Amendment of Life (5 page)

‘It is, my dear.' He tapped their doorstep with his foot. ‘Which, when you come to think about it, is yet another case of sermons in stones.'

‘Bertie, I'd have gone round and seen him if I'd heard about what had been left outside the Canonry,' she said, stricken with remorse. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I did go round,' said her husband. ‘He's taken it in his stride. Apparently, years ago, when he was a curate in Luston he caught some people saying a black mass in his churchyard. They were using a table grave for an altar.'

‘What did he do?'

‘Gave them black eyes, I think. Brian believed in the church militant in those days. He was young then, of course, and fitter.'

‘Bertie,' she interrupted him urgently. ‘What about Malby? Have these people been doing nasty things like this at the Deanery, too?'

‘They haven't to date, my dear, though I don't know yet about last night. I think our security people ought to know about this first. I'll go indoors now and ring them,' he said, ‘and then I'll slip straight over to the Deanery and find out if Malby's had any trouble—'

‘Not until you're properly dressed, you won't,' said his wife immediately. ‘What would people say?'

Chapter Five

Eric Paterson was still leaning back in his chair when Sharon Gibbons brought him in his mug of coffee. He had his eyes closed, a tacitly agreed sign in the office that he was thinking deeply about a technical problem and did not want to be interrupted by anyone.

This time, though, she didn't leave his mug noiselessly on his desk. Breaking unwritten convention, she plonked the coffee mug down on the desk very firmly and said, ‘Eric…'

‘What is it?' he asked, elaborately patient.

‘This matters, Eric…'

He opened his eyes and, without looking at her, transferred his gaze to the ceiling, anxious not to lose his train of thought.

‘I've just had David on the phone from the hospital—'

That brought his head down and his eyes into focus quickly enough. ‘James isn't worse?'

‘No,' she frowned. ‘It's not James. He seems to be all right. No, it's Margaret.'

‘What about her?'

‘She's not there.' Automatically, she pushed the sugar towards Eric, although this time without her customary gesture of disapproval. ‘Or, rather, she's not been seen at the hospital since yesterday afternoon. That's when David took her over there before he went on to Aumerle Court and the Minster at Calleford.'

Eric Paterson sat up straight. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, David thought she'd been at the hospital with James all night, like he said to us this morning. She often does stay, you know. The nurses like it when a parent is there on the ward.'

‘Saves them work,' said Eric, reaching for the sugar.

‘The children like it, too,' said Sharon in chilly tones.

‘And she hasn't been there?' Eric helped himself to two large teaspoonsful of sugar. ‘That's odd.'

‘Not since the little lamb went off to sleep during the afternoon. Apparently Margaret told the Staff Nurse that she would slip away and be back again in the morning.'

‘And she wasn't,' concluded Eric, reaching for another spoonful of sugar.

‘No. She isn't on the ward or at home,' said Sharon, before adding uncertainly, ‘She's been under tremendous strain lately, of course.'

‘They both have,' said Eric. ‘For a long time.'

‘Too long.'

‘Much too long,' he agreed heavily.

‘And they're not out of the woods yet either,' said Sharon compassionately. ‘Eric, you don't think—'

Instantly a steely expression settled on his face. ‘I never theorize ahead of data, Sharon. It's a great mistake. You should know that. Now, what's David doing about it?'

‘They've paged Margaret at the hospital. He rang here just to see if there'd been a message from her – which there hasn't – and then he was going to ring the police.'

*   *   *

‘We're sure to find Miss Pedlinge in the Long Gallery, Inspector,' said Jeremy Prosser, leading the way inside Aumerle Court. ‘Through here and up these stairs and then along the passage. I'm sure it's the quickest way…'

‘Good,' said Sloan tersely. He'd left Crosby guarding the entrance to the maze, with strict instructions to keep Kenny Prickett from plunging in and finding his way to Pete Carter's side and the body of an unknown woman.

‘I think you'll see that Miss Pedlinge has a bird's eye view of the maze, all right,' said the steward.

‘Good,' said Sloan again. He'd told Crosby to make a note of everything that Pete and Kenny said, but he wasn't counting on it being done.

