‘That’s all that he seems to be complaining about. So far anyway,’ trumpeted the superintendent. ‘He said he’d tell us more when we got there.’
At this Sloan sighed again, his superior officer being given to using the royal ‘We’ only when he had no intention of doing any of the work himself.
‘Right, sir,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll get out there straightaway.’ The distinction between open and closed doors as far as crime was concerned was one beloved by insurance companies but disliked by those whose duty it was to frame charges – ‘breaking and entering’ was only one of them – when doors had been closed. Doors left open were quite a different ball game when it came to insurers and policemen alike.
‘Two open doors and a broken fence so far,’ repeated Leeyes, ever the pessimist. ‘I’m told the man seemed a bit guarded on the phone.’
Sloan cleared his throat and in carefully neutral tones asked his superior officer if the police had any further information about either case. There were other – and indisputably really criminal – cases on his own desk awaiting his attention that were – would seem to be, anyway, he added a silent caveat of his own – more urgent than open doors and elderly ladies on the loose.
‘Was there, for instance, anything stolen at the nursery, sir?’ he enquired.
‘No, Sloan, nothing at all.’ The superintendent gave the message sheet another wave. ‘It would appear from information received that theft would not seem to have been what whoever left the doors open had in mind since nothing would appear to have been taken.’ He sniffed. ‘What exactly was the object of the exercise is presumably too soon to say.’
‘I’d better have some names,’ said Sloan, taking a pencil out of his pocket and suppressing any references to gross carelessness that sprang to his mind. ‘And their addresses, sir, please.’
‘The missing person is an Enid Maude Osgathorp of Canonry Cottage, Church Street, Pelling,’ said Leeyes. ‘And man is Haines – a Jack Haines.’
‘Jack Haines? Not the nurseryman?’ Sloan’s pencil stayed poised in his hand above his notebook.
‘That’s him. At Pelling too.’ Leeyes, an urban man if ever there was one, sniffed. ‘Back of beyond.’
‘Ah.’ Detective Inspector Christopher Dennis Sloan, who was known as ‘Seedy’ to his family and friends, had lived in the small market town of Berebury all his life. In his spare time he was a keen gardener and thus knew most of the nurseries for miles around. This one was out in the far reaches of the Calleshire countryside.
‘None other. Proprietor of that big outfit on the Calleford road there.’
‘What sort of doors?’ asked Sloan, his attention now thoroughly engaged. This was different. Jack Haines was a nurseryman on a substantial scale, well known to professional and amateur gardeners alike and not above, when in a mellow frame of mind, dispensing his expertise to both. ‘I mean doors to where exactly?’
‘Greenhouses, Sloan.’
‘Ah, I understand now.’ Any gardener knew that that was something quite different too. ‘Right, sir. I’ve got that. Greenhouse doors at the nursery.’
‘Left open overnight, or,’ Leeyes added ominously, ‘deliberately opened during the hours of darkness.’
‘I understand.’ Sloan nodded, tacitly agreeing that this was different too. There was another distinction, as well, one between criminal activity that took place in the hours of darkness as opposed to in daylight – a distinction that went back to what was engagingly known as ‘time out of mind’ – but was still important in law.
‘When no one was supposed to be there anyway,’ amplified Leeyes, adding the automatic caveat, policeman that he was, ‘or so the owner says.’
‘I see, sir.’ Because Sloan was an off-duty gardener himself he was beginning to be aware where this might be leading. ‘And, of course, there was quite a frost last night …’ He knew this because he’d only just pruned his own floribunda roses and when he had woken in the morning he had seen the hoary ground. He had hoped, then, that he hadn’t done it too late in the season and wondered, as he did every year, whether he should have done the job in the autumn instead. Horticultural opinion was divided but ‘the later the pruning the bigger the bush’ was something on which everyone was agreed.
‘There was. A really heavy one, too, for early March.’ Superintendent Leeyes grunted and consulted the message sheet again. ‘He says that Russell Aqueel – he’s their foreman out there – came on as usual this morning at seven o’clock and found one entire greenhouse full of baby orchids and another one of young other plants killed off.’
