The Red Book of Primrose House: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series 2) (15 page)

Cate walked her to the door and reached for the latch to open it.

Pru took a quick breath and plunged in. “Cate, you heard that they found your dad’s phone…?”

“That’s a lie, Pru, it can’t be true. Liam would never have Dad’s mobile.”

“Mummy!”

“I’ll see you soon,” Cate said, opening the door and putting an end to questions.

Pru walked out to her car, kicking herself for not getting to the point earlier, but she’d had no desire to talk about Jamie or Liam in front of Nanda. Cate’s alarm at the mention of Liam worried Pru. Was Cate scared of him—or something he had done?

Pru took the car keys from her bag and they slipped out of her hands, falling to the pavement at the same moment she heard rustling in the laurel hedge alongside the drive. She stopped and listened, but heard nothing else except Cate putting the chain on the door behind her. She bent down slowly to pick up her keys, and as she did so, cut her eyes over to the base of the hedge, which was bare of branches. She saw, among the thick brown stems emerging from the ground, a pair of work boots.

She stood up abruptly, not looking toward the hedge as she continued to her car.
Perhaps Jamie isn’t bothering Cate, but he is spying on her,
Pru thought, and decided to ring DS Hobbes first thing in the morning to make sure that the police were keeping an eye on Cate.

If Pru had only the garden to attend to, there still wouldn’t have been enough hours in the week, but even so, she filled every unclaimed second and each evening with sorting through questions about Ned’s murder and seeking out those who might have a clue—even if they didn’t realize it. On Tuesday afternoon, she had the opportunity to chat with Robbie.

They sat on the stairs at the end of the balustrade terrace that led down to where the workers continued to level the slope and prepare for the stonework. Robbie was trying to retie the string on his makeshift bow, and Pru sat down to help.

“My mate said he would teach me to shoot an arrow straight,” Robbie said.

Pru was beginning to think Robbie’s mate was much like her sister, Barbie—imaginary. “Who is this mate of yours, Robbie? Do I know him? Is he from Chaffinch’s? Is it someone who comes round here?”

“It’s a secret, Pru,” he replied, thrusting out his chest. “I can keep a secret.”

Before she could try to get further, one of Gordon’s crew called her over to see about the soil mix for the new terraced beds, and by the time she was free again, Ivy was giving her a wave as she and Robbie left for the day.

Since talking with Cate, Pru’s mind had been stuck on Hugo and how he blamed Ned for his own dad’s death. She rang Hugo with the pretense of chatting about resuming the blog, but she’d had to leave a message, and he hadn’t phoned her back. So at lunch on Wednesday, she made the short trip up to the
Courier
’s offices to talk with him in person.

She asked for him at the front desk, but a woman passing behind her, hair in a topknot and glasses perched on the end of her nose, answered instead of the receptionist. “He’d better not be around. I told him to get over to Stone Cross—a couple of pensioners were cheesed off at the Council for canceling the village fête this spring and started a protest.” She took her glasses off and let them dangle on their beaded lanyard. “May I help you?”

“Thanks,” Pru said, “it’s nothing important.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you the American?”

Pru thought it was quite obvious that she was, at the very least, some American, but knew what the woman meant. “I’m Pru Parke—from Primrose House.”

“I’m Anna Clegg-Hill, editor here at the
Courier
. Why don’t you come through and we’ll chat. Coffee?”

Pru had no desire to talk with Ms. Clegg-Hill, but the woman began herding her toward a hallway, and she had no reason to be rude, either. “Sure, thanks.”

“Carmen?” the editor said over her shoulder to the woman behind the reception desk.

“Yes, coffee,” Carmen replied.

Pru imagined that the newspaper’s editor would love to get a few words from the head gardener of a local murder site—garden—but perhaps she could get a bit of information out of Clegg-Hill, too. The editor settled in behind a desk that was oddly void of paper, and Pru took the chair opposite; Carmen was on their heels with the coffee tray.

“Ms. Parke, how are things going at Primrose House?” the editor asked, hands folded in front of her and her face full of concern as she leaned over her desk. “What’s the atmosphere like? Tense? Is it difficult to walk every day past the place you found Ned Bobbins’s body without it catching at your heart? How is the investigation going? Are you privy to any new discoveries you might share with our readers? They do so love to read about you and the garden.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask Hugo to cover Ned’s murder, Ms. Clegg-Hill. Wouldn’t that have made the most sense—after all, he’s been writing the blog about us. Was he not available that day?”
I see your bid and raise you,
thought Pru.

