Edward Marston - The excursion train

The doctor took time to arrive but, once he did, he was briskly professional as he examined a body that had been stripped and cleaned in readiness. After washing his hands, Leonard Keyworth joined the other man in the vestibule. Short, squat and bearded, the doctor was a bustling man in his late forties. Leeming stood by with his notebook.

'Well, Doctor?' he prompted.

'Death by asphyxiation,' said Keyworth, staring at him over the top of his pince-nez, 'but I daresay that you worked that out for yourself. It was a very unpleasant way to die. The garrotte was pulled so tight that it almost severed his windpipe.'

'Inspector Colbeck thought a piece of wire was used.'

'Almost certainly. The kind used to cut cheese, for instance.'

'How long would it have taken?'

'Not as long as you might suppose,' said the doctor. 'I can't be sure until I carry out a post-mortem but my guess is that he was not a healthy man. Cheeks and nose of that colour usually indicate heavy drinking and he was decidedly overweight. There were other telltale symptoms as well. I suspect that he may well have been a man with a heart condition, short of breath at the best of times. That might have hastened his death.'

'A heart attack brought on by the assault?'

'Possibly. I'll stay with my initial diagnosis for the time being. The prime cause of death was asphyxiation.'

'Right,' said Leeming, wishing that he could spell the word.

'This time, it seems, someone finally succeeded.'

'In what way?'

'It was not the first attempt on his life, Sergeant.'

Leeming blinked. 'How do you know?'

'When a man has a wound like that on his back,' said the doctor, removing his pince-nez, 'it was not put there by accident. There's an even larger scar on his stomach. He's been attacked before.'

'No wonder he carried a weapon of his own.'

'A weapon?'

'He had a dagger strapped to his leg,' explained Leeming.

'Then he was obviously unable to reach it. The killer had the advantage of surprise, taking him from behind when he least expected it. Do you have any notion of the victim's identity?'

'According to a bill in his pocket, his name was Jacob Bransby.'

'A manual worker of some kind, I'd say.'

'The Inspector is fairly certain that he's a cobbler.'

'Not a very good one, it appears.'

'Why not?'

'Because he has too many discontented customers,' said Keyworth with a mirthless laugh. 'Three of them at least didn't like the way that he mended their shoes.'

Robert Colbeck did not linger in Hoxton. Having learnt the dead man's real name and discovered his other occupation, the Inspector decided that revenge was the most likely motive for the murder. However, since Louise Guttridge knew nothing whatsoever of her husband's activities as a public executioner – a deliberate choice on her part – there was no point in tarrying. After warning her that details of the case would have to be released to the press and that her anonymity would soon be broken, he managed to prise the address of her son out of her, wondering why she was so reluctant to give it to him. Colbeck took his leave and walked through the drab streets until he could find a cab. It took him at a steady clatter to Thames Street.

Michael Guttridge lived in a small but spotlessly clean house that was cheek by jowl with the river. He was a fleshy man in his twenties who bore almost no facial resemblance to his father. His wife, Rebecca, was younger, shorter and very much thinner than her husband, her youthful prettiness already starting to fade in the drudgery of domestic life. Surprised by a visit from a Detective Inspector, they invited Colbeck in and were told about events on the excursion train. Their reaction was not at all what the visitor had anticipated.

'My father is dead?' asked Guttridge with an unmistakable note of relief in his voice. 'Is this true, Inspector?'

'Yes, sir. I went to the scene of the crime myself.'

'Then it's no more than he deserved.' He put an arm around his wife. 'It's over, Becky,' he said, excitedly. 'Do you see that? It's all over.'

'Thank God!' she cried.

'We don't have to care about it ever again.'

'That's wonderful!'

'Excuse me,' said Colbeck, letting his displeasure show, 'but I don't think that this is an occasion for celebration. A man has been brutally murdered. At least, have the grace to express some sorrow.'

Guttridge was blunt. 'We can't show what we don't feel.'

'So there's no use in pretending, is there?' said his wife, hands on hips in a challenging pose. 'I had no time for Michael's father.'

'No, and you had no time for me while I lived under the same roof with my parents. I had to make a choice – you or them.' Guttridge smiled fondly. 'I'm glad that I picked the right one.'

'Were you so ashamed of your father?' asked Colbeck.

'Wouldn't you be, Inspector? He was a common hangman. He lived by blood money. You can't get any lower than that.'

'I think you're doing him an injustice.'

'Am I?' retorted Guttridge, angrily. 'You didn't have to put up with the sneers and jibes. Once people knew what my father did, they turned on my mother and me as well. You'd have thought it was us who put the nooses around people's necks.'

'If your father had had his way,' his wife reminded him, 'you would have.' Rebecca Guttridge swung round to face Colbeck. 'He tried to turn Michael into his assistant. Going to prisons and killing people with a rope. It was disgusting!' Her eyes flashed back to her husband. 'I could never marry a man who did something like that.'

'I know, Becky. That's why I left home.'

'What trade do you follow?' said Colbeck.

'An honest one, Inspector. I'm a carpenter.'

'When were you estranged from your parents?'

'Three years ago.'

'I made him,' said Rebecca Guttridge. 'We've had nothing to do with them since. We've tried to live down the shame.'

'It should not have affected you,' maintained Colbeck.

'It did, Inspector. It was like a disease. Tell him, Michael.'

'Rebecca is right,' said her husband. 'When I lived with my parents in Southwark, I'd served my apprenticeship and was working for a builder. I was getting on well. Then my father applied for a job as a hangman. My life changed immediately. When the word got round, they treated me as if I was a leper. I was sacked outright and the only way I could find work was to use a false name – Michael Eames.'

'It's my maiden name,' volunteered Rebecca. 'I took Michael's name at the altar but we find it easier to live under mine. There's no stain on it.'

'I'm sorry that you see it that way,' said Colbeck. 'I can't expect either of you to admire Mr Guttridge for what he did, but you should have respected his right to do it. According to his wife, he only undertook the job because of religious conviction.'

'Ha!' snorted the carpenter. 'He always used that excuse.'

'What do you mean?'

'When he beat me as a child, he used to claim that it was God's wish. When he locked me in a room for days on end, he said the same thing. My father wouldn't go to the privy unless it was by religious conviction.'

'Michael!' exclaimed his wife.

'I'm sorry, Becky. I don't mean to be crude.'

'He's gone now. Just try to forget him.'

'Oh, I will.'

'We're free of him at last. We can lead proper lives.'

Michael Guttridge gave her an affectionate squeeze and Colbeck looked on with disapproval. During his interview with Louise Guttridge, he had realised that some kind of rift had opened up between the parents and their son but he had no idea of its full extent. Because of their family connection with a public executioner, the carpenter and his wife had endured a twilight existence, bitter, resentful, always on guard, unable to outrun the long shadow of the gallows. They were almost gleeful now, sharing a mutual pleasure that made their faces light up. It seemed to Colbeck to be a strange and reprehensible way to respond to the news of a foul murder.