‘Let’s see what you’ve got, then.’
Styles placed the storage box he’d brought with him onto a nearby bench, flipped the lid off and lifted out the first of five evidence bags, each containing a cutting from one of the rose bushes. Booth picked up the one closest to him.
‘May I?’ He gestured as if to open the bag.
Styles nodded. ‘These are just cuttings, it’s fine to handle them.’
Booth reached in, lifting out the single stem, letting the bag fall back inside the box. He rolled it between finger and thumb, causing the buttery yellow petals to twirl. He gently probed the bloom with a finger, separating the petals, peering between them, then raised it to his face, closing his eyes as he inhaled the perfumed scent. He repeated the process with the other four.
‘Been a few years since I worked with roses in particular, so you’ll excuse me if I’m a little rusty,’ he said, ‘but these are exquisite. This one’ – he held up the first flower again – ‘is a shrub rose. They all are actually, variations on a theme. Perfect for the kind of conditions Kam described. They’ll make do with four, maybe five hours of sun, plenty of moisture.’
‘Call me a heathen, but when I buy some for my wife, they all look the same,’ Styles said. ‘We’re working on the basis that whoever did this, these meant something to them. Maybe they’re a rare type, particular to certain areas, that sort of thing. Is there anything unusual about these that you can tell me about?’
‘They do look familiar.’ Booth nodded.
‘You recognise them?’ said Styles, hopeful.
‘Yes, and no,’ said Booth. ‘This one, for example.’ He held it out towards Styles, as if closer inspection would reveal its secrets to him. ‘Have you heard of Daniel Grantham?’
Styles shook his head. ‘Someone you work with?’
Booth smiled. ‘I wish. No, Daniel Grantham is one of the best-known rose breeders in the country.’
‘Rose breeder? How do you breed a rose? I thought you’d just plant it?’
‘There are over one hundred and fifty species of rose, Detective, and that’s before you start factoring in hybrids. Men like Daniel Grantham create new varieties all the time.’
‘How exactly do you create a new rose?’ asked Styles, his forehead creasing at what he’d thought would be a simple enquiry growing legs and running off in a completely new direction.
‘It’s not that complicated, to be honest.’ Booth shrugged. ‘Anyone with a bit of time on their hands can do it. It involves collecting pollen from one rose, then you apply that to the stigmas of another plant that you’ve already prepared. What you get are rose-hips, seed pods, that form. You harvest the hybrid seeds from those, plant them and, hey presto, you’ve bred a new rose.’
It sounded like way too much hard work for Styles when he could get a bunch delivered from his local florist, but he kept those thoughts to himself, not wanting to rain on Booth’s parade. Something Booth had said a moment ago bounced back into his mind.
‘When I asked if you recognised them, you said “yes and no”. What did you mean by that?’
‘Ah yes, sorry, I tend to go off on tangents if you get me started. I asked about Daniel Grantham because this looks a lot like one of his hybrids that we had here as part of an exhibition last year.’ He held it up again, a conductor raising his baton. ‘Very similar to one he bred; he calls it the Poet’s Wife.’ Booth chuckled. ‘They do have some overly grand names, but it’s all part of the fun of creating them: you get to name them like children.’
‘Similar, but not the same?’ Styles asked.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The scent is a little different. I remember that one being a little citrusy. This one, not so much. The petals’ – he stroked a finger over them again – ‘these are a little less densely packed.’
‘How about the others?’
‘Mmm, this one could be the same.’ Booth picked up a second stem. ‘This one looks a lot like one of my favourites, a breed called Tranquillity. Couldn’t say for sure with the other two. Whoever picked them has good taste, though. If I were you I’d get in touch with Daniel. He’ll tell you for sure if these are his.’
‘Where can I find Mr Grantham?’
‘His centre is out west, towards Reading. A place called Kiln Green.’
‘Don’t suppose you have a number for him? Best if I give him a quick call, then, make sure he’s in before I drive out there.’
