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

by Richard Whittle

  ‘Hid it from you.’

  ‘That’s daft. Why me?’

  ‘Think about it. You said your father kept stuff in a shed that would have been better stored in the attic.’

  ‘Suitcases and old lampshades. Old clothes and toys. A damp shed was not the best place for them.’

  ‘And did he ever take you to the shed?’

  ‘Yes, often. Whenever he wanted to sort out stuff, or move stuff. What are you getting at?’

  ‘You still don’t see it, do you? Did you ever go to the shed on your own?’

  ‘Many times. There was interesting stuff there. Why?’

  ‘If all the junk had been in the attic, then instead of going to the damp shed in the plant yard you would have gone to the attic.’

  ‘He was a strict man. He’d have forbidden it.’

  ‘And you would have obeyed him? Pull the other one, Dad! By keeping the attic empty he made sure you would never go there. He had reasons for not letting you in the roof. Seems to me the box and its contents were the reason.’

  ‘I don’t see that. And why are you so sure the box was put there by him?’

  ‘Are you seriously suggesting someone else put it there?’

  Spargo thought about it. She was probably right.

  ‘There is something else I’ve discovered,’ she continued. ‘I took a scraping of the black stuff on the box and sent it to a friend.’

  ‘It’s rubber.’

  ‘Yes, that’s obvious. I thought there was something odd about the way it had perished so I sent a bit away. My friend thinks it could be Buna rubber.’

  ‘What’s Buna rubber? What friend?’

  ‘A rubber technologist at London Metropolitan University. If I can trace the source of the box it will make a good case study for one of my students. I can rarely use real cases so I need everything I can get. Did you mean what you said?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you said just now, that what I’m doing is great?’

  Until now he hadn’t paid much attention to her forensic geology work. In his business he didn’t like the way some university lecturers undercut private consultants and used college equipment on the cheap. Maybe that should also apply to her. If she wanted to do it commercially, then she should set up a proper business.

  ‘Do you think the work’s there?’ he asked.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Your forensic geology stuff.’

  ‘It’s definitely there. It’s more a case of convincing the police that geology can help them. In the States they really believe in it. The FBI has a forensic geology division.’

  ‘Yes, I really do think what you’re doing is great. I hear you are doing something for Quinn’s friend?’

  ‘Mud from boots.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. Though I’m not sure about them being friends. Tom Curtis is Quinn’s boss.’

  ‘You know Quinn’s boss? Really?’

  ‘I do. As I said, mud from boots. Someone broke into a house in Dalkeith and left mud on the carpet. Some was from the garden.’

  ‘And you think that narrows it down a bit? What do you do next, take samples from every square mile of soil in Scotland? It could take you the rest of your life.’

  ‘I said some was from the garden. There were also fragments of calcium carbonate.’

  ‘Calcite? That’s an oddity?’ He knew all the common minerals. He was proud of his ability to distinguish the main ore of copper – chalcopyrite – from its Fool’s Gold cousin, iron pyrite. Not many of his mining colleagues could do that.

  ‘I didn’t say calcite, I said calcium carbonate. It has the same mineral make-up as calcite but it it’s not crystalline. Also, it’s attached to grains of sand.’

  ‘Could it be cement? Concrete?’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Some of the calcium carbonate has recrystallised in concentric rim around the grains, which means it is old. It could be lime mortar rather than modern cement.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘I check for oddities, Dad. Things that make a sample unique.’

  ‘So why are the police so concerned with this particular burglary? What was taken?’

  ‘Guns. A large collection. They go back to flintlocks but they’re mainly Twentieth-Century military issue automatic pistols and revolvers. The man shouldn’t have had them, they weren’t licensed. A lot of other stuff was stolen too, mainly military bits and bobs. Tom says the theft would probably have gone unreported, but for a neighbour who noticed a window swinging in the wind and the police sent a car round.’

  Spargo thought military. Thought Mongo. Thought Day.

  ‘How much do you like Curtis?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean professionally.’

