A woman wearing a raincoat and headscarf, two spaniels on leads beside her, appeared from around the side of the house.
‘If you’re the detective that wants to see Andrew he’s out by the greenhouse. I’m his mother.’ She loosened her head-scarf and shook out her dark hair, then removed a leather glove to shake Anna’s hand. She was very well presented, with dark red lipstick, small drop pearl earrings, a pearl necklace and a whopping diamond on her ring finger. It was all rather at odds with her big green welling ton boots.
‘Make him take you inside, dear, it’s quite chilly this morning.’
She strode off, leaving Anna to walk around the narrow pathway to the rear of the house. There was Andrew Markham, in old cord trousers, a polo-neck jumper and green wellington boots similar to those his mother was wearing. He had a brown cloth cap on and was digging out what appeared to be a small trench beside the greenhouse.
‘Hello.’
He turned, surprised. ‘I just met your mother, she said you were out here.’
‘You must be Detective Travis?’
He took off a big old gardening glove and shook her hand.
Anna didn’t have to suggest they go inside; he removed the other glove and propped them on the spade’s handle.
‘Follow me. It’s a bit muddy, I’m afraid, but I’ve got to get a new drainage system as the old one has packed up, so I’m going to run some new pipes from the garage.’
He was a very good-looking man, tanned and fit, and very tall. When he got to the back door, he had to bend his head to enter. He held the door wide for Anna to go through.
The huge kitchen was warm and yet looked as if it needed some decorating. The old green paint was peeling in places and the walls were yellow with smoke. There was a double Aga in one corner with an array of copper pans on hooks beside it, and dog baskets and dog bowls took up a lot of space around it. Anna noticed an old bookcase spilling out an array of cooking and gardening books.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes I would, thank you.’
He removed his cloth cap and tossed it onto what looked like an old church bench. He had thick dark curly hair similar to his mother’s, worn quite long. He also had a gold looped earring.
Andrew insisted they take their tea into the sitting room as his mother would be back and they’d have wet paws all over them as well as his mother’s attention.
‘We refer to her as the Queen Mother. Do sit down, please.’
The room was gorgeous, high-ceilinged, with lovely old green velvet drapes and matching well-worn sofas and chairs. A stone fireplace held the residue of a wood fire; beside it was a stack of chopped logs ready to light.
There were Persian rugs scattered around the wide polished oak floors. Oil paintings covered the walls, many of horses and hunting, with one very large painting clearly that of his mother as a young woman. The gilt frames were somewhat worn and chipped, but the feel of the room was one of jaded elegance.
Anna sat on the edge of the sofa as Markham handed her tea and some scones. They were freshly baked, he said, but she refused. He sat opposite her, munching on one.
‘I was interviewed years ago about Rebekka, it’s something I don’t think you ever sort of forget. Not the interview, I mean about her disappearance.’
‘Did you meet her?’
‘Oh yes. She was often in the garden with her brothers watching us all work, but they were never a problem. I had to move a small pond – you know, drain it – and they helped catch the fish. We had them in a sort of big old bathtub until we had the new pond ready.’
He sipped his tea.
‘She was very concerned about the frogs. I told her they’d hop over to the new one when it was built, but she wanted to catch them all. She said there were six she knew and had given names.’
He leaned back.
‘Frogs, every time I see one, reminds me of her.’
Anna finished her tea and took out her notebook. She asked about the excavation of the Jordans’ garden and he got up and crossed to an oak desk, searching around and then pulling open drawers. Eventually he returned to sit beside her with a drawing book.
‘These were my original designs. They were the sort of basic to start off from.’
Anna turned over page after page of sketches and notes.
‘Have you found her?’ His voice was soft and quiet.
‘No.’
‘It was a long time ago, maybe five or six years now.’
‘Yes.’
‘May I ask why you wanted to see me?’
She closed the drawing block. ‘Do you recall if you ever, whilst you were working there, saw any children’s toys or got rid of anything the children might have been playing with?’
‘No. I don’t think so. The Jordans hadn’t lived there for very long and I think they had done a bit of clearance before I started. It was a major job though. I mean, Stephen Jordan sort of cleared old garden furniture and stuff like that, but we had to take down the back fence of his garden to get the diggers in and the rubbish out.’
‘When you say “we”, how many of you were working on the project?’
‘Well there was me and two friends I worked with at Kew Gardens who helped out. I hadn’t really started out on my own then but was just doing some extra weekend work on the side, so I had to rely on anyone I could get to give me a hand. Pay was better than I got at Kew so I took a week off to do the initial work. To be honest it turned out to be a much bigger job than I had anticipated.’
‘The builders recommended you for the job, didn’t they?’
He nodded and smiled. ‘Lovely guys, those brothers, and yes they did. Met them in the beer tent at the Chelsea Flower Show in May, a few weeks before starting at the Jordans’. Said I was thinking of starting my own business and gave them my number. In fact I’ve worked on and off for them ever since.’
He leaned back and folded his arms behind his head.
‘We have a possible suspect,’ Anna said. ‘These two people who worked alongside you, do you have their names?’
‘Yes, somewhere. I think one went back to Australia, but the other still works in the hothouse at Kew.’
Anna opened her briefcase and took out the envelope with Henry Oates’s photograph.
‘And you only ever used these two friends to work with you, no one else?’
‘No, the three of us did the job. When the initial excavation of the tree and other shrubs was completed the brothers began digging out the foundations and I was working on my own. I had to demolish a brick wall and dig out the area for the new pond. Couldn’t do a lot more until the building work was completed. It was a big job for them as well, good-sized extension took up almost a quarter of the garden.’
‘So you went back after the extension was built?’
‘Yeah, for a couple of weeks to put up a new wall, rebuild the pond and also finish the overall landscaping. My own company was up and running by then but I worked on my own – not enough money coming in to employ staff back then.’
She passed him the photograph of Henry Oates.
‘Have you ever seen this man before?’
He stared at it, frowned and then ran his fingers through his hair.
‘Jesus Christ. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
Her heart missed a beat. He shook his head, but still stared at the mug shot.
‘I completely forgot. I’d forgotten, Jesus Christ, I had forgotten this guy, this man.’
‘Do you recognize him?’
‘Yes, yes I do. Shit, I don’t believe it.’
The door burst open and the two sodden spaniels hurtled into the room while Mrs Markham screeched for Andrew to get them out and not let them onto the sofas. The dogs chased manically around the room, skidding on the carpets, jumping on and off the chairs as Mrs Markham appeared.
‘Get them out, for goodness’ sake, they’ve been rolling in manure. GET OUT! GET OUT! Why did you leave the kitchen door open?’
Andrew grabbed one by its collar as his mother chased the other out of the room. Anna could hear him shouting at the dogs before he walked back in and slammed the door shut.