She threw a grateful glance at Christopher. “Can you tell me how Iain died?”
“He was hit on the head and fell into the Water of Leith,” Blakie stated.
She took a couple of breaths and asked, “He didn’t slip?”
Blakie smiled. “You’re from Texas, Ms. Parke?” Police, she thought, always good at duck and dodge. “Good climate for growing veg?” he asked. Behind him, Duncan rolled her eyes.
Pru wasn’t sure if there was a point to this or if it was just a smoke screen. “I used to grow peas, beans, the odd courgette,” she said.
“Enter any competitions?”
She saw the gleam in his eye. “Well,” she said and shrugged casually, “I got a third place one year.” No need to say it was in 4-H for a tomato that looked like Jimmy Durante. “And you?”
“Parsnips.” He nodded once to confirm. “First prize in Midlothian competition three years running. Just ready to sow this year’s crop.”
“Palace? Gladiator?” she asked, grateful that someone had left a copy of Mr. Fothergill’s seed catalog in the employee room at the garden.
Blakie raised an eyebrow. “Palace, of course.” He brushed his fingertips over his mustache. “Now, Ms. Parke, we’ll have someone drive you and DCI Pearse. I’m assured you won’t be leaving Edinburgh—there is the odd chance we’ll need to speak to you again.”
“I can drive them, sir,” Duncan said from behind Blakie. “I’ll go round and meet you in the car park,” she said, nodding them toward the front door. “It’s the red Ford Fiesta.”
The sergeant walked back down the hall, and Christopher and Pru left through the front door. Outside, they stopped, and he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She looked up at him as the foot traffic flowed around them. “How did you know I was here?” she asked.
He watched her for a moment before he said, “Marcus told me.”
Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Marcus?”
“He rang this morning,” Christopher said. “I’m not sure how he found me, and I didn’t take the time to ask once he told me what had happened. I stopped by my flat and went straight to City Airport.”
So, she thought, Marcus had been one of the people watching as the police took her away. She and Christopher walked round the building to the car park, but couldn’t continue their conversation, because Sergeant Duncan waited for them, leaning against her red Ford Fiesta and sucking on a cigarette as if it was a triple-thick milk shake.
“No,” she said into her phone, “just a couple of puffs.” She nipped the burning end of the cigarette off and put the rest in her jacket pocket. “Yes, I still have gum. Right, see you soon.” She noticed Pru and Christopher, and held her phone out. “He hasn’t smoked a day in his life. He has no idea what it’s like.”
They crammed into the backseat. Christopher took Pru’s hand. They were like a couple of teenagers on a date with Mom driving, except Mom in this case was a police officer who reeked of tobacco.
“When’s the wedding?” Duncan asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at Pru.
Pru smiled despite her circumstances. “June,” she said. “Late June.”
The sergeant nodded. “I’m getting married in September.” She continued to nod, as if to reassure herself. “If we can get it all arranged. Who knew there was so much to it?”
“I certainly didn’t,” Pru said.
“Where?” Duncan asked.
“Sorry?” Pru said.
“Where are you getting married?”
“Where?” Pru echoed. Where, indeed? “Well, we haven’t quite decided”—she looked at Christopher for help—“have we?”
“Here in Edinburgh,” he said with conviction. “We haven’t settled on the venue yet.”
“Cutting it a bit close, I’d say,” Duncan replied, causing a roaring in Pru’s ears. “Our church has been booked for a year, and the hotel, too, for the reception.”
“We have someone helping with details,” Pru said. “She has it all under control.” Must phone Jo.
—
The sergeant left them at the corner. “We’ll be back in touch, Ms. Parke,” she said and drove away.
Pru and Christopher stood quiet for a moment. The wind had been replaced by a heavy mist—haar was the Scottish word—that landed like tiny beads on their hair and coats. Pru sighed. “Welcome to Edinburgh,” she said.
Christopher smiled, rubbed the back of her neck with his thumb, and kissed her temple. “Which way?”
