Shallow Graves Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  What's next?

  What's next?

  What's next?

  Want to stalk me?

  End of book stuff

  Other books by Elise Noble

  SHALLOW GRAVES

  Elise Noble

  Published by Undercover Publishing Limited

  Copyright © 2018 Elise Noble

  ISBN: 978-1-910954-78-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Edited by Nikki Mentges at NAM Editorial

  www.undercover-publishing.com

  www.elise-noble.com

  The kiss of the sun for pardon,

  The song of the birds for mirth.

  One is nearer God’s heart in a garden,

  Than anywhere else on earth.

  - Unknown.

  CHAPTER 1

  “YOU NEED TO bring a new…whatever that tree is. It’s dead.”

  Mr. Flatts, the nitpicky office manager at law firm Rockett & Smith, pointed at the perfectly healthy Calathea makoyana on the shelf in front of us.

  “The leaves are meant to be that colour—it’s variegated.”

  He took a step back and appraised it critically. “No, no, no, Dove.” His second chin wobbled as he shook his head. “I do believe it’s sick.”

  My teeth ground together all of their own accord, making my fledgeling headache worse. What did Wes, my boyfriend and business partner, keep telling me? Ah yes. The customer was always right.

  Even when they were one hundred percent wrong.

  After all, which of us had spent three years studying for a degree in horticulture? A first-class honours degree, no less. I’ll give you a clue—it wasn’t Mr. Flatts.

  I tried one more time. “It really is supposed to look like that. I brought it in to add a splash of colour.”

  He reached out one pudgy finger and flicked a leaf. “I want a replacement. Wesley guaranteed you’d replace anything we didn’t love.”

  Damn Wes and his smooth talking. And to a lawyer as well. Mr. Flatts would probably sue us if a leaf dropped off. I’d overheard one of his lackeys threatening their cleaning firm with court over a dusty computer monitor last time I stopped by to water the plants.

  “Then I’ll bring you something new. Do you have any preferences?”

  “Something green. Lively. I want vibrant.”

  Something vibrant? How about a damn triffid?

  Half an hour later, with Mr. Flatts safely shut away on a conference call, I escaped the dingy offices of Rockett & Smith with my messenger bag of gardening tools slung across my body and the offending Calathea tucked under one arm.

  “We get to ride on the Tube now, little one. You can suck all those nasty toxins out of the air.”

  Yes, I was talking to a plant, okay? Over the last six months, I’d come to understand they made better conversation than Wes. They didn’t spout crackpot ideas for their next get-rich-quick scheme, nor did they ask why they’d run out of clean underpants.

  The station attendant hovering at Blackfriars gave me a dirty look as I hurried through the barrier, highlighting another issue Wes hadn’t thought of when he came up with the idea of starting our business to provide and care for office plants. In central London, we needed to carry the pots on the underground system or fork out for a cab. And when I said we, I meant me.

  The tsk, tsk, tsk of the attendant followed me as I headed for the escalator. He could tut as much as he wanted—nothing prohibited me from taking a plant on the Tube, except common sense, perhaps, but I’d already proven I didn’t have much of that. I mean, I’d stuck it out with Wes for three and a half years now.

  Half an hour later, I shoved my way through the door of our tiny top-floor flat in Whitechapel. We’d chosen it not for its stunning decor or creature comforts, because it didn’t have any, but rather because of the tiny roof terrace accessed by climbing out of the bedroom window.

  That’s where the spare plants for our business, Plants 2 U, lived in a makeshift greenhouse I’d knocked together out of wood battens and polythene, only hammering my thumb once in the process. The air-conditioning unit from the office next door vented right next to it, which meant the motley collection stayed warm even in winter. In summer I put my orchids out there to get some sun, but right now, in early January, they were spread along the windowsills in the bedroom and living room, much to Wes’s annoyance. He liked plants when they made him money, but not so much when they graced his home.

  My significant other glanced up from his spot on the couch as I walked past, surrounded by the holy trinity of laptop, TV remote, and beer. I noticed he flicked the screen on his computer to a spreadsheet, as he usually did when I came near. What had he been doing before? I’d bet on World of Warcraft, with an outside chance of porn. Sure, it irked me, but I’d got to the point I was past caring.

  “Why have you brought that back?”

  “Mr. Flatts reckons it’s unhealthy.”

  Wes peered at the leaves. “Isn’t it? It’s gone a funny colour.”

  “No! It’s supposed to look like this.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Just chuck it away and take him another one.”

  Grrrr! How could he talk about a plant so nastily? It was a living, breathing thing. Well, not breathing, exactly, but it definitely respired.

  “I’ll put it on the terrace.”

  “Not much space left out there.”

