Edward Marston - The excursion train

'Didn't she scream for help?' asked Colbeck.

'Emily was too scared to move,' said Newman, 'let alone call out. If someone hadn't come into the lane at that moment, heaven knows what he'd have done to her.'

'Was the incident reported to the police?'

'Nathan wanted to sort it out himself so he went looking for Joe. But, of course, he'd run away by then. We didn't see hide nor hair of Joe Dykes for weeks. Then he turned up at the fair in Lenham.'

'Were you there yourself?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'Did you go with Nathan Hawkshaw?'

'No,' said Newman, 'I rode over there first thing on my own. I've a cousin who's a blacksmith in Lenham. A fair brings in plenty of trade so I helped him in the forge that morning. It made a nice change from the boiler shop.'

'So you didn't witness the argument that was supposed to have taken place between Hawkshaw and Dykes?'

'I came in at the end. There was such a commotion in the square that I went to see what it was. Nathan and Joe were yelling at each other and the crowd was hoping to see a fight. That's when I stepped in.'

'You?'

'Somebody had to, Inspector,' Newman continued, 'or things could have turned nasty. I didn't want Nathan arrested for disturbing the peace. So, when Joe goes off to the Red Lion, I stopped Nathan from following him and tried to talk some sense into him. If he wanted to settle a score, the square in Lenham was not the place to do it. He should have waited until Joe came out of the pub at the end of the evening when there was hardly anyone about.'

'So there would have been a fight of some sort?'

'A fight is different from cold-blooded murder.'

'But your friend was clearly in a mood for revenge.'

'That's why I had to calm him down,' said Newman, scratching his beard. 'I told him to go away until his temper had cooled. And that's what Nathan did. He set out for Ashford, thought over what I'd said then headed back to Lenham in a much better frame of mind.'

'Did he have a meat cleaver with him?'

'Of course not,' retorted the other.

'One was found beside the body. It had Hawkshaw's initials on it.'

'It was not left there by Nathan.'

'How do you know?'

'To begin with,' said Newman, hotly, 'he wouldn't have been so stupid as to leave a murder weapon behind that could be traced to him.'

'I disagree,' argued Colbeck. 'All the reports suggest that it must have been a frenzied attack. If someone is so consumed with rage that he's ready to kill, he wouldn't stop to think about hiding the murder weapon. Having committed the crime, Hawkshaw could have simply stumbled off.'

'Then where was the blood?'

'Blood?'

'I spoke to the farm lad who discovered the body, Inspector. He said there was blood everywhere. Whoever sliced up Joe Dykes must have been spattered with it – yet there wasn't a speck on Nathan.'

'He was a butcher. He knew how to use a cleaver.'

'That's what they said in court,' recalled Newman, bitterly. 'If he'd been a draper or a grocer, he'd still be alive now. Nathan was condemned because of his occupation.'

'Circumstantial evidence weighed against him.'

'Is that enough to take away a man's life and leave his family in misery? I don't give a damn for what was said about him at the trial. He was innocent of the crime and I want his name cleared.'

Gregory Newman spoke with the earnestness of a true friend. Colbeck decided that, since he had supervised the campaign to secure the prisoner's release, he was almost certainly involved in the doomed attempt to rescue him from Maidstone prison and in the upheaval during the execution. For the sake of a friend, he was ready to defy the law. Colbeck admired his stance even though he disapproved of it.

'You heard what happened to Jake Guttridge, I presume?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'What did you think when you learnt of the hangman's death?'

'He was no hangman,' said Newman, quietly. 'He was a torturer. He put Nathan through agony. When she saw the way that her husband was twitching at the end of the rope, Win passed out. We had to take her to a doctor.'

'So you didn't shed a tear when you heard that Guttridge had met his own death by violent means?'

'I neither cried nor cheered, Inspector. I'm sorry for any man who's murdered and for those he leaves behind. Guttridge is of no interest to me now. All I want to do is to help Win through this nightmare,' he said, 'and the best way to do that is to prove that Nathan was not guilty.'

'Supposing – just supposing – that he was?'

Newman looked at him as if he had just suggested something totally obscene. There was a long silence. Pulling himself to his full height, he looked the detective in the eye.

'Then he was not the person I've known for over forty years.'

Colbeck was impressed with the man's conviction but he was still not entirely persuaded of Hawkshaw's innocence. He did, however, feel that the conversation had put him in possession of vital information. If the butcher had been wrongly hanged, and if Colbeck worked to establish that fact, then Gregory Newman would be a useful ally. Though the boiler maker had little trust in policemen, he had talked openly about the case with the Inspector and made his own position clear. There was much more to learn from him but this was not the time.

'Thank you, Mr Newman,' said Colbeck.

'Thank you for taking me away from work for a while.'

'I may need to speak with you again.'

'As you wish, Inspector. Do you want my address?'

'No, I think that I'd rather call on you here at the works.'

Newman grinned. 'Are you that fond of locomotives, Inspector?'

'Yes,' said Colbeck, smiling. 'As a matter of fact, I am.'

Unable to hire a trap, they settled for a cart that had been used that morning to bring a load of fish to Ashford and that still bore strong aromatic traces of its cargo. When it set off towards Lenham and hit every pothole in the road, Victor Leeming could see that he was in for another painful ride. His companion was George Butterkiss, one of the constables in the town, a scrawny individual in his thirties with the face of a startled ferret. Thankful to be driven, Leeming soon began to regret his decision to ask Butterkiss to take him. The fellow was overeager to help, even in a uniform that was much too big for his spare frame, and he was desperately in awe of the Metropolitan Police. He spoke in an irritating nasal whine.

'What are our orders, Sergeant?' he asked, whipping the horse into a trot. 'This is wonderful for me, sir. I've never worked for Scotland Yard before.'

'Or ever again,' said Leeming under his breath.

'What are we supposed to do?'

'My instructions,' said Leeming, keen to stress that they had not been directed at Butterkiss, 'are to visit the scene of the crime, examine it carefully then speak to the landlord of the Red Lion.'

'I know the exact spot where Joe Dykes was done in.'

'Good.'

'Sergeant Lugg showed it to me. He and his men came over from Maidstone to arrest Nathan Hawkshaw. There was no point, really. They should have left it to us.'

'Did you know Hawkshaw?'

'My wife bought all her meat from him.'

'What sort of man was he?'

'Decent enough,' said Butterkiss, 'though he wasn't a man to get on the wrong side of, I know that to my cost. Of course, I wasn't a policeman in those days. I was a tailor.'

'Really?' said Leeming, wishing that the man had stayed in his former occupation. 'What made you turn to law enforcement?'

'My shop was burgled and nobody did anything about it.'

'So you thought that you could solve the crime?'

'Oh, no, Sergeant. There was no chance of that. I just realised how horrible you feel when your property has been stolen. It was like being invaded. I wanted to save other people from going through that.'