‘He’ll be there, Detective. He eats and sleeps there,’ Booth said, holding out his phone so Styles could copy the contact info.
‘Bit of a workaholic, then?’
‘The worst kind. Still is, even though he’s a few years older than me as well. Literally lives there in an old farmhouse.’
Styles thanked him and headed back along the path to Victoria Gate. His maps app said he’d be there in a little over forty minutes. No way could he make that now and be back in time to meet Emma for lunch at noon. Strictly speaking, Porter had asked him to run down the Kew Gardens contact. He could always head back to the station now, get one of the others to follow up with Grantham while he had lunch.
There was a nagging feeling, though, that he’d not been pulling his weight as much lately, even without the cock-up that had put Simmons in a jam. Porter hadn’t said as much, but Styles felt it. There wasn’t an atmosphere as such, but he’d sensed Porter’s frustration a few times recently. He took out his phone to call Emma, but thought better of it. She’d pluck at the heart strings, try and persuade him to go with plan A. She’d probably succeed, too. All the more reason to drop her a text instead.
Hey Em. About to start an interview. Probs going to overrun so won’t make lunch. Make it up to you tonight – takeaway – your choice. x
Not a lie, just a gentle stretching of the facts. The tiny bubble popped up showing her impending reply.
You had me at takeaway. Go get ’em. x
His thoughts turned back to the flowers as he reached his car. Two of the four possibly coming from the same place − if Grantham confirmed it, that is − could be a coincidence, but that wasn’t the feeling he was getting. Everything about the island, the clearing, the way it had been carefully carved out, just didn’t feel like anything had been left to chance.
Styles suddenly had a thought. Who would the flowers be more precious to than the man who’d created them? What if he was walking in there to meet the person responsible for all of this? He shook it off, remembering Marc Booth mentioning that Grantham was a few years older than him. That put him floating around his mid to late seventies. It was hardly as if Styles was going to call in for backup on the vaguest notion of a hunch. He could just imagine the stick he’d get back at the station. They’d be leaving roses on his desk for years.
He tapped David Grantham’s address into his satnav and pulled out into traffic. What’s the worst that could happen?
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
‘Do you have any idea how much shit you’ve caused me?’ Eve Simmons was in his face from the second he climbed out of his car. Angry, but the controlled sort that carried more weight than an all-out shouting, bawling verbal kicking.
‘What was I meant to do? Sit around and wait another five months, and hope that Nuhić decided to help out of the goodness of his heart?’
‘Alright, let me put it another way,’ she said, hands on hips, practically barring his way back into the station. ‘How would you feel if I ran into the middle of one of your cases, kicked it all over like a bully to a sandcastle?’
‘So, I’m a bully now, am I?’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said with an exasperated sigh. ‘We might not be there yet, but we’re as close as anyone’s come in months to getting to him. Now that’s all compromised, thanks to you.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, ‘I did no such thing. We’ve got Simon bang to rights from Ally and Marcus’s statements plus his little pharmacy in the lock-up. This doesn’t compromise your inside man in any way. Besides, Nu
hić already knows you’re watching him.’
‘Eh? What? How would he know that? And how do you know he knows that?’
‘He as much as told me so. And I have no idea how he knows,’ Porter said, throwing up his hands. ‘He’s a drug dealer. They’re all bloody paranoid, aren’t they?’
‘He will be thanks to you barging in there,’ she shot back.
‘Look, Evie, I’m sorry if I’ve pissed you off, OK?’ he said taking the heat from his voice. ‘You know I wouldn’t have done something like that just for the hell of it. I just thought after the sighting in the park, we were finally getting somewhere, you know? Then all this shit kicks off on that island, and it’s like Libby Hallforth is a second-class citizen, even though she’s been in line longer. I had to try something.’
‘Maybe you did, but you should have talked to me first.’
‘I did,’ he protested. ‘I called you before …’
‘I mean talked it through before you went over there. You didn’t call to have a chat about the rights and wrongs. You called to tell me what you were going to do, and that’s not how this works, Jake. You can’t just do what you want and expect to talk your way out of it after the shit hits the fan.’
