The Garden Plot Read online

  Pru laughed and sobbed again before her breathing began to steady. Calmer now that her terrible secret was out, she said, “You don’t believe he did it, do you?”

  Christopher watched her closely. “Harry rang me this morning to tell me what happened last night.”

  Pru looked at him with alarm. “You mean, that I stopped by and … talked with him?”

  “He said that he wanted to confess”—Pru began to protest, but Christopher went on—“to knowing about the letter. And that he got carried away when he found out what might be under the mosaic, and that you stopped him before he went too far. He tried to stall yesterday when I first asked about the letter.”

  Still guilt-ridden, Pru couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “He knew I was downstairs.”

  “That’s what he told me today. He said you would tell me what happened, but as I was at that moment sitting beside you in hospital while you slept, I knew I’d have to wait awhile.”

  “Were you there the whole time?” she asked.

  “I had to leave briefly. You were asleep when I left and asleep when I arrived back, so I hoped I hadn’t missed much.”

  “You don’t need to watch over me every minute,” she said, grateful that he had.

  “I want to keep you safe,” he said, emphasizing every word, “and I want to do my job. It’s becoming a little difficult to do both.”

  “I’m more trouble than I’m worth?” she said, half serious, half in jest.

  He gave a little laugh and pulled her close. “Not quite. But you do make my life more interesting than I could’ve imagined.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. She breathed deeply and settled her head back against his chest. They were quiet for a moment.

  “Better?”

  “Yes,” she whispered and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Now, we’ll sit down and you can explain everything to me. Is that all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But first, I promised the doctor that you would eat. Does Gasparetti’s do takeaway? I could phone him.”

  “I don’t know if he does takeaway, but he has a lovely minestrone.” Pru firmly believed in the restorative properties of soup. “I’ll just go splash some cold water on my face. Could you pour us some wine?” He cocked his head at her. “I’ll just sip a little until the food gets here. I’m feeling much better.”

  Christopher pulled out his phone as he walked into the kitchen. Pru dashed in the loo.

  It was worse than she thought. She stared in the mirror at her swollen eyes and blotchy face. She blew her nose furiously, and said aloud, “Oh, God, Pru, could you look any worse?” Cold water felt good on her face, but did little for her looks. She rinsed her mouth with a tiny squirt of toothpaste and dabbed a bit of pink gloss on her lips. She reached in a drawer for an extra hair clip—her usual clip lost in the chaos of the past two days—combed it through her hair, twisted, and reclipped. She looked in the mirror again. Little had changed. “Yes, now, didn’t that just do the trick?”

  When she came out, she found Christopher on the sofa; on the coffee table in front of him sat one large glass of water and two glasses of wine.

  When she sat down, he kissed her softly on the cheek and rubbed her back. She blushed and said, “Crying is such an attractive activity, don’t you think?” He kissed her again. “Is the water for me?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is.”

  She picked up the water glass. “Cheers,” she said and drank down half of it. “There now, that went down a treat.”

  He smiled. “How much Latin do you know?” he asked.

  “I know loads of Latin,” she replied. “Ask me the name of any plant, go ahead.”

  He gave her an odd look. “Prunella—your name is Latin. It’s a plant, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “I’m named after a medicinal herb called selfheal. My mother always told me I could do for myself just fine.”

  “Could you read this?”

  “Not a word. Except for picking out Hadrian’s name.”

  He had found his reading glasses and removed the letter from its plastic sleeve, opening it to the second page, the one written in Latin:

  Imperator Caesar Hadrianus Augustus carissimo Antonio suo salutem. Non improvisam, nec inique, neque miserabiliter aut ingenio viribusque comminutis, nec ante tempus mihi idoneum, solutam corpore animam meam maxime velim scias. Paene videor, autem, ut comperi, iniuriam facere in eos qui mihi succurrunt quandocumque laborem, me solantes et ad quietum hortantes. Ex tantis rationibus, tibi talem epistulam scribo, non, mehercle, ut longiorum excogitator fabularum sed gestarum rerum simplex et subtilis relator … ille qui me genuit pater, hic privatus aegravit et mortuus est in anno quadrigesimo, mihi ergo est dimidium aetatis paterni, etiamsi tam longe quam mea mater fere vixi.

