Neil plunged his hands into the warm, pungent earth, savouring the feel of soil and compost between his fingers. It was his choice not to wear gloves, although he knew he should to protect himself. Glimpses of sunlight filtered through the dense canopy of palm fronds as he dug away at the hole, the oppressive heat and humidity already creating damp patches beneath the arms of his polo shirt. This was the bit he liked the best: burying something gnarled and ugly, hiding it away from the world. He patted the soil until it felt firm to the touch, a satisfied smile spreading across his face, all traces of what lay beneath concealed in its shallow grave. Slowly, he struggled to his feet, arching his back and shaking the numbness from his left leg, which was always more troublesome in the colder months of the year.
The azure skies visible through the glass ceiling panels overhead belied the arctic conditions outside the Palm House of the world-famous botanical gardens in south-west London. Earlier that morning, Neil had woken to ice on the inside of the single-glazed windows of his bedsit in the attic of a Victorian terrace. It was a regular occurrence throughout the winter months if the overnight temperature dropped below freezing, but it was not so usual in early March. That morning, as his eyes traced the intricate icy patterns left by Jack Frost, which bore a remarkable resemblance to some of the exotic plants he worked with on a daily basis, he allowed himself to think about how different his life would have been if he hadn’t sustained the injury that had crushed not only his leg but his dreams. He knew Elsa, his therapist, would not approve.
Neil had started seeing Elsa three years previously after he had tried to commit suicide, following a particularly big loss on the horses. It had seemed pointless carrying on living. He had no wife or children to miss him, and he had always felt like a burden to his parents since his injury. Over time, Elsa had helped him to realise that he had plenty to be thankful for. He was still only in his early forties, and he had a well-paid job that he loved. The only thing he was missing was someone to share his life with, which she believed was part of the reason he gambled. Because he had told her he was shy around women, she had suggested that he set himself up with a profile on a dating website. At the time, he hadn’t felt sufficiently confident, but when Lydia, one of his female colleagues, had confided that she was on a dating website because she found it difficult to introduce herself to strangers in real life, Neil had taken the plunge and asked her to help him set up a profile. There had been a few matches in the early days, but no one he particularly liked the look of until, last month, Rose had come into his life. They were yet to meet because she travelled a lot with her work, but they chatted endlessly online and seemed to have a lot in common, not least a love of plants and flowers.
Smiling, Neil moved along to the next planting position and squatted down. How funny that someone who loved flowers should be called Rose, he thought. As he took the next hairy lily bulb in his hand and dropped it into the hole he had dug, a movement caught his eye.
He’d seen the woman before. She’d been in the Palm House every day that week with her sketch pad and pens. He assumed she must be a student. She glanced over in his direction and started to walk towards him. Neil dropped his head and concentrated on placing fresh earth over the bulb and firming it down.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, taking him by surprise. ‘Do you work here?’
Her English was perfect but there was a hint of a European accent, maybe Spanish or Italian.
‘Yes,’ he said, indicating the logo on his polo shirt and feeling the blood rush to his cheeks.
‘I wonder if you would take a look at these and tell me if they are any good,’ she said, thrusting her sketch pad towards him.
‘I’m no expert when it comes drawing. I just look after the plants,’ he replied, flustered.
‘But you know what they are supposed to look like,’ she persisted.
Neil struggled to his feet, avoiding eye contact, and took the pad from her to look at the drawing she had been working on. The likeness was so good, it could have been a photograph.
‘It looks pretty good to me, but like I said, I’m no expert,’ he said, handing the pad back to her. ‘Are you doing illustrations for a book?’
‘No, it’s just a hobby. I studied art and botany at school and I like to be precise with details,’ she said, pushing her long dark hair behind her ear. ‘I noticed you have a limp. What happened to your leg?’
She’s definitely foreign, Neil thought, English people are far too reserved to be that direct.
‘An old injury. A broken bone in my thigh that refused to heal properly. I’m lucky they didn’t have to amputate.’
