by Ngaio Marsh
She was getting herself into an awful state and it was a welcome reprieve from her own thoughts when she heard Alleyn swear softly and remarkably forcefully under his breath, and felt him finally loosen his hold on her hand. She watched in surprise as he broke into a swift sprint. She could make out two men, fifty or so yards ahead of them. Alleyn’s eyes must be better than hers or perhaps it was her tears blurring her night vision that meant she took longer to work out who the men were. She picked up her pace and in another ten steps she saw that Sergeant Bix had his arm very firmly on Cuthbert Brayling’s shoulder and was frog-marching him towards the Transport Office. Alleyn stopped them just as they were at the steps. She wasn’t close enough to hear what was said, but when she drew level they were no longer headed to the Transport Office.
‘You go on ahead, Bix,’ said Alleyn, ‘I want a quick word with Miss Warne.’
Sarah watched Sergeant Bix march Brayling off towards the Records Office and saw that Brayling’s eyes were as downcast as hers had been, although there was something about the set of his jaw that suggested anger rather than shame.
Alleyn spoke quietly and urgently, ‘Go and take your place in the Transport Office. Tell no one that you have seen Brayling, most especially not his fellow soldiers. If anyone asks where Bix and I have gone, tell them we’re—’
He frowned, paused, looked around and his whispered instructions came to a halt. For a very brief moment Sarah thought she saw Alleyn as perhaps his wife might see him, not the shining knight who would help them all make sense of these terrible events, but an ordinary man doing his best to cope with an extraordinary situation, made all the more difficult by the fact that he was in an unknown place with unknown people.
‘How about I tell them you’re with Sergeant Bix, checking Matron’s office one more time? There’s been so much rushing back and forwards, and no time or equipment for a proper study of the safe or the office, no one will question your choice to have another look. Might that do?’
Alleyn grasped her shoulder lightly and smiled down at her, ‘Good girl. Now you go and join the rest of them, I can see you’ve pluck enough for the night ahead.’
As he strode off to join Bix and Brayling, Sarah smiled ruefully, if Alleyn had played her with his momentary look of need, then it had worked, not only had she come up with a solution but in doing so she had reminded herself of her own capability. Sarah knew herself to be both sensible and smart. Yes, she had made a stupid mistake—more than one, in truth—but she was not going to let it lay her low, there was much more to life than this awful night and she’d make Luke Hughes see that if it was the last thing she did.
It was a competent and calm Sarah Warne who stepped back into the Transport Office as Alleyn caught up with Bix and Brayling, humming softly to himself. He had had some practice in persuading young women that one or two foolish mistakes did not necessarily mean a life quite over, his next effort was likely to require rather more delicate handling.
Alleyn stepped into the Records Office, his awful sense of déjà vu undercut by the ticking of the clock on the wall. He felt his pulse race a little and checked his own watch against the clock. It was coming up for two thirty. That left them perhaps two and a half hours until twilight, and at best three hours until full daylight would not only expose the extent of the receding flood water and the damage to the bridge but, unless he could flush out the culprit or culprits who were part of the espionage chain, a far greater danger might be let loose. Alleyn had known since he took on his assignment that this night would be long and watchful, he had not expected it to be quite so busy. Aware that he was bone tired, he chose not to risk sitting down, the height advantage he held over Brayling when standing was useful. The young Māori soldier looked as strong as an ox, but Alleyn had a good head on the younger man and he knew how to use it to his advantage
He launched straight in, ‘What have you to say for yourself, Corporal?’
Alleyn’s first foray was met with a shrug and the detective had to suppress a smile as he saw Bix’s fury. It was a mix of anger that Brayling would refuse to answer a direct question from a superior and an even deeper resentment that a New Zealand soldier was showing him up.
‘Speak up, soldier,’ Bix barked, and then hurriedly nodded an apology to Alleyn when the detective brought a finger to his lips and with a nod of his head to the buildings on the other side of the yard, reminded Bix of their proximity to the wards.
