Deadheads

to gaudy blouses and musky perfumes and empty sentimentalities.

The outhouse was full of the instruments of gardening, all in neat array. Aldermann took a pair of gardening gloves and a pruning knife from a high shelf and removed what looked like a newspaper boy's bag from a hook, completing the impression by draping it round his neck. Wield's eye meanwhile was taken by a large wall-cabinet with a solid front held shut by a solid-looking padlock.

'Good security, sir,' he said approvingly.

'What? Oh yes. It's for the children's sake, of course,' said Aldermann. 'I doubt if it would do more than slightly delay real burglars, Sergeant, but modern gardening uses modern substances and I've got enough stuff in there in the way of herbicides and pesticides to kill an army!'

He led the way out, carefully locking up behind him. When they reached the rose-garden, the function of his neck-bag became apparent. From time to time he paused to slice off a wasting bloom and drop it into the bag.

'Sorry about this,' he said, 'but it's the only way to keep control.'

'You surely don't take care of everything yourself?' said Wield, who was still pondering the easy reference to the lethal contents of the locked cabinet.

'Hardly,' laughed Aldermann, looking round at the huge expanse of gardens. 'In my great-uncle's day - he actually created the garden, by the way - there was a full-time gardener. Times, and costs, have changed, of course. The old gardener's son started a gardening contracting business and they come out here one or two days a week during the growing season to keep things under control. I do as much as I can and almost everything to do with the roses.'

'Even that must be almost a full-time job,' said Wield.

'It occupies the centre of my life, yes,' agreed Aldermann. 'But there's plenty of room round the edges for earning a living. Not that I don't sometimes dream of being able to give all my attention here. What harm does it do a man, I wonder, when the harsh facts of existence hinder him from growing steadily into the fullness of his own nature?'

The brown eyes turned on Wield, not watchful now but vulnerably wide and full of frank, guileless innocence, yet arousing in the sergeant the uneasy feeling that Aldermann had somehow penetrated to the very heart of his own double existence.

'You may be right, sir,' he said. 'That's a fine-looking instrument.'

He nodded at the pruning knife and felt angry with himself for the deliberate cutting off of this potentially productive shoot of personal philosophy. It was a small act of cowardice, almost certainly unnecessary, but none the better had it been necessary. Defence too can be habit-forming. It is aroused by threat. It can be activated when no threat is intended. And it sometimes continues when there's nothing left to defend. For almost a year now, since a long-established relationship had died on him, he had led a life of hermit-like celibacy. There were no roses at the centre of his existence, just a dark, destructive hiding place in which there was no longer even anything hiding.

Aldermann smiled as if he understood every thought in the sergeant's mind and said, 'Yes, I prefer it to secateurs. It belonged to my great-uncle, though curiously I was shown how to use it by my great-aunt who was strongly concerned for the good appearance of the gardens. So was my great-uncle, of course, but his motivation was not to impress others, but to express love. Removing the dying blooms is a sad but necessary task. Naturally a lover of the plants will want to use the quickest and kindest instrument available.'

He held the knife up as he spoke, in a gesture close to a chivalric salute, and the sunlight caught its curved and silvery blade.

'Now, let me see; the miniatures! Of course, that's what you want to see, isn't it? Over here. I don't have very many but you may get some ideas for your box. This Baby Masquerade is very pretty. The flowers change colour as they develop which would be interesting in a window. I prefer it as a miniature, myself. At full size, it's a little too garish for my taste.'

'I like the look of these,' said Wield, finding the man's enthusiasm infectious. 'What are they?'

'You have a good old-fashioned taste, I see,' said Aldermann approvingly. 'Those are dwarf polyanthas. That Baby Faurax is terribly pretty, don't you think?'

Wield looked down at the clusters of tiny lavender and violet pompoms and nodded. They certainly appealed to him much more than the full-sized heavy-headed bushes. They brought into his mind a cottage garden with a stream running through it and a low-roofed building in glowing Cotswold stone.

He realized he was recalling a holiday cottage where he and his lost lover had spent a joyous fortnight many years before.

'Diana! Come in now, dear!'

Mrs Aldermann's voice pushed the memory from his mind. She was standing on the terrace. From the swing came a token protest, but Police Cadet Singh swept the little girl up on to his shoulders and bore her laughing and chattering towards the house.

'I'd best be off, sir,' said Wield. 'Good of you to spare the time.'

'Shared not spared, I think,' said Aldermann. 'Goodbye now.'

He accompanied Wield and Singh round the side of the house, then diverted to a screened compost heap where he deposited the deadheads and stood looking down at them in quiet contemplation. Wield, glancing back, was reminded of a priest standing alone by a flower-strewn grave after all the mourners had gone. 'A priest' wasn't a bad image. Aldermann's enthusiasm had something of the inaccessibility of the truly religious mind. The sergeant surprised himself by feeling a sudden surge of envy. For what? Not these huge gardens and that over-large house, certainly. And definitely not his wife, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor his servants, if he had any besides the jobbing gardeners and probably the occasional char. Perhaps, then, for knowing where his centre lay and daring to act upon that knowledge?

Singh had been reluctant to break in on the rapt sergeant, but now he said, 'Was it all right me playing with the kiddie, Sarge? I thought it'd give you a bit more chance to suss out her mam.'

Wield regarded the boy in momentary puzzlement, then recalled to mind that of course he had no notion that their visit to Rosemont had anything but the business of Mrs Aldermann's car behind it. So his move with the little girl had been pretty clever. But the sergeant did not articulate his approval. Instead he said coldly, 'Enjoy yourself in