“You could have warned us,” yelled Susan above the screaming noise coming from the van’s engine, “that Arbuthnot was a bloody gun-wielding psychopath.”
“How was I to know?” Xavier shouted back. “That’s not his style – usually he gets other people to do his dirty work for him.”
“I didn’t come here,” Susan bellowed, “to get shot at. I don’t go anywhere to get shot at, actually.”
“Is he following us?” Paul yelled, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“I can’t see any lights…” Susan craned forward to see out of the wing mirror. “I think that’s a motorbike behind us. Where are we going?”
“Where else can we go?” Paul roared. “Opocapopopoulos House. There might at least be people there, so he’d think twice about shooting at us.”
“I don’t think he’ll follow us anywhere,” Xavier said, a bit more quietly. He was clearly shaken. “He almost certainly didn’t mean to – to kill Damien. I think the lights and the noise must have taken him by surprise. He isn’t the sort to usually use guns.”
“Well, neither am I, which means I don’t,” Paul said bluntly. “I wouldn’t even know where to get hold of one. What the hell must be in that photo for him to be so worried about it?”
“And what’s happened to Thimble? How come he found out about Thimble sticking the photo in there?” Susan wondered out loud.
“I dread to think,” Xavier said. “I’ve only heard about Thimble from the paper and what you’ve told me about your exploits in the maze, and he seems like he’s been trapped between a rock and a hard place.”
“Do you think that Damien would have told Arbuthnot where the cabinets are?” Susan said suddenly.
“It’s possible,” Xavier said. “I had always thought that Damien was the soul of discretion, but it seems that Arbuthnot must have –”
“He saved us,” Paul shot back. “He actually just died for us, even if he didn’t mean to. Whatever he told that crazy bastard back there, he must have felt extremely guilty for it.”
Susan, looking in the wing mirror at the road behind, said, “Whatever it is, that light seems to be gaining on us.”
Paul glanced in the mirror. “I can’t see anything.”
“It must be over my side –” Susan began. “Shit. It’s Arbuthnot. I think we must have broken one of his headlights. How fast are we going?”
Paul looked at the speedometer. “Fifty miles an hour,” he said. “It’s limited, I think.”
“So it’s a safe bet that he can go faster than we can,” Susan said slowly.
“He’s driving a turbocharged BMW six-series with a 4.7-litre engine,” Paul said slowly for Susan’s benefit; he knew she didn’t know a thing about cars, whereas he made a point of watching Top Gear every Sunday. “The only reason he’s not overtaking us is because the road’s too narrow and twisty. Otherwise, we’d be fucked.”
“It widens when you get inside the grounds,” Susan pointed out. “The driveway’s easily wide enough to fit two cars down.”
“Fine, then,” Paul snapped. “If you’ve got a better suggestion –”
Susan was silent for a few moments, then had an idea. She began unbuckling her seatbelt.
“What are you doing?” Paul asked. “This isn’t one of your stupid ideas, is it? Because now probably isn’t the time to have one.”
“I won’t know if it’s stupid,” Susan said resolutely, “until I try it. Try to drive as smoothly as you can.”
“Where are you going?”
Susan twisted round in her seat until she was kneeling on it facing backwards. “Help me over here,” she said to Xavier, who supported one of her shins as she clambered into the back of the van; there wasn’t much space between the top of the seats and the roof, so she ended up having to do a sort of handstand. “What does a car jack look like?” she asked, straightening up.
“There are lots of types –” Xavier began. She waved a metal object in his face. “Is this one?”
“Yes.”
“Will we need it?”
“I think there was a clause in the contract about –”
“Well,” Susan interrupted, “tough shit.” She rooted around the back of the van – it was mostly empty, but there were a few odds and ends in it – until she found a couple of long strap things that the hire company had left in there to enable people to lash large items to the side of the van. Wrapping one of them around her waist, looping it through one of the metal struts near the rear doors and buckling it loosely, she took the car jack firmly in one hand and held onto the door with the other.
“Right,” she called. “Can you see him?”
Paul checked. “Yeah, he’s still right behind us,” he confirmed. “What are you –”
In one swift movement, Susan opened one of the back doors, and heaved the jack straight at Arbuthnot’s windscreen. It hit slightly off-centre, instantly turning the glass to a crazed, opaque mosaic of shards, and causing Arbuthnot to brake sharply. The rear wheels skidded a little, but the car came quickly to a halt as Susan slammed the door shut again, ducked, and shouted, “Keep down!” just as another bullet punched through the upper half of the door and exited via the van’s roof.
