Blood on the Line

BLOOD ON THE LINE

EDWARD MARSTON

This one is for Judith. Choo-choo!

CHAPTER ONE

1857

‘Are you serious?’ asked Dirk Sowerby, eyebrows aloft in disbelief.

‘Never more so,’ replied Caleb Andrews. ‘I’m starting to feel my age, Dirk. It’s time to think of retirement.’

‘But you’ve got more energy than the rest of us put together.’

Andrews laughed. ‘That’s not saying much.’

‘What does your daughter think of the idea?’

‘To be honest, it was Maddy’s suggestion. Now that she’s about to get married, she doesn’t need her old father to support her anymore. She feels that I’ve earned a rest.’

The two men were on the footplate of the locomotive they’d just brought into Wolverhampton station. The engine was still hissing and wheezing but at least they were now able to have a conversation without having to shout at each other. Andrews was not just one of the senior drivers on the London and North Western Railway, he was an institution, a grizzled veteran who’d dedicated himself to rail transport and achieved an almost iconic status among his work colleagues. He was a short, wiry man in his fifties with a wispy beard flecked with coal dust. Sowerby, by contrast, was tall, big-boned, potato-faced and well over twenty years younger. He idolised Andrews and – even though he sometimes felt the sharp edge of his friend’s tongue – was always glad to act as his fireman.

The LNWR train was on its way back to London but it did not have a monopoly on the route. As the two men chatted, a goods train belonging to the Great Western Railway steamed through the recently opened Low Level station nearby and left clouds of smoke in its wake. Andrews curled his lip in disgust.

‘We were here first,’ he declared. ‘Why does Wolverhampton have two stations? We can see to all of the town’s needs.’

‘Tell that to Mr Brunel.’

‘I wish I could, Dirk. There’s a lot of other things I could say to him as well. The man’s an idiot.’

‘That’s unfair,’ said Sowerby, defensively. ‘Brunel is a genius.’

‘A genius at getting things wrong,’ snapped Andrews, ‘such as the ridiculous broad gauge on the GWR. If he’s so clever, why did he get involved in that stupid atmospheric railway in Devon? He lost a pretty penny on that. Yes,’ he added, warming to his theme, ‘and don’t forget the battle of Mickleton when Brunel tried to use force to remove the contractors building the Campden Tunnel, even though the Riot Act had already been read.’

‘Everyone makes some mistakes, Caleb.’

‘He’s made far too many for my liking.’

‘Well, I think he’s a brilliant engineer.’

‘He might be if he stuck to one thing and learnt to do it properly. But that’s not good enough for Brunel, is it? He wants to design everything – railways, bridges, tunnels, stations, docks and harbour improvements. Now he’s building iron ships. You wouldn’t get me sailing on one of those, I can tell you.’

‘Then we have to disagree,’ said Sowerby with a wistful smile. ‘I’d love to go on a steamship to some faraway country. It’s something I dream about.’

‘You should be dreaming about taking over my job when I give it up. That should be your ambition, Dirk. The quickest and safest way to travel is by rail. It’s also the most enjoyable way.’ Andrews glanced down the platform. ‘Unless you happen to be that poor devil, of course.’

Sowerby craned his neck. ‘Who do you mean, Caleb?’

Andrews indicated three people walking towards the train.

‘Look at that prisoner being marched between two policemen. See the look on his face?’ He gave a grim chuckle. ‘Somehow I don’t think he’s going to enjoy travelling by rail.’

The arrival of the newcomers caused some commotion on the platform. Most of the passengers had boarded the train by now but there were several relatives and friends who’d come to see them off. They were diverted by the sight of a prisoner being hustled towards a carriage by two uniformed policemen. The older and brawnier of the policemen was handcuffed to the prisoner. What caused people to stare was the fact that the person under police escort was not the kind of ugly and uncouth villain they might expect but a handsome, well-dressed man in his thirties. Indeed, it was his taller companions who looked more likely to commit terrible crimes.

One of them, Arthur Wakeley, was a stringy individual with a gaunt face darkened by a menacing scowl. The other, Bob Hungerford, had the unmistakable appearance of a thug who prowled fairgrounds in search of easy targets, far more inclined to attack a policeman than become one. Tugging on his handcuffs, he pulled the prisoner along like an angry owner with a badly behaved dog. In spite of themselves, the onlookers felt an instinctive sympathy for the man, wondering what he could possibly have done to justify such harsh treatment and to be compelled to suffer such public humiliation. When the three of them disappeared into a compartment, the small crowd drifted slowly over to it.

There was more drama to come. As the whistle signalled the train’s departure, a young woman dashed onto the platform with a valise in her hand and ran to the nearest carriage. A porter was on hand to open the door and, as the train started to move, she flung herself into the compartment. The door clanged shut behind her. There was a collective gasp from the crowd as they imagined how she’d react when she realised she’d be travelling in the company of two intimidating policemen and their prisoner.

‘Dear me!’ exclaimed Irene Adnam, seeing the trio on the seat opposite her. ‘I seem to have got into the wrong compartment. I do apologise.’

‘No apology is needed,’ said Wakeley, running an approving eye over her. ‘You’re most welcome to join us. Bob and I are pleased to have you with us. I can’t speak for him, mind you,’ he went on with a nudge in the prisoner’s ribs. ‘And I doubt if he’ll speak for himself at the moment. He’s gone very quiet. It often happens that way. Slap a pair of handcuffs on them and they lose their tongue.’

‘Until then,’ said Hungerford, ‘this one was talking nineteen to the dozen. I was glad to shut him up.’

Irene smiled nervously. ‘I see.’

She glanced at the man sitting between them but he didn’t raise his eyes to meet her gaze. He seemed to be ashamed, embarrassed and overwhelmed by the situation. The policemen, however, were eager to catch the eye of such an attractive and smartly attired young woman and they clearly found her a more rewarding spectacle than the fields scudding past the windows. Irene stared at the handcuffs.

‘Does he have to be chained to one of you?’ she asked.

Hungerford smirked. ‘Would you rather be handcuffed to him?’

‘No, no, of course not – it’s just that he can hardly escape when the train is in motion. Besides, there are two of you against one of him.’

‘In other words,’ said Wakeley, ‘you’re sorry for him.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose that I am.’

‘Don’t be, miss. He deserves to be handcuffed, believe me. In fact, if it was my decision, I’d have him in leg irons as well.’

‘That would be dreadful.’

‘He’s a criminal. He has to be punished.’

‘So you won’t remove the handcuffs?’

‘Not for a second.’

Irene stifled the rejoinder she was about to make and opened her valise instead. Putting a hand inside, she brought out an object that was covered by a piece of cloth. The policemen watched with interest but their curiosity turned to amazement when she whisked the cloth away and was seen to be holding a pistol. Irene’s face hardened and her gentle voice now had some steel in it.

‘You have one last chance to release him.’

‘What are you doing?’ cried Hungerford, shrinking back in fear.

‘She’s only bluffing,’ said Wakeley with a confident chuckle. He extended a palm. ‘Now, give me that gun before somebody gets hurt.’

‘Do as I say!’ she ordered. ‘Release Mr Oxley.’

Hungerford was mystified. ‘You know him?’

‘They’re in this together, Bob,’ decided Wakeley, ‘but they won’t get away with it.’ He gave Irene a challenging glare. ‘I don’t think this lass has the guts to pull that trigger. The weapon is only for show. In any case, she could only kill one of us. Where would that get her?’

Irene was calm. ‘Why don’t we find out?’

Aiming the barrel at Wakeley, she pulled the trigger and there was a loud report. The bullet hit him between the eyes and burrowed into his brain, knocking his head backwards. The prisoner suddenly came to life. Before he could recover from the shock of his friend’s death, Hungerford was under attack. He not only had to grapple with Oxley, there was the woman to contend with as well. Irene did not hold back. Knocking off the policeman’s top hat, she used the butt of the weapon to club him time and again. Hungerford was strong and fought bravely but he was no match for two of them. His head had been split open and blood gushed down over his face and uniform. Oxley was trying to strangle him while his accomplice was delivering more and more blows to his head. It was only a matter of time before Hungerford began to lose consciousness.

The moment the policeman slumped to the floor, Oxley searched Hungerford’s pocket for the key to the handcuffs. He found it, released himself, then stole a quick kiss from his deliverer.

‘Well done, Irene!’ he said, panting.

‘What will we do with these two?’ she asked.

‘I’ll show you.’

Opening the door, he grabbed Wakeley under both arms and dragged him across to it. The train then plunged into a tunnel, its rhythmical clamour taking on a more thunderous note and its smoke thickening in the confined area. With one heave, Oxley hurled the dead man out of the compartment. Since Hungerford was bigger and weightier, it took the two of them to shove him out into the tunnel. Oxley closed the door and gave a laugh of triumph.

‘We did it!’ he shouted, spreading his arms. ‘Come here.’

‘Not until you’ve taken that coat off,’ she said, looking at it with distaste. ‘It’s covered in his blood. You can’t be seen wearing that.’ She opened the valise. ‘It’s just as well that I thought to bring you another one, isn’t it? I had a feeling that you might need to change.’

When Caleb Andrews brought the train to a halt under the vast iron and glass roof over New Street station in Birmingham, his only interest was in lighting his pipe. He puffed away contentedly, blithely unaware that two of his passengers had been murdered during the journey from Wolverhampton and that the killers had just melted unseen into the crowd.

CHAPTER TWO

Nothing upset Edward Tallis more than the murder of a policeman. As a superintendent at the Detective Department in Scotland Yard, he had devoted himself to law enforcement and felt personal grief whenever one of his officers was killed in the line of duty. Even though the latest victims had not been members of the Metropolitan Police Force, Tallis was consumed by a mingled sadness and fury. He waved the telegraph in the air.

‘I want this villain caught and caught quickly,’ he announced. ‘He has the blood of two policemen on his hands.’

‘We need more details,’ said Victor Leeming.

‘It’s up to you to find them, Sergeant.’

‘What exactly does the telegraph say?’

‘It says enough to get you off your backside and on the next train to Wolverhampton. Apart from anything else,’ said Tallis, ‘your help has been specifically requested by the London and North Western Railway. This has just arrived by messenger.’ He picked up a letter with his other hand. ‘They are mindful of the fact that we served them well in the past.’

‘That was Inspector Colbeck’s doing,’ argued Leeming.

Tallis bristled. ‘It was a joint effort,’ he insisted.

‘The superintendent is correct, Victor,’ said Colbeck, stepping in to rescue the sergeant from the ire of his superior. ‘Whatever we’ve achieved must be ascribed to the efficiency of this whole department. Cooperation is everything. No individual deserves to be singled out.’

Tallis was only partially mollified. It was a source of great irritation to him that he did not get the credit to which he felt he was entitled. Newspaper reports of their triumphs invariably picked out Inspector Robert Colbeck as their unrivalled hero. It was the Railway Detective who claimed all the attention. Tallis could only smoulder impotently in his shadow.

The three men were in the superintendent’s office, blissfully free from cigar smoke for once. Seated behind his desk, Tallis, a former soldier, was seething with outrage at the latest news. He wanted instant retribution. The detectives sat side by side in front of him. Leeming, always uneasy in the presence of the superintendent, wanted to leave at once. Colbeck pressed for more information.

‘Did the telegraph give the name of the escaped prisoner?’ he asked, politely.

‘No,’ snapped Tallis.

‘What about the letter from the LNWR?’

‘I think there was a mention in that – though, shamefully, the two murder victims were not named. The villain takes precedence over them, it seems.’ He put down the telegraph and looked at the letter. ‘Yes, here we are. The killer’s name is Oxley.’

Colbeck was stunned. ‘Would that be Jeremy Oxley, by any chance?’

‘No Christian name is given, Inspector.’

‘But it could be him.’

‘Presumably.’

‘Do you know the man?’ asked Leeming.

‘If it’s Jeremy Oxley, I know him extremely well,’ said Colbeck, ruefully. ‘And this will not be the first time that he’s committed a murder.’ He rose to his feet. ‘We must leave immediately, Victor. I have a copy of Bradshaw in my office. That will tell us which train we can catch.’ As Leeming got up from his chair, Colbeck turned to Tallis. ‘Is there anything else we need to know, Superintendent?’

‘Only that I’ll be watching you every inch of the way,’ said Tallis. ‘And so will the general public. They must not be allowed to think that anyone can kill a representative of law and order with impunity. I want to see Oxley dangling from the gallows.’

‘So do I,’ said Colbeck, teeth gritted. ‘So do I.’

Madeleine Andrews was working at her easel when she heard the familiar footsteps outside on the pavement. She was surprised that her father had returned so early and her first thought was that he might have been injured at work. Putting her brush aside, she rushed to open the door. When she saw that Andrews was apparently unharmed, she heaved a sigh of relief.

‘What are you doing home at this hour, Father?’ she asked.

‘If you let me in, I’ll tell you.’

Madeleine stood aside so that Andrews could step into the house. As she closed the door behind him, another fear surfaced.

‘You haven’t been dismissed, have you?’

He cackled. ‘They’d never dare to sack me, Maddy.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘It’s because I was the driver of the death train.’

She gaped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Sit down and you’ll hear the full story.’

Madeleine lowered herself into a chair but she had to wait while her father filled and lit his pipe. He puffed on it until the tobacco glowed and gave off a pleasing aroma.

‘What’s this about a death train?’ she asked.

‘Two policemen were murdered on it,’ he explained, taking a seat. ‘Not that I knew anything about it at the time. We picked them and their prisoner up at Wolverhampton station. Somewhere between there and Birmingham a shot was fired. Dirk Sowerby and I didn’t hear a thing above the roar of the engine, of course, but passengers in the next carriage did. They told the guard and he found blood all over the seat. There was a blood-covered coat in there as well.’

‘What about the policemen?’

‘They’d been thrown out of the carriage, Maddy.’

She recoiled at the thought. ‘Oh – how dreadful!’

‘It really upset Dirk.’

‘It upset both of you, I daresay.’

‘I’ve got a stronger stomach than my fireman,’ boasted Andrews. ‘And it’s not the first time a crime has been committed on one of my trains. That’s how we came to meet Inspector Colbeck in the first place, so you might say that I was seasoned.’

‘Your train was robbed and you were badly injured,’ recalled Madeleine, ‘but – thank God – nobody was actually killed on that occasion. Let’s go back to Wolverhampton. You say that you picked up two policemen and a prisoner.’

‘That’s right. He was handcuffed to one of the peelers. I saw them on the platform and pointed them out to Dirk.’

‘Was the prisoner a big strong man?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then how could he get the better of two policemen?’

‘That’s what we’ll have to decide.’

‘We?’ she repeated.

‘Inspector Colbeck and me,’ he said, airily. ‘I’m a witness, so I’ll have to be involved. In fact, the investigation won’t get anywhere without me. What do you think of that, Maddy? Your father is going to be a detective in his own right. I’ll wager that the inspector will be tickled pink to work alongside me.’

Victor Leeming was so enthralled at the prospect of hearing the full story that he forgot all about his dislike of rail transport. He was a stocky man with the kind of unsightly features designed to unsettle rather than reassure anyone meeting him for the first time. Colbeck knew his true worth and – even though they differed markedly in appearance, manner and intelligence – they were a formidable team. The two of them had boarded a train at Euston and shared an empty carriage as it steamed off. Colbeck, an elegant dandy, was known for his aplomb yet he was now very animated.

‘It has to be Jeremy Oxley,’ he said, slapping his knee. ‘It’s too great a coincidence.’

‘Who is this man?’ asked Leeming.

‘He’s the reason I joined the police force.’

‘Yet you always say that you gave up your other work as a barrister because you only came along after a crime was committed. What you wanted to do was to prevent it happening in the first place.’

‘That’s true, Victor. When I was called to the bar, I had grandiose notions of making wonderful speeches about the need for justice as the bedrock of our society. I was soon robbed of that delusion. Being a barrister was not as lofty a profession as I’d imagined. To be frank, there were times when I felt as if I was taking part in a comic opera.’

‘How did you come across Oxley?’

‘He broke into a jewellery shop and collected quite a haul,’ said Colbeck. ‘When the owner of the premises chased him, Oxley shot the man dead in cold blood.’

‘Were there any witnesses?’

‘There were several.’

‘That was helpful.’

‘Alas, it was not. They lost their nerve when they received death threats from Oxley’s accomplice. Only one of them had the courage to identify him as the man who’d fired the fatal shot.’

‘Was he convicted on the strength of the evidence?’

‘Unfortunately, no – the case never came to court.’

‘Why not?’

‘He escaped from custody.’

Leeming sighed. ‘He’s an old hand at doing that, then.’

‘There was worse to come, Victor,’ said Colbeck, jaw tightening. ‘He hunted down the witness who was prepared to identify him and showed no mercy.’

‘He killed the man?’

‘The victim was a woman – Helen Millington.’

Colbeck spoke her name with a sorrow tinged with something more than mere affection. For a moment, his attention drifted and a distant look came into his eye. Old and very painful memories flitted across his mind. Leeming waited patiently until his friend was ready to continue.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Colbeck, making an effort to concentrate. ‘It’s just that it made a deep impression on me at the time. I was only a junior counsel in the case but it fell to me to persuade Miss Millington to come forward. In doing so,’ he added, biting his lip, ‘I inadvertently caused her death.’

‘You weren’t to know that Oxley would murder her, sir.’

‘Death threats had been sent.’

‘Yes, but that sort of thing happens all the time. Criminals will often try to scare a witness or a jury by issuing dire warnings. It doesn’t mean that they’ll actually carry out their threats.’

‘That’s what I keep telling myself but the guilt remains. I felt so helpless, Victor. She was a beautiful young woman in the prime of life. She didn’t deserve such a fate. I was desperate to avenge her death in some way, but what could I do as a barrister except make eloquent speeches in court?’ He took a deep breath and composed himself before continuing. ‘It was then I decided to join the fight against crime instead of simply dealing with its consequences.’

‘That was very brave of you, sir.’

‘The real bravery was shown by Helen Millington.’

‘What I meant was that you must have given up a good income to work for a lot less money.’

‘There are other kinds of rewards, Victor.’

‘Yes,’ said Leeming with a grin, ‘there’s nothing to touch the satisfaction of arresting a real villain and watching him get his punishment in court. You can’t buy something like that.’

‘It’s just as well. I don’t think we could afford it on police pay.’

They shared a laugh. Colbeck glanced through the window and realised that they were just passing Leighton Buzzard station. They were not far from the spot where Caleb Andrews had been tricked into stopping his train so that it could be boarded and robbed of the gold coin it was carrying. As a result of the robbery, during which Andrews had been wounded, Colbeck had first met Madeleine, the driver’s anguished daughter. What had started as a chance meeting had slowly matured into a friendship that had grown in intensity until it became a love match. He and Madeleine were now engaged to be married. Colbeck at last felt that his private world was complete. Thinking fondly of their future together, he let his thoughts dwell on her for a few luxurious minutes. As he pictured her face, however, and longed to see it again in the flesh, it was suddenly replaced in his mind’s eye by that of the equally lovely Helen Millington. Taken aback, Colbeck gave an involuntary start.

Leeming was worried. ‘Is something wrong, Inspector?’

‘No, no. I’m fine.’

‘You seemed to be miles away.’

‘Then I apologise. It was rude of me to ignore you.’

