6

Angela Farmer put down the detective novel she was reading, breathed a large blue plume of smoke and consulted her watch. Eleven fifteen. Jeeze. She would definitely have to get dressed soon. Or at least visit the bathroom. Something. For now, however, she stubbed out her cigarette in one of the ashtrays resting on her upper chest and fractionally shifted her position in the bed – just enough to feel the benefit, but not so much that she disturbed the rabbit sleeping on the eiderdown, or toppled to the floor any of the books, papers or cake boxes that seemed somehow to have piled up in heaps. Idly she thought of all the people who were currently doing healthy outdoor up-and-at-’em things, such as weeding and golf, and gave a loud, barking laugh, something along the lines of ‘Arf, arf’.

Woman’s Hour played at her elbow on a large portable radio. In a moment, Jenni Murray would announce, ‘And now, Angela Farmer reads the second instalment of –’ but the prospect gave her little satisfaction. She picked up the book again and studied the cover. It was Trent Carmichael’s new title, Murder, Shear Murder (the latest in Michelle’s favourite death-by-garden-implement series, which included Let Them Eat Rake and the bestselling Dead for a Bucket), but she put it down again. Trent Carmichael had been a buddy ever since she starred in the TV movie of S is for … Secateurs!, and he always sent her a complimentary copy of each new book, with a friendly inscription. But that didn’t mean she had to like his goddam fiction. ‘Ah,’ she sighed, ‘fuck him if he can’t take a joke’.

‘Ya OK down there – bunny?’ she barked.

The rabbit made no move.

‘Sure you don’t wanna go – walkies?’

It didn’t. Or not so as you’d notice.

Swell.

‘And now,’ announced Jenni Murray pointedly, ‘Angela Farmer reads the second part of –’

‘Oh no, she do-on’t,’ sang the listener gruffly, and switched herself off. Strange to feel less than contented, really. Here she was, with a new hardback, no work today, as much cake as she could eat and a faithful rabbit at her side. She could stay in bed, have a ball, sing all the songs from Showboat, anything. ‘You could make believe I love you’ (she loved doing duets); ‘I could make believe that you LOVE ME.’ Maybe the problem really was the book. For a third time she tried to concentrate on the deductive puzzle confronting the much-loved Inspector Greenfinger and his earthy sidekick (Pete), but for a third time failed to raise the necessary enthusiasm. ‘The gardener did it,’ she announced. ‘My money’s on the goddam gardener.’ And exasperated, she threw Murder, Shear Murder down the bed, where it hit the bunny and woke it up.

When she had given an interview about ‘a day in the life’ to a Sunday magazine, by the way, it had strangely mentioned nothing of all this. Up at seven, with a healthy half-grapefruit and a few knee-bends, that’s what she had told them. ‘Here’s my knee,’ she growled, ‘to prove it.’ A couple of hours’ light toil on the long-awaited theatrical memoirs (as yet unstarted, actually), a half-hour answering fan letters with a hunky male secretary (Gordon’s dad had obligingly posed for the pictures), a low-cholesterol lunch, plus a long walk in the fresh air, and all before The Archers at 1.40 p.m.! It was only because her imagination ran out, and she had to invent a rather far-fetched interest in fell walking, that the interviewer ever smelled a rat.

‘Oh,’ he had said politely, ‘fell walking. But there are no fells in Devon.’

‘Sure there are. They’re just so good they blend naturally into the landscape.’

‘Actually, um, there aren’t, you know.’

‘You sure? Jesus, what a gyp.’ She lit a cigarette and tried to think fast. So many daylight activity hours still to account for.

The interviewer broke the silence. ‘Perhaps I could say that you do the flowers at the church, or something?’

She thought about it. ‘Does that sound OK to you, not too creepy?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, it’s a deal. Say I do the flowers, but not every day. No one would buy that. Can you say I have a dog, too? I’d like a dog, but I never got around to getting one. And maybe an Aga where I bake cookies.’

‘Fine by me, Ms Farmer. What do you want me to call it?’

‘The Aga?’

‘The dog.’

‘Oh, yeah. Archie.’

‘Nice name.’

‘Thanks. I think so too.’

