Death in the Garden

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Tosh is coming in tomorrow,’ Dougie reminded her. ‘Wants to talk to us about a new exhibition.’

  Rita Tosh, always called Tosh, was a brawny Scotswoman, famous for her forceful views on the place of women in society and her quick temper. Her works were large, and strong, like she was. Lately she had begun to sell very well. Once you had seen a Tosh, you always knew another Tosh. For some people this had an attraction. If you could say knowledgeably, That’s a Tosh, it sounded good. Dougie was suggesting mounting a spring New York show for her at the Rutherford Gallery in which Edwina had an interest. Edwina thought it was a bit too early as yet. Build up Tosh here first.

  ‘We’ll talk about it when she comes in,’ she promised. It was as well to have an agenda ready with Tosh. She was not a girl to want to waste time. Edwina could stand up to her, as so could Dougie in his way, but it was better to be prepared. She was uncertain how Tosh would react when her pregnancy became apparent. Probably withdraw her custom. She was known to favour virgin birth.

  All the time she was working through her day, Edwina was thinking things over. A quiet undercurrent of discussion was going on inside her.

  From her desk placed strategically near the big window with a fine view outside, she saw Cassie come out of her door and get into her car. Business as usual there, obviously. The small pastel-blue and white car with ALICE written across it in gold, which was used for deliveries by Alice, passed round the corner and drew up outside the shop entrance. Alice herself came out and started to load it up with packages in her pretty blue and white boxes.

  Both her friends seemed enviably detached from the drama that must still be being played out wherever the police investigation was centred. It was as if the death of Luke had nothing to do with them. Murder, suicide, accident. No concern of theirs.

  Or they could pretend so. Edwina knew better. Probably she too looked just as self-possessed. Dougie acted toward her as if she did. He was gossiping away about the party he had been to in Dorset the night before and the one he would be going to in Pimlico tonight.

  ‘Gerald Road, no less, just opposite where Noel Coward used to have a studio and not far from the police station.’ His eyes lit up. There was no doubt that although he genuinely lamented Luke’s death, he was enjoying himself.

  He was an onlooker, Edwina knew she was not.

  Dougie might be prodded into an active part, though.

  She sprinkled cheese over the minestrone. ‘Dougie?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘You know that man who came in asking for me? Remember?’

  ‘Think so.’ Dougie looked vague.

  ‘Would you know him again if you saw him?’

  ‘I expect so. Depends what he was wearing. Different suit and I might not. You know how it is.’

  ‘You’ve got a good eye, Dougie. You remember unusual details. What was he like?’

  ‘Tall. Thin. Lanky kind of chap, I’d say.’

  ‘Face?’

  ‘Only really saw him for a minute. And I wasn’t concentrating. Come on,’ said Dougie regretfully. He started his lasagne. ‘Tell you what, though.’

  Edwina waited. Dougie had a way of holding on to little nuggets of information that could be quite maddening. ‘So?’

  ‘Saw the chap walking off. He was going one way, and you came round the corner. You came into the shop, but I went on looking out. I think he went over to Ginger and Pickles. He may even have bought something there. Why don’t you ask?’

  In the private area behind their stall where Ginger kept a kettle on a little spirit stove and a teapot, and where Pickles kept her crystal ball with her astrological tables (it was she who had predicted the trio’s dire day of change, for she regularly did horoscopes for her friends), the two women were drinking acorn coffee and discussing the news about Luke.

  ‘Of course, we didn’t know him very well,’ said Pickles. ‘No,’ agreed Ginger. ‘Hardly at all, really.’ She pulled at the little red cap she wore when cold to keep her head warm and which made her friends dub her ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

  ‘Well, a little bit more than that,’ said Pickles who rarely agreed with her partner if she could manage not to. Sometimes, of course, she had to: Ginger had a maddening way of being right more often than not. ‘ This coffee’s worse muck than usual, Ginge.’

  Miss Drury grunted. She did not like criticism of her stock, even when justified, and this was justified. ‘Good for the kidneys.’

  ‘What does it do for sex?’

