Edward Marston - The excursion train

'He's here, Victor,' he announced. 'I feel it.'

'Who is?'

'The killer.'

'Which one, sir?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'The man who murdered Joseph Dykes or the one who finished off Jacob Guttridge in that excursion train?'

'The second of the two. That's what brought us here, after all. Until we've solved that particular crime, Mr Tallis will hound us from morn till night – and he's quite right to do so.'

'That's the only advantage of being here,' said Leeming, rubbing a buttock as he felt another twinge. 'We're out of the Superintendent's earshot. We can breathe freely.'

'Not with that smell from the river.'

'Going back to Nathan Hawkshaw for a minute.'

'Yes?'

'Before we came here, you had a few doubts about his guilt.'

'More than a few, Victor.'

'And now?'

'Those doubts remain,' said Colbeck, spearing a piece of sausage with his fork. 'I spent the afternoon talking to people in the town who knew the butcher well – his friends, his doctor, even the priest at St Mary's Church. They all agreed that it was so out of character for Hawkshaw to commit murder that they couldn't believe he was culpable.'

'I've come round to the opposite view, sir.'

'Why?'

'According to George Butterkiss, there was another side to the butcher. He liked an argument for its own sake. When he used to be a tailor – Butterkiss, that is, not Hawkshaw – he made a suit for him and got a mouthful of abuse for his pains. It was as if Hawkshaw was finding fault on purpose so that he could have a good quarrel with the tailor.'

'Did he buy the suit in the end?'

'Only when Butterkiss had made a few slight changes.'

'Maybe there were some things wrong with it.'

'I don't think so,' said Leeming, munching his food. 'Butterkiss reckons that he only started the argument so that he could get something off the price. The tailor was browbeaten into taking less for his work. That's criminal.'

'It's business, Victor.'

'Well, it sums up Hawkshaw for me. He was no saint.'

'Nobody claims that he was,' said Colbeck, 'and I know that he could be argumentative. Gregory Newman told me that Hawkshaw and his son were always gnawing at some bone of contention. It's the reason that Adam Hawkshaw moved out of the house. Nothing you've said so far inclines me to believe that Hawkshaw was a killer.'

'You're forgetting the daughter, sir.'

'Emily?'

'When she told her stepfather she'd been assaulted by Dykes, he grabbed a meat cleaver and went out looking for him. That doesn't sound like an innocent man to me.'

'What it sounds like is someone who acted purely on impulse. He may have brandished a weapon but that doesn't mean he would have used it – especially in a public place where there'd be witnesses. In those circumstances,' said Colbeck, 'most fathers would respond with blind rage. You have a daughter of your own, Victor. What would you do if some drunken oaf molested Alice?'

'I'd be after him with a pair of shears!' said Leeming.

'I rest my case.'

'Only because you didn't meet the lad who saw Hawkshaw near the place where the murder occurred. I did, Inspector. He gave evidence in court that, when he walked home through the woods, Hawkshaw was trying to hide behind some bushes. He was furtive,' insisted Leeming, 'like he'd done something wrong.'

'Did the youth speak to him?'

'He tried to but Hawkshaw scurried off into the undergrowth. Why did he do that if he had nothing to hide?'

'I don't know,' admitted Colbeck.

'It was because he'd just hacked Joseph Dykes to death.'

'Maybe, maybe not.'

'I'll stick with maybe, sir. The victim was castrated, remember. Only a father who wanted revenge for an attempted rape of his daughter would do that. It has to be Hawkshaw.'

'Did you talk to the landlord of the Red Lion?'

'Yes,' said Leeming. 'He gave evidence in court as well. He told me that Dykes went in there that day, drank a lot of beer and made a lot of noise, then rolled out as if he didn't have a care in the world.'

'What was he doing in that wood?'

'I can't work that out, sir. You'd only go that way if you wanted to get to the farm beyond. It was where that lad worked, you see. My theory is that Dykes may have made himself a den in there.'

'Take care, Victor!' said Colbeck with a laugh. 'We can't have you succumbing to theories as well. In any case, this one doesn't hold water. If there had been a den there, it would have been found when the police made a thorough search of the area.'

'Dykes slept rough from time to time. We know that for certain.'

'But even he wouldn't bed down in the middle of the afternoon when there was a fair to enjoy and several hours more drinking to get through. What took him there at that specific time?'

'Hawkshaw must have lured him there somehow.'

'I think that highly unlikely.'

'How else could it have happened?'

'I intend to find out, Victor,' said Colbeck. 'But only after we've caught the man who stalked Jake Guttridge on that excursion train.'

'We know so little about him, sir.'

'On the contrary, we know a great deal.'

'Do we?' asked Leeming, drinking his beer to wash down his food. 'The only thing we can be sure of is that he's almost illiterate.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because of that warning note you found at Guttridge's house.'

'Go on.'

'It was nothing but a scrawl. Half the words weren't even spelt properly. The person we want is obviously uneducated.'

'I wonder,' said Colbeck. 'People who can't write usually get someone to do it for them. The man who sent that message to the hangman may have wanted to appear unlettered by way of disguise. But there's another factor to weigh in the balance here.'

'Is there, sir?'

'The man who killed Jake Guttridge may not be the one who sent him that note. He could well be someone else altogether.'

'That makes him even more difficult to track down,' said Leeming, popping a potato into his mouth. 'We're looking for a needle in a very large haystack, Inspector.'

'A small haystack, perhaps,' said Colbeck, sipping his wine, 'but that should not deter us. We know that we're looking for a local man with some connection to Nathan Hawkshaw. Someone so outraged at what happened to his friend that he'd go in search of the hangman to wreak his revenge. The killer was strong, determined and cunning.'

'Have you met anyone who fits that description, sir?'

'Two people at least.'

'Who are they?'

'The son is the first,' Colbeck told him. 'From the little I saw of him, I'd say he had the strength and determination. Whether he'd have the cunning is another matter.'

'Who's the other suspect?'

'Gregory Newman. He was Hawkshaw's best friend and he led the campaign on his behalf. My guess is that he even tried to rescue him from Maidstone prison and he'd have to be really committed to attempt something as impossible as that.'

'If he was a blacksmith, then he'd certainly be strong enough.'

'Yes,' said Colbeck, 'but he didn't strike me as a potential killer. Newman is something of a gentle giant. Since the execution, all his efforts have been directed at consoling the widow. He's a kind man and a loyal friend. The priest at St Mary's spoke very highly of him. Gregory Newman, it transpires, has a bedridden wife whom he looks after lovingly, even to the point of carrying her to church every Sunday.'

'That is devotion,' agreed Leeming.

'A devoted husband is unlikely to be a brutal murderer.'

'So we come back to Adam Hawkshaw.'

'He'd certainly conform to your notion that an uneducated man sent that note,' explained Colbeck, using a napkin to wipe his lips. 'When I left the shop yesterday, he was lowering the prices on the board outside. He'd chalked up the different items on offer. Considering that he must have sold pheasant many times, he'd made a very poor shot at spelling it correctly.'