  “You need to find more customers, then.” That was our deal. Wes put his business degree to good use by doing the accounting and marketing, while I did the dirty work.

  “Yeah, I will. I’m thinking of branching out. What do you think of dog walking? The hourly rate’s higher.”

  “And who would be walking the dogs? Me?”

  “You like dogs.”

  “I also like lunch, and I didn’t have time to eat any today.”

  The roll of his eyes said he thought I was being unreasonable. “Then we’ll hire students or something. People are always looking for jobs.”

  And all the low-paid workers we’d employed had proven notoriously unreliable. I’d been through three assistants in four months, and the current girl called in sick every other day. What
made Wes think walking dogs would be any different?

  Nothing, probably, but as long as I stuck around to bail him out of each mess he got into, he didn’t care.

  “I’ll get flyers printed tomorrow,” he said. “You can give them out when you do the plants.”

  “I won’t have time.”

  “Don’t be silly. Just leave a pile in each office you go to.” He slammed his laptop shut. “I’m hungry. Shall I order a pizza?”

  “We can’t afford it.”

  “What toppings do you want? Everything?”

  It didn’t matter what I said, did it? He already had his phone to his ear and, as usual, he’d do whatever he fancied.

  The story of my life.

  “Out of the way, amateur.”

  I fell back against the wall outside my first client’s office as a neon-green bicycle sped past pulling a kiddie trailer. Except rather than children, the spiky leaves of a Cordyline poked out of the top. A groan escaped my lips as the slices of last night’s pizza I’d packed in my bag for lunch got squashed between my body and the wall. I’d never been a fan of Hawaiian pizza anyway, and being flattened wouldn’t make it taste any better.

  “Hey! Watch out,” I muttered.

  Darren, my main rival in the office-plant-care stakes and the self-proclaimed “Queen of Green,” smirked as he parked his bike up.

  “Should have looked where you were going, shouldn’t you? Or better still, you could stop trying to steal my customers.”

  “I don’t…”

  Oh, what was the point? Ever since we’d crossed paths a week into my new job, it had been secateurs at dawn. Darren never passed up an opportunity to bad-mouth me to my clients or anyone else who’d listen, and he didn’t hesitate to insult me to my face either. I tried to block him out, but over the months, he’d worn me down.

  “Sure you do. You poached the Scott Agency.”

  “They called us. I’d never even spoken to them before that. Anyhow, you’ve been playing dirty tricks yourself.”

  Last month, although I couldn’t prove it, I was sure he’d snuck into Marston’s Accountants and sprinkled weed killer on the weeping figs in the lobby.

  “Imagination working overtime again?”

  “The receptionist saw you do it.”

  He’d come in pretending to be lost, and while the receptionist looked up directions on the internet, she’d glanced up and caught him pouring something into the decorative planters.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  Of course he denied it. Exactly like he denied following me six months ago, then paying a personal visit to all the clients I’d attended that day. He’d undercut us, and we’d lost six contracts. Oh, how I longed to take a pair of shears to his private parts. Jail probably wasn’t much worse than living with Wes, anyway.

  Darren flounced off, and I carried on into the building. Streamline Software was the first of ten calls I needed to make that day, and I couldn’t help yawning as I buzzed the door. I’d been awake half the night with my mind churning. Was this how I wanted to live the rest of my life? Dinner and TV with a man I didn’t love, then days of trailing around offices stalked by the Queen?

  Back at university, I’d dreamed of working in a huge garden attached to a stately home, carefully matching the flower borders to the setting. A job where I had a team of people I’d be able to call friends. When we moved from Nottingham to London because Wes craved the hustle and bustle of the big city, he’d fitted right in, but I’d never been more lonely in my life.

  Now, as I flitted around another office snipping off yellow leaves and adding slow-release plant-food pellets to each pot, I took in the cheerful atmosphere. A couple of girls chatted about their dates for that evening, comparing outfits and destinations. I tried to remember the last time Wes took me out. Ah, yes, right after we arrived in London. We’d spent the evening in a sports bar, and he bought me a basket of chicken wings. Who said romance was dead?

  “And how’s the hunt for a new flatmate going?” the blonde asked the brunette.

  She made a face. “Six applicants, and the last one turned up without shoes.”

  “As in couldn’t afford them, or just didn’t like wearing them?”

  “He said having his feet wedged into the carcasses of dead animals made his soul weep.”

  The blonde giggled. “What about trainers? You know, made of synthetic stuff?”

  “I didn’t get that far. When he asked if I had a problem with nudity—sorry, expressing oneself through bodily freedom—I suggested we perhaps weren’t a great match.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Who knows, if I get enough freaks applying, maybe my darling boyfriend’ll take the hint and ask me to move in with him?”

