The Secret Tunnel (12 page)

“It must be a knife, sir,” said the steward. “Allow me.”

I stopped him. There was a metal object poking out by Bertrand’s shoe, black and silver and shiny. I picked it up.

A key.

I ran back to the corridor, where Simmonds stood guarding the lavatory. The bloodstain was even bigger and steamed slightly in the cold air. I held up the key.

“Where the hell was that?” Simmonds asked.

“In there.”

“You found it?”

“You could say that.”

“Who had it?”

“Does it matter, Simmonds? For God’s sake, open the door.”

He covered his eyes, grabbed the key, and jiggled it in the lock until it turned.

Rhys lay on the floor, his feet resting awkwardly on the toilet lid, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, mouth distorted and eyes open. His left hand, which was reaching toward us, fell forward slightly as I opened the door, and a wave of blood gushed out into the passage.

The ring finger was missing. It was from this fresh, glistening wound that the blood had seeped out under the door.

The stump was still bleeding, as if the heart was still pumping, but David Rhys, the diamond merchant, was dead. And the ring that had caused so much discreet admiration and excitement was gone, as well as the finger that had worn it—severed, I guessed, with a knife that was not exactly of surgical sharpness. The cut was ragged, and the bone had been broken, rather than cut or sawn, as we would do in an operating room.

Simmonds retched.

“Put your head out the window for a moment, Simmonds. Breathe deeply.”

We had stopped again—back in the tunnel, the wretched black tunnel, where the air was far from fresh—but I really did not want Simmonds vomiting on the scene of the crime. It was already quite messy enough.

He didn’t puke, thank God, but when he pulled his head back into the carriage he looked ghastly. His knees were buckling, and I thought he was about to faint.

“I’ve never seen… Oh, God… A dead man…”

“Pull yourself together. This is an emergency. We have to get help.”

“Help… Yes… Help.”

“Stay there. Don’t move. Don’t look at the…body.”

“The body…”

“Just so. Look out the window. Say your prayers. Think of your mother. Anything. Just don’t go away, and don’t let anyone near the—”

Simmonds groaned and stared at his reflection in the darkened window.

I ran back and banged on the door of the dining car.

“Bertrand! Come here!”

“What is it?”

“Come quickly. It’s fine, everyone, nothing to see. The conductor is unwell, that’s all. Everyone here okay? Good, good. Come on, Bertrand.”

I grabbed him and dragged him through the door. He was complaining, as usual.

“Why should I worry about that pig of a conductor? He is nothing to me. He is—oh,
mon dieu
.”

He had seen the blood on the carpet, the horror-stricken face of Simmonds, and guessed the rest. “Someone is dead,
oui
?”

“Exactly so. Now stay with Mr. Simmonds and make sure that nobody touches anything. I’ll be right back.”

I hoped my instincts were right, and that I could count on Bertrand in a crisis. He had taken to fucking well enough; would he excel in that other sphere of interest, the investigation of crime?

Dickinson was just coming out of the movie stars’ compartment. He was still frowning; presumably Miss Athenasy was causing more trouble. I did not envy him his job, however glamorous.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’m sick to death of that mad bitch. God, whatever did the old man see in her? She’s as thick as two short planks. Come on, why don’t you and I go and make whoopee somewhere.”

“Something’s happened.”

“You’re telling me. This whole journey is a fucking disaster.”

“No. Listen. Something serious. Someone’s dead.”

“What? Dead? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come and see.”

“You’re seriously telling me that there is a dead body on this train?” He looked amused; he was almost laughing.

“I am. What’s so funny, Dickinson?”

“It’s incredible.”

“Well, you’d better believe it. I’m telling you that there is a dead man in the first-class bathroom—”

“And I have something to tell you that you may find equally hard to believe.”

What was he going to confess? That Daisy Athenasy, in a drug-crazed frenzy, had murdered poor David Rhys just to get her hands on that big sparkler?

“And what is that?”

“I’m a policeman.”

