by Ruby Loren
I considered everything and looked around at the group. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Was murder still murder if the person really had it coming to them? I knew the answer was yes. And yet, here we were separated from the normal world and perhaps even (momentarily) in charge of our own justice.
I released the breath I’d been holding whilst I thought. “The way I see it, there are two options as to how we can help the police to solve Christine Montague’s untimely death. The first scenario is that an intruder managed to break-in to the compound. They picked Christine’s room because of its open window. Christine woke up and saw the intruder. The post-mortem will reveal that she actually died of a heart attack. Whilst she was dying from heart failure, her intruder callously stabbed her with a fork, stolen from the property’s shed, and then abandoned in the room next door when the callous intruder tried their luck in Sylvia’s bedroom, before her scream caused them to flee down a corridor where they somehow made their escape through a door we’d all imagined was locked.” I sucked in more air. “Or, you come clean and the truth comes out for everyone.” I wasn’t sure how the police would go about making a case against six different killers - especially when only one had actually done the killing. And who was to blame for her death anyway? Was it Eamon for supplying the poison or Tanya for taking it in to Christine? This case would be more of a nightmare than the original investigation that the police had bungled so badly. Not to mention there was scant evidence beyond my word, the tainted teabag, and the items we’d taken from the floor. The flowers would be dead and the message lost by now. There would be nothing beyond a vague connection to Elliot Harving to tie any of Christine’s killers to the crime. They had been careful to not be in contact with each other prior to this trip and I was sure that Sir Gordon Laird, the man responsible for setting this entire scenario up, would not have held on to any evidence, beyond his launching of the course and his invitations to a select few who had applied - apparently randomly - to attend this exclusive course.
I wasn’t sure how the police would ever put the pieces together.
“I vote for option A,” Rich said, his dark eyes looking seriously into mine. I thought I saw a flash of regret there and realised his mind was no longer on the murder. I turned away and focused on the rest of the group.
“I don’t think it’s right for anyone to get into trouble. These people got the justice that they wanted. I think that sometimes the law and what’s right don’t match up,” Lorna spoke up before turning to look at Jack. He merely nodded his agreement.
“Fergus?!” I called, not seeing him anywhere.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, right. Option A sounds like much less hassle. Crimes committed at random are very tough to solve, which means they’re dropped quickly. None of us wants to be dragged through the courts…” His voice trailed off. Apparently that was all Fergus had to say on the matter.
“I think we have a consensus,” I said, feeling as though a weight had lifted from my shoulders. Looking around, I suspected that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“Dash it all! The challenge!” Eamon said, returning us all to the crazy world of extreme floristry with a bump.
A buzzer sounded a second after he said it. We all winced and looked around, wondering what terrible punishment was about to smite us.
“Don’t all thank me at once, but haven’t we got a final challenge to attend to?” Fergus drawled from the doorway that had just opened up.
There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone looked from Fergus to the judging table at the ten finished funeral wreaths.
“No way,” Rich said, saying what we were all thinking.
“While you were talking I realised someone needed to finish the darn things.” Fergus shrugged self-deprecatingly when the group belatedly heaped praise on him for his work.
I was last through the doorway into the final challenge room. I hesitated on the threshold next to Fergus. “Are we doing the right thing?” I asked, my eyes searching his face for an answer.
“The right thing is subjective when applied to a question of morality rather than one of science,” Fergus said in complete seriousness.
I stared at him and he grinned. “It is quite fun, isn’t it? Being the logical one.”
I rolled my eyes at him, feeling the strange moment break along with Fergus’ false serious veneer. “If that was an impression of me, it was a terrible one.”
We looked towards the group, who’d congregated around the table of snacks that had been laid out prior to the next challenge beginning. “In all seriousness, I think we did what was best, given the circumstances. Yes, it would have been better for everyone if Elliot Harving’s death had been more thoroughly investigated and Christine had slipped up and been found guilty of her many supposed sabotage attempts - which I think are all plausible when you add the many unlikely coincidences together,” he added, comforting me somewhat. “I’m willing to bet we’ve spent more quality time with those six murderers than a lot of people spend with them in a year. Do they strike you as evil, or in need of punishment? They’ve already punished themselves enough ever since their loved ones died. Yes, they acted out of anger and a desire for retribution. I’m not saying they did a good thing, or that it was right, but I also don’t think that six lives - eight, if you include poor old Duncan and the man who allegedly set this whole thing up - should be ruined because of the death of a woman who, by all accounts, will not be greatly missed.”
“But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything good about her,” I protested, trying to say something in Christine’s favour.