‘Not good, sir,’ agreed Sloan. Nothing might have been stolen but even so there was undoubtedly loss involved. Heavy loss, certainly: crime, as well, if there had been a break-in. It was too soon to say. ‘Were the doors usually locked? Or, rather, had they been locked last night?’
‘You don’t lock greenhouses,’ said the superintendent irritably.
Detective Inspector Sloan forbore to say that you did if they contained valuable plants. He said instead, ‘I’d heard that Jack had some young orchids that he’s been growing out there. He’s a bit of a specialist in them. Are they all right?’
‘No, they’re not,’ Leeyes came back quickly. ‘And judging from his present state of mind I should think he’s pretty well lost the lot.’
‘That’s bad,’ said Sloan. ‘They must have been worth a packet.’ He looked up and asked, ‘Is Jack Haines talking about malice aforethought?’
‘Jack Haines,’ came back the superintendent impressively, ‘is talking about sabotage. You’d better get out there and see him, pronto. And you can take that dim-witted constable, Crosby, with you. We may be short-staffed but I still don’t want him here all day upsetting the civilian staff.’
‘No, sir, of course not,’ Sloan hastily agreed with this sentiment. Both men knew without saying that the superintendent was referring to Mrs Mabel Murgatroyd, the civilian staff supervisor, a lady of a certain age who took the view that uniformed policemen were an illiterate bunch who got in the way of the important work of the clerical staff.
When told about it, Detective Constable Crosby viewed the prospect of a journey far out into the hinterland with evident pleasure. Detective Inspector Sloan locked the seat belt of the police car into place with markedly less enthusiasm.
‘There is no hurry, Crosby,’ he said as the car took off at speed. ‘The missing person hasn’t been seen for three weeks and wilted plants don’t run away. We’ll go to the nursery first while any evidence that there might be there is still fresh.’
‘Nobody dead, then?’ said the constable.
‘Not yet,’ said Sloan dryly, averting his eyes from a near miss with a refuse lorry, all public service vehicles being anathema to the constable. ‘It would seem that the only things that are dead to date are plant cuttings and I would like to keep it that way, please.’
It was something on his wish list he was destined to remember for a long time.
‘That you, Anthony?’ Jack Haines had reluctantly picked up the telephone to ring one of his professional customers and he wasn’t enjoying the conversation.
‘It is,’ a throaty voice came down the telephone in reply.
‘It doesn’t sound like you.’
‘Well, it is,’ insisted the voice testily. ‘I’m a bit chesty, that’s all.’
‘It’s Jack Haines from the nursery here.’ Haines groaned inwardly. The last thing he wanted was an Anthony Berra under the weather and in a low mood. ‘I’ve got a bit of bad news for you, I’m afraid.’
‘Tell me.’ Anthony Berra was a thrusting young landscape designer beginning to be very popular with the landed gentry of the county of Calleshire and starting to be quite an important user of the nursery too.
‘You’re not going to like it.’ Haines swallowed uneasily while he waited for the man to finish coughing. Although still with his name to make in the landscape design world, Anthony Berra was nothing if not business-
like and rather formal into the bargain.
‘How bad?’ asked Berra shortly when he had recovered his breath.
‘Bad.’ Jack Haines told him about all the damaged plants in the greenhouses.
‘Good God, man, you don’t mean to say that I’ve lost the lot?’
Gloomily, the nurseryman admitted that the majority of the plants ordered by Berra for his client, Admiral Catterick, and all of those being grown for the Lingards at the Grange were now either dead or dying. ‘And some of those for Benedict Feakins too.’
Anthony Berra took a deep breath and said frostily, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say to the Lingards, Jack, if I can’t get their Mediterranean garden fixed in time for their garden party in June. It was part of their contract with me that it would be.’
‘I’ve been ringing round everywhere trying get replacements,’ Haines admitted, ‘but it won’t be easy. Not at this time of the year.’
‘I shouldn’t think it will,’ retorted Berra crisply, ‘considering the effort I put in to ordering everything exactly as I wanted it for my planting plans for their new project. You don’t pick up plants such as Strelitzia let alone Gardenia and Bouganvillia from any old nursery anywhere in East Calleshire.’
