Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

This is what it was like: Richard knew things most people had to guess at. A problem growing up, which he was not quite done with, was that he rarely appreciated few others felt and understood as he did. His first thought was that English people were too polite to mention things that were glaringly obvious to him. That had not gone down well at St Custard’s. If he hadn’t been able to a chuck a cricket ball with a degree of devious accuracy, he’d likely have been burned at the stake behind the Prefects’ Hut.

“Now we’re acquainted,” said Edwin, “let’s get to why you’ve been brought together. Who’s heard of the Scotch Streak?”

“It’s a train, man,” said Myles. “Euston to Edinburgh, overnight.”

“Yes,” said Edwin. “In point of fact, the service, which leaves London at seven o’clock every other evening, does not terminate in Edinburgh. It continues to Portnacreirann, on Loch Linnhe.”

“Is this one of those railway mysteries ?” asked Annette, squeezing her palms together. “I adore those.”

Edwin nodded, and passed the conch to Catriona.

II

“In 1923, Locomotive Number 3473-S rolled out of foundry sheds in Egham,” began Catriona Kaye, the Club’s collector of ghost stories. “It was an Al Atlantic Class engine. To the non-trainspotters among us, that means a shiny new chuff-chuff with all the bells and whistles. It was bred for speed, among the first British trains to break the hundred-mile-an-hour barrier. The London, Scotland and Isles Railway Company presented the debutante at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, and christened ‘the Scotch Streak’. A bottle of champagne was wasted on the cow-catcher by the odious Lady Lucinda Tregellis-d’Aulney. She mercifully passes out of the narrative. The LSIR got wind of a scheme by a rival to run a non-stop from London to Edinburgh, and added a further leg to their express, across Scotland to Portnacreirann. This sort of one-upmanship happened often before the railways were taken into public ownership. The Streak’s original colours were royal purple and gold. Even in an era of ostentation in high-speed transport, it was considered showoffy.

“The Scotch Streak was quickly popular with drones who wanted to get sozzled in Piccadilly, have a wee small hours dram in Edinburgh, then walk off the hangover in Glen Wherever while shooting at something feathery or antlered. All very jolly, no doubt. Until the disaster of 1931.

“There are stories about Inverdeith. In the 18th century, fishermen on Loch Gaer often netted human bones. After some decades, this led to the capture of the cannibal crofter famed in song as ‘Graysome Jock McGaer’. He was torn apart by a mob on his way to the scaffold. During the interregnum, the Scots God-botherer Samuel Druchan, fed up because England’s Matthew Hopkins was hogging the headlines, presided over a mass witch-drowning. As you know, proper witches float when “swum”, so the Druchan took the trouble to sew iron weights to his beldames’ skirts. In 1601, a local diarist recorded that a ‘stoon o’ fire spat out frae hell’ plopped into the waters with a mighty hiss. However, the railway bridge disaster really put Inverdeith on the tragedy map.

“What exactly happened remains a mystery, but . . . early one foggy morning in November, the Scotch Streak was crossing Inverdeith Bridge when – through human agency, gremlins, faulty iron or sheer ill-chance – 3473-S was decoupled from the rest of the train. The locomotive pulled away and steamed safely to the far side. The bridge collapsed, taking eight passenger carriages and a mail car with it. The rolling stock sank to the bottom of Loch Gaer with the loss of all hands, except one lucky little girl who floated.

“A board of inquiry exonerated Donald McRidley, the engine driver, though many thought he’d committed the unforgivable sin of cutting his passengers loose to save his own hide. Only Nicholas Bowler, the fireman, knew for sure. Rather than give testimony, Bowler laid on the tracks and was beheaded by an ordinary suburban service. McRidley was finished as an engineer. Some say that, like T. E. Lawrence re-enlisting as Aircraftman Ross, McRidley changed his name and became a navvy, working all weathers on a maintenance gang, looking over his shoulder at dusk, dreading the reproachful tread of the Headless Fireman.

“Whatever he might or might not have done, McRidley couldn’t be blamed for the ‘In-for-Death Bridge’. All manner of Scots legal inquiries boiled down to an unlovely squabble between Inverdeith Council and the LSIR. One set of lawyers claimed the sound structure wouldn’t have collapsed were it not for the Scotch Streak rattling over it at speeds in excess of the recommendation. Another pack counter-claimed eighty-nine people wouldn’t be dead if the bridge wasn’t a rickety structure liable to be knocked down by a stiff breeze. This dragged on. A newspaperman dug up a local legend that one of Druchan’s witches cursed her weights as she drowned, swearing no iron would ever safely span the loch. ‘Local legend’ is a Fleet Street synonym for ‘something I’ve just made up’.

“The Streak ran only from London to Edinburgh until 1934, when a new bridge was erected and safety-tested. A fuss was made about the amount of steel used in the construction. Witches have nothing against steel, apparently. Then, full service to Portnacreirann resumed.

“Memories being what they were, folks who didn’t have a financial interest in the venture were reluctant to board the ‘In-for-Death Express’. Only grimly smiling directors and their perspiring wives and children were aboard for the accident-free re-inaugural run. You can imagine the sighs of relief when Inverdeith Bridge was safely behind them.

“Controlling interest in the LSIR was held by Douglas Gilclyde of Kilpartinger, who horsewhipped a secretary he thought misreferred to him as ‘Lord Killpassengers’. It was a point of pride for His Lordship, a parvenu ennobled by Lloyd George, to make the Scotch Streak a roaring success again. He tarted 3473 up with a fresh coat of purple and replaced the gold trim with his own newly minted tartan – which the unkind said made the engine look like a novelty box of oatcakes.

“Kilpartinger lured back the hunting set by trading speed records for social cachet. From 1934, the Scotch Streak became famously, indeed appallingly , luxurious. Padding on padding, Carrera marble sinks, minions in Gilclyde kilts servicing every whim. The train gained a reputation as a social event on rails. 3473 pulled a ballroom carriage, a bar to rival the Criterion and sleeping cars with compartments like rooms at the Savoy. In addition to tweedy fowl-blasters, the Streak gained a following among the ‘fast’ crowd. Debutantes on the prowl booked up and down services for months on end, in the hope of snaring a suitable fiancé. One or two even got married before they were raped. When his disgusted pater kicked him out of the family pile, Viscount St John ‘Buzzy’ Maltrincham took a permanent lease on a compartment and made the Scotch Streak his address – until a pregnant Windmill Girl cut his throat somewhere between the Trossachs and Clianlarich.

“He wasn’t the only casualty. The Streak’s Incident Book ran to several spine-tingling volumes. People threw themselves under the train, got up on top and were swept off in tunnels, were decapitated when they disregarded DO NOT LEAN OUT OF THE WINDOW notices, opened doors and flung themselves across the landscape. Naturally, a number of fatalities occurred around Inverdeith. There was a craze for booking the up service on the Streak, naturally not bothering with the return. The procedure was to put a particular record on the wind-up Victrola as the train crossed the bridge, then take a graceful suicide leap as Bing Crosby crooned ‘a golden goodbye’. Mistime it, and you smashed into a strut and rained down in pieces.