by H. Y. Hanna
She watched as the ginger tom slipped through the gap and out into the rear garden. She was about to shut the door after him when she heard him call insistently again.
“N-ow! N-OW!”
What on earth does he want? Poppy stepped outside. Night had almost completely fallen and the garden was just a mass of dark shapes moving in the breeze. She hesitated, then walked farther out, leaving the door wide open behind her so that light from the greenhouse would spill out. It didn’t help much, barely penetrating more than a few feet, and seemed only to make the rest of the garden beyond even blacker.
Poppy walked to the edge of the light and peered out into the darkness. She could just make out the cat—a paler shape against the black background—a short distance away.
“N-ow!” he called again.
Poppy wished that she had a torch, but she couldn’t be bothered to go back in to search for one; in any case, she didn’t know if there was one in the cottage. Besides, her eyes were acclimatising a bit now and she could make out a bit of the darkened landscape around them: the big trees at the back, the large mounds of shrubbery around, and the straight lines of the rectangular cutting flowerbed, where the terrier had been digging earlier…
“N-ow!” came the insistent voice.
“All right, all right… I’m coming…” muttered Poppy, picking her way carefully through the weeds.
She saw that the cat was in the middle of the cutting flowerbed, his tail twitching impatiently. Climbing over the prickly stems of some kind of bushy plant, she stepped into the bed. The soil here was softer than she’d expected and she lost her balance as the loose earth settled beneath her weight. Poppy stumbled sideways, her ankle catching against a vine of some sort, and the next moment, she pitched forwards, facedown into the dirt.
“Ommpphh!”
She lay winded for a moment, then raised herself slowly onto her elbows. There was soil on her face, neck, clothes… She sat up and tried to brush it off. “Ugh!”
“N-ow?” said the ginger tom, coming over and eyeing her curiously.
“It’s all your fault!” grumbled Poppy, pushing herself to her knees and attempting to stand up.
The crumbly earth beneath her made it difficult and she groped around for a handhold—anything to give her a bit of support. Her fingers scrabbled through the soil, brushing against fuzzy stems and floppy leaves, and then they encountered something soft and clammy.
Poppy recoiled with a gasp. It sounded crazy, but it had felt like… skin.
She panicked, scooting backwards on her bum and kicking up clods of earth everywhere. The ginger tom gave a hiss of annoyance and jumped out of the way.
“N-ooow!” he said, looking at her reproachfully.
The cat’s cry brought her back to her senses and Poppy gave a sheepish laugh. Of course, it can’t be skin! What am I thinking?
She peered at the bed in front of her, straining her eyes in the darkness. In the faint light spilling out from the greenhouse, she could see nothing other than mounds of disturbed earth, and a few broken flower stalks. She leaned forwards and poked the soil in a few places. There was a glint of metal—it was the tines of a little handheld garden fork which had been left in the bed—but nothing that resembled any part of a human body.
Poppy sat back. It must have been her overactive imagination. The lonely surroundings of the cottage, together with the wild, overgrown garden and Charles Mannering’s anxiety had combined to create an eerie atmosphere that was putting sinister ideas in her head. Getting to her feet, she brushed herself off and stepped carefully out of the bed, making sure to avoid the vine that had tripped her previously. She turned back towards the cottage, but she hadn’t gone two steps when that familiar plaintive wail came again:
“N-ow! N-ooow!”
She whirled around with an impatient sigh. “For goodness’ sake, what do you want?”
The cat trotted over and sat down at her feet, looking up at her with wide, unblinking eyes. She stood at a loss for a moment. Was he lost? Hungry? She didn’t have anything in the cottage to feed him, and besides, she was sure he was somebody’s pet. She bent down to examine him again, and this time she realised that he was actually wearing a collar—a thin leather band with a small tag attached. She turned this over eagerly and peered at the engraved information. There was no name, just an address. She was surprised to see that it was the number right before the cottage on the lane. The ginger tom belonged to her next-door neighbour!
“N-ow!” he said again.
Poppy stood and looked at him indecisively, wondering what to do. She didn’t have the heart to just walk into the cottage and shut the door in his face. She also didn’t want him to stand out here, wailing “N-ooow!” all night.
She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Shoo… Go home!” she said.
“N-ow…?”
“Yes, now. Go home. Go on… it’s just there, over that wall…” Poppy pointed.
“N-ow? N-ow…?”
Poppy sighed. On an impulse, she reached down and scooped the cat up. He squirmed for a moment, and then, to her surprise, settled in her arms and even began purring. She carried him into the cottage, through the house, and out the front door… heading for the lane and the house next door.
CHAPTER NINE
The ginger tom was a big boy and heavier than she’d expected. By the time Poppy got out of the garden gate, her arms were beginning to ache and she was breathing hard with effort. She lugged him up the lane until she reached the house right before Hollyhock Cottage. She must have walked past it when she arrived yesterday, but she had barely glanced at it. Now, Poppy looked around curiously as she carried the ginger tom up to its front entrance. The gleaming iron gate opened into neat landscaped grounds, with stone steps that led up to a raised porch and an elegant panelled front door in the Georgian style.
