Chapter Fourteen #2
“Come down now, Deva,” Daisy said quickly, afraid the man might just turn and leave if his instructions were not followed. All the same, when he went up the ladder, she followed him.
The platform was quite small, crowded with the two of them.
They both turned, scanning the maze. It was an irregular shape, Daisy saw.
She could make out the gap at one end where they had entered and the wooden shelter over the bench at the other, but otherwise nothing but hedge, hedge, and more hedge.
“Don’t see nobody,” the gardener grunted.
“Belinda, we can’t see you! Are you sitting down? Stand up and wave. Jump up and down.”
Not far from the entrance, a small hand, waving madly, appeared and disappeared, then a second as Lizzie joined in. “We’re here, Mummy. How do we get out?”
“Wait a minute, darling, while we work it out.”
It only took a moment for her to work out that it would take her hours, with paper and pencil, to work out how to get to the children, let alone how to escape the maze.
“’S easy,” said the gardener. “I’ll tell ’em which way to turn.” He raised cupped hands to his mouth to shout.
“Hold on.” She ought to see the body for herself, Daisy decided reluctantly, to make sure Harriman was really dead and there was nothing she could do for him. “Could you lead me there, and then lead us all out?”
He gave her that assessing look again. “Course.”
She didn’t warn him that he would then have to show the police the way to the body.
She’d never be able to explain how to find it.
At best, the gardener was not an enthusiastic collaborator, and she remembered his spitting when she told him the police were on their way.
Or would soon be on their way, she hoped.
“Bel, Lizzie, we’re coming!”
Carefully—a broken leg would really throw a spanner in the works!—she descended the ladder. The gardener followed her down and set off towards the exit.
Deva had been studying the menhir. Joining Daisy, she said, “It’s strange.
It’s got wavy-line patterns carved on it, like water, and a shape that looks sort of as if it could be a mermaid.
Why do we have to walk all the way to Lizzie and Bel and all the way back, Mrs. Fletcher?
Couldn’t that man tell them which way to go then lead us out? ”
The gardener turned and gave her his look. “Don’t make much difference,” he said indifferently. “C’n leave you at the turn t’wait for us.”
“No! Don’t leave me alone!” Deva clutched Daisy’s arm.
“Do stop fussing and come along,” said Daisy, hurrying after their guide.
It seemed as if they went right round the maze again, following the silent gardener, before he paused at a corner and muttered to himself, “Roight here? Reckon so.” Daisy guessed they must be turning off the direct route to the way out—if anything in here could be described as direct.
A few more twists and turns: there were Bel and Lizzie. Lizzie’s face was tear-stained, and Belinda started crying as they both rushed into Daisy’s arms. She held them both tight.
“Let’s go.” The gardener was impatient for his dinner.
“Give me two minutes. I can’t leave without making sure the … the man really is dead, not just ill or injured and in need of help.”
“Listen, lady, I—”
“You wouldn’t want his death on your conscience, would you? He’s just round the next corner, Lizzie?”
“Yes, it’s not far.” Lizzie shuddered.
“Do you have to, Mummy?” Bel looked frightened.
“Yes.” Daisy certainly wasn’t going to look at Harriman because she wanted to, whether he was dead or alive. She approached the corner with trepidation. Which would be worse, to find him dead or to find him alive and not know what to do for him?
At first glance, he looked remarkably dead.
She felt a momentary surge of relief, and realised she had still not been absolutely sure that Lizzie was not romancing.
His face was not white, as the child had described it—he was too much of an outdoorsman for that.
It was a ghastly, drained, sallow colour.
He was dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, with no jacket, but Daisy could detect no movement of his chest.
She forced herself to move closer, keeping right to the side of the path, brushing against the yew. Alec would be livid if she destroyed any clues. Much as she might wish to keep the affair from him, she had never succeeded yet and didn’t expect to this time.
Afraid she might faint if she stooped over the body, she crouched and reached for his wrist. No pulse that she could feel. Should she try his neck? She simply couldn’t bring herself to touch it. The limp, chill heaviness of his arm told her all she needed, and more than she wanted, to know.
In glancing towards his neck, she noticed a discoloured area on the side of his head.
Had he not kept his hair cropped so short, it would have been invisible.
To steady herself, she shut her eyes and swallowed, her mouth dry, before she looked again, more closely.
The skin was not broken, as far as she could make out, but was the skull dented?
Enough was enough! She straightened and moved back, keeping her back against the unyielding hedge. A quick survey revealed nothing on which he could have knocked his head.
There was something else odd about the scene. What was it?
It was too neat. It dawned on Daisy that Harriman was laid out as carefully as if he was just waiting for a coffin.