Murder on the Brighton Express Read online

  ‘So it was Mr Pike’s suggestion, was it?’

  ‘He stayed on the footplate. Nothing would have made Frank abandon the train. He’d have seen that as a betrayal.’ Heddle hunched his shoulders. ‘That’s why I feel so bad about it. I mean, when I leapt off like that, I betrayed him.’

  ‘That’s not true at all,’ said Colbeck. ‘You obeyed his order so you have no need to reproach yourself.’ He leant in closer. ‘Let’s go back to the moment when you first realised there was danger.’

  ‘But I didn’t, Inspector.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m still in the dark.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well,’ said Heddle, rubbing a sore elbow, ‘it was like this, see. We’d crossed the Ouse Viaduct and were steaming along nicely when Frank saw something ahead that frightened him.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘That’s the trouble, sir, I’ve no idea. I just couldn’t see what Frank had seen but I knew we had a big problem. I could tell by the tone of his voice. The next minute, we’d left the track and all we could do was to pray. Then we both saw another train coming towards us. Frank saved my life. When he told me to jump, I hurled myself off the footplate straight away.’ His eyes moistened. ‘If only Frank had done the same. I loved working with him. He was a good driver and one of the kindest men I know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘I met Frank Pike. He seemed a thoroughly decent man. Everyone speaks well of him, especially Caleb Andrews.’

  Heddle gave an involuntary shiver. ‘Have you been talking to that old tyrant?’ he said. ‘When I worked for the LNWR, Mr Andrews put the fear of death into me. He was always boxing my ears if I didn’t clean his engine the way he wanted. I’ll tell you something, Inspector, I’d hate to have been his fireman. Though fair’s fair,’ he added, ‘Frank used to worship Caleb Andrews.’

  ‘So you saw no obstruction on the line?’

  ‘No, sir, and that’s what I told Captain Ridgeon.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘I’ve encountered the inspector general. He and I take a rather different view of what happened.’

  ‘He thinks Frank was driving too fast,’ said Heddle, defensively, ‘but that wasn’t true at all. He never went above the speed limits. I was the one who wanted to go faster, not Frank Pike.’ He narrowed his lids to peer at Colbeck. ‘What’s going on, Inspector? Why are you so interested in the crash? Accidents happen on the railway all the time but we don’t usually get anyone from Scotland Yard involved.’

  ‘This was no accident, John.’

  ‘Then what was it? I wish someone would tell me.’

  ‘What I believe Pike saw,’ explained Colbeck, ‘was a section of rail that had been levered away on purpose so that the train would come off the line.’

  Heddle was aghast. ‘That’s dreadful!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It was a criminal act.’

  ‘Why would anyone do such a vile thing?’

  ‘That’s what we intend to find out,’ said Colbeck with quiet determination. ‘Pike and the others were not killed in an unfortunate accident. They were, in effect, murder victims.’

  Heddle was on the verge of tears. Unable to cope with the news, he quaked and gibbered. It was bad enough to lose a dear friend in an accident. The thought that someone had deliberately set out to kill and maim innocent people was utterly appalling. Engines, carriages and rolling stock had also been destroyed. Heddle was rocked. As he tried to take in the sheer magnitude of the crime, his head pounded. Horror eventually gave way to a deep bitterness.

  ‘That was no blessing,’ he said, curling his lip.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There was this clergyman on the platform at London Bridge. Before we set off, he told us he wanted to bless the train. He said that he always did that when catching the express.’

  ‘That must have been the Reverend Follis,’ decided Colbeck.

  ‘I don’t know what his name was and I don’t want to know. He was a holy menace. That wasn’t a blessing he gave us,’ said Heddle with rancour. ‘If you ask me, it was a bleeding curse.’

