”How many exactly?”

“Four.”

"And did the bodi-- did the patients have anything in common?"

Other than being dead?

“Nothing glaringly obvious.”

"Did the bodies disappear gradually, one by one, or were they all taken at once?"

“I don’t know.” It was rare to hear the Head Healer say such. “Their disappearance was temporarily hidden, so it is hard to tell.”

"When did the hospital find out bodies were missing?"

Here was the question. As soon as Miranda honestly answered this question, she fully anticipated the next. ‘Why weren’t we informed sooner?’.

“A couple of days ago.”

Miranda sighed and sidestepped the podium. Her dark eyes looked up, sweeping over her colleagues.
“It is imperative that if you have any information, no matter how seemingly unimportant, that you come forward with this. When Level two opens their investigation, I will not hear that there is an ounce of noncompliance in my team. These witches and wizards had families, of which I have to inform of the missing remains of their loved ones. You will answer Law Enforcement’s questions, but you will otherwise maintain complete discretion.”

“Those with any pertinent questions are to direct them to Healer Misslethorpe. Those with any information should seek me in my office. You are dismissed.” Without a moment’s pause, Miranda turned on her heel and left the theatre.

"Dismissed!" Athena barked with a loud laugh. She wasn't the only one speaking in the immediate aftermath of Storm's truncated closing but she was probably the loudest.

"Oh, that's all, then? 'Bodies are walking off, as you were?' I don't think so. Are we not going to put an extra lock on the door?"

Athena Marrowbone and Miranda Storm got along rather well normally, but there was occasional disagreement between them and they weren't squeamish about saying so.

Healer Lowercliff heard Athena and spun around to point a finger at her. Athena regarded him with thin patience as he seemed to jump at the chance to misinterpret her comment.

"This isn't my fault, so don't try to say that it is. Dozens of people have bonafide access and reasons to come and go from the morgue, reasons to make this look like it was me. I'm being pushed out."

Short and sour. That was Storm's usual style, so it came as no surprise that the woman in charge of St.Mungo's gave the briefest of answers before leaving the room as quickly as she'd arrived.

"You are dismissed."

As if Storm really thought the people present weren't going to stay and discuss what had just passed. There was an instant buzz which got louder and louder as everyone started speculating and laying blame.

"I'm being pushed out."

Quincy heard the voice before she saw the owner. That familiar, whiny, grating voice. Lowercliff had the kind of voice that made Quincy want to stick a wand up his nose. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted him with his finger pointed in Athena's face. Like a firebolt, Quincy was next to Athena, her fists clenched by her sides. "How can you possibly be pushed out" she almost spat "when you're not here to be pushed out?!" Quincy would happily push him out, she'd been after his job for a while and she knew as long as she kept her head down and caused no trouble he would do the hard work for her.

Lowercliff looked genuinely shocked and tried to stutter a reply, but Quincy didn't allow it. "You left us! The first sign of anything uncomfortable, anything troublesome and you disappeared! No explanations to your staff, no reassurances, not even a bloody handover owl to me!" She could feel the heat rising in her face and her tone and volume rising to match. She gave a quick glance around and lowered her voice into a hiss. "You abandoned your staff at the time they probably needed you the most, because Merlin knows we have rarely needed you before!"

Quincy had never spoken like this to a superior. She was normally very calm and collected at work, good under pressure. But Lowercliff had taken it ten steps too far this time and it was about time he realised his incompetence. Perhaps she should have chosen a more private place and a more delicate way of letting him know he was an absolute imbecile, but the St.James witch had a fiery temper when crossed, and she felt unbelievably crossed!

In and out. That was Andy’s style. It was no pleasure delivering the news. But better it came straight out from the horse’s mouth. Not that he would let his occlumency slip to allow the Head Healer to know he had compared her to a horse. Perhaps just the long face jokes... The assembled green robes were appalled and aghast. Storm answered the immediate questions before dumping Sandy with the clean up. It had been so many years now he was adjusted to it. Did not even flinch at her instruction before her exit.

Marrowbone was the first voice that stuck out. Lowercliffe had put in an appearance after all. Slithering in at the last moment. Deciding that being absent looked like an admission of guilt. He leapt to the defensive immediately. His deputy, St. James did not come to his aide. Instead she stood shoulder to shoulder with Athena accusing her senior. As Witch Weekly co-owner Sandy imagined a camera behind his eyes as he blinked at the scene. He had rigid standards about where one role ended and one began. If this ended up in the magazine it was not from him but one of the many employees who had just been informed. Or the relatives of the missing deceased. It was a wonder it had stayed confidential for as long as it had.

“The Head Healer instructed pertinent questions were posed to me, healers.” Sandy interrupted. He had approached smoothly from the theater podium. The way he spoke reinforced the sorting hat’s decision to put him in Slytherin. He was not visibly taking sides but he could not be seen to endorse Quincy and Athena’s vitriol towards Mattias.

Ligeia almost pouted when there was no demonstration of the surgical kind. The theatre was merely being used for attendance. What a pity. The Tragedy was the missing corpses and what that meant for their families. As much Ligeia was a enthusiast of Poe, the rumoring questions and grim announcement had the hallmarks of the Bard and his theatre in the round.

