Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) (21 page)

Pru could hardly believe her eyes. She blinked rapidly and reread the email three times before she could stand it no longer. Leaping out of her seat, she grabbed the copy of the found journal in both hands and held it high. “It’s you, Mr. Menzies—it’s really you!” Dizzy from the thrill of discovery, she held on to the desk for a moment before grabbing her coat and setting off, desperate to share the news.

Alastair’s door stood open, the office empty. He couldn’t be far—she had him at last. Now that she knew he couldn’t escape, her resentment over how she’d been treated came flooding back, overshadowing her great discovery. Did she really want him to be the first to hear? Of course she’d tell him, but she had other business with him first.

She waited just inside and out of his line of sight. He walked in with a cup of tea in hand, saw her, and jumped, sloshing tea onto his shoes.

“Good morning, Alastair.”

“Pru, how lovely. How is the project proceeding? Of course I want you to come to me with any questions you have, especially now that Iain…well.” He mopped his shoes with his handkerchief, which he stuffed back into the breast pocket of his jacket, as his eyes flashed to the door. “But as it happens, I’m expecting someone, you see…”

“I do have a question for you, Alastair.” Pru held still, her hands at her sides. It took a great effort not to clench them. “How is your job hunt going? Were they impressed in Canberra with your fund-raising talents? How is the Laird? How is Earl Stanley MacIntyre?”

The name had barely left her lips when a door at the end of the hall opened and Pru heard heavy footfalls. Alastair’s eyes widened.

A figure stood in the doorway blocking out the light. Pru had never seen him in person, but now remembered that he had been a linebacker for the Cowboys years ago. He pulled off his Stetson, bent his head, and walked in the door.

“Well if it isn’t Mizz Pru Parke in the flesh.” He reached out a beefy hand and smiled a Texas-size smile. “I’m pleased to meet you at last. Buddyboy Mac, Mizz Parke.”

Pru’s hand got lost in the vast expanse of his palm, as she attempted two brief, but firm, shakes. She raised an eyebrow. “Mr. MacIntyre.”

“Aw now, you call me Mac. I’ve been telling Al here”—he patted Alastair on the arm and more tea spilled onto the already baptized shoes—“that it’s just about time to meet you in person.”

“Mr. MacIntyre,” Pru began, “I understand you were instrumental in getting me this temporary post, and while I appreciate your interest in my career, I do not understand it, and I don’t think that it was appropriate for you to interfere in the workings of the garden.” She swallowed. “But now that you’re here, I have a few questions that perhaps you could answer better than Alastair.” Alastair avoided her eyes and instead looked longingly at his rapidly cooling cup of tea, now half-full. “Just how did this arrangement of mine come about?”

Mac tossed his hat into the desk chair. “I don’t mind telling you about it. Well, let me see, now. Last year, I was up working through plans with Callum, and I read about all the ruckus at that place in England where you worked and how you were able to reconstruct a garden and solve a murder.” Pru shrugged off the compliment; Mac continued. “Look at that, I said to Callum—that’s what we’re made of in the Lone Star State. And I kept an eye out for what you might do next—just hometown interest, you know. But you disappeared—I couldn’t find a newspaper or blog that mentioned your name. And so I decided to help you out some. Get your name back out there.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“Aw, now, Pru, I don’t mind helping out a fellow Texan,” Mac said. “I decided to find you a job that would give you that edge, get you into the spotlight. Everyone said this botanic garden is known all around the world, so here I came, found Al right off the bat, and asked him about some project to show off what you could do. Al knew just who to go to, because some fella that specializes in maps and letters had already come to him, offering this antique journal. Perfect for you, because you’re such an expert in the history of plants and gardens. See, I pay attention.” He gave her a wink. “And it didn’t matter that Al thought it was a fake.”

Anger shot through her veins like hot metal. She forgot that she had just authenticated the journal herself—no thanks to Alastair—and instead was incensed he cared so little for her scholarly effort it didn’t matter to him what he handed her, real or fake.

She took a step toward Alastair, and he took a step back. “You believed the journal was a forgery?” she asked between clenched teeth.

Alastair’s head shook, more of a vibration than a denial. “No, no, not a forgery—that is, we weren’t sure. If it is a fake it’s quite a good one. And we did acquire it from a fellow in Aberfeldy, the Menzies family home. Fascinating, don’t you think?” Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead.

“
Busywork!
” Pru’s voice bounced off the walls. “You handed off busywork, and expected me to be grateful?” she shouted in Alastair’s face. “Well, I’ve some surprising news for you, Alastair.”

