by A J McDine
She tilts her head to one side. ‘Listen honey, sometimes it is.’
I thought I was in control, but Sophie’s emergency dash to hospital reminded me how easily even the best-laid plans can turn to shit.
I’m seething.
One careless mistake that could have altered the trajectory of my entire future. A sliding doors moment I was powerless to stop.
It was stupid. So stupid.
What if Sophie had gone into labour six weeks early?
What would have happened to the baby?
His kidneys would have been fully functioning and his nervous system and brain fully developed. He would have been the size of a honeydew melon.
But some babies need help breathing if they’re born before thirty-six weeks. They need specialist care from properly-trained doctors and nurses.
That wouldn’t do.
That wouldn’t do at all.
Chapter Thirty-One
Now
The day before the open day I wake at half five, my head buzzing. It’s the most important date in Cam’s calendar. A chance to show everyone the work we do, day in, day out, nurturing and supporting both plants and people. An opportunity to invite the public into Canterbury’s own secret garden to see the magic happening behind our high brick walls.
I turn over and try to empty my mind so I can drift back to sleep, but it’s no good. Instead I make a mental list of all the jobs that need tackling. When the baby wakes up and starts dancing an Irish jig on my bladder I admit defeat and haul myself out of bed.
By seven I’m in the car, driving through the quiet streets to work. After weeks of sun the weather has broken and a fine drizzle blurs the windscreen until I flick on the wipers. The rain is due to clear by nine, which is just as well as I have so much to do. All gardeners are fixated by the weather, but lately I’ve become obsessed, glued to the long-range forecast and checking and re-checking the three weather apps on my phone.
A journey that can take forty minutes in the rush hour takes a little under ten this morning, and soon I’m pulling into my usual spot in the car park. I grab my bag from the passenger seat, pull up the hood of my waterproof jacket and cross to the oak door. It’s only when I’m holding the key to the lock that I realise it’s already ajar. Puzzled, I push the door open with the tips of my fingers and step inside.
I know straight away that something’s terribly wrong. The two lavender-filled terracotta pots that usually stand sentry just inside the door have been upended, the plants spewing out onto the gravel path. Beyond them, the picnic table where Rosie, Nancy and I made the bunting only a few days ago, has been flipped on its side. I take a hesitant step forwards. Forks, spades and rakes are strewn across the lawn. Tyres on the overturned wheelbarrows have been slashed. I break into a run, my heart in my mouth, skidding to a horrified halt by the vegetable garden. It’s a scene of devastation. The neat rows of lettuce, radish, spring onions and beetroot have been pulled up and hurled indiscriminately across the garden. Rosie’s runner beans, the seedlings she so carefully planted, have been ripped from the soil, the bamboo sticks she coaxed them up snapped in two.
I run further into the garden. Someone has attacked the herbaceous border with a pair of shears, snipping dusky pink rudbeckia and cosmos in half. The roses have been beheaded, too, and petals lie sodden on the ground like long-forgotten confetti.
I push my hood back and stumble past the greenhouse to the corner we had earmarked for tomorrow’s plant sale. Every single pot has been tipped out in a pile by the greenhouse door. Hours of work wrecked. The wanton destruction takes my breath away. It’s as if a tornado has swept through the garden, destroying everything in its path. But a freak weather event I could understand. Even forgive. Not this… this man-made mayhem.
I turn, my eyes sweeping the garden, assessing the extent of the damage. Everywhere I look there is ruin. Hatred oozes from every shattered pot, crushed plant and broken tool. I rub a hand across my face. My cheeks are wet, with rain or tears I can’t tell. A creak behind me makes me cry out in fear, but it’s only the door to the cellar swinging open, caught by a sudden gust of wind. Whoever caused this has long gone.
I make my way to the office. There are things I need to do. Phone the police. Call Angela and Geoff. Cancel the gardeners and volunteers. Cancel the open day. A surge of anger floods my veins, the sheer force of it taking me by surprise. Who would do this to a charity like Cam, which does only good? What kind of screwed up individual would take pleasure in destroying something so carefully, so lovingly created?
