Peril on the Royal Train Read online

  ‘It’s no’ the day for the rent,’ she said, rancorously.

  ‘We’re not here to collect anything,’ explained Mudie. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we are but the only thing we’re after is information.’

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Lackey Paterson,’ said Leeming.

  ‘And who might ye be?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re acting on behalf of the Caledonian Railway.’

  ‘Ha!’ she said with contempt. ‘Dinna mention them to me.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I’m Lackey’s wife. It was the Caledonian as sacked him.’

  ‘That’s what we came to discuss, Mrs Paterson. Where can we find him?’

  ‘Your guess is as guid as mine.’

  ‘Does he have a job somewhere?’

  ‘If he does,’ she said with vehemence, ‘he’ll no be telling me about it. Lackey’s no’ ma mahn any more. He doesnae live wi’ me now. I’ve to bring the bairn up on ma own.’

  As if it heard what she said, the baby’s howl became so piteous that Mudie felt obliged to put a hand into his waistcoat pocket and take out a few coins. When he thrust them into her hand, he got no thanks. She simply glared at him.

  ‘Is your husband a violent man?’ asked Leeming.

  ‘I told ye. He’s no’ ma husband any more.’

  ‘Was he likely to get into fights when he was here?’

  ‘In a place like this, ye have to fight to get by,’ she said, ruefully. ‘Lackey was as ready wi’ his fists as any of ’em. I should know. I felt ’em often enough.’

  It accounted for the scar over one eye and for the strange lump on her temple. Mudie had to master the impulse to give her more money to assuage his feeling of guilt. The woman was poor, helpless and abandoned. It was a life of drudgery.

  Leeming probed. ‘Have you any idea – any idea at all – where your husband might be, Mrs Paterson? It’s very important that we find him.’

  She turned her head away. ‘What’s tha’ to me?’

  ‘We’re ready to pay for information,’ said Mudie, recklessly. He dug some more coins from his waistcoat pocket. ‘You must have some notion of where he is.’

  ‘I do, as it happens,’ she conceded, tempted by the promise of reward. She opened her palm and he dropped the money into it. ‘I can only tell ye what I’ve heerd,’ she warned. ‘The rumour is that Lackey left for a job further south.’

  ‘And where would that be, Mrs Paterson?’

  ‘It’s in a quarry.’

  Many men had toiled to clear the line and their efforts had finally borne fruit. The debris had been shifted, fresh ballast and sleepers had been installed and new lengths of rail were being put in place. Within the hour, trains would be running normally again. There was still an immense amount of work to do, burning shattered wagons or reclaiming those that could be repaired. Some freight still needed to be salvaged but the interruption to services had at last been corrected. To meet the needs of the crew on site, an improvised kitchen had been set up, serving food and drink to the men during brief moments of respite. It was near the kitchen that Colbeck met up again with Inspector Rae. They exchanged greetings.

  ‘We’re almost done here,’ said Rae, looking around. ‘They’ve worked well.’

  ‘Do you feel you’ve learnt everything there is to learn here, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, I do. The villains have long since fled the area. We must search elsewhere. I’ll start looking for them among employees of the North British.’

  ‘I wish you well,’ said Colbeck.

  Rae smiled. ‘I can’t believe that you mean that.’

  ‘Indeed, I do. If you can track down the culprits, I’ll be the first to congratulate you. It’s just that I believe you are looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘Oddly enough, I could say the same about you. This crash has nothing to do with the personal lives of any of the three men on that train.’

  ‘We must agree to differ.’

  ‘You’ve sent Sergeant Leeming on a wild goose chase. He’ll find nothing of value at the headquarters of the Caledonian.’

  ‘You seem very well informed,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘I make it my business to be so.’

  ‘Is that why you set spies to watch on us? In future, I’d suggest you choose someone more skilled at the trade than Superintendent McTurk. When he trailed me this morning, I sensed at once that he was there.’