 

Dickinson assumed control with extraordinary speed and efficiency. He dispatched Simmonds to the conductor’s car, there to recover with a brandy and a cigarette, and sent Bertrand down the train to prevent any approach from that direction. He tore up the ruined carpet, rolled it up, and stashed it in the bathroom with the body, then locked them away with the conductor’s key, which Simmonds had left in the lock.

“And now,” he said, joining me in the dining car, coolly wiping his bloodstained hands on a napkin, “we must do our best to find out what has happened. Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your carriages. There has been a terrible accident, and until we have taken stock of the situation I need to know exactly where everyone is.”

“By what authority, might one ask?” said Lady Antonia, looking at Dickinson through her eyeglasses.

“By the authority, madam, of the Metropolitan Police Service, in which I am a detective superintendent.” He fished in his jacket pocket. “Here is my warrant card.” He waved it under her nose; she waved it away.

“I do not need to see it. I have every respect for the forces of law and order. You may carry on with your work as you see fit.”

“Thank you so much, Lady Antonia. That’s very good of you. Now, if you would not mind returning to your carriage…”

“Yes,” she said, rising to her feet, “come along everyone. You heard what the superintendent said. Now then, young ladies. Let’s look lively.”

She took charge rather splendidly, and within moments an orderly line was making its way down the train, dispersing through the carriage doors. They passed the fatal lavatory without a murmur; there was nothing to betray its gruesome cargo.

Dickinson and I remained in the dining car. The steward flitted in and out of the kitchen.

“The time is two-fifteen P.M.,” Dickinson observed. “How long has Rhys been dead, Dr. Mitchell?”

“The wound was still bleeding when we discovered it. I estimate that he was killed this side of one-thirty.”

“In that case, we must ascertain everyone’s whereabouts at the time of the attack.”

“We were here, with Lady Antonia and her companion, Chivers. No. Wait. She had been sent down the train to take care of the luggage.”

“Ah, when was that?”

“Just after we—oh, come on, Dickinson. You’re not seriously suggesting that someone like Chivers—”

“I’m suggesting nothing at this stage, Mitch. I am simply trying to put together the pieces of the jigsaw.”

“Okay. First of all we need to write down what happened,
and approximately when. We left Edinburgh at ten o’clock.”

Dickinson handed me a pencil, and I wrote on the back of a menu.

“Then we stopped at York station…”

“Yes,” said Dickinson, rubbing his crotch, “just as I was preparing to give your little friend the fucking of a lifetime.” He put a hand on my knee. “When was that, would you say?”

This was no time for fooling around, I thought. “Well, what time would you say that was?”

“I wasn’t looking at my watch, Mitch.” His hand ran up my leg.

“And we were there for maybe twenty minutes,” I said, shifting my position to dislodge his hand. “I was talking to the soldiers for a while, then Bertrand saw something in the shed—”

Dickinson was not interested in details. “Twenty minutes, as you say. Write that down.”

I must have been staring at him, for he suddenly stopped speaking and held my gaze.

“What is it, Mitch?” His hand went to his crotch. “Want some of this?”

“No,” I lied. “It’s just occurred to me that I know nothing at all about you. Who are you? Why are you on this train? What is your position with Daisy and Hugo?”

“I see. You begin to suspect me. Good. That’s exactly how it should be.”

“Well?”

“I am, as my warrant card suggests, Detective Superintendent Peter Dickinson of Scotland Yard.”

“And that other card? British-American Pictures?”

“That, my dear Mitch, is what’s known as working undercover.”

“Why?”

“Can I trust you?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I can. I mean, I know enough about you to put you behind bars for a few years, don’t I? So you wouldn’t want to piss me off, would you?”

“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.” He was still rubbing his crotch, and the outline of his cock was quite visible through his pants. “But then again,” I said, “that’s a two-way street, isn’t it? I don’t imagine that our sort of person is exactly welcome in the Metropolitan Police Service.”

“Not officially, no. Although I could tell you a few tales about the young recruits, the kind of training we put them through… You’d enjoy it, Mitch. I could show you if you like.”

