When Pru climbed over the stile into the field, she stopped near the BEWARE OF BULL!! sign to get her own bearings and those of the cows. She saw their reddish-brown figures—Guernseys, Mrs. Draycott had said—clustered along a ditch that ran through the field off to the right. Pru altered her course, walking toward a mound of scrubby hawthorn about midway across the field and circling round it.
It was when she’d reached the far side of the patch that she found herself nose-to-nose with a massive ginger-colored bull. His curved horns, although short, appeared quite pointed, and he stared at Pru as if he’d been waiting for her. Pru froze, and the bull snorted.
As a trickle of sweat ran down Pru’s back, the occasional story came to her of a rambler caught out in a field with a bull, and how it was always the rambler who came out the worse for the meeting. A fly buzzed round her face. It landed on her cheek and crawled over her nose, but she didn’t dare move—couldn’t even breathe. At last, the fly lost interest and buzzed over to the bull, who whipped his tail round as his massive tongue snaked up to each nostril. Pru began to back up so slowly she couldn’t quite be sure she was moving at all, but apparently she was, because the bull noticed. He observed her movement and took one step forward. Then, across the field, one of the cows bellowed. The bull’s head rose, and he loped off.
The bull didn’t give Pru another glance as he joined the cows, but still, she continued her journey walking backward, making her way slowly across the rest of the field, all eyes on the Guernseys. At last, she scrambled up the slope and leapt over the stile, dashing a few yards for good measure before her legs gave way entirely and she sank to the ground against a stone wall, her head in her hands. She panted and tried to stop shaking. She’d laugh about this, she told herself. Later.
At last her heart rate slowed to normal. She lifted her head to rest it against the cool stone and saw, sitting above her atop the low wall, a fox.
He had black-stockinged legs, a pale bushy tail, and a slender snout. His pointed ears stood up as he cocked his head at her.
Pru heard Lizzy Sprackling say, “Mr. Tod, what have you found there?”
Mr. Tod—of course. Pru’s mother had read every Beatrix Potter story to her over and over until Pru could read them herself—including The Tale of Mr. Tod.
Mr. Tod jumped off the wall into his own garden and Pru clambered up, brushing dirt off her bottom and calling “Good morning” to Lizzy, who, until she raised her head, was only an enormous hat and pink Wellies. “Mr. Tod found me. I was taking a rest—catching my breath after getting a bit too close to that bull.” Pru nodded her head in the direction of the field.
Lizzy barked a laugh. “Old Custard? I doubt he could hurt you if he tried. I don’t think he does the cows much good any longer.”
“Custard? Is that his name?” Pru laughed, too, although she considered “harmless” a matter of opinion and resolved to take a route twice as long in the future to avoid the bull. She nodded to the fox. “The other day, I thought Mr. Tod was a dog—how did he come to be your pet?”
Lizzy reached down and gave Mr. Tod a long stroke down his back. “His mum was run over in the lane here a year ago summer—the car didn’t even stop. There are some who don’t think our wild creatures worth a second look.”
“How awful,” Pru murmured, looking down at the fox, who looked back at her.
Lizzy peered out from under her brim and down the lane. “I was moving her out of the road, and as I did, I saw this little fellow watching me from the grassy verge. He stayed round and I offered him food, and next thing you know, we’re friends. He would never have made it on his own, he was too young.”
“Well, Mr. Tod,” Pru said, “you’re a lucky fellow.”
“So what did you think?” Lizzy asked. “Glebe House. Did you meet Batty?”
“Stunning—well, with some work, stunning once again. I haven’t met Mr. Bede yet, but I’m doing my background research. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk with me about what you remember.”
“Looking for stories, are you?” Lizzy asked. Pru thought she could see a smile under the awning of a hat. “How about the time a load of the wrong stone got delivered? The lorry tried to turn into the drive, but Batty stood blocking it, and the lorry got stuck reversing out, and it took three hours to sort it all. Or the time some fellow wanted to buy the meadows below Glebe House and build an industrial park? Batty caught him out there with his tripod and transit and what-have-you and near chased him all the way to Gloucester.”