‘Tell me more about this Jeremy Oxley.’

‘His friends call him “Jerry” and he has a long criminal record. He’s a thief, confidence trickster and ruthless killer. Most of his victims have fallen for his charm. Oxley is very plausible.’

‘Let’s see how plausible he is at the end of a rope.’

‘We have to find him first, and that,’ conceded Colbeck, ‘will not be easy. He’s as slippery as an eel.’

‘So it seems. How would you describe him?’

‘He’s rather different from the villains we normally pursue. In fact, you wouldn’t take him for a criminal at all. Oxley, by all accounts, is good-looking, personable and educated. He has the talent to succeed in most professions. The tragedy is that he chose to make his living on the wrong side of the law.’

Leeming regarded him shrewdly. ‘Catching him means a lot to you, doesn’t it, sir?’

‘Yes, it does,’ admitted Colbeck. ‘I’ve been after him for years and this is the first time he’s crossed my path again. I’m going to make sure that it’s the last time as well. It’s a debt I have to pay to Helen Millington. This is not just another investigation to me, Victor,’ he stressed. ‘It’s a mission. I won’t rest until we have this devil in custody.’

It was several hours later but Irene’s hands were still shaking slightly. Oxley enfolded them in his own palms and held them tight.

‘You’re still trembling,’ he observed.

‘I can’t help it, Jerry. When I shot that policeman, I felt as cool as a cucumber. It was only afterwards that I realised what I’d done.’

‘Yes – you rescued me from disaster.’

‘I killed a man,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I never thought I’d be able to do that. I hoped that they’d release you when I pulled out the gun. It never crossed my mind that I’d have to pull the trigger.’

‘But you did, Irene,’ he said, kissing her on the forehead. ‘I knew that you wouldn’t let me down.’

She gave a shrug. ‘I love you. That’s why I did it.’

‘And because you did it – I love you.’

He squeezed her hands then sat back in his chair. They were in a public house in Stafford, sitting in a quiet corner where they could talk freely. Oxley had already changed his appearance so that any description of him would be misleading. He’d shaved off his neat moustache, combed his hair in a different way and put on a pair of spectacles with clear glass in them. He looked quite different. In the interests of evading suspicion, Irene had also made adjustments to her hair and to her clothing. Witnesses who saw her diving onto the train in Wolverhampton would not recognise her now. After calmly leaving the train at Birmingham, they had bought tickets to Stafford and travelled there in separate carriages. Nobody on the same journey would have connected them.

While Oxley was in a state of euphoria after his escape, she remained anxious and preoccupied. She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. Looking up at him, her eyes were moist.

‘Was it like this for you, Jerry?’ she asked, nervously.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The first time you killed someone. Did you have this terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach? Did your hands shake? Were you haunted by remorse?’

‘Not in the slightest,’ he said, coldly.

‘You must have had some regrets.’

‘I put them out of my mind.’

‘I can’t do that somehow. I keep seeing his face at the moment I actually shot him.’ She shook her head. ‘I just can’t believe I did that.’

‘Would you rather have seen me put on remand?’

‘No, no – I’d have hated that.’

‘Then you did the right thing.’

‘Did you feel that you did the right thing when you killed a man for the first time?’

‘Of course – he was foolish enough to chase me when I robbed his jewellery shop. It was the right thing to kill him and the right thing to kill her as well.’

She was shocked. ‘You killed a woman?’

‘She was going to bear witness against me.’

‘When was this – and how did you do it?’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, dismissively. ‘It was a long time ago and I’ve put it all behind me. That’s what you must do. All I can tell you is that I felt proud.’

‘Proud?’ she echoed. ‘How can you be proud of taking a life?’

‘It showed I had the courage to do so. Most people don’t have that courage. They never know that sense of power you get. That’s what I had, Irene, and – when you get over the initial shock – you’ll enjoy remembering that same thrill as well.’

She was unconvinced. ‘I doubt that, Jerry.’

‘There’s nothing quite like it.’

They had been together almost a year now and it had been a very fruitful partnership. Her air of innocence and wholesomeness belied the fact that she was an accomplished thief and had long since abandoned any claim to respectability. Oxley had used her time and again to distract people while he stole things from their premises. As the more experienced criminal, he was able to teach her the tricks of the trade. Drawn ever closer to him, Irene became so besotted that she did not realise that Oxley was manipulating her emotions. She was utterly devoted to him. When his luck finally ran out and he was captured, all that she could think about was setting him free. Her audacious plan had worked. It had involved killing one man and helping to hurl a second one to his death, but her lover was back with her again. Irene just wished that she could relish his company instead of being assailed by regrets over what she’d done.

Taking her hands again, he looked deep into her eyes.

‘Are you happy, Irene?’

‘Of course I’m happy,’ she said, forcing a smile.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know. You’re under no compulsion. If you’d rather go your own way, we can part here and now. You’re not at my beck and call.’

‘But I want to be, Jerry.’

‘I sense that you’re getting cold feet.’

‘That’s not true,’ she asserted, sitting up straight. ‘I was a little troubled about it, that’s all. It’s past now. I feel much better, honestly. The only thing I want is to be with you.’

‘Then we have something in common,’ he said, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, ‘because the only thing I want is to be with you. Let’s find somewhere to spend the night, then I can tell you why.’

‘I thought we were going to Manchester.’

‘That can wait until tomorrow. Given what we did today, I think we’re entitled to celebrate.’

‘Yes, we are!’

‘Are you ready to be my wife for another night?’

Irene laughed. ‘I’m ready tonight and every night.’

They got up from their table and headed for the door. As they came out of the pub, they were elated. With Irene on his arm, Oxley strode purposefully along, distributing smiles to everyone he passed and making the most of his freedom. He then pulled Irene gently into an alleyway so that he could confide something to her.

‘Remember this, my love,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t shoot a human being on that train this morning.’

‘But I did, Jerry,’ she said, earnestly. ‘You saw me.’

‘All you killed was a policeman.’

‘So?’

Oxley beamed. ‘They don’t count.’

CHAPTER THREE

As soon as they arrived in the town, they hired a cab to take them to Garrick Street, home of the Wolverhampton Borough Police Force. Roland Riggs, the duty sergeant, was a big, beetle-browed man with an instinctive dislike of anyone who tried to take over an investigation he felt should be carried out by his own men. Colbeck and Leeming were given a frosty welcome. Accustomed to such treatment, they asserted their authority and drew all the relevant information out of Riggs. They learnt the names of the two murdered policemen and heard how the both of them had been hit by a train coming in the opposite direction. What Riggs could not explain was how two of his best officers had been unable to stop the prisoner from escaping.

‘Jeremy Oxley didn’t look like a dangerous man,’ he argued.

‘I knew it was him,’ said Colbeck.

‘The inspector has had a brush with Oxley before,’ explained Leeming. ‘That’s why he was so eager to take on the case.’

‘By rights, it falls within our jurisdiction,’ insisted Riggs. ‘Bob Hungerford and Arthur Wakeley were good friends of mine. It’s the reason I volunteered to tell their wives what had happened. You can imagine how I felt doing that.’

‘You have my sympathy, Sergeant,’ said Colbeck. ‘It must have been a harrowing assignment. The only consolation is that they heard the appalling news from an experienced officer who knew how to soften their grief. They’re not the kind of tidings you want a young and unschooled policeman blurting out on the doorstep.’

Riggs was solemn. ‘I’d agree with you there.’

‘Where was the prisoner being taken?’ wondered Leeming.

‘It was only as far as Birmingham. We had information that a man fitting his description had robbed a pawnshop there at gunpoint. The way that Oxley resisted arrest was a confession in itself. Our colleagues in Birmingham were delighted to hear that we had him in custody.’

‘They must have been surprised to hear of his escape.’

Riggs rubbed his chin. ‘I’d still like to know how the bugger managed that.’

‘I think there’s only one logical explanation,’ said Colbeck. ‘He must have had an accomplice. I feel sure that you’d never have let him leave here until he’d been thoroughly searched. He would not have been carrying a concealed weapon.’

‘We know our job, Inspector.’

‘Then another person was involved.’

‘That’s an obvious assumption,’ said Riggs, gruffly, ‘yet the only passenger who got into the same compartment was a young woman. A number of witnesses recalled her, jumping on the train at the very last moment.’

‘There’s your accomplice,’ concluded Colbeck.

Riggs was dubious. ‘Could someone like that shoot one policeman and help to overpower another? I think not, Inspector.’

‘Then you don’t know Jerry Oxley. He has a strange power over women and can get them to do almost anything for him. Believe me, I’ve had dealings with this fellow. His accomplice then was the woman with whom he’d been living. The likelihood is that the one in question this time is his latest mistress.’

‘So he’s corrupted her,’ said Leeming with disapproval.

‘Oh, I suspect that she was not entirely without corruption beforehand, Victor. How else could she meet him in the first place without frequenting the sorts of places he tends to visit? All that he did was to draw her deeper into the criminal fraternity.’

‘Where could she have got hold of a gun?’

‘She and Oxley would travel with a weapon all the time.’

‘He was carrying a pistol when we arrested him,’ noted Riggs.

‘Then his accomplice could have bought a second one. It’s not difficult if you have enough money, and they’d just committed a robbery in Birmingham, remember. No,’ Colbeck went on, ‘I don’t think we should waste time speculating on how she acquired the weapon. The first thing we must do is to unmask the second accomplice.’

Riggs blinked. ‘There were two of them?’

‘Yes, Sergeant, and I’m afraid to tell you that one of them wears a police uniform. Oxley’s mistress had help from one of your men.’

‘That’s a disgraceful allegation!’ shouted Riggs, banging his desk. ‘I can vouch for every one of my constables. None of them would dream of being party to a plot to murder two of their fellow officers.’

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ said Colbeck, ‘but, then, the man I’m after would have had no idea that such dread consequences would ensue. It probably never occurred to him that he was aiding and abetting the escape of a desperate criminal.’

Riggs folded his arms. ‘Explain yourself, Inspector.’

‘Very few people must have known when Oxley was being transferred from here to Birmingham. Is that agreed?’

‘Yes – only a handful of us had the details.’

‘I need the name of every man who knew the exact train on which the prisoner would be taken this morning. You, presumably, are one of them.’

‘Are you accusing me?’ howled Riggs, reddening.

‘Of course not,’ said Colbeck with a soothing smile. ‘You are evidently far too sensible to let such vital information slip. It must have been someone else. How many people knew?’

‘And where can we get in touch with them?’ added Leeming.

‘Let me see now,’ said Riggs, thinking hard and using his fingers to count. ‘Including me, there’d only be four of us – but I have complete faith in the other three. They’re all decent, reliable, upright men who’d never dare to be involved in anything like this.’

‘Would you care to put money on that?’ said Leeming.

‘I’m not a gambling man, Sergeant.’

‘It’s just as well because you’d certainly lose.’

Riggs fell back on pomposity. ‘My men are above suspicion.’

Colbeck was impassive. ‘Give us their names.’

Though she was pleased to see her father, Madeleine did find him a distraction while she was trying to paint. He kept coming up behind her to look at her latest railway scene and to offer unwanted advice. It was Colbeck who’d discovered her talent as an artist and encouraged her to develop it to the point where she was able to sell her work. There were other female artists in London but none specialised in pictures of locomotives in the way that Madeleine did. Landscapes and seascapes had no appeal for her and she lacked the eye for figurative painting, but there were few people who could bring a train so vividly to life on a canvas in the way that she did. It was a gift.

‘I’m surprised that he hasn’t been in touch with me,’ said Andrews, looking over her shoulder. He nudged her elbow. ‘You’ve got the wrong colour on that carriage, Maddy.’

‘I haven’t finished painting it yet.’

‘I thought the inspector would be banging on my door by now.’

‘Why on earth should he do that, Father?’ she asked. ‘In the first place, Robert may not even be responsible for the investigation. And even if he is, how could he possibly know that you drove the train on which murder was committed?’

He gave a grudging nod. ‘There is that, I suppose.’

‘You’ll just have to wait.’

‘Well, it won’t be for long,’ he said, ‘because I’m certain that he’ll be in charge of the case. The LNWR would be mad not to ask for him. It’s only a matter of time before he discovers that I was on the footplate this morning. That will bring him running.’

‘But you didn’t see anything of interest.’

‘Yes, I did. I saw those two policemen with their prisoner.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Well, he wasn’t young but, then again, you couldn’t call him an old man. As for the villain’s face, I must have been thirty-odd yards away, Maddy, so I can’t really help you.’

‘Then you won’t be able to help Robert either.’

Andrews was deflated, fearing that his offer of assistance might be turned down by Colbeck. Slumping into his chair, he racked his brains for any tiny details that he might be able to pass on in the hope of ingratiating himself with the Railway Detective. When none came to mind, he was tempted to invent some. Madeleine, meanwhile, had resumed work at her easel. He looked across at her.

‘Have you set a date yet, Maddy?’

‘You know that we haven’t,’ she replied.

‘Then it’s high time that you did.’

‘There’s no real urgency.’

‘There may not be for you,’ he complained, ‘but what about me? How can I retire when I still have you to support? I told Dirk Sowerby about it this morning. He refused to believe that I’d finally turn my back on the railway but I can’t wait to do it.’

‘You could retire tomorrow, if you wished.’

‘Not while I’ve got a daughter to feed and clothe.’

‘I don’t need you to support me anymore, Father,’ she said. ‘Now that I can sell my work, I have a fair amount of money coming in. You can’t use me as an excuse.’

It was true. Madeleine’s income – albeit irregular – had enabled them to buy all kinds of additional items for their little house in Camden. It had also transformed her wardrobe. When she and Colbeck went out together, she always dressed well and did not look out of place on his arm. It would be a wrench to leave the house in which she was born and brought up, but she was confident that her father could cope now that he’d finally got over the death of his wife. How he would fill his day during his retirement was another matter. Madeleine did not want him spending too much time at the marital home. She and Colbeck would value their privacy.

‘There’s lots of things I can do when I leave the LNWR,’ he said, giving his imagination free rein. ‘I could take an interest in gardening, learn to paint just like you, travel the country by train, get married again, have a stall in the market, write my life story, go to church more often or decorate the house. My real ambition, of course, is to work side by side with my son-in-law.’

‘You’re too old to join the police force, Father,’ she pointed out.

‘We’d have an unofficial arrangement. Whenever he had a tricky case, he’d tell me the full details and I’d advise him what to do. I think I’d make a wonderful detective, Maddy. Why don’t you mention that to the inspector? He might be grateful for my help.’

Madeleine suppressed a grin. ‘Then again, he might not.’

‘But my instincts are sharp.’

‘Robert is well aware of your instincts, Father,’ she said, turning to offer a gentle smile. ‘If he felt he could make use of them, I’m sure that he would. You’ll just have to wait. In the meantime, I think that you should just let him get on with his job.’

Two of the policemen who’d been aware of the exact train on which the prisoner would be travelling were on duty together. Colbeck and Leeming met them on their beat and interviewed them. Like Riggs, they were not receptive to the idea of detectives from London taking over the search for the killers of their former colleagues. When they realised why they were being questioned, they became indignant at the suggestion that they might unwittingly have given away the information that told Oxley’s accomplice when and where to strike. Their language became ripe. Roused by their aggressive attitude, Leeming had to control an urge to hit one of the men. Colbeck calmed all three of them down before apologising to the policemen. It was clear to him, he told them, that they were in no way implicated. After ridding themselves of some more bad language, they stalked off to continue their beat.

‘That leaves only one man,’ noted Leeming.

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘Constable Toby Marner.’

‘I hope he’s a little more helpful than those two.’

‘Nobody likes to be accused of a crime, Victor, even if it’s an unintentional one. Their intemperate reaction was forgivable.’

‘I’d have forgiven them with a punch on the nose.’

‘Save your strength for the real villain – Jerry Oxley. The one thing we can guarantee is that he’ll put up a fight.’

They went to the address they’d been given and knocked on the door of a shabby house in one of the rougher districts of the town. The woman who answered the door was Toby Marner’s landlady. She told them that they might find him at the Waterloo, a nearby public house. Colbeck asked her some questions about her lodger and was told that he’d been a good tenant.

When they located the seedy pub, they had no difficulty in picking out the man they were after. Sitting alone in a corner, the tall, rangy Marner was wearing his uniform and hat but he was not the image of sobriety expected of a law enforcement officer. His eyes were glazed, his cheeks red and he was quaffing a pint of beer as if his life depended on it. The detectives joined him and introduced themselves. It took Marner a few moments to understand what they were saying.

‘What do you want with me?’ he asked, slurring his words.

‘We need your assistance,’ said Colbeck. ‘According to Sergeant Riggs, you were told on which train the prisoner would be travelling this morning. Is that true?’

Marner was defensive. ‘I wasn’t the only one.’

‘We’ve spoken to the others. We’re satisfied that none of them passed on the information to anyone else.’

‘Neither did I.’

‘Are you sure?’ pressed Leeming.

‘I’m very sure.’

‘Well, somebody let the cat out of the bag.’

Marner tensed. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘We just want to solve this mystery,’ said Colbeck, adopting a quieter tone. ‘As you’re well aware, two of your fellow policemen were murdered this morning on a train. You must have known them well.’

‘I did, Inspector.’ There was a sob in his voice. ‘Bob Hungerford was my brother-in-law. We joined the police force together.’

‘Then you have a special reason to want his killers arrested.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Is there any chance that you might accidentally have divulged the details of Oxley’s transfer to anyone?’

‘None at all,’ said Marner, emphatically.

‘Not even to your landlady, for instance?’

‘I told nobody.’

‘What about other policemen?’

Marner became truculent. ‘I’ve given you my answer, so you can leave me alone. Go back to London and let us deal with this. Arthur Wakeley and Bob Hungerford were Wolverhampton lads through and through. This is our case.’

He was slurring his words even more now and almost keeled over at one point. When Marner reached for his tankard, Colbeck moved it out of the way. The policeman was outraged.

‘Give me my beer.’

‘I think you’ve had enough already,’ said Colbeck. ‘You can’t hold your beer because you’re not a drinking man.’

‘Who can afford to be on police pay?’ moaned Leeming.

‘Your landlady said that you very rarely go to a pub. That’s why she was so surprised when she saw you heading in this direction. Do you know what that tells me, Constable Marner? It tells me that you’re a man with a need to drown his sorrows.’

‘You’re right,’ said Marner. ‘I’m mourning the death of two good friends. Is there anything wrong in that?’

‘No,’ replied Colbeck, fixing him with a piercing stare. ‘I’d expect it – especially if you are somehow connected with those deaths. And I’m inclined to think that you are.’

‘That’s a filthy lie!’

‘You’re the one who’s lying and you know it.’

‘I want my beer back.’

‘It’s no good trying to block out the truth,’ said Colbeck, sternly. ‘It will always come out in the end. Do you know what I believe we should do? Instead of talking to you here, I think we should have this conversation at Constable Hungerford’s house. Your sister will be present then.’ He leant in close. ‘You’d never dare to tell lies in front of her, would you?’ Marner swallowed hard. ‘You wouldn’t be cruel enough to add to her grief by trying to deceive us.’ He stood up and gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we go?’

Marner remained in his seat, staring anxiously ahead of him as he thought about what might lay ahead. He chewed his lip and wrung his hands. They could see the terror in his eyes. When Leeming took him by the elbow, Marner let out a yelp and burst into tears.