She could not understand actors who fretted about ‘resting’. There was nothing shameful about putting your feet up; especially when, by and large, the rest of your life was hell on wheels. Yesterday she had driven to a London studio and done voice-overs all day (‘The warmth of a real fire’ – it was amazing how many different ways you could say it); by the weekend she had to read several lousy no-hope scripts for proposed TV sitcoms; and sometime this week she had a guy visiting from a little chicken-shit magazine to talk to her about her outhouse, for some cockamamy reason. So why not enjoy the peace and quiet when you had the chance?

Except that it wasn’t particularly peaceful at this moment, because all of a sudden there was someone running up the stairs, and the rabbit, startled by the noise, had jumped off the bed with a thump, and was charging towards the wardrobe for cover. For Christ’s sakes, what now?

‘It’s only me,’ shouted Gordon from outside her door. ‘Auntie Angela, can I come in?’

‘Sure. But wait till I call off the bunny. We thought you were a burglar, and he’s all riled up.’

Gordon let himself in.

‘Hi,’ he said, smiling.

‘Hi yourself.’

‘Been busy?’ He waved at the chaos on the bed, the floor, the bedside table and all the available surfaces around the room. ‘Good job Dad isn’t here, he’d throw a fit.’

‘He would.’

Gordon cleared a space carefully and sat down. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I just thought I ought to warn you. There’s a couple of blokes staying with us, and I heard one of them mention your name this morning. I think he’s coming to see you.’

‘Now why would he do that?’

‘Don’t know. But I think he’s coming at twelve.’

Angela pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling as if to say, ‘How I pity me,’ but said nothing.

‘Shall I check in your diary?’

‘You’re a doll, but I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘Come on, where is it?’

Angela waved a hand vaguely. ‘The rabbit had it last.’

Quickly surveying the room, Gordon spotted the diary lurking in exactly the place he expected it: under a Mr Kipling Victoria Sponge. He grabbed it and riffled.

‘Now, hang on … right. Tuesday, midday. Come Into the Garden,’ he read cheerfully, and then went terribly quiet.

Angela didn’t notice the change in his demeanour. Having heaved herself out of bed, she was now kicking debris out of the way, to clear a path to the wardrobe. ‘Give me strength,’ she yelled. But at the same time as Gordon appreciatively watched her performance, laughed and started tidying things into piles, he felt oddly detached from his surroundings. Come Into the Garden had come to Honiton? This was dreadful. These people to whom he had just served breakfast, were they his own employees, the ones he was going to sack? No wonder they had given him odd looks. No wonder the big one looked nervous all the time, and the little one so aggressive. How they must hate him.

‘How’s the book?’ he asked as he tidied it into a neat stack of Battenbergs and Madeiras. He needed time to think.

Angela called out from inside her walk-in wardrobe.

‘Borrow it if you like. But it’s gruesome, I warn you now. These two misfit guys turn up at a house in the country, behave in such a weird manner that they attract lots of attention, and then a young red-headed nineteen-year-old squire is found dead, stabbed fatally with a pair of shears.’

Gordon looked thoughtful.

‘What’s the motive?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Some grudge.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s kinda hazy.’

‘But did they do it?’

‘Good question. I figure the gardener. It’s usually the disgruntled employee, in my experience.’

‘Oh.’

‘I think the trouble is he writes too much. Trent Carmichael, I mean. He’s a kind of production line. When he rang me Saturday, he told me he’d already half-finished the next one – I don’t know, Dead-head Among the Roses, or some such miserable thing. Oh, but he told me something interesting. He’d had the same guy around to interview him about his goddam shed. I mean, your pal from Dunquenchin.’

‘What?’

‘Said it was strange, though. The guy never asked any of the obvious questions – about the shears and rakes in the stories. Trent figured he was either very deep or very stupid, so he rang up and asked for a copy of the piece. But when they faxed it to him, he said it was amazing: the guy must have been a huge fan, with a real taste for this stuff. He catalogued all the murders, including even the shears in this one, and the book’s only been out a week. He’d done some big heavy-duty homework. Trent was very impressed. Said the guy had a real understanding of the mad, vengeful, homicidal mind.’

