“I’m going to see to the bees,” Alice said, changing the subject. “It’s getting cooler outside, so they ought to be quite sluggish.”

She was right. The bees were slowly getting ready to turn in for the night. Six boxes were stacked on top of each other under the shade of an old oak tree. Alice slid the lid off the top box and carefully removed one of the beeswax frames. She held it up to the sun to examine it more closely. The bees clung to the sheet, barely moving. Tiny dots of honey had appeared in the combs. The bees were already busy with their next batch.

“Everything seems fine.” She put the frame back. “I still don’t understand why the honey tastes different.”

The garden certainly looked magnificent. The roses against the fence were in full bloom. Red, pink and white flowers hung from thick stems. Bumblebees clumsily bashed into the flowers. The rainwater from the previous evening’s storm had settled on the inside of the petals.

“Your hollyhocks are doing beautifully.” Milly came up and ran her fingers over the leaves.

“The bees love them. I think those and the roses give the honey its special flavour.”

They were just about to go back in when Alice spotted something catching the sun beneath the clump of hollyhocks. It appeared to be metallic.

“What’s that?” Milly had seen it too. She crouched down to take a closer look. “It looks like a ring. It’s half-buried in the soil. I wonder how it got there.”

Alice almost pushed her friend out the way in her haste to get to the ring. She tried to pick it up, but it wouldn’t budge. She took a shovel and jabbed down on it. With one blow, the finger was severed from the hand.

Alice picked it up. There was a wedding ring on the finger. And though one gold band looks much like another, the finger it was still attached to was unmistakeable. Its tip was missing, just like her husband Stanley’s.

Alice dropped the finger in disgust. Milly had fainted. She was lying on the grass, stone-cold unconscious.

CHAPTER TWO

Alice gazed at the stubby finger lying on the soil. Milly was starting to stir, so she had to think quickly. Alice picked up the grisly finger and tried to pull the gold band off. It wouldn’t budge. Stanley’s fingers had got thicker over the years.

“What on earth are you doing?” Milly was upright again, staring at Alice.

“Alice,” Milly gasped, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Alice put the severed digit in her pocket. “I really don’t know what’s going on. But I do know that nobody must find out about this.”

“We need to phone the police, now!” Milly said, almost shrieking. “There’s a dead . . . finger in your garden. The police need to know.”

“Not yet. Not until I’ve had a chance to think things over. I’ll phone them after the weekend.”

“What’s going on, Alice?” Milly eyed her friend. “Do you know whose finger that is? The ring looked vaguely familiar.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know whose finger it is.”

“We have to phone the police.”

“Not yet,” Alice said, much more loudly than she intended. Milly flinched. She tried to sound calmer. “Not yet. What harm can a few days do? I can’t have every policeman in Cornwall digging up my garden the weekend of the market. I can’t afford it. I’ve got eighty-four jars of honey to sell. I need the money.”

Milly shook her head. “I don’t like this, Alice. We need to phone the police.”

“Please.” Alice put her hand on her oldest friend’s shoulder. “How long have we known each other?”

“Years.” Milly was shaking.

“You were my maid of honour. You know me better than anybody else. Please just keep this between us until after the weekend. I’ll phone the police first thing Monday morning. I promise.”

Alice calmly filled the hole the finger had left. The last remaining bees were now leaving the flowers and were heading back to the safety of the hives.

“This will be our secret,” Alice said. “Nobody can find out about this until I phone the police on Monday.”

Milly nodded her head unhappily. “I have to get going,” she said. “I still have some more baking to do before tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you at the market.” Alice helped her up off the grass. “And remember what I said: not a word to anyone.”

* * *

Alice stood by the sink and took the finger out of her pocket. It was dirty, rigid and had a blue tinge. Where it had been severed, it was treacle black. She took some butter and rubbed it around the ring. After a few twists, it came loose and dropped into the sink with a metallic ping. Alice ran some water into the sink, cleaned the soil off and examined it carefully. “S.” and “A.” and “14.6.75” were engraved on the inside of the ring. Stanley and Alice, 14 June 1975. Definitely that ring, then. She was wearing one just like it.

She thought back to her wedding day, that Saturday morning in the tiny registry office in Plymouth. It had been just the four of them: Alice, Stanley, Milly and Dennis Albarn, Stanley’s good-for-nothing best man.

Best man? Alice shook her head. Dennis Albarn had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Stanley. Dennis had been Stanley’s wingman during all the womanising. And she’d put up with it for thirty years. Thirty years of waiting at home, wondering if her husband would come back this time. And finally, ten years ago, Stanley had gone and not come back.

Until now.

She put the ring on the draining-board and threw the severed finger into the jackdaw’s cage. The bird sniffed it suspiciously and then started to peck at it. Alice began writing the labels for the honey jars.

Seven pounds a jar. No, let’s make it ten. Tourists would pay that for organic honey. That would make the total £840. Enough to see her through the rest of the month. She might even have enough left over to buy the huge television set she had her eye on. Her old television was tiny and her eyes weren’t getting any younger. The one she wanted was in a second-hand shop in Trotterdown.

By the time she had finished writing and gluing on the labels, it was starting to get dark. The wind had picked up, and the feathers on the tray of eggs were moving in the breeze from the kitchen window. The jackdaw cawed. It was time for his supper. She opened a fresh tin of dog food and scraped a few chunks onto the bottom of the cage. The finger lay there, stripped to the bone. Alice picked up what was left of it and dropped it down the sink. She ran the garbage disposal system, which growled noisily, and it was gone.

She poured herself a glass of port and looked out the window at the back garden. A few drops of rain hit the roof and she shivered. She closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to whoever was listening.

Please, please don’t let it rain so much that it shifts the soil under the hollyhock bushes.

CHAPTER THREE

Market day dawned cloudless and still. Despite all that had happened the day before, Alice’s mood was equally untroubled. It was a trick she had learned years before during one of Stanley’s disappearances. Every night she closed her eyes, went through the preceding day step by step, faced down any demons she might have met along the way, and dropped off into a dreamless sleep from which she always awoke refreshed.

The jackdaw was making strange sneezing sounds in the kitchen as Alice went in. She smiled. Milly had come over a few days ago with her terrible cold, and the bird was now imitating her rather accurately. She fed him some more dog food and switched the kettle on. While the water was coming to the boil, she opened the back door and looked outside. Her cheerful mood chilled abruptly when she saw the rain gauge indicating that three inches of rain had fallen overnight.