  ‘He’s a great guy.’

  ‘And he gives you work?’

  ‘Odd bits.’

  ‘And the burglary you told me about is one of his jobs?

  ‘It’s his case. Why?’

  ‘Call him. He may be interested in an old builders’ yard I know about. I’ll send you the details. It might earn you a few Brownie points.’

  Spargo’s enthusiasm for the translation had waned. Though he had persevered and read to the end of it, he hadn’t found a convincing reason why anyone would kill for the journals. Whoever was responsible had to be interested in larger boxes, boxes so big and heavy they couldn’t possibly have been hidden in the mine house roof.

  Whoever had searched his mother’s cottage had the right idea. They took up the floorboards. Right hiding place, wrong house.

  Spargo studied his watch. He imagined turning the hour hand on for three hours, to the time it would be when he reached Kilcreg if he left right now. And, if all went well, there would still be a couple of hours of daylight left to do what he was planning to do.

  From his basement he collected tools: a crowbar, a saw and a hammer. He thought it unlikely he would actually have to take up any floorboards in the mine house because he couldn’t imagine his father cutting big holes in the floor. There would be a hatch somewhere that gave access to underfloor pipes and cables. Who knows what might be hidden there? Such a hatch should be easy to find, it would probably be in a cupboard.

  Spargo’s Volvo came out of the bend above Kilcreg and started the long downhill run. He had done the trip so many times the car seemed to know its own way. The drive didn’t take much effort. Staying awake was the problem but he’d mastered that too. No music to lull him. And when that didn’t work, he opened all the car windows.

  In the distance, beyond the houses, a blur of grey mist met the sea at a sharp, deep blue line. Spargo caught the feint smell of wood smoke, saw it rise form the house chimneys in pillars of grey. For a second or two he thought he saw smoke from his mother’s cottage chimney but it came from behind it which meant Rosie was home, back from her daughter’s. There was washing, too, drooping from her back garden carousel.

  How old was Rosie, back in the early ‘fifties, he wondered? The same age Jez is now? He remembered how he and his friends scrumped apples from her tree and how Rosie would chase them away. The tree was still there, wizened and unproductive. In late summer its unpruned branches bore apples no bigger than marbles.

  The mine house was blocked from Spargo’s view by small but steep outcrops of grey rock where, long ago, the road was cut down to lessen its steepness, to iron-out bumps. As Spargo came out from behind them he glanced to his left as he always did, down to the old plant yard and mine house.

  What he saw shocked him. The smoke he smelled was not from the village, it was closer than that and it billowed in great clouds from beyond the old plant yard. At first he thought the mine house was burning. Then, as the smoke drifted, he saw the bonfire – a huge pyre of floorboards and roof beams. The flames were deep red and rose awesomely high. Even with his car windows closed he could hear the roar of the wind that fed them.

  The view was new to him. For the first time i
n his life he could see the whole hillside, unobstructed now because the mine house, his childhood home, was no longer there. It had been razed to the ground, reduced to rubble.

  Trucks and vans littered what had once been the mine house garden. What remained of the grass looked rougher than ever, chewed up by vehicles and deep-rutted by truck tyres. An excavator appeared through the smoke, its own blue exhaust blasting skywards. It stopped and manoeuvred, extending a long mantis arm that grabbed at timbers, splintering them and lifting them high. Carrying them to the fire, it heaved them on to the flames in a volcano of sparks.

  Jez was relieved that she had talked with her father. He was at last seeing sense, dropping the Kilcreg thing and concentrating on his work. Also, she had done what he’d suggested – phoned Curtis and told him about the builder’s yard under the arches. The tip-off had, as she’d feared, triggered a barrage of questions about the source of her knowledge.

  On Curtis’s insistence she had phoned her father to get answers. Instead she got an answering machine at home and voicemail on his mobile. She would have another go when she got home.

  Like most apartments in the City, hers had two doorbells, one on the external, communal door, and one on the door to her flat. As she was lifting the house phone to call her father, the bell on the street door rang. She peered around the living room curtains to see who was there and saw a man’s back and shoulders. Whoever it was stood too close to the door to be seen properly.

