Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) (22 page)

Pru lay on her left side curled up in a ball. Her body insisted on the position—it was too sore from hours of retching and cramping to be stretched out in the bed. She opened one eye halfway and saw a room with a fluorescent glow, a recliner in the corner, and curtains pulled across a window. An IV ran clear liquid into her right arm; she had a splint on her left wrist, and something stuck out on her bottom lip. Her head seemed to be filled with cotton balls, but at least nothing hurt and the world held still. She lay there breathing and thinking she could do with a good rest, when she became aware of low voices behind her.

“The blood tests on Blackwell came back showing the presence of glycosides,” Tamsin said. “Dizziness, irregular heartbeat, intestinal upset.”

“And they’ve identified the source?” Christopher asked.

“We found a mortar and pestle on her workbench. She ground up seeds from the spindle tree.”

“Spindle tree?”

“
Euonymus europaeaus
,” Pru croaked, stirring as little as possible.

Footsteps. Tamsin came into view and sat in the chair next to the bed. “Well,” the DS said, smiling, “welcome back, you.”

Pru smiled but kept her head on the pillow. “It must’ve been in the coffee—she brought the jar in herself. It tasted terrible.”

Tamsin nodded. “She’d left the jar on your office tea tray—wiped clean of any prints, except she missed one of hers on the bottom, clear as day.” She glanced behind Pru and said, “I’ll leave you two to it. I’m off to audition a soprano on ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ for the ceremony.” She shrugged. “Hamish loves opera.”

Christopher took Tamsin’s place when she left. He pulled the chair closer; Pru wiggled her fingers at him, and he took her hand in his. They didn’t speak. He leaned over and ran a finger across her forehead, along the edge of her ear, and down the line of her jaw.

“Did you save me?” she said at last. “Did you catch hold of Saskia’s hand before she hit me?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Not me. That was Murdo.”

“Murdo,” Pru said. “Dear Murdo. He and Mrs. Murchie found each other, didn’t they? I didn’t make that up?”

“They did indeed. They stopped in to see you in the afternoon, but you were asleep by then.”

“What time is it now?” she asked.

Christopher tipped his wrist and peered down his nose. “Half ten.”

“At night?”

“Saturday morning.”

“Really?” Her vision sharpened as her senses dragged themselves back to reality, and she saw that Christopher’s shirt collar stuck out of his jumper at an odd angle, and he had dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his chin. “Have you been here the whole time? Did you sleep here?”

He nodded behind him. “I took a kip on the chair in the corner.”

“That must’ve been restful.” Her mind wandered back to the previous day as she tried to recall her arrival at the hospital. She came up with the memory of speaking to him through a closed door as she sat on the toilet with a pan in her lap. Her face reddened. “I told you to go away, didn’t I?”

His ears grew pink, and one corner of his mouth turned up. “The doctors said that the effects would wear off, you just needed time, and they would give you a sedative. I went over to the station for a while.”

The reason she lay in the hospital with her insides reamed out came back to her in full detail. “I want to talk to Saskia.”

Pru still had hold of Christopher’s hand, and she could feel his muscles tense. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Iain was her father. Her mum suffers from depression. Saskia spent her whole life being a nursemaid. She blamed Iain.” More pieces of the story filtered into Pru’s head. “Did you go to my office? Did you see the note she wrote?”

“I saw it.”

“But you knew I didn’t write it.”

“I knew you were in danger.” He kneaded her good hand absentmindedly. “I had gone to the station early about Murdo and found Blakie poring over specs for a new glasshouse, so I tracked down Duncan. By that time, Mrs. Murchie had been in, and Duncan had talked with Murdo.” He looked at the wall behind her. “No one knew where you were, and so we spread out. They found you at the bridge while I was still at the Botanics, so I caught up with you here.”

They fell silent again, until Pru asked, “What’s on my lip?” She crossed her eyes in an attempt to see.

“Stitches,” he said. “Four of them. You ran into a rock at the bottom of the Water of Leith.”

“Good thing gardeners are always up on their tetanus shots.” She tapped a finger lightly on his hand. “I want to tell you something. I’m a gardener.”

Even with her brain still fuzzy, she saw his eyebrows raise and knew that what she said didn’t make sense. Explain yourself, Prunella, as her mother used to say. “I mean, I want to be a gardener.”

A smile of relief overtook the shock, and he laughed, holding her to him. “All right, my darling. Then you shall be a gardener.”

She heaved a great sigh. “I would love a cup of tea,” she said. The conversation had expended a great deal of energy, and she could feel herself drifting off on a calm sea. Her eyes closed, and she squeezed his hand to reassure herself of his presence. Scraps of thought drifted through her mind. “Mr. Menzies,” she managed. “Good news.”

“Excellent.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “Churches,” she said. “We won’t be able to look at churches today.”