Half-heartedly Jack Haines muttered something about insurance.
‘Mine or yours?’ asked Berra on the instant.
‘Yours,’ said Haines gruffly. ‘I’ve never even insured the orchids. I’ve lost all of them too.’
Anthony Berra wasn’t interested in orchids and made that clear. ‘What I’m interested in, Jack, is that greenhouse of yours that had my plants in it and no, I’m not insured.’
‘Pity.’
‘Actually,’ drawled Berra a little unpleasantly, ‘since I hadn’t actually bought the plants yet I would have thought the loss was entirely yours. Not mine.’
‘I grew them especially for you exactly to your precise order, didn’t I?’ responded Jack Haines, torn between keeping Anthony Berra as a customer and minimising his own loss. ‘Especially those citrus trees and the palms, let alone the Mimosa.’
The landscape designer came back on the instant. ‘I don’t know who left your greenhouse doors open, Jack, and I don’t care, but I can assure you it wasn’t me.’ There was an uneasy pause and then Berra went on in a more mollifying tone, ‘It isn’t quite as easy as that, anyway. You must know what these particular clients of mine are like. I should think the whole village does.’
Jack Haines had to admit that he did know what the Lingards of Pelling Grange were like and so did everyone else in the locality. ‘Not exactly easy people,’ he agreed.
‘Especially the wife,’ added Berra, opening up a little.
‘Quite difficult, actually,’ conceded the nurseryman. There weren’t many people in Pelling who didn’t know all about Major Oswald Lingard’s new wife, Charmian, and her imperious ways. ‘Comes of having the money, I suppose,’ went on Haines. The second Mrs Lingard was rumoured to have brought a small fortune to the marriage. The restoration of the old and long neglected gardens was only one of the changes she was making at Pelling Grange. And to its owner, widower and former soldier, Oswald Lingard too.
‘She thinks she only has to give an order for it to be carried out,’ said the young landscape designer resentfully.
‘And pretty pronto too,’ added Haines, who knew the lady in question all too well. ‘No hanging about with her.’
‘She thinks she knows all about landscape gardening too,’ muttered Anthony Berra, ‘and believe you me she doesn’t.’
‘He’s all right, though,’ said Haines fairly. ‘Been around in Pelling a long time, the Lingards have. I remember his mother. Nice old lady but hardly a bean to her name.’
‘Oh, he’s all right,’ agreed Berra on the instant, ‘although he’s no pushover either what with having been in the Army. What his wife’s going to say, though, if I can’t get the work done on time I can’t begin to think. It sounded to me as if she was going to invite half the county to her precious summer garden party just so that she could show them all her improvements to the old place. Not that they didn’t need doing,’ he added hastily in case the nurseryman should be thinking that he had been making work for himself at the expense of the owners of the Grange. ‘The place was falling apart until she came on the scene.’
‘No money around until then,’ said Jack Haines, making what he hoped were sympathetic noises. Unfortunately the effect of these was somewhat lessened by Mandy Lamb’s loudly calling out that his coffee was getting cold. ‘Poor as church mice for years, the Lingards,’ he added. ‘Until now, of course.’
Anthony Berra’s mind was still running on. ‘You do realise, Jack, don’t you, that my client is going to tell all her Calleshire friends that I’ve let her down. It’s not going to do my reputation in the county any good if I do. Or yours,’ he added ominously.
‘As I told you, Anthony, I’ve already been on to two or three other suppliers to see if they can make good any deficiencies,’ said Haines by way of mitigation. He didn’t mention that he’d already had to swallow his pride and approach his three great business rivals for replacements. ‘And they’re being very helpful.’ This was actually stretching a point since Russ Aqueel had not yet returned to the nursery at Pelling after going round them.
‘I’m not having any old stuff,’ snapped Berra immediately. ‘I’ll have to go over to the Lingards first to tell them and then I’m coming straight over to you to see for myself. If I put anything at all substandard in that garden it’ll all have to come up again and the Lingards won’t pay for that. The fact that the lady’s loaded doesn’t mean she’s going to shell out for rubbish, you know. She’s not silly.’
