In London, Jo started to take the left turn just before Grovehill Square, but suddenly swerved and continued straight.
“Jo, why didn’t you turn?”
“What?” Jo’s face was flushed. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking, Pru, sorry. I thought that was a street too early. Here now, I’ll just go around. We’ll be there in two ticks.”
It took longer than two ticks; Jo drove what seemed to Pru far out of the way before circling back to Grovehill Square, and fifteen more minutes passed before they arrived at her door. She saw Jo glance around the square, as if doing a quick reconnaissance.
“There now,” she said, the relief evident in her voice, “home again.”
“Right,” said Pru. “Thanks, Jo, I really did have a lovely weekend.”
Jo recovered her good spirits. “You don’t have any appointments at the police station this week, do you?”
Pru smiled. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Pru took herself and her weekend bag into the front hall. Two days’ worth of post lay on the floor. She shut the door, turned on the light against the gray outside, and bent to pick up her letters. As her hand reached down, she stopped. On top of the three or four pieces of mail, which lay scattered in a small heap, was part of a large shoeprint.
Pru’s hand hovered over the mail. No postman in here. She stood up quickly and listened; quiet filled the house. She looked back at the mail; she could see something with Sarah Richards’s return address—maybe it was finally her check. For a moment, she stood looking at the floor, then she bent down and collected the letters.
Now, be sensible, she said to herself, how could someone get in here, and why would he want to? She walked quietly to the back door, which was securely locked. All windows closed. The locked door to the basement—for which she had no key—still locked.
She checked every room and saw no signs of disturbance, ending up in the front room where her laptop sat on the desk, shut down but with the lid up. She held her breath and stared at it. Hadn’t she closed the lid? Doesn’t she always close the lid? No, wait, she remembered now—she forgot to close the lid one day last week, too.
She let her breath out. Okay, no one broke in; no one is here. I’m fine. Nothing is gone. She checked the lock on the front door, and, without allowing herself a reason, pulled the kitchen table up against the back door and hoped there wasn’t a fire in the middle of the night and she couldn’t get out. She fixed herself a sandwich for dinner and had a glass of wine, opting for the quiet entertainment of a book instead of trying to listen for unusual sounds over the voices of the television or Radio 4.
Later, Pru rang the Wilsons to ask if she could stop by the following day, and—she had to admit—to hear a friendly voice. Mrs. Wilson said they would love to see her for tea in the afternoon.
The Royal Corner
Billy Row, Crook
Durham
DL15 9UA
8 October
72 Grovehill Square
Chelsea
London SW3
Dear Ms. Parke,
I write to regretfully inform you that you have not been selected for the post of head gardener for Boars Hall Castle and Gardens. Thank you for sharing with us your knowledge of the gardens, mining, and history of Durham.
We appreciate your interest in this post and wish you well in your future endeavours.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Stanhope-Worthington
ASW/bbr
No email from Lydia followed the rejection letter from Boars Hall, which was a relief to Pru only until her phone rang and she saw whose number it was: Marcus. She left the ringing phone on the kitchen counter and walked into the front room, to get as far away from it as she could. When it stopped—with no message left to ignore—she stuck it in her pocket and left for the Wilsons’.
“Harry’s joining us today, dear,” said Mrs. Wilson when Pru arrived.
Mr. Wilson had decided to take some time off work. Pru remained in the dark about Mr. Wilson’s employment; she’d learned he was a director in a company, but didn’t know what the company did. Whatever it was, he was senior enough to do as he pleased.
“Why don’t you pop downstairs, Pru, and let him know the tea is ready?”
The basement door off the front hall was open, and Pru walked down the stairs to find Mr. Wilson staring at a letter in his hand. He hadn’t noticed her.
“Mr. Wilson?”
He started. “Pru, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” He folded the letter up and stuffed it into the envelope he held in his other hand. He rolled up the envelope until he was unable to roll it anymore and it resembled a fat cigar. He stuck it in his pocket. But Pru caught a glimpse of the letterhead before it disappeared in the folds: Hodges & Hodges Appraisals. She’d seen that on a letter her first visit to the Wilsons’; she remembered the announcement on the company’s website about an upcoming important auction of ancient items. She told herself Mr. Wilson must be buying, not selling.
