‘We’ll be weighing him, won’t we, Burns?’ promised the pathologist.
The ever-silent Burns nodded.
‘Render him temporarily unconscious, put the rope round his neck, throw the other end over the beam and heave away,’ suggested Sloan.
‘Could be done,’ agreed the pathologist.
‘Crosby,’ ordered Sloan, ‘measure the height of the seat of the chair from the floor – without touching it, mind you.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The constable bent over it and extended a metal tape.
‘Now measure the height of the body from the floor,’ ordered Sloan.
‘Bingo,’ said Crosby.
‘By which I take it you mean they are the same,’ said Sloan frostily.
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘And then, Crosby, you can rustle up the Scenes of Crime people.’
‘Charlie Marsden and his Merry Men,’ said Detective Constable Crosby. ‘Will do. I’ll ask for a few portlies too, to guard the back lane.’
‘And after that, Crosby,’ said Sloan, rising above this slur on the uniformed branch, ‘you can go round and chat up the landlord at the Railway Tavern before he finds out what’s happened. We’ll need to set up an incident room and I’ll alert Tod Morton that we’ll be needing a hearse when we’re done with the body here. I’ll be in touch with the Coroner myself.’
Doctor Dabbe said so would he. ‘When I’ve done the post-mortem,’ he added. ‘And examined the hands properly to see if he put up a fight.’
‘And what I will want to know, among other things,’ said the detective inspector, ‘is whether or not the deceased knew whoever came in …’
‘Always presuming that someone did,’ pointed out the pathologist. ‘Remember it’s too soon to say for sure, Sloan.’
‘Friend or foe,’ said Crosby, looking round. ‘That’s what we want to know, isn’t it?’
‘Whichever way you look at it,’ observed Williams, the photographer, ‘it can’t have been a friend. Not if he ended up swinging like this.’
Detective Constable Crosby slid into the saloon bar of the Railway Tavern as instructed after the manner born. The landlord stopped polishing glasses and asked him what he was having.
With a fine show of ignorance, Crosby asked him what the local brew was.
‘Stranger in these parts, then?’ The landlord waved his hand in a gesture designed to take in the whole area.
‘Sort of,’ said Crosby obliquely. ‘I’ve just come over from Pelling.’
‘Try our best bitter.’
‘Will do,’ said the constable, temporarily putting to the back of his mind all he had been told about not drinking on duty. He waited until it had been drawn and he had taken a first sip. He nodded appreciatively and then jerked his shoulder in the direction of Norman Potts’ house.
‘What’s going on down the road? There’s a load of police cars outside one of the houses there.’
‘Where?’ The landlord shot to the door and looked out. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed. That’s Norman Potts’ house. What’s he been and gone and done now, I wonder?’
‘What does he usually do?’ asked Crosby, taking another sip.
‘Make trouble,’ said the landlord briefly. ‘Big trouble, usually.’
‘Bit of low life, is he?’
The landlord shook his head. ‘No, not that, but he’ll pick a fight with anyone over anything, if he can. Combative, if you ask me. Or do I mean aggressive?’
‘What about?’ asked Crosby, burying his face in his glass of beer.
‘Money and family,’ said the landlord. ‘In that order. He owes me. Had to throw him out last week but he still came back. Wanted to borrow some more to tide him over.’ He snorted. ‘At least, that’s what he said. Me, I think it’s the gee gees.’
‘Some wives,’ advanced Detective Constable Crosby, bachelor, trying to sound wise, ‘will spend every penny a man’s got.’
‘It’s not that,’ said the landlord. ‘He had a wife but she took off. Or threw him out. I don’t know which. Don’t blame her myself. He must have been a real pain to have around. No, it’s horses with him.’ He paused and then said after some thought, ‘Not that they’re any more reliable than women.’
‘They don’t answer back,’ observed Crosby.
‘No more they do,’ agreed the landlord. A smile split
his features. ‘And some of them are faster. Only some of them, mind you. The ones you don’t put money on.’
Crosby grinned appreciatively and said he’d have another half. ‘Got a lot on the slate, has he?’