‘You are lucky. It could have ruined your life.’
‘In a way it did, although I prefer to think of it as changing the course of my life.’
‘Oh?’
‘You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, but I was a professional footballer in my youth. The injury ended my career. My life would have been very different if I’d signed for Manchester United as I was supposed to,’ Neil said, surprising himself at speaking so freely to a complete stranger, and a female one at that.
‘I’ve heard of them. Their former manager is Portuguese, like me.’
‘Ah yes, Jose, “the chosen one”. I thought I detected an accent, although your English is very good,’ Neil added quickly. ‘Do you live here?’
‘No, I’m just visiting. Have you ever been to Portugal?’
A shadow momentarily crossed Neil’s face. ‘Only once, a long time ago. Probably before you were born.’
‘You didn’t like it?’
‘No, I did like it, but it was around the time of my injury and it brings back a lot of unhappy memories.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You’re not. Like I said, it was all a long time ago.’
‘It’s good that you were able to build yourself a new life. Not everyone is that fortunate after bad things happen to them.’
‘It took me a while. At first I had no idea what I wanted to do once it became apparent that I would never play football again,’ Neil said, shaking his head as if trying to erase all memories of the months he had spent lying in his bed, in the darkened bedroom of his family home, wishing he was dead. ‘Then one day I came here for a walk because my physiotherapist said I wasn’t exercising my damaged leg enough, and I found it completely fascinating. When I got home, I looked into what qualifications I would need to get a job in horticulture and here I am, over twenty years later,’ he said, moving along to his next planting position.
‘Quite a change of direction. You must miss the lifestyle you had as a footballer.’
‘You can’t miss what you never really had. I was only eighteen when I got injured, and still living at home. I hadn’t even passed my driving test, so there was no flashy Ferrari sitting on the drive. The big time was just about to start for me.’
‘But the club you were at must have looked after you?’
‘I’m very grateful to them. They paid for the best possible medical care, or I would probably have lost my leg. But once it was clear that I’d never play again, I was no use to them.’
‘That’s so sad. I hope your teammates rallied round.’
Neil finished patting earth over the latest lily corm and looked up at the woman. Until last month, he would never have felt comfortable having such an in-depth conversation with a female, but that was before he had started chatting to Rose online. She was easy to talk to, just like this woman, and it had boosted his confidence.
‘At first, they used to visit me in hospital, but they had their own lives to get on with. And to be fair, it was probably my fault we lost touch. I wasn’t very nice to be around.’
‘Still, I’d have thought your friends would have stuck by you.’
Neil shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I would call them friends, really. They were people I worked with, and once I wasn’t in football any more, we didn’t have anything in common.’
‘Didn’t you have any other friends? People you grew up with?’
‘I was always too busy playing football to have friends.’
‘That’s a shame. In the village where I come from, you stay friends for life. My best friend and I would do anything for each other. I’ll probably give her some of these drawings. I particularly like this one,’ she said, turning the pages of her pad until she arrived at a sketch of Atropa belladonna. ‘Belladonna means beautiful woman in Italian, which suits her perfectly.’
Neil looked at the drawing. It was a perfect representation of the plant, with its shiny black berries not dissimilar to blackcurrants.
‘It also goes under the name deadly nightshade,’ he said. ‘I hope you didn’t get too close when you were drawing it. Even the slightest touch on the skin can cause a toxic reaction, and eating the berries can kill you.’
‘You forget, I studied botany. I know all about the most toxic plants in nature. Most people would have no idea that ricin, one of the deadliest poisons, is produced from the innocent-sounding castor oil plant,’ she said, flipping the page to show him a drawing of its flaming-red, sea-urchin-like flowers, and in doing so catching the back of Neil’s hand with the nib of one of her drawing pens. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Did that scratch you?’