“Tea is ready,” she said.
While Mrs. Wilson fussed with the tea, Pru told them the funny story of running into Christopher in the country and about watching the badgers—she left off the part about stomping away from lunch. Mr. Wilson told her about some of the interesting finds he’d been involved with—the reason for all the awards covering the little tables in the hall.
“Our society, well, we’re amateurs, so we only help the real archaeologists—we never work by ourselves. A few years ago, we were a part of a group that found a collection of Roman vessels down in Wiltshire. It never ceases to amaze me to think that we come across pieces of people’s lives, the cooking pots and jewelry and stoneware from so long ago.”
“Who has the pots now?” asked Pru.
“The whole collection is in the Salisbury museum, so that everyone can learn about them and enjoy them.” Mr. Wilson shrugged his shoulders. “It wouldn’t be any fun if what we found was just locked away in someone’s cupboard. It’s in the sharing that we discover more.”
He was like a gardener talking about a prized collection of dahlias—you could see that light in his eye. No gardener would want to hide the fruits of her labor, that’s why there were garden open days. And for archaeologists, museums. Mr. Wilson could never be involved in the unsavory business of stealing and murder. She wished Christopher could hear Mr. Wilson talk about his activities. “Are there collectors of Roman antiquities? Like art collectors or collectors of rare books?” she asked.
“There are indeed,” said Mr. Wilson. “Just a few years ago, a fellow down in Wiltshire dug up an intact Roman helmet in fine condition—very rare, an astounding discovery. There were many museums that wanted that piece, but he wanted money, and put it up for auction, where it fetched £1 million.”
Mrs. Wilson seemed to pursue her own line of thought. “It would make a lovely weekend away for you and a friend, dear,” she said, “if you were to go down to Salisbury. Harry could show the two of you around.”
“I’d love to, but I’m not sure what friend I’d persuade to go,” Pru said.
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Wilson said, “you never know, Pru. What about the inspector?”
Mrs. Wilson as matchmaker, Pru thought. She decided to change the subject. “You’ve both been so kind to me, when I haven’t even been able to get started on the garden. I feel quite at home here.”
“We enjoy your company, Pru, and talking about history and gardening,” said Mr. Wilson as his wife set down a plate of buns. Toffee Woof-Woof raised his head. He had been napping near his tin of treats, but now moved over to sit beside Pru.
“It feels as if we’ve known you for ages,” Mrs. Wilson said.
Some people gather up strays, thought Pru, it’s part of their nature; and whether she was the latest in a long line of lost souls that the Wilsons acquired, or whether she was a rare occurrence, it didn’t really matter to her. As an only child, Pru made up her own family—or many families. The Wilsons felt like some favorite aunt and uncle.
“Look,” said Mrs. Wilson, nodding toward the table, “I brought something out to show you.”
A fat photo album sat on the coffee table. Mrs. Wilson opened it up to the middle and began showing her photos of their garden and house, Greenoak, in Hampshire—the one Alf owned and had booted them out of, unceremoniously, saying that he was selling it. Mrs. Wilson talked about the garden and Simon Parke, their gardener, with Mr. Wilson adding a remark or question occasionally (“Vernona, what was that tree with the pink flowers by the drive?”). As Pru readjusted the large book in her lap, an old, yellowed photo fell out of the front. Pru picked it up and saw a boy in his early teens with a smirk on his face, dressed in an old-fashioned school uniform. “Who is this?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s Alf. What an old snapshot that is. He was a good boy growing up, but he did have a tendency to look for the easy way out of anything,” Mrs. Wilson said.
“Vernona is being kind. He owned that house free and clear. We paid him a lease all the years we lived there, and he’d still ask us for money. The house should’ve gone to both of you.” He nodded at his wife.
“Does Alf live in London?” asked Pru.
“We’re never very sure where he is. He may be here or down in Hampshire. It’s part of his shifty nature,” said Mr. Wilson.
Pru started to put the photo back in the album, and as she did, she flipped it over, and on the back she saw, in a child’s handwriting, the name “Alf Saxsby.”
