Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) (9 page)

She dried her tears and got back to work, lunching on a packet of crisps stashed in a desk drawer the week before—she had no desire to run into Marcus in the café. With luck, they’d see nothing of each other during the rest of her time at the garden. After she had left Dallas, she’d invented a scenario in which it had been possible for them to be friends, as they had been at first; but now, after seeing him again, she knew better. And if they couldn’t get along as friends, then best to avoid him altogether.

Instead of looking back, she looked forward—to her fitting appointment with Madame Fiona looming at the end of the day. With each chime of the quarter hour from a nearby church bell, her eyes darted to the clock on her mobile, just to make sure. What sort of dress had the designer created for her? For once, Pru’s imagination came up empty. Except…Madame Fiona wouldn’t have a veil for her to try on, would she? Oh God, she hoped not—Pru didn’t think she could take a veil.

When Iain appeared midafternoon, she welcomed the distraction, but positioned her phone so that she could continue to check the time without being obvious. He stood in the doorway and glanced around the room.

“Your assistant…?”

“No Saskia on Monday,” Pru said. “But she pulled the pages we need to cover today.”

Iain sat down across the desk from Pru, brushing his trouser legs, straightening his tie, and unbuttoning his jacket. “How did you come to choose her as your assistant?” he asked.

Pru raised her eyebrows. Didn’t he have enough to complain about—must he start in on Saskia? “I didn’t choose her. Alastair did. He assigned her to me three afternoons a week so that I would have some help. Is there a problem?” Pru dared him to voice an objection—no one could be more exacting than Saskia, unless it was Iain himself.

“No, no,” he said, shook his head, and frowned.

They began with the circumstances around Menzies’s discovery of the seeds of the monkey puzzle tree.

“Have you ever eaten one?” Pru asked. “A monkey puzzle seed.”

Iain shook his head, and then squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, blinking rapidly when he opened them again.

“Are you all right?” Pru asked.

“Yes, fine,” he said, straightening up in the chair. But he’d gone pale and had hold of the edge of her desk with one hand.

“Are you sure? Would you like tea—no, a coffee?”

“No, I had a coffee earlier. Now let’s get back to the matter at hand, shall we?” He took a deep breath. “What would Menzies have to gain by…I’m not boring you, am I?” he asked. Pru had glanced down at the time.

She jumped. “No, no—sorry, I have an appointment this afternoon and I…”

“It’s remarkable to me,” Iain said, standing up, his face now flushed, “that there are people in the world like you, Ms. Parke, so sure in your circumstances that it wouldn’t matter to you whether you finished this project or not.” He turned to the door.

“Hold it right there,” Pru said, standing and walking around her desk. “I’m tired of you throwing around these vague insults about my work. Do you think I’m here under false pretenses? That I don’t know what I’m doing?”

Iain left without speaking and she followed, walking out across the grounds after him.

“This was a mistake.” He spoke over his shoulder without breaking stride. He kept taking deep breaths as he walked.

“What do you mean, a mistake?” Pru asked. “I’m doing my job. How can you say that? Stand here and answer me, please.”

“Just what I said,” he hissed. “A mistake.”

“That isn’t fair.” She kept pace with him on the path that ran along the perennial border and beech hedge.

“Fair has nothing to do with it. It’s all about money. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that how you got here?”

“I don’t know why you think I’ve paid my way into this job.”

He stopped, whirled around, and grabbed hold of a signpost. He shook his head. “I knew nothing about you when you arrived, but I know under what circumstances you’re here—there is no sense in you denying it. And you have your reasons for continuing, that’s plain to see.” He turned and continued toward the west gate.

Pru stopped where she was, her face flushed with anger, but the cold had started to seep in—she’d left her coat behind.

“This isn’t finished,” she shouted after Iain.

She heard the nearby church bell chime four o’clock. If she didn’t run, she’d be late for her fitting. She ran.

She’d flown by her office, grabbed her coat, and made it to Madame Fiona’s with about thirty seconds to spare, using the extra time to compose herself before she walked in. When she’d caught her breath, she opened the door and heard the bell tinkle and Tassie yip. She looked down at her feet before she took another step—it wouldn’t do to tread on Madame Fiona’s dog.

