The Railway Viaduct (25 page)

‘Look beyond it,’ he advised.

‘At what?’

‘The railway that will connect the French capital to a port with military significance.’ He gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid that I’m going to have to use a word that you don’t like.’

‘Will it explain what all this is about?’

‘I think so, Madeleine.’

‘What’s the word?’

‘Metaphorical.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘We’re back to that again.’

‘Your drawing is to blame,’ he said, indicating it. ‘You’ve
created what someone clearly dreads – a viaduct between England and France. In his mind – and we have to try to see it from his point of view, warped as it might be – the railway between Paris and Cherbourg will be a metaphorical viaduct between the two countries. It’s a potent symbol of French imperial ambition.’

‘Is that why a man was killed?’ she said, trying to assimilate what she had been told. ‘Because of symbols and metaphors?’

‘Chabal was an engineer with an important role in the project.’

‘According to father, lots of engineers work on a new railway.’

‘Quite true. Mr Brassey has a whole team of them.’

‘Why was this particular man murdered?’

‘He had the wrong nationality – he was French.’

‘Did he have to be thrown from the Sankey Viaduct?’

‘I think so.’

‘You’re going to tell me that that was symbolic as well, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s something to do with whatever you called it a few moments ago.’

‘A metaphorical viaduct. I’m only guessing,’ he went on, ‘and I could be wrong. There are just too many coincidences here. Someone is so horrified at the prospect of that railway being built that he will go to any lengths to stop it.’

‘What sort of a man is he, Robert?’

‘One who has an implacable hatred of the French.’

‘Why?’

‘He probably fought against them.’

Nobody else was allowed in the room. It was on the first floor
of the mansion and it overlooked the rear garden. It was kept locked so that none of the servants could get into it. The first thing that Sir Marcus Hetherington did when he let himself in was to lock the door behind him. He gazed around the room and felt the familiar upsurge of pride and patriotism. What he had created was a shrine to England’s military glory. Banners, uniforms and weapons stood everywhere. Memorabilia of a more gruesome kind were contained in a glass case. Its prime exhibit, a human skull, was something that he cherished. It had belonged to a nameless French soldier who had fallen at the battle of Waterloo. Sir Marcus had killed him.

He wandered around the room, examining various items and luxuriating in the memories that they kindled. Then he crossed to the window. It was a fine day and sunlight was dappling the back lawn, but he was not looking at the garden. His gaze went up to the flag that was fluttering in the breeze at the top of its pole. He gave it a salute. Turning back, he surveyed his collection once more, drawing strength from it, finding consolation, recapturing younger days. On the wall above the mantelpiece was a portrait of himself in uniform. It never failed to lift his heart.

Crossing to a rosewood cabinet, he opened the top drawer and took out a wooden case that he set down on the table. When he lifted the lid of the case, Sir Marcus looked down fondly at a pair of percussion duelling pistols with plated turnoff barrels and walnut stocks inlaid with silver. The weapons gleamed. Packed neatly around them was a small supply of ammunition. He removed the pistols from the case and held one in each hand. The sensation of power was thrilling. It coursed through him for minutes. When it finally began to ease, Sir Marcus started to load the pistols.

Now that he was involved in the investigation once more, Victor Leeming was eager to take on more work. He spent the morning on the hoof, tracking down some of the people who had attended the lecture given by Gaston Chabal. It had been a largely fruitless exercise but it made him feel useful again. Instead of meeting the inspector at the Lamb and Flag, he agreed to visit Colbeck’s house in John Islip Street so that they could have more privacy. Robert Colbeck’s father and grandfather had been cabinetmakers with a string of wealthy clients. When he inherited the house, he also inherited examples of their work. In the drawing room where he and Leeming sat, a large cupboard, two matching cabinets and a beautiful mahogany secretaire bore the Colbeck name.

‘How are you feeling today, Victor?’ asked the inspector.

‘Tired but happy to be so, sir.’

‘You must not overdo it.’

‘Knocking on a few doors is no effort,’ said Leeming. ‘I just wish that I had more to report. None of the four people I called on could possibly have hired Luke Rogan. You can cross them off the list.’

‘That saves me the trouble of bothering with them.’

‘How many names are left?’

‘Less than twenty. We are slowly whittling them down.’