Alf, Mrs. Wilson’s brother. Saxsby, the man she’d heard talking with Malcolm. Mrs. Wilson began a story about Alf as a lad and some silly idea he had about making money from marketing special telephones that wouldn’t need to be plugged in at home—anyone could talk anytime and anywhere. It distracted Pru for a moment—too bad he didn’t follow through on that one, she thought—but soon she found herself dwelling on Saxsby, and Mrs. Wilson’s story became background chatter. Alf Saxsby. Poor Mrs. Wilson. Alf, in trouble for most of his life. Alf, who lurked around one of Mr. Wilson’s digs a couple of years ago. Alf, who met Malcolm last year.
Pru pushed aside concern for how Mrs. Wilson would take the fact that her brother was involved in a murder—could Alf have murdered Jeremy?—when she remembered hearing Alf cavalierly flinging accusations. He had practically said to Malcolm that Mr. Wilson committed the murder—how could he do that to his own brother-in-law?
Alf might have wanted the mosaic for himself. Pretending it was his own, he could’ve auctioned it. Although Pru didn’t understand how you could move an entire mosaic floor and sell it without someone noticing. As Mrs. Wilson finished the story—“He still believes that the company owes him money for the idea”—Pru realized that she now had acquired more information on the case. Unintentionally, she pointed out to herself. She needed to talk with Christopher.
Her thoughts preoccupied her as she left the Wilsons’, and she didn’t notice Malcolm coming round the corner until she almost bumped into him.
“All right there, Pru? You looked a bit faraway.”
“I’m fine, Malcolm, I just stopped in for a visit at the Wilsons’.” She thought it was high time to take advantage of these “chance” encounters. “Do you have time for a pint? I wanted to tell you about some new rose breeding I was reading about.”
She didn’t want to push her luck—perhaps he would call her out on eavesdropping, but his usual friendly manner made her think that she might get away with a few pertinent questions. Malcolm jumped at the chance to talk roses.
They found a pub partway between the Wilsons’ house and hers—the Queen Charlotte. It wasn’t one of Pru’s favorites; the pub had taken up with some consortium and now offered the same tired, microwaved menu as dozens of others around the city. “Real English food!” the chalkboard proclaimed—but it wasn’t even a real chalkboard, just painted to look like one. At least they carried a few real ales. Pru ordered a half pint of Old Speckled Hen, but Malcolm went for a Dubonnet.
He kept to the subject of roses, even though occasionally Pru tried to veer off into another area. Finally, as the topic of rose scent—tea versus fruity—came to an end, she took another go.
“Malcolm, have you known the Wilsons long?”
He answered cautiously. “Well, neighbors, you know, you’re so close, you find out a great deal about them in short order.”
If the police had questioned him about Saxsby, Malcolm would know she had been the one to tell them. But for now she could pretend that she had no idea “Alf” and “Saxsby” were the same person.
“Do they have family about?” Pru kept her voice light. “Mrs. Wilson said something about her brother … is it Alf? I believe he lives in Hampshire.”
Malcolm’s face went blank. “Well, I’ve met him, but I don’t get invited to any family dinners,” he said with a tinny laugh. “You seem to be getting close to them, though. Maybe they’re even confiding in you, Pru. Or perhaps they’ve let something slip out about Jeremy or what happened in the shed. Is that what was upsetting you earlier?”
“I don’t believe they have anything that could slip out, Malcolm,” Pru said. “Do you suspect Mr. Wilson of … murdering his friend Jeremy?”
“Pru,” he began in an instructional tone, “you shouldn’t be taken in by people who pretend to be kind to you. They could be hiding a great deal. This could be a dangerous situation for you.”
For a moment, she expected him to tell her she was not a police officer. “Malcolm, don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?” She thought that his warning could apply to him just as easily as anyone else.
“They’re such a chummy bunch”—she could’ve sworn she saw him stick out his bottom lip a bit—“with their digs and their exciting finds and their ‘I have an award for this and that.’ Wouldn’t it just serve him right to be blamed for murder?”
Malcolm sounded as if he hadn’t been picked to play on their side for kickball—or cricket—hardly a reason to accuse someone of murder.
“That doesn’t really sound like evidence, does it?” she pointed out.
