Peril on the Royal Train

by Edward Marston

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  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, Serge
ant, 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?’

  ‘Indeed, we do.’

  ‘Then I’d be grateful if you could check through the list.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, Sergeant,’ said Mudie, going slowly from one name to another. ‘I can’t see any link at the moment. I wish that I could. Ah – wait a moment,’ he added, tapping the page. ‘This looks promising.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There is a connection, after all.’

  ‘Who is it with?’

  ‘Jock Laidlaw – he was assaulted by another driver some weeks ago and the attacker was dismissed on the spot. Superintendent McTurk was a witness to the assault.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leeming through gritted teeth, ‘we’ve met the superintendent.’

  ‘He’d be able to tell you more about the incident.’

  ‘What was the name of the other man?’

  ‘Lackey Paterson.’

  ‘Do you have an address for him?’

  ‘I can give you his last known address, Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Leeming. ‘You’ve been very helpful. We need to eliminate this fellow from our enquiries. If I can’t track down Paterson, I’d like the names of employees who might have worked with him and who knew Jock Laidlaw as well. With respect to your ledger, Mr Mudie, it merely records the bare facts. I suspect that there was more to the assault on Laidlaw than appears there. Now, could I have that address, please?’

  ‘You can have more than that,’ said Mudie with a nervous laugh. ‘I’ll take you there. Glasgow is a rabbit warren. You’d never find your way around alone.’

  While work to clear the crash site continued in earnest, Robert Colbeck explored the immediate surroundings. Armed with an ordnance survey map, he started at the point immediately above the point of collision and walked due east. What he was looking for was the likely route taken by anyone coming to cause an explosion. A nearby copse offered possible cover and he first investigated that, picking his way through the trees and searching the ground as he did so. It was slow and laborious work but it eventually yielded a dividend. In the shade of a pine tree, he found a depression in the grass that suggested something had been stored there for a while. When he knelt down to examine the flattened-out area, he saw a telltale trickle of powder. Whoever had blocked the line had first hidden small barrels of gunpowder in the copse. He could still see their circular bases described in the grass.

  It would have taken no more than five minutes to carry the gunpowder to the edge of the rock that overlooked the line. Colbeck had the feeling that more than one person was involved. To avoid any chance of being seen, they could have stored the gunpowder in place during the night then set off the blast shortly before the goods train was due to arrive. A loud boom from the quarry echoed across the whole area and told him that stone was being harvested for a less lethal purpose. After covering every inch of the copse, Colbeck stepped out into the sunshine and gazed around. Sheep could be seen grazing in the distance but there was no sign of any human beings. Yet he felt somehow that he was being watched. It was an odd sensation.

  In his top hat and frock coat, he was an incongruous figure in a rural landscape and might be expected to attract attention. Nobody, however, was in sight. Though he looked in every direction, he failed even to get a glimpse of someone. He recalled the earlier occasion when he felt that he was under surveillance by a figure high above him on the hill. That person – if he were ever there – had melted into invisibility. There were many places to hide ahead of Colbeck. The rolling countryside created dips and hollows where a person could easily be concealed. He walked towards them, expecting that, at any moment, someone would pop up into view. But it never happened. He was utterly alone.

  Yet the further he went, the more convinced he became that a pair of eyes was on him. The observation did not feel friendly. He stopped, bided his time, removed his top hat and ran a hand through his hair. Pretending to scan the landscape in front of him, he suddenly swung round on his heel and looked directly behind him. Colbeck was just in time to see someone dive unceremoniously behind a bush. There was no need to speculate on whom it might be. The uniform gave the man away.

  It was Superintendent McTurk.

  Tam Howie conducted his visitor into his office and closed the door behind him. Ian Dalton had called on a fellow merchant but he hadn’t come to discuss business. They were committed members of the same kirk and Dalton had been present at the meeting when Howie had tried to persuade the others to take more extreme action against the railway companies. He was one of the two converts to Howie’s cause. Younger and stockier than his friend, Dalton had grown tired of their lack of success in the battle against the desecration of the Sabbath.

  ‘You spoke well the other day, Tam,’ he said.

