Signal for Vengeance Read online

  SIGNAL FOR VENGEANCE

  EDWARD MARSTON

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  About the Author

  By Edward Marston

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dorset, 1860

  It was just before midnight when she left. There was no need to be quiet while she dressed or to tiptoe down the narrow staircase. No matter how much noise she made, her husband would not wake up. It was always the same on a Saturday night. He would roll back home, stagger into the lodge and make an effusive declaration of love before lurching forward to grope her. As she more or less carried him up to the bedroom, she had to endure the stink of beer on his breath and the cumbersome weight of his body. She was forced to listen to the crude words that dribbled out of his mouth like so much slime then submit to the painful squeezing of her breasts and some slobbering kisses. By the time they finally reached the top of the stairs, he’d lapse into a drunken stupor. Hauling him on to the bed, she’d remove his coat, boots and trousers before pulling the blanket over him. The deafening sound of his snores was, as always, accompanied by outbursts of flatulence. With a sigh of resignation, she’d climb unwillingly in beside him and grit her teeth.

  Marriage to a crossing-keeper had brought much sadness and disappointment for Rebecca Tullidge. Though she lived in a neat, compact, two-storey, brick-built lodge in the Dorset countryside, it had soon lost its appeal. Other women might envy her well-tended garden and covet the steady wage that her husband earned but she took pleasure from neither. She hated the isolation, the dull repetition of each day and, above all, the fact that she was shackled to a brutish man she’d mistakenly imagined she could love, honour and obey. It was a continuous ordeal.

  She had to escape.

  It was pitch-dark when she let herself out of the lodge but she soon picked her way to the railway line. Once she felt the sleepers under her feet, her confidence grew and she strode off with mingled relief and excitement. No trains would come for hours. Rebecca was certain of that because the timetable was graven on her heart. It was just as well. When her husband had been drunk or incapable or simply unable to wake up, she’d had to take over his duties, closing the gates before an approaching train and watching it flash past in a heady mixture of wind, smoke, steam, stench and tumult. But she was not on duty now. If only for a short time, she was gloriously free. She was on a very special journey, moving between one life and another. Drudgery and despair were left behind her; love and hope lay ahead.

  Though she knew the risk she was taking, she scorned danger. Nobody else would be abroad on such a cold, unforgiving, starless night. With her hat pulled down, her coat buttoned up and her shawl around her shoulders, she felt invisible. All she had to do was to walk a few hundred yards and he would be there. That thought warmed her body and set her blood racing. She had finally found some relief from the misery of her existence. In place of a blundering oaf of a husband, she had someone who was kind, gentle and understanding. Instead of shrinking from the touch of a man with legitimate access to her body, she would give herself wholeheartedly to someone who had no rightful claim on her. His love for Rebecca obliterated the impediments of holy matrimony. Nothing could hold them back.

  Desperate to see him and emboldened by passion, she broke into a trot, running from sleeper to sleeper with sure-footed joy. It would only be a matter of minutes before she flung herself into his arms once again. She quickened her pace even more. Her haste, however, was her downfall. Before she even saw the body stretched across the rails, she tripped over it and fell headlong to the ground. Her jarring pain was intensified by her utter desolation. Rebecca knew at once that it was him. All of their plans had suddenly been ripped to shreds. All of their promises and intimacy and tenderness lay sprawled lifelessly across a deserted stretch of track.

  There was no escape, after all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Inspector Vallence,’ said Colbeck, angrily. ‘Is it true that you’ve given him an assignment in Dorset?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ replied Tallis.

  ‘But he has no experience of dealing with a railway crime.’

  ‘That’s why Sergeant Leeming will be at his side. After all the cases he’s worked on with you, the sergeant is something of an expert.’

  ‘This investigation should be mine, sir.’

  ‘Calm down, man.’

  ‘Inspector Vallence is too young and untried.’

  ‘I need you here in London.’

  ‘But this is a case for which I’m ideally suited.’ Conscious that he was almost shouting, Colbeck took a deep breath before speaking more softly. ‘I beg you to reconsider your decision.’

  ‘Too late – it’s already made.’

  ‘Then you must change your mind.’

  Tallis bridled. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do!’

  ‘This is important to me,’ said Colbeck, earnestly, ‘and I can assure you that it’s equally important to the London and South Western Railway. When they sent a telegraph to Scotland Yard, I’ll wager that I was mentioned by name.’

  Edward Tallis shifted uneasily in his seat. They were in his office, a place that Robert Colbeck only ever entered after a polite knock. That formality had been swept aside this time. He’d flung open the door and stormed into the room to lean across the desk and fire his question at the superintendent. Tallis went on the attack.

  ‘You’re forgetting yourself, Inspector,’ he said, sharply. ‘You should respect my rank and only come in here by invitation or summons. Granted, there is something in what you say. By dint of your success, you’ve rightly earned the appellation of the Railway Detective but the railway system of this country should not be your only sphere of activity. Broaden your horizons. Tackle crime elsewhere.’