“There may be evidence, Pru,” he said in a low voice, looking over his shoulder as if someone listened in. But the small crowd of males in the pub stood up at the bar watching television—the replay of a soccer game from Brazil. “I just don’t want you to be hurt when it all comes out.”
He was beginning to sound like a broken record, she thought, and decided to give the record player a kick. “Malcolm, I was checking on the soil near the wall the other day. That’s when you saw me.” He squirmed in his seat, as if the memory of the encounter made him uncomfortable.
“Pru, you shouldn’t get involved in all this.”
The barmaid had come round gathering up glasses from the surrounding tables, and Pru waited until she moved on before taking a different tack. “Is the soil at the bottom of your garden very wet? When your roses died, how far down did you dig?”
With relief clearly showing on his face, Malcolm plunged into talk about his roses again. “I went down a couple of feet and it got wetter and wetter. I knew I had to abandon any hopes of putting a Zéphirine Drouhin or Félicité Perpétue on the bottom wall.”
“That would’ve been lovely,” Pru commiserated, noting to herself that the soggy soil was not isolated to the Wilsons’ shed. “I suppose Alf knows about the wet soil in the garden,” she said and waited for a reaction.
“Alf?” asked Malcolm in surprise. “What would Alf care about soil or roses?” He thought for a moment. “In fact, I did try to show him when he visited that first time, but he just laughed. But then he got quiet for a moment,” Malcolm said with a frown, “and said that he had a boggy place in Hampshire. He knows nothing about roses.” He looked at his empty glass, with only a film of Dubonnet at the bottom. “Would you care for another half pint, Pru?”
“No thanks, Malcolm.” She knew she’d get no further. “I’d better get home.”
“Thanks for walking me back,” Pru said as they turned the corner near her house.
“Not at all, it’s on my way,” Malcolm said. “There’s nothing like gardening to make you feel better, Pru …” His voice drifted off and Pru looked up from digging in her bag for the key to see Christopher standing at her front door. He turned and saw Pru first, then Malcolm. His face became a mask.
“Ms. Parke. Mr. Crisp,” he said, clipping his words.
“Inspector,” Pru said quietly.
“Mr. Pearse,” Malcolm said, as if greeting a favorite uncle, “have you caught Jeremy’s murderer yet? Did you look into the matter of that argument between Harry and Jeremy?”
Christopher ignored Malcolm. “Ms. Parke, I stopped by to ask you a few more questions about the day of the murder.” Christopher wore khaki trousers and a heather-blue sweater with a light tan jacket, more fancy-a-pint clothes than may-I-take-your-statement. Pru regretted her outburst at the country pub and wanted to explain herself, but she had nowhere to go with both of them in front of her. Be brave, Pru.
“Malcolm, again, thanks so much. Would you mind, I do have something to … explain to Mr. Pearse.”
“Not at all,” Malcolm said. “Now, Pru”—he placed a kind hand on her arm—“you mustn’t worry about people’s feelings when there’s a murder to sort out. You must tell the truth.” It seemed that Malcolm remained convinced that she knew something that she didn’t know.
Pru stayed on the sidewalk, and Christopher came down to stand beside her as they watched Malcolm walk off. When she was sure he was out of earshot, Pru said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you immediately about the conversation and the photos. And about looking over the wall. And I’m sorry I got angry; I sometimes think I can do everything myself.”
“Really?” The corner of Christopher’s mouth twitched. “And I’m sorry if I sounded overbearing, but this is an open investigation.” He softened slightly. “I know I’m repeating myself, but it’s important. If you try to act on information you come across, it could put you in danger. I wouldn’t want that.”
“Do you think Malcolm was involved?” She wondered if Christopher knew who Saxsby was.
He watched Malcolm’s retreating figure. “Malcolm has an alibi,” he said, sounding as if he wasn’t sure he believed it. “He lives with his mother, and she said he didn’t go out at all the night before or the morning of the murder.”
“What? He lives with his mother? He’s never said a word.”
“She has limited mobility and spends her life on the ground floor of the house. During the day, she stays in the front sitting room, and at night, she sleeps in a bed at the back of the house. She’s hard of hearing but says she’s a light sleeper, and she swears that Malcolm did not go out.”