‘Too much,’ said the landlord grimly. ‘Said he was working on something new out in the country and would pay me back soon but if you ask me, he wasn’t working on anything.’
‘Not up and about?’
‘Not up at all, I should say. Lazy beggar except on race days.’
‘And when he did work was it anything to do with flowers?’
The landlord gave Crosby a curious look. ‘Funny you should say that. Do you know him, then?’
‘No,’ said the constable truthfully.
‘He was always going on about his stepfather doing him out of his share of a nursery. I wouldn’t have thought he’d know one end of a daisy from the other myself. Not until he starts pushing them up.’
Resisting the considerable temptation to say that that was just what the late – and apparently unlamented – Norman Potts would be doing quite soon, Crosby drank up and took his leave.
In his day Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan, like all policemen, had done his time as a breaker of bad news. Sometimes it was as the unhappy herald of sudden death after a road traffic accident, sometimes as the deliverer of an unwelcome arrest warrant. Only very occasionally did the harbinger bear intelligence that the recipient
was pleased to hear. The finding of a live lost child was one of them although the tracing of an aged demented relative who had gone walkabout usually only occasioned modified rapture.
Thus responses normally ran the gamut from grief to joy and Sloan had gradually become inured to them all. What he hadn’t experienced before, though, was such an equivocal reception to the information given.
‘Norman dead?’ echoed a bewildered Marilyn Potts when the two policemen arrived at Capstan Purlieu Plants with the news. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure, madam,’ said Sloan steadily.
‘Tell us more,’ said Anna Sutherland, standing protectively behind her friend. ‘Where, for instance?’
‘At his home in Berebury,’ said Sloan, telling the truth but not the whole truth.
‘What on earth from?’ asked Marilyn.
‘That we don’t know for certain,’ said Sloan even more truthfully.
‘But he wasn’t even old,’ protested Marilyn.
‘That we don’t know either,’ said Sloan. The age of the asphyxiated man hanging from a beam in a cottage had not been easy to assess from his face. ‘Not for sure.’
‘So you’re just telling me that he’s dead, are you?’ said Marilyn Potts truculently. ‘Is that all?’
‘Why are you telling her this anyway?’ intervened Anna Sutherland brusquely. ‘He and Marilyn were divorced. She told you that yesterday. Good grief man, you haven’t come here to ask her to identify him, have you?’
‘Not at this stage,’ said Sloan cautiously. Mortuary technicians could work wonders but it took time.
Marilyn Potts began a low keening.
‘What’s it got to do with Marilyn now in any case?’ demanded Anna Sutherland only just short of belligerently.
Sloan took refuge in police-speak. ‘There are certain anomalies surrounding the death.’
‘What does that mean?’ demanded Anna roughly.
‘That there are some enquiries still to be made about the deceased …’ began Sloan. These days the duty of candour was enjoined upon the medical profession but not, thank goodness, on the police.
Yet.
‘The deceased …’ Marilyn Potts choked on the word. ‘It’s poor Norman who you’re talking about, remember …’
‘What enquiries?’ asked Anna Sutherland.
‘The provenance of some orchids is one of them,’ said Sloan.
Marilyn Potts stared at him. ‘Orchids? Are you joking, Inspector?’
‘Certainly not, madam. I am quite serious. I understand you were at Staple St James giving a talk on the subject yesterday evening.’
‘What about it?’
Detective Inspector Sloan, all policeman now, turned to Anna Sutherland and said, ‘And you, madam? Where were you?’
‘She was with me,’ said Marilyn Potts quickly before her friend could speak.
Anna Sutherland said quite calmly, ‘I was with Marilyn in the sense that I drove her over to Staple St James but I stayed in the car outside the hall while she spoke.’
‘Why?’ asked Crosby.
The older woman replied, ‘You probably don’t understand, constable, but it’s quite difficult to deliver a lecture when there’s someone you know well in the audience.’
Detective Inspector Sloan didn’t need telling that. His wife, Margaret, knew it too. There had been that trying time when he had been lured into giving a talk to her Tuesday evening club, when to his relief she had fled to the kitchen. He hoped the ladies had forgotten the occasion but he hadn’t. He asked the two women at Capstan Purlieu instead, ‘Have you any other orchids here apart from the damaged ones we saw yesterday?’