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Mac said. “He was just doing what I asked.”

She whirled on him. “And
you.
” She stepped up and stuck a finger in his face, disregarding the fact that he was as big as a refrigerator. “How was meddling supposed to help my career?”

“Now, you look here,” Mac said, “I had no intention of interfering. I only wanted you to get the respect you deserve. You’re a fine ambassador for our great state. You know how easy it is for people to think that anyone from Texas is a self-centered know-it-all.”

“How ever would they get that idea?” she asked.

Mac looked down at her for a moment, his small eyes hard and shiny and his face flushed. Then he broke into a grin and, with a playful punch, sent Alastair caroming off his desk. “You see, Al, I knew she could give as good as she got. I like your spunk,” he said to her. “You remind me of my little girl Roylene.”

Pru’s brain executed a quick background search. “Little girl Roylene,” Mac’s daughter, in her thirties. That’s right—he’d bought her an art gallery.

“No one would care if this journal was true or a fake. They’d see your research skills and you’d write a paper on the process and get it published and be speaking all over the United Kingdom. That’s what’s important—people knowing who you are.”

Pru sucked in her breath. How dare he use her own thoughts against her? That had been a part of her dream to begin with, one of the reasons she took the temporary job—respect in the horticultural community, a published account of the project. But now, even though she knew the journal to be real, that dream had ceased to appeal to her. She just wanted to go outside and plant something.

She shifted her eyes to Alastair. “No wonder Iain could barely stand me.” Her voice shook. “I waltz in here dangling the promise of a huge donation to the garden and rob him of a project that should’ve been his.”

“He may not have liked it to begin with,” Alastair said, “but he was coming round. He rather enjoyed your sparring sessions, so to speak. Intellectually.”

Pru felt queasy at the thought of it all. She pressed three fingers on the edge of the desk to prop herself up. “Mr.”—she held her hand up to stop him before he could correct her—“I mean, Mac. Did you send Murdo here?”

Mac chuckled. “We told the boy we’d set him up down here to make sure you got along all right. At least that’s what Callum thought—seemed to me that Murdo needed to put some space between him and his daddy.”

“What did you tell Murdo to do?”

“Keep an eye on you. Stay in the background.”

“Did Murdo believe that Iain was in my way? That he was keeping me from doing my job? Did you tell him to stop Iain?”

“Pru,” Alastair cut in, “how can you even think—”

“Murdo wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Mac said, and the way he said it, it didn’t sound like much of a compliment. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened to that Blackwell fella, but don’t you think for a minute that it had anything to do with me or Callum. Or Murdo.”

This couldn’t be all. “Why?”

Mac’s face shone with innocence. “Why—what?”

“Why did you do this?” she demanded.

“I just told you, Pru, I wanted to see you get your name back out there in lights,” he said.

The silence in the room weighed her down, but she would not break it. She kept her eyes on Mac, waiting.

“Well,” he said, blushing and showing the dimples he usually reserved for television cameras, “there’s no getting something past you, now is there? You see, Al, I told you she was a sharp one.” Alastair flinched, as if waiting for another friendly blow, but Mac continued. “It’s just this one little thing, you see. We’re having some trouble getting planning permission for ESM Ranch and Resort up there in Moray—my other Dallas, I like to say.”

“I’m not a builder, Mr. MacIntyre,” Pru said evenly. “What does that have to do with me?”

“I read up on you, Pru, and I know you’ve had experience dealing with environmental reviews—there was that cement factory they wanted to put in down on the Brazos—and we sure could use a big-name expert from Texas over here to help us out.”

“Cement factory?” Pru couldn’t believe her ears. “I was in grad school. I got two credits for sitting in on the meetings and they let me put my name on the report. That was almost thirty years ago. And we lost—the cement factory went in. How was that supposed to help?”

“Win, lose—that doesn’t matter. It’s your name—don’t you see? You’ve got experience in the field and your name’s been in the news in this country. And you’re from my hometown. That’s rock solid as far as I’m concerned.”

“Rock solid because people do what you tell them to do—if it involves a large enough sum of money?” she asked, glaring at Alastair. “Just what was my role to be in your project?”

“There’s this flower, you see,” Mac said. “They’re saying that the ESM ranch would wipe it out—now I can’t understand how one little bitty flower”—he held up his thumb and index finger about a half inch apart—“can stop a construction project that would employ hundreds of locals and—”

“In Moray?” Alastair cut in. “An endangered species? Surely not
Moneses uniflora—
the one-flowered wintergreen?”

