Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
“We’re in here!” Lily shouted when Flynn called out to her.
He stepped into the office, flanked by two paramedics and Sergeant Proctor.
“Are you okay?” Flynn asked her while the paramedics made a beeline for Gordon.
“Stop!” Lily and Arthur shouted at the same time.
Arthur raised his hands, presumably to stop them from getting injured, but in a gesture that actually looked as though he was protecting the plant.
“We need to get to the patient,” the female paramedic said, irritation rife in her tone.
“You can,” Lily said. “You just need to be careful of that plant. It’s poisonous.”
“I need to move it out of the way,” Arthur said, gingerly dragging it across the desk by the plastic pot.
“I can help,” Flynn said, stepping forward.
“No!” Arthur snapped. “Stay away.”
Flynn looked at Lily, but it was Sergeant Proctor who spoke. “What’s going on? What on earth happened to Gordon? Is he breathing?”
“Yes,” the male paramedic said decisively as he peered at Gordon. “He has a strong pulse,” he went on. “Do we know what happened?”
The other paramedic knelt beside Lily and took a sterile pad from her backpack before easing the wad of tea towels from Gordon’s arm.
“Looks like a clean wound,” she told her colleague. “Deep though. It’ll need stitches. How did he end up unconscious?” she asked, eyes darting from Lily to Arthur, who’d dragged the plant to a safe distance.
“He cut his arm on that plant,” Lily replied. “The poison from the thorn knocked him out like a sedative, apparently.”
The paramedics exchanged a look.
“Arthur can explain,” Lily said, distracted by her bloodstained hands.
Flynn handed her a clean tea towel and she wiped at the blood as best as she could while Arthur filled them in on the plant. She was only half listening as she scrubbed the towel over her hands. Blood was trapped under her nails and in her pores and she became increasingly irritated with her failed attempts to remove it.
“Why don’t we wait outside and let the paramedics work?” Flynn said once Arthur stopped talking.
He took Lily’s arm and guided her into the cafe and to the sink behind the counter. Feeling slightly dazed, she just stood with her hands outstretched while Flynn pumped an excessive amount of soap into them. He rubbed her hands together for her, then gently massaged the soap into every part of her hands. After he rinsed the soap away, he repeated the process.
“Sorry,” Lily murmured, feeling as though she was coming out of a trance when he dried her hand with paper towels.
“You okay?” he asked, looking at her intently.
“Yes.” She sucked in a lungful of air and felt immediately calmer. “I’m fine.” She looked at her hands. “Thank you.”
Sergeant Proctor and Arthur had followed them out, but lingered by the door to the office. Arthur craned his neck – unable to keep his eyes off the plant.
“Is everything okay?” The shrill voice broke the silence as Sally Pengelly emerged from a back door. “There’s an ambulance outside.”
Sergeant Proctor stepped forwards telling her not to panic and explaining there’d been an accident. She didn’t seem to panic at all. She only looked confused as the sergeant and Arthur filled her in on the situation.
“A plant did this?” she asked, standing beside Arthur in the office doorway while the paramedics lifted Gordon onto a stretcher. “Are you sure he’s going to be all right?” She aimed the question at Arthur, looking up at him with wide eyes.
He nodded. “I’ve never had any real-life experience of the plant before, but if everything I’ve read is correct, he’ll be fine.”
Sally let out a sigh and stepped aside for the paramedics. “Can I come with you in the ambulance?” she asked.
“Yes,” the female paramedic replied, then looked at Arthur. “The doctor is going to need as much information as you can give her. I imagine she’ll be about as clueless about this as we are.”
“I can send her all my research,” Arthur said.
“We’ll follow you shortly,” Sergeant Proctor said to the paramedics before they left. Then he turned to Lily, his brow furrowed. “You always seem to be in the thick of anything going on around here.”
“I just came to ask him a few questions,” she said, her whole body sagging as the adrenaline wore off.
Flynn squeezed her shoulder. “It’s good you found him. That was a fair amount of blood.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Arthur said, his voice full of wonder. “Nature really is fantastic. The thorns don’t even appear to be anything out of the ordinary. Yet they can slice you right open.”
Sergeant Proctor took a few strides towards the plant, which really didn’t look in the least bit menacing.
“Where did it come from?” Flynn asked.
“They’re native to Africa,” Arthur said.
Flynn tilted his head. “But how did it end up here?”
“No idea,” Arthur said.
“Was it only you and Gordon working this morning?” the sergeant asked, shifting squarely in front of Arthur to secure his attention.
Arthur nodded. “Just us.”
“Who arrived at work first?”
“I did.”
“Was the plant already here?”
“I guess it must have been. But I didn’t come into the office. I set up the cafe and then watered the plants and swept up outside.”
“Who could have put it here?”
Arthur shrugged. “It’s illegal to import them to the UK.” The corners of his lips lifted to a small smile. “I wrote a blog piece on it about a year ago.”
“Of course you did,” the sergeant said with a hint of an eye roll.
“I don’t suppose I can keep it?” Arthur asked, a flash of excitement in his eyes.
“No.” The sergeant chuckled. “If they’re not legal, you can’t keep it. I’m not quite sure what we’ll do with it, though.”
“Burning it seems like a good plan,” Flynn said, sticking solidly by Lily’s side. “Once we’ve figured out how it got here, anyway. For now, I guess we need to take it as evidence.”
“I’m not so sure,” Sergeant Proctor said. “I prefer your plan of burning it. No chance of anyone else getting hurt that way.”
“Surely not,” Arthur said sadly. “It’s such a rarity. I could put it away safely at my house and no one need ever know about it.”
The sergeant snorted a laugh. “Not until you write one of your blog posts telling everyone about it.”
“I would like to write about seeing one in person,” Arthur said eagerly.
“You can’t keep it,” the sergeant told him firmly. “That’s not up for discussion.” He shook his head. “Any clue as to what exactly is going on here?”
Lily blinked rapidly when she realised he was talking to her. “My guess would be that someone wasn’t happy about Gordon’s radio interview…” Her mind whirred, but nothing was making much sense. “It’s weird though, because you’d think if someone is trying to scare away newcomers, Gordon’s interview would have helped their cause.”
“We don’t know that whoever left the plant here was targeting Gordon specifically,” Flynn said. “Is he the only person who uses the office?”
“No,” Arthur said. “Everyone goes in there. All the staff use it.”
“The person who left the plant might not have known that,” Lily said, her instincts telling her that the plant was intended for Gordon.
Sergeant Proctor rubbed at his forehead. “I need to get down to the hospital. Arthur, you should come with me and speak to the doctor.”
“What do you want me to do about the plant?” Flynn asked.
“Call PC Hill and get him to pick you up and help you transport it to the station. Wrap it in bubble wrap or something so no one else gets hurt. I’ll figure out what we do with it later.” His gaze shifted to Lily. “Thanks for your help.”
“Yeah,” she murmured dumbly. “No problem.”
Flynn waited until they were alone until he spoke again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No.” She gritted her teeth as she stared at the innocuous-looking plant. “I’m seriously annoyed. I have no clue who did this. I really thought Gordon was behind the poisonings.”
She’d thought she was getting closer to figuring everything out, but now she felt as though she was right back to square one.
As she churned everything over in her mind, none of it made any sense.