The Garden Plot (27 page)

Thoughts and suppositions tumbled about in her mind as she heard the knock at the front door. Mrs. Wilson answered.

“Mrs. Wilson, may I speak to your husband?” asked Christopher. Pru looked down at the letter in her hand and felt dread creep over her.

“Yes, Inspector?” Mr. Wilson said. Pru heard him come out into the hall from the kitchen.

“Mr. Wilson, we have recovered from Mr. Pendergast’s computer an email he sent to you that Thursday evening, the evening before he was murdered. It indicates that you know about a letter he found that has something to do with the mosaic, or what is buried under the mosaic in your shed.”

Pru tried to will Christopher to stop talking.

“Inspector …” Mr. Wilson began.

“Mr. Wilson, why didn’t you inform us about the email? Do you have this letter?”

Mr. Wilson did have the letter—it lay on the desk in front of Pru. First the coin, now the letter. Christopher would come down and find this additional piece of … He would come down and see the letter and mistake it for evidence against Mr. Wilson. This, this letter and the accompanying note would look as if Mr. Wilson had tried to stop Jeremy and it went too far.
But it only appeared to be damning evidence,
Pru thought,
there must be more to the story.

“Mr. Wilson, the email indicates that you were putting up some resistance to Mr. Pendergast’s plans, that you might try to stop him.”

To Pru, it sounded as if Christopher was about to slap the cuffs on Mr. Wilson, and she couldn’t let that happen.

“Mr. Wilson,” Christopher continued, “we could get a warrant to search your …”

She heard nothing else. Mrs. Wilson may have abandoned her, but she would not abandon them. She needed time to help prove Mr. Wilson’s innocence. Pru took the plastic-wrapped letter with Jeremy’s note and put it in her bag. Numb with fear, she moved quickly and quietly to the door leading outside. She opened it, stepped out, and locked it behind her.

She could barely breathe. What had she done? She had taken evidence in a murder case—but for a good reason, she told herself. She trusted Christopher, but he needed to stop and think, not immediately arrest Mr. Wilson for a murder that he didn’t commit. Is that what he was about to do? Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. Had she jumped too
hastily to a conclusion?

Her mind started filling with “what if” and “how could he.” She needed to think. Clutching her bag carefully so as not to bend the letter, she walked up the steps and quickly down the sidewalk, opposite her usual direction. Five doors down, she heard Malcolm hurrying up behind her.

“Pru, were you just in to see Vernona and Harry? Has there been any progress in the case?”

She stopped. Fed up with his incessant questions and innuendos, she jabbed at the only soft spot she thought he might have. “Malcolm, how’s your mother?”

His cockiness evaporated. “Mother is … doing well, thank you,” he said in a small voice. As if a crack had opened up in his veneer, he added, “Pru, I hope you don’t think that I would ever do anything to harm you.”

“Then, just what are you doing, Malcolm?”

“Pru, you don’t know what Harry—”

“I have to go.” She left him standing, getting away as much from him as from the chance that Christopher would emerge from the Wilsons’.

She walked. Taking with her an important piece of evidence in a murder case, needing to get away and consider not just what she had done, but also what might be happening back at the Wilsons’, she headed down to the Embankment, across the Albert Bridge and along Battersea Park Road, back across the Queenstown Road Bridge and alongside the Royal Hospital. She kept walking and eventually realized she had walked to her own house. She stood on the far corner of the square, in the dim shade of one of the plane trees, its leaves beginning to turn gold, and watched her front door for a while. Everything seemed quiet. She approached and made a dash across the street for the door.

Inside, she paced around the house, still holding her bag, thinking about what she should do. Finally, she set the bag down and got out the letter, lifting it from the plastic carefully so that she could open and see the second page. It appeared to be in Latin, but instead of filling her with wonder, it made her sick to her stomach. She slipped the letter back in its plastic not wanting to think of her act. Her eyes darted around the room and landed on a stack of oversized books on the shelf. Pulling
Beautiful Italy
down, she placed the letter inside the front cover and then stuck the book under one of the cushions on the sofa.