“One flower,” Mac said, pointing at Alastair as if he’d explained it all. “How can they stop me over just one flower? Now, Pru, all you would need to do is explain that the ESM complex wouldn’t harm one little flower—”

Alastair slammed his tea down onto the desk. “The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a leader in conservation around the globe, and we will not be party to such a sham.”

“Look here, Al, all I’m asking the girl to do, is to say—”

“You’ve misled me, Mr. MacIntyre,” Alastair said, seizing command. “Your altruistic motives were only a cover for your own interests, and I certainly want nothing more to do with this. Pru?”

She shook her head, but the movement jarred her vision, and so she stopped. She watched as Mac stepped up to tower over Alastair, but Alastair held his ground. She should tell Alastair her good news, but her face was hot, and she thought it might be nice to sit outside for a minute in the cold, misty air and consider what to do next. Her thoughts, moving as if through treacle, had circled back round to Iain’s death. That was the point of the morning. The police would come for Murdo—should she tell Mac or phone Christopher first?

“I have to go,” she said, her voice barely audible over the men’s spiraling debate as she took her leave. She stood outside the building and leaned against the wall, unable to cut through the morass in her mind. She would take a walk to clear her head.

She took the path to the city viewpoint, but the mist had grown heavy and obscured the castle, so she circled around to her secret spot, the small grassy space near Inverleith House, surrounded by Mr. Menzies’s southern beech and a host of house-high rhododendrons. She sat on the wet bench and sank her face in her hands, fingertips pressed against her eyes, barely noticing the mist growing into mizzle.

She’d been made a fool of—a pawn in Buddyboy Mac’s plan to flaunt her as Texas talent for his own purposes. Mac couldn’t be trusted; his denial only reinforced her idea that Murdo had botched his assignment, accidentally killing Iain during an argument, and Mac had swooped into Edinburgh to cover it all up.

Transparent layers of images superimposed themselves one on top of another in her mind—she couldn’t seem to separate them. Mac and Alastair, Murdo and his aunt Aggie, Iain and Saskia, Iain and the woman in the old photo, the lovely young woman whose smile curled up at the corners, just like…

Just like Saskia’s mother.

A voice interrupted her thoughts.

“You shouldn’t be here alone.”

Pru leapt up. Murdo stood on the path to the main walk. She moved around the bench, but stumbled. The ground tilted and swayed, as if she were standing at the top of the Scott Monument. She blinked rapidly, and the horizon leveled out.

“I’m not alone,” she said, gripping the back of the bench.

He stepped toward her. “Are you all right, Pru?”

“Yes, I’m fine. What do you want?”

“Where is she?” Murdo asked.

Pru’s fear disappeared as she remembered the reunion between Murdo and Mrs. Murchie. “Have you seen her?”

“I thought she might be here with you.”

“I saw her earlier,” Pru said. “Did she explain everything to you?”

Murdo frowned. “Why would she do that, now?”

“Well, you know, don’t you, that it wasn’t her fault?”

“Of course it was her fault, what are you saying?” Murdo asked. “That detective sergeant woman rang, and I told her what happened—again. She said that your neighbor had just been in.”

“The police? Murdo, I don’t understand. My neighbor?”

“They were already onto her…” Murdo’s words got lost as a rattly ball, cast out from a sea of babies in pushchairs farther up the path, rolled past his feet and the mothers called out to him to catch it as they hurried toward shelter in the café. “Hang on,” Murdo said and ran after it, with a backward glance and a “Pru, you stay there.”

Pru, already backing away from him, ran in the other direction, across the lawn and careening down the hill to the main path, barely able to stay on her feet. She’d go to her office, out of the weather, and ring Christopher—perhaps he could make sense of the jumble of images and words swirling round inside her.

She stopped at the bottom of the hill and put her hand against a tree trunk. The ground listed to one side, provoking a wave of nausea. She was seasick on solid ground. A few gulps of cold air got her stomach under control again. She really must eat something, she thought, and struck out again just as her phone rang.

“Pru?” a trembly voice asked as if from a great distance. “Can you help me?”

“Hello? Saskia? I can barely hear you.” Pru stopped to listen harder.

“You know what I’ve done, Pru. Will you come to me?”

“Saskia, where are you?” Pru couldn’t identify the noise in the background and thought it might be a noise in her head.

“I’m at the bridge. Will you come say goodbye?”

