—
She dashed ahead of him, through the kitchen with a hello to John—who, acting as house monitor, sat at the table eating a sausage roll—and into a small sitting room and office next to it. She spotted her bag near the desk, where Jo had left it, continued into the loo, and did her best to wash the dried beer off her face, although the aroma lingered on her clothes.
Christopher arrived as she took her hair clip out, combed through, and reclipped. They sat in chairs next to a tall window and she told him about Seamus, finishing with, “Lizzy and Mrs. Draycott confirmed it’s him. The same fellow we met at the pub. I saw him again at Cherry’s—I thought he might be a private patient.”
“He’s come back for another attempt at buying the land? Did Bede stand firm?” Christopher asked. “Or had Bede led him to believe it was a possibility? You say he’s a property speculator?”
“Yes, whatever that is.”
“Isn’t it a lot of trouble to go to—murdering someone in that way—over a sour business deal? What would it get him?”
“Someone has been asking Noah about breaking the covenant on the meadows. It must be Seamus.” Christopher didn’t speak. “It might be Seamus,” she corrected herself. Always keep an open mind. “And what about Ger Crombie? Seamus could’ve sent him ahead to…prepare the way for a deal.”
“I can’t imagine anyone trusting Crombie with such a task. Still, we don’t know where he is.” Christopher looked her up and down. “You’ve done well.”
“Thank you.” She tried not to look too pleased. “What will you do?”
“I need to have another word with Noah Elkington, but I’ll start with Seamus Sheridan. In the beer tent, you say?”
“He should be. If he isn’t, look for Mrs. Draycott—she’s on a stakeout. She’s wearing—”
“Yes”—Christopher rubbed the side of his face—“I’ve seen what she’s wearing.”
“No telling what she might see when she’s incognito,” Pru said, and caught that ghost of a smile cross his lips. “Christopher, both Lizzy and Mrs. Draycott swear they saw Cherry on his way to Glebe House early the morning Mr. Bede died.”
A frown replaced his smile. “The doctor signed a statement saying he arrived late that morning—after you had already discovered the body. And Lizzy said nothing. Why wait until now to mention it?”
“Because she was asked to report anything unusual. This wasn’t—they saw Cherry every morning, same time, same place.”
The frown deepened as Christopher stared off into the middle distance. “They could be wrong,” he argued. “If they saw him every day, perhaps they automatically included him in the memory of their walk that morning. The mind can do that—fill in the most normal details, straighten out stories so that they make sense to us.”
“Mmmm,” Pru replied.
“Still, I’ll ask each of them again. Now, I’m off to find Mr. Sheridan. And you?”
“I need to talk to Coral and clear the air. She’s got the wrong end of the stick about—no, that’s for later. Affairs of the heart.”
After Christopher left, Pru’s thoughts continued to dwell on Seamus Sheridan, the meadows that Constance loved, and Mr. Bede’s promise to keep them safe. She didn’t recall any specific mention, but it wouldn’t hurt, she decided, to go over her primary documents again. But first, she could just do with a bite of something to help her think.
Pru stuck her head back into the kitchen and asked John, “Any of those sausage rolls left?”
There were. She took one back to the office and switched on a lamp before settling in a chair and digging in her canvas bag for Mr. Bede’s garden journals. They had accompanied her that morning as a device to force Coral and Oliver together—talking about the gardens and Glebe House—but now Pru realized they might hold crucial evidence about the time Seamus Sheridan offered to buy the land.
Pru had read through all three journals, but they were so chockablock with details of plants and design and comments about Constance or “the girl,” that she could have missed a vital clue. Batsford Bede might’ve written, He’ll get those meadows over my dead body! or some such declaration and there they would have it—Seamus Sheridan’s motive. Means and opportunity to be sorted—possibly involving Ger Crombie. Pru put aside the covenant—yes, it ran with the land—but time to worry about that later.