“I don’t think we’ll need to.”

Half a giggle was all she could manage. Did he think they’d be married in the hospital ward? The image faded before it was even half-formed, and as it did, one more thought bobbed up from the flotsam and jetsam in her mind. She squeezed his hand. “Christopher, do you know how to dance?”

After two days in the hospital, Pru moved back to her flat. “I should start packing,” she said, lying in bed and looking out through the lace curtains to the primroses in someone else’s front garden. The Botanics would want the flat back now that her special project had turned into such a special mess.

“Certainly not this moment,” Christopher said, bringing in a cup of tea and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“No,” she said, letting the steam waft up in her face. “Not this moment.”

That afternoon, Alastair, the first in a series of visitors, arrived.

He perched on the edge of a chair while Pru, planted on the sofa, sat up with a light throw over her legs. “I’m so very sorry for my part in such a ruse,” he said, accepting a cup of tea from Christopher and balancing it on his knee. “To think it all turned out to be true—the journal real. The fellow from Aberfeldy who offered it to us is a distant Menzies relative, as it turns out. Well, you’ve certainly established your name in horticultural history, Pru.”

She blushed. “Yes, but what about Mac?”

“I told Mr. MacIntyre I would have nothing to do with his attempt to run roughshod over the ecological landscape of Moray. He took it rather well,” Alastair said. “He said that, regardless, he was as good as his word, and the donation stood—as well as paying for your three-month project.”

“I hope he doesn’t think we’ll relent.”

Alastair shook his head. “The plans for this Texas-style ranch resort of his will be tied up in environmental reviews for years,” he said and cleared his throat. “The flat and the office are yours as long as you’d like them, Pru. Take as long as you need to recover and after that finish studying the journal and write up your findings. It will be published.”

Pru smiled. “I’ll be back at it in a day or two.”

“Well, then.” He picked up his tea. “And what will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”

It was the same question from Victoria, who stopped in with a bunch of early pink tulips and told a story about her parents eloping to Gretna Green in the ’50s. Rosemary, too, inquired as to their plans. Pru and Christopher had no answer, but Pru thought that made them appear flighty, and so she filled in with scraps of stories about her former clients in London and Christopher’s work at the Met. Christopher himself remained quiet.

“You’re very welcome,” Mrs. Murchie said to Pru as she held the door open. “And we’re honored you made us your first visit after recovering.”

Pru presented Murdo with a box of fairy cakes from a local bakery and pulled a pink woolly catnip mouse from her coat pocket, holding it up by the tail. “May Prumper have this, Mrs. Murchie?”

The Siamese stood on his hind legs, front paws batting the air trying to reach the toy.

“He may indeed. And, Pru, you’ll truly need to call me Agnes, now, won’t you?”

“Yes. Agnes.” Pru had been brought up with good Southern manners, and wouldn’t dream of calling a woman older than herself anything but Mrs. or Ms. unless strong-armed. “If I’d called you that from the beginning, this”—she waved her finger back and forth between Agnes and her nephew—“might not have taken so long.”

“Ah, Pru,” Murdo said, hanging both his and Agnes’s coats on pegs, “if it hadn’t been for you, I might’ve gone back to Dallas without ever knowing Auntie was so close.”

Pru beamed. Chalk another mended relationship up to her skills. “So will you stay in Edinburgh?” she asked.

“I will. Auntie has offered me her second bedroom, at least for now. My dad expected me to scurry back north, and he wasn’t best pleased when I told him about Auntie Aggie. He bellowed and demanded I get home, but Laird or no, he can’t order either of us around any longer.”

“Murdo will take up his furniture making again,” Agnes said. “He began with my scarf rack, and now he’s creating enormous pieces from trees—they’ll be modern works of art. He’s going to fashion a table from part of a beech they took down at the Botanics.”

“The one we were watching that day?” Pru asked.

Murdo nodded.

“And now,” Mrs. Murchie said, “what will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”

And so it went, until finally Pru, with her first glass of wine since leaving hospital five days before, said to Christopher, “What are we going to do after the wedding?” Just getting to the day seemed a monumental task to her, and the vague references they’d made to “after” mostly involved Pru moving in to his flat.

Christopher, finished with a call about a case in London, stretched his legs out and tapped his phone on the table, keeping his eyes on her for a moment, after which he sat up, leaned forward, and said, “I want to talk with you about something.”

She watched him over the rim of her glass. His face had gone pale, and he looked a bit like he had the day he proposed.

He inhaled once, twice. The third time, he spoke. “I want to quit the Met—if we both decide that it’s a good idea.” The statement broke the tension on his face, and he continued with more enthusiasm. “I’ve some savings we could live on, and we could sell the flat in London if need be. You’d be free to find the work you wanted, and perhaps I could get on with a local force once we’re settled someplace. If we stay in London—well, you know what it’s like.”

