Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train by Peter Turnbull

George Hennessey of the York P.D. is back in another involving short case. If you’d like to see him in a longer work, the latest Hennessey and Yellich novel, Deliver Us From Evil, becomes available in paperback this month; it was first published in hardcover in June 2010 by Severn House. “Throughout this long-running series,” said Booklist in reviewing the novel, “Turnbull has delivered engaging writing, involving plots, memorable characters, and realistic descriptions of police work.”

Over the years the story of the man who took his hat off to the driver of the train grew to have three parts. Three, George Hennessey mused as he took a pleasant walk on a pleasant summer’s evening, late, from his house to the pub in Easingwold for a pint of stout, just one before “last orders” were called. Yes, he thought, the story had three distinct parts. There was, he remembered as his eye was caught by a rapidly darting bat, the incident itself and the story therein, then there was the story as he had told it to Charles, then, finally, there was seeing the woman again.

She had not grown old gracefully: She had refused to surrender to the years, and like so many women who pursue that policy she had, in the opinion of George Hennessey, quite simply made things worse for herself. Even if her figure had remained slender she could not at the age of fifty-plus wear T-shirts and jeans and trainers and drink among the university students and hope to blend in.

Hennessey was walking the walls from the police station at Micklegate Bar to the fish restaurant on Lendal intending to take lunch “out,” as was his custom, when he saw her approaching him. She didn’t recognise him and walked quickly, urgently, in a manner that a casual observer would see as a woman about a pressing errand, a woman going somewhere. But Hennessey, a police officer for the greater part of his working life, and now nearing retirement, was a keen student of human behaviour and he saw instead a frightened woman, speeding away from something, something within her, something in her past from which there is no escape, no matter how breathlessly fast you walk. He recognised her as she wove in and out of the tourists who strolled the walls, but he could not immediately place her, except that he knew she belonged to his professional rather than private life. She approached him and swept past him, the sagging cheeks, the heavy makeup, glistening red lips and scraggy hair, and the quick, quick, quick, short, short, short steps along the ancient battlements, beneath a vast blue, cloudless July sky. On impulse, George Hennessey turned and followed her, quickening his pace to keep up with her.

She passed Micklegate Bar and left the walls at Baile Hill, turned sharp left into Cromwell Road, and entered the Waggoners’ Rest. Hennessey followed her into the pub. He was familiar with the pub, though didn’t often frequent it, knowing it to be a “locals” pub. Few tourists to the Faire and Famouse Citie of York find it, and further, it is the haunt of the youthful set of locals, to which the woman clearly felt she belonged, though it didn’t surprise Hennessey that by the time he entered the pub, the woman had purchased a large port and was sitting alone in the corner of the room. Hennessey purchased a non-alcoholic drink and sat in the far corner, observing her out of the corner of his eye.

Olivia Stringer.

Of course, Olivia Stringer. Her name came to him suddenly. So this is how she has ended up, alone, wasted, probably a drunkard if not an out-and-out alcoholic, judging by her emaciated appearance. A massive glass of port wine and no food to be seen, and that in the middle of the day. And a day-to-day, hand-to-mouth existence too, judging by the threadbare denims and the shapeless green T-shirt. But he felt no pity for her, no compassion, not after what she had done twenty years earlier.

The case, as Hennessey recalled, had unfolded when the driver of a London express train had brought his train to a rapid but controlled stop and had reported to York control that he had “one under” and gave the approximate location. All railway traffic on the down line was halted, and the emergency services had sped to the scene.

George Hennessey, then a detective sergeant with the North Yorkshire Police, was asked to represent the CID. A suicide has to be considered suspicious until foul play can safely be ruled out. By the time Hennessey had arrived at the scene, the body had been lifted from the track, a relief driver had taken the train on, and rail traffic was flowing normally.

“I always said if I had one under, that I’d look away.” The train driver, still clearly shaken, leant against the police vehicle and pulled heavily on a cigarette, and judging by the number of butts screwed into the dry ground at his feet, it was one in a long line of cigarettes he had smoked between the time of the accident and Sergeant Hennessey’s arrival. “But you can’t, you see,” he appealed to Hennessey. “You can’t look away.” He was a small man, Hennessey recalled, and he recalled being amused to note that driving a locomotive capable of 125 miles per hour clearly didn’t involve the use of great physical strength. Up to that point, he had always thought of train drivers as being large, brawny types. Clearly, he found, that was not the case. “I rounded the bend, sixty miles an hour at this point, not fast as fast trains go, but no time to stop before impact. I brought the speed down as fast as I safely could, but there wasn’t enough track to stop. Reckon I hit him doing about forty miles per hour.”

“Fast enough.”

“Oh, aye, fast enough all right, but we had eye contact, right till the end. I mean, he was looking right into my eyes and I was looking right into his. He just stood there. Other drivers say their ‘one unders’ turn away before impact, or stand facing away from the train altogether, or attempt to jump to safety at the last minute.”

“But not this man?”

The driver took one last desperate drag of the cigarette and tossed it to the ground, whereupon he stamped it into the soil with the others. “Not this man, oh no, not this man. Not a bit of it. Have you seen him?”

“Haven’t. Why, should I?”

“Only his appearance, not the normal ‘one under,’ not shabbily dressed, if dressed at all. One of my mates had a ‘one under’ who was totally naked, escaped from a psychiatric hospital, but this guy, well dressed, pinstripe suit, bowler hat, he looked like a bank manager or an accountant, and do you know what he did?”

“Tell me.”

“Just before impact, he raised his hat to me and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’”

Hennessey sipped his tonic water and glanced across at Olivia Stringer, who sat staring into space and was now, courtesy of the planet Earth’s revolutions, bathed in a shaft of sunlight which streamed through the stained-glass window.

The “one under,” that particular “one under,” Hennessey had recalled as being very rapidly identified. What was his name? What was his name? It had an unusual ring to it, something... ordinary surname, but very unusual Christian name. Webster. That was it it... Webster. What was his Christian name? Something... Webster?

Thomson. That was it. Thomson Webster. A bank manager of the Gilleygate branch of Yorkshire and Lancashire Bank, one of the last of the family-owned banks, as it is still fond of announcing. At first Hennessey had assumed that it was a hyphenated surname.

“No,” Mrs. Webster, sitting in her very “just so” house, had said. “No, it’s a real Christian name, north of England and unusual, but it’s a real Christian name. Thomson. His grandfather was called by that name and he was christened with that name. He wanted our son to bear that name but I refused, of course.”

Hennessey sat ill at ease in the drawing room of the house, which had a superficial appearance-is-everything feel about it. Even Mrs. Webster’s distress had not seemed genuine, and with the passage of time, still didn’t seem so. The French windows opened onto a manicured lawn on which two miniature poodles played and yapped at each other, so Hennessey had further recalled.

“I’m so pleased that Cyril was able to identify poor Thomson, I’m sure I couldn’t.” Mrs. Webster had sniffed and Hennessey couldn’t help thinking that “Cyril” had been short-changed in respect of his name. Given the choice, Hennessey would have preferred to be a “Thomson” rather than a “Cyril,” especially if he had to grow up in the gritty north of England where Cyrils can have an uncomfortable time.

“Can you think of any reason why your husband should have committed suicide, Mