Garden of Lies(2)

But eventually he thought he detected three distinct legends. He stopped when it dawned on him that each tale was a different path into the maze. One series of paintings depicted a tale of war. The second was a story of vengeance.

In the end he chose the third legend.

He never knew how long he walked or how far. At times he stopped, exhausted, and sank into a slumber that was splintered with images from the wall paintings that were his only guide. Occasionally he stumbled across small underground streams. He stopped to drink deeply from them. He tried to make the cheese and bread in his pack last but eventually they were gone.

He kept walking because there was nothing else to do. To stop would be an act of total surrender.

In the end when he staggered out of the caverns into a stone circle illuminated with daylight he almost continued walking because he was certain that he was hallucinating.

Sunlight.

Some part of his mind registered the reality of what he was seeing.

In disbelief he looked up and saw that the hot, tropical sunshine was slanting through an opening in the rocks. A series of steep stone steps had been cut into the rock. A long black cord dangled from the opening.

Calling on the last of his reserves, he grasped the rope and tested it to make certain it would hold his weight. When he was satisfied that it was secure he started up the ancient staircase, using the rope as a handrail.

He reached the opening, scrambled out of the temple caves and collapsed on the stone floor of an open-air temple. He had been so long in the shadows that he had to close his eyes against the brilliant sunlight.

Somewhere nearby a gong boomed. The sound echoed endlessly through the jungle.

He was not alone on the island.

—

A YEAR LATER another ship dropped anchor in the small harbor. Slater was on board when it sailed. But he was not the same man that he had been when he arrived on Fever Island.

Over the course of the next several years he became a legend in certain circles. When he finally returned to London he discovered the great curse that befalls all legends: There is no place to call home.





ONE




I can’t believe Anne is gone.” Matty Bingham blotted her eyes with a handkerchief. “She was always so spirited. So charming. So full of life.”

“Yes, she was.” Ursula Kern tightened her grip on the umbrella and watched the gravediggers dump great clods of earth on the coffin. “She was a woman of the modern age.”

“And an excellent secretary.” Matty tucked her handkerchief into her satchel. “A credit to the agency.”

Matty was in her mid-thirties, a spinster without family or connections. Like the other women who came to work at the Kern Secretarial Agency, she had abandoned any hope of marriage and a family of her own. Like Anne and the others, she had seized the promise that Ursula offered—a respectable career as a professional secretary, a field that was finally opening up to women.

The day was appropriately funereal in tone—a depressing shade of gray with a steady drizzle of rain. Ursula and Matty were the only mourners present at the graveside. Anne had died alone. No family had come forward to claim the body. Ursula had paid for the funeral. It was, she thought, not just her responsibility as Anne’s employer and sole heir, but also a final act of friendship.

A great emptiness welled up inside her. Anne Clifton had been her closest friend for the past two years. They had bonded over the things they had in common—a lack of family and haunting pasts that they had very carefully buried.

Anne might have possessed a few faults—some of the other secretaries at the agency had considered her a fast woman—but Ursula knew there had always been a distinct twist of admiration in the remarks. Anne’s bold determination to carve her own path in life against all odds made her the very model of the Modern Woman.

When the coffin vanished beneath the growing mound of dirt, Ursula and Matty turned and walked back across the cemetery.

“It was kind of you to pay for Anne’s funeral,” Matty said.

Ursula went through the wrought-iron gates. “It was the least I could do.”

“I will miss her.”

“So will I,” Ursula said.

Who will pay for my funeral when the time comes? she wondered.

“Anne did not seem like the type to take her own life,” Matty said.

“No, she did not.”

—

URSULA DINED IN SOLITUDE, as she usually did. When the meal was concluded she went into her small, cozy study.

The housekeeper bustled into the room to light the fire.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dunstan,” Ursula said.

“You’re certain you’re all right, then?” Mrs. Dunstan asked gently. “I know you considered Miss Clifton a friend. Hard to lose a connection of that sort. Lost a few friends, myself, over the years.”

“I’m quite all right,” Ursula said. “I’m just going to sort through Miss Clifton’s things and make an inventory. Then I’ll go to bed.”

“Very well, then.”

Mrs. Dunstan went quietly out into the hall and closed the door. Ursula waited a moment and then she poured herself a stiff shot of brandy. The fiery spirits took off some of the chill she had been feeling since Anne’s death.

After a while she crossed the room to the trunk that held Anne’s things.