frazer

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Traditional Mysteries; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Lady Amanda Golightly and her old friend Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump are off to the Caribbean. One of Lady A's old school-friends is having a school reunion and is also trying to sell the villas she has built on part of a privately-owned island. Some of the old girls already live there, others are crossing for the reunion by sea on the Seven Seas Floating Party Town. Life is eventful. Soon after disembarkation, the tropical island is rife with murder, smuggling, blackmail and much, much, more. Lady Amanda and Hugo are off on the detecting trail once more - and their adventures include Hugo's unfortunate experience with the local hot sauce.

Release date: February 10, 2015

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 240

Sample

Chapter One

Their luggage was all packed, and they breakfasted as normal on sailing day, as the boat didn’t leave until four in the afternoon. The next morning, an army of cleaners would descend on Belchester Towers to get it spick and span, fit for their return in three weeks’ time. Today, all four of them breakfasted together, Enid still getting used to the idea that she would be spending her honeymoon with the ‘Saga louts’ for whom she and her new husband worked.

Although she hoped against hope that they could have some kind of privacy, she didn’t trust those two not to ferret out some murder or other malfeasance, and drag her and Beauchamp into the jaws of danger as they had done on four previous occasions.

‘What is the name of this cruise liner you have booked for us?’ asked Beauchamp, swallowing a mouthful of bacon and breaking the awkward silence that was currently prevailing. Hugo was also uncharacteristically quiet, being in a bit of a sulk, not only because he had not been consulted about whether he wanted to go or not, but also because he thought it was intrusive and presumptuous of Manda to include the two of them on what was, after all, someone else’s honeymoon, for God’s sake!

‘It’s the one that Windy Winterbottom said everyone else was coming over on, for this school reunion,’ replied Lady Amanda, sipping her coffee, oblivious to how everyone else was feeling. All was right in her world, and her skin was so thick that artillery shells could not have pierced it.

‘Windy?’ squeaked Enid, who had returned to her normal self now, through deep breathing and the use of nicotine patches, and re-joined the land of the non-smokers. She was retrospectively proud of the fact that she had had five patches under her wedding garter, to prevent nerves which might tempt her back to the wicked weed.

‘Oh, her real name is Wendy. We all had nicknames at school.’

‘What was yours?’ ventured a rather bold Beauchamp.

‘Well, I might as well tell you, as you’ll find out anyway. I was known as Sniffy Golightly, because I suffered from a constantly runny nose, which turned out, on inspection by a doctor when I was nine years old, to be the result of a plastic bead, which I must have pushed up there when I was a mere toddler. Anyway, the name stuck for the rest of my schooldays.’

‘How dreadful,’ sympathised Enid.

‘I know,’ replied Lady A. ‘Fancy my mother letting me get my hands on anything made of plastic!’

This was hardly the answer Enid expected, but she carried on gamely with her enquiries. ‘And who are the others going to the reunion?’

‘Let me see, ooh yes, Hermione Bazalgette, Deirdre Brokenshire, Wendy Godiva, yummy Douglas Huddlestone-Black, who was the headmistress’s son, Letitia Littlechild, and Ffion Simpson will all be on the same vessel.

‘When we get there, we will meet Belinda Bartholomew, Cecelia Nosegay – silly name – Dorothy Leclerc and Caroline Cassidy. Windy and her partner – never met him – got hold of the land, then those four put in money for villas for themselves, and the rest of the close was built, to represent the start of the Parrot Bay Sundowners Community for the Retired. I believe that only Parrot Bay is built at the moment, but there are great plans to expand – clubhouse, that sort of thing, I believe.’

‘And that vessel is called?’ Beauchamp ploughed on doggedly – he wasn’t giving up that easily.

‘And do they all have nicknames, too?’ asked Enid, at the same time. The atmosphere was becoming a little less glacial, and there was danger of a little excitement leaking in around its melting edges, for none of them had been to the Caribbean before and, even with Lady A and Hugo in tow, it was a hugely enticing thought that, within a few days, they could be sprawled on a tropical beach with a tall cool glass of rum punch in their hands.

‘Of course they do, dear Enid, but you shall find those out when you meet them.’

‘The name of the vessel, your ladyship?’ Beauchamp soldiered on, wondering what she was hiding.

‘I’ve booked a suite for Hugo and I. We will have to share, but there are two queen-sized beds …’

‘Manda!’ spluttered Hugo, covering his front with toast crumbs, suddenly appalled, his equilibrium totally capsized.

‘And I have booked a double cabin for you two. Inside, because I doubt you’ll spend much time looking out of a window, will you?’ she said with a sly wink in Enid and Beauchamp’s direction. As her mother had always said, you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire, and the same went for portholes and new brides, in her opinion.

This embarrassingly intimate question effectively silenced everyone but Beauchamp. ‘The name? What is the name of the blasted ship?’

‘For your information,’ announced Lady Amanda, ‘Mr Nosy-Parker Looking-A-Gift-Horse-In-The-Mouth Beauchamp, the name of the blasted ship is the Seven Seas Floating Party Town.’ She then lived up to her school nickname by giving the most enormous sniff, as if daring any of those present to question her choice of vessel.