Hours later, when Neil was writhing around in his bed in agony, sweating profusely and struggling to breathe, he began to wonder whether the encounter with the girl was as coincidental as it had seemed. Maybe the innocuous questions about his leg and whether he had ever visited Portugal were to confirm that she had the right person; she had even told him that she liked to be precise with details. His dying thought was: this is no more than I deserve.
DCI Rachel Hart checked her watch; it was ten past eight. They’d arranged to meet at eight at Trattoria Angelo, where they’d had their first date almost five months previously. On that occasion, Tim had been ten minutes late and she had been on the point of leaving when he had hurried in, out of breath and apologising profusely. She hated poor timekeeping, both in the workplace and socially, and had decided moments before he arrived that she wouldn’t go on another date with him. Even if she really liked him, she felt his lateness showed a lack of respect. Within half an hour she had overturned that decision. He had been completely attentive, making sure her glass was topped up with wine and that she wasn’t sitting in a draught created by the air conditioning. He was also very funny. Who knew there could be so many amusing anecdotes in the world of a defence lawyer?
They had been on several dates since, but this was the first time they’d been back to Angelo’s, and for some reason she couldn’t really justify, she had made a point of being late. She was regretting it now as she watched him get to his feet and stride across the restaurant towards her. It had been pretty childish, she realised, accepting his kiss on both cheeks before allowing him to take her coat and hand it to the waiter.
‘I’m sorry I’m late.’
‘No, you’re not. You did it on purpose, and I don’t blame you. You were just reminding me that I had the nerve to keep a beautiful lady waiting on our first date. I’m very lucky you forgave me sufficiently to agree to a second date.’
‘Guilty as charged. I’m surprised you waited.’
‘Was it a test?’
‘Not really, but if it had been you would have passed with flying colours. Not that it matters, but were you early?’
‘I’ve been here since the restaurant opened at half past seven. Only joking,’ he said, reacting to Rachel’s surprised expression, ‘but I did get here before eight, just to be on the safe side. Do you want to get straight into the red wine, or do you fancy a glass of Prosecco first while we have a look at the menu?’
‘Prosecco sounds good. I may stick with it, actually, I’ve got an early start in the morning.’
‘Are you in the middle of a case?’
‘No, work is a bit on the quiet side at the moment. It’s all pretty mundane stuff, which means time to catch up with paperwork.’ She pulled a face. ‘Not my favourite pastime.’
‘Be careful what you wish for. Before you know it, some dastardly criminal will be up to no good and you’ll be rushed off your feet. I’m being purely selfish, of course. When that happens, you won’t have any time to come out with me. So, if you’re not working in the morning, what’s with the early start?’
Although Rachel had been seeing Tim for almost five months, she hadn’t told him about her sister Ruth. She never told any of her boyfriends about her sister. There didn’t really seem much point in allowing them that amount of access into her personal life when she had no intention of pursuing a lasting relationship. The moment lust started to feel like love, and it moved from a purely physical relationship to something more meaningful, she would pull the plug. Looking at Tim now, with his intense green eyes and sandy hair just showing the first signs of grey at the temples, she knew the moment was fast approaching.
‘I’ve been promising myself for weeks to have a proper spring clean, and tomorrow is the allocated day,’ she said, the lie tripping easily off her tongue.
‘Does that mean you’re not coming back to mine tonight?’ he asked, unable to hide his disappointment.
‘Did I say that?’ she said, looking at him from beneath her eyelashes. ‘It just means I won’t be staying for breakfast.’
‘I make fantastic smashed avocado on toast with poached eggs.’
‘Tempting, but the answer is still no. Shall we order? All this talk of food is making me hungry,’ she said, trying to change the subject.
‘I could always come to yours,’ he said, unwilling to give it up as a lost cause. ‘I’m a dab hand with a pair of Marigolds and a scouring pad.’
