The Secret Tunnel (30 page)

“Morgan, thank God.”

“Mitch!” He looked up at me, this time with real concern on his face. “Oh no—”

“What is it?”

His eyes widened, and his mouth worked, but no words came out.

“Shit, Boy, have they got Belinda?” I came closer, put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the matter? You must tell me? What is it?”

And then, stepping from behind the curtains like the bogeyman in a child’s nightmare, came Joseph. He was holding a gun, and the gun was trained on Morgan’s temple.

“Ah, Mr. Mitchell.” Joseph’s dark face was illuminated by a truly diabolical light, and I half expected to see cloven feet, rather than the heavy boots that composed his entire wardrobe. “You will follow me.”

“I’m sorry, Mitch,” said Morgan. “He overpowered me.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m—”

“No talking!” snapped Joseph, pushing Morgan toward the final set of stairs that led to the basement. “You come with us, or it will be bad for your friend.”

I complied. Joseph ushered us both downstairs, the gun at our backs.

The basement was damp and filthy. Crates of wine and spirits were stacked against walls black with age-old dirt and mold. Candles burned on crude sconces in the wall, casting mad shadows as they flickered in drafts from unseen sources. It was the sort of setting I often dreamed about for the climax to some longed-for mystery, complete with brooding villain. But now, in reality, it was less appealing—even given the fact that my villain was handsome, hairy, and naked. I just wanted to run—out of the cellar, out of the house, out of London, away from all this danger and cruelty and death…

Joseph waved us into a corner with his gun. We stood together, Morgan and I, both shaking with fear. His hand found mine, and we clasped each other for comfort. If we were going to die, at least we would die together.

Time seemed to stop. The basement was silent except for the occasional drip of water, the fizz of the candle wicks, and our breathing. There was the faintest rumble of traffic from the street above. Any second now I expected the calm to be shattered by the crack of a gunshot. Which of us would die first?

Joseph stood there, the gun in his left hand, his cock in the other, idly playing with himself. The power pleased him; he was at least half hard.

“Two little boys,” he said. “Two nasty interfering little queers.”

“I say,” said Morgan, “that’s not on.”

“Shut up!” Joseph stepped toward us, waving the gun in Morgan’s face. His cock was getting harder; this was clearly much more to his taste than screwing Daisy Athenasy, or acting as Dickinson’s paid thug. Joseph craved power in his
own right, and that might buy us time. For what? I didn’t know, but every second of life seemed precious.

“Please, sir,” I said, thinking to play to his vanity, “don’t kill us. We’ll do anything.”

“I know what you queers like,” he said, stepping back and waving his hips around, so that his huge cock swung from side to side, making a huge black shadow on the floor. “It’s this, isn’t it?”

I felt this was stating the obvious, but this was no time for smart remarks.

“Oooh, yes, sir,” I said, licking my lips. “Let me taste it.”

Morgan was stealing sidelong glances at me, obviously thinking that terror had made me flip my lid. I reassured him with a squeeze of the hand.

“You want my big cock, boy?”

I’d heard these lines before, usually from men trying desperately hard to convince themselves that they are really normal, and that their “use” of queers doesn’t make them queer themselves. It disgusts me, in the normal course of events—but now it seemed to offer some hope.

“Please,” I said.

“You want to suck it? You want to put your lips around it?”

“Oh, yes.”

This was having the desired effect, as Joseph was now paying more attention to his cock and less to his gun. Perhaps the blood that was flooding into his dick, bringing it to full erection, was starving his brain of oxygen. Whatever the reasons, he had been effectively sidetracked. I got to my knees and opened my mouth. Morgan, thank God, had understood the plan, and joined me on the filthy floor.

We started kissing Joseph’s huge club of a dick, licking his balls, taking him into our mouths in turn, generally behaving like a couple of dogs who are pleased to see their master. Joseph stood there, his feet planted a yard apart, and
accepted our adoration as his due. Every so often he would run the gun over our heads, or around our mouths; I prayed to God that the safety catch was on, or this was going to be one hell of a messy blow job.

