The Sunflower That Faced the Wrong Way
The village of Nettlecombe Parva prided itself on two things: its annual Harvest Fête, and the sunflowers of Harold Brigg. Every summer without fail, Harold’s front garden blazed with enormous golden heads, each one turned faithfully eastward to greet the morning sun. It had been so for thirty-two years. Which was why, on the Thursday morning that Harold was found dead in his armchair, Edith Comstock noticed something that nobody else thought to mention.
One of the sunflowers was facing west.
Edith was seventy-one, recently retired from her post as head librarian at Moreton District Library, and possessed of a mind that catalogued irregularities the way other people catalogued stamps — automatically, and with great pleasure. She had been pausing at Harold’s gate when Constable Ferris came bustling out of the front door, notepad in hand and expression carefully solemn.
“Natural causes, Miss Comstock,” he said, before she could even open her mouth. “Doctor Phelps is satisfied. Peaceful, in his chair. Poor old chap.”
“No doubt,” said Edith mildly. “Tell me, Constable — who watered Harold’s sunflowers last?”
Ferris blinked. “His sunflowers.”
“Yes. The tall one on the left. It’s been repositioned. The pot has been moved and turned around entirely. Harold would never have done that. He was meticulous about heliotropism — he used to lecture anyone who would listen about how sunflowers track the sun. That one is facing directly away from the morning light.”
Constable Ferris gave the flower a long, dutiful look. “Perhaps the wind shifted it.”
“The pot weighs approximately thirty pounds and is sheltered by a brick wall,” said Edith pleasantly. “I shall go and have a word with his niece.”
—
Pamela Brigg lived two streets away in a terrace house that smelled of lavender and effort. She was forty-three, angular, and received Edith at the door with red-rimmed eyes and a hand pressed to her chest.
“Such a shock,” Pamela said, ushering her inside. “I only visited him last night to bring his supper. He seemed perfectly well.”
“You visited him last night?” Edith settled into a chair uninvited. “How was he when you left?”
“Tired. But content.” Pamela twisted a handkerchief. “He said he was going to read for a bit and then sleep.”
“Did you go into the garden at all?”
A fraction of a pause — barely perceptible, but Edith had spent four decades watching people search library shelves for books they claimed not to be looking for. She knew the look of someone reaching for the correct answer rather than the truthful one.
“Only to check the side gate,” Pamela said. “He worried about foxes.”
“Of course,” said Edith. “He kept his medication in the kitchen, didn’t he? I remember him mentioning it — something for his heart.”
Pamela’s expression didn’t change, but her knuckles whitened around the handkerchief. “Yes. On the windowsill.”
“He was very precise about his dosage. Spoke about it at the Women’s Institute talk he gave on container gardening. Twice the prescribed amount, he said, and the consequences would be rather grim.” Edith smiled gently. “He did love to be informative.”
The silence in the room grew thick and particular.
“I loved my uncle,” Pamela said at last, her voice careful as someone stepping across ice.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Edith. “Love and greed are not mutually exclusive, in my experience. Harold’s house is worth a considerable sum. The village has been talking about developers for months.” She paused. “I imagine he hadn’t changed his will to include the conservation covenant you perhaps hoped he’d overlook.”
Pamela stood up. “I think you should leave.”
“In a moment.” Edith remained where she was, unhurried. “What puzzles me is the sunflower. You moved it — I assume accidentally, in the dark, and then replaced it without realising it was facing the wrong direction. Harold would have gone out first thing in the morning to correct it, wouldn’t he? He never missed a morning with his garden.” She looked at Pamela steadily. “But he never had the chance this morning.”
—
Edith telephoned Dr Phelps from the box on the high street. She did not accuse. She simply asked, in her most librarian-like manner, whether he might consider reviewing Harold Brigg’s medication levels before signing the certificate, given that she had some information he might find professionally relevant. Dr Phelps, who had been quietly uneasy since the visit and had not yet signed anything, agreed rather quickly.
By Friday afternoon, Constable Ferris had been joined by two officers from the county constabulary. By Saturday morning, Pamela had been taken in for questioning. The post-mortem, when it came, told a clear and unhappy story about Harold’s heart medication and rather too much of it dissolved into a bowl of late-summer minestrone.
At the Harvest Fête the following weekend, the village buzzed with the news in that particular way villages do — quietly, constantly, and with the occasional significant glance. Edith accepted a slice of Victoria sponge from Dorothy Hatch at the Women’s Institute table and listened to three separate accounts of how people had always thought Pamela seemed a little cold.
“How did you know?” Dorothy asked finally, unable to help herself. “I mean, really know?”
Edith considered her sponge. “I didn’t know,” she said honestly. “I noticed. There’s rather a difference. Knowing comes after. Noticing is simply a matter of paying attention to what’s actually in front of you, rather than what you expect to see.”
She looked across the fête field toward the village’s edge, where Harold’s golden sunflowers were still visible above the garden wall — all of them facing east now, just as they always had, drinking in the light.
“Harold loved those flowers,” she said quietly. “It seemed only right that they should speak up for him.”
Dorothy had no answer to that, and so she simply cut Edith a rather larger second slice. It seemed the appropriate response to justice well done on a warm September afternoon.
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