“But you hadn’t noticed it?”
“It was in her room,” Ivory said. “We didn’t see her and so why would we look in there? She showed us this house online, and we got to choose our rooms before we ever left home. She told us which room to save for her—the little one behind the stairs at the top.” Twyla had saved the box room for herself—typically a tiny, windowless space in a house. Perfect for storing boxes, not much to recommend it as a bedroom.
Pru drew two packets of custard cream biscuits out of her own bag—she’d stopped at a shop on the way, thinking that food would be better than flowers.
The others wandered in and took seats, letting Pru act as host. KayAnn and Nell wore jeans and camis, but had wrapped blankets around themselves. Sweetie hadn’t changed, but had pulled her ARGS sweatshirt over her slinky trouser suit. She sat on the edge of a chair, one leg bouncing up and down. Rosette was last. Her face had acquired a gray hue that clashed with her auburn hair.
Pru told them about meeting Twyla the evening before. “She was happy to be here, and excited about the garden. I’m so sorry that none of you had a chance to see her when she arrived.” In a far corner of Pru’s mind lay a tiny thought, which she did her best to ignore—someone had seen Twyla after her arrival. Did Pru know these women well enough to say it hadn’t been one of them?
“To think that she came round here and we were all out,” the blonde—KayAnn or Nell—said. “And no one knew she was in town.”
The dark-haired one—Nell or KayAnn—sat up straight. “I just thought of something. Ivory—that means you’re finally president.” She immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”
“Just like her,” Rosette said, as she began lining up the spoons Pru had set down in a heap, “to sneak in for a big surprise so we could all shout for joy.” Rosette suddenly snatched her hands back as if she’d been burned, and then, with the sweep of her arm, knocked the spoons onto the floor and stuck her fists in her pockets.
“Persistence Pays—Have you planted a seed only to be disappointed when it never germinates? Try again. Keep at it until you reach your goal. Never give up.”
New Members’ Corner, from Austin Rocks! the e-newsletter of the Austin Rock Garden Society
Chapter 12
“Rosette is quite quick to speak ill of the dead,” Pru said. Ivory had walked her out, and they stood on the front step.
“This has hit her hard; you don’t know. It’s just her way of dealing with it.”
A few tears might be more appropriate, Pru thought. But then grief revealed itself in many ways. She put her hand on Ivory’s arm. “Are you all right?”
Ivory nodded, her chin trembling.
“Look, Chiv’s going to ask when we can get back to work on the garden,” Pru told her. “Will you all stay and see it through?”
Ivory cast a glance over her shoulder where the front door stood ajar. “We’ll talk about it. If we can, we will. But right now, we’ve all got calls to make—I need to talk to my husband.and KayAnn her fellow and Nell her mom. Sweetie’ll call her daughter. To explain.”
No man for Sweetie, Pru remembered. “Does Rosette have any family?”
Ivory shook her head. “No one left for her to tell.” Ivory shifted from one foot to the other and didn’t look up. “Look, I’ve got a confession to make—I didn’t really remember you from the arboretum. Twyla told me about you and she just got so excited that I said, yeah, sure, I knew you. She had that way, she could convince anyone of anything. So I called a woman I still know from the arboretum, and she knew you—she’s the one who told me that story about you putting the dye in the fountains. But, you know, when I thought real hard, I did sort of remember you. And at the airport, I recognized you right off.”
“Or you just called my name out loud and watched to see who turned round?” Pru bent her head to catch Ivory’s gaze.
Ivory laughed softly. “Well, I guess.”
“It’s all right—I’m glad you’re here. Only I wish—” What was the point of wishing?
When the door closed, Pru inhaled deeply. There, she thought. We’ll stay and work—the garden will be built. That’s what you wanted, right?
Twyla didn’t answer. Pru took the silence as consent.
—
She returned to an empty flat, but instead of going in and making herself a cup of tea, she rang Mrs. Miller. “Would Boris like to go for a walk on the Common?”