There,
she thought,
there, it’ll be safe there.
Her phone rang and she jumped. When she pulled it out, she saw Christopher’s number. She couldn’t answer. She’d betrayed him. She pressed fingers into her temples, which had begun to throb.
Be logical,
she thought. Sit down and think about what to do, what’s the best thing to do. Xanthe, Jeremy’s widow—ex-widow?—had delivered the letter to the Wilsons. Perhaps she would have some information about the letter or the society. Xanthe had told Mrs. Wilson she would be working at Jeremy’s flat today. Pru retrieved the letter and copied down the address from the stationery, then returned the letter and book to the safe spot under the cushion.

Jeremy’s flat wasn’t far from the Wilsons’, so Pru made sure to avoid their door completely and approach from the opposite direction. She knocked and then paced back and forth on the small front step, unable to keep still.

Xanthe answered, her jewelry clanging. “Yes?”

“Ms. Pendergast? I’m …”

“Pendergast? The name is Thomas, Xanthe Thomas. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m sorry.”
Off to a fine start,
Pru thought. “I’m Pru Parke, the Wilsons’ gardener”—that was pushing it, she realized, but how else would she identify herself?

“Gardener?” She seemed about to laugh, but she stopped. “Oh, yes, you’re the one who found Jeremy.”

She saw his body again, slumped in the corner, the blood running down onto his shirt. “Yes,” she said, then cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about your husband …”

“Ex-husband.” Xanthe raised an eyebrow.

“Ex-husband, yes.” Pru plunged in with both feet. “Do you know if Mr. Pendergast had any dealings with Alf Saxsby before he died?”

“Alf Saxsby? I’ve never heard of him.”

“Do you think that anyone in the society might have known about the mosaic,—the one in the Wilsons’ shed? Did your husband—ex-husband—say anything to you about the mosaic? Do you know Malcolm Crisp?” If she could ask every question that came in her mind, perhaps one of them would jog Xanthe’s memory.

Xanthe crossed her arms and stared at Pru. “It isn’t a subject that I find very interesting,” she said, “as it seemed to have occupied every second of Jeremy’s waking life when we were married, which is one of the reasons we were no longer.”

I’m not helping,
Pru thought.
I’m no help at all. What did I think I would accomplish?
“Thank you, anyway,” she said and turned to leave.

“Are you the American in Archie and Pippa’s place?” Xanthe asked as Pru descended the small step.

“What?” Distracted by disappointment, she had trouble focusing on the question. “Yes, yes,” she mumbled as she walked away, “that’s me. Please don’t tell me you’ve
seen them, too.”

It came to her—she must tell Christopher what she’d done. Yes, that’s what she’d do. She would explain it to him, and he would understand.

But first, she would talk with Mr. Wilson. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She believed in his innocence, but she needed to hear it from him, and then she could tell Christopher what happened. “You are not a police officer,” she kept repeating to herself, sometimes aloud, sometimes whispered, sometimes in her mind.

Too nervous to sit on a bus, she walked, going far out of the way, walking across Hyde Park and circling the Italian Gardens and then walking as far as Hyde Park Corner before she realized she was walking in the direction of St. James’s Park, where she and Christopher had spent such a wonderful afternoon … was it just yesterday?

She turned back and eventually made it to Chartsworth Square. There, too, she stood at the far corner of the square, watching. Evening approached; hours had passed since she’d first taken the letter and left the Wilsons’, maybe more—she couldn’t quite tell. She walked up and rang the bell, but there was no answer. She let herself in through the basement, closing and locking the door behind her. The papers, emptied from the Harrods bag, lay scattered over the plywood-topped desk. They had looked for the letter. Pru let out a little sob, wanting to phone Christopher and explain. Her phone rang; it was he. She felt faint as she silenced the call.

She opened the door to the back garden and looked out. The sun had disappeared behind buildings; a light shone out the cracks of the shed and the dirty windows glowed dimly. The police tape had been removed from around it; Pru hadn’t noticed that earlier in the day. She crept forward, staying near the wall and out of the line of sight from the shed door and, she hoped, from Malcolm’s upstairs window. When she got closer, she heard a metallic noise but no talking. She peeked around the edge of the door and saw Mr. Wilson on his knees with one of the short-handled spades, digging around the edge of the mosaic.

“Mr. Wilson?” Pru said in a small voice.

He looked up. His hair was wild, his clothes filthy, his eyes wide. “Pru? Pru, did you take it?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Did you take the letter and keep it safe?”

She slipped just inside the door. “Mr. Wilson, what are you doing?”