  ‘Not well enough to win the argument, I’m afraid. The rest of them are like Gregor Hines – too old and too frightened to do what’s needful. It fair sickens me, Ian,’ complained Howie. ‘When we have the means at our disposal to strike with real effect, why don’t we use it?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘It’s not as if we can’t afford it.’

  ‘Quite so, Tam – my pockets are deep enough.’

  ‘And so are mine. What better way to spend our money?’

  Both men made a comfortable living by importing and selling goods during the week. On Sunday, however, they transacted no business. That would have been morally wrong on the day of rest. Their Sabbath was devoted to attendance at kirk services and Bible-reading. Their respective children had been brought up to maintain that tradition. Because they were keen market rivals, Howie and Dalton didn’t see much of each other socially. What brought them together was a shared purpose.

  ‘You were right,’ said Dalton. ‘We must do more.’

  ‘Some of us have already moved in that direction,’ confessed Howie. ‘We’d wait until Doomsday until Gregor and the rest of the old guard finally see sense. I just won’t stand by and watch the trains run all over Scotland on the Sabbath.’

  ‘What have you done, Tam?’

  ‘That’s between Flora and me.’

  Dalton was taken aback. ‘Are you saying that your wife is involved?’

  ‘Aye – she’s involved right up to the hilt.’

  ‘Good for her!’

  ‘Flora is as passionate a devotee of the cause as I am.’

  ‘We’re lucky to have two such people in our midst,’ said Dalton. ‘The others may not want to follow your example but I certainly do. If there’s work for my hands, just tell me what it is.’

  ‘That depends on how far you’re prepared to go, Ian.’

  ‘I’ll go all the way.’

  ‘Even if it means breaking the law?’

  ‘Even then, Tam – you have my word. After all, Jesus broke the law when he felt that it was right to do so. We only follow where he led. You can count on my unqualified support.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Howie, grasping his hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘We need help, Ian. There’s a limit to what Flora and I can do alone.’

  ‘Rely on me from now on.’

  ‘You do realise the risk that you’re taking, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m a businessman. I take risks all the time.’

  ‘But you don’t usually flout the law when you’re doing so. Very well,’ he went on, ‘let’s take a little time to mull this over. Each of us can decide what we prefer to do to make the railway companies sit up and take notice. Be bold, Ian,’ he said, bunching a fist. ‘This is no time for faint hearts.’

  ‘I can be bold when the need arises,’ boasted Dalton.

  ‘Then let’s leave it at that. Flora will be delighted by the news. We had the feeling that you inclined towards us.’

  ‘It’s the only way to show how serious
we are in our beliefs. If we cause embarrassment to the railway and – if at all possible – wreak havoc, people will pay heed to our point of view.’

  ‘It’s not people whom we have to convince,’ said Howie. ‘It’s the Caledonian and the North British and the Edinburgh to Glasgow and all the other companies who need convincing. We have to make them think that it’s too dangerous to run trains on a Sunday. That will mean a long and bitter campaign.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Are you with us, Ian Dalton?’

  ‘I’m with you every step of the way,’ promised the other.

  Victor Leeming was accustomed to seeing poverty and deprivation in the teeming rookeries of London. Even so, he was shocked by what he found in the Gorbals. Back-to-back tenements offered drab accommodation to families with what seemed like armies of children. The streets were alive with them, playing, arguing, threatening, fighting or learning how to steal. Stray cats and dogs abounded. Street vendors were getting short shrift from penniless housewives. The noise was deafening and the stench overpowering. Leeming was glad that he had a guide but it was John Mudie who was the more grateful. Venturing into the Gorbals was like stepping into a swamp for him. Whenever anyone brushed against him, his nervous laugh turned into a squeak of fear. Leeming saved him from physical assault and from the depredations of pickpockets. The sergeant fended off trouble at every turn.

  The address they had took them to a tenement on the corner of a lane. It was a larger building than the average and there was less filth on the pavement outside. A woman was sitting outside the door on a stool, dandling a baby on her knee. From a distance, she looked quite old. When they got closer, however, they saw that she was barely out of her twenties, with the remains of a dark prettiness. It was the rounded shoulders and air of weariness that added years to her. She looked up at them with dull eyes then nursed the baby as it began to cry.