“Come through, Ms. Parke,” she heard the designer call. Pru walked behind the partition to find Tassie perched atop a Victorian wrought-iron fern stand, a squashy pillow for comfort, and Madame Fiona throwing a large black cloth over the mirrors. The room darkened slightly. “No need to worry, dearie, we just don’t want to spoil the big reveal, as I like to say. Now”—she gestured at Pru—“off with your things and we’ll begin.”

Madame Fiona retired to the back room, and Pru stripped to her underwear and fan pendant necklace. More dress design sketches had been pinned up near a worktable, and Pru edged over to see if she could pick out which one might be hers, but before she got close enough to see anything other than color—white, blue, maroon, black—Madame Fiona emerged carrying a pile of white material with something blue trailing behind.

“Now, now, Ms. Parke, you must contain yourself. Up you go,” she said, nodding to the dais. Pru climbed aboard. Madame Fiona set her bundle on the table and sorted through material before choosing a piece that resembled a giant cotton ball. “Step in here,” she said and pinned the skirt onto a bodice that she pulled over Pru’s head. “I’ve not stitched the piece together, so we can rework anything necessary. Arm in here.”

The material was stiff, like an old-fashioned petticoat, and snowy white. Pru swallowed. As a gardener, she always avoided white. She bent her head to look down. “Chin up, Ms. Parke, we need a clean line.” Pru stood back at attention. As Madame Fiona fussed, Pru cut her eyes to look at the sleeves. They bunched up just above the elbow. Her breathing became shallow. Dropping her eyes without moving her head, she saw that the neckline seemed reasonable, not too high or too low. Madame Fiona pulled up on Pru’s bra straps. “We’ll need a bit of a lift, I think.”

The skirt had a lot of layers to it, but didn’t seem to go to the floor.
Well, that’s a good thing,
Pru thought.
Isn’t it?

“Lift your arms, please,” Madame Fiona said and tied a wide piece of baby-blue satin around Pru’s waist. Pru began to feel light-headed; she hoped she wasn’t sweating onto the fabric. “We’re taking a chance here, Ms. Parke,” the designer said, sounding breathless herself. “We’re making a statement.” And with a flourish, she whisked the black cloth off the mirrors. “Voilà!”

Pru’s face went numb—she could neither smile nor grimace, although she felt very much like doing the latter. The image in the mirror—could that be her? Flouncing, balloon of a skirt, puffy sleeves, satin sash. She couldn’t get her lips apart. “Mmm…”

“Now, Ms. Parke,” Madame Fiona said, “adjustments can always be made, but I need your general opinion. Here now, you can see the back if you turn to this mirror.”

Pru saw an enormous blue satin bow tied at her waist.

“Mmm…” She struggled to form a coherent word. “I…mmm…have to go.” She stepped down and began pulling at the sleeves, the pins scratching at her skin. “I’m…so sorry, Madame Fiona, I just remembered…an urgent…thing I have to do at the Botanics. It’s…mmm.” She tried to extricate herself from the costume.

“I know it’s a great deal to take in at once, but I felt the pastoral imagery so strongly with you, Ms. Parke…” the designer said as she hurried to unpin Pru from the frock.

Pru grabbed her own clothes, hopping up and down to pull on socks, stuffing feet into her shoes, and stretching arms into her cardigan. Tassie began to yip, as Pru’s jumping caused the fern stand to shake. “I’ll ring you just as soon as…”

As she spoke, she backed toward the door, her arms loaded with the rest of her things, when Madame Fiona shouted, “Ms. Parke! Your trousers!”

Pru looked down at her bare legs. She dropped her bundle, picked out her trousers and jumped into them, getting one shoe stuck partway down a trouser leg. “Thank you, Madame Fiona, I’ll just…soon…” She backed out of the work area and continued until she’d pushed the front door open with her bottom.

Out on the pavement, Pru broke into a run, tearing around the corner and running smack into someone hurrying toward her. She dropped her bag and bent to pick it up, amid a flurry of “Sorrys” on both sides. She looked up to see Alexander—the nice fellow she’d met her first day—and he took hold of her arms.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“Oh, hello,” Pru said, “yes, fine.”