  The Reverend Ezra Follis was a regular visitor to the county hospital in Brighton. Whenever one of his parishioners spent time there, he made a point of calling on them to check on their condition and to bring them some cheer. What made his visit different on this occasion was that he looked as if he himself should have been detained in the hospital as a patient. His clothing hid most of his cuts and bruises but his hat failed to conceal the bandaging around his skull, and his face still bore some livid scars. A blow to the hip received during the crash had left him with a pronounced limp. He refused to use a walking stick, however, and, in spite of his aches and pains, he was as affable as ever.

  He arrived at the main entrance as one of the patients was about to leave. Giles Thornhill was in a frosty mood. One arm in a sling and with a black eye as the central feature in a face that was liberally grazed, he was moving very slowly towards a waiting cab, each step a physical effort. Standing beside him was a member of the local constabulary.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Thornhill,’ said Follis, chirpily. ‘I’m glad to see that you’re well enough to be discharged.’

  ‘I prefer to rest in my own bed,’ said Thornhill. ‘There’s no privacy in the hospital. I was made to share a ward with the most unspeakable people. It was so noisy that I didn’t get a wink of sleep.’

  ‘Then you’re in a position to institute some improvements. As a Member of Parliament, you have a lot of influence here. You could put pressure on the Board of Trustees to provide additional funds for the hospital so that they can build an annexe with single rooms. While patients are recovering, they need peace and quiet.’

  ‘I have other things to worry about at the moment.’

  There was a muted resentment in his voice. While Thornhill had sustained a broken arm and picked up some ugly gashes in the crash, Follis had been relatively unscathed. The politician had been knocked unconscious. The first thing he saw when he came to was the face of the little clergyman, bending over him and muttering words of comfort in his ear. It had irritated him. In intense pain and a degree of panic, all that Thornhill had wanted was to be taken to hospital instead of being bothered by Ezra Follis.

  When he reached the cab, however, he felt obliged to turn back.

  ‘How are your own injuries?’ he asked with formal politeness.

  ‘Oh,’ replied Follis, displaying his bandaged hands. ‘My head and my hands took the punishment so I came off rather lightly. God moves in mysterious ways, Mr Thornhill. I believe that I was spared in order to help others. Divine intervention was at work.’

  Thornhill grunted. ‘I saw no sign of it,’ he said.

  ‘You survived. Isn’t that a reason to be grateful to the Almighty?’

  ‘I’d have been more grateful if He’d kept the train on the rails.’

  Helped by the policeman, Thornhill got into the cab. Both men were then driven away. Follis waved them off before going into the hospital. One of the nurses directed him to a ward where some of the other survivors were being kept. Sweeping off his broad-brimmed hat, he went into the room and looked along the beds. The patients were subdued and two of them, with appalling injuries, were comatose. Of the other six, most had splints on their arms or legs. One man, in the first bed, had broken both lower limbs. The clergyman recognised the red face and mutton-chop whiskers.

  ‘Good day to you, my friend,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘My name is Ezra Follis, Rector of St Dunstan’s. We sat opposite each other on the train – at least, we did until our seating positions were suddenly rearranged by the crash. To whom am I speaking?’

  ‘Terence Giddens,’ said the other, grasping him by the wrist. ‘Do you know what’s going on in here?’

  ‘The hospital is doing its best to cope with victims of the worst train crash in years, that’s what is going on, my good sir. Everyone is working at full stretch.’

  ‘They won’t te
ll me anything, Mr Follis.’

  ‘What is it that you’d like to know?’

  ‘I’m not even sure if everyone in our carriage survived,’ said Giddens. ‘All I’ve gathered is that six people were killed.’

  ‘Seven,’ corrected Follis. ‘A young lady died from her wounds shortly after reaching the hospital. I was here when it happened.’

  Giddens blanched. ‘It was not the young lady from our carriage, I trust?’

  ‘No, no, she was badly injured but, as I understand it, her life is not in danger. None of our other travelling companions met their deaths, Mr Giddens. Most are in here or being looked after elsewhere. In fact,’ he recalled, ‘Mr Thornhill, one of Brighton’s two Members of Parliament, felt well enough to go home.’

  ‘That’s what I must do.’