‘Don’t take me to my sister,’ he begged. ‘Please don’t make me go there. After what I did, I just can’t face Mary. I’d die of shame.’

‘And what exactly did you do?’ asked Leeming.

Colbeck resumed his seat. ‘Let’s give him time to clear his mind, Victor,’ he advised, ‘then he’ll tell us the whole story. That’s right, isn’t it, Constable Marner?’

‘Yes, Inspector,’ murmured the other.

‘I fancy that you’re in possession of information that will help in the search for those who murdered your colleagues. To hold it back would be a crime in itself.’

‘I know.’

‘Then you should get it off your chest.’

Marner needed a couple of minutes to compose his thoughts and to confront the horror of what had occurred. Colbeck let him have another sip of beer. Clearing his throat, Marner was about to confess when he started to weep again. Colbeck put a consoling hand on his shoulder and prompted him.

‘You didn’t think you were doing anything wrong, did you?’

‘No, Inspector,’ replied Marner.

‘Was any money involved?’

‘He offered me five pounds.’

‘Are you talking about Oxley?’

‘Yes,’ said Marner. ‘At first I refused, but five pounds is a lot of money to a man like me.’

‘And me,’ Leeming interjected. ‘What did you do to earn it?’

‘It seemed like a simple favour. All that I had to do was to tell the prisoner’s wife what train he’d be on and she’d give me five pounds. Oxley said she’d be there to wave him off.’

‘Instead of which,’ said Colbeck, ‘she caught the same train and helped him to escape.’

‘I wasn’t to know that,’ bleated Marner. ‘His wife was so pleased when I spoke to her. I felt sorry for her. I could see that she was carrying her husband’s child.’

‘She played on your emotions, Constable. To begin with, I doubt very much if she was his wife. I’m certain they cohabit but theirs is not a union blessed in the sight of God. As for being pregnant, that was another lie. What woman in that condition can run to catch a train then help to commit a murder?’

‘You were tricked,’ said Leeming with disgust. ‘You betrayed your friends. Because you took those five pounds, two policemen are going to their grave.’

Marner was in despair. ‘You think I don’t realise that, Sergeant? Ever since I heard the news, I’ve been in torment. What I did was terrible. If I had a gun, I swear to God that I’d have used it on myself by now.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I feel like a murderer.’

‘Stop thinking about yourself,’ said Colbeck, ‘and try to help us instead. You met this so-called wife and had the opportunity to take her measure. We need you to remember every single thing about her that you can. Each detail is important.’ Marner looked up at him through bleary eyes. ‘What was your first impression of her?’

‘She was a … very appealing young lady.’

‘At what age would you put her?’

‘I think she was not much more than twenty,’ said Marner.

‘What about her build, height and colouring?’

‘She was slim, of medium height and dark-haired.’

‘Can you recall any significant feature about her?’

‘Yes,’ replied Marner, thinking about his encounter. ‘I’ll wager that she came from Manchester. She tried to hide her accent but I could hear it nevertheless. I lived in the city for a couple of years and you get to know the sound of a Manchester voice. That’s where Mrs Oxley – or whatever her real name is – hailed from. I’d stake every penny I have on it.’

CHAPTER FOUR

To avoid being seen together, they travelled north to Manchester next morning in separate railway carriages. It gave each of them time to reflect on what had happened. For his part, Oxley was still excited. Twenty-four hours earlier, he’d been in custody and destined for certain imprisonment or – if his criminal record was unveiled – even a death sentence. Only a daring plan had rescued him. The fact that two policemen had died in the process did not disturb him in the slightest. They were expendable in his view. What stuck in his mind was the extraordinary cunning and audacity shown by Irene. It had drawn him closer than ever to her. None of his other mistresses – and there had been several over the years – would have had the nerve to devise and carry through such a plan. Irene Adnam was indeed exceptional. Oxley resolved that she would continue to pose as his wife for a long while yet.

Ensconced in the corner of another carriage, Irene ignored the lascivious glances she was attracting from the elderly man opposite her and tried to confront the enormity of what she had done. She had killed one man and helped to throw another to a hideous death in the tunnel. Had he known the truth about her, the passenger would not be running such covetous eyes over her. Irene was still shaken. A night in Oxley’s arms had stilled her fears but they’d returned now that she was alone. Thieving was a way of life for her. It left her conscience untroubled. Murder, however, was a very different matter. Impelled to shoot one man out of love for another, she was unable to dismiss it from her mind. What if her victim had been married and had children? What kind of misery had she inflicted on them? The same could be asked of the policeman she’d struck with her pistol until he lost consciousness. His family would be suffering dreadfully. Friends of both men would be bereft. Such thoughts made her feel almost dizzy with remorse.

Irene tried to tell herself that it had all been a means to an end. She was infatuated with Oxley. The idea of his being locked away for several years was unbearable. Whatever extreme steps it took, he had to be saved from imprisonment. He was amazed at her bravery and overcome with gratitude. In the course of their frantic lovemaking, he’d even talked of marriage for the first time. If she did become his wife in reality as well as in name, she would have paid a high price for it, but she convinced herself that it would have been worthwhile. Two dead Wolverhampton policemen would fade into the past; Jeremy Oxley was her future.

As the train chugged into Manchester station, she got ready to leave. By the time she alighted onto the platform, Oxley was well ahead of her. He bought a newspaper from the bookstall then went out through the exit. Irene followed him. By prior arrangement, they were well clear of the station before they met up.

‘What did you buy?’ she asked.

‘A copy of The Times,’ he said, opening the newspaper. ‘It’s reached Manchester already. I wanted to see what they had to say about us.’ He spotted a headline. ‘Here we are – POLICEMEN MURDERED DURING ESCAPE BID. We’re famous at last, Irene. I shall enjoy reading this.’ His laughter died instantly and his smile became a grimace. ‘I don’t like this,’ he admitted.

She was worried. ‘What is it, Jerry?’

‘We have a problem. According to this report, the detective in charge of the case is Inspector Colbeck of Scotland Yard. He and I have crossed swords before, though he wasn’t in the police force at the time. We have to be very careful, Irene.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Colbeck has a score to settle with me. He’s very determined. Once he picks up our scent, he’ll stay on our tail until he catches up with us. This is bad news, Irene,’ he said, folding up the newspaper. ‘The last person in the world I want after me is Robert Colbeck.’

After spending the night in Wolverhampton, the two detectives began the day by walking to the railway station. The town was still in a state of shock after the turn of events. People were grim, silent and fearful. They moved about as if in a daze. Posters had already been put up at the station, offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of Jeremy Oxley. A brief description was given of him. Colbeck and Leeming interviewed the clerk in the booking office. He remembered the young woman who’d arrived late for a train the previous morning and said that he’d issued her with a single ticket to Birmingham. Since he saw so many passengers in the course of a day, he could give only the sketchiest details about her. Like all the employees at the station, he was very apprehensive. Murder on the LNWR was a very bad advertisement for the company. It would inevitably deter some passengers from travelling by rail.

‘I hope that you catch him soon, Inspector,’ said the clerk.

‘We’ll do our best,’ promised Colbeck.

‘Until he’s under lock and key, nobody will feel safe when they travel on the railway.’

‘I never feel safe on a train,’ said Leeming under his breath.

Hiring a cab, the detectives were driven to the tunnel where the murder victims had been tossed onto the line. They climbed a fence and walked across the track. A railway policeman emerged from the tunnel and ordered them to leave at once. His manner became more respectful when he heard that he was talking to detectives from Scotland Yard. His job was to guard that end of the tunnel to prevent those of ghoulish disposition from seeking out the exact point at which the policemen had been mangled by an oncoming train. The other end of the tunnel was also under supervision.

Lighting a lamp, the man used it to guide his way into the gloom of the tunnel. Colbeck and Leeming walked in single file behind him, their footsteps echoing in the void. When they heard a distant train approaching, they swiftly flattened themselves against the dank wall. The noise got closer and closer, then there was an explosion of sound as the locomotive plunged into the tunnel. The train was only feet away when it shot past, deafening them momentarily and creating a gust of wind that scooped up the dust from the ground. Colbeck and the policeman took it in their stride but Leeming was scared.

‘That was too close for comfort,’ he complained.

‘You’d never make a railwayman, Victor,’ said Colbeck.

‘It’s dangerous being in here.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Colbeck brushed dust from his sleeves. ‘My coat will get filthy if that happens again.’

Their guide led them eventually to the spot where the corpses had been found. He held up the lantern so that they could see that there was still blood on the line. The bodies had been sliced apart by a speeding train. Bob Hungerford, alive when hurled out of the compartment, had died under the wheels of a locomotive. Anxious to get away from the place, Leeming kept glancing up and down the tunnel, wondering from which direction a train would come next. Colbeck, meanwhile, crouched beside the track and ran a hand across it. He did not envy Sergeant Riggs the task of breaking the bad news to the two wives. Reporting a death of any kind to family members was a dismal undertaking and Colbeck had done it many times. Having to pass on details of a horrific murder made it far more disturbing for all concerned. The visit to the tunnel served to reinforce his vow to catch the killers.

‘Right,’ said Colbeck, standing up. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here. We have to get to Birmingham.’

‘Why?’ asked Leeming.

‘I want to look at the compartment in which the crime took place.’

‘What can that tell us, Inspector?’

‘I don’t know until we get there.’

They retraced their steps and were grateful that no other trains powered their way through the tunnel. When they got back to their cab, Colbeck asked the driver to take them to the nearest railway station. At Bescot Junction, they caught a local train to Birmingham and got out at New Street. On their last visit to the city, they had arrested a silversmith and his female accomplice, both of whom had later been hanged for their part in a gruesome murder. The place also held happier memories for Colbeck. It was in the wake of the arrest in the Jewellery Quarter that he had proposed to Madeleine and sealed their betrothal by buying her an engagement ring.

There was no occasion to venture into the city this time. What they wanted was the carriage that had been detached from the train driven by Caleb Andrews a day earlier and shunted into a siding. It was guarded by a railway policeman who had less respect for London detectives than the man who’d taken them into the tunnel. Surly and uncooperative, he had to be put firmly in his place by Colbeck. Still glaring at them mutinously, he pointed out the relevant compartment. Colbeck climbed up into it with ease then offered a hand to pull Leeming in after him.

‘There we are, Victor,’ he said, pointing to a bloodstained coat. ‘There’s evidence here, after all. This must have been discarded by Oxley before he fled.’ He picked the coat up by the collar and looked at the name inside it. ‘This was made by a reputable tailor and you can see its quality. Oxley makes a point of dressing well.’

Leeming looked at the garment. ‘That coat gives me a good idea of his size. He’s about my height but somewhat slimmer.’

‘He couldn’t be seen wearing this when he left the train. That means his accomplice probably brought another one for him to wear. She’s obviously a thoughtful lady.’

‘She’s thoughtful and she’s murderous,’ said Leeming as he studied the bloodstains on the seat.

Putting the coat down, Colbeck sat on the other side of the compartment. ‘She must have been here when they set off,’ he ventured. ‘Oxley and the two policemen were opposite. Even if she had no experience of firing a gun, she could hardly have missed from such close range. But I suspect that most of this blood was shed by Constable Hungerford. My guess is that she hit him with the butt of the pistol. He must have been knocked out before they could heave him off the train.’

‘We’re dealing with a very desperate woman, sir.’

‘Yet one who must have looked unthreatening at the time. She caught the policeman completely off guard. Had their suspicions been aroused by her appearance, they might still be alive now.’

Colbeck went through an elaborate mime, shooting someone opposite then getting up and pretending to take part in a struggle with an invisible assailant. He then opened the door and dragged a body across to it. Satisfied that he had reconstructed the crime with some accuracy, he shut the door again.

‘What do we do now, Inspector?’ asked Leeming.

‘We go our separate ways, Victor.’

‘Oh?’

‘You can return to London to report to the superintendent. Rehearse what you’re going to say beforehand. That way, he won’t unsettle you so much.’

Leeming rolled his eyes. ‘Mr Tallis was born to unsettle me.’

‘Console yourself with the thought that you can see your wife and family again this evening. I know how much you hate to spend a night away from Estelle and the children.’

‘I miss them, Inspector. Wait until you get married. You’ll begin to understand then.’

Colbeck smiled. ‘I already do, I assure you.’

‘Where will you be?’

‘I’ll be searching for Oxley’s accomplice.’

‘But you have no idea where to start.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Colbeck. ‘You heard what Constable Marner told us. She’s a Manchester girl.’

‘It’s a big city, sir. You could spend a lifetime hunting for her there. And that’s assuming that she’s actually in Manchester.’

‘It doesn’t matter if she is or if she isn’t, Victor.’

Leeming was baffled. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘If she’s working with Jerry Oxley, the chances are that she’s no novice. He’d always choose someone with experience.’

‘So?’

‘She’ll have a criminal record,’ said Colbeck. ‘The police up there will know of her even if they’ve never managed to arrest the woman. I want to put a name to her face, then we can start looking for her in earnest. She’s the person who’ll lead us to Oxley,’ he added, holding up the coat once more. ‘Find her and we’ll find the man who used to wear this.’

Jeremy Oxley had learnt to travel light. When he’d committed a crime, he immediately moved away from the area and went to ground for a while before selecting his next target. In the course of his travels, he would either stay in hotels under an assumed name or in the homes of criminal associates. Since he was an expert at his trade, he always had plenty of money to buy whatever he needed and to indulge the latest women in his life. Irene had lasted much longer than any of her predecessors. She had never stayed at hotels of such quality before but quickly adapted to her good fortune. Oxley was impressed by the fact that she was the least acquisitive of his mistresses. While others had demanded jewellery and other gifts, Irene was content simply to be with him and to take part in his exploits. The thrill of acting as his accessory was enough for her.

After almost a year of uninterrupted success, their luck had finally run out in Wolverhampton and Oxley had been arrested. His faith in Irene had been justified. Taking risks and displaying careful forethought, she’d rescued him on a train and earned his profound admiration. What pleased him was that she was no longer agonising over the murder of two policemen. She had not mentioned them all morning.

‘Tell me about this Inspector Colbeck,’ she said.

‘If you read the newspapers, you wouldn’t need to ask me that. Colbeck has built up a reputation for solving crimes on the railways. He never fails,’ warned Oxley. ‘At least, he doesn’t seem to have done so thus far. His nickname is the Railway Detective.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

‘I never actually met him. He used to be a barrister.’

‘They make lots of money, don’t they?’

‘The best ones certainly do.’

‘Why did he give up his job to become a policeman?’

Oxley smirked. ‘I like to think that I might have something to do with that,’ he bragged. ‘Colbeck is prepared to accept much lower pay for the sheer pleasure of catching people like me.’

They were in their room at a hotel not far from the station. Now that they were alone, Irene wanted to hear more details. She glanced at the report in The Times.

‘It says here that the inspector is a master at what he does.’

‘The same is true of me, Irene. I’ve managed to stay several steps ahead of Colbeck for a decade now. Not that I’ve been involved in a railway crime before, mind you. That singles me out. He’ll have been delighted to have an excuse to stalk me.’

‘How do we keep out of his way?’

‘Leave that to me.’

She put the newspaper aside. ‘Tell me about the woman – the one that you killed.’

‘You don’t want to hear about her,’ he said, flicking a hand.

‘Yes, I do. What was her name?’

‘I’m not even sure that I can remember it. Let me see. It was Helen something. Middleton? No – that wasn’t it, but it’s close.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I have it – Millington. Her name was Helen Millington. She was looking in the window of the shop when I came running out, so she had a clear view of me. Lots of other people did as well,’ he went on, ‘but we managed to frighten the majority of them off with a warning of retribution. Miss Millington was stupid enough to ignore the warning.’

‘What happened?’

‘When I escaped from prison, I paid her a visit.’

‘So you didn’t have to appear in court.’

‘No, Irene – I was free.’

‘Then this woman wouldn’t have been able to give evidence against you, would she? Why didn’t you just ignore her?’

‘I wanted to send a message to the other people who’d seen me shoot the jeweller. The letters they’d received from a friend of mine were not made up of empty threats. I honoured my promise to kill anyone who spoke against me. Helen Millington had to die.’

‘But her death was unnecessary.’

His eyes blazed. ‘Not to me.’

Irene was upset. During his time with her, Oxley had avoided any gratuitous violence. He only struck out when – as in the train – it was vital to do so. His ideal crime was one in which nobody got hurt. He’d threatened people with a gun on occasion but she’d never seen him fire it. The thought that he’d hunted down a woman who was no longer a danger to him was unnerving. It revealed an innate brutality that Irene had never discerned before.

‘How did you kill her?’ she asked.

‘Does it matter?’

‘I’d like to know, that’s all.’

‘I strangled her with my bare hands,’ he said, calmly. ‘I choked the life out of Helen Millington. It was no more than she deserved. Her family had begged her not to give evidence against me but she was persuaded by Robert Colbeck that it was her duty to do so. If you ask me, he was rather more than just a barrister involved in the case. I fancy that he and Miss Millington became close friends. In killing her, therefore, I gained myself a bitter enemy. Colbeck is the type of man who never forgets.’

Irene had never felt afraid of him before but she did now. His attitude to his victim was callous and uncaring. Being a member of the fairer sex had not saved Helen Millington. When his temper was roused, it seemed, Oxley would murder indiscriminately. There was blood on Irene’s hands as well, but she took no pride in the fact. Deep down, she was still mortified by what she’d done, wishing there had been an easier way to liberate Oxley. She had been compelled to kill someone, whereas he had done it for the pleasure of revenge.

‘I thought you were going to see your father,’ he said. ‘That’s why we came to Manchester, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Jerry – I’ll go now.’

‘Would you like me to come with you?’

‘No,’ she replied, feeling that she’d like some time apart from him for a while. ‘I can manage on my own.’

For once in his life, Leeming managed to deliver a report to Tallis without repeating himself or stumbling over his words. He was as nervous as ever in front of the superintendent but he’d taken Colbeck’s advice and made notes of what he was going to say. Tallis was pleased with the lucidity of his account but disappointed in their apparent lack of progress.

‘You seem to have made little headway in the case,’ he said.

‘We are still gathering evidence, sir.’

‘What are your orders?’

‘I’m to remain here until Inspector Colbeck returns. He’s making enquiries in Manchester today. One thing is clear already,’ he pointed out. ‘This is going to be a complicated investigation. The case is not going to be solved in five minutes.’

‘I realise that, man,’ said Tallis. ‘There’ll be travelling involved and you and Colbeck will be at full stretch. I’ve decided that you need some assistance.’

Leeming blenched. ‘You’re not to take charge of the case yourself, are you, sir?’

‘I wish that I could, Sergeant, but I’m fettered to this desk. Someone has to stay in control here. London, as you well know, is the capital city of crime. My job is to police it effectively.’

‘You do it so well, Superintendent.’

It was not exactly true but Leeming felt obliged to say it. He was relieved that Tallis would not take an active role in the investigation. Neither he nor Colbeck could work properly with their superior breathing down their necks. They’d had experience of his interference during a case that took them to a village in Yorkshire. Because an old army friend of Tallis had been involved, he had insisted on making a personal intervention. It had been unfruitful. Only when the detectives had got rid of him were they able to move forward. When the villain was finally unmasked, Tallis was – helpfully – a long way away.

