by Ruby Loren
“Then I think it’s time you got your facts straight. No one bothered to before now,” Rich continued, ending with a grumble. He looked around the group and received a few nods of approval. “None of us has the whole story, but, prior to this trip, we all harboured strong suspicions that Elliot Harving’s death didn’t come about the way that the police and the papers claimed it did.”
11
The Art of Deception
“What made each of you suspect?” I asked. I’d figured out most of their connections to Elliot Harving, but there were still some mysteries I’d been unable to fill in.
“You already worked out that I knew the Culverts,” Sylvia spoke up. “I knew their work and knew there was no way they’d have sent a shoddy piece of work out into the world - no matter how overworked the police claimed they were. They only ever took on what they could handle! When John and Winifred Culvert passed away, I was devastated. I dedicated my most recently published book to the couple. That was when Sir Gordon got in contact with me, asking if I believed that the Culverts had been responsible for Elliot’s death. I told him that it was about the unlikeliest thing I’d ever heard. We kept in touch and the next thing I knew, he’d somehow found out the truth of the matter. Then it was just a case of what was to be done about it.” Sylvia’s mouth twisted in discomfort when she said the last part.
“I suppose I will go next,” Lady Isabella spoke up, surprising me. I’d assumed that she wasn’t on the course by chance, but I hadn’t been able to work out how, exactly, she was connected to a young garden designer.
“My best friend was Elliot’s grandmother. The papers didn’t say a word when she died so soon after Elliot’s death. Doctors just said it was a heart attack that caused her demise, but I know it was a broken heart. She had to watch as her son and his wife dealt with all of the press and the terrible tragedy of losing their son. More than that, she felt as well as any of us that the investigation was shoddy because of the pressure put on the police to find someone responsible. So they jumped to the obvious conclusion and those poor sculptors took the rap.” She gave her head a single brisk nod and fell silent.
Tanya shot her a curious look before taking her cue. “I was dating Elliot at the time of his death. We’d only just started going out, but I really cared about him! More than that, he confided in me. He told me that he thought someone was out to get him. Just one week before Chelsea, he told me that he thought someone had poisoned his plants. After some investigation, something was found to be wrong with their water supply – a supply that was reserved for the plants and should not have been contaminated! He never told me what the contaminant was, just that it was plausible that it came from a natural origin… but he was certain it hadn’t. It was too much of a happy coincidence for whomever it was that wanted him to fail.” I tilted my head in question but Tanya had already read what I wanted to know. “Elliot had enemies. He wasn’t a patch on Christine in terms of a cut-throat attitude and reputation within the industry, but he’d learned the hard way that being known as ‘nice’ never does you any favours.”
I silently appreciated that she did have a point there. If you had to reach for a word like ‘nice’ to describe someone, it usually meant that they were so devoid of personality, or interest, that there was simply no other word to describe them with.
“Sir Gordon contacted me after I spoke at a memorial service for Elliot that was held for his friends, rather than family. I may have said a thing or two I shouldn’t have and caused a bit of bad feeling,” she confessed. “But no one there seemed to believe it was anything other than the line they’d been fed! I mean, there was no way. No way that it just happened the way they said it did. You were right, by the way - about the costume. It was a last minute thing. When one of our number couldn’t make it, and one of the course guides tried to bring in outsiders, Sir Gordon had to make the final decision. He researched both of you and decided that a cut flower businesswoman and a conspiracy theorist wouldn’t harm proceedings. He thought that Fergus might even come up with something wacky to further convolute matters. The military uniform and glow paint was supposed to make you think of aliens, or something.” She shrugged and then looked sheepishly at me. “Nothing was ever said about you being some kind of scientist. Sir Gordon should probably have looked harder. I was the one who brought her the tea, by the way. I gave it to her when I told you we had our conversation.”
I considered that and found I was pleased I was only known for my flower business. I’d left my old life working in chemistry behind, and while it did come in handy from time to time, I loved my new life and business.
“As you already guessed, I was Elliot’s lecturer. He had others whilst studying at Nottingham Trent, but we were really rather close. He was the kind of student who would see me after a lecture to clarify things and ask for more information on a topic. I knew back then that he was a student destined for great things. He had that commitment and drive that can only come from within a person.” Eamon shook his head in memory. “To be honest with you, when Elliot passed away I was saddened but had no idea that the story was anything other than the one printed in the papers. I suppose I was sort of headhunted to play my part.” His eyes danced nervously as he stopped himself from fully confessing to poisoning Christine - even though I was certain that he’d been the one to supply the poison, if not the one who’d actually taken her the tea. “Anyway, Sir Gordon reached out and asked me if I’d considered that Elliot’s death might have been something more than an accident caused by poor workmanship. Until that point, I hadn’t even considered it. But he made some excellent points. He promised to keep in touch with me.”