‘Come on now, Corporal Brayling, you know as well as we do that it will only go harder for you if Sergeant Bix is forced to take this further. You’ve been well and truly caught in the act. It’s best all round if you come clean about the nature of that act, whatever it may be. As it stands, I have no option but to assume you know something about the theft as well as the other appalling events of this evening. Worse, that you are implicated in them.’
Alleyn spoke as sharply as he dared, he had a sense that Brayling knew rather more than he was letting on and he didn’t dare risk upsetting the young man, however much he was dying to shake him.
Sergeant Bix had no such qualms, ‘For cripes’ sake, lad, will you tell the man what you know? I’m guessing it’s something to do with your people, right? Now I don’t care if there’s a curse or what have you on whatever information you’re holding back, the Inspector needs to know what’s what and there’s no flamin’ time to lose. You know as well as I do that your whaea Ina would tell you to do as you’re told, so step to it.’
‘Fire Ina?’ Alleyn asked, confused.
‘Whaea,’ Bix spelled out the word, ‘W–H–A–E–A. It’s Māori for aunty, grandma, nana, what have you. An older woman everyone pays attention to—and,’ he scowled at Brayling, ‘everyone respects her, not just her own family. Everyone round here shuts up the minute Whaea Ina stands up to speak, she’s a proper kuia.’ He stopped and glared at Brayling who was looking at him from the corner of his eye, ‘Don’t look so surprised, Corporal. I grew up in the Bay of Plenty, we know loads of Māori up there, both the people and your lingo, and I’ve been round here long enough to get to know folk too, it’s part of my job.’ He looked back to Alleyn, ‘I tell you, Inspector, that old lady would have no truck with one of their young men holding up a police investigation, that’s for flamin’ sure.’
Alleyn watched the young soldier’s face during Bix’s diatribe and it occurred to him that Brayling wasn’t as sure as the sergeant seemed to be of this venerable older woman’s attitude. In the Māori man’s set jaw he saw a suggestion that Bix had taken his assumption too far to say she’d be on the side of the Met’s finest. He was just about to say so, to soften Brayling’s intransigence with a peace offering against Bix’s chafing, when he heard a sigh escape from Brayling’s lips. Alleyn realized that the young man was tired of holding in his secret, whatever it was. He was about to break. He heard rather than saw Bix about to start in again and put a warning hand on the sergeant’s forearm. Together they watched the transformation take place. Brayling’s shoulders relaxed, his chest heaved once, twice, he blinked his dark, watchful eyes and readied himself to tell what he knew.
‘I told my cobbers I wasn’t visiting my wife, I didn’t trust them not to let on, if they’d been, well, you know—’
‘Gambling? Drinking?’ Alleyn offered.
Brayling shrugged, ‘I can’t say, Sir. I won’t. But I just knew I might not get away with it if they knew where I was going.’
‘So you didn’t go down to the river earlier tonight?’ Bix asked, pointedly.
‘Ah yeah, I did that, tonight I did. But the other times we’ve been meeting proper, Ngaire and me. See there’s a tunnel, runs from the Bridge pub to right about under here,’ he gestured with his hand to the earth below, ‘and further on, we’ve been using it to meet.’
‘In the tunnel?’ Alleyn frowned.
‘Not in the tunnel itself. You have to go past the back of the morgue to get from the Bridge up to the hospital and I’d never get my Ngaire to meet me there, she
’d reckon it was tapu. Sacred, Sir,’ he added for Alleyn’s benefit. ‘Nah, we meet in the other direction.’
‘The other direction?’ Alleyn echoed faintly.
‘That’s right, not far beyond Military 3.’
‘The border of wild roses?’
‘Yes, Sir, the roses edge into the bush. Well, on past there, few hundred yards, there’s another entrance to the tunnel.’
‘Go on,’ Alleyn encouraged him.
‘Pākehā round here reckon it’s all been closed up with rock falls for years now.’