The editor blinked. “Hugo was…” she began, and then leaned back in her chair. “Hugo was nowhere to be found the day of the murder—or the next.”

Nowhere to be found?
Pru thought. “You mean, he was supposed to be at work and wasn’t?”

“I mean that Hugo is a young reporter with a great many ideas bouncing around in his head,” Clegg-Hill said. “When I asked him later where he was, he said he was up in London doing some research. I didn’t pursue it—I know I’ll see the end result sometime.” If she suspected Hugo of anything else, she didn’t let on.

Pru wanted to ask if the editor thought Hugo’s disappearance had anything to do with his connection to Ned, but thought that might result in being drilled again about what she herself knew. And lunch was almost over. “Thanks for your time,” she said to the editor. “I need to get back.”

As she opened the door, Clegg-Hill asked, “Shall I tell Hugo you stopped?”

Pru looked back and smiled, knowing the question was really: “Do you want Hugo to know you’re checking up on him?” The editor was fishing, but Pru wouldn’t bite. “Yes, of course, please tell him.”

Christopher rang, if not every hour, then certainly more often than usual. She saw DS Hobbes twice during the week, and for no reason. Once, he was parked in front of her cottage as she walked back at the end of the day.

“Don’t you have a home to go to?” she asked.

He grinned. “Just dropped by on my way. Everything all right? You’re usually back by now, aren’t you?”

“I’m putting in a few extra hours these days,” she replied. “Will you phone the all-clear into Christopher or shall I?”

Hobbes blushed. “I don’t mind stopping, and Inspector Pearse is right to be concerned.” He started the engine, and then nodded in the direction of their access road, saying, “We found clay from down there on the tires of two cars—Liam Duffy’s and the Templetons’.” He looked behind him, as if afraid that Tatt sat in the backseat listening as he passed along evidence on the case. “I suppose Duffy could have a reason to be there, but Mrs. Templeton? Does she ever come down this way?”

The thought of Davina pulling down the road, finding the hatchet in the shed and confronting Ned made Pru queasy, but when she swept the image from her mind, it was replaced with one of Liam doing the same thing. “Have you asked her?”

“As soon as she’s back in town, I will,” he said, putting his car in gear.

“Sergeant Hobbes,” Pru said, laying a hand on his arm, “can you tell me about finding Ned’s mobile phone? How was it missed the first time police went to see the Duffys?”

Hobbes shook his head. “It’s a bit of a mess, and the inspector isn’t best pleased. He got an anonymous tip—a little too easy, if you ask me. The phone couldn’t’ve been in a more obvious place—the stone was sticking far out of the wall, the phone crushed behind it—none of it was there on our first visit. Instead of the best place to hide, if that’s what Liam was about, it was the worst place.”

“Were there fingerprints?”

“Not Liam’s. Ned’s blood was smeared on the phone”—Pru took a deep breath—“and there may be a partial print, but it isn’t clear.”

Pru hung her head and sighed. Hobbes inclined his head to catch her fallen gaze. “It’s just one more piece, Pru. We’re not finished.”

Pru drove back to the flat in search of Cate after work on Thursday, hoping to resume their conversation and pin her down about Liam’s whereabouts. Why would he hide an alibi—or was it that he didn’t have one?

But only Francine was home. “Just tell her I stopped,” Pru said.

“Can I ask you something?” Francine said, standing at the door as Pru turned to leave. “Robbie helps you in the garden, doesn’t he?”

“You know Robbie?” Pru asked.

“I’m the nurse at Chaffinch’s, the day care center he attends,” Francine reminded her.

“Yes, sure, I forgot that.”

Francine dug her thumbnail into the wood of the doorjamb, idly working off a piece of peeling paint. “On the day that Cate’s dad was killed, that afternoon…there was an hour or so when we couldn’t find him. Robbie, I mean.”

“He left Chaffinch’s? On his own? That’s not allowed, is it?”