“Yes.” Pru smiled. “Yes, that’s just what I’d love to hear.”
It came to her in that moment—a flash of inspiration that sent a current through her veins. She—Pru—would write the book about the gardens at Glebe House. She thought of the primary sources and contemporary accounts available to her, material rife with both fact and anecdotes. The story of a time and a man and his partner and the most amazing garden.
The vision faded—but did not altogether disappear—as she floated back to earth and heard Lizzy’s voice.
“I’ve a load of stories I could tell. You stop by anytime, and we’ll have a proper old chin wag.”
—
The empty graveled yard at Glebe House lay empty. Where was Coral’s car? Oh yes—Pru then remembered Coral had said midday, not midmorning. Still, to be courteous, Pru went through the motions and knocked on the door of the gardener’s shed. When there was no answer, she peeked inside just to make sure. Perhaps, Pru thought, this would be a good day to meet Mr. Bede? Emboldened by Lizzy’s casual reference to him, Pru lost her reserve and marched over to the front door of the house. She could, at the least, introduce herself—after all, she worked for the man.
The front door—oak with scrolled wrought-iron hinges—had an enormous, round bronze knocker, which took the form of a man’s face with leaves coming out of his mouth, eyes, and ears. A Green Man—she leaned close to take in the details of the handiwork. Everything done with such care.
Pru lifted the ring, but held it for a moment, gathering up her courage. Go on, she urged herself, and then rapped twice—listening to the rich, solid reverberation through the wood and echoes from within. She waited. No one came. She considered knocking again, if only for the satisfaction of hearing it once more, but lost her nerve. It wouldn’t do to disturb Mr. Bede if he didn’t want to be disturbed, and Pru had more of the garden to see. Coral could catch her up when she arrived. Pru went to the far gate—the one that avoided the courtyard off the back of the house—and entered the garden.
It was then she heard the crash—not the crash of broken dishes, but a pounding and cracking noise, loud and solid, repeated three times. It sounded like rock work. Pru paused. Had Mr. Bede brought in more workers—were they already draining the pond or resetting stones along the Thyme Walk?
“Hello?” she called loudly. “Coral?” Coral might be overseeing the work—as unlikely as that seemed. But the only reply—two more cracks.
Pru turned back, walked to the courtyard, and noticed the French doors stood open. She tiptoed closer.
“Coral? Mr. Bede?” she asked, quieter.
She looked into a large bedroom. It had a four-poster bed, covers mussed, a table lamp still glowing, and a pile of books at hand along with a glass, cup and saucer, and several pill bottles. Against the opposite wall was a separate seating area with a fireplace. The room stood empty.
Where was Mr. Bede? The combination of the missing invalid, missing Coral, and a house left open and empty set Pru’s nerves on high alert. Had the old man got it into his head to do a bit of gardening himself?
The cracking sound recommenced, and she flinched.
“Hello?” Pru yelled, running out of the courtyard. “Coral? Who is here?”
She dashed to the opening of the Thyme Walk, saw no one, and flew down the path. She had a clear view of the Long Walk—empty—and so went off to her left, where lay more of the garden rooms. She called repeatedly as she ran, stopping to look through yew
archways into each room—“Coral? Mr. Bede? Hello?” No one answered. Pru held up at the Pool Garden to get her bearings, and next she heard not a cracking sound, but a heavy thud.
Down another path. White Garden, Acer Corner. When she reached the yew arch at the entrance to the Herb Garden, she glanced in and paused. Something had changed. From her vantage point atop three steps, it took her only a moment to see that the statue she had dubbed Pliny the Elder had toppled—the base still sitting atop the plinth, the statue had landed on its head. And although the radiating beds were jammed with out-of-control shrubs, she had no trouble at all seeing that when the statue had gone down, it had pinned someone beneath it.