  ‘Lavinia!’ Ginger was alarmed, her use of Miss Dover’s name revealed how much. ‘ What do you mean? Do you hanker?’

  It had been accepted between them that they did not hanker, that they enjoyed their sexless lives. To have it otherwise might be rather daunting.

  Also, she did not like the question for other reasons. Sometimes an arrow shot abroad goes whang between the cracks in the armour.

  ‘No.’ Pickles went back to her coffee and her crystal ball. ‘Don’t know why I said it, really. Just joking.’

  Telepathy she’s got, thought Ginger. I pretend to have it, she’s really got it. A nasty little listener into other people’s thoughts. Put like that it sounded akin to a dirty telephone call. She shook her head, as if to shake the thought out.

  ‘Imagine me hankering,’ pursued Pickles. ‘Mind you, I’ve had my thoughts like everyone else, but on the whole I prefer a quiet life. I decided that years ago and I’ve never seen reason to change it. But I’ve always wondered about Luke, haven’t you? Seemed to me he did hanker, but wasn’t a doer. Think so, Ginger? When I’d done his horoscope, I might have helped him. But he never asked.’

  ‘Only you don’t believe in it,’ said Miss Drury scornfully.

  ‘Three pounds for a depressing horoscope, five pounds for a happy one. Penny plain or tuppence coloured,’ agreed Pickles. She had her own quiet tariff, you got what you paid for. ‘I do and I don’t. That’s the answer. You get to believe even in a game, as well you know.’

  The stall about them bore witness to that fact. Years of selling their products and nostrums and promoting their efficiency had made them believe in what they preached. They did believe in eating plenty of roughage, and that a minute dose of a herb that produced a headache could cure a headache and that dock leaves could cure almost everything. Their learnt sincerity made their money for them. Believing paid.

  ‘So what do you see in the ball?’

  Miss Dover took a long look. ‘I see waves breaking on a cliff. I see a dark stranger. I see a cloud of black beetles. Nasty things. There, a trio of predictions. Somewhere there must be something true. I wonder which?’ She sounded carefree. It was deliberate; she knew the effect, had worked at it.

  ‘Sometimes you madden me, Pickles.’

  ‘Only sometimes, Ginger?’

  ‘Damn you, Pickles.’

  The day was wearing on, they were getting on each other’s nerves; they always did in the afternoon.

  ‘Oh and there’s something else, just flashed into my mind’s eye: a funny little thing like a tadpole.’ She sounded surprised. ‘ Well, I never.’ She knew what she was seeing, she remembered her biology. Sometimes she amazed even herself. Maybe she did have a gift, after all.

  They had heard the full story about Luke, knew a good many details (how he had taken a taxi, gone to hospital, collapsed and then died), some of them untrue, but decided not to talk about it. A visit from the police was not something they fancied. The taxi driver was a local man and if they wanted to know more they could ask him, but otherwise they meant to keep their heads down.

  Edwina walked in. ‘Got something for morning sickness?’ She might as well come right out and be blunt. They’d know soon anyway. ‘All-day sickness, really.’

  Pickles flushed with pleasure. ‘There. So I was right. I am a clever girl. No, don’t worry, Edwina, I know I’m talking nonsense but it means something to me. A baby. Oh you are lucky, I’ve always wanted one.’

  ‘That’s simply
not true,’ said Miss Drury. ‘Or you’d have had one. You do talk rubbish.’

  ‘It is true. I’ve fancied a mink coat but I’ve never had that either. You can’t have everything you want. Edwina, I’m pleased. We both are.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ said Miss Drury. ‘Take no notice of us.’ She got up from her seat near the little stove and moved to a display cabinet. ‘I think you might find peppermint tea quite soothing. It is carminative, you know.’

  ‘Would you like me to do you a horoscope?’ volunteered Pickles, making her contribution. ‘I’m in the mood today. I could do the baby if you like.’ It was true the baby was not yet born, so as yet having no birth-time, but it would be interesting to use the date of conception and see how that worked. She wondered how to phrase the question. Of course, girls these days never minded being explicit but Edwina, however, might. There was a reserved dignity to her that could make her hard to approach.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ said Edwina. ‘It’s going to have enough to contend with, this baby, without knowing its future as well.’ Or me either for that matter.