  ‘You’re hardly in a condition for release,’ said Follis, detaching the man’s hand from his wrist and glancing at the broken legs. ‘You need the kind of care that only a trained medical staff can give.’

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ insisted Giddens.

  ‘You have no choice.’

  ‘There must be some way to get me back to London.’

  ‘Well, it certainly won’t be by train. The line is still well and truly blocked. And a coach would turn the journey into an ordeal for you as it bounced and bucked its way over the roads. I’m sorry, Mr Giddens, you’ll just have to resign yourself to staying here.’

  ‘Can’t you persuade them to discharge me?’

  ‘The hospital has a good reputation. You’ll be safe here.’

  ‘But I need to be in London as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Why is that, may I ask?’

  ‘I’m the manager of a large bank,’ said Giddens, pompously. ‘I have important decisions to make. I can’t instruct my clerks from fifty miles away.’

  ‘There’s an excellent postal service between here and the capital,’ argued Follis. ‘Besides, you can’t possibly return to work when you’re unable to walk. I know that it’s difficult, Mr Giddens, but you have to accept the situation as it is. You’ll be here in Brighton for a little while yet.’

  Terence Giddens bit back an expletive and turned his head away. Trapped and helpless, he frothed with impotent rage. The pain in both legs suddenly became a searing agony.

  Superintendent Edward Tallis was seated at his desk in Scotland Yard, scrutinising a report. In response to a knock on his door, he barked a command and Robert Colbeck entered.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Ah!’ said Tallis, looking up. ‘I was wondering when you would deign to appear, Inspector. I thought you had perhaps forgotten your way here.’

  ‘I was investigating the train crash, Superintendent, but I found time to write an interim report for you and made sure that it was delivered early this morning.’

  ‘It’s right here in front of me. Your handwriting is graceful as ever but that’s the only compliment I feel able to make. The report is full of unsubstantiated guesswork. What it lacks are hard facts.’

  ‘I’m here to present those to you now, sir.’

  ‘Not before time,’ said Tallis raising a censorious eyebrow. ‘Well, since you’re finally here, you may as well sit down.’

  Colbeck sat on the chair in front of his desk and waited patiently while the superintendent pretended to read the report again. Relations between the two men had always been strained. Tallis was a thickset man in his fifties with short grey hair and a neat moustache. A military man with the habit of command, he expected instant obedience and did not always get that from the inspector. He disapproved of Colbeck’s flamboyant attire, his debonair manner and his idiosyncratic methods of detection. Tallis was also envious of the fact that Colbeck tended to receive adulation in the press while he, a senior officer, was rarely mentioned unless as a target for criticism.

  ‘Your report hints that a heinous crime has been committed,’ said Tallis, setting the paper aside and sitting back. ‘Is this another typically wild conjecture on your part?’

  ‘No, sir – Victor and I found proof positive of villainy.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Colbeck told him about their discoveries at the site of the accident and about his conversation with John Heddle. He exonerated Frank Pike from the charge of speeding. The superintendent listened carefully, his face expressionless. When Colbeck had finished, Tallis fired questions at him like a stream of bullets.

  ‘Who was responsible for this outrage?’ he demanded.

  ‘A former employee of the railway,’ answered Colbeck.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Consider the choice of time and location, sir. Anyone could find out the departure time of the Brighton Express by looking at a copy of Bradshaw and could therefore estimate its likely arrival on the stretch of line concerned. But only someone who had worked for the LB&SCR would know when goods trains would be running on the up line. They were meant to collide. Whoever planned this crash wanted to achieve maximum death and destruction.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Revenge.’

  ‘Against what or whom?’

  ‘I fancy that the person we are after bears a grudge against the railway company.’

  ‘What sort of grudge?’

  ‘Perhaps he feels he was unfairly dismissed or has another reason for wanting to get his revenge. I’ve asked Victor to track down the names of anyone who may have left the company under a cloud in recent times. That’s our starting point, sir.’

