Free Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) by Marty Wingate Page B

from the next glasshouse. The two of them ran up the steps to peer closely at the spot where the pot had sat. Pru couldn’t look up at them, but when they returned to ground level, she met Iain as the Palm house worker retrieved a bin and a large broom and began sweeping up shards of terra-cotta and clumps of soil.
    “How did it fall?” she asked. “Do you know?”
    “Someone was working up there last week and moved some of the pots round,” Iain said. “Not all got moved back again, apparently.” Iain glanced at the catwalk. “Why don’t you go on, Ms. Parke. I’ll need to see the glasshouse manager about this.”
    Pru left, recovered enough to feel a pang of sympathy for the person to blame for the accident—especially if Iain dealt with him. On the path, she met Murdo who carried a four-foot section of a tree limb about five inches in diameter, broken and jagged at either end.
    “What have you got there?” she asked.
    Murdo admired the branch. “Dunno, Pru. Could be a shelf—one of those long, skinny ones with leaves carved along the edge. Or candlesticks made to look like vines. I need to study it awhile before I know.”
    “Oh, right,” she said, taking a closer look. “What sort of wood is it?”
    “Whitebeam. Came down in the wind last night.”
    A man came out of the glasshouse pushing a cart with the lemon tree, now potless. “What happened there?” Murdo asked.
    Pru told him. “Someone had been working on the catwalk inside and hadn’t put it back to rights. The pot fell—Iain and I were right there. It was an accident.”
    Murdo’s face grew red. “What were you doing in there with Blackwell?”
    For a moment, surprised at his indignation, Pru wondered the same thing. “It’s my project, Murdo,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no escape from it.”

Chapter 11
    The following Monday, Pru stopped in Iain’s office to talk further with him about Menzies’s mention of the fuchsia.
    “I’m currently occupied, Ms. Parke,” he said, not looking up from his desk. “Surely you can read the document on your own.”
    She didn’t answer, but fumed her way back to her own office. Iain had exhibited a moment of compassion when he had helped her down off the stairs in the glasshouse, and now this. Such a talent for rubbing people the wrong way.
    She had not mentioned the incident to anyone, not even Christopher. It was embarrassing to think of her fear on the stairs, and the pot falling had been an accident—at least, that had been the conclusion. She had not forgotten Iain asking if she’d seen anyone on the catwalk, however—and the power of that suggestion had added to her memory of the event a shadowy figure hovering over the teetering pot. She had wanted to ask Iain about it again, but not when he was in this mood.
    —
    Her days had fallen into a pattern as she sought clues to the found journal’s legitimacy. She had cross-referenced plants; researched the horticultural history of each; compared journals written by other officers who were on board the
Discovery
—all were missing the crucial last year of the voyage—and read Menzies’s letters and accounts side by side with the newly discovered pages. Now, because of Iain’s prodding, she focused her search on one plant: a fuchsia.
    “
Fuchsia coccinea
, found it,” Pru said, looking up from reading, but keeping her finger on the place. Saskia sat at the table reading a biography of George Vancouver and making notes. “Although it had a longer name to begin with—
Fuchsia triphylla flore coccinea
. Thank God Linnaeus shortened botanical names.”
    “Is it Chilean?” Saskia asked.
    “No, from Brazil. But Mr. Menzies mentions it here—just one line—saying he acquired seeds. He doesn’t say from whom.”
    “Is that enough to authenticate the journal—Menzies’s one reference?”
    “No, we’ll need more than his mention of a new fuchsia. I’ll need a contemporary confirmation—something that proves Mr.