The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

  All windows and external doors were alarmed. Open any one of them and the panel would start its shrill bleeps. Spargo was halfway down the hall before he noticed the silence. There were no beeps. The alarm wasn’t on. Jez must have been there. She had forgotten to reset the alarm. Cautiously he switched on the hall light. The alarm panel looked dead. There was no error message, no little red light.

  Switching on more lights Spargo went from room to room, checking the house, first the back door and then all the windows. Everything was as it should be. By the time he returned to his bag he was calm again. There was a fault in the system, a spider in a sensor, a blown fuse, a flat battery. It had happened before.

  The light on his answering machine was flashing and he went to it. Pressed the button.

  ‘Mr Spargo, it’s Mitchell. When are you planning to come here? I have been calling your mobile. Call me as soon as you can.’

  A trip to Inverness right now would be useful; he was overdue for a meeting with his mother’s solicitor; he had documents to sign and a house to sell.

  ‘As I said when you phoned,’ Mitchell said when he and Spargo met. ‘I sent your box to the lab. It contained only books, nothing of value. Nothing of relevance to our case.’

  Spargo nodded. Felt relief. He had phoned Mitchell early that morning and then driven north. He had already seen the solicitor and estate agent. Things seemed to be panning out for him. The last thing he needed right now were more complications.

  ‘My colleagues told me you fell through the ceiling in that old place,’ Mitchell said. ‘Seventeen stitches, they said.’

  Spargo hadn’t counted them. ‘A tetanus jab and painkillers,’ he said. ‘I didn’t fall through though, not right through.’

  ‘Then you are a lucky man. What made you go up there?’

  Spargo shrugged. He didn’t want to say intuition, not to a policeman.

  ‘You probably don’t remember what I told you about my father. He said he never stored things in his roof. I began to wonder if he said it just to stop me going up there.’

  Mitchell raised his eyebrows. He was nodding, slowly. Seemed to want to comment but changed his mind.

  ‘The books,’ he said. ‘As you might expect, they are old. They are diaries of some sort, written in German. When they came back from the lab I sent them to a translator but he wasn’t much help. As far as I’m concerned they are yours, you can take them away.’

  Mitchell was holding a pencil with both hands. He swivelled it until it lined up with a side desk and then pointed it down. Spargo looked there. Freed of its canvas cladding the package he’d found looked much smaller.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. A devil of a thing to open, they told me. Six layers of canvas, each layer bound with wire.’

  All the canvas was there, split open and surrounding the box like petals – a great grubby sunflower with a box at its centre. The top edges of the box had a golden sheen where a grinder had sliced off its top. The metal was about a centimetre thick. No wonder he’d had trouble lifting it.

  ‘What’s it made of, did they check? It looks like brass.’

  ‘Bronze. Someone had screwed down the lid with steel screws and they’d corroded. They all broke off when the lab tried to unscrew them. As you see, they had to cut the top off.’

  Spargo went to the box and crouched down. Mitchell did the same, sliding out a slab of metal that was propped against the wall. It looked like a rectangular manhole cover, still jammed in its frame. Patches of a hard rubbery substance adhered to parts of the lid and sides of the box.

  ‘The lab threw most of that black muck in the bin,’ Mitchell said as Spargo poked at it. ‘They asked if I wanted them to do tests but I told them not to bother. At first they thought it was perished rubber.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  Mitchell shrugged. ‘They’re not sure what it is. Not important. Not to me, anyway.’

  Spargo dragged out the box. Packed inside it were two piles of books, side by side. Each book was about twice the size of a paperback and bound in what looked like leather. He picked up one and touched its cover. Mitchell nodded at it.

  ‘The lab thinks it’s sealskin.’

  Spargo attempted to open the book, but stopped when the binding cracked. Returning it to the box he chose another. It opened, but its pages were stuck fast in a hard, wrinkled block.

  ‘It’s wet,’ he said, frowning. ‘There’s water in the box.’

