Daisy: Not Your Average Super-sleuth! The Root of all Evil: Daisy Morrow, #1

By R T Green

An innocent rosebush, uprooted in the middle of the night, reveals a horrific secret. Determined to bring those responsible to justice, Daisy embarks on a dangerous trail that grows darker and darker with each unexpected turn.

 

Essentially-English, almost-certainly quirky, and definitely a little crazy, come and meet our Norfolk-based R.E.D. (Retired Extremely Daisy) heroine, and find out why she's such a hit with readers of all ages.

 

"One of the best cozy mysteries I've ever read!"

"A real breath of fresh literary air!"

Retirement to a sleepy East-Anglian village doesn't go quite as Daisy hoped, after a seemingly- insignificant event triggers something very significant indeed. A mystery to solve is the last thing she expects to stumble across in a sleepy village a few miles from Kings Lynn in Norfolk.

To her surprise she's adapted to country life quite well, although she rather unkindly refers to the beautiful village of Great Wiltingham as the 'place people go to wilt'.

According to Daisy, nothing is ever quite what it seems. In her case, that's the truest thing ever spoken. She's nothing like a pensioner is supposed to be. It could be something to do with the career she had before retiring… or perhaps because she wishes she'd never had to leave it behind at all.

For some strange reason, trouble seems to follow her around. It's been a peaceful twelve months settling into village life, but that's about to come to an abrupt end...

'The Root of all Evil' is the first book in the long-running Daisy series. Check out the entire series on the new rtgreen website. While you're there, have a look at our 1920's historical series too, 'The Sandie Shaw Mysteries'.

Take a break from the world around you, just for a while. Relax with a smile (or a cringe) and a truly original story. Enjoy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wise Owl
• Release date: Jul 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201046811

R T Green

The RTG mission in life is simple... to not be like everyone else! ‘Going Green’ has taken on a new meaning, in the book world at least. Whilst we applaud the original meaning (ebooks are a perfect way to promote that) we also try to present a different angle to it. The tendency these days is that if you don’t look and read like everyone else, you don’t sell books. Maybe there’s some truth in that, but we simply don’t do it. The RTG books have been described as a ‘breath of fresh literary air’, and, by those discovering us for the first time, ‘unexpectedly good’. We know many readers prefer the same-old same old, and that’s fine. It’s just not what you get from the RTG stable. Those who know about such things said it would take five years to become a proficient author... I scoffed at that. They were wise. It took six. It’s one reason why even today we remodel existing books, and will always do so. Right from the early years the stories were always good, but were put into words less well than they could have been! These days we have several series and a few standalones, the hit Daisy series most popular amongst them. In everything we do, the same provisos apply – Never the same book twice. If we can’t think up a good story, it doesn’t get written. The RTG brand is about exciting and twisty plots, a fast pace which doesn’t waste words, and endearing (sometimes slightly crazy) characters. We can never please everyone, but it works for us, and, it seems, for those who appreciate our work. Enjoy! Richard, Ann and the RTG crew

Book preview

Introduction

THIS IS THE FIRST BOOK in the Daisy series. Our R.E.D. (that’s Retired Extremely Daisy) heroine is nothing like you might expect... she’s funny, feisty, and has a tendency to get herself in sticky situations. And she definitely has a wicked side!

Before she retired, Daisy had a job very few people ever have, and although in the last year she’s tried her best to leave her legacy behind, somehow it manages to keep lurking in the shadows... in more ways than one.

Those of you who know our work will be aware that with the RTG brand, the unexpected is always around the next corner. Daisy is no exception, and very probably has even more corners.

We hope she will make you smile, and maybe even gasp in surprise and shake your head a little. If she does, we will be happy people.

Please let us know what you think, either by email, or ideally by writing a review. Every comment is gratefully received... and is listened to!

Enjoy,

Richard, Ann and the RTG crew

The Root of All Evil

Chapter 1

A quiet life in the country...

ACCORDING TO DAISY, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Whenever she comes out with that pearl of wisdom, Aidan shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, and smiles knowingly... if anything ever defied its appearance, it was surely her.