Poring over the journals again, she learned nothing, except that it was difficult to juggle a sausage roll in one hand and a book in the other. But these were historical documents, and she would not smear grease on the pages. Propping the third journal open in her lap, she popped the last bit of roll in her mouth, and thoroughly wiped her hand off on the leg of her trousers. The movement dislodged the journal, which tumbled to the floor, spilling the contents from the back, inner pocket.
The nursery receipts, on light, slick paper, slid away—under the desk, into the corner, sticking at the foot of a bookcase—while a packet of heavier linen writing paper plopped to the floor. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under a chair to sweep the bits together and spied a pair of leather walking shoes in the doorway.
“John said you were in here.”
She lifted her head and bumped it on the chair. “Hello, Cherry.” He had put his foot on one of the receipts and she crawled closer. “Sorry, do you mind?” She looked down, and from her vantage and the way the lamp cast its light, she could see directly into the cuff of his trousers where she saw a gleam, like a tiny reflection.
Cherry stepped away. “Here now, do you need help?”
She raked everything into a pile and sat back on her heels. “They fell out of the back of one of Mr. Bede’s journals—he kept all sorts of details about the gardens. I throw things out every day, although I can look at someone else’s accumulation—all these bits and bobs—as important historical documents. Sometimes makes me wonder if I shouldn’t keep that receipt for a flat white from Costa Coffee.”
Rabbiting on, she didn’t notice his silence until she looked up. Cherry stood still, only his eyes moving from journal to papers to Pru.
“How did you get hold of those?” he asked.
“Coral gave them to me on my first day. It’s been fantastic—I really can see how the garden developed, what he was thinking.”
“Lucky for you, wasn’t it?”
She picked up what she’d retrieved, and the heavier paper slid out and onto the floor. It had been folded and folded again—a couple of sheets. Plant lists, perhaps. She’d need those. Without thinking, she unfolded the paper enough to read the first couple of lines written in blue ink.
Codicil to the last will and testament of Batsford Benjamin Bede
I, Batsford Benjamin Bede, being of sound mind and body, declare this codicil to
She slapped the paper shut and held it to her chest.
“What’s that you’ve found?” Cherry was frowning at her.
“Plant lists.” Why had she said that? “Plant lists,” she repeated in a stronger voice. “And, I’m quite glad to come upon them, because the fire burned so much. But now, I’ve got these. Plant lists.”
She shuffled the codicil to the bottom of the stack of nursery receipts. She’d found it—it hadn’t been destroyed. Mr. Bede had put it in a safe place, he’d trusted a gardener with his last wishes, and here it was in her hands. She had to tell Christopher. Noah Elkington. Coral—what did it say about Coral?
Questions flew round Pru’s brain at warp speed. She looked up at Cherry and couldn’t remember why he was there and what they’d been talking about and if she should—no, she couldn’t say anything to anyone. Not yet.
“Did you…were you looking for me?” Pru asked as she put a hand out on the chair to stand.
“Yes, I was,” Cherry said. He took hold of her elbow and helped her up.
“Thanks.” She wished he would leave so that she could read the codicil in peace. What would it change?
“I’ve looked for Coral but haven’t seen her,” Cherry said. “I t
hought I’d check with you to find out how she’s doing. After Thursday.”
The fire on Thursday. The fire that didn’t burn the codicil.
“Fine, she’s fine. I think she’ll be all right.”
“I’d feel better if I could look in on her daily—just to make sure, to get her past this time.”
“Like your daily trips to Mr. Bede,” Pru said, which led her to another thought. “Cherry, did you check on Mr. Bede that last morning before he died?”
“I’ve answered that question more than once,” Cherry said sharply. “Why do you continue to ask it?”
“It’s a routine, you see. It’s so easy to operate on autopilot, seeing what we expect to see, doing what we do every day without realizing it.” Christopher had suggested this might’ve led to Lizzy and Mrs. Draycott reporting they’d seen Dr. Cherrystone when they hadn’t, but Pru thought it could work both ways. A quick walk, a look in on his patient and home again—all as it usually occurred and with the whole thing soon forgotten.