Gordon broke a Victoria Sponge in half, stared at the cream and jam, and felt suddenly very lonely and small. He wanted his daddy. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he had just served breakfast to two men who quite conceivably wished to kill him. It was silly, obviously. People didn’t go around killing people, not because a little magazine folded. Get serious. But on the other hand, something was definitely going on with these guys. Why else, at breakfast, had the big one visibly flinched when Gordon touched his hand by mistake as he put down the toast rack? ‘Aagh!’ he had cried. ‘Lay off with that!’ the other one had shouted, jumping to his feet. They were edgy all right. It all made horrible sense.

Dad must be told at once. Gordon had left him on his own in the house with them. There was just one little problem with Gordon’s theory: how on earth could these men know about Digger Enterprises’ plans for the magazine? Surely nobody knew, besides Dad (who was currently faxing an official letter to the editor of Come Into the Garden, to put everyone in the picture). But the individual letters of dismissal had only just gone in the post.

‘Well, what do you think?’

Gordon looked up to see Auntie Angela stunningly attired in a bright blue pullover, smart leggings and long boots. ‘Terrific.’

She kissed him. ‘Thanks, Gordon, baby. Next to the rabbit, you’re my favourite person.’

He smiled.

‘Now, skedaddle while I put on my face, and I’ll come see you later. How’s that?’

‘Right you are,’ he said, and made for the door. But he turned back. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’

‘Why? Do you want to stay?’

Gordon thought about it. Auntie Angela alone in the shed with two dangerous desperadoes, and all those shears and trowels and buckets lying about. ‘Actually, it might be an idea,’ he said.

‘Fine, if you want to. Listen, you can double for me at the interview too, if you like. Put on a frock or something. This nightie would suit you – catch. You know more about that goddam shed than I do, that’s for sure.’

Back at the offices of Come Into the Garden, a fax was coming through. Since Lillian kept the machine beside her desk, between the standard lamp and the magazine rack (in front of the framed reproduction of The Haywain), she was in a position to turn it off most of the time; but today, by some stroke of misfortune, she had forgotten. She hated the disruption to her concentration (she was knitting a cable stitch in fluorescent orange – she always wore bright colours), but since she was frightened to turn it off once it had started operating, she now merely glared at the missive as it slowly and noisily emerged, bottom first, and tried to imagine what life was like before the invention of telecommunication. ‘Honiton, Devon’, it said; then, after a bit of high-pitched whirring, ‘G. Clarke’. This was going to take for ever. ‘Yours sincerely’. Lillian fretted impatiently, but then saw the final line of the letter: ‘I am sorry to bring you and your staff such bad news.’

Death knells don’t only come in bongs, then. This one didn’t go bong, or ding, or clang, even faintly. It just made a nasty insistent electronic noise, in the manner of faxes everywhere, and a grave two-minute silence would have been distinctly out of place. Looking around, in fact, it was plain to see that office life was proceeding with quite ghastly normality. Tim – attempting to make a cup of tea – sniffed some milk in an open carton and recoiled so violently that he hit his head on a pillar and his glasses fell off. Next door, Michelle spoke to the typesetters by phone, asking them with a deadly sweetness, far be it from her, etcetera, whether it would be too much trouble for them to ‘set some type’, perhaps in the spirit of experiment, to find out whether they could take to it, given time and the right circumstances. And a motorcycle messenger, despairing of ever gaining Lillian’s attention, slowly surrendered to narcolepsy on a chair, his heavy, shiny, helmeted head coming finally to rest on his leather-clad knees, giving him the appearance of a black coiled-up bean-sprout.

All this blithe normality! How incredibly ironic! When just a few yards away fate was unfolding, slowly and backwards, with only Lillian to know.

She tore the message off the machine and read it through, several times. She even read it bottom-up a few times, too, just to recapture the original sensation of receiving it. And then she put it in her top drawer and turned the lock. She peered at the motorcycle messenger and decided it would be a shame to wake him.

‘Not from the elusive Mr Makepeace, I suppose?’ Michelle was passing, on her way to the sandwich shop, and had spotted the fax.

‘No,’ snapped Lillian, ‘it wasn’t.’

‘Lackaday,’ said Michelle, not as a joke. ‘Could I ask you to be preternaturally sweet and keep an eye peeled for his book round-up?’

Lillian gave her a look that said No, actually, Michelle could not ask her to be as sweet as all that. In fact, just try it. And as for the peeled eye, what an unpleasant turn of phrase.

