The Skeleton Garden (19 page)

“Claire was always going through bouts of not talking to me when we were growing up,” Christopher said. “There was once she was so angry, she wouldn't speak to me for a month.”

Pru took the bait gladly. “What did you do to deserve that?”

Christopher half smiled. “I had hidden out in her bedroom behind the wardrobe and listened to her and her girlfriend talk about—well, I can't remember what it was now, but it must've been important at the time. I was probably twelve and she would've been ten—what do ten-year-old girls talk about?”

“Why ever were you interested in eavesdropping on them?” Pru tried to envision a twelve-year-old Christopher.

“Well, I was a spy, wasn't I? I was James Bond—I was Napoleon Solo.”

Pru laughed at the image, and Christopher grinned and kissed her temple. “Claire did talk to me again and we were fine until the next flare-up. You and Simon missed out on all those childhood arguments, so now you're having to catch up. He'll get over it.”

Pru lay awake for most of the night, staring at their dark bedroom ceiling, forcing her mind to shift from dark thoughts of Simon to the romantic story of Will. She imagined Will's life like the events in an old-style newsreel, but couldn't come up with a reasonable ending. Was he alive when he fell in the pit? Did old man Saxsby have something to do with it? Did someone put him there or had he taken his own life? Why did Sadie tell her daughter that her dad had died in the war? Had she thought he'd deserted her? Of course, they didn't know if it was Will and if Will was Evelyn's father. She heard that last part in Christopher's voice. True, no proof existed. Yet.

Pru drifted away from quasi-facts to what-ifs. If Will hadn't fallen dead in the pit, perhaps he would've died in the war. Or perhaps he would've come home from the war and married Sadie, and Evelyn would've known her father. Was Will a decent sort of fellow? Pru tried to shut her mind off, but there was no pause, stop, or eject button, and the wartime newsreel played on a loop until, at last, she drifted off just before dawn.

The department-store box that Evelyn set on the kitchen table the next morning reminded Pru of the one she kept her own mother's mementos in, but with a bit more wear and tear. A water stain discolored the top, and one corner of its lid had been crushed, and it was now held together with duct tape.

Sadie's wartime journal turned out to be random thoughts about her life and the people around her that she had jotted down on any sort of paper she could find. Evelyn had stacked the entries into a pile of mismatched, crisp, yellowed pages sprinkled with spots of mold. Although her entries were undated, she had signed every page in loopy script: “Sadie Farrow.”

At the top of the stack was an entry that had been written on the back of a Land Girl leaflet titled,
Take Care of Your Gum Boots.
It read: “Will, that's his name. He's got his left arm in a sling from an air fight in his Spitfire. He's dark and moody. He's gorgeous.” After a space, she had scribbled: “The farmer's wife knows about Will, and doesn't mind when I come in late, just says to be careful.”

At the bottom came a discourse on farm work. “Pricked out 100 tomato seedlings today. My back is breaking and will I ever get the smell off my fingers? But I didn't dare stop—I had a wager with the other girls that I'd finish first. They owe me five cigarettes now, so wasn't that worth it? At least I was inside the glasshouse instead of out in the rain, spreading dung.”

Pru looked up to find Evelyn watching her with shining eyes. “This is amazing, Ev,” she said.

Evelyn nodded and held out another twice-used paper. “And look here, this one's about Will.”

Pru glanced at the back and saw it was a bill of sale for 200 “thimbles”—two-inch terra-cotta flowerpots. On the reverse, Sadie had written: “They say he's gone, that he deserted. They're wrong. Will would never desert—he knew his duty, and he promised when the war was over he'd come back for me. No one will listen.”

Deserted?
Pru thought. It made her shiver—who would say such a thing?

When Christopher came into the kitchen, Evelyn leapt up from her chair. One or two of Sadie's entries drifted to the floor, and as Pru bent over to pick them up, Evelyn said, “I'm sorry I don't have your breakfast on the table, Mr. Pearse,” but she stopped abruptly. There was a silent moment. Pru encouraged Evelyn with a quick smile, and the cook began again. “I'll just pop the toast in, you sit down…Christopher.”

“Thanks, Evelyn,” he replied, making no show of the change. He winked at Pru as she put the journal back into its box with the photos, except the one Evelyn gave to Christopher to help with identification.

After breakfast, Pru walked out with him.

“Sadie said that everyone thought Will deserted.” Pru couldn't keep the indignation out of her voice.

“Did she?”

“Yes, all right,” Pru said. “She wrote that in one of her journal entries. But he hadn't deserted, had he?”

Now that she could attach an identity to the remains dug up with the Messerschmitt, Will became as real to her as Jack. As she stood with Christopher at his car, she asked the question that had been waiting in her mind when she'd opened her eyes that morning: “Do you think that Jack's death had something to do with Will? That Jack knew who it was?”