Steepling his fingers, the superintendent sat back in his chair.

‘I propose to assign Detective Constable Peebles to you.’

‘I’ve never heard of the fellow,’ said Leeming.

‘That’s because he’s new to the department.’

‘I see, sir.’

‘He joined the police force when he left the army,’ explained Tallis. ‘The one is an excellent preparation for the other. Nobody appreciates that more than I do. Ian Peebles comes to us highly recommended. It’s up to you and the inspector to make full use of his proven talents.’

‘We’ll endeavour to do so, Superintendent.’

‘I expect no less.’ There was a tap on the door. ‘Ah, that will be Peebles now.’ His voice became a rasp. ‘Come in!’

The door opened and the newcomer stepped into the office. Leeming goggled at him. Ian Peebles was not at all what he had expected. The detective was tall, skinny and straight-backed. Though he was now in his twenties, he looked as if he was still in his teens. Peebles was youthful, fresh-faced and buck-toothed. Leeming simply could not imagine him in some of the perilous situations in which they were likely to find themselves.

For his part, Peebles gazed at the sergeant with a respect that bordered on veneration. It was the uncritical look of a son for a father. His buck-toothed grin broadened.

Tallis waved a hand. ‘Allow me to introduce Constable Peebles.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ said Leeming, struggling to smile.

‘It will be a privilege to work with you, Sergeant,’ said Peebles with a light Scots accent. ‘You and Inspector Colbeck have been my exemplars for much more than a wee while.’

Leeming’s heart sank. At a time when they needed expert help, they were being saddled with an immature and wholly inexperienced detective. Blinded by hero worship, Peebles was far more likely to hinder the investigation than provide any useful assistance. They would have to teach him his trade as they went along and that would be fatal. It was like trying to build a locomotive while it was actually speeding along the track. Because of Peebles’ army background, Tallis might favour him, but Leeming could see no advantage coming from his addition to the team. Catching someone as elusive as Jeremy Oxley was a huge challenge for even the best detectives. Leeming now felt that he and Colbeck would be doing it with their hands tied behind their backs. The only beneficiary of the arrival of the new detective was the man they were actually pursuing.

Peebles was a walking guarantee of Oxley’s continued freedom.

CHAPTER FIVE

Manchester was a vast, sprawling, densely populated city forever shrouded in an industrial haze. Its factory chimneys belched out smoke and its mills poured effluent into rivers and canals. The stink of manufacture was everywhere. Colbeck had visited the city before and knew that its criminal underworld was every bit as vibrant and dangerous as that in London. One advantage that Manchester had over Wolverhampton was that it could offer a cordial welcome to a senior detective from Scotland Yard.

‘Robert!’ exclaimed Zachary Boone, pumping his hand. ‘How good it is to see you again! What brings you to this den of iniquity?’

‘What else but the pleasure of seeing you again?’

Boone laughed. ‘You always did have a smooth tongue.’

‘It comes in useful when dealing with superior officers who try to blame me for everything.’

‘I’ve got people like that on my back as well.’

‘Soothe them with words. Talk them into a better mood.’

‘You might be able to do that but I can’t and I’m not mad enough to try. I’m a rough-and-ready man. It’s the only way to survive in this police force.’

Colbeck was pleased to see Inspector Zachary Boone again. They had first met when Boone had been an enterprising young sergeant in pursuit of a man who’d murdered his wife and children in a drunken rage. The killer had fled to London and – with Colbeck’s help – Boone had caught and arrested him. He’d been a detective then but, at his own request, Boone had gone back into uniform and risen to the rank of inspector. He was a stout man in his forties with a florid face half-hidden beneath a greying beard. There was a merry twinkle in his eye that even a close acquaintance with the dregs of Manchester society had failed to remove.

They were in Boone’s office, a small, stuffy, cluttered room that made Colbeck grateful for the amount of space he enjoyed at Scotland Yard. While the Railway Detective’s office was scrupulously tidy, his friend’s was in a state of mild chaos, the desk and shelves piled high with multifarious papers and documents. Boone indicated a seat.

‘Take a pew, Robert,’ he invited, sitting down, ‘and before you ask, yes, I do know where everything is. It may look disorganised in here but I know exactly where to put my hand on what I want.’

‘I’d expect no less of you, Zachary,’ said Colbeck, settling into a creaky chair. ‘But it’s not your paperwork I’ve come to inspect. I need some help from that famous brain of yours.’

Boone guffawed. ‘I didn’t know I had one.’

‘You’ve got an encyclopaedic memory for criminals on your patch. I noticed it the first time we had a discussion together. You had instant recall of all the people you’d arrested.’

‘Not to mention the ones I failed to arrest – I remember those as well. They slipped through my fingers. It’s very easy to do in a city like Manchester. Villains commit a crime then vanish into the rookeries. It’s like trying to catch a single fish in a shoal of thousands. There’s simply no way that we can search all the lodging houses here, and the sight of a police uniform in some districts is like a red rag to a bull, especially among the Irish.’

‘I thought that several of your constables were Irish.’

‘They are, Robert, but they tend to be Protestants and that only inflames the Roman Catholic communities. Religion causes us so many problems here. Talking of which,’ he continued with barely concealed derision, ‘do you know what the city’s Watch Committee decided last year? In its supposed wisdom, it brought in a rule that all constables should attend church or chapel regularly.’

‘How can they do that when they work most Sundays?’

‘That was my argument. Police are police, not saints-in-waiting. Some of my best men have never seen the inside of a church. It doesn’t make them less effective at their job. Anyway,’ said Boone, raising an apologetic palm, ‘you didn’t come here to listen to my complaints. It was the escape of Jeremy Oxley that brought you, wasn’t it?’

Colbeck was surprised. ‘You know about that?’

‘We do get the London papers here. Besides, the story was picked up in the Manchester Guardian. I read that less often because it’s always attacking us for one thing or another. Read The Guardian and you’d think that Manchester was awash with prostitutes, thugs and thieves. It’s a city without any law enforcement, apparently.’ He became serious. ‘I always take a close interest in any case where policemen are killed, Robert. I saw that you’d been put in charge of the investigation. Have you picked up Oxley’s scent yet?’

‘Actually, it’s his accomplice who interests me at the moment.’

Colbeck explained that the woman might well have links to Manchester and he told his friend about his earlier encounter with Jeremy Oxley and how there was unfinished business between them. After listening to him with care, Boone went through a number of names in his head. He needed clarification.

‘You say that this young woman is beautiful.’

‘At the very least, she’s appealing,’ said Colbeck. ‘Oxley has high standards where his female accomplices are concerned. And he has sufficient money to be able to maintain those standards.’

‘Then I think we’re looking at one of three possible suspects,’ said Boone, scratching his beard. ‘Annie Pardoe is the first who comes to mind. Any man would find her appealing on sight, though less so when she gives him a mouthful of abuse. Annie was brought in here once. She might look like a lady but she had the foul tongue of a fishwife. Then again, it could be Nell Underwood. She comes from a good family but it didn’t stop her from getting drawn into the wrong company. Even a spell in prison hasn’t had any effect on her. We’re still looking for Nell in connection with the theft of some items from a haberdasher’s shop. She’s very light-fingered.’

‘Do either of these women have a local accent?’

‘Nell does but Annie Pardoe tries to hide hers. She’s fond of putting on airs and graces – until she’s behind bars, that is. Then she snarls like a caged tiger.’

‘You said that there were three possible suspects.’

‘Yes, Robert, but the third one has never been in custody so we’ve never actually seen her. Her name is Irene Adnam. All that we have to go on are the descriptions of her victims. She’s not a high-class prostitute like Annie or a common criminal like Nell. This lady has some style about her. She wins people’s confidence, robs them blind then vanishes for long periods. Reports of her crimes in the city are six months or more apart. But she’s a Manchester girl,’ said Boone, ‘and I’m told she has more than a trace of a local accent.’

‘That sounds promising.’

‘I can put you in touch with one of her victims, if you like,’ offered Boone, delving into a pile of papers. ‘He can give you as exact a description of her as you’re likely to get.’ Pulling out a sheet of paper, he gave a smile of satisfaction. ‘What did I tell you? I found it first time.’ He handed it over. ‘Make a note of that name and address.’

‘Thank you, Zachary.’

‘And if you do find her, hand her over to us. I’m very anxious to make the acquaintance of Irene Adnam. She’s a cut above the women I normally see in here.’ His voice darkened. ‘She’s a menace. I want her off the streets of Manchester, Robert.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Do you need details of the whereabouts of Annie Pardoe and Nell Underwood?’

‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ said Colbeck. ‘Something tells me that Irene Adnam is the woman I’m after. I can feel it in my bones.’

Boone grinned. ‘Is that sciatica or policeman’s instinct?’

‘A little of both, I fancy,’ said Colbeck with a grin.

Irene had changed before she visited her father. Going to Deansgate in the smart clothing she usually wore would make her incongruous. It was the poorest part of the city, an ugly, squalid, malodorous place that was the haunt of criminals and the refuge of beggars. That her father had been reduced to living there was a source of regret and embarrassment to Irene. When she was born, her parents had owned a house in a more salubrious part of Manchester. Those days seemed a lifetime away. She now had to venture into more perilous territory. In sober apparel, and in a hat that covered much of her face, she could easily pass for a servant. That was her disguise.

Though she met with unpleasantness at every turn, Irene had no qualms for her own safety. She had learnt to look after herself and built up a protective shield. She therefore ignored the army of beggars, pushed aside the ragged children who tried to harass her and repelled any lustful men who lurched at her out of the shadows. The streets were narrow, filthy and teeming with low life. The rookeries resounded to the din of violent argument. When she got to the tenement she sought, Irene knocked hard on the door with her knuckles. It was an age before anyone answered and she had to rap on the timber another three times before her father finally appeared. He was short, scrawny and whiskered. Half-asleep and with a surly wariness, he peered at her through one eye.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

‘It’s me, Father,’ she said. ‘It’s Irene.’

‘You don’t look like my daughter.’

‘I told you that I’d come back when I could.’

As he came fully awake, he stared at her with a mixture of shame and gratitude, hurt that she should see him living in such degradation yet anticipating some financial help from her. Silas Adnam stepped back so that she could go into the ground-floor room that was his home. It was cramped, gloomy and sparsely furnished, with an abiding stench of beer that assaulted Irene’s nostrils. Closing the door, her father limped in after her. His clothes were tattered and his wispy hair unkempt. He stood back to appraise her properly.

‘Thank God!’ he said with a toothless smile. ‘It is you.’

‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t come earlier.’

‘It’s been months and months, Irene.’

‘I’ve been very busy, Father.’

‘Are you still with the same family?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I work as governess elsewhere now.’

His eyes kindled. ‘Is it well paid?’

‘I’ve saved up enough to help you.’

When she handed over the money, he let out a cry of thanks then embraced her warmly. She could smell the beer on his breath.

‘Buy some better clothes,’ she advised.

He shook his head. ‘They won’t belong here.’

It was painful to see the depths to which he’d sunk. Silas Adnam had once worked as an assistant manager in a cotton mill. He’d had status, respect and a decent income. But the untimely death of his wife had driven Adnam close to despair. He’d become distracted and unreliable. Sacked from his job and unable to find another of equivalent merit, he’d been forced to sell the house. He’d then drifted from one badly paid job to another until an injury to his foot had left him with a permanent limp. Having turned to drink for consolation, he found a number of new friends ready to help him spend his way through his meagre savings. When they disappeared, the so-called friends did so as well. As a last resort, Adnam drifted into Deansgate and made a few pennies each day as a street musician. All that he now had in life was a rented room and an outside privy that he shared with over two dozen other tenants.

Irene was shocked to see how much he’d deteriorated.

‘How have you been keeping?’ she asked.

‘I’m not well, Irene. My chest is worse than ever.’

‘What about your foot?’

‘I can’t stand on it for long,’ he said, collapsing onto a stool by way of demonstration. ‘When I play my pipe in the streets, I have to beg a chair from someone.’ He looked up pleadingly. ‘I live in the hope that you’ll take me away from here one day.’

‘That’s not possible at the moment.’

‘Don’t you want to be with your old father?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she lied, ‘but I have a position with a family in London. I can’t leave that. They’re kind to me.’

‘Couldn’t they find something for me to do?’ he asked. ‘I’m not proud. It doesn’t matter how menial it is.’ He sat up and put out his chest. ‘I used to have an important job in a mill, you know. People looked up to me. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?’

‘It should,’ she agreed.

‘I was born for better things.’

Irene felt desperately sorry for him but her sympathies were tempered by some harsher childhood memories. While her father had worked at the mill, he’d neglected his wife badly and treated her with something akin to contempt. It was only when she died of smallpox that he discovered he’d loved her all along. Without her to support him at home and to look after Irene, he was helpless. His anguish was genuine but, in his daughter’s mind, it didn’t wash away the years of misery to which he’d subjected his wife. In one sense, she was horrified at the way his life had decayed around him. In another, Irene felt that it was a due reward. She would help him with money from time to time but she would never try to rescue him. Her life was elsewhere now. There was no room in it for an inebriated father.

‘How long can you stay?’ he wondered.

‘Not for long,’ she replied. ‘I have to catch a train to London.’

He was nostalgic. ‘I haven’t been on a train for years. I used to travel to work by rail every morning in the old days. Do you remember that, Irene?’

‘Yes, Father.’

She also remembered the number of times she and her mother had sat up late, waiting for him to come home. Disregarding his wife, Adnam at least had enough interest in his daughter to pay for her education. It was the one thing she had to thank him for, though he would be scandalised if he realised to what use she’d later put that education. Irene looked around. The place was dirtier and more disordered than ever. Empty flagons of beer stood near the bed. The heel of a loaf was the only food in sight. She was glad that she had not brought Oxley with her and let him view the pitiful condition into which her father had fallen.

Adnam made a pathetic gesture towards hospitality.

‘Can I get you something to drink, Irene?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘What time is your train?’

‘It’s just after two o’clock.’

‘I can walk to the station with you.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ she said, sharply.

‘But I can look after you. Deansgate is a jungle. You need a father to protect you.’

Irene was about to reply that the time she needed protection was when she was much younger and when he had gone into decline. But she saw no point in dredging up the horrors of the past. Her father was a sick man. He might not survive another bad winter. She would not have long to wait. Once he’d died, she would be free to pursue her new life without any vestigial family ties. Meanwhile, she still had sufficient family loyalty to keep an occasional eye on her father. Her gift had been generous but it would not last long. It would soon be wasted on drink and a few sordid nights with some of the whores who infested the area. Irene was disgusted at the thought, yet it did not stop her giving him the money in the first place. She’d salved her conscience and that was why she came.

‘Why don’t you write to me anymore?’ he asked.

‘I never have the time, Father.’

‘Well, I have plenty of time. Let me have your address and I can write to you instead.’

‘I’m not allowed to have letters.’

He was indignant. ‘Not even from your father? What sort of hard-hearted employers do you work for, Irene? They’ve no right to stop you having letters.’

‘I have to go,’ she said, planting a token kiss on his cheek. ‘I don’t want to miss my train.’

‘But you’ve only been here a few minutes,’ he complained.

‘I’ll stay longer next time.’

And before he could stop her, she let herself out and hurried off down the street. Crime had helped her to escape from Manchester and to give her a surface respectability. Yet a visit to her father plunged her back into the city’s most notorious area of vice, lawlessness and grinding poverty. Irene did not belong there. She was destined for a better life with the man she loved. While she was still disturbed by the thought of shooting someone, she was quick to see its benefit. It had earned her Oxley’s respect and love. In pulling the trigger, she had passed a kind of test. They were kindred spirits now.

The quality that most irritated Leeming about their new recruit was his willingness. Ian Peebles was like a dog, eager to do anything that might please his owner. Had the sergeant thrown a stick, he was sure that the Scotsman would fetch it for him.

‘What can I do, Sergeant Leeming?’ asked Peebles.

‘For the moment, you can just watch and wait.’

‘The superintendent explained the background to the case and I read the reports in this morning’s newspapers. According to one of them, Jeremy Oxley is a will-o’-the-wisp.’

‘Don’t believe everything you read in the press, Constable. They are often unjustly critical of us. Above all else, don’t talk to any journalists. They’ll twist your words to their own advantage.’

‘Och, man, I found that out when I was in uniform.’

‘Where were you based?’

‘In K Division at first,’ said Peebles. ‘That’s in Barking. It’s a very rough district. I was later moved to A Division.’

Leeming was impressed. ‘That’s Hyde Park Police Station,’ he noted. ‘We’d all like to have worked there. It was a kind of promotion for you. What did you do to earn it?’

‘I made one or two significant arrests,’ said Peebles, modestly. ‘I enjoyed my time in A Division, then I was recommended for the Detective Department.’

‘You were lucky,’ said Leeming. ‘My days in uniform were spent in the worst parts of London, the kinds of places where police are very unpopular.’

Peebles stood to attention. ‘I didn’t join the police in search of popularity,’ he declared as if taking an oath. ‘All that matters to me is that we sweep the streets clean of villainy. London is the greatest city in the world. It deserves to be purged of crime.’

‘You’ve been listening to Superintendent Tallis.’

‘I think he’s an inspiration – don’t you?’

‘In some ways,’ said Leeming, hiding his true feelings.

‘But then the same could be said of you and Inspector Colbeck.’

‘We do our job to the best of our ability, no more, no less.’

‘The superintendent told me that you’re his best men.’

‘Really?’

It was a surprise to Leeming, who got a continuous string of complaints from Tallis, often couched in unflattering language. It was the same for Colbeck. There was an underlying tension between the superintendent and him that prevented Tallis from giving anything but the most reluctant praise to the Railway Detective. Yet behind their backs, it transpired, the superintendent was lauding them. Leeming was annoyed that he was prepared to confide in a detective who was effectively on probation while saying nothing to the two people about whom he was talking. In Leeming’s view, Tallis was a different breed of dog. If Peebles was a tail-wagging retriever, the superintendent was a terrier barking incessantly at their heels.

They were in Colbeck’s office and Peebles was diverted by some of the posters on the walls. They listed wanted criminals and the rewards that were on offer. He peered intently at them.

‘That’s one of the things I admire most about you and the inspector,’ he said, turning to face Leeming. ‘You never rely on informers or people in search of a reward. You solve your cases by hard work and deduction.’

‘It may be true up to a point,’ conceded Leeming. ‘I provide the hard work and the inspector supplies the deduction. But we take help from anyone we can. Inspector Colbeck is a great believer in picking up something useful wherever he can find it. He has a word for it.’

‘Serendipity.’

‘Yes, that’s right – serendipity.’

‘I think there’s far more to it than that,’ argued Peebles. ‘I’ve kept a scrapbook of your cases, you see. I cut out newspaper reports of them and paste them in. It’s taught me a lot about your methods.’

Leeming was uneasy. ‘Has it?’

‘Look at that train robbery, for instance. You were so thorough. You dealt with the railway company, the post office, the Royal Mint, a bank in Birmingham, a lock manufacturer in the Black Country and you infiltrated the Great Exhibition to make your first arrests.’ He grinned with frank adoration. ‘It was brilliant detective work.’

‘One thing led to another,’ explained Leeming.

‘You got through an immense amount of work between you.’

‘That’s certainly true.’