‘But it’s not?’
‘You’d need to know your way round, Sir,’ Brayling said, a hint of triumph in his voice, ‘and it’s easily missed, but there is a way, once you’re right inside the cave. It’s not obvious from outside, but you can find it if you know what you’re looking for.’
‘And what are we looking for, Corporal?’
‘There’s a big old tomo, Sir,’ Brayling answered Alleyn, adding a translation, ‘a deep hole right in the ground. Our people knew about it back in the old days, before the settlers built the hospital here.’
‘We don’t need to know all the history, Corporal.’
‘’Course not, Sarge,’ Brayling nodded to Bix and then continued his story for Alleyn, ‘Thing is, the mouth of that cave’s a good place to meet your girl, if you’re worried, if you want to make sure she and the baby are ok.’ He looked plaintively at Alleyn, ‘That’s all I wanted to do, Sir, make sure my girl was all right.’
Alleyn was doing his best to contain his anger, it wasn’t Brayling’s fault that he had just given them a lead they could have done with hours ago, ‘You knew about this cave, Bix?’
‘Yes, Sir, we all did, but I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s passable.’
‘Is that right, Brayling? What about the fellows you’re doing your damnedest not to get into trouble? Did they know there was a way in and out through the cave?
He shook his head, ‘No, I promise you that. And I don’t think any of that lot over at the pub do either, they only use their end of the tunnel for extra storage. The tunnel gets lower towards the cave and they’ve no need to come up this far.’
Brayling glanced to Sergeant Bix and then raised his warm, open face to Alleyn’s. It was with the barest hint of a defiant smile that he said, ‘See, that tomo’s one of our people’s old places. Whaea Ina’ll have my guts for garters when she knows I’ve told you about it, she says we’ve little enough left of our own as it is.’
After extracting a promise from Brayling that he’d take Alleyn along to the cave as soon as Bix could get back from the army offices with another pair of good torches, Alleyn strode back to the Transport Office with Brayling close at his heels. He wanted to explain that he wasn’t angry with the young Māori soldier for refusing to give up his mates, he fully understood the necessity for closing ranks, especially when they would be heading off to fight alongside each other any day now. His frustration was rather more to do with his concern that Brayling was too trusting of his friends and a sneaking suspicion that were the boot on the other foot, they’d not have been so careful of Brayling’s reputation.
Alleyn stopped and turned to Brayling, ‘I am angry with you, soldier, but not for the reasons you imagine. I can’t explain just yet, but I hope you’ll understand before the night is out.’
Brayling followed silently behind him and Alleyn let it go for now, if his misgivings were right the young man would work it out himself soon enough. They were just yards from the Transport Office when they heard the sound of crashing furniture.
‘This really is too much,’ Alleyn groaned and he raced the last few feet to the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Alleyn stood at the door to the Transport Office and the small room fell silent but for the sound of Mr Glossop trying desperately to extricate himself from the far corner where he had crammed himself as far behind the desk as his ample flesh would allow and appeared to be using an intricately detailed foolscap sheaf of time logs as an ineffectual shield. To the right of Mr Glossop sat Father O’Sullivan, apparently deep in contemplation, oblivious to the brawl before him. In the centre of the crowded room Private Maurice Sanders was struggling to his knees. He looked up at the detective revealing a cut lip, while Dr Luke Hughes stood glaring over Sanders, as if daring him to rise from the floor. Alleyn noticed the doctor was nursing the grazed knuckles that had no doubt done the damage to Sanders’s face. Sydney Brown looked on moodily as if the insanity of the room was exactly what he’d come to expect from these people. Against the nearside wall, Rosamund Farquharson sat bolt upright on the divan, her feet lifted from the ground and curled beneath her as if Alleyn had caught her in the act of squeamishly sighting a mouse rather than elegantly lifting her legs to allow the two young men to get on and fight. Alleyn deduced that Miss Farquharson must be in a state of shock if her uncharacteristic silence was anything to go by. Sarah Warne stood opposite Rosamund, the fighting men between them, her hands covering her face and Alleyn had a sneaking suspicion that it was hysteria rather than tears that she was hiding. When an ashen-faced Sister Comfort emerged from behind the door, and Alleyn realized he only just failed to hit her when he’d flung it open, he took a deep breath and very carefully stepped into the office, closing the door behind him.
