The Excursion Train (24 page)

‘What’s that, Inspector?’

‘Dykes had been drinking heavily,’ said Colbeck, ‘and probably looked to spend most of the day at the Red Lion. What was the one thing that could get him out of that pub?’

‘A knife in his ribs.’

‘There was a much easier way. A woman could have done it. When you returned from the scene of the crime, you told me that it was a place where young couples might have gone. I think that someone may have deliberately aroused Dykes’s lust.’

‘From what I hear, that wouldn’t have taken much doing.’

‘Once she had lured him to the wood, the killer could strike.’

‘Yes,’ said Leeming, warming to the notion. ‘The woman was there to distract the victim. If that’s what happened, it’s just like those two murders on the train.’

‘It’s uncannily like them,’ agreed Colbeck, ‘and it raises a possibility that has never even crossed our minds before. Supposing that all three murders were committed by the same man?’

‘Angel?’

‘Hardly.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can accept that he’s a legitimate suspect for the murder of Dykes but he had no motive to kill the hangman or the prison chaplain. No, it must be someone else.’

‘Well, it absolves Hawkshaw of the crime,’ observed Leeming. ‘If the same man is responsible for all three murders, Hawkshaw must have been innocent. He couldn’t have killed two people after he was dead.’

‘There’s another fact we have to face,’ said Colbeck, taking a sip of his drink as he meditated. ‘This is pure speculation, of course, and we may well be wrong about this. But, assuming we’re not, then the man who butchered Joseph Dykes in that wood allowed someone else to go to the gallows on his behalf.’

‘Then why did he go on to commit those revenge murders?’

‘Guilt, perhaps.’

‘Remorse over the way that he let an innocent man be hanged?’

‘Perhaps. He may be trying to make amends in some
perverse way by killing the people whom he feels made Nathan Hawkshaw’s last hour on earth more agonising than it need have been.’

‘It doesn’t add up, sir.’

‘Not at the moment, Victor, but it opens up a whole new line of inquiry.’ He glanced down at the petition. ‘And it suggests that someone on this list needs to be caught very quickly indeed.’

‘Yes, he could have killed
three
victims.’

‘Four,’ said Colbeck. ‘You’re forgetting Nathan Hawkshaw.’

‘Of course. He had the most lingering death of all. He was made to take the blame for someone else’s crime.’

‘That’s what it begins to look like.’ He picked up the petition. ‘We must make our first calls this evening. And if we have no success with this part of the list, we must work our way through the rest of it – and that includes the women.’

‘Wait a moment, sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘Would someone who let Hawkshaw go on trial for a murder that he didn’t commit then sign a petition for his release?’

‘What better way to disguise his own guilt?’

‘That’s true. Who do we start with, sir?’

‘Peter Stelling. He’s an ironmonger. We can rely on him to have a ready supply of wire. We’ll have to see if his stock contains anything resembling the murder weapon we found near Paddock Wood.’

‘Does that mean we cross Angel off the list?’

‘For the moment. From what you’ve told me about him, we’d have the devil’s own job tracking him down.’

‘We’d need Amos Lockyer to do that, Inspector.’

‘Who?’

‘He was a policeman here for years,’ said Leeming, ‘and he helped Constable Butterkiss a great deal. Lockyer was dismissed for being drunk on duty and carrying a loaded firearm. According to Constable Butterkiss, he was a real bloodhound. He was the only person who ever managed to find Angel and arrest him.’

‘Where is this man now?’

‘Working on a farm near Charing, apparently. At least, that’s what Butterkiss told me. He reveres the man though he was amazed to see his name on that petition.’

‘I don’t recall an Amos Lockyer there,’ said Colbeck, studying the document closely. ‘Where is he?’

‘Right there,’ said Leeming, pointing to the illegible squiggle in the first column. ‘I couldn’t read it either but that’s definitely him. Lockyer’s father used to be a watchman in the town. That’s what got him interested in being a policeman.’

‘You never mentioned him earlier.’

‘That was because I’d crossed him off my list.’

‘Simply because he was once a local constable?’

‘No, sir. I’d need a better reason than that. We both know that there are bad apples in police uniform as everywhere else. I only crossed off Amos Lockyer when Butterkiss told me a little more about him.’