‘Then there was the severed head found on Crewe station.’

‘You don’t need to remind me of that.’

‘How on earth did Inspector Colbeck know that there was a connection with the forthcoming Derby? He even sailed off to Ireland at one point.’

‘He was acting on a sixth sense. It’s what he always does.’

‘Well, I don’t have that gift.’

‘Neither do I, Constable.’

‘The case that really intrigued me was the one that took you and the inspector to France. It all began when someone was killed on a train then hurled off the Sankey Viaduct. In fact—’

‘Let me stop you there,’ said Leeming, interrupting with both hands raised. ‘This may surprise you but we never look back at old investigations. We always have our hands full with new ones.’

Peebles was astonished. ‘You don’t keep a scrapbook?’

‘It would never cross my mind.’

‘But you should have a record of your triumphs.’

‘I’m not that vain, Constable.’

‘I keep a list of every suspect I’ve questioned and every arrest I’ve made,’ said Peebles. ‘Not that I’ve handled the sort of complex cases that you and the inspector do, of course. I’m still a raw beginner.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘I can’t wait to join the hunt for Oxley and his accomplice. When we catch them,’ he went on, face shining and buck teeth aglow, ‘we’ll have wonderful press cuttings. If you don’t wish to record your successes, I’ll happily do so.’

Leeming groaned inwardly. While they were involved in a difficult case, the last thing they needed was a self-appointed recording angel like Ian Peebles. Their every move would be enshrined in his scrapbook. It would make them far too self-conscious to do their job properly. Leeming was so alarmed at the prospect that he made a silent wish.

‘Come back soon, Inspector Colbeck – I need you.’

Colbeck had never been in a cotton mill before and he found the noise deafening. Ambrose Holte, the mill owner, occupied a large, almost palatial office that was insulated against the pandemonium. When Colbeck explained why he was there, Holte was more than ready to help. He was a beefy man of middle years with a pallid face and white hair that had retreated to the rear of his head like so much foam left on a beach by the receding tide. He had a strong Lancashire accent and a habit of keeping one thumb in his waistcoat pocket as he spoke.

‘Yes, I remember Irene Adnam very well,’ he said with rancour. ‘She robbed us of items worth hundreds of pounds.’

‘Female burglars are rare, thankfully.’

‘She didn’t break into the house, Inspector. She was already there, working as a governess to my youngest daughter.’

‘When did you begin to suspect her?’ asked Colbeck.

‘We never did,’ said Holte, ‘that was the trouble. She wormed her way into our affections until we trusted her completely. Alicia, whom she taught, doted on her.’

‘Did she come to you with good references?’

‘They were excellent, Inspector. It was only after she’d left that we learnt that they were forgeries. When the police tried to find the various addresses, they discovered that none of them existed.’

‘How would you describe Miss Adnam?’

Holte snorted. ‘I think she’s the most loathsome, duplicitous, black-hearted creature on God’s earth.’

‘You’re saying that with the advantage of hindsight,’ Colbeck reminded him. ‘Try to remember how she struck you when she first came for interview. What made you choose Irene Adnam?’

‘It was sheer folly!’

‘You didn’t think so at the time.’

‘No, Inspector,’ admitted Holte, jowls wobbling. ‘That’s correct. She seemed ideal for the position. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was beguiled by the cunning little vixen.’

Holte gave a clear and detailed description of Irene Adnam and she began to take on more definition in Colbeck’s mind. Her work as a governess had been above reproach and she had stayed long enough in Holte’s employ to become an auxiliary member of his family, taking her meals with them and joining them at church on Sundays. It was because he had placed such trust in her that Holte was so embittered when she turned out to be a thief.

‘What exactly did she steal?’ asked Colbeck.

‘She emptied my wallet and took some of my wife’s jewellery. But the bulk of the haul consisted of small items of silver. They’d be fairly light to carry and easy to sell to a pawnbroker.’

‘Oh, I think that Miss Adnam might have higher ambitions than relying on a pawnbroker. If she’s the seasoned criminal she appears,’ said Colbeck, ‘she’d probably deal with a fence who’d offer better terms. I don’t think she’d steal anything unless she knew exactly where she could get a good price for it.’

‘You could be right, Inspector. When I gave them a list of stolen items, the police visited nearly all the pawnbrokers in the city. They drew a blank. None of our property was recovered.’

‘Evidently she knew exactly what to take and when to take it.’

‘We were all fast asleep at the time.’

‘How did she know where everything was kept – your wife’s jewellery, for instance? Surely that was in a safe?’ Holte lowered his head, plainly discomfited. ‘I can’t believe that items of such value were not locked away.’

‘They were locked away, Inspector.’

‘Then how did she get her hands on them?’

‘Someone told her the combination.’

Colbeck was surprised. ‘She had an accomplice on the staff?’

‘He was a member of the family,’ said Holte, running his tongue over dry lips. ‘Not that he realised what he was doing at the time. I’m talking about my eldest son, Lawrence. He became enamoured of Miss Adnam. I warned him against it, of course, and urged him to pay for his pleasures like a gentleman. That way they don’t infect the family home.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘But Lawrence wouldn’t listen, I fear. He fell completely under her spell. When she asked if she could leave a few valuables of her own in our safe, he duly obliged by opening it.’

‘And she memorised the combination while he was doing it,’ guessed Colbeck. ‘She’s a calculating young lady, no doubt about that. I can see why you’re so anxious to see her caught.’

‘You can imagine the embarrassment this has caused me,’ said Holte, running a hand over his forehead. ‘It’s been a heavy cross to bear. The woman is a monster. She betrayed me, stole irreplaceable items of my wife’s jewellery, broke Alicia’s heart in two and relieved Lawrence – idiot that he was – of his virginity. I’d not only pay to see her executed, Inspector,’ he growled, ‘I’d even volunteer to act as the hangman.’

CHAPTER SIX

Caleb Andrews had lost count of the number of times he’d brought a train safely into New Street station in Birmingham. As one set of passengers departed and another set converged on the carriages, he had time to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

‘I won’t be doing this for much longer,’ he announced.

‘You keep saying that, Caleb,’ said his fireman, ‘but I don’t believe you. The only way you’ll quit the railway is in a coffin.’

‘That’s what you think, Dirk.’

‘It’s what we all think.’

‘Then perhaps you should have a word with Mr Pomeroy.’

Dirk Sowerby shrugged. ‘Why?’

‘I handed in my resignation earlier on today. Mr Pomeroy accepted it with regret. The decision is made. I’m going to retire and put my feet up at last.’

The fireman was amazed. No driver in the LNWR had the same enthusiasm for railways as Andrews. It was at once a job and a passion for him. Spending each day hurtling up and down the track helped him to defy age. He seemed indefatigable. How the company would manage without such a dedicated servant was an open question. Sowerby would miss him, both for his companionship and for his fund of knowledge about the operation of the railway system. Firemen who’d been taught their trade by Caleb Andrews were uniformly grateful for his expertise.

‘Did you talk it over with your daughter?’ asked Sowerby.

‘I told her what I was going to do, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And Maddy had no objections?’

‘None whatsoever, Dirk. She’s seen the early shifts and the long hours taking their toll on me.’

‘When is she getting married?’

‘Sooner rather than later,’ said Andrews with a smile. ‘It’s part of the reason I decided to retire. If I’m at home all day, it will annoy her like mad and make her set a date for the wedding at last. I’ve been waiting an eternity for that to happen.’

‘I thought that they only got engaged last year.’

‘They did – but it seems much longer to me. I don’t want Maddy hanging around for ever when I retire. Not when Inspector Colbeck has a much larger house than ours. She should move in with him.’

Sowerby frowned. ‘Don’t you mind her marrying a detective?’

‘She can marry anyone she likes as long as she does it fairly soon.’ He cackled. ‘No, that’s not true,’ he said, seriously. ‘She’s found herself a good man and I couldn’t be happier with her choice.’

‘But he’s a policeman, Caleb.’

‘I don’t hold that against him.’

‘Have you forgotten what happened when we steamed into this station yesterday? Two policemen were left behind us on the track. They’d been murdered,’ said Sowerby, his frown deepening. ‘That tells you what a dangerous job it is.’

‘The inspector can take care of himself, Dirk.’

‘But he’s chasing the man who escaped from the policemen.’

‘I know and I mean to help him catch the fellow.’

‘This man who escaped – I think his name is Oxley – has no respect for the law or the people who try to uphold it. And there are far too many people just like him. I’d hate a daughter of mine to marry a policeman.’

‘You don’t have a daughter, you imbecile.’

‘I know,’ agreed Sowerby, ‘but if I did, I’d be afraid that she’d be a widow before too long. I hope that doesn’t happen to Maddy.’

‘There’s little chance of that.’

‘The inspector spends all his time chasing desperate criminals. It only takes one of them to fire a gun or pull a knife on him and you’ll be attending the funeral of your son-in-law.’

‘That’s arrant nonsense!’

Andrews’s vehement denial masked his deep anxiety. His fireman was only airing concerns that the driver had raised with Madeleine on a number of occasions. Loving his daughter and wanting her future happiness, he was troubled by the nagging fear that Colbeck might one day lose his life in pursuit of a suspect. Madeleine had dismissed the suggestion but it remained a source of deep unease to her father. It was why he kept urging her to set a date for their wedding. If Colbeck’s career in Scotland Yard was indeed to be foreshortened by disaster, Andrews wanted his daughter to have as full a taste of married bliss as possible. After years of waiting, she deserved that.

It was late evening when she heard the footsteps on the pavement outside. They did not belong to her father and, in any case, Madeleine did not expect him back until he’d repaired to the pub he routinely frequented at the end of the day. Thinking that the pedestrian would walk past the house, she was surprised when there was a knock on the door. It made her rise from the chair and cross to the window. The moment she looked out, she emitted a cry of joy and ran to open the door. Colbeck was waiting to enfold her in his arms and kiss her.

‘What a lovely surprise!’ she exclaimed. ‘The only time I know that it’s you is when I hear a cab drawing up outside the house.’

‘I made the driver stop at the end of the street this time,’ he said, ‘so that I could catch you unawares.’ He looked over her shoulder into the house. ‘Am I to be allowed in, Madeleine?’

‘Of course – nobody is more welcome.’

Ushering him into the house, she closed the door behind them before surrendering to another embrace. Only when they parted did he take off his hat and set it aside. He glanced at her easel.

‘Is there anything for me to see?’ he asked.

‘Not until it’s finished, Robert.’

He pointed a finger. ‘Can’t I just take a peek?’

‘No,’ she said, administering a playful pat on his hand. ‘You must behave yourself. An artist must not be hurried into displaying her work until she feels that it’s ready.’

He smiled. ‘I’m glad to see that you consider yourself to be an artist now. When I first urged you to be more ambitious, you claimed that you were nothing more than a painter with moderate talent.’

‘My attitude changed when I first sold something.’

‘I knew that it would,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘But I can’t tarry, I’m afraid. This is only a flying visit on my way to Scotland Yard. I have to report to the superintendent.’

She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Will Mr Tallis be working this late?’

‘He’s at his desk until midnight sometimes, Madeleine. Nobody can accuse him of being lazy. He’ll sit there until I turn up and tell him what happened in Manchester.’

‘Is that where you went looking for Jeremy Oxley?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You know about the case, do you?’

‘I know more than you think,’ she replied. ‘By coincidence, my father was driving the train when the prisoner escaped. Be warned, Robert. He thinks that entitles him to join in the investigation.’

‘He always did fancy that he had the makings of a detective.’

She was firm. ‘One detective is enough in any family.’

Colbeck gave her an abbreviated account of his visits to Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Manchester. He did not simply do so out of courtesy. To begin with, he knew that he could trust her to keep all the information to herself. But there was another reason why he liked to keep her abreast of his movements. Madeleine had been able to offer practical help in some of his past investigations. Had he known about the involvement of a woman, Tallis would have been apoplectic. The superintendent felt that policing was essentially a male preserve. He’d be astounded if he knew how much Colbeck had relied on Madeleine to collect evidence on his behalf.

‘Now that you’ve told me your news,’ she said, ‘I can pass on mine. Brace yourself for a shock, Robert.’

‘Is it that serious?’

‘It is to me – Father is going to retire.’

He was startled. ‘Does he really mean it this time?’

‘He was going to hand in his resignation this morning.’

‘Well, that is an unexpected disclosure,’ said Colbeck, ‘but it’s a pleasing one. After all those years of sterling service, he’s earned the right to retirement. A lesser man would have given up when he took that beating from the train robbers but your father fought his way back to full health and was soon back on the footplate.’

‘It will bring about some changes,’ she cautioned.

‘Yes, you won’t have to get up early every morning to make his breakfast and to send him off.’

‘That’s a benefit but there’ll be hazards as well.’ Her gesture took in the whole room. ‘The main one is that I’ll lose my studio. I work best when I’m alone and I’m going to have Father here.’

‘There’s a simple answer to that, Madeleine.’

‘Is there?’

‘Yes – you can use a room in my house as a studio. After all, it’s only a matter of time before you move in there permanently.’

‘That’s what I was coming to,’ she said, tentatively. ‘Father has been badgering me to set a date for the wedding. I know that you don’t wish to be rushed and I understand why, but it would be helpful if I had at least some idea of when it would be.’

Colbeck took her impulsively in his arms. ‘If it were left to me,’ he said, softly, ‘I’d marry you tomorrow. But the demands of my job won’t permit that, alas. Since the time we became engaged, I’ve had one case after another to deal with. I work from dawn to dusk seven days a week, Madeleine.’

‘I accept that,’ she said, pushing back a strand of hair from his forehead. ‘As soon as one investigation finishes, another one starts. I can see that this latest case will eat up all your time. That’s in the nature of police work. It’s just that I would like to have a date to give Father so that he’ll stop hounding me.’ She smiled hopefully. ‘Is that an unfair request?’

‘No, Madeleine,’ he answered. ‘It’s an extremely fair one. You are right about this investigation. It will need my full commitment and take precedence over everything else. I have personal reasons for wanting to catch Jeremy Oxley. It’s something of an obsession, so I must ask you to bear with me. When it’s all over,’ he told her, ‘I promise you that we’ll sit down together and finally set a date for our wedding. Will that please your father?’

She laughed happily. ‘It will please me a lot more, Robert.’

Oxley was the best lover she’d ever had. He knew how to take his time and to ensure that Irene enjoyed full satisfaction. He was the first man to whom she gave herself completely. With the others, she’d always held something back. Irene had been in her early teens when she learnt how to use her charms on a man. She would secure his interest, tighten her hold, then tease, torment and ensnare him until he’d do whatever she wanted. All of her early victims had been young men lured by a promise of surrender that was often never fulfilled. When they made the mistake of putting absolute trust in her, she chose the moment to strike then disappeared with their money or other valuables. Many were too embarrassed by their own gullibility to report the crime to the police. Those – like Lawrence Holte – who did want her arrested discovered that she was remarkably elusive.

As she lay naked in bed with Oxley that evening, she did not have to think about stealing from him or decide when to take to her heels. They were partners and their spoils were shared equally. It was inconceivable that she would ever run away from him.

‘Are you happy?’ he asked, lazily stroking her breast.

‘I’m happier than I’ve ever been, Jerry.’

‘Is that because of me?’

‘What other cause could there be?’

‘I wondered if it was to do with what happened during the rescue. When I’d killed for the first time, I felt this glow inside me for days. Even when I’d been arrested, I had this extraordinary sense of pleasure.’ He tapped his chest. ‘I’d taken another man’s life.’

‘That thought gives me no pleasure at all.’

‘It’s like a coming of age.’

‘I see it differently,’ she said, uneasily.

It was still there at the back of her mind. Irene might no longer shiver when she recalled the moment she fired the gun, nor did she flinch when she thought about the two bodies being butchered by a speeding train. Yet it would not go away. Every so often the grotesque memories would pop up uncontrollably in her brain and cause her intense regret. Only in Oxley’s arms was she safe from any twinges of guilt. Alone with him, nothing else mattered.

‘You could have been an actress,’ he observed.

‘I don’t have the training for it, Jerry.’

‘Training isn’t necessary when you have such natural ability. You know how to play a part, Irene. Your performance fooled all three of those policemen.’

‘There were only two on the train.’

‘I was thinking about the one who told you what time we’d be leaving Wolverhampton – Constable Marner.’

She giggled. ‘I put a pillow inside my dress and told him that I was carrying a child. He couldn’t wait to help me then.’ Her face clouded. ‘What will happen to him?’

‘Nothing at all,’ he assured her. ‘He’ll have the sense to keep his mouth shut. Otherwise he’ll be arrested for being an accessory and will end up behind bars.’

‘That’s what worries me. If he’s caught, he’ll be able to describe me. We talked for several minutes. He had a good look at me, Jerry.’

Oxley grinned. ‘Not as good as the one that I’m having,’ he said with a laugh, gazing at her smooth, shapely body. ‘Policemen will always be tempted by a bribe. It’s the same with prison warders. They’re so poorly paid that five or ten pounds looks like a fortune to them. That’s how I escaped when I was on remand. I bribed someone to look the other way.’

‘How did you smuggle the money into prison?’

‘There are always ways to conceal it when you’re searched. Mind you,’ he went on, ‘you have to choose the right person. I picked on Marner because I sensed that he was our man.’

‘Think how he must have felt when he discovered that he’d been tricked,’ she said. ‘Two of his friends went to their deaths because of him. That would have upset him terribly.’

‘It serves him right, Irene.’

He reached for the bottle of champagne on the bedside table and emptied it into the two glasses. Handing one to Irene, he picked up the other and raised it in a toast.

‘Let’s drink to a prosperous future together!’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll drink to that any time.’

‘If we take a new name, change our appearance again and keep on the move, nobody will ever catch us.’

‘What about Inspector Colbeck?’

‘Oh, I think I have his measure, Irene. He’s very clever but I can outmanoeuvre him. I was arrested in Wolverhampton and escaped on the way to Birmingham. That’s where he’ll begin his search. So we’ll hide in the last place he’d expect to find us.’

‘And where’s that, Jerry?’

‘In London, of course – where there are countless places to take refuge. Ours will just be two faces among millions. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful idea?’ he said, smirking. ‘It will simply never occur to Colbeck that the two people he’s after are staying not far away in the same city.’

Tallis was motionless as he listened to Colbeck’s report. In the light from the oil lamp on his desk, his features took on a sinister aspect. Even though it was late, he showed no hint of fatigue. His eyes were as bright and his brain as alert as ever. Colbeck was lucid and, as usual, succinct. The one thing he did not mention was his brief call on Madeleine Andrews after his arrival at Euston station. It would not only have goaded the superintendent into a rant, it would have left Colbeck open to accusations of putting his private life before his commitments as a detective. Recounting the details of his visit to Manchester, he felt sure that he had identified the name of Oxley’s accomplice. Tallis was not entirely convinced. He stroked his neat moustache meditatively.

‘I expected more of you,’ he said at length.

‘We cannot conjure instant progress out of the air, sir.’

‘There must have been dozens of clues to pick up.’

‘I’ve listed the majority of them for you,’ said Colbeck. ‘The one important discovery was that a policeman had been bribed to give information about the time of the train. Constable Marner is now enduring the wrath of his colleagues.’