He asked with biting calm, ‘I wonder, is there anyone present who recalls that there is a war on? That there are matters of great pith and moment happening beyond this little room? Is there one of you who recalls that the petty squabbles, frustrations, insults and—yes, Mr Glossop, thefts—upsetting you all so much pale into insignificance when put alongside the very serious matters that have occurred in the past hours?’
A flurry of explanations and accusations followed, all of them talking at once, until Alleyn held up his hands for silence, ‘Sister Comfort, you appear to be the least excited person here, will you please accompany me outside so we can get to the bottom of this and return to the matter in hand?’
Alleyn offered around the office a fierce glare demanding silence and compliance, and then opened the door for the senior nurse.
Outside in the slightly cooler night, Sister Comfort explained what she understood to have happened, ‘Pawcett and Sanders have been bickering on and off all night, they’ve tried to keep it hidden, but I’m fairly certain—’
Alleyn interrupted her, nodding his head towards the Transport Office door, ‘Just what you saw for now, Sister, thank you.’
She frowned, understanding that Alleyn was right, of course they’d all be listening, she lowered her voice and continued her explanation.
‘Sanders and Pawcett have been acting the lad, mates together, but there was something off between them.’
‘How?’
The Sister frowned again and bit her lip with her snaggle-tooth, ‘It was the tone, Inspector. Not their words as such, but they were short with each other, brusque.’
‘Go on.’
‘So this was on one side of the office, but then Sanders and Miss Farquharson started up as well. Private Sanders practically accused Miss Farquharson of stealing her own money so as not to have to pay off her debts. Well, once he’d said that, young Dr Hughes launched in to defend her honour, at which point Rosamund turned on the doctor himself.’ She leaned in to Alleyn, peering at him over the rim of her spectacles, ‘Sometimes these young ladies find that the hot water they were so keen to jump into isn’t quite as welcoming once they’re in, if you get my drift.’
‘I do,’ Alleyn remarked shortly, ‘Please, go on.’
‘Rather predictably, Miss Warne then leapt to the doctor’s defence—how these girls think we don’t know what’s going on, I have no idea, I think they believe we were none of us young once.’
‘That’s a prerogative of the young, Sister. I’ve no doubt we were the same.’
‘Not I,’ she replied starchily and Alleyn fully believed her, ‘I always had the greatest of respect for my elders. Regardless, Miss War
ne’s intervention prompted an altercation between the two young women. Whispered rather than shouted, Inspector. Hissed, you might say.’
‘And then?’ Alleyn asked.
‘The entire unseemly farrago escalated into a broader fuss between Dr Hughes and Private Sanders and then grew still more frantic when that absurd Mr Glossop launched himself at the two soldiers demanding they pay attention to his concerns, instead of their love interests.’
‘Go on.’
‘You can imagine, neither of the young ladies were very pleased at that. It’s been my observation that young women nowadays are happy to conduct their clandestine affairs with blatant indiscretion, just so long as no one ever appears to notice.’
‘This forced people to notice?’
‘It certainly did. I rather suspect it was this upset, real or enacted, that led to punches being thrown and the resulting bother. With no bucket of water to throw over the foolish lot of them, I retired to the safety of the corner closest to the door.’
Alleyn suppressed a smile, ‘Perfectly understandable.’
Sister Comfort leaned her veiled head still closer to the detective, ‘But isn’t there more we ought to do?’
Alleyn held up a hand and nodded in the direction of the army offices. Sister Comfort looked down the long yard to see Sergeant Bix running towards them at a speed that belied his solid frame.