The Skeleton Garden (16 page)

Dick shrugged. “Well, I didn't hear much. Jack had been in here having a pint, and his phone rang. He stepped out to answer. After a few minutes, he opened the door and walked back in with Simon. They were talking—or they were just finishing up talking.”

Pru frowned. “Were they arguing?”

“Arguing?” Dick echoed. “I suppose there was a bit of back and forth.”

“What were they saying? Do you remember?”

“I heard them,” Dick's mother said, brushing a wisp of tangerine hair out of her eyes. “I was in the shop sweeping up and I had the door open. I thought Jack sounded a bit strained on the phone. ‘I'm not fond of secrets,' he said. ‘Not at this point.' Don't you wonder who he was talking to?”

Pru reached into her bag and began feeling round for a pen while keeping her eyes on Ursula. Did Christopher know about this conversation? Where was Jack's phone—couldn't they trace the call? She pulled a beer mat over and scribbled on it without looking.

“And then along came Simon, and they started talking about Polly,” Mrs. Whycher continued, holding up her hands to paint the scene. “Jack said, ‘Do you think I've come to win her back?' and Simon said Jack had no right to think Polly was a prize he could pluck out of a tombola. Jack said it was too late for that, but what right did Simon have to try to stop him if he did.”

Pru's pen paused and a wave of cold nausea washed over her as she was struck by not only how bad the story made Simon look, but also how good Ursula's memory was. Ursula stopped short, catching sight of Pru. “Ah, sunshine,” she said, patting Pru's hand, “wasn't it ages ago, and what would it matter now? They were lads—the two of them—fighting over a girl.”

“None of us is a saint,” Dick said.

Mrs. Whycher polished one of the tap handles in a thoughtful manner. “It's true—we all have our little hiccups. Do you recall, Dick, the sneaky way Jack tried to buy the Blackbird out from under us and how you had to go after him?”

“Ma,” Dick said, jerking his head toward the door, “do you not have to be back in the shop?”

She took the hint, shaking out the bar towel and hanging it up. “Well, that's me away.”

“Wait,” Pru said. “Ursula, did you give a statement to the police and say all that?”

“Well, Martin asked me about it. Wasn't he doing that with everyone?”

Pru nodded. “Of course. Yes.” Ursula left and Pru turned her attention to Dick. “Fancy that—I didn't know Jack wanted to buy the Blackbird,” she said.

Dick shook his head. “Ma and I had already moved here, and suddenly Jack puts in an offer to Kitty, going over to her with his sweet talk about how he could carry on the tradition and didn't their families have strong ties to village. It gave Ma a fright, I don't mind saying.” His eyes flickered toward the shop door. “She'd put all we had into this—Ma needed to get out of the north, into a better climate.”

“But Kitty rejected Jack's offer?”

“In the end, Kitty said she knew Jack for the rapscallion he was,” Dick said, grinning. “That's her word, not mine—but a good one. When he was young, before he went off to Canada, he was always coming up with one grand idea after another, none of them working out.”

“He hadn't held on to the hope of owning the pub all these years, had he?”

Dick looked up from the pint he was pulling, but didn't answer. The door opened and a crowd of footballers swarmed up to the bar. Pru backed off and checked her notes, discovering they had come to naught as the beer mat was wet and her pen had skipped. She repeated the details in her head until she could get home and tell Christopher.

“It was Ursula who said she heard them?” Christopher asked. They sat at the kitchen table over a dinner of leftovers. “There's no statement from her—and I could've sworn I read it in Dick's statement. I'll go through them again.”

“The argument between Jack and Simon—it didn't sound like much, did it?” Pru kept her eyes on her plate and hurried on. “And you can see why Simon didn't want to say he'd been by, can't you? He hadn't stopped and he didn't see anything, and so what did it matter? I'll talk with Peachey next.”

“Peachey said it was about ten that he saw Simon. No one's mentioned seeing either Jack or Simon after that.”

