Garden of Secrets Past

ELEVEN


Under a Wedgwood-blue sky, a warm stillness all around, and with the distant chimes of church bells faint on Kingston’s ear, the Victorian house at Abbot’s Broomfield presented a much more cheering welcome than on his first visit. Even the weathered brick appeared richer and warmer. It was now Amanda’s house, or so it would seem, and he hoped, as he approached the front door just before noon, that she hadn’t had a change of heart since their phone call, that she really would hold to her promise. As an admittedly indulgent afterthought, he was also curious to inspect Tristan’s wine cellar. Heeding her offer, he’d packed a small overnight bag.

Amanda greeted him with the sunniest smile he’d seen from her and ushered him into the living room. She was more self-assured and at ease than before. As when they’d met at the hospital, she was dressed stylishly, this time in a dark gray twinset that looked like cashmere, and tan chinos. With a single strand of iconic pearls at her neck and her hair tied back, Kingston was thinking that she could pass as the old Amanda’s winsome twin sister.

The room was deceptively large, contradicting the house’s outward appearance. It had a low-beamed ceiling and walls painted an ecru color with shiny white trim. The furniture, predominantly European antiques, was offset by an eclectic mix of furnishings collected from various travels around the world, or so it appeared, though Kingston couldn’t imagine either of them as world travelers. Two walls were taken up with bookcases and a third had wide French doors that led to the garden. When he’d arrived and Amanda was getting coffee, he’d glanced outside and had been impressed that the garden, like the room, was considerably larger than he’d expected, well planted and clearly well cared for. He would ask her for a tour later.

With coffee, served in Blue Willow pattern china cups, they sat on either side of a glass-topped coffee table. This required that Kingston stretch out his legs to one side. After an exchange of pleasantries and the obligatory chat about the weather, the conversation quickly turned to the harrowing events of the past days. Kingston knew that rehashing it all was as much cathartic as anything else, and he doubted that it would shed any new light on the case. He was more interested in asking her about Tristan, trying to find out more about him and taking a look at the study and other parts of the house, where Tristan might have hidden some of his work material or backup data. Not to mention the wine cellar. He must be patient, he knew.

They talked for the best part of an hour. To begin, she’d listened silently and with no emotion to Kingston’s account of his conversation with her brother at the hospital. In turn, she’d told him what little she knew about the project that he’d been working on, his daily routine, and what he did when he wasn’t working. Most of his contact work was done by phone or e-mail, she said. Rarely did anyone visit him personally. That’s why she’d been mildly surprised when he’d told her that Kingston was coming to see him. In answer to an obvious question from Kingston, she maintained that, as far as she knew, Tristan hadn’t been involved in any arguments or disagreements, or had had any money problems of late. And she would certainly have known if he had, she added. Soon, they got into the poisoning issue. Right off, she swore that she’d never heard of aconite until Dr. Chandra had mentioned it. She’d also lain awake at night, she said, racking her brain as to who could have committed such a monstrous act. Tristan had few acquaintances and even fewer friends, and she’d eliminated, as extremely unlikely suspects, other people who had been at the house in recent weeks. These included their gardener, a cleaning woman who came in every other week, the meter man, the postman—a regular for at least five years—and a plumber who’d done work for them in the past. As far as outside contacts were concerned, there were virtually none. In answer to Kingston’s questions, she said that he hardly ever ate out and, on the occasions he did, it was always with her. There were two pubs within walking distance, but he frequented neither of them. Though he collected wine, he wouldn’t be called a drinker by any stretch of the imagination. And he didn’t belong to any clubs or special interest groups. Despite all this, she was firmly convinced that the poison was administered somewhere other than their home.

That subject exhausted for the time being, Kingston proceeded to tell her what he’d read about aconite. The symptoms of ingesting aconite, he said, become evident quickly; the initial signs were gastrointestinal, which included nausea and vomiting, which would suggest that the poisoning had taken place within the last week. The only other possibility he could think of was that the poisoning had been carried out over a longer period of time, using much smaller doses.

