The Excursion Train

'I accept that, Mrs Hawkshaw,' said Colbeck, 'and I can see why Emily should turn to him.' His eyes flicked back to the girl. 'What did your father say when you told him?'

'He was very angry,' she said.

'Did he run off immediately?'

'No, he stayed with me for a while.'

'Nathan said she was terrified,' explained the mother. 'He had to calm her down before he could go after Joe Dykes. By that time, of course, Joe had vanished.'

'Let me come back to your daughter,' said Colbeck, patiently. 'You were not to blame in any way, Emily. The chain of events that followed was not your doing. You were simply a victim and not a cause – do you understand what I'm saying?'

'I think so,' said the girl.

'You don't need to take any responsibility on to your shoulders.'

'That's what I told her,' said Winifred.

'But Emily didn't believe you – did you, Emily?'

'No,' muttered the girl.

'Why not?'

'I can't tell you.'

'Then answer me this,' said Colbeck, probing carefully. 'What happened afterwards?'

'Afterwards?'

'Yes, Emily. When your father got back to the shop after he'd failed to find the man who assaulted you. What happened then?'

A look came into her eyes that Colbeck had seen before. It was a look of sudden fear and helplessness that she had given when she felt that she was going to fall to her death from the church tower. The interview was over because Emily was unable to go on but Colbeck was content. He had learnt much more than he had expected.

Notwithstanding his dislike of rail travel, Victor Leeming had to admit that it was quicker and safer than riding beside George Butterkiss on a rickety cart that gave off such pungent odours. The journey to Wye was so short that he barely had time to admire the landscape through the window of his carriage. It was his third call that morning. Having spoken to two of the women and satisfied himself that they could not have been implicated in the crimes, Leeming was on his way to meet the last person on his list.

Wye was a quaint village with a small railway station at its edge. It took him only ten minutes to walk to the address that Butterkiss had given him. Kathleen Brennan lived in a tied cottage on one of the farms. When he knocked on the door, all that the Sergeant knew about her was that she worked there and brought produce in to Ashford on market days. Butterkiss had not warned him how attractive she was.

When she opened the door to him, he discovered that Kathleen Brennan was a woman in her twenties with a raw beauty that was set off by her long red hair and a pair of startling green eyes. Even in her working dress, she looked shapely. She put her hands on her hips.

'Yes?' she asked with a soft Irish lilt.

'Miss Kathleen Brennan?'

'Mrs Brennan.'

'I beg your pardon. My name is Detective Sergeant Leeming,' he told her, showing her his warrant card, 'and I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I may.'

'Why?'

'It's in connection with the murder of Joseph Dykes. May I come in for a moment, please?'

'We can talk here,' she said, folding her arms.

'As you wish, Mrs Brennan. You signed a petition, I believe.'

'That's right.'

'Do you mind telling me why?'

'Because I knew that Nathan Hawkshaw was innocent.'

'How?'

'I just did,' she said as if insulted by the question. 'I met him a lot in Ashford. He was a nice man. Nathan was no killer.'

'Were you at that fair in Lenham, by any chance?'

'Yes, I was.'

'And did you witness the argument between the two men?'

'We all did,' she replied. 'It took place in the middle of the square. They might have come to blows if Gregory hadn't stopped them.'

'Gregory Newman?'

'He was Nathan's best friend. He pulled him away and tried to talk sense into him. Gregory told him to go home.'

'But he came back, didn't he?'

'So they say.'

'And he was seen very close to where the murder took place.'

'I know nothing of that, Sergeant,' she said, brusquely. 'But I still believe that they hanged the wrong man.'

'Have you any idea who the killer might be?'

'None at all.'

'But you were shocked when Hawkshaw was found guilty?'

'Yes, I was.'

'Did you go to the execution?'

'Why are you asking me that?' she challenged. 'And why did you come here in the first place? That case is over and done with.'

'If only it were, Mrs Brennan,' said Leeming, 'but it's had so many tragic consequences. That's why Inspector Colbeck and I are looking into it again. Your name came to our attention.'

'I can't help you,' she said, curtly.

'I get the feeling that you don't want to help me.'

Leeming met her gaze. Kathleen Brennan's manner verged on the hostile and he could not understand what provocation he had given her. Without quite knowing why, he was unsettled by her. There was something about the woman that made him feel, if not threatened, then a trifle disturbed. Leeming was glad that they were conversing in the open air and not in the privacy of her cottage.

'You haven't told me if you attended the execution.'

'And I'm not going to.'

'Are you ashamed that you went?'

'I didn't say that I did.'

'But you felt sorry for Nathan Hawkshaw?'

'We all did – that's why Gregory got the petition together.'

'Was he the person who asked you to sign?'

'No,' she said, 'it was Nathan's wife.'

'Did you simply put your name on that list out of friendship?'

Anger showed in her face. 'No, I didn't! You've got no call to ask me that, Sergeant. I did what I believed was right and so did the others. We wanted to save Nathan.'

'Yet you had no actual proof that he was innocent.'

Kathleen Brennan's eyes glinted and she breathed hard through her nose. Leeming could see that his questions had inflamed her. She stepped forward and pulled the door shut behind her.

'I've got to go to work,' she said.

'Then I won't stop you, Mrs Brennan. Thank you for your help.'

'Nathan Hawkshaw was a good man, Sergeant.'

'That's what everyone says.'

'Try listening to them.'

She walked abruptly past him and headed across the field towards the farmhouse on the ridge. Leeming was nonplussed, unsure whether his visit had been pointless or whether he had stumbled on something of interest and significance. As he trudged back to the station, he wondered why Kathleen Brennan had made him so uneasy. It was only when, after a lengthy wait, he caught the return train to Ashford that he realised exactly what it was.

There was an additional surprise for him. As the train chugged merrily along the line, he looked absent-mindedly through the window and saw something that made him sit up and stare. A young woman was riding a horse along the road at a steady canter, her red hair blowing in the wind. The person who had told him that she had to go to work was now riding with some urgency towards Ashford.

Inspector Colbeck was so intrigued by what he had learnt from his meeting with emily Hawkshaw that he took himself to a wooden bench near St Mary's Church and sat down to think. The square tower soared above him and he looked up at it with misgiving, certain that, if the girl really had committed suicide, then the full truth about the murder of Jospeh Dykes would never be known. Emily was young, immature and in a fragile state but he could not excuse her on those grounds. In the light of what he had discovered, he simply had to talk to her again.

Winifred Hawkshaw was unhappy with the idea. When he returned to the shop after long cogitation, she became very protective.

'Emily needs to be left alone,' she claimed. 'It's the only way that she'll ever get over this.'

'I disagree, Mrs Hawkshaw,' said Colbeck. 'As long as she feels such a sense of guilt, there's always the possibility that she'll attempt to take her own life again – and I may not be on hand next time.'

'My daughter has nothing to feel guilty about, Inspector.'

'Is that what she's told you?'