  “I expect Jeremy knew what it said,” Christopher said, “and Harry probably knows, too.” Pru felt another twinge of guilt. “We’ll show it to him tomorrow and talk about it then,” Christopher said, putting the letter back in its plastic sleeve. “In the meantime, I have something to show you.”

  He pulled two folded pieces of paper out of the inside breast pocket of his jacket. That action brought Pru’s attention to his jacket lapel, which looked rather damp.

  “Oh, God, look what I’ve done to your suit,” she said. “We should sponge it off, or you’ll have salt deposits crusting on the fabric.” Slightly embarrassed to remember her outburst, which already seemed long ago, she said, “I’m not really much of a crier, but when I do cry, I’m a mess.”

  He stood, took off the jacket, walked back in the kitchen, and hung it on the back of one of the chairs. While he was at it, he took off his tie. “There,” he said, coming back to sit down next to her, “enough about the suit. Read this.”

  Pru took the paper. It was a printout of an email.

  H—

  The mosaic we saw this evening in the garden is not new to me. But I tell you this, that it is the beginning of what could be the most remarkable find in our time, there is no other way to say it. I have an old letter for you, one that you must read carefully and consider thoughtfully before we go any further. We have many decisions ahead of us. I realise that you don’t believe we should take advantage of this opportunity. I beg you to put aside your concerns and do not try to block me in this endeavour. Please consider A, his knowledge and connections. He could be of great help. I’ll bring the letter around this evening.

  J

  Pru finished the email and sat still, afraid once more to look at Christopher. “I know this makes Mr. Wilson look bad, but you know there must be some explanation.” She found a tiny ray of hope. “He didn’t have the old letter. He didn’t get it until yesterday, when Jeremy’s wife—ex-wife—dropped it off. I was there, I’m a witness.”

  Her hand shook and the paper rattled. Christopher placed his hand on hers firmly but gently. “Read the next one,” he said.

  The second message, sent a couple of hours after the first, was shorter:

  H—

  I was terribly mistaken and I may have put the whole project in danger. You were right to object to my proposal. You are firm in your conviction that the public good, the educational worth far outweighs monetary gain. Before I give you the old letter, let me explain.

  I must see you before anything else happens. Forgive me. I will phone you soon.

  J

  Pru searched Christopher’s face. “That’s what Mr. Wilson said,” she exclaimed, “that Jeremy had reconsidered, that he didn’t want to take the artifacts. This proves they weren’t arguing any longer, and that Jeremy didn’t want to try to sell the artifacts. Doesn’t it?” she asked, hopeful that he could see this.

  “We checked Jeremy’s phone records and the Wilsons’. He never rang,” Christopher said. Pru waited. “So this may work in Harry Wilson’s favor.” She began to smile. “But,” Christopher said with some gravity, “why didn’t Harry tell us about the emails to begin with?”
>
  The answer was obvious to Pru. “He didn’t want to paint Jeremy in a bad light. He hadn’t seen the old letter and the note that Jeremy wrote to go with it—that helps Mr. Wilson’s case, doesn’t it? They were friends, and Mr. Wilson believed in Jeremy’s integrity. He would never want his memory tainted with accusations of possible theft. He thought if he showed you the emails that it would look as if Jeremy had tried to steal the mosaic or whatever is there—that’s the opposite of everything they’d always done and everything they stood for in their society.”

  “All right, Ms. Parke, you may stand down.” He smiled at her and took her hand.

  Pru looked at the first email again. “Who is ‘A’? Do you think he means Alf?”