As she answered his questions, he watched surreptitiously for slight signs that could suggest that she was not being truthful or was attempting to avoid a direct answer. Nothing she said, however, gave him reason to suspect so. If anything, she appeared relaxed and much more confident than at any other time since they’d first met. As they talked, Kingston found his mind wandering off in another direction. He was thinking ahead, wondering if there were other ways Amanda could help in his investigation. The thought was self-serving, but it also offered a dividend that he hadn’t overlooked: Having Amanda as a sort of partner in crime would increase the chance that their friendship would continue, at least for a while, anyway. As he was observing her, pondering the thought, a timer went off in a nearby room.

The buzz brought him back to his senses. A voice inside him was saying, Don’t start something you know you won’t finish.

Amanda rose, announcing matter-of-factly that lunch would be ready in about five minutes. For Kingston this was an unexpected surprise. She also asked if he would like to stay overnight, saying that it was no bother for her. Pleased despite himself that she’d raised the subject, he agreed, saying that he’d brought his overnight bag, just in case.

The perfectly poached quenelles with a tarragon cream sauce that arrived on the table minutes later, with no fanfare or fuss, were accompanied by a bottle of chilled Vouvray, leaving him to wonder where she’d learned to cook so well and if she’d practiced all these years on Tristan. He realized more and more that his first impression of her on that solemn first day couldn’t have been more off target.

Though she’d never asked about his personal life, Kingston found himself talking freely about his teaching days in Edinburgh, the loss of his wife, and the successful career of his daughter. Whether or not it was the wine, she had managed to put aside the misery and perplexities of the last few days, surprising Kingston by raising personal matters of finance, the house, and the quandary she faced now that Tristan was gone.

“It’s a lovely house,” said Kingston, wanting to ask questions but containing his natural curiosity.

She nodded. “Growing up here, I’ve always adored it, and living here over the past few years I’ve grown to appreciate it even more. It holds so many fond memories, but now, of course, those I’m sure will be overshadowed forever.”

“You’ll stay for a while, though, won’t you?”

“Absolutely. It’s far too early to make that kind of decision. Good thing is that I can take my time. I doubt that I’ll be going back to work now.”

“What was your occupation?”

“Special education—I was a teacher.”

“For students with learning disabilities?”

She nodded. “Behavioral, physical, developmental.”

“I know how demanding teaching can be, let alone with special-needs children.”

She paused as if lost in the past. “When Mum died, Tristan and I thought seriously about selling the house, but neither of us fancied the idea of living alone anymore and he was the one who suggested we share it. In the beginning we had our ups and downs, but we soon developed our own living patterns, as it were, and I must say it turned out to be both an agreeable and a practical arrangement.”

“You were never married, then?”

“Yes, I was, but my husband died a week after our third anniversary. Killed in a motorway accident.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We share something in common.”

She nodded and looked away briefly but said nothing.

“What about the garden?”

She gave a half smile. “You mean do I have a green thumb?”

“Well, it is quite large and it’s going to take up a lot of your time.”

“I’ll hire a gardener, I guess. I’m not going to let it run down, if that’s what you mean.”

She was talking about how Tristan took care of the flowers while the kitchen garden was her territory, when she suddenly changed the subject. “Would you like to take a look at Tristan’s study?” she asked.

“I would. Yes.”

“Do you really expect to find anything now, after the police have been through it with a fine-tooth comb?”

He shrugged. “It’s a long shot, I know, but having done a lot of research and writing in my time, I know that many people keep duplicate copies of important papers—these days, electronic backup files. It may be wishful thinking, but I’m just banking on Tristan having done the same.” He paused, scratching his forehead. “It’s not so much a question of whether he did or didn’t, really. The all-important question is: Between the burglars and the police, did they leave anything for us to find?”

Amanda nodded over her shoulder toward a door behind them. “His study is down the hall, last room on the right. You go ahead. I have things to do in the kitchen and phone calls to return, so take your time.”

Kingston thanked her and headed down the hall.

