Stella Duffy - Money in the Morgue

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins Crime Club 2018

Copyright © Stella Duffy and the Estate of Ngaio Marsh 2018

Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Ingrid Michel/Arcangel Images and Shutterstock.com(front), Simon Bradfield/Getty images (back)

Stella Duffy and Ngaio Marsh assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008207106

Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008207120

Version: 2019-01-07

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Cast of Characters

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Acknowledgements and Author’s Note

About the Authors

The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries

Also by Stella Duffy

About the Publisher

Mount Seager Hospital and the surrounding area

At about eight o’clock on a disarmingly still midsummer evening, Mr Glossop telephoned from the Transport Office at Mount Seager Hospital to his headquarters twenty miles away across the plains. He made angry jabs with his blunt forefinger at the dial—and to its faint responsive tinkling an invisible curtain rose upon a series of events that were to be confined within the dark hours of that short summer night, bounded between dusk and dawn. So closely did these events follow the arbitrary design of a play that the temptation to represent Mr Glossop as an overture cannot be withstood.

The hospital, now almost settling down for the night, had assumed an air of enclosed and hushed activity. Lights appeared behind open windows and from the yard that ran between the hospital offices and the wards one could see the figures of nurses on night duty moving quietly about their business. Mingled with the click of the telephone dial was the sound of distant tranquil voices and, from the far end of the yard, the very occasional strains of music from a radio in the new army buildings.

The window of the Records Office stood open. Through it one looked across the yard to Wards 2 and 3, now renamed Civilian 2 and Civilian 3 since the military had taken over Wards 4–6 and remade them as Military 1, 2, and 3. Those in Military 3 were still very ill, those in Military 1, their quarantine and spirits up, were well into the restlessly bored stage of their recuperation. Each ward had a covered porch, and a short verandah at the rear linking it to the next ward. Before each verandah stood a rich barrier of climbing roses. The brief New Zealand twilight was not quite at an end but already the spendthrift fragrance of the roses approached its nightly zenith. The setting, in spite of itself, was romantic. Mr Glossop, however, was not conscious of romance. He was cross and anxious and when he spoke into the telephone his voice held overtones of resentment.

‘Glossop speaking,’ he said. ‘I’m still at Mount Seager Hospital. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times, they ought to do something about that van.’ He paused. A Lilliputian voice reaching him from a small town twenty miles away quacked industriously in the receiver. ‘I know, I know,’ said Mr Glossop resentfully, ‘and it’s my digestion that’s had to take it. Here I am with the pay-box till Gawd knows when and I don’t like it. I said I don’t like it. It’s OK, go and tell him. Go and tell the whole bloody Board. I want to know what I’m meant to do now.’

A footfall, firm and crisp, sounded on the asphalt yard. In a moment the stream of light from the office door was intercepted. The old wooden steps gave the slightest creak and in the doorway stood a short compact woman dressed in white with a veil on her head and a scarlet cape about her shoulders. Mr Glossop made restless movements with his legs and changed the colour of his voice. He smiled in a deprecating manner at the newcomer and he addressed himself to the telephone. ‘That’s right,’ he said with false heartiness. ‘Still we mustn’t grumble. Er—Matron suggests I get a tow down with the morning bus … Transport Driver … No, it’s—it’s,’ Mr Glossop swallowed, ‘it’s a lady,’ he said. The Lilliputian voice spoke at some length. ‘Well, we hope so,’ said Mr Glossop with a nervous laugh.

‘You will be quite safe, Mr Glossop,’ the woman in the doorway said. ‘Miss Warne is an experienced driver.’

Mr Glossop nodded and smirked. ‘An experienced driver,’ he echoed, ‘Matron says, an experienced driver.’

The telephone uttered a metallic enquiry. ‘How about the pay-box?’ it asked sharply.

Mr Glossop lowered his voice. ‘I’ve paid out, here,’ he said cautiously. ‘Nowhere else. I should have been at the end of the rounds by now. Tonight, I’ll watch it,’ he added fretfully.

‘Tell him,’ the Matron said tranquilly, ‘that I shall lock it in my safe.’ She came into the office and sat at one of the two desks. She was a stocky woman with watchful eyes and a compassionate mouth.

Mr Glossop finished his conversation in a hurry, hung up the receiver and got to his feet. His tremendous circumference rose above the edge of the table and was rotated to face the Matron. He passed his hand over his face, glanced at it and pulled out a handkerchief. ‘Warm,’ he said.

‘Very,’ said the Matron. ‘Nurse!’

‘Yes, Matron?’ A very small figure in a blue uniform and white cap rose from behind the second desk where she had been studiously avoiding overhearing Mr Glossop’s telephone call.