‘Go on.’

‘To start with,’ said Leeming, ‘he’s no spring chicken. And he has a bad leg. A poacher he tried to arrest shot him in the thigh. I can’t see him leaping out of a moving train, can you?’

‘Yet you say he had great skill in finding people?’

‘That’s right. Lockyer was famed for it.’

Colbeck thought hard about what Madeleine Andrews had
learnt in Hoxton. Jacob Guttridge had been followed by an older man with an unusual rolling gait. It was too much of a coincidence.

‘I’ll speak to the ironmonger on my own,’ he decided.

‘What about me?’

‘Go back to Constable Butterkiss and tell him that your need his services again.’ Leeming pulled a face. ‘Yes, I know that he’s not your idea of a boon companion, Victor, but this is important.’

‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘No. Ask him to drive you to Charing at once.’

‘Not another long journey with George Butterkiss!’

‘You need him to find the farm where this Amos Lockyer works. And when you do,’ said Colbeck, ‘I want you to bring the man back to Ashford immediately.’

‘How is she now, Win?’ asked Gregory Newman, his face pitted with concern. ‘I was shocked when Adam told me what she tried to do.’

‘We all were,’ said Winifred Hawkshaw. ‘It was terrifying to see her up on that church tower. Thank heaven she was saved! The doctor gave her some pills to make her sleep. Emily won’t wake up until the morning.’

‘Make sure that she doesn’t slip out again.’

‘I’ll lock the door of her room. It’s dreadful to treat my own daughter like a prisoner but it may be the only way to keep her alive.’

They were sitting in the room at the rear of the butcher’s shop. Though he had been home to see to his wife, Newman had not bothered to change out of his work clothes or to have a meal. The crisis required a swift response and he had run
all the way to Middle Row. Winifred Hawkshaw was deeply grateful.

‘Thank you, Gregory,’ she said, reaching out to touch him. ‘I knew that I could count on you.’ She gave a pained smile. ‘You must be so sick of this family.’

‘Why?’

‘We’ve brought you nothing but trouble.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Think of all those arguments we had with Adam when he was younger. You were the one who stepped in and found him somewhere else to live. Then came Nathan’s arrest and all the horror that followed it. And now we have Emily trying to kill herself.’

‘Is that what she really did, Win?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m wondering if she was just trying to frighten you.’

‘Well, she certainly did that,’ admitted Winifred. ‘I was scared stiff when I saw her up there. And I do believe she meant to jump. Why else would she have climbed up on that ledge? It was so dangerous.’

‘Do you have any idea what made her do it?’

‘Only that she’s been very unhappy for weeks – but, then, so have we all. Emily is no different to the rest of us.’

‘Adam said that Inspector Colbeck wanted to question her.’

‘That’s right. He called here earlier for the second time today. I sent him away. I pretended that she was asleep so that I could warn her that she’d have to talk to a policeman from London.’

‘What did she say to that?’

‘Well, she wasn’t very pleased,’ replied Winifred. ‘Emily
seemed to be afraid of talking to anyone. Then I mentioned the petition again. When I asked her why she didn’t sign it, she had this sudden fit. It was like the kind of seizure that my mother sometimes has.’

‘Emily needs to be looked at properly by the doctor.’

‘I know, Gregory. After I’d calmed her down, I told Emily that I couldn’t let her go on like this any longer. But she begged me not to call in the doctor again.’

‘Why not?’

‘She wouldn’t say. Emily just cried and cried.’

‘It’s been weeks since the execution now,’ said Newman, running a hand through his beard. ‘I’d have expected her to be over the worst. It’s not as if she was actually there, after all.’

‘No, I made her stay away.’

‘How did she sneak out today?’

‘Eventually,’ she said, ‘I went out to call the doctor and Adam was busy elsewhere. Emily must have picked her moment and gone. As soon as I realised she wasn’t here, we went off in search of her. Then we heard all the noise coming from the churchyard.’

‘It must have been dreadful for you,’ he said, getting up to put an arm around her. ‘To lose a child is bad enough for any parent, Win, but to lose one in that way would have been unbearable.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, nestling against his body.

‘I just can’t believe it. Emily was always so trustworthy.’