Christopher looked off toward the parterre lawn, as if willing an answer to appear. “As yet, we don't know it's Will—and we don't even have a surname for him. You'll remember that, won't you?”

Pru lifted her eyebrows and nodded. But she could feel it—maybe she was getting some spiritual message, like Polly.

“If Jack knew anything about the remains,” Christopher continued, “how did he know? Did someone tell him? And why would he be killed for that?”

“And the person who knocked me over—it all may be connected.”

“It may.” He drew her close. “Will you be in the garden today?”

Pru looked around the desolate yard and thought of Simon. “Not today,” she said. “I thought I'd visit Kitty—to ask about Will. The garden will hold.”

“Well, I'm gobsmacked,” Kitty said, both hands holding the edge of the table as if she might fall off her chair. “Is it really Sadie's Will?”

“Christopher is tracking down his military record this morning,” Pru said, feeling a fizz of excitement. “Do you remember Will?”

“Oh, Will, yes, of course I remember him,” Kitty said, recovering enough to pour the tea. “Well, I was only about five years old. I suppose I know him better from Sadie's stories.”

“Did no one wonder what happened to him?”

“Everyone said he deserted—ran off to Ireland.”

“Yes, that's what Sadie wrote.”

“I don't know how that got put about. And even though she would never believe it, everyone accepted it. It isn't as if there was a shortage of soldiers in Ratley those days, and so I suppose if one day, a flier disappears from his company, it's up to the RAF to sort it out.”

“Do you think Will is Evelyn's dad?”

Kitty applied herself to cutting the apple cake. “Of course he is,” she said. “But you can see why Sadie never wanted to tell her little Evelyn—how would it be if people talked about your dad as a traitor? And that's what they were considered during the war—deserters would be chucked in prison and can you imagine how he would be treated?”

“I'm surprised Sadie didn't want to move away.”

“She'd nowhere to go, and folks here, well, they all liked her, and so they were careful. I saw it as I grew up—no one would talk in front of Sadie or little Evelyn about Will. As the years went by, well, it was a story that fell by the wayside. Except Sadie kept Will alive in her heart. And you could see why she'd want to hang on to something good when she had nothing else the rest of her life. Except her little Evelyn,” Kitty said, a smile spreading over her face.

It hadn't occurred to Pru that Kitty would have such intimate knowledge of Evelyn's mother. “Was Sadie friends with your mother?” Pru asked.

“My mum didn't approve of Sadie,” Kitty said, shaking her head. “But we became friends when I got older.”

“Your dad died not long after the war?”

Kitty nodded, but offered nothing more. Pru settled into her wedge of cake and thought it was no wonder Kitty won firsts at the competition—the apples were firm, but not hard, the cinnamon plentiful, and what was that other spice?

“Do you know, I only saw them together the once,” Kitty said. “And after that, it was one at a time—when I became their post box.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes,” Kitty said. “Every day or so, one of them would find me as I tended the ducks and hand me a letter. I'd slip it in the pocket of my pinny and later the other would stop me in the lane to collect the post.” Kitty grinned, her apple cheeks puffing out. “Like as not, Will would have a sweetie for me—once or twice, he gave me chocolate he got off one of the American soldiers. I remember Will as a tall fellow, broad shoulders.”

Pru felt as if she were living a scene from the old wartime black-and-white movie
Mrs. Miniver
—she remembered how much her mother loved that film. She could see little Kitty and her ducks and a tall soldier striding down the lane and leaving a secret letter for his love.

“I wonder what happened to all those letters,” Pru said aloud, but mostly to herself.

“Lost. Burned. Tucked away never to be found. Who can say?” Kitty studied the cake for a moment. “Would you like another slice?”

“I shouldn't, really. Oh, go on.” But before she got too wrapped up in cake, Pru turned her mind back to Kitty's dad.

“And so, because your dad owned the pub, that means your mum owned it after?”

“My dad owned half the pub,” Kitty said. “Jimmy Chatters owned the other half.”

“Jimmy—Martin's stepdad?”

Kitty nodded. “After my dad was gone, Jimmy up and gave his half to my mum. Yes,” Kitty said in response to Pru's raised eyebrows. “Just gave it to her—it's the sort of thing he did for folks. So it was mine after that, until I sold it to Dick and Ursula.”

“And your mum let Sadie work there?”

“Jimmy's doing. She'd started there after the war, and it was part of the agreement with my mum, that's all I know. Of course, I was happy to keep Sadie on when I got the pub. And we kept the name the Robber Blackbird,” Kitty said and sighed. “It was my dad that had changed it from the Duke of Wellington—quite a joke, he thought. My mum said shouldn't they change it back, but Jimmy didn't seem to mind.”

