Peril on the Royal Train (7 page)

‘We can’t do that.’

‘What’s stopping us? We might be able to offer valuable help.’

‘Robert would be embarrassed if we suddenly rolled up out of the blue.’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ he retorted. ‘You’re his wife and I’m his father-in-law. He’d probably be pleased to see the pair of us. He was delighted when we turned up unexpectedly in Exeter last autumn. We’ll get the same welcome this time.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, firmly. ‘I know him far better than you do. When and if he ever needs us, Robert will send for us. Until then, all that we can do is to watch and wait.’ There was a tap on the door and a servant entered. ‘Now, then,’ she went on. ‘What would you like in the way of refreshment?’

Andrews grinned. ‘Two train tickets to Scotland.’

Inspector Malclom Rae was a tall, slender, well-dressed man in his forties with an almost permanent smile hovering around his lips. Where McTurk was inclined to bluster, Rae was softly spoken and approachable. His manner was pleasant and confiding. When he shook the man’s hand, Colbeck felt that he could have a proper conversation with him based on mutual respect. Rae, however, wanted to clarify something.

‘Tell me, Inspector,’ he said in a lilting Edinburgh accent, ‘how would you feel if I came to London to solve a crime that occurred on the railway there?’

‘I’d feel justifiably annoyed,’ admitted Colbeck.

‘Then you understand my position perfectly.’

‘If, however, you’d been summoned by the relevant railway company, then I’d accept you had a legitimate right to carry out an investigation. I wouldn’t
like
it but I’d acknowledge the company’s decision to retain your services.’

‘Good,’ said Rae. ‘We now know where we stand with each other.’

The smile blossomed for a second before fading gently away. They were standing at the crash site and the clearance work was continuing noisily all around them. Nairn Craig was pacing anxiously up and down in the background, haranguing some of the rescue crew and wondering when the line would be finally open again. The two detectives reviewed the situation. Rae had clearly been listening to McTurk. When he talked about his instinctive response to the tragedy, he agreed with the superintendent that commercial rivalry lay at the root of the outrage. All too aware of the skulduggery practised by rival companies in England, Colbeck was amazed at the lengths that some Scottish companies had gone to in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. Intimidation, vandalism, vicious fare-cutting and violence had all been used but, so far, nothing on the scale of the crash.

‘How will the Caledonian respond?’ asked Colbeck.

‘That’s for Mr Craig to decide.’

‘Would he feel obliged to strike back at the company he feels is responsible?’

‘I’m sure that the notion would have some appeal to him,’ said Rae, ‘but he’s sensible enough to know that you cannot atone for one criminal act with another.’

‘Yet, from what you’ve told me, the Caledonian has already committed criminal acts in pursuit of its ambitions.’

‘Nothing conclusive has been proved, Inspector. But those of us aware of the antics of railway companies north of the border know that every one of them has sailed close to the wind.’

‘That’s a strange metaphor to use of a land-based mode of transport.’

Rae laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose that it was ill-chosen.’ He became more businesslike. ‘What do you propose to do next?’

‘I’ll endeavour not to tread on your toes, Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It shouldn’t be difficult to keep out of each other’s way,’ said Colbeck. ‘For the most part, I suspect, we’ll be looking in different places.’

‘But sharing any evidence we unearth, I trust.’

‘That goes without saying.’

‘I believe that it has to be said,’ insisted Rae. ‘According to Superintendent McTurk, you have a habit of keeping things to yourself. That, at least, was his experience when you worked together on a previous occasion.’

‘Don’t rely too much on the superintendent’s powers of recall,’ said Colbeck, brusquely. ‘They are coloured by the fact that he was given a sharp rebuke by his employers when I exposed the derelictions of the men working under him. McTurk did nothing to advance that particular investigation. I hope that he will be more supportive in this one.’

‘I find him a source of useful information.’

‘Then we must both tap into it.’

‘I’m glad that we agree on that.’

In other circumstances, Colbeck felt that he could like Rae and the latter clearly had a grudging admiration for the feats of the Railway Detective. Geography divided them. An English detective was investigating a crime in Scotland. Inevitably, he was seen as an interloper. The relationship between the two men would never cross the border into anything stronger than professional respect.

