April

Christine Sutton won £20.00 ($40.00) for her entry.

Up The Garden Path

Thwack! George winced as the spade jarred against the stony ground. Trust Doris, still managing to be a pain in the neck even when she was no longer there. Laying down the spade, he surveyed his handiwork. The hole was plenty big enough, at least if his aching back was anything to go by. Time for stage two.
Sensing movement nearby, he glanced up. Twenty feet above him his insatiably nosy neighbour Mrs Pauletti was peering out from behind her bedroom nets. George gave a start and nudged at the spade with the toe of his boot. The curtain abruptly dropped. He rubbed his chin, stubbly with a day‘s growth. No doubting what the old girl had seen, the question was what would she make of it? A gust of wind sprang up and he shivered in the chilly night air. Comforting himself with thoughts of a well-earned whisky before turning in, he opened the shed door. Slumped against the far wall was a large black bin bag. Bracing himself, he dragged it forwards...

It was a little after seven next morning that the knock came. George, still in his nightclothes, left his breakfast and went to answer the door. If he was worried about finding a policeman on his doorstep at such an early hour he certainly didn‘t show it. Yes, he answered reasonably to the officer‘s question, he quite understood that what his neighbour had witnessed could be misconstrued but the fact was that he‘d merely been doing a spot of gardening.
"At midnight, Mr Fuller?" The youthful-looking constable seemed far from convinced.
"That‘s the wife‘s idea," George explained, a trifle sheepishly. "Mrs Fuller insists that moonlight‘s kinder for the plants when they first go in. Look, come through and I‘ll show you," he offered.
He led the way out onto the patio.
"I‘ve just retired, you see, and Doris is dead set on making sure I pull my weight," he went on affably. "And let‘s face it," he added, patting his overflowing paunch, "there‘s enough of it to pull!"

"And where exactly is Mrs Fuller now, Sir?" the policeman asked, eyeing the recently dug earth.
"Oh, she‘s down un... in Australia," George corrected himself. "Visiting her cousin. He‘s a farmer, owns a thousand acres in Burra Burra. Or is it Warra Warra? Or maybe Burra Warra?" He shrugged. "To be honest I didn‘t take that much notice. I was just so happy at the thought of a few weeks peace, I let her get on with it. Not that she‘ll actually be there yet," he added as an afterthought. "She‘s making a couple of stop-offs on the way - Hong Kong and Thailand, I think she said. Or was it Singapore?"
"Hmm, that‘s unfortunate, Sir," said the police officer slowly. "It means we have a problem. A possible crime has been reported, you see, and, unless you can contact Mrs Fuller to confirm what you say, we may have to take a look under there."
He raked the crumbly black soil with the sole of a highly polished boot. George gave a gasp and put out a hand as if to stop him.
"Something wrong, Sir?" the policeman asked, raising his brows.
"Er, no..." George stuttered, "I, umm, just didn‘t want you to disturb the seedlings."
"Ze seedlings! Ze grave, you mean."
Up popped Mrs Pauletti from behind the trellis, her steel-grey hair skewered into its usual, no-nonsense bun.
"Meeses Fuller, she ees ‘down under‘, yes. Seex feet down under," she hissed. "Two nights ago I am out ‘ere and I ‘ear Meeses Fuller, nag, nag, nag. Do zis, do zat, she tell ‘im. Ze next day - pouf - she is gone. Ees obvious, he keelt her."
"Do you have anything to say about this, Mr Fuller?" asked the constable, turning to George for the expected protestation of innocence.
"What can I say?" George shrugged. "I‘ve told you where she is, I just can‘t prove it. She doesn’t have a mobile and until she phones me…"
The young policeman stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then radioed in.

Inspector Frank Field strode across the pockmarked lawn into the kitchen, a pair of voluminous aertex knickers dangling from his fingertips. Pausing before the table, he held the offending garment up for George‘s inspection.
"Can you explain how these came to be buried in your garden, Mr Fuller?"

George sighed. "Yes, although I doubt you‘ll believe me. They‘re cotton, you see, natural fibres. And all the other stuff that’s out there, too. Doris says natural fibres break down and nourish the soil." He sighed and shook his head. It sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. "Don‘t ask me if it‘s true, Inspector, I just do as I‘m told."
There was a shout from outside and he looked up to see Mrs Pauletti standing in her garden, frantically directing operations from across the fence.
"Zere, try zere!" she screeched, pointing to a spot near the summerhouse. "I remember now, ze day I move in, sree years ago, he bury somesing zere. Anozer body, perhaps?"
George closed his eyes. It was only a matter of time now.

It was early evening that the first bone came to light. Long. Thin. A thigh bone. As he watched it emerge, pearly-white and gleaming dully under the arc lamps, George sat forward and buried his face in his hands.

By daybreak the garden was looking like a building site, with blue plastic awnings and mounds of freshly dug earth all over the place. Blearily, George listened as Inspector Field told him what he already knew.
"There‘s nothing out there but the grave of a very large dog, Mr Fuller."
"Sasha, an Irish Wolfhound," he agreed woefully, "my best friend for thirteen years."
He gave a shuddering sigh and gazed bleakly ahead. In the ensuing silence the Inspector shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable in the face of such distress. Suddenly, George seemed to rally. Getting up from the table, he strode over to the sink to look out at his devastated lawn.
"Rather a mess, isn‘t it?" he said softly. Considering his recent upset, he seemed surprisingly composed.
"I‘m afraid it is," the Inspector conceded, "but we had a duty to check, Mr Fuller, you do understand?"
George was swift to agree. "Oh, of course, of course. But, well... it‘s going to take a bit of putting right, don‘t you think?"

The snooker was just reaching its climax on the TV when the telephone rang. George, who was enjoying a fish and chip supper washed down with a tumbler of the finest malt at the time, took a moment to lower the volume before answering.

Despite being half a world away, Doris‘s voice had lost none of its stridency. As he listened to her latest tirade, his gaze drifted out to where four big, strong lads from the local constabulary were even now carrying out her earlier wishes. George raised his glass and drank a silent toast to Mrs Pauletti‘s unfailing ability to see murder and mayhem at every turn. Three whole weeks before Doris‘s return, and now he‘d be able to enjoy every single one of ‘em!