  They both laughed at that. Tempting though it was to keep listening, if I chopped much more off the bamboo palm it’d be another candidate for the reject pile, and besides, I shouldn’t listen to horror stories about flat-sharing. If I ever got the courage to leave Wes, that could be me stuck with a barefoot freak. I’d never be able to afford a flat on my own at London prices. Unless of course I found a job outside London, but all the positions at the Royal Horticultural Society and the other places I’d love to work had hundreds of applicants. After a year spent watering houseplants, I had little to help me stand out in the job market, my ability to carry two yucca plants and a Dracaena on the Tube without poking my eye out notwithstanding.

  At least I didn’t have spiky plants to lug today. The messenger bag slung over my shoulder didn’t slow me down as I scurried out of the station at Lancaster Gate, heading for Hyde Park. I tried to find somewhere green to eat lunch every day, even in bad weather, and I’d scheduled my visit to the Mornington Hotel, just off Bayswater Road and next to the park itself, to end at noon.

  “Copy of the City Voice, love?” A man in a red anorak shoved one of the multitude of free newspapers given out in London every day into my hands.

  Something else to carry, but I always felt sorry for those guys as they tried to give out their huge stacks of papers and magazines to grumpy people on their daily commute. Few people ever smiled in London, something else I missed about living in a smaller place.

  Still, I flicked through the rag as I nibbled on my mushy pizza. The pineapple I hated so much had squeezed its juice everywhere when Darren squashed me, but I didn’t have the time or the money to buy anything else. Without thinking, I turned to the classified adverts at the back. How much would a London flat-share be? Most likely more than I paid at the moment, seeing as Wes had negotiated a good deal on the rent in lieu of the landlord doing any kind of maintenance. On days when the water ran cold in the shower, I cursed them both.

  Single bedroom in Walthamstow, shared bathroom, use of kitchen… Ouch! How much? Suddenly, the bad taste in my mouth wasn’t only caused by fruit that had no business being on a pizza. Pizza that tasted like prison food. Because unless I could find a job that, say, doubled my salary, I was stuck with Wes.

  Adverts for get-rich-quick schemes filled the employment section. Did I fancy working from home earning sixty pounds an hour, with just a laptop and internet connection needed? Er, only if it didn’t involve taking my clothes off or being a brick in a pyramid scheme. Or how about delivering flyers for seven pounds per thousand?

  Then I saw it.

  A few lines of text, squashed at the bottom of the page.

  Neglected estate seeks capable gardener.

  Do you have a love of village life and a flair for the beautiful? Know your peonies from your petunias?

  If you’d like to get dirty, call me.

  Did I want to get dirty? Well, yes, in a garden. Wait. Was the ad some kind of weird recruitment drive for strippers? Hmm. The first line definitely said they were looking for a gardener. Unless they were talking about lady gardens, and from the state of mine, I sure wasn’t qualified for that job.

  But what if it was genuine? A real estate looking for a gardener. That could be my dream jo
b.

  Did I dare to call?

  CHAPTER 2

  MY FINGERS HOVERED over the phone as I recited the number over and over in my head. The job probably wasn’t suitable anyway. But I’d never know for sure unless I called, would I? And in ten years’ time when Wes had me watering plants for sixteen hours a day with a pack of dogs in tow, I’d always wonder what if?

  I dialled.

  The phone rang for so long I thought no one was going to pick up, but just as I was ready to quit, an answer came.

  “Good afternoon.” The lady’s accent was American, her voice a breathy whisper that reminded me of Marilyn Monroe.

  “Hello, uh…” I really hadn’t thought this through, had I?

  “Sorry for the delay. I couldn’t find my phone.”

  “That’s no problem. Uh, I’m calling about the advert? In the City Voice? For a gardener?”

  Boy, she might have sounded like a lady when she spoke, but her filthy laugh belonged to a lady of the night. “The City Voice?”

  “The free paper in London?” Right now, I seemed incapable of speaking in anything but questions. “On page forty-seven?”

  “Oh my goodness. Ivy must have placed that the night we drank one too many sherries. What does it say?”

  Who was Ivy? I read the copy back to her, cringing when I got to the “if you’d like to get dirty” line.

  That laugh came again. “Oh, sweet Norma Jean. That explains the strange calls I’ve been getting this morning. One young lady offered to do something unpleasant with a bunch of tulips.”

  “So the advert was a joke? You’re not looking for a gardener?”

  She paused for an unbearably long time before she answered. Enough time for me to realise how much I wanted the job to exist. Whatever her answer, I needed to find a way out of my life with Wes. A desire to take the easy path in life had brought me to this point, but every day I spent in that relationship was a day wasted. A day I’d never get back. The time had come for me to woman up and grab what I wanted from life rather than gathering lint in the corner.