The Garden Plot

by Marty Wingate

  “Yes, yes, we know it’s Clarke. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m all right, I’m okay—at least I think I am.” But a sob caught in her throat, and she threw her arms around him again. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She held him at arm’s length. “Oh, no, I’ve got mud all over your suit.”

  “Damn the suit, Pru, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, I’m just …” She looked back to see officers putting handcuffs on Archie. “Pippa,” she said in a panic. “Pippa is Romilda. She’s in the basement looking for the letter.”

  “We got her.” Christopher stroked her cheek, smearing mud as he did so. She felt the tension begin to drain out of her body, taking with it her ability to remain standing on her own. She leaned against Christopher and he held her tight with one arm. More help arrived, and the back garden was abuzz with officers on radios, officers on Archie, officers beginning to search the shed, and a female officer waiting nearby.

  “Did you call out the whole force?” she asked.

  “I did my best. Malcolm phoned me, he phoned 999, and I think he phoned the Wilsons, too. He saw Archie drag you through the garden.”

  “Malcolm,” she said, amazed. And then she noticed him, hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, standing off to the side of the garden as police moved all around him.

  “Pru, are you all right?” Malcolm asked when she looked at him. He had no jacket, and he looked wet and miserable. “I never thought … I don’t know who this man is.” He gestured toward Archie, who still sat in the mud with four officers around him. “I only told Alf … Well, I’m sorry I told Alf. About your photos.”

  “Malcolm, thank you for phoning the police,” Pru said, as an officer took hold of his arm.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, take him in. We’ll have a few questions for you, Mr. Crisp,” Christopher said without looking at Malcolm.

  Pru knew Malcolm was no innocent bystander, but she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.

  “Will your mother be all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, her carer is with her now. Thank you, Pru.” The officer led him off.

  “Sir.” Another officer came up to Christopher, nodding his head toward Archie. “We’ll have to take him to hospital first. It seems he’s got an injury to his jaw and may have bitten through his tongue. There’s a fair amount of blood.”

  Christopher looked at Pru, who smiled but shivered. “Right,” he replied. “Post a guard and take him straight to the station after he’s patched up.” He tightened his grip around her shoulders and said, “Let’s get you inside.”

  There was a commotion at the house, and both Wilsons came swimming through the sea of officers to Pru. Mr. Wilson held up a large umbrella.

  “Pru, dear, are you all right?” Mrs. Wilson asked in a rush. “Malcolm rang Harry, but we really couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then the police found us at Jeremy’s dinner and brought us home.” Mrs. Wilson turned to Christopher. “Is she all right, Inspector?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Wilson, I’m fine,” Pru said, grateful to see them and to know that they were safe. The rain had soaked her through; she had a coating of mud down her front, her hair hung in muddy clumps—she gave a fleeting thought to her hair clip—and it felt as if she’d applied a mudpack to her face. She looked at Christopher. She’d shared a good bit of it with him.

  “You need to come inside,” Mr. Wilson said. “That’s all right, isn’t it, Inspector?”

  “Of course it is,” Christopher said, then leaned close to Pru. “I need to stay out here for now, all right?” She nodded.

  “Pru, we’ll just get you right upstairs to the shower, shall we?” Mrs. Wilson started to lead her away.

  She felt slightly giddy, a reaction to the release of the fear, and the euphoria that followed. At least, that’s what she blamed it on, because as Mrs. Wilson led her away, she turned to Christopher and whispered, “Wanna come?” She didn’t stay to see his reaction.

  Pru took off her shoes at the door, and Mrs. Wilson marched her upstairs to the shower while police swarmed through the house, basement, and garden. The female police officer had offered to stay with her, but Pru said she would be fine and asked if she could give her statement after she’d had a shower.

  She left her wet, muddy, bloody clothes in a plastic bag, got in the shower, and scrubbed herself hard, trying to clean away both the mud and the thought of Archie’s tight grip. She examined her side; a large bruise blossomed where Archie had pushed the pistol into her.