“I don’t think this is the time or the place.”

“Good. Well done. You’ll make a good detective. I can trust you to keep your head in a tight spot, and not be distracted by—” He ran his fingers down the considerable length of his hard cock, which was straining at the fabric of his pants. “This.”

In truth, I would have liked nothing better than to kneel before him and start sucking him off, and had it not been for the occasional presence of the steward, I might have done so.

“So, you want to know why I’m on this train in the first place, I suppose,” he said.

“I do.”

“I’m investigating a drug smuggling operation.”

“Ah,” I said. “Daisy Athenasy.”

“Precisely.”

“So she’s bringing the stuff in—”

“Her? Don’t be ridiculous. Daisy is one of those rare, delightful creatures who really is as stupid as she looks. What little intelligence she may once have had was used up
on snaring and marrying Herbert Waits. No: Daisy is just a cover. But if you take a look inside her trunks, in among the swansdown and the sequins you will find a very large quantity of heroin.”

“Good God. Who put it there?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Not Hugo Taylor, surely.”

“You wouldn’t think so, would you? The clean-cut hero, every mother’s son. But Hugo Taylor has his own secrets. Maybe his hands are tied.”

“Blackmail?”

“It’s possible. Scotland Yard has a file on him this thick. But we don’t act against him; what would be the point? Another career ruined, thousands of weeping fans, a lot of pointless prison sentences. I’d prefer to be out there catching the real villains. What does it matter to me whether Hugo Taylor fucks a few pretty chorus boys?”

“That’s a very enlightened view.”

“I’m a very enlightened man. As you shall find out, if we ever get to London and anywhere near a hotel room.”

“You surely don’t suspect Francis Laking?”

“Oh, I do.”

“Good grief. And what about Joseph?”

“The muscle man? Yes, it’s entirely possible. Although I think his main job is to keep Miss Athenasy quiet.”

“By fucking her.”

“Yes. And I believe she is absolutely addicted to cocksucking. You’d be surprised where those famous bee-stung lips have been.”

“So why David Rhys? What’s he got to do with anything? A diamond merchant—and a very successful one, by the look of things.”

“All that glitters is not gold—often have you heard that told.”

“You mean the diamonds were fake?”

“Come on, Mitch. Who travels by rail wearing thousands of pounds’ worth of diamond on his finger? Advertising his wealth in that way? Asking to be robbed?”

“You think this was a robbery?”

“No. I think the diamonds were a cover, and a bad cover at that. Rhys was no more a diamond merchant than I am. I suspect—and I intend to prove—that he was the ringleader of the smugglers.”

“I saw him in the bathroom with that man—Andrews.”

“When?”

“I can’t remember… Let me get this straight.” I referred to my notes. “We left York—”

“Just after I had finally got rid of those two reporters.”

“Ah, so that’s where you were. And they really were reporters, were they? Not assassins, or spies?”

Dickinson arched an eyebrow and smiled. “Oh, yes, they were reporters. And I’m afraid they were in very grave danger of ruining the whole operation with their childish curiosity.”

“On the scent of a juicy scandal, I suppose.”

“Yes—but on the wrong scent. The papers think they’re clever if they catch Daisy and Hugo traveling in a private carriage together—as if they’re carrying on some outrageous affair under the nose of her poor husband. Well, believe me, if that was the case everyone, not least Herbert Waits, would be relieved and delighted. It would mean that Hugo Taylor wasn’t picking up rough trade in East End pubs, it would mean that Daisy Athenasy wasn’t taking dope and sucking off her Albanian bodyguard, it would be a rather wholesome situation rather than the disgusting mess that we are currently in.”

“So you threw them off the train at York. Is that why we stopped?”

“No. I couldn’t have made the train stop without blowing my cover. But it was convenient. It was preferable to
tying them up in the conductor’s car, which is what I was intending to do.”

“I didn’t see them get off.”

“You weren’t meant to. And as I recall, your attentions were elsewhere. On your little friend’s bum, to be precise.”