‘You see, between these four walls, Lillian – these four quaint but cosy living-room walls, I suppose I should say,’ she added, glancing at Lillian’s magazine rack, ‘I suspect Mr Makepeace of making things up. He keeps missing deadlines, but instead of apologizing he says, “Didn’t you get it? I posted it on Friday.” I asked Osborne to tell him we haven’t received the latest piece, and I just know he’s going to pretend he’s done it already.’

‘Huh,’ said Lillian.

‘Well, it’s annoying!’ exclaimed Michelle, suddenly quite heated. ‘It’s unprofessional. When he says, “I posted it on Friday,” I have to pretend I believe him, because I can’t accuse him of lying. I hate it. And I don’t understand why Osborne has befriended him, either. What can he see in a jerk like Makepeace, who can’t stop telling lies?’

In fifteen years, Lillian had rarely heard such passion from Michelle. It was rather entertaining. Did she say ‘jerk’?

‘Want me to sort him out?’ said Lillian flatly.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I could sort him out. I’m good at sorting out liars.’ Herewith, she tapped her locked drawer significantly, and gave Michelle a level stare.

‘You’ve lost me, I’m afraid,’ said Michelle. She shoved the swing door and marched out, leaving Lillian to her own devices.

‘Oh yes,’ said Lillian to herself, ‘I’m very good with liars.’

‘I’m going back,’ said Makepeace. They had reached Angela Farmer’s gate; and Osborne was stooping to pick up the nice bunch of flowers he had dropped, nervously, for the second time; and hoping he wouldn’t topple over, through sheer nerves, when he tried to regain the upright position. The long walk to the front door always took him this way; he reckoned it was the adrenalin. Fight or flight, they called it. Which was fair enough, since he would certainly have fought anyone who tried to stop him running away.

‘What?’ he said. ‘Going back? You mean you aren’t coming in?’

‘No, I’m not.’

Osborne was confused. ‘But I thought you wanted to meet her.’

‘I never said that.’

‘You did.’

‘I fucking didn’t.’

‘Oh. Mm. Right.’

The older man needed a minute to take this in. ‘Oh well,’ he said, trying to sound regretful, ‘I suppose if you’re going back now, I can always catch a train. Tsk, don’t worry, I can manage. After all, it’s up to you, it’s your car –’

‘No,’ interrupted his friend. ‘I mean, I’m going back to Dunquenchin.’

Osborne looked at him. He had made his announcement as though ‘going back to Dunquenchin’ was something that a man’s gotta do.

‘But they’ve both gone out. The boy went out first, and then the fireman. Don’t you remember, we saw him from the florist’s? I waved, and he pretended not to see us. In any case, what’s the fascination? If that boy is a bit funny about me, isn’t it better just to get away and forget about it? He didn’t know who I was, so no harm done.’

‘But I want to find out who Digger was.’

‘Digger?’

‘Last night, he said his dad shouldn’t have worried about Digger, because everything had been under control. Perhaps he felt about Digger the way he feels about you.’

‘Stop it, mate. It’s not worth it. Let’s just do the interview and go home.’

‘No.’

‘Have a cup cake?’

‘Fucking no!’

‘How will you get in, in any case?’

‘I unlocked the back door this morning, when I was taking my bike out.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘You don’t have to. You just be nice to Ms Farmer and sit in her shed, and I’ll do the rest.’

It would be fair to say that when Gordon opened the door at Ms Farmer’s, holding a pale blue négligé in his hand, Osborne did not rise above his emotions.

‘Aagh!’ he exclaimed, and dropped the flowers again.

‘Didn’t expect to see me?’ said Gordon carefully. This is the only way to deal with these people, he decided. Don’t let them see you are afraid.

‘Well, not so soon,’ admitted Osborne jumpily. ‘Er, I’ve got some – well, business with Ms Farmer, if that’s all right.’ Don’t say what it is, thought Osborne. For God’s sake, don’t tell him you are the shed man at Come Into the Garden.

They looked at one another. There was a long pause.

‘I know,’ said Gordon. They both took a deep breath.

‘I know who you are. And I think I know why you’ve come. You’re from Come Into the Garden, aren’t you? You’re the man who does the sheds.’

