The Garden Plot Page 7

  Late in the evening and almost too tired to care, she remembered about the extra photos on her phone. She downloaded them to her computer and then put the entire set on a flash drive. As an afterthought, she did the same again and dropped both flash drives into her bag. She would take one to the police station and keep the other for Mrs. Wilson. But first she would take a look; she didn’t want to waste the inspector’s time.

  She’d fallen into the easy digital trap—of snapping way too many photos for her needs. She clicked through quickly—overgrown and forlorn back garden slowly evolving to less overgrown and nearly barren back garden—until she got to that morning, the morning of the murder. A few shots of the front included a woman holding the hand of a young girl in a school uniform. The girl stood on a small scooter and glided along, pulled by the woman; another with the postman pushing his cart; and another with a large man in his sock feet. There’s a sight you don’t often see in Chelsea, she thought. She hadn’t been able to get a clear shot of the front at all.

  Her eyes began to glaze over. She didn’t see any big clues jumping out at her, no murderer slinking along the wall or attempting to hide in a corner. Malcolm had moved his ladder, and she could tell in a couple of shots that he had been watching her from an upstairs window, but that was no surprise. The garden played a role in the murder, but perhaps only as a stage.

  Before she shut the computer down, she searched for “Hodges & Hodges Appraisals,” just out of curiosity. She remembered seeing the letter at the Wilsons’ and wondered just what the company appraised.

  Antiques, artifacts, and antiquities, as it turned out. Hodges & Hodges specialized in Greek and Roman statuary, artwork, intricate jewelry, and objects of beauty—all quite old, incredibly expensive, and passing from private owner to private owner for what, Pru could only imagine, amounted to vast sums, although the actual sums were deemed too crass to mention online. The sleek and subtle website didn’t shout the company’s importance so much as whisper it. Right smack in the middle of the home page a notice read: “A rare and exceptional opportunity to own a piece of ancient Rome. Please contact one of our associates to enquire on an upcoming private auction of this most incredible find. We will be accepting bids for the item in the near future.”

  The next morning, Pru stopped by the Cat to freshen the window boxes on her way to coffee at the Wilsons’. She wondered if she’d have the chance to replant for winter. Or will I be tending cacti, as Malcolm thinks we all do in Texas? The thought of leaving England gave her a desolate knot in her stomach. Sure, she could stay in London and spend every penny of her savings, but if she’d found nothing by the time she got to the bottom, what then?

  Wilf came out to her as she worked. “Pru, you aren’t leaving us, are you? Only, I saw Archie Clarke the other day.”

  Pru stood stock-still with a broken branch of petunias in her hand. “What? No, they aren’t back, Wilf—they can’t be back. You saw him?” The Cat was the Clarkes’ local as much as hers, and they were known to Wilf.

  Her forceful denial seemed to throw Wilf off base. “I don’t want you to go, Pru. Maybe they were only back checking on things.”

  “No, Wilf.” Pru felt defeat sneaking up on her. “How could that be? They haven’t told me anything. Jo hasn’t told me anything.” Her breathing was shallow. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “He wasn’t in the pub—I just saw him on the street. But maybe I was wrong.” Wilf shrugged.

  Tragedy will bring people together, and this, she thought, must be why Mrs. Wilson had asked her round for coffee. She set aside Wilf’s sighting of Archie Clarke—maybe Wilf needed new glasses—and knocked at the Wilsons’ door, which set Toffee Woof-Woof off as much as the bell. She waited what seemed a long time for an answer, until Mrs. Wilson, slightly breathless, opened the door a few inches. Oh, no, Pru thought, had she got it wrong? Or had Mrs. Wilson had second thoughts about her invitation yesterday?

  “Oh, it’s you.” Mrs. Wilson opened the door wide when she saw Pru’s face. “We’ve had the most annoying visitors since this all happened. I didn’t want to answer any more questions.” She headed back to the kitchen and said over her shoulder, “Come through, dear. Harry is downstairs with his bits and bobs.”

  Pru saw that the shed and its immediate surroundings were taped off, although no police moved about on the job as yesterday. “Are they finished with the investigation?”