The room was roughly twelve feet by twenty feet. On the wall facing him, a small pair of French doors led to the kitchen garden: a series of raised beds filled with a goodly selection of vegetables and herbs. The wall on his left was floor-to-ceiling shelving, filled to the gunnels with books of all kinds. The rest of the room was a hodge-podge of furniture: side-by-side oak filing cabinets, a smallish table piled high with books and papers, a glass-front bookcase, and a large leather-topped desk whose surface was mostly empty save for a Cornishware jar filled with pencils and pens, three framed photos, a coiled power cord, a USB cable, and a mouse pad—vestigial evidence of Tristan’s computer. He reminded himself to ask Amanda what make it was. It was immaterial, he concluded. Behind the desk, a small table held an HP all-in-one printer and a modem. If Tristan had used an external hard drive, it too was gone, and there were no CDs to be seen either. He turned his attention to the books. Not surprisingly, many were historical, not only local but also national and histories of world countries. The remainder was an assortment of biographies, reference, DIY, and gardening books. Fictional works were few, only older works or classics. Remembering that Amanda had said that “books were strewn all over the place,” he decided it was unnecessary to take all the books out to see if Tristan had hidden anything behind them. If any had been left on the shelves, the police would have done that, he assumed.

He picked up one of the photos. It was of Amanda, in her twenties, he guessed. By the looks of the staging, it had been taken in a photo studio. Striking a modellike pose, in a simple black dress and a natural smile, she looked exceptionally beautiful. The second photo pictured a fortyish man standing proudly alongside a blue vintage car. Was it Tristan? Kingston wondered. Not enough of the car showed for Kingston to determine what make or model, but what little showed of the bonnet ornament appeared to be an eagle or bird of some kind with spread wings. The last photo was of two children who could have been twin girls about age eight, by Kingston’s naïve guesswork. Glancing around the room, he suddenly realized what was missing. There were no stacks of papers, folders, and the like anywhere, not even a memo or scratch pad. He pulled open the closest file-cabinet drawer. It contained perhaps a dozen hanging folders. A quick glance at the tabs revealed that they were all personal or house related: insurance, maintenance, garden expenses, taxes, pension, and so on. Nothing work related, which came as no surprise. A quick assessment of the remaining file drawers had similar results. Two had been cleaned out entirely.

Kingston went to the other side of the desk and pulled open the top center drawer. Inside, it looked like every other top drawer he’d ever seen: a jumble of paper clips, more pens and pencils, computer cables tied with rubber bands, an open roll of Polo mints, cough drops, what appeared to be a gold cigarette lighter, and other odds and ends. Five minutes more, rummaging through more drawers and two small cupboards, Kingston reluctantly concluded that nothing of interest remained in Tristan’s study, not as far as his investigation was concerned, that is.

When he entered the kitchen, Amanda looked up from writing. “Find anything?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Between the burglars and the police, they certainly did a thorough job.”

“I don’t think the police found much. I didn’t see them hauling any boxes out. At least they left the few pictures.”

“A nice one of you.”

“Thank you. I had it taken for Mum and Dad’s anniversary. It was supposed to be the two of us, but Tristan got a bee sting in the garden a few days before the photo was to be taken and his face swelled up.”

“That’s a shame. Was that Tristan in the photo with the old car?”

“No. It was a friend of his. I forget his name.”

“I have a thing for old cars. Do you know what it was?”

“I really don’t know. It was beautiful. A lot older than your nice car, though.”

Kingston nodded. “Are there any other places in the house where he might have stored papers, files, electronic storage devices?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Not really. In any case, I wouldn’t know an electronic storage device if it bit me.” She put aside her pen and notepad and stood. “Would you like to see the garden?” she asked.

“I would, very much.”

He followed her through the well-equipped kitchen into a tiled-floor mudroom, which doubled as a pantry. They passed a row of coats, scarves, and odds and ends hanging from wooden pegs on the wall, then through a Dutch door that led to the garden.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, an overpowering fragrance stopped Kingston in his tracks. He didn’t need to look around to locate the florescent source. Symmetrical beds, cut out of a lawn half the size of a football field, were stuffed with a confection of mixed perennials in muted shades of mauve, lavender, and pink. Crowning the rectangular pools of color, tumbles of white shrub roses—Iceberg, he guessed—looked like clumps of snow. The garden was enclosed on his left and right by high hedges of yew and holly, underplanted with what appeared to be Nepeta and English lavender. A flagstone path traced the hedge around the perimeter. The garden was contained at the far end by a ten-foot-high wall of honey-colored brick, smothered with a marriage of climbing roses and clematis. The harmonious scene was embellished with several Chippendale-design teak benches, old garden ornaments and statuary and—the icing on the cake—a circular reflecting pool with a central fountain. He turned to Amanda. “Tristan did all this?”