Pru warmed up to her idea. “It’s only that when something becomes such a part of our daily routine, we can forget we’ve even done it. Every morning at home, I walk out to the kitchen garden even before my tea and lift the covers off the cold frames. I do it without thinking, and sometimes later at breakfast it comes to me—‘Oh, did I forget to open the cold frames?’ And I have to go back out and check.”
“And you think I would black out an entire walk to Glebe House and back? What sort of a physician do you think I am?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to—” She didn’t know quite what she was trying to do. “It’s only that Lizzy and Mrs. Draycott mentioned they thought they saw you.”
Cherry grunted. “Ah, the Weyward Sisters. It’s the one who was missing that morning your inspector should be concerned with. It seems obvious she wanted to get her hands on Glebe House sooner rather than later.”
Chelsea buns had saved Cynthia, but Pru didn’t feel moved to explain that to the doctor. She had the codicil. And she really needed to find Coral, because she had something to explain. What was it? The codicil, yes, but also…Oliver. That’s right.
“The investigation is ongoing,” Pru said, wishing he would go away and take his black mood with him. She neatened the clutch of papers and tucked them back into the journal, packed the journals into her bag and put her bag on her shoulder. All the while, Cherry watching.
“Sorry,” she said, nodding toward the loo, “I’ll just—”
“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
—
After a minute ensconced in the loo, she stuck her head out the door, afraid she’d find Cherry in the same spot, but the coast was clear. She hadn’t dared to open the codicil while standing in the small space, imagining all sorts of disasters. What if she’d accidentally opened the lid of the toilet and dropped the codicil in? What if a pipe in the wall burst and soaked the paper? No, this called for dry, calm, solitary surroundings.
Pru set her bag down, and Oliver rushed in.
“Here you are.” He glanced round the room. “Where is Coral? She won’t talk to me. How can I explain if she won’t talk to me?” Oliver paced as he nattered on—two steps this way, two steps that way in the confined space. “Also, it isn’t fair to Cordelia and Lucy—or Ollie. This isn’t an issue. It shouldn’t be an issue. I know she wants children—I’ve known that all along. I want children—she knows that, too. That’s why she misunderstood, of course.” He stopped and reached out his hands to Pru, pleading. “Why won’t she give me a chance to tell her what she saw isn’t what she thought she saw?”
Right, talk with Coral. Pru picked her bag back up. “Where is she?”
“Gone.” Oliver threw up his hands. “She finished with story time and disappeared. Natalie thinks she’s gone off to Glebe House. I can’t leave yet—the fête’s another hour, and I’m slammed with the treasure hunt. Would you finish it out for me, Pru—the hunt?”
“I tell you what, you tend to your gnomes. I’ll go to Glebe House and talk with Coral.”
—
Talk with Coral and read the codicil in peace, Pru thought as she hurried out the door and down the path that ran by the kitchen garden wall and onto the footpath, heading away from the fête and crowds.
She was halfway across the second field when the air behind her stirred and tickled the back of her neck. She kept up her pace, grateful for the breeze. Soon the breeze grew into a gust that caught the dried stems of teasel at the edge of the field, bending them nearly horizontal.
Her phone rang—Christopher.
“What news, Inspector?”
“I’d say all of Gloucestershire waited until the last hour to turn out for the fête,” Christopher reported. “The place is heaving.”
Pru pulled up under the branches of a huge oak, and looked back toward Grenadine Hall, the wind now steady in her face. She saw enormous clouds peeking over the stand of beech trees on the far side of the field—black clouds with the sun shining off the white tops transforming them into fluffy mounds of marshmallow cream.
“Looks like we’ll get that change in the weather today,” she said, studying the sky. Over the phone line, she heard a crack and she flinched. “What’s that?”
“The marquees, flapping in the wind. Listen, I spoke with Seamus Sheridan. He does still dabble in speculation, but he isn’t the one questioning Elkington about the covenant. That was Dr. Cherrystone.”
“Cherry?”
“Have you seen him here today?”
“Yes, he came in the house after you left. He was looking for Coral. I saw…I mean, I found the—” She lost track of what she was saying, as the clouds grew at a rapid pace and threw the fête into darkness.