Anna Sutherland muttered, ‘The dead ones, you mean,’ under her breath.
‘Of course I have,’ said Marilyn with dignity. ‘I brought some back from Staple St James last night after I had given my talk.’ She waved a hand. ‘They’re in one of the sheds over there.’
‘With the door closed,’ said Anna Sutherland drily.
‘I’m keeping them for Enid Osgathorp,’ said Marilyn. ‘She’s bound to ask for them when she gets back.’
‘Bound to,’ contributed Anna Sutherland. ‘No flies on old Enid. If she’s paid for them, then they’re hers.
Detective Inspector Sloan said that he would like to see them.
‘No problem.’ Marilyn Potts led the way to a shed behind the cottage and flung the door open. ‘Here we are, Inspector. Six orchids. All different. They’re Enid Osgathorp’s by rights, you understand.’
Detective Inspector Sloan, who wasn’t sure that he understood anything at this point, nodded.
As they entered the shed, Sloan pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and summoned up a photograph of the two orchids on the sideboard in Norman Potts’ house. He compared them with those in the shed. Neither bore any strong resemblance to those standing on the decking in front of him. ‘These orchids,’ he said, ‘which you presumably collected from Jack Haines for your talk last night …’ If he remembered rightly their provenance had cropped up when he was over there yesterday.
‘That’s right,’ sniffed Marilyn Potts. ‘I did.’
‘How many did you take with you last night to your talk?’ he asked.
‘Six,’ she said, ‘and I brought six back.’
Sloan ran his eye along the row. There were four orchids there.
‘I’m sure I brought them all back,’ she began, looking more worried than ever. She turned to her friend. ‘Didn’t I, Anna?’
‘You did,’ said Anna Sutherland, staring at the four orchids. ‘I helped you carry them in.’
Detective Constable Crosby looked up and said brightly. ‘She counted them all out but she didn’t count them all back.’
‘Oh, yes, she did,’ Anna Sutherland contradicted him flatly. ‘Six of them.’ She pointed to the photograph in Sloan’s hand. ‘I saw them too – including two Dracula orchids just like those.’
‘Dracula was a vampire, wasn’t he?’ remarked Crosby to nobody in particular.
‘Yes,’ said Anna Sutherland. ‘A blood-sucker.’
‘I brought six orchids back with me,’ insisted Marilyn, looking troubled. ‘I know I did. You’ll back me up on that, won’t you, Anna?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, adding enigmatically, ‘but we’re both heavy sleepers.’
The police car had scarcely faded from view at Capstan Purlieu Nursery before Marilyn Potts turned to her friend Anna Sutherland and started to speak. She seemed to be having some difficulty in forming her words.
‘Anna ….’
‘What is it?’
‘Last night.’
‘What about last night?’
‘When we were over at Staple St James …’
‘What about it?’ said the older woman discouragingly.
‘You wouldn’t come into the Hall when I was speaking.’
‘You know how my being in the audience puts you off. You’re always saying so. I must say I myself don’t understand why you feel that way but …’ she opened her hands expressively, ‘there you are.’
‘No,’ said Marilyn.
‘No what?’
‘No, you weren’t there.’ Marilyn flushed and went on awkwardly, ‘I came out, you see. Someone in the audience wanted one of our plant lists and I’d forgotten to take them into the hall with me so I said I’d get one for him from the car.’ Her voice trailed off and she said miserably, ‘And you weren’t there.’
‘No more I was,’ agreed Anna Sutherland easily. ‘I’d gone for a bit of a potter round, that’s all.’
‘I thought we were saving petrol now we’re so broke.’
‘I didn’t go far.’
‘You took your time about it then.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I came out again later on and you still weren’t there.’
‘I was there when you were ready to come home and that’s all that matters.’
‘No,’ said her friend, looking troubled. ‘No, it isn’t, Anna.’
‘Four orchids and not six?’ exploded Superintendent Leeyes, sounding tetchy. ‘Is this a criminal case or a flower show, Sloan? What on earth is going on at Capstan Purlieu and in Berebury too, for that matter? First blackmail and now a doubtful death.’
