‘With respect, Sir, we’ve all had a gutsful of war.’
‘I agree, Bix. Heartily.’
‘And we don’t all go and do something bloody stupid like that.’
‘We don’t, and I’m sure there are any number of psychology professors who would tell us it was something in Pawcett’s makeup or his childhood, some sadness or perversion that sent him in one direction and his two comrades in another. The law is only interested in what he did and with whom.’
‘Too right, and so it should be.’
Alleyn finished his tea and stretched out his legs, his hands behind his head. ‘You were good to bring me out of my little room, Bix, I could very easily take a nap in the sun right now, a contented cat curled up on a garden wall.’
Bix peered at the detective, his face screwed up in wonder.
‘What is it, Bix?’
‘You, Sir, last night you were all—’
‘Cold and clear?’ Alleyn asked lazily.
‘That’s it, and now you’re just—’
‘Relaxed, yes. It won’t last. I’ve learned to take my moments when I can.’ Alleyn’s mouth twisted into an amused smile, ‘Rather like Matron and the vicar.’
‘Nothing like them, Sir, they’re flamin’ daft as a brush, the pair of them.’
‘Daft? Oh yes. But misguided I think, rather than wicked. And with the money returned, their explanations given—they told your local force about the problems with their respective buildings, you understand, not their moment of youthful exuberance—I rather feel that even Mr Glossop might consider them foolish rather than criminal, however brutal it was to so upset their friends.’
‘And knocking out poor Will Kelly, don’t forget.’
‘Sadly, they will leave their posts under a cloud, without any of the fanfare both might have hoped for after a lifetime of service. A warning to us all, I feel.’
‘I can’t see you doing anything so foolhardy.’
‘No?’ Alleyn asked. ‘There are some who would consider a lack of impetuousness a shortcoming.’
‘Mrs Bix would be one of them, but not me, Sir. I like to know where I am with people. Not fond of surprises.’
Alleyn waited, Bix was not ready to finish their little chat, there was one last question bothering him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. The detective sat up and turned to the sergeant, ‘You want to ask about the murder, don’t you?’
‘Honest, I don’t mind if—you know, if you don’t want—I mean, yes. I do. How did you know? How could you know?’
‘There was a moment in the night when I asked myself two questions. What else was going on, and what was I being distracted from seeing?’
Alleyn ran his hand over his face, a cloud crossed the sun and their warm spot became cooler, his moment of relaxation was gone. Murder. It always came back to murder.
The detective bit his lip, frowned and then spoke, not looking at the sergeant, ‘It was a combination of things, as this work so often is. Not so much the words young Sydney said, but the way he said them. It was something to do with him choosing tonight to come out to the hospital, when he’d been asked to do so for weeks, and the timing of that visit coinciding with the information I’d been given. It was to do with his sudden anger and exhaustion. It was the way he was clearly so very frightened. Some assumed his fear was to do with a chariness about illness or death or hospitals, others that it was his anger manifesting as fear—anger at being left his grandfather’s land, forced into farming, forced to give up his dreams. Then there was Will Kelly talking about the rarity of people dying at the exact opportune moment. How so often they don’t die when the beloved has arrived, when the family have gathered. It is far more common that the reverse happens, many of us die alone. I know this to be true from my own experience.’
‘Mine too,’ Bix agreed. ‘We were waiting days when my old man went, then I popped out with my mum to pick her up a bit of shopping, and when we got back, he’d only gone. She gave me an earful, as if I could’ve known.’
Alleyn smiled, ‘I think all of those considerations played a part in giving me pause, reminding me to look more closely at what wasn’t shown, listen to what wasn’t said. But it was something Sydney did show, to all of us, that finally made me quite certain that old Mr Brown had not died naturally.’
‘What was that?’