“As far as you know—maybe that was something else Martin forgot. And we should check if Dick left the Blackbird at all that evening.”

“Dick?”

“Dick and Jack have a history—Jack tried to buy the pub out from under him,” Pru said, fiddling with her fork.

“How did you come across that?”

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I have my ways,” she said and offered the rest of the story.

“That's good work,” he said, giving her a nod of appreciation.

Pru stood and took their plates to the sink. “I wonder who Jack was talking to on the phone.”

Christopher shook his head. “There's no sign of his mobile.”

“Martin wanted to search Simon and Polly's house—is that what he was looking for?”

“A search?” A note of irritation crept into Christopher's voice. “On what grounds? And without a warrant?”

“Jack hadn't even been there. Polly said Martin was a bit pushy about it.” She couldn't keep the annoyance out of her voice.

Christopher shook his head. “Stan can't remember seeing Jack's mobile since he died. Jack had a Canadian phone number, and we're waiting on them to check the call record.”

Pru leaned against the counter, thinking about the people Jack knew and who might be responsible for his death. Perhaps someone followed him here from Canada. Yes, she thought, the convenient unknown—it might've been someone from another part of his life. An image appeared in her mind, like a rabbit popping out of a hat. “Joseph Hare.”

“What?”

“Joseph Hare.” She had forgotten all about him until that moment.

“Who is he?”

“Exactly,” Pru said. “Who is he?” She saw the blank look on Christopher's face. “No one mentioned him? Well, he'd slipped my mind, too. He came looking for Jack at the Blackbird last weekend, when we found the black-market stash in the cellars.” Pru explained that Hare did not stay long, and Jack offered no explanation. “Although Jack didn't seem happy to see him. Maybe Joseph Hare held a grudge and followed Jack back here that night.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, but why here? What was Jack doing here at Greenoak just then—we're always back to that.”

“There's police work for you, more questions than answers,” Christopher said, standing up. “Fancy a walk? We could nip down to the clearing to see if there's any activity. We might even find them on the path.” Badger watch—Christopher had thought he'd seen signs of the animals along the hornbeam walk, although he'd yet to set eyes on one.

Pru put their dishes in the sink. “I'll be right behind you,” she said, and waited until he'd walked out the door before pulling a heavy book from her bag. Inside the book was the photocopy she'd made of one of the pages. She'd jotted a list at the bottom. She stuffed the paper into her bag and returned the book to the kitchen shelf, hoping Evelyn hadn't notice its brief disappearance.

She buttoned up her coat and stepped out into the cold, dark night, exhaling clouds like a steam engine. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement—Christopher had darted into the parterre lawn through the driveway opening. So, not the hornbeam walk after all—he must be hot on the badger trail, she thought. Pru walked down the drive, keeping to the flat stone edging so that her footfalls wouldn't make noise.

In the parterre lawn, all was quiet. He must be on the opposite side of the marquee, out of her sight and standing quiet, so as not to disturb the badger. She would be quiet, too; she began to circle round the tent. As she passed it, a gust of wind shot through the garden and whipped the flap open with a
crack
. She jumped and swung around. In the shadow, a dark figure stood silhouetted against the white tent, and she opened her mouth to say “Christopher” at the same moment she knew it couldn't be—this person was the wrong shape.

The figure lunged and shoved her away. She fell back and landed on her bottom in the gravel, shouting in alarm. As the person ran past her toward the opening, she managed to grab his ankle, and she struggled to stand and keep hold. The figure kicked loose from her grasp, and the force sent her staggering. She caught her foot on a guy rope from the marquee, danced a few steps, and went down hard on her stomach.

She gasped, inhaling the sweet smell of grass and soil. She got up on all fours and glanced round, but could see only stars—the kind in front of her eyes, not in the sky. She hung her head for a moment, panting, and then sat back on her heels as Christopher charged into the garden toward her.