‘It might just get you through this season, though,’ suggested Jack Haines tentatively.
Anthony Berra wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll just have to go back to the drawing board and revise my overall design, that’s all, and she won’t like that, I can tell you. Not one little bit.’
‘I’m sure we can come to some arrangement about the cost of any replacements,’ began Jack Haines.
Anthony Berra ignored this amende honorable. ‘Do you have any idea at all about who could have done all this damage?’
‘No,’ said Jack Haines quickly.
Much too quickly.
CHAPTER THREE
Jack Haines, tubby and rather more than middle-aged, his complexion an unhealthy shade of red, was still spitting tintacks when the two policemen arrived at his office at the nursery. He barely greeted them before starting on his story. ‘My foreman – that’s Russ Aqueel, who I told the police about, swears he shut up all the greenhouses before he went off last night like he always does,’ he told them heatedly. ‘And he says there was no one around that he could see when he locked the main gate and went home.’ He turned towards a youngish woman with auburn hair sitting at a desk behind him and said over his shoulder. ‘That’s right, Mandy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Jack,’ she said in studiously uninflected tones, ‘that’s exactly what Russ says this time.’
‘Happened before, has it, then?’ asked Detective Constable Crosby chattily.
‘No,’ said Jack Haines.
‘Yes,’ said Mandy Lamb in the same breath.
‘Which?’ demanded Detective Inspector Sloan.
Jack Haines admitted grudgingly ‘All right, I suppose it should be “yes”. It happened once last autumn but there wasn’t anything to speak of in that greenhouse at the time and in any case it wasn’t frosty so it didn’t really matter.’
‘And was there now?’ enquired Crosby brightly.
‘I’ll say,’ Haines growled. ‘Young orchids in one of them – worth a helluva lot of money; and a load of plants in the other that we were mainly growing especially for a local landscape designer.’
‘Is your foreman always the last to leave at the end of the day?’ asked Sloan. All policemen knew that workers who stayed around after everyone else had gone home sometim
es did so for reasons other than earning Brownie points. If they worked in the office the crime of ‘Teeming and Lading’ came to mind; in the yard it was usually that of ‘stocktaking’ of an illicit kind.
‘Well, the girls don’t hang around after leaving time, I can tell you,’ responded Jack Haines warmly. ‘Some of them get picked up by their boyfriends and,’ he raised his eyes to heaven and added piously, ‘who knows who the others get picked up by. I certainly don’t know and I don’t want to.’
‘And the men?’ asked Crosby. ‘Where do they go?’
‘The Crown and Castle pub,’ responded Mandy Lamb before her employer could speak. She pursed her lips. ‘Every night. You’d think some of them haven’t got homes to go to.’
‘Greenhouse work is thirsty work,’ chanted Jack Haines as if reciting a mantra. ‘And hard work too, I give you that. They need to relax a bit after it. Wind down and so forth.’
‘Including Russell Aqueel?’ asked Crosby. ‘Likes his drop, does he?’
The nurseryman nodded whilst his secretary, Mandy Lamb, rolled her eyes expressively.
‘So you think some person or persons unknown broke into your grounds last night and opened a greenhouse door? Is that it?’ Detective Inspector Sloan, not supplicant gardener now but working police officer, had his notebook prominent in his hand.
‘Two doors, actually,’ said Haines heavily. ‘The two greenhouses furthest from the gate. The orchid one and the one with this year’s young plants in.’
‘Funny that,’ observed Detective Constable Crosby to no one in particular.
‘Nothing funny about it,’ snapped the nurseryman on the instant, his colour becoming more choleric by the minute. ‘It’s very serious, especially at this time of the year. It’ll put my customers’ planting plans back a good bit, I can tell you, and that’s only if I can buy in some new stock pretty pronto. It’s much too late in the year to start growing any of it again from scratch here.’
‘These greenhouses,’ began Sloan, himself a greenhouse gardener manqué, ‘what exactly was in them?’
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