Every so often, my tongue made contact with Morgan’s, and we stole a few kisses. They might be our last…

A splintering crash, a vertical pillar of light, a flurry of movement, and the thud of feet on the dirt floor. Joseph spun around on the balls of his feet, waving the gun wildly at a figure crouching on the ground—it sprang up, and a leg shot out and knocked the gun from Joseph’s hand, sending it spinning across the floor to land in a filthy puddle. Joseph yelped with pain and surprise. There was no time to lose. Morgan and I rushed him from behind, leaped at his back, and fell headlong in the muck, with Joseph struggling beneath us.

Who was our deliverer?

Sergeant Langland, of course. Through what appeared to be a hole in the cellar roof but was actually a hatchway, a rope was lowered, and three more men dropped nimbly to the ground. All of them, including Langland, were still naked.

“Leave him to me, Mitch.”

We climbed off Joseph’s back, and he struggled to his feet, only to be met with another swift kick, this time to his chest. He collapsed, winded, and sat on his ass fighting for breath. The soldiers quickly had him bound. His naked body was covered in mud and grime. Langland picked up the gun and emptied the chambers, scattering the bullets into the dark corners of the cellar. Lacking a sporran, or any handy pouch in which to store the gun, he handed it to me.

“What next, boss?”

My usual answer to this question, when asked by a naked soldier with three naked subordinates leading a bound naked man, would be nonverbal. But the occasion called for action of a different nature.

“Upstairs, I think. It’s time to turn the tables on Superintendent Dickinson and the whole gang.”

“Have you cracked it, old chap?” asked Morgan, his face still wet from where he had been slobbering (rather enthusiastically, I thought) over Joseph’s cock. “Are you going to call the villains to account, and all that?”

I wished I had the confidence in my outlandish theories to say “Yes” with more conviction. In reality, I was improvising wildly, hoping that my tissue of guesswork and suspicion would mesh into a net to catch a killer. Yes, my metaphors were as muddled as my reasoning.

“Follow me,” I said, beckoning with the gun. “Langland, Morgan, upstairs. The rest of you, round up anyone else who’s still at large and lock ’em in with the others. We’ll call them as we need them.”

McDonald, Ken, and the redhead disappeared as soon as we reached ground level on swift, silent feet. I led the way to the top of the house, followed by Langland, leading Joseph by his bound wrists, with Morgan bringing up the rear. The time had come to confront Dickinson—if he was still alive.

 

He was just as we’d left him, his powerful legs strapped to the couch, his arms bound and held upward. I checked for vital signs: he was alive, drowsily conscious, and very cold. I took his pulse. It was sluggish, but steady. Whatever was in that syringe was not lethal, thank God. I did not want a death on my conscience.

“Well, well,” he said, in a feeble, cracked voice, “how things change.”

“You’ve got some questions to answer, Dickinson,” I said.

He laughed. “Do you have any idea of the trouble you’re in? Assaulting a police officer is a serious business—”

“Shut up and listen, Dickinson. We know all about you.”

Morgan’s eyebrows shot up, and he was about to speak, but I silenced him with a look.

“Oh, dear. I’m frightened,” said Dickinson, sounding anything but. “And who is this I see? Sergeant Langland, unless I’m much mistaken. Has he changed sides, Mitch? That must have been expensive.”

Langland would have struck Dickinson across the face, but I stepped between them.

“My hero,” said Dickinson, the sarcasm in his voice rather undermined by a violent coughing fit. His breath rattled; he had some congestion of the lungs. I’d felt that way myself when I woke. I suspected that he’d used some form of chloroform in that syringe—a dangerous form of anesthetic even in trained hands. Frankie, who had plunged the needle into Dickinson’s neck, was not only untrained, but furious. Nobody wants a furious anesthetist.

“So now you’ve got me where you wanted me all along, Mitchell,” said Dickinson when he’d recovered sufficiently. “What are you going to do first? Suck my cock? Eat my arse? Fuck me?” He thrust his groin in the air, and indeed it was an appetizing prospect. But I had a different sort of probing in mind.

“I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on earth, Dickinson,” I lied. “I just want some answers.”

“Fuck off.”

