Edward Marston - Murder on the Brighton express

'Not before time,' said Tallis raising a censorious eyebrow. 'Well, since you're finally here, you may as well sit down.'

Colbeck sat on the chair in front of his desk and waited patiently while the superintendent pretended to read the report again. Relations between the two men had always been strained. Tallis was a thickset man in his fifties with short grey hair and a neat moustache. A military man with the habit of command, he expected instant obedience and did not always get that from the inspector. He disapproved of Colbeck's flamboyant attire, his debonair manner and his idiosyncratic methods of detection. Tallis was also envious of the fact that Colbeck tended to receive adulation in the press while he, a senior officer, was rarely mentioned unless as a target for criticism.

'Your report hints that a heinous crime has been committed,' said Tallis, setting the paper aside and sitting back. 'Is this another typically wild conjecture on your part?'

'No, sir – Victor and I found proof positive of villainy.'

'What is it?'

Colbeck told him about their discoveries at the site of the accident and about his conversation with John Heddle. He exonerated Frank Pike from the charge of speeding. The superintendent listened carefully, his face expressionless. When Colbeck had finished, Tallis fired questions at him like a stream of bullets.

'Who was responsible for this outrage?' he demanded.

'A former employee of the railway,' answered Colbeck.

'What makes you think that?'

'Consider the choice of time and location, sir. Anyone could find out the departure time of the Brighton Express by looking at a copy of Bradshaw and could therefore estimate its likely arrival on the stretch of line concerned. But only someone who had worked for the LB amp;SCR would know when goods trains would be running on the up line. They were meant to collide. Whoever planned this crash wanted to achieve maximum death and destruction.'

'Why?'

'Revenge.'

'Against what or whom?'

'I fancy that the person we are after bears a grudge against the railway company.'

'What sort of grudge?'

'Perhaps he feels he was unfairly dismissed or has another reason for wanting to get his revenge. I've asked Victor to track down the names of anyone who may have left the company under a cloud in recent times. That's our starting point, sir.'

Tallis stroked his moustache while he pondered. He shook his head. 'I'm not entirely convinced that the culprit was a railwayman.'

'That's because you didn't see the way that the bolts and fishplates had been removed so that a section of the rail could be levered away. It was the work of an expert,' said Colbeck. 'Anyone else wanting to derail a train would simply have put a large obstacle on the line. The problem with that was that it would have been seen by the driver from some distance away, allowing him to shut off steam and brake much earlier. Frank Pike only noticed the damaged rail when the express had almost reached it.'

'Does the inspector general agree with your conclusions?'

'No, sir – Captain Ridgeon is finding it difficult to abandon his earlier assessment that it was an accident caused by human error.'

'His opinion should be treated with respect.'

'He's an army man,' observed Colbeck, dryly. 'Once he's made a decision – however mistaken it may be – he defends it to the hilt.'

Tallis bristled. 'There's nothing wrong with service to Queen and Country,' he said, huffily. 'I was proud to do my duty and found it an excellent training for police work.'

'That's because you're an exception to the rule, Superintendent. You are known and admired for the flexibility of your mind.'

Colbeck spoke with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Tallis, in fact, was renowned for his dogged inflexibility. Depending on the circumstances, it could be either his strength or his weakness, a single-mindedness that was a positive asset or an inability to look at a case from more than one angle. Unsure if he was being mocked or receiving a compliment, Tallis settled for a non-committal grunt.

'I don't think you should disregard Captain Ridgeon's opinion altogether,' he warned. 'I'd be interested to meet the fellow.'

'I'm certain that you will, sir,' said Colbeck. 'Sooner or later, he'll be coming here to complain about the way he believes Victor and I are hampering him. The captain is not accustomed to having any of his decisions questioned.'

'That's the privilege of being an officer.'

'He's no longer in the army, Superintendent. It's time he adjusted to civilian life, as you have done so successfully.' Tallis heard the light sarcasm in his voice and was about to interrupt. 'There are, of course, two other possibilities,' Colbeck added quickly. 'The first has to be mentioned if only to be discounted.'

'Why?'

'Because it's one that other people may seize upon without realising that it will only mislead them.'

'What on earth are you talking about, man?'

'The fact that the culprit may work for a rival company,' said Colbeck, 'and that he attacked the LB amp;SCR out of spite. It's an obvious supposition.'

'Then why dismiss it?'

'There's no precedent for rival companies stooping to such extreme methods. Passions run high among people vying for the right to control a particular line and they'll resort to all manner of unfair tactics to secure their ends. But they'll draw back from causing a serious accident,' he continued. 'Apart from anything else, a crash on one line affects the whole railway system. It makes the travelling public more wary of using trains. In short, it's very bad publicity. It's therefore in the interest of all companies to avoid accidents.'

'You said that there were two other possibilities,' noted Tallis. 'What, pray, might the second one be?'

'It's a theory I have, Superintendent.'

'Ah, I was waiting until you trotted out another of your famous theories. It was only a question of time.'

'Actually, sir, it was Victor Leeming who had this idea.'

'So you've infected the sergeant with your disease, have you?' said Tallis with a sneer. 'One theoretician is more than enough in the Detective Department. We can't have two of you coming up with mad hypotheses that have no factual basis.'

'This is not a mad hypothesis.'

'Then what is it?'

'An idea that merits consideration,' said Colbeck. 'What Victor suggested was that the crash was caused in order to kill a particular individual who was on the Brighton Express.'

'But there's no guarantee that the intended victim would be killed,' contended Tallis. 'There would, however, certainly be other deaths. If a man is set on murder, he would surely stalk and kill his victim instead of going to such elaborate lengths as this.'

'I agree, sir, but take the idea a stage further.'

'I'd rather disregard it entirely.'

'It's really an extension of my original belief that the LB amp;SCR was the designated target,' reasoned Colbeck. 'Supposing that the villain wished to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak?'

'You've lost me, Inspector,' complained Tallis.

'The man wanted both to damage the railway company and cause the death of someone on that train, someone who was closely associated with the LB amp;SCR. Do you see what I mean, sir? What if, for the sake of argument, an individual embodied the railway company in some way? To murder him in a dark alley would have been far easier but it would have lacked any resonance. A public assassination was needed, involving widespread destruction in a train crash.'

'Stop!' ordered Tallis, slapping his desk with an angry palm. 'I'll hear no more of this fanciful nonsense. Such a person as you portray does not even exist.'

'Then perhaps you will peruse this, sir,' said Colbeck, extracting some sheets of paper from an inside pocket and placing them on the desk. 'It's a list of the passengers who were injured on that express.' Tallis snatched it up. 'It's rather a long one, unfortunately. May I direct your attention to the names at the top of the first page? Among them you will find a gentleman called Horace Bardwell. Can you pick him out, Superintendent?'