Jack Haines had to admit that he did know what the Lingards of Pelling Grange were like and so did everyone else in the locality. ‘Not exactly easy people,’ he agreed.
‘Especially the wife,’ added Berra, opening up a little.
‘Quite difficult, actually,’ conceded the nurseryman. There weren’t many people in Pelling who didn’t know all about Major Oswald Lingard’s new wife, Charmian, and her imperious ways. ‘Comes of having the money, I suppose,’ went on Haines. The second Mrs Lingard was rumoured to have brought a small fortune to the marriage. The restoration of the old and long neglected gardens was only one of the changes she was making at Pelling Grange. And to its owner, widower and former soldier, Oswald Lingard too.
‘She thinks she only has to give an order for it to be carried out,’ said the young landscape designer resentfully.
‘And pretty pronto too,’ added Haines, who knew the lady in question all too well. ‘No hanging about with her.’
‘She thinks she knows all about landscape gardening too,’ muttered Anthony Berra, ‘and believe you me she doesn’t.’
‘He’s all right, though,’ said Haines fairly. ‘Been around in Pelling a long time, the Lingards have. I remember his mother. Nice old lady but hardly a bean to her name.’
‘Oh, he’s all right,’ agreed Berra on the instant, ‘although he’s no pushover either what with having been in the Army. What his wife’s going to say, though, if I can’t get the work done on time I can’t begin to think. It sounded to me as if she was going to invite half the county to her precious summer garden party just so that she could show them all her improvements to the old place. Not that they didn’t need doing,’ he added hastily in case the nurseryman should be thinking that he had been
making work for himself at the expense of the owners of the Grange. ‘The place was falling apart until she came on the scene.’
‘No money around until then,’ said Jack Haines, making what he hoped were sympathetic noises. Unfortunately the effect of these was somewhat lessened by Mandy Lamb’s loudly calling out that his coffee was getting cold. ‘Poor as church mice for years, the Lingards,’ he added. ‘Until now, of course.’
Anthony Berra’s mind was still running on. ‘You do realise, Jack, don’t you, that my client is going to tell all her Calleshire friends that I’ve let her down. It’s not going to do my reputation in the county any good if I do. Or yours,’ he added ominously.
‘As I told you, Anthony, I’ve already been on to two or three other suppliers to see if they can make good any deficiencies,’ said Haines by way of mitigation. He didn’t mention that he’d already had to swallow his pride and approach his three great business rivals for replacements. ‘And they’re being very helpful.’ This was actually stretching a point since Russ Aqueel had not yet returned to the nursery at Pelling after going round them.
‘I’m not having any old stuff,’ snapped Berra immediately. ‘I’ll have to go over to the Lingards first to tell them and then I’m coming straight over to you to see for myself. If I put anything at all substandard in that garden it’ll all have to come up again and the Lingards won’t pay for that. The fact that the lady’s loaded doesn’t mean she’s going to shell out for rubbish, you know. She’s not silly.’
‘It might just get you through this season, though,’ suggested Jack Haines tentatively.
Anthony Berra wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll just have to go back to the drawing board and revise my overall design, that’s all, and she won’t like that, I can tell you. Not one little bit.’
‘I’m sure we can come to some arrangement about the cost of any replacements,’ began Jack Haines.
Anthony Berra ignored this
amende honorable
. ‘Do you have any idea at all about who could have done all this damage?’
‘No,’ said Jack Haines quickly.
Much too quickly.
Jack Haines, tubby and rather more than middle-aged, his complexion an unhealthy shade of red, was still spitting tintacks when the two policemen arrived at his office at the nursery. He barely greeted them before starting on his story. ‘My foreman – that’s Russ Aqueel, who I told the police about, swears he shut up all the greenhouses before he went off last night like he always does,’ he told them heatedly. ‘And he says there was no one around that he could see when he locked the main gate and went home.’ He turned towards a youngish woman with auburn hair sitting at a desk behind him and said over his shoulder. ‘That’s right, Mandy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Jack,’ she said in studiously uninflected tones, ‘that’s exactly what Russ says this time.’
‘Happened before, has it, then?’ asked Detective Constable Crosby chattily.
‘No,’ said Jack Haines.
‘Yes,’ said Mandy Lamb in the same breath.
‘Which?’ demanded Detective Inspector Sloan.
Jack Haines admitted grudgingly ‘All right, I suppose it should be “yes”. It happened once last autumn but there wasn’t anything to speak of in that greenhouse at the time and in any case it wasn’t frosty so it didn’t really matter.’
‘And was there now?’ enquired Crosby brightly.
‘I’ll say,’ Haines growled. ‘Young orchids in one of them – worth a helluva lot of money; and a load of plants in the other that we were mainly growing especially for a local landscape designer.’
‘Is your foreman always the last to leave at the end of the day?’ asked Sloan. All policemen knew that workers who stayed around after everyone else had gone home sometimes did so for reasons other than earning Brownie points. If they worked in the office the crime of ‘Teeming and Lading’ came to mind; in the yard it was usually that of ‘stocktaking’ of an illicit kind.
‘Well, the girls don’t hang around after leaving time, I can tell you,’ responded Jack Haines warmly. ‘Some of them get picked up by their boyfriends and,’ he raised his eyes to heaven and added piously, ‘who knows who the others get picked up by. I certainly don’t know and I don’t want to.’
‘And the men?’ asked Crosby. ‘Where do they go?’
‘The Crown and Castle pub,’ responded Mandy Lamb before her employer could speak. She pursed her lips. ‘Every night. You’d think some of them haven’t got homes to go to.’
‘Greenhouse work is thirsty work,’ chanted Jack Haines as if reciting a mantra. ‘And hard work too, I give
you that. They need to relax a bit after it. Wind down and so forth.’
‘Including Russell Aqueel?’ asked Crosby. ‘Likes his drop, does he?’
The nurseryman nodded whilst his secretary, Mandy Lamb, rolled her eyes expressively.
‘So you think some person or persons unknown broke into your grounds last night and opened a greenhouse door? Is that it?’ Detective Inspector Sloan, not supplicant gardener now but working police officer, had his notebook prominent in his hand.
‘Two doors, actually,’ said Haines heavily. ‘The two greenhouses furthest from the gate. The orchid one and the one with this year’s young plants in.’
‘Funny that,’ observed Detective Constable Crosby to no one in particular.
‘Nothing funny about it,’ snapped the nurseryman on the instant, his colour becoming more choleric by the minute. ‘It’s very serious, especially at this time of the year. It’ll put my customers’ planting plans back a good bit, I can tell you, and that’s only if I can buy in some new stock pretty pronto. It’s much too late in the year to start growing any of it again from scratch here.’
‘These greenhouses,’ began Sloan, himself a greenhouse gardener manqué, ‘what exactly was in them?’
‘Number one was full of young orchids for any commercial customers who wanted them and number two had Strelitizia, Bouganvillia, Gardenia – that sort of thing – being grown for a posh new Mediterranean garden. Oh, and a lot of baby palms and some citrus trees. You name it, and we were growing on cuttings and raising
seedlings in it for sale to our commercial customers too.’ He groaned aloud. ‘I’ve just thought …’
‘Yes?’ said Sloan.
‘Some of those orchids in number one greenhouse are in our spring catalogue. We must have taken orders for them from all over the place.’ He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair. ‘I can’t begin think what I’m going to do about that.’
‘Then there’s the rest of that special order from Anthony Berra for Pelling Grange,’ his secretary reminded him. ‘All those plants of his for the Lingards at the Grange were in there too. Don’t forget that.’
‘I haven’t. I’ve told him already and he isn’t happy.’ Jack Haines groaned again and turned to her. ‘Proper Job’s comforter, aren’t you, Mandy?’
‘Just a realist, Jack,’ she said, adding meaningfully, ‘and someone round here has to be.’
‘A special order?’ queried Sloan sharply. The out-of-the-ordinary was always of interest to the police.
‘It’s for a local landscape designer,’ explained Haines. ‘The plants were being grown to order.’
‘His order,’ supplemented Mandy Lamb. ‘Very fussy about it, he was, too.’
‘A bit precious about his reputation, being local and on the young side still, is Anthony Berra,’ conceded Haines, ‘but he knows his onions. I’ll give him that.’