She did. His workday knew no bounds—evenings, weekends. She smiled behind her glass. At age fifty, she had quit her job and moved to another country. Now Christopher wanted a change of his own; how could she complain? That they could make such radical choices at this point in their lives was a good thing. “They’re still paying me here—and I’ve almost no expenses. And I’ve loads of money still left from Bryan and Davina.” The Templetons had presented Pru with a generous check when she left Primrose House. “Yes, quit the Met.”

The black hole that had been the rest of their lives had no more shape than it had ten minutes ago, but it had softened into a pink, fluffy cloud of promise.

“What should I tell people when they ask where we’ll go?”

“Tell them you haven’t a clue. And say it with confidence.”

She’d tried it out first on Jo.

“You what?” They were on the phone ticking off wedding preparations. Rosemary had apologized for her behavior, secured a June date at the Caledonian Hall, and insisted that the arrangements, the cake, and the dinner be a gift from her and Alastair. Pru had disavowed herself of all decisions now that both Jo and Rosemary were in charge, and she cheerfully looked forward to a glorious day full of surprises.

“I mean that apart from Christopher leaving the Met, we’ve no plans and won’t make any until after we’re married.” She knew it sounded a bit irresponsible, and that gave her a thrill.

“Your right hand, gentlemen,” Sandy said, holding his own up as he wove his way among the seven couples on the dance floor. “Your right hand is the steering mechanism, the rudder, if you will. It’s how you communicate direction to your partner—forward, back, left, right. Now, place your hand on her back.”

Christopher placed his hand, and Pru giggled. As he passed them, Sandy said, “A little higher than that, Christopher.”

Here they were in June with only two days until the wedding. Alastair had left the previous week to begin his new job as development director at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. Rosemary remained in Edinburgh, to follow in a few days.

Music swelled, and the seven couples staked out their territory with a box step for the ballroom waltz. Before long, with a few suggestions from their teacher, they were moving around the room with no collisions and only a few close calls. Christopher kept his eyes on Pru as he drew her around the floor, and Pru kept her mind in the moment. Sandy stepped in for a few measures to show Christopher how to lead her into a turn, and they glided off once again. Next, they were on to a foxtrot—quick-quick, slow-slow—to a recording of Frank Sinatra singing “You Make Me Feel So Young.”

“You’re a wonderful teacher,” Pru said to Sandy as she changed from her spike heels into outdoor shoes when the two-hour lesson had finished. “Dancing is exhausting—I don’t see how you do this every day.”

Sandy sat on the bench next to her and smiled. “I could say the same thing about gardening. It isn’t as tiring when we love what we do—or rather, it’s a good tired.” He glanced over at Christopher, who stood apart, looking out the window as he talked on the phone. “It sounds as if everything is ready for Saturday. What will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”

Pru smiled broadly and shrugged her shoulders. “We haven’t a clue.”

Pru slipped her heels back into her bag, and Sandy stood as Christopher finished his call and walked over to them. “I’m your dresser on Saturday, Christopher. Everything will be waiting,” Sandy said. “And you, Pru—you’ve sorted your outfit?”

Pru shifted on the bench. “Yes, all sorted.” Sorted without your aunt was the implication, but Pru couldn’t bring herself to say anything untoward about Madame Fiona. She liked the woman—just not her dresses. Jo, in charge of Pru’s wedding attire, had given no clue what was to come.
Fine with me,
Pru thought. It left her with little to work with in her daydreams, although Little Bo Peep continued to lurk in the dark recesses of her mind, like one of those nightmare clowns.

Sandy smiled. “Right, well, then. See you both soon. Cheers.”

“That was Alan ringing,” Christopher said to Pru. “He’s asking if we’d rather write our own vows.”

Pru shook her head. “No, I already told him what we wanted. A simple ceremony—Church of England, Church of Scotland. Whatever.” She frowned. “Did he not remember?”

“Perhaps he was giving us one last chance. Did he take a look at Caledonian Hall?”

“He didn’t seem to think it was necessary. And now, Jo’s in town. Maybe he’s distracted.” She took a large envelope out of her bag and held it out for him, her face pink from dancing and from excitement. “Look what came today.”

Christopher pulled a sheaf of papers from the envelope. “Your article—well done,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Congratulations on being published. That’s fantastic.”

“Well, not quite published, but it should be in the winter issue of the journal.” She shrugged. “I’ve a section about Iain—how he was the one that led me to look at the fuchsia.”

“May I read it?”

Pru laughed. “Yes—in bed.
Fuchsia coccinea
,
Araucaria araucana
,
Mesembryanthemum chilense
—all those botanical names are guaranteed to put you to sleep in record time.”

Christopher shuffled a few pages. “Does it have a title?”

“There,” Pru pointed to what looked like the first paragraph.