  “I don’t know, but we were told to stay out of the garden as much as possible and under no circumstances go into the shed.” Mrs. Wilson poured boiling water over the ground coffee in the cafetière. “Apparently, the inspector was concerned about how much you had walked round in there. He seems a stern sort.”

  Stern, brusque, irritating—Pru could fill in a few more descriptive words. “Will you still be able to live here?” asked Pru, unsure of how English subletting worked. Her own agreement was cut and dried; it would last only one year. And the end of that year was breathing down her neck.

  “I suppose it all depends on Xanthe, Jeremy’s ex-wife. They still had all their business together, and I would think she’d see to the property.” She held the milk jug in her hand and stared off into space. “I’d hate to have to look for another place in a hurry again.”

  “Did you … sell your house in the country?” Pru asked carefully, not sure if that was a safe question.

  “No, dear, we didn’t sell it. It was a family home—my family. A great-uncle had left it to my brother, Alf, and we let it from him. Alf’s life is always a bit uncertain, and I felt that—apart from the fact we were able to live in a lovely country house—it was like an insurance policy for him, that he would have the money when he needed it.” Mrs. Wilson paused. “It’s just that he needed it without giving us much warning.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In Hampshire, near Romsey, a manor farm, nineteenth century.” Mrs. Wilson got a faraway look in her eyes. “Such a lovely setting, and I told you about the garden. Alf decided to sell. He wrote all the particulars up about Greenoak—a description for the estate agent to work from—even asking Simon, our gardener, about a boggy place on the property, but it’s far enough from the house that there would be no difficulty with the foundations. Still I suppose it’s the kind of thing you need to know when selling.” She poured their coffee. “Greenoak is just about the perfect place. I’m sure it attracted a great deal of attention. Alf said he was going to sell it to a couple of lads from the village who want to turn it into a boutique hotel, and so we had to move out.”

  “Did Mr. Wilson work in London while you lived in Hampshire?”

  “Harry worked out of the firm’s office in Winchester, although he came up to London often.”

  “Vernona?” Mr. Wilson stood in the doorway.

  “Oh, Harry, it’s just Pru.”

  She sank into the comfort of being “just Pru” to the Wilsons.

  “Hello, Pru, I’m sorry, but Vernona does have the ability to spread all our private news around the city.” Mr. Wilson looked a little rough around the edges—his eyes were hollow and marked with dark circles underneath.

  “I understand what it’s like renting,” Pru said, thinking back to the Wilsons’ Hampshire arrangements. “I’m subletting my place from a couple who have spent the last year in Italy. They’ll be coming home soon, and then I’ll …” Then you’ll what, Pru?

  She changed the subject. “Mr. Wilson, were you able to examine the mosaic at all?”

  “Just that evening with Jeremy. You had uncovered only about two feet of surface”—he measured it out with his hands—“and we really don’t know what else is in there. And when will we be able to find out?” He seemed to ask himself.

  Pru had seen the mosaic again that morning when she had found Jeremy’s body—someone had been digging much more than she had. “Will you ask your society to help excavate—whenever you’re allowed?”

  “I’d say the professionals will be called in—depending on what the earl wants to
do. We’ve got a contact in the archaeology department at University College—one of the professors is an adviser to our group.” Mr. Wilson paused for a moment and squinted his eyes at nothing. “I know he’d love to take a look. Some of the tiles were loose—a few were missing. The Romans set the tesserae, little cube-shaped tiles and pieces of stone, in a cementlike base. It’s inevitable that some would come off during the last two thousand years.”

  “Two thousand years,” Pru said. “It’s hard to believe that something could last that long in London without anyone knowing.”

  “Happens all the time.” Mr. Wilson warmed to his subject. “In general, cities get built on top of the past, layer after layer, but it could have started with the Romans themselves, when they left. They had a practice of covering up the places they were leaving, as a way of keeping the spirits in. We’re always running into something. Just a couple of years ago, the Duke of Northumberland found remains of a Roman settlement in west London.”

  “So, this is no big deal? Do you know how large the mosaic might be?”

