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  ‘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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Inspector Harpe had been quite adamant on the matter. Two members of Traffic Division had spotted a car parked outside the grounds of the Berebury Garden Centre in the early hours of the morning with the driver sitting at the wheel. They had seen it again an hour or so later, still there.

  ‘You’re quite sure, aren’t you, Harry?’ asked Sloan, back at the police station again.

  ‘I’m not, but they are,’ responded Inspector Harpe promptly. He was known throughout the Calleshire Force as Happy Harry on account of his never having been seen to smile. He on his part maintained that there had never been anything in Traffic Division to make him smile. ‘They couldn’t think what an old codger like him was doing out and about at that hour of the night so they kept an eye …’

  ‘He’s a bit past “taking without owner’s consent”, a man of that age,’ agreed Sloan, glad that stolen cars didn’t come within his own remit.

  ‘Twocking’s a young man’s crime,’ agreed Harpe, experienced in the matter. ‘Even so my boys fed the number of his car through our trusty number recognition system and decided he was the registered holder all right and properly insured.’

  ‘But you don’t know what he was doing out at the time?’

  ‘Sorry, Seedy.’ Harpe shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know how it is. The man’s driving was OK, he wasn’t speeding, he wasn’t even on a mobile phone which makes a change from some of the young ladies we come across. They had no reason to suppose he was drunk in charge so they couldn’t very well breathalyse him. His car seemed to be all right too, so my lads couldn’t think of anything to stop him for.’ The inspector sounded faintly regretful.

  ‘Where exactly was he when they saw him?’

  ‘Sitting outside the place. That’s all.’

  ‘Got any times?’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘It might be,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, adding fairly, ‘on the other hand it might not.’

  Inspector Harpe has just given them to him when Sloan’s telephone rang. He listened for a moment and then said ‘Sorry, Harry, go to go. A post-mortem …’

  Detective Constable Crosby did not like attending post-mortem examinations. This was made manifest by his seeking the furthest point in the mortuary at which he could stand and still be nominally part of the proceedings.

  Detective Inspector Sloan did not exactly relish having to be present at post-mortems either but took good care not to allow this fact to be evident to Doctor Dabbe or the pathologist’s reserved assistant, Burns.

  The doctor welcomed them to his domain as if the place was his home. Perhaps it was a good as his home, thought Sloan, some men being more married to their work than others. A vision of his own wife, Margaret, in their own home rose unbidden into his mind. He banished it as he realised that Doctor Dabbe was talking to him.

  ‘We’ve done his blood picture for you, Sloan,’ said Doctor Dabbe, adding somewhat unscientifically, ‘Alcohol levels pretty well ringing the bell at the top. He must have been as drunk as a monkey.’

  ‘What about drugs?’ As far as Sloan knew monkeys had more sense than to get drunk.

  Doctor Dabbe shook his head. ‘No evidence of anything else found as yet. We’ll be doing more tests, of course.’

  ‘According to the pub landlord,’ said Sloan, ‘the deceased hadn’t be
en in the Railway Tavern last night but there was a great heap of empty cans out the back.’

  ‘They should have been recycled,’ observed Crosby censoriously.

  The pathologist spoke some numbers into the microphone that dangled above the post-mortem table at mouth height, adding in an aside to the two policemen, ‘He’s more than a bit underweight which compounds the effect of alcohol.’

  Sloan regarded the body on the post-mortem slab. ‘He was quite a small man in the first place.’

  Doctor Dabbe pinched a fold of the dead man’s skin between his gloved fingers and said with professional dispassion, ‘Undernourished too, but not dehyrated.’

  ‘Heavy drinkers don’t eat well,’ said Sloan.

  ‘They don’t usually eat at all,’ said the pathologist, peering round the puny body. ‘I’ll be surprised if we don’t find that he’s got an enlarged liver too.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, who would have liked a little less of the ‘we’ in these particular surroundings.

  There was a slight movement at the edge of the laboratory indicating that Detective Constable Crosby had put two and two together. ‘A small, unwell man who was as high as a kite wouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight if someone came into his house late at night,’ he said.

  ‘A very drunk man of any size wouldn’t have been up to tying a rope over a beam and tying a noose round his neck of the right length, let alone clambering up on a chair and then kicking it out of the way,’ pointed out Sloan. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, doctor? We’re not talking suicide here, are we?’

  ‘Not like that poor lady over at Pelling,’ remarked Crosby brightly.

  Doctor Dabbe looked up. ‘Oh, you mean the rector’s wife? Oh, no, no doubt about that one. Open and shut.’

  That wasn’t a simile Sloan liked in the mortuary but anything that had happened in Pelling interested him just now and so he asked, ‘Had she been treated for depression or didn’t that come out?’

  ‘It did and she hadn’t,’ said Dabbe pithily. ‘At least she hadn’t consulted her general practitioner because he was called to the inquest.’