Inspector Colbeck's Casebook (14 page)

‘Did he make any threats to the guard?’

Upton gave a grim laugh. ‘He never stopped, Sergeant. He said he’d come back one day and get even with Jake.’

‘How did Mr Fullard react to that?’

‘He just shrugged his shoulders and got on with his job. That was the kind of man he was. Jake was fearless. He’s had hundreds of threats over the years and always ignored them. Why should he worry any more about this one?’

Colbeck got to the train just in time because it was due to leave fairly soon. The escaped bullocks had been caught and put back in their wagon. As he walked past the brake van, he saw that the first four wagons contained sheep, smaller animals who would have done far less damage to the guard had they jumped on top of him. Evidently, he was placed beside the bullocks so that his death could be seen as the result of an accident. Yet when he examined the narrow wooden gate that held the animals in, Colbeck saw that it was sound. The bullocks had been deliberately let out by someone. The ground was covered with the imprint of their hooves but it was something else that claimed his interest. Colbeck could see two runnels in the mud, going all the way back to the brake van. He thought about the heels on the boots of the murder victim.

Having identified a potential suspect, Leeming went straight to the little police station and asked if anyone had been aware of an Irish visitor to the town. Sergeant Rogers, a hefty, pockmarked individual, recalled the man immediately because he had hauled him out of the White Hart for causing an affray. His name, it transpired, was Gerard Devlin and he’d spent the night in custody.

‘Has he been hanging around the area?’ asked Leeming.

‘Yes,’ replied the other, ‘but he’s been keeping out of my way. Someone spotted him in Hele, only four miles away, and we had reports of an intruder who slept in a barn near here – that might well have been Devlin.’

‘We need to find him.’

Rogers gave a wry chuckle. ‘Then I need more men,’ he
said. ‘There are over three thousand people in this town, Sergeant, and I have only two constables to help me uphold the law here. I can’t spare either of them to conduct a manhunt. What I can do is to ask them to keep their eyes peeled for any sign of Devlin.’

‘Do you think he’s likely to come back?’

‘That’s what he threatened to do. When I gave him a black eye, he swore that he’d be back to settle a score with me. I told him he was welcome. It would give me a chance to black the other eye for him.’

He let out a peal of laughter and exposed a row of tiny blackened teeth.

‘Do you have much trouble here?’ asked Leeming.

‘It’s mostly petty crime. You know the sort of thing – thieves who steal an apple or two on market day, youths who get into a fight over a girl and noisy drunks who piss in people’s gardens. Oh, and we had a spate of breaking windows by some children with nothing better to do on a Saturday night. We never have anything really serious,’ said the sergeant, complacently. ‘I make sure of that.’

‘Then it’s a pity you weren’t at the railway station this morning,’ said Leeming, pointedly, ‘or you might have stopped a guard from being murdered.’

Oliver Dann was still stunned by what he’d seen. When his wife admitted the visitor, Colbeck found the engine driver, still in his working clothes, perched on the edge of an armchair and staring gloomily into the empty fireplace. It was a full minute before he came out of his reverie to be introduced to the detective. Colbeck refused the offer from Margery Dann of refreshment and she left the room so that
he could talk alone with her husband. Dann took time to collect his thoughts.

‘You have my sympathy, sir,’ said Colbeck, sitting opposite him. ‘I gather that you and Mr Fullard were close friends.’

‘Jake was good company, Inspector. Most people found him a bit dry but they didn’t know him as well as I did. We played cribbage together two or three times a week. I’ll miss him terribly.’

‘I’m told that he was an outstanding guard.’

‘I’ve never met one better,’ said Dann. ‘For this to happen to Jake of all people – well, it’s cruel. I mean, he was always so careful. He’d have checked every wagon to see that the livestock was securely penned in.’

‘It was, Mr Dann.’

‘Obviously not – those bullocks got loose.’

‘That wasn’t what happened, sir,’ said Colbeck, softly. ‘They didn’t get loose of their own volition, I’m afraid. Somebody opened the gate so that the animals could leap out on top of Mr Fullard.’ Dann drew back in horror as if from a blow. ‘My belief is that he was killed by the brake van then dragged alongside that wagon.’