‘It was the way he held onto that pillow, the whole night. We all assumed it was a comfort blanket of sorts. Here was a young man, facing his first death, it was late at night, he needed the ease of a pillow. He had fallen asleep on the floor after all, hugging to himself his grandfather’s pillow, sleeping at the foot of the old man’s empty bed. But of course that wasn’t the case. Sydney Brown held onto the pillow throughout the night because it was the murder weapon. What better way to hide a weapon than hold it to your chest for all to see?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
My dear Fox,
I write to you sitting on my metaphorical trunk, packed and ready to move on again. Everyone here has been sworn to secrecy and I am pleased to say I think we can trust them to keep their promise, all too many of them are mortified when they think of their mistakes, foolishness, and yes, actual crimes. Meanwhile, of course, the punishment that life exacts has taken its toll on the innocent as well as the guilty, as is so often the case. I haven’t time now to give you chapter and verse about each of the players, but a few details will, I know, pique your interest for the longer letter I shall send when I am settled.
Almost everyone here at Mount Seager seems to have placed trust in someone and found it misplaced or been prepared to cross a line for love or greed. Are we really such weak fellows that all we need to stray from the path of righteousness is the lure of a charming friend when we embark on wickedness? Or are my culprits just as they claim, turned bad by an accident of opportunity rather than intent? Expedience being the real evil. Whatever the case, the current impecunious nature of both hospital and church, the presence of the payroll cash, the vicar being called for the dying man, Matron having received a camel’s straw of a final demand notice, created a perfect storm of opportunity, one I witnessed despite being in situ for an entirely different case.
The darker case of the old man’s death will follow the course of the law, and there I can find no solace in thinking that chance played a great part, only that a disturbed and already alienated young man was used in a callous and brutal way, causing him to do an unforgiveable thing. Certainly I fear he will never forgive himself.
As to the wider matter, you will understand I cannot commit any of that case to paper and so your interest must remain piqued until I am able to tell you face to face. The fellows in charge of my work here in New Zealand are giving out that I have been in Auckland since my arrival, they are certain there’s more going on in the environs of Mount Seager than we have been able to uncover so far. I must say, the almost impressive refusal to give us any information at all on the part of those concerned, suggests that there is rather more going on than we guessed at, casting a wider net than we had hoped.
Now however, I have been called up to Auckland in actual fact. I shall journey by steamer to Wellington where I have some meetings in parliament to share more frankly the information I have gleaned and about certain other matters I cannot even tell you, dear old thing. Then by rail to Auckland all the way through the centre of that island. I’m rather looking forward to it, the spiral route the train takes is quite breathtaking. Of course, I shall not speak of it to anyone, those in New Zealand must believe the London detective has been in Auckland since his arrival and it is to Auckland I must go, as if I were never here. How very Puckish of me.
I remain yours, as ever,
Alleyn.
P.S.—do remind me to write to you of the porter when I can. While I am not at liberty to name him, I have no doubt you might easily conjure up the image of a cheery older man, wiry and strong, capable of drinking any amount of beer, to all hours, who—with but one mouthful of sp
irit added to his lemonade—becomes at first the perfect babbling fool and then a snoring somniac, and thus facilitates the oldest of trickster crimes, the body swap.
Alleyn blotted the notepaper and carefully folded it into the envelope, he addressed it to Fox and set it aside. He regretted that he was not able to give more detail, he knew his companion in crime would have been interested in Pawcett’s choice to align himself with traitors when he had initially joined up as enthusiastically as his friends. Fox would have been perplexed but interested in Pawcett’s certainty that the war was an awful waste and wickedness, and that any route to stop that waste was worth taking. He would have professed himself unable to give a view on the romantic entanglements of their cast, but Alleyn would have been grateful for a confidant regarding his concern for young Sydney Brown. No doubt Fox would have been far more phlegmatic about the young man’s crime and the necessity of the harsh penalty that would surely come, and Alleyn would have welcomed his certainty.
He reached for another sheet of paper, addressed it simply ‘New Zealand’, added the date, and began his second letter.
‘My dear Troy,’ he wrote.
