The Skeleton Garden Read online

  “To tell you I was being held hostage by a flock of ducks?” His voice cracked. “I thought I’d be able to get out if I could just make my way over this far, and then I heard someone outside. Jemima had told me about the break-in, and I thought what if he’s come back? So I waited and—well, there you were.”

  “It’s safe for you to get down now. Sonia won’t bite.”

  Pru stood between the ducks and Orlando as he hopped off. “We should get the others in, don’t you think?” he asked.

  She nodded as they stepped outside, pulling the door closed. The rest of the flock had remained on the far side of the pond, but they were watching. “You go get them moving. I’ll stay here and direct them in.”

  Around the pond Orlando went. He approached the ducks slowly, herding them along with his arms wide; they ran along, headed toward Pru. She opened the door of the palace to find Sonia just inside.

  “Move it, Sonia,” she said. The duck scooted out the door and watched the line of fowl march into the palace, as if checking in each member before bed. Orlando stood behind Pru. When the last ducktail had disappeared into the dark palace, Pru tried to shoo Sonia in, too, but the duck apparently had some unfinished business—her long neck reached round Pru’s legs and she nipped at Orlando’s ankles.

  Orlando yelped and grabbed hold of Pru’s arms, using her as a shield. Sonia kept it up, circling Pru and nipping at Orlando. “Orlando, let go and I’ll get her in.”

  “No, Aunt Pru, she’s after me—she has been all along.” Orlando was bobbing and weaving, hopping from one foot to the other to avoid Sonia’s bill, and he gripped Pru and pulled her along so that they performed a wobbly sort of backward jig. But Orlando danced too close to the pond and skidded in the mud. He lost his footing and down he went, taking Pru with him—they both fell splat on their backsides, sliding into the pond and coming to rest in a foot of frigid water. Pru felt her bottom sink into the muck.

  Sonia quacked, turned, and padded into the palace. Pru and Orlando jumped up with a squelch and skittered out, their feet shooting out from under them as if they were novice ice skaters. They stopped when they hit drier land, shivering and dripping.

  Orlando looked down at the mud coating his arms and legs. “This is disgusting.” He snorted, looked at Pru, and giggled. “Sorry, Aunt Pru.”

  Pru shivered and then giggled as well. “Right,” she said, finding that her phone, deep in a pocket of her thick coat, had remained dry. “Let’s get back to Greenoak. Your mum’s arrived—Uncle Christopher took her to the rail station looking for you. If we’re lucky, we’ll get back before them.”

  The giggles ceased. “Mum is here? How did that happen? She was in London.”

  “She was worried because you’d left no word—you should’ve told her you wanted to come and visit.”

  —

  Pru secured the ducks, and Orlando collected his bag from behind a pea trellis to the side of the cottage. They made their way out to the lane, their feet squishing with each step. Pru swept the torch beam back and forth in front of them to avoid ruts, while her other hand held her coat closed.

  Orlando’s hair hung like a wreath of icicles that danced about as he hop-stepped sideways next to her. He began a monologue, but Pru’s inner voice drowned it out as she attempted to come up with a story to lessen Claire’s anger. Pru carved out a place for Orlando in her temple of worry—joining Christopher, who grew more weary by the day, and her silent brother. God, she thought, the men in my life are driving me round the bend.

  “I had to come, Aunt Pru,” Orlando was saying. “I have the information you asked for.”

  Pru stopped. “What information?”

  “Will Donovan,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder and bouncing in place.

  She gasped. “What? Donovan—that’s it? How did you…no, Orlando, don’t tell me you—that’s classified information. It’s against the law to look into classified files. I didn’t ask you to do that.”

  “But he has no family—there’s no one to settle the matter.”

  “You could get in big trouble.” And yet…she felt her mind take an abrupt detour off the conventional highway of legal investigation and onto a decidedly more slippery track. “Will Donovan. No family? None at all?” Crap, she thought. “All right, keep walking—tell me what you found out.”

  “William Donovan, left shoulder wounded in an air fight, recuperating in Romsey area, deserted.” Orlando rattled off the details. “But, his group captain had written a note beside all that. It said, ‘unlikely deserter.’ ”

  “Well, that’s helpful, but—” Pru got no further.