They were still discussing their plans when Nairn Craig came over to them.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said, receiving their greetings in return. ‘I have one piece of cheering news for you. The cause of the fatal accident was so obvious that the railway inspector, Major Kean, has already completed his report. Neither of you will be bothered by him.’

‘That’s a relief,’ said Rae.

‘Yes,’ added Colbeck. ‘Two inspectors are enough for any investigation. A third would take us into the realms of overcrowding.’

‘What about the sheriff?’

‘He wants to be kept abreast of developments at every stage,’ said Craig. ‘Apart from anything else, he holds a lot of shares in the Caledonian. But I can see why you asked that question, Inspector. You wanted to know if the sheriff was likely to impede your inquiry. He gave me his word that he would not do so and,’ he went on with a glance at Colbeck, ‘he was thrilled to hear that we’d called
you
in.’

‘I’m glad that somebody other than you feels that I have a place here,’ said Colbeck. ‘It may take longer to convince most people of my usefulness.’

‘Oh, I accept that you are useful,’ said Rae with a broadening smile. ‘What is not so clear is whether your presence is necessary.’

‘Indeed, it is,’ said Craig, forcefully.

‘We shall see.’

‘Inspector Colbeck towers above any other detective.’

‘I dispute that, Mr Craig. Put us back to back and you’d see that he and I are of roughly equivalent height.’ He inclined his head. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. Duty calls.’

After beaming at each in turn, Inspector Rae spun on his heel and walked off to seek out members of his investigative team. His animosity towards Colbeck was largely concealed under a carapace of politeness but it was still there. And it would handicap proceedings. Though Rae had more or less demanded cooperation from him, Colbeck had the feeling that he’d get very little in return. In that respect, the inspector was a sophisticated and clean-shaven version of Superintendent McTurk.

‘You talked of sending the sergeant off to Glasgow,’ recalled Craig.

‘Yes, sir, and he’s no doubt already enjoying the pleasure of climbing up Beattock Bank. Thanks to that letter of introduction you kindly wrote, he’ll have access to your headquarters.’

‘The pair of you can have access to anything you wish, Inspector.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘If we have a villain inside the Caledonian, I want him flushed out.’

‘Leave it to us, Mr Craig.’

‘Meanwhile,’ said the other, taking a sheet of paper from his inside pocket, ‘I thought you might like a copy of this. Posters have already been put up advertising the reward but I also had these printed for distribution.’ He passed the handbill over. ‘You never know,’ he continued. ‘It may be a long shot but somebody might actually have witnessed the disaster.’

Colbeck showed surprise. ‘Out here in this pretty wilderness?’

‘It’s not as uninhabited as it might seem,’ replied Craig. ‘Most people here work on the land but there are a few of them with jobs at the quarry. They’d have to go right past here to get there. And you’re not the first to notice how pretty Annandale is. Walkers often come to appreciate its beauty.’ He bit his lip. ‘It’s just a pity that the beauty has been scarred by the accident.’

‘I’m sure that this handbill will produce results,’ said Colbeck, reading it. ‘Unfortunately, they may not be the results we want. When handsome rewards like this are offered, we always tend to get bogus witnesses. They can make up some very beguiling stories for four hundred pounds.’

No matter how much he concentrated, Jamie Farr could not decipher every word on the handbill. Some of them baffled him. Having walked to the nearest village to collect one, he sat by the roadside with his dog curled up beside him. There was not much call for reading in the shepherd’s life and, in any case, he was a poor scholar. What did jump straight at him off the handbill was the amount being offered as a reward. It was a dizzying prize. If he could secure that, he could escape from the long shadow of his father. He might even be able to contrive an escape for someone else at the same time. The thought made him tremble with joy.

