nature’s handiwork. ‘That silvery bark is beautiful, and look at those strands of moss. That’s magic, that is!’
‘Dave, please take it away,’ Penny said. ‘I can’t use it.’
‘It’s unique!’
‘It’s useless. I don’t want it.’
Dave opened his mouth to argue, but just then a new voice joined the conversation.
‘What’s going on here?’
It was Ariadne Baker, who had just arrived, wrapped up against the frosty morning in a military overcoat, a cigarette in one hand, the other clutching a plastic cup of coffee she’d bought from a roadside stall on her way into town.
Twice-married and twice-divorced, Ariadne was a dramatically pretty woman around thirty, some seven years older than Penny, with jet-black hair and bright green eyes.
Those eyes hardened now as they took in the scene. ‘What’s that piece of dead tree for? And what happened to our door? Dave?’
Hippy Dave was not known for decisive movements, but a lifetime of evading the long arm of the law had given him a heightened instinct for self-preservation. He dropped the branch and hopped nimbly into his van.
‘Be seeing you, Pen,’ he called out of the window as the worn-out engine rattled into life.
And then the rainbow van was bounding down the mews, its still open back door waving a disreputable farewell to the two women.
‘He’s smashed our door!’ Ariadne gasped.
‘Yes,’ Penny said.
‘And he’s left that rotten old tree for us to clear up!’
‘Also true.’
‘I’ll have his guts for garters!’
‘You’ll have to catch him first,’ Penny pointed out. ‘He’ll be halfway to London by now. Help me get the branch inside.’
‘We don’t want that horrible old thing in our nice clean workshop!’ Ariadne exclaimed.
‘No,’ Penny said patiently, ‘but we need to be able to get our vans up to the door. And we can’t leave it lying in the mews or everybody will complain, and the council will fine us. So give me a hand.’
Ariadne’s father was a retired colonel—he had met and married her Cypriot mother in Nicosia—and Ariadne expressed her opinion of Hippy Dave in choice, parade-ground language as they hauled the branch into the workshop.
It was, as Ariadne had pointed out, always kept spotlessly clean. There were three work benches, one for Penny, one for Ariadne, and one for Tara, the woman who helped out three days a week. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Dried materials were stored in sheaves on wooden racks, there were large plastic bins for waste, and in the corner stood their most expensive piece of equipment, a climate-controlled cupboard for delicate fresh plants like orchids.
There was a huge sink crowded with zinc buckets for cut flowers, and a ‘control corner’ with their work book and a chalk board where they kept track of orders. Beside it stood a shelf for the kettle and mugs, which provided the constant flow of life-giving beverages—coffee for Ariadne and tea for Penny—which kept them going from before dawn till late afternoon.
The shop part of their business was partitioned off, and faced the High Street. It looked bare right now because they had yet to go to the market to buy flowers for the day.
‘Damn Hippy Dave,’ Ariadne panted, as they lugged the dead branch into a corner. ‘He’s a useless, addle-headed idiot!’
‘We’d better get moving,’ Penny said, checking her watch, ‘we’re late for the market. We can’t lock the back door now that Dave has broken it. Why don’t you go on your own, Ariadne? I’ll stay here and try to get hold of Miles. Maybe I’ll make some pot-pourri arrangements.’
‘All right,’ Ariadne said, dusting bits of moss and bark off her greatcoat. ‘Arrange for a hit man to take Dave out, too, would you?’
‘I’ll dial M for Murder,’ Penny promised. ‘Here’s the list, don’t forget it.’
When Ariadne had raced off to the market, Penny perched by the phone and called Miles Clampett. He was sure to charge an exorbitant fee. He always did. They had met when she had done the flowers for his brother’s wedding two months earlier. They had gone out for a few weeks after the wedding, but it had ended quickly, after his sense of humour wore thin on her. They were still on good terms. He was expensive. But he was the only handyman she knew who would come out right away, with no hesitation.
Though it was still well before six, she had no compunction about calling—this was an emergency.
A sleepy murmur answered her call.
‘Miles, it’s Penny Watkins. Sorry to do this to you, but Hippy Dave knocked my door off its hinges a few minutes ago, and I need a carpenter really, really, really badly.’
‘Anything for you,’ he yawned.
‘You are awake, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you promise you’ll come this morning? As in—now? We’re in and out all day, and unless I can lock the place up—’
‘All right, all right,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll beam down from my spaceship. Give me half an hour.’
‘Bless you,’ she said, hanging up.
She made herself a cup of tea and set to work making room perfumers. It was undemanding work—arranging dried flowers in pots and sprinkling them with aromatherapy essences—but the arrangements were popular and sold steadily. She had an excellent eye for shape and colour, and she always had an assortment of pretty porcelain containers on hand. She put some of those to good use now.
By seven-thirty, her sensitive nose had had about as much as it could take of ‘Floral Bouquet’ and patchouli oil. She loved flowers and everything about them—their smells, their colours, their textures; but synthetic versions of any of those usually wearied her sensitive faculties, and that was particularly so with smells.
She went into the shop, pulling off her cap and untying her hair. It fell in rich auburn waves around her shoulders. Penny was slender and ivory-skinned, with dark blue, almost violet eyes and a full, slightly melancholy mouth. She was twenty-three, but it sometimes seemed as though she were still trembling on the brink of full womanhood, like a flower that had half opened, and was waiting for the clouds to part so that the sun could bring her to full glory.
There had certainly been clouds in her life so far. Not everything had gone right for her. But she had struggled to overcome adversity, and had usually succeeded, though the price she had paid was perhaps visible in that poignant mouth.
The blinds were still drawn, but through them she could see activity in the High Street. The town was waking up. Buses were running. It was turning out bright, though the rime of frost on everything had yet to melt.
She turned on