  “There’s more. His group captain wrote that Will Donovan had asked for leave to marry his girl, and said he didn’t want to wait because she was ‘in the family way’ ”—Orlando wiggled air quotes—“and that the papers hadn’t come through yet before Will disappeared.”

  Pru breathed in these details, hoping that they settled all the niggling questions she had. “Yes, but, why didn’t he pursue the matter?”

  Orlando’s face turned solemn. “Operation Market Garden.”

  Had they come back to gardening?

  “The war, Aunt Pru—it was a massive air drop in Holland in September 1944. Will’s group captain was killed. Then it was the end of the war. No one ever cared to look into it.”

  “Orlando, that’s amazing.” Illegally gained, but amazing.

  “And,” he said, “I’ve got a photo. You can compare it to Evelyn’s snap of him.” He set his duffel bag down and unzipped it.

  “No,” Pru said, longing to see it. “Not now—we’ll look at it later, when we’ve cleaned up.” She should be chastising him, threatening some fierce punishment—no Galaxy Raiders for one year!—but her mind was afire with the news.

  When they walked up the drive at Greenoak and opened the mudroom door, Christopher and Claire stood waiting in the kitchen.

  “Here we are now,” Pru said brightly from behind Orlando. She saw Christopher take in their appearance and raise his eyebrows.

  Claire sobbed at the sight of her son and rushed toward him with outstretched arms, but as she entered the mudroom, she held back, her hand covering her nose. “What’s happened to you? What’s that smell?”

  Pru’s nose wrinkled. In the close confines of the mudroom, she could smell it, too. They had carried it back with them, smeared and soaked into their clothes—eau de duck pond.

  “It was my fault—I lost my balance,” Pru said quickly, “and we fell in the duck pond. You see, it had occurred to me that Kitty’s ducks needed penning—she’s a neighbor in the hospital, Claire. I nipped off to do that, and I found Orlando in the lane—he was on his way here—and I asked him to give me a hand. The ground is quite muddy near the pond, and when I slipped, I dragged him in with me.”

  Orlando shot her a grateful look over his shoulder.

  “Well, you can’t get in my car like that,” Claire said, standing inside the kitchen where the air quality was better. “You’ll have to shower here and change into some of your other things.”

  “I’m not going home, Mum.”

  Claire didn’t speak. Pru saw that familial firm set to her jaw and cut in before the fuse Orlando had lit could reach the fireworks. “Claire, we’d be delighted to have Orlando stay for a visit, but before we discuss it, perhaps we could get ourselves cleaned up. And we could all have dinner.”

  “You’ve had a long journey, Claire, why not?” Christopher asked.

  “Will you stay, Mum? Please?”

  Her son’s request apparently the tipping point, Claire blushed a pleasant pink and offered a small smile and a shrug. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to stay for a meal. That’s kind of you.” She arched one eyebrow at her son, but kept the smile. “Orlando, I suppose you know where to go—march right up there immediately.”

  “I can’t,” Orlando said, looking down at the green slime on his trousers and his mud-coated trainers. “I can’t go through the ho
use like this—Evelyn would never allow it.”

  “That’s right, Orlando—you know the drill,” Pru said. “I’ll just step into the loo.” As she closed the door all but a crack, she heard Orlando scrambling with his clothes and Christopher’s and Claire’s voices.

  “Claire, why don’t I get your bag out of the car and show you to a room?” Christopher asked.

  “We couldn’t stay, really—we’ll have to be on our way.”

  “You can at least freshen up. Come down to the fire when you’re ready, and I’ll pour you a glass of sherry.”

  Their voices faded as the door swung closed. “Oh, well, perhaps just a small one.”

  How could this be bad news? It’s the best news I could imagine. You sit tight. I’ll sort it out with my GC. You’ll be my wife before I fly another mission.

