Edward Marston - Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

‘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.