  After Pru dabbed ointment on the worst scrapes, Mrs. Wilson gave her an enormous, fluffy terry-cloth robe followed by, when she got downstairs, a large brandy. Pru sat on the sofa in the front room and gave her statement to an officer. After he left, she stayed put, well away from the activity, alone and quiet. She could hear Mr. Wilson in his basement office on the phone.

  She looked up to see Christopher standing in the doorway watching her. Her hair, slicked back and half dry, had started to frizz on the ends; her face was raw with scrubbing.

  “I’m irresistible, aren’t I?” she asked. “It must be the socks.” She put her feet up on the coffee table; she wore a pair of Mr. Wilson’s thick wool socks. Christopher smiled. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Although I’m glad you got here when you did. I’m not sure I knew what to do next.”

  “I was on my way to your place already. We’d discovered that Archie Clarke had been blind-copied on Jeremy’s first email to Harry, and that Clarke was the ‘A’—that was what you missed when you left here earlier today. I knew the name sounded familiar, and I started to ask you about it this morning, but we got distracted with Vindolanda, and I forgot to get back to it. This afternoon we found out what he’d been up to. Once we saw his faculty photo, we matched it to the photo you took the morning of the murder, and we realized it showed him coming out of the basement.”

  “Were his shoes in the bag?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’d stepped in the blood and thought he’d get rid of them, but all he did was toss them in a skip at a construction site three streets over. They matched another pair of his shoes to the partial print on your post. We hadn’t known Clarke was involved with Harry’s society. The university adviser wasn’t listed on the membership list, and Harry thought he was in Italy.”

  An officer stopped to say something to him; he replied, and turned back to Pru. “And then a while ago Jo phoned, saying something was wrong, but she didn’t know what. She’d phoned you to explain about letting the Clarkes get into the basement—”

  “She didn’t know, Christopher. She thought they just needed to get something out of one of their storage boxes,” Pru interjected.

  “Yes, I know. But she wanted to tell me that it was an odd phone conversation, and it worried her. It took her a while to get through to me, because she phoned the station’s number and the desk sergeant … well, he’ll be spoken to. By the time I arrived at your house, you were gone, but then Malcolm phoned to say he’d seen someone dragging you through the garden here.” He frowned as he recounted his movements. “I should’ve gone to you straightaway. I shouldn’t have left you vulnerable to …”

  “I’m all right—well, now I am. I was afraid at first, then I was angry, then I was afraid again.” She thought about her emotions pinballing around during the episode. “I was looking at that photo on my computer when Lucy phoned to tell me about him; I forgot I’d made a copy of the photos on another flash drive. Then Archie showed up at my door and …” Pru shuddered.

  Christopher looked down at his muddy suit and shoes. She knew what he was thinking. “You stay right where you are, Inspector. Poor Mrs. Wilson, what a mess we’ve made. Or, I guess I should say, poor Mary—she’ll have extra housecleaning duties tomorrow.”

  “I want to know what happened,” he said.

  “Let’s go sit at the kitchen table, how about that?” She picked up her brandy and led the way. They sat across from
each other, and Pru told him every detail she could think of, from the mushroom risotto, which she realized she’d left on the kitchen counter, to Archie’s plan to plant the digging spade as fake evidence to implicate Mr. Wilson.

  “I suppose Malcolm saw Mr. Wilson with the spade yesterday and told Alf and he told Archie. Archie had gloves on and said that way Mr. Wilson would be the suspect again when they found me …” Her voice drifted off. Christopher’s jaw tightened, and he reached across the table to grab both her hands.

  “But look,” she said, “I’m all right.”

  He did look, one of those long looks that held her gaze. But he couldn’t quite let it go. “And you’re sure you aren’t hurt?”

