‘Colbeck?’ The name jolted him. ‘Are you talking about the Railway Detective?’
‘That’s the man. His reputation goes before him. The inspector has solved crimes for most of the railway companies in this country and they’ve been extremely grateful. He will doubtless have influence with your employers and won’t hesitate to use it. If, that is,’ Leeming went on, ‘he meets with the same boneheaded resistance that I did.’
‘Who are you calling boneheaded?’
Hepworth took a combative stance but soon thought better of actually exchanging blows. Leeming stood his ground fearlessly. He was a solid man with the powerful fists and battered face of someone who’d survived many brawls. Ten years younger than Hepworth, he also looked much fitter. Realising that he’d met his match, the railway policeman resorted to a companionable chuckle. He patted Leeming’s shoulder.
‘There’s no call for us to fall out,’ he said, genially. ‘After all, we’re in the same business, really. If you’ve come all this way, Sergeant, you must have built up a thirst. What can I get you?’
Leeming asked for a pint of beer and the two of them were able to have a conversation instead of an argument. It was not long before Colbeck came into the bar, doffing his hat as he did so.
‘There,’ said Hepworth, approvingly. ‘That’s what I call a real detective. He spotted that beam at once.’
Leeming introduced the two men and they shook hands. The debonair Colbeck looked rather incongruous in the rough-and-ready surroundings of a rural pub but he was completely at ease. Having heard of his reputation, Hepworth regarded him with wonder.
‘You actually saw the body, then,’ said Colbeck.
‘I saw what was left of it, Inspector,’ replied Hepworth. ‘It was a sorry sight. His own mother wouldn’t have recognised him. I had the remains taken to an undertaker in Northallerton.’
‘Mrs Withers told us that. Superintendent Tallis is on his way there right now by train. He wants to see the body for himself.’
‘That’s more than I’d want to do,’ said Leeming.
‘He’s acting out of a sense of duty.’
‘Then he’s in for a nasty shock,’ warned Hepworth. ‘That train broke almost every bone in his body.’
‘The superintendent was in the army. He must have seen some hideous things on the battlefield. He won’t blench.’
‘I would,’ confessed Leeming. ‘I felt sick when our cat was crushed to death under the wheel of a coal haulier’s cart.’
Hepworth insisted on buying Colbeck a pint of beer, then the three of them moved to sit down at one of the tables. The railway policeman took a long sip from his tankard.
‘This is my first suicide,’ he said. ‘I don’t count the sheep and cows that wandered onto the line and got themselves smashed to smithereens. That’s not suicide – it was plain stupidity.’
‘It’s the duty of farmers to keep their stock fenced in,’ said Colbeck. ‘When there are accidents, it’s not only the animal that suffers. Locomotives have sometimes been derailed by the impact.’
‘Fences cost money, Inspector, and there are farmers who resent having track across their land. They defy railways.’
‘They stand to profit by it. They can move their stock to market far quicker by rail than by driving them there overland.’
‘This is Yorkshire. Old ways die hard.’
‘I’ve no complaints about the beer here,’ said Leeming, quaffing his pint then licking his lips. ‘I like it.’ He glanced at Hepworth. ‘The sergeant is afraid that we want to do his job for him.’
‘Not at all,’ soothed Colbeck. ‘The most needful thing has already been done and that was to clear the remains from the track. The colonel is dead. Our interest shifts to his wife and we may be forced to tread on a few toes there. I take it that the search was conducted by police from Northallerton.’
‘What few there are,’ said Hepworth. ‘Most of those who went out were villagers recruited by the colonel. I was glad to help myself when I was off duty, and not only because we were paid.’
‘How far afield did you search?’
‘We went for miles, Inspector. We combed every inch between here and Northallerton because that’s where Mrs Tarleton was going when she disappeared.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘There was no trace of her.’
‘Do you know whom she was going to see in the town?’
‘Oh, yes, it was Mrs Reader. She’s the wife of a banker and was very friendly with Mrs Tarleton. They often visited each other’s houses. So did their husbands. The four of them played cards together.’
‘We’ll need to speak to Mr and Mrs Reader,’ said Colbeck.
‘He’s easy to find. His bank is in the High Street.’
‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘I’m always available, if you need help, sir,’ said Hepworth. ‘Policemen are few and far between in the North Riding. It would be a feather in my cap if I could assist the famous Railway Detective.’
‘The best way to assist me is to tell me what your own opinion is, Sergeant. Some unpleasant rumours are circulating, I hear.’
‘Not only in South Otterington,’ Leeming put in. ‘When I spoke to Hal Woodman in Northallerton, he claimed that everyone there knew for a fact that the colonel had murdered his wife.’
‘What evidence did he put forward, Victor?’
‘None at all, really – he seemed to think it was so obvious.’
‘You can tell me later about your visit to him. What about you, Sergeant?’ asked Colbeck, looking into Hepworth’s eyes. ‘Do you subscribe to the notion that it’s so obvious?’
‘No, sir, I don’t,’ replied Hepworth, seeing a chance to impress. ‘I’m a policeman. I like to study all the facts before I make any decision. On the other hand,’ he said, thoughtfully, ‘the suicide could have been some kind of repentance for a heinous crime.’
‘It could equally well have been the action of a loving husband, driven to desperation by the disappearance of his wife.’
‘You’ll not find many people around here who agree with that.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Colonel Tarleton was a peppery character. He was the sort of man who has to have his own way no matter how much offence that might cause. Everyone here respected him but few of us liked him. Fewer still would have called him a loving husband.’
‘How would you describe him?’
‘He was a crusty old stick. He did some good things – giving to charity and suchlike – and I admire him for that. But I resented the way that he threw his weight around.’
‘So you think he’s a murderer, do you?’ said Leeming.
‘The honest answer is that I don’t know.’
‘What’s your guess?’
‘Oh, it’s a bit more than a guess,’ confided Hepworth, checking that nobody else was within earshot. ‘I have this theory, you see.’
‘Well?’
‘I don’t think that Mrs Tarleton is dead.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘Who knows? She’s a long way away, probably.’
‘That’s an interesting theory,’ said Colbeck. ‘Why did you take part in the search for a woman you thought had simply left the area?’
‘It was because of the way that the search was conducted by the colonel that I began to think. He made us go over and over the same ground as if he was trying to convince himself that she was there when, in his heart, he knew that she’d simply run away from him. That’s what played on his mind and drove him to suicide. He was too proud to admit that Mrs Tarleton had deserted him.’
‘Was he such a dreadful husband?’
‘All I can tell you is that he was difficult to live with.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘My daughter used to work at the big house.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Ginny was shocked when she first went there,’ said Hepworth. ‘The colonel and his wife had separate bedrooms. Ginny thought that was unnatural. It’s something my wife and I would never dream of doing. Married people should sleep together.’
‘That’s what I believe,’ said Leeming, stoutly.
Hepworth confided an intimate detail. ‘I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep without my wife beside me. I need to feel her there’