Murder on the Brighton Express (6 page)

Expecting to find the church empty, he was surprised to see that someone was still there, using a metal can to pour fresh
water into the vases. Amy Walcott, responsible for organising the flower rota, made sure that her own name was on it with increasing frequency.

‘I didn’t realise you were still here, Amy,’ he said, wearily.

‘I needed to rearrange some of the flowers,’ she explained, ‘and I wanted to thank you for the sermon you gave today. It was uplifting.’

Follis nodded gratefully. ‘I try my best.’

‘It was very brave of you even to turn up at church today. You should have been lying in bed back in the Rectory. I couldn’t help noticing how exhausted you looked at times.’

‘Oh dear!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there I was, thinking that I had contrived to deceive everybody. On the other hand,’ he added, taking a step closer to her, ‘you are far more perceptive than anyone else in the congregation. You have a sharp eye, Amy.’

‘I was worried about you, Mr Follis.’

‘There’s no need to be – I’m fine now.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so. I must get on home. Mrs Ashmore will have luncheon waiting for me.’

‘There must be
something
I can do.’

It was a heartfelt plea and Follis could not ignore it. He was fond of Amy Walcott and had given her unfailing support during the long period of mourning after her mother’s death. From that time on, she had dedicated herself to the church and its rector, giving freely of her time and energy. Tired as he was, Follis believed that it would be cruel to refuse her offer.

‘Perhaps there is something you could do, after all,’ he said.

She smiled eagerly. ‘Is there?’

‘You have such a beautiful voice, Amy.’

‘Thank you.’

‘The tragedy is that I never get to hear it reading beautiful words. It’s the harsher voices of men that read the epistle and the gospel, and I sometimes long for the softer tones of a woman. It would please me greatly if you could read something to me.’

‘Gladly, Mr Follis,’ she said with delight. ‘What shall I read?’

‘Let’s start with one of the Psalms, shall we?’ he decided, opening his Book of Common Prayer and leafing through the pages with a bandaged hand. ‘And where better to begin than with the first of them?’

Finding the page, he handed the book to her then motioned for her to stand at the lectern. As he settled into the front pew, he gazed up at Amy Walcott and raised a hand.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he said. ‘I’m going to enjoy this.’

Giles Thornhill lived in a palatial country mansion a few miles outside Brighton. Set in rolling countryside, it commanded glorious views on every side. After admiring it from afar, Robert Colbeck was driven up to the gatehouse in a cab and had to identify himself before he was allowed into the property. As the cab rolled up the long drive, he saw the gates being locked behind them by a man with a rifle slung across his back. The house was being guarded like a fortress.

Seated at a table in his library, Thornhill made no attempt to get up when Colbeck was shown into the room. The politician’s arm was still in a sling and the black eye was still acting as a focal point on his face. He looked as haughty and
cold as the marble busts that were dotted between the rows of bookshelves. Thornhill was disappointed that a detective inspector had been sent to interview him.

‘I expected Superintendent Tallis,’ he said, frostily, ‘if not the commissioner himself.’

‘I’m in charge of the investigation into the train crash, sir,’ said Colbeck, firmly, ‘and I’m interested in anything whatsoever that may have a bearing on it. I’ve already established to my satisfaction that the collision was no accident so I’ve turned my attention to the likely motive behind this crime.’

‘You may be looking at it, Inspector.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Sit down and I will explain.’

Colbeck took a chair at the other end of the table and glanced around the library. It was a large, rectangular, high-ceilinged room with bookshelves on three walls. Light flooded in through the windows on the other wall and made the marble busts gleam and the crystal chandelier above Colbeck’s head sparkle. Before resuming, Thornhill subjected his guest to a searching glare.

‘The true motive for what happened on Friday will not even have crossed your mind, Inspector,’ he said, ‘because it would never occur to you for a moment that the accident was intended to kill someone who was travelling on the express.’

‘You malign me, I fear,’ Colbeck told him. ‘I considered that possibility as soon as I learnt that Mr Horace Bardwell was a passenger on the train. He struck me as being a potential target for someone in search of revenge.’

Thornhill was peeved. ‘Bardwell was not the target,’ he insisted, resenting the very notion of a competitor. ‘That crash was engineered to kill
me
. Don’t you understand, Inspector
Colbeck? It was a clear case of attempted murder.’