  —Letter from Ratley Airfield

  Chapter 33

  Pru had replaced the scent of duck pond with the aroma of honeysuckle, and she now positioned herself near the fire to dry her hair. Orlando took the other corner of the hearth, and they both watched Christopher at his brotherly best. He seated his sister in a comfy chair and cajoled her with reminders of their own minor youthful capers. By the time she was on her second sherry, Claire had already decided that driving back to Plymouth could wait until morning.

  Christopher had stretched the hunter’s chicken left by Evelyn with the addition of a few more potatoes, and the meal fed four, including a ravenous teenage boy. Halfway through her first glass of a fine burgundy, Claire conceded that perhaps Orlando could stay on a bit. “I had no idea he’d been such a help to you in the garden,” Claire said to Pru.

  “Yes, and just you wait and see what we’ve got planned for him next,” Pru said. “There’s about thirty feet of box hedging that needs to be dug out and replaced. It’s just the job for Orlando.” She cut her eyes across the table in time to see the color drain from his face.

  Claire offered to make a custard sauce to go with the apple crisp, which met with enthusiastic approval. Pru followed her into the kitchen, found the ingredients, and then stood back and watched as her sister-in-law cooked up egg yolks, sugar, and cream into a silky sauce as if it were nothing.

  —

  “Jemima’s dad will stay the night with her in the cottage,” Pru said as she pulled on pajamas. The news of Will Donovan sat at the tip of her tongue, but she held on to it—excited but at the same time worried how Christopher would take the news that Orlando had gone further than hacking the email of a local businessman—this time, it had been records at the Ministry of Defence. “But he’ll leave when Kitty gets out of the hospital tomorrow—he works in the head office at Telford United, and he’s negotiating new football contracts. Jemima says she’ll be fine with her grandmother, but I’ll look in on them.”

  “I’ll have a car patrol the lane.” Christopher glanced at the door to the murder room.

  Pru followed his gaze. “Right,” she said, “let’s get to it.” Recent murder first.

  “Wait here a tick.” Christopher went in first, and after a moment said, “All right.”

  He had taken away the many shots of Jack’s body, and Pru was able to concentrate on what was left. They began to move the remaining photos around like pieces on a chessboard—the drawing of Joseph Hare was set off to the side, and their own photo shifted to a far corner. Pru shifted Simon’s there, too.

  She gazed at the remainders—Evelyn, Peachey, Dick Whycher, and his mother, Ursula. No strangers had been observed around Ratley the evening of Jack’s death. Police had interviewed the few locals who had been in the Blackbird. Pru tried to be objective about their friends, these possible suspects, but that wasn’t her strong suit—she was much better at defending those she loved, regardless.

  “Couldn’t Stan think of anyone else that Jack knew here—or someone who might have followed him from Canada?”

  Christopher shook his head. “We’re lacking a fair bit of detail here. Jack’s mobile is still missing, and it’s taking too long for the call records to come from his carrier. I’ll ask again.” Christopher stuck his hands in his pocket and stared at the whiteboard. “I want to have another chat with Dick Whycher about where he spent his late supper break.”

  The pub—Pru’s mind changed channels. “Did you know that Martin’s stepdad, Jimmy, was half owner in the Blackbird during the war?”

  Christopher turned to her. “No, where did you hear that?”

  Pru sat down on a short stool, weary from the events of the day, and Christopher sat on the floor next to her, as she briefed him on the pub ownership. “Jimmy gave up his half—that was generous, wasn’t it?”

  Christopher rose and took his blue marker. In a corner of the whiteboard—neither suspect nor victim, but in a separate space—he wrote down the names of the Bassetts, along with Jimmy Chatters. “Jimmy wouldn’t have been allowed to own a pub and be a policeman,” he said. “But why would he give it away?”

  “And first,” Pru said, with a surge of energy that got her up off the stool, “Jimmy made sure that Sadie—Ev’s mum—had a job at the Blackbird. Sort of like it was a condition of the sale—or transfer.”

  “Jimmy and Sadie—could there have been something between them?”

  Pru shook her head. “It doesn’t seem likely. And if there was, why didn’t Jimmy marry her and take her with him to Southampton? Sadie was waiting for Will.”

  Right, here it was.

  “Christopher,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Will Donovan.”

