The Railway Detective Collection: The Railway Detective, the Excursion Train, the Railway Viaduct (The Railway Detective Series)

by Edward Marston

  ‘Is it true that Dykes assaulted her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Butterkiss. ‘Someone disturbed them just in time.’

  ‘Was the girl hurt?’

  ‘Emily was very upset – who wouldn’t be if they were pounced on by someone like Joe Dykes? It was a big mistake for her to go down that lane. It was one of his places, you see.’

  ‘Places?’

  ‘He used to take women there at night,’ said the other, confidingly. ‘You can guess the kind of women I mean. Even in a place like Ashford, we have our share of those. Joe would take his pleasure up against a wall and then, as like as not, refuse to pay for it.’

  ‘And that’s where this girl was attacked?’

  ‘She thought she’d be safe in daylight.’

  ‘It must have been a terrifying experience.’

  ‘That’s what fired Nathan up. He was very protective towards Emily. He went charging around the town in search of Joe but he’d had the sense to make himself scarce. If Nathan had caught him there and then,’ said Butterkiss, flicking the reins to get a faster pace out of the horse, ‘he’d have torn him apart. I’ve never seen him so angry.’

  ‘Was he carrying a weapon of any kind?’

  ‘A meat cleaver.’

  Travelling with George Butterkiss had its definite compensations. Annoying as his manner might be, he was a fount of information about Ashford and its inhabitants and, since the murder case had been the only major crime in the area during his time as a policeman, he had immersed himself in its details. Victor Leeming overcame his dislike of the man and let him talk at will. Long before they reached Lenham, he had acquired a much clearer understanding of what had brought him and Colbeck to Kent.

  ‘Is this it, Mr Butterkiss?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. The very spot.’

  ‘Where exactly was the body lying when discovered?’

  ‘Here,’ said the policeman, dropping obligingly to the ground and adopting what he believed to be the appropriate position. ‘This is where the torso was, anyway,’ he added. ‘Some of the limbs were scattered about. They never found the other bit.’

  ‘What other bit?’

  Butterkiss got to his feet. ‘Joe Dykes was castrated.’

  It was the first time that Leeming had heard that particular detail and it shook him. They were in a clearing in the woods near Lenham, a quiet, private, shaded place that would have beckoned lovers rather than a killer and his victim. Birds were singing, insects were buzzing, trees and bushes were in full leaf. To commit a murder in such a tranquil place was like an act of desecration.

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘A lad from a nearby farm, taking a short-cut home from the fair.’

  ‘I’ll need to speak to him.’

  ‘He was the one who spotted Nathan close to here.’

  ‘Let’s talk to the landlord of that pub first,’ said Leeming. ‘That was where Dykes was drinking before he came out to meet his death.’

  ‘Will this go into your report, Sergeant?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The way I was able to demonstrate where the corpse lay,’ said Butterkiss with a willing smile. ‘I’d appreciate a mention, sir. It will help me to get on as a policeman. A lot of people in Ashford still treat me as if I was still a tailor. But I’m not – I’m one of you now.’

  Leeming choked back a comment.

  Since there were so few customers that afternoon, Adam Hawkshaw elected to close the butcher’s shop early. After bringing in everything that had been on display on the table outside, he took off his apron and hung it up. Then he opened the door at the rear of the shop and went into the room. Winifred Hawkshaw was seated beside Emily with a comforting arm around the girl. Both of them looked up. After a glance from her mother, Emily went off upstairs. Winifred stood up to confront her stepson.

  ‘I told you to knock before you came in.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, insolently. ‘It’s my house as well.’

  ‘You moved out, Adam.’

  ‘I still own a share of this place now that my father’s dead. He always said that he’d leave it to me.’

  ‘He changed his mind.’

  ‘You made him change it, you mean.’

  ‘I don’t want another row with you,’ she said, wearily. ‘Not now, please. You’ll be able to see the will in due course.’ She noticed that he had no apron on. ‘Have you shut up shop already?’