‘
Killed?
’ The engine driver looked as if he was about to pass out again. ‘Are you saying that Jake was
murdered
?’

‘I’d stake my reputation on it.’

‘I thought that …’

Eyes moist and mouth agape, Dann went off into another reverie. When he finally came out of it, his voice was solemn and serious.

‘The truth is that I
didn’t
think,’ he confessed. ‘I saw him on the ground and everything went blank. If I
had
thought about it, I’d have known that it couldn’t have been an accident.’

‘I came to the same conclusion, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘I stood beside that wagon earlier on. If the gate had suddenly opened and a bullock had jumped out, I’d have leapt instinctively to the side. One animal might have caught me a glancing blow but not the dozen or more I saw penned up. Mr Fullard was placed there like a sacrifice.’

Dann was roused. ‘Then I’d like to get my hands on the bastard who put him there,’ he shouted. ‘I’d tie him to the rails and drive the engine over him again and again. Yes, then I’d feed the pieces to the pigs.’

‘I can understand how you feel, Mr Dann,’ said Colbeck, trying to calm him with upraised palms ‘You’ve a right to feel angry but anger won’t help us to bring the villain to justice. That takes cool, clear, logical deduction. What I’d like you to do, please, is to help us. You were fond of Mr Fullard but his job might have made him enemies. Can you think of anyone – anyone at all – whom he might have upset sufficiently for them to want revenge?’

As he tried to master his emotions, Oliver Dann sat back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling. Colbeck could hear the man’s teeth grinding. There was a long wait but it was productive. When he finally came out of his trance, Dann was cold and decisive.

‘Yes, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I can suggest two or three people.’

Sergeant Rogers had been sobered by the information that a murder had occurred in Cullompton. Never having had to deal with a heinous crime, he had no idea how to react. His main
concern was how he would be portrayed in the newspapers. Once the word got out, reporters from Exeter – perhaps even from London – would converge on the town. What sort of role should the sergeant pretend that he’d played? He was still trying to decide when Colbeck arrived. Leeming introduced him to the sergeant then told him about Gerard Devlin.

‘He’s still in the area, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘I think he’s our man.’

‘That depends how strong he is,’ argued Colbeck.

‘I can tell you that, Inspector,’ said Rogers, trying to ingratiate himself. ‘He’s as strong as an ox. I had to take some hard punches from him before I knocked him out. Devlin is your killer, no doubt about that. I’m glad that I’m the one who pointed you in his direction.’

‘That’s not strictly true,’ observed Leeming. ‘It was Luke Upton who first mentioned the Irishman.’

‘It doesn’t matter who it was,’ said Colbeck, ‘because Mr Devlin is not the killer. Jake Fullard was dragged along the ground by someone who was not strong enough to lift him. That rules out the Irishman. Besides,’ he continued, ‘Devlin lives on his wits, by the sound of it. He’s used to dodging policemen and taking his chances where he finds them. He’s a petty criminal by nature. The person we’re after is an amateur. He actually
believed
that we’d be fooled by the scene he set up beside that wagon. If we accepted that it had been a grotesque accident, then he’d be in the clear.’ Colbeck smiled thinly. ‘As it happens, he is not.’

Leeming was excited. ‘You know who he is, sir?’

‘I can make an educated guess who
they
are, Sergeant, because an accomplice was involved. Something troubled me from the outset, you see. When the gate was opened
on that wagon,’ said Colbeck, ‘why did the bullocks charge out? They’d have shown curiosity, of course, but would the first one have jumped down three feet unless he’d have cause to do so? A gunshot would have frightened them into a panic-stricken escape but that would have given the game away. They must have used something else – a stone, for instance. If it hit an animal hard enough, it would make it burst into life.’

‘Those children on the line,’ said Leeming, as the truth dawned on him. ‘Upton told me about them.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, they were a real nuisance, apparently. No matter what the guard did, they kept coming back. Then he caught one of them and gave him a hiding.’

‘Jed Lavery,’ declared Rogers.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Leeming.

‘He and his brother, Harry, are thorns in my flesh. They’re always causing trouble. I’m fairly certain they were the ones responsible for breaking those windows and it only stopped when I took them aside and boxed their ears.’