‘Attempted and actual murder, sir,’ corrected the other. ‘To date, there have been nine murder victims.’

‘They were incidental casualties.’

‘I don’t think their friends and families will take any comfort from that thought,’ said Colbeck, pointedly.

‘If anyone was supposed to die, it was me.’

‘Do you have any evidence to support that, sir?’

‘You must have read my letter to the superintendent. I laid out the evidence in that. I’ve had two death threats. Whenever I’ve been in London, I’ve been followed, and I always travel on the Brighton Express on Friday evenings. I’m a creature of habit,’ said Thornhill. ‘Somebody must have been studying those habits.’

‘May I see the death threats you received?’

‘No, Inspector – I tore them to pieces.’

‘That was unwise of you, sir. They could have been valuable evidence. Were they both written by the same hand?’

‘Yes – and it was elegant calligraphy at that. It made them even more menacing somehow.’

‘Can you remember the actual wording of the missives?’

‘Both were short and blunt, Inspector. The first simply warned me that I had weeks to live. The second told me to make my will.’

‘What precautions did you take?’ asked Colbeck.

‘Only the obvious ones,’ replied Thornhill. ‘I made sure that I never travelled alone and remained vigilant at all times. The problem is that, until the train crash, I wasn’t entirely sure that the threats were serious. As a politician, I’m rather used to mindless abuse. Those were not the first unpleasant letters to be delivered here.’

‘So they were sent to your home?’

‘Yes, Inspector – that’s what unsettles me. Most of my mail is addressed to the House of Commons.’

‘Were the letters sent from Brighton?’

‘No – they bore a London postmark.’

‘Can you think of anyone who may have written them?’

‘I have a lot of enemies, Inspector,’ said Thornhill with a touch of pride, ‘because I’m a man of principle and always speak robustly in Parliament. Politics, I daresay, is a closed world to you.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Colbeck, ‘a few years ago, it fell to me to arrest Sir Humphrey Gilzean, who organised a train robbery. I believe he was a close friend of yours.’ Thornhill shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Since then, I’ve taken a close interest in the activities of the House of Commons. I know, for instance, that you were highly critical of Sir Robert Peel when he repealed the Corn Laws and that you broke with his wing of the Conservative party. Since his death, you’ve aligned yourself with Mr Disraeli.’

‘What our late prime minister did was unpardonable,’ snapped Thornhill. ‘As for Gilzean, he was never more than an acquaintance who happened to share my views. He was certainly not an intimate of mine. I was thoroughly shocked by what he did.’

‘There may be something of a parallel here,’ suggested Colbeck, noting how keen he was to distance himself from Gilzean. ‘Sir Humphrey was so obsessed with his hatred of railways that he was driven to commit dreadful crimes. It could well be that we are dealing with another case of obsession – a person consumed with hatred of a particular individual.’

‘And that individual,’ said Thornhill, ‘appears to be me.’

‘I’d need more proof before I accepted that conclusion, sir.’

‘It’s as plain as this black eye of mine, Inspector. I’m warned, I’m watched then I’m wounded in that horrifying train crash.’

‘The same things may have happened to Mr Bardwell.’

‘This is nothing to do with him!’

‘He’s a director of the LB&SCR.’

‘I have the honour of representing Brighton in Parliament so I am identified far more closely with the town than Horace Bardwell. Also, I have political rivals who would be very happy to see me dead.’ He slid a piece of paper across to Colbeck. ‘I’ve made a list of them for you. Forgive my shaky writing. With my right arm in this sling, I had to use my left.’

‘The names are perfectly legible,’ observed Colbeck, eyeing them with interest. ‘It’s a rather long list of suspects, sir.’

‘I didn’t become a politician to make myself popular.’

‘That’s palpably true.’

‘I suggest you make discreet enquiries about every man there.’

‘I have my own methods,’ said Colbeck, evenly, ‘and I’ll stick to those, if you don’t mind. Meanwhile, you seem to be perfectly safe here. I can’t think you’ll be in any danger in your own home.’

‘That’s why I discharged myself from the county hospital. As long as I was there, I was vulnerable to attack. In the event,’ said Thornhill, ‘the attack turned out to be a written one.’

‘In what way?’