  “It could be an important find. We don’t know. And it could be part of a larger floor, or it could be just a contained square for decoration. No way to tell now—at least not until the police are finished. ‘It’s a crime scene first, Mr. Wilson, and a dig after that,’ the inspector said. I’d love to get back there and take a look.” He gazed out the window at the shed wrapped in blue-and-white tape. He spoke again, thoughtfully. “Jeremy didn’t seem very surprised at the find. Perhaps he’d known for a while.”

  “Mr. Wilson,” Pru began, “when I went out there with the inspector, it looked as if someone had dug down behind the mosaic.” The snapshot appeared in her head of Jeremy Pendergast’s bloody body slumped in the corner; she blinked it away. “The soil was wet, really soggy the deeper the hole went. When you were with Mr. Pendergast, the night before … he died, did you notice that?”

  “No,” he said with mild surprise. “We didn’t dig down, we didn’t disturb the … scene while I was there.” His voice faded, and Pru had to listen carefully. “On Thursday evening when we talked, Jeremy wanted to dig the whole thing up without telling anyone, as if he’d thought it all through. The last few weeks, he’d started talking about how much these things we find are worth, and I tried to stop him …”

  He looked down at the floor. Pru felt a cold creep over her skin. Harry had tried to stop him—how?

  “That’s what we argued about,” he continued in a stronger voice, “but I know he wouldn’t have done that. He had too much honor. I wonder if someone was trying to push him into it. But Malcolm heard us arguing. Malcolm always hears what’s going on. I truly believe that Jeremy thought better of it by the time he left—we parted on a good note. We weren’t angry. But then, he came back. Maybe just to look at it again.”

  “One misleading word can send the police off in the wrong direction,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Malcolm’s got that way about him. It wasn’t long before the inspector was treating Harry like a suspect, if you can believe that.”

  Pru wondered if they had found more evidence. Did Mr. Wilson say something to implicate himself? But she couldn’t pry without sounding like Malcolm.

  “What was the trouble that Malcolm was in last year?” she ventured to ask, knowing that, too, was really none of her business.

  Mr. Wilson looked at the floor, then out the back window, at the floor again, then at Pru. “Malcolm tried to blackmail Jeremy. He said that Jeremy was hiding something, an artifact he dug up at a site in Sussex—misinformation courtesy of Vernona’s brother, Alf, as usual.”

  “Alf,” Pru spoke up. “The one who owns Greenoak?”

  Mr. Wilson gave a single nod. “Yes, that’s him. It wasn’t true, of course—what Malcolm had said—and when Jeremy confronted him, Malcolm backed down. Courage isn’t one of Malcolm’s strong points,” Mr. Wilson said darkly.

  “Did you tell … is that something the police know?”

  “We didn’t mention it. It seemed petty after Malcolm waltzed over here to practically accuse Harry of murder.” Mrs. Wilson came to her husband’s defense. “But perhaps we should tell them. Harry?”

  “Yes, perhaps,” Mr. Wilson said, although with little conviction in his voice. “You would think that Malcolm would have enough to occupy his time with his obligations at home.”

  Pru wondered how a rose garden could be considered an obligation. Then a thought struck her. “How does Malcolm know Alf?”

  “Alf helped us with the move here,” Mrs. Wilson explained—Mr. Wilson muttered, “The least he could do”—“and you know how Malcolm is. One glimpse of something going on and his head pops up over the back wall.”

  “Does Alf … work in Hampshire?” Pru asked, although from even the brief description of Mrs. Wilson’s brother she could almost answer that herself.

  “Alf doesn’t work at all, if he can help it,” Mr. Wilson said. “Instead, he spends his time thinking up ways to keep from working.”

  “He’s always had difficulty with authority …” Mrs. Wilson began.

  “Vernona excuses him,” Mr. Wilson said, “but the truth is he’s been in jail a couple of times. Once for breaking and entering—it was unfortunate for him that the house he chose to break in to belonged to the local constable, who was home watching telly at the time. Alf tried to explain himself away by saying he was investigating a local crime ring, and he’d been hired by the police.”

  Pru thought that sounded like a comedy routine.