‘Why are you so sure that the man we want actually attended that lecture? If he detested the idea of that railway being built in France, wouldn’t he avoid a man who was talking about it?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’d want to find out as much about it as he could. Also, of course, he’d be keen to take a closer look at Gaston Chabal. The man represented
everything that he loathed and feared. No, he and Rogan were there together, I’m certain of it. They may not have sat beside each other – they probably took care to stay apart in order to conceal their relationship – but they were both at that lecture.’

‘Then we are bound to find him in the end.’

‘Oh, yes.’

Colbeck stirred his tea before tasting it. Leeming had already finished one cup and was halfway through the second. He chewed on the slice of cake that he had been offered.

‘What did Mr Tallis have to say about it all?’

‘He was pleased, Victor. Or, to put it another way, he smoked no cigars, had no tantrums and was almost disarmingly civil. All that he craves is a little success,’ said Colbeck. ‘It stops him from being pilloried in the newspapers.’

‘Talking of the newspapers, sir, I saw that notice you put in this morning’s edition. It’s sure to get a response.’

‘Not all of it entirely reliable, alas.’

‘No,’ said Leeming, wearily. ‘The promise of a reward does things to some people. They invent all sorts of stories to try to get their hands on the money. But they won’t all be fraudulent. There may be some wheat among the chaff, sir.’

‘I’m counting on it.’

‘You gave a good description of Rogan. It tallied with the one I had from Horace Eames.’

‘I also relied on what Madame Hennebeau told me. She was clearly very fond of the man but, then, so were a number of women.’

‘Luke Rogan will be on the run by now. You’ll have flushed him out of his hiding place good and proper.’

‘That was the idea behind using the press,’ said Colbeck.
‘I wanted to scare Rogan and drive a wedge between him and his employer. When he realises that we’ve identified his hired killer, the man who set everything in motion will want to distance himself from Rogan. My guess is that he’ll go to ground immediately.’

‘Here in London?’

‘Well, it won’t be in France, we may be certain of that.’

While his visitor drained his teacup, Colbeck told him about the conversation he had had earlier with Madeleine Andrews regarding her sketch of the Sankey Viaduct. Leeming was almost as confused by his talk of symbols and metaphors as she had been, but he trusted the inspector to know what he was talking about. What interested him was Colbeck’s theory that the man who had engaged Rogan had probably served in the army at one time.

‘I wish you’d told me that before, Inspector,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I could have asked the people I interviewed this morning if they knew anyone who’d been at that lecture with a military background. It’s a small world – engineers and such like. They all seem to know each other.’

‘That’s in our favour.’

‘Do you have any more names for me?’

‘Haven’t you done enough work for one day?’

‘No,’ said Leeming, ignoring the stab of pain in his ribs. ‘I’m only just starting to warm up, sir. Use me as much as you wish.’

‘Mr Tallis would admonish me, if he knew.’

‘You employed Brendan Mulryne behind his back and got away with it. Unlike him, I do work at the Detective Department.’

‘But you’re supposed to be on sick leave, Victor.’

‘I’m sick of sick leave. Give me some more names.’

‘As you wish,’ said Colbeck, taking a slip of paper from his pocket and handing it over. ‘There are four more people for you to chase down. Be sure to find out if any of them bore arms against the French at one time. That would make them fifty or more at least.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘And take a cab. You don’t have to go all over London on foot. Keep a record of your cab fares and I’ll reimburse you.’

‘You can save your money with this chap, sir,’ said Leeming as he saw the first address on the list. ‘He lives in Pimlico. That’s well within walking distance of here.’

‘It is indeed. What’s the man’s name?’

‘Hetherington – Sir Marcus Hetherington.’

The publicity in the newspapers had given him a real fright. Before his landlady or his neighbours could report his whereabouts to the police, Luke Rogan gathered up everything of value and stuffed it into a bag. Then he changed out of the slightly garish attire he usually wore and put on a pair of dungarees, a moth-eaten old coat and a floppy hat. It was a disguise he often used in the course of his work as a private detective and it was so nondescript as to render him almost invisible. After checking his appearance in the mirror, he fled from his house in Bayswater without leaving behind the unpaid rent.

