by Charlot King
24. Threats and Accusations
Susan left Parkside police station about half an hour ago and has now made it straight to the woman she blames for her arrest. Spoiling for a fight she storms through the small side entrance on Hills Road to the Botanical Gardens without stopping, only to be chased by the gatekeeper to buy a ticket.
“Er, excuse me madam, the gardens have a small entrance fee. Do you have a friends pass, or would you like to purchase one?”
“Where’s Elizabeth Green, her department secretary said she was here?”
“That will be five pounds please if you want an on the day.”
“Tell me where she is and I’ll pay you.”
There is a pause and Susan angrily shouts
“I’ll find her myself then!”
Susan rummages in her purse and pulls out a ten pound note.
“There we are Madam, you’ll find her in the Scented Garden.”
Susan rushes along the path. As soon as she gets fifty or so feet along East Walk she can smell the cedar of Lebanon. It doesn’t lift her mood but she remembers when Edward brought her to an evening tree concert ‘Sounds Green in the Garden’ last year, where a tour of the trees preceded a jazz band playing by the lake. She was moved to hear that night that a group of badgers had recently taken up residence as could be seen by much scuffing of the lawns. Last year seems long ago. Now she feels bitter phlegm in her throat, angry as she smells the lavender wafting up on the breeze, followed by aromas of helichrysum italicum, the curry plant, arousing hunger in her gut. Susan spots Elizabeth leaning over with some secateurs. She grabs her shoulder, twisting her violently round and pushes her right into a bank of rosemary.
“How dare you. You come round asking questions. Poking your nose in. Next thing I know I’m being arrested by the police!”
Elizabeth flounders in the bush, but refuses to give Susan any advantage and coolly addresses her as if nothing has happened.
“Hello, Dr Bunt. There is really no need to manhandle me.”
“It was you who told them I was leaving, wasn’t it?”
“If you must know I did mention I thought you might be going somewhere, yes.”
“I missed my flight, my holiday. Been accused of all sorts.”
“I thought it mildly odd. Your lover is dead and you not waiting around for the funeral.”
“He’s dead! And his family will be all over that. Why are you interfering with my life? You owe me, big time.”
Elizabeth pulls herself up and brushes down her clothes.
“A holiday? Where?”
Susan is incredulous. Will Elizabeth not heed her warning?
“I want to know why you’re poking your nose in all this and to warn you, stop leading the police to my door, or else!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Susan leans into Elizabeth and pushes her face right up against her nose.
“You’re going to repay me, one way or another.”
Elizabeth raises her eyebrows but doesn’t flinch. She just stares at Susan and says.
“Look Dr Bunt. We’re both alive. Edward is dead. You say he meant a lot to you. I’m sure he would not want you to fight those who are trying to catch his killer. The police are only doing their job and I saw your bag and you were leaving. There is not a hell’s bells chance that I am going to reimburse you for anything. Why you feel the need to come over here and shout the odds I really don’t know. It just makes me think that perhaps I was right and you are trying to hide something. Threatening me will get you nowhere.”
“If you don’t leave me alone and lay off then you’ll be sorry. Very sorry. Do I make myself clear?”
“The police would arrest you as quick as you like. Stop shouting at me and start talking. Why here? Why today?”
Susan backs down a little, but there is still venom in her eyes.
“I’m angry with you.”
“You’re angry, that’s for sure.”
Susan exhales sharply and then tosses her arms violently in the air and twists round. Elizabeth, a little disturbed by Susan’s aggression, nevertheless goes back to her work of taking small cuttings of the sceptr’d isle. Susan’s energy trickles out of her, her face falling into a morose resting state. She throws herself down on the timber sleepers of a wooden shelter, sweet lemon of rosa mulligani, trained across its roof and sides.
“They told me you found my necklace in Edward’s hands, how did you know it was mine?”
Elizabeth can’t read Susan’s mood, or what she will do next, so continues to try to treat her normally, replying, “A hunch. You were covering red marks on your neck. Your scarf slipped.”
“Yes, well thanks to you it’s police evidence now. So I guess you thought you’d stitch me up.” Susan bitterly continues, “Maybe you killed Edward. How come they haven’t arrested you? He was in your garden.”
Susan can’t see but Elizabeth rolls her eyes with tempered derision, then turns to face her.
“I can’t help what I found. Have you been eliminated from suspicion? They’ve presumably released you. You haven’t escaped, so...”
“The Inspector was cagey. Says I mustn’t go on any travels. Means I lost my whole trip.”
“They just want to find out what happened. It wasn’t an accident, of that they’re pretty sure. I’m sure you’ll get your necklace back when they find out.”
Susan is now completely dejected, slumping down in her seat.
“He brought the necklace back from his last field trip. He’d had a bad time over there.”
“Africa. Why?”
“He wouldn’t say. He just said what I didn’t know wouldn’t get me into trouble for now. I thought he loved me. He told me he did. I have to believe that.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“What do they care? Just want someone banged up for it.”