Bella cleared her throat and moved forwards. “You already know that I’m Elliot’s sister. Sir Gordon got in touch with me after I got myself into trouble trying to look into Elliot’s death myself, only during this past year. I kept it quiet because I’d already changed my name and didn’t want anyone to know who I was, but I definitely stepped on a few toes when people involved in the investigation realised I was questioning their work. I just…” She sighed. “…I just couldn’t accept it was an accident, I suppose. I didn’t really have any knowledge about metal-working, or even that my brother had made enemies, I just wanted there to be a better explanation beyond poor craftsmanship and bad luck.” Her breath hitched for a moment. “They said Elliot saved a whole bunch of people by pushing them out of the way when that sculpture fell. My brother had his flaws. He was human like anyone else. But when it really mattered, he always did the right thing.” She bit her lip. “I just wanted to do the right thing, too.” Bella glanced up at her husband who had been pale ever since the truth had started to come out, bit by bit.
“You killed someone!” he said, causing alarm to flash across Bella’s face.
“I didn’t. Not really,” she implored before falling silent.
Rich took a step forward – the last person to speak. Somehow, I knew that it was his story that had brought about all of this.
“Elliot and I were close friends. I first met him as part of a ‘young entrepreneurs’ programme. The programme paired up ambitious young people, and I guess we were two names out of the hat. The idea was that you shared your ups and downs whilst pursuing your own business or sole enterprise and that you acted as support for each other.” Rich’s trademark smile slipped a little. “It started out that way for us, but as our success grew in our respective fields, so did our friendship. I was working in Australia when Elliot died, but I knew immediately that something wasn’t right. Much like Tanya, Elliot had told me that someone was out to get him. Only, with me he’d shared the name of the person he suspected was responsible for the strange things that kept happening to derail his show garden. Christine Montague. When he died because of that freak sculpture accident, I knew there was something off about it. I’d built my professional reputation up by then, and I also strongly believe that the best way to get the truth is to find it yourself. I contacted Christine Montague off
ering to be her PR guy by proving that I was infinitely better than the entire agency she’d hired. Once my visa was sorted, I came over and worked for a woman I suspected might have had something to do with Elliot’s death.” He ran a hand through his tawny hair. “After everything I went through to get that job, it was almost too easy to find out that Elliot had been right all along. Christine figured out pretty quickly that I was the best member of her team, so we worked closely together.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose she must have imagined that she was safe to speak plainly to her staff. She used to heavily hint about the lengths she would go to - to not only be the most in demand high-end landscaper out there, but to take out her competition along the way. I guess if I hadn’t already had the idea that she’d had something to do with what happened to Elliot, I might have assumed she only meant it figuratively. Even with all of my heart wanting there to be a good reason, one beyond carelessness, for what happened to my friend, I kept an open mind. The closer I got to Christine, the more troubling information I was able to learn. When we were preparing for this year’s Chelsea, I found some records from previous years lying on her desk. I looked through and discovered that the year of Elliot’s death, she, too, had commissioned reclaimed metal sculptures from the Culverts.”
I nodded. I’d been right about that educated guess.
“But it was only when I stumbled upon her original garden design that I discovered something significant. When Christine had first planned her show garden, it had featured a reclaimed sculpture as the centrepiece. In the final design there were just two small sculptures that featured in the garden. I asked Christine why her design had changed, claiming I’d happened upon the file and been curious. She told me herself that the Culverts had refused to take on the commission because they’d already been booked by Elliot Harving to create a centrepiece for his show garden.” Rich lifted and dropped his shoulders. “Garden design is more competitive than people imagine. I’m sure it would have been a coup for Elliot to have beaten Christine to the punch. But I believe the Culverts’ honour was to be their downfall.” He sucked air through his teeth for a moment. “I tried. I tried so hard to find evidence that would bring Christine down, but she wasn’t that careless. Christine was paranoid when it came to business - and for good reason. It was only when I pushed to get even closer to her and we actually went out for dinner that I discovered her background in structural engineering. I was actually surprised when she casually dropped it into conversation in the first challenge! Apparently, building things was what led to her appreciation for gardens that had a form and a balance. It had always marked her as different from the rest, who were inspired by the plants they used. That was when I really started to suspect that Christine was behind it - just as Elliot had suspected. Someone trained in structural engineering would have known the weak point in a sculpture, and with two smaller sculptures commissioned by the Culverts, she would have had every opportunity to visit their workshop and sabotage her competitor’s centrepiece. But that wasn’t what made me certain. It was a different incidence of Christine’s brand of foul play. It was another case of her devious nature and she never admitted to any of it, but one comment made prior to Hampton Court Flower Show stuck with me. She’d read in the paper about a horticultural event abroad that had experienced a bomb scare. Something about it struck her as amusing and she shared it with me saying something like ‘Wouldn’t that be a hoot!’. Then, at the show itself, an unattended suspicious item was reported by an anonymous visitor. It just so happened to be next to a competitor Christine had spent the previous two weeks complaining about. The bomb squad was called in when it looked like the item did have the potential to be explosive. It was only later that the bag was found to contain some of her rival’s garden supplies, as well as a small homemade explosive device - making it look like this competitor had problems within her company.”
