The Skeleton Garden Read online

  “Doors have been dusted.”

  She and Orlando had done a fair job of cleaning out the shed, just about reaching the glasshouse end—that was the only thing she noticed there. She kept her hands behind her and walked all around, through the new Mediterranean garden, down the hornbeam walk and back, and into the parterre lawn. Nothing untoward to be seen, except that the hebes were beginning to look a bit crisp around the edges; she’d circle back round later and water them.

  They finished up along the drive, and PC Gerald—Pru hadn’t heard his surname—approached them, a folder in hand.

  “For you, sir,” he said, handing the papers to Christopher, who began patting his pockets in the eternal search for his reading glasses. Gerald hesitated for a moment, and then asked, “Sir, are you going to be our guv?”

  Christopher’s reputation preceded him, Pru thought. She knew that his manner commanded respect from those around him regardless of his rank.

  “I most certainly am not,” Christopher replied sharply. Pru saw his ears go pink. “You’re to report to DS Chatters, who reports to DI Harnett.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gerald,” Pru said, “have you been here since last night?”

  “Yes, Ms. Parke. I got a call and came right over. It had just gone one o’clock.”

  “My God, son,” Christopher said, his voice softening. “Go home—but ring the station first. Tell the desk sergeant I said it was all right.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Gerald walked away, and Pru smiled at Christopher. “You’re going to get whiplash if you’re not careful.”

  A ghost of a smile, and it vanished. “I rang Claire this morning,” Christopher said.

  Of course Orlando’s parents would need to know. “How did she take it?”

  Christopher shrugged. “I told her he was fine and we wanted him to stay. She sounded all right, but it’s difficult to say with my sister. I thought it better that she hear it from us first.”

  “Is it in the news?”

  “It was on the police blog. You never know who might pick it up.”

  Maybe it’ll drive away any possibility of a scouting visit by the magazine editor, Pru thought, and immediately turned red with shame.

  “I thought I’d go see Polly,” Pru said, hoping to absent herself from the day’s proceedings. “To find out how Stan is doing. She’ll be working at the post office counter in the shop today.”

  “You haven’t talked with Simon?” Christopher asked.

  She shook her head. Most arguments with her brother got patched up fairly soon after they occurred, but this one hung in the air, with no chance of resolution during the middle-of-the-night visit Pru and Christopher had made. “I’ll ring him,” she said, thinking that first she would find out from Polly just what sort of mood Simon was in.

  Chapter 19

  Pru walked into the shop, the bell above the door announcing her arrival. Polly sat at the back counter—the post office window—absorbed in a magazine. Two women and a man stood near a display of locally made fudge, talking with Ursula Whycher. Silence fell when they turned and saw Pru, a silence that stopped her in her tracks and caused Polly to look up from her reading.

  But then Ursula said, “Pru, you poor dear, what a terrible thing to happen,” and the silence broke into pieces as each customer spoke the same sentiments in various ways. Pru imagined that only a sketchy account of the previous night’s events had been passed round and by now it had been worn to shreds. She could see in their expressions a deep desire to know more.

  Pru deflected each question with inquiries of her own. “I know so little—I’m just hoping that Stan’s doing all right.” “Have you seen Stan? Will you be stopping by?” “Did you know Jack well?” In that way, she was able to make her way to the back of the shop, satisfying the locals without speculating on anything. She breathed a sigh of relief, and took Polly’s hand across the counter.

  “And how are you?” Pru asked.

  Polly had dark circles under her eyes, but offered a smile as she gave Pru’s hand a squeeze. “I’m happy to see you, and I’m ready for lunch,” she said, moving the wooden “closed” sign to the window.

  They chose sandwiches from the cooler—made in-house at the Blackbird—and took them to the pub side, ordering a half pint each of a red ale and settling in a back corner of the upper room near a small window.

  “How was Stan?” Pru asked. “Did you stay long?”

  “He’ll be all right,” Polly said, taking her glasses off and rubbing her face. “I stayed a good long while—he wanted to talk, and I let him.”