‘Usually works out alright for me, to be fair,’ he said, attempt to lighten the tone as her point hit home.
‘Yeah? Well if you’d heard what Maartens was calling you half an hour ago, you might not be feeling quite as bloody flippant about it all.’
‘I’ll speak to him and make it right,’ Porter said. ‘But I think this is our best lead for a while. Hallforth is a wrong ’un. I still wouldn’t rule him out completely. Once he finds out we’ve spoken to Nuhić, though, that might make him more cooperative, to think that his boss suspects him of already talking to us. You’ve met him. You really think it’s a stretch to imagine him pissing off some pretty nasty people? The kind bad enough to teach you the kind of lesson that only needs giving once. I know I said it might be Nuhić’s competitors, but it’s more likely to be Nuhić himself, after what we’ve heard about him. Maybe it was to teach Hallforth a lesson. Maybe Libby just saw something she shouldn’t have.’
‘You really think he’d hurt a seven-year-old girl?’
Porter nodded slowly. ‘I hate to say it, but yeah. I think he’s the kind of man who doesn’t like to have to give a message twice, so he makes damn sure it lands the first time. The sort of man you’d be too scared of retaliating against, even if he hurt your family, for fear of what he might do to the ones that were still around.’
Simmons took a step back now, spent, the fight in her melting away.
‘I don’t want to argue with you about shit like this, Jake. If this is going to work outside of work, we’ve got to keep some ground rules here too. If we’re a team off the clock, we need to be on the same team at work as well. I get where you’re coming from, I really do, but Nuhić is no joke. If he had anything to do with this, he’s not exactly going to hold his hands out to be cuffed, is he? If he’d hurt a kid, who’s to say he wouldn’t have a pop at a copper as well?’
‘That wouldn’t end well for him,’ Porter said.
‘Yeah, probably wouldn’t, but for all you know you might not have walked out of that bakery, and that’s a pretty shitty ending too.’
She looked up at him, eyes wide blue pools that he could fall into. Anywhere other than the station, and he’d pull her in close, wrap his arms around her. He hated the fact that being here made him feel like he couldn’t. They stayed like that for a few seconds, before the moment passed. She took a half-step back, turning to let him past.
‘I’d give Maartens another half hour if I were you.’
‘Sounds like good advice,’ he said, smiling.
‘You might want to give Kam Qureshi a call, though. He came looking for you earlier. Said he had something for you.’
‘Did he say what?’
‘Yeah, the bodies from the park. The tests came back on the clothes they were buried in, and it’s an odd one.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The entrance to Daniel Grantham’s premises reminded Styles of a farm. He clocked the blinking LED in the treeline above, CCTV watching any comings and goings. Not quite the full relaxed rustic look once you spotted that. Was there much call for security in the flower business? he wondered. Industrial rose espionage, perhaps?
A mini tractor, more like a golf cart, zipped through the gates and past him while he stood rooted to the spot. The piss-take down at the station would have lasted a lifetime if he’d been done over by something that size in a hit and run.
A concrete circle acted like a roundabout just inside the gates, a spur off either side and, straight ahead, a smaller set of gates, thin metal bars with the initials D and G housed in between the wrought-iron rods. Wooden trellises stood either side, and through the gates, Styles saw enough roses to have Valentine’s covered for a small town. Unsure which way to head, he was mid eenie meenie minie mo when a figure approached from behind the gates.
The man who opened them could have been Marc Booth’s brother. Similar tanned, weathered look, but the sort earned through years of working outdoors, not wasted on a sun lounger.
‘You wouldn’t be Detective Styles by any chance, would you?’
Just the slightest hint of a Highland burr, enough to suggest he’d lived south of the border for most of his years.
Styles nodded. ‘That would make you Mr Grantham? I tried calling a few times earlier, but your line was engaged. Business must be good.’
