EG03 - The Water Lily Cross (9 page)

SEVEN

T
he Sarum Garden Club meetings took place in a back room of St. Hilda’s, a picture-postcard church on a maple-lined street on the outskirts of Salisbury. Arriving about fifteen minutes before the meeting was to get under way, Kingston introduced himself to the club president, Phillip Austin, with whom he’d spoken on the phone. Austin reiterated that it had come as a nasty shock when he and other club members had read the missing persons report in the
Wiltshire Times
. “It explained why Stewart had missed quite a few meetings of late,” he said.

Because of Kingston’s stature in the horticultural world and his newfound fame as a quasi-celebrity sleuth, Austin suggested that Kingston be introduced at the beginning of the meeting and again, before the meeting adjourned, when he would tell the forty or so members more about Stewart’s disappearance and appeal for help from among those in attendance.

Ten minutes later, after being introduced, Kingston sat on a folding chair warming his hands around a paper coffee cup at the back row of the chilly room. The chit-chat subsided as the club secretary, a tall, silver-haired lady with a lorgnette, of all things, hanging from her neck, approached the lectern, a simple wooden affair with a cross carved on the front panel. In a cultured and commanding voice worthy of a dog-obedience trainer, she launched into a report on recent club activities, congratulated members who had won awards at the regional flower show, announced an upcoming day trip to the Royal National Rose Society gardens near St. Albans, and last, reminded everyone that the guest speaker for the next meeting would be none other than Gertrude Pickering, a respected landscape designer, whose presentation was entitled “Hardscaping, where garden design begins.”

Up next was guest speaker Nigel Sutherland, whose specialty was clematis. Along with a slide show, he spent the next hour (and then some) going through the ABC’s of growing and caring for the “queen of vines” as he called them. His presentation was exhaustive and informative, and the photos, taken by him, were of professional quality. Lamentably, Nigel had a Scottish accent that you could cut with a knife. Even Kingston, who had spent most of his teaching years in Edinburgh, could grasp about one half of what Nigel was chuntering on about.

Enthusiastic applause and next it was Kingston’s turn.

“Good evening, everyone,” he said, standing like a preacher, both hands on the lectern. “Most of you know already why I’m here tonight. It concerns a member of your club and a former associate and good friend of mine, Stewart Halliday. As has been reported in the newspapers, Stewart has gone missing. A little over two weeks ago he left home to attend a conference in Bristol but never showed up. He hasn’t been seen nor heard from since.” Kingston paused, aware that his introductory statement had contained nothing new. “I realize that if any of you had information concerning Stewart’s disappearance you would have reported it to the police by now. However, I have some new information that could have bearing on the matter. It is the reason I’m here.” He cast his penetrating blue eyes over the silent audience. “His wife, Becky, tells me that he had been working on a project involving aquatic plants. We don’t know the specifics but if any of you has any knowledge whatsoever as to what Stewart might been up to, please let me know. Even if it’s something that you might think trivial or not worth mentioning, don’t keep it to yourself, it could help in finding Stewart. Anything you tell me will be passed on to the police, of course. You can tell me now or after the meeting, if you prefer.” He cast his eyes over the somber-faced audience. No one spoke.

The meeting broke up shortly thereafter and Kingston found himself cornered and being peppered with questions, mostly concerning Stewart, but a few members wanted to know first-hand about his now celebrated garden restoration project in Somerset the year before. At the time, stories about the event had appeared in just about every newspaper and magazine in the country and on most television stations. For good reasons, it had struck a chord with the British public. What had started as an assignment to supervise rehabilitation of an abandoned garden, inherited by a young American woman, had evolved into a bona fide murder mystery case reaching back to World War II. Kingston’s investigations had culminated in an unprecedented architectural discovery: a labyrinthine complex of catacombs under the site of an old Benedictine priory and, with it, the recovery of several French Impressionist paintings that were looted by the Nazis during the occupation of Europe. Both the young woman and Kingston had become overnight celebrities.