  “Were you and Jack together long?”

  “Five years,” Polly said. “And then I met Simon.”

  “And Jack left for Canada?”

  “I don’t think I was the only reason,” Polly said. “Jack had started work here for the railway—First Great Western—but he wanted to see the world, and I only wanted to visit. So off he went.” She smiled. “He could be a bit of a…” Polly hesitated for a moment. “A rascal. I’d say he left just ahead of a few escapades catching up with him.” They ate in silence as Pru wondered if Polly might be giving a lighter touch to Jack’s activities than they deserved. When Polly finished her last bite, she said, “He was ill.”

  Not just a rascally old flame, but a sick, rascally old flame—Pru didn’t know how many more adjectives she could handle. “Was it serious? Did Stan tell you that?”

  Polly nodded. “I knew something was wrong when we saw him here at the pub, that night. Stan says that Jack didn’t expect to live long. Poor Stan, to see this happen to his only son. I finally got him to bed, and I stayed until he was asleep. It must’ve been nine o’clock this morning by then.” She drank the last of her beer. “But you see, Pru, I believe it was Jack’s illness—that’s how he died.”

  Pru stared into the last half inch of beer in her own glass and thought about Christopher’s description of the bruising on the back of Jack’s neck. “Polly, did you already know last night when I rang? Did you have one of your feelings?”

  Polly’s brow furrowed, and she looked at the door of the pub. “I hadn’t heard a voice in my head, if that’s what you mean. Sometimes the feelings have no words or form—they just settle on me. When you said his name, it hurt, but it didn’t surprise me.”

  “And now, can you, you know, feel his presence or his spirit or…whatever?” Pru was never sure of Polly’s exact talents in this area.

  Polly shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I can’t quite…it’s as if he’s hiding. Or, at least, something is hiding. I can’t quite tell.” She yawned.

  “Do you have much longer to work? Can’t you go home now?” Pru asked.

  “Another hour—you never know who might need to post a package five minutes before closing,” Polly said as they stood.

  “Is Simon at home?”

  “He is. I stopped home just long enough for a shower. I don’t think he’d slept much, either. First I was late home on the train—and he was in a right state about that—and now this.”

  “Simon was angry that you took a later train?”

  “My later train was late—he was a bit steamed up about that. I believe he was quite annoyed at Great Western.” Polly smiled. “You know how he can get. A bit of anger flares up and then disappears just as quick.”

  —

  An air of quiet enveloped Greenoak upon her return. Christopher’s car was gone, and there was no sign of Orlando. There might still be activity under the marquee, but Pru didn’t go to look. Instead, she took herself off to the hornbeam walk, passing the daylilies—still in need of dividing—and continuing to the wood, crunching beechmast underfoot. She poked around until she found the opening that Christopher suspected held a badger sett and sat down across from it, her back nestled into the hollow of a beech trunk. She pulled out her phone and rang the Wilsons once again, sticking one hand in a coat pocket to stay warm.

  Mrs. Wilson, struck by the tragic n
ews, remembered Jack as a friendly neighbor who, for many years, had picked apples for them—the small orchard outside the walled garden held about a dozen trees. She remembered when he went away to Canada, not long before Simon and Polly were married. Mrs. Wilson asked if Pru would like her to come back and help with anything, but Pru assured her that there was no need to interrupt their sabbatical, that Christopher had the investigation under control, and that work would continue on the garden. Mrs. Wilson sighed. “We wanted Greenoak to become a family home for you,” she said. “A place for all of you to gather and grow close. I hope it will be that, regardless of sad circumstances.”

  Pru assured her that Greenoak did feel like home, and, when Mrs. Wilson again offered to return, Pru again told her they would be all right. Before they rang off, she thanked her once again for the opportunity. She looked off through a clearing to the undulating landscape of Hampshire, with its open fields and dark copses of oaks, many with leaves still clinging even as they moved toward the end of November. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, attempting to rid herself of all the words and images swirling around in her head. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, waking later to a high, clear birdcall. Her eyes fell on a scrubby holly, its fat berries a cheery red against the black leaves. Had she been dreaming of holly? The details had vanished, but they left a warm glow behind. She stretched, feeling quite rested, and returned to the house.