Betony (Stachys officinalis)—Pleasing wildflower or universal cure-all? Quite the best cultivar is Hummelo—bright magenta, larger inflorescences, longer blooming. I choose ornament and leave the business of healing to the doctors—after all, as the Italians say, “Where grows betony, can the physician be far behind?” BB
Chapter 11
Pru dropped her bag and ran to him, tripping over the rosemary and staggering until she dropped to her knees at his side. For it was a man—a tall, thin, elderly man, wearing a navy silk dressing gown over pajamas. It was Mr. Bede. He lay sprawled on his back, his eyes closed. His skin had a gray cast, and his glasses, half off, had a broken temple. The stone statue lay across his chest, and he didn’t move.
“Mr. Bede?” Her voice shook as she knelt down and touched his cheek. Cold. “Mr. Bede? Can you hear me?” Her hand hovered above his neck before she inhaled sharply and then pressed the spot next to his windpipe. No pulse. Nothing.
Pru whipped her head round. She was alone, but she had heard noises that sounded like stone and now, here in the Herb Garden, a statue that had stood upright the day before had crushed a man to death.
She dug for her phone but couldn’t lay her hands on it, and in frustration turned out her canvas bag onto the steps and scrabbled through papers and purse and pencils and hair clips until she located it.
The call to Christopher went directly to his voicemail and Pru cursed the lack of reception at the Copper Beech B&B. She rang the landline.
“Mrs. Draycott, I need to speak with Christopher. Is he there?”
“Mr. Pearse is hard at work on that pesky drain, Ms. Parke, and I believe may be digging his way out at this moment. Shall I have him ring you when he’s free?”
“Now—I need to speak with him now. Please.”
The words or Pru’s tone made it perfectly clear to Mrs. Draycott that there was no time to waste, and in less than ten seconds she heard the landlady urging Christopher. “No, it doesn’t matter about the mud, take the phone.”
“Pru?”
“I’m fine,” she said. Pru had learned it was best to let him know that immediately. “It’s Mr. Bede—he’s dead. I found him in the Herb Garden. A statue fell on him. And there’s no one around. At least, not now—I think there was someone around earlier. I can’t find Coral and—I don’t know, Christopher, it’s odd.”
“I’m on my way. Go out to the road and wait for me.”
“No, I’ll stay with him—he’s all alone.” Pru looked down at the body. “It’s all right,” she added, “there’s no blood.” If there had been, she wouldn’t have been up for hanging about—and she knew Christopher knew that. Yet when she said the words, another meaning seemed to lurk beneath their surface.
“You don’t see any—” He stopped himself. “I’ll be ten minutes—I’ve got to change, I’m covered in mud and I don’t want to—” He stopped again. “Don’t touch anything.”
—
Pru moved a few feet away from the corpse to a small backless bench next to the tangled stems of a dead salvia. Christopher’s reaction—a policeman’s reaction—cleared her mind and set her to the task of gathering facts to lay before him when he arrived. Why did she tell him Mr. Bede’s death was odd? What did she see?
She saw Pliny the Elder, keeled over, the base of the statue still resting on the plinth, what had been the feet now a pile of rubble. There, that was odd, because when she had first seen it—only the day before—the statue seemed stable with no damage to its feet.
Her eyes fell once again on the body. Mr. Bede had a red mark on his forehead and one on his cheek. In one hand, he held his walking stick, and in the other, he clutched a handful of betony, an English wildflower—she recognized its spoon-shaped leaves and thin stems of purple-red flowers.
The sun came out from behind a large cedar of Lebanon, spilling across the paving stones and the body, casting light and shade in sharp contrast. Pru saw a thin streak of light between the statue and the body. She squinted, and then slid off the bench, crawled over, and rested her chin on the ground to study the scene.
She reached out to tug on Mr. Bede’s bed jacket to find out if it was loose or caught, but pulled her hand back again just in time. Don’t touch anything. But she didn’t need to, because at this vantage point she could see space between the statue and the body. It’s no wonder there was no blood—as surely there would’ve been, she now realized, if the statue had crushed him. When it had fallen from its two-foot-high plinth, it had landed not flat, but on its head, and in doing so created a safe, empty cavity wherein Mr. Bede lay. And yet, he was dead.