  ‘I didn’t send the box to the translator, only the books. They came back from him wrapped in a bin bag. He told me he soaked them to separate their pages. That puzzled me because before I sent them I went through them, they weren’t stuck.’ He reached down, selected one and opened it. ‘The translator managed to translate a couple of pages from this one,’ he continued, passing the book to Spargo. ‘Did either of your parents read German?’

  ‘My father knew a little. My mother told me that before the war he had been on an exchange programme arranged by a mining association. As part of the exchange a German mining engineer visited Kilcreg. It must have been quite a shock for him. For the German, I mean.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Kilcreg was isolated enough when I was a boy, so think what it must have been like back in the nineteen thirties. The visitor must have thought he’d been dumped in the ass end of the world. You know what I think these are? My guess is they are German mining records that might have interested my father. Strange that my father hid them. Tell me what the translator said.’

  ‘They were written during the war, not before it. And they are definitely not mine records. And who says your father hid them? They were in the attic. Perhaps he had help putting the box up there and when he got older it was too heavy for him to bring down.’

  ‘He could have taken the books out of the box. He could have left the empty box up there.’

  ‘Not if he couldn’t get its lid off. Most likely he left the box there because he didn’t think it worth bothering with.’

  ‘What if he didn’t know about it?’

  ‘Are you suggesting someone else put it there?’

  ‘Think about it. My mother was attacked for a reason. They were looking for that box, I’m sure of it. Perhaps they didn’t know it contained just books. Perhaps they thought there was something valuable in it.’

  Mitchell grunted. ‘Who do you suggest put it there? Did anyone else live in the house? Lodgers? Friends? Relatives?’

  Spargo cast his mind back. There was someone. Years ago.

  ‘A man,’ he pondered. ‘Two men. They stayed in the mine house extension – you saw it, that lean-to bit – I was very young, I don’t really remember them. They worked on the mine. Or one of them did, I’m not sure. The other had a bicycle, he rode off on it every morning and came back late.’

  ‘Would it have been usual for a mine manager to have had lodgers?’

  ‘Not really thought about it. No, I don’t suppose it would.’

  ‘You said you were young. How young? Could these men have been workers billeted on your family? What about prisoners of war?’

  Spargo shook his head. ‘No, it must have been after war or I wouldn’t remember it. By the time I was seven my father was using the extension’s ground floor room as an office, which meant they had gone by then. I can’t remember much, to be honest. I can’t even remember my first day at school.’

  ‘But you remember the men?’

  ‘You asked about lodgers. Something clicked.’

  Mitchell forced a smile. ‘Interesting, but hardly relevant. I’m sorry, Mr Spargo, I must get on.’ His eyes assumed a life of their own, his gaze darting from Spargo to the box, from the box to the small clock on his desk and then to the door. ‘I will need you to sign for these,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Did the translator say anything about value?’

  ‘Personal interest only, apparently. They’re in such poor condition he didn’t think a museum would be interested in them. I’m not
sure I agree. For someone with the language, willing to take the trouble...’

  ‘After what happened to my mother I’m not sure I want to keep them. I have no wish to drag up the past. Nor do I want to give that dubious pleasure to anyone else.’

  ‘That’s up to you, Mr Spargo. What I need is a signature. Oh, and there’s the translator’s notes.’ He held out a large brown envelope. ‘I’ve made you a copy. There’s so little there, it’s hardly worth reading.’

  Spargo folded the envelope and tucked it into a pocket. Mitchell left the room and returned with a form that Spargo signed.

  Outside, car engine running and heater on, Spargo took from the envelope two badly-stapled pages. Propping them against the steering wheel he started to read.

  The first page of the translation contained handwritten comments. The translator had received from Northern Constabulary twelve bound notebooks in poor condition. He added that the books appeared to be diaries and he’d had difficulty separating the pages. He flipped to the second stapled sheet. On it he found a short, typed translation:

  ‘Arrived K late afternoon. Reported to Moehle. For me, new boots and new leathers. Not before time. Still no hint of promotion. Korvettenkapitän would have had a nice ring to it’

  The translator had pencilled a note that the year was nineteen forty-two. Spargo stared at the pages, turning them over in anticipation of more. Had the man really done so little? Probably just enough to demonstrate to Mitchell the books had no bearing on his case.