‘At least,’ Mandy Lamb reminded him, ‘the other orchids – those that we’d got ready for Enid Osgathorp to collect yesterday – are safely in the packing shed. The black Phalaenopsis, the single Oncidium and those big Cymbidiums – oh, and the two Dracula orchids …’
‘Don’t let her catch you calling her Enid,’ said Jack Haines, momentarily diverted. ‘She’s Miss Osgathorp to you like she is to everyone else in Pelling and you’d better not forget it.’
He wasn’t quite correct in what he said. To the police Miss Osgathorp was simply Enid Maude Osgathorp, aged 65, missing person, but Sloan did not say so.
‘She seems to have forgotten to collect them anyway,’ retorted Mandy pertly. ‘She’d arranged to pick them up yesterday for some demonstration she was supposed to be giving somewhere tomorrow evening but she didn’t turn up for them.’
Detective Constable Crosby looked around and asked with interest, ‘Who are your nearest business rivals?’
‘Rivals?’ Jack Haines stiffened. ‘I don’t know that I’ve got …’
‘All businesses have competitors,’ said Crosby laconically, ‘like all God’s chillum got rhythm. Fact of life.’
Haines paused. ‘Well, I suppose my nearest ones would be Staple St James Nurseries over towards Cullingoak and then there’s always the Leanaig Brothers’ place and the Berebury Garden Centre. I’ve heard that Bob Steele there has just started to go in for orchids himself.’
‘And Marilyn,’ added the girl behind him swiftly. ‘Mustn’t forget our Marilyn, must we?’
‘Marilyn?’ queried Detective Inspector Sloan.
‘Just another grower,’ said Jack Haines, stiffening, ‘that’s all.’
‘Got another name, has she?’ asked Crosby.
‘Trades as Capstan Purlieu Plants,’ said Jack Haines briefly, nothing mellow about him now, ‘but I don’t think
any competitor would stoop to something like sabotage.’
‘Except at Show time,’ put in Mandy Lamb softly in the background.
‘Showing’s different,’ said Jack Haines quickly. ‘We’re all rivals then.’
‘No holds barred,’ agreed Sloan, who knew all about Flower Shows from long experience. His own roses hadn’t collected a prize at the Berebury Horticultural Society Summer Show yet but he lived in hope. He said, ‘What about Girdler’s place over Luston way? They’ve got a big nursery there.’ Sloan, a keen gardener himself, knew that.
Haines sniffed. ‘Joe Girdler’s trying to breed the best rose in Christendom and good luck to him.’
‘Right.’ Actually Sloan was into roses himself but he didn’t say so.
‘Otherwise,’ insisted the nurseryman, ‘it’s a pretty friendly trade.’
As befitted a man who had been in the Police Force all his working life, Detective Inspector Sloan took this last statement with a grain of salt, believing as he did that there was no such thing as a friendly trade. ‘What about the other greenhouse? What did you say was in there?’
‘Number one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Young orchids. And they’re all dead. Every blooming one of them …’
‘Except that they’re not going to bloom,’ murmured Crosby, sotto voce.
‘God knows what they were worth,’ said Haines, who hadn’t heard him.
‘This special order,’ said Sloan. ‘Was that for orchids too?’
Jack Haines shook his head. ‘No, it’s for this landscape designer I told you about. Name of Anthony Berra. He’s got the contract for doing up a big old garden over the other side of Pelling on the way to Larking village and Berebury, like I said. It’s been neglected for years.’
‘Pelling Grange,’ supplied Mandy Lamb, studying the fingernails on her left hand. ‘Like I said, too.’
‘Has he got enemies?’ asked Crosby.
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Haines stiffly.
‘Have you got enemies?’ asked Sloan.
‘No,’ said Jack Haines flatly.
‘All God’s children got enemies,’ chanted Crosby almost under his breath, ‘like they’ve got rhythm.’
‘And Anthony Berra wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you, Inspector,’ went on Jack Haines, reverting to his own worries, ‘when I told him what’s happened to all his plants.’
‘Very upset, I should say,’ offered Mandy Lamb from the side-lines.
