Inspector Colbeck's Casebook (15 page)

The sheer directness of the question made the pair of them twitch noticeably. Harry’s eyes flicked to and fro but it was his brother, Jed, who was under the most intense pressure. He began to fidget. After trying and failing to concoct a lie, Jed gave up and jumped to his feet. To his mother’s horror, he pushed Colbeck aside and ran to the
back door, hurtling through it in a frantic bid to get away. All that he managed to do, however, was to bounce off the formidable frame of Victor Leeming who, at Colbeck’s suggestion, had worked his way round to the rear of the cottage so that he could block a potential escape route.

The force of the collision knocked something out of the boy’s pocket and it fell to the ground. Holding him firmly by his collar, Leeming bent down to retrieve a large pocket watch. He flicked it open to look at the dial.

‘I think your time is up, son,’ he said.

‘Why are we in such a rush, Inspector?’ asked Leeming in bewilderment.

‘We have a train to catch, Victor.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Ravenglass.’

‘Is it far away?’

‘It’s far enough,’ said Colbeck. ‘That’s why I advised you to bring the change of clothing you keep at Scotland Yard.’

‘Estelle will worry when I don’t come home tonight.’

‘Madeleine will be anxious for the same reason. Since they were misguided enough to marry detectives, however, they must learn to expect sudden departures.’

‘We’ve never had one as sudden as this, Inspector.’

They were in a cab that was taking them to Euston station. All that Leeming could think about was being apart from his wife and two sons. Colbeck gave him a friendly pat on the knee.

‘I’m not that hard-hearted, Victor,’ he said. ‘I considered
the ladies and sent word of our movements to Estelle and to Madeleine. They’ll still fret in our absence but at least they’ll know where we are.’

‘That’s more than I will, sir. Where
is
Ravenglass?’

‘It’s in the county of Cumberland.’

‘That’s way up north!’ protested Leeming.

‘Your knowledge of geography cannot be faulted.’

‘What did the telegraph say?’

‘It merely said that a crisis had occurred. We are responding to it.’

‘Why does it always have to be us?’

‘A challenge has been set,’ explained Colbeck. ‘We must not shirk it simply because we enjoy the comforts of home life. Ravenglass needs our help.’

‘What sort of place is it?’

‘It’s a very small one. We are escaping the bedlam here and going to the coast where the air will be clean, and where fresh fish will be served to delight the palate.’

‘I’d still rather stay here.’

‘Even if it means that a killer goes unpunished?’

Leeming frowned. ‘I thought the superintendent said something about a burning railway carriage.’

‘Indeed, he did,’ agreed Colbeck. ‘What he omitted to tell you was that someone was
inside
the carriage when it was set ablaze.’

The journey was long, tiresome and involved a change of trains. When they finally reached their destination, they discovered that the station was a quarter of a mile away from the little market town. The enforcement of law and order rested in the nervous hands of Clifford Baines, a tall,
gangly, young constable with a prominent Adam’s apple and a pair of bulging eyes. He had been walking up and down the platform for hours, praying for help and trying to keep people away from the wreckage. Relieved at the arrival of the detectives, he let out a cry of joy and fell on them with a gratitude verging on desperation.

‘Thank heaven you’ve both come!’ he said.

‘Thank heaven we actually got here!’ murmured Leeming.

Colbeck introduced them then asked to see the murder scene. It was over thirty yards away. A disused railway carriage had been shunted into a siding and left there until someone could decide what to do with it. During the night, it had been set alight and had burnt so fiercely that the glare could be seen for miles. All that remained was the shell of the carriage and the charred body of the victim. To give it a degree of dignity, Baines had draped some sacking over it.

‘It’s been dreadful,’ he complained. ‘Everybody has come here to stand and stare. It’s like having a beached whale. The ghouls turn out in force.’

‘A beached whale can sometimes be saved,’ observed Colbeck as he drew back the sacking. ‘This unfortunate person is way beyond salvation.’

The detectives were horrified to see what fire could do to the human body. Clothes and hair had been burnt off what was patently the shrivelled body of a woman. Leeming felt embarrassed to look at the naked black torso. He was also ashamed at his reluctance to come to Ravenglass. A grotesque crime had obviously occurred and it was their duty to find the culprit. He shook off his exhaustion at once.

‘Do you know who it is?’ he asked.

‘No, Sergeant,’ said Baines. ‘And nobody else does either. The truth is that we had no idea that someone was inside the carriage.’