“Wait, Saskia—I’ll be there.” Pru shouted into the phone. In Pru’s sluggish mind, the penny dropped at last. She turned her back on her office, headed for the west gate and down the road to the bridge on Glenogle, heedless of the rain hitting her face. She stopped only twice, but the thin note of fear in Saskia’s voice kept her going. Her head seemed clearer while her body was in motion; it was when she held still that the world began to bob and weave.

A deserted bridge—no one stood at the wrought-iron railing looking down at the Water of Leith. Pru walked over to the steps, panic rising in her chest in case she should see Saskia as she still imagined Iain, lying facedown on the rocky bottom, the water rushing around and over his body.

No Saskia in the water. Pru held tight to the rail that led down the steps to the bank as she scanned the bridge. There—Saskia sat on a stone ledge that jutted out from a bridge column, hunkered down with arms wrapped around her knees, like a gargoyle on the side of a cathedral. Pru saw how she must’ve reached the spot—she had edged herself a few feet along it to reach the slightly wider part. What did she think she could accomplish there? This wasn’t the place for jumping—the water was barely ten feet away.

The spring runoff from the Pentland Hills rushed noisily below. Pru didn’t want to startle Saskia, and so she held firm to the rail and took one step down, and then another, willing the ground to hold still, until she moved into the young woman’s line of sight. Saskia turned, her eyes wide, rain dripping down her face, and stretched her arm out, hand open.

“Pru.”

“Saskia, come away from there.” Pru leaned over the rail, her own hand extended. Saskia leaned, too, and clapped a hand on Pru’s wrist.

“Come out here and talk with me, Pru. Please.”

Pru didn’t have the strength for a tug-of-war, and Saskia’s grip offered stability, almost comfort, and so she held tight to the railing with her other hand and stepped over, sinking down beside the young woman, the water rushing by beneath them. Saskia kept hold of Pru’s wrist, and Pru leaned her head back against the stone.

“Saskia, you need to come away from here—come with me so that we can talk.”

Saskia leaned her head back, too, and glanced over at Pru. With a small smile, she said, “Talking’s no good. I tried to talk to him, make him see what he’d done. Make him feel some responsibility for his actions. You’d think my very existence would be proof enough, but he’d have none of it.” Saskia wiped the rain out of her eyes and spoke in a puffed-up pretend male voice. “That part of my life is long past. I can’t just turn the world upside down to accommodate you.” She laughed. “That’s what he said to me.”

“Iain was your father.”

“I wanted to hear him say it”—she jerked Pru’s arm in emphasis—“hear him admit what he did to my mum. He ruined her life—worse, he left her with no life, just a baby girl who had to become a nursemaid and housekeeper nearly before she could walk.”

Pru’s heart picked up speed, short, rapid beats hammering on the inside of her chest as she tried to concentrate on their conversation.

Saskia’s grip tightened, turning Pru’s fingers to red sausages. “Do you know what it’s like Pru, to care for someone who should be caring for you?”

“Saskia, let’s go—come to my flat, it’s just up the road. We need to find you some help.”

“She couldn’t even boil an egg for my tea,” Saskia said in a shaking voice. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, smoothing out the pain on her face. “He got what was coming to him. Like father, like daughter—you recognized that, Pru.” Another secret smile, as if they were two conspirators. “Our native flora,” she said, in a mocking tone. “I showed him another use for his precious spindle tree, didn’t I? Wasn’t he just surprised when I turned up at his office and offered to make him coffee? He was even more surprised when I told him who I was.” She cut her eyes at Pru. “It was in his coffee—just like it was in yours. By the time I followed him here, he could barely stand.” Saskia raised her left arm high; a smooth gray stone filled her hand. “All it took was a little persuasion”—she brought the stone down hard on Iain’s imaginary head—“and down he went.” She leaned over to look into the water and pulled Pru’s arm with her.

“Oh God,” Pru cried and tried to pull back before they both toppled in. It might not be far, but the water was cold.

Saskia continued to gaze at the scene in her mind. “I took his wallet out and gave him what he never carried himself—a picture of the two of them when Mum was happy. But you were onto me—you went to ask Mum about him, didn’t you? I couldn’t let you go on with that.” She fell silent.

Tamsin had said Iain was alive when he fell into the water. The queasy feeling in Pru’s stomach grew at the thought of Saskia rifling through Iain’s wallet as he lay facedown in the stream. But where was Mrs. Murchie? “I thought Mrs. Murchie found Iain.”

