The Excursion Train by Edward Marston

Author:Edward Marston [Edward Marston]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780749008772
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2010-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

It was remarkable how much information they had garnered between them in the course of one day. When the two detectives met over a meal at the Saracen’s Head that evening, Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming compared notes and discussed what their next move ought to be. Though no firm conclusions could yet be reached, the Inspector felt that the visit to Ashford had already proved worthwhile.

‘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

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