  As Spargo slipped the papers into the envelope his mobile rang. It was Stuart Main.

  ‘Mr Spargo. Sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘Stuart? Problems?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t deal with, Mr Spargo. Just thought you should know I’m having a wee bit of bother with a newspaper man. He’s been sniffing around, asking my neighbours if I was the man who cleared the Spargo house at Kilcreg. He was here today.’

  ‘Did you get his name?’

  ‘I’ve got his business card somewhere.’ Spargo heard a clatter as Main dropped his phone. ‘Sorry Mr Spargo, I must have left it in the van. He calls himself a freelance investigative journalist. Seemed to think you’d always lived in the cottage and I told him he was wrong. I didn’t want to tell him anything, but you know what they’re like. I didn’t think you’d want him printing lies.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me. I’m in Inverness. I’ve been with the police. Would you like me to call them and tell them?’

  ‘No need. I can deal with the nosey wee shite. Just thought you should know.’

  As Spargo was leaving Inverness he had a second call and he pulled in and parked. The voice was loud, harsh, and instantly recognisable.

  ‘Hey, Old Man! How the hell are you?’

  The mock middle-English was a voice from the past. If Murphy had ever possessed an Irish accent it was long-gone. For as long as Spargo had known him, his former partner had spoken like a British army officer in a nineteen fifties movie. Spargo feigned pleasure.

  ‘Hey, Murph! Where are you?’

  A slip of the tongue. The where should have been how. It was a subconscious desire to hear Murphy was far away from him as it was possible to be.

  ‘Same old place.’

  ‘Vancouver? Still with the same mob?’

  ‘Still the same mob. I can’t talk for long, just checking you are around. I have a meeting in Oslo in a day or so. Thought I might stop off at Shannon and fly to Turnhouse. That’s if you are not too busy, of course.’

  ‘It’s Edinburgh International, not Turnhouse. It’s a big place now. You won’t recognise it.’

  ‘So what are you up to? How’s things?’

  ‘Not good. You remember the time I took you to Kilcreg? You met my mother.’

  ‘How can I forget? I slept on a sofa with my feet over the end, it was a good one foot shorter than I was. Bloody uncomfortable if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Last month some bastard kicked her to death.’

  Brutal words. Spargo saw no reason to hold back. Murphy gasped, then silence. Then the condolences and questions.

  Spargo’s back garden in Edinburgh was several feet lower than the front. It gave access to a basement room he used as a store, a room deep enough for him to hang a full-length ladder on a side wall and wide enough to have a workbench, three filing cabinets and several stacks of archive boxes along the back.

  On his return from Inverness he trundled his wheelbarrow to the back of his car and tumbled the bronze box into it. In the basement he spread old towels on his workbench and laid the books on it, spacing them out in the hope they would dry. He selected one and opened it, taking care not to damage its pages. The writing, in a deliberate hand in black ink, had soaked through the paper, staining adjacent pages with a tangle of words.

  For those with a command of the language the words were just about readable. On the open pages was a date, Mittwoch, Januar 10 1945. No mysteries there. Mittwoch is middle of the week, Wednesday. Spargo turned more pages. Understood nothing else.

  The basement doubled as a store for items Spargo occasionally bought in bulk. Shelves held flat-packed archive boxes, paper for printers and household consumables – amongst them, paper towels. He went for a pack, started to tear off sheets and stack them beside the damp diaries. Then, settling himself on a tall stool, he worked his way slowly and painstakingly through the first book, separating pages and inserting the paper towel sheets between them.

  Spargo had almost exhausted the paper pile when something in a margin caught his eye. Handwritten in black ink, several times as if practising, was a signature. Each one was neater than the last, as if getting it right mattered.

  Minutes later he was in the garden, phoning Jez. He got her answering machine so he tried her mobile. She answered immediately.

  ‘Just got home from Inverness,’ he said. ‘I have something to show you.’

  ‘You mean right now?’

  ‘I can come to your place.’

  ‘I’m not at home, I’m at King’s, I’m working late. If it’s really important I can call in on my way home. I can’t stay long.’

  If Jez was planning to see Joby, Spargo didn’t feel guilty. Her boyfriend had a key to her flat and often cooked for her, a good sign, he supposed. It revealed a degree of domestication. A brownie point, then. Probably the only one.

  While he waited for Jez he went to his office to check his emails. There were very few. After deleting all the predatory spam he was left with one message:

  JOHN SPARGO YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR DEPTH

  Amused, Spargo wondered if the sender was referring to the whole of his life or just one particular part. Murphy was a joker. Murphy did things like that. Expecting more on the page he scrolled down but there was nothing.

  The mail came from an account with a meaningless name, no doubt created just to send this one message. Last year he’d had five hundred business cards printed, all with his email address. Since then he had given away most of them. The email could have come from anyone.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  THEO’S ALTER EGO VOGEL has had an uneventful war. His service record shows no distinctions, no bravery awards, not even a campaign medal. Walter, Theo realises as he reads, has downgraded Theo’s war efforts to those of a deskbound clerk.

  Walter returns at dusk. Says he was unavoidably detained.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ he asks. ‘Did my staff feed you?’

  ‘An orderly brought food. A different man. He didn’t speak. Made me feel like a zoo animal.’

  ‘That is how it should be. They do not know who you are. This place is a privileged posting and all newcomers are a sign of change, they pose a threat. Also, the Reichsmarschall is here and they are all tense. Now come, we have work to do. Put on your greatcoat.’

  A car is parked under trees. Walter walks towards the driver’s door and hesitates. Asks Theo if he can drive.

  ‘Then drive me,’ Walter says. ‘Make yourself useful
. Drive towards the house. Keep your speed down and keep your lights switched off. They are no damn good anyway.’

  Theo does as Walter says. Following his directions he drives down the road that previously they had walked down.

  ‘Not so fast, walking pace is good. There is a crossroads here hidden by trees. If there is nothing else on the road then turn left. If you see other vehicles then wait until they have gone.’

  Despite the blackout, an electric lamp lights an archway. Theo’s view is restricted by neat rows of bushes and to see if the road is clear he peers around them. To his right is an archway; beyond it, in a blaze of light, is an imposing entrance to what looks like a medieval manor house. Sure nothing is coming Theo turns the steering wheel to go left and lets in the clutch but he does it too quickly and the car’s engine stalls. A single headlight bears down on them from out of the trees, a motorcycle travelling fast. Theo pulls the starter. After the third attempt the engine restarts. He rams the gears into reverse and jerks the car back.

  ‘You damn fool!’ Walter snaps. ‘A traffic accident on the Reichsmarschall’s front drive is all I need. I should have driven.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have never driven an Opel.’

  The motorcycle passes in front of them. It is ridden by a despatch rider who switches off his engine and drifts silently under the arch and into the courtyard, stopping at the main Carinhall door.

  ‘Go!’ Walter snaps. ‘Get out of here! I will give you directions.’

  ‘I saw a stag back there,’ Theo says quietly when they are under way again. ‘In the courtyard. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘What you saw was a bronze statue. Our Hermann appointed himself Hunting Master of the Reich. He even designed his own uniform.’

  ‘They say he was out hunting when the enemy invaded France.’

  ‘Who says? Who are they?’

  ‘It is common knowledge.’

  ‘Then common knowledge is right. He was here. Whether or not he was hunting is another matter. It is not widely known that he has a command post here. It is most probably better for him to be here than in Berlin. The Reichsmarschall is treated by many as a joke, no doubt you heard that too. Do you know he was in Baron von Richtofen’s air squadron in the Kaiser’s war? Do you know he took over the fighter formation when Richtofen was killed? He was shot-up badly and still suffers from those wounds and others he received later.