Edward Marston - Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

Dawn was breaking when the locomotive backed slowly but noisily towards the coal stage. Tall, brick-built and topped by a massive water tank, it was a ghostly shape looming above them. As they came to an abrupt halt beneath the chutes, Ezekiel Ryde, the fireman, urinated over the dwindling stock of coal in the tender.

‘Always keep it wet,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘It burns better that way.’

‘Then make sure you use the hose when you’re up there,’ said the driver.

‘I will, Perce.’

Percy Denton waited patiently until Ryde had finished relieving himself and adjusted his trousers. The driver looked into the tender.

‘We need two tub loads.’

‘Are you sure, Perce?’

‘There’s less than half a hundredweight so we can manage a full ton.’

‘Right.’

Ryde was a stocky man in his late twenties who thrived on the physical demands of his job. Jumping down from the footplate, he crossed to the ladder that rose vertically against the wall of the coal stage. It took him seconds to climb up the metal rungs and step into the cavern above. Ryde had expected to shovel coal from the bunker into the two small wheeled tubs but, to his surprise, both had already been filled. He switched on the tap and used a hose to give both piles of coal a thorough soaking. Bending down, he then gave the first tub a firm shove and sent it rolling along the ramp towards the chute where it was tipped up so that its load cascaded down into the tender. The thunderous noise was accompanied by clouds of coal dust, rising up at him out of the gloom.

When he pulled the empty tub back to its original position, he addressed the full one and was puzzled by its weight. Although it seemed to have the requisite half-ton of coal, it felt lighter than its predecessor. Ryde heaved it forward and tipped it down the chute, causing another small avalanche. But this one was very different. As the second load hit the tender, Percy Denton let out a cry of alarm.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Ryde, mystified.

‘ He is,’ replied the driver, pointing at the tender.

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Can’t you see , man?’

Ezekiel Ryde narrowed his eyelids and peered down. In the poor light he could just make out the shape of a human body sprawled lifelessly across the pile of coal.

‘This will annoy my father-in-law,’ said Colbeck with amusement.

‘It annoys me , sir,’ complained Leeming.

‘Because he works for a rival company, he hates it when we travel on the Great Western Railway. He loathes Brunel.’

‘I loathe anyone who builds railways.’

‘But they’ve been such a boon to us, Victor,’ argued Colbeck. ‘Even you must admit that. Look at this latest case. News of the murder was sent to us by telegraph as soon as the body was discovered. The station is over fifty miles from London. Think how long it would take us by stagecoach. The train will get us there in a fraction of the time.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy the journey, sir.’

Leeming folded his arms and looked disconsolately out of the window. He had a rooted objection to rail travel. When they arrived at their destination, however, he would forget the discomfort and throw himself into the investigation with alacrity. For that reason, Colbeck did not try to reconcile him to a railway system that had revolutionised the lives of the whole nation. Instead, he speculated on the nature of the crime they’d been engaged to solve. The telegraph’s scant details had been enough to rouse his interest and set his mind racing. Didcot was a tiny Berkshire village that had grown steadily since the station was opened there. As a junction, it saw rail traffic going in different directions. Any killer wishing to flee the scene of the crime would have a choice of exits.

Colbeck wondered which one he might have taken.

Percy Denton and Ezekiel Ryde were at once reassured and intimidated by the arrival of two detectives from Scotland Yard. Though both were strong men, they’d been badly shaken by the discovery at the coal stage. Denton had almost fainted and Ryde had promptly emptied the contents of his stomach. As Colbeck and Leeming interviewed them in the stationmaster’s office, the murder took on more definition. The victim, it transpired, was Jake Harnett, a porter in his early twenties. What he was doing in the coal stage, nobody knew. A single man who lived locally, Harnett hailed from Bristol. Colbeck made a mental note to arrange for his family to be informed of his death. Passing on the bad news to Harnett’s landlady was a task he reserved for himself.

Inevitably, the versions given by the two men were jumbled, repetitive and even contradictory at times. Colbeck sought to make them relax.

‘I see that your locomotive is one of the Iron Duke class,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Denton in amazement. ‘You recognised it?’

‘Well, it is very distinctive. Was it built in Swindon?’

‘Bolton.’

‘Then it’s one of the later batch,’ said Colbeck. ‘Built by Rothwell and Co.’

As he talked knowledgeably about the locomotive’s salient features, he could see that he had a calming effect on both men. He was speaking their language. As a result, the rest of the interview was more productive.

Having dispatched Leeming to ask the station staff about their dead colleague, Colbeck made his way up the rising mound to the rear of the coal stage. Open to the elements at the front and the back, it was a cold, unwelcoming place with a coal bunker, two tubs, a large shovel and a hose attached to a tap in one wall. There was no sign of blood or any other evidence of a violent assault. What interested him was the size of the tubs. They were quite compact. To cram the body of a grown man into one of them would not have been easy. Jake Harnett would have been bent double before being covered with coal. It explained why one truck was lighter than the other.

Colbeck walked over to the storage hut to which the body had been moved. The railway policeman on guard stood respectfully to attention when Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck introduced himself. Harnett lay on his back, covered by a rough piece of sacking. When he drew it back, Colbeck solved two mysteries. The victim was short and slight enough to be concealed in a tub and the cause of death was apparent. Harnett was wearing a suit and Colbeck, the dandy of the Metropolitan Police, winced when he saw how badly it had been torn, scuffed and blackened. However, the coal dust could not hide the blood that had seeped through the man’s waistcoat. He’d been stabbed in the chest.

When Leeming had finished talking to the staff, he met Colbeck on the station platform to compare notes. A clear portrait of Jake Harnett had emerged. He was conscientious and popular with his colleagues and with passengers alike. Facial injuries sustained when he fell into the tender had made it impossible for Colbeck to notice how allegedly handsome he’d been.

‘He had an eye for the ladies, sir,’ said Leeming, disapprovingly.

‘That shouldn’t necessarily make him a target for murder.’

‘Jealousy is a powerful motive.’

‘Indeed, it is, Victor,’ agreed Colbeck. ‘What was the general feeling?’

‘They didn’t so much admit it as hint at it,’ said Leeming, ‘but they suspected that Harnett might have … taken liberties with the wrong person.’

‘In other words, she was a married woman.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Were any names suggested?’

‘Not at first but I could see that they all had suspicions. So I reminded the stationmaster that a murder would bring bad publicity to the GWR. If he knew anything, he had to tell us. I was blunt with him, sir.’