Best-Laid Plants

by Marty Wingate

  “So, no one saw you. You didn’t have a…client appointment?”

  The corner of Cynthia’s mouth twitched. “You don’t believe I can help people, do you? Even when you’ve seen the results?”

  Do not take this bait, Pru told herself sternly. Keep a level head—stay the course. “Did you give Mr. Bede any herbal medicine?”

  Cyn frowned and cocked her head. “I did not. I know my limits, Pru. Batsford was a strong-willed man, and I knew what he would tolerate and what he wouldn’t.”

  “He died of aconite poisoning.” Pru saw no flicker of either surprise or guilt in Cynthia’s eyes—and, of course she would already know the manner of death. The word had spread, probably from Mrs. Draycott.

  “Yes, monkshood,” Cynthia said. “But he wouldn’t have taken it on his own.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t know what he was taking—perhaps someone encouraged him to try it without saying just what it was.”

  Cynthia’s features hardened, but only for a moment. “That isn’t how I work, Pru. I don’t need potions to guide a man back to his full potential.”

  A cold wave swept over Pru as the blood drained from her face. “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

  “Batsford wasn’t able to live life the way he should—he wasn’t able to function.” Cynthia’s words were soft as silk. “I worked with him to regain that sense of self. It’s often that way with men after a death. Or after a divorce.”

  The cold vanished as Pru’s face heated up, and she found it difficult to swallow. “Function?”

  “Well, be themselves, then.” She looked at Pru from under her lashes. “You know what I mean.”

  “And that’s what you do, that’s your job—you help them…function?” Pru’s voice rose high and shrill.

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “So, you’re a…sex therapist?”

  The bell at the door sounded—Clang! Clang! Clang!—followed by a sharp rapping. Both women sprang off their seats and pillows scattered across the floor.

  “Cynthia?” Christopher called. “I’m looking for Pru—is she here?”

  Cyn flung open the door just as he started in on the bell again.

  “Yes, yes, come in. My, you do make a racket.”

  Cyn had reached her hands out to Christopher, but he brushed past her and went straight to Pru.

  “Hello,” she said in a small voice. “I was a little longer than I thought.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, and she saw that ghost of a smile cross his lips.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yes. I’m fine.” Except for feeling like a complete fool.

  To Cynthia, he said, “As you know, there are questions around Batsford Bede’s death…”

  “Aconite poisoning,” Cyn said, crossing her arms tightly across her body. “Yes, I’ve heard. And you suspect I did it?”

  “We are asking everyone who knew him about this. I’d like your permission to search your flat—we’ve already searched Lizzy Sprackling’s cottage—for anything that might help us with our inquiry.”

  “Help us with our inquiry”—there’s another useful but vague phrase, Pru thought. He’s looking for those clear gelatin capsules.

  Cynthia spread her arms wide. “Well, have at it,” she said. “Here are my magic potions all round you. What do you see?”

  Pru saw oregano, thyme, yarrow, and rosemary hanging from the oak beams, and, on the wall, a wreath made of bay leaves. But that didn’t mean that hidden away in a drawer she didn’t have other, more potent herbs.

  “There was a fire at Glebe House this morning,” Pru said and watched Cyn carefully for a response. “Someone pulled everything out of the shed and into the yard and burned it.”

  “Oh God, that’s awful,” Cynthia said, her face drawing up in concern. “All of Batsford’s work—and those lovely watercolors that Constance did. Is Coral all right?”

  Cyn’s reaction startled Pru, and then it shamed her. “Yes, she’s…shaken, but she’ll be okay.”

  Christopher put his hand on Pru’s back, a signal as good as a dance partner’s. She wouldn’t speak of the codicil—or the possibility of someone’s attempt to destroy it. Not that word of the codicil wouldn’t get to Cynthia’s ears soon enough.