Slipping the handbill into his pocket, he leapt up and called Angus to heel. The pair of them set off in the direction of their flock but they didn’t take the most direct route. Instead, they made a little detour past a farmhouse in a state of neglect. There was a hole in the roof and the shutters were broken. In one of the outhouses, a door was hanging off its hinges. Small and cheerless, it was home to seven people but only one of them interested Jamie. Her name was Bella Drew. He knew that she’d be there, working at the spinning wheel as she always did. Jamie supplied some of the wool. It was how they’d become friends. Bella would have been left at home with her deaf old mother while the menfolk of the house went off to work.

After ordering his dog to sit, Jamie approached the house with care but nevertheless managed to disturb the chickens. Their squawks brought the lovely face of Bella Drew to the window. It brightened when she saw her friend and she waved to him. Seconds later, she slipped out of the house and trotted across to him. Though she was tousled and wearing a tattered dress, she had the bloom of youth on her.

‘What are ye doing here, Jamie Farr?’ she asked, brushing back a tuft of hair.

‘I came to see ye, Bella.’

‘I should be working.’

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘and so should I but I had to ask ye a favour.’

‘What do ye mean?’

When he took the handbill from his pocket, he felt a surge of tenderness. He was holding something that might transform their lives if they had courage enough to turn their backs on their respective families. Bella looked up with eyes full of hope.

‘Well?’ she prodded. ‘Are ye going to speak?’

He cleared his throat and ran his tongue over dry lips.

‘How well can ye read?’ he asked.

Victor Leeming was glad to reach the comparative safety of Glasgow and to stand on solid ground once more. The journey from Beattock had been testing. As the train struggled up the Bank with the aid of two locomotives, Leeming didn’t dare to look out of the window. The gradient felt alarmingly steep and his hope that they’d eventually reach the summit was eroded by a garrulous companion who told him scary stories of wheels losing their grip during heavy rain or of the train sliding backwards when the rails were rimed with frost. Scenic beauty held no interest for him. It was only when they arrived at his destination that he felt confident enough to peer through the glass. They’d entered Buchanan Street station and were slowing to a halt. The sergeant gulped with relief. After miles of open countryside, the clamour, bustle and industrial grime of Glasgow were wonderfully reassuring.

The letter of introduction did more than offer him access to the headquarters of the Caledonian Railway. It gained him an unexpectedly cordial welcome and equipped him with a willing guide in the shape of John Mudie, a red-haired young man with a nervous laugh and an affable manner. Charged with offering unlimited assistance to the detective, Mudie did everything that was asked of him. The first thing that Leeming wanted to see was the service record of the three victims of the disaster. Dougal Murray, the fireman, and Alan Grint, the guard, had worked for the Caledonian for years. It had been their sole source of employment. Jock Laidlaw, the driver, had been more ubiquitous. He’d worked for two of the smaller Scottish railway companies before spending four years with the North British. According to Mudie, the driver had been lured to the Caledonian by the promise of higher wages and better working conditions. Laidlaw had been with them for a few years now.

‘What else can I show you, Sergeant?’ asked Mudie.

‘I’d like to hear about any discontented employees who’ve recently left. Do you keep any record of them?’

‘We have a long list of people whose employment was terminated. It goes back over the years.’

‘I’m only interested in those who parted company with you in the last six months, say. Does anyone come into that category?’

‘Rather too many, I fear,’ admitted the Scotsman.

‘Give me some examples,’ said Leeming.

They were in a small office that reminded him of the pokey room assigned to him at Scotland Yard. The difference was that Mudie’s domain was scrupulously tidy. He had Colbeck’s predilection for order. Leeming’s natural habitat, by contrast, was an amiable clutter. Mudie abhorred disarray. Everything was self-evidently in its proper place. Plucking a ledger from a shelf, he opened it, found the page he was after and ran a finger down a list of names.

‘We’ve had five men dismissed for drunkenness, two for persistent lateness, three for disobeying orders from a superior and one …’ Mudie paused as he searched for the right words. ‘And one was sacked for behaving improperly with a young woman during the night shift. Add to that a couple who resorted to violence.’

‘And did all these people work on the footplate?’

‘No, no, Sergeant, this also covers station staff and railway policemen.’

‘Are any of those dismissals in any way connected with the three people who were killed in the crash?’ asked Leeming. ‘Or don’t you go into such detail?’