“Why did you kill David Rhys?”

Dickinson laughed. “Me? For Christ’s sake, you’re not going to try and pin that on me. What’s the matter? Trying to protect Andrews? That slag’s been riding for a fall for a long time. He had it coming.”

“Shut the fuck up!” barked Langland, smacking Dickinson around the head. “Answer!”

“I see, it’s the old good cop, bad cop act, is it? I’m familiar with the routine,” said Dickinson.

“I’m sure you are,” I said. “But there’s a big difference
here. We don’t have to play by the rules. As it is, I’m finding it very hard to prevent Sergeant Langland here from killing you. Don’t piss him off any further.”

“Langland’s a mercenary, a fucking gun for hire—”

Crack! Langland smacked Dickinson hard around the head with the flat of his hand. He coughed again, and lapsed into silence.

“Now, I’ll ask you again. Why did you kill David Rhys?”

“I did not kill David Rhys.”

“Why did you try to kill Hugo Taylor?”

“I did not try to kill Hugo Taylor.”

This was getting us nowhere. I tried a different tack.

“When did you start working for the British Fascists?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Langland drew back his arm to hit him again.

“That’s enough, sergeant. Let’s not sink to his level. Tell me, Dickinson, how did you find out about British-American?”

“Herbert Waits is a fool.”

“Ah, at last we’re getting somewhere. And I agree with you. He’s a fool, and he’s made himself vulnerable. Is that where you saw your chance?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You wanted to get to Hugo Taylor, on the orders of the British Fascist Party. They would pay you a great deal of money to rid Prince George of his undesirable connections.”

“This is a fairy story.”

“And so you found a way into British-American by blackmailing Waits.”

“No comment.”

“And then you saw a chance to get Daisy Athenasy out of the way, off the payroll, so that Waits would be even more in your power.”

“You read too many books, Mr. Mitchell.”

He had a point; I was making this up as I went along, basing my claims on the kinds of things that happened in detective fiction. Well, if Miss Marple could draw her conclusions from her observations of village life, why shouldn’t I base my method on an equally implausible source?

I paced the floor, stroking my chin.

“So you had two sources of income, and you played one off against the other. Very convenient, very clever. With Hugo Taylor at the center, a member of the royal family on one side, a drug-addicted movie star on the other… Nobody wanted any of that to come to light, did they? And you made a very healthy profit. Tell me, Dickinson, what do they pay a detective superintendent in the Metropolitan Police? Isn’t it enough for you? Do you have such expensive tastes? What do you need the money for? Are you being blackmailed?”

That struck a nerve. “Shut the fuck up, Mitchell.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. I wonder what for? I imagine you’re capable of almost any crime. I’m sure it will all come to light in due course.”

“Any minute now,” said Dickinson, “my men will be swarming through this house. And then you and your friends are in big trouble.”

It was my turn to be sarcastic. “Are the police in the habit of going to orgies?”

He shut his eyes and seemed suddenly tired. Perhaps the chloroform had not quite worn off.

There was a knock at the door, and McDonald stepped inside—still naked, I was pleased to see. He saluted.

“What is it, McDonald?”

“There’s a man outside, Sarge, says he needs to talk to Mr. Mitchell here.”

“What’s his name.”

“Thomas Simmonds.”

Simmonds! At last! Just as I was running out of theories, here, I hoped, were reinforcements.

“Send him in,” said Langland.

Simmonds stepped into the room. “Mitch, thank God.” He saw Bertrand lying in the corner, wrapped in blankets, and stepped toward him.

“He’s okay. Let him rest. I’ll tell you everything later. Now—what news?”

“They’ve opened the tunnel.”

At these words, Dickinson’s eyes snapped open.

“And what did they find?”

“I don’t know yet. Arthur is on his way to London now. I told him to come here.”

“And what do you expect to find in there, Mitch?” asked Dickinson. “All the evidence you want, neatly laid out and labeled? We backed into the side tunnel to avoid accidents. That’s all.”

“Is this the bastard who kidnapped Bertrand?” said Simmonds, stepping toward the couch to which Dickinson was strapped. “Just wait till I—”