When he got to the office in the morning, Detective Sergeant James Hathaway noticed immediately that he was not the first to arrive. There was a suit jacket draped limply over the back of the desk chair of his partner, Detective Inspector Robert Lewis. And the computer on Lewis's desk was already on. He's here early. Hathaway couldn't remember if Lewis's flat had an air conditioner. He thought not. That would explain why he was here well before Hathaway, whose flat at least had a window unit he kept expressly for summers like this one.

Oxford was in the middle of an extraordinary August heat wave. Too hot to sleep these nights if you didn't have air con. Hathaway shed his own jacket, slinging it from his shoulders and settling it on the back of his own chair in one fluid motion. He realized he had at the same time knocked something off his partner's desk. Oops.

Hathaway hurried over to the other side of the office to see what had fallen. There was a bag on the floor, a little shopping bag with handles, bearing the logo of a rather upscale Oxford jewelry shop. He picked it up and looked inside. There were two small boxes, identically wrapped in green-and-purple, iris-covered paper. Two miniature bows that matched the wrapping paper were also in the bag, one green and one purple. Hathaway noticed that each box now had an ugly little scuff mark in the center where the bow had been stuck. The bows must have come off when I knocked the bag.

He heard Lewis coming toward the office, greeting colleagues with friendly complaints about the heat. Hathaway hastily stuck the bows back on the boxes and replaced the bag on Lewis's desk exactly as it had been. He sat quickly in his own chair.

"Morning, Sir. Heat drive you out of your home early today?"

"Morning, Sergeant. You're spot-on about the heat. If this keeps up, I may need to give up and buy a window unit like yours. Seems like a waste for three hundred sixty-two days a year, though."

"How'd you manage over the weekend? Spent two days in a cool bath?"

"Aw, no. In fact, I spent most of it out digging in me garden. I bet I lost two stone in sweat."

"You mean you finally decided, on the hottest weekend of the summer, to make something out of that empty space you call your garden?" Hathaway stared in disbelief.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I really had no choice."

"Why not?"

Lewis seemed to be debating himself about how much to tell his sergeant. He sighed. "I had a certain amount of help available this weekend. So it was now or never."

"Help? What, you hired someone?" Hathaway could hardly believe his boss would pay money for something like that.

"Erm, not exactly. It was volunteer help."

Hathaway scowled, not clear on what this arrangement might be. "Is there some reason you're being so mysterious about this, Sir?"

It was Lewis's turn to scowl. "I'm sure if I tell you, you'll take it the wrong way and twist it into something very different from what occurred."

Now Hathaway was intrigued. His eyes widened with faux naïveté. "You had the entire complement of pole dancers from The Bird's Nest helping you!"

It took Lewis half a beat to recognize the wind-up. "Hilarious, Sergeant. But no."

He realized there was little chance Hathaway would let the subject drop, and he sighed resignedly.

"Chief Superintendent Innocent and Doctor Hobson were my volunteer assistants. Well, really it was Jean's idea, Laura's plan, and I was the assistant."

It took James a moment to absorb this information. "The Chief Super wanted to give your garden a makeover? Whose idea was it to invite Laura Hobson?"

"Well, mine I suppose. Jean said she didn't want to have to shoulder all the blame when I complained about it and she needed me to bring along someone familiar with plants. And Laura's the only person I know like that."

"Innocent and Hobson working together. Well, that must have been interesting. Was there much discord, by any chance?"

Lewis snorted. "Y'might say that. Not open hostility so much as persistent undermining. I had final say on all the decisions, it being my garden and all, but it didn't take me long to figure out I needed to resolve differences with me own, third solution rather than take one side or the other." He shook his head. "If I liked one woman's idea over the other's, one would gloat and the other pout. Every time. Didn't matter which one or how even-handed I tried to be. Ridiculous."

Hathaway smirked. "Don't you think they felt there was more at stake than a mere boxwood-versus-hyacinth battle?"

"What, you're saying they were indirectly fighting for my attention? Naw, it wasn't anythin' like that. It was disagreement because they wanted to disagree with each other. Like cats and dogs, those two."

"Which one is which?"

Lewis appeared to give this some thought. "Jean is definitely 'dogs' so that would mean Laura is 'cats.'"

"And you prefer cats."

Lewis's eyes narrowed. "I have a cat, that doesn't mean I prefer them." He continued his glare a bit longer. "Why don't you go get us some coffee, Sergeant?"

"How can you drink coffee when it's this hot out?"

"What does the weather have to do with it?"

There was no point in arguing. Hathaway unfolded himself from his chair and went out, returning in a few minutes with a steaming mug.

"Thank you, Hathaway." Lewis turned as if to work on something on his desk.