  “He’s Will Donovan? Did Evelyn remember something her mother said?”

  Pru shook her head. She walked back into their bedroom and reached in a dresser drawer where she’d stashed the photo Orlando had brought with him. She held it out to her husband.

  Christopher looked at the photo—it was the same young man as in the photo with Sadie, except here he sat in his Spitfire, an elbow resting on the edge of the open cockpit in a casual and confident way. He wore a leather jacket and headgear, with goggles pushed up off his eyes. Christopher looked up at Pru. She squirmed.

  “Where did you get this?” Christopher asked, but she could tell he knew the answer already.

  “Right, well, there could be just the tiniest problem. I happened to talk with Orlando today, and I mentioned what we’d discovered only that we didn’t really have confirmation of…Orlando looked into the MOD records.” Christopher didn’t speak, and so she rushed on, telling him what Orlando had found, including the group captain’s assessment. “Will Donovan is dead—so his records should be public. And he has no family to object—or he does have family, and she will be so happy to know for certain.” Christopher continued to employ that useful and annoying police interrogation technique—silence—and so she put her hand on his arm and continued. “Will should be laid to rest, and now he can be. He didn’t run off to Ireland. Sadie was right.” More silence. “Orlando won’t be in trouble, will he?”

  Christopher sighed and held up the paper. “This was unnecessary. We would have arrived at the same conclusion without Orlando putting himself in jeopardy.”

  “How long would that have taken?”

  He didn’t answer, only studied the photo again. “I had better continue going through the proper channels. Canceling a request for information now might send up a red flag. If the boy is good, he left no trace, and so he won’t hear about it from MOD—but he will hear about it from me.”

  Confession at an end, Pru relaxed. “He wanted to help,” she said. “And he wanted to get back here—maybe mostly to see Jemima again, but I think he missed us, too.”

  Christopher put his arms around her. “The lure of backbreaking labor in the garden, was it?”

  She nestled her face into his neck, and they stood silent for a moment. “We started out talking about Jack, and we’ve ended talking about Will,” she said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we have more work to do.”

  She left Christopher to his m
urder room and went to bed. The photo of Will in his Spitfire floated through her mind, followed by images of a village dance during the war—saucy Sadie flashing her dimples at the dark, handsome RAF pilot. Their faces changed to that of her own parents, and the setting morphed into the fancy dress at the Blackbird, just three days away. Still nothing to wear.

  Chapter 34

  The next morning, Christopher kissed her before she was fully awake and went downstairs. Once dressed, she slipped back in the murder room to take another look at the whiteboard. Photos had been rearranged. Simon’s had been added back, causing Pru a stab of panic until she could see that Christopher had created a schedule of Jack’s last day. He left Stan’s midmorning, talked with Peachey, visited Kitty—a stick figure stood in for a photo of her—and stopped at the Blackbird, where Ursula and Dick had heard the run-in with Simon. It was all there, albeit with wide gaps between, ending at Greenoak. Next to that, Christopher had jotted down a list of names: Stan, Pru, Peachey, Kitty. Pru’s name was circled.

  Her breath quickened. What did she have in common with these others? Three break-ins—Stan’s house, Peachey’s van, Kitty’s duck-feed bin—and Pru knocked down in the parterre lawn. Each time, no one was harmed; nothing was taken.

  She flew down the stairs and into a jolly scene in the kitchen, with Peachey regaling Claire and Orlando with a tale of being chased down the lane by Sonia’s mother, a duck of the same ilk. Pru exchanged “good mornings” with everyone as Evelyn turned out rashers of bacon onto their plates. Christopher stood across the kitchen leaning against the counter with a cup of tea in hand. Pru sought out his gaze and locked on it, which caused him to set down his cup and nod toward the mudroom.

  “I saw your list,” she said in a quiet voice. She increased her volume slightly against the laughter in the kitchen. “Greenoak was the last place Jack went that day—the very last. But I was knocked over in the parterre lawn right after Stan’s place was ransacked. The break-ins, Stan, Peachey, Kitty”—she ticked them off on her fingers—“those three were in the same order as Jack saw them on his last day.”