Beauchamp had loaded the extraordinary amount of luggage they seemed to be taking with them into the Rolls, even pushing squashy travelling bags into the back seat with Lady Amanda and Hugo, the former complaining that she felt like part of a left luggage consignment, and would the man please leave her enough room to breathe. Beauchamp gave the last squishy bag a final squeeze, extracting an ‘Oh, I say!’ from Hugo, before getting into the driver’s seat and aiming the vehicle towards the port.

All four of the car’s passengers had their heads filled with visions of what the cruise terminal would be like, none of them very realistic, and based mostly on old newsreels and black and white films. To say that each and every one of them romanticised it would be a huge understatement.

The most pessimistic was the new Mrs Beauchamp’s, whose mind continued to chew over grainy monochrome images of all the poor people boarding the Titanic, off to start a new life in the New World via third class, with no idea of their place in history, and the disaster that was shortly to occur to deprive them of the rest of their lives, never mind their new ones. She had distrusted transatlantic sea crossings ever since she had first heard of this disaster as a child.

When they had sent off the car for long-term parking and checked in their luggage, Lady Amanda looked around her and asked if some of the people milling round might be the showgirls from the entertainment staff. Hugo chipped in with the possibility that there may be a few school trips booked to sail.

Beauchamp gave a loud ‘harumph’, threw a contemptuous gaze towards his employer, and asked her to repeat the name of the ship.

‘I told you at breakfast,’ replied Lady Amanda, her gaze as flinty as his was steely. ‘The Seven Seas Floating Party Town.’

‘And you wonder who all these young people are?’ he asked, making sure that his tone was rhetorical enough even for her selective hearing.

‘You mean …’ she spluttered. ‘You mean that all these children are the actual passengers? But there’s not a dowager duchess in sight, and where are all the honourables? Where are the ladies and the sirs? I don’t understand.’

‘Say the name again, but more slowly this time, and maybe understanding will dawn on you,’ advised the butler.

Lady Amanda’s lips moved imperceptibly and, on repeating the word ‘Party’, she examined the cruise vessel a little more closely. ‘It’s flying the Stars and Stripes? Why’s that? And where’s the Union Jack?’ she declared loudly.

‘Your ladyship has booked an American party boat, the target customer of which is young, heavy on the alcohol, and deep into partying of the more wild variety.’

‘You mean there will be no games of charades or bridge? No floating around elegantly on the dancefloor?’

‘There will be body-popping and gyrating to heavy drum and bass, and rap – and a bit of nostalgic seventies disco-bopping, if your ladyship is lucky. The dancefloor will be a sea of perspiring young bodies, all well over their alcohol limit, in various stages of undress or unconsciousness. They may even be throwing up to the music.’

‘You will have your little joke, Beauchamp,’ interjected Hugo nervously, when suddenly a voice hailed through the crowds, ‘Manda? Sniffy Golightly, is that you?’

A tall, stooped woman with an extraordinarily long face and enormous protruding teeth efficiently elbowed her way through the melee and halted by Hugo’s side. ‘This the other half, eh, Sniffy? Is he up to snuff? Sniffy; snuff. Ha ha!’

Lady Amanda’s brows furrowed at this ridiculous and impertinent question, and addressed the new arrival. ‘What ho, Horseface! May I introduce you to Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump, one of my oldest friends, and to Beauchamp and his new bride Enid; almost like part of the family. Gang, this is Horseface Bazalgette who appeared on the jolly old register as Hermione.’

A ‘coo-ee’ from several rows behind sounded, and four more elderly ladies pushed their way through to join them. Greetings ensued. ‘Hi Sniffy, ’llo Horseface.’

‘Jolly hockey sticks, Fflageolet.’

‘Wotcher, Wuffles. Have you spotted Adonis yet?

‘Where’s Longshanks? Just coming with Droopy-Drawers? Jolly Dee.’

The crowd of mad old women now numbered five, shortly to be joined by a white-haired old boy whom every member of the school reunion greeted with swooning smiles and looks of adoration.

When a woman in ship’s uniform came up beside Hugo and offered him a glass of Mimosa, he absentmindedly took two – one with each hand, and immediately drained both glasses, placing them back on the tray to take another two. ‘Thanks a million, my dear. I really needed a drink.’ With all these bizarre nicknames to cope with, he’d need something a bit stronger than Mimosas to see him through this voyage and holiday.

Everyone was eventually gathered aboard in a vast room where even more Mimosas were the order of the day, and the gaggle of grey and blue-rinsed heads got together once more to say how much they were looking forward to meeting Butterfingers, Snotty, Hefferlump, and Hopalong again.

Hugo, Beauchamp, and Enid surreptitiously shuffled to an adjacent table and sat there in sulky mystification. It felt like they had been marooned on another planet, rather than just boarded a ship. How would they ever get the hang of who was who? And exactly how did they address Lady A now? Would they really be expected to refer to her as Sniffy Golightly? The very idea was unthinkable: anathema.

A public address system began to make announcements in deck order downwards as to which cabins were now ready and accessible to their occupants. Lady Amanda, Hugo, and the braying coven were called almost immediately.