"Wait. I want to hear more about his garden project. How did that work? They were there all weekend, or what? And how did it turn out?"

"As a matter of fact, it's lovely. They came over Saturday morning and made up a plan. Jean drew up like a little blueprint with me and Laura getting all the measurements for her. Then Laura mostly worked out what plants would go where. That's when most of the disagreement was. Laura wanted more of a cottage garden look and Jean wanted something more formal."

"You liked the cottage garden."

"Yeah, but I couldn't pick Laura over Jean or Jean would have been off the project." He rolled his eyes. "So I said I wanted a more formal layout but informal plants. A'course, they both thought I was an idiot for that. 'You simply can't have scruffy-looking plants like that in such an elegant design, Lewis.'" He did a remarkable imitation of their Super's chiding voice. "Anyway, we worked out a compromise, partly because I insisted I'm not capable of taking proper care of a garden full of high-maintenance shrubs and flowers."

"What else did they argue about?"

Lewis rolled his eyes again. "Nearly everything. Laura wanted a pond with a waterfall and Jean wanted a pond with a fountain."

"And the result?"

"I didn't want a pond at all. Too much work. Not to mention all the digging. We settled on a . . . a pagoda—no, a parthenon?—no, it's something like that. An arbor, only bigger, and with a bench."

"A pergola. Sounds nice." Hathaway considered what he'd been told to this point. "So they drew up plans with your approval—layout, species of plants, ground cover, all that—then what?"

"We went out together and spent a lot of me money. Loaded up Jean's Volvo full of plants and bags of mulch and took it all back to me garden. The women went home and I did a lot of digging. In the morning, they came back and I followed their directions as best I could, despite all the aching muscles from Saturday's efforts."

"You mean, you three alone did all the work?"

Lewis considered this a moment. "Well, Jean didn't actually do much physical labor. Laura helped with the digging. But yeah, we did it without any outside help."

Hathaway couldn't help noticing that Lewis's familiarity with their mutual boss now extended to his using her Christian name with regular frequency. "And it turned out nicely?"

"Ah, yeah, it's lovely. You should come see it."

"And you three finished it in two days?"

"Yeah, it was done by about four Sunday afternoon."

"So then what? They just went home?"

"Well, I took them both out for dinner. It was the least I could do."

"What, all sweaty and dirty and all?"

"A'course not! We cleaned up first."

Hathaway squinted, trying to picture how this would have worked. "You mean, what, showered? Changed clothes? All of that activity involving . . . nakedness?"

Lewis stared back. "What d'you think? Yeah, all of that. Not together or anythin', Sergeant. Obviously. One at a time. Everything very above board." He was clearly offended that Hathaway should think otherwise.

"Sorry, Sir. Couldn't resist the, erm . . ."

Lewis exhaled loudly, shaking his head. "You know better, James. I know y'do."

Hathaway hung his head in apparent shame. "I do, Sir, I am sorry."

Lewis studied him a while, assessing his honesty. Hathaway peeked up at him. He flashed a wicked grin and easily dodged the pencil Lewis lobbed at him. "So you took them both out to dinner and then sent Innocent on her way so you and Hobson could . . . make certain the garden is nice at night, too?"

Lewis sounded as though he was instructing a backward child. "Jean took Laura home. I was left alone to admire the fruits of our mutual labor. And enjoy about three or four bottles of beer to make up for all the fluid I'd lost over the weekend."

Hathaway seemed to be picturing the entire sequence of events in his mind. He started up as though about to say something, sat back in his chair, started up again, and sat back again.

"What, Hathaway?"

James furrowed his brow, thinking. "I'm very curious, Sir." He looked entirely serious. "I'm trying to picture this. It's hot, the sun is beating down, everyone's working hard, sweat is glistening on the ladies' skin. Just how scantily clad were the women during these operations?"

Lewis tossed another pencil at him. "Pervert. They both wore jeans, long sleeves, wellies, and big sunhats, okay?" But he was grinning. "Despite the three-way setup, perfect for a cheap, amateur film of the sort you doubtless enjoy in the privacy of your own home, nothing of that nature occurred during the entire weekend."

Hathaway rolled his eyes. "Sexual opportunities are totally wasted on you."

Lewis snorted. "Indeed."

The two men grinned. Despite the heat, which had a tendency to make people cantankerous, they were both in good spirits, especially for a Monday morning.

Hathaway got up. "Another cup of nice, hot coffee, Sir?"

"Ah, yeah, that'd be great. You going to go suck on a burning roll of tobacco out in the sweltering heat of the loading dock?"

James smirked, this time at himself. "Yup. Back in a bit." He took Lewis's coffee mug with him.