Fergus’ dark eyes drew me in for a second. “You always try to see the best in everyone, even when they’re terrible. It will get you into trouble. Sometimes there really is no good in a person. They’ve gone too far down a track to consider turning back. I think you know exactly what kind of person Christine Montague was.” Fergus lightly brushed a hand across my arm, before he went and joined the throng at the snack table. I found I appreciated the effort to continue our conversation for as long as it had lasted - given that I knew he would have wanted to be first to the food. Some things about Fergus would never change, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My gaze was inexorably drawn back to the row of funeral flowers finished by Fergus and laid out on the table like a final farewell. A shiver crawled up my spine when I thought about the body in the bedroom and the morbid choice of the previous unusual floristry challenge. He would have known that Christine Montague would be dead by this time. Had this challenge been a subtle apology for actions borne out of anger, or had it been a sick joke?
I turned away from the wreaths and was glad when I heard the door slide closed behind me, shutting out the funeral scene. I wanted nothing more to do with death for a long, long time.
12
A Tricky Customer
The final challenge was, as promised, a combination of everything we were supposed to have learned on the course. We each had to make two arrangements - a bouquet displayed in a vase and a more sculptural piece, using a block of Oasis we were encouraged to carve ourselves. I sincerely hoped that no one decided to make anything that even slightly resembled another funeral wreath.
At first, we all went about our work in silence, picking the seasonal flowers and greenery for the bouquet or sculptural display and then working on a theme of complimentary colours for the other. After the minutes stretched the first chatters broke out as people began talking amongst themselves. I glanced across at Fergus and discovered he was working on something that didn’t look half bad.
“Will you stop looking at me in surprise?” he commented, and somehow, that seemed to open the floodgates of normality. The rest of the surprisingly relaxed challenge harked back to the way things had been prior to Christine’s murder. When we finally lined up our bouquets and displays, I noticed that everyone’s looked great - professional, even. Somehow, against all of the odds, we’d learned a lot about flower arranging o
ver these past three days. The course’s concept of learning under pressure did seem to ring true.
When Lorna triumphantly pushed the button next to the time lock, it immediately stopped with one hour to go, before letting out a cheerful sounding buzzer and swinging open. I spared a thought about what might have happened if we’d been late, but sometimes it was better to not solve every mystery you came across in life.
As soon as we were out of the course, and reunited with the box of mobile phones that had been left in the first room where we’d first met, Lorna called the police and reported Christine Montague’s murder. The police arrived in the next fifteen minutes and the questioning began.
It wasn’t too difficult to stick to the story in the end. If it had been an intruder, we would all have known so little anyway. We’d all agreed that smashed cup of tea and the bag should be missing when the police entered the room, but the rest would stay the same. Well - apart from the evidence Fergus and I had already removed!
The police were just beginning to ask some trickier questions about how a potential intruder would be able to access the secure compound when Sir Gordon Laird arrived. He was a large man with an impressive ginger and grey moustache and a refined sense of fashion.
“What’s all this to do about then?” he asked after sweeping in and immediately becoming the centre of attention. Nothing in his expression hinted that he had any idea of the happenings at Fennering Bunker, but I knew that he probably had more of an idea of how the pieces fitted together than any of us here. He’d been the one who’d organised the entire murder of Christine Montague.
I suddenly realised that I wasn’t sure why Sir Gordon himself had been so interested in Elliot Harving.
The police explained what had happened and then repeated their questions about how an intruder would be able to access the secure compound.
“I can answer that,” Sir Gordon said, his face appropriately grave. “I was already on my way here because of a report that the exterior fence had been damaged. With the course due to end, my caretaker was able to inspect the outside and called me immediately. The others have already explained the nature of the course and the banning of all outside communication?”
“Yes, that’s very unusual, isn’t it?” the lead detective enquired.
Sir Gordon waved a hand in his face. “Not at all. It’s scientifically proven! In this day and age it’s so easy to be distracted by social media and the internet and whatnot. This course takes all of that away and piles on the pressure. It results in new skills being learned and, most importantly, remembered. I’m as excited as anyone to see the final pieces that the group produced,” he said, beaming round at all of us, as if we weren’t in the midst of a murder enquiry.
“Jenkins! Did you take down the description of the person that Ms Flowers saw fleeing the scene?” the detective barked, determined to take back control of the situation.
“Yes Sir! Uh… military uniform and glowing.”
“Glowing?” The detective fixed me with a look of pure disdain. “I hope you’re not suggesting…”
“That it was the work of an extraterrestrial visitor? I’m impressed you know so much about the illustrious history of this bunker,” Fergus said, neatly sliding into the conversation at exactly the right moment.
“Preposterous!” The detective squinted at Fergus. “Don’t I know you? I feel as though we’ve met…” He made a humming noise, quite unselfconsciously, as he worked to recall Fergus’ face. “I’ve got it! I’ve had to caution you for trespassing. Weren’t you trying to break-in to this very bunker?!”
Fergus didn’t look even slightly abashed. “Yes, but this time, I was invited.”
“But you have prior experience!” the detective protested, looking like he believed he was onto something.
“Sirs, if I remember correctly, he failed every time,” Sir Gordon jovially contributed. “And he is correct. This time, he was invited.”
“I thought this was an exclusive floristry event? Surely you can’t have believed that a man who wanted to trespass on your property to hunt for aliens would have any genuine interest?” The detective was growing incredulous.
