Someone Bid on the Detective

How it begins

June sold for eight hundred pounds and a packet of gladiolus bulbs.

She had expected forty.

The vicar looked equally surprised.

"Any advance?"

June gave him a look.

"Sold," he said quickly.

The young man at the back lowered his paddle. He wore gardening gloves with the price tag still attached.

That should have warned her.

On Saturday he collected her at precisely nine and drove to a house whose gates had been painted the color of old money. His name was Felix Moss. He said he needed help with the borders.

June had spent thirty-four years interviewing people who needed help with something else.

"Which borders?"

"All of them."

He handed her a notebook.

"Would you mind recording when we start?"

"Do you usually time the weeding?"

"Only for the charity."

June wrote nine twenty-two.

The garden was enclosed by a brick wall, with a gate at either end and a potting shed deep enough to conceal poor decisions. Felix pointed her toward a bed of exhausted lavender.

"Stay here," he said. "I'll make tea."

She began pulling weeds.

Under the third plant, her trowel struck a metal handle.

Another shovel.

Clean blade. Fresh earth inside the socket.

June looked toward the house. A curtain moved.

She put the soil back exactly as she had found it.

Felix returned with tea on a tray and asked her to note the time again.

"Nine forty-one," she said.

He looked relieved.

Her phone rang.

The vicar wanted to know whether she had heard about the owner of the house. Missing since early morning. Car found by the river.

June watched Felix stir a cup that contained no sugar.

"Are you still there?" the vicar asked.

"Oh, yes."

She opened the notebook to a fresh page.

"Felix," she said, "how much would you have paid if the other bidder had kept going?"

He stopped stirring.

June wrote down the time.