He left his belongings at the house in Paddington of a woman he had befriended during his days as a policeman. He gave her a plausible explanation about why he was dressed as a workman but she needed no convincing. She was a lonely
widow who was so pleased to see him that she offered him accommodation for as long as he wished. As she never read a newspaper, there was no possibility that she would link her former lover with a series of horrific crimes. In the short term at least, Rogan had somewhere to hide.

Sir Marcus Hetherington had ordered him to kill Colbeck in order that the murder investigation would lose the man who directed it and make it founder. In view of what the inspector had done, Rogan was now fired by revenge as well. He was anxious to strike back at the person who had exposed him in the newspapers as a wanted felon and spread his name across the whole of London. He knew that he could never return to his old life again. Colbeck had robbed him of his occupation. In recompense, he would deprive the detective of his life.

Rogan had been patient. He knew what his intended victim looked like and where to find him. Lurking outside Scotland Yard until the inspector had emerged, he waited until Colbeck had summoned a cab then flagged down one of his own and ordered it to follow the first vehicle. What he learned was that Colbeck lived in John Islip Street and that, very soon after his arrival, he had a visitor. While the two men were inside the house, Rogan loitered in a doorway on the other side of the street and bided his time. He felt under his coat for the knife that was thrust into his belt. Having already killed Gaston Chabal, it could now be used to dispatch another man.

Inside the house, the detectives came to the end of their conversation.

‘I’ll be on my way, Inspector,’ said Victor Leeming, rising slowly to his feet. ‘Thank you for the tea and cake.’

‘When this is all over, we’ll celebrate with something a little
stronger,’ promised Colbeck. ‘Before that, I’ll want to know how you fared this afternoon.’

‘Where will I meet you?’

‘At the Lamb and Flag.’

‘What time?’

‘Shall we say six o’clock?’

‘I’ll be there, sir.’

‘Good.’ Colbeck got to his feet and led the way into the hall. ‘I’ll go back to Scotland Yard to see if anyone has come forward as a result of that notice in the newspapers.’

‘And I’ll ring some more doorbells.’

‘Are you glad to be back in harness again, Victor?’

‘Yes, sir – even if I can only manage a trot.’ They put on their respective hats and left the house together. Leeming looked up and down the street. ‘Not long to go now.’

‘I hope not.’

‘We’ll soon catch Luke Rogan.’

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck. ‘We’re getting close. I can feel it.’

They exchanged farewells then parted company. Leeming walked at a gentle pace towards Vauxhall Bridge Road while Colbeck went off in the opposite direction, intending to stop the first empty hansom cab. As none was in view, he continued to stroll briskly along the pavement. He reviewed all the evidence they had so far gathered and it left him with a feeling of guarded optimism. His only worry was that Rogan might leave London to avoid arrest and, possibly, flee the country altogether. If necessary, Colbeck was more than ready to pursue him abroad.

It was minutes before he realised that he was being followed. He did not remember seeing anyone when they came out of the house but he sensed a distinct presence now.
When an empty cab came towards him, therefore, he let it pass. Colbeck wanted to know who was on his tail. Moving to the kerb, he glanced back down the street then crossed diagonally to the other side. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen him. The man had pretended to tie up his bootlace so that he could keep his head down but Colbeck knew at once that it was a ruse. He was being shadowed.

As he walked on, he maintained the same pace, giving no indication that he was aware of someone behind him. They were now on the same side of the street. The gap between them slowly closed until Colbeck could hear the tramp of hobnail boots behind him. That was the danger signal. If he was simply being followed, he knew that the man would stay well back to avoid being seen. The fact that he was moving steadily closer meant that he was going to attack.

Colbeck did not know if the man was a thief or someone with a personal grudge against him. Police work had made him many enemies and he had often received threats from convicted criminals as they were hauled out of the dock to begin a prison sentence. It did not matter who the stalker was. The way to deal with him, he believed, was to invite the attack. When he reached a corner, he turned sharply and went down a narrow lane. He heard footsteps quicken behind him. After a few more yards, Colbeck swung round to confront the man. The sun forewarned him. It glinted on the knife that had suddenly appeared in the stalker’s hand. The man lunged forward and thrust hard with his weapon but he could not sink it into the back of an unsuspecting victim this time. Colbeck was ready for him.