“See you then,” said Sarah.
“Oh, one more thing...”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to bring somebody with me.”
“Who?”
“John Main.”
“Simon Main’s father?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you give me an idea what this is all about?” asked Sarah.
“Later,” said Lafferty.
“Very well,” she sighed.
Lafferty called John Main at home. He let the phone ring a good long time, but there was no reply. He berated himself for not considering the possibility that Main might be out and decided to try Main’s number at half hourly intervals until it was time to go to the hospital. Main answered at half past nine.
“I tried to get you earlier,” said Lafferty.
“I went to a séance,” said Main.
“I see,” said Lafferty, wondering about Main’s state of mind and considering whether it was such a good idea after all to involve him at this stage.
“I thought I might meet someone to give me some idea how to get at these bastards,” said Main. “But it was just a bunch of housewives playing themselves. They were about as close to satanism as Mother Theresa.”
Lafferty was relieved. Main hadn’t gone to the séance in some kind of desperate attempt to contact his son, as with the Ouija board incident, but in logical pursuit of his investigation. “Can we meet?” he asked.
“Tonight?” asked Main, obviously surprised.
“It’s important. I want you to come with me to the hospital. We’re going to meet with one of the doctors there. I’ve got something to tell you both.”
“You know something about Simon?” asked Main.
“Yes,” replied Lafferty. “I do.”
Main arrived at St Xavier’s at eleven fifteen and Lafferty offered him a drink. He declined and asked what it was that Lafferty had discovered.
“I don’t want to say just yet,” replied Lafferty. “I want Dr Lasseter to hear what I have to say at the same time.”
“Can’t you give me a clue?” asked Main, betraying his frustration.
“You won’t have long to wait,” soothed Lafferty. “I said we’d be there at half past.”
Main looked at his watch and said, “We’d best get started then. Your car or mine?”
“Mine,” said Lafferty.
The hospital was quiet at that time of night and Lafferty had no trouble parking inside the gates. He left the car in an empty bay of three spaces marked, CONSULTANTS ONLY, saying to Main, “I’m sure there won’t be too many consultants abroad at this time of night.”
Sarah Lasseter had been keeping an eye open for them; she saw them as soon as they appeared at the doors to HTU and let them in. She greeted Lafferty and was introduced to John Main. Sarah was keeping her voice low and the others took their cue from her to do likewise. “In here,” she said, ushering them into the doctors’ room.
Lafferty noticed the duty nurse crane her head from where she sat at the console at the head of the ward to see what was going on but Sarah did not approach her to provide any explanation.
“Would anyone like coffee?” asked Sarah. Lafferty sensed that she was nervous. Both he and Main declined. Sarah poured herself some and sat down to face them at the table. “This is all very mysterious,” she said.
Main said to her, “If it’s any comfort it’s as much a mystery to me.” They both turned to Lafferty who was having difficulty in knowing where to begin.
“First,” he said. “I must ask for your assurance that when you’ve heard what I have to say it will go no further without all three of us agreeing?”
Sarah and Main exchanged glances before giving their assurances.
Lafferty took a deep breath and began, “Yesterday I officiated at the funeral of a young girl called Mary O’Donnell. She died here in HTU, just like Simon. She was involved in a motor cycle accident.” Lafferty looked at the floor for a moment in silence before adding, “Only I didn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sarah.
“Nor me,” said Main. “You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t really officiate at Mary’s funeral because Mary herself did not attend. She wasn’t in the coffin.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open. Main looked equally shocked.
“She wasn’t in her coffin any more than I believe your son, Simon was in his,” continued Lafferty turning to Main.
“But this is...” Main could not find words.
“Beyond belief?” asked Lafferty. “I thought so myself when the idea first occurred to me but now I’m in no doubt. Simon’s body, Mary’s body and God knows how many others, never actually made it to their funerals.”
“But what happened to them?” exclaimed Sarah.
Lafferty looked at her and said, “That’s what I was rather hoping you might be able to help with.”
“Me!” exclaimed Sarah.
“The answer must lie here in HTU. Both Simon and Mary died here,” said Lafferty.
“How do you know Mary wasn’t in her coffin?” asked Sarah.
“I looked,” replied Lafferty.
“But how can you be sure about Simon?” asked Main who had been lost in his own thoughts.
“I can’t be absolutely sure,” conceded Lafferty, “but everything points towards it when you think about it.”
He told Main how his suspicions had been aroused after the incident with the severed hand. “It was just too over the top,” said Lafferty. “Someone was too keen to have us believe in the satanist scenario. The down-and-out, McKirrop, must have given them the idea when he lied to the police and the press about that night. The only thing he saw in the cemetery was an empty coffin. That was why he was killed, to keep his mouth shut and perpetuate the devil worship theory. It’s ironic really. It’s my guess he made up the hooded men story to avoid identifying the yobs; they probably threatened him. As it turned out, this suited the real villains very well. There was no missing body for them to explain and the yobs could hardly speak the truth because no one would believe them, least of all after McKirrop’s tale. McKirrop himself must have threatened to tell the truth, and that’s what made him dangerous. They killed him, then when John got close to the tearaways and the police were called in that made them dangerous too.”
“It does make a lot of sense,” agreed Sarah.
“So what did happen to Simon’s body?” asked Main.
“I don’t know,” confessed Lafferty. “That’s what we have to find out and I think our best chance of doing that is if they, whoever they are, don’t know we suspect anything.”
“Where do we begin?” asked Sarah.
“Tell us what happens when a patient dies in HTU,” said Lafferty.
Sarah shrugged her shoulders and said, “The nursing staff prepare the body, the hospital porters are called and the body is removed to the mortuary. The relatives then instruct a firm of funeral directors and they take it from there.”
“What does that involve?” asked Main.
“The funeral directors either come and measure the body themselves or have some arrangement with the mortuary attendants to do this. They then come with the coffin, put the body in it and take it away.”
“So the funeral firm’s men actually see the body?” asked Lafferty.
“Yes,” replied Sarah. “Unless...”
“Yes?”
“Unless the patient has died from some highly contagious disease. In that case the body would be sealed in a special bag and then placed in a specially designed coffin which the director might supply but he wouldn’t necessarily be present when the body was enclosed.”
“That hardly applies in this case does it?” said Main.
“No,” agreed Sarah.
Suddenly the door of the room was opened and Derek Logan came in. Sarah stiffened.
“I’m sorry,” said Logan in a tone that said that he wasn’t. “I didn’t realise you were entertaining, Dr Lasseter. I thought you were on duty.”