She nodded down her road, and they walked arm in arm. As they neared her flat, Marcus came down the front path, and they all stopped.
Chapter 17
Marcus’s eyes shifted from Pru to Christopher to the ground and back to Pru. “What happened?” he asked.
“Christopher, this is Marcus Rojas. Marcus, this is Christopher Pearse,” Pru said. A totally needless, yet completely necessary introduction.
The two men mumbled something and shook hands. “Let’s go inside,” Pru said and led them into the narrow front hall where she and Christopher shed their coats and Marcus stood with his hands in his pockets. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked Marcus.
“Why do people keep asking me that?” he responded. Pru didn’t answer, but went down the short hall to the kitchen. The two men followed, positioned themselves—Christopher against the wall and Marcus in the doorway—and watched her fill the electric kettle.
“I’m sorry I don’t have any food to offer,” she said, opening the fridge as confirmation.
“You don’t have a bowl of pimiento cheese in there like your mom used to?” Marcus asked.
In that instant he transported her to her mother’s kitchen with its red-and-gray Formica table and chairs, where there was always something for her and her friends to eat. She looked over her shoulder at Marcus. “No,” she said. “No pimiento cheese.” She shut the fridge door. “Did you see the police take me away?”
“I saw them, but I didn’t know who they were,” Marcus said. “Some guy came up and started writing in a notebook—he wasn’t a reporter, just one of the gardeners—and said they were taking you in for questioning about Iain Blackwell. He—the gardener—said, ‘Somebody should do something,’ and left.” Marcus shrugged. “I don’t think he was talking to me, but then I thought that…you”—he nodded at Christopher—“might be able to help.”
“How did you find Christopher?” she asked.
“I called Lydia and woke her up. Yeah,” he said to himself, “I’ll need to give her a call back. And she told me to start with Scotland Yard.” Marcus glanced at Christopher. “I thought she was kidding, but I found a phone number and started calling.”
“I appreciate it,” Christopher said. “Did you ring the station here?”
Marcus shook his head. “I didn’t think they’d tell me anything.” He turned to Pru. “So what happened?” Marcus asked.
“They asked me questions about where I was on Monday afternoon, and how Iain and I got along. I thought that his death was an accident—that’s what everyone said. I didn’t even have a chance to tell you about it,” she said to Christopher. “I didn’t know anything until yesterday—and didn’t find out that it wasn’t an accident until this morning.”
“Why would they consider her a suspect?” Marcus asked Christopher.
Christopher shrugged slightly. “Everyone’s a suspect to begin with,” he said. “But someone—Blakie wouldn’t say who it was—told them that Pru was arguing with Blackwell.”
“Sounds like a setup to me,” Marcus said. “Would someone set her up to look guilty?”
“It’s not that she looks guilty. It’s just their way of going about the investigation.”
“She was dragged into the station like a criminal,” Marcus said.
“They could have their reasons for not questioning her at the garden.”
“Don’t you think she should be careful? Should she even keep this job? If Blackwell was killed, then…”<
br />
Pru’s head bounced back and forth between them as if she was watching a Ping-Pong match, but she could take it no longer.
“Hello?” she called to them. “I’m in the room.”
The two men looked at her, startled, and then both smiled. Too bizarre—Pru was reminded of the title of an old science-fiction movie: When Worlds Collide.
“What were you arguing about?” Marcus asked.
“The usual,” Pru said.
Christopher knew. “Why they asked you to work on the project?”
She nodded. “The last thing I did was yell at him. ‘I’m not finished with this,’ or something like that. That hardly sounds like a death threat.” She frowned. “Or does it?”
Neither replied, but Marcus said, “Alastair said he’d see you tomorrow.”
“You bet he will. I can never find him, and when I do, he won’t give me a straight answer.” Happy to channel her fear and frustration into annoyance at Alastair, she said, “Well, he will tomorrow.”
“And I don’t suppose you’ll quit,” Marcus said.