Pru shook her head. “He's gone, he's gone,” she said and coughed.

“Who's gone? Are you all right? What happened? I'd just started down the hornbeam walk, and I heard you shouting.” He helped her up as he peered into the darkness.

“I thought I saw you walk in here, and I followed,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “But it was someone else. He came out of the marquee and pushed me. I tried to get hold of him, but he got away and I fell.”

“Are you hurt?” Christopher's attention came back to her, and he ran his hands gently over her hair and shoulders.

Pru shook her head. “I got the wind knocked out of me, that's all.” A dull pain began to throb in her chest where she had hit the stone edging.

“Could you see his face?”

“No,” she said. “He might've had a ski mask on—he was all dark. I should've tried to pull it off.”

“Come on, let's go inside.” He put his arm around her, pulled out his phone, and rang Martin.

She tried to make light of it. “It was probably some yob, and I surprised him.” But she shivered as she thought it might've happened to Jack the same way. “Better to make sure, I know.” They walked toward the kitchen door, and she leaned into Christopher's firm grip.

Once inside, he discovered a light scratch along her jawline. “Did he do that?”

She shook her head. “He didn't touch me.”

By the time Martin and PC Gerald arrived, a heavy, cold drizzle had started to fall. Gerald was on duty and in uniform, but it didn't look as if Martin had planned a night out in the weather. Already his shoes were soaking, and rain beaded his dark hair.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your evening, Martin.”

Martin shook off her apology. “Not at all, Christopher was quite right to ring.”

“I don't think he wanted to hurt me—I think he wanted to get away from me,” she explained. “I was the one holding on.”

She could see by Christopher's face he remained unconvinced.

“We'll take a look round,” Martin said. “We wouldn't want to miss anything.” He and Gerald carried large torches that could easily double as truncheons and headed out to the parterre lawn.

Pru poked her head out the door and watched them as they crunched off, the rain splattering her face. Christopher hung back in the kitchen. “Go on,” she said, “I'm all right in here.”

“No, I'll stay.”

She smiled at his reluctance. “You know you want to. I'm fine. I'll put the kettle on.”

He made sure she locked the door. After he left and she'd made herself a cup of tea, Pru sat alone in the kitchen with her insides vibrating as she listened hard to every creak and groan in the old house, until Christopher reappeared. They'd found nothing.

“Tea?” she asked, jumping up from the table.

“No, thanks,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Let's go to bed.”

She ran herself a hot bath and added scented oil until the room steamed with the fragrance of musk rose. Christopher brought her a brandy and sat on a short dressing chair beside the tub with his own glass. When she undressed, she had discovered a bruise blooming above her right breast—where she'd hit the stone edging between gravel and grass—and now Christopher saw it, too. A hard look spread over his face as he traced the outline of the bruise. She took his fingers and kissed them. “I've had worse gardening.”

A hot bath, a few ibuprofen, a brandy, and Christopher beside her—Pru marveled at what a short attention span she had for fear. She stretched her legs out, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back, letting the heat soak into her skin; she knew Christopher continued to watch her. “You think he was looking for something?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” he replied. “But what?”

In bed and deep under the covers, she nestled her backside against Christopher, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. She drifted off to sleep, waking late in the morning with a vague memory of a dream—she had pulled off her assailant's ski mask and found the skull she'd dug up in the garden. It was odd, she thought, that it hadn't frightened her.

Sunday morning the last shreds of uneasiness were banished by yellow autumn sunlight shooting through the window. Pru had a big afternoon ahead of her, a solo task. Christopher stuck close by until midday, when she told him, “I need to go into Romsey and do a bit of food shopping.”

“I'll come with you,” he said.

“There's no need.”

“Yes, there is.”

“I'm going to Waitrose—I'll be in the middle of a crowd—and I'll come straight back. You stay here.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “All right. You have your phone?”

Two hours later, she made a show of arriving home and setting her few shopping bags on the kitchen table. “Look, safe and sound.”