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Francine said, “but occasionally someone might wander off. We’re right in town, though.” Francine took her long auburn hair and twisted it until it twisted upon itself and made a bun; she tucked in the end. “No one’s ever gone for long. And Robbie’s never done that before—we just thought he was out in the garden, digging. And really, before we could sound any alarm, here he came again, as if he’d just been around the block. Very chuffed he was, too, as if he’d done something he was proud of.”

“Does his mum know that happened?”

“We told her as soon as she came to collect him, later that afternoon. It’s the law. But he was safe.”

“Do you know if the police were told?”

“I was there when the sergeant visited the next afternoon—after, well, after you found Cate’s dad,” Francine said. “It didn’t come up. I don’t think the director wanted to call attention to it—and Ivy, Robbie’s mum, asked if we could keep it quiet.” Francine wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know where he could have got to, anyway. It was such a short time.”

“What did he say when you found him?” Pru asked, holding on to her car key so tightly that it dug into the palm of her hand.

Francine shook her head. “Some nonsense about Robin Hood. Nothing we could really figure out. But I thought I’d mention it to you,” she said, looking at the ground.

As she drove home, Pru added Ivy to her to-do list.

She’d just gotten into her cottage when she heard a car pull in. DS Hobbes again, she thought, and opened the door to find Tatt, who wore a tartan coat and a deerstalker.

“Inspector, what can I do for you?”
Oh fine,
she thought as a few snowflakes danced above his head like albino fireflies. “Come in, why don’t you,” she said. “It’s freezing out there.”

Tatt stepped just inside, and she closed the door as a blast of cold air tried to follow him in.

“Ms. Parke,” he said, clearing his throat, “have you had any further contact with Cate Bobbins?”

“Yes, of course I have. We’re friends.”

He jangled the keys in his pocket. “Right, well, we expect you to report any information you may come across that is pertinent to this case.” He glanced around the room. “I noticed yellow tape around an area down below the house. I don’t believe that’s a crime scene, is it?”

“No, it isn’t police tape—I got it from Davina. It’s streamers from some gala they sponsored. It’s just circling a new planting—I didn’t want anyone trampling the area.”
This is a waste of police time,
Pru thought.
What’s he doing here investigating primroses?

“Yes,” he said, and got a small notebook out of his jacket pocket. “Your fingerprints, Ms. Parke—have you stopped by the station to have them taken?”

“You already have my…” she started, then the realization hit her. “Oh my God, you were told to stop by and check up on me,” she accused him.

He sputtered like a too-full kettle come to boil. “I do not take direction, I’ll have you know.”

She laughed. “No,” she said, “I don’t suppose you do.” If Christopher had pulled a few strings that resulted in Tatt’s being advised to keep an eye on the American gardener—well, she could imagine that didn’t go over well.

He stuck the notebook back in his pocket. “It’s just that I’d prefer not to have an international incident on my watch, if you please.”

“Inspector, really, I’m fine.”

His phone rang. He looked at the screen and said to Pru, “I’m sorry, do you mind if I take this?”

Pru gave her permission with a nod. Tatt turned away and took a couple of steps. “Hello,” he said quietly. “Yes…I have the chops already…Well, there are still a few sprouts left…Yes, I’ll be home soon.”

Pru was mortified to overhear this personal conversation and busied herself by brushing nonexistent crumbs off the counter and into the sink. When Tatt finished, he said, “Ms. Parke, you’ll let me know if Mrs. Templeton says anything else about her journey back to Primrose House that afternoon.”

“Yes, of course I will. But you don’t really suspect her, do you?” she asked, hoping to keep Tatt in this unusually friendly mood.

He shrugged off the suggestion. “She’s on CCTV at the London hotel, leaving just when she said she did and returning not even three hours later. She would have to have made a quick job of it, if she did it—but still, it’s possible.”

Pru couldn’t get used to speaking about murder in such an offhanded manner, but thought that police must have to harden themselves to it.

Tatt pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and said, not looking at her, “You’ll mention that I looked in on you?”

“I’ll be sure to say so.”

Alone at last, she poured herself wine and swirled the red liquid around in its glass as bits and pieces of people’s stories swirled around in her mind. Perhaps the results of her inquiries would mean nothing to the investigation, but just in case, she jotted down what she knew on the first piece of paper at hand, which turned out to be the back of a stray plant list. But when it came time to pack her bag for London, she didn’t have the heart to pack her list of clues as well.