  ‘Well, it was not at my behest,’ said Rae, seriously. ‘If he followed you, he did so off his own initiative. It may just be that he was hoping to pick up a few tips from a famous detective. McTurk is very ambitious. He doesn’t intend to spend the rest of his life as a railway policeman.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s capable of anything else.’

  ‘That’s not his opinion, Inspector. He told Mr Craig that he can solve this case without help from either you or me. You have to admire his confidence.’

  ‘I’d call it arrant folly.’

  ‘Be fair, now – the fellow does have some talents.’

  ‘Then they should be confined to supervisory work on the railway,’ said Colbeck. ‘If he was intent on catching the people behind this crime, he’d have taken the trouble to search the area above us. In a copse nearby, I found clear evidence that gunpowder had been stored there. It never occurred to McTurk to look for it.’

  ‘And, by implication, you’re saying that it never occurred to me either. I felt it unnecessary,’ said Rae. ‘It was less important to find out where the gunpowder was stored than where it came from. The first thing I did when I arrived here was to make enquiries at the quarry. I asked Mr Craig to pass on the information that nothing had been stolen from that source.’

  ‘He did so, Inspector. But I still think that my search was productive.’

  ‘Why – the villains are never going to come back here, are they?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ admitted Colbeck.

  ‘Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place.’

  ‘But it may strike again. Knowledge of the modus operandi of the culprits is therefore valuable. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘No,’ said Rae with emphasis. ‘This was an isolated attack, intended to cause disruption and to divert custom from one railway to another. I understand the politics of the situation in a way that even you can’t grasp.’

  ‘That may be so, Inspector. Then again …’

  Colbeck left the sentence unfinished but he was clearly not persuaded by Rae’s argument. When he surveyed the scene, he did so with a pang of remorse. Hard work would eventually rid the site of its remaining debris but the gaping wounds in the embankment would remain. It would take Mother Nature a long time to repair them. Every time a train went past, it would be reminded of the gruesome event that occurred there. Until the malefactors could be brought to justice, there would always be the lingering fear that – in spite of Rae’s opinion – it might happen again. The only way to still public apprehension was to make arrests.

  ‘Have the posters and handbills had any effect yet?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘Two men have come forward,’ replied Rae.

  ‘Did they have anything useful to tell you?’

  ‘If their evidence had been true, it would have been very useful.’

  ‘But it was not, I suspect.’

  ‘The first man claimed to have witnessed the whole thing,’ said Rae, ‘and gave a very plausible description of what had happened. My hopes were raised. Then it emerged that on the day in question, he was staying with relatives in Edinburgh. He was nowhere near this place.’

  ‘What about the second man?’

  ‘He demanded the reward before he even gave his information. When we refused, he became obstreperous and had to be restrained. We later learnt that he’d been put up to it by friends at a pub. They got him drunk then dared him to tell us a tale that would charm the money out of us. He’s now in a lock-up.’

  ‘It was ever thus,’ said Colbeck. ‘Some people will fabricate any story if
a reward is on offer. I still doubt if a genuine witness will ever come forward.’

  Superintendent McTurk was urinating behind some bushes when he heard someone coming. He quickly finished what he was doing and buttoned up his flies. Emerging flustered from his hiding place, he was confronted by a young man with a crook in one hand and a sheepdog at his heels.

  ‘What the devil do you want?’ demanded the policeman, reddening.

  Jamie Farr held up the handbill that bore details of the reward.

  ‘I’ve come aboot this, sir,’ he muttered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  John Mudie was unable to identify particular friends of Jock Laidlaw and Lackey Paterson but he did direct Victor Leeming to a place where the two men would be well known. The Railway Inn was only a short distance from the station in Glasgow and a natural venue for off-duty employees to gather. Feeling that his guide had given all the help that he usefully could, Leeming sent him back to his office and ventured into the inn alone. His top hat and frock coat immediately set him apart from anyone else there, though it was countered by his ugliness and by the solidity of his frame. He looked, if anything, like a working man in stolen apparel that didn’t quite fit him and which made him very uncomfortable. When he opened his mouth, his London vowels estranged him even more and the news that he was a detective silenced a number of tongues instantly. Most of those there confessed that they knew both Laidlaw and Paterson but very few were prepared to offer much information about them. Even the promise of a free drink couldn’t coax anything out of them. When Leeming pressed them, they simply shrugged and drifted out of the door.