Oh God. Osborne gulped. ‘’Assright,’ he said in a tiny voice.

‘I know your work,’ said Gordon very carefully.

‘Oh good. Er, thank you very much.’

‘Where’s your friend?’

Osborne started guiltily. ‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t know. Nothing to do with me, anyway.’

‘You’d better come in,’ said Gordon.

‘No, it’s all right,’ said Osborne with a brave smile. ‘I’m fine here.’

‘I think you should.’

‘No, it’s a lovely day. Tell you what, where’s the shed? I’ll start there.’

Back at Dunquenchin, Makepeace had climbed the stairs to Gordon’s modest little office – a top-storey room with a tiny window, and very little sign of Gordon’s immense success. It was nearer to an average teenager’s playroom than to an executive office, with papers and gadgets and bits of computer scattered about like toys. What it did have, however, was a fax machine, something Makepeace spotted at once. Could this be his perfect opportunity to clear himself with Come Into the Garden? If not, why not? Despite the rather stressful circumstances, this was too good a chance to miss. Hastily he scribbled a note to Come Into the Garden, and fed it, without more ado, into the fax.

Dear Michelle,

Hi! Osborne tells me you didn’t get my round-up last Friday. Are you absolutely sure? Because I came to the office specially and posted it in your letter-box on Thursday night. It was two sides of A4, green typewriter-ribbon. I can’t imagine what could have happened to it. Anyway, I can type it up again by Friday if you like. What a drag!

In haste (in Devon!), M. Makepeace

‘Why didn’t he come in?’ asked Angela. ‘I don’t get it.’

Gordon considered. ‘I just think he’s a bit peculiar.’

‘Well, I’ll drink to that. Shall I go out and speak to him, do you think? I mean, if he’s just gonna look at the shed on his own, I needn’t have got up so early. I mean, now I think of it, I needn’t have got up at all.’

They were watching from the kitchen window.

‘Listen, can I phone Dad? It’s just that the other one, his pal, isn’t with him, and I’m a bit worried what he might be up to.’

‘Gordon, this isn’t like you, sweetheart. What’s on your mind?’

‘Well, it may just be rubbish, but I think these blokes might be a bit desperate. I don’t know; out for revenge, or something like that.’

‘I get it. Your dad did one of his risottos, am I right?’

‘No. I mean, yes. But that’s not it. Can I use the phone?’

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Makepeace was startled when the phone rang, and even more alarmed when he heard it answered downstairs. ‘Fuck,’ he said aloud, and then wished he hadn’t.

‘Dunquenchin,’ said Gordon’s dad, as though it were quite a normal thing to say, but then his tone changed. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Yeah, but I only just got in. Listen, if there’s trouble I’ll sort it out. You stay with Angela, and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

Just then the fax machine started to rumble, and Makepeace panicked. Gordon’s dad was looking for him! The big man with the beach-ball shoulders and those searing Rumpelstiltskin analogies! Oh God. Should he hide, jump out of the window, what? Why hadn’t he picked up a hatchet from downstairs, or a ladder, or a large colour picture to hide behind? And now this sodding machine was giving him away. ‘Shut up!’ he hissed at it, and rushed over to turn it off. But glancing at the message emerging from the machine, he realized to his considerable discomfort that it was addressed to him, and was a reply from Come Into the Garden. Oh fuck, how incriminating! Even if he hid, Gordon’s dad would find out what he’d been doing. As soon as it was finished he ripped it from the machine and stared at it in horror.

Dear Makepeace,

Michelle wanted me to tell you not to worry about the round-up piece. She says it was on her desk all the time!

(‘No!’ he whimpered.)

Sorry for the false alarm! Thank goodness you haven’t ‘retyped’ it yet, eh? She says it was pretty good, by the way, but she wasn’t sure about the reference to ‘hoist by his own petard’ – perhaps a twinge too literary, she said.

(Makepeace struggled for breath.)

Anyway, the point is, stop worrying! You writers are all far too conscientious!

All best,
Lillian

‘Fuck!’ shouted Makepeace. The effect of this letter was quite extraordinary. He had started hyperventilating. In fact, he was bent double and panting when Gordon’s dad put his head round the door and saw him.

‘Gotcha,’ said the fireman softly. And standing outside, he gently but firmly turned the door-key in the lock.