True Love Ways (3 page)

Eventually his voice died down as he moved away,
presumably back towards the buffet car. Meredith felt uneasy, but could not
fathom why. The air seemed to crackle with malevolence.

After a few minutes, Betty and Bert appeared outside
the door, and leaned against the window in the corridor. “Have you told him
yet?” asked Bert.

“No, it's like I said, I need to find the right
time.” She lowered her tone. “Jimmy's … well, you know what he's like. I don't
want him to hurt you, Bert.”

“I can take care of myself. He flashes that knife
around, but he's nothing really.”

“He's your best friend,” hissed Betty.

“You didn't think of that when...”

She stopped him by putting her fingers to his lips.
“Shh, do you want everyone to know?”

“Well, yeah, actually I do.”

“Don't.” Betty flounced into the carriage and sat
down a couple of seats away from Meredith.

The rest of the passengers in the carriage returned,
but the old policeman was nowhere to be seen. Clarice, Reverend Mortimer and
Edith sat on Drew's side of the carriage, whilst the three younger passengers
were on Meredith's side.  Betty muttered to Jimmy, “Where did you last have it
then?”

“Shh, don't take on so,” Jimmy whispered. “Bert,
have you got it?”

“No, I told you. I don't know where you put it.”
Bert, who was next to the door, folded his arms, and turned to look out of through
the carriage door into the corridor.  Jimmy turned the other way, with Meredith
between himself and the external window. Betty sat between them, rolling her
eyes and sighing.

“I think our policeman friend has probably found a
more willing audience,” said Reverend Mortimer. “Boring some chap back there
about his heyday in the force.”

“It isn't right to take that much pleasure in
murder,” said Edith. “He's as bad as Peg Bradbourne.” She clamped her lips
together. “Sorry, Miss Bradbourne, but it's the truth. Your aunty takes too
much delight in other peoples' suffering.”

“My aunt is a staunch defender of justice,” said
Meredith, hotly. “She believes that to take another life is the worst sin
anyone can commit, and I happen to agree with her.”

“Hear hear,” said Drew, putting his hands together
in a silent clapping motion.

Meredith began to wish the journey was over. There
was a tension in the air which disturbed her greatly. She looked around her
fellow passengers but could not tell where it originated. So instead, she gazed
out of the window, and was relieved when the blue remembered hills of
Shropshire began to appear.

Half an hour later they pulled into Midchester
station. As she stepped out onto the platform, Meredith found herself looking
back into the train, searching for the old policeman. There was no sign of him
that she could see, but that didn't mean anything. He could easily be tucked
away in a carriage somewhere or in one of the toilet compartments.

“I can't see him either,” said Drew. Meredith looked
around at him startled, not least because he understood what she was doing. “Do
you need any more help with that suitcase?”

“No, thank you, Reverend Cunningham...”

“Drew.”

“Drew. Aunty Peg's isn't far away. On Station Road
in fact, in the old Constable's house. Quite fitting for en elderly sleuth, yes?”
Why Meredith felt the need to give him her exact whereabouts she did not know.

“Almost as if it was meant to be. Well, perhaps I'll
see you around Midchester.”

“I'm sure you shall. Though I'll be with Aunty Peg a
lot.” Should she invite him around? She wanted to, but shyness prevented her.
She wasn’t a natural when it came to chatting up men, and the fact that he was
a vicar seemed to put a glass wall between them.

As Meredith spoke, the train pulled out of the
station. Once again she searched for the policeman, hoping to see him in one of
the carriage windows, but to no avail. All the other passengers who shared her
compartment had already left the station. She could see Reverend Mortimer, his
wife and their housekeeper waiting at the taxi rank. Meredith remembered that
the vicarage was at the other end of the village.

“Don't worry,” said Drew. “I'm sure he'll be tucked away
in a corner somewhere, reliving his glory days with all those who got on the
train at Midchester.”

“Yes, of course. And he doesn't get out till
Hereford, does he? So he’s got plenty of time to go through it all again. I'd
better be going. Thank you again for your help.”

She was just about to pick up her case and leave the
station, when the Hereford train drew to a screeching halt just beyond the
station. A guard jumped off and ran back up the track, speaking to one of the
porters. “Get the ambulance and the police!” he shouted. “There's a man injured
in the toilet! He’s been stabbed!”

***

The constable's cottage was much as Meredith
remembered it, with roses around the door, and a well-stocked country garden.
Not that it had been a constable's cottage for a long time. A purpose built
police station had been built at the turn of the century. But as with all small
towns, the old names of buildings endured. The cottage had once been a two up
two down, not counting the old jail cell at the back, which now served as a
larder. It had been built onto over the years, adding a new section with an
extra room downstairs, which served as the drawing room, and an extra bedroom
upstairs.

“Nice place,” Drew had said, after he'd insisted on
carrying her suitcase for her anyway.

“It's my favourite place in the whole world,” said
Meredith, tears stinging her eyes. She was home at last. “It’s been too long
since I’ve seen it. Thank you for helping me again. I'd invite you in but...”
She didn’t want him to go. She wished he would put his arm around her and tell
her that everything would be alright. Which was silly. She hardly knew him. But
she was shaken by what had happened to the old policeman, even though if she
were honest, she had been expecting it.