“You think Christine actually made the explosive?” I knew that everyone present strongly believed that Christine had been responsible for Elliot’s death, but I wanted to know just how much evidence they possessed. Had they murdered an innocent woman? Well, not exactly innocent, I mentally corrected, having deduced from Rich’s story that she’d definitely had a mean streak and a ridiculously unsporting approach to business - but that didn’t necessarily make her a killer who’d got away with murder.
“I wasn’t certain until I heard more about the so-called device. It wasn’t really an explosive but some thermite and a little gunpowder to make it go bang. It’s simple enough to make if you have access to the materials. The choice struck me - again, it was because of Christine’s structural engineering history. She would know how to make, or get, thermite, and she would have known for sure what it would do if it were… say… placed over a weld and ignited by magnesium with a timed trigger so small that the heat of the thermite would completely destroy it.”
“Hang on… thermite burns brightly,” I said, knowing the way it worked from years spent studying chemistry at university. “If thermite had been ignited at Chelsea Flower Show I’m sure people would have noticed.”
Rich inclined his head. “It wasn’t actually detonated when anyone would have been around to witness. I think it happened the night before. It would account for the way it made the metal look like a weld failed. Thermite would burn straight through it. The reclaimed metal and the fact it had actually been welded before would have made it appear as though nothing untoward had happened beyond human error. The metal itself couldn’t even have been analysed properly because it would have had traces of all kinds of things on it. I mean, these sculptures look like rust-covered relics, tacked together with welds and rivets! It’s no wonder that the investigators didn’t look very far.”
“You’re saying that Christine didn’t deliberately plan to murder Elliot?” I wanted to get that clear.
Rich looked awkward for a second. “No. But she’d have known there was potential for people to get hurt – badly hurt! She would have known that thing would fall apart at some point after the thermite had done its work. She just didn’t care. The bomb scare was the same. What if someone had picked up that device before the bomb squad got there? The thermite could have ignited and caused a serious injury. Even death!”
“Even though she may never have intended to actually kill Elliot, she never came forward to confess to what she’d done or to get the Culverts out of the mess they were put in,” Sylvia pointed out.
“She never showed any remorse for any of her actions,” Rich jumped in again. “We gave her one last chance. Christine loved hidden meanings. She used to delight in picking plants that secretly insulted clients she didn’t like. That was really as far as her interest in actual horticulture went – the so-called ‘language of flowers’. You know the rest. She ignored the warning. We gave her a chance.”
I looked around at a face marked by anger and grief. I didn’t personally believe that revenge was ever a good idea. Six people had potentially just thrown their lives away to settle a score.
The snapdragons and their hidden meaning of ‘deception’, marked with the name ‘Harving’, had been her last chance to tell a truth they all believed she’d been hiding. Christine Montague had tried to seek Fergus’ help, but I knew that Fergus had been as repulsed by her as a person as I was. There’d been something rotten about Christine Montague that I thought I’d sensed when I first met her. I was surprised to find myself thinking along those lines. In the past, I would always have discounted anything labelled as a ‘gut feeling’. It was hardly an evidence based approach to life, but perhaps I was changing with Fergus’ influence. And from our conversation beneath the stars, I thought he might be changing, too.
“There you go. That’s the story. As much as you need of it anyway. The question now, is what happens next?” Rich looked sad when he said it, but I felt no aggression from him.
“I’ll accept punishment for what I’ve done. I’d do it again in a heartbeat! She was evil. Pure evil! At least our act
ions will make people ask the right questions. Perhaps one day the whole truth will be found… somehow,” Bella said.
Rich shook his head. “I don’t believe it. I spent two years working with that hag and trying to find the truth in the proper way. It doesn’t exist. She had too many years of experience at playing these kinds of games. Perhaps someone with more patience might have said that karma would one day catch up with her but I am okay with playing karma’s role. I don’t mind facing retribution for this.”
There were murmurs of assent from around the room.
Duncan coughed, causing everyone to turn and look at him. “I… I think I understand now. I understand more about you,” he said, turning to Bella. “I’m so sorry about your brother. I just wish you’d told me. I would have stayed by your side. Always.”
“You would?” Bella said, beaming from ear to ear. “Oh… Duncan!” She hugged him close to her.
“It doesn’t really seem fair,” Jack said, breaking the silence and then blushing when the group’s attention rested on him. “It’s just… the way I see it, if this is all true, then the woman you killed really had it coming. She was a terrible person and you were all hurt so much by what she did. It makes sense. I’m just saying, it seems super unfair that she got away with it in the first place and that there was nothing that could get her to confess to it all.”
“Too bad the law doesn’t condone vigilante justice,” Fergus called from somewhere else in the room. “Trust me on that one…”
I decided not to pry further right now.
“So… I guess we should enjoy our freedom for the last couple of hours,” Rich said with a little smile. “You’re going to the police, right?” There was a challenge in his voice that I didn’t like, but I already knew exactly what he was asking me.
