Money in the Morgue
Peering into the darkness, their backs to the main wall, both of them facing, they hoped, towards the empty spaces reserved for dead bodies, they took careful and hushed steps forward. Walking shoulder to shoulder in the pitch black they quickly came to the empty cavities and hoisted themselves up into the first two chambers on the left-hand side of the row, their heads facing the door. They pushed back until their feet came to the solid rock behind them. When they were safely inside the cavities, they reached out and quietly pulled the thin curtains across the openings, hiding themselves from view. This was what Alleyn had told them to do and although they didn’t understand the reasoning they followed his instructions to the letter. The men lay on their fronts, alert in the darkness.
Just minutes later they heard a scraping and shuffling sound coming from one of the other cavities. Sanders wished he could whisper to Brayling and Brayling wished the same, and they waited still. After a few moments the scuffling stopped and they heard the groan of exertion as whoever it was lowered themselves hands first down to the morgue floor and then stood, patting themselves down. The person in the morgue muttered something to himself, took a few steps, cursed the darkness and then they heard the flick of a lighter, once, twice, until the flint caught and a warm flame lit up the cold morgue. Brayling and Sanders each held his breath, the thin curtain just inches from their faces, now palely glowing from the light beyond. It was with huge relief that they heard the rustle of a cigarette packet, the cigarette pulled from its casing, the tap tap on the packet, each sound amplified by their tension. Then the deep inhale and satisfied exhale and the lighter clicked off. They were in darkness again, a tiny firefly light from the cigarette barely visible through the weave of the curtain fabric.
‘More nerve than Ned Kelly,’ Sanders thought, as he took a cautious, halting breath, ‘It’s all go now.’
Seconds later another sound, this time a voice whispering into the darkness. They heard young Sydney, his tone worried and fearful, coming from the tunnel behind them.
‘Hullo? Anyone there? I saw a light, hullo?’
The person smoking flicked the lighter on again, took a few steps closer to the rock cavities, he was within feet of them and Brayling wondered if Sanders was having the same thought that he was. They could reach out and grab him right now, they could put an end to whatever the hell was going on right this minute. They could stop taking orders from high-falutin’ blokes who told them what to do left, right and centre and they could do what was needed to be done, when it was needed. Brayling thought all of this, seething with frustration, but Inspector Alleyn had been very clear that they were to be in the morgue as back-up, ready to come if called and nothing else.
The holder of the cigarette answered, his voice lowered but clear and threatening, ‘You were to give me a message, and only the message, there’s no bloody time for chat. What have you got?’
Maurice Sanders’s fists clenched tightly of their own accord, a vein hammering in his temple, that was Duncan Blaikie speaking. Sukie’s brother who was working their book with Bob Pawcett, Duncan Blaikie who had shares in a radio company in town. Snow Johnson’s narrow tract of land stretched right up to join the Blaikie’s old farm of rough land with huge crags, overlooking vast swathes of the plains, crags that were high enough to send a signal over many miles on a clear day—a clear midsummer day.
Sydney called out, his voice a little louder, a little less tremulous, ‘The joker who gave me the message said I needed to see you face to face, make sure it was you.’
Duncan Blaikie sounded irritated. ‘Damn time-wasting if you ask me, who the hell else would be waiting here for you?’
‘Shall I come through?’ Sydney persisted.
‘I reckon you’ll bloody well have to,’ he answered, spitting on the floor and grinding out his cigarette as he did so.
Brayling and Sanders heard a moan as Sydney lifted himself up from the tunnel side, another scuffle as he shuffled along the rock cavity.
‘Get a move on, will you?’ asked Blaikie brusquely, and then, in almost the same breath he added, ‘Aw, hang on, damn it. Someone’s coming. Move back, let me through. Wait in the tunnel and keep your mouth shut.’
They heard Sydney push himself backwards, Blaikie take his place in the rock cavity and within moments the morgue was suddenly silent again, an empty space filled with waiting. Brayling and Sanders wondered if this was the moment that Alleyn was to make his entrance, but it was not Alleyn who opened the door, in control of himself and of the situation, it was an altogether different man, bustling, fretful and in an extraordinary hurry.