‘How old are they?’ wondered Colbeck.

‘Jed is twelve or so and he’s the nasty one. Harry is a year or two younger and does what his brother tells him. They’re rotten to the core, Inspector.’

‘How did they break windows?’

‘Oh, they were very clever,’ said Rogers. ‘They did it from a distance so they could run away without being seen. They used catapults.’

The brothers lived with their widowed mother in a smallholding on the outskirts of the town. The detectives
hired a trap to drive there. Leeming was shocked by what they’d discovered. He still found it beyond belief.

‘Can children of that age really be
killers
, sir?’

‘I’m afraid so, Victor.’

‘But they’re not much older than my two boys. David and Albert would never do anything like that.’

‘That’s because you’ve brought them up properly,’ said Colbeck. ‘Yet even at their age, they’re physically capable of murder. If you put a hammer or an axe in their hands, they’d be strong enough to knock someone out if not able to lift them up afterwards. In any case,’ he added, ‘we don’t know that murder was intended here. It’s conceivable that the guard was supposed to be wounded in payment for the hiding he gave the two boys. When he was hit hard, he died unexpectedly so that his killer had to drag his body beside that wagon. He and his brother – if they really are the culprits – then used their catapults to scare the bullocks into life.’

Leeming was saddened. ‘We’ve never arrested anyone so young before.’

‘Criminals have to answer for their crimes.’

When they reached the little cottage, they saw that it had an air of neglect about it. The fence outside it was also in need of repair. Chickens squawked and fled out of the way as the wheels of the trap rolled towards them. After giving Leeming his orders, Colbeck went to the front door and knocked. It was opened by a thin, hard-faced woman in her forties. She put her hand on her hips.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, pugnaciously.

‘Are you Mrs Lavery?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘My name is Detective Inspector Colbeck and I’d like to speak to your sons, if I may. I will, of course, only do so with you there.’

Her truculence vanished at once and she became more respectful.

‘Don’t believe what people tell you about Jed and Harry,’ she said. ‘They’ve been wonderful to me since my husband died. Without them to help, this place would have been impossible to keep on. My sons are my salvation.’

Colbeck felt a fleeting sympathy for her. The loss of her husband had clearly thrown her into a dire predicament. It had also had a visible effect on her health. She was pale and utterly exhausted. Yet he couldn’t let compassion get in the way of duty.

‘Where are your sons now, Mrs Lavery?’

‘They’re feeding the horses,’ she replied.

‘Then I’d like to talk to them, please.’

She was defensive. ‘Is it about those windows that were smashed?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘In one way, I suppose that it is.’

‘It wasn’t them. I’d take my oath on it. Jed and Harry were here all the time.’

Colbeck pretended to accept her word. ‘I’m sure that they were.’

He was invited into the kitchen, a small, bare, cheerless place with a rickety table and whitewashed walls. The paved floor had undulations. An unpleasant smell hovered. She waved him to a chair but he preferred to stand. Because she went out for several minutes, Colbeck decided that she was rehearsing what she wanted her sons to say. When they came in with bowed heads, they looked meek and obedient.
Jed Lavery was a wiry lad in rough clothes in desperate need of washing. Harry was shorter and even skinnier, wearing a pair of trousers that were too big for him and which had obviously been handed down to him by his brother. There were patches badly sewn on both knees.

Colbeck got both of them to sit down before he fired his question at them.

‘Which one of you has the catapult?’

Caught unawares by what amounted to an accusation, they looked guiltily at each other. It was their mother who provided the answer.

‘They both have one, Inspector. They use them to kill pigeons.’

‘I think they used them for something else today, Mrs Lavery.’ He stood over the two boys. ‘Isn’t that true?’

They avoided his searching eyes and were patently discomfited. For once in their lives, Jed and Harry were out of their depth. Defying the local police had been easy and they’d baited a railway guard without fear. Colbeck represented a different problem altogether. His status, height, authoritative manner and impeccable tailoring combined to unnerve them completely. He pressed home his advantage.

‘Now that we know you both have catapults,’ he said, quietly, ‘which one of you stole Mr Fullard’s watch?’