His red-rimmed eyes registered barely a flicker of recognition. “Good. Good.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his trench coat and looked at the ground, then back at her. “Well, if you’ll excuse me.”

He hurried around the corner, and Pru gave him a backward glance before returning to her own misery.

“Little Bo Peep!” she shouted into the phone as she paced back and forth across her tiny kitchen, hot tears of humiliation streaming down her cheeks. “I looked like Little Bo Peep—all that was missing was a bonnet and a flock of sheep!”

“My God, what was the woman thinking?” Jo asked, her voice uneven with anger. “I can’t believe she would do this—I’ve seen some of her designs, Pru, and they were lovely. How could this happen?”

Pru’s breathing calmed and her heart rate slowed as Jo’s outrage soaked up some of her hurt. “Oh, Jo, if you were here, I’m sure it would have been fine. I should’ve been clearer about what kind of wedding dress I want.” Pru shrugged. “But I don’t know what I want, so how could I?”

“You leave this to me.” Jo had taken on her business voice, and Pru knew that Madame Fiona had better watch out. “I’ll talk to her first thing tomorrow. I still want to get your dress for you, but I will not let Madame Fiona or anyone else try to do something like this. I’ll sort it out—I don’t want you to give it another thought.”

Pru felt a rush of gratitude. “Thanks, Jo.”

“Now, any word on when Christopher will visit you?”

“No,” Pru said, shaking her head at no one. “He might be able to get away in a couple of weeks, but it’s so difficult for him, you know.”

They rang off without Pru filling Jo in on the rest of her day—really, she couldn’t be bothered to go into the story of Marcus’s appearance in Edinburgh. A malaise crept over Pru. And it was Christopher she really wanted to pour her heart out to.

But even their conversation couldn’t cheer her as it usually did. He knew about the fitting appointment, and it was the first thing he asked.

“Well, it was…okay,” she said in a small voice, unable to bring herself to describe the reflection she’d seen in Madame Fiona’s mirrors, although it was seared onto the screen of her mind. How was it that other women could sail through planning a wedding, and she felt a fool at every turn? “It wasn’t what I expected, I guess.” Just move on, she thought. “Of course, I had my usual argument with Iain—but here’s the bizarre thing that happened today: I saw Marcus.”

A moment of silence. “Marcus—from Dallas?” Christopher asked.

“Yes, apparently he’s on some exchange program. I hadn’t told Lydia that I was here in Edinburgh, and so he was just as surprised as I was.”

“And, you’ll be working together?”

“No, thank God. I doubt if I will see him at all. He’ll be way over there,” she said, waving her arm listlessly to indicate the large administration building, “in some office.” Hearing Christopher’s voice had lifted her spirits enough that she felt like eating, and she had wedged her phone between ear and shoulder while she sliced off a piece of the chicken-and-ham pie. “And so how did it go in court?”

“Not well,” he said. “They dismissed the case.” His voice was muffled, as if he was rubbing his face. “It’s a great deal of work to put in—interviewing, piecing together evidence, writing reports—to come to nothing.”

She heard the weariness in his voice. “And here I am nattering on,” she said, as she set a fork down on the table, and not for the first time wondered what she was doing so far away from him. “I hope to see you soon.”

They rang off. She poured herself a glass of wine while the pie warmed. Later, as she turned on the television for the late news, she heard something outside—a scraping of stone, footsteps on the walk at her door. She muted the TV and listened, but heard nothing else. After a few minutes, she opened the door and glanced around. There was a rustling in the privet, but it was too scrawny a hedge to hide anyone. Pru sniffed—a soapy scent drifted on the cold air. Then she heard a clattering from an open window above her—the neighbor upstairs, washing dishes. She checked twice that the latch was thrown on the door.

The next morning, a shower of rain fell—the dark sky promised more to come. Pru stood at her office door, digging in her bag for the key, when Murdo appeared at her elbow.

“Pru,” he said quietly, and she jumped. “So, I suppose you’ve heard.”

“Heard what?”

“About Iain Blackwell.”

Pru continued the key search, but glanced up at Murdo, who didn’t continue. “What, Murdo, what about Iain? Ah,” she said, her hand emerging from the bag’s depths holding the key. She concentrated on the lock instead of Murdo hovering at her shoulder.