Daisy made her slow and slightly-stooped way from the village shop to the mobility scooter parked just outside, opened the throttle gently, and trundled across the main road onto the large village green, using the grass until she reached the winding pedestrian path skirting the edge of the village duck-pond. A mid-morning August sun beat down out of a cloudless blue sky, and had already taken the temperature well into the twenties. The trip to the shop had been made at just the right time... any later and it would have been seriously too hot.

She came to a stop, and watched the ducks for a few minutes as they swam lazily in the warm water. Calling it a duck-pond didn’t really do it justice... it was more like a small lake, bordered on one side by trees and bushes, and the other by the huge gently-sloping green, plus a few willow trees to enhance its tranquil beauty.

Daisy moved to the village a year ago, after a very unfortunate incident in London made her decide country life might be the best option. Now she trundles around on a mobility scooter, even though she really doesn’t need to.

That’s not quite what it seems either... after three months of badgering Aidan because it didn’t go fast enough, he finally succumbed to using his mechanical skills to make sure it did.

Adapting to rural Norfolk life went quite well, even though according to Daisy the village of Great Wiltingham is the place people go to wilt.

That might be a little unkind. It’s not entirely populated by retired folk... there are some families, and even a few young couples. But it has to be said the village has more elderly residents than anything else. It is a beautiful place to wilt after all, a second pond at the other end of the village, a lot of open green spaces, and the town of Kings Lynn just a few miles away.

The relentless sun reminded her it was time to find shade, so she glanced furtively to the left and then the right. No one was around to see. With a cheeky grin she pressed a button on the handlebars marked turbo. Then a squeal of delight filled the air as she screwed the throttle open and the rear wheels smoked their way to life. Leaning into the gentle bends like a MotoGP rider, the scooter screamed at high speed along the pathway the council had made just for her, until it reached the pavement separating Walcotts Lane from the western edge of the pond.

A little thing like a public road wasn’t going to get in the way of her crazy ride. Bouncing over the grass verge, all four wheels left the ground as she flew across the asphalt, much to the annoyance of a motorist who had to jam on his brakes, and then jammed a furious hand on the horn.

She waved cheerily, just like a pensioner would, and skidded through the open five-barred gate and across the gravel drive towards the side door of the white-painted thatched cottage sitting on the opposite side of the road from the pond.

She’d left Aidan to unpack the new blender that arrived earlier, so there was no telling what that might lead to. The man was a genius when it came to engines and mobility scooters, but for some unfathomable reason his skills always seemed to desert him when faced with electric kitchen appliances.

The apprehension was justified. As she screeched to a stop in a cloud of gravel-dust, through the wide-open kitchen window she heard the exclamation that usually meant something had gone drastically wrong.

‘Bugger!’

She leapt from the scooter an awful lot faster than she’d climbed onto it, the expletive from inside confirming there likely wasn’t time to spend parking the dolly-trolley in its little open-fronted shack built as a lean-to next to the garage. Jesse’s truck was in the drive, and as she grabbed her purchases from the basket fixed to the handlebars and ran quickly for the door, she nodded to his cheery wave.

‘Good mornin’ Mrs. M.,’ he called out from the far side of the lawn. Jesse was the young village gardener, and given the advancing years of most of the population of Great Wiltingham, he never had to travel far to carry out his work.

‘Good morning, Jesse,’ she answered politely, even though she was getting the feeling that at any moment it wasn’t going to be a good morning.

As usual, she was right.

Aidan was just wiping the spots of strawberry-coloured goo from his face as Daisy hurried into the kitchen, glancing around in dismay. His face wasn’t the only thing covered in splatters of strawberry-coloured goo.

‘Damn modern infernal kitchen appliances,’ he growled.

‘Blenders are hardly the stuff of ground-breaking technology, dear,’ she laughed, despite the rather red appearance of the area in the kitchen where the infernal appliance was sitting. ‘But I do believe you’re supposed to put the lid on before you fire it up.’

‘Oh is that what you do?’ he glared at her, grabbing another wad of kitchen towel.

‘No need for sarcasm, dearest,’ she smiled back.

‘I only switched it on for a moment, to make sure it worked.’