Elizabeth continues to cut at a plant and puts the cuttings in a small basket with water in the bottom while talking.
“But you knew him better than most, you may know something which you don’t think is important, but pieced together with other information will give the police a clue. What was he doing in Africa, Susan?”
“The department might have thought Edward was just doing research on the bilbaob tree. Nothing else. But the other night he told me he was repulsed by something he found. And that certain people would never live it down.”
“Baobab tree, or adansonia.” Elizabeth corrects Susan’s pronunciation of the tree’s name. She then stands up straight.
“Follow me if you will, Susan. This won’t take a minute.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Just to a glasshouse,” Elizabeth replies, “I want to show you something.”
The two walk from the Scented Garden up the path past the fountain towards the glasshouses. Susan scuffs her feet along the gravel, making clear her lack of enthusiasm for this detour.
“Plants aren’t my bag.”
“So, how did you two meet?”
“You ask a lot of questions. Huh, what does it matter now? We met at college, as undergraduates. A group of us used to hang out together, and we took it further.” Susan looks at Elizabeth, she might as well tell her too. Perhaps it will illicit sympathy. “I’m carrying his baby.”
Elizabeth tries not to overreact.
“You told the police?”
“I’m sure it was the only reason they let me go. Why would a woman who’s pregnant kill the father, unless he’s some kind of monster? But the Inspector is convinced I have something to do with Edward’s death, just the way he spoke. He’s wrong.”
“You know that Rebecca is also pregnant?”
Susan is completely stunned, but tries to hide it. How could she be? She looks at Elizabeth quizzically and laughs.
“What’s so fu
nny?” Elizabeth turns to look at Susan as they near the glass houses.
“If you want to think someone killed him, I’d look at Rebecca. She’s the one who had the most to lose. He wasn’t feeling well by the time I met up with him. Maybe she poisoned his lunch.”
“I thought pregnant women don’t kill the fathers. Although one only has to look at the arachnids to see that’s entirely inaccurate.”
“I told you. He was leaving her.”
“According to Rebecca he didn’t eat with her that day at all. He ate with you though.”
“Maybe I should go and find evidence that it was Rebecca myself.” Susan makes to go. But then Elizabeth stops her and says,
“Just a few more steps inside this first one. Look.”
Both walk through the first glasshouse and come to a halt near a baobab tree.
“Here,” Elizabeth points upwards, “Adansonia, or baobab.”
“It’s upside down?”
“The trunk in a large adult tree can store up to one hundred and twenty thousand litres of water. For much of the year the leaves are not present and it just looks like the roots are the wrong way up. This is what Edward was looking at, only in bigger form. They grow up to a hundred feet in native habitat.”
Susan doesn’t look interested, and just wants to leave, replying, “Yes, that’s quite interesting, as you say.”
“Do you know that the large trees when dead are often hollowed out and used as bars to meet? Isn’t that simply wonderful?”
They both look at a small version of the tree, warm inside the heated house. Susan pulls out a cigarette and goes to light it.
“No smoking.”
“You’re as bad as Edward. Hated cigarettes, said I’d have to quit when we got together. No need now. Just stop talking to the police, alright?”
Elizabeth takes a flower label from a plant and writes her telephone number on it. She gives it to Susan.
“He used to come in here to get away, you know. If you think of anything, telephone me. If you don’t want to go to the police, tell me.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” says Susan as she walks off to leave. As she joins the exit path she examines the card Elizabeth has given her. Two landlines, who has a landline let alone two?
Back in the greenhouse, Elizabeth is glad Susan has gone. Although it’s a warm day a chill has gone up her spine. Something about that woman signals bad news. Elizabeth just hopes she’s not the one on the end of it next time. And although having indicated the opposite, hopes she won’t be hearing from Susan for a long time.
25. Looking for Something
Jonathan and Kara are at home in their barn on the edge of Ely, having come back with the first car load of Rebecca’s stuff. Jonathan opens the doors onto the garden, outside the swimming pool sparkles in the sun. Both are uncomfortable that Rebecca insisted on staying behind, but aside from throwing her over his shoulder, Jonathan couldn’t see how they could force her. Kara tidies away evidence of last night’s partying. Magazines strewn, glasses half drunk, bottles tipped and dribbling their near empty contents onto glass coffee tables, CDs scattered out of their cases. Jonathan pours himself a whisky. He looks irked. Kara approaches Jonathan, holding half a dozen glasses in her hands.
“Are you going to work from home more, now Rebecca is going to be living with us?”
Jonathan takes a swig and looks at Kara.
“Sometimes I think you have no idea, Kara. Cabinet is going to be full on.”
“So I’m left with nanny duties?”
Kara flounces out to the kitchen with the glasses and two empty bottles of red. Jonathan takes a large gulp of his drink and picks up a magazine to look at the pages full of fluffy bubble gum stories about which celebrity is dating who, and how big is someone’s house. He grimaces and drops it down again. Looking around he doesn’t know if this is going to work. He’s been having doubts and she knows it. Kara walks back in with a cloth and some salt.