  Treating himself to a glass of beer, he retired to a table in a corner and pondered. After the gushing helpfulness of Mudie, he’d come up against a barrier. It was disappointing. Yet his cause was not entirely hopeless. An old man was watching him with interest. After a while, he got up with difficulty, removed his cap so that he could scratch his bald head, then ambled across to the newcomer. Sighing at the effort it cost him, he lowered himself creakily onto the seat opposite Leeming.

  ‘My old bones will be the death of me,’ he complained.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked Leeming, hopes rising.

  ‘Thank ye, kind sir. I’ll have a wee dram.’

  Leeming got up to order the drink then brought it back to the table. The old man thanked him with a wheezing chortle then took a first sip. Sitting down again, Leeming waited patiently as his companion seemed to drift off into a reverie. The latter came out of it with a start.

  ‘I’m no’ like the others,’ he said, nodding sagely towards the door. ‘I’m retired from the railway, ye ken. They cannae touch me if I speak out o’ turn.’

  ‘Is that why the others kept silent?’ asked Leeming. ‘Were they afraid there’d be repercussions if they talked to me?’

  ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘And what’s the other part?’

  ‘You’re a Sassenach. That’s someone who’s no’ a true Scotsman.’

  ‘But I’m trying to help the Caledonian Railway.’

  ‘Your face doesnae fit heer, ma friend.’

  Leeming took a long sip of his beer. ‘Do you know the people I was asking about – Jock Laidlaw and Lackey Paterson?’

  ‘Oh, ar, I ken them both. When I was a driver, Lackey was my fireman.’

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘He was a lad wi’ too much fire in his belly.’

  ‘He had a temper, then?’

  ‘That he did and it got him into trouble. But he wasnae a bad mahn, for a’ that. Lackey was guid company even though he could be a bit wild when he’d drunk too much. That’s no’ a crime in my book. A mahn’s entitled to his drink. What else is there to cheer us up in this wicked world?’

  Leeming was about to say that a wife and family were more likely to provide cheer but he didn’t want to interrupt the old man. He let him ramble on, telling many anecdotes about Paterson’s antics at the Railway Inn and realising that the sacked driver had been quite popular there. When his companion paused for breath, Leeming shifted the conversation to Jock Laidlaw. He got a very different response.

  ‘Jock was a cocky bugger,’ said the old man with disapproval. ‘He’d strut around in heer like a rooster. Anyone’d think he was the only person who’d ever driven a train. Jock was always bragging about how guid he was.’

  ‘How did he and Paterson get on?’

  ‘They kept out of each other’s way.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘They’d nothing in common.’

  ‘Yet they ended up fighting.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the other, sadly. ‘It were the end for puir Lackey. He threw the first punch, I heer, and out he went.’

  ‘Do you know what caused him to attack Laidlaw?’

  ‘He must have been fed up wi’ all that bragging.’

  ‘Was there no other reason?’

  ‘None that I ken. I told ye that Lackey was hot-blooded. It’d only take a spark to set him off. Jock must’ve gi’ it to him.’

  Leeming thought about the woman with the scar and the lump on her temple.

  ‘Were you aware that Paterson has left his wife?’ he asked.

  ‘I was shocked when I heerd it,’ said the old man, eyes widening in sympathy. ‘Puir woman is left alone wi’ a bairn. Margaret, that’s her name – and she was the pride of the Gorbals as a lassie. Every mahn who saw her was jealous of Lackey. But having the bairn changed her, they say. She’s no’ the lovely creature she was.’