  “I have a few scrapes,” she said, “and I’ve got a huge bruise on my side where Archie shoved the pistol.” She touched the spot, tender even through the thick layer of terry cloth. Christopher watched her. “That’s all.”

  They sat quietly with their own thoughts. “Christopher, I heard Mr. Wilson on the phone. Are they going to dig it up tomorrow?”

  “Yes, it’s time we see what’s really there. Harry is asking his group, an archaeology firm, people from the both the British Museum and the Museum of London, and probably every academic in the city. With the earl’s permission.”

  “Will you be here?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  He was called away, and Mrs. Wilson came in. “Pru, dear, I’ve made up the guest room for you. It’s at the back. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve closed the curtains so you don’t have to look out on all that. Take your brandy upstairs and get in bed now—you must be exhausted. I’ll bring you up a sandwich.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Wilson, thanks.” Pru realized who was missing from the scene. “Mrs. Wilson, where is Toffee?”

  “Toffee is safe and sound in our bedroom, Pru. He wouldn’t want to be underfoot.”

  Upstairs, Pru pulled on the nightgown Mrs. Wilson had laid out on the bed and opened the curtains halfway. She sat on a low bench by the window in the dark room and watched the activity in the back garden. The rain had let up, although everyone looked wet enough that it didn’t matter. She ate half the sandwich, used the new toothbrush left for her, closed the curtains, and crawled in bed.

  Chapter 16

  Pru woke slowly from a sound sleep, and the events of the previous evening played out in her mind. She heard a general stirring downstairs. She stretched, threw back the covers, and looked down at her flannel nightgown. She thought of the state of her clothes from last night and wondered whether she would need to wear some of Mrs. Wilson’s tweeds today. There was a quiet knock on her bedroom door, followed by Jo’s equally quiet voice. “Pru? Are you awake?”

  “Yes, come in.”

  “I’ve brought you some clothes,” Jo said, carrying in trousers and sweater, underwear, and socks and shoes, all from Pru’s wardrobe. She set them down and gave her a hug. “Oh, Pru, I’m so sorry for what I did. When Christopher rang …”

  “Jo, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were just trying to save me from worrying. If you had told me the Clarkes wanted back in the house to get something, I would’ve thought they were about to turf me out. You were only trying to help.” Pru looked into Jo’s face. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “All that talk about mice in the basement,” she said sheepishly. “I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t leave.” She pulled a crumpled paper out of her bag; it was the police sketch of Romilda. “I took this,” she said. “She looked so familiar, and yet I couldn’t quite say it was Pippa. I guess I was in denial.”

  “When did Christopher ring? Did he tell you everything that happened?” She hoped that Jo would forgive herself and thought that a change of subject would help.

  “He rang last night and said you were safe and would stay here. He told me what happened, but of course I need to hear everything from you.” Jo sat on the bed with her. “That horrible, horrible man, and to think that I’m the one who arranged your digs.”

  “It had nothing to do with you. And my only real injury is this bruise.” She pulled up the nightgown to reveal a five-inch patch of deep purple and blue on her right side. “That’s where he dug the pistol in.” Pru could feel the pressure of the gun in her side. “That was the scariest part. He’s an academic—what does he know about guns? I was afraid it might go off accidentally.”

  As Pru got dressed, she related all the details to Jo that Christopher had left out—she was well able to fill in the dramatic bits now.

  “Did the police let you into my … the house?” Pru asked.

  “When he rang last night, Christopher said Vernona wanted you to stay here, and I told him I’d stop by and get clothes for you, and he said he’d tell his officers that I would be there. Even so, I had to be escorted,” Jo said, “and they looked through what I took. There were several of them when I left, mostly in the basement. They were looking for that silver jug Lucy said Archie stole.”

  “I’ll have to get back in and start packing,” Pru said, avoiding Jo’s eyes.

  “Pru, not now, please. Can’t you wait and see what happens? You could stay with me.” Jo sounded as if she had seized on the perfect solution.

