Long Tramp to Murder: The Verity Long Mysteries, #8

Chapter 1

The woman bearing down on me with the long-handled pruning knife had a determined look in her wild eyes.

I’m going to kill you, she announced. I’m going to exterminate you, root and branch.

My blood ran cold, but the sun felt warm on my back. Trust the British weather to give me a cloudless sky and a hint of green spring for my last day on earth. A blackbird chuckled at my predicament and a noisy robin broadcast news of the imminent demise of Verity Farish née Long.

My mouth felt as dry as a sand dune. I stepped back — and my heels sank deep into the newly turned soil of the flower bed.

Erk! I spluttered.

The woman shot out a hand and grabbed a flailing arm, pulling me towards her, preventing my impalement on Rosa gallica.

For goodness sake, Verity. What do you think you’re playing at?

Me? That was a bit rich. She had been the one promising to kill, but then she was my employer, the world famous crime writer, Kathleen Davenport. Thinking up alarming and unusual ways to murder people was her stock in trade, though why the victim was so often me, I couldn’t imagine.

I’m not playing at anything. You’re the one brandishing the knife and doing Dalek impressions. Exterminate, indeed.

I threw her a hundred-watt glare.

Not you, you idiot. I was talking to that rosebush you nearly fell into. It has to come out. I want a couple more by the door and several by the wall. One of the varieties with long thorns; it should help to deter intruders.

Really? She already had the most expensive burglar alarm system known to man. Any intruder stupid enough to chance his luck would be deafened by klaxons and blinded by searchlights before wetting himself at the ne-nah ne-nah of fast-approaching police cars. Why go to the trouble of installing attack capacity floribundas?

We’ll go to the garden centre at Burston later, she went on, and you can help me choose some new ones. Keeping a firm grip on the long handle, she rested the knife against her shoulder leaving a green sappy smear on the front of her scarlet cardigan. Anyway, you’re late. Have you spent all morning in the library? I hope you’ve found me a good case.

Despite talking to roses, calling me an idiot, and her snappy manner, there were many reasons to enjoy working for Mrs Davenport — not least the very generous salary she paid me. As her personal assistant and researcher my time was spent in any number of interesting ways. The occasional threat of my imminent demise, while it added a soupçon of spice to the proceedings, was all part of a day at the office.

Today that had included an early morning visit to the library, to trawl through old newspaper archives, looking for real life cases that KD, as she likes to be called, could use as the basis for a story.

Yes, I’ve got something you’ll like, I think.

Good. You can tell me inside.

She turned to put her tools away in the shed. I went to follow her and put both feet on the path — leaving my shoes behind me, anchored by their two inch heels into the earth. With a curse I pulled them out, and set about trying to clean them with a scrap of paper tissue.

What are you doing? Come along, Verity, and do stop messing about.

My employer marched back through the conservatory doors and into the office of her sprawling mansion, Bishop Lea. I fought down my desire to scream and followed her in, making an immediate beeline for the coffee percolator on the table behind the door. I filled both our mugs before handing her one and taking a seat at my desk.

So, what have you got? she said.

Actually, this is one of Jerry’s cold cases. I needed to find a bit of local info on it, hence my trip into town, but I think it will do nicely for you.

Besides my job for a crime writer, I work part time for my husband, Detective Chief Inspector Jeremy Farish, as a civilian researcher of unsolved cases. A recent development in my career — we’d been married for barely five months — this was the first time I’d been given a case that I considered a suitable fit for KD. Her old-fashioned whodunits featuring amateur sleuth Agnes Merryweather, a Church of England vicar in a rural parish, were enduringly popular.

Go on, she said.

"It happened in the spring of 2002 in the village of Pidcote. The victim was Mary Lamont, an elderly widow. She lived alone, employing Megan Turner, a twenty-year-old single mother as a cleaning woman three times a week. Megan found her bludgeoned to death in the kitchen when she called at Mrs Lamont’s on her way back from the village hall.

"At first, the police suspected Mrs Lamont's nephew who had visited that morning. He said that he’d left her alive and well.

Also in the frame was an old vagrant, would you believe —

No! KD wagged a finger at me. You know my rules. Do not include personal comment or opinion.

I apologised. KD had trained me to deliver my reports in a concise and accurate manner, leaving aside my own thoughts and giving her only the facts without embellishment. She paid close attention, listening without interruption unless I transgressed, as I’d just done. If she later wanted my opinion, then she asked for it, and we would often discuss the case and thrash things out, sitting in the easy chairs around the coffee table opposite her desk in the conservatory.

Continue.