The Irish wolfhound had a following in the neighborhood, as Pru discovered by the time five people had stopped to greet him. “Boris, my man!” “How’s the fellow?” “Taking you for a walk, is he?” Pru kept him on the lead until they reached the free run area of the green, where she let him loose and settled at the end of a bench to watch him romp with friends.
“It’s got to come out.”
Twyla’s voice in her ear, clear as a bell. Pru gasped as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over her. She stopped herself from looking over her shoulder, because she knew no one would be there. “Please stop,” she muttered. The young woman at the other end of the bench gave Pru a sideways glance, called her corgi over, and snapped on its lead. They hurried off as Boris trotted up and plopped in front of Pru.
She sighed, drew her hand across her cheek, and found it wet with tears. She reached over and scratched the dog’s head. “Did you hear her, too?” she asked. Boris made a throaty reply as if to say Get a grip, Pru. “Yes, I know,” she said. “That’s crazy talk.”
—
“It seems strange to say, but I felt like she was already my friend,” Pru said.
She had returned Boris to Mrs. Miller, who had taken one look at Pru’s face and said, “Come in now and I’ll put the kettle on.” Pru had carried the tea tray into the sitting room, taken a seat on the sofa, and toyed with her Rich Tea biscuit as if in a trance, her mind empty, her heart hollow. Mrs. Miller had waited, and eventually Pru had told her the story—she didn’t offer details of Twyla’s death and made sure to stay far away from mentioning the voice in her head.
“I don’t want to let her down,” Pru concluded. “But I feel so helpless.”
Mrs. Miller nodded. “We don’t know what to do with ourselves when we lose someone,” she said. “But you can’t feel guilty for being alive. Can she, Boris?”
The dog, stretched out the length of a bank of windows, raised his head and offered an opinion.
“I think it may be possible,” Pru said, keeping her eyes on the dog, “that there was some tension within the society. Over the garden.”
“Creative people—and I’m sure gardeners are included in that group—don’t always get along,” Mrs. Miller remarked, “and there’s little one can do when disagreements erupt except stand back and wait for the situation to cool off. As secretary to the executive officer of the RSPHT”—Pru had already heard a story or two and filled in the acronym: the Royal Society for the Preservation of Historic Textiles—“I once attended a National Trust conference, where a renegade museum director advocated for displaying a woman’s Tudor-era linen shift—what you would call a slip—on a live model. A row broke out in the room. Security had to be called.”
If only Twyla’s encounter had resulted in mere fisticuffs. But perhaps it had started that way—had she fought back before being overcome? Pru closed the door on her vivid imagination before a picture of Twyla’s last moments sprang up before her—she didn’t need that this evening. She said her goodbyes to Mrs. Miller and Boris and left.
But the flat was still empty and the silence loud. Pru stood in the narrow entry, glancing to her left toward the two bedrooms before turning right to the kitchen and peering into the sitting room. Not yet dark enough to switch on a lamp, but the filtered late-afternoon light created shadowy corners near the fireplace. Pru sensed a presence—not a live one, but one that might just have more to say to her. The possibility seemed to nudge her out onto the end of a gangplank with a churning sea far bel
ow. She shivered.
Dropping her bag on the table, she began banging around—stacking and restacking pots and pans, changing out lids, clamping them down with force, running the tap full on—perhaps she could drown out Twyla’s voice. She had started on her second round of stacking pots when she noticed Christopher in the doorway, eyebrows lifted.
“Hello, welcome home. I just arrived myself a few minutes ago.” She infused her greeting with as much cheer as she could muster as she reached to shut off the tap, knocking a saucepan off the counter on the way. She bent to retrieve it, and Christopher met her, taking her hand. “Would you like some tea?” she asked, looking at the floor.
He pulled her up and, with one arm round her, reached over and switched on the kettle. “Yes, tea.”
She told him about her visit to the Lamont Road house and that Twyla had been there at some point before her murder. She kept back the part about Twyla talking to her. That would pass, she told herself, it was only part of her grief.