‘I’d better have some names,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, tugging his notebook out of his pocket.
‘He’s called Anthony Berra,’ said Jack Haines. ‘His plants are … were … for one of those fashionable Mediterranean gardens that he’s creating for Oswald Lingard over at the Grange in Pelling.’
‘And Mrs Lingard,’ put in Mandy. ‘Mustn’t forget her.’
‘Why not?’ asked Crosby curiously.
‘She’s the one with the money,’ said the secretary simply.
‘And Marilyn?’ prompted Sloan.
‘Marilyn Potts,’ gritted Jack Haines between clenched teeth.
‘She’s an orchid specialist,’ put in Mandy Lamb helpfully.
Jack Haines glared at her.
‘One half of Capstan Purlieu Plants,’ said Mandy, transferring her studies from the fingernails of her left hand to those on her right hand. ‘The other half is Anna Sutherland.’ She did not amplify this.
‘I think,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, snapping his notebook shut, ‘that before we go any further we’d better take a look at these greenhouses of yours. And then I’d like to have a word with your foreman.’
Jack Haines jerked his shoulder. ‘I’ve sent him into town on an errand.’
‘You have, have you?’ said Sloan, making a mental note.
‘In theory,’ began Jack Haines, ‘the last fingerprints on the door handles should be Russ’s …’
‘In practice,’ Sloan interrupted him, suppressing his irritation, ‘they may well belong to someone else.’ Policemen, like doctors, didn’t like being told what to do. All the same he would get Crosby to take any fingerprints off the door handles while they were at Pelling. It didn’t seem a serious enough case to get a Scenes of Crime Officer out all this way, not with the economic climate being what it was. He snapped his notebook shut. ‘My constable will soon be able to tell us that. Come along now, Crosby.’
The two greenhouses presented a sorry sight. In one,
serried pots of infant orchid cuttings had been burnt by frost and were clearly beyond aid. In the other, tender young plants had collapsed, their leaves now drooped over their potting compost like so many dying swans. Detective Inspector Sloan led the way inside, noting that the heating of the orchid house was not on. Above the pipes was a mist-maker from which little bursts of spray should have been emerging but weren’t.
‘No sign of forced entry, sir,’ remarked Crosby, peering round. He started to apply his fingerprint gear to the door handle. ‘The door hasn’t been damaged at all.’
‘No,’ agreed Sloan, absently, his gaze still on the frosted orchids. They weren’t his favourite plants but no true gardener could fail to be moved by the sight of so much wanton destruction.
‘And there’s no key in sight,’ said the constable.
‘It wasn’t locked,’ growled Jack Haines at his elbow. ‘We’ve never had this sort of trouble before.’
Sloan nodded, unsurprised. In his experience very few stable doors ever got locked until after the horse had bolted.
‘Now that we’re alone,’ said Jack Haines, nevertheless looking over his shoulder, ‘there’s something else you guys need to know.’
‘Go on.’
He pointed to a device on one of the windows. ‘I’ve got a frost alarm system rigged up in here. It’s connected to a thermostat and should have rung in my bedroom and woken me when the temperature fell.’
‘And it didn’t?’ said Crosby.
‘It didn’t,’ Haines said heavily.
‘Or you had been drugged,’ suggested the constable brightly.
‘No,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, going over and peering at a bimetallic strip. ‘It had been disabled.’ There wasn’t a greenhouse in his own garden yet but that hadn’t stopped him from studying the possibilities against the day when there would be. And then he would have such a thermostat in it. ‘You can see that’s it’s been broken.’
‘That must mean,’ concluded Haines uneasily, ‘that whoever left these two doors open knew what he was doing.’
‘Or she,’ said Crosby inevitably.
‘An ordinary thief,’ said Haines, carefully avoiding sexism, ‘wouldn’t have known what it was.’
Sloan was just about to make a proper examination of the other greenhouse when his personal radio spluttered to life.
‘That you, Sloan?’ boomed a distant voice from Berebury. ‘Leeyes here. There’s just been a call in from a Marilyn Potts over at Capstan Purlieu complaining about dead orchids. She’s talking about sabotage … you’d better get over there as soon as you can.’