‘The killer obviously did.’

‘I’m not entirely sure there
was
a killer.’ They shot him a sceptical glance. ‘It might just be that someone wanted to get rid of the carriage. Quite a few people have complained about it.’

‘Arson is a crime,’ said Colbeck. ‘When it’s also a form of murder, it’s even more heinous. If you hold your finger over a match, it’s painful. Don’t you think that somebody inside that carriage would have got out quickly the moment they felt the heat and smelt the smoke?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Baines, sheepishly.

‘Is there an undertaker in Ravenglass?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fetch him immediately. The body must be moved.’

‘As long as it’s here, folk will come to stare.’

When Baines went scurrying off, Colbeck covered the body up again and walked slowly around the wreckage, looking for clues and trying to work out the point at which the fire had first started. He turned to Leeming.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘The victim was killed
before
the carriage was set alight.’

‘Yes, Inspector – she was either killed or too drunk to know what was happening. I hope we can identify her before her remains are buried. Her family and friends need to be told what’s happened to her.’

‘We don’t know that she had either. Nobody would sleep in a broken-down old carriage like this if they had a proper home and people who cared about them.’

‘That’s a fair comment,’ said Leeming.

‘They only seem to have a stationmaster and a porter here,’ noted Colbeck.

‘It is a bit off the beaten track, sir.’

‘I’ll talk to both of them.’

‘What about me?’

‘Take the luggage and find us a room at a hotel. In a place as small as Ravenglass, there may only be one.’

Leeming looked around and heaved a sigh. ‘How can anyone want to live in such an isolated spot?’

‘Oh, I could cope with a lot of isolation, Victor. It’s infinitely preferable to the hurly-burly of a big city. You have time to think out here,’ said Colbeck, inhaling deeply. ‘Smell that air – no trace of the London stench.’

‘All I can smell is the fire that turned that poor woman into a human cinder.’ Leeming gazed down at the figure under the sacking. ‘Who
is
she?’

Sam Gazey, the porter, was a short, stout, pot-bellied man in his thirties with a wispy beard that seemed constantly in need of a scratch. Colbeck found him slow-witted and unhelpful. Gazey could remember no woman arriving recently at the station on her own. Nor did he have any idea that the carriage had been occupied at night. Len Hipwell, by contrast, could not stop speculating on the victim’s identity. Tucked away in the stream of conjectures he unleashed on Colbeck was some useful information. Hipwell was a self-important man in his forties with a flabby red face and piggy eyes. When holding forth, he hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat.

‘If you want my opinion,’ he said, ‘it’s Maggie Hobday.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I get to hear things in my job, Inspector.’

‘Are you referring to proven fact or idle gossip?’

‘Rumours that reach me tend to have some truth in them.’

‘And what were you told about this particular lady?’

Hipwell chortled. ‘Oh, Maggie were no lady, sir. She made a living by giving comfort to lonely men – or married ones, if their wives were not looking. Everyone knew about Maggie.’

‘Did you actually
see
her in Ravenglass?’ asked Colbeck.

‘No – but she were spotted in Egremont a week or so ago.’

‘What could bring her here?’

‘She were always on the move,’ said Hipwell, knowledgeably. ‘Women like that don’t stop in one place for long. They either run out of customers or get chased away by angry wives. Over the years, she’s had more than her share of trouble. Maggie was once dumped in a horse trough in Whitehaven.’

‘That would be preferable to being set alight in a railway carriage.’

‘Mark my words, Inspector. That’s her corpse over there. As soon as I knew a woman had slept in that carriage, I said it was Maggie.’

‘You must have known her well to be so certain about it.’

Hipwell spluttered. ‘That’s not true at all,’ he said, indignantly. ‘I’m a married man and glad of it when … females like her are sniffing around. It’s just that, being a stationmaster, you develop a sixth sense about people.’

Colbeck had already developed the sense that the garrulous stationmaster was of no practical help. It was clear that Hipwell lived in a world of tittle-tattle and that made his judgement unreliable. Colbeck had only one more question to ask him.

‘When is the station left unmanned?’

‘The place is closed at eleven o’clock at night, Inspector. I open it up again in time to meet the milk train at six.’

‘So there’s nobody here in the small hours.’

‘No,’ replied Hipwell with a nod towards the siding. ‘Unless you count Maggie Hobday, that is.’