Christopher’s visit to the police station resulted in nothing—just as he said it would. “Quite a few new faces, including a new deputy superintendent.”
“Did you talk with French?”
“Only briefly—I don’t want to make the inquiry more difficult for you.”
“He’s missing out on a great opportunity,” Pru said. “He’ll be sorry he isn’t using you. He should at the very least discuss the case with you to get your viewpoint.”
Christopher smiled. “He’s a dedicated young man determined to do his best. I can’t fault him for that.”
And after that, he turned the conversation to a more pleasant topic. Badger Care, the educational organization Christopher had helped found many years ago, had called an impromptu board meeting when they discovered he’d be in London. This delighted Pru—she knew it was one of Christopher’s passions, and in the past few years he’d had little time to be involved.
“But it isn’t necessary for me to be there—it would take the whole day.”
“Nonsense,” Pru insisted. “You must go. I’ve got French to see and I want to spend more time with the Austin women. It’ll work out perfectly.”
—
The next morning, Christopher got in the shower while Pru went to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. She’d made it through the night, barely. She had lain awake for hours staring into the semidarkness, her body tense, as she waited to hear Twyla’s voice. It had not come. Now, in the daylight, she felt only a lingering sadness, and that she knew she could handle. As she sliced bread for toast, she thought about mundane things to fill her time. Perhaps she would stop by the shops later and get all she needed to fix Christopher American biscuits—her one and only baking talent, as taught to her by her father when she was a girl. Christopher loved to eat them even more than he loved to chide her over this Texas penchant for “fixing” food.
She had popped the lid off the tea tin when Twyla spoke.
“It’s got to be done.”
The tin fell from Pru’s hands, clattering as it hit the edge of the counter before bouncing across the floor, leaving a trail of tea bags in its wake. She dropped to her knees, stuffing them back in the tin with shaky hands, and had the tea poured and toast ready by the time Christopher appeared.
When they sat, something caught his eye. He reached under the edge of the range and came up with two tea bags.
“Oops,” Pru said, as she opened the jar of marmalade. “Missed those. Tea tin took a tumble.” She giggled at her alliteration but didn’t look up, because she could feel his gaze on her.
“Have you heard from Chiv?” he asked.
“No, but I’m stopping by the grounds regardless,” Pru said. “Chiv will probably be there, too—he knows we need to get back to work on the garden. Really, what else would the police want the scene for—surely they’ve gathered all the evidence they need?”
“And you will ring French about seeing someone after you left Twyla?”
She nodded. “I will.”
—
Was it presumptuous of her to put on her ARGS sweatshirt, high-vis vest, and steel-toed boots before entering the grounds? No, she told herself—she was a crewmember on one of the show gardens and no one could stop her saying otherwise. Pru clipped her work pass on and walked through the London gate, nodding to the security guard.
Work had resumed and shifted into high gear—show gardens continued construction, and now the smaller displays had been allowed to begin their own buildup. Empty avenues were filling with balled-and-burlapped trees and hedges, and metal racks that held flats of plants. The days were ticking off, and everyone needed every available minute to be ready for press day, judging, the queen’s visit. Pru’s heart fell as, even from a distance, she could see the blue-and-white police tape still encircling the ARGS garden. Closer on, she spotted a PC at one corner of the site and Chiv at the other.
“Good morning,” she said, coming up beside him.
He nodded once.
“Have you asked? What did they say?”
“They said not today.”
Pru chose to see the glass as half full. “Not today—that means tomorrow. We can start back working tomorrow. That’s good, isn’t it? We can do it—we can get the garden built. It’ll be all right, won’t it?”
She held her breath, waiting for Chiv to agree that they could get back on track and all would be well.
“They’ve bollocksed up the trench,” he said. “Trampled everything. I’ll have to”—he swallowed hard—“order more stone.”
More stone to replace what the police had taken away—the flat stones on which Twyla’s body had lain and the smaller, filler rocks that had been dumped on top of her. Pru blinked rapidly.
