Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) (17 page)

Pru stood up from her desk at the end of the morning on Wednesday and stretched, admiring her method of organizing the found journal: colored sticky notes. Shocking pink: new plant discoveries; sky blue: thinly veiled comments about Captain Vancouver’s behavior; screaming yellow: anything related to the monkey puzzle tree or the fuchsia; and lime green: suspiciously modern word usage. Saskia had been after her to come up with a system—“It would make your work so much easier.” Saskia must’ve been the perfect student.

Pru took the long way to lunch—over to the east gate, down and around by the arboretum, through the visitors’ center, where she waved at Murdo, who stood restocking the rack of postcards, and across to the demonstration garden, where she stopped flat and gazed at the enormous beech hedge, now a haze of yellow-green as leaf buds broke. Spring was upon them. She turned back to the Terrace Café to pick up a sandwich and saw Marcus sitting outside at a table, plate of food and his phone in front of him and book in hand. After hesitating a moment, she went out herself.

“You’re getting used to the weather here, if you’re sitting out on the terrace for lunch,” she said.

He looked up. “At least it’s sunny. Have a seat.”

“No, thanks,” she said, shaking her head and then nodding back toward her office. “I feel like I’m finally making progress, and I’d better keep at it.” Marcus went back to his book, but Pru didn’t move, and stood picking at the paper tab on her sandwich container.

Marcus looked up after a moment. “What?” he asked.

She perched on the edge of the bench opposite him and took a breath. Their conversation from Monday evening had been weighing down a corner of her mind. “When you proposed to me and I said no, I don’t think I explained myself well enough.”

“You cared a lot about me,” he said, “but you didn’t want to commit to a marriage when you felt like your life was leading you in a different direction.” His face revealed nothing.

“Oh God, did I say that? How sanctimonious.” She sighed. “We should’ve ended it there, you know. We shouldn’t have limped along for another year.”

Marcus watched her peel away part of her sandwich wrapper before he looked at her and said, “I’m sorry about what I did. I’m sorry about Celia. If I hadn’t done that, you might still be in Dallas.” He reached over, took the sandwich box from her, picked up her hand, and caressed it. It was a familiar touch—warm, dry, and she could feel the calluses on his fingers. She didn’t move except to arch one eyebrow. He dropped her hand and picked up his book.

They could be friends again, she was sure of it. She took the high road. “How’s the arboretum?”

Marcus kept his eyes on his book for another moment. Pru waited, and with a sigh he set it down. “We’re adding a new section to the trial gardens and there’s talk of renovating the camellias.”

“Where will the money come from for that?” Pru asked. Funding was an issue in any public garden.

Marcus shook his head. “The board came up with the idea of going after Buddyboy Mac.”

“God, no,” Pru said in horror. The world’s wealthiest Texan with the world’s worst taste.

“I doubt if there’s a chance we’ll get it, he’s so hepped up about this thing he’s doing over here.”

“Here? In Scotland?”

“You hadn’t heard? He’s planning some gigantic golf resort—connecting to his Scottish roots or something.”

The thought depressed Pru as she imagined acres of highland heather paved over and marble fountains at the start of every hole with copies of the Venus de Milo in the middle of sand traps.

“Where is he putting it?”

Marcus shrugged. “Scotland.” His phone rang. He glanced at the screen and back up at Pru. “I don’t need to take this.”

Pru had seen the screen: Krystal. She left him to it.

Two minutes before Saskia’s arrival Pru began to straighten the stacks of paper on her desk. Her garden email account open on the computer screen, she saw a new message pop in. She peered at the subject line: “Don’t even try.” She swallowed hard and clicked it open. The single line read: “I’ve done it before, I can do it again.”

Pru whipped her hands away from the keys, which seemed to sear her fingertips. This time, she recognized the sender: bowwowbabe. She stared at the screen. Can’t those people keep their sexual peccadilloes to themselves? she thought, cajoling herself with false bravado. “Ha,” she said aloud, “I don’t want to hear about what you can do, and you’re losing your touch if you keep sending comments about your escapades to the wrong address.”