“Oh, his ‘obligation.’ ” Pru remembered what Mr. Wilson had said. “Lives with his mother. Eww. Norman Bates. Are you sure she’s alive?”
Christopher looked at her for a moment without answering and then asked, “Have you eaten? There’s an Italian place a couple of streets over. We could stop in for a bite.”
“Gasparetti’s? That’s my favorite place.” They turned and walked up the street.
“Did you stop by to ask me about my statement?” Pru asked.
“No,” he said, “I did not,” and smiled at her.
Pru readied herself to reveal the latest bits of information she had gathered, but decided to wait until after they ordered. Christopher glanced at the menu and began patting his pockets for his reading glasses, which were in the last pocket he searched. He looked slightly sheepish as he put them on. “No glasses for you, then?” he asked.
She grinned. “Only because I have this menu memorized,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d be borrowing those from you.” She paused. “You never can seem to find them.”
He half smiled. “It’s my own form of protest over needing them,” he said. “I never put them back in the same pocket, and so I never quite know where they are.”
The café owner, Riccardo, had waved to Pru from across the restaurant when they arrived, but one of his waiters took their order and poured the first glasses from a bottle of the house Chianti.
Once settled, she began. “I have more information for you, and I’m telling you immediately.”
Christopher hesitated as he reached for his glass. “What is it?”
“You know who Saxsby is, don’t you?” she asked.
“Alf Saxsby, Vernona Wilson’s brother,” Christopher said.
“Did you ask Malcolm about Saxsby? Did you tell him I was the one who overheard?”
“I would not reveal you as the source,” Christopher said.
“He knows it was me—he saw me,” Pru said, wondering what kind of lecture might follow this revelation.
Christopher watched her for a moment, his face unreadable. “Malcolm said he thought it was your assistant who might have overheard something, but he said it was a misunderstanding, and that they were talking in general terms about the Wilsons. He apologized for the remarks made about you. And now, how did you”—he paused for emphasis, she knew—“find out who Saxsby is?”
Pru wanted to hurry and explain, lest Christopher jump to what Pru knew to be the wrong conclusion. “I only found this out today when I talked with the Wilsons. Mrs. Wilson showed me a photo album so that I could see the garden they had in Hampshire. It was lovely, Christopher, a flagstone path with sun roses coming up in the cracks. A shallow fountain at the axis of two paths, with that little Mexican fleabane growing at its base. Just enough neatly trimmed yew to anchor the whole design. It wasn’t a large garden, and the borders weren’t too deep. They were just the right proportion. Mrs. Wilson said Simon included lots of late color, so it wasn’t the typical spring-bash display. They had a wonderful stone wall, and he had several tender vines growing on—”
“Pru.”
“Yes?” Pru said, still seeing visions of hardy fuchsias in bloom.
“Alf Saxsby.”
“Oh, sorry.” She paused as the server set her plate of pasta down. “I didn’t see him the other day—only Sammy did. But an old photo fell out of the front of the album I was looking at today. I picked it up, and it was of a boy in a school uniform. When I turned it over, I saw the name: Alf Saxsby.”
“Did you question Mrs. Wilson?” Christopher asked.
“She had already mentioned Alf,” Pru said, “when I first met her. Alf, her brother, owned their house in Hampshire, and they had to move because he sold it out from under them with no warning. Apparently he’s been in trouble off and on most of his adult life.”
“And were you talking with Malcolm about Alf Saxsby?” Christopher asked.
“Well …” Tread lightly here, Pru thought, you are not a police officer. “I ran into Malcolm this afternoon, and we decided to have a drink …”
Christopher’s eyes began to narrow.
Pru hurried on. “And we were talking about roses and other garden topics. I thought if I could just turn the conversation in the direction of the Wilsons, then it wouldn’t look as if I was interrogating him, but he might say something useful.” Pru looked at Christopher. “Do I get a lecture?”
“I don’t dare—we haven’t finished our meal. And did you find out anything?”
“No,” Pru said, acknowledging her failure. “Not even when I said that I knew he saw me in the garden. I didn’t want to admit to knowing that Saxsby and Alf were the same person. I did mention Mrs. Wilson’s brother, Alf, and something about the house in Hampshire, and he admitted that they had met, but then he clammed up.”