‘Not any more, Gregory.’ She pulled back to look up at him. ‘I’ll be afraid to take my eyes off her from now on. I dread to think what might have happened if Inspector Colbeck hadn’t gone up that tower after her.’

‘What did he do exactly?’ he said, standing away from her.

‘He talked to her very quietly and made her change her mind. When she tried to get down again, she slipped and almost fell. Honestly, Gregory, my heart was in my mouth at that moment.’

‘But the Inspector grabbed her just in time?’ She nodded. ‘We all owe him thanks for that. I could see that even Adam was upset and he’s never got on well with his stepsister.’ He resumed his seat. ‘You said that Inspector Colbeck called earlier today.’

‘Yes, he wanted to question Adam.’

‘What about?’

‘That murder the other night.’

‘It had nothing to do with Adam,’ he said, staunchly.

‘I know but the stationmaster remembers someone who looked like him, taking a train to Paddock Wood that same night.’

‘Lots of people look like Adam. There are two or three young men at the railway works who could be taken for his twin. Did the Inspector have anything else to say?’

‘A great deal. He came in here to see me.’

‘Why?’

‘It was rather upsetting, Gregory,’ she said, wrapping her arms around her body as if she were cold. ‘Out of the blue, he asked me what happened to my first husband. He wanted to know how Martin died.’

‘That was an odd thing to ask.’

‘He did apologise when I told him I didn’t want to talk about that. So he turned to Emily instead. The Inspector was interested to know what she said to me after she was attacked by Joe Dykes.’

‘But you weren’t here at the time, were you?’

‘No, I was over in Willesborough. She spoke to Nathan.’

‘And – like any father – he went charging off after Joe. I remember him telling me about it afterwards,’ said Newman. ‘He said that this fierce anger built up inside him and he couldn’t control himself. It was just as well that he didn’t catch up with Joe that day.’

‘But it helped to hang him all the same,’ she said, grimly. ‘Going off in a temper like that. There were half a dozen witnesses who couldn’t wait to stand up in court and talk about the way they’d seen him running down the street with a cleaver.’

‘I’d have done no different if Emily had been my daughter.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Joe Dykes was a menace to any woman.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘So what did you tell Inspector Colbeck?’

‘The truth – that Emily wouldn’t talk to me about it.’

‘She confided in Nathan.’

‘Yes, and he told me what she said but it was not the same. I wanted to hear it from my daughter’s own lips. And there was another thing that worried me at the time, Gregory.’

‘What was that?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Nathan and I had always been very honest with each other. Yet when I tried to talk to him about Emily, and what she’d said when she came running back here that day, I had the feeling that he was holding something back. I only ever got part of the story.’

It took Colbeck less than two minutes to establish that Peter Stelling was not the killer. Since he had a business to run, and a wife and four children to look after, the ironmonger would
not have had the necessary freedom of movement. In addition, Stelling was such a mild-mannered man that it was difficult to imagine him working himself up into the fury symbolised in the slaughter of Joseph Dykes. The second name on Colbeck’s list did not keep him long either. As soon as he learnt that Moses Haddon, a bricklayer, had been in bed for a week after falling from a ladder, he was able to remove his name from the list. In the case of both men, however, he took the trouble to ask if they could describe Amos Lockyer for him. Each man spoke well of the former policeman and said that he was short, stout and well into his fifties. They confirmed that the wound in his leg had left him with a rather comical waddle.

He owed a debt of gratitude to Madeleine Andrews for providing a possible link between Lockyer and Jacob Guttridge, and it gave him his first surge of optimism since they had arrived in Ashford. Relishing the memory of Madeleine’s surprise visit to the town, he went on to question the next person, wearing a broad smile on his face.

She was in the kitchen when she heard the front door open and shut.

‘Where have you
been
?’ she asked, chastising her father with her tone of voice. ‘Your dinner is getting cold.’

‘I was held up, Maddy,’ said Caleb Andrews, coming into the kitchen to give her a conciliatory kiss. ‘We got talking about the murder of that prison chaplain and time just flew by.’

‘Helped along by a couple of pints of beer no doubt.’

‘A man is entitled to a few pleasures in life.’

Madeleine served the meal on to two plates and set them on the table. She sat opposite her father and passed him the salt. He shook a liberal quantity over his food.