‘The very same. Don’t worry, laddie, Marc called ahead, told me you needed my help, so here I am,’ he said, spreading arms wide. ‘Is this them?’ he added, nodding to the box under Styles’s arm.
‘Yep. Is there somewhere we can go and talk, maybe a little more private?’
‘We can use my office,’ Grantham said, gesturing for Styles to follow him through the gates. Either side of the path was an explosion of colour, a gauntlet for hay fever sufferers to run. Roses with such vivid hues and tones that it was like looking at nature on an HDTV.
‘Makes the raggy ones I get from Tesco for my missus look like weeds,’ he said.
‘Not even a fair comparison, Detective,’ Grantham said as they headed inside.
Where they finished up was more greenhouse than office. Glass walls, benches lining two sides, littered with pots, gardening tools and several pairs of gloves, longer than the usual gardening variety Styles had seen.
Grantham caught his gaze. ‘Rose gauntlets. I’d be scarred for life without them. Now let me see what we have.’
He nodded towards the box Styles carried. Styles put it down, took the roses out of their bags and laid them side by side on a clear part of a bench. Grantham didn’t pick them up straight away. Instead he leant in, touching them lightly with his forefinger, squinting through glasses that could put a telescope lens to shame.
‘Marc Booth seemed to think these might be some of your creations.’ He pointed towards the two Booth had highlighted earlier. ‘How easy is it to tell?’
‘I might have jam-jar bottoms for glasses, Detective, but I can still tell a Roald Dahl from a Rambling Rector.’ Styles blinked in confusion. Grantham might as well be speaking Spanish, and the older man must have seen the baffled look.
‘Varieties of rose, two of my creations.’
It felt like the equivalent to Styles of distinguishing between wines. Red, white and rosé in his book. Anything deeper than that was lost on him. Roses might be red, white, or any number of other shades. They were still just roses. He had a feeling saying that out loud now would be the equivalent of calling Grantham’s kids ugly, so he kept those thoughts to himself.
‘Mr Booth said this one was close but not quite,’ he said, tapping a finger on the bench near the one Booth had called Tranquillity.
‘He’s no fool, that one,’ said Grantham. ‘It’s not far off my Tranquility. One step removed, maybe two, but the petals are slightly differently shaped, an
d the scent has lost a note.’
‘So somebody has tampered with your creation?’
‘What they do once they buy them, however misguided, is up to them I suppose, but yes, at first glance that’s what it looks like.’
‘And the other?’
Grantham inspected the other rose. Peeling petals back with his finger, peering inside the folds, rolling stems between finger and thumb. After a minute, he looked up, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
‘I’d say the same about this one too, a version of The Poet’s Wife. Decent efforts, actually. Whoever did it knows their stuff. This one’ – he pointed to a third rose, an apricot-coloured bloom – ‘is a spin-off from my Roald Dahl. I can see from your face you’re not sure of the names. It’s just a little indulgence. Gives them a slice of personality, don’t you think?’
Styles shrugged, nodding, not sure what to say on that. Instead, he decided to steer back towards the case.
‘Would you happen to have a list of customers who’ve bought those varieties from you? Maybe a list of your staff here as well?’
Grantham laughed, bordering on a snort. ‘I probably do, but there’ll be hundreds of customers, thousands even. As for staff, I’ve got a dozen. Sometimes a few more in the busier periods.’
‘Could I get that going back the last five years?’
‘My son insisted everything went digital a while back now, so I can get him to email you the list, customers and staff, for all the good it’ll do you.’
‘You’ve got a family business, then?’
Grantham nodded. ‘I’m more of a part-timer these days. Stick to what I love, creating new flowers. My son runs most of the business side of things now, you know, the marketing, website, does the books and all that stuff. Has done since … well, for a while now.’
‘Since what?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Grantham said, waving a hand, laugh a little too forced. ‘Family stuff that’s all in the past. Tell me, Detective, this secret garden you found in the park, what was it like?’
All That Is Buried Page 17