“No,” Pru replied, “I don’t suppose I will.” Uncertainty about her commitment to the job had vanished—chased away by her stubborn streak, no doubt. She wouldn’t quit—but she could be fired.
The kettle switched off. “Well, I’ve got to go,” Marcus said. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Thanks for finding Christopher,” Pru said, following him to the door.
“Yeah, well, I figured a policeman should come in handy,” Marcus said. “What can a gardener do? Hit someone with a shovel?”
Pru flashed on the image of a body—beaten with a shovel—she’d found in a London garden shed over a year ago. She shuddered and closed the door.
When she turned, Christopher stood in the doorway to the front room. She gave him half a smile. “I suppose we’ll run into a woman from your past one of these days, won’t we?”
“Not if I can help it,” he said.
She laughed and as she did, the knots in her shoulders and her back began to melt away. She drew her arms up and around Christopher’s neck, and he pulled her close. She heaved an enormous sigh. “Thank you for coming to rescue me,” she whispered, and leaned her head back to get him in focus. “You can help me pack.”
“I thought you wouldn’t quit,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“I won’t quit, but they may very well let me go. Why would they want to keep me after this?”
“Would your Mr. Menzies give up that easily?”
“Mr. Menzies would never give up—he loved what he did. He said he was often lured into dangerous situations by plants and flowers and foliage,” Pru said, remembering an entry about the treasures of Botany Bay. “He’d climb around cliffs trying to get just one more plant that he saw…more worried about losing his collection than his own life. Once he…” She stopped and saw that ghost of a smile playing about Christopher’s lips. She wagged a finger at him. “Oh, you are good.”
“Don’t let what’s happened keep you from work you enjoy,” Christopher said. “Will you tell me more about him?”
She hesitated. She was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about Mr. Menzies, and she hoped he wasn’t talking about Marcus. “You mean Iain?” He nodded. “I know next to nothing about him, except that we got in arguments almost every time we talked. He didn’t like me having this job, but he wouldn’t say why. He knew a lot about the journal—but Alastair keeps telling me that I’m the one they wanted for the project.” She pressed her lips together. “I still don’t understand that.”
“Maybe you don’t need to—you can show them you were the right choice.”
“I love your pep talks,” she murmured, resuming her position up against his body. She kissed him, tugging slightly at his bottom lip. His hand slipped just inside her waistband.
His phone rang. Pru rolled her eyes as he stepped away to answer.
“Pearse. Sir—yes, sir.”
Sir? Pru could so easily forget that Christopher had a boss. It wasn’t as if he ran the entire Metropolitan Police on his own, she reminded herself.
“Yes, sir, I understand….I was able to clear that case, and I’ve handed the Jones case over to Rodgers, all my case notes….Yes, sir, I will….No, sir….Of course. Thank you, sir.” He rang off.
Pru crossed her arms. “You’re in trouble,” she said. Because of me, she added to herself.
“I left in a rush, but not without explaining that I needed to take a few days off. I told them it was a family emergency”—he held up his index finger—“which it was.” He said something else about covering his cases, but Pru didn’t hear, because she was basking in the glow of family. “And besides,” he said, gathering her up in his arms, “you didn’t sound right the other evening. Something was bothering you—and that was before you found out about Blackwell.”
He x-rayed her with his penetrating brown eyes. She weighed telling him the true story of her dress fitting, but a knock saved her.
“No one ever comes to visit me,” she said as she opened the door to find Saskia, her wet hair stuck to her face, shivering on the front step.
“Pru, my God, are you all right? This is all my fault, I’m so sorry.”
“Come in,” Pru said, taking hold of her arm. Word had swept through the garden quickly, it seemed. Christopher stepped into the hall, and Pru made the introductions.
“That was very lucky you were here, Christopher,” Saskia said.
“He’s here because of what happened,” Pru said. “Would you like tea?” she asked, heading down the hall. “The kettle boiled a few minutes ago—I’ll just give it a boost.”