I did so. The vagrant was seen by a man from a grocery store, driving away after making a delivery. He has never been found, despite a police appeal.

The vagrant or the delivery man? she snapped. Is anything wrong? It is unlike you to be so sloppy.

Oh, no, the vagrant, of course. Sorry. I guess I’m excited to have another case for Jerry, one I feel I can get my teeth into, and that might suit you as well.

Oh, indeed. There are definite possibilities. She nodded and swivelled her chair from side to side. All right. Type up your notes and let me have them, please. She pushed back from the desk. I’m going to make us a spot of lunch, and then we’ll go to Green Delights garden centre. You might get some ideas for your own place while we are there.

My own place was an old Victorian rectory, that Jerry had inherited from an aunt. As well as the interior, which we were in the slow process of renovating, it also had a large garden and, come the warmer weather, I intended turning it into a floral paradise.

However, I knew as much about garden design as Lancelot Capability Brown knew about Nascar or Formula 1 racing. In short, nothing. So, a trip to the garden centre might well prove useful.

I had already compiled a list of all the things I wanted in my plot: an arbour with sweetly scented roses and tubs of lilies around it, pots of herbs on the patio, borders full of flowering shrubs and hardy perennials. It went on and on and would mean a lot of work and a larger budget than I suspected I’d bargained for, if I was ever to bring the dream to fruition.

Over lunch she asked if I'd mind driving to Green Delights. I agreed and, with KD directing me by a short cut she knew, I soon pulled into the centre’s large, and largely empty, car park.

Wow! This place is bigger than I expected, I said, as I locked the car.

Yes, it used to be the best plant nursery in the county, up until a few years ago.

And isn’t it now?

I gazed around as I walked by her side up the brick paved path. The buildings of the garden centre formed a square ‘U’ shape. Straight ahead lay the main entrance into the nursery, while on the left three separate wooden structures housed an aquatics centre, a craft store, and a shop selling outdoor clothing.

On the right lay a garden furniture emporium and beyond that the Tasty Treats cafe.

No, said my boss. As you can see, like Topsy it ‘growed and growed’. Harry Frobisher, the founder, was a true nursery man who really cared about plants. When he died, his widow kept the place going, but eventually sold out to a chain of garden centres, whose main interest is profit.

While I didn’t see anything inherently wrong in that, apart from the main building and the cafe, none of the other shops appeared to be open. Green Delights did not have the air of a thriving business.

Yes, well, it’s a Monday in February, said KD, when I pointed this out. I suppose the business is seasonal and that would explain the different things on offer.

No doubt diversifying made sense in these difficult economic times, but not if the shops were closed. Perhaps the location had something to do with it. A small village between Crofterton and Bellshurst might have been the ideal place to site and run a small nursery, but Green Delights garden centre had pretensions to be far more than that and, on the face of it, was failing badly.

I followed my boss into the main building, past the bored looking girl on the cash desk, the racks and rows of garden sundries, the shelves of overpriced watering cans, floral tea-towels, and gardening gloves, and out through a set of automatic doors to the nursery.

Right, she said. I’m going to look for bare-rooted roses. Why don’t you have a wander and I’ll meet you back at the car in about half an hour.

Yes, okay. Have fun.

We went our separate ways, KD towards a large sign saying ‘Roses’, and I into a maze of polytunnels and covered walkways filled with almost everything one might want in a garden, from trees to alpines.

In the middle of these botanical delights sat a circular brick fishpond several meters in diameter. I rested against it — it came to hip height — admiring the lily pads, but not spotting any fish, and looked about me for any sign of perennials.

Can I help you, madam?

An elderly man wearing a badge that told me he was Nathan Potts - Head Gardener, peered at me through faded grey eyes in a weather-beaten face.

I explained my requirements and he pointed to my right. Over there, ma’am. We don’t have a great deal in at the moment, we’re awaiting a delivery in another week or two, so if you can’t find what you’re after, it might pay you to call again.

A delivery? Don’t you grow your own?

He looked disgusted. We used to, but not any more.

I thanked him and moved off in search of the right section, but when I found it, discovered the old man had been right. The selection of plants looked scratty and pot-bound and, at five pounds or more per pot, they weren’t cheap, either. I debated whether to splurge out on an oriental poppy that might just survive if I gave it a little TLC, but decided against buying anything now. I could always come back later when their stock had been replenished.

The half-hour was up and I wandered back towards the car park where I expected to see KD waiting to go home, but there was no sign of the small figure by my blue Citroen.

Where had the woman got to?

By the time I’d checked the outdoor areas, the shop and the cafe, my patience was wearing thin. Returning to the plant area, a flash of cerise pink caught my eye and I spotted her coming out of a large greenhouse.