  Colbeck held out his hand. ‘Let me see the telegraph, please.’

  ‘It was addressed to me.’

  ‘I have a right to see it, sir.’

  ‘The only right you have is to obey my instructions. The matter is settled. You will stay here while Vallence and Leeming go to Dorset.’

  Hand still extended, Colbeck held his ground and met the superintendent’s glare without flinching. It was a battle of wills. As a rule, Tallis would have asserted his authority and sent him on his way but he couldn’t do that in this instance. He could see the hurt and indignation in Colbeck’s eyes and read the dire warning that was there. This was no ordinary argument between the two men. They’d had dozens of those in the past and Tallis had, more often than not, won them. Here was one trial of strength, however, that he was destined to lose. Colbeck was not merely insisting on taking over the investigation, he was, in effect, threatening to resign if he were not allowed to do so.

  That – the superintendent knew – would be a catastrophe for Scotland Yard. Colbeck was the finest detective there. If the inspector were forced to leave, Tallis would face a roasting at the hands of the commissioner and ridicule in the press. Editors would crucify him for sending a novice inspector on an assignment that self-evidently called for the unique skills of Robert Colbeck. Tallis glanced at the outstretched hand in front of him and eventually capitulated. Reaching into his desk, he took out the telegraph and thrust it at his visitor.

/>   ‘You were asked for by name,’ he admitted, grumpily.

  ‘So I see,’ said Colbeck, reading the terse message. ‘A railway policeman has been murdered.’ He looked up. ‘Do you really wish to send Inspector Vallence to Wimborne in place of me? He’s never even heard of Castleman’s Corkscrew.’

  Tallis blinked. ‘Nor more have I. What the deuce is it?’

  ‘The line is now under the aegis of the LSWR but – when the Southampton to Dorchester Railway was first built in 1847 – it was known as Castleman’s Corkscrew because it followed a circuitous route through the New Forest and on into Dorset. Mr Castleman was the driving force behind the formation of the SDR. His name will for ever be associated with the tortuous route taken.’

  ‘You are embarrassingly well informed,’ conceded Tallis.

  ‘Inspector Vallence had the grace to say the same thing.’

  ‘Don’t denigrate him. He’s a good man.’

  ‘He’s also a good detective and may well become an outstanding one. I have high hopes of him,’ said Colbeck, ‘but I’ll not yield a yard of my territory to him.’

  Putting the telegraph down on the desk, he adopted a pose of mute defiance.

  Visibly under pressure, Tallis reached for the comfort of a cigar, taking one from its box and going through his usual ritual. As the smoke billowed, Colbeck took a few cautionary steps backwards.

  Tallis’s mood changed. In place of his gruff and peremptory tone, he was uncharacteristically reasonable and apologetic. Compassion was not a word that Colbeck would ever use of his superior yet he heard a distinct trace of it in the other man’s voice.

  ‘I thought that you’d prefer to stay in London,’ he explained.

  ‘I go wherever I’m needed, sir.’

  ‘My feeling is that you’re needed here at the moment.’

  ‘We’ve had an urgent request from the LSWR and I must respond to it at once. The murder of a railway employee is a matter of …’

  His voice tailed off and he gaped at the superintendent. At last understanding what Tallis had been trying to do, he was both amazed and touched. Colbeck did indeed have a good reason to remain in the capital. His pregnant wife, Madeleine, was due to give birth before long. Colbeck was astonished that the superintendent even knew about his domestic situation. Ordinarily, Tallis would never talk about family matters. He believed that in order to do their job properly and without distraction, detectives should be – like him – unmarried. He frowned on those who took a wife and made no special allowances for them. When his wife, Estelle, was about to give birth to their two children, Victor Leeming had been shown scant sympathy. On the day that the first child came into the world, the sergeant had been helping Colbeck to solve a murder in Northampton.

  Yet here was this crusty, old bachelor actually showing consideration for once. Tallis might not be the confirmed misogynist that everyone took him for, after all. At the time, the superintendent had been upset to hear that the Railway Detective was about to get married and he made no secret of his disapproval. And yet – to Colbeck’s astonishment – he had turned up at the wedding, indicating a token sign of acceptance. Though he never referred to Madeleine or once asked after her, he’d clearly got his information from somewhere.

  ‘You understand me at last, I see,’ observed Tallis.

  ‘Yes, sir, and I’m … grateful to you.’

  ‘Under any other circumstances, nothing would tempt me to send another detective on an assignment like this. It’s yours by right. Nobody here can challenge you. At present, however …’

  ‘I still wish to go to Dorset,’ said Colbeck, firmly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Wimborne is less than four hours away by train. I checked.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s a question of priorities.’

  Tallis was right and it was a sobering reminder. When Colbeck first heard that he’d been supplanted, as he saw it, by another detective, he’d been deeply wounded. Only now did he realise what the superintendent had been doing. Tallis was deliberately keeping him in London so that he would be on hand when Madeleine gave birth to their first child. Colbeck chided himself for misunderstanding the other man’s motives. Ideally, Madeleine would love to have her husband by her side at such a critical time yet she’d never asked him to request a leave of absence. She knew that Colbeck was wedded to his work as well as to her. The decision had been left to him and he was now forced to confront it.