  Adam was surly. ‘No point in staying open,’ he said. ‘The only customer I had this afternoon was a woman who didn’t buy anything. Came to complain about the beef we sold her. And you know why.’

  ‘Yes.’ Winifred bit her lip. ‘We can’t get the best meat any more. Mr Hockaday refused to supply us when your father got arrested.’

  ‘So did Bybrook Farm. We have to pay a higher price now for meat that’s only half as good. It’s killing our trade.’ He heard footsteps over his head and looked up. ‘How is she now?’

  ‘Much the same.’

  ‘Has she started to talk again yet?’

  ‘No, Adam,’ she replied, sorrowfully. ‘Emily has hardly spoken more than a few words to me since this all began. She spends most of her time up there in her room, frightened to come out.’

  ‘She never was one for saying much.’

  ‘Emily needs time to recover – just like the rest of us. We could all do with a period of peace and quiet.’

  ‘How can we get that when some Inspector from London turns up to cause trouble?’ he snarled. ‘You were wrong to talk to him like that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Policemen are all the same, even fancy ones like that. You never know what they really want.’

  ‘I know what Inspector Colbeck is after.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wants to find out who killed the public hangman.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Adam, eyes glinting, ‘because I’d like to shake his hand. Guttridge being murdered was the one good thing to come out of all this. I hope he died in torment.’

  ‘That’s a vile thing to say!’ she chided.

  ‘He killed my father.’

  ‘I lost a husband that day, Adam,’ she told him, ‘but I don’t want vengeance against those involved. I just want the stain to be wiped away from our name so that we can hold up our heads in this town again.’

  ‘We may not be staying long enough for that.’

  ‘We have to, Adam. We can’t crawl away in disgrace.’

  ‘The shop is the only thing that keeps us here,’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, ‘and most people walk straight past it. I’m not a butcher any more. I’m Nathan Hawkshaw’s son – a killer’s whelp.’

  It was remarkable how much information they had garnered between them in the course of one day. When the two detectives met over a meal at the Saracen’s Head that evening, Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming compared notes and discussed what their next move ought to be. Though no firm conclusions could yet be reached, the Inspector felt that the visit to Ashford had already proved worthwhile.

  ‘He’s here, Victor,’ he announced. ‘I feel it.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The killer.’

  ‘Which one, sir?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The man who murdered Joseph Dykes or the one who finished off Jacob Guttridge in that excursion train?’

  ‘The second of the two. That’s what brought us here, after all. Until we’ve solved that particular crime, Mr Tallis will hound us from morn till night – and he’s quite right to do so.’

  ‘That’s the only advantage of being here,’ said Leeming, rubbing a buttock as he felt another twinge. ‘We’re out of the Superintendent’s earshot. We can breathe freely.’

  ‘Not with that smell from the river.’

  ‘Going back to Nathan Hawkshaw for a minute.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Before we came here, you had a few doubts about his guilt.’

  ‘More than a few, Victo
r.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Those doubts remain,’ said Colbeck, spearing a piece of sausage with his fork. ‘I spent the afternoon talking to people in the town who knew the butcher well – his friends, his doctor, even the priest at St Mary’s Church. They all agreed that it was so out of character for Hawkshaw to commit murder that they couldn’t believe he was culpable.’

  ‘I’ve come round to the opposite view, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘According to George Butterkiss, there was another side to the butcher. He liked an argument for its own sake. When he used to be a tailor – Butterkiss, that is, not Hawkshaw – he made a suit for him and got a mouthful of abuse for his pains. It was as if Hawkshaw was finding fault on purpose so that he could have a good quarrel with the tailor.’

  ‘Did he buy the suit in the end?’

  ‘Only when Butterkiss had made a few slight changes.’

  ‘Maybe there were some things wrong with it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Leeming, munching his food. ‘Butterkiss reckons that he only started the argument so that he could get something off the price. The tailor was browbeaten into taking less for his work. That’s criminal.’