Saskia followed and, once in the kitchen, took her coat off and handed it to Christopher, who trailed behind. “Oh, let me do that.” Pru stood back, lifting her eyebrows at Christopher, while Saskia, as if by instinct, found the tea, mugs, milk, and digestive biscuits before the kettle had switched off again. She pulled a tray out from beside the microwave, and once loaded, said, “Shall we go out to the front room?”
They settled, Christopher and Pru on the sofa, Saskia on the chair opposite. “Here now, I’ll be the mother,” she said, and poured out the tea.
“Saskia, did you see the police this morning?” Pru asked.
The young woman shook her head. “I was in the orchid house, but later, I saw a few people gathered round outside and asked what was going on.” She took a sip of tea and put it down. “But it’s because of me that they questioned you. I never meant it to come to this.”
Christopher held his mug with both hands. “What did they ask?”
“Late yesterday, after I’d left you,” Saskia said, giving Pru a nod, “a woman was at the front desk, and I heard her say something about Iain.” Saskia took up her mug again and looked into its milky contents. “I made a comment—‘oh, isn’t it too bad’ or some such thing—and then I found out she was a policewoman. She asked me if I knew him, and when was the last time I saw him.” Saskia switched her attention from tea to Pru. “That’s when I mentioned I’d seen the two of you the afternoon before.”
“Oh,” Pru said. “You told them that Iain and I were arguing.”
“I didn’t think they would accuse you of killing him,” Saskia said.
“She’s not accused of anything,” Christopher said and took Pru’s hand. “Did you know Iain well?”
Saskia shook her head as she set her cup down. “I’ve seen him a few times. When he came to your office, Pru. And, of course, I know what you’ve told me about him.”
What a mess. And it was too late in the day to go back to the garden and start sorting it out—she would be at Alastair’s door first thing in the morning.
“Well…” Saskia stood up and gathered all the tea things back onto the tray. “I’ll be going now. Let me just take these in for you.”
She rattled down the hall and Pru heard water in the sink. She made to follow, but turned back to Christopher. “I told you she was efficient.�
�
—
Christopher opened the fridge and inspected the remnants of Pru’s chicken-and-ham pie. “It was delicious,” she said, looking over his shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t save you any, but I know a lovely little Italian place nearby.”
The restaurant sat below street level, down a set of steps. Pru had been in once, eating alone at a table near the door and knew that with only seven or eight tables, it would give them a quiet spot to talk.
But a hen party arrived just after them and sat at two tables pushed together; that put an end to any quiet conversation. It was a merry gathering—the bride wore a tiara and they went through several bottles of prosecco—but the volume of their voices rose in correlation to the volume of alcohol consumed. Christopher nodded in their direction and said, “That’ll be you before long.” Pru smiled and touched his hand. They finished their meal in silence—at least, they were silent—and walked back to her flat.
She sat on the bed waiting for him, her knees pulled up under her chin and arms wrapped around her legs. He came out of the bathroom and joined her.
“And now,” he said, his finger drawing a line down her arm, “what is it? Is it seeing Marcus again?”
That caught her off balance. She looked up and laughed. “No, not Marcus.” She shrugged. “Marcus and I were friends before we were…anything else. I’d hoped we could be friends again.” She shook her head. “That seems unlikely now.”
She saw Christopher’s mouth twitch. “Well,” he said and exhaled. “And so, what?”
Confession time at last. She blushed. “It’s our wedding.” She rested her chin on her knee and looked down at her toes. “I’m embarrassed—well, part of the time, anyway. Half the time I’m embarrassed because I feel like I’m too old to be doing all this—weddings and dresses and cakes and receptions—that’s all for young women. And the other half the time,” she hurried on before he could break in to reassure her, “I can’t wait for our wedding day. To stand up in front of family and friends and declare our love and commitment. And have a big party.”
“Was it your dress fitting that started this?” he asked. “Are you not happy with what Madame Fiona came up with?”
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) Page 11