She nodded. “Most of it. Yes.”

Kingston smiled. “The Constant Gardener?”

She nodded. “An apt description. We have a gardener who comes in to help, one day a week now, but Tristan created the garden many years ago and has maintained it all this time, up until a year ago when he started to get back problems. It’s going to be expensive to keep it up, though.”

“If I lived closer, I would offer a hand.”

“I’m sure I’ll work something out,” she said, as they started their walkabout.

After lingering in the garden for a half hour, Amanda suggested that they return to the house. There were things to do in the kitchen and his room that required her attention.

As they passed through the mudroom, Kingston’s shoulder brushed against the rack of coats and something fell to the floor. He stooped and picked it up. It was a dog collar. Two leashes dangled from the next peg. “You have a dog?” he asked.

Amanda stopped and turned. “We did. A Jack Russell. Winston died about a year ago. I kept his collar and leashes, thinking that one day we’d get another dog, but that never happened. I may reconsider that now, though.”

“A dog around the house would be good in a lot of ways.”

She nodded. “Tristan and Winston were practically inseparable, and though he never said it outright, I don’t think he ever really wanted another dog to take Winston’s place.”

Kingston hadn’t been listening closely to what Amanda was saying, because the unusual ID tag on the collar had caught his attention. Not more than an inch long, it was enclosed in a clear plastic case. On it was printed a logo, TOP TAG PET ID, and above that, Insert into USB Port. Around the center of the plastic case were several nicks and scratches.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

Amanda frowned. “What is it?”

“I’ve never seen a pet tag like this before. It’s a miniature flash drive. It copies and stores information from a computer. In this case, it’s Winston’s CV, I assume?”

“Oh, that thing. Tristan saw it advertised in a magazine and thought it was a brilliant idea. He was always into gadgets and the latest electronic gizmos. I prefer the old- fashioned metal tags myself.”

“These thing can hold a lot of information, though.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Do you mind if I borrow it?”

“Be my guest, though I find it hard to believe you’re interested in Winston’s vaccination record.”

He smiled. “I’m not. I just want to check it out, that’s all. I’ll make sure you get it back.”

By now, Kingston had talked himself into believing that the flash drive could well have been Tristan’s secret hiding place to back up his incendiary files. With Tristan’s computer and Amanda’s laptop gone, he had no way of finding out if he was right. If there was any way of leaving right now without appearing heedless and ungracious, he would take it, but that was out of the question. He had no choice but to wait until he returned home to open it.

Around five in the afternoon, Amanda disappeared without explanation, reappearing several minutes later carrying a bottle of wine, two wineglasses, and a corkscrew. “Here,” she said, placing them on the coffee table, close to Kingston. “I thought we’d have this with supper tonight. I think it’ll go with what I’m throwing together.” She hesitated, brushing fingers across her forehead. “I always left that decision with Tristan, of course. Anyway,” she said, starting to leave again, “if you need me for anything, I’ll be in the kitchen for about a half hour. In the meantime you might want to open that—to see if it’s still okay,” she added with an ingenuous smile, leaving the room.

Kingston picked up the bottle and studied it. Now he knew why she’d questioned its being “okay.” It was a 1978 Gevrey-Chambertin Burgundy.

* * *

The rest of his stay with Amanda was far more pleasant than he’d anticipated. The wine cellar hadn’t disappointed either. Kingston had figured that Tristan’s collection was close to a thousand bottles, many dating back to the 1980s and quite a few Bordeaux and Burgundy reds going back as far as the 1950s.

Considering all she’d been through in the preceding several days and the fact that they’d known each other for such a short time, there wasn’t a single awkward moment between them and no moments where cracks had showed in her self-control in holding back the anguish and sorrow that must surely be roiling close to the surface of her thoughts. On top of that, she’d gone to the trouble to cook two meals for him. How many women who had just lost a loved one would even consider doing that? he marveled. Perhaps it was also a way to help her forget, even if only for a brief time. He decided that she’d either been putting up a brave front or wasn’t self-pitying. He preferred to believe the latter. What was even more encouraging—though she hadn’t said it in so many words—was that from now on she was willing to help him in whatever way she could to track down those responsible for her brother’s death.