Having arranged accommodation at the King’s Arms, Victor Leeming stood at the window of his room and looked out. Ravenglass was a pretty town with ample remains of Roman occupation at an earlier point in its history. It was neat, compact and well built. Situated on the estuary fed by three rivers – the Esk, the Mite and the Irt – it had a pleasant feel to it. Leeming could see oyster-fishermen mending nets and repairing boats in the harbour. He could also see groups of people in urgent conversation and could guess what they were talking about.

There had been a trap for hire at the station but, since he had no luggage to carry, Colbeck had elected to walk. When the sergeant saw him coming towards the hotel, he went downstairs to meet him. They adjourned to the lounge so that they could talk in private.

‘I waited until the undertaker arrived to take away the body,’ said Colbeck.

‘Yes, I saw him driving up the street.’

‘What have you found out, Victor?’

‘Well, I may have the name of the deceased,’ said Leeming. ‘According to the manager here, it’s someone called Joan Metcalf.’

‘That’s not what I heard. The stationmaster said it was Maggie Hobday.’

‘Ah, yes, that name came up as well but the manager said it couldn’t possibly be her. He claimed she was up in Bowness.’

‘Tell me about Joan Metcalf.’

‘She lives wild, sir,’ explained Leeming. ‘It’s a sad case. The husband she loved devotedly was killed at sea but she’s never accepted that he was dead. She walks up and down the coast in the hope that he’ll come back to her one day. Someone saw her near Selker Bay earlier in the week. I don’t know where that is but the manager says that it’s not far south of here.’

‘When did her husband die?’

‘It was all of twenty years ago. Her faith that he’s still alive must be very strong to keep her going that long. She begs for food and will do odd jobs to earn a penny. She’ll sleep wherever she can. People in Ravenglass are kind to her.’

‘Then she’s very different to Maggie Hobday. The women here are more likely to drive
her
away because she sells favours to the men. Which one is it,’ asked Colbeck, pensively, ‘the wife with a broken heart or the lady of easy virtue?’

‘We may never know, sir.’

‘We
have
to know, Victor. Only when we’ve identified the victim can we start looking for people who might have a motive to kill her.’ He stood back to appraise Leeming. ‘I think that it’s time you had a haircut.’

‘Do you?’ asked the other in surprise.

‘I passed the barber’s shop on my way here. It’s still open.’

‘Why should I have a haircut, sir?’

‘Because it’s the ideal way to get information without appearing to be doing so,’ said Colbeck. ‘There can’t be more than four hundred souls in a place like this. A barber will know almost everyone and have a lot of customers among the men.’

‘So?’

‘If he realises you’re a detective, he may not be so forthcoming. If you tell him that you’re a visitor to the area, however, he’ll talk more freely. Find out all you can about Ravenglass and the men who live here.’

Leeming ran a hand over his head. ‘I don’t really
need
a haircut, you know.’

‘Pretend that you do. It’s in a good cause.’

‘Where will you be, sir?’

‘Oh, I’ll be here, doing something of great importance.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll be studying the dinner menu.’

Most of the barber’s customers were fishermen or local tradesmen so the sight of a frock coat and top hat caused Ned Wyatt, the barber, to look up. An elderly man was having what little remained of his hair trimmed by Wyatt. They had been chatting happily until the newcomer stepped into the little shop. The conversation trailed off. Removing his hat, Leeming took a seat and waited. When his turn came, he replaced the other customer in the chair and had a white cloth put around him.

‘What can I do for you, sir?’ asked Wyatt.

‘Just … make my hair look a little tidier, please.’

‘It doesn’t need much taking off.’

‘You’re the barber. I rely on your judgement.’

He could see Wyatt in the mirror. The barber was a tall, thin, sour-faced individual in his fifties but his pronounced hunch took several inches off his height. Beside the mirror was a small framed portrait of a man in a black cloak and white bands. He looked vaguely familiar to Leeming.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

‘John Wesley.’

‘Ah, I see. You’re a Methodist.’

‘Wesley often came to Cumberland. He preached in Whitehaven twenty-five times. Listening to him must have been an inspiration.’

‘I sometimes fall asleep during our vicar’s sermons,’ said Leeming.

‘What brings you to Ravenglass?’ asked Wyatt, starting to snip away.

‘Friends of mine had a holiday here once and told me what a pleasant spot it was. Since I was travelling north by train, I thought I’d make a small diversion and see what it was that they liked so much.’