So, that’s where you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.

I think you’d better phone that nice husband of yours, she said. She looked wobbly and her face held a patina of green. It wasn’t a colour that suited her.

What on earth for? Jerry knows nothing about gardening.

Don’t be so obtuse, Verity. I found something nasty in the potting shed.

* * *

Forgiving KD the misquotation — she did look dreadfully off-colour — I stepped around her and into the greenhouse, to be greeted by the pleasurable smell of warm earth overlaid with the sharp tang of blood.

My boss’s ‘something nasty’ was the dead body of a woman, her head as smashed as the terracotta flower pot on the floor beside her. She might have been pretty once, with her ash blonde hair and red lipstick, but now the hair was smeared with blood. No wonder KD had turned so green.

My gaze moved rapidly on, down the slim figure, until they reached the soft hands with their well-manicured ringless fingers. Hmm. Clearly no gardener. Perhaps she was a customer.

The smart business suit, now stained with soil, ended just on the knee — below, the long legs splayed out, giving her a wanton look.

The pot that had caused such havoc had held a cactus, and it too lay crushed and bruised. I shuddered. The spillage of gritty compost had spread some distance and crunched like biscuit crumbs beneath my feet.

Careful not to tread too close — Jerry would not thank me for contaminating his crime scene — I gazed around me at the rest of the interior. The far end was empty with nothing but beaten earth on either side of the central slabbed path. Closer to hand the earth had been covered by staging and shelves displaying more cacti. I had never thought of them as deadly weapons before, and shuddered again. Guess I wouldn’t be growing them any time soon.

Every single pane of glass had been covered with paint, for shading I assumed, though why cacti needed it, and in February, was beyond me. This place seemed more like an ice-box than a greenhouse, and the opaqued glass meant that the murder would have gone unseen. Perhaps that was the reason it had occurred where it did.

Have you called him yet?

I spun round. The door stood ajar and I could just make out KD’s hand on the doorknob.

I’m just about to. Why don’t you wait in the cafe? I joined her at the door. There doesn’t appear to be any way to lock this place up and secure the scene, so I’d better wait here.

Yes, all right, if you don’t mind, I think I will. It’s none too warm out here.

It wasn’t exactly a sauna on my side of the door, but I watched her go and reached for my phone.

How I managed to wait the fifteen minutes it took Jerry to arrive, I’ll never know — not when my curiosity gland had started firing on all cylinders and the temptation to leave and start interviewing possible suspects almost overwhelmed me.

When the police did show up, Jerry had already donned his Chief Inspector persona. He gave me a brief tight smile and told me to join my employer.

I’ll come and take your statements later.

Summarily dismissed, I stomped off to the cafe. At least he’d had the grace not to ask if I’d touched or moved anything.

How are you feeling? I asked KD Can I order you anything else? I pointed to the empty teacup on the table in front of her.

Yes, get me another tea, would you, dear? There’s nothing like tea for shock.

Personally, I prefer brandy, but each to his own.

The woman behind the counter wore a pristine white apron and a name badge with Alice Smith on it. I read the menu board fixed to the wall behind her and she fulfilled my request in an efficient and friendly manner.

Has it been busy today? I asked.

No. She put the tea and the latte that I’d ordered onto a tray and slid it towards me. We had a young couple in this morning, about elevenish, and a few more around lunchtime, as we do an excellent business lunch, but you’re the only ones so far this afternoon. It will pick up later when the school run is on as they come for the cakes. Very popular they are. Can I tempt you? I make them all myself.

She pointed to a display case filled with a selection of treats oozing cream and calories in equal measure.

Why not? I said. I looked over my shoulder and called to my boss. I’m buying myself a cake. Would you like one?

No, thanks.

My carrot cake is a firm favourite, the woman said.

KD shook her head and I settled for a slice of chocolate sponge and happily paid what I considered a reasonable price before carrying the tray across to our table.

Thank you, dear. I wonder how long the Chief Inspector will be?

There’s no telling, but he’ll want to speak to you fairly soon, I would imagine.

She nodded. KD had written about the procedure often enough to know the score. As she had discovered the body, Jerry would be anxious to know what she could tell him. I doubted it was much — unless she’d seen someone coming out of the greenhouse.

What were you doing in there, anyway? I forked a piece of cake into my mouth. The waitress had been right — moist and delicious, it was exceedingly good.

Looking for houseplants. I’d already bought a couple of bare-rooted roses —

Oh? I interrupted, looking at the floor by her feet. Where are they?

"I left them by the cash