‘He should be locked up in perpetuity,’ snapped Tallis. ‘If there’s one thing I abhor, it’s a corrupt policeman. But let’s turn our attention to this accomplice you claim to have uncovered.’

‘Her name is Irene Adnam, sir.’

‘How certain are you of that?’

‘I’m certain enough to divulge her name to the press.’

‘Well, I don’t share that certainty, Inspector. You know my view of journalists – they’re despicable jackals who should be kept in cages and fed on scraps. We’ve suffered so much unjust censure from them. But,’ he continued, hunching his shoulders, ‘they are a necessary evil and – if used correctly – can be extremely helpful to us.’

‘That’s why we must give them Irene Adnam’s name, sir.’

‘We need more confirmation first. What if you’re wrong about her, Inspector? You’ve made grievous errors before. If we name her in the press and she turns out to be innocent of the charge, then we are left with very red faces.’

‘With respect, Superintendent,’ argued Colbeck, ‘the one thing you cannot say of this woman is that she is innocent. She’s committed a number of offences and is being sought by the police in Manchester. Young as she may be, she already has a substantial criminal career behind her.’

‘Yet she’s never been arrested.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Nor has she been questioned by the police.’

‘Miss Adnam knows how to cover her tracks, sir.’

‘The only description you have of her comes from one of her victims. How reliable is that?’

‘I think it’s very reliable, Superintendent. She lived in his house as a governess. Mr Holte saw her every day.’

‘Then he should have kept a closer eye on her. No,’ said Tallis, getting out of his chair, ‘it’s too soon to release the woman’s name to the press. I concede that she does look like a possible suspect. At the same time, however, there’s something about her that makes her an unlikely ally for Jeremy Oxley.’

‘And what might that be, may I ask?’

‘Look at what we know of her, Inspector. By all accounts, she’s a practised thief with a gift for winning the confidence of her prospective victims. More to the point – and this, I submit, is crucial – Miss Adnam chooses to work alone. Now,’ said Tallis, walking around the desk to him, ‘why should she suddenly decide to act as someone’s accomplice, and how did she make an enormous leap from being a thief to becoming a merciless killer?’

‘That’s a pertinent question, Superintendent.’

‘Do you, by any chance, have the answer to it?’

‘Not as yet,’ confessed Colbeck, ‘but I will.’

‘And how do you propose to go about finding it?’

‘I’ve enlisted the help of Inspector Boone, sir. He’s a very able man and has wide resources to call upon. Since she was apparently born in Manchester, Irene Adnam may well have family there. I’ve suggested to the inspector that he might begin with the 1851 census. It will doubtless contain a number of people in the city by that name. We simply have to eliminate them one by one.’

‘That could take time and lead you down a blind alley.’

‘It’s a risk that we have to take, sir.’

‘Supposing that this young woman is the accomplice?’

‘Believe me, sir,’ asserted Colbeck, ‘there’s no supposition involved. Irene Adnam is the person who shot one policeman and helped to throw another to a grisly death.’

Tallis was tetchy. ‘Let me finish what I was going to say, man.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

‘Assuming that you are right about her …’

‘I am.’

‘How do you know that she and Oxley are still together?’

‘There’s not a scintilla of doubt about it, sir.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Put yourself in Oxley’s position,’ suggested Colbeck.

‘That’s a bizarre proposition,’ said Tallis, angrily. ‘You know that I’d never enter into a relationship with any woman, especially one with such a record of criminality.’

‘Humour me, please,’ requested Colbeck. ‘After a long and successful run, you are finally arrested. When you appear in court, you will not only be charged with the crime in Birmingham for which you are being held. Once the police examine your past record, they will find that it contains at least two murders – that of a London jeweller and that of Helen Millington, who witnessed you fleeing from the premises. In short, Superintendent,’ he emphasized, ‘you are taking a train to the gallows.’

‘Yes – and quite rightly so.’

‘Now then, if a daring young woman boards that train and actually rescues you from your fate, how are you going to view her?’

Tallis sniffed. ‘I suppose that I’d be very grateful to her.’

‘Would you be tempted to cast her aside?’

‘Well, when you put it like that …’

‘Oxley and she are both accomplices and lovers,’ said Colbeck, forcefully. ‘The murder of those policemen has bonded them at a deep level. They’ll never part until they’re caught. That’s why Irene Adnam must be our target. Wherever we catch up with her, she and Jeremy Oxley will be together.’

Once again, they travelled independently so that nobody would view them as a couple. While Irene had a first-class ticket, Oxley settled for a train journey in second class. When they stopped at Wolverhampton station, Irene looked through the window with grave misgivings. It was a town she would have preferred to avoid at all costs. Oxley, on the other hand, gave the place a token wave. Its police had been efficient enough to catch him but not to hold on to him. He went through the escape once more in his mind, revelling in the detail. As the train pulled out of the station, he felt a pang of regret. Every newspaper had carried a description of him but Oxley had no fear of being recognised. Adept at changing his appearance, he had complete confidence that nobody would identify him.

They met up again at the cab rank outside Euston and shared a vehicle. Irene nestled beside him.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘We’ll stay with a friend of mine,’ he replied. ‘You’ll like him, Irene. He’s killed more people than the two of us put together.’

Colbeck made his customary early start next morning. Arriving at his office, however, he discovered that Ian Peebles was there already, standing outside the door as if on sentry duty. Colbeck guessed that it was his new colleague and offered a friendly smile.

‘You must be Constable Peebles,’ he said, extending a palm. ‘The superintendent told me about you last night.’

‘I’m honoured to meet you, Inspector,’ said Peebles, shaking his hand. ‘I’ve followed your career with great interest.’

‘I see.’ He opened the door. ‘Let’s go on in, shall we?’

As they went into the office, Colbeck walked behind his desk and turned to take a closer look at Peebles. There was a suppressed eagerness in the other’s face. Well groomed and watchful, he exuded an intelligence that was rare among policemen who patrolled London streets. Notwithstanding the constable’s youthful appearance, Colbeck did not share Leeming’s estimation of him. Where the sergeant saw fatal immaturity, Colbeck sensed promise. He just wished for a little less silent adulation from Peebles.

‘Tell me about yourself, Constable,’ he invited.

‘There’s really not much to tell, sir.’

‘Stop hiding your light under a bushel. Superintendent Tallis holds you in high regard. There has to be a good reason for that.’

‘I’ll endeavour to repay his faith in me.’

Peebles spoke briefly about his time in the army and on the beat as a police constable. He was very articulate. Yet beneath the man’s surface modesty, Colbeck sensed a burning ambition to rise in rank at the department. It was a laudable aim and, after studying him with care, Colbeck felt that he might well have a successful career ahead of him. Peebles was untypical of the men whom the Metropolitan Police Force attracted. Other discharged soldiers joined the force but few had the constable’s qualities. Recruits came largely from the labouring classes, sturdy men whose former trades had given them the physical conditioning necessary to enforce the law. While the vast majority would spend their entire career in uniform, Peebles had been given promotion in a remarkably short time.

There was a shock in store for Colbeck.

‘I have to repay my wife’s faith in me as well,’ said Peebles.

Colbeck was amazed. ‘You’re married?’

‘I’m about to be fairly soon, Inspector. It’s one of the consequences of moving to Scotland Yard. The increase in pay has made it possible for me to support a wife.’

‘Does the superintendent know about this?’

‘It was the first thing he asked me about.’

‘Then he must value you highly,’ said Colbeck. ‘My advice is to say as little as possible to him about your private life. He believes that marriage is a distraction for his detectives and would prefer us all to lead lives of total abstinence.’

Peebles laughed. ‘This is not a monastery.’

‘The superintendent has yet to accept that. It’s perfectly possible for detectives to combine marriage with fulfilment of their duties here. Sergeant Leeming is proof of that.’

As if on cue, Leeming came walking along the corridor. He turned in through the open door of Colbeck’s office.

‘Did I hear my name being taken in vain?’ he asked.

‘I was just holding you up as a golden example, Victor.’

‘It’s not often that anyone does that, sir.’

‘I do,’ said Peebles. ‘I want to follow in your footsteps.’

‘I need to redirect your footsteps, Constable,’ said Colbeck. ‘You will be travelling to Manchester this morning with the sergeant and me. In case we may have to spend the night there, I suggest that you provide yourself with anything necessary.’

‘Aye, sir,’ said Peebles, keen to be involved. ‘Does this mean that you made some progress when you were there yesterday?’

‘I’ll tell you everything on the train.’

‘Thank you.’

After giving each of them a smile, Peebles hurried out. Leeming closed the door after him so that he could speak in private.

He was bitter. ‘Does the superintendent want this case solved?’

‘That’s a strange question. You know that he does.’

‘Then why has he handicapped us with Constable Peebles? The fellow has no experience at all.’

‘What better way to gain it?’

‘I think that he’ll hamper the investigation.’

‘Then I must disagree with you,’ said Colbeck. ‘I fancy that he could turn out to be an asset to us.’

‘He’ll be too busy watching us,’ complained Leeming.

‘How else can he learn what to do?’

‘You don’t understand, sir. Peebles has been keeping press cuttings of all our cases. He has a whole scrapbook of them. Every move we make will be noted down and preserved.’

Colbeck smiled. ‘Every Doctor Johnson needs a Boswell.’

‘Does he?’ Leeming was bewildered. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know any detectives by those names.’

‘That doesn’t matter, Victor. The simple fact is that I like our new colleague and anticipate good things of him. It’s always a little unnerving to be put on a pedestal but it does have an advantage. It keeps us on our toes,’ said Colbeck. ‘We mustn’t disillusion him. If he believes that we are the pride of the department, we must offer him some justification for our status, and we can only do that by bringing this investigation to a speedy conclusion. Gird your loins,’ he urged, ‘and get ready for a train journey to Manchester. We have to demonstrate to Constable Peebles the difficult art of detection.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Inspector Zachary Boone was busier than ever, listening to reports about various incidents, dispatching constables to investigate others, speculating with his superintendent on the outcome of a trial and juggling a large number of other commitments. When three visitors from London suddenly descended on him, Boone was upbraiding a luckless constable who had foolishly allowed a suspect to evade capture. Pleased to see Colbeck again, he reserved judgement on his friend’s companions. In Boone’s opinion, Leeming looked like a battle-scarred wrestler in stolen apparel while Peebles resembled nothing so much as an overgrown schoolboy. The inspector was surprised to learn that they were both serving officers in the Detective Department.

‘You’re very welcome,’ said Boone, standing behind his desk, ‘but if you expect to sit down in here, it will have to be on the floor. There’s only room for my chair and one other.’

‘We’re happy to stand, Zachary,’ said Colbeck.

‘Did you have a good journey?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘It was an express train,’ explained Peebles. ‘The inspector chose it specifically. We couldn’t have had a better trip.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Leeming. ‘Trains upset my stomach.’

‘Sympathetic as we are,’ said Colbeck with a consoling smile, ‘we can’t have our movements dictated by your queasiness.’

‘I sometimes wish that locomotives had never been invented.’

‘Then you’d have been out of a job,’ noted Boone. ‘How could you have worked with the famous Railway Detective if there’d been no railways? If you’ll pardon a dreadful pun, they’ve been a great boon to me. Thanks to trains, my men have been able to move around much more quickly.’

‘That cuts both ways,’ said Colbeck. ‘It also means that villains can leave the scene of the crime and be miles away in no time at all.’

‘It’s exactly what happened in this case,’ suggested Peebles, diffidently. ‘Murder was actually committed on the railway, so the two suspects were immediately able to put distance between themselves and their crime. They could be anywhere in the country by now.’

‘Let’s hope that we can find a signpost in Manchester that will point us in the right direction.’

‘You haven’t given us much time,’ said Boone. ‘Besides, we have a large number of other crimes to solve, so I haven’t been able to deploy very many of my men.’

‘That’s why we’re here, Zachary,’ said Colbeck. ‘We’ve come to do some of the legwork and to acquaint Constable Peebles with the joys of being a detective.’

‘I didn’t know there were any,’ muttered Leeming.

‘Let me tell you what we’ve already done,’ volunteered Boone.

Plunging a hand into a small mountain of papers, he drew out one that contained a list of names and addresses in a looping hand. Some of them had ticks against them. He explained that they had already been discounted as a result of visits by his men. All that remained were three names and addresses. He handed the list to Colbeck.

‘We were lucky, Robert,’ he said. ‘There were not all that many people by the name of Adnam. Thank heaven you didn’t ask me to list all the O’Briens or the O’Rourkes. In some of the Irish districts, they could run into the hundreds.’

Colbeck perused the addresses. ‘Where are these places?’

‘Two of them are in relatively safe areas. That’s to say, they’ll try to stab you in the chest rather than in the back, so you’re at least accorded the courtesy of a warning. The third address is in Deansgate. I’d advise anyone against going there on his own.’

‘We can all stay together,’ said Leeming.

‘That would only waste time, Victor,’ decided Colbeck, passing the list to him. ‘Memorise those details, if you will. Then you and the constable can visit two of the addresses while I pay a call on Silas Adnam in Deansgate.’

‘Looking like that, you’d present a tempting target,’ said Boone, appraising the debonair figure of Colbeck. ‘There’s nobody there as refined and elegant as you, Robert. You’d stand out like a hedgehog on a billiard table. Why don’t I assign one of my men to accompany you?’

‘I can manage on my own, thank you. In any case, I won’t be going there in a frock coat and top hat.’ Colbeck patted his valise. ‘I brought a change of clothing for just such a situation.’ He snatched the piece of paper from Leeming’s hands. ‘Off you go, Sergeant. Give me the names and addresses you’ve just memorised.’

Leeming gulped. ‘Well …’

‘I know them, Inspector,’ said Peebles before rattling off the information. ‘I think you’ll find that I’m correct.’

‘I could have told you all that,’ said Leeming, hurt.

‘I’m sure that you could, Victor,’ said Colbeck, ‘but you were fortunate to have the constable to prompt you. I told you that he’d prove his worth when we got to Manchester.’

While Peebles basked in the praise, Leeming smouldered.

Madeleine had always enjoyed her regular visits to the market. It gave her an opportunity to get out of the house and to meet a succession of friends and neighbours. Since she often incorporated a call on her aunt, she was able to keep in touch with another branch of the family as well. As she set off again with a basket over her arm, she knew exactly what to buy and where to buy it. Most of the items on the list were chosen because they were her father’s preferences. A creature of habit, Caleb Andrews was very particular about his food and drink.

Two thoughts suddenly struck her, causing her to check her stride. The first was that she would not be making this pilgrimage indefinitely. What would happen to her father’s larder when she was no longer there to keep it filled? Shopping in the market was largely a chore for women, and not merely because their husbands were usually at work. When it came to meat, fruit and vegetables, they were far more discerning customers and they could also haggle more effectively. On the few occasions when her father had accompanied her, he’d been ready to accept the first price given by individual stallholders. Andrews relied on his daughter to secure the best deal.

How would he cope on his own? They hired a woman to come into the house a couple of days a week to do domestic chores but she could never replace Madeleine at the market.

The second thought was consequent upon the first. When she gave up shopping for her father, would she have to do it for her husband? Because no firm date had been set for the wedding, and because it had seemed to recede every time she raised the issue with Colbeck, she’d never really considered the details of her exact role as a wife. Would she be expected to do all the things she had done for her father? Colbeck had inherited a sizeable house in John Islip Street and had two servants to look after it. Madeleine had never employed full-time servants. Could she delegate the shopping to one of them? It was a moot point.

She had a moment of slight panic when she realised how her existence would be transformed by marriage. There would be so much for her to learn. Yet Colbeck had already brought about many major changes in her life. Until he came into it, she could never have envisaged a relationship with such a highly intelligent member of the middle class. Her father had wanted her to marry another railwayman and it was from his circle of friends that her admirers necessarily came. Colbeck had altered all that. Madeleine had been able to educate herself by means of his extensive library and to improve her talent as an artist so much that her work was now in demand. She had, in more than one sense, emancipated herself from her class. As Mrs Colbeck, she would be a very different person from Miss Andrews.

Her first thought returned with greater urgency and it posed a burning question. When she left home after the marriage, who would look after her father?

Disguise was an established part of Colbeck’s armoury. There were parts of London where he would never dare to venture in his usual attire because it would make him stand out. To merge with the denizens, he had to look as if he belonged. For his visit to Deansgate, therefore, he changed into the rough garb he’d brought with him, wearing a large, battered cap and a pair of old boots. When he entered the district, he even adjusted his walk. Instead of his usual measured gait, he adopted a furtive scuffle. It meant that nobody gave him a second glance.

Having located Adnam’s address, he first went to the nearest pub, reasoning that anyone who lived in such a depressing place would need the support of alcohol. The Eagle and Child was a dark, evil-smelling establishment filled with shabby characters hunched around the rickety tables. For the price of a pint of beer, Colbeck bought the landlord’s attention and gained some useful information about Silas Adnam. One fact was particularly significant.

‘Silas was in here last night,’ said the landlord, ‘drinking himself into a stupor. I reckon his daughter must have been to see him again because he had money to spend.’

‘Do you know the daughter’s name?’ asked Colbeck.

‘Yes – it’s Irene.’

‘Have you ever seen her?’

The landlord shook his head. ‘She’s too good for the likes of us.’

After finishing his drink, Colbeck walked the short distance to the house and banged on the door. He had to pound it again before it was opened. The whiskery face of Silas Adnam confronted him.

‘What do you want?’ he snarled.

‘I’ve come to talk about your daughter.’

‘She’s not here.’

‘I know,’ said Colbeck, ‘but she has been and that means you and I must have a conversation.’

Pushing the door open, he stepped into the house and ignored the protests from the old man. When Colbeck explained who he was, Adnam’s tone became defensive.

‘Irene is a good girl,’ he said. ‘She takes care of me.’

‘Then she might have found you a more comfortable place to live, Mr Adnam. She could certainly afford it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Irene has a lot of money.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ insisted Adnam. ‘She’s a governess at a big house in London. Part of her wage comes in board and lodging. It takes her some time to save up money for her father.’

‘Why did she come here yesterday?’

‘She wanted to see me, of course.’

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘but why then of all days?’

Adnam shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘As a matter of fact, it does. How long did she stay?’

‘That’s none of your business, Inspector.’

‘It’s important for me to know.’

‘There’s no law against seeing my daughter, is there?’

‘None at all, sir,’ agreed Colbeck.

‘What happened between us is our affair.’

‘Under any other circumstances, it might be. As it is, the timing and duration of her visit are of considerable interest to me. So – I ask you again – how long was Irene here?’

Adnam refused to answer. In a show of obstinacy, he flopped down onto his stool, folded his arms and turned away. It gave Colbeck the chance to look around the small, fetid room and to assess the value of the man’s few belongings. Adnam had clearly had a far better standard of living at one time. His voice was educated and he bore himself like someone who had once held responsibility. What had caused his fall Colbeck could only guess but it had been a very long and painful one. The man’s agony was etched deep into his face. Had the situation been different, Colbeck would have felt sorry for him. As it was, Adnam was obstructing a murder enquiry. He deserved no mercy.

‘It’s time for us to go, sir,’ ordered Colbeck.

Adnam was flustered. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘If you won’t answer my questions, then I’ll hand you over to Inspector Boone at the police station. He has harsher methods than me and I’m told they always achieve the desired result.’ He took Adnam by the elbow. ‘Come with me, sir.’