As Hugo trotted up behind his old friend and she opened the door of their suite, the only thing he could think of saying was, ‘Oh, cripes, old stick. There may be two beds, but where’s the privacy screen? How am I going to get into my jim-jams?’

‘You’ll change in the bathroom, the same as I will. It’s no worse than boarding school was, with all the strange dorm-mates we both must have met in those days,’ came an obviously rehearsed retort. ‘Wasn’t there someone in your dorm who always tried to get into bed with other fellows, claiming he was afraid of the dark or something?’

‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten old Wet Rag Wilson. With him, his excuse was spiders, but he was always a bit too free with cuddling up close for safety.’

‘And we had Weirdo Smallwood. If it wasn’t the dark, it was thunder and lightning with her. Of course, none of us took long to twig what she was up to, then we made her apple-pie beds until she stopped.’

‘We put live frogs in Wet Rag’s shoes and frogspawn in his bed until he got the message. I suppose, with a bit of effort and forethought, we can rub along quite nicely in here, Manda.’

‘Without the actual rubbing along,’ replied Lady A. shaking her head to shift not only some unpleasant memories from her schooldays, but a ghastly vision of what Hugo’s turn of phrase had conjured up. Ugh! She’d never had any time for those sorts of goings on.

The newlyweds had to wait for some time for their deck to be called, and had managed, each, another two Mimosas by then.

At the lift’s doors, they discovered that the deck they wanted was not up but down, so they got in, both crossing their fingers that they weren’t actually sleeping in staff quarters, and pressed the appropriate button. At the cabin door, which seemed to be very closely flanked on either side by other numbered doors, Beauchamp inserted the key-card and threw open the door onto complete darkness.

He fumbled for the lightswitch, then wished he hadn’t. It may be a double cabin. It may not have a window, being situated deep in the bowels of the ship, but it also didn’t have a double bed. It had bunks!

Dinner was taken by all the Belchester Towers party in-cabin that night – preparing for battle the next morning, in the case of Beauchamp.

Chapter Two

At breakfast the next morning the members of the party from Belchester were told that their request for a table for four had been changed to a table for ten. No one could confirm who had made the request, but it looked like all those bound for the island of Caribbaya were to be eating together for the duration of the transatlantic crossing, unless otherwise requested.

Hugo took his seat with a face like a slapped arse. He had hoped that they could hide away from all these old biddies, and here he was, marooned with only Beauchamp for male companionship. Douglas Huddlestone-Black was supposed to be sitting with them, but must have chosen to breakfast elsewhere. Stout fellow, thought Hugo, giving it some thought for the other mornings of their cruise. Lady A, of course, was in her element, making contact with that young thing she had been when she was a boarder in the dim and distant past. As a youngster she had lived life more in the raw, but over the years she had developed a veneer of sophistication and decorum which she now felt slightly slipping away.

Enid’s face was completely closed, but there were bags under her eyes, and Beauchamp looked like Vesuvius must have appeared just before the big eruption that engulfed Pompeii and Herculaneum. It was little short of a miracle that he didn’t actually have smoke pouring out of his ears.

‘Good morning, Enid. Good morning, Beauchamp,’ trilled Lady Amanda, unaware that she was about to be blown to pieces by a hitherto unexploded bomb.

‘How dare you!’ shouted Beauchamp, turning red and not caring who heard him. ‘How bloody dare you pay for this as part of our honeymoon, then book us a cabin with bunk beds. How the devil you have the brass-necked cheek to sit there smiling at us when you’ve done something like that is beyond me, you chiselling old cheapskate.’

The object of his fury smiled sweetly at him and replied, ‘But I didn’t. I booked you a double cabin. There was certainly no mention of bunk beds. There must have been some mix-up with the booking. I shall speak to someone as soon as we have breakfasted. I’m so sorry this has happened, but I expect you’ll look back on it, in time, as a rather amusing incident.’

Beauchamp subsided back into his chair, doubting if he would ever feel amused by his mood when he had opened their cabin door last night, but he placed his faith in his employer in sorting out the situation. It did sound like a genuine error.

The formal dining room was small, as most passengers on this ship opted for buffet-style dining, and did not rise much before luncheon. Nevertheless, a limited waiter service was available for those who wished to formalise their eating, and their orders were duly taken, the table soon filling with plates of fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages, smoked haddock topped with poached eggs, kippers, and eggs Benedict. Side dishes of fried bread, tomatoes and the inevitable pancakes and maple syrup covered any remaining space on the white cloth.

Once the unpleasantness of Beauchamp’s furious outburst had settled, it was Lady Amanda who opened the conversation with, ‘Are you all going to stay with Windy? She can’t have room for us all.’

There were polite little titters around the table, and Wuffles – she of the wild hair and dog-face – explained that they were all going to look at unsold properties in Parrot Bay, and weren’t they interested in buying something too? Everyone was being put up in one of the vacant villas, and they would spend some of their time viewing those that were not already sold, and setting up purchases where desired.

‘I had no idea Windy was going to do an estate agent’s number on us. How many properties are ther. . .