Why can’t I just be honest with him? Rachel thought, as she watched the waiter approach with their bottle of Prosecco in an ice bucket. Why can’t I tell him that I love spending time with him and that sex with him is the best I’ve ever had, but that I can’t allow myself to love him? Because, she reflected, he wants a relationship, maybe even a wife, and if you tell him that, you’ll probably never see him again.
‘Another time, maybe. Cheers,’ she said instead, holding up her glass to chink against his before taking a sip. She could read the disappointment in his eyes, but it wasn’t the first time she’d seen that reaction from a boyfriend, and she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last.
Maddy Shaw could feel the trickle of sweat running down her spine. Within moments she knew she would be engulfed by a hot flush or, as she preferred to call it, ‘a personal tropical moment’. It was very distracting, making it difficult to follow the words on the autocue that her fellow news presenter, Callum Baines, was currently delivering.
The story was about yet another victim of a stabbing, bringing the number of deaths in London to thirty for the year so far. We’re not even at the end of March, Maddy thought, fanning her hand in front of her face in the hope that her floor manager Laura might realise she was overheating and turn the air conditioning up. Not that it will make much difference; by the time it’s kicked in I’ll have finished for the night and be halfway home. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Laura in conversation with Jordana and Blake, the presenters who were taking over at midnight for the graveyard shift.
Clearly Maddy’s fanning action had gone unnoticed not only by her floor manager, but apparently by her producer and director in the gallery, too. She tried to refocus her attention on the stabbing report. The boy had been on his way home from his job as a barista in a well-known chain. He had been attacked less than a hundred yards from his front door, where he had bled to death in his mother’s arms. He was only twenty-two, the same age as my Siena, Maddy thought, a shiver running through her body despite the heat she was experiencing. What is wrong with the youth of today? Is it their inability to make the distinction between real life and virtual reality? In the stupid games they played, people got shot or stabbed and came back to life, but in the real world, death meant death: the end. She was relieved that her daughter had never been interested in computer games. Mind you, real life had been something of a drama for her of late. Who am I kidding? she thought. The drama hadn’t only been Siena’s, it had affected the whole family.
Maddy was suddenly aware that Callum had stopped speaking. She stumbled slightly as she led into the final story of the bulletin.
‘And finally, following its closure to the public for the past fortnight after the unexplained death of one of its employees, Neil Edison, the botanical gardens will be reopening its world-famous Palm House on Monday. In a statement issued earlier today, a spokesperson said, “Extensive tests have been carried out on all the potentially harmful plants on exhibition and there is no evidence to suggest that they were a contributing factor in the death of Mr Edison. As a precautionary measure, the most toxic plants have been removed from display while further testing is carried out, and there will be more warning signs alerting the general public to the potential hazards of touching and ingesting the plants”.
‘Edison, who had worked at the gardens for eighteen years, would have been well aware of the dangerous nature of some of the plants in his care, according to the spokesperson. The forty-two-year-old was found dead at his home in North Sheen a week after failing to report for work. While expressing their sadness at his death, colleagues have said that he was a loner and prone to episodes of depression. It is believed Mr Edison took his own life. Now to find out what the weather has in store for us over the coming week, here’s Shavani.’
‘Are you okay?’ Callum asked as he and Maddy unclipped their lapel microphones and headed out of the studio. ‘You seemed a bit distracted.’
‘Just tired, I guess. My shifts have been hellish lately.’
‘Are you in tomorrow?’
‘No, I’ve got a day off, thank God. But I’m back on air at midday on Monday. I hate that slot on a weekday, particularly Mondays. The traffic on the M4 is a nightmare when I’m trying to get in for make-up by nine.’
‘It does seem a bit of a quick turnaround from lates to earlies. I’m not in until Wednesday. What have you done to upset Byron Farley?’
‘Got old.’
‘You’re not old, and anyway, you look fantastic for your age.’
‘I hate those three little words.’
‘Which three little words?’