‘See for yourself, Inspector Colbeck.’ He slid another piece of paper across the table. ‘This was delivered to me in hospital. I regard it as incontestable proof that the train crash
was arranged solely for my benefit.’

Colbeck read the mocking obituary of the politician.

‘Well,’ said Thornhill, ‘have I convinced you now?’

Victor Leeming’s search began badly. The first person he had to find was Jack Rye, a porter from London Bridge station who had been dismissed on suspicion of theft in spite of vociferous protestations of innocence. The address that Leeming had been given was in one of the poorer quarters of Westminster. When he called there, he learnt that Rye had quit the premises months earlier. As the city echoed to the sound of church bells, a long, arduous trudge ensued through some of the rougher districts of the capital as the sergeant went from tenement to miserable tenement. Rye had kept on the move, changing his accommodation as often as his job. Time and again, he had departed with a landlord’s curse ringing in his ears.

When Leeming finally tracked his man down to one of the rookeries in Seven Dials, he discovered that Jack Rye could not possibly have caused the train crash because he had been stabbed to death in a tavern brawl a week before the tragedy occurred. The very fact that Rye had ended up living in such a vile slum was an indication of how low his fortunes had fallen. It was a relief to cross one name off the list. Leeming was grateful to get clear of Seven Dials and of the jeering children who threw stones at his top hat.

Dick Chiffney was also elusive. A plate-layer for the LB&SCR, he had been sacked for punching his foreman. His address at the time was that of a hovel in Chalk Farm, a relic of the days when the area was predominantly agricultural. Industry had slowly encroached upon it, houses had been built for the burgeoning middle classes and the arrival of the railways had completed the dramatic change to an urban environment. Chiffney was no longer there but the little house did still have an occupant. Arms folded, she confronted Leeming at the door.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Leeming,’ he replied.

‘Is that why you’ve come – to tell me the bastard is finally dead?’

‘I’m looking for Dick Chiffney.’

‘And so am I,’ she said, baring the blackened remains of her teeth. ‘I’ve been looking for him all week.’

Josie Murlow was a fearsome woman in her thirties, tall, big-boned and with red hair plunging down her back like a hirsute waterfall. Her face had a ravaged prettiness but it was her body that troubled Leeming. She exuded a raw sexuality that seemed quite out of place on a Sunday. As a uniformed constable, he had arrested many prostitutes and had always been immune to their charms. Josie Murlow was different. He could not take his eyes off the huge, round, half-visible, heaving breasts. Leeming felt as if he were being brazenly accosted in broad daylight.

‘Are you Mrs Chiffney?’ he asked, making a conscious effort to meet her fiery gaze.

‘I’m Mrs Chiffney in all but name,’ she retorted. ‘I cooked for him, looked after him and shared his bed for almost two
years then he walks out on me without a word of warning. It’s not bleeding right.’

‘I quite agree.’

‘Who gave him money when he lost his job? Who nursed him when he was ill? Who kept him in drink?
I
did,’ she stressed, slapping her chest with such force that her breasts bobbed up and down with hypnotic insistence. ‘I done everything for that man.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Over a week ago.’

‘Did he have a job at the time?’

‘Dick’s been out of work since he knocked his foreman to the ground when he was laying some new track on the railway. We had to get by on what I bring in.’

Leeming did not have to ask what she did for a living. Even though she was now wearing crumpled old clothes and had no powder on her florid cheeks, Josie Murlow was patently a member of the oldest profession. He decided that she must have catered for more vigorous clients. Only big, strong, brave, virile men would have dared to take her on. Others would have found her far too intimidating.

‘Why are the police after Dick?’ she said, belligerently. ‘What’s the mad bugger been up to now?’

‘I just wished to talk to him.’

‘Don’t lie to me. I’ve had enough dealings with the law to know that you never simply want to talk to someone. There’s always some dark reason at the back of it. Dick is in trouble again, isn’t he?’

‘He might be,’ admitted Leeming.

‘What’s the charge this time?’

Leeming was evasive. ‘It’s to do with the railway.’

‘The foreman started the fight,’ she argued, leaping to Chiffney’s defence. ‘He threw the first punch so Dick had to hit him back. In any case,’ she added, sizing him up, ‘why is a detective from Scotland Yard bothering about a scuffle on a railway line? There’s something else, isn’t there?’ She glared at him. ‘What is it?’

