The Secret Tunnel (34 page)

“And that’s why he accused me of the murder,” said Andrews. “What better way of silencing me? He’d have me
arrested, and then something would happen and I’d die in police custody. That’s why I was moved from Peterborough so quickly. I have no doubt that I would have been next, if Sergeant Shipton hadn’t released me.”

I continued, “Dickinson found Rhys in the dark, and forced him into Taylor’s carriage, not knowing that the letters had actually been returned. Hugo and Daisy were both out for the count—”

“I came round for a moment,” said Taylor, “and I thought I saw someone moving around. I thought it was Dickinson and Joseph.”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t Joseph, was it, Dickinson? It was David Rhys. And that’s when you killed him.”

Dickinson could remain silent no longer. “This is insane! You let me go! Let me go!”

Langland kicked him hard in the gut, winding him.

“How did you do it, Dickinson? Lethal injection? That seems to be your favored method. I suppose you’d hidden all the syringes in Daisy’s luggage; she was a well-known drug user, after all. In the candlelight, it wouldn’t have been difficult to spike him. Quieter than a gun, less of a struggle than strangling him. You didn’t want to wake anyone. As soon as he lost consciousness, you concealed the body.”

“
Bien
,” said Bertrand, “and since they now have Rhys disposed, Joseph permits us to leave the
toilette
.”

“That’s what confused me,” said Simmonds. “When I let you out, the door wasn’t locked. You could have got out yourselves.”

“We came down the corridor,” I replied, “on our way to lend a hand in the third-class carriages, and that’s when we saw Daisy coming out of the compartment. Dickinson and Joseph had already made themselves scarce—figuring out a way to dispose of the body, I suppose. Is that right, Dickinson?”

Dickinson was fighting for breath and could only wheeze.

“I’ll take that as a yes. And while we were at the back of
the train, you were very busy. Somehow, you stole the passkey from Simmonds—”

“He stopped me to ask what was going on,” said Simmonds. “He could have done it then. It was dark, and I was preoccupied.”

“And then, when the coast was clear, you and Joseph dragged Rhys’s body out of the compartment and into the toilet.”

“But Mitch,” said Taylor, “that’s not possible. I would have seen them.”

“Good point,” said Morgan. “What do you say to that, Mitch?”

“Okay, okay… Let me think. They didn’t conceal the body in your compartment, Hugo. Where else could it have gone?”

“Lady Antonia’s compartment was next door,” said Simmonds. “She and Chivers were in the dining car all the time the lights were out.”

“And what better place to hide the dead body than in the compartment of the very woman who had caused you all this trouble? But you couldn’t leave it there. The lights would be coming on again soon, and it would be found. You had to put it somewhere secure. Somewhere with a lock on the door.”

“But what about the finger, Mitch?” said Morgan. “You said there was loads of blood. If he’d stuck him in the neck with a syringe, he’d be a goner. Why mutilate the body?”

“To make it look like robbery. Remember, Rhys was posing as a diamond merchant. And Dickinson needed to create a plausible motive, in order to pin the crime on Andrews. What better motive than robbery? And in order to distract our attention from the real cause of death, he cut off the finger and took the ring. Rhys still must have been alive when you did that, Dickinson, or very recently dead, in order to have bled so much.”

“You monster,” said Andrews, turning very pale. Sergeant Shipton sat him in a chair and helped him loosen his collar.

I continued, “The lights came back on, and people started moving around the train, and all the while you were locked in the lavatory with the body of David Rhys. I remember noticing that it was engaged when we went back to the dining car. We walked straight past you. I was hungry, and I was thinking about my lunch. Andrews came back in, and I smelled Dickinson’s aftershave on him. I didn’t understand it at the time—but it was the one detail that kept nagging at me. If it hadn’t been for that, I might have accepted everything at face value. Just that strange smell of lemons, where it shouldn’t have been. Oh, Dickinson, you should have been less particular in your choice of toiletries.”

“We started to move again when we were at lunch,” said Bertrand. “I remember that was when there was an accident with the fish, all over Monsieur Andrews.
Après ça
, no more Esprit de Citron.”

