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‘I will not be cowed,’ DeBryn declares, fuming, rattling around the mortuary, ‘by a bunch of intellectually-challenged imbeciles who think that Housman is some sort of revolutionary new builder.’
At the door, Morse smirks, lowers his eyes to the floor. For all that the good doctor is shaken up – wearing a pair of temporary-prescription glasses and with a bandage over his head wound – it’s good to see his bite hasn’t been eradicated by his ordeal at the hands of Jago and his heavies; right now, he puts Morse in mind of a proud, haughty, grey owl that’s had its feathers ruffled very much the wrong way and is looking for somewhere – someone – to swoop down upon. The doctor’s talons are exceedingly sharp, after all.
His humour fades as he takes in the mortuary itself, the floor so recently-cleaned of mud and drops of DeBryn’s own blood. If it weren’t for DeBryn himself, standing there injured and indignant, you’d never know this was ever even the scene of a particularly violent, unforgivable crime.
‘You should go home.’ Morse pushes himself away from the doorframe and back into the present, shakes away the memories of the other night, of the aborted phone-call and a pair of cracked spectacles left behind, an obvious, deliberate ploy. Come out, come out and play.
For his part, DeBryn sighs, all the fight suddenly going out of him at once as he leans back against the counter; scrubs his face. ‘Probably.’ The word drags itself from his mouth and Morse can’t help it; he raises his eyebrows, surprised. In any battle of wits, the good doctor will always determinedly be the last man standing – but then being set upon, whacked about the head and promptly abducted were always going to be pretty impossible odds.
‘I’ll be honest in that I do still have a bit of a headache,’ DeBryn confides now. ‘But I suppose one can’t really put this sort of thing off. Wanted to tidy up a little.’ He indicates his workspace, currently and mercifully free of bodies; a blessing, considering what the last two days have wrought. And yet it clicks with Morse what’s really going on here; what DeBryn, Max, is actually trying to do.
‘Could have waited,’ he pushes gently, ‘the Home Office has given you plenty of time off to recover from your ordeal. Getting in today alone must have been a bit of a struggle.’ He shoves his hands in his pockets, reminds himself to tread carefully.
‘Didn’t see your car out there,’ he gestures with his thumb towards the shielded window, ‘probably got a taxi from your cottage, yes? You definitely aren’t fit to drive just yet.’ He holds the piercing gaze DeBryn is directing at him, intimidating even now; half-challenging, half-impressed. ‘From someone who’s always lecturing me about caring for myself, this could almost be considered hypocritical.’
‘Could it, indeed,’ DeBryn echoes, his voice stark against the mortuary’s emptiness. Morse bites his lip, daring.
‘No cadavers today,’ he indicates the space. ‘The ones we did have were transported elsewhere; no rhyme or reason for you to be here. There’s someone filling in for you should the need arise – not Kemp, thankfully,’ he amends and sees DeBryn visibly raise his eyes to the heavens in gratitude, ‘although I’ll admit: you’re a tough act to follow. Very tough, in fact.’ He pointedly indicates the pathologist’s less-than-stellar current state; folds his arms, concludes his case.
‘You’re trying to get back on the horse.’ He can’t keep the seeping admiration out of his voice as he says it; crooks his mouth up in a smile, oddly-reassured at the defiance in the doctor’s face, beneath the debris of the single blow that left a clattering silence on the phone-line. ‘You weren’t about to let any of that lot make you afraid of being in your own workspace.’
DeBryn swallows audibly. ‘Up lad, up,’ he quotes finally with a single lift of the shoulders, the closest to agreement that Morse is going to get. ‘Although…the irony of becoming a corpse in my own office hadn’t escaped me. I was almost glad to wake up and realise that I was a cog in the wider machine, as it were.’
Morse scoffs. ‘I certainly wasn’t when I realised they’d taken you.’ He wonders if this is how the pathologist feels when he looks at him sometimes: compassion, overlaid with exasperation. Concern, threatening to brim over.
The slight, humming sound DeBryn gives in response to that is almost empty, distracted even as he stumbles a little; surreptitiously leans against the table to keep himself upright. Morse chuffs, running a hand down over his mouth to cover a threatening yawn; he’s not faring much better, having grabbed catnaps between interviews and reports, the arrests of Jago’s surviving men and what remains of his corrupt little kingdom taking up full energy and all the hours Thames Valley can manage.
He needs to contact Trewlove, he realises, providing she kept the same forwarding address, if nobody else has already. He needs to tell her that justice has been done for George – that the death that left her saying goodbye with black clothes and bruises of grief under her eyes can finally, finally be laid to rest. When he does eventually get around to getting some sleep, he might be able to drift off without the sight of George – bold, boisterous, bright-hearted George – bleeding out behind his eyelids.
Not again, the memory of the thought comes back to him, clear as day against a suddenly-silent head, in the moment he had picked up DeBryn’s glasses. What a time for his mind to hush. Not a second time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says it while looking at his shoes; they’re scuffed from the quarry, muddy, in need of a clean. ‘You shouldn’t have been dragged into all that, Max. You were clearly intended as bait, and I’m sorry we didn’t get to you quicker.’
DeBryn clucks his tongue; stops and puts a hand to his head, grimacing. ‘Twinge,’ he grumbles, waving away Morse’s silent offer of help and riding it out, face contorted in silent misery. Finally, he continues, letting his palm fall away.
‘You came alone, initially,’ every word he says is careful, as though he’s tugging them out of himself with effort, ‘I don’t think I’ve really,’ he takes a second, takes a breath, ‘thanked you, yet. Are you alright?’ he asks, his brow suddenly dropping, apprehensive; anxious. ‘After all that?’
‘Of course, thanks,’ Morse answers briskly, really not enjoying watching him struggle. ‘Can I ask, did they… do anything else to you?’ It’s a question he’s dreaded asking; one that’s been scratching at him for days and he’s quietly relieved to see DeBryn’s familiar, nonsensical shrug in response.
‘Just laughed at me, really. Blew some smoke in my face; bloody cheap cigarettes of course,’ he wrinkles his nose, unimpressed and maybe a little insulted, ‘but mostly just… left me alone. How’s Box?’ His voice ends on a small but noticeable pant, his mouth slightly open, catching his breath; he’s fading and fast.
‘Still in hospital,’ Morse inspects his sleeves, unsure how he feels even as he says it. ‘Thursday’s been keeping an eye on him, but we’ll know for certain in the next day or two.’ He purses his lips. ‘If he does pull through, he’ll have inquiries of his own to face. He did help us, though, so…some leniency, I suppose.’
He hates how resentful he sounds even as he says it, but there’s an understanding lift to DeBryn’s eyebrows in the glance they exchange. Yes. Yes, I know.
‘He’s been a brute, despite his timely gallantry,’ he concedes, ‘although I can testify that Jago was worse, well…’ he gestures to himself weakly. ‘It was bad enough…’ he clears his throat and pushes through, ‘hearing all his frankly ludicrous barbs towards you at crime-scenes.’
Morse puts his head to the side, strangely touched. ‘No-one could match your barbs, Max. Acidic and intelligent, every single one.’
He grins, just a little cheeky. DeBryn’s shoulders shake in a chuckle, an inescapably pleased smile lending his paling face some cheer and even more bravery than that which he’s already demonstrated in the last two days.
‘Words are the best weapon, when used accordingly,’ he rubs at his collar, his bow-tie slightly askew. Even now, he wears a bow-tie.
‘That’s probably why they gagged you, isn’t it?’ Morse gently presses the joke further, pushing them away, for just a moment, from the reality of the thing and what they were forced to endure, ‘Not to keep you quiet – just to keep you from flaying every single one of them with your tongue.’