‘I don’t know exactly, sir,’ admitted Sloan, ‘but Norman Potts had connections over there.’
‘And what about that old party missing from Pelling? Is she connected with of all these floral shenanigans too? Or the death here in Berebury? And where does her blackmailing come in?’
‘I don’t know that either,’ said Sloan, spelling out what he did know about Enid Maude Osgathorp’s connections with events to date.
‘Was she blackmailing Norman Potts too?’ the superintendent enquired with interest. ‘He presumably
once lived at Pelling since he’s Jack Haines’ stepson and so she would have known his medical history too.’
‘We’re already looking into that, sir. The deceased was certainly said to be short of money,’ said Sloan. ‘At least the landlord of the Railway Tavern told us he was.’
‘I wonder what unmentionable lurgy he had been suffering from?’ mused the superintendent. ‘That’s if the missing person was blackmailing him too.’
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir,’ said Sloan astringently. What he himself really wanted to know was what exactly had been wrong with Benedict Feakins that could account for behaviour bordering on the bizarre.
‘There you are, then,’ said Leeyes ambiguously.
‘We have reason to believe that the six orchids were Enid Osgathorp’s in the first place,’ he began carefully. ‘Ordered by the missing person from Jack Haines …’
‘Whose nursery was broken into the night before and orchids damaged,’ the superintendent reminded him. ‘And who also has connections with Norman Potts.’
‘But used in a demonstration by someone else because the woman wasn’t around to give it herself …’
‘Not around for reasons which we don’t know,’ interrupted Leeyes, ‘but have reason to suspect.’
‘We don’t know that yet,’ put in Sloan swiftly – and promptly wished he hadn’t. It was the sort of rejoinder that his superior officer didn’t like and with his Personal Development Discussion pending … He belatedly added ‘sir’, by way of amelioration.
‘And it would seem two of the same orchids were probably used by some joker after that,’ finished Leeyes for him. ‘That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?’
Joker wasn’t a word Sloan would have used. There had been nothing at all funny about the figure of the man hanging in his kitchen in one of the less attractive neighbourhoods of Berebury. ‘We have no way of proving yet that they are the same orchids, of course, but it would seem to be the case. Especially since they were of a variety called Dracula, a name with all its connotations with blood-sucking.’
‘Blackmail,’ said Leeyes bleakly.
‘We’re checking on the fingerprints of the two ladies at Capstan Purlieu and those on the pots the orchids at Berebury are in.’
‘Is someone saying it with flowers?’ asked Leeyes, demonstrating that advertising had reached an unlikely audience.
‘That I can’t say, sir, not at this stage,’ said Sloan regretfully, ‘but I think the variety and the gesture must have a meaning. I just don’t know what it is.’
‘Then find out,’ ordered the superintendent grandly. ‘And while you’re about it, you’d better find that missing person too. Since they were her orchids in the first place she might be able to throw some light on the whole business – if she’s still alive, that is. Blackmail is a very dangerous undertaking.’
‘We’ve put out a general alert for her but there hasn’t been any response so far. She had a pre-booked return railway ticket for that journey to Wales but it hasn’t been handed in there or anywhere else on the route. The Transport Police have been showing her photograph to passengers on the Berebury to London trains.’
‘Give ’em something to do,’ growled Leeyes at his most
curmudgeonly. He didn’t like other police of any sort on his patch.
‘But no one remembers seeing her that morning.’ Sloan hadn’t been surprised at that. His own mother frequently said that grey-haired old ladies were as good as invisible to the general public.
Leeyes grunted. ‘And you still don’t know whether the deceased here at Berebury was murdered or took his own life.’
‘Not yet, sir. A post-mortem is being arranged. We’re waiting to be told the time at attend.’
The superintendent sniffed. ‘Medical evidence isn’t everything.’
Detective Inspector Sloan was the first to agree with him. His own doctor was being quite equivocal about a persistent rash on Sloan’s left leg; hesitant about giving him a diagnosis, the physician had merely prescribed a succession of ointments to no avail. Subconsciously reminded of the itch, Sloan now rubbed one leg against the other.