The anger seeps away as quickly as it arrived and I’m left feeling numb. As I climb the steps to the office I take one last look behind me. On the brick wall beside the oak-studded door someone has articulated their rage in red spray paint. The thirteen seething letters are each a metre tall.
Fuck you Sophie.
If DC Bennett is shocked by the damage, she doesn’t show it. The expression on her face is inscrutable as she takes it all in.
I bend down to pick up a rake that has been abandoned on the path in front of us, prongs facing skywards, and can’t stop myself flinching when she barks, ‘Don’t touch anything!’
She follows me into the office where Geoff is sitting with his head in his hands, and Mary is working her way through our contacts book, phoning gardeners and volunteers to tell them not to come in. The officer’s police radio crackles and she holds up a hand to silence me, even though I haven’t said a word. She listens to the distorted sound of the dispatcher and nods twice in quick succession.
She turns to me. ‘CSI are on their way. Should be here in half an hour or so. Once they’ve been you can start clearing up.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumble.
She must notice I’m close to tears because her features soften for a second as she reaches in her pocket for a notebook and gestures me to sit down. ‘Do you mind running through what happened this morning one more time?’
‘Of course not. I arrived at ten past seven -’
‘Why so early?’
‘Couldn’t sleep. And I had so much to do before tomorrow’s open day I thought I might as well make a start.’
‘Did you see anyone on your way in? Any strange vehicles?’
I shake my head.
‘Did anyone else know you’d be first in this morning?’
‘No. It was a spur of the moment decision. Geoff’s normally here first.’
DC Bennett glances over at Geoff, who nods.
‘Who has keys to the garden?’
‘Me, Geoff, Angela and the chairman of our trustees, Bob Wittershaw.’
‘Do you have his contact details?’
‘He’s Mary’s husband.’ I tip my head towards Mary, who has the phone pressed to her ear and is deep in conversation with one of the volunteers.
DC Bennett jots something in her notebook. ‘Are there any spares?’
‘Just one set. We keep them in the filing cabinet.’
‘Are they there now?’
Geoff runs his hands through his hair. He’s aged ten years since he arrived this morning. ‘No. It was the first thing I checked.’
‘Who has access to the office?’ asks DC Bennett, with the air of someone who thinks they may be finally getting somewhere.
‘Just the staff and Bob. But the office is left unlocked when the garden’s open,’ I say.
‘So, anyone could have come in and helped themselves without you noticing?’
‘I suppose so.’
The detective gives a little shake of her head as if she finds our security measures sadly lacking. But we’ve never had to worry before. No-one has ever taken anything. It’s not that kind of place.
‘I’ll need a list of every single volunteer and client who attends the community garden,’ she says.
‘Of course,’ says Geoff. ‘I’ll get right onto it.’
‘I also need to know if anyone has a grudge against the charity, but more specifically you, Sophie.’
Blood pounds in my ears
. ‘Me? You were only asking a couple of days ago whether anyone had a grudge against Angela!’
DC Bennett points her thumb through the open door towards the graffiti. ‘This seems to have been a targeted attack, wouldn’t you say? Maybe the arson at Mrs Platt’s home was a case of mistaken identity. It’s a line of enquiry we need to consider. Can you think of anyone who would want to cause you harm?’
I picture the lighter, hidden in the kitchen drawer at home. Maybe she’s right. But who on earth would want to set fire to our house?
Then I remember how rattled Martin had seemed when DC Bennett and her musclebound colleague turned up at Cam the morning after the fire. Rosie said he thought I’d called the police to arrest him. And he disappeared before anyone had a chance to explain why they were really here. Perhaps he still thinks that’s what happened. That I, to use Rosie’s words, told the police on him.
Anger is a powerful emotion, especially when it’s magnified by mania. But I can’t believe Martin would ever cause so much destruction, even in the grip of psychosis. He loves Cam. It’s the one place that gives him head space. The one place he feels safe.