  A car she recognised as an Alfa was parked across the road, half on the grass and half off it. Standing on the pavement beside it was a short, square-shouldered and overweight man who turned and looked towards her flat. It was Murphy.

  With Murphy outside it could only be her father at the door. She didn’t bother to use the door phone to speak to him, she just pressed the button that released the lock. At least her father had remembered how she felt about Murphy and he’d had the good sense to leave him outside. She opened the door to her flat, turning her back on it as she unzipped her leathers.

  ‘Curtis wants you to call him,’ she said. ‘He was asking questions I can’t answer. He wants to know how you – ’

  If her motorcycle leathers had not been around her ankles she might have made an attempt to defend herself. Though she didn’t see who jumped her he was much lighter than Murphy. He used his whole body weight to bring her down.

  Over the years Spargo had seen the mine house change gradually. Wood rotted, locks failed, windows and doors swung in the wind before finally breaking from their hinges and falling free. Chimney pots fell. Then, one day many years ago, the chimney itself toppled, its massive stones tearing like cannon-fire through the roof, the ceilings, and into the hall where it punched through the floor.

  What little of the romantic remained inside Spargo had hoped the house would rot down to nothing, it would crumble to dust. He hadn’t expected rape. Hadn’t expected to see the house picked over by men in hard hats and bright yellow jackets.

  Spargo parked in the road. Stuart Main’s van was nearby, filled with row upon row of grey slates, all standing on end like long decks of cards. The man himself was returning to it, pushing a builders’ barrow loaded with more slates.

  Spargo put on a brave face. This was closure of some kind.

  He yelled out. ‘Stuart, Hi! ‘They’ve finally done it. Finally pulled the place down.’

  Brave words. Tears would have come more easily.

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you back here, Mr Spargo.’

  ‘Flying visit.’

  ‘They got anyone for it yet? There’s a rumour the Letchie thing’s connected. Wasn’t that down your way?’

  Spargo nodded. ‘I hear the police spoke to you.’

  ‘That Mitchell, yes. Questioned me for hours. I was fool enough to admit I’d threatened Letchie.’

  Spargo nodded again as if he knew all the answers. Then he turned towards the action and waved an arm. ‘Who decided to do this?’

  ‘Another collapse, they say. Water tank fell through the roof. Probably kids. Lucky they weren’t killed.’

  Spargo rubbed the back of his neck. Kids? There hadn’t been any children in Kilcreg for twenty years.

  ‘Kids, yes. Probably.’

  ‘Builder from up Thurso way doing the demolition,’ Main continued. ‘Hired me for the day to shift slates. The granite should fetch a good price but the timber’s all wormed.’

  ‘Have you been here all day? Have they found anything?’

  ‘Found? What kind of thing?’

  ‘You know what these old places are like,’ Spargo said, still doing the neck-rub. ‘Just wondered if my parents left anything interesting. My mother moved house while I was working overseas. I wasn’t here to help.’

  Main smiled. ‘There wouldn’t be anything, not in there. The place was gutted, even the stairs and landing had gone. Sorry, Mr Spargo, I have to get on. I need to get another load out while there’s still daylight.’

  ‘Have they torn up the floor?’

  Stuart Main frowned. Nodded towards the fire. ‘Floor’s there, burning, Mr Spargo. Along with the roof timbers. All rotten or wormed.’

  Main apologised again and climbed into his van. Spargo turned his attention to what remained of the house. At least the builders-turned-demolishers had saved him the trouble of grovelling under floorboards. Clearly, there was nothing there. No big brothers to Volker’s box.

  A wasted journey then, a damn-fool idea. If the boxes had needed a crane to get them on to a U-boat – which was what Volker had written – then how could they possibly have been in the mine house?

  Main’s van drove towards the road with wheels spinning, hurling mud in its wake. Spargo raised a hand in farewell and felt rain on his face. Fine rain. Kilcreg rain. Icy cold. Sudden and silent.