Pru’s head jerked up at a rustling on the path and the clack of footsteps. Her heart raced, and she thought to dash out the other entrance, but her legs did not get the message. Instead, she sat on her heels, beads of sweat popping out on her forehead, waiting and listening to the slow, deliberate footfalls that continued to approach without arriving. At last, she steeled herself and crept up the three steps and looked out to see a song thrush opening a snail by cracking its shell repeatedly against the stone of the path. Pru sank down on a step, panting. The yew hedge surrounding her began to dance, and she dropped her head between her legs until the dizziness passed.
“Pru!”
She leapt off the step when she heard Christopher’s voice.
She called “Here!” and kept repeating it until he appeared and she fell into his arms.
He held her at arm’s length and looked in her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Just through here.” She took his hand, only partially registering the fact that not only had he changed out of muddy clothes, he’d put on the best kit he’d packed—dark green trousers and a lightweight field jacket—and led the way.
When they reached the Herb Garden, Christopher’s eyes scanned the scene as he reached into his pocket and drew out a thin glove—the kind of glove police use. It was a little joke between them—she said Christopher always came prepared for anything.
“You didn’t see anyone when you arrived?”
“No one—I called out, I looked round. But I didn’t go too far off.” She explained her every move and the sounds she heard. “I’m afraid I’ve already walked all over.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “As far as you knew, it was a rescue effort. And it’s too dry to get good footprints.”
“In that case, I need to show you something. Come on.”
She led him to the other side of the body and got down on all fours. He followed suit and she pointed to what she’d found.
Christopher reached out a gloved hand and tugged on Mr. Bede’s bed jacket, which moved freely. “So, not crushed.”
“He could’ve died from natural causes. Do you think?” Pru asked. “Or fallen and hit his head?”
“And so, how did the statue fall of its own accord?”
They helped each other up and stood silent for a moment.
“But who would want him dead?” Pru asked. “An elderly man, ill.”
Christopher reached for his phone as he replied, “If that’s true—that he was quite ill—who would want him dead sooner, rather than later?”
The issue of the day—lungworts or, as they say, soldiers and sailors. C prefers pink Vera May to Blue Ensign. We squabble over the merits of
each and end the debate in laughter. The girl has found a slowworm, names it Fenton after a school friend, and spends the morning making up its life story. BB
Chapter 12
Christopher rang the police while Pru tried to reach Coral. He had more luck—Pru had to leave a message for Coral saying only that it was an urgent matter. Christopher made several calls and talked extensively as he walked the paths and looked in the other garden rooms. Pru hovered in the courtyard. She heard snatches of his conversations—particularly the phrase “suspicious circumstances.” The tone of his voice changed from call to call—official police business on one, more conversational on another. He’d been gone from the constabulary in the nearby town of Cheltenham for twenty years, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have connections.
After a half hour, when she heard a car pull in, she hurried out hoping to intercept Coral. But it wasn’t Coral. Instead, it was a panda car from the village of Stow-on-the-Wold—the closest police station—carrying uniformed officers wearing their yellow high-visibility jackets, a male sergeant with his peaked cap and two female police constables wearing bowlers. The sergeant held out his warrant card as identification to Pru at the same moment Christopher appeared.
“Christopher Pearse,” he said, holding out his own warrant card from Hampshire.
“Yes, Detective Inspector Pearse,” the sergeant said. “We were told you would be here, and we’re quite happy to see you, I’m sure. We will, of course, assist in any way possible, as we are able. And when I say able, sir, I mean to tell you that we at the station in Stow are, at the moment, like too little butter scraped across too much bread, so although we are at your command, we are, so to speak, up to our ears in a plethora of minor incidents that may eat away at my attention although I, naturally, will be at your side at every opportunity. And let me just say, how fortuitous it was that you were in the area and were able to step in like this.”
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