She ran some warm water over a cloth, and began to clean the spatters of strawberry and avocado from places they should never be. ‘It’s a super-duper turbo-boosted state-of-the-art mega-blender, dear. Might have been best to make sure it worked before you filled it to the brim?’

He finally smiled, as she wiped a tiny splatter from his nose. ‘Well, at least I know it works now.’

Daisy shook her head, but still had to stifle a giggle for the sake of the slightly-disgruntled Aidan. She looked him and his once-white shirt over. Tall and slender, his short silver-grey hair had a tendency to flop a little over his forehead when he was flustered. Now seventy-six, his hair had migrated from absolute black quite a few years ago, but the occasional flop over the forehead had never changed, right from when she first met him almost forty years ago.

It was a silly insignificant thing that wasn’t insignificant at all, because it was one of the little things that helped her fall in love with him. In truth, he had a lot of those little things, which carried on helping her stay in love with him to this day.

Including exasperating little matters like struggling with kitchen appliances.

She slapped him gently and lovingly on the shoulder. ‘Quite like the tie-dyed red patches on the shirt, actually.’

‘Very funny. But the splattered look is quite trendy right now, I hear.’

Daisy was about to retort something, but a strange, vaguely-tuneful noise coming from somewhere outside stopped the wit in its tracks. ‘What on Earth is that? It sounds like a demented pigeon,’ she said instead.

Together they walked towards the front window. Then they could both see the source of the strange noise.

‘Oh dear,’ said Aidan.

‘I think it’s me she wants,’ said Daisy as she headed to the front door, lifting her eyes to the ceiling as she went.

The diminutive, slightly-portly woman was still cooing away at the gate as Daisy opened the front door. ‘Cooeee... cooeee, Daisy?’ she called, waving an arm around to emphasise the shriek.

‘Maisie... what the hell are you doing?’

She stopped cooing and waving. ‘Well... I didn’t want to disturb you...’

‘So standing at the front gate cooing at the top of your voice and waving like a moron isn’t disturbing me... and half the population of the immediate area?’

‘Well, I... um...’

‘Just come in Maisie, before the men in white coats arrive.’

‘Oh... you don’t really think...’

‘No Maisie. Just winding you up. It is the easiest thing in the world, after all.’

The elderly woman trotted over to the door. ‘There’s no need to be so insulting...’

About to say the truth was never insulting, Daisy thought better of it, and instead just closed the door behind the woman in the nineteen-nineties skirt and flower-patterned polyester blouse.

‘I would offer you a strawberry and avocado smoothie, but you’d have to scrape it off the walls first.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t understand any of that, Daisy.’

‘Never mind. Tea?’

Aidan gave them a slightly-pained smile as they wandered into the kitchen. ‘Ah, Maisie and Daisy, the terrible twosome of Wiltingham!’

Maisie didn’t look too amused. ‘Don’t you start.’

‘Just put the kettle on, dear,’ said Daisy. ‘And remember to close the lid first.’

He lifted a finger to waggle a visual retort to accompany words that never came, as he realised he was outnumbered, and that shutting up might be the better option. And he did close the kettle lid after he filled it.

Daisy and Maisie sank their butts onto their usual stools next to the island unit. ‘So what can I do for you, Maisie?’ said Daisy.

‘Well dear... it’s the strangest thing. Sometime in the night, my floribunda got uprooted.’

‘Never heard it put quite that way before.’

Maisie lowered her head. ‘It’s not funny, Daisy. It’s my pride and joy. I’ve lovingly cultivated it for years.’

Realising how upset she was, Daisy put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Maisie. My  wicked sense of humour precedes my brain kicking in sometimes. But I don’t see how I can help with a stolen rose bush?’

Maisie looked up, a gloss of tears in her eyes. ‘Oh no dear, it hasn’t been stolen. It’s still there.’

Chapter 2

DAISY GLANCED CURIOUSLY to Aidan as he placed two mugs on the island unit. He shook his head slightly, just as puzzled as she was.

‘Maisie, you said it had been uprooted... but then someone left it there?’