He stopped digging. “Did you read it, Pru? Do you know what it means?”

“Mr. Wilson, where is your wife? Where is Mrs. Wilson?” Pru felt no fear for herself—well, maybe just a bit of fear—but concern and anxiety for Mr. Wilson’s sanity filled her. Yet, when he stood and came toward her, she backed up until she bumped her
head against a shelf on the shed wall.

“Vernona is out, Pru. She had a WI meeting in Fulham. I told her to go on—I didn’t want her to worry.” He looked down at the ground; the hole, not much deeper than it had been, still looked oozy with water. “I haven’t found the third coin yet, Pru.—Gaskell wrote that he had replaced all three as markers. I must get at least that far.”

“Mr. Wilson, wouldn’t it be better to wait, to show someone, one of your society friends? Or your university person, someone who could help you find it … find the last coin?”

“Hmmm?” He had gone back to the hole, taken another shovelful or two, trying to dig out under the mosaic.

“Maybe you should wait, Mr. Wilson,” Pru said, her voice trembling. “Because you should share this find, shouldn’t you? You always want to share your discoveries.”

Harry looked down, looked at the shovel in his hand, looked around the shed, and looked at Pru. “I shouldn’t do this now. I should tell the others … Jeremy … no, not Jeremy. Archie, I should tell Archie. He’ll want to return immediately.”

“Yes, Mr. Wilson, you should. Why don’t you wait until tomorrow, when you feel better, and then you can tell them all.” Pru could see some sense return to his face.

“Oh, Pru, forgive me, I was just so caught up in the excitement.” He stood and tried to brush the mud off his knees. “You do have the letter, don’t you?”

“Yes, I took it, but I really shouldn’t have. I need to tell the inspector about it.” But would she? Could she? Mr. Wilson’s temporary insanity aside, he could still be arrested.
Temporary insanity,
Pru thought.
Do they have a temporary-insanity plea in Britain?

“But don’t give it to him, Pru, not yet. Bring it by tomorrow. We’ll want to see it.”

“Yes, Mr. Wilson, tomorrow. But for now, why don’t you go inside and wait for Mrs. Wilson?”

They stepped out of the shed, and Mr. Wilson realized he still carried the spade. He turned and chucked it back in.

“Mr. Wilson, I’ll go now. Will you be all right?”

“Won’t you stay? Vernona won’t be too much longer.”

The anxiety and fear began to grow again in Pru. She still had to hand damning evidence in to the police against Mr. Wilson and didn’t know how she could or how she couldn’t. “No, thank you, I’ll see you soon.”

“We’re holding a memorial dinner for Jeremy Wednesday evening,” Mr. Wilson said. He sounded weary, but calm. “It’s at a place in Soho that he always loved. Almost
the whole group will be there, wives, too.”

“That’ll be a good way to remember him,” Pru said. It was too easy to forget that Jeremy Pendergast had friends who cared about him.

Dusk had deepened. As they went back to the house, Pru glanced over her shoulder and saw a curtain flicker upstairs at Malcolm’s.

When Pru left Mr. Wilson, she began walking again. She knew she must turn the letter over to Christopher, but could not gather up the will to do so. She was such a failure—she failed at saving Mr. Wilson just as surely as she had failed to find a job, failed to start a new life, failed Christopher.

She stopped for a coffee somewhere, letting it grow cold on the table while she stared out the window at all the people passing, laughing, holding hands. She walked again, down to the Embankment and along the Thames path up to Westminster. A sharp wind came off the river and cut through her sweater. Her phone rang, but this time she didn’t even look. A few minutes after it stopped, she sent Christopher a text that said, “At Jo’s this evening.” Sick with the deception, she had to sit down, and found herself sitting at the base of the statue of Boadicea, where she and Christopher had stopped only the day before. She started walking again.

Fatigue overcame her, but she couldn’t keep still and waited until almost midnight before going home. She stopped again at the far corner of the square, this time in dark shadows, and watched her front door. Christopher stood on the front step, and she shrunk back against the wrought-iron railing lest he look her way. Eventually, he left, walking down the sidewalk away from her. She covered her mouth to keep from crying out as she watched him leave. She waited an eternity before she went inside.

She pulled the book out from under the cushion, took out the letter, and tried to read it, but now none of the words made sense, and so she hid it again. She needed to rest. All this would make sense tomorrow.