‘May we come in?' said the steward, tapping on an ancient oak door on the first-floor landing.

‘Do,' called out a sprightly voice.

‘This is Detective Inspector Sloan,' announced Prosser.

A wheelchair spun round on oiled wheels and was manoeuvred to face them. ‘Ah, the police and the Army…'

Sloan was aware of a pair of bright, enquiring eyes looking up at him.

‘Two Services must be better than one,' said the old lady in the wheelchair.

‘I hope so, madam,' said Detective Inspector Sloan. For all that they were both forces of the Crown, the police always tried to keep their distance from the Army when it came to civil action. But this was not the moment to say so.

‘They always used to be when I was a gel.' The old lady's lips twitched enigmatically.

‘Quite so,' said Detective Inspector Sloan. ‘Now, I understand, madam, that you keep an eye on the grounds from here—'

‘Indeed I do.'

‘And the maze.'

‘Naturally,' she said. ‘It's not as old as the one at Hampton Court, but it's getting on.'

Getting on was what Sloan wanted to do more than anything, but he held his peace. He'd discovered long ago that hurrying the old got you nowhere. On the contrary …

‘I was just watching to see that my Cerberus was doing his guard job properly. Kenny's a good worker – he won't let anyone into the maze if he's been told not to. You can count on it.'

‘Carter's found a body—' began Prosser, who could never bring himself to call the workmen by their Christian names in case they called him by his.

‘I know that,' said the old lady impatiently. ‘I saw him reach it five minutes ago. It was what I was hoping to stop – I told Milly to tell the police that,' she gave Sloan a baleful look, ‘but you didn't get here in time.'

‘No,' agreed Detective Inspector Sloan, stepping swiftly towards the window. Without waiting for an answer, he said, ‘May I take a look?'

The great hedge maze lay below him, every twist and turn clearly visible from where he was standing. Sloan could make out the figure of a man near the middle of the further right-hand quadrant of the square. The man, whom he supposed to be Pete Carter, was standing beside a body which was only partly visible to Sloan from where he was standing on the first floor.

It was lying, apparently face downwards, in a little clear space in front of a statue. Pete Carter – if, indeed, it was he who was beside the body – was trying to hold up a broom above the surrounding hedge to indicate where in the maze he was. Even at this distance, Sloan could see, too, that the fellow was still shouting to his mate, Kenny Prickett.

‘Where have my binoculars got to now, Milly?' asked Miss Pedlinge, fumbling about behind her with her hand. ‘We need them again.'

Milly Smithers pointed. ‘They're hanging from the back of your chair, Miss Daphne, like always.'

‘Allow me,' murmured Detective Inspector Sloan ambiguously, lifting the binoculars off their resting place and first raising them to his own eyes. A quick twist of their knurled focus knob brought the scene more clearly into his view. ‘Ah, I see…'

The body appeared from the clothing to be female, but a stretch of hedge in front of it hid the whole corpse from his view. At this distance it was impossible for Sloan to hazard a guess at the age of whoever was lying there, but there was something indefinable about the way in which it was lying that betokened death as opposed to unconsciousness to him, just as it had done to Miss Pedlinge.

Exactly as vultures are said to be able to determine the precise moment that the life of their prey becomes extinct, so Detective Inspector Sloan could also see what there had been about this figure that had made the old lady so sure they were dealing with more than a simple attack of syncope.

‘We need to get into the maze and fast,' he announced crisply, lowering the binoculars.

‘Easier said than done, Inspector,' said Jeremy Prosser. ‘It's not a unicursal one, you know, in spite of what the men say.'

‘Really, sir?' said Sloan distantly. He had a rooted aversion to the use by other people of words they presumed he would not know and understand: the more especially, he was honest enough to admit, when he didn't. Unicursal being one such word.

‘And it's no good just putting your right hand on the hedge and keeping going like you can with some mazes,' finished the agent. ‘That won't get you anywhere.'

‘Or your left hand,' remarked Miss Pedlinge. ‘That wouldn't be any good, either.'

‘What about those two workers?' asked Sloan. ‘They must go in there often enough.'