“I wasn’t hoodwinked in the slightest! I knew his companion was a bonafide business woman, and just the sort we wanted to try out the new course, but to be perfectly frank, I wanted someone who was completely uninterested in floristry to be put through their paces. How did you fare in the end, Fergus?”
“He’s very good!” I said, unable to hide my smile at Fergus’ grudging expression. “I’m considering employing him to make wreaths as an expansion for my business.”
“Not for any money!”
“That’s very kind of you. I’m sure I could pay you in biscuits?” I said, deliberately misunderstanding him.
Whilst the conversation descended into petty sniping, the police tried to find more answers but were left as at sea as we’d all hoped. There was no mention of Elliot Harving, and I knew there never would be. With no connection to Christine found in the original case there was no chance that a connection would be found in this one. I’d only been able to follow the path of truth myself because of a wilted snapdragon. I knew that now it would be no more than a dead stem with black curled petals. No one would ever find the message written in marker pen and the police would forever search for the mystery intruder who’d committed a murder.
In years to come, I had no doubt that the unsolved mystery of Christine Montague’s murder would join the other conspiracy theories that surrounded Fennering Bunker.
“So… did you really feel that you all learned something?” Sir Gordon asked when the police finally excused us all to continue their examination of the scene of the crime.
We all looked round at each other, considering it properly for the first time. All of a sudden, my brain was full of the advice we’d been given on arranging, seasonal flowers, the importance of giving customers what they wanted, but without compromising your own standards, and much more besides.
“Yes, I did,” I said, and my reply was echoed around the group.
Sir Gordon beamed. “Fantastic! Thank you for the feedback. I’m sure this course will be very successful in the future for all who attend. I’ll have feedback forms sent out in the week to get your more in depth responses.” He clapped his hands together. “Wonderful!”
“Sorry, but, don’t you think a murder might put people off? Or attract more people like Fergus?” I added.
“Hey!” Fergus protested.
Sir Gordon smiled benevolently. “Well, I’m not sure that there is any such thing as bad publicity. Although, what happened here was tragic, no doubt.” He lowered his voice so that any nearby police wouldn’t hear. “Almost as tragic as what befell the young man with big dreams that I once employed to redesign my garden several years ago. It was his first project you know.” He looked seriously at me for a moment, and I realised that either someone had told him that I’d figured out the truth, or perhaps he was just guessing and saying something that would make no sense to someone with no idea. I shot him a knowing look and he seemed satisfied.
At least now I had my answer. Sir Gordon had given a young man a chance. He’d seen Elliot’s potential before anyone else and then he’d seen that potential taken from him. I understood why Sir Gordon and the others had sought a kind of justice that would otherwise have eluded them.
Moments later we were dismissed by the police, but advised to stay contactable in the probable case of further questions. Everyone had played the part they’d hoped to play all along.
I sincerely doubted that the police would ever find the mysterious intruder who had murdered Christine Montague over a few pieces of jewellery. The only person who might have been able to understand such a petty and greed-driven motivation was the one lying dead in her room.
Life returned to normal remarkably quickly after the strange few days spent away. I found myself appreciating having the option to contact other people and being able to find out
what was in the news, but I still wasn’t actually tempted to become more sociable. The time spent with the people on the course had been intense enough for me to not want to see people again for a very long time.
Dogs were a different matter.
Diggory had been very happy to see me when I’d picked him up. His doggy grin had only faded when I’d been told about all of the trouble he’d got up to whilst Fergus and I had been away.
With the autumn colours slowly giving way to Christmas greens, my mind was firmly focused on what I could do to expand my business. Most of my work came from the flyers I’d handed out and posted around the village, and from word of mouth. A few people found my website and there were more who saw me at the market and booked me for events, but beyond those profitable occasions, I spent a lot of time twiddling my thumbs. Big events were great for the books, but they came with a lot of stress and the need to always be answering to the commissioner’s desires - just as we’d been taught on the flower arranging course. I realised that if I wanted my business to really bloom, I needed to add something more. Something that wasn’t always dictated by the client.
I thought I had just the idea.
I often found that I was left with surplus flowers that didn’t always suit the event organiser’s tastes. A lot of the other flowers I grew I took to the markets I attended, but in all honesty, that was a lot of hard work. Something about the flower arranging course had inspired me, and it was in the days that followed that I came up with the idea of the subscription bouquet service. Every week I had a whole bunch of flowers that were beautiful, but homeless. If I offered bouquets at a reasonable price and with free delivery… it could just catch on!
I relied on florists for some of my income, as I supplied them with flowers, but I could also see the benefits of cutting out the middle man. For around half the price of a florist, I worked out I could post flowers for people to arrange themselves. With my flower arranging course learned skills, I could also include some tips on how to arrange the bouquets that arrived in the little boxes I’d already found online. I was so excited by the idea, I’d called up Fergus and asked him to come over, so that I could share the news with someone.
