Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

It was Paul Black, all grease and smile, and he stood for a moment surveying the house party with arrogant ease.

‘Stand still,’ he said.

The appearance of the gunman had started movement in the crowd. Lin Chung had taken one quiet pace into deep shadow. Miss Mead had seen him go and immediately turned her back, taking Miss Medenham’s arm and compelling her to move with her. Phryne clung to the obverse of The Urn, out of sight. Mrs Fletcher began to scream, a high, thin wail, until she was shocked into silence by Miss Fletcher striking her across the face. She subsided into frightened sobbing. Tom Reynolds shoved to the front with Evelyn at his shoulder, presenting, Phryne thought, a magnificent target. Dingo Harry stood beside him, beard bristling with fury. Mrs Luttrell had not rushed to her husband, who had been silently released by Li Pen, but sidled close to Miss Medenham. Gerald and Jack Lucas edged together and Phryne saw their shoulders touch, though they did not look at each other. Li Pen had, like his master, faded as far as possible into the dark at the edge of the gathering. Doctor Franklin gaped, wiping a hand over his forehead as though he was running a fever, while the poet, who had presumably seen both guns and revolutionary outrages before, held both hands away from his body and tried not to catch the mechanic’s eye. Dot stiffened with offence and stared at Paul Black, elaborately not glancing in Phryne’s direction.

‘You’re all my prisoners,’ gloated Mr Black.

‘What’s the meaning of this? How dare you?’ yelled Tom Reynolds. ‘Put that gun down!’

He dived forward and Paul Black lowered the sights and fired.

There was the dreadful noise again, a stench of cordite, and Tom Reynolds fell, shoved backward by the force of the bullet. His wife leapt to his side, cradling him in her arms. The Doctor immediately dropped to his knees to examine the injury. He pulled away the shirt and revealed a bloody wound in the upper-chest and shoulder. Tom groaned.

‘That will happen again if anyone tries to attack me,’ announced Mr Black.

‘Is he dead?’ whispered Miss Medenham.

‘No, but it’s a nasty wound. One of you ladies, give me your petticoat,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Mrs Reynolds, hold him up a bit so that he doesn’t choke. Someone give me a knife. We need to get that coat off him.’

‘You pay attention to me!’ yelled the gunman, brandishing the weapon.

‘You’ve got us,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘But unless you mean to shoot us all, I will tend to my patient.’

Phryne cheered silently behind her rock. Miss Fletcher said, ‘Bounder!’ and Jack Lucas said, ‘Good show, Doctor.’

‘You, Lucas, come here,’ sneered Black, and Lucas gave Gerald a long glance. Their hands met, unseen by the house party. Jack straightened, walked to the foot of The Altar and said, ‘Yes? What do you want, my man?’ in his best born-to-rule drawl, obviously calculated to provoke working-class fury. Phryne held her breath, but Paul Black did not react except to laugh.

‘I want this party secured. There are ropes in Dingo Harry’s kit – he always has ropes. You and Gerald can begin tying everyone up. Hands behind the back and ankles together. I’ll kill anyone who struggles.’

‘No,’ said Jack Lucas, after deep thought. He looked into the pistol barrel as it came up, aimed at his head. ‘You want to use me as your instrument to control us all,’ he said calmly. ‘I can’t see that doing your bidding would keep me alive, much less the people I love. If you’re going to shoot me, you can shoot me now. I can’t stop you.’

Paul Black raised the gun and Phryne saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

‘Jack, no!’ wailed Gerald, running to his side. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ he gabbled, dragging a coil of thin rope out of Dingo Harry’s bag. ‘Just don’t hurt us.’

‘Oh, Gerry,’ mourned Jack.

‘You’ve got to live,’ said Gerald, looping a line around his friend’s wrists and tying it tight. ‘We’ve got to live.’

‘This isn’t the way,’ said Jack. Paul Black leaned down and struck him across the face with the gun. Jack staggered and fell to his knees. Gerald whimpered over him, smearing blood over the injured cheek and his own.

‘You, get up,’ ordered Mr Black. ‘Tie up the others or watch your friend die.’

Gerald took up the line and began to truss the rest of the company into bundles. When he came to Miss Mead, he whispered, ‘Don’t look at me like that, I can’t bear it.’

‘How was I looking at you?’ she asked.

‘Like I’d let you down. Don’t, please. I want us to live.’

‘So do I, young man,’ said Miss Mead, allowing him to secure her hands and feet. ‘So do we all.’

Miss Cray allowed herself to be tied. Miss Medenham and Mrs Luttrell did not struggle, though Miss Medenham whispered, ‘You wait until we get out of this, my lad, I’ll thrash you with my own hands.’ The poet submitted with a few Finno-Ugric curses, and the Major fought. He was half mad with isolation and fear and he was very strong. Gerald could not hold him and no one else came to his assistance. Major Luttrell struck Gerald with an open hand and sent him flying against the wall.

Paul Black came down from his eminence. This was the predator, the human with the heart of a beast that Li Pen the hunter had sensed. Phryne wondered how she had ever found Mr Black negligible. He was glowing with dark pleasure, as though their submission and his power fed some black strength inside him. Phryne for the first time began to feel that they were all in danger of immediate death, and to wonder if she could make it to the top of The Urn without too much noise. She had her little gun in her bag, but a shoot-out in the cave would be far too dangerous. The candles were burning down, there were no fixed torches, and a stray bullet might find any lodgement.

The Major was shouting fragments of sentences and struggling wildly. Paul Black stood above him, growling, ‘You stupid old bastard,’ and struck him across the head with the gun butt. The Major fell silent. Gerald tied him up with hands that shook so much that he could hardly form a knot.

‘Where’s Miss Fisher and the Chink?’ demanded Paul Black, who seemed to be counting.

‘They’re still in The Cathedral. They had . . . other concerns,’ said the poet quickly, and smiled a lecherous smile. ‘You know what they say about Chinese. That’s why there are so many of them.’

Mr Black grinned. Phryne gave Tadeusz a gold star for lightning acuity, doubtless polished during the riots in Paris. A sinful explanation was always convincing.

By scoring holds in the soft stone with her knife, she had managed to clamber to the top of The Urn. As she had expected, a corpse lay in the hollow centre of the stone, soaking in mineral-laden water, cradled in gemstones. A thin limestone crust had formed over Lina’s face, greying her skin and hair and the sculptural folds of her nightdress. In twenty years, Phryne thought, the body would be entirely enclosed in stone, and they would call the formation ‘Sleeping Beauty’, perhaps, or ‘L’Inconnue’, the beautiful suicide pulled out of the Seine whose placid plaster countenance graced a thousand Parisian mantelpieces.

Death, cold, or the chalky droppings had smoothed away the angry swollen bruises of Lina’s body, so that the countenance was almost peaceful. The lipped hollow looked strong, and Phryne clambered over the top and knelt next to Lina, hoping that they were both still out of sight.

‘What do you want with us?’ growled Dingo Harry.

‘You don’t know who I am,’ said Black, ‘and you won’t know. I’m going to claim my money, so that means you all have to die.’

‘If you had just wanted us dead, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,’ said Miss Medenham. He walked through the huddled shapes and straddled her like Appollyon. She glared into the dark eyes defiantly. ‘There must be more to it.’