‘It may be nothing at all and that’s the truth. I just need to speak to Mr Chiffney. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

‘If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here, would I? Josie Murlow is not a woman to give up easy. I’ve searched everywhere. What I can tell you,’ she conceded, ‘is where Dick likes to drink. I been to all the places but he must have seen me coming because he wasn’t in any of them. You might be luckier. Dick doesn’t know you.’

Taking out his notepad, Leeming jotted down the names of four public houses that Chiffney frequented. As he wrote, he kept his head down, glad of an excuse not to look at her surging bosom. Josie was well aware of his interest. When he looked up again, he saw that one flabby arm had dropped to her side while the other rested on the door jamb beside her head. Her crudely seductive pose made him take a step backwards.

‘Would you like to come in, Sergeant Leeming?’ she invited.

‘I…don’t have the time,’ he stammered.

‘I’ve got drink in the house – and a very empty bed.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Josie Murlow gives value for money, I can tell you.’

‘I’ve no reason to doubt that.’

‘Then why are you holding back?’ she said, putting both
hands on her hips and turning sideways so that he saw her body in enticing profile. ‘What better way to spend a Sunday?’

‘I’m a married man,’ he said, indignantly.

‘So are most of them – they want something special for a change.’ She gave a low cackle. ‘I make sure they get it.’

‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m still on duty.’

She became aggressive. ‘Are you turning me down?’

‘I have to find Mr Chiffney,’ he said, retreating from the door.

‘Well, when you do,’ she yelled, ‘drag him back here by the balls. I want a word with that swivel-eyed bastard.’

Returning to Brighton by cab, the first thing that Colbeck did was to find a hotel where he could buy himself a light luncheon. He then took time off to look at the town’s most famous sight, the Royal Pavilion with its strange but arresting mixture of neo-classical and oriental architecture. In the previous century, the restorative properties of its sea water had helped to turn Brighton from a small fishing port into a fashionable resort. The Pavilion had added to its appeal. Built over a period of many years, it had become a main attraction well before its completion in 1823.

The brainchild of the future King George IV, it had failed abysmally to exercise the same fascination for Queen Victoria and ceased to become a royal residence. Colbeck was glad that it had been purchased by the town in 1850, allowing the public to admire its unique design and its spacious gardens. Those who flocked to the seaside in warmer months did not merely come for the pleasure of walking along the promenade, enjoying the facilities on the Chain Pier or merely reclining on
the beach and watching the waves roll in. They were there to view the majestic Pavilion and to get a privileged insight into how royalty lived and entertained.

After seeing his fill, Colbeck set off on his second visit of the day. St Dunstan’s Rectory was only a stone’s throw from the church itself and it had been built at roughly the same time, retaining its medieval exterior while undergoing many internal renovations. Shown into the drawing room by the housekeeper, Colbeck was given a cordial welcome by Ezra Follis who pulled himself out of his high-backed chair with barely concealed pain.

‘Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand, Inspector,’ he said. ‘My hands are still somewhat tender and I had difficulty turning the pages of my Prayer Book during the service this morning. Your visit is timely. I was just about to have my afternoon cup of tea.’

‘Then I’ll be happy to join you, Mr Follis.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Ashmore.’

A nod from the rector was all it took for the housekeeper to bustle out of the room. The two men, meanwhile, sat down opposite each other. After the grand proportions of the library he had visited earlier, Colbeck found the room small and cluttered. The low ceiling, thick roof beams and little mullioned windows contributed to the sense of restriction but the place had a snug, homely feeling about it. Follis had less than a quarter of the number of books owned by Giles Thornhill but Colbeck suspected that he had read far more of the contents of his library than the politician had of his.

‘What brings you to Brighton again?’ asked Follis.

‘I had to speak to one of your Members of Parliament.’

‘Then it must have been Giles Thornhill.’

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck. ‘Like you, he was a survivor of the crash.’

‘How did you find him?’

‘I think he’s still in considerable discomfort.’

Follis chortled. ‘That’s a polite way of saying that he was singularly inhospitable. It’s no more than I’d expect,’ he said. ‘On the one occasion when I called at his house, Thornhill kept me waiting for twenty minutes before he deigned to see me.’

‘I take it that you are not an admirer of the gentleman.’