‘Hurry up, for goodness’ sake.’
Brayling and Sanders both recognized Father O’Sullivan’s voice immediately, but the way he spoke now, abrupt, sharp, with something else in his tone, something both men had heard in superiors giving orders in the field—a genuine note of fear—sounded markedly different from the careful and considerate quality he usually sported.
‘We can leave her here and get out of it, if we hurry we might still make it,’ Father O’Sullivan said.
If he received a reply to his statement, neither Brayling nor Sanders heard it, but his accomplice must have agreed with the plan for there was a good deal more shuffling, mumbling as if someone was somehow prevented from speaking out and then more dragging or perhaps pushing, feet scuffling, and finally something dumped unceremoniously on the ground. The noise that followed, a muffled moan, almost a cry, sounded like someone in pain and a woman at that. At this sound, both Brayling and Sanders involuntarily tensed. Obedient to Alleyn’s orders they remained silent and quite still but it took all of their training to do so and they bitterly resented the order that left them powerless to help.
They not only heard, but also felt what happened next, several sharp bangs apparently directed to the rock wall beneath the cavities where they now lay hidden, then a scraping wrenching sound as if rock were being pushed or pulled against rock, again the sound of something being moved, lifted, and then, suddenly, a fierce whisper from the vicar, ‘The door, quick, in here.’
As Sanders thought to himself ‘It’s busier than flamin’ Queen Street down here,’ the door did indeed open, with no attempt at silence this time and he heard Dr Luke Hughes call out, fumbling for the gas lights, ‘O’Sullivan, are you in there? Dammit man, where the hell are you? What have you done with her? Where’s Sarah?’
At the mention of Sarah’s name, Maurice Sanders could take no more, and evidently Brayling had the same idea, for both men pushed themselves from the rock cavities and vaulted into the chamber of the morgue. As the light Hughes had just lit grew into a substantial flame, the deep blackness of the room receded and they saw, with horror, that there was a body bag leaning against the wall, someone inside was struggling, trying to cry out. Sanders and Hughes both leapt to untie the bag, but Brayling immediately rapped both men sharply on the shoulder. His fingers to his lips, he pointed behind them. Inspector Alleyn was slowly and silently emerging from the eighth cavity, alongside the far wall, where he had settled himself before the soldiers entered the morgue, racing up through the tunnel that went under Matron’s office and getting into place just ahead of Sanders and Brayling. He too had his finger to his lips, and with his other hand pointed in the direction of the fifth cavity, the one that led through to the tunnel. Sanders nodded, of course, there was still the matter of Duncan Blaikie and young Sydney Brown waiting in the tunnel.
Hughes untied the body bag and removed the gag from a furious Sarah. Eyes wide and alert with anger, she immediately understood the need for speed and silence. Alleyn then turned, took three paces and ripped back the curtain from across the fifth cavity, Sanders and Brayling reached in and grabbed the rapidly retreating Blaikie by the arms, pulling him out and into the morgue.
‘What the hell? What is all this?’ demanded Blaikie.
Alleyn paid no attention to the man’s affronted tone, merely directing him to stand against the back wall, ‘Over there, don’t m
ove. Brayling, Sanders, keep an eye on him, will you?’
The two soldiers moved closer to Blaikie, taking up guard duty on either side of him. Blaikie in return, shot them daggers from the corners of his eyes, but chose discretion as the better part of valour for the moment and held his tongue.
Alleyn turned and called through the rock tunnel, ‘Sydney, come through into the morgue will you, please?’
Sydney emerged and Alleyn took him aside so that Blaikie didn’t hear their exchange, ‘Did you pass on your message?’
‘There wasn’t time. We heard the door so Blaikie told me to go back into the tunnel, then the vicar came into the morgue and there was all that banging about and—’ he looked at Sarah, her face ashen, Dr Hughes alongside with an arm around her shoulders, and then he looked at the others, ‘But where’s the vicar flamin’ well gone? How’d he get away and all of you in here?’