Prosser gave a mirthless laugh. ‘They insist that they get lost every time they go in the maze. If you ask me, Inspector, I think it's their way of taking more time on the job.'

‘If,' said Detective Inspector Sloan, anxious to get on with his own work and, unlike the two men in question, having no reason to prolong it, ‘I were to stay here and guide my Constable in by radio phone, could I direct him to the right spot?'

‘No,' said Daphne Pedlinge promptly, ‘but I could.'

‘Now, Miss Daphne, dear,' protested Milly Smithers, ‘you shouldn't be letting yourself get all excited.'

‘Rubbish,' said Miss Pedlinge spiritedly. She gave Sloan a wicked grin. ‘Beats a visit from the doctor any day.'

Sloan took out his two-way radio and started to call up Detective Constable Crosby. ‘Miss Pedlinge, would you say it's the statue of Ariadne that Pete Carter has just passed?'

‘No,' said the old lady, ‘I wouldn't, even though mazes do have their beginnings in antiquity and she comes into the legend.'

‘Ah…'

‘It would seem, Inspector,' she said astringently, ‘that it isn't only your classical education that has been neglected.'

‘Madam?' Out of the corner of his eye, Sloan could see Jeremy Prosser quietly picking up the binoculars and pointing them in the direction of the maze.

‘That, Inspector,' she said, ‘is Theseus, who, as you ought to be able to see even at this distance, is no lady.'

‘Quite so, madam.' Sloan realized that Jeremy Prosser's vision through the binoculars by now must have focused on Pete Carter and the body. ‘I believe your workman is quite near the middle of the maze, isn't he?'

‘It's the centre of the maze that matters, you know,' said Daphne Pedlinge. ‘Not the section by Theseus. He went to Crete as one of the seven maidens and seven youths to be sacrificed to the Minotaur and fell in love with Ariadne. She told him the legend of the labyrinth.'

‘How to get out?'

‘Yes. After he'd killed the Minotaur. Not that it did Ariadne any good. He ditched her afterwards.' Her gaze travelled impartially over policeman and soldier. ‘Some men are like that.'

‘In what way does the centre of the maze matter?' asked Sloan, subconsciously aware of the blood slowly draining from the cheeks of Captain Prosser.

‘You must understand, Inspector,' explained the woman in the wheelchair, ‘that the maze is meant to be an allegory of life.'

‘Tell me more, madam,' he said, one eye still on Prosser. The man had lowered the binoculars now and was running his tongue over dry lips.

‘And reaching the centre of the maze, Inspector, is an allegory for death, which it was in fact for the seven maidens and seven youths sacrificed each year to the bull of Minos.' She twisted her lips into a wry smile. ‘The end of the quest, don't you know?'

All Detective Inspector Sloan actually knew was that, as Captain Prosser had viewed the body in the maze, a little line of sweat had appeared where his short-back-and-sides hairline met a brow still unaccountably pale, and the hands that handed back the pair of binoculars were now visibly unsteady.

Chapter Six

‘Which way next did you say, madam?' asked Detective Inspector Sloan over the radio telephone. He hadn't realized quite how disorientating he would find two tall hedges of yew once he was standing between them, unable to see anything except sky.

‘Turn right now and then left as soon as you can,' crackled a distant voice.

In the end, Sloan had gone back to the maze himself and he was now taking instructions at long distance on how to reach the body. They came from the old lady sitting in the Long Gallery at her vantage point well above and behind him. He'd left her his own two-way radio and collected Crosby's from him. The fact that his Detective Constable was now plunging noisily along behind him down the narrow green passages of verdure was a distraction rather than any great help. Kenny Prickett they had left still guarding the entrance, this time with the assistance of Captain Prosser.

‘I said left next,' came a peremptory voice over the ether, ‘not right.'

‘So you did, madam,' he assented. His concentration had slipped while he was making a mental note at the back of his mind about the gallant Captain. As well as demonstrating a sudden pallor and a little burst of perspiration about the hairline when looking through the binoculars, he had shown no great willingness to come as far as the maze, let alone venture inside it. ‘My fault.'