I’m at a crossroads. Tell DC Bennett how aggrieved Martin was when he thought I’d reported him and she’d have him under caution in a stuffy interview room at the police station before you could blink. Don’t tell her and I could be hindering the investigation. Because when all’s said and done, someone out there wants to frighten me, maybe even hurt me. I curl my hands around my stomach. And it’s not just me to think about, is it?
‘Sophie, can you think of anyone who might want to harm you?’ DC Bennett says again, failing to hide the impatience in her voice.
I hesitate, just for a second. Then shake my head. ‘No-one I can think of, no.’
‘I thought that might be the case.’ She nods to Geoff and Mary and marches out of the office. The interview clearly over, I’m left feeling as though I’ve failed some sort of test. She stops in front of the red-daubed wall.
‘If you do, please get in touch immediately.’ She hands me a card with her contact details on. ‘Here’s my number. I probably should be reassuring you that people who commit acts of vandalism like this are usually cowards who would never actually assault anyone. But this is a frenzied, vicious attack. Whoever did it could be capable of anything.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Now
DC Bennett’s words ring in my ears as I work alongside Geoff and Mary, sweeping up shards of broken terracotta, throwing wilted lettuce and runner bean plants on the compost heap and returning tools to their rightful places in the cellar.
The smiley crime scene investigator girl was here for just over an hour, dusting the handles of wheelbarrows, forks and door knobs for fingerprints and taking photos of the graffiti.
‘Someone really isn’t very happy with you,’ she’d observed, as she hefted her bag onto her shoulder and prepared to leave.
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ I’d felt like saying. Instead I mustered a smile and said, ‘Apparently not.’ And then, out of curiosity, asked, ‘How often do you get a match? With the fingerprints, I mean?’
‘If their prints are on the system we’ll get a hit straight away. But if they’ve never been in trouble with the police the prints are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.’ She gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Unless they’re brought in for questioning and their prints are taken then, of course.’
‘So, I need to have faith in DC Bennett’s investigating skills.’
The CSI girl raised her eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t underestimate Sam Bennett if I were you. She’s one of the best detectives we have. As tenacious as a terrier. I’m surprised Major Crime haven’t snapped her up, to be honest. Once she gets her teeth into an investigation she doesn’t let go.’
As I wheel yet another load of dead plants to the compost heap I ask myself who hates me enough to destroy the garden. Fuck you Sophie. So much loathing in three short words.
There’s no doubt Martin feels betrayed. Would betrayal prompt such an extreme reaction? Even though he’s bound to be top of the tenacious DC Bennett’s list of suspects I still can’t believe it. I draw an imaginary cross through his name.
What about Angela? She’s never liked me. Matt says she’s jealous because I’m more popular with both Cam’s gardeners and volunteers. DC Bennett said earlier that Angela had been discharged from hospital. She has a key. She knows where I live. Perhaps she staged the arson at her house as a double bluff to deflect any police attention. Was she the figure caught on CCTV pouring petrol through her own letterbox?
Who am I trying to kid? Angela needs the open day to be a success as much as I do. She’d be horrified if there was even the faintest whiff of a scandal. And she’d have to have a screw loose to set her own house on fire. I discount her, too.
A name pops into my head unbidden. Lou. Under that veneer of gushing affection runs a seam of seething resentment. I know that now. She begrudges me both Matt and the baby. While I’m building my little family, hers has splintered. And that’s made her bitter. There was hatred in her eyes when she came over for dinner. So, she was pissed. But you know what they say. In vino veritas. In wine there is truth. Quite how she managed to steal the spare keys when, as far as I’m aware, she’s never set foot in Cam I don’t know, but…
A heavy hand on my shoulder makes me jump out of my skin.
‘Geoff! Don’t creep up on me like that!’
He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to scare the Bejasus out of you. I just wanted to say I think we should go ahead with the open day. Don’t let the buggers defeat us.’
I wave my arms around. ‘How can we? It’s such a mess.’