‘But I’ve done nothing wrong!’ wailed Adnam.

‘You are impeding the operation of justice, sir.’

‘How am I doing that?’

‘Inspector Boone will explain that to you.’

He lifted Adnam from his stool but the old man shook him off and limped to the corner of the room. Evidently, Boone’s name was known to him and it did not induce confidence. Adnam was like a cornered animal, searching for escape. Colbeck slipped a hand into his pocket and took out some handcuffs.

‘Do I have to take you by force, Mr Adnam?’ he threatened.

‘No, no – please don’t do that!’

‘Then tell me what I want to know.’

‘Irene came here, gave me some money, then she left. That’s all that happened, I swear it.’

‘And how long was she here – an hour, two hours?’

Adnam looked both hunted and humiliated. The kind and caring daughter about whom he’d bragged in the pub the previous night had to be revealed in her true light. He cleared his throat.

‘Irene was here for five or ten minutes,’ he admitted.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ He pointed to the stool. ‘Why don’t you sit down again so that you can continue this discussion in comfort?’

The visit to the home of Kingsley Adnam was unrewarding. Leeming and Peebles learnt that the man had six sons but no daughters. Nor was there anyone in his wider family answering to the name of Irene. Since the other address they sought was in an adjoining district, they decided to spurn a cab and walk there. After taking directions from a passer-by, the two detectives set off. Unlike Colbeck, they were not in disguise. Leeming was still nursing resentment against Peebles but he tried not to let it show. The Scotsman was inquisitive.

‘Is it true that you’re married, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, I have a wife and two children.’

‘Catherine and I have yet to talk about a family,’ said Peebles. ‘All that we can think about at the moment is the wedding itself. She saved my life, you know.’

‘Did she?’

‘Not that either of us realised it at the time, mark you. It was Catherine who persuaded me to leave the army. Until she and I met, I’d planned to spend my entire career serving my country.’

‘That was very patriotic of you,’ said Leeming, softening towards him. ‘But how was your life saved?’

‘Had I stayed in the army, I’d have joined my regiment in the Crimea and might well have been one of the many casualties we sustained. Sometimes, I feel rather guilty that I escaped death when several of my comrades did not but I’d given my word to Catherine.’

‘Yet you’ve only jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘We, too, have our share of deaths,’ said Leeming. ‘They may not be on the same scale as in the army but they are there. You only have to think of those two policemen from Wolverhampton.’

‘It was an appalling crime. I feel for their families.’

‘It could happen to any us.’

‘I dispute that,’ said Peebles, beaming at him. ‘It could certainly never happen to you or Inspector Colbeck. You have an uncanny insight into people’s characters. It’s the basis of your success. Had that woman in Wolverhampton stepped into a compartment in which you were guarding a prisoner, you and the inspector would have known at once that she was there to aid him.’

Leeming put out his chest. ‘I like to think that we would.’

‘Instinct and experience will always protect you.’

‘They’ve done so this far, Constable.’

‘I’ve convinced Catherine of it. That’s why she was able to accept my decision to join the police.’ Peebles heaved a sigh. ‘I’m counting the days until we get married.’

‘I wish you both joy,’ said Leeming.

He spoke with sincerity. The glimpse into Peebles’ private life had moderated Leeming’s criticism of him. He could not bring himself to like the Scotsman but he was more tolerant of him now. Moreover, the fact that Peebles was about to get married somehow put them on an even footing. Leeming no longer felt old enough to be his father.

They were strolling side by side along a narrow thoroughfare that twisted and turned with serpentine unpredictability. Leeming kept a wary eye on everything and everybody they encountered, anticipating danger whenever they came to a dark alley or saw a gang of youths loitering on a corner. Peebles, meanwhile, was distracted by thoughts of his beloved, imagining how impressed Catherine would be when he told her about his sojourn in Manchester with Inspector Colbeck. Animated by inner excitement, he was completely off guard. When the attack came, therefore, Peebles was unprepared for it.

Ironically, the incident occurred under a railway bridge. Four men who’d been lounging against the wall sprang to life and hurtled out of the shadows to confront them. Their leader had a cudgel and, to show his readiness to use it, knocked off Leeming’s top hat.

‘Hand over your money!’ he demanded. ‘Otherwise—’

He got no further. Leeming’s well-aimed kick hit him in the crotch and made him double up in pain. With one of their attackers disabled, Leeming turned to a second, a burly man with a mane of red hair merging with a tufted red beard. The sergeant landed two heavy punches before the man fought back. Peebles had to deal with the other two men. One tried to grab him from behind so that the other could pummel away at him but the constable quickly frustrated their plan. As the attacker behind him took hold of his arms, Peebles stamped hard on the man’s toe and jerked one elbow back into his stomach. He then smashed his fist into the face of the man in front of him and made blood cascade from his nose. Following up with a series of punches to the body, he sent him reeling then turned to grapple with the man behind him.

Leeming had already robbed his assailant of any wish to continue the fight, catching him with a relay of blows that sent him crashing back against a brick wall. When the man with the cudgel saw what was happening, he barked an order and the four of them slunk off to lick their wounds and to reflect on their folly in choosing the wrong targets. Picking up his hat, Leeming dusted it off.

‘I enjoyed that,’ he said with a grin. ‘It was good exercise.’

‘I just didn’t see them coming,’ admitted Peebles.

‘No matter – you acquitted yourself well. You were obviously taught how to fight in the army.’

‘I’ll be more careful from now on.’

‘I sensed there might be trouble when I saw them lurking there. Since we were outnumbered, they thought we were easy meat.’

Peebles adjusted his coat. ‘You reacted so promptly, Sergeant.’

‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said Leeming. ‘It’s something that the superintendent keeps drumming into our heads.’ He looked his companion up and down. ‘Did you get hurt?’

‘I’ll have a few bruises, that’s all, but I fancy I inflicted far more damage on them. To be honest, I felt rather cheated that it was over so quickly.’ He looked under the bridge. ‘Is there any point in trying to pursue them?’

‘None at all – they know the backstreets and we don’t. They came off worse, that’s the main thing. It will make them think twice about accosting people in the future.’ He offered his hand. ‘Well done, Constable – and welcome to Manchester!’

Grinning broadly, Peebles shook his hand. The brawl had had one positive result for him. Having fought off his attackers with vigour, he now felt accepted by Leeming. It was a step forward.

Silas Adnam was more interested in talking about himself than about his daughter but Colbeck let him ramble on. The story was a familiar one to the detective. He’d seen any number of instances where a combination of grief and alcohol had brought about a man’s ruin. The wonder was that Adnam had not dragged his daughter down with him. Entering domestic service, Irene had soon shown her mettle and been rewarded with more responsibility. Her father was proud of the fact that she’d been promoted within her first household yet surprised that she’d not stayed there long. In fact, she seemed to change jobs quite often, eventually rising to the position of governess. Adnam spoke about her with an amalgam of smugness and concern, talking in fulsome terms about Irene’s cleverness while worrying that he was so rarely able to see her.

Finally, Colbeck had to shatter the old man’s illusions.

‘Did you know that the police are searching for her?’ he asked.

Adnam blanched. ‘Why on earth should they do that?’

‘Your daughter has committed a series of crimes, sir.’

‘That’s a damnable lie, Inspector! I brought Irene up to respect law and order. There’s not a dishonest bone in her body.’

‘Then I suggest that you talk to Inspector Boone. He has kept a record of her activities in Manchester and the surrounding area. She does not always use her real name, of course, but there’s no doubt that she has had a succession of victims.’

‘Victims?’ repeated the other. ‘How can a harmless, decent, young woman like Irene have victims? She’s a governess with a respectable family in London.’

‘Do you happen to have their name and address?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘That’s probably because these people do not exist.’

‘But they do,’ said Adnam, desperately. ‘How else would Irene have earned that money? I don’t have their address because Irene is forbidden to have any letters sent to her.’

‘Is that what she told you?’

‘Yes – otherwise I’d keep in regular touch with her.’

‘She’s been lying to you, Mr Adnam,’ said Colbeck, levelly.

‘I refuse to believe that!’

Colbeck took a deep breath before recounting details of the escape of Jeremy Oxley. He explained the role played by a female accomplice. He also pointed out that the couple had recently taken part in a robbery in Birmingham. The money that Adnam assumed had been saved by his daughter during her time as a governess had instead been stolen. In short, since her father had received a number of similar payments over the years, he had been living unwittingly on the proceeds of crime.

‘Do you still claim that she works in London?’ asked Colbeck.

Adnam was uncertain. ‘It’s what she told me.’

‘Did you never ask yourself some obvious questions? Why would any daughter take a train all the way to Manchester to see her father, then spend less than ten minutes with him? Why didn’t Irene let you take her to the railway station? Why has she been so secretive all these years? Why does she refuse to give you the addresses of the places at which she pretends to work?’ He stepped in close. ‘It pains me to tell you that Irene Adnam is a thief and a killer. She is working with a man whose criminal record includes violence and murder. It’s your duty to help us to find them.’

Adnam was disconsolate. Pride in what he saw as his daughter’s achievements was the one last source of pleasure in his life. It kept him afloat in the noisome swamp where he lived. Of equal importance was the fact that Irene supplied him – albeit irregularly – with money. At a stroke, the major prop in his grim existence had been cut from under him. There would be no more cash from Irene and no more opportunities to boast about her in the Eagle and Child. In fact, he would never be able to mention her name again. Adnam had refused to believe it at first but Colbeck had been authoritative. The truth was unavoidable. Why else would a Scotland Yard detective take the trouble to come to Deansgate if he did not have irrefutable proof of Irene’s involvement in horrifying crimes? Adnam had fathered a monster. It was too much for him to bear. Bringing his hands up to his face, he let out a roar of pain then began to sob uncontrollably.

‘Let’s start again, shall we?’ suggested Colbeck, gently. ‘I want you to tell me once again what happened when your daughter came to see you. The most insignificant detail may turn out to be useful to us. I need you to rack your brain, Mr Adnam.’

The old man looked up. ‘She’s gone – Irene has gone for ever.’

‘Do you want her to stay free to kill again?’

‘No, no!’ cried Adnam. ‘Perish the thought.’

‘Then help us to catch her and the man with whom she lives.’

Adnam sat up and used a filthy handkerchief to wipe away his tears. He was then in the grip of a fit of coughing that lasted for a couple of minutes. When he recovered, he turned to Colbeck.

‘I’ve lost her, Inspector,’ he said, sorrowfully.

‘I fear that you lost her a long time ago, sir.’

‘It’s like a death. I feel bereft. Irene was all that I had between me and despair.’ He stifled another sob. ‘Have you ever lost a child?’

‘No,’ replied Colbeck, ‘but I once lost someone I loved dearly. It’s the reason this case has a personal dimension for me. However long it takes, I’ll track down Jeremy Oxley and I fully expect to arrest your daughter at the same time.’

* * *

The cottage was in a leafy suburb of London. Built centuries earlier, it had a timber frame, small, mullioned windows, a solid oak front door, a thatched, overhanging roof and a well-tended garden at the front and the rear. Ivy covered one side of the facade while the other was ablaze with roses. There was such a sense of rural isolation that Irene could not believe they were actually in the capital city. The moment she set eyes on the house, her ambition was ignited. She wanted to live in such a quaint and captivating place, far away from the industrial centres to which she was accustomed. In addition, Irene yearned for an existence that was free from crime, the kind of quiet, uneventful life that people could expect in an area like this.

Having been told that their host had committed murder, she faced the prospect of meeting him with slight trepidation but it soon evaporated. Gordon Younger was a plump man of middle years with a reassuring smile. His bald head gleamed, his cheeks were red and his goatee beard was his only facial hair. Susanna, his wife, was even more rotund, her clothing carefully tailored to hide some of her contours. She was a poised, educated, middle-class woman who looked as if her natural milieu would have been a country vicarage. Clearly, the Youngers were not short of money. Their cottage was expensively furnished and there were gilt-framed paintings of hunting scenes on the walls.

Astonished to see Oxley after a long absence, they gave him and Irene an effusive welcome. Glad to offer accommodation to the visitors, neither Younger nor his wife asked why they had come to London. They simply accepted that their guests had a need and were happy to fulfil it. What struck Irene about the couple was the pleasure they seemed to take in each other’s company. There was an unforced togetherness about them that she envied. She wondered if she and Oxley would ever be able to achieve something similar. When she was shown up to the guest room by Susanna, she took the opportunity to probe a little.

‘How long have you been here, Mrs Younger?’ she asked.

‘My name is Susanna as long as you’re here,’ said the other, with a hand on her shoulder, ‘and the answer is that we’ve lived here for seven years. Gordon was able to retire early.’

‘What did he retire from?’

‘Medicine – he was a doctor.’

‘It must be idyllic here.’

‘We love it, Irene. Twenty years ago, this was a country village. It’s starting to feel more like a city suburb now but it still has a whiff of a farming community.’ She indicated the window. ‘Watch that low beam when you open the window,’ she warned. ‘There are only two things wrong with this place – low beams and spiders in the thatch.’

‘We can put up with those,’ said Irene with a laugh.

She was wearing a wedding ring but she could see that Susanna was not fooled by it. Only people who’d been married could attain the kind of closeness that the Youngers had of right. Irene felt another pang of envy, hoping that Oxley had the same response. She prayed that the cottage would not simply be a refuge for them but that it would exert a good influence and make Oxley want to emulate their hosts. Irene longed for permanence.

It was not until she and Oxley retired to bed that she was able to talk to him properly. After an excellent meal washed down by a fine wine, he was in a relaxed mood.

‘This is a wonderful place,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been anywhere quite like it. What about you, Jerry?’

‘It’s very comfortable but a little too quiet for my liking.’

‘Gordon and Susanna seem so at home here.’

‘Yes, it’s a big change from Bradford,’ said Oxley. ‘That’s where I first met them.’

‘Why did they leave?’

He laughed. ‘Why did we leave Manchester?’

Irene was curious. ‘Were they wanted by the police?’

‘Gordon certainly was,’ he replied, ‘but he had the sense to plan his escape long before his crimes actually came to light. They are probably still searching for him in Bradford.’

‘Is that where he murdered people?’

He put a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t ever say that in his presence. He doesn’t believe that he murdered anyone. Gordon was a doctor. He took an oath to say that he’d always seek to preserve life. It’s just that he felt there were certain exceptions – people whose existence was so dire and unendurable that they begged him to help them.’

‘You mean that he assisted in their death?’

‘That’s one way of putting it. Gordon felt that he was performing a sacred duty. And, of course, there was a commercial aspect to it.’

‘In what way?’

‘It was a lot to ask of a doctor, Irene. His patients understood that. After he’d sent them painlessly to their deaths, he was rewarded by the provisions of their respective wills. That’s how he came to buy this cottage,’ he went on, taking in the whole building with a sweep of his hand. ‘He and Susanna have retired on the proceeds of his work in Bradford, putting rich old ladies to sleep for the last time.’ He pulled her close. ‘Take heart from what happened to them, my love. It is possible to kill and to live happily ever after.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Caleb Andrews was home earlier than usual that evening. He found his daughter reading the latest book she’d borrowed from Colbeck. Madeleine got up to give him a welcoming kiss. After hanging his cap on the peg, he went into the kitchen to wash the grime off his hands and face. When he came back in, she was putting a bookmark in place before setting her book aside.

‘Who wrote that one?’ he asked.

‘Charles Dickens.’

‘Ah, now there’s a man who can make the blood race. I like his novels. When you’ve finished with it, I might take a look at it myself. What’s it called, Maddie?’

‘American Notes,’ she answered. ‘But it’s not a novel. It’s an account of a journey Mr Dickens made to America some years ago. It must have upset a lot of readers over there because it’s very critical of the Americans.’

‘So it should be,’ said Andrews with acerbity. ‘What did America ever do for this country except cause us a lot of trouble? I don’t like Americans.’

‘How can you say that, Father? You’ve never even met one.’

‘I don’t need to meet one.’

‘It’s unfair to make judgements about people like that.’

‘Britain is best, Maddie, that’s what I always say. I hate France, Germany, Russia and – most of all – America.’

‘Yet you’ve never been to any of those countries.’

‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me there.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘I spoke to Mr Pomeroy again today. He’s given me an exact date. My retirement is only a matter of weeks away.’

She needed a moment for the full impact of the announcement to sink in. After all these years, it seemed unreal that her father was finally quitting a job that he loved so much. From the time when she was a small child, Madeleine remembered the way that he set off each morning with a spring in his step. Though he moaned about the long hours, inadequate pay and bad weather he had to endure, Andrews had never considered finding alternative work. Wholly committed to the railways, he was proud to serve them.

‘Well,’ he said, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch, ‘now that I’ve set a date, it’s time that you and the inspector did the same.’

‘Robert has promised to discuss it as soon as this case is over.’

‘I’ll believe that when it happens.’

Madeleine was hurt. ‘He always keeps his promises.’

‘Then why hasn’t he taken you up the aisle before now? Each time he looks as if he’s about to do so, there’s a delay.’ He filled the pipe with tobacco. ‘Perhaps it’s time for me to speak to him, man to man?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ she warned.

‘I’m only thinking of you, Maddy.’

‘We just have to wait until Robert is ready.’

‘That means you’ll have to wait for ever,’ he grumbled. ‘Look how long you had to twiddle your thumbs while you waited for a proposal of marriage. It was years and years.’

‘We had an understanding, Father.’

‘Well, it’s about time that Inspector Colbeck and I had a sort of understanding. I’m fed up with seeing my daughter moping around the house all day while the man she’s supposed to marry keeps feeding her one excuse after another.’

‘It’s not like that,’ she argued, ‘and I certainly don’t mope.’

‘I’ll want privacy when I retire, Maddy, and there’s something else I’m looking forward to as well.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Playing with my grandchildren, of course – where are they?’

She was startled. ‘Father!’

‘You can’t leave these things too late,’ he cautioned.

Even from her mother, Madeleine would have found such advice intrusive. From her father it was embarrassing. Like many young women on the verge of marriage, she was prepared to leave such decisions to Mother Nature, then react to them accordingly. She certainly did not wish to discuss the prospects of raising a family when she had yet to wear a wedding ring. All that Madeleine longed for was to share her life with Colbeck. To do that, she was willing to be patient and forbearing.

For his own and for his daughter’s sake, Andrews was keen to see a resolution at the altar. At the same time, however, he did not want to upset Madeleine. He lit his pipe and puffed away at it before taking up the conversation again. His tone was much softer.

‘Dirk Sowerby was married only four months after the betrothal,’ he said, meaningfully.

‘His wife is welcome to him,’ she replied. ‘I’d have no desire to spend my life with a man like that.’

‘What’s wrong with Dirk?’

‘I could never love him, Father.’

He was indignant. ‘Is that because he works on the railway?’

‘You know that it isn’t.’

‘Are you so high and mighty that you look down on us now?’

‘No,’ she said with vehemence, ‘and you must never think that. I’m the daughter of an engine driver and I always will be.’ She pointed to her easel. ‘Do you think I’d spend all my time painting trains if I regarded railwaymen with contempt? It’s unfair even to suggest it. Nobody could ever accuse me of looking down on you.’

‘Very well,’ he said, shamefacedly. ‘I take that back.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But I still worry for you, Maddy.’ He pulled on his pipe. ‘Do you remember what you once said to me?’