“He’s dead.”

Pru dropped the key. “What?”

“Yesterday,” he said, his voice low. He bent to pick the key up for her, and glanced over his shoulder as he stood.

“What happened? Was he ill?”

Murdo continued to look around the empty hall. “It was an accident, Pru. They say he slipped, hit his head, and fell in the Water of Leith. Over on Glenogle. Do you know the spot?”

Pru leaned against the wall to stop the world from spinning. She knew the spot. She walked across that bridge every morning. She chatted with Mrs. Murchie as they walked. “But the water isn’t even deep there. Did he drown or hit his head?”

Murdo backed off a fraction. “I dunno, do I?”

“How awful. When did it happen?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” Murdo said. “But it was an accident, Pru.” He put his hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

She vowed never to argue with another person for as long as she lived—because you never knew, you just never knew. She nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. Who told you about it?”

Murdo regained some of his usual chipper attitude. “Och, it’s all over. One of the fellows in the shed was telling us earlier. Weel,” he said, straightening his shoulders and sticking his hands in the pockets of his jacket, “I’ll leave you to get to your work now.”

Her work—oh, yes. The big project. But she needed Iain for that. She checked the phone on her desk—no messages. Would any official person come to tell her, or did they expect the news of Iain’s death to reach her through the usual channels—gossip? She went to find Alastair.

His door was ajar and he was on the phone, but when he saw her peek around, he raised his eyebrows in greeting and motioned her in. “No, no, Joan,” he said into the phone, “don’t cancel any of his courses. I’m sure we can find someone to fill in. Right. Cheers, bye.” He indicated a chair. “Pru, do come in and sit down. Coffee?”

“Alastair, I’ve just heard about Iain.”

His face fell at once. “Yes, dreadful, isn’t it? Still,” he said, cheering back up again, “this doesn’t affect your project at all—I don’t want you to worry about that. I know you can carry on with no problem. Is there anything you need at the moment?”

“No,” she said, “I guess not.”

“Well, I’ll just let you get back to it, then, shall I?” A dismissal if she’d ever heard one.

She got to the door, when Alastair said, “Oh, Pru—have you taught classes before?”

Rather than face her office, she sought coffee—not with Alastair, she could just do with a little less of that chipper attitude. Instead, she took refuge in the Terrace Café. Tray in hand, she saw Victoria Findlay wave her over.

“What a horrible thing to happen,” Victoria said when Pru asked if she knew. “And too bad about the timing,” she added. “Just a week away from our Daffadowndilly Days to celebrate spring. No matter—if the weather is fine, the garden will be heaving with pushchairs, as if every mother and baby in the city have been kept locked in a cupboard for the winter and they’ve broken out all at once.”

A few mothers, taking refuge from the rain, which had picked up its pace, sat in a corner of the café and chatted while their children played. Two toddlers shrieked with delight when their stack of wooden blocks fell to the floor, rendering conversation—for a moment—impossible.

“Did Iain have family, do you know?” Pru asked when it had quieted down.

“Ah, I don’t believe so. Well…” Victoria’s face turned pink as she pressed a finger against her plate to capture the last few crumbs of scone. “He has a friend. You know. A friend who is a man. I mean, well, partner?” She cleared her throat and took a gulp of her tea. “Must get back to it.”

Pru sat, head propped in hand and elbow on the desk, staring at the papers in front of her. Now that there was no Iain to ask questions of, she had plenty of them. But she found that they mostly centered on him and his personal life. Had he no relatives? How was his partner coping? Alastair, Victoria, Murdo—none of them seemed particularly bothered that Iain had slipped and fallen into the Water of Leith. Did he drown, she wondered, or die when he hit his head? Did he know what was happening…?

When Saskia came in, Pru realized that the morning’s sharp showers still hadn’t let up.

“There now,” Saskia said, shedding her waterproof jacket and letting it drip from a peg on the wall. “We’ve Sir Joseph Banks today, Pru.” She brought out a file wrapped in plastic. “Copies, but still, we don’t want them damaged, now do we?”

The news of the day seemed to hang in the air, and Pru couldn’t avoid it. “Did you hear about Iain?”