  “Thank you for letting us look round.” He went to the door and nodded. Two PCs trooped up the stairs, gloved and ready. “I’ll be just a moment,” he said to them. “Go ahead and begin.” He walked out with Pru, and when they reached the pavement, they stood in the shade of the building. The world was silent—no cars in the lane, no birds calling, the sky bright, and the autumn air warm and heavy. Christopher drew her close and pressed his lips against her hair. “You gave me a fright.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she said. “I shut my phone off, but I was going to text you as soon as I finished here. I thought I could help—I thought I could find something out.”

  “And did you?”

  Pru gave a sheepish laugh. “Only that I’m not terribly good at interrogation. Are you here to look for those clear capsules?”

  He nodded. “Empty or full. We need to rule everyone out. Lizzy didn’t mind cooperating—and we searched her cottage more so I could use her name here. But of course, she’s nothing to gain or lose by Bede’s death. She did, however, offer me some nettle tea.”

  “Tastes like grass,” Pru said. “I tried Coral’s. Right, well—I’ll go back to Glebe House, and we will see you later at the Copper Beech.”

  —

  Coral remained asleep, but Oliver had gone and Natalie returned.

  “I tried to get him to stay,” she whispered as they stood in the doorway under the woodland bower painted on the walls and ceiling. “I don’t know what it’s going to take for these two to face up to facts—they still love each other, and they’d bloody well better do something about it.”

  Pru welcomed a fellow romantic and agreed wholeheartedly, but couldn’t see an instant solution.

  “You’re off duty now,” she told Natalie, “free to return to the Hall. It’s Thursday, you must have more to do for the fête on Saturday.”

  “I saw the lorry arrive with the marquees in, and I’d very much like to leave the rest of it to John,” Natalie said. “I can’t believe the weather is holding—at this rate, we’ll run out of lemonade and Pimm’s before we run out of tea. Look now, why don’t you go on back to Fabia, and I’ll drive Coral over when she wakes.”

  “All right, thanks. I would love to change out of these clothes.”

  Pru left through the front door, ducking under the police tape at the drive and trudging down the lane, dragging her spirits along behind her. She’d failed at interrogating Cynthia, who was able to throw Pru off balance with her sly innuendoes. Now Pru had been taken off Coral duty. All in all, instead of being relieved that she had the rest of the afternoon to herself, Pru was annoyed. Had she helped with anything in the inquiry into Batsford Bede’s death? No.

  A bath would make her feel better. Too bad it wouldn’t be a bath at Greenoak, in their enormous claw-foot tub with her own rose-scented oil. The realization settled on her like ashes from the fire—they would not be able to blithely leave behind a murder investigation and return to Hampshire after the fête. Christopher, at least, would have to remain until the case was settled. How much time would that take? Pru longed to go home.

  She chastised herself for such a selfish thought as she stood at the fork in the lane and considered her options. The long way through the village or…irritation got the better of her. If Coral could go through the field, why couldn’t she?

  Pru marched off, half hoping Lizzy would see her and invite her in, but neither Lizzy nor Mr. Tod showed to offer an excuse. She reached the stile and held up, carefully surveying the field. The cows were gathered far off to her left, a few of them lying down and others standing—all crowded under scant shade from a short row of scraggly rowans. She squinted at the group and spotted
one figure with horns. Well, there’s Custard sorted.

  Even so, she continued to scan the field as she crossed. Approaching the patch of hawthorn where she’d come nose-to-nose with him before, Pru slowed, her nerves vibrating at the memory. Closer, closer, she worked her way round the stand clockwise, expecting to see his face at any second, but knowing he was far off on the other side of the field. She made the circuit and found nothing, of course. Exhaling with relief, Pru glanced up at the cows in the distance to find that Custard had left his harem and had already made it more than halfway to her.

  The bull halted and stared at her. Pru’s heart went boom-boom-boom. She took a step back, and thorny twigs caught at her sleeves and hair. Perhaps she could reason with him.

  “Hello, Custard,” she said, barely above a whisper—all the sound she could produce. “You all right there, old fellow?”

  Custard scraped a hoof on the ground and snorted. Pru whimpered.

  “Oi! Oi, you bull!”

  Both Pru and Custard whipped their heads round to see, at the top of the slope and leaping over the stile, Ger Crombie.