She wrapped both her small hands around the mug, and took a sip like a little girl confessing something to the headmistress. ‘Well, yes. It’s... kind of still planted, but not like it was.’

‘I think you’d better tell us the whole story, Maisie.’

‘There’s not much to tell. As I said, it’s my special rose... each evening I water it, and wish it goodnight. Just like last night. Then this morning I noticed it was leaning a bit, and when I went and looked closer, I could see it had been dug up, and...’

‘And?’

‘Kind of... planted again, but not properly, like someone was in a hurry.’

‘In a hurry... to replant a rose bush in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason?’

Maisie shook a rather sad head. ‘I know it sounds crazy. I’ve done my best to replant it properly, but it’s a bit delicate, you know. It won’t be very happy.’

Daisy glanced up to Aidan, who was also shaking his head again, for an entirely different reason. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of weird dream, Maisie?’ he said in a disbelieving kind of way.

She threw him an angry glance. ‘I know half the village thinks I’m a dozy old biddy, but I’m not as crazy as I look. Then again, after this...’

Daisy pulled her into a hug. ‘Take no notice of Aidan, he’s just a man... I believe you Maisie, although it is a bit out of the box.’

‘Thank you, Daisy. But... what do I do now? If it happens again, that’ll be the end of my prize floribunda.’

Aidan turned away so Maisie wouldn’t notice the grin on his face, but Daisy had a frown on hers. ‘I’m not sure...’ Then she had a sudden thought. ‘Jesse... he’s here right now. Maybe our village gardener could throw some light on it.’ She slipped off the stool and headed to the side door, but then stopped in her tracks as the sound of his truck moving off filled her ears. She ran outside, just in time to see it turning out of the drive, and disappearing behind the trees.

She turned round to face Maisie and Aidan, who had followed her out. ‘Oh well, next time I see him I’ll pick his brains, ask if he’s got any idea why someone would steal a rose bush but then not steal it. It isn’t like him to go and leave the gate open though.’

Aidan nodded his agreement, and swung the big white gate shut. Maisie said she had to go give her prize floribunda some TLC, and disappeared through the little pedestrian gate next to the big one. Aidan threw Daisy his silly lopsided smile as he walked back over to her.

‘You think the silly old biddy has finally lost it, dear?’ he said.

‘You can be so cruel sometimes, Aidan,’ she replied.

‘Oh, and you can’t?’

‘I’m quite capable of being far more wicked than you. But this time... well, this time I’m not so sure.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘So you’re saying you think the village has a ghost gardener, who replants flowers in the middle of the night just to freak people out?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Oh come on, dear. I’m not Mulder, and you’re sure as hell not Dana Scully!’

‘Maybe we’re not in an episode of the X-files here, but Maisie was well upset. And she knows her garden better than most. I think you should pop in and make sure she’s ok first thing in the morning... and that the ghoulish gardener hasn’t visited again, of course.’

He ambled back to the kitchen, shaking his head every step of the way. But Daisy knew he would do as she’d asked, because he was just that kind of guy. She followed a few steps behind, a slight frown on her brow.

Maisie was the nearest thing the village had to a crazie, but in reality she wasn’t crazy at all. A little eccentric maybe, because she didn’t do things quite the way everyone else did. Something Daisy could relate to, and definitely excuse.

Over the last few months they’d become friends, and once she’d forced her way through the eccentricities others saw as definitions of crazy, it was clear Maisie was just as sane as the rest of them.

Not that it said much for the rest of them.

But despite Aidan’s initial head-shaking, she’d taken the time to understand her new friend. And one thing she’d discovered was that Maisie knew every inch of her garden. The floribunda in question was her pride and joy, but the same could be said about the whole of her garden.

If Maisie was convinced someone had been messing with her flora and fauna, then they probably had.

The why might be a little harder to work out.

Chapter 3

AIDAN TURNED UP AT ten the next morning. He spent the vast majority of his time at Daisy’s, but he officially lived in a small bungalow just around the corner, in the leg of Walcotts Lane that branched off the part that skirted the pond. His street really should have been named something different... but it was rural Norfolk after all.

Despite the fact they’d been married for thirty-five years, Daisy and her