“Are you in the house?” Christopher asked.
“I’m on my way to find Coral,” Pru replied, raising her voice against the wind.
A flicker amid the black clouds. “Hang on,” Pru said, and counted to ten before she heard the rumble. Two miles away.
Pru had grown up in Texas and had worked outdoors at the Dallas Arboretum—she knew thunderstorms, and she knew the rules. Never stand under a solitary tree. Do not be caught in an open area. And here she was in direct disobedience.
“Can you turn back?” Christopher asked, an urgency in his voice that matched her own inner alarm.
If an appropriate shelter is not at hand, make your way to one as quickly as possible.
“No, I’ll keep on to Glebe House, that’s closer.” Beyond a fold in the next hill, she could see the stone wall and a line of yew behind it. She looked back—the clouds mushroomed and blotted out the sun. Pru took off, letting the wind push her along. “Wait—Christopher.” Her voice bounced as she trotted. “I have the codicil—Mr. Bede had put it in one of his garden journals. I have it—it’s safe! I’ll ring you when I’m there.”
He shouted something she couldn’t understand, and the call ended. She dropped her phone in her bag and ran.
As she attempted to outrun the storm, she also attempted to think, but decided the magnetic field of the storm must be affecting her brain. Christopher’s police mind could sort through the fact and fiction of Mr. Bede’s death and how Ger Crombie or Seamus Sheridan or even Dr. Cherrystone was involved. But Pru, her head filled with murder as well as concern for Coral, could only think of slugs.
A Gardener’s Riddle
I have no house upon my back
I treat your seedlings as a snack
I make my mark and leave behind
A glistening path of argentine
BB
Chapter 37
The slug—that pesky mollusk that glides through the garden in search of tasty hostas and butter lettuce, leaving behind a silvery trail that glints when the light catches it.
Just ahead of the storm, Pru reached the short slope that led to the end of the Long View at Glebe House, and her brain cleared. She knew that glint and she had seen it recently, but it hadn’t been a slug’s trail.
It had been the reflected light in the evidence bag filled with clear gelatin capsules that Christopher had held up that morning. She’d seen it, too, in the box he’d ordered online—a box that had contained what looked to Pru like a bagful of nothing until it landed with a soft thunk on the counter. The light had hit it and it reflected a quick gleam.
A bagful of nothing. She’d seen it three days earlier, in a drawer at Cherry’s house—in the doctor’s office for his private patients. It was the same silvery glint she’d noticed at Grenadine Hall not an hour ago—a capsule caught in the cuff of Cherry’s trousers and reflecting the light.
Dr. Cherrystone.
The darkness overhead deepened. Pru hopped over the ha-ha, hurried through the wrought-iron gate, and up along the Stilt Garden, the Long View, and Thyme Walk, straight to the French doors of Coral’s room. Pru rapped on the glass and called out, but there was no response. Please be here, Coral. She rattled the handle just as the sky flashed with blinding light, followed close on by a thunderous crack, an explosion, and a long, deep rumble. And then—as if great hands tore open the clouds overhead—the rain began.
Pru hugged her bag to her chest, turned her back to the weather, and huddled against the door, the drops pelting her shoulders and the back of her head. She gasped when a face loomed behind the glass.
“Pru!”
The handle moved and the door opened. Coral pulled her in, and for a moment, they stood silent at the open door, watching the rain beat the stones and batter the wide leaves of a hydrangea. Pru, water trickling down her back, saw a dried stalk of sedum crash to the ground as if it had been shot.
“One summer afternoon”—Coral’s voice was scarcely audible above the din of the rain—“I built a fairy house in that rocky section outside the gate where the South African plants grow. The storm came up behind me, and I didn’t even know it until I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was frightened and stood to run, but all at once, there was Uncle Batty, and he scooped me up and ran back here to the house. We’d just got inside when we saw the bolt of lightning and heard the thunder and an enormous boom. A beech on the far side of the meadow was struck. You can still see the trunk, hollow and black inside.”
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