  She was wondering how to ask them if the dark stranger had called here. She wanted to phrase it so that Pickles did not get out her crystal ball. She was obviously in one of her psychic moods today, when she was convinced she really had a power. This conviction came and went. Once she had thought she could control electricity and had nearly caused a fire while experimenting, besides breaking a great many lightbulbs. Ginger had her fantasies too, you never knew if either of them really believed what they claimed.

  ‘I’ll have the peppermint tea. Thank you. Yes, I’ll go back and try some. I suppose it’s not dangerous at all …? No, sorry I asked. Forget it.’

  ‘We never sell anything dangerous,’ said Ginger with dignity. ‘Not knowingly, anyway. And we test everything ourselves. Almost everything that is.’

  Pickles said nothing, but silently took Edwina’s money and wished she would go away. Her head was starting to ache. Also, she could tell that Ginger was getting above herself and getting into one of her moods. She might start levitating soon. She had tried that before now and broken an ankle. She limped yet.

  ‘A week ago I had a visitor at the gallery, a tall man in dark spectacles. He was asking after me but didn’t wait. Did he come on to you? Is he anyone you know?’ Lamely she ended, ‘I wouldn’t want to miss a sale.’

  If that was what the dark stranger had in mind, of course.

  Pickles shook her head. Obviously her gift was not working in retrospect. ‘Sorry. Mind’s a blank.’ There was a sort of mystery to her in having a blank mind, because she always wondered what would fill it. She felt that there were infinite wonders waiting to enter her imagination.

  Edwina looked at Ginger. ‘I can’t help you,’ Ginger said. ‘ We get such a variety of people that a person would have to have two heads to be noticed.’ She looked at Pickles.

  ‘Not one of your weirdos?’

  ‘I do not have weirdos.’

  ‘Special cases,’ amended her friend falsely helpful. Even Edwina, preoccupied with her own worries, could see that Ginger was deliberately baiting her friend. But Ginger guessed that Pickles was hiding something. It could only be that she had sold something noxious and knew, or guessed, to whom. Pickles with a guilty conscience was unmistakable.

  ‘No,’ went on Miss Drury. ‘Sorry, Edwina.’ Then she thought again. ‘I know.’ Ginger banged her forehead. ‘ Ginger’s had an idea. Why not ask Miss Linker? Bee Linker. She was around the Piazza almost every day last week, getting local colour for her new book about Nell Gwynn.’

  ‘But she can’t see.’

  ‘She can hear, though. And she had her tape recorder going. Never know what might have been picked up. If it’s important.’

  Ginger was patently curious. In the end Edwina might tell her about the telephone caller, but for the moment the baby would have to be enough news.

  ‘I might have a word with Bee Linker.’

  It didn’t seem likely that Bee would be able to help, but Edwina always enjoyed talking to the writer. She would call on the Linker household later on. She knew their habits well enough to know that the best time to find them both in and relaxed was in the early evening. About now Bee would probably be dictating her next chapter ready for Janine to type.

  Janine might be a good person to talk to. She always seemed so calm and wise. Of course, she might not be, you couldn’t always tell what went on inside.

  ‘Edwina.’

  She turned round, knowing whom she would see. Kit Langley. Alone among her friends he never called her Eddie or Ed, never shortened her name in any way. Hardly used it ever. He seemed to get by without.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ She considered saying No, or What rubbish, or inventing an excuse, and, instead, came out with the truth: she had been avoiding Kit.

  ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘Should we?’

  ‘It’s time.’

  Yes it was, she would certainly have to tell him about the child. Unlike Dougie, he had not guessed, but he knew she was distancing herself from him.

  ‘Come into the gallery and we’ll have a drink.’ As he hesitated: ‘Dougie won’t be there.’

  ‘No. You dig yourself in there. Neutral ground for me. Come to the Duke of York and have a drink and a sandwich.’

  ‘I must just check the gallery. See what’s going on. Tidy up for the day.’ It was after six o’clock.