‘But let me know what he finds,’ said his superior officer.
‘We are also very aware,’ persisted Sloan, ‘that there are connections between the deceased at Berebury, Jack Haines at Pelling and Marilyn Potts at Capstan Purlieu – if not with Enid Osgathorp. We’re going back to see Haines at Pelling next.’
Leeyes waved a hand. ‘Put it all in your report, Sloan.’
‘And then we propose to check up once again on everyone whose plants were damaged by the frost in the greenhouses just in case there is a link somewhere
along the line with whoever turned off that greenhouse thermostat. Someone might have wanted to damage a particular customer’s plants rather than just Jack Haines’ business generally.’ He had Benedict Feakins in mind but he didn’t say so.
‘A scattergun approach, you mean?’ Leeyes grunted again. ‘Odd way of carrying on, if you ask me.’
‘Some of the dead plants,’ ploughed on Sloan, ‘were for the old admiral and some others for that young couple in the village who had the bonfire as well as those we already know about for the Lingards and Anthony Berra, their garden designer.’
‘What does one of those do?’ enquired Leeyes with interest. ‘Some sort of glorified gardener, is he?’
‘A garden designer is,’ said Sloan unkindly, ‘in my opinion something between an architect and a cookery presenter.’
‘Takes all sorts, I suppose,’ said Leeyes.
‘And to be on the safe side, sir, we’ll be checking up on Haines’ competitors in the nursery business.’
‘That’s what I like to see, Sloan,’ said the superintendent, unconsciously using a horticultural metaphor, ‘you leaving no stone unturned.’
Mandy Lamb had reached the office at the nursery at her usual time that morning but there had been no sign of Jack Haines there when she arrived. It wasn’t long though before Russ Aqueel came in looking for him.
‘Boss not about then?’ the foreman said.
‘If he is, he’s not here. As you can see,’ she added pointedly.
‘Well, he’s not outside either or I wouldn’t have come in here looking for him, would I?’
‘Probably not,’ said the secretary ambiguously. Rather late in the day she asked if there was anything that she could do for the foreman.
‘Bob Steele’s been in asking if he could pick up some Penstemon Blueberry Fudge if he came over for them.’
‘Again?’ Mandy Lamb raised her eyebrows.
‘Again,’ said Russ.
‘Trade, of course,’ she said.
‘Naturally.’
Mandy Lamb sighed. ‘I expect, knowing him as we do, that Jack would say yes.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ He turned. ‘I’ll get back to Bob and tell him.’
Just then the telephone in the office rang and as Mandy picked it up the foreman slipped away. She listened carefully and then said in the impersonal tones of the perfect secretary, ‘I’ll tell Mr Haines when he comes in.’
It was another half an hour before Jack Haines arrived at the office. ‘Sorry to be so late, I slept in,’ he said, flopping wearily into the chair at his desk.
‘You don’t look as if you’ve slept at all,’ said Mandy, making for the kettle. ‘And you’ve cut yourself shaving.’
He brushed a hand over his jowl and stared bemusedly at the blood on it. ‘Any messages?’
‘The police are on their way.’
‘What for this time?’ He didn’t sound particularly interested.
‘They didn’t say.’
He turned over his post in a desultory way. ‘Anything else?’
‘Anthony Berra’s coming in to pick up his new plants for the Lingards.’ She indicated a couple of crates on the floor. ‘And Benedict Feakins said he was going to bring his cacti in this morning for you to look at but he hasn’t turned up yet.’
Jack Haines grunted.
She went on, ‘As the admiral’s still in hospital Russ hasn’t brought the load of bedding plants he ordered inside. It’s going to upset our Anthony anyway. He’s trying to wean him off them.’
‘Tough.’
‘And Russ says Bob Steele wants some more plants from us.’
‘He does, does he?’ It wasn’t clear who Jack Haines meant by this.
‘But Russ thought you would agree and so he’s gone to ring him.’
‘Oh, he has, has he?’ It was quite clear that the nurseryman meant the foreman this time. He accepted the coffee gratefully. ‘I’ve got a helluva headache.’