A movement at the door made her look up. Saskia stood still, her eyes darting around the room. “Pru?”

She had meant to close the message, but the mouse hovered over delete, and when she clicked, the email disappeared. Good riddance. She emptied the trash without another thought. If she wanted to exchange innuendoes with someone, she would do so with Christopher.

“I’m all right, Saskia, just talking to myself.”

Saskia removed a book from her satchel. “Another biography of Banks,” she said, setting it on the table. “I’ll take it home with me, give it a quick read, and let you know what I find.” Saskia had gone through several books the same way—Pru considered her a walking collection of abstracts.

They set to work, Saskia taking notes and making comments, while Pru looked over some handwritten notes from Iain about that pesky fuchsia. They ended at teatime, as they often did, with Pru reading aloud. She had selected a letter Mr. Menzies wrote from Falmouth to one of his brothers with the ship on the verge of sailing.

“…May heaven protect you and grant you the blessings of health & a full enjoyment of happiness here, & hereafter is the prayer of your dear Brother.

Farewell—a long farewell!”

Saskia prepared the tea as Pru finished reading. She looked up just in time. “No sugar.”

“Sorry,” Saskia said, handing Pru her mug.

“Mr. Menzies knew he might never see his brothers and mother again. At least he hadn’t married yet. Many wives did have to see their husbands off on long voyages, rarely hearing from them for years at a time. I can’t even imagine that.”

“They had no choice, had they?” Saskia asked as she crossed her legs and dunked a biscuit into her tea. “But there’s no excuse for such treatment today. Leaving a wife or a child.”

That hit close to home for Pru. “Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. My brother didn’t know our parents—we didn’t even know the other existed until last year. He was brought up in England by relatives, and I grew up in Dallas.”

“There are no extenuating circumstances, Pru. That’s abandonment.”

Pru opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself when she realized that Saskia wasn’t speaking about Pru and Simon’s parents, but about her own father. “It hasn’t been easy,” Pru said, “but we’ve worked through it—well, we’re in the process. Did you ever try to find your dad?”

“To do what?” Saskia shot back. “To tell him how much I loved him?”

“Perhaps give him a chance to make amends.”

Saskia swallowed the last of her tea and said, “Sometimes it’s too late for apologies.” She studied the bottom of her empty mug. “My mum’s not well, Pru. It’s why I can never be far away—she needs looking after.”

“But you went away to school,” Pru pointed out.

“Merrist Wood isn’t all that far from Slough. I could get back easily.”

Pru’s hand rested on a pile of papers, Iain’s fuchsia comments at the top of the stack. “Saskia, did you know Iain at Merrist Wood?”

“No,” she said brushing crumbs off the desk into the palm of her hand.

“He taught there before he came here,” Pru said. “And he left two years ago, I think. So, he would’ve been in Surrey while you were.”

“You’re mistaken,” Saskia said. “I remember all the lecturers. He wasn’t there when I was in school.”

“Well, I must be wrong.”

Saskia stood to tidy the tea tray, and, with her back to Pru, said, “Family means a great deal to you, Pru, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does,” Pru said.

“It does to me as well. My mum is my whole family, but you’ve become like…well, an older sister for me. Thanks for that.” She stole a glance at Pru over her shoulder and smiled. “Oh, listen, would it be all right with you if I switched my Thursday afternoon to Friday morning instead? It’s just that, I’ve something that needs doing tomorrow.”

“Sure, that’s fine. I will carry on.”

After Saskia left, Pru sat at her desk and stared at the closed door. Older sister, indeed. That was laying it on a bit thick—there must be thirty years’ difference in their ages. The girl had tried to distract her with compliments, and Pru knew why. Saskia had lied. She had been a student at Merrist Wood when Iain taught there. She had developed a schoolgirl crush on him and followed him to Edinburgh, only to be rejected. No wonder she was all ajitter when Iain had been in the room.

