Page 72 of A Curious Ending

Rod pocketed the shop keys, and paused briefly. ‘Look, I can’t say much as it’s an ongoing investigation. And you can’t tell anyone, Kate.’ He repeated, ‘You really can’t say anything. I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but I know you’ve been worried about… well, what went on.’

‘Rod! You can’t leave it like that. You have to tell me more!’ Kate demanded, blocking his path down the alleyway.

He stood looking down at her. ‘Wish I hadn’t said anything now,’ he said ruefully.

‘Rod!’ Kate pleaded, hanging on to him as he pushed on back to the square. It was just as he was about to step out of the alleyway that he eventually turned to Kate and ducked his head closer to her ear.

Lara couldn’t hear what Rod had shared with Kate, but she did hear Kate’s gasp of surprise.

Ten minutes later the three of them were back around Lara’s wood burner. There was much relieved laughter and re-telling of what had happened and what each of them had been thinking. ‘Lucky about the smell of smoke,’ Sarah exclaimed for the third time. ‘What do you think it was? Do you really think it was kids?’

‘Bit late for kids to be out,’ Kate suggested.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lara replied evasively, ‘it is Friday night.’

She had a pretty good idea of where the smell of smoke had come from and was desperate to ask Abby how she had persuaded Thomas to leave the shed. But so far there was no sign of her Kindred Spirit.

‘Where have you hidden the china?’ Sarah asked.

Lara had shown the stolen goods to her friends but then disappeared upstairs with them. ‘They’re all wrapped up in towels at the back of the airing cupboard.’

‘Do you reckon they’ll be safe there?’ Sarah queried.

‘I’m going to move them tomorrow,’ Lara assured her. ‘There’s a gap behind one of the shop cupboards that no one knows about.’

Before either Sarah or Lara could say anymore, Kate suddenly burst out with, ‘Look, I need to tell you both something.’ She wrinkled up her nose, frowning. ‘Rod said I shouldn’t say anything to anybody. But you’re not just anybody, are you?’

‘Out with it!’ Sarah insisted. ‘You know you can trust us.’

‘I know I can,’ Kate assured her, but she still seemed reluctant to speak.

Lara helped her out. ‘I did hear some of it from behind the hedge. He said there was an ongoing investigation to do with Lady Porter, didn’t he?’

‘You’re kidding!’ Sarah exclaimed.

‘She’s not,’ Kate assured her. ‘Just before he left, Rod whispered something to me.’ She gazed at both of them. ‘He said they’re pretty close to making an arrest.’

Chapter 37

Lara, Sarah and Kate talked long into the night, struggling to work out what Rod meant, or decide what they should do about the china, or Mrs M (they all agreed they couldn’t call her Maggie Linton). In the end it was decided that they would wait: wait for Lara to hear if the tea service was really valuable; and wait for inspiration regarding just about everything else. As the next day was Saturday and a busy day for all of them, they decided they should meet up on Sunday.

Despite only having a few hours sleep, Lara was up early the next day. After knocking gently, she popped her head around the door of her spare room, but her guest had already left. The bed was made and there was no indication that Pinky Porter had ever been there. She wondered how Pinky was feeling and what she could remember of the ball. She kicked herself for not having asked Pinky all the many things that now came to her. Specifically, she was intrigued by the bottle of pills she had found in Pinky’s bathroom and the idea that Pinky had been stealing from Lady Porter when she did her shopping. The previous evening, Lara thought she might have said that Pinky had appalling taste in men and that she had got herself caught up in fraud, but she didn’t think of her as someone who would steal from the woman she called Lizzie. Was Pinky a murderer? She just couldn’t see it somehow. Was Julian a murderer? She thought she could see that more easily – if he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.

As she wandered around the kitchen making coffee, her mind drifted to Joe. Joe the gardener, who felt he was patronised by his farming brothers. Joe, who had been done for drugs and accused at some point (however unjustly), of stealing from one of his clients. Even though she had never met Abby’s Aunt Augusta (and didn’t wish to), she felt sure she would be a woman who would say, ‘No smoke without fire.’

It was on this thought that Abby appeared. The association of ideas brought another gardener to mind: Thomas. Lara had not seen Abby since she had escorted Thomas home the previous night and she was keen to know how she had persuaded him to leave the potting shed.

‘That was easy,’ Abby said, as she seated herself at the kitchen table. Today she was dressed in what Lara thought of as her ‘red pepper’ dress, with a matching hat. Lara groaned inwardly to see that she was also wearing a shop apron. This meant Abby would be ‘helping’ by offering an unending stream of floral suggestions that were in reality closer to commands.

Abby continued, ‘Thomas was furious to discover that someone had been stealing from Lady Porter from under his very nose. He was especially annoyed when he realised Primula Vulgaris was responsible. He has taken a strong dislike to the gentleman in the primrose waistcoat. It only took a small amount of persuasion and Thomas was soon packing his pipe with a revolting mix of his favourite blend. He was more than happy to puff away, spreading as much smoke as he could for such a good cause,’ Abby smiled and unpinned her hat, laying it on the table. ‘I knew that people could smell Thomas’s pipe smoke and I believed it might attract attention if there was enough of it.’ She really did think this was one of her better ideas and that was saying something. ‘Thomas really enjoyed his outing, and my only hope is that it has not given him a taste for more expeditions. I suspect Thomas has a rather mischievous sense of humour,’ Abby said with a lurking smile.

‘Can he go anywhere he wants?’ Lara asked.

‘He would not be able to travel far, but probably far enough to get up to no good. Still, I believe his heart lies in the garden and I do not think he would find town life to his taste,’ Abby said hopefully, if a little doubtfully.

‘So, what next?’ Lara asked, opening the back door and leading the way to the flower shop. She had a basket over her arm containing the china she had ‘acquired’ the previous evening. She thought she would tell Abby about this later, although as Abby cast an appreciative look at the basket and smiled, she wondered if she would need to. As they walked across the garden, Lara filled Abby in on Rod’s comment about ‘making an arrest’.

‘How very interesting,’ Abby commented placidly.