“We are going to have so much trouble getting the deposit back,” Paul shouted, as Susan unbuckled herself and tottered towards the front seats against the bucking motion of the van, as they rounded the corner at the bottom of the drive leading up to Opocapopopoulos House.
“What do we do about the guard?” Susan reminded Paul. “We can’t really stop and sweet-talk him this time, I doubt that will stop Arbuthnot for very long.”
“I’m going to chance it,” Paul replied, “and drive through. I think the gate’s open, look.”
He was right: the lone guard stood silhouetted between the gateposts, hands behind his back, looking bored and slouched. As the van drove towards him he noticed it and held out his hand, but once he could see it showed no signs of slowing down he ran to the guard’s hut. He had obviously pressed something, because the gates started to close; Paul revved the engine and changed down a gear as the van screamed up the hill.
“We’re not gonna make it –” Susan yelped, somewhat uncharacteristically for her.
But they reached the gates just in time: Paul aimed right for the middle of the gap, there was a screech of grinding metal as the heavy gates tore silver gashes down both sides of the van, and then they were through, with the closing gates receding into the darkness behind them.
“You know what,” Paul said, “I don’t give a shit about getting the deposit back now.”
“Head for the maze,” Susan suggested. “I doubt Arbuthnot will know his way through.”
Paul steered the now rather crippled van across the lawn, up an ornamental slope and round the orangery, stopping just short of the box hedge next to the maze. He turned the engine off, and all was silent.
“Now,” Susan said. “We’re a bit better prepared this time, I hope.”
They looked at each other.
“Well,” she tried, “at least Paul and I have been through the maze once. Between us I think we’ll be able to find our way around it again, and if we can’t there’s always the map on Paul’s phone.”
“And then what?” Xavier asked, somewhat wearily. “Don’t forget, Arbuthnot has been here quite a few times before. He knows the house very well, you won’t be able to escape from him if you try and hide in there.”
“Yes, but does he know the cellars as well as you do?”
“I’ve only been in them once,” Xavier reminded her, “and I was ten. I have no idea if he knows the cellars; it is probable. At the very least, his associates do… Kel and the others.”
“Well, it’s our only chance, I think,” Susan said. “Paul, what do you think?”
“I haven’t got the faintest idea what I’m doing here,” Paul replied, sounding suddenly tired. “What any of us are, in fact. I’ve gone from… from elatedly thinking we might get a reward which would pay my rent until I can get another job, to being shot at in a car park by a maniac. And now, for the second time in two nights, we’re contemplating navigating the world’s third largest hedge maze in pitch darkness, to end up – if we’re lucky – in a dungeon which has so far killed at least two people. Meanwhile, the police will be dusting Damien for fingerprints or evidence or whatever, and coming to find us – and if this van is anywhere near the maze, in they’ll go. With bulldozers, if they have to.”
The other two were silent for a few moments while they digested this. Paul was right: on the surface, at least, the odds didn’t look good.
“In that case,” Susan said, “we’ve got to get rid of the van.”
“Are you nuts?” Paul said forcefully. “A: where? And B: why? We’ll not only never get our deposit back, we’ll probably be arrested. Again.”
“We can explain later,” Susan protested. “We don’t have any time to lose – you’re right, the police will be showing up any minute now. We’ve got to get rid of the evidence.”
“Whatever,” Paul sighed irritably. “Where, then?”
Five minutes later, the van was primed and ready to go. Paul had found an ornamental stone plant pot that wasn’t too heavy to lift, had started the engine, and was crouched in the driver’s side with the door open.
“Ready?”
“Go for it,” Susan answered.
He plonked the plant pot on the accelerator, at the same time as he shifted the van into third gear and jumped backwards out of the way. The van jolted forwards, picking up speed as it headed for the moat, hit the lip of stone surrounding it, and launched itself briefly, its back wheels spinning on nothing in slow motion, into the air.
Then it hit the moat with a splash, bounced off the bottom, and socked into the wall on the far side, coming to rest next to the house with steam and smoke pouring from its shattered engine.
Paul doubled over, clenching his fists in his mouth, and screamed silent curses at the sky. He took a few moments to regain his composure enough to be able to speak, but finally took a deep breath and said, “I don’t have swearwords violent enough for this.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Susan remarked, breathing heavily as the adrenalin started to subside. “Come on. The sooner we’re in that maze, the better.”
She turned her back on the sorry wreck of the van, and headed for the maze the other side of the box hedge, followed by Xavier. Paul looked around for something he could take his anger out on by throwing it hard at something else, but couldn’t see anything, and so after some silent cursing under his breath stamped off in the same direction as the others.
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