  ‘We spoke to her earlier today. She was bitter about being left by her husband. She told us that he knocked her about sometimes.’

  ‘Ye have to show a wife who’s in charge.’

  Leeming was indignant. ‘But you don’t have to do it with your fists.’

  ‘Ye do it your way – Lackey did it his way.’

  ‘Well, it’s a cowardly way, if you ask me. Mrs Paterson would have been defenceless against him.’ He waited until his ire had subdued. ‘Why did he leave his wife? Was he so unhappy with her?’

  ‘The only person who can answer that is Lackey himself. I dinna ken why. It’s a mystery. If ye find out the truth, I’d like to heer it. I’ll tell ye this,’ the old man added. ‘I’d never walk out on a lassie as fine as Maggie Paterson. I think that Lackey must’ve taken leave of his senses.’

  Rory McTurk flattered himself a good judge of men. Suspicious when Farr first made his claim, he questioned him closely about his work as a shepherd and gradually came round to the view that he might, after all, be telling the truth. Someone who looked after sheep all day would have good eyesight and sharp instincts. Taking a notebook from his pocket, McTurk licked the end of a pencil.

  ‘Now, then,’ he began. ‘You say that you saw two men with a horse and cart.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘And how close did you get?’

  ‘I was close enough to have a guid look at them.’

  ‘Did they see you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Farr. ‘If they had, they’d have turned tail and gone. They were looking over their shoulder a’ the time.’

  ‘You mean that they were furtive because they were up to no good?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘Can you describe them?’

  ‘Aye, that’s why I’m heer. They were about the same age, mebbe ten years older than me. And they were ma height, only broader. They wore dark clothes and hats and … well, sir, they just didnae belong.’

  ‘They were townsfolk out in the country – is that it?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What was on the cart?’

  ‘Some rope, a pile of empty sacks and an ould tarpaulin.’

  ‘And where exactly did you see them?’

  Farr pointed in the direction of the crash site. McTurk went over the details again and squeezed even more out of him. No matter how much pressure he put on the shepherd, the latter didn’t flinch. In the policeman’s judgement, his informa
nt was not clever enough to make up the tale. He had seen someone on the eve of the disaster and it could be highly significant. McTurk was excited, sensing that this was the breakthrough he needed.

  ‘Who else have you told?’ he asked.

  ‘Nobody – I’ve only spoke to ye.’

  ‘Then let’s keep it that way. This is between you and me. You understand?’

  ‘Aye, sir – when do I get the money?’

  ‘I’m not sure that you’ve earned it yet.’

  Farr’s face clouded. ‘But I’ve told ye the truth.’

  ‘I believe that you have, lad, but there’s no guarantee that these two men are in any way connected with the crime. Even if they were, they’ll have to be tracked down and interrogated. Read the handbill,’ he instructed. ‘It says that the reward is for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the villains responsible. Not a penny will be handed over until we get a guilty verdict in court. And you,’ he went on, ‘will be there to act as a witness.’

  The shepherd gave a visible shudder. He hadn’t realised that there would be such complications. His naive hope had been that his story would be accepted and that the money would be handed over. With such a fortune in his possession, he knew that he could persuade Bella Drew to run away with him. It was his dearest wish. Instead, he was being forced to wait and might have to bear witness in court, an eventuality that filled him with dread.

  After noting down where he could find the shepherd, McTurk closed his book.

  ‘And remember,’ he warned. ‘Your lips must be sealed.’

  ‘Aye, sir, they will be.’

  ‘What you’ve told me is useful but not conclusive.’

  ‘It’s them, sir, I’m sure it was them.’

  ‘Then why were they carrying so little on the cart? Answer me that. You can’t cause an explosion with a load of sacks and a tarpaulin. Where was the gunpowder? I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, lad. There’s a lot still to unravel.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Farr’s head dropped to his chest.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ said McTurk, dismissively.