‘I can see that,’ she said, noting the black shadows under his eyes. ‘You look like you’ve had a night on the tiles.’
‘Only in a manner of speaking.’ He gulped his coffee down.
‘Not under them anyway,’ she concluded neatly. ‘You need some sticking plaster on that cut, by the way.’
‘What I actually need is some more coffee before the police arrive.’
Mandy Lamb looked up as a car drew up outside the window. ‘Too late. They’re here.’
‘I understand,’ stated Detective Inspector Sloan, with some formality, ‘from what you told my constable and myself earlier that you know a man called Norman Potts.’
Jack Haines said, ‘I do. Only too well.’
‘Do you mind telling me when you last saw him?’ Detective Inspector Sloan, a man well-versed in the many pitfalls associated with dealing with potentially injured parties as opposed to suspects, kept his questioning as low-key as possible.
The nurseryman shrugged his shoulders. ‘Weeks ago. Like I told you. He came round to see if I could tell him where his former wife was. I told him to push off. Why do you want to know? What’s he done now?’
Sloan was not deflected. ‘Why should he have come here looking for her?
‘I trained her,’ said Haines briefly. ‘It’s where she first met him and he thought I might know where she was.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘No.’
Sloan nodded and made a note. Unexpanded responses were only one stage removed from the proverbial ‘No Comment’ and usually about as helpful. Sloan’s eyes, gardener that he was, strayed in the direction of the two crates in the corner of the room. The plants looked
top-notch
– he spotted evergreen shrubs and some roses. They would be ready for planting – in fact the roses
would be better for being in the ground by now. ‘Tell me, this Norman Potts – would he have had any reason for damaging your plants?’ With an effort he took his eyes off the crates, both full to overflowing, and brought his attention back to what Jack Haines was saying.
‘No, but he probably thought he had.’
Sloan nodded. ‘Quite so.’
‘Matrimonial causes,’ put in Crosby without quite knowing what the phrase meant.
‘I’ll say,’ said Haines.
Deliberately lowering the temperature of the interview still further, Detective Inspector Sloan pointed to the plants. ‘Someone’s got some good stuff coming their way.’
‘They have indeed,’ said Haines, sounding cheerful for the first time, the nurseryman in him rising to the fore. ‘They’re for the Lingards – some replacements for what was lost in the break-in. We had a bit of trouble getting hold of some of them but I don’t think we’ve done too badly in the circumstances.’
Sloan walked over and read some of the labels aloud. ‘Abelia, Philadelphus, Ribes, Syringa, Cistus, Osmanthus …’ He stood for a moment, something stirring at the back of his mind. He waited for a moment for it to surface and when it didn’t he turned a label over on one of the plants. ‘Here’s one I don’t know – Japanese Bitter Orange.’
‘Can you eat it?’ asked Crosby.
‘Not if you’ve got any sense,’ growled Jack Haines, ‘but it does well in lime.’
Detective Inspector Sloan, still looking at the plants, asked absently, ‘And Marilyn Potts at Capstan Purlieu?
Would Norman Potts have had anything against her?’
‘I imagine he thought so.’ Haines sounded almost indifferent, certainly not alarmed. ‘Norman was like that.’
‘Interesting lot of plants you’ve got there,’ Sloan said, producing a photograph of the two orchids found at the house in Berebury and asking Jack Haines if he recognised them.
The nurseryman held it in his hands and said, ‘Orchid Dracula andreettae. I sell quite a few.’ He handed the photograph back to Sloan who folded it away carefully in his notebook. ‘Want some?’
Sloan shook his head and then asked casually as if it was of no consequence, ‘Last night, sir, do you mind telling me where you went after work?’
‘Home,’ said Jack Haines.
‘Home alone?’ intervened Detective Constable Crosby involuntarily.
‘My wife died some years ago,’ said Haines with dignity.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan as if totally satisfied by this and getting up to go. He saw no point in revealing at this stage that Traffic Division’s number recognition system had noted that Jack Haines’ car had been recorded stationed outside Berebury Garden Centre for some time before travelling back to Pelling in the early hours of the morning.
That nugget of information could wait.