  ‘It’s business, Victor.’

  ‘Well, it sums up Hawkshaw for me. He was no saint.’

  ‘Nobody claims that he was,’ said Colbeck, ‘and I know that he could be argumentative. Gregory Newman told me that Hawkshaw and his son were always gnawing at some bone of contention. It’s the reason that Adam Hawkshaw moved out of the house. Nothing you’ve said so far inclines me to believe that Hawkshaw was a killer.’

  ‘You’re forgetting the daughter, sir.’

  ‘Emily?’

  ‘When she told her stepfather she’d been assaulted by Dykes, he grabbed a meat cleaver and went out looking for him. That doesn’t sound like an innocent man to me.’

  ‘What it sounds like is someone who acted purely on impulse. He may have brandished a weapon but that doesn’t mean he would have used it – especially in a public place where there’d be witnesses. In those circumstances,’ said Colbeck, ‘most fathers would respond with blind rage. You have a daughter of your own, Victor. What would you do if some drunken oaf molested Alice?’

  ‘I’d be after him with a pair of shears!’ said Leeming.

  ‘I rest my case.’

  ‘Only because you didn’t meet the lad who saw Hawkshaw near the place where the murder occurred. I did, Inspector. He gave evidence in court that, when he walked home through the woods, Hawkshaw was trying to hide behind some bushes. He was furtive,’ insisted Leeming, ‘like he’d done something wrong.’

  ‘Did the youth speak to him?’

  ‘He tried to but Hawkshaw scurried off into the undergrowth. Why did he do that if he had nothing to hide?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Colbeck.

  ‘It was because he’d just hacked Joseph Dykes to death.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  ‘I’ll stick with maybe, sir. The victim was castrated, remember. Only a father who wanted revenge for an attempted rape of his daughter would do that. It has to be Hawkshaw.’

  ‘Did you talk to the landlord of the Red Lion?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leeming. ‘He gave evidence in court as well. He told me that Dykes went in there that day, drank a lot of beer and made a lot of noise, then rolled out as if he didn’t have a care in the world.’

  ‘What was he doing in that wood?’

  ‘I can’t work that out, sir. You’d only go that way if you wanted to get to the farm beyond. It was where that lad worked, you see. My theory is that Dykes may have made himself a den in there.’

  ‘Take care, Victor!’ said Colbeck with a laugh. ‘We can’t have you succumbing to theories as well. In any case, this one doesn’t hold water. If there had been a den there, it would have been found when the police made a thorough search of the area.’

  ‘Dykes slept rough from time to time. We know that for certain.’

  ‘But even he wouldn’t bed down in the middle of the afternoon when there was a fair to enjoy and several hours more drinking to get through. What took him there at that specific time?’

  ‘Hawkshaw must have lured him there somehow.’

  ‘I think that highly unlikely.’

  ‘How else could it have happened?’

  ‘I intend to find out, Victor,’ said Colbeck. ‘But only after we’ve caught the man who stalked Jake Guttridge on that excursion train.’

  ‘We know so little about him, sir.’

  ‘On the contrary, we know a great deal.’

  ‘Do we?’ asked Leeming, drinking his beer to wash down his food. ‘The only thing we can be sure of is that he’s almost illiterate.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because of that warning note you found at Guttridge’s house.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was nothing but a scrawl. Half the words weren’t even spelt properly. The person we want is obviously uneducated.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Colbeck. ‘People who can’t write usually get someone to do it for them. The man who sent that message to the hangman may have wanted to appear unlettered by way of disguise. But there’s another factor to weigh in the balance here.’

  ‘Is there, sir?’

  ‘The man who killed Jake Guttridge may not be the one who sent him that note. He could well be someone else altogether.’

  ‘That makes him even more difficult to track down,’ said Leeming, popping a potato into his mouth. ‘We’re looking for a needle in a very large haystack, Inspector.’