Shakespeare's plays had all of her favorites: poisonings, stabbings, numerous marriages & affairs, soliloquies with skulls. Within the wake of Miranda Storm's announcement, they might have something close as she followed around with her opera glasses to catch various speakers. Even some unexpected Comedy, as morgue watch Healer Mattias Lowercliff had seemingly shown up in a panic outside her notice. Although Ligeia did have a lifelong eye disorder.

The vitriol of the deputy morgue watch, Healer St. James, made against her immediate superior left Ligeia wishing she had the snappy bitterness of her favorite candy Licorice Sharps. Although the only supply in the hospital was for research purposes. Ligeia had heard of folks who went on muggle cinema dates yet it hadn't appealed to her. If she couldn't bring her own candy, and their concessional boxed sweets didn't risk sympathetic injury in time with the drama of the story, it was a sorely lacking pastime in her opinion.

At the dismissal, Ligeia was pondering the most unusual detail besides the missing corpses. "That they were temporarily hidden," she mused. She wondered if any of the aurors investigating would be close to her age, like Raine Almasy or Cassius Wilde. Ligeia had consulted with forensic matters before, although she now realized she had a rather atypical potential piece of evidence.

"Dear Deputy Head Misslethorpe," Ligeia's method of honorifics was as noticeable as her parasol or albinism. "It might not be much, but I do have an unusual insight from this past week. A disturbing aura you could say."

There was something rotten in the state of Denmark, or rather St. Mungo's. At least, if Ligeia could pin down the dates of the disappearances and the strange sensation she felt on her rounds.

Though he was by now used to the Head Healer's specific brand of leadership, Robin huffed a laugh of disbelief when Miranda Storm turned to leave - he was of the same mind as Athena, who luckily could be relied on to speak hers as the Healer-in-Charge of their floor.

But she wasn't the only one. Chaos sprung up in exclamations and protests, centering on the famously unlikeable Lowercliff - the guy's own deputy witch was leading the charge on him.

It could only be curtailed by Misslethorpe stepping in to take reins from Storm before more fingers could be pointed.

"Gonna make myself scarce..." Robin nudged Athena with a dry smile while one of the younger Healers from Arc's floor was peacocking for Sandy. "I'll catch up later, yeah?"

He had work to get back to, even with this on his mind. If anything really nuts came to light in his absence, Robin knew he could count on word of it to reach him through the hospital grapevine.

Lowercliffe appearing hardly fazed him; in fact he was about to ask the man himself right before one of the healers under him took umbrage at the man's management. He considered telling Healer St James to keep it out of the public eye, but she seemed to be burning from the fires of indignance and no wix was about to temper that.

"Immediate denial in the public eye does you no favours, Lowercliff," instead was his advice as he manoeuvred his way to where Misslethorpe was standing. He left it at that, instead turning his attention to the Deputy Head while one of his own floor decided to offer intel that made no sense even to him.

"Never mind auras," he said absently in passing, lowering his voice, "what state were the bodies in? If they went missing only to be found some time later, is there any hard evidence of anything that's happened to them, Misslethorpe?"

Sandy Misslethorpe stepped in to keep the decorum, as was his play and he was very good at it. Athena didn't resent him for it. Her little bombast was more surprise at the absurdity of the latest bafflement to befall St. Mungo's. No, the real spittle was all Lowercliff who was being admonished.

He squared up to Quincy St James, or tried to. His shoelace got caught on something so the gesture was a little stumbly.

"Again, again, with the whining, the feigned indignation. I was needed at the Tri-Council Symposia because God knows the backwards healing practices of this country...! I should have been consulted before anyone else on this, Misslethorpe," he told Sandy. Then he looked Arcturus Hollingbury up and down.

"And you, Holliday, who can't be bothered to weigh out his own organs or drain a single abdomen - and you I'll take advice from you ... oh, never. Yes, never. I'll see to this myself. Healer St. James, come with me!"

Athena Marrowbone offered Sandy a little wave of surrender for all that was in his lap now.

And Lowercliff made every effort to turn on his heel and storm out.

“The rumours, if you have heard them, are sadly correct.”

Tim managed to squash the sudden disappointment that he’d not heard any rumours that might constitute the Ministry getting involved and all of them in here listening to the big boss. Gossip was Tim’s sugar sweet addiction, despite himself.

“Several bodies have been stolen from our morgue.”

The what now?

Tim’s jaw had become slack without him realising and he looked to Theo with an expression mixed with disgust, shock and confusion. The other healers were quick to fire questions from the floor. How many, any correlation, whether it was all at once, when was it discovered…

The Head Healer should have prepared a handout of frequently asked questions at this rate. She seemed to realise this, answering the first few and then sweeping out of the room to leave her Deputy to answer questions instead. Tim couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit of sympathy for Sandy Misslethorpe, given he knew the wizard a little better for working with him.

It took half a minute for it to kick off.

“Pass the popcorn,” Tim muttered to Theo, nudging his flatmate and friend, drawn to listen in as the others flocked from the doors back to their jobs as if their boss hadn’t just told them bodies had gone missing. “What the eff though, who loses bodies?”