Edward Marston - Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

‘I don’t think he would have felt a thing,’ said Colbeck, sadly. ‘My guess is that he was dead before the first bullock hit him. That blow to the head was lethal.’ He eased the head back down again. ‘Have you searched his pockets?’

‘No, I didn’t think it was my place to do so.’

Colbeck conducted a quick search of the dead man. Apart from a spotted handkerchief, a notebook, a pencil and a small box of lozenges, the pockets were empty. He pulled the blanket over the corpse.

‘His wallet is missing. That gives us a possible motive for murder. Also,’ said Colbeck, ‘someone has taken his watch.’

‘We don’t know that he had a watch,’ said Leeming.

‘I can see that you don’t work on the railway, Sergeant. Everything is covered by time. A guard would be certain to have a pocket watch.’

‘Perhaps it came off when the bullocks jumped on him.’

‘Then it would have been found beside him,’ said Rimmer, ‘and it wasn’t.’

‘Right,’ decided Colbeck. ‘Contact the undertaker. Mr Fullard can be moved.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rimmer with a sigh of relief. ‘I’m not squeamish as a rule but having him here is … well, unsettling. I knew Jake Fullard. He was a first-rate guard. Seeing him like this is really upsetting.’

‘Where will we find the driver and the fireman?’ asked Leeming.

‘Olly had to go home — that’s Oliver Dann, the driver. He and Jake were good friends. They used to play cribbage together. Olly was so distressed when he saw what had happened that he passed out.’

‘What about the fireman?’

‘That’s Luke Upton,’ said Rimmer. ‘He’s younger and has got a stronger stomach. When he and Olly were laid off for the day, Luke went straight to the White Hart.’

‘Then that’s where you’ll find him, Sergeant,’ said Colbeck, nodding towards the door. ‘See what he has to say then meet me at the police station.’

‘Yes, Inspector,’ said Leeming.

The stationmaster unlocked the door and let him out. ‘Olly Dann lives only a stone’s throw away, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you the address.’

‘First things first, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘Since the train has been kept in the siding, I’d like to take a closer look at it.’ He stilled Rimmer’s protest with a gesture. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t take you away from your duties here. I’ll find my own way.’

‘Thank you. The wagon you want is the fifth one along from the brake van.’

Colbeck was about to leave when a thought detained him. Lifting up the other end of the blanket, he studied the guard’s boots before lifting one of the feet up to look at the heel. The stationmaster was baffled. Without a word, Colbeck lowered the foot down and covered it with the blanket. Then he opened the door and went out.

Victor Leeming had no trouble finding him. Luke Upton was sitting on a bar stool at the White Hart with a half-empty tankard of cider in front of him. As soon as the fireman spoke to him, Leeming could hear that he’d already had several drinks because he slurred his words. After explaining who he was, he bought a pint of beer for himself then took Upton to a table in a quiet corner. The fireman was a hulking man in his early thirties with an open face now darkened by the tragedy. When he was invited to make a statement, he first took a long sip from his tankard.

‘Let me be honest, Sergeant …’ he began.

‘I hope you weren’t planning to be dis honest, sir.’

‘I never liked Jake Fullard. He was Olly’s friend, not mine. I always found him too bossy. Fair’s fair,’ he went on, ‘he was good at his job. I don’t know a better guard in the whole county. But … well, I don’t like being given orders.’

‘None of us enjoys that,’ said Leeming.

‘We never had any trouble with Jake. When he was on board, we knew that we were in safe hands. Not all guards are like that.’

‘How much of him did you see today?’

‘We saw very little, really,’ said Upton. ‘As soon as he came on duty, Jake came over to see us. He couldn’t have spent more than a couple of minutes by the engine. As he walked off, we thought he was just going to the brake van. Instead, he was walking to his death. When Olly saw him, he fainted and I almost spewed up my breakfast.’

‘You have my sympathy, Mr Upton,’ said Leeming. ‘We viewed the body but we’d been warned in advance what to expect. You and the driver hadn’t.’

‘The bullocks stampeded all over him. It was only when two of them charged past us that we realised something was up.’

Leeming took out his notebook and wrote something in it. Then he tasted his beer and gave an appreciative sigh. Upton also had another drink.

‘Did the guard have any enemies?’ asked Leeming.

‘Well, he was never going to be popular, Sergeant.’

‘Was that because he was bossy?’

‘It was because he was a guard. His job is to ensure the safety of the train and, when it’s a goods train, there are special problems. You get people climbing into the wagons for a free ride, or kids playing on the line or thieves trying to steal whatever you’re carrying. Someone made off with a pig under his arm once. They’ll take anything they can get their hands on.’

‘Isn’t it the guard’s job to scare them off?’

‘Yes,’ said Upton, ‘and Jake was good at doing that. The only real trouble he’d had was with that Irishman he caught sleeping in an empty wagon.’

‘When was this?’

‘Oh, it was a week ago. Jake was thorough. He always checked each load before we set off to make sure that it was safe to travel. Anyway, he climbed up on this wagon full of sand and found this man fast asleep in it. That kind of thing made Jake furious,’ said Upton. ‘He not only kicked him awake, he began to yell at him. The man — he was Irish, remember — turned violent. If Jake hadn’t called a couple of railway policeman, there’d have been a fight. The man was led off.’

‘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.’