Christopher leaned over to peer inside a bag, but Pru took them away. “Now,” she said, “I'm going to be busy in here awhile, so you should…go read a book. Start a fire. Watch a movie. I'll let you know when you can come back in.”

He glanced into the mudroom.

“The door is locked.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him. “I love you,” she said. “Now, go away.”

After he left, Pru inhaled deeply and spread her Waitrose goods out on the table—all the ingredients for Christmas pudding, that dense, intensely spiced, steamed cake she knew would cinch their family holiday. She could do this. Self-rising flour, bread crumbs, sugar, apple, citrus, raisins, currants, candied peel, almonds, suet, eggs, spices. Where was the brandy? She glanced at the door—she'd have to make a foray to the drinks cabinet in the sitting room. Christopher looked up from the fireplace when she came in, but she didn't engage, and he went back to his project. She took the brandy—almost a full bottle—back to the kitchen and poured herself a shot.

She had shopped carefully, checking the photocopied recipe against each item. Now, she checked each ingredient again and read through the recipe for the hundredth time. She needed one of those thick, ceramic pudding bowls. Rummaging through the cupboards, she found a stack, chose the largest one, and heaved it up onto the counter. She had decided to double the pudding recipe, because they'd have so many for Christmas.

Now, get a clear head.
She knew that food recipes went by weights in England, so this should be easy. After all, how many times had she weighed out and mixed up batches of fertilizer? She could recite that recipe by heart—four parts cottonseed meal, one part bonemeal, a half part kelp meal…this was the same thing.

Pru weighed each item and set it aside. The piles of dried fruit on the table began to resemble the painted, salt-and-flour map of North America she had made in fourth grade. She glanced back at the recipe.
Crap,
she thought—she should've set the dried fruit in the brandy the night before. Well, a quick soak now should be fine, she decided, scooping the fruit into a small bowl and pouring a generous amount of brandy over it. Too small a bowl—the brandy slopped over the edge. She took out a larger container and dumped the concoction in, after which she poured herself another measure and took a sip. There, that's better.

She found the largest stockpot she could, set it in the sink, and watched the water creep up the sides as it filled halfway. Even half full, she discovered, the pot was too heavy to lift out of the sink, and so she poured most of the water out, put it on the cooker, and refilled with the kettle.
Don't forget to chop the apple.
Lemon and orange zest—what? She rearranged her ingredients, looked through drawers, and finally pulled out her phone.

“Hello, Ivy, it's Pru.” Ivy Fox was not only a fantastic cook, but also a good friend. “When you get this message, perhaps you could give me a ring?” She saw that it was almost five o'clock, and the pudding should already be on to steam. She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “You'll never guess what I've decided to do—cook a Christmas pudding. But I'm a bit stuck, and I thought you might be able to give me some advice. So, I look forward to hearing from you soon. Cheers, bye!”

Pru didn't feel all that cheery and poured herself a bit more brandy to counteract the creeping anxiety. At last she located a grater with tiny, tiny holes that must be the zester. She began on the citrus, managing twice to catch the skin on her finger, and shouting as the lemon got into the cut.

“Pru?” Christopher called from the hall.

“Fine, I'm fine,” she said through the door, running her finger under the cold-water tap. “I'll come and get you in a few minutes.”

She got back on the phone. “Ivy, Pru again. Dredge? What is that—is it like dredging a pond? Why? Do I dredge the suet? Please ring as soon as you can.” She poured herself more brandy and grabbed the small bag of flour—forgetting it was already open—and showered the table, floor, and her feet with white powder. She brushed what fell on the table into her hand, and—a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was spying—into the mixing bowl. Nothing's cleaner than Evelyn's table, she thought, pushing a strand of hair out of her face and leaving behind a bride-of-Frankenstein streak.