  I am of two minds on the obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana). It appears to be easily influenced—I move a flower on a stem in a certain direction and it remains. Or so it would seem, but when I turn my back, it returns to its chosen aspect. Perhaps it has a stronger will than I give it credit. BB

  Chapter 30

  Ger continued to call “Oi! Oi!” as he ran into the field. For a moment, the bull was frozen, but then he took up the challenge and trotted toward Ger in a roundabout fashion as if checking out the competition.

  Pru had frozen, too, but when Ger looked at her and yelled, “Go on, run!” she didn’t stop to ask questions. She dashed the rest of the way across the field, making it almost to safety until, just before she reached the stile, she stepped in a hole and fell splat onto her knees and into a fresh, steaming pile of cow manure. She heard panting behind her and leapt up, slipped once, and then scampered over the stile with Ger hot on her heels.

  She looked back into the field and saw Custard—who had kept up the chase—veer off at the last minute to saunter back toward the cows, no doubt quite proud of himself. Pru collapsed onto the verge below an elder, and Ger flung himself to the ground a few feet away, both panting. Pru’s ankle gave her a twinge—she’d sprained it badly almost two years ago, and the injury occasionally came back to haunt her.

  At last, she was able to ask, “Were you following me?”

  Ger scowled at her for a moment and then said, “Yes.”

  Pru moved her hand slowly to her bag, thinking to search surreptitiously for her phone, but her hands were covered in muck, and so first she wiped them on her thighs, the only clean spots she could find on her trousers. She did this without taking her eyes off Ger, who, she noticed, looked worse than he had the last time she had seen him—skin sallower, eyes more sunken, scruffier, and a bit shaky.

  “So what was that about?” he asked, nodding back toward Custard. “Someone dare you?”

  “No, not a dare,” she said crossly. “I’ve gone through the field before without him ever noticing—I don’t know why he’s suddenly taken against me.” A cow off in the field bellowed. “I’m not sure I would’ve made it if you hadn’t intervened—so—thanks.”

  “You shouldn’t try to outrun a bull,” Ger warned, pulling out the tail of his shirt and wiping his face.

  Her nerves jangled, Pru’s only response was to giggle. Ger’s frown deepened. But she kept giggling, and at last he grinned.

  She abandoned the search for her phone, realizing if Ger had wanted to do her harm he could’ve let Custard do it for him. Instead, she contemplated her condition—she reeked of sweat and smoke, and now had cow dung smeared down her legs. A thought cut through her self-pity.

  “Did you want to talk to me about something?” she asked. “Is that why you were following me this morning and now?”

  Ger studied the ground. “I didn’t know he was here, see,” he mumbled. “And, I hadn’t met Bram, but then I did, and she’s been good to me.” He seemed to catch himself at this intimate confession and shot Pru an alarmed look.

  “Bram told me about your sister,” she said. “I’m very sorry. I have a brother. I know how important siblings are.”

  His alarm segued into wariness and then dissipated. He shrugged one shoulder. “Well, so that’s how it is. I didn’t know when I first arrived what this was all about. And so, what did I care if someone wanted to build in those meadows?”

  “Build what?”

  “Nothing you or I could afford, I can tell you that,” Ger growled.

  “You’re telling me Mr. Bede wanted to build on the meadows?”

  “The old man? Do me a favor,” Ger scoffed. “As if he’d touch that precious land of his.”

  “If this is about Mr. Bede’s death, you should tell the police whatever you know,” Pru said.

  Ger recoiled. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know how they work—all ‘we’d like you to come in and answer a few questions to help us with our inquiry,’ and the next thing you know they’ve put the screws on you and you’re up before the—” He broke off and snapped his mouth shut.

  “The meadows,” Pru said, “were precious to Mr. Bede. I thought they were precious to Bram as well.” She saw Ger flinch, and she grabbed hold of a slender connecting thread. “Does this have something to do with the badgers? Did you disturb the badger sett?”