“Joseph must have instructed the engineer to move the train forward, so that the switch could be changed and we could reverse into the secret tunnel. There was no time to lose. Dickinson came out of the toilet and locked it with the passkey. It was only a matter of time before it was discovered—but he had to get rid of the evidence. Simmonds saw the blood and raised the alarm, and Dickinson planted the key in the champagne bucket. Why did you do that, Dickinson? I suppose you wanted us to find it. To see the body. To see your handiwork. To get the whole train in a panic, talking about murder.”

“Now I have a confession to make,” said Sergeant Langland—who, the reader may recall, was still naked. “Shortly after the train had reversed into the tunnel, I encountered Dickinson in the corridor, and he gave me a very large sum of money if I would keep this young gentleman”—he indicated
Bertrand—“occupied at the back of the train. I suppose he’d seen the way that me and the lads had been looking at him, and to tell you the truth we’d been taking bets as to whether we’d manage to fuck him before we got to London.”

Bertrand looked stunned.

“We didn’t mean you any harm, lad. We just thought you looked like you might be able to accommodate four randy Scottish soldiers.”

“
Oh, ça alors
…” said Bertrand, blushing, but he said no more.

“So Bertrand was out of the way at one end of the train,” I said, “and you had me occupied at the other, didn’t you? Very clever, Dickinson. You played on my vanity quite brilliantly. I was very excited about being the detective superintendent’s right-hand man in his investigations. You knew exactly how to play me, didn’t you? Getting me all hot under the collar. Yes, I would have done anything you told me to do. If only it hadn’t been for that damned smell of lemons. I was ready to swallow everything—quite literally. But something didn’t fit. Something made me step back at the critical moment.”

“Thank God you’ve got such a keen sense of smell, Mitch,” said Morgan, his eyes shining with admiration.

“And while everyone was busy, Joseph removed the body from the toilet, wrapped it in the carpet, and concealed it in the tunnel. As soon as it was done, he ran along to the engine, told the engineer to move on, and then reboarded the train himself, unobserved.

“And to think,” said Andrews, “while I was in the dining car telling you about how I fell in love with David Rhys, that man”—he pointed to Joseph—“was disposing of his body like a piece of meat.”

“You accused Andrews of killing Rhys, and all the while you had his blood on your hands,” I said. “God, Dickinson, what can you say to deny this?”

Dickinson said nothing and hung his head. The room was silent.

And then, suddenly, Andrews sprang to his feet, screaming. “What did you do with his finger? You bastard! What did you do with his finger!”

He would have killed Dickinson with his bare hands, but Shipton and Godwin quickly stopped him. There was a struggle, and then he went limp.

“Oh, the finger,” said Dickinson, suddenly looking up with a strange new light in his eyes—truly a glint of hell, I believe. “Can’t you guess? Come on, all of you. You must have figured that out by now.”

We looked at each other—Arthur, Bertrand, Simmonds, Taylor, the police, the soldiers, the reporters—as if someone must surely know the answer.

“Fools! Fools!” screamed Dickinson. “You will never find it!”

“
Attendez!
” said Bertrand, struggling to his feet. “I think I have the answer.”

“Yes? Go on!”

“When we were together in the carriage, Mitch—you, me and Dickinson—he use his fingers on me.”

“And me too,” said Arthur. “When I went to serve lunch in the carriage, Mr. Dickinson took certain liberties with me. The same ones. With his…fingers.”

“And when I saw you in the dressing room at the theater with Billy Vain,” I said, “you had your fingers up his ass.”

“A pattern emerges,” said Frankie. “I wish I could contribute, but…” He sighed. “He never so much as laid a finger on me. If you’ll pardon the expression.”

“Sergeant Shipton,” I said, “when you speak to the pathologist, please suggest that he inspect David Rhys’s rectum. I think he will find—”

“Mitch!” said Morgan. “For God’s sake! Spare poor Andrews the details.”

Andrews looked very green, and swallowed hard.

“Peter Dickinson,” said Shipton, getting to his feet, “I am arresting you for the murder of David Rhys.”

“I say, Mitch,” said Morgan, as Shipton and Godwin put the cuffs on Dickinson and Joseph, “you’ve played a blinder, old chap. I’m most awfully impressed.”