Poppy shifted the cat’s weight in her arms and reached out to press the doorbell, hoping that the owners were home. Her heart sank as long minutes passed and no one came. She pressed on the doorbell again, craning her neck to look through the windows. With the curtains drawn, it was hard to see into the house, but it looked like lights were on in the interior—although that in itself didn’t necessarily mean much. People could have left the lights on and gone out, or even have the switches attached to an automatic timer.
She was just reaching out to press the doorbell again when the door was flung open and a tall man loomed out of the threshold.
“YES?” he snapped.
Poppy stared. Flashing dark eyes, strong jaw, brooding mouth… It was Nick Forrest, the crime author. He was looking much more unkempt than the last time she’d seen him, with his shirt rumpled and open at the collar, and his dark hair tousled, as if he had been running his hand through it repeatedly.
“Oh! It’s you!” she said stupidly.
He stared blankly at her.
“I met you at the bookshop—I mean, we didn’t really meet, but that’s where I saw you give a reading… I thought you lived in London—I didn’t realise you lived in Oxfordshire…” Poppy trailed off as she realised that she was babbling. She lifted the ginger tom higher to show him. “Um… I brought your cat back.”
“What?” he said in an irritable voice. Then his eyes fell on the ginger tom. “Oh, the bloody cat. Chuck him inside.” He indicated the hallway behind him with an impatient gesture.
Poppy was slightly taken aback but did as she was bid, setting the ginger tom down and giving him a gentle nudge towards the open door. The cat paused to lick a nonchalant paw, then trotted into the house without a backward glance at her. As soon as he was in, Nick Forrest gave her a curt nod, muttered something that sounded like “Thanks” but could equally have been “Pranks!” and retreated into the house, leaving her standing on the porch, staring at the closed door.
“Well… you’re welcome!” muttered Poppy. What a rude man!
Turning, she stalked back to the cottage in a huff. This time, she made sure that a
ll doors—front and back—were securely locked, then took herself off for a much-needed wash in the ancient bathtub. Despite the water not being very hot, the bath was more soothing than she’d expected, and she emerged from the bathroom feeling calmer and also suddenly very tired. It had been a long day, with a lot of excitement, and she felt emotionally drained.
As Poppy towelled her shoulder-length hair dry, she wondered half-heartedly about going to the village pub for dinner. She wasn’t actually very hungry—the huge sandwich she had picked up in Oxford before getting on the bus was still making its presence felt in her stomach—and she decided that it wouldn’t hurt to skip dinner for one night. There was a bar of chocolate in her handbag; she could simply have that and a hot cup of tea. Nell would be horrified but she doesn’t have to know, thought Poppy with a grin.
She was standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, when she heard voices. A man and a woman. The deep male voice was one she instantly recognised; she could still hear the rich baritone weaving magic with words, conjuring vivid images in her mind. Then she remembered the same voice, irritable and impatient, and her expression soured. Still, almost against her will, Poppy drifted to the open kitchen window and pulled back the curtains to peer out.
From this angle, she could just catch a glimpse of the neighbouring property through the trees. It would have been too dark to see anything, except that Nick Forrest’s porch and front garden were well lit with discreet spotlights. She could see him now, standing on the front steps. There was a woman with him—a slim, elegant figure who stretched up to give him a kiss, then turned and walked towards the front gate. The woman called something back to him and Nick answered, his deep voice carrying in the still night air.
“Thanks, Suzanne. I’ll see you for dinner when I get back.”
The woman called something in reply, then there was the sound of a car door slamming and, a few minutes later, the soft purr of an engine, which faded slowly into the night. Nick Forrest lingered for a moment on his front porch and Poppy pulled back, feeling suddenly like she was spying on him. It was silly—it wasn’t as if he could see her, and besides, she wasn’t really interested in what he was doing. She had just been idly curious, that was all. Still, she stood watching until Nick had gone back into the house and it was only the sound of the kettle boiling that pulled her away from the window.
Half an hour later, Poppy climbed into bed with a weary sigh, placed her head on the lumpy pillow, and promptly fell asleep. Her night was filled with confused dreams: ginger cats slinking between stacks of books, toppling them over one by one, and tramps having tea and scones beneath climbing roses… and all the while, Charles Mannering stood in the background, waving a property sales contract and shouting “N-ow! N-ow!”
Poppy awoke with a start and looked blearily at the bedroom window. From the weak light peeking through the curtains, she guessed that it was just before dawn. Turning over, she closed her eyes again, but sleep wouldn’t come. She had gone to bed so early last night, it was not surprising that she was wide awake now. She sighed and rolled onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling’s exposed wood beams.
For some reason, her thoughts kept reverting to that moment last night when she had been scrabbling in the soil and had felt something cold and clammy brush against her fingers. She knew it couldn’t be skin—of course not—and yet she couldn’t shake the memory of that sensation from her mind. It was like a sore tooth, niggling at her, refusing to be ignored.
Finally, she sat up. This was ridiculous. There was only one way to resolve it, once and for all. It was lighter now and she’d be able to see the garden bed much more clearly. She would go down and have a look again and reassure herself that it was just her overactive imagination.