Kingston left the church and walked up the street to the parked Mini. He wasn’t aware of being followed but stopped and turned when he heard his name called. Walking toward him was a tall man, thin as a broom handle, with hair ridiculously long for his age, who in the poor light looked to Kingston to be around sixty. He was wearing a dark colored duffel coat over a Fair Isle sweater. As he passed under the streetlamp between them, Kingston recognized him as one of the club members. He remembered the sweater; Kingston’s mother used to knit a similar pattern.

“Can I have a word?” he said, as he caught up with Kingston.

“Of course,” Kingston replied, hoping that the man wasn’t going to ask more questions about the Somerset affair.

“It’s about Stewart Halliday. I didn’t want to bring it up back there,” he said, nodding over his shoulder.

“That’s fine. You know something about Stewart?”

“Not much, but it might be of help. My name’s Howard Oswald, by the way.” He paused, twiddling the toggle on his coat apprehensively. Then he continued. “First of all, Stewart hasn’t been to a meeting for over three months—could be four.”

“Yes, Phillip Austin told me but he didn’t say as long as four months. That’s a long time.”

“It is and he hardly ever missed a meeting before. Take my word for it, Doctor. Anyway, some time back, Stewart and I got to chatting after one of the meetings and he asked me what I knew about water plants. Not much, really, I admitted. I have a small pond but I’m thinking of filling it in, actually—it’s more of a nuisance than anything else. On top of which, my wife keeps on complaining about mosquitoes. She’s got this thing in her head about the West Nile virus but for the life of me I can’t convince her that we haven’t had a single case of it yet in England.”

“So where’s all this headed, then?”

“Sorry. Let me get to the point. Soon after Stewart approached me, I learned that he’d hooked up with another club member, Adrian Walsh, who’s quite an expert on the subject.” Oswald wrinkled his nose. “Bit of a pushy sort at times. He owns a big house over by the Woodfords, not far from that nice garden there.”

“Heale House.”

“Yes, that’s the one. I’ve never been to Adrian’s place, though it was on one of the garden tours once. Quite a fancy pile, from all accounts. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I know he has a large water feature there, with koi, bridges, and water lilies. One of the blokes from the club said it reminded him of Monet’s garden in France.”

“Really? Do you know what he does for a living?”

“Construction business, I believe. He might be retired now, I’m not certain.”

“And you didn’t tell the police any of this?”

“Well, no. It was only when you mentioned the aquatic plants that it all clicked.”

Oswald shuffled his feet and thrust his hands in the pockets of his duffel coat as a gust of wind rustled the leaves in the gutter. “
Anyway
”—Kingston wished he wouldn’t keep using that word—“in light of what you said at the meeting, I thought you might want to have a chat with him.” He shrugged. “That’s about it, I suppose, for what it’s worth.”

“It could be worth a lot, Howard. One never knows. I certainly will have a chat with Walsh and I thank you very much for coming forward with this information. You don’t have an address for him, by chance, do you?”

“I don’t, but ask anybody up around the Woodfords, they all know of him, I’m sure. He drives a red Morgan most of the summer months.”

“I’ll go up there in the next few days. And thanks again.”

“Glad to be of help. I hope it works out,” Oswald said, as they shook hands and parted.

Kingston slipped behind the wheel of the Mini and started the engine. Before he drove off, he wrote down Adrian Walsh’s name in the notebook he’d brought with him. Perhaps something had come from his trip to Salisbury after all. As he reached to put the notebook back in the glove compartment, his eyes rested on Andrew’s
AA Road Atlas
and an idea occurred to him. He took it out and turned to the page covering the area around Salisbury. He was right, Upper, Middle and Lower Woodford couldn’t be more than six or seven miles from Salisbury. He glanced at his watch—it was getting late but not too late to find a decent place to stay overnight, then he could run over to Adrian Walsh’s house in the morning, thereby saving another trip to Hampshire. If Walsh was retired, chances were he would be home.

Fifteen minutes later, Kingston was checking in at the White Hart, a seventeenth-century hotel facing Salisbury cathedral. Despite the late hour, the hotel kitchen rustled up a light meal, which Kingston ate in the bar. An hour and a half later, having glanced through most of the magazines in the room, he nodded off on the queen-size down pillows of the canopied four-poster bed.