“I would give anything to turn the clock back, Boy. I should have done something to prevent it.”

“No good crying over spilt milk. Come on. Let’s get out of here. I get the feeling everyone is keen to—well, you know. It’s been a long day.

I looked around the room. Simmonds was embracing Bertrand, Connor was holding Scott’s hand, Frankie and Arthur were surrounded by naked soldiers, and Shipton was looking at Godwin in a way that made the young constable blush.

They led Dickinson and Joseph away, amid much shouting and swearing.

“You’ve been through the wars, old chap,” said Hugo Taylor, sitting beside William Andrews and putting an arm around his shoulder. “I don’t think you should be alone tonight.”

Andrews looked up into the famous, handsome face—the face that so closely resembled that of his dead lover that Taylor had almost been murdered in his place—and burst into tears. Taylor held him, and we left the room.

MY COCK PRESSED AGAINST MORGAN’S TIGHT PINK RING, and for the first time in two years he opened up, sighed, and let me in. He lay on his back, still looking up at me with the look of amazed admiration that he’d worn ever since that hellish night at the Rookery Club—a look that had lasted all through his daughter’s christening, and which I’d caught across the dinner table all evening. Belinda didn’t notice, or if she did, she said nothing. She busied herself with the child and went to bed early; she was still in pain from being knocked down by the car, her arm in plaster. The christening had been a trial for her, but she’d managed superbly.

Morgan and I stayed up for a while, talking over the case, finishing our brandy and cigarettes. Then we went to my bed and gave ourselves to each other.

I fucked him gently at first—I was so sickened by the violence and hatred that we’d witnessed that I couldn’t bear the idea of inflicting pain on anyone. I could not rid myself of the image of Dickinson, in cold-blooded fury, hacking the finger off Rhys’s dead body and shoving it up his ass. He
seemed, by doing so, to express his contempt for all of us—not just for men who love men, but for all who use sex not as a weapon but as a way of giving and receiving pleasure.

Gradually, however, I picked up pace, and fucked him as hard as he wanted me to. His eyes closed, his head fell back over the edge of the pillow, and I kissed him hard on his exposed throat as I pumped my load into him. He came, as he often had before, without touching himself.

We lay glued together for a while before I dismounted and lay beside him, our arms around each other’s shoulders, smoking a cigarette.

“So—back to bonnie Scotland tomorrow, Mitch.”

“Yes. Back to reality.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Morgan. But we have our own lives to lead, don’t we? Our real lives…”

“I suppose so.” He shifted around, as if trying to get comfortable, and we smoked for a while in silence, passing the cigarette back and forth.

“Do you ever wonder, Mitch, what things might have been like if they’d… You know. Turned out different.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you and I had been together.”

“Of course I do.”

He propped himself up on one arm and looked down at me, his hair falling into his eyes. “And what do you think?”

“I think it’s pointless to even dream about it, Boy. Things are the way they are. You have Belinda, I have Vince. We both have responsibilities.”

“I know we do. But I can’t help wondering…”

“Are you really prepared to throw everything away just because you like the feel of my cock up your ass?”

“It’s not just that, Mitch, and you know it. That’s a rotten thing to say.”

“So, what? You love me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Things are certainly fun when you’re around.” He sat on the side of the bed, suddenly self-conscious. “I say, I’m sure I’ve got some more fags somewhere. I’m gasping.”

“Listen to me, Boy.” I knelt behind him, pressing my hairy torso against his long, smooth, naked back. “You don’t want to throw everything away on my account. Look at the pain you’d cause to Belinda, your little girl—your family. Look at the dreadful mess that Simmonds is in, leaving his family so he can be with Bertrand.”

“But once that’s all over, they’ll have each other.”

“And look at poor Andrews. He’s got nothing.”

“I don’t know. I think he’s got Hugo Taylor.”

“For a month or two, maybe. A year at the most. Then Taylor will tire of playing that role, and he’ll move on to someone else.”

“You don’t paint a very rosy picture of your way of life, Mitch.”

“I’m just trying to spare you from unnecessary pain. I’ll always be your friend. We can always have times together, like this.” I put my arms around him and kissed his neck. “You know how much I…care for you.”