When he got back, Lewis welcomed the steaming beverage, sucking down a good-sized swallow. "Ahhh. Thank you, James."

"No problem." Hathaway plopped into his desk chair. He noticed the jewelry store bag was gone from Lewis's desk.

"Erm, Sir . . . that bag you had on your desk. What was that?"

Lewis cocked his head as though curious that his sergeant would have noticed it. In truth, the bag stood out a mile and it would have been surprising had even a substandard detective not noticed it.

"I bought the girls—erm, Jean and Laura—each a necklace as thanks for helping me this weekend. The least I could do."

A hesitation nagged at the edges of James's mind.

"A necklace? How nice! When did you have time to do that?"

"I ran out Saturday night when I couldn't dig any more."

"Did you get them each the same one?"

Lewis looked at him as though he were from another planet.

"The same? Are you mad, Hathaway, man? You never give two women the same gift at the same time. Didn't y'know that?"

Despite the bit of dread that was lurking in his mind, James found his sense of humor. "I did, of course, but I hesitate to ask why you know that rule, Sir. Two women at the same time . . .?"

Lewis chuckled. "Don't underestimate me. I've had to give two women gifts at the same time before. And no, I'm not divulging the details." He gave two quick eyebrow arches without further explanation.

"So you got them different, but similar, necklaces?"

To Hathaway's surprise, Lewis blushed a little. "Well, 'similar' in that they're both necklaces. But not much more than that. Jean's is an enameled violet, somewhat stylized, and rather pretty, I think." He fell silent.

"And Laura's?"

Lewis's blush deepened. "Erm, Laura's is a bit more . . . y'know. Personal."

"Really? Why get her something so different?" Hathaway waited patiently, his boss's increasing discomfiture adding to his enjoyment.

Lewis clearly struggled to put into words the reason why Doctor Hobson, a mere pathologist, rated a different, finer reward than Chief Superintendent Innocent, his and Hathaway's boss.

"Well, y'know, James." Lewis shot him a look of desperation, silently begging him to go easy on the details. "I like Laura more than Jean. We've been friends forever." He seemed to add the last as an afterthought.

Hathaway gazed benignly, his look intended to encourage Lewis to continue to bare his soul.

Which, to James's amazement, he did.

"It's only . . . I like her a lot. So I got her a sort of stylized heart. Fourteen-carat gold. And it has a bit of a diamond in it."

Hathaway stared. Lewis was giving Hobson a diamond?

"You mean a solitaire diamond, Sir? How big?"

"Well, it's nothin' much. Not huge. I think it's about a half carat."

Hathaway gave a low whistle. "I wouldn't call a half carat 'nothing much', Sir." A gold heart with a half-carat diamond solitaire, versus an enameled violet. Not much comparison. "Erm, Sir, you bought them from the same shop, right?"

"Yeah."

"How did you expect to keep the separate packages identifiable?" Hathaway was beginning to get a seriously sinking feeling about this.

"Ah. The bows. I had them put a purple bow on Jean's—she always makes me think of purple for some reason, y'know? And green on Laura's. 'Cos she's a green girl, in my mind." He became a bit wistful at that point. "Maybe that doesn't make any sense."

Hathaway felt horrible. "No, no, that makes perfect sense. You chose different color bows so you could tell the necklaces apart once they were wrapped in identical paper."

"Yup!" Lewis looked at first rather proud of himself. Then his expression softened. "I'm hoping that Laura won't mind the sentimentality of that heart and diamond." His color was rising, Hathaway noticed.

"It sounds lovely, and I'll probably never get to see it. Any chance you could peel off the tape on one end so I could have a look?"

"Aw, sorry. Laura stopped by while you were out smoking. I gave both of them their gifts since they were both here."

James swallowed. "Did they open them in front of you?"

Lewis looked surprised. "No, a'course not. That'd be bad manners, wouldn't it? Why d'you ask?"

"I was just thinking that Innocent wouldn't mind getting that heart, too. It'd be interesting to see if she was jealous."

Lewis gaped at him. "Good God, Hathaway, I wouldn't want to give the guv'nor anything like that! I'd have to be mad!" He studied the younger man closely. "Why even suggest such a thing?"

"Well, how can you be certain you gave them the right ones? Did you watch while the necklaces were wrapped and the right bow put on the right box?"

"A'course I did. Too big a risk not to."

Hathaway took a very deep breath. This wasn't good.


Well, reader, you get to decide what Hathaway does here. Does he tell Lewis what happened with the bows? Yes or no?

If you think Yes, read the rest of the story at Chapter 2; if you think No, go to Chapter 3 for the rest of the story.