  Ger shook his head violently. “You don’t know what you’re talking about if you think I’d disturb a sett. Easy to blame me, though, isn’t it? Like that rock through that window. ‘Oh let’s see, why don’t we finger Ger for that one?’ ” He concerned himself with pulling at a piece of dry grass. “They aren’t there, anyway—the badgers. Not since I’ve been around. But there’s a sett in the next piece of wood just beyond that. Might be seven or eight of them. Two cubs born this year—I’ve seen them.”

  Badger-friendly Ger Crombie? Pru tried to sort this out, but she couldn’t quite think in a straight line—fatigue and post-bull fear had left her baffled and more than a bit disoriented and light-headed. The last, she realized, could be because she hadn’t eaten anything since toast for breakfast.

  “Is it Bram? But why would Bram want to build?” she asked.

  “This is all wrong!” Ger shouted angrily. “Can’t I be left alone? No, apparently not. And now, this business with the old man’s will—what’s left for Bram?”

  “Won’t Cynthia help her?”

  Ger shut down—his eyes blank, all fear and anger gone. “She’s another one I don’t trust.”

  He leapt to his feet, startling Pru, but he didn’t approach her. Instead he asked, “You all right now?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  He turned to leave, but looked over his shoulder and said, “I won’t let them pin this on Bram, you can be sure about that.”

  —

  Pru had watched Ger stomp off, taking a footpath that led him in a different direction from the Copper Beech. After making sure he was well and truly gone, she proceeded on her way, unable to sort out the statements and accusations he had flung. She’d lay it all out to Christopher—perhaps he could make sense of it.

  When she arrived at the B&B, Pru circled round to the door off the conservatory and caught Mrs. Draycott’s eye through the kitchen window. The landlady came out to the terrace, took one look at her, and said, “Well, Ms. Parke, you look as if you’ve been through the wars.”

  She felt it, too. “Are you alone?” Pru asked. “I desperately need a bath, but I’d better take my things off out here.”

  She gave the landlady a précis of the day while she stripped in Mr. Draycott’s shed. Leaving her clothes in a mucky, ashy heap, she dashed indoors, up the stairs, and into the bathroom.

  “I am soon to be off on my walk,” Mrs. Draycott said through the bathroom door.

  Five o’clock already, Pru thou
ght. The day had slipped away.

  “And, Ms. Parke, you say Dr. Cherrystone has seen Coral?”

  “Yes, she was still sleeping when I left. Natalie will run her over later.”

  “He’s a trouper, that man. Every day, all those months of Batsford’s illness, the three of us up in the lane would see Cherry crossing the meadows to Glebe House. Of course, he stopped that the day after Batsford died—no daily visits now.”

  Pru paused with the shower nozzle in hand, ready to wash her hair before drawing her bathwater.

  “You saw him on your morning walk?”

  “Indeed—regular as clockwork. Our usual route and our usual sights. And equally delightful each time.”

  Spent the afternoon brooding over a hot border combination gone wrong. The girl resuced me and we had tea. BB

  Chapter 31

  Pru soaked for ages in the tub, not caring if she came out a prune. She should’ve spent the time thinking through all the evidence on Batsford Bede’s murder, but instead she found herself admiring her Art Deco fan pendant necklace that she had hung on the towel hook. It had been a gift from Christopher on their first weekend together, and she never took it off except for her bath. As her thoughts floated, she tried to picture him twenty-odd years ago, a sergeant on the force in Cheltenham when he met Cynthia. For one second, a pang of longing gripped her heart, and she wished she had known him then. But when she tried to picture their younger selves together, she failed, and the pang eased. It—they—would never have worked.

  Clean and dry, Pru wrapped herself in a towel and emerged from the bathroom to find a tray in front of the bedroom door. It held cheese, butter, and cream crackers along with a generous glass of brandy. She blessed Mrs. Draycott and ignored the smidgen of guilt at allowing herself any free time when others were investigating, attending, walking. To make up for it, after she dressed, she settled on the bed with her snack, and, in the last golden light of the day, she took up the last of Mr. Bede’s garden journals, flipped through the pages, and landed on an entry toward the end.