A
cat, a turtle, and a stranger face off in the garden. The stranger blinks
first. Right. The joke still needs some work.
“Do you always let your turtle and cat out
in the garden together?”
“They’re friends. They like to gossip.”
Motts set her trowel to one side and got to her feet. She dusted the grass and
dirt off her knees. “They both need fresh air and sun in moderation. Are you
lost?”
The man didn’t seem lost despite having
popped up beside the back fence around her garden. He looked like a police officer.
Though not quite as broad-shouldered, he stood as tall as Teo Herceg, the
detective inspector she’d met in April and had been dating for over a month.
“I’m hoping to speak with Pineapple
Mottley.” He sounded like a policeman. His suit, while nice, appeared rumpled
from driving; his short grey hair, however, was gelled and styled perfectly.
“I’m Detective Inspector Dempsey Byrne with the Metropolitan Police’s cold case
unit.”
“Cold case?” Motts’s heart stuttered in
her chest. She rubbed her fingers together nervously. “Jenny. You’re here about
Jenny.”
Jenny Cleverly had been her lone best
friend through her early childhood. Motts had stumbled across Jenny’s lifeless
body on her way home from primary school while walking through a park, hidden
behind a hedge. She still had nightmares about finding her.
The unsolved crime had haunted Motts.
She’d developed an obsessive curiosity about cold cases as a result. And at
least once a year, she searched online to see if anyone had been arrested for
Jenny’s murder.
“Ms Mottley?”
“Motts.” She had a sudden sense of déjÃ
vu; she’d had a similar conversation with Teo in April. He’d been investigating
the murder of a Rhona Walters, who’d been buried in the garden behind her
cottage. It had been an auspicious start to her life in Polperro. “Cactus.”
Her beloved Sphynx cat had leapt onto the
fence and then over to the detective’s shoulder. Detective Inspector Byrne
didn’t bat an eyelid. He simply reached up to pat Cactus on his head.
Well,
he certainly approves of the random strange man intruding on our afternoon.
Intruding
inspector intrudes introspectively.
Introspectively?
Not
my best alliteration.
“I don’t often see a flowerless garden.”
He glanced slowly around at her rows of fruits and herbs. “None at all?”
“My allergies try to drown me if I’m
around them for too long.” Motts kept flowers far away from her cottage. Real
ones, in any case. She made and sold origami and quilled floral arrangements as
part of her small business, Hollyhock Folded Blooms. “Why don’t you come in for
tea? Cold case curiosities can converse comfortably.”
Don’t
frighten the fancy London detective with your peculiarities.
The judgmental voice in her head sounded
suspiciously like her mum, who meant well but couldn’t always relate to Motts’s
more unique traits. She didn’t understand her wayward autistic and asexual
daughter. Motts had given up trying to fit into neurotypical moulds.
I
am who I am.
Alliterations
and all.
Oh,
fun accidental alliterations are the best.
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Motts stared blankly at the man, unable to decide if he was being polite or not. “You drove from London. At least a five-hour drive on a good day. Tea isn’t imposing. Sleeping in my garden and trampling the herbs would be.”
i like the quirky dialog!
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