He wanted to tell her of the caves and the glow-worms, of the light just two mornings ago, when he had thought the night would never end and yet when it did end, how the brilliance of the mountain peaks at dawn had indeed soothed the savage breast. He wanted to write of the couples he had met, how their love seemed peculiar, excessive, foolish and yet he knew in his own heart that love could be all of this and very much more. There was a great deal he wanted to say to his wife. He paused and set aside his pen. He would write from Auckland.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AUTHOR’S NOTE
When I was asked to take on the task of turning the few Marsh chapters and even fewer notes into a full novel I was both daunted and delighted. It has not, in any way, been a solo effort. David Brawn and Georgie Cauthery have been generous and supportive editors, and I am grateful to the whole team at HarperCollins for their enthusiasm throughout the process. Thank you to the Ngaio Marsh Estate for trusting us to bring this piece of work to life more than seventy years after it was abandoned. Huge thanks to the Ngaio Marsh House and Heritage Trust for their kindness to me when I visited Christchurch, especially to Margaret Sweet and Lynne Holland who took me out to the land, the river and the mountains—whenua, awa, maunga—to help me set the story, and to Bruce Harding for the very useful suggestion that I re-read Frank Sargeson’s short stories and Gordon Slatter’s A Gun In My Hand to hear again the cadences and phrases of my father and his RSA mates. I have had great support as ever, from my agent Stephanie Cabot, my wife Shelley Silas, and the Fun Palaces team. I am especially grateful to Lauren Henderson/Rebecca Chance for her hugely useful insights into an early draft. I am indebted to Margaret Lewis, both for her Ngaio Marsh biography, and her enthusiasm for this work. Aroha nui to the Facebook team of friends and family, editors and archivists, who enthusiastically answered questions about landscape, names, te reo Māori, and the phrases our parents and grandparents actually used, as opposed to the ones we remember them using.
We have chosen to use macrons for the relevant Māori words both because it is accepted usage in Aotearoa/New Zealand and also to help the non-Māori speaker understand the pronunciation of the long vowel.
And while we’re on pronunciation, the g in Ngaire—as in Ngaio—is silent.
To those of you who love Marsh and read this book with trepidation—I hope you found something to enjoy here. To those of you who love Marsh and read it with enthusiasm—thank you, you made it an easier task to take on.
And to those of you who had never read Marsh—I hope this story leads you to many more. You have treats in store.
To Dame Ngaio Marsh herself, from a medium-sized poppy to a far taller one, thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dame Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand in 1895. Along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy Sayers she was admired as one of the original ‘Queens of Crime’, best known for her 32 crime novels featuring Detective Roderick Alleyn, published between 1934 and 1982, the year she died. In 1949 she had one million copies published on a single day (the ‘Marsh Million’), a distinction she shared only with George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Agatha Christie. Many of her stories have theatrical settings, reflecting Ngaio Marsh’s real passion, and as both actress and producer she almost single-handedly revived the New Zealand public’s interest in the theatre. It was for this work that the received what she called her ‘damery’ in 1966.
Stella Duffy is an acclaimed novelist and theatremaker who has twice won a prestigious CWA Dagger for her short stories, and won Stonewall Writer of the Year twice and the inaugural Diva Literary Prize for Fiction in 2017. Born in London, she spent her childhood in New Zealand, has written 16 novels, and is the co-director of the Fun Palaces campaign for greater access to culture for all, and was awarded an OBE for Services to the Arts in 2016. Her website is www.stelladuffy.wordpress.com
THE INSPECTOR ALLEYN MYSTERIES
A Man Lay Dead
Enter a Murderer
The Nursing Home Murder
Death in Ecstasy
Vintage Murder
Artists in Crime
Death in a White Tie
Overture to Death
Death at the Bar
Surfeit of Lampreys
Death and the Dancing Footman
Colour Scheme
Died in the Wool
Final Curtain
Swing, Brother, Swing
Opening Night
Spinsters in Jeopardy
Scales of Justice
Off With His Head
Singing in the Shrouds
False Scent
Hand in Glove
Dead Water
Death at the Dolphin
Clutch of Constables
When in Rome
Tied up in Tinsel
Black As He’s Painted
Last Ditch
Grave Mistake
Photo-Finish
Light Thickens
Death on the Air and Other Stories
ALSO BY STELLA DUFFY
Singling Out the Couples
Eating Cake
Immaculate Conceit
State of Happiness
Parallel Lies
The Room of Lost Things
Theodora
The Purple Shroud
London Lies Beneath
The Hidden Room
Calendar Girl
Wavewalker
Beneath the Blonde
Fresh Flesh
Mouths of Babes
Tart Noir: An Anthology
(edited with Lauren Henderson)
About the Publisher
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United Kingdom
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United States
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Ngaio Marsh, Money in the Morgue
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