“Was Malcolm asking you questions? About the Wilsons or the shed or what you had seen?”
“Trying to get information out of me the way I was out of him? Yes, I believe he was. He keeps harping on what I saw that I might not remember. I don’t know what that would be.”
She looked up to see him studying her face. “Pru”—he reached across the table and took her hand—“an investigation may turn dangerous at any time …” He spoke with quiet concern, and she responded in kind.
“Christopher, I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself,” she said as she held on to his hand. He took a breath, but she kept going. “All right, here’s one more thing I found out today. A couple of years ago, Alf was hanging around one of Mr. Wilson’s digs down in Hampshire.” She couldn’t help being a bit proud of all the information she could hand over, but at the same time … “I didn’t ask about that. It just came out in conversation.”
“Right,” Christopher said. “As long as you weren’t using any harsh interrogation tactics.”
She smiled. “I thought it would be helpful for you to know,” she said in an offhanded manner. “I am not a police officer—I remember that.”
Christopher laughed, let go of her hand, and went back to eating. But Pru couldn’t quite leave the subject yet. She thought again about the easy access Malcolm had to the Wilsons’ garden. “Do you consider Malcolm a suspect?”
“No. At least not a likely suspect.”
“Why not?”
Christopher took a breath. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“Yes.”
“From the angle of the blows to the head, we can tell that the person who struck had to be taller than Malcolm.” Pru remembered the sight of Jeremy’s bloodied corpse. She put her fork down and wished she hadn’t ordered the pomodoro sauce.
“But if Jeremy had been kneeling, then he would be shorter than Malcolm,” she said.
“If Jeremy had been kneeling, most likely it would have been on the far side of the mosaic, where the hole was dug—that’s where the blood was on the soil—and that is almost against the back wall. There was too little room for anyone to get behind him and …”
Pru had taken a sip of her wine and found she needed to use both hands to put the glass back on the table. How does anyone get used to dealing with violent death? she thought.
“Right,” Christopher said, “that’s enough on that subject.”
“Yes, yes, let’s talk about something else.”
He studied her for a moment, and she held his gaze.
“Do you really get around London to all your jobs on the Tube and bus?” he asked. She accepted the lob and launched into a description of a typical day in her gardening life.
Although they arrived earlyish for dinner, they stayed well past the rush and into the late-arrivals time, and after the plates had been cleared, they continued to explore each other’s lives.
Pru told Christopher about the time, early in her career at the Dallas Arboretum, when she had been assigned the task of turning the water in all the fountains green for St. Patrick’s Day. She had used the wrong kind of dye, and the fountains had to be not only drained, but also the sides and bottoms scrubbed hard to get the color off—a task that was left to her alone.
Christopher told Pru of his first investigation as a uniformed officer—tracking down the culprit who stole a highly prized and quite expensive African gray parrot owned by the local magistrate in Lower Upham. As it happened, the magistrate’s hunting dog had nicked the bird, but that was learned only after an unpleasant discovery on the kitchen floor.
She compared English weather with the Texas climate. “It’s really hot in the summer, in the nineties—thirty-five degrees Celsius—for three months at least.”
“Well, it sounds fine for holiday temperatures, but difficult day to day.”
“It’s dreadful,” Pru said. “Funny, I never thought of it that way when I lived there. It was just the way things were. But I wouldn’t want to go back to it.” She caught herself off guard as, unbidden, the thought came to her that she may have to. “Were you born near Stow?” she asked to change the subject.
“No, I grew up in Kent, near Edenbridge. But I went to Oxford, and that’s where Phyl and I met. We lived near Cheltenham when we were married.” He reached for the wine bottle and poured them each a last glass. “But that was a long time ago. We’ve been divorced for fifteen years.”
“When did you move to London?” Pru asked.
“About that time,” he said. “I started at the Met and climbed my way up to DCI over the years. I spent all my days and many evenings working and gave up most everything else in my life.” He gave a small shrug. “I’ve been quite successful at that.”
There, Pru thought. A glimpse behind that polished police exterior.
“Getting lost in work is an easy excuse, isn’t it?” she said. He regarded her with a smile.
“You have a son?” Pru asked, remembering Phyl’s visit to the Badger Care booth. Christopher nodded. “Where does he go to school?”