  Main’s van straightened up and made its way up the hill, flashing its brake lights as it rounded the bend. Déjà vu – but not quite, because this time the van’s brake lights came on and stayed on as Main pulled over to let something coming the other way to pass. It was a white sports utility vehicle the size of a small whale. Definitely not a local. Cars driven by locals were at least ten years old and looked even older, their paintwork pitted with sea-salt rust. The white SUV was shiny and new.

  The vehicle came down the hill cautiously and hesitantly, as if the driver had lost his way. Spargo expected it to turn around and head back but it didn’t, it parked in the road behind his Volvo. Ignoring it, Spargo turned to watch men stacking stone.

  What would have become of the bronze box if he hadn’t found it? Would it have been overlooked, dumped on the fire with the timbers? If so, then Volker’s journals, sealed in the box, would have been reduced to black tinder.

  It really was closure: no more mine house, no more mystery, no point returning here ever again. He made his way to his car, stepping carefully around ruts in the mud. Glancing up for a second he saw the driver of the SUV was out of his car and standing behind it with his elbows on its roof, steadying a pair of binoculars trained on what remained of the house.

  Spargo’s mobile rang. By the time he’d found it the ringing had stopped. At first it showed no signal, but as he walked it came back. Went again. Came back again and the phone rang again. It was Jez.

  ‘He told me to call you.’

  ‘Jez, I can’t hear you. The signal’s poor, I’m surpr – ’

  ‘I have to call you. He said I had to. He said – ’ Jez did not scare easily but there was fear in her voice. ‘He said he will phone you.’

  Spargo heard a voice in the background. A man interrupting her.

  ‘Who’s that with you?’

  ‘I’m not to say. I’m not to say where I am – ’

  ‘Jez, you’re not making sense. Who’s that with you?’

  ‘They’re keeping me here.’

  ‘Who is? Let me talk to them.’

  ‘He won’t… he says he’ll call you later. I’m to tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what? Are
you in Edinburgh?’

  ‘At home.’

  Spargo heard a gasp, a curse and a shriek. He guessed whoever was with her had tried to snatch the phone from her.

  ‘Jez, give it to him! Do what he says!’

  ‘Chocky, Dad! Tim bought it last year! Chocky!’

  The phone went dead. Either it had been taken from her or he’d lost the signal. He had been walking in small circles in the mud and he stopped, stared at the phone and tried to recall her exact words. In desperation he pressed keys, first her house number and then her mobile. Both failed to connect. He had to get higher and get a better signal, and the quickest way to do that was to drive up the hill. From there he could call her back. If that didn’t work he’d call Quinn.

  The man at the SUV was still using the binoculars, no longer watching the workmen and the house but the hillside beyond them. Spargo, keys in hand, blipped the remote as he neared his own car. Heard the clunk of his locks. Heard, also, a familiar voice.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mister Spargo…’

  The voice was unmistakable but so out of context. Its owner came out from behind the SUV in a familiar, pale coloured, slick suit.

  ‘Whenever I am in this country it is raining,’ Benares said calmly, holding the binoculars in one hand and pointing skywards with the other. ‘Why do you think that is?’ He came closer, wrapping the leather neck strap around the binoculars.

  Unnecessarily tightly, Spargo thought.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE FIRST SOLDIER TO CLIMB the truck’s tailgate is confronted by Walter. Unknown to Theo, he has climbed into the truck to count fuel cans. Hearing the climbing soldier he crawls back and calls out to Heiss.

  ‘You will do your job and I will do mine, Herr Doctor! This vehicle is the property of the Schutzstaffel! I cannot permit your workers to touch it!’

  Heiss raises his eyebrows. He opens his mouth to respond but doesn’t get the chance. Walter jumps down and is face to face with him, wagging a finger an inch from his nose.

  ‘My colleagues in Munich assured me you would have work schedules ready for my inspection. Why do I have to remind you that I have not yet seen them?’