‘Well,’ DeBryn shrugs, devil-may-care, ‘I can’t deny I had a… few things to say about their mothers, if they’d cared to listen.’ Morse shouldn’t laugh at that, he really shouldn’t, but he does anyway; the sound, echoing around the mortuary, seems to unbuckle DeBryn’s attempt at maintaining an upright posture. Sobering, Morse reaches for him.
‘Come on, Max. Let me take you home. The journey’s over,’ he lifts the words from that same poem, reciting them in rhythmic reverence; sees the shift behind the doctor’s eyes, the split-second he surrenders.
‘Yes.’ Swaying a little, he allows Morse to take his arm. ‘Yes, I – I think so, actually. Yes.’
He swallows again, as though suddenly nauseous; Morse wouldn’t blame him. He distinctly recalls the Frida Yelland investigation a few years back that wound up with his wandering into London and right into the hands of some rather violent individuals; the shock of the head injury that had come about from that incident, not helped at all by the follow-up of Mallory and his meat-headed pal’s fists, had caused him to be sick right there in Pettifer’s office. Lydia, the kind secretary whose timely arrival had saved him from a further beating, had gallantly cleaned up after him, given him water she had helped him to drink and sat with him, wiping away the worst of the blood and murmuring reassurances until Thursday arrived.
He picks up DeBryn’s coat for him, guides him to the door; pausing at the threshold, the doctor glances around the room where a perfectly ordinary late shift became a living nightmare.
‘Still,’ he notes, Morse’s hand hovering on his arm, ‘at least I know I’ll be able to come back with…reasonable expectations of a…a normal day.’
His voice trembles a little but holds steady and Morse silently bundles him out, helps him lock up; that’s more than enough, for one day. The sheer pride he feels for DeBryn at this very moment– mixed with that long, grudging admiration over the man’s unflappable ability to tend to corpses in various states of disarray while he’s just passed out unhelpfully on the floor – is enough to make him reflective of the subtle shifts in their working relationship over the past few years towards something friendlier, warmer, kinder. Something that culminated in spontaneous seedcake in a beautiful garden on a summer’s day. Something that Jago and his lackies had obviously spotted and banked upon. Come out and play.
Protective of a pathologist. Fancy that.
‘You can call me,’ he assures, helping DeBryn put his seatbelt on in the car; his hands are trembling a little, causing rattling little clicks of failed connection until Morse discreetly takes over, ‘for anything, or if you just want to talk, about any of it. It’s always the first few days that are the worst. Trust me, Max, I know.’ The echoes of a gunshot, of blood soaking through his shirt, swirls through his mind like cigarette smoke and he shrugs determinedly, his hands on the wheel. He knows that DeBryn knows; he’s the man who’s had to come running after him enough times with needle, thread and bandages at the ready.
‘I realise necrophobia isn’t the best company,’ he adds quickly, ‘but… the offer’s there, for want of anything better.’
DeBryn hums. ‘Well. You’re not Desert Island Discs, but perhaps you’ll suffice, one of these days. Thankyou,’ he adds after a slight pause; closes his eyes, probably to rein himself in a little and to keep as still as possible for what’s going to be an inevitably bumpy car-ride for a head that’s still as tender as his. Morse makes a mental note not to make conversation; rolls down the windows a little to let in some air; slowly, carefully pulls out of the carpark.
‘Tell me if I’m going too fast,’ he warns, glad he’s already got the route memorised from his previous visit as the doctor is clearly in no fit state to direct. ‘And let me know if you need me to stop so you can be sick, alright? I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Rest assured, I do know how to use a scalpel,’ DeBryn murmurs, eyes still determinedly closed; snappish even when sluggish and Morse grins at him, feels an odd sort of gratitude for all those days of discomfort in the morgue which had led them to now: DeBryn, free to fade in front of him with quiet resignation. With trust.
‘Time enough,’ he murmurs, softly, more of a hum on his lips than anything else; with that, he starts the gentle roll of the car onto the main road and onwards, to deliver Max safely home.
*
Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.
[…]
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- Reveille, AE. Housman