  Mr. Wilson continued. “And then there was the time …”

  “Harry.” Mrs. Wilson’s tone held a mild reproach.

  “Hmmm?” Mr. Wilson looked at her, eyes wide and a smile playing around his mouth.

  Mrs. Wilson seemed to consider his unspoken question. “Oh, go on then,” she said.

  “Alf thought he’d found the perfect crime,” Mr. Wilson said, picking up the story, “when he decided to impersonate a Scottish businessman looking to open a branch of his Glasgow manufacturing company, which he said made scientific instruments that detect radon.”

  “He’d just seen a program on BBC Two about it,” Mrs. Wilson interjected.

  “He talked it up and said he might consider taking on a few investors. He set up a meeting where he thought he would collect all their cheques and be off with the money before anyone was the wiser. The trouble started when one of his potential marks brought an actual one of these radon-detecting instruments to the meeting—Alf had no idea what it was. And he had trouble remembering that Glasgow is west of Edinburgh. Then, when he was recognized by one of the potential investors whom he’d been in school with, well …” Mr. Wilson tried to cover up a laugh, which turned into a snort. “He might’ve thought of taking his scheme outside his own county.”

  Pru tried not to smile, but Mrs. Wilson took it in stride. “He’s always had quite an imagination, Alf, but a poor head for geography.”

  “A couple of years ago,” Mr. Wilson said, “he lurked around a dig we had down in Hampshire. Do you remember, Vernona, the time we found the remains of a Roman garrison near Thorny Hill?”

  “The place you found the knives and spoons?”

  Mr. Wilson turned back to Pru. “It was a great cache of everyday implements, utensils, shoes. But we also found several parts of shields, the center part, the metal boss.” He looked thoughtful. “Alf was quite taken with the idea of a Roman shield. I thought for sure we’d see a load of fake ones turn up somewhere that he had manufactured and tried to sell off.” His face clouded over and he glanced up at his wife, who had moved to the kitchen sink and stood with her back to them. “And now this.”

  By the time she left at midday, the Wilsons had fielded several calls and not answered the door three times. Pru couldn’t see how Inspector Pearse would ever suspect Mr. Wilson of murder. He seemed a kind and gentle man, concerned about his wife and enjoying his archaeology hobby. Yes, he was uneasy when talking about Jeremy Pendergast, but who wouldn’t be when a fr
iend had been murdered in your garden and there were no other suspects and no way for anyone else to get in?

  As she stood on the Wilsons’ front step, Pru saw out of the corner of her eye a man lingering across the road, watching her. She didn’t make eye contact and kept her gaze on the ground, worried that he was a reporter who would then add her name to the big murder story. She wondered if she could be asked to leave the country even if she did have a British passport.

  Reaching the sidewalk, Pru looped her bag over her shoulder and pulled out her phone to call Jo. A strong jerk on the strap from behind pulled her off balance and she fell back into someone, turned, and saw a scrawny, rough-looking fellow no taller than she, jerking the strap to her bag, making it cut into her neck.

  She began shouting, “Stop it, let go, stop it” over and over as loud as she could as she flailed at him. He cowered slightly, and so she kept up her resistance, but then he seemed to recover and batted her away. He looked at the phone in her hand and caught hold of her right wrist. That one action triggered in her mind the many practice sessions she’d had with her female crew members after taking a short self-defense class offered to employees at the arboretum.

  She swung her right arm in a wide circle, which broke his grip—although she also lost her grasp on the phone; it flew through the air and landed on the pavement with a crack. Her second move, just as practiced, took him by surprise while he looked down at her phone—the heel of her other hand came up from below and struck him under his chin.

  He screamed, fell on his backside, then scrambled up again as Pru heard someone yell “Oi!” from across the street. Before she could get her bearings, her attacker ran off, empty-handed, around the corner. The whole incident couldn’t have taken more than a minute—too quick to even get scared—but it left her disoriented, rattled, and breathing hard.

  “Are you all right?” said the man she’d thought was a reporter, as he ran up and looked into Pru’s face. “You gave him a wallop, I must say. I dialed 999 when I saw him grab you—the police should be here.”