Saskia was quiet for a moment. “I was there—right after. I walked by the bridge yesterday, and an old woman had just found him.”

“Oh, no, how awful for you. What happened?”

Saskia shrugged. “I rang 999. The woman was terribly upset, and I stayed with her for a bit. You know, just to make sure she was all right.” Saskia grew thoughtful. “They said he slipped. You walk that way, Pru, you know what those steps are like,” she said, drying her hands off. “Don’t you think he should’ve been more careful?”

Pru sighed and turned to work. Apparently, Iain’s legacy did not include sympathy from any of his work associates.

But his death did cause her to sharpen her focus. “That pesky fuchsia,” she said to Saskia. “It meant something to Iain. It’s the least we can do to see it through.” Up to that point, her research had come to nothing.

“We’ve found no mention of it in the letters from Banks,” Saskia reminded her. “All those letters Kew copied and sent up.”

Yes—Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She had met someone there—who? Pru sifted through papers on her desk and checked her email before she found the name—Lawlor Dale, director of South American studies and plants. She rang, reminding him who she was. It took a minute for him to remember, but that didn’t bother Pru. All manner of research into garden and plant topics went on at Kew.

“You have everything we have,” Dale said when she asked about the Sir Joseph Banks archives. But Pru heard a hesitation in his voice and waited. He followed with, “Well, possibly not all.”

Pru rushed to explain about the fuchsia. “I know it’s from Brazil, but might’ve someone passed Menzies some seeds?”

Dale seemed skeptical. “That fuchsia has a murky past, no doubt about it—no one knows quite when it was introduced.”

“In the found journal we’re studying, Menzies mostly describes what the seeds looked like, and then goes on about the banquet they had that night. We thought that if he did bring seeds of the fuchsia back, Banks might’ve mentioned it in a letter or a diary. Do you believe there may be more Banks material?” Pru held her breath, hoping for she didn’t know what.

“There’s always the possibility of uncataloged material—or letters under the recipient’s name and not cross-referenced. I remember a packet of letters coming in from a local organization a few years ago, and Sir Joseph Banks mentioned, but where’ve they got to and who donated them I can’t remember at the moment. And I’m afraid I don’t have the time to look for them now,” Dale said with a huff.

“I’d come down there myself if I could,” Pru said, “but circumstances are…difficult at the moment.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Iain’s death.

Or had he heard about it already? After a moment of silence, Dale came back with a softer tone. “Perhaps I can get a student on it. I’ll let you know in a week or two.”

Pru thanked him. A week or two? She could see him losing whatever scrap of paper he’d made a note on and it would be out of sight, out of mind. She would make sure that didn’t happen.

“Banks was a great advocate for Menzies, wasn’t he?” Saskia said, as they read through the correspondence.

“And Mr. Menzies returned the favor,” Pru replied, riffling through a stack of papers. “Here,” she said. “This is what he wrote about Banks.”

“…who in his great attention to this and every other accommodation shows such a particular zeal for the success of my deportment as deserves my most grateful acknowledgement.”

“They had a good working relationship,” Saskia said. “Like you and I do.”

Pru smiled, but she felt a tinge of guilt. “I thought that Iain and I were nearing something that might resemble that.” Her mind wandered away from Mr. Menzies and Sir Joseph Banks. “Victoria said that Iain has no family—that’s too bad.”

“Is it?” Saskia said. Pru looked up to see her tidying the notes and books they’d strewn about. Saskia noticed Pru’s glance. “Lots of people don’t have family,” she said. “Sometimes that’s just the way it is.”

“Family is what you make of it,” Pru said. “Even if it’s just my brother or your mum.”

Saskia nodded. “My mum and I make a fine family—we’re all we’ve ever needed. And she knows I’ll take care of her when…” She flipped the switch on the kettle and crossed her arms. Without looking at Pru, she said, “She isn’t always able to do for herself.”

“I didn’t know—does your mum have a handicap?”

“Of sorts,” Saskia said, getting mugs ready. “Sugar, Pru?”

