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‘Where?’ Fleur asked, filled with disbelief.
‘Around the back behind the potting shed.’
The potting shed was Mae’s little folly. Henry never went out there. Gardening was about as far from his interest as knitting might be. Fleur’s mother, by contrast, loved to poke around in the small garden, but she especially loved her tiny ‘haven’, as she called the shed. Fleur remembered it being built to her modest specifications by a couple of lads Henry employed for the job, using hessian sacks from the port warehouses that Mae had cut up and sewn together to be stretched over a thin frame. It wasn’t fully waterproof but it didn’t need to be; it was mostly used for shade so that Mae could grow more fragile plants and herbs.
Fleur remembered coming into the space as a child and being fascinated by how the sharp summer light took on a softer, bronzed hue beneath the sacking. It was always cooler in there and she recalled how she’d rub her fingers against the garden mint and inhale, loving its clean freshness, and how she’d reap the rubbery spinach and marvel at the tiny strawberries her mother grew. Mae would allow Fleur to eat a few straight from the plants and feel the summer’s warmth and ripeness splash in her mouth. Fleur remembered how her mother would encourage her to press freshly dug soil into terracotta pots she lined up on the lower level of the long bench, embed seeds and then water them from a miniature watering can that her mother had had made for the very purpose of encouraging Fleur to garden. Fleur had enjoyed potting with her mother but she didn’t catch the bug to spend time growing plants.
‘I’m better with the dead,’ she’d once said with genuine gravity to Mae, who had chuckled.
‘I think you’re brilliant with them, my darling. And they are fortunate you are there for them.’
Fleur could still touch those golden moments for a few special seconds before Nan recalled her to the present, shaking her arm. ‘Sorry,’ Fleur said. ‘I’m struggling to understand.’
Nan shrugged. ‘Search me, Fleur. I just found them by chance. Perhaps they were thrown over the fence or something. Plus, kids jump over this fence all the time, you know that . . . probably a bit of a lark for them.’
Fleur nodded. It was true. Many of the local children dared each other to sneak a look inside the mortuary window to try to see a corpse.
Nan grimaced. ‘Anyway, I flung them out.’
‘Right, well, I suspect that will forever remain a mystery, but I’m just glad it’s gone,’ Fleur said, turning. ‘Can I leave you to it, Nan? I have something rather urgent to attend to.’
‘Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Thank you for a lovely meal and all your efforts.’
‘I’m sorry your special guest didn’t come.’
‘I am too. But that’s my urgent matter . . . I’m going to find out why Tom Catchlove didn’t keep our dinner invitation.’
Fleur arrived at the Alberton Hotel feeling self-conscious about pushing through the hotel doors. The smell of spilled beer, stale ale, and even the cloying aroma of old sweat, seemed to come up and meet her like a gleeful host, wondering what had brought a well-dressed woman into this place.
Someone articulated that very notion. ‘Now, what’s a young lady like you doing ’ere?’ a bloke asked as he rolled a barrel around. She couldn’t tell if it was full or not and really wasn’t that keen to know.
‘Er, are you open?’
He cocked his head towards the front bar, where men were leaning up against the counter. No one seemed to be talking; all were sipping schooners of fizzing golden ale, and a woman kept herself busy wiping down the bar, while another dried and polished glasses. ‘Always open, at least until the six o’clock swill time for last orders. Stupid idea if you ask me.’ She hadn’t, but he kept talking anyway. ‘I’ll be the first to sign the petition for longer opening times for pubs. It’ll come, mark my words. No one will put up with all you crazy women and your pinch-faced temperance.’
She found a smile. ‘Do I look pinch-faced?’
He grinned; an incisor was missing. ‘No, you look like a reasonable sort, if a little posh for our pub.’
‘Not posh, and not one of the Temperance Society either. I’m Fleur Appleby – you probably know my father.’
‘Henry? Blimey, how did that fella with a long face like a horse manage to have a beauty like you?’
She could tell he didn’t make the comment in a mean-spirited way and gave a little shrug.
He chuckled. ‘I like Henry. He’s a good man.’
‘He is. Anyway, I’m actually looking for someone. One of your guests.’
‘Oh, yes?’ His tone turned conspiratorial. ‘You’re not an angry wife or jilted fiancée, are you?’ He gave a wink.
‘Neither,’ she said, laughing off the remark. ‘It’s a friend of mine. Tom Catchlove.’
‘Country lad,’ he said, nodding.
‘That’s right, he’s—’