  “Yes,” said Pru, “and where would I sleep—under the piano? In the kitchen sink?” She thought of her one night on Jo’s tiny sofa.

  “Well, you could …” Jo began.

  “No!” Pru held up her finger as a caution. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.” She busied herself with her socks. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, we barely know each other, but is it all right if I move in?’ ” She shook her head. “I’m not twenty-five.”

  “Neither is he, thank God,” Jo said, and they both laughed. “Oh, dear Pru.” Jo put her arm around Pru’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Isn’t it difficult being this stubborn?”

  Pru didn’t reply. It wasn’t the first time in her life she’d been accused of that.

  She glanced at the closed curtains. “Have they started up out there yet?”

  “Vernona said people started arriving as soon as it was light,” Jo said. “They’re lovely people, Pru, Harry and Vernona …” Pru knew where this was going.

  “They’ll be packing up and moving to Hampshire immediately, I’d say,” she intervened. “They should get their house back. And they already have a gardener.”

  After Jo left, Pru had tea and toast in the kitchen, watching the parade of people come through and go to the shed. Only one or two police officers remained. Pru thought the rest of the people must be there for the thrill of the dig. She stood at the window and observed the scene outside. Everyone looked excited. There was a great deal of talking and periods of standing around quietly. In groups of two or three, they walked into the shed and out again.

  Activity picked up when several people began measuring the shed, the back garden, the wall, the dead birch; they seemed to measure just about anything that held still. Several people made phone calls and others took photos. Occasionally, Mr. Wilson would stop and give her an update.

  The sky was clear and the weak sun just warm enough. She stepped out the door and onto the wide landing to watch. The back garden had become an oozy, greasy-looking mess with all the rain, made worse by Pru and Archie scuffling around, after that all the police, and now a dozen or more people squishing through. There had been little enough lawn to begin with; what remained had been crushed into oblivion.

  She heard Mrs. Wilson greet Christopher. He came out to her and put his hand on the small of her back. And he knew just the right spot. “You’re looking cleaner,” he said, so that just she could hear. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did, thank you.” Pru wondered how such a perfunctory inquiry could feel so intimate. “I’ve cost you a couple of suits, haven’t I?”

  He smiled. “You’re worth a couple of suits. And more.” She wished there weren’t so many people around. “And how is the dig?” he asked.

  “So far”—she cleare
d her throat—“they’ve talked about whether or not they should remove the shed before they start digging. Some people say yes, they should, because it would give them better access to the site, while others say no, the shed is a good protection for the site against the weather. Someone suggested removing the shed, but replacing it with a large tent …” Christopher had started to gently knead the spot on her lower back, and she lost her concentration.

  He had that ghost of a smile. “A tent?”

  “Mmm?” She tried to refocus. “Yes, a tent. Lots of people seem to like that idea, but they haven’t quite committed to it, because there were several other people who haven’t yet arrived, and they need everyone’s approval. And then there’s the subject of how large the tent should be, who will set it up, and who will be here to monitor the whole process.” She smiled at him. “I fear we won’t see any letters from Hadrian today.”

  His lips were an inch from hers. She blushed and said, “There are a lot of people here, you know.” He grinned and looked out at the activity.

  “The garden’s a mess,” he said.

  Pru burst out laughing, shattering the quiet contemplation of the academics. Heads turned, and she clamped her hand over her mouth, but that didn’t help—she couldn’t stop laughing, and so she retreated to the kitchen. Christopher followed.

  She regained control of herself, wiped the corner of her eye, and sighed. “I guess I won’t put this job on my CV.”

  One of the remaining uniformed officers called to Christopher as Mrs. Wilson said, “Coffee, Pru?”

  Pru saw the trayful of mugs she had poured for everyone out back. “Let me carry that out,” she said, and took the tray. Mrs. Wilson followed with a plate of Mary’s shortbread.

  “Now, let’s go in, sit down, and have our own,” Mrs. Wilson said.