  In the kitchen, Evelyn wrestled with one of the largest cabbages Pru had ever seen. Mountains of chopped ham and onions lay nearby, and a huge pot steamed on the stove. Potatoes, Pru thought, bubble-and-squeak must be on the menu.

  “Hello, Evelyn.”

  “Ms. Parke,” the cook said. “The boy has gone off down the lane—said you wanted him to interview Kitty Bassett about the war.”

  Good thinking, Orlando—and you just might run into Jemima. “Yes, I’m glad he remembered that,” Pru said.

  Bits of cabbage flew as Evelyn applied herself to chopping. “I suppose Kitty’ll be serving him that apple cake of hers,” she said.

  “Apple cake,” Pru echoed. She knew the story—Kitty’s apple cake had won a first at the Christmas fête competition ten years running. Each year, Evelyn’s ginger cake came in second.

  “I don’t begrudge her her success,” Evelyn said. Whack-whack-whack went the knife against the cutting board. “She does that one cake well—it isn’t as if she has much of a repertoire.”

  Get me out of here, Pru thought. “Do you know where Christopher is?”

  “Mr. Pearse went upstairs a while back.”

  “Well, I’ll just go and check on him.” Pru hoped that Christopher was taking a nap and she could crawl in bed beside him. She walked into an empty room and called toward the bathroom. “Christopher?” She jumped as a door across the room opened.

  “What were you doing in there?” she asked.

  He exhaled in a huff and nodded the way. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The door behind him opened onto an enormous walk-through closet. It might have been a man’s dressing room a hundred years ago, but to Pru and Christopher, it was a box room.

  He ushered her in. There were no windows, and the only illumination came from a single hanging light fixture. The air, although not musty, carried the fragrance of cardboard. Now, boxes had been pushed up against a wall, and much of the space was taken up by a whiteboard—the kind of write-and-erase affair used in company meetings and classrooms. At a quick glance, Pru saw that Christopher had written headings across the top in blue marker: victim, family, evidence, suspects. Magnets secured photos in each section—her glance alighted on and then immediately jumped from the many shots of Jack’s body. She turned to Christopher with eyebrows raised.

  “It’s my murder room,” he said and shrugged.

  She put her arms around his neck. “I knew you couldn’t stay away. But why are you hiding it?”

  “Because Martin is still conducting the investigation—I don’t want him to think I’m taking over. This way, I’ll be able to keep abreast of everything and guide him without making him feel like he’s being shadowed.”

  Pru looked back at the board, now taking in the suspect photos. “But that’s everyone we know.” She dropped her arms. “What’s Simon doing there?”

  “It’s as you say—everyone we know.”

  He took her hand, but she took it back again. “Simon can’t be a suspect,” she said, her voice creeping higher.

  “Everyone’s a suspect, Pru—you know that,” Christopher said, his voice even but insistent.

  “That’s just something you say, it can’t be true.” But seeing her brother’s photo in such a grouping caused a stab of pain in her stomach. Simon argued with Jack and he was clearly jealous of Jack, for good reason or no. He certainly had a temper, but it was manifest only in words—then she recalled that her brother had given Christopher a black eye when they first met. But that was ages ago, and it couldn’t count for anything here. Her face felt hot, and she tried to keep her chin from quivering. “Simon couldn’t have anything to do with Jack’s death,” she said, more to herself than Christopher.

  “We cannot overlook anything or anyone that might lead us to answers.” She crossed her arms and looked past him as he continued. “If we ignore Simon just because he’s your brother, we may miss important information that will lead us to real evidence, to the person actually involved in Jack’s death.”