‘It looks worse than it is. I have some young lettuce and cabbage plants at home. I’ll bring them over after lunch and we’ll plant them up in the vegetable garden. Mary’s going to pop to her nephew’s garden centre to buy a few trays of bedding plants. She says he’ll sell them to her at cost. We’ll plant them up, too. Fill all the empty spaces. No-one will even realise anything was wrong.’
‘It’ll take hours.’
‘Not if we drum up a couple of spare hands. Mary says her friend Margaret will help, and I’ll ring Derek and Mike. We’ll have the garden looking shipshape in no time.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
Geoff fixes me with a look. ‘What’s up? It’s not like you to give up so easily.’
‘I suppose it would save the aggravation of cancelling. Oh alright, let’s do it.’
He beams at me and pats my shoulder again. ‘That’s my girl. You sit down while I make a drink and we can talk through our plan of action. We’ll show the bastards they haven’t won.’
We manage it - just. Mike was out but Derek was here within minutes of Geoff’s SOS call. Mary’s nephew Tim was so horrified by what had happened that he refused to take any money for the trays of geraniums, begonias and busy lizzies he unloaded from his van and insisted on staying for the rest of the afternoon to help plant them up.
Geoff climbed a ladder with a bucket and scrubbing brush and scrubbed the graffiti off the wall. Mary and Margaret swept paths and tidied borders. I fetched and carried, strung up the bunting and made endless cups of tea.
It’s now five o’clock and I’m shattered, but the garden has been transformed. We sit around a picnic table and clink mugs.
‘Told you we could do it,’ Geoff says with satisfaction.
‘Many hands,’ agrees Margaret.
‘Where’s Mr Pickles?’ says Mary. ‘It’s not like him to miss a tea break.’
She’s right. He normally appears as if by magic at the slightest rustle of a biscuit wrapper.
‘Who is Mr Pickles?’ asks Tim.
‘The garden cat,’ she tells him. ‘A tabby. On the chubby side.’
‘Nope, haven’t seen him.’
The others shake their heads.
‘I expect he’s in the office,’ I say. ‘He’s taken
a liking to Angela’s chair. I think he sits there just to wind her up.’
But Angela’s large, black swivel chair is empty, and there’s no sign of Mr Pickles on top of the filing cabinet, either. I stand in the doorway and rattle his box of biscuits, which is usually guaranteed to flush him out, but he still doesn’t appear.
‘He was probably scared off by all the kerfuffle.’ Geoff gestures at the garden. ‘He’ll turn up soon enough.’
‘Remember that time he disappeared and we all thought he’d been run over?’ Mary says. She turns to the others. ‘He was gone for over a fortnight. We’d given up hope of ever seeing him again, but he turned up eventually. Must have had a touch of wanderlust.’
‘Or been accidentally locked in someone’s shed,’ says Geoff.
‘I’ll leave some food out for him anyway.’ I tip some biscuits into his bowl, refill his water and give the cat flap a poke to check it isn’t stuck. It isn’t. I stifle a yawn. ‘I might make a move if that’s alright?’
‘Of course, love. You go home and put your feet up. We’ll finish up here,’ says Mary.
I flash her a grateful smile. ‘You’ll text me if Mr P turns up?’
‘We will,’ says Geoff, taking my elbow and steering me towards the car park. ‘Now do as Mary says and give yourself the evening off.’
A terrible thought occurs to me and I stop in my tracks. ‘You don’t think whoever did this will come back tonight?’
‘They wouldn’t be so stupid. And if they do, we’ll deal with it like we dealt with it today. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be alright.’
I give him a wan smile. He means well and I wish I could believe him. But I can’t.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Now
It’s no surprise that the nearest parking space is right at the end of the road. It’s been one of those days. I curse under my breath as I reverse into the bumper of the car behind me. Luckily when I get out and examine it there’s no damage. I trudge up the road, stepping aside to let a leggy blonde jogger with wraparound shades and earphones past. She doesn’t bother thanking me.