At the end of the day when Saskia left, so did Pru. But not home—she needed distraction. She pulled on her coat and walked into the city center through the lashing rain, making it to the Marks & Spencer on Rose Street a second ahead of a flash of lightning that was followed close on by a rumble. She headed downstairs to the café, along with half the city, it seemed. They all sat in brightly colored, molded-plastic chairs, puddles of water forming on the floor as rain dripped off coats and brollies.

Pru’s empire biscuit sat untouched, and she stirred all the foam out of her cappuccino. The initial excitement of the hunt for Mr. Menzies and the found journal had dimmed—first because of Iain’s constant berating, and now because of his death. The fuchsia had seemed a spark at first, but in her mood, she saw it only as a dead end. She couldn’t figure out why she was there. She missed Christopher. Why hadn’t she just moved to London and left it at that?

It had started to clear when she walked home, and she used Dundas Street, circling around to the far side of the Colonies so as to avoid the bridge where Iain had fallen. At Balmoral, Pru turned up to Mrs. Murchie’s door, and when she reached the top step, rang the bell and waited. She heard a yowl and felt pressure on her leg.

“Prumper, what are you doing out here?”

The Siamese gave another yowl, walking on his tiptoes with his back arched and tail vibrating, making figure eights around Pru’s legs. When the latch clicked, he jumped up on the milk box.

“My laddie!” Mrs. Murchie cried and scooped him up. “Och, where have you got to, my bonnie boy?” Prumper’s purr sounded like the engine of a sports car; he rubbed his face on Mrs. Murchie’s chin and cheek, setting her glasses askew. “Oh, Pru, I’m sorry, come in, come in.”

“He met me at the door,” Pru said, as she followed Mrs. Murchie into the kitchen. “I didn’t know he was missing. What happened?”

Mrs. Murchie drew a tissue out from the sleeve of her sweater and blew her nose. “Are you peckish, my boy? Here now, Pru, you put the kettle on, and I’ll just give Prumper his tea.” When Mrs. Murchie pulled out a piece of smoked salmon, Pru’s stomach yowled almost as loud as the cat.

“I was about to do an egg for my own tea,” Mrs. Murchie said. “Would you join me?”

“Yes, thanks,” Pru said. The egg was accompanied by a few slices of bacon, toast, and tomatoes. Over their tea, Mrs. Murchie told Pru Prumper’s tale.

“It was Morven, that old woman.” Mrs. Murchie inclined her head next door. “She came over yesterday to tell me about her latest sewing prize, and I couldn’t get her to shut the door. Out he went!” She wagged her finger at Prumper, whose pink tongue snaked in and out as he washed paw and face.

“How long was he outside?”

“Since…” Mrs. Murchie’s face darkened. “Oh dear. Now he’s home, I must confess that wasn’t the worst of it.” She stared at the table for a moment. “I was out looking for Prumper yesterday afternoon. I was in a terrible state. And there was an accident at the bridge. A man…I found him.”

A prickly feeling crawled up Pru’s arms. “You found Iain?”

“Do you know him, Pru?”

“From the garden—I was working with him on my project. How was it that you saw him there?”

The older woman shook her head. “I can’t even tell you that, I was so upset about Prumper. I’d been searching for him all the afternoon, calling him, shaking his tin of treats. I thought I’d try the bridge again—I imagined I saw him go that way and that he might be down by the water, hoping for a fish or stalking that swan—and…well, isn’t it very odd how our minds can make things up? We think we see one thing, but really we’ve seen something entirely different.” She looked up at Pru. “We let our emotions get in the way of facts, I suppose.”

“Did you phone for an ambulance?”

“A young woman was there—she was very clearheaded,” she said.
Saskia
, Pru thought. “Good thing, too,” Mrs. Murchie followed. “I wasn’t able for much.” She looked down at Prumper, who was now working on the other paw.

She reached out to Prumper and gave him a scratch. “That poor man. What did you say his name was?”

“Iain Blackwell.”

At home and too alone, she pulled her phone out to ring Christopher, but remembered his words from the evening before. “I’ve a community meeting to attend tomorrow evening, along with our liaison officer—it’s sure to last a few hours. There’ve been complaints recently, and the chief constable thought it better to meet them head-on.”

“It’s all right,” she had said. “We’ll talk on Wednesday,” not knowing how much she would regret that.