  His duty to his wife should come first. He accepted that. But the appeal of solving another railway murder was very strong. Colbeck consoled himself with the words of the doctor attending Madeleine. Unable to give a precise date, he’d said that the baby might not be due for another week or so, perhaps even a fortnight. That gave Colbeck some leeway. He was confident that the killer could be caught within that time. Dorset was a predominantly rural county with a sparse population. It would be easier to hunt a killer there than in a major city with abounding hiding places. That, at least, was what he was now telling himself. As a prospective father, he wanted to be with his wife when she delivered the baby; as a detective, however, his immediate response to a murder was to leap into action. After agonising over it for some while, he finally announced his decision.

  ‘Sergeant Leeming and I will be on the next train to Wimborne,’ he said.

  ‘You’re under no obligation to take on this investigation.’

  ‘I believe that I am, sir.’

  ‘What about … Mrs Colbeck?’ asked the other, tentatively.

  ‘My wife is in good hands, Superintendent. Thank you for asking.’

  Madeleine Colbeck was not lacking for company during her pregnancy. Her father, Caleb Andrews, had called at the house regularly, each time urging her to name the boy – he was certain of its gender – after him. A retired engine driver, Andrews had been given a new lease of life by the news of the impending arrival of a new member of the family. Filled with pride, he was also conscious of the dangers that even a healthy young woman like his daughter would face during childbirth. Much as she loved her father, what Madeleine prized most was the company of another woman. Estelle Leeming had therefore been a welcome visitor. Having two children of her own, she was able to offer advice and comfort. Since her husband worked alongside Colbeck, she understood the frustration of being deprived of him when his work took him far from London. During confinement, that frustration had been edged with fear and she talked honestly about it to Madeleine.

  But there was another female visitor to the house and she offered a rather different kind of support. Lydia Quayle was an attractive, intelligent, young spinster with a great affection for Madeleine. They’d met when Colbeck was trying to solve the murder of Lydia’s father in a suburb of Derby. Vivian Quayle had, in fact, been estranged from his daughter at the time and she’d moved to London to lead an independent life, sharing a house with an older female companion. Taking part in the investigative process at her husband’s request, Madeleine had met and befriended Lydia, helping her through a difficult time and earning her gratitude as a result. They’d been quickly drawn together. When she heard about the forthcoming birth, Lydia was delighted for Madeleine and intensely curious on her own behalf.

  ‘You’re going to have anaesthesia?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s what the doctor advised, Lydia.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘It was safe enough for Her Majesty, the Queen,’ said Madeleine with a smile. ‘There’s a rumour that she has been given chloroform during the birth of more than one of her children.’

  ‘Even so – the thought worries me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, Madeleine. I suppose that I don’t trust anaesthesia. You’re putting yourself at the mercy of a powerful drug. You … lose control.’

  Madeleine was about to suggest that her friend might think differently when she faced childbirth herself but, since that was an unlikely prospect, she said nothing. Nor did she touch on the problem of lab
our pains. It was too indelicate a subject. Estelle Leeming had been frank about her own experience. Since she and her husband lacked the financial advantages enjoyed by Colbeck, anaesthesia had never even been an option. In order to relieve her pangs, therefore, she’d had to put up with repeated bloodletting. Afraid of upsetting her, it was a piece of information that Madeleine decided not to pass on to Lydia.

  ‘How do you feel?’ asked the visitor.

  ‘To tell the truth, I’m a trifle uncomfortable.’

  ‘That’s normal at this stage, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose that it is, Lydia.’

  ‘Have you talked about names?’

  ‘We’ve left that to my father. He wants our son to be called Caleb.’

  ‘What if it’s a daughter?’

  ‘He’s going to be very disappointed.’

  ‘Yet he had a daughter of his own,’ argued Lydia. ‘He must be very proud of you, Madeleine. You’ve not only married a famous detective, you’ve developed into a talented artist.’

  Madeleine smiled wanly. ‘I haven’t been able to stand in front of an easel for some time. I miss it badly.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘Though not as much as I’m going to miss my husband.’

  ‘Why – where is he going?’

  ‘He’s been put in charge of a murder investigation.’

  Lydia was taken aback.

  ‘But it’s a Sunday.’

  ‘That makes no difference. Robert often has to work seven days a week. A letter from Scotland Yard arrived not long before you did. He’s on his way to Dorset.’

  The tables had been turned for once. By virtue of his superior rank, education and skill as a detective, Colbeck had always held the whip hand over his sergeant. Victor Leeming deferred to him readily. Now, however, he was in the dominant position. Fatherhood was the one area in which Colbeck could not maintain his status as the natural leader. It fell to him to be deferential.

  ‘Did it make a big difference to you, Victor?’ he wondered.