“Why would Jimmy mind?”

Kitty didn't have a chance to answer as Pru's phone rang. She almost let it go to voicemail so that she could hear the rest of the story, but saw that it was Christopher.

“Have you found Will?” she asked.

“It isn't as easy as we thought,” Christopher said.

Pru waved at Jemima, who came in the kitchen carrying shopping bags. “There are no records?”

“There may very well be records, but at the moment, we cannot see them.” She heard him sigh. “MOD holds all service personnel files from the war. Details of deceased personnel are allowed out, but we've no surname for this Will and we don't know if he has family. I'm sure we can suss it out, but it'll take time. We'll need to make a formal request, state our case, and go through the proper channels to sort through the records. It could take a while.”

“That's ridiculous—don't they know this is a police investigation?”

“MOD trumps police, I'm afraid.”

“And the records aren't even online?”

“It wouldn't matter if they were—they're classified.”

“When will we get an answer?” Pru asked, fuming.

“Martin's here,” Christopher said. “He'll get on it.” That was far too charitable a statement—Martin must've been standing at Christopher's elbow.

“Are you sure you can't pull some strings?” she asked.

“We'll talk later,” he replied.

As Pru finished her conversation, Kitty was saying, “I believe I'll just go take a bit of a rest before lunch.” She heaved herself out of the chair, and Jemima jumped to put her hand under her grandmother's elbow. “You won't mind now, Pru, will you? Jemima will walk out with you.”

At the gate—Pru in the lane and Jemima with Sonia just inside the yard—Pru asked, “Are you still in touch with Orlando?”

“Oh yes, Ms. Parke. We're co-moderating an online discussion about the third season of
Galaxy Raiders: The Pecuniary Universe.
It's causing a great deal of controversy,” she said. “Monstrosa has contracted a rare disease, and we believe they're trying to kill off her character.”

“Well, I'd love to hear from him. Do you think if I left you my number, you could ask him to ring when he has the chance?” She patted her empty pockets. “I've nothing to write on.”

Jemima whipped out her phone. “I'll put your number in,” and did so as Pru recited it.

“Thanks, Jemima. And please call me Pru.”

Pru had made it within sight of Greenoak's drive when her phone
ping
ed. A message from Orlando:
hru, ap? news? atb

She blinked at the screen, and then began a reply:
Dear Orlando, How lovely to hear from you. We hope that all is going well…
She paused to backspace and correct a mistake, but then dumped the entire message and hit the “call” button.

“Aunt Pru?” Orlando's voice was just above a whisper, and it sounded as if he was moving around. She heard the
click
of a door, and his volume rose. “Did you get my text?”

“Yes, Orlando, I did, but I wanted to hear your voice”—an outdated wish these days, she knew—“and so I thought I'd ring. Is everything going well at home?”

“Fine, yeah. So, what do you know about this Will?” he asked, unable to disguise the eagerness in his voice.

“How did you…” Jemima's thumbs must've fair flown over her keypad. “Well, we think that's who the skeleton is,” Pru said, and relayed the few details they had about Will. “But Ministry of Defence won't let us into records without jumping through a few hoops. I mean, the police will need to go through an application process. But they'll get it done, I'm sure. Now, about you—are you keeping yourself busy?”

Orlando offered news of the family, but little of himself, apart from saying his mother had discouraged him from taking a job at the local computer store. A pang of sympathy for the boy clutched at Pru's heart. Perhaps when Claire cooled off, Orlando could come back for a visit.

Clouds were scudding across the sky as Pru walked up the drive. A few fat drops of water hit her smack in the face as she dashed in the mudroom door, just as the rain began in earnest. She noticed Martin's car in the yard, and in the kitchen saw the man himself standing next to Evelyn's coat and bag. No Evelyn in sight.

“Is there news?” Pru asked him. “From the MOD?”

Martin raised his shoulders, his face reddening. “Sorry, Pru—the government, you know, not the swiftest creature.”

Evelyn pushed open the door from the hall, her arms full of linens up to her chin. “Martin, I didn't realize you were here.”

“Ev,” Martin said, “you should be keeping the doors locked, you know, just in case. After what happened to Pru.”

“And should I lock them against you, Martin?” Ev asked, making her way round the table. Martin blushed again and laughed.

Pru had told Evelyn about being knocked over Saturday night in the parterre lawn, but she had made light of it—too light, apparently. “You're right, of course, Martin,” Pru said. “We wouldn't want someone bold enough to walk in while you're upstairs, Evelyn.”

“Let him try,” Evelyn said, heading for the washing machine, “and see what he gets.”