Poor Saskia—Iain hadn’t even remembered her. Now too embarrassed to admit it, Saskia found it easier to deny the connection. Pru wondered if Saskia’s mother knew the real reason her daughter had moved them to Edinburgh—and she wondered about this mother. Did Mum need Saskia, or was it the other way round? Pru couldn’t help but feel a bit motherly toward Saskia herself. She might just stop by one day and introduce herself, invitation or no.

Saskia’s address was at Pru’s fingertips—on the résumé Saskia had handed to her on the first day. As she copied it, her eyes fell farther down the page, and Pru saw the dates Saskia attended classes at Merrist Wood. Pru tapped the page for a moment. She got online, and in less than a minute was comparing Saskia’s dates with Iain’s obituary online at The
Scotsman
. Their time at Merrist Wood had overlapped by one term. Pru stared at the computer screen. Saskia didn’t realize that an investigation needed all facts, however irrelevant. Pru clicked the web page closed. Later, she would ring Tamsin.

As she walked back to her flat, Pru flipped through the mental pages of her diary. Saturday, she would look at more churches. Should she try ringing Rosemary first, just in case the woman might take pity on her? In the meantime, Mrs. Murchie may come up with an idea—she’d lived in Edinburgh for…well, Pru wasn’t sure, but it was a long time.

Pru neared the sharp corner that would take her up Glenogle, and came out of her reverie at the sight of Murdo. He stood across the road in deep conversation with a black-and-white cat that sat on a low stone wall. She walked over to them.

“Hiya, Pru,” he said.

“Hello, Murdo. Who’s your friend here?”

“Just some fellow wanting a scratch between his ears,” Murdo said. The cat bunted his arm and Murdo obliged. “I had a black-and-white cat just like him when I was a boy.”

Christopher had said to keep an eye on Murdo—Pru knew a good way to do that. “I’m heading to the Pickled Egg,” she said. “Fancy a pint?”

“Oh, aye,” he said. “I could just do with one.”

They stood at the bar with their pints of 80 Shilling. Murdo took off his green woolly cap and shoved it into a pocket of his jacket, which he hung on a hook under the bar. Pru could see the little notebook in his breast pocket. She set her bag down on the floor.

“So, Murdo,” she said, “you had a black-and-white cat and you like woodworking and you come from an estate north of here. Do you have any family in Edinburgh?”

Murdo shook his head. “It’s just my dad and me. And he’s verra busy running the estate and managing all his business affairs.” Murdo picked up a beer mat and tapped it on the bar.

“Do you make furniture there—on the estate?”

Murdo’s face darkened. “Furniture making is a trade, Pru. We don’t work in trade.” His voice hardened. “The Trotters are Scottish landed gentry, and we’ve a reputation to uphold.”

“But, Murdo,” Pru said. “You’re working as a gardener.”

He glanced at her and away. “I do what I’m told.”

Murdo downed about half his pint. Pru nodded to Bill behind the bar, who began pulling another; she took a sip of her own, still three-quarters full.

“Thanks, Pru. Cheers,” Murdo said. He turned round and leaned back, setting his elbows on the bar. “You see, it isn’t like with you, coming from Texas. You’re free to do what you please. It must be an amazing place. And you watch out for each other, don’t you? It’s like you’re one massive clan in Texas.”

Pru lifted her eyebrows. She thought Murdo had been watching too many John Wayne movies. Immigration reform, political differences, crazy people doing crazy things in the name of religion—she didn’t see Texas as one massive clan as much as an inharmonious conglomeration of highly opinionated people. “Well, I suppose it can look good from the outside.”

“Aye, it’s just that Mr. Mac says…” Murdo turned scarlet and clapped his mouth shut.

“Who’s that?”

“No one. Just a…business associate of my dad’s.” He took another long drink. “So, Pru, they’re not bothering you now about Mr. Blackwell, are they?”

“The police haven’t found out who killed him, but I’ve told them all I know.” He was making great headway through this second pint, and Pru signaled Bill to start another. “They talked with you, didn’t they?”

