The Excursion Train

'I don't look for repayment. I simply want to see some justice in this world. Think of all the money that Nathan paid to Bybrook Farm over the years – and to Silas Hockaday. They ought to be ashamed.'

'You'd better go. I don't want to make you late for work.'

'We must talk more another time.'

'I'd like that, Gregory.'

'And so would I.' He turned to his wife. 'Wouldn't I, Meg?' She continued to stare unseeingly in front of her. 'One of her bad days, I'm afraid. Meg will be better next time we meet.'

'I'm sure.' She raised her voice. 'Goodbye, Meg.'

'Goodbye, Win,' he said, clicking his tongue make the horse move off again. 'And I won't forget to speak to Adam. He listens to me.'

'Sometimes.'

'He's the man of the house now. He's got responsibilities.'

'Yes,' she murmured, 'that's the trouble.'

After watching the cart rattle on up the high street, she went back to Middle Row in time to find her stepson trying to chalk up some information on the board outside the shop. He wrote in large, laborious capitals.

'Good morning, Adam,' she said. 'You're up early.'

He smirked. 'I didn't sleep at all last night.'

'When was the body actually discovered?' asked Inspector Colbeck.

'First thing this morning,' replied Lugg.

'Why was there such a delay?'

'It was the last train from Paddock Wood and it stayed here all night. When it was due to leave this morning, someone tried to get into this carriage and found the chaplain.'

'Didn't anyone check that the carriages were empty last night?'

'The guard swears that he walked the length of the train and looked through all the windows but, of course, he couldn't see anyone lying on the floor now, could he?'

Colbeck was pleased to encounter Sergeant Obadiah Lugg again but he wished that it could have been in more propitious circumstances. After taking a train from Ashford, the two detectives had changed at Paddock Wood so that they could travel on the Maidstone line. News of the crime had spread quickly through the town and a crowd had gathered at the station to watch developments. Colbeck was relieved to see that Lugg had deployed his men to keep the inquisitive and the purely ghoulish at bay while the Inspector went about his work.

The scene that confronted him was very similar to the one he had found at Twyford, except that the wider gauge of the Great Western Railway had allowed for a carriage with more generous proportions. The prison chaplain was lying on his back, his mouth agape, his eyes wide open as if straining to leave their sockets. Rigor mortis had set in, turning the face into a marble carving of pain. Above his clerical collar was a dark red circle of dried blood. When he knelt to examine the wound, Colbeck saw that something very sharp and unyielding had cut deep into the neck of Reverend Narcissus Jones.

There were signs of a struggle – the victim's clothing was in disarray, his hair was unkempt, the padding on one seat had been badly torn – but it was one that the chaplain had clearly lost. Underneath his head was his Bible, acting as a spiritual pillow. On the floor near his hand was a small button that did not belong to the victim. Colbeck picked it up and saw the strands of cotton hanging from it.

'He managed to tear this from his attacker by getting a hand behind him,' said Colbeck. He indicated the gash in the padding. 'That could well have been caused by the heel of his shoe when he was threshing about.'

'The chaplain wouldn't give up without a fight, Inspector.'

'Unfortunately, he was caught off guard.'

'How?' said Lugg. 'If there are only two of you in a carriage, it's hard for one man to surprise the other.'

'Not if a third person distracts the victim.'

'A third person?'

'A woman, for instance,' explained Colbeck. 'When I spoke to the stationmaster at Paddock Wood, he remembers a woman on the platform though he didn't see her board the train.'

'Very few women travel alone at that time of the evening.'

'Exactly. That's why this one interests me.'

'I've talked to our own stationmaster,' said Lugg, keen to show that he had not been idle, 'and he recalls that the train was two-thirds empty when it reached Maidstone. Albert knew most of them by name because he's been here for years. No stranger got off that train, he swears to that. Only regular travellers on the line.'

'The killer and his accomplice – if there was one, that is – would never have stayed on the train until it reached here. My guess is that the murder took place shortly after they left Paddock Wood because the killer could not take the risk that someone might get into the same carriage when they stopped at Yalding.'

'In that case,' concluded Lugg, 'he must have strangled the chaplain to death then made his escape at the station.'

'No, Sergeant.'

'Why not?'

'Because someone might have seen him getting off the train,' said Colbeck. 'And if, as I believe, there was a woman with him, they would surely have been noticed by the railway staff.'

Lugg was baffled. 'Then where and how did they get off, sir?'

'I can't give you a precise location but it's somewhere the other side of Yalding. The train slows down well short of the station and there's a grassy bank that runs along the side of the line.'

'You think that the killer jumped off?'

'That's what I'd have done in his place, wouldn't you?'

'Well, yes,' said Lugg, wrinkling his brow in concentration. 'I suppose that I would, sir. Except that I'm a bit old for anything as daring as leaping out of a moving train.'

'Approaching the station, it only goes at a snail's pace but it would still take some agility to get off. That tells us something about the killer.'

'What about this woman you mentioned?'

'She, too, must be quite athletic.'

'Younger people, then?'

'We'll see, Sergeant, we'll see.'

'Two people, leaping from the train,' said Lugg, rubbing his chin as he meditated. 'Surely, some of the other passengers would have spotted them doing that.'

'Only if they happened to be looking out of the window at the time. This, as you can see, is near the end of the train. There are only two carriages and a guard's van behind it. Naturally,' he went on, 'we'll speak to all the passengers who were on that train last night but, since there were so few of them, I doubt that we'll find a witness.'

'No, Inspector. If someone had seen people hopping off the train, they'd have reported it by now. The killer obviously chose the point to jump off very carefully.'

'Someone who knows this line well.'

Colbeck continued with his meticulous examination of the body and the carriage while Lugg looked on with fascination. After searching the dead man's pockets, Colbeck lifted the head so that he could slip the Bible out from under it. He opened it at the page with the marker in it and read the text.

'Amazing how his head came to rest on that, isn't it?' said Lugg with his characteristic chuckle. 'Almost as if God's hand was at work.'

'It was the killer's hand, Sergeant,' announced Colbeck. 'He put the Bible there deliberately so that he could leave us this message.'

'Message?'

'St Paul's Epistle to the Romans – chapter 12. He's Crossed out verse 19 in order to make his point.'

'And what's that?'

'Something that every Christian knows – Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.' He closed the Bible and put it aside. 'It seems as if someone is determined to do the Lord's work for Him.'

Victor Leeming had been efficient. having taken statements from the guard and the stationmaster, he had located a handful of passengers who had travelled on the train the previous evening and spoken to them as well. When he saw Colbeck coming down the platform towards him with Sergeant Lugg, he went swiftly forward to meet the Inspector.

'One of the managers of the South Eastern Railway is here, sir,' He said. 'He wants to know when the service can be resumed – so do all the people you see queuing outside the ticket office.'