“No, you go and see your aunt. You’ll both have lots
to talk about. I'll call on you tomorrow perhaps, to see how you are?”

“I'd like that, Drew.”

Meredith let herself in through the front door,
which was never locked in the daytime “Aunty Peg,” she called.

“Meredith! It’s my darling girl, in here! In here!”

Meredith heard a chastening voice say, 'Now, now,
dear, we don't want to get over-excited.”

“You might not want to, Nurse Chalmers, but I
certainly do. I haven’t seen her for fourteen years!”

Meredith found her aunt in the drawing room. Aunty
Peg sat on a chair near to the fireplace. “Oh darling, come here!” She ran to
kneel by her aunt, and was engulfed in lavendar scented arms. Immediately she
was fourteen years younger, and ready for the type of adventure only Aunty Peg
could offer.

“Oh Aunt Peg, I’ve missed you so much.” The tears
that Meredith held back in front of Drew began to fall.

“Let me look at you.” Peg held Meredith at arm’s
length, and wiped a stray tear from her niece’s cheek. “You are so beautiful.
Just like Mary.”

“Now,” said Nurse Chalmers, who was an efficient
looking woman in her fifties, “I'll leave you both alone for a while, but
promise me Miss Bradbourne that you won't talk to your aunt about murders and
things. We don't want her getting upset.”

Aunty Peg waited until Chalmers had gone from the
room before saying to Meredith. “Ignore here and tell me exactly why I've just
heard the Hereford train stop outside the station.”

Chapter Three

“He'd been stabbed in the back with the teddy boy's
flick knife,” Meredith told Aunty Peg over a cup of tea and a slice of hot,
buttered toast. Her joy at returning to her aunt's was somewhat subdued by the
awful events at the station. She had since learned that the old policeman's
name was Alfred Turner. “He’d bled to death. But Jimmy – that's the teddy boy –
had gone from the station by the time they realised. I knew something would
happen to Mr Turner, as soon as he started spouting about his old cases.”

“Old policeman talk about their cases all the time,
dear. Like old soldiers reliving battles. They don't all get stabbed for it.”
Aunty Peg sat in a huge chintz covered chair, with her foot, incased in
plaster, resting on a stool. As far as Meredith could see, she had not changed
at all. Her strawberry blonde hair was a little greyer, but her lined face
still had tremendous vitality, and her green eyes sparkled with intelligence.

“There was an atmosphere, Aunty Peg. I could feel
it.” Meredith told her aunt about the old policeman's pause when he mentioned
murderous vicars.

“I know of Turner,” said Aunty Peg. “He was
stationed in Hereford, but sometimes they came out this far out to help us in
our own enquiries, Hereford being the largest headquarters in the area. He was
a rather stupid man, talked far too much about the case to all and sundry. A
detective, I believe, should always keep their cards pretty close to their
chest. But as I say, he’s retired, and all old policeman discuss their cases.”

“He obviously never got on the same train as one of
the murderers before. If that is what this is about,” said Meredith.

“You're not certain, dear?”

“The knife that killed him belonged to Jimmy. There's
something going on between Betty – Jimmy's girlfriend – and his best friend,
Bert. It occurred to me that if Jimmy didn't do it, then Bert might have.”

“To get Jimmy out of the way, you mean. Yes, that is
possible, and more likely than Turner suddenly coming face to face with a
killer after so many years. A bit tawdry perhaps, but murder is seldom a classy
affair.”

“But,” said Meredith, who was enjoying herself far
more than she felt she ought to, “it might not be that long. He retired just
ten years ago, and when he was speaking, he didn't give details of how long ago
things might have happened, and he didn't mention names at all.”

“No. That makes it difficult. List for me again what
cases he mentioned.”

Meredith ticked them off on her fingers as she
spoke. “There was a housemaid who murdered her employer, but too soon to get
the money. Oh, before that he mentioned a man who murdered his wife but got
away with it. Then some teenager who stabbed a dozen people...”

“We could probably half that figure, allowing for
exaggeration,” said Peg. “Not that stabbing six people isn’t bad enough.”

Meredith nodded in agreement. “He also said
something about a child. He didn't think much of children at all, and claimed
that a parent was hanged for the murder of the other parent, but he thought the
child did it. Then there was the bit about vicars with their hands in the till.
But he was also talking to someone in the corridor. He mentioned religious
mania, someone stealing a car and going to sea. Someone hitting someone else
with a hammer then returning it. Oh, he said something about twenty thousand
pounds before that. Then he went on about never forgetting a face, and that
something had come back to him like a flash. I wasn't really listening Aunty
Peg.”

“No, that young man who carried your bag from the
station was rather handsome, wasn't he? I suppose you were talking to him.”

Meredith took her aunt's teasing on the chin. “And I
thought you were in your chair the whole time,” she laughed.

“I was, dear, but it's very easy to look out of the
window from here.” To illustrate she turned slightly and proved that she had a
pretty good view through the front window. “Tell me who was in the carriage
with you.”

“There was Drew.”

“Your young man.”

“He isn't my young man. He's a vicar for a start.”