“Oh, aye, but what did I have to tell them? I know nothing about the goings-on at the garden.”

Pru swallowed hard and coughed to clear her throat.

“I saw you passing, you know,” he said. “That day. I was working in the demonstration garden, and you and Mr. Blackwell passed by on the other side of the tall beech hedge.”

In her mind, Pru walked down that path again with Iain. “Saskia heard us arguing,” she said, looking down into her glass and rolling the remaining beer around.

“I’d say she did,” Murdo said. “Scampered off to the opening in the hedge and stood there. She watched you run back, and then Miss Perfect leaves us to finish out the day and herself runs off—tells us she had to get something for you.”

“She followed me?”

Murdo shrugged. “I dunno, do I? I went back to my work.” He set his glass down. “I’ll get the next round, Pru. And a couple of packets of crisps, Bill,” he said to the barman.

Pru corrected her second pint to a half. If Saskia had seen her turn away from Iain and go back the way she had come, had she told that to the police? And if she had, why did they take Pru in for questioning?

Murdo’s attention shifted—he looked out the pub’s window and into the display window at a charity shop across the road, where a woman moved a tea table into place.

“See thon table now? Yew—a good warm color for furniture. A real prize that.”

She followed his gaze. “You can tell what kind of wood it is from here?” He shrugged, as if to downplay such a talent. “What was the first piece of furniture you made?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Weel, when I was eight, an oak blew down on the estate—we’d had a fierce wind, and it ripped out the tree by its very roots. Auntie Aggie and I went to investigate the next day, the weather calm as anything. It looked as if the branches had exploded when they hit the ground. I picked up a bit—almost as big as I was, and it was all twisted twigs coming out at you like fingers. I said, ‘Look, Auntie, the tree made a rack for you to hang your scarves on.’ And she laughed and said, wouldn’t it be nice if I finished it off for her—you know, smooth the rough bits. So I did, and after that, I made a wee table for her, too, from a slice of a big branch. A fellow from the estate helped me with that. I worked on it out in one of the barns during teatime every day for weeks. I could see that table in the wood before I ever started on it. It’s as if the tree tells me what it wants to be.”

“Your aunt must’ve loved that. Does she still have it?”

Murdo shook his head slightly, eyes on the bar. “She left it behind. She left the table and she left me.”

Pru had the urge to reach out and pat his arm—such a forlorn little boy. “When did your auntie…leave?” It occurred to Pru that Murdo might mean his aunt had died. To a little boy, departure and death were probably much the same.

“I was ten,” Murdo said. “It was a long time ago.” He straightened up. “I’ll just go to the…” He nodded his head down the hall toward the toilets.

Pru’s eyes followed his nod. “Oh, yes, right.” Here was her chance. She watched him go, then glanced left and right before sinking down to the floor beside Murdo’s jacket. She needed to see inside that notebook. She took a few quick breaths for courage and grabbed it out of his pocket, hardly believing her own nerve.

She stayed low behind the bar and opened the little black book, angling it this way and that to cast enough light on it.

On her previous brief glimpse she had seen a row of numbers and letters, and now she could see line after line, page after page, of the same. Was it a code?

Pru stared at the jumble of figures for a moment, until a few jumped out at her. She broke out in a cold sweat and flipped through more pages, but she didn’t get far.

“Same again, Bill,” she heard Murdo call as he walked back toward the bar.

Pru closed the book, wrapped the elastic band around it, and stuffed it back into Murdo’s jacket pocket—except she missed the pocket, and it landed on the floor behind her bag. With only two seconds before Murdo rounded the bar, she grabbed her bag and dumped its contents on top of the notebook and all over the floor.

“All right, Pru?” Murdo’s work boots appeared in her line of vision.

“What a mess,” she said, laughing. She stayed on all fours. “I heard my phone ring, but couldn’t find it, so I just turned everything out. And now where’s my phone? Sorry, Murdo, would you mind?” She kept her hand on the top of the pile where at the bottom—she hoped—his notebook remained.