  “From all we’ve heard about Alf Saxsby,” Christopher said, “I find it difficult to imagine that anyone would rely on his ‘knowledge and connections.’ His speciality is breaking and entering.”

  Breaking and entering … the phrase jogged Pru’s memory. “Christopher, there’s something else.” She looked up nervously and kept hold of his hand. “I didn’t sleep last night, but early this morning, I drifted off and I had a bad dream. When I woke up—I may have yelled—I thought I heard something down here.”

  His hold on her hand tightened. “What did you hear?”

  “It sounded like a door closing—maybe the front door.” She thought hard. “I could’ve imagined it—I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t hear anything else, and I looked around down here and didn’t see anything different.”

  “Pru …”

  “And then I left, and I was phoning you when I fainted. So I didn’t wait—it’s just that I didn’t remember until now.” Again, she caused another delay in getting information to him. “I’m sorry.”

  He stood up and rang the police station before she could say anything else, demanding the fingerprint crew get there immediately. When he rang off, she grabbed his arm in alarm. The trauma of the previous day lingered, and her thought process hadn’t returned to normal. “But they’ll find my fingerprints, mine.”

  He took both her hands in his. “Look at me. Yes, they’ll find yours, and that’s fine. We know you. They’ll find mine, too. And then we’ll know if anyone else has been here.”

  She felt on the verge of tears again and angry with herself. She said, “I’m not much help, am I?”

  “Your involvement in this case has been invaluable—at least, I think so.” Her laughter squeezed the tears out of her eyes and they tumbled down her cheeks.

  A knock at the door heralded the arrival of both the fingerprint technicians and a surprised waiter from Gasparetti’s with dinner, which consisted of minestrone, a crusty loaf of bread, and a small plate of antipasto, the last compliments of Riccardo—who normally did neither takeaway nor deliveries, but was quick to make an exception—when he heard that Pru was feeling under the weather.

  She tried to stay out of the fray as the police dusted all the doorknobs and latches in the house. During the dusting, Christopher’s phone rang. He walked into the kitchen as he talked. When the crew packed up and left, Pru followed Christopher into the kitchen just as he rang off.

  As they sat down to dinner, he said, “That was Harry Wilson on the phone.”

  “Are they all right? Did something happen?”

  “They are fine,” he said. “I told him we’ll need to talk with him tomorrow. But he wanted to tell me that this evening, when he told his wife about your visit last evening, Vernona broke down in tears and said that you must stay away from them, because Alf rang on Sunday and as much as threatened you with harm if you didn’t.”

  “Alf? Do you think that Alf sent Romilda?” Alf had seemed like a clown to her until now, a harmless bungler. But he had told Mrs. Wilson … Her fear shifted to sympathy. “Poor Mrs. Wilson.”

  He picked up her hand and kissed it. “She was upset, she said, because of the way she treated you … When was that?”

  Pru remembered how she’d felt when Mrs. Wilson dismissed her from their lives.

  “Yesterday.”

  “She thought she would be saving you if you stayed away from them, and the only way she could think of to accomplish that was to pretend they didn’t want you around.”

  Her emotions still ragged, Pru’s eyes filled with tears. “She said those things to protect me …” She put her hand over her heart and clutched at her sweater. “But it hurt when it happened.”

  She believed that Christopher stood ready to acknowledge Harry’s innocence, and it lifted a huge weight off Pru’s mind. They said little while they ate. The soup and wine worked their magic—she began to feel comfortable and sleepy, and had to fight to remain alert.

  “What was Malcolm doing across the street from my front door so early this morning?” she asked, returning to the events of the day.

  “Out for his morning walk was what he told me when I asked,” Christopher said in a skeptical tone. “Do you remember seeing him?”

  “Yes,” she said, thinking back to the last image she had of that morning. “He was coming toward me with his hands out.” She frowned.

  Christopher set down his glass. “Do you think he pushed you down the front step?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. It’s just the last thing I remember. Malcolm coming toward me with his hands out.” She looked up at him, still frowning.

