Edward Marston - The excursion train

'Good morning,' he said, politely.

'I've nothing to say to you.'

'Are you always so rude to your customers?'

'Customers?'

'Yes,' said Colbeck. 'I didn't come to buy meat but I am shopping for information and I'm not leaving until I get it. If you insist on refusing to speak to me, of course, I may have to arrest you.'

'Why?' rejoined the other, testily. 'I done nothing wrong.'

'Obstructing a police officer in the exercise of his duties is a crime, Mr Hawkshaw. In other words, a decision confronts you.'

'Eh?'

'We can either have this conversation here and now or we'll have it when you're in custody. It's your choice.'

'I got to work in this shop.'

'Then we'll sort this out right away, shall we?' said Colbeck, briskly. 'Where were you the night before last?'

'That's my business,' retorted Hawkshaw.

'It also happens to be my business.'

'Why?'

'I need to establish your whereabouts during that evening.'

'I was in my room,' said the other, evasively. 'Satisfied now?'

'Only if we have a witness who can verify that. Do we?' Hawkshaw shook his head. 'I thought not.'

'I was on my own.'

'Gregory Newman told me that you rented a room near the Corn Exchange. There must have been someone else in the house at the time. Your landlord, for instance?'

'I can't remember.'

'I'll ask him if he remembers.'

'He wouldn't know,' said Hawkshaw. 'I come and go as I please.'

'I've just been talking to the stationmaster at Ashford station. He recalls a young man of your build and colouring, who took a train to Paddock Wood on the evening in question.'

'It must have been someone else, Inspector.'

'Are you quite certain of that?'

Hawkshaw met his gaze. 'I was alone in my room all evening.'

'Studying the Bible, I daresay.'

'What?'

'No,' said Colbeck on reflection, glancing at the board beside him. 'I don't think you have much time for reading – or for writing either. That's evident. I doubt if you'd even know where to find St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, would you?' Hawkshaw looked mystified. 'There you are,' Colbeck went on, 'that wasn't too difficult was it? I'll have some more questions for you in time but I'll not hold you up any longer. I need to speak to your stepmother now.'

'She's not in,' claimed the butcher.

'Then I wonder whose face I saw in the bedroom window when I crossed the high street just now. Is it possible that Mrs Hawkshaw has a twin sister living over the shop?' Hawkshaw glowered at him. 'Excuse me while I speak to someone who's a little more forthcoming.'

Meat cleaver in his hand, Hawkshaw moved across to block his way but the determination in Colbeck's eye made him change his mind. He stood aside and the detective went into the shop before tapping on the door at the rear. It was not long before he and Winifred Hawkshaw were sitting down together in the parlour. He held his top hat in his lap. She was watchful.

'I finally had a conversation with your stepson,' he said.

'Oh?'

'He seems to be having a problem with his memory.'

'Does he, Inspector?'

'Yes, Mrs Hawkshaw. He tells me that he spent the night before last alone in his room yet a witness places him – or someone very much like him – at the railway station that evening. Have you any idea where he might have been going?'

'Adam was where he said he was.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'Because we brought him up to be honest,' said Winifred, stoutly. 'I know you think he might have had something to do with the murder of the prison chaplain but you're wrong. Adam is like his father – he's been falsely accused.'

'I haven't accused him of anything, Mrs Hawkshaw.'

'You suspect him. Why else are you here?'

'I wanted to eliminate him from my inquiries,' said Colbeck, levelly, 'and I did so by discovering if he had any acquaintance with the New Testament. Patently, he does not. The reason I wanted to see you is to ask a favour.'

She was suspicious. 'What sort of favour?'

'When your husband was arrested, several people rallied around you and supported your campaign.'

'Nathan had lots of friends.'

'Did you keep a record of their names?'

'Why should I do that?'

'Because you knew how to organise things properly.'

'That was Gregory's doing, Inspector.'

'I fancy that you were intimately involved in every aspect of the campaign, Mrs Hawkshaw. You had the biggest stake in it, after all. He was your husband. That's why you fought tooth and nail to save him.'

'Yes,' she said, proudly, 'and I'd do the same again.'

'I respect that.'

'Yet you still think Nathan was guilty.'

'Oddly enough, I don't,' he told her. 'In fact, having learnt more details of the case, I'd question the safety of the conviction.'

'Do you?' Winifred Hawkshaw regarded him frank distrust. 'Or are you just saying that to trick me?'

'Trick you into what?'

'I'm not sure yet.'

'All I want to know is who helped you in your campaign and how you funded the whole thing? There's no trickery in that, is there?'

'I can't remember all the names,' she said. 'There were far too many of them. Most people paid a little towards our expenses.'

'And what about the rescue attempt at Maidstone prison?'

'I told you before – I know nothing of that.'

'But you must have approved of it.'

'If I thought I could have got my husband out,' she said, 'I'd have climbed over the wall of the prison myself.' She looked at him quizzically. 'Are you married, Inspector?'

'No, I'm not.'

'Then you'll never understand how I felt. Nathan was everything to me. He came along at a very bad time in my life when I had to fend alone for Emily and myself. Nathan saved us.'

'But he wasn't your first husband, was he?'

'No, he wasn't. Martin was killed in an accident years ago.'

'In a fire, I believe. What were the circumstances exactly?'

'Please!' she protested. 'It's painful enough to talk about one husband who was taken away from me before his time. Don't ask me about Martin as well. I've tried to bury those memories.'

'I'm sorry, Mrs Hawkshaw. It was wrong of me to bring it up.'

'Have you finished with me now?'

'One last question,' he said, choosing his words with care. 'Your second husband had good reason to loathe Joseph Dykes. What impelled him to go after the man was the assault on your daughter, Emily. Can you recall what she told you about that incident?'

'Why you should want to know that?'

'It could be important. What precisely did she say to you?'

'Nothing at all at the time,' answered Winifred, 'because I wasn't here. I was visiting my mother. It was Nathan who had to console her. As soon as he'd done that, he left Adam in charge of the shop and charged off to find Joe Dykes.'

'With a meat cleaver in his hand.'

'You sound just like that barrister at the trial.'

'I don't mean to, Mrs Hawkshaw,' he apologised. 'Your daughter had just been through a frightening experience. She must have told your husband enough about it to make him seek retribution. Though I daresay that she reserved the full details for you.'

'No,' she confessed. 'That's the strange thing. She didn't.'

'But you're her mother. Surely, she confided in you?'

'If only she had, Inspector. I tried to get the story out of her but Emily refused to talk about it. She said that she wanted to forget it but there's no way that she could do that. In fact,' she went on as if realising something for the first time, 'that's when it really started.'

'What did?'

'This odd behaviour of hers. Emily pulled away from me. We just couldn't talk to each other properly again. I don't know what Joe Dykes did to her in that lane but I was his victim as well. He took my daughter away from me.'