“Graham’s at Sheffield, studying environmental science.”
“Does he want to work in restoration? Policy? Engineering?”
“Soil science, although beyond that I’ll have to let the two of you discuss it.”
Pru played with the last few strands of pasta on her plate and thought about meeting his family. “Edenbridge—that’s near Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s family home. When William Waldorf Astor built the gardens there, beginning in 1904—well, had them built—he diverted the river to make the big lake at the end of the Italian walk. Eight hundred men stomped down the clay soil to form the bottom of the lake.” She shook her head. “No head gardener has that kind of manpower at her fingertips these days.”
“I find it not too difficult to imagine you could handle that,” Christopher said.
“I applied for a post at a private garden,” she said, “just outside Tunbridge Wells. I had an interview last week.”
“Tunbridge Wells,” he said, almost to himself. “Tunbridge Wells is close.”
“Yes, it is close,” Pru replied, and wondered, close to what—Edenbridge or London? After that she remembered the short conversation with Ned. “But I don’t think I got it.”
Riccardo stopped by their table after Christopher had excused himself when his phone rang. Pru had become a frequent enough customer that she and Riccardo were on speaking terms. “Pru, he looks very nice. I’m happy for you.” She loved listening to Riccardo speak, as he had that Italian way of adding a vowel to the end of every word, whether one existed or not.
Again, Pru felt the need to correct this misconception. “Oh, no, Riccardo, we’re only friends.”
“I know what friends look like, Pru.” He dropped his smile. “I hope you won’t be leaving us now that the Clarkes are back in London.”
“What? No, Riccardo, they aren’t … Did you see them? Did you talk with them?” Why do people keep seeing the Clarkes? she thought. First Wilf at the pub, now Riccardo. They couldn’t be back—Jo never said a word.
Riccardo looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Pru, I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe it wasn’t them. It could’ve been someone else I mistook for them, only because they were walking along Grovehill Square on Sunday.”
Sunday—she wasn’t home Sunday. If they were back in London, why didn’t they tell her? Why didn’t Jo tell her?
Christopher came back to the table, and held Pru’s chair for her as she stood up. Riccardo said, “Sir, I hope you and Pru enjoyed your meal.”
As they headed for the door, Christopher said, “You’ve become well-known in the neighborhood.”
“It’s better than eating alone every night,” Pru said, and then cringed at such a pitiful statement.
“I believe I know what you mean.”
When they stepped out, it was raining—more than a drizzle, less than a downpour. Definitely more than she was prepared for. “Oh, dear.”
Christopher reached inside his jacket pocket and brought out a collapsible umbrella. “An Englishman is always prepared,” he said. He popped it open, put his arm around her, drew her close, and held the umbrella above them. “Shall we?”
Pru supposed she would’ve stayed drier if they had walked faster, but she didn’t really care, and apparently neither did he. The rain made enough noise drumming on the umbrella to make conversation difficult, so they walked together in silence, his hand slipping from her arm up onto her shoulder, his fingers lightly touching her bare skin, which made her shiver unintentionally. When Christopher stopped walking, Pru was surprised to see that they stood on her front step.
Out of practice with this portion of the evening, she immediately looked down and started digging in her bag for the key. Christopher dropped his arm, and when she’d found the key, she turned to open the door.
Safely on her own side of the threshold, she said to him, “Thanks so much for dinner, Christopher. I enjoyed the evening.”
“So did I. Good night, Pru.” He placed one hand on her arm, kissed her on the cheek, and left. She had a small frown on her face as she closed the door. Too late she realized she should’ve asked him in for coffee. She decided she needed a review of the rule book.
Bampper, Truro
Cornwall
TR4 8AG
11 October
72 Grovehill Square
Chelsea
London SW3
Dear Ms. Parke,
This is to inform you that you have not been selected for the post of first under gardener of Trispin Hall. We appreciate your interest in the post and your knowledge concerning the history and development of ravine gardens in Cornwall. We know that your knowledge will stand you in good stead in your future employment.
We wish you well in your future endeavours.
Yours sincerely,
James G. Russell-Davies, director
Trispin Hall Public Trust
JGRD/wgs