  “I will talk with him again tomorrow. He said he saw you faint. And he did phone for help.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, “that’s probably what it was. He did help.” She thought about the terrible day and night she’d spent. She smiled at Christopher as she noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “You didn’t sleep well last night, either.”

  “I almost came back over here about three this morning,” he said. “If I hadn’t heard from Malcolm so early, I’d have been here knocking the door down.”

  “That would’ve been … quite a … scene,” she said.

  Pru found it difficult to concentrate. She’d finished her glass of wine—her first or second, she couldn’t quite remember—and her eyelids were heavy. She rested her chin on her hand and blinked, but it must have been more than a blink, because when she opened her eyes again, Christopher stood over her.

  “You need to sleep,” he said, “enough wine and talk and …”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” she mumbled as he took her hand, led her out into the sitting room and sat her down on the sofa. “I tell you what, let me just sit here for a minute and then I’ll be fine.”

  “Lie down.” He took her shoes off, held her head up off the throw pillow, and unclipped her hair. She stretched out.

  “I tell you what, let me just lie here a minute. I’ll just close my eyes for one minute and then I’ll be fine, okay?”

  She closed her eyes and asked, “You won’t leave?”

  “No, I won’t leave.” The last thing she remembered was the feel of his lips on her forehead.

  Chapter 14

  She opened her eyes when his phone rang. Christopher jumped up from the overstuffed chair and answered, “Pearse,” as he walked into the hall. She saw him stretch out his back. A book lay open upside down on the arm of the chair.

  He had covered her with a light throw. She’d slept through the night; sunlight now poured in through the windows and then disappeared with a passing cloud. She sat up and stretched, listening to his voice. Not really the first night together that she had hoped. She grabbed her hair clip from the coffee table and dashed in the loo, catching his eye as she did so.

  When she came out, he’d put the kettle on and leaned over, peering into the small fridge.

  “Not much to see in there, I’m afraid,” she said.

  He smiled. “Good morning.” He stood up. “There’s leftover minestrone.”

  She wanted to tell him how grateful she felt for his understanding. “Thank you. Thank you for staying, for listening to me. For not arresting me.” She walked over and gave him a quick kiss. “Now, I’ll make us scrambled eggs. At
least there are eggs. And look—Riccardo’s bread for toast.”

  At the table, with plates clean and more tea poured, Christopher said, “No extra fingerprints, I’m afraid. Just yours and mine.”

  “And did they wonder why yours were here?”

  “I made it perfectly clear that they would find mine. There were no questions asked.”

  “I could’ve imagined it,” she said, looking down into her lap. “I was a little crazy.”

  “I’m sorry you had to spend a day and a night afraid and worried about what might happen.”

  “It certainly wasn’t your fault,” Pru said. “I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “I should’ve stayed Sunday night.”

  Pru reached across the table and touched his hand. “Yes, you should’ve stayed Sunday night.” She started to draw her hand away, but he caught hold of it. “I didn’t want to complicate things for you.”

  She looked down at their hands. “It’s too late for that. But could you have stopped me from doing such a silly thing?”

  “I could’ve at least made sure that you ate a good breakfast,” he said.

  Pru smiled and allowed herself two seconds to enjoy the thought of that breakfast and what might have led up to it. “Right,” she said, back to the business at hand. “What were you reading last night?”

  “Well, I was awake for a while, and I thought I’d find something to do besides watch you sleep.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t say that.” She winced at the thought. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “You didn’t snore,” he reassured her.

  “Thank God. Now, moving on …” she prompted him.

  “Let me show you the book I found.” They walked into the front room. “It’s about the Roman Empire.”

  “I thought those were all travel books up there,” Pru said, “like Beautiful Italy.”

  “Most of them are, but this small one has something we might find interesting.” He handed the open book to her, and she looked down to see a photo of a coin that appeared remarkably similar to the drawing in the letter.