On the way back, Lafferty was stopped by one of his parishioners who seemed bent on telling him every detail of her medical history over the past five years. Lafferty made appropriate tutting and clucking noises at what he hoped were the right intervals but feared that his impatience might be showing. “It’s not an easy life you’ve had, Thelma,” he said to the small, fat woman standing before him, “but you’ve a loving family and a God that cares about you. See you on Sunday?”
“Yes, Father,” replied the woman, taken unawares as Lafferty sneaked off.
Lafferty ran his finger down the DEATHS column and stopped at Keegan.
“Tragically as the result of an accident, Martin John Keegan, beloved only son of James and Edwina Keegan. Funeral at Mortonhall Cemetery 11am on Thursday 18th. Flowers to Harkness and Glennie, Causewayside Lane.
Lafferty checked Yellow Pages and saw that Harkness and Glennie advertised twenty-four hour manning of their office. He would go there in person and ask about the Keegan boy’s body. First he would phone Main and let him know what was going on.
“Well done,” said Main when Lafferty told him. “It must be how they are doing it.”
“I think so,” agreed Lafferty. “If we can just show that the Keegan boy’s body has gone missing we can call in the police and give them all our information.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Main.
Lafferty told him of his intended visit to the undertakers.
“Do you want me to come?” asked Main.
“Better if I go alone I think,” said Lafferty. “Priests have an obvious connection with death. It’ll arouse less suspicion if I go on my own.”
“As you wish. I’ll be waiting to hear what happens.”
Sarah went on duty at six. She had left it as late as possible in order to minimise contact with Derek Logan. In the event, he was nowhere to be seen when she entered HTU and looked into the duty room. “Good evening, Staff,” she said to the nurse sitting there. “What’s cooking?”
“Dr Tyndall is having words with Dr Logan,” replied the nurse, as if she was imparting a secret. “They’ve been going at it hammer and tongs for the past ten minutes.” The nurse held her finger to her lips and Sarah listened. She could hear raised voices coming from Tyndall’s office. She shrugged her shoulders round her ears in order to empathise with the nurse. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” replied the nurse. “Dr Logan suddenly appeared and walked into Dr Tyndall’s office without as much as a by-your-leave.”
Sarah made a face. She was about to say something else when the arguing voices grew suddenly louder. Both she and the staff nurse pretended to be otherwise occupied as Tyndall’s door opened and Logan emerged.
“You haven’t heard the last of this!” Logan was saying, his face red with anger.
He saw Sarah standing there as he shut Tyndall’s door, gave her a thunderous look that made the back of her neck tingle, and left.
“Something you said?” whispered the staff nurse who’d noticed.
“Must have been,” said Sarah. Her throat was tight.
Twenty minutes later, as Sarah was checking the patient in Beta 4, Murdoch Tyndall came in and stood opposite her. He seemed unruffled by whatever had passed between him and Logan. Sarah thought it the mark of a gentleman.
“I spoke to my brother about your request. He suggests you pop up tomorrow in your off-duty if that’s convenient?”
“Perfectly,” said Sarah.
Tyndall handed her a piece of paper with a telephone number on it. “That’s his personal extension. He asks that you call him before going up.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Sarah. “I’m most grateful.”
Tyndall smiled and turned on his heel. He made a point of saying, good night to the nurses and left.
When she had a moment, Sarah called Lafferty, but he was out.
It was shortly after seven thirty when Lafferty found the premises of Harkness and Glennie, a double shop-front with curtains in the window, half way along a narrow lane and facing due north. The paintwork of the premises was a respectful combination of grey and black. The door was locked but Lafferty could see that there was a light on somewhere inside. There was a brass bell on the wall. He pressed it and heard it ring. A shuffling of feet was followed by the undoing of locks and the door opened a fraction.
“Yes?” asked the unseen male voice through the crack.
“I’m Father Lafferty from St Xavier’s. I wonder if I might have a word?”
Lafferty heard a chain being undone and the door opened to reveal a small man in pinstripe trousers and shirt-sleeves. “You can’t be too careful these days, Father,” he said as he indicated that Lafferty should enter.
“I suppose not,” said Lafferty as he waited for the man to secure the door again. What was anyone going to steal from here, he wondered.
“This way,” said the man. He led the way through to the back of the premises and into a small room which had a television on in the corner. A few chairs, a small table with a teapot and a half empty milk bottle standing on it and two or three newspapers lying around suggested that this was the staff room. The man turned the television off and put his jacket on. “Now Father, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“It’s about the Keegan boy,” said Lafferty.
“A tragedy,” said the man, shaking his head. “Eighteen years old.”
“Quite so,” agreed Lafferty. “Is the lad in your Chapel of Rest?”
“No Father, he isn’t.”
“He isn’t,” repeated Lafferty, hoping the man would say more.
“He’s up at the medical school.”
“I see,” said Lafferty, hoping for more information.
“I understand he had to have some special medical equipment removed from so we delivered the coffin and the chaps up there will let us know when we can collect it.”
“So you won’t actually have anything to do with the boy’s body?” asked Lafferty.
“We’ll just collect it from the university in time for the funeral,” answered the man.
“I see,” said Lafferty. The pieces now fitted perfectly. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he said.
Fifteen
Sarah managed to glean from the night staff nurse that Sigma probes were removed in a special lab up in Cyril Tyndall’s department in the medical school. She called Lafferty just after midnight to give him this information. And he was able to tell her that he had largely found this out for himself, through his visit to the undertakers, and also that the technicians up there were responsible for seeing the corpse into its coffin.
“So that’s it then,” said Sarah.
“I suppose so,” said Lafferty uncertainly.
“There’s a problem?” asked Sarah.
“Why don’t they?”
“Why don’t they what?”
“Why don’t they put the corpses back in their coffins when they are finished removing the organs? Why keep the bodies?”
“You’re right,” said Sarah after a moment’s thought. “You’d think that would be the sensible thing to do. Otherwise they’re left with them. What do they do with them?”
“Exactly.”
“Damn,” said Sarah. “Everything was fitting so well.”
“It’s just occurred to me that Professor Tyndall’s lab is where you plan to work up at the medical school,” said Lafferty.
“Yes,” agreed Sarah.
“It could be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.”