‘Well, obviously not “you look fantastic”, or “you’re not old”. “For your age” is what people start saying when you are old, but you just wear it well. I think I’m actually more than the combined age of those two,’ Maddy said, indicating the monitor showing Jordana Starr and Blake Clarkson, two of the more recent presenters to join News 24/7, who were now live on air delivering the same news stories that she and Callum had been presenting for the past four hours. There had been a lot of new faces lately, which had made Maddy and others who had been at the channel a long time nervous about their position. Farley had made it clear that he was looking for budget cuts, and the most effective way of achieving that was to replace the more experienced presenters, who commanded high salaries, with those who were younger and cheaper. Cheaper in every respect, Maddy thought. She hadn’t got to where she was by sleeping with the boss, but Byron Farley had made it abundantly clear that he was looking for a prime-time slot for his latest conquest, the twenty-three-year-old brunette currently reading the news.
‘Well, neither of them is a patch on you when it comes to presentation,’ Callum said protectively, ‘and Jordana’s face will probably cave in by the time she’s forty with the amount of Botox and fillers she’s already injecting.’
‘Crazy, isn’t it? I don’t understand why someone as young and pretty as her would do that.’
‘I blame the need to always be “selfie-ready”.’
‘My arms aren’t long enough to take a decent selfie,’ Maddy said, reaching her arm out as though holding a phone and pouting. ‘Or maybe Farley is right, and I need a bit of help from that sort of stuff. I’ve been digging my heels in because I don’t like the idea of injecting poison into my face. It hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to be completely sure of the long-term effects. A bit like Victorian ladies using arsenic to whiten their skin. They had no idea they were slowly poisoning themselves.’
‘Unlike that gardener in our final story. It sounds as though he knew exactly what he was doing.’
‘Well, he certainly had access to all the ingredients to make himself a deadly cocktail. And his work colleagues did say he was suffering from depression.’
‘It’s tragic what people will do when they think there’s no point in carrying on living. Shit. Sorry, Maddy, I wasn’t thinking. Me and my big mouth.’
‘It’s all right, Cal, I think we’re over the worst of it now. I’d rather you were able to speak to me normally than constantly worrying that you’re going to say something to upset me.’
‘Give Siena a hug from me.’
‘Will do. And you and Josh must come round for dinner again soon, then you can give her a hug yourself.’
‘Let’s get it in the diary. Are you off home now?’
‘Where else would I be going?’ Maddy asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
‘You could come clubbing with me. It’s only midnight, early for a Saturday night out.’
‘One of these days I’ll shock you and take you up on your offer,’ Maddy said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Have a great night out, and I’ll see you at some point next week.’
‘Safe journey home,’ Callum said, disappearing into his dressing room.
As Maddy was taking her make-up off she found herself thinking about the death of the gardener. She wondered what the final straw had been that had prompted Neil Edison to take his own life. What a dreadful waste of the gift of life suicide is, she thought. If only he had reached out for help. But, if he was a bit of a loner as his work colleagues had suggested, maybe he had no one to reach out to. It’s funny, she thought, creating raccoon eyes with her creamy make-up remover before gently wiping away all traces of mascara, liner and eyeshadow with a cloth, that name has a familiar ring to it. But try as she might, she couldn’t think where she recognised it from.
The aroma of freshly baked bread welcomed Maddy as she pushed open the kitchen door on Sunday morning. Before she had headed upstairs to bed the previous evening, it had only taken three minutes to put all the ingredients in the machine and set the timer to start making a loaf while they were sleeping. As she had brushed her teeth, she had been forced to admit that the machine was one of the best Christmas presents her husband, Simon, had ever bought her, even if at the time she had been less than enthusiastic.
Maddy had been dropping hints about a diamond-encrusted angel-wing pendant that she really wanted for several weeks in the run-up to Christmas three years previously, and she’d been convinced that Simon had picked up on them. That was until he handed over a huge box wrapped in purple metallic paper. But she hadn’t given up hope completely, because the gift tag read: For a woman with great taste. Right up to the last minu. . .
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