“We can fix it,” she said.
“We don’t have enough of us—I don’t see how we can do it.”
“The Austin women will stay—I think. Don’t you have anyone else to call on?”
“We can’t just pull people off the street; they need to know what they’re doing. I’ve only a couple of fellows left back at the nursery and I can’t spare them. Chelsea isn’t the only thing I’ve got going, thank God.”
They watched as the Aussies began to unload a lorry full of tall, gray-green grasses that swayed as a brief gust of wind caught them.
“I met her,” Pru said softly. “I talked with her the night before.”
Pru’s statement drew a long stare from Chiv. “How was she?” he whispered.
“She was happy. Excited. She talked about how good you are with stone.” Pru’s voice wobbled. She searched for a tissue. “Where’re Iris and Teddy?”
“They stayed back at our digs—we’ve got a couple of bedsits out in Ealing. Cheaper than round here, and we can get in on the Tube.”
“Do you fancy a coffee?”
—
“I met Twyla sixteen years ago.”
The surprise at Chiv’s statement must’ve shown on Pru’s face, for he followed his statement up with “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? So you could ask me about her?”
Pru’s face warmed up. “Well, I wanted to tell you how I met her, too.”
Chiv grinned, but it quickly melted away. “I’d say my story is longer than yours.”
He made Pru smile. Chiv had an impish quality about him that Pru had only glimpsed on the garden site. Now, without distractions, she could see why Twyla had been attracted to him.
They had chosen a café up Lower Sloane Street, where they sat outside with their cappuccinos. The weather, in direct opposite of Pru’s mood, continued quite fine.
Pru couldn’t get anything out of French and Chalk, but Twyla demanded action. Pru had not been blind to the way Twyla and Chiv had spoken about each other—and she now suspected that there might have been more than friendship between them. Yes, Chiv’s story must be decidedly longer than her own, and Pru wanted to hear it.
“You were together”—the emphasis probably unnecessary—“when she lived here?”
“For a while.”
“And that was”—Pru cleared her throat, trying to rid it of embarrassment—“before you and Iris?”
“No, in the middle.”
“All terms of the Executive Committee and its officers are for one year.”
Article 2, Section 5, bylaws of the Austin Rock Garden Society
“All terms of the Executive Committee are for one year, with the following exception: any serving President may continue with a further term upon approval of a two-thirds majority of the membership.”
Revised Article 2, Section 5.2, bylaws of the Austin Rock Garden Society
Chapter 13
“Iris and I had what you might call an intermezzo,” Chiv said.
Pru snorted into her coffee at the image of Chiv and Iris as opera singers, but hoped that the number eleven bus rattling by covered her. Caught up in his story, and gazing across the road, he didn’t seem to notice.
“Iris had left me—said she was afraid I wasn’t up to the commitment. She left,” he repeated, with a note of incredulous annoyance. “The boy still a baby—she took him and all.”
“Boy?” Pru asked. “You’ve got a son?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Teddy? Teddy is your son?”
Chiv smiled. “Wants to be a forester. I dragged him away from his studies for this.”
This—the Chelsea Flower Show. What would come of it?
“You met Twyla after Iris left?”
“Twyla had taken leave from her teaching in Texas, said she needed a bit of breathing room. She’d been in the country almost a year, working in Kent on an apple orchard. Said her father was a botanist, plants were in her genes. I gave her a job in the greenhouse, and well.” Full stop—fine with Pru, she didn’t need those details.
“Did you and Iris divorce?” She probably didn’t need that detail either, but couldn’t help it.
“We aren’t married.” Chiv glanced at Pru. “I asked. She said why don’t we wait and see how it goes. Then she left—went to her mum’s in Taunton. She came back about a year and a half later—the boy in tow. Didn’t tell me she was coming back—said she wanted to surprise me. I think she’d heard from someone about Twyla.”
The Bluebonnet Betrayal Page 8