The pot steamed behind her, but the pudding was nowhere near ready to go on. Poking her finger into the bowl of brandy, she decided that the fruit had plumped up enough; she tipped the contents into the mixing bowl and stirred. When she held the spoon up and the batter dripped off like water, she realized her mistake.
“Drain!”
she screamed. “Drain it first!”

Two seconds later, Christopher burst into the kitchen and stopped short. “I heard you shout,” he said.

They regarded the disaster on the table.

“It's stir-up Sunday,” Pru said in a little voice. Stir-up Sunday was an English tradition, each family member taking a turn with the spoon, so that everyone had a hand in the holiday creation, which needed to age a few weeks in the larder.

She saw that ghost of a smile. “You're making Christmas pudding?” he asked.

“I thought it would be a grand surprise for everyone when I brought it out after Christmas dinner with the holly stuck in the top and the pudding flaming from the brandy.” Pru rubbed her nose, further spreading the flour. She gave the pudding another stir. “I think I need more brandy.”

“In the pudding or in you?” Christopher asked.

A hysterical giggle escaped. “Both.”

Pru sobered up fast when she heard the key in the door followed by Evelyn appearing in the mudroom—taking up much more space than even her tall figure should. Pru froze. The cook took stock of the scene as Christopher began backing slowly toward the swinging door to the hallway.

“Hello, Evelyn, I'm surprised to see you,” Pru said, trying for bright nonchalance, but able to produce only a whisper.

“What's all this?” Evelyn asked.

Pru cleared her throat, seeking her voice. “It's stir-up Sunday, as I'm sure you know. And I wanted to…well, stir up our Christmas pudding. And I'm just rather in the middle of it now, and I realize it looks as if I've made a mess of your kitchen, but of course I'll clean the entire thing up as soon as I've…”

Christopher had made it to the door. “I'll just leave you two to sort this out,” he said.
Coward,
Pru thought.

The hallway door swung closed, and the kitchen was saturated in silence. Pru looked at Evelyn, and Evelyn looked at the floor. At last, she said, “Right, well, then, Ms. Parke. I'll just be off.”

“Oh, please don't leave on my account,” Pru said. “Were you stopping by to collect something?” Evelyn rarely appeared at Greenoak on a Sunday, one reason Pru had thought she could get away with her project.

“Doesn't matter now.” Evelyn held her head high and kept her eyes on the wall just over Pru's shoulder. “The kitchen is yours, of course. I'll have Peachey gather the rest of my effects tomorrow.”

Alarm bells went off in Pru's head. “What do you mean?”

Evelyn's face revealed nothing. “I knew you would want to take over.”

“Take over…the cooking? Evelyn, why would you ever think that? Mrs. Wilson made all the arrangements with you. You're the cook at Greenoak.” Pru realized she still held the wooden spoon, and it was dripping batter on the floor. She threw it back into the mixing bowl.

Hands stuck in her coat pockets, Evelyn glanced at Pru and then away. “It's the same as it was with Mr. Alf.”

“Alf?” Pru said, her eyes widening and her voice shooting up into the stratosphere.

Evelyn's fists punched around inside her coat pockets like two puppies trying to escape. “ ‘You're the cook, Evelyn,' he said to me when he arrived. ‘You'll keep your job.' But the next thing I knew, my services were no longer required.”

“You're comparing me to Alf Saxsby?”

Caught out, Evelyn blushed. “No, certainly not,” she said. “It's just, when you and Mr. Pearse arrived in the summer, I saw that you were a competent woman who would want to run her own house and kitchen when you were settled.”

“I don't know how you ever got that impression,” Pru said. “I kept out of your way, didn't I?”

“My ma always told me that if I applied myself and learned one thing well, it would serve me. And it has—until now.”

“But, Evelyn, I would never want you to leave.”

“Thirty years I've been here, but I knew it was just a matter of time.”

“Please, listen to me.” Pru felt as if she were waving her arms around, trying to get Evelyn's attention from the other side of a crowded train station.