  ‘Since you are supposed to be in Edinburgh today I can’t see that what is going on needs your personal attention.’

  ‘You keep a check on my movements.’

  ‘It was the last excuse you gave me,’ he said grimly, ‘and that was passed on by Dougie.’

  ‘It was true … but something came up.’ She looked at him. ‘You don’t know? It’s Luke. He’s dead. He was poisoned.’

  Suddenly it all caught up with her, the shock of Luke’s death, the tension since, with her own private and personal worries on top of it all, and she swayed.

  Kit put his arm round her quickly. ‘You want some whisky. And I did know about Luke. Who didn’t? It was in all the papers. Come on – a drink.’

  ‘Oh, God no, not whisky.’ Never whisky. Luke had taken whisky. She might have drunk some herself that day if it hadn’t been for the baby. She steadied herself. I’m all right now. The Duke of York it is, then.’ She drew away from Kit. ‘ Whoops, I’m better now. I think I could manage a dry sherry.’ In fact the idea suddenly seemed very tempting. She was hungry, too, ravenous. She was getting used to these sudden bursts of appetite and accepted it as part of what was happening to her. ‘Thanks, Kit.’

  They had once been close friends and very nearly lovers, but then Tim had appeared on the scene. The changed situation was now part of her life, built into it immoveably, but she was not sure if Kit had ever accepted it. He gave no sign of it at the moment, but walked her round to the Duke, looking cheerful as if he had scored a point. She saw his large intelligent eyes studying her with interest. Damn, he was so quick and clever. One should never underestimate what he might know or work out.

  In a dark corner seat near the bar she found herself telling him about the poisoning of Luke. How the three of them might be under suspicion. Or perhaps thought of as victims. Then she told him about the telephone calls. She heard herself talking about the man whom she thought was, somehow, following her. To her surprise it did not sound melodramatic but stark and cold. A nasty but credible exercise in human behaviour.

  What did surprise her was his reaction to it. He was angry, and fierce.

  ‘You’re always picking up a demon lover.’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

  ‘Yes, I shouldn’t have said it. But you bounced me into it. Still, it’s true. You do attract men who are going to be devils to you. I could list them.’

  Edwina looked at him eloquently.

  ‘No, not me. I’m the exception.’


  ‘My life’s not like that.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Tim,’ she began defensively.

  ‘Yes, even Tim. Tim even more so. It’s time I said so.’ He was angry. ‘He wasn’t good enough for you. He’d have let you down in the end and probably before …’ He had something to tell her about Tim.

  Then he stopped, realising he had gone far enough. Too far probably. Tim, his rival for ever, had put himself out of reach by being dead. Why had he used the phrase ‘demon lover’? It wasn’t his style at all. But somehow it had come into his head as being true for Edwina at that time.

  It didn’t stop her being attractive. In fact she was more appealing to him at this moment, with her slight air of being lost, than ever before. It wasn’t how you usually thought of one of that successful trio. It was new for Edwina.

  ‘Give me that whisky.’ She reached out a hand for his glass and poured its contents down her throat. ‘There now. I’m as tipsy as an owl.’

  ‘Darling. Oh darling,’ he said helplessly. Helpless not because he could not help her, he knew he was going to, somehow, but because he loved her so much.

  Then Edwina told him about the child.

  Kit started to say, ‘But—’ But in his dreams Tim killed a girl, and he thought it was you. He called himself a bloody murderer.

  ‘But nothing. I’ll look after you, Edwina, if you’ll let me.’ There were times to keep a still tongue in your head and this was one.

  Sergeant William Crail was also taking a drink in the Duke. It was not his local, but for the duration of this investigation it would be so. He had found it paid to drink on the spot. You never knew what you might pick up.

  For instance, he could see Edwina and Kit Langley.

  Kit Langley was a new face to record and fit in to what he knew already about Edwina, this was a plus.

  But it was not the reason he was feeling pleased. He had found a way to get on terms with Cassie Ross which, although devious, was practical. He had nothing against deviousness. He was going to claim to be a friend of a friend of hers at university. He did not think it beyond his power to find out the name of a contemporary.