The next morning at eight, Kingston pulled aside the curtains to peek at the weather. The sky was the color of galvanized metal, the windows beaded with moisture on the outside. Too bad, he thought, because the Woodfords were in a peaceful and unspoiled part of Wiltshire and when the sun was shining—as it had been the day he’d visited the garden at Heale House on the river Avon, some five years back—it was extraordinarily lovely.

There was no point in rushing. His plan was to have a leisurely breakfast in the Squire Room—maybe a full English, that way he could skip lunch—and get up to the Woodfords around ten thirty or eleven. There, he would stop at the Angler, a charming old country hotel on the banks of the Avon, and inquire about Walsh. If he got lucky enough to get a phone number, he would call Walsh first. Failing that, he would just have to take his chances and drop in unannounced, a practice he frowned on but he might have no choice. At ten fifteen he drove out of the parking lot, windscreen wipers on intermittently, and headed for Upper Woodford.

At that time of morning there were few customers in the bar of the Angler. Not surprising, as the weather was hardly conducive to shirtsleeves and frocks or lunching on the riverbank. Kingston ordered a Hop Back ale and took a long draught before asking Kevin, the young fellow behind the bar with a ring in his ear, if he knew where Adrian Walsh lived. The name didn’t ring a bell but the mention of a red Morgan did the trick. Walsh lived roughly a mile north of Upper Woodford, he said. There was only one road in and out of the village and the entrance to Walsh’s house, which was called Swallowfield, couldn’t be missed, according to Kevin, who explained that it had been on his newspaper route when he was in school, when the previous owners lived there. It had two large brick pillars on either side of a wide gravel driveway, each with a bronze lamp on top. The house, invisible from the road, was about a quarter-mile in. “Big, white and nouveau riche written all over it,” he said.

A quick check of the pub’s local phone directory showed no listing for Walsh, which didn’t surprise Kingston, given Kevin’s pithy description of the place. Kingston downed the rest of his ale, thanked Kevin, and left the Angler. Outside, the drizzle hadn’t let up and the sky had darkened even more. All the tables in the beer garden were empty save one, occupied by a couple of cyclists in yellow anoraks with hoods up, making the best of a miserable morning. Waiting for the windscreen wipers to do their job, Kingston slipped into first gear and headed out of the village.

Kingston glanced at his trip odometer: It was coming up to one mile. Up ahead he could see a knot of people off to the right hand side of the road. At first he thought nothing of it. Then, as he slowed, he saw one of the brick pillars and realized they were standing outside the entrance to Swallowfield. Behind them, a police car was parked sideways across the drive. Just beyond that, Kingston recognized the all-too-familiar TV image of blue-and-white crime-scene tape stretched across the drive. He pulled onto the verge a few yards past the gawkers and got out of the Mini; immediately he caught the smell of burning. Approaching the driveway, he saw a plume of fuscous-colored smoke spreading out over an area behind some tall trees. Red and blue flashes of light, albeit blurred in the drizzle, meant that fire brigade and police vehicles were on the scene. Remembering that Kevin had said the house was quite a way in, he could only guess that that was where the fire was located.

A lone police constable stood by the police car. He had just finished talking to a gray-haired gentleman wearing a checked cap and a Barbour jacket. The man had a black Labrador on a leash and looked about ready to leave—obviously a neighbor walking his dog, Kingston figured. As the man passed within a few feet of him, Kingston asked what he immediately realized was a pointless question. “Where’s the fire?”

“At Walsh’s place. Must’ve been quite nasty. Apparently they had to call in equipment from Salisbury. An ambulance left about five minutes ago. I hope Adrian’s all right.”

“You know him well?”

“No, hardly at all, actually. I live about a quarter-mile from here. My wife and I don’t socialize much these days. Not that we’ve ever been asked up to Swallowfield,” he added, chuckling. “Well, you know how it is. Walsh wouldn’t hobnob with the likes of us. Keeps pretty much to himself, from what I hear.”

The man gently tugged the Lab’s leash, leaning to pat the dog’s head. “Yes, Daisy, we’re leaving in a minute.” Then he looked back at Kingston. “You live around these parts?”

“No. As it happens, I was going to see Walsh this morning. To ask him about a friend of mine who’s gone missing.”