Daisy Dalrymple 19 - Anthem for Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn

Author:Carola Dunn [Dunn, Carola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Historical
ISBN: 9780312387761
Google: 8SaRSzoxXaEC
Amazon: B004XZ83DY
Goodreads: 9317926
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2011-04-28T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

‘I’m off for me dinner,’ announced the gardener as he led Daisy and her flock through the gap in the hedge, emerging into the wide world at last.

Daisy tipped him. The girls thanked him politely, then ran off towards the gate, chattering. The gardener turned in the opposite direction.

Daisy walked beside him, pleading. ‘You’ll be needed to show the police how to get to him. And out again.’ She hadn’t even attempted to memorise the turns between the body and the exit, after her previous failure.

‘’T’s past me dinnertime.’

He didn’t seem to care whether he inconvenienced the police, and he regarded the presence of a corpse in the maze as none of his business. Time to employ more persuasive means: ‘If you don’t help, they’ll probably have to cut through the hedges to get to the body.’

For a moment she was sure he was going to give an indifferent shrug and walk on. It was not his maze after all, she presumed. But he turned to subject her once again to that bright, unsettling stare and said, ‘Tell ’em to look for me in the tool-shed in the Walled Garden.’

Either he didn’t want to annoy his employer or, like most gardeners, he took pride in his work and didn’t want to see it damaged. Ten-foot yews, cut down, would take a long time to regrow.

He made for a door in the brick wall and disappeared through it. Daisy followed the girls down the steps, between the grinning gargoyles and past the peacock. Lizzie and Deva were sitting on the bench on either side of Sakari. She had her arm round Lizzie, who had started crying again. Belinda stood in front of them, she and Deva talking nineteen to the dozen.

Sakari greeted Daisy with relief. ‘I cannot understand one word in ten that these children are uttering. You will tell me all.’

Daisy gave her a tiny shake of the head. She wasn’t about to describe the body in the children’s presence, though she knew Sakari would want to hear about it. ‘There isn’t much to tell. The gardener took me to the centre, where there’s a viewing platform. Deva was already there.’

‘I’m the only one who found it, Mummy.’

‘He and I went up and spotted Lizzie and Bel. He led the way to them and then brought us all out.’

‘Mummy went round the corner and looked at Mr Harriman’s body,’ said Belinda.

So much for discretion. ‘I had to make sure it was really there. Not that I didn’t believe you, Lizzie darling, but the police are bound to want to know whether a grown-up actually saw it with her own eyes.’

‘I want my mummy,’ Lizzie wept.

‘I’m sure she’ll be back soon, darling, with a policeman. We were in there for ages.’

Sakari looked at her wrist-watch. ‘Not very long. It is ten minutes past noon.’

‘It seemed forever. Bel, Deva, why don’t the two of you go with Lizzie up to the street to wait for her mother?’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Sakari, as the three went off and Daisy sat down.

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