Saskia gave Pru a sly look. “She saw me leave. I had to do something—but I didn’t know it would be so very easy,” she said, a note of delight in her voice. “I ran off round the corner, but then, I came back and found her staring at him. ‘You were here,’ she said to me. ‘Did you see what happened?’ She was flustered, red-faced, crying—all I had to do was say, ‘Why no, I didn’t see anything. I’ve only just arrived. You must be mistaken.’ ” Saskia laughed. “You say anything with enough confidence, and people will believe you—it’s how I learned to keep social service from taking me away from Mum. I’d meet them at the door and say, ‘My mum’s doing well, thanks. She’s just nipped out to the shops.’ ” Saskia’s face darkened. “And all the while she lay on her bed with the lights out and the curtains drawn.”

“Mrs. Murchie was looking for her cat,” Pru said, clinging to this fact like a lifeboat.

Saskia smiled regretfully. “I’m sorry, Pru.”

“Of course you are,” Pru said, wishing that she could keep Saskia in better focus. An oily sheen seemed to cover her eyes, and although she shivered from the freezing rain, her skin felt hot. Saskia needed help that Pru couldn’t give. “Let’s ring Christopher. He’s here. He’ll come. Why don’t we do that?” She tried to pull away, but the girl’s hold was like a Chinese finger puzzle—the more Pru pulled, the tighter Saskia’s grip.

“It’s too late.”

Pru tugged weakly at her arm. “Saskia, you’re hurting me.”

“Soon they’ll find the note you left them.”

“What note?” Had she written someone a note and forgotten?

“On your computer,” Saskia said, her voice full of sadness. “Your suicide note and your confession—you couldn’t go on, you see, not after what you did to Iain. Even though it was an accident that you pushed him in the Water of Leith, the guilt was too much for you. Such a sad story,” she said, clicking her tongue, “and you about to be married and all.” Saskia gave the stone in her left hand a tiny toss, as if assessing its weight.

“No one will believe I came here to kill myself,” Pru said, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

“They will when I tell them how distraught you’ve been lately—and you know how convincing I can be, don’t you? There’s no other way.”

“Of course there’s another way. Saskia, let go of my hand. Now.” She could no more take physical command of the situation than she could fly. “You don’t want to do this—you know you don’t. There are people who will understand, and they will…”

“Take me away? Who would look after my mum then, answer me that? You saw what she’s like. No, once you’re gone, it’ll all be finished, and perhaps we’ll find some peace at last.” She raised her arm and said, “Turn away, Pru. Don’t look.”

But Pru did look. She saw the large stone that filled Saskia’s hand. “
No!
” Pru shouted, struggling weakly. She watched as the young woman raised her arm higher and higher and at the moment Pru expected to feel the stone crack her skull, another hand shot down from above and clapped hold of Saskia’s wrist.

Saskia cried out, opened her hand, and the stone fell. As she twisted around to discover her interceptor, she let go of Pru, too, and Pru followed the stone into the water. The stone landed well; Pru did not. She went in feetfirst and ended with a belly flop in the shallow stream, knocking the breath out of her and smacking her face against the bottom. One clear thought pierced the fog in her brain: Don’t drown. For a moment her arms and legs flailed about, before she dragged herself up onto all fours, coughing up the water she’d swallowed. She could hear unintelligible shouts from behind her on the bridge.
The water isn’t cold
, she thought.
Shouldn’t it be cold?
Just as well; perhaps she could stay right here and rest, because she wasn’t too sure she could move.

One second, one minute, one hour later, someone grabbed her shoulders from behind.

“You’re all right now, you’re all right,” he said.

Pru turned her head. Who was this nice young man in uniform?

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He half-dragged her to the edge and out of the water—her legs seemed to be filled with lead—and appeared to pull a blanket out of the heavens, throwing it around her while she stood shivering. She put the back of her hand to her mouth and it came away with a splash of crimson.

“Are you all right?” This time it was a question.

She nodded, a reminder that nodding wasn’t a good idea.

Another uniform appeared. They each took one of her arms and walked her up the steps. Such a commotion awaited her—police cars, an ambulance, and people everywhere. Pru found it difficult to register all the details, and later remembered only snapshots of the scene: Saskia, her chin stuck out and looking away from Tamsin, handcuffs locking her wrists together; Bill the barman from the Pickled Egg talking with a uniform.

One scene lasted the longest. Murdo stood over Mrs. Murchie with his head bowed. He pulled off his woolly green cap and twisted it in his hands as she reached up and tousled the memory of his wild curls.

The uniforms helped Pru onto a stretcher. As they rolled her toward the ambulance, she looked up at faces around her. She opened her mouth—she had something to tell them. They all leaned forward.

“I don’t feel very well,” she said.