‘I’ve said lots of things – but you take no notice of them.’

‘This was about Inspector Colbeck. I felt that he was dragging his feet and keeping you waiting. You made an odd comment.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes, Maddy. You said that there were times when it seemed as if his mind was elsewhere. He was distracted and rather sad. It was almost as if he was mourning someone.’

‘You’re right,’ she recalled. ‘I did say that.’

‘And do you still believe it?’

‘I don’t think so. It was just a feeling I had at the time.’

‘Suppose that there was someone in his past?’ said Andrews, tentatively. ‘He’s a handsome man with good prospects. You weren’t the first woman to notice that. I just wonder if he’s been disappointed in love and that that’s made him very cautious.’ He shifted his pipe to the other side of his mouth. ‘Has he said anything to you on the subject?’

She was firm. ‘No, Father.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘There hasn’t been anyone else, then?’

The question was like the jab of a needle and it hurt. Madeleine could not muster a reply. She had always felt slight concern about Colbeck’s earlier life, especially as he seldom talked about it. Once they had become formally engaged, her anxiety about his past had vanished. Her father had now awakened it. It was as if an old wound had been reopened and it was smarting. When she tried to dismiss the whole thing from her mind, it remained stubbornly in place like a tiny stain on a carpet that she could always see out of the corner of her eye. It was worrying. Rising abruptly from her chair, she headed for the kitchen.

‘I’ll get your supper,’ she said, briskly.

Edward Tallis was halfway through one of his pungent cigars. It was a signal that he was under stress once more. When he entered the superintendent’s office, Colbeck could barely see him through the fug. He waved a hand to disperse some of the smoke.

‘Do you mind if I open a window, sir?’ he asked.

‘Please do,’ urged Tallis, stubbing out the cigar in an ashtray. ‘I smoke far too many of these things.’

‘That’s your privilege, Superintendent.’

‘They help me to relax and that’s something I always need to do after an interview with the press. I’ve had a posse of journalists in here, hounding me for details of the investigation and demanding to know why we’ve made no arrests as yet.’

Colbeck opened the window and took in a lungful of clean air. A light breeze blew in, making the smoke swirl and eddy. He walked back to the front of the desk. It was evening and, after his visit to Manchester, he had come straight to Scotland Yard this time instead of calling on Madeleine beforehand.

Tallis glowered at him. ‘I am in need of good news, Inspector.’

‘Then you’ll be pleased to know that we have identified Irene Adnam as the woman implicated in the murder of the two policemen.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have you any idea where she might be?’

‘Not at the moment,’ confessed Colbeck.

‘Then how can this possibly be construed as good news?’

‘It will enable us to turn the press from our enemies into our friends.’ Tallis gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Yes, I know that they often take a hostile attitude towards you, sir, but they are our best means of tracking down Miss Adnam. If we issue a description of her, it can be published in every national newspaper and in provincial editions in places like Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Manchester.’

‘I want to be persuaded that we have the right person first.’

‘I spoke with her father. He lives in Deansgate.’

‘That’s a very deprived part of Manchester, as I recall.’

‘Mr Adnam has fallen on hard times.’

Colbeck described his meeting with the man and explained how astounded he’d been to learn that his daughter had been involved in criminal activities for a number of years. He absolved Adnam of any blame. All that he could be accused of was being too naive. Irene had been so plausible that he believed the lies she was telling him. Once he’d been confronted with the truth, he’d condemned his daughter’s crime spree and readily answered all of Colbeck’s questions. As a result, the inspector had a record of all the times she had visited her father and a list of the places at which she claimed to have worked.

‘In other words,’ said Colbeck, ‘she still has sufficient care for Mr Adnam to want to relieve his distress.’

Tallis was harsh. ‘That won’t stop her from being hanged,’ he promised. ‘A few good deeds are heavily outweighed by the bad ones. Irene Adnam is evil. She and Oxley are clearly birds of a feather.’

‘They’ll be hiding somewhere until the hue and cry passes. The only way to smoke them out is by using the press.’

‘I’ll summon the hungry jackals in the morning.’

‘Send word to them now, sir,’ urged Colbeck. ‘The sooner we have the nation looking for this pair, the better. If we hurry, we might catch the later editions.’

‘I’d prefer to make a concerted effort tomorrow, Inspector. That way we can ensure that national and provincial newspapers carry the information at the same time. The wider the coverage, the more chance we have of flushing them out of cover.’ Reaching for a pencil, he moved the oil lamp closer so that it shed its glow over the pad in front of him. ‘I’ll need an exact description.’

‘I’ve already written it down,’ said Colbeck, taking a sheet of folded paper from his pocket. ‘This combines what I was told by the woman’s father and by her former employer, Mr Holte.’ He handed it over. ‘But it will not be as accurate as I could wish. According to Mr Adnam, she was fond of play-acting as a child and was skilled at changing her appearance.’

‘The hangman will change it even more,’ said Tallis, sourly. After glancing at the paper, he looked up at Colbeck. ‘What about Sergeant Leeming and Constable Peebles?’

‘They took part in the search and visited two addresses while I was in Deansgate. For obvious reasons, their efforts were in vain.’

‘I was really asking how they got along together.’

‘There was no friction between them, sir. Why should there be?’

‘I sensed that the sergeant was very unhappy to be forced to work with a new recruit. Leeming was less than welcoming to him. Is that a fair assessment?’

‘He might have had a few reservations about Constable Peebles, sir, but they disappeared in the line of duty. While they were on their way to a house in Manchester, they were set on by four ruffians.’

Tallis was alarmed. ‘Was either of them hurt?’

‘No,’ replied Colbeck. ‘They turned the tables on their attackers and put them to flight. Victor – Sergeant Leeming – was very complimentary about the way that the constable had fought. Any slight differences that might have existed between them have now been eradicated.’

‘That’s good to hear. Mutual respect is vital in this department.’

‘In the case of Constable Peebles, it’s rather more than respect.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It transpires that he’s been following the cases that we’ve been handling on the railways. As well as discharging his duties as a policeman in A Division, he somehow found time to compile a scrapbook of our successes. He draws inspiration from them.’

‘I find no fault in that.’

‘Neither do I, sir,’ said Colbeck. ‘My only worry is that he may let admiration blind him to our shortcomings. None of us is infallible.’

‘Quite so – Homer sometimes nods.’

‘Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.’

Tallis scowled. ‘What heathen tongue is that?’

‘It’s the Latin you just translated. I think it was rather astute of you to pick up on my use of the word “blind” and mention Homer, the famous blind poet.’

‘It just came to me,’ said Tallis, relishing praise for something that was entirely coincidental. ‘So we are celebrated in a scrapbook, are we? I find that heartening.’

‘I think you should, Superintendent,’ said Colbeck, tongue in cheek. ‘After all, any triumphs we have to our credit have been secured under your aegis. Your control of our efforts has been decisive. I know that you loathe the press,’ he went on, ‘but they have trumpeted our successes from time to time. Your name is probably on every page of the constable’s scrapbook.’

Tallis’s broad grin was like the beam of a lighthouse.

It was the tranquillity that she appreciated most. Irene had never had such a peaceful night. Even in a hotel, the hustle and bustle of city life could be heard outside the windows. Then there was the ever-present noise of trains hurtling along. That, too, had gone. In its place were gentler sounds that allowed her to sleep undisturbed. She awoke refreshed and happy. Irene at last felt safe.

‘How long are we going to stay here?’ she asked.

‘Until they stop searching so hard for us,’ replied Oxley. ‘In the wake of a murder, the police will do all they can to find the suspects. The longer the hunt goes on, however, the fewer resources they can devote to it. Other crimes are being committed and they’ll demand attention. We simply have to wait until we fade into the past.’

‘We mustn’t outstay our welcome, Jerry.’

‘Don’t you like it here?’

‘I love it – but we can’t impose on Gordon and Susanna.’

‘They say that we can stay as long as we like.’

She was worried. ‘Do they know what we did?’

‘No, Irene,’ he told her. ‘They don’t know and won’t ask.’

‘Shouldn’t we tell them?’

‘We’ve told them all they need to know by turning up here. We need a hiding place. They’re intelligent enough to work out why.’

It was glorious weather. They were seated on a rustic bench in the garden, listening to the insects buzz and watching the birds hop from branch to branch among the trees. It all served to intensify Irene’s ambition to live in such a place and to stop being on the move all the time.

‘All we have to do is to copy what they did,’ resumed Oxley. ‘Gordon and Susanna showed us how it was done. When he was in danger of being exposed in Bradford, Gordon fled here to the house he’d bought in readiness. The police searched everywhere for them but to no avail. Mind you,’ he added with a chuckle, ‘they did take the precaution of changing their names.’

‘Do you mean that they’re not Dr and Mrs Younger?’

‘I mean exactly that, Irene. I’ll let you into a secret.’ He put his lips close to her ear. ‘Gordon and Susanna are false names as well.’

‘What are their real names?’

‘They don’t exist anymore. They have new identities, a new house and a new life. Gordon is not a retired doctor anymore. Everyone here thinks that he used to be an archaeologist. His hobby is poking around in old ruins, so it’s not a complete lie.’

‘I can see why they’ve never been caught,’ said Irene, admiringly. ‘The police are looking for a doctor and his wife, not an archaeologist with a totally different name.’ A question nudged her. ‘But what about birth certificates and such like?’

‘You can always get forgeries, if you have enough money.’

‘I used to forge my own references.’

‘There you are,’ said Oxley, slipping an arm around her. ‘You’re a woman of many talents, Irene.’

‘I had to be. I wasn’t going to spend my life in domestic service. One day at the beck and call of someone else taught me that.’

They heard a rattle of cups and turned to see a servant bringing out a tray. Susanna followed and Gordon shambled after her, his pate gilded by the sun. Seated in a semicircle, the four of them were soon enjoying a cup of tea.

‘Do you have any plans for today?’ enquired Younger.

‘None at all,’ replied Oxley.

‘How well do you know London?’

‘I know it extremely well.’

‘I don’t,’ said Irene. ‘I’m a Manchester lass. I’ve never really had the chance to take a proper look at London.’

‘Then we can remedy that for you,’ said Younger.

‘Yes,’ said his wife. ‘The nearest station is about a mile away. We can catch a train to Euston from there and spend the afternoon exploring. What would you like to see, Irene?’

Her reply was instant. ‘Buckingham Palace,’ she declared. ‘I’ve always wanted to see that. When I was a little girl, my father promised that he’d take me there one day but he never did.’ She looked from Susanna to Gordon. ‘Can we go to Buckingham Palace, please?’

‘We can go wherever you like,’ said Younger, indulgently. ‘I’d like to put in a plea for St Paul’s cathedral.’

‘Don’t forget Trafalgar Square,’ his wife reminded him. ‘Irene must see Nelson’s statue. What about you, Jerry?’ she continued, turning to him. ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Oh, there’s only one place I’d choose,’ he told her.

‘And where’s that?’

‘Scotland Yard.’

Now that he’d got to know Peebles a little better, Victor Leeming no longer felt the same antipathy towards him. His dog-like willingness was still irritating but it was balanced by some excellent qualities. Peebles was brave, determined and inquisitive. Conscious of his deficiencies, he was always trying to repair them by firing an endless series of questions at his senior colleagues. He learnt quickly and was invariably grateful for advice. Leeming slowly warmed to him.

‘Is this what being a detective means?’ asked Peebles. ‘Yesterday we charged up to Manchester and pounded the streets in search of the father of a suspect. Today we’re stuck here in Scotland Yard.’

‘We have to wait until we have evidence of their whereabouts,’ said Leeming. ‘It’s different from being a policeman on the beat. When you see a crime being committed there, you can wade in at once and arrest the culprit. You respond immediately to a given situation.’

Peebles grinned. ‘Aye, I’ve done that often enough.’

‘Things sometimes move more slowly here. We’re involved in a cat-and-mouse game, so we have to be patient. As soon as the villains make a mistake – and they usually do – we spring into action. Have no fears, Constable, there’ll be time to use those fists of yours again. Meanwhile, we have to rely on our brains.’

Colbeck had given the two men the use of his office and left them all the information pertaining to Jeremy Oxley and Irene Adnam that he could gather. They studied the sheets of paper and put them in chronological order. Most of the records related to Oxley but his accomplice had not been idle. Three different members of polite society in Manchester had been deceived into taking her on as a governess and each time she’d done a moonlight flit with a substantial haul. Ambrose Holte had been her first trusting employer. For each of her subsequent appointments, Irene had used other names. Thanks to Inspector Boone, who had provided the information, they had some indication of the way in which she operated. What was not clear from the collection of papers was when Oxley and Irene had started to work together.

‘The problem is that Miss Adnam has never been caught,’ said Leeming, ‘so we have no details of an arrest. Jeremy Oxley, on the other hand, has been arrested twice but never convicted. On both occasions, he managed to escape. I think we both know how.’

‘Money changed hands,’ observed Peebles.

‘It’s one of the things that really makes me mad. Rich people are the most difficult to convict. No matter how black their crimes, they can buy their way out of trouble. Oxley must have made a small fortune over the years. He’ll always be able to offer a juicy bribe.’

‘That’s a crime in itself, Sergeant.’

‘Only to those who recognise it as such,’ said Leeming. ‘I’m afraid that a certain constable in Wolverhampton let his greed take precedence over his duty. The five pounds he accepted was the price of a prisoner’s escape. Now that they have him locked up, they’ll make him suffer and he thoroughly deserves it.’

‘There is a pattern here,’ noted Peebles, separating out some sheets of paper. ‘These offences here all relate to Oxley. He either inveigles his way into people’s confidence before robbing them, or he uses an accomplice to distract someone so that he can grab what he wants.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I just wish that we had more detail in these records. We ought to know more about the people we arrest.’

‘Inspector Colbeck thinks the day will come when we actually have photographs of villains. Think what a help that would be.’

‘It will happen eventually,’ said Peebles, ‘though it may take some time yet. So far nobody has invented the sort of camera that we can use on a regular basis to photograph criminals. It’s a pity. I’d dearly love to see a photograph of Irene Adnam.’

‘I want to see one of Jeremy Oxley as well.’

‘You’ll have to wait until you meet him in the flesh.’

‘He’s the real criminal,’ asserted Leeming. ‘Women are the fairer sex. They don’t usually have the urge to kill in cold blood. Most of them would be too afraid even to hold a gun, let alone fire it. He made her do it. Oxley dragged her down to his own level. If you look at her record, there’s no hint of violence in it. It was Oxley who turned her into a murderer.’

Peebles picked up two sheets of paper and compared them.

‘The wonder is that we have so much information about him,’ he remarked. ‘Many of the crimes didn’t even take place in London. How did they come to our attention?’

‘The inspector made sure that they did.’

‘He’s been after Oxley for a long time, hasn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Leeming. ‘Every time the name has cropped up, Inspector Colbeck has made a note of it. Sometimes, of course, Oxley takes on a new identity as he befriends a victim before robbing him. The inspector can always spot if he is the culprit because the man works in a particular way. There’s a phrase for it.’

‘Modus operandi.’

‘Yes – that’s it.’

‘When criminals find a method that works, they stick to it.’

‘There’s another side to that. It’s a question of superstition. They do everything in exactly the same way because they’re afraid to fail if they don’t. We all have superstitions of one kind or another. I know that I do. My wife teases me about some of them.’

‘Coming back to Oxley,’ said Peebles, ‘why has the inspector singled him out for special attention?’

‘It’s because of something that happened years ago before he even joined the Metropolitan Police Force. Oxley killed someone who was going to act as a witness against him in court. The crime has preyed on the inspector’s mind ever since,’ said Leeming. ‘He felt that he was in some way to blame. It’s what drives him on to catch Oxley. He wants to avenge the death of a young lady called Helen Millington.’

Edward Tallis loathed the gentlemen of the press with a passion that never dimmed but Colbeck took a more tolerant view of them. What irked him was that newspapers either praised him to the skies or excoriated him for his mistakes or for what they wrongly perceived as his slowness. There seemed to be no middle ground between applause and condemnation, no recognition of the fact that crimes could not be solved to satisfy the deadlines of editors and that progress was being made on a case even if it was not apparent to the jaundiced eye of reporters. To the superintendent, the handful of men he’d reluctantly invited into his office that day were unprincipled scribblers who’d been put on this earth solely in order to bait him. In Colbeck’s view, by contrast, they were a vital tool in the fight against crime if they were used correctly. The problem was that neither he nor his superior had any control over what they actually wrote.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Tallis, looking truculently around his guests as if ready to challenge one of them to a fight. ‘I know that you prefer to deal in wild sensation but I must ask you to take a less hysterical approach to an investigation for once.’

‘This is a sensational crime, Superintendent,’ argued one of the men. ‘We have a shooting, a daring escape and two policemen sliced to pieces beneath the wheels of a train. You cannot expect us to report that as an everyday event.’

‘All I ask is that you report the known facts instead of giving the impression that we are unequal to the task of finding the culprits.’

The man was blunt. ‘We write what we see.’

Colbeck winced. Before the press conference was called, he’d urged Tallis to make sure that he did not antagonise them at the very start, yet that was exactly what his superior had just done. The superintendent’s tone became more belligerent and insults from both sides were soon flying around the room like so many angry wasps. Colbeck tried to rise above the fray and let his mind settle on an aspect of the case that was unknown to any of the journalists.

The fate of Helen Millington continued to preoccupy him. He felt very sorry for the jeweller who’d been Oxley’s first victim and had never forgotten the man’s bravery in trying to pursue a thief. He’d also been deeply shocked by the recent murders of the two Wolverhampton policemen. The difference between them and Helen was that their occupation exposed them to risk and they had understood that when they put on the uniform. Not that either of them could ever have expected to suffer such a hideous end. Serious injuries were common among all constabularies but killings were thankfully rare.

Three things set Helen’s untimely death apart from that of the others. First, she was a woman. The daughter of a financier, she was young, beautiful and well educated. Second, she posed no physical threat to Oxley. The jeweller had chased him with the intention of overpowering him and the two policemen had him handcuffed. Even had she’d wished to do so, Helen could not hurt Oxley. Nor was she in any position to defend herself against a violent attack. She was too slight, frail and vulnerable. But it was the third factor that weighed most with the inspector. In the course of the various meetings with Helen Millington, coaxing, advising and supporting her, Colbeck had fallen in love and his feelings had been requited.

‘You were summoned here,’ Tallis said, eyeing his visitors with disdain, ‘so that we could demonstrate that we have made progress in this investigation.’

‘Have you made any arrests?’ demanded a voice.

‘Not as yet, I fear.’

‘Then no real progress has been made. For once, it seems, your much-vaunted Inspector Colbeck has come off the rails.’

The titter of amusement brought Colbeck out of his reverie.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘there has been an arrest. I must correct the superintendent on that point. During our visit to Wolverhampton, we discovered that a Constable Marner had been tricked into giving away information that led to the escape of Jeremy Oxley. He accepted a bribe of five pounds. He is now in custody and, as you may imagine, reviled by his colleagues. One of the murder victims, incidentally, was his brother-in-law.’

The reporters started to write excitedly in their notebooks. During the brief lull, Colbeck mimed a message to Tallis that he should be less aggressive and hand over the task of talking to them. With obvious reluctance, the older man agreed to the request.