Bix and Hughes looked around, as did Brayling and Sanders and realized for the first time that Father O’Sullivan was nowhere to be seen.
‘What the hell?’ said Sanders.
‘Where the blazes?’ uttered Hughes.
Alleyn, having assured himself that Sarah was now safely in Hughes’s care, asked them all to step well away from the rock cavities. He too had heard the thumping and wrenching sounds and thought he knew what they meant. He looked about the morgue, and finally laid his hand on a heavy piece of wood, ridged across the top, propped up alongside the main door at the top of the steep slope that led outside.
‘If it’s sturdy enough to hold open that heavy door, it will do the trick.’
The others edged backwards and looked on mystified as the detective crouched before the rock wall below the cavities and pulled his arm back, ready, apparently, to strike directly at the rock.
Which was when the door opened yet again and Private Bob Pawcett came running down the sloping passageway and into the morgue, ‘Blaikie, where the hell are you? I’ve been waiting down by the pub, we’ve got ten minutes to get halfway up the bloody crag and unless we crack on we’re never going to get up and back before Snow works out we’re—’
He stopped even before he was in the morgue itself. As he tried to retrace his steps, half-turning, half-running up the incline behind, both Brayling and Sanders deserted their posts alongside Blaikie, lunged for Pawcett and brought down their comrade with a resounding crash. It was a crash that sounded a great deal louder because Alleyn took the same moment to batter the rock beneath the cavities, smacking at it with the piece of wood with all his might and what was now revealed as a façade covering a hole in the wall beneath the cavities fell away, revealing a horrified Father O’Sullivan clutching several envelopes of money and a good number of loose pound notes.
One of those notes rose up, caught in the gust of wind as the door was opened one more time and Sister Comfort was heard to say, ‘For goodness’ sake, Mr Glossop, will you please calm down? I’ve no idea where they all are, but if you will insist on checking the morgue, then we’ll check the morgue together. You cannot possibly go in there unattended.’
Followed immediately by Rosamund Farquharson’s more lyrical tone calling merrily, ‘Only do stop your carrying on, Glossop, you’ve been at it for hours and I’m sure we’ve better things to worry about. Oh,’ she said, seeing the assembled throng crammed into the morgue, ‘here they all are after all.’ And, as the pound note came to a stop she picked it up and examined it, turning it over to see a large red lipsticked kiss across Captain Cook’s head, ‘Ooh, my winnings. How lovely.’
Then there was utter bedlam. Pawcett tried to get up and Sanders roundly and quite forcibly sat on him, meanwhile Blaikie took the moment of distraction to reach up and punch out the one gas lamp that was lit, plunging the morgue back into darkness, lit only by the certain dawn beyond the door, blocked almost entirely by Mr Glossop’s large and incredulous frame.
In the darkness, Father O’Sullivan himself jumped up and, dodging both Sanders and Brayling, as well as the more lumbering Blaikie, made it as far as the door, before Glossop, once again showing a surprising agility for a man of his physical stature, proved as effective at a solid rugby tackle as the two young soldiers. Sister Comfort looked on in abject horror from beyond the doorway.
‘Do come in, won’t you, Sister?’ Alleyn called airily, ‘I believe it’s time to bring some order to the proceedings.’
He waited until the pandemonium had died down a little and then instructed Hughes and Rosamund to light the remaining lamps. When all were fully lit, Alleyn took in the assembled company. Sarah was flanked by Dr Hughes and Rosamund Farquharson, Sanders guarded Blaikie while Brayling stood alongside Pawcett, Bix had taken up a post beside young Sydney Brown and Mr Glossop took it upon himself to hold onto the vicar very tightly indeed.
‘Well, here we all are,’ he said brightly, rubbing his nose, ‘or are we?’ He looked around quizzically.
‘Not quite all,’ Rosamund said, ‘I’m sure Will Kelly will make a well-timed appearance before the dawn fully breaks.’
‘We can but hope, Miss Farquharson,’ Alleyn answered with a nod. ‘However I feel sure there is one other person, and not the esteemed Mr Kelly, however excellent his baritone, who must surely be eager to join us.’