“It’s too late for that. You have to do it when it’s wet.” He says, somewhat half-heartedly.
“Well, I’ll give it five minutes and if it doesn’t work I’ll bring in the heavy guys.”
“Is this going to work?”
“Salt always works.”
“I meant.”
He looks at her again, exhausted. Kara knows what he is talking about.
“We will more than work. This is just a very stressful day.”
Jonathan continues to press.
“Have you any idea what it will be like actually being married to a member of government? It’s not all polo and country club.”
“It’s what I want for you.”
“But you’ll have to behave, or you’ll end up in one of these magazines in a compromising position.” Jonathan glances as the celebrity magazines on the coffee table.
“You know I’m faithful.”
“I only meant they’ll shoot you drunk, coming out of some club or other. How will that look?”
Kara thinks he sounds more worried about his career than her.
“And we’re back to your career. You promised it would be different if we came up here. Three times I’ve seen you this month. One meal on our own. One. You’re always promising you’ll be up and then something comes up. No wonder I end up partying with friends.”
“Don’t do this. I’ve told you it won’t always be like this. But, if you can’t even help with my sister, what does that say about us?”
Jonathan turns on the TV and flicks to the news channel. He can hear the presenter talk about him. A graphic pops up titled ‘winners and losers’. Jonathan is on the graph under winner. This makes him feel good. He sits and takes out some cocaine from his pocket, and with a credit card lines up two hits and snorts them up. Kara continues to clean the carpet as she speaks to him.
“Why do you always make out everything’s my fault?”
Jonathan sniffs up another line and looks at Kara a little more distant than usual, he steps back from her to talk.
“Life can’t just be one big party, one big punt, champagne picnic, ball gown wearing glitter-fest. I’m going to be busy, I’m going to travel. That’s not going to change. Be honest, is this what you really want?”
Kara looks up from the carpet and shoots a glare at Jonathan.
“All right, if we are talking about honesty. Tell me what the money from Edward was all about?”
“What money?” Jonathan is shocked
“The cheque. I saw the note in the glove compartment from Edward.”
For a moment this floors him. He has been rumbled and his best defence is attack.
“What are you, spying on me now?”
But Kara is also thrown by his lack of quick explanation. She wanted him to tell her it was nothing. Now she’s curious.
“Has it got anything to do with his death?”
Jonathan picks up his drink and strides out onto the terrace by the pool, shouting back.
“How can you even ask me that?”
But Jonathan isn’t waiting for her answer. He walks down the side of the pool and onto the lawn towards the orchard at the bottom of the garden. Anything to get away from Kara, his biggest problem right now. Kara picks up the salt and stares into the garden after Jonathan. She knows best not to follow him. She turns and places the salt on the table and picks up a wedding magazine, looks at the cover and then tosses it back and surveys the mess of the living room. What has she become and how did they get here?
✧
Elizabeth is still at work at the Botanical Gardens but has moved from the greenhouses up into the Gilmour Suite, one of a number of small laboratories in the grounds, set up to study plant growth and development. All white and steel, clean and sharp edges, she spends hours working here, examining the compounds and molecular structure of plants. Elizabeth always feel
s most content though along the corridor. For next to the Gilmour, just a stone’s throw away is the university herbarium, which contains over one million pressed and dried plant specimens, including the great majority of those collected by Charles Darwin on the Beagle Voyage. She often spends the night when she can’t sleep poring over one species or another from the drawers that house collections from around the world. And although not in it now, Elizabeth can always feel the Herbarium calling, like a beating drum of rustling leaves and seed shakers. It is gone five thirty in the afternoon, light still streams in. Elizabeth is alone, with all her colleagues having clocked off. She stands at a work station peering through a microscope, examining plant chemical traces in a petri dish. Close up she picks out cells being attacked by the chemical molecular composition. Elizabeth looks up as she has just discovered something she expected, but hoped she was wrong about, as it takes things into an altogether darker twist. Walking over to a shelf Elizabeth rises up on her toes to reach a book down from the small laboratory library. As she pulls the book off the shelf she glimpses outside. Under the pruned Lime trees on the cafe terrace, she sees a family with two children. The children running around a table with their mother telling them to stop and they have to go soon. Elizabeth turns the pages of the book and finds what she wants. Like the family below, Elizabeth knows it is time she should go. She thinks back to when Susan came a couple of hours ago. Why come storming over and threaten to do her an injury if she was innocent, but what a crazy thing to do if you’re guilty? Elizabeth didn’t doubt that she may well be pregnant, but didn’t that make it more likely? Was Rebecca right and Susan was just the spurned ex-girlfriend? But, if Susan didn’t do it, then who did? She spots the front page of the local paper on the work station below, with a photo of Edward and one of Jonathan. After the mention of Edward’s death it reads that Jonathan is tipped for home office, and goes on to quote him talking about family values. The reporter mentions his aristocratic background, a known shooter and hunter with a temper. Once in a physical fight with someone outside a Tory Party conference over fox hunting.
