BACK AT MY EASEL, I THOUGHT about Daniel. His arrival might have been an interruption but I was glad he had come. When he had moved out I worried that Mike’s animosity might have soured our friendship, but Daniel seemed to have taken it in his stride. Perhaps he could remember his own, not so distant, teenage days. And now he and Mike seemed to get along well enough when they saw each other.
I hesitated over the painting, nervous of doing too much. It’s my besetting sin, the overwhelming of that first fine careless rapture. So I worked slowly, carefully highlighting the edge of the indentations in the apple’s flesh. That should do it. I stepped back and looked critically at what I had done. Maybe a little more to the background? It was a soft, dull grey, thinly painted, but perhaps that was right. Stop now, I told myself. Look again tomorrow. I was moving in towards the easel to add one last touch of cool, pale yellow to the apple skin when I started violently, almost stabbing the brush into the canvas. A voice, loud and shrill, was calling my name.
It was Daniel. I dropped the brush and ran through the open door, across to the gate. What on earth …? Had something happened to Grumpy? There are snares set in the narrow game paths in the plantations, but Daniel had hardly been gone long enough to reach them and, anyway, Grumpy’s days of energetic exploration are over. But no. There was Daniel running as fast as he could down the road, with Grumpy trailing on the lead behind, looking indignant at the speed he was being expected to travel. It was hot, and Daniel’s face was glistening with sweat, eyes wide, as he reached me. He stopped at the gate, putting out his hand to steady himself as he tried to catch his breath.
“Laura. There’s a body … up there … just beyond where the path goes off. Lying there.”
“What? What do you mean ‘a body’? A dead body? Who?”
“Of course a dead body! A man. I’ve no idea who he is. He’s just lying there. Grumpy saw him first, went over to him, growling. I thought … I went to look. He’s dead all right. There was blood … and …” Daniel’s voice trailed off and he swallowed. His face was grey under the coating of sweat. He dropped the dog lead and gripped the fence with both hands. “Oh Christ. I suppose … I suppose he must have been murdered. His head was bashed in.”
I put my hand on his arm and physically dragged him in through the gate, nudging the dog into the garden with my knee. I spun the combination on the padlock with a shaking hand, locking out whatever was out there. Even as I did it, I recognised the futility of the gesture. I unclipped Grumpy’s lead and, still holding onto Daniel, probably for mutual support, headed back towards the house. We went in through the open studio door, which I shut and locked as well.
“Are you okay, Dan? I’ll make some tea. Here – sit down.” I pushed him onto the old sofa, covered with a faded blue-and-purple throw, that stands under the wide window facing out over the garden and towards the plantations where … no, don’t think about that. I looked at Daniel, sitting with his head in his hands. I hope to God he’s not going to throw up, I thought. I’m not good at handling people being sick. I hate it in films, on television, but above all in reality.
“Dan, I must phone the cops. You okay?”
“The cops! Oh God, Laura. Must you?”
“Well, of course I must. If there’s a … a body, a corpse, up there, then we’ve got to tell them. We can’t just ignore it. Surely you’ve got your permit or whatever? So there’s no problem.”
“Yes, I have. But I still don’t want to have anything to do with the police.” He stopped. “Okay, okay. You’re right. We have to tell someone.” He paused again, but didn’t look up. “Unless you phone them and I just push off …” His voice tailed away as he sat looking at the strong hands gripped tightly together in his lap.
“You found him, Dan. You’ll have to tell them.” Surely he wasn’t in some kind of trouble with the police? He would have to be here. I went to wall-phone by the door. There were paint smears on the handset, but having it there saved me from messing up the other phone in the living room when I was working. Some time in the past, when he was in an efficient man-of-the-house phase, Rory had put a list of what he thought were important contact numbers on the wall next to it, and I read off the number for the Flying Squad, just below the local pizza delivery. I was venturing into unknown territory here, but the Flying Squad were probably the people to call when you found a corpse.
When someone answered, I began to explain that there was a body of a man in the plantations. I tried to describe the place, but I could hear my voice shaking as the person at the other end of the line, irritatingly calm, made me repeat my address and phone number twice and asked for the details.
“I don’t know who it is! I haven’t seen it. A friend who’s here found it,” I said, hating the sound of “it”. Whatever lay in the plantations, it was a person with an identity, not a thing. But what else could I say? “It looks as if he’s been murdered.”
“Please, will both of you wait where you are. We will send a car as soon as possible,” said the voice. I put the phone back on the rest and went into the kitchen, aware of my trembling hands as I switched the kettle on. I was afraid, though I didn’t know why. Was it the body, which after all I hadn’t even seen? Or did I fear that something nasty was lurking out of sight, about to disrupt my humdrum but ultimately enjoyable existence?
I made two mugs of tea, sugar in Daniel’s. Back in the studio he was sitting where I had left him, still looking down at his knees. At least he hadn’t been sick. I put the mugs down on the table beside him and rested my hand on his shoulder.
“Okay, Dan? Here, drink this. The cops’ll be here in a minute and they’ll deal with it. You didn’t … it wasn’t someone you recognised, was it? I mean, it was just a stranger?”
Dan sighed and at last looked up, making eye contact. “Thanks. No – I don’t know. I don’t suppose it was anyone I know. It was just a man, just a dead man. I didn’t really take a good look once I realised he was dead. But, God, it was horrible. Lying there, on his back, with blood on his head. He was quite neatly dressed. Not a vagrant.” Dan looked at me, almost accusingly. “I don’t need this kind of thing, Laura. Involvement with the police; a crime.”
“But you’re not involved. Nor am I. You found the body, and you were walking my dog. That’s all it has to do with us. They’ll take statements, and that’ll be the end of it.” But as I spoke, I wondered who I was trying to convince. I had a nasty feeling that the arrival of the cops wouldn’t herald the end of it at all. It was just the beginning, and the beginning of something that was surely going to be unpleasant. And, looking at Daniel, I could tell he thought so too.