‘Voting against him at the last election gave me a sense of delight, Inspector. I despise the man. He manipulates people to his advantage. The only thing that animates him is the greater glory of Giles Thornhill.’ He chortled again. ‘When visitors come to Brighton for the first time, I ask them what they think of the monstrosity.’

‘The Royal Pavilion?’

‘No,’ said Follis, ‘our Parliamentary eyesore – Mr Thornhill.’

‘What has he done to offend you?’ wondered Colbeck.

‘He’s treated people with contempt as if he inhabits a superior order of creation. Then, of course,’ said Follis, knowingly, ‘there’s the small matter of his inheritance.’

‘Judging by the size of his house, I’d say that it was an extremely large one.’

‘His father made his fortune in the slave trade, Inspector.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘He grew rich on the suffering and humiliation of others. That may explain why Thornhill regards so many of us as mere slaves. However,’ he went on, sympathy coming into his voice, ‘I’m genuinely sorry that he was injured in the crash and
did my best to help him at the time. Needless to say, I received no thanks.’

‘Do you see Mr Thornhill often?’ asked Colbeck.

‘At least once a week – we catch the Brighton Express every Friday evening and often share a carriage. Though we acknowledge each other, we rarely speak.’ Follis grinned. ‘I fancy that he knows he can’t rely on my vote.’

They chatted amiably until the housekeeper arrived with a tray. As she served the two of them with a cup of tea, Colbeck was able to take a closer look at Ellen Ashmore. She was a stout woman of medium height with well-groomed grey hair surrounding a pleasant face that was incongruously small in comparison with her body. Though she and Follis were of a similar age, she treated him with a motherly concern, urging him to rest as much as possible.

‘Mrs Ashmore will spoil me,’ said Follis when she had left the room. ‘She did everything she could to stop me taking the service this morning. I told her that I had a duty, Inspector. I couldn’t let my parishioners down.’

‘I’m sure that they appreciated your being there.’

‘Some of them did.’ Adding sugar to his cup, Follis stirred his tea. ‘Incidentally, did you manage to get anything coherent out of Horace Bardwell?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s hopelessly bewildered.’

‘We prayed for him and the other victims.’

‘While I was at the hospital yesterday, I spoke to some of them. Two, apparently, were in the same carriage as you.’

‘Oh? And who might they be?’

‘Mr Terence Giddens and a young lady named Miss Daisy Perriam. They were both highly distressed at what happened
to them.’

‘That’s understandable,’ said Follis with something akin to amusement. ‘Instead of being trapped in hospital beds, the pair of them had hoped to be sharing one.’ Colbeck was taken aback. ‘You didn’t see them together as I did, Inspector. Had you done so, you’d have noticed that, though they pretended to be travelling alone, they were, in fact, together. That’s why Giddens was so desperate to get out of the hospital.’

‘He told me that his bank needed him in London.’

‘I heard the same lie. The truth of it is that he was afraid that his wife would read about the crash in the newspapers and see her husband’s name among the injured. The last thing that Giddens wanted was for his wife to discover that, instead of doing whatever he told her he would be doing that weekend, he had instead slipped off to Brighton with a beautiful young woman. He lives in fear that Mrs Giddens will walk through the door of his ward at any moment.’

Colbeck was impressed. ‘You’re a shrewd detective, Mr Follis,’ he said. ‘I wish I had your intuition.’

‘It’s something one develops,’ explained Follis. ‘If you’d sat by as many sad deathbeds as I have, and settled as many bitter marital disputes, and listened to as many tearful confessions of wickedness and folly, you’d become acutely sensitive to human behaviour. As it was, Giddens gave himself away at the start. When I first spoke to him in hospital, he wanted to know if Daisy Perriam had survived the crash. He was far less interested in the fate of Giles Thornhill and the others in our carriage.’

‘I wish that I’d talked to you earlier.’

‘Why – are you going to offer me a job at Scotland Yard?’

‘No,’ said Colbeck, tickled by the suggestion. ‘By inclination
and training, you’re clearly far more suited to the Church – though I’m bound to observe that there are very few clergymen who’d share your tolerant view of people’s peccadilloes. Any other gentleman of the cloth would be scandalised by the relationship you discerned between Mr Giddens and Miss Perriam.’