“Peachey and I will do all right—it isn't as if we haven't had to adjust before. He lost that railway job too…still, we carried on, didn't we?”

“Evelyn, I can barely boil water!”
Pru shouted. All quiet in the kitchen, except for the hissing of the pot, waiting for its pudding bowl.

Out of nowhere, they appeared—those deep dimples in Evelyn's cheeks, accompanied by a twinkle in her blue eyes. “Well,” she said, “there's that.”

Pru dived into the crack in Evelyn's armor. “We both have our talents, Evelyn—mine is not in the kitchen. And besides, I had hoped we could be friends.” Or at least not enemies, Pru thought. “I have only Polly, you know, and I miss having a woman friend to talk with. Please don't go.”

The dimples faded a bit, overtaken by a look of concentration. The cook surveyed the kitchen. She spied the recipe on the table, put a finger on the paper, pulled it over, and scanned it. She picked up the wooden spoon and let the batter drip off. At last, her eyes fell on Pru and stayed. “Don't you worry, now—we'll put this to right.”

The pudding steamed away in the pot on the cooker. They sat over cups of tea at the table in a clean kitchen—Evelyn had washed, and Pru had dried.

“Why is it that you don't believe you can cook?” Evelyn asked, her voice soft and conversational, and her dimples still in sight. “Didn't your mother cook?”

Pru nodded. “She did—she mastered Texas dishes as well as fixing food she remembered from England. But while she was cooking, I was always out in the garden with my dad. It was our one solid connection. He was a great gardener, not just with food but flowers, too. He was away a great deal—he worked for the highway department—and while he was gone, I was in charge of the garden. I was so proud to bring my mother a basketful of squash or beans, or a bunch of roses. She loved roses,” Pru said, getting a bit misty. “They reminded her of home.”

“And here you and Simon are both gardeners.”

“Do you think you can inherit a love of something?” It was an unfounded belief that Pru clung to, that the garden would be a connection between her brother and the parents he never knew.

Evelyn nodded. “Although my ma, now, she had to learn to be a gardener, she was never born to it. Came down here from South London to be a Land Girl, and it was entirely new. Ever after the war she had a veg plot—we had one out behind the Blackbird, where we lived. She was quite proud of her sprouts.”

“I wasn't sure what she might be doing to you,” Christopher said later to Pru, as she sat up in bed and he undressed. It had been the shrieks of laughter that had drawn him back to the kitchen.

“She was telling me about the time Peachey offered roadside service to someone in a Merc, and it turned out to be a cousin of Princess Michael of Kent. Apparently the cousin didn't take kindly to Peachey's suggestion that he should drive a British-made car.” Pru sighed. “I don't know how Evelyn could ever have thought I would turf her out of the kitchen. She should have more confidence in herself,” Pru said, wagging a finger at an imaginary Evelyn.

“All's well with the pudding, then?”

“Safely put away until Christmas. She explained it to me. I had bought dry bread crumbs, when I should've bought fresh. Or was it the other way round? Doesn't matter,” Pru said. “The pudding will be perfect—Christmas will be perfect. Evelyn's already come up with ideas for meals while everyone is here. It'll be like feeding an army.”

The wall had at last been breached just as Mrs. Wilson said it would. By the time Peachey had come round for his wife, a fresh pot of tea sat on the table. Evelyn made up a plate of sandwiches and the four of them had sat down and enjoyed both the food and the company. Before they had left, Evelyn said to her husband, “I'll need to arrive early tomorrow, Albert. Pru and Simon have important guests coming for lunch, and I've a few things to prepare.” Pru had grinned at Christopher across the table—first-name basis, at last. After such triumph, the magazine people could lunch on egg and chips, as far as Pru was concerned.

The freshly minted relationship made Pru reluctant to speak what was on her mind, and in bed, she stewed about it until Christopher kissed her good night. After he had reached over and switched off the light, she blurted out, “I think that Jack might've taken Peachey's railway job away from him.”