“Oh, aye,” Murdo said and knelt down.

While he looked one way, she shoved her phone in the opposite direction. It shot off like a hockey puck and came to a stop, still spinning, under a chair halfway across the room.

“I don’t see it,” she said, searching the floor frantically. “Oh, wait, I think it’s there.” She pointed to a forest of legs—a group of men standing near the television watching football—five or six feet to the right of her phone. As Murdo crawled through the legs—“shove over, now” she heard him say—Pru stuffed the notebook back into his jacket.

“No, sorry, Murdo—there it is!” she said, pointing out the phone’s true location. Murdo jostled an elbow as he turned and received a splash of ale on his head for the effort.

“You’ll check for your missed call?” he asked, as he handed her the phone.

“Yes, of course I will,” she said as she scooped up purse, pens, scraps of paper, a map of the Botanics, two—no, three—extra hair clips—keys, a toothbrush, and a wadded-up five-pound note, and dropped everything into her bag. She slapped money on the bar. “Well, Murdo, this has been lovely, but I really must get home.” She began backing toward the door.

“Will you not have your pint? Well, I’ll just stay and finish the both of them. Are you all right on your own?”

Pru bumped into the door and reached her hand around to grab the handle, saying, “Yes, indeed, I’m fine. Right, well, see you tomorrow. Cheers.”

Although she knew that Murdo would be well-occupied with two pints in front of him, she glanced over her shoulder as she hurried down the road, and at the bridge, broke into a trot, ending at her door out of breath.

She dug for her keys, wishing she’d stuck them in her pocket at the pub; her hand shook, and it took three attempts to match up key with keyhole. Indoors, she leaned against the closed door and stared off into space—seeing not the hall of her flat, but instead pages of Murdo’s notebook that contained row upon row of numbers and capital letters. She found paper and pen and wrote down what she could remember. She sat back to study it, and understood.

The letters—at least some of them—were her own initials, PP, and from that interpretation, she deduced that the others were Iain’s, IB. The numbers might be the time. There had been other letters, but she couldn’t recall. One thing was clear: Murdo not only saw everything that went on in the garden, he wrote it down.

No, not everything, but certainly much of Pru’s and Iain’s movements. She attempted to get her thoughts in order and her heart rate down before ringing Christopher.

“Pearse,” he barked upon answering.

“Working late, are you, Inspector?”

She heard a soft chuckle. “Sorry, I didn’t look to see who it was,” he said.

Just the sound of his voice calmed her. She’d had no dinner, and began to rummage in her tiny fridge, searching for a container of cream of something soup. “You can ring me back later if you like.”

“No, I’m due for a short break. And I’d much rather talk with you.”

“What’s keeping you at the station?”

“Case notes—I’m finishing one lot and have two more waiting for me.” He let out a deep breath and she heard his chair squeak.

“Do you need to finish them tonight?”

“Best to get them off my desk and onto someone else’s. How was your day?”

“I had the chance to talk with Murdo,” she said, and proceeded to tell him about the notebook and its contents. “I recognized my own initials. And that made me think the others were Iain’s. But I don’t know about the times. There were other letters I can’t remember. It looked like it might’ve been a log of my whereabouts at the garden—Iain’s, too.”

“Did he see you with it?” Christopher asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure that’s what it was—details of your days?” DCI Pearse was on the case.

“I need another look,” she said. “I’ll try tomorrow—if I can catch him without his jacket.”

“No, don’t try that.”

“But I could be wrong—I can’t go to the police and say that Murdo might be watching me because I saw a bunch of numbers and letters in a notebook.”

“Leave it, please. Just for another day or two,” he said. “I’ve a call into Blakie about your Laird. I hope to have news tomorrow—let’s follow that first. Stay away from Murdo.” She could hear the strain in his voice.

“All right, I’ll leave it for now. After all, I have a dress fitting tomorrow at lunchtime.” Her heart shifted into high gear. “And I’m looking forward to it—really, I am. I’m sure Madame Fiona and Jo have everything worked out.”