Poppy dressed quickly and hurried through the cottage. As she stepped out of the back door, she paused for a moment, drinking in the scene in front of her. The dawn light bathed the garden in a soft grey haze, lending it an almost otherworldly feel. Morning dew sparkled like jewels on the twining stems of a vine growing near the cutting flowerbed. That must have been what tripped me up last night, Poppy realised. It had been planted at the base of an old wooden obelisk next to the bed, but with no one to tend it, it had outgrown its support and was spilling everywhere.
She picked her way carefully around the vine and stepped into the soft earth of the flowerbed, putting her arms out to steady herself. It was easy to see where she had been scrabbling in the soil last night—there were large scrape marks and kicked piles of soil, and a depression where she had obviously lain. She crouched down and reached out to dig with her hands, trying to remember where she had been groping. It was here… near these flower stalks… She remembered feeling their soft floppy leaves and then…
Poppy jerked back.
She stared at the ground in front of her. The morning sunlight slanted over her shoulder, outlining something that was protruding from a mound of disturbed earth.
It was a human hand.
CHAPTER TEN
Poppy felt disbelief wash over her. No, it couldn’t be true. She had to be dreaming. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. The hand was still there.
Slowly, she picked up the little garden fork she had noticed last night, then reached out and prodded the hand. It rolled sideways, then fell back limply.
Poppy swallowed. She gathered her courage and crawled a bit closer. She used the little garden fork to gingerly scrape the earth away. The hand was attached to an arm… and the arm belonged to a man…
A dead man, shallowly buried in the middle of the cutting flowerbed.
She stood up and stared down at the body. He had been young—somewhere in his late twenties—just a few years older than her, perhaps. Poppy swallowed again. He was wearing rough work clothes and there was dirt under his nails, and healed scratches on his arms. He also wore a tool belt of some kind, with a small apron in front that had pockets for tools, and Poppy caught a glimpse of a coil of garden twine, and some kind of small rake. Had the man been a gardener? But what had he been doing here?
She continued staring, still with that sense of unreality. She knew she should do something—call for help, call the police, maybe even just scream—but it was as if she were paralysed. All she could think about was how she had slept, unknowing, in the cottage all night, whilst out here, a dead body lay waiting…
A hand came down on her shoulder.
Poppy screamed. She whirled around, then gasped with a mixture of surprise and relief as she recognised the tall man standing behind her.
“Oh! It’s you!” she said, for the second time in twenty-four hours. “You scared me half to death!”
He didn’t apologise, instead saying with a frown: “What are you doing here?”
“I…” Poppy opened her mouth, then paused, at a loss over how to say it. Instead, she stepped aside so that he could see for himself.
Nick Forrest started forwards, then jerked to a stop as he saw the body. He went very still.
“Do… do you know him?” Poppy asked.
He gave a curt nod. “It’s Pete. Pete Sykes. He is—was—a sort of gardener-cum-general-handyman who helped Mary Lancaster around the nursery.” He tilted his head, examining the body with an almost clinical detachment. “It looks like he might have been dead for a while”
He walked around the bed, giving the dead man a wide berth, and stopped when he reached the opposite side. Poppy watched as he bent to take a closer look at the back of the man’s head.
“His head’s been smashed in,” Nick said tonelessly.
Poppy flinched. She didn’t know how he could just stand there and say that so coolly. Then she remembered that he was a crime writer. Perhaps gory dead bodies were just a daily occurrence in the pages of his manuscripts.
“Do you think he was working out here and tripped and fell… and hit his head on something?” she asked.
“This was no accident.”
Poppy gave a snort of la
ughter at his tone. “What—you’re not suggesting that he was murdered?”
He didn’t answer, but continued to observe the body, his keen gaze taking in every detail.
“Look, I know you’re a crime writer and all that…” said Poppy impatiently. “But surely you’re letting your imagination run away with you? Murders are things that happen in books and movies, not in real life.”
He looked up and raised a mocking, incredulous eyebrow.
“No, I mean…” Poppy stammered. “Okay, they do happen in real life. Of course they do. People do kill each other. But in gangland shootings or… or violent robberies… or even dangerous neighbourhoods in big cities! Not in a sleepy little English village. And besides, who would want to kill a gardener?”
“You might be surprised…” Nick murmured.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He walked back around the body to join her.
“Well, if… if there’s really been foul play, shouldn’t we call the police?” said Poppy. She turned and started for the cottage. “I’ll get my phone—”
“No, let me get mine.” His voice was authoritative. “I’ll call Suzanne.”
“S-Suzanne?” spluttered Poppy, remembering the elegant woman from the night before. “This is no time to be calling your girlfriend!”
He threw her a sardonic look. “Ex-girlfriend, actually.”
Then, without another word, he turned and strode away, disappearing around the side of the cottage. A few minutes later, Poppy heard the sound of the front gate slamming, and then his footsteps in the adjoining property. She stood fuming for a moment, wondering what to do. She had never met anyone so infuriating! Who did he think he was? Well, she wasn’t going to stand here waiting for him, like a dog told to “Stay”—she was going to call the police herself!