He waited and saw that all but Father O’Sullivan were looking at him in confusion, while the vicar’s face held nothing but growing horror.
Alleyn turned to the gap beneath the rock cavities, from whence Father O’Sullivan and the rolls of pound notes had emerged and, speaking quietly but firmly, he said, ‘Your staff are waiting, Matron.’
Slowly, from a hidden recess in the rock, so far back in the shadows it was impossible to see anything, a figure in dusty white began to emerge and eventually, to the tune of Sister Comfort’s gasp, Rosamund’s low whistle and Mr Glossop’s howl of betrayed rage, Matron—extremely corporeal and very alive—stood before them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
As if on cue, and shouting above the hue and cry that accompanied the revelation, Will Kelly popped his head around the door and seemed to skip the several steps down the slope into the main chamber of the morgue. Without batting an eyelid, he said, ‘Now there’s a sight for sore eyes. Alive are you, Matron? I’m sure we’ll all be very happy about that, as you will be to hear the telephone wires are working. That one in your office, Matron, has been ringing off the hook for the past five minutes. I’ve been all round the houses and here you lot are, huddled in together and on such a fine morning too.’
Glossop jumped up and took off like a rocket, shouting about his bosses and the other hospitals wanting their payrolls, daring anyone to touch the money the vicar was holding and rushed off to make his calls.
Seeing Sister Comfort’s stricken face, the pain with which she looked upon Matron, Rosamund took pity on her. She offered her arm to Sister Comfort, ‘Come along with me, will you, Sister? I imagine the Inspector has an awful lot to sort out here, we’ll only be in the way. You’ll be wanting to let the night staff know they’re allowed to pop out now.’ she looked to Alleyn, ‘That’ll be all right, Inspector? There can’t possibly be any more revelations to come, can there?’
Alleyn smiled gratefully at her, ‘None that affect Sister Comfort, Miss Farquharson, thank you so much.’
‘That’s us given our marching orders.’
She led the devastated sister away, her irrepressible spirit allowing her to throw a wink to Maurice Sanders and to turn at the door with a reminder for Alleyn, ‘And don’t you let old Glossop take all that cash back in his van, Inspector, some of that’s my winnings, remember.’
‘Of course, thank you. Now, Bix,’ he said turning to the sergeant, ‘I shall make use of the telephone myself in a moment, to speak to my own superiors, so perhaps you can take Mr Blaikie and Private Pawcett away for now. Keep them apart, will you? I’m looking forward to speaking to both of you, just as soon as I tidy up here.’
Bix enlisted Sanders to support him in taking Duncan Blaikie and Pr
ivate Pawcett away, each man to be locked in a separate office—and definitely not Matron’s. As they went Pawcett suddenly became very loquacious about how he’d been running a book for his mates, that’s all it was, just a book and Duncan Blaikie had been helping him with it. Blaikie, having told Pawcett to ‘shut the hell up’ said not a word, his jaw clamped tight shut, identifying him in Alleyn’s eyes as by far the more interesting suspect of the two.
Brayling was stationed to keep an eye on Father O’Sullivan and Matron while Alleyn took Sydney Brown aside for a moment. They spoke quietly together.
‘I imagine the local police will be here as soon as they get Mr Glossop’s call and the bridge is passable.’
‘I reckon,’ Sydney responded, his face dark, his eyes on the ground.
‘You’ll help yourself if you can explain what led you to do this, Sydney. It will be useful for certain people to know exactly what Blaikie and Pawcett were asking you to do. If you are willing to tell them everything they ask—’ Alleyn hesitated.
‘If I tell your people everything I know then they might go easier on me about passing on that message for Blaikie,’ Sydney snorted. ‘You’re trying to be kind, Inspector, and I get it, but we both know they’re not going to let me off just because I was being blackmailed over some gambling debts. I didn’t know what the message would be about, or what it meant, but I’m not an idiot. I know there’s a war on, and since the Japs came in we’ve all known there’s a hell of a lot more needs keeping secret.’ He shook his head and looked up at Alleyn, ‘Anyway, that’s not going to be much help, is it? Not once you tell the police about my grandfather.’