Free The Garden Plot by Marty Wingate

something more fanciful. First they had requested the center plant to be turned into a crown—they were proud monarchists—and next they thought that the two on either side of the crown could be quickly changed into lyres. After that, they hoped she could transform the balls into peacocks.
Everyone wants a peacock,
Pru thought.
    They’d also asked if she could secure a window shutter; many clients assumed that if the chore took place outdoors, the gardener could do it. She needed to sift through the events of the morning, but garden tasks had piled up in the few days since she’d taken the Wilsons on, and if she wasn’t going to be raking in the money on their new garden, she’d better continue her other gigs. Standing at the bus stop, she pulled out her phone. She had to tell someone.
    “Jo, you won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you.” Pru gave a quick rundown of the morning’s events.
    “No one would be murdered over a Roman mosaic, surely,” Jo said.
    “It’s more than a mosaic. This could be huge,” Pru replied, envisioning the garden she could create around the ruins of a Roman villa.
    “But the Wilsons will have to tell the earl before they can dig,” Jo said.
    “Yes, the inspector told me about the earl. I suppose it’ll all belong to him, no matter how amazing the discovery.” Despite the murder, Pru couldn’t get out of her head the possibility of taking on a project bigger than anything she’d ever dreamed up. “Look, do you have time to meet me at the Cat at three?”
    She had just ended her call when Malcolm spoke behind her.
    “Pru?”
    Pru jumped.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, standing with his hands shoved in his pockets and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “It’s a terrible business, isn’t it? So, you found the body?”
    She didn’t know if she was supposed to talk about the murder, but on the other hand, Pearse hadn’t given her a silence order. “Did you know Jeremy Pendergast,Malcolm?”
    “Oh, yes,” Malcolm said, “we all knew Jeremy. What was it like? Was he alive when you found him? Where was Harry? In the shed with you?”
    This seemed too gruesome a subject, and thinking about the details made Pru slightly queasy again.
    “Had anyone … disturbed anything? Did you see anything else in the shed?” Malcolm persisted.
    Besides a dead body?
Pru thought. “No, I didn’t really have time to look around.”
    “What about this mosaic—I couldn’t help but hear what you said on the phone …”
Yes,
Pru thought,
you couldn’t help but hear when you were eavesdropping.
“Is that what Jeremy and Harry argued about?”
    Malcolm’s manner pushed Pru too far; she wouldn’t be the one to reveal the possibility of Roman ruins—she’d be stealing Mr. Wilson’s thunder. At least, she didn’t want to reveal the news to Malcolm.
    “I don’t know, really. You should talk with the Wilsons or with the inspector. Maybe you saw someone in the garden? I don’t even know when he was killed, last night or early this morning.”
    “Oh, someone was in the garden all right,” said Malcolm, sounding sure of himself. “Did you have any evidence for them? Anything to … show them?”
    “I didn’t have anything to show them. All I could do was say that I found the body. Sorry, here’s my bus. I’ve got to run. I’ll see you soon, though.”
    Pru stepped on the bus; as Malcolm watched her intently she dropped her phone in her pocket and pulled out her bus pass, called the Oyster card. As the bus pulled away, she looked up and saw Malcolm staring at her through the window.
    Pru began the crown topiary transformation at the Nethercotts’ and took a stab at a light shearing for the lyres and peacocks. She had encouraged Helen and Gordon Nethercott to let her whack away at the yew, explaining that it was one of the few conifers that would grow from old wood. “I can cut right into these shapes now, and the new growth will pop out before you know it. It’ll be