  She’d been here before with Christopher, and she knew what she needed to do: make sure that he cast as wide a net as possible for suspects, and help him find the evidence. This was her role—protecting those she loved and maintaining a voice of practical reason in the middle of heated police work. “You’ll look closely at others, as well?” she asked.

  “I’m saying that I will be thorough, no matter who it is. You know that.” He kept his eyes on her.

  “Right, then, our photos should be up there, too.”

  “What?”

  “We’re suspects, just as much as Simon is,” she said, chin in the air, to make her point.

  “Pru, we need to be realistic, or the investigation loses its meaning.”

  “I didn’t like Jack, you knew that. And, you didn’t like him either, because…I didn’t like him.”

  “You’re forgetting we weren’t home.”

  “I could easily have slipped out to the parterre lawn before we left, killed Jack, and got in the car and gone to Winchester. The same with you.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Everyone’s a suspect,” she said.

  They stared at each other until Christopher narrowed his eyes. “Right. Wait here.”

  She didn’t move as he went back into their bedroom. She heard clattering, and a minute later he returned, took another magnet, and posted a photo of the two of them.

  It was their wedding photo—not the official one, but a candid photo that Pru’s friend Jo had taken during the reception. They kept it in the same frame but behind the actual, posed, shot of Pru in her rose-pink, watered-silk suit and Christopher in his morning coat. Jo had caught them in a corner of the coat-check marquee locked in an embrace, Pru’s pencil skirt hiked far up her thighs as she wrapped one leg around Christopher, whose hands were firmly planted on her bottom.

  “Christopher!” she exclaimed her indignation spoiled by laughter.

  “There we are now,” he said with a smile. “Suspects. Satisfied?”

  She looked at the snapshot and back at him, biting her bottom lip in an attempt to look annoyed. “Not quite.”

  A knock at the bedroom door put a stop to anything else on her mind. “Mr. Pearse?” Evelyn said. “Ms. Parke? Mr. and Mrs. Barnes are here.”

  I’ve been told to smarten up my uniform, that my breeches need a good scrubbing. There isn’t enough soap left in England to do them any good. But the county chairman for all us Land Girls came out from Basingstoke on a visit and she told us a good volunteer is a good advertisement.

 
—Letter from Home Farm, Ratley

  Chapter 20

  Claire and Tommy stood just inside the front door. Hellos and kisses were short. “You didn’t say you were coming,” Christopher said.

  “We’ve decided Orlando should return home now,” his sister replied, her face pinched between a frown and a look of pain. “We so appreciate you allowing him to stay here with you, but we feel that he’s had enough time away, and it’s really best for him to be back with his family.”

  “I told you he was in no danger,” Christopher said. “It’s an unfortunate circumstance, but he’s fine. He seems to be settling in well.”

  “We didn’t expect he’d be waking up one morning to a dead body,” Claire said.

  “He didn’t wake up to a dead body—we found it last night,” Christopher replied with a note of irritation.

  “We had hoped he’d stay longer,” Pru said, realizing as she said it that it was true. He may have been an annoying teenager upon arrival, but she’d grown accustomed to having him around. Just the thought of Orlando gone left a hole in the fabric of Greenoak.

  “I’m sure it’s been quite a holiday for him, but he’s our responsibility, and this is our decision.”

  “But, Claire,” Pru said, “why didn’t you ring? We could’ve talked about it.”

  Claire sniffed. “We didn’t think there was any need for discussion.” She looked about the front hall. “Where is he?”

  “He’s out on an errand,” Pru said.

  “Put him to work, have you? Well, that’s good,” Tommy said, at last coming to life after a pointed look from his wife.

  Voices from the kitchen, and Orlando bounded into the hall followed by Evelyn with the tea tray.

  “Mum, Dad. What are you doing here?”

  “What are you wearing?” Claire asked.

  Orlando was no longer a member of the gray family. Today, he wore strawberry pink denim trousers and an orange sweater; a red-and-white striped shirt peeked out from the collar and its tail dragged behind.