  ‘A small haystack, perhaps,’ said Colbeck, sipping his wine, ‘but that should not deter us. We know that we’re looking for a local man with some connection to Nathan Hawkshaw. Someone so outraged at what happened to his friend that he’d go in search of the hangman to wreak his revenge. The killer was strong, determined and cunning.’

  ‘Have you met anyone who fits that description, sir?’

  ‘Two people at least.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The son is the first,’ Colbeck told him. ‘From the little I saw of him, I’d say he had the strength and determination. Whether he’d have the cunning is another matter.’

  ‘Who’s the other suspect?’

  ‘Gregory Newman. He was Hawkshaw’s best friend and he led the campaign on his behalf. My guess is that he even tried to rescue him from Maidstone prison and he’d have to be really committed to attempt something as impossible as that.’

  ‘If he was a blacksmith, then he’d certainly be strong enough.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘but he didn’t strike me as a potential killer. Newman is something of a gentle giant. Since the execution, all his efforts have been directed at consoling the widow. He’s a kind man and a loyal friend. The priest at St Mary’s spoke very highly of him. Gregory Newman, it transpires, has a bedridden wife whom he looks after lovingly, even to the point of carrying her to church every Sunday.’

  ‘That is devotion,’ agreed Leeming.

  ‘A devoted husband is unlikely to be a brutal murderer.’

  ‘So we come back to Adam Hawkshaw.’

  ‘He’d certainly conform to your notion that an uneducated man sent that note,’ explained Colbeck, using a napkin to wipe his lips. ‘When I left the shop yesterday, he was lowering the prices on the board outside. He’d chalked up the different items on offer. Considering that he must have sold pheasant many times, he’d made a very poor shot at spelling it correctly.’

  Leeming grinned. ‘He’s lucky he didn’t have to spell asphyxiation.’

  ‘He’s certainly capable of inflicting it on someone.’

  ‘It’s that warning note that worries me, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Guttridge had one and he ended up dead.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘According to George Butterkiss,’ said Leeming, pushing his empty plate aside, ‘someone else had a death
threat as well. Sergeant Lugg, that policeman from Maidstone, told him about it. The note that was sent sounds very much like the one that went to the hangman. The difference is that the man who received it just laughed and tore it up.’

  ‘Who was he, Victor?’

  ‘The prison chaplain, sir – the Reverend Narcissus Jones.’

  Though his job at Maidstone prison was onerous and wide-ranging, Narcissus Jones nevertheless found time for activities outside its high stone walls. He gave regular lectures at various churches and large audiences usually flocked to hear how he had conceived it as his mission to work among prisoners. He always emphasised that he had converted some of the most hardened criminals to Christianity and sent them out into society as reformed characters. With his Welsh ancestry, he had a real passion for choral singing and he talked lovingly about the prison choir that he conducted. Jones was a good speaker, fluent, dramatic and so steeped in biblical knowledge that he could quote from Old and New Testaments at will.

  He had been on good form at Paddock Wood that night, rousing the congregation to such a pitch that they had burst into spontaneous applause at the end of his talk. Everyone wanted to congratulate him afterwards and what touched him was that one of those most effusive in his praise was a former inmate at the prison who said that, in bringing him to God, the chaplain had saved his life. When he headed for the railway station, Jones was still beaming with satisfaction.

  He did not have long to wait for the train that would take him back to Maidstone. Selecting an empty carriage, he sat down and tried to read his Bible in the fading light. A young woman then got into the carriage and sat opposite him, gaining a nod of welcome from the chaplain. He decided that she had chosen to join him because the sight of his clerical collar was a guarantee of her safety. She was short, attractive and dark-haired but she was holding a handkerchief to her face as if to dab away tears. At a signal from the stationmaster, the train began to move but, at the very last moment, a man jumped into the carriage and slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Just made it!’ he said, sitting down at the opposite end from the others. ‘I hope that I didn’t disturb you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Jones, ‘though I’d never care to do anything as dangerous as that. Are you going as far as Maidstone?’