  Tallis stroked his moustache while he pondered. He shook his head. ‘I’m not entirely convinced that the culprit was a railwayman.’

  ‘That’s because you didn’t see the way that the bolts and fishplates had been removed so that a section of the rail could be levered away. It was the work of an expert,’ said Colbeck. ‘Anyone else wanting to derail a train would simply have put a large obstacle on the line. The problem with that was that it would have been seen by the driver from some distance away, allowing him to shut off steam and brake much earlier. Frank Pike only noticed the damaged rail when the express had almost reached it.’

  ‘Does the inspector general agree with your conclusions?’

  ‘No, sir – Captain Ridgeon is finding it difficult to abandon his earlier assessment that it was an accident caused by human error.’

  ‘His opinion should be treated with respect.’

  ‘He’s an army man,’ observed Colbeck, dryly. ‘Once he’s made a decision – however mistaken it may be – he defends it to the hilt.’

  Tallis bristled. ‘There’s nothing wrong with service to Queen and Country,’ he said, huffily. ‘I was proud to do my duty and found it an excellent training for police work.’

  ‘That’s because you’re an exception to the rule, Superintendent. You are known and admired for the flexibility of your mind.’

  Colbeck spoke with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Tallis, in fact, was renowned for his dogged inflexibility. Depending on the circumstances, it could be either his strength or his weakness, a single-mindedness that was a positive asset or an inability to look at a case from more than one angle. Unsure if he was being mocked or receiving a compliment, Tallis settled for a non-committal grunt.

  ‘I don’t think you should disregard Captain Ridgeon’s opinion altogether,’ he warned. ‘I’d be interested to meet the fellow.’

  ‘I’m certain that you will, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘Sooner or later, he’ll be coming here to complain about the way he believes Victor and I are hampering him. The captain is not accustomed to having any of his decisions questioned.’

  ‘That’s the privilege of being an officer.’

  ‘He’s no longer in the army, Superintendent. It’s time he adjusted to civilian life, as you have done so successfully.’ Tallis heard the light sarcasm in his voice and was about to interrupt. ‘There are, of course, two other possibilities,’ Colbeck added quickly. ‘The first has to be mentioned if only to be discounted.’

  �
��Why?’

  ‘Because it’s one that other people may seize upon without realising that it will only mislead them.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, man?’

  ‘The fact that the culprit may work for a rival company,’ said Colbeck, ‘and that he attacked the LB&SCR out of spite. It’s an obvious supposition.’

  ‘Then why dismiss it?’

  ‘There’s no precedent for rival companies stooping to such extreme methods. Passions run high among people vying for the right to control a particular line and they’ll resort to all manner of unfair tactics to secure their ends. But they’ll draw back from causing a serious accident,’ he continued. ‘Apart from anything else, a crash on one line affects the whole railway system. It makes the travelling public more wary of using trains. In short, it’s very bad publicity. It’s therefore in the interest of all companies to avoid accidents.’

  ‘You said that there were two other possibilities,’ noted Tallis. ‘What, pray, might the second one be?’

  ‘It’s a theory I have, Superintendent.’

  ‘Ah, I was waiting until you trotted out another of your famous theories. It was only a question of time.’

  ‘Actually, sir, it was Victor Leeming who had this idea.’

  ‘So you’ve infected the sergeant with your disease, have you?’ said Tallis with a sneer. ‘One theoretician is more than enough in the Detective Department. We can’t have two of you coming up with mad hypotheses that have no factual basis.’

  ‘This is not a mad hypothesis.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘An idea that merits consideration,’ said Colbeck. ‘What Victor suggested was that the crash was caused in order to kill a particular individual who was on the Brighton Express.’

  ‘But there’s no guarantee that the intended victim would be killed,’ contended Tallis. ‘There would, however, certainly be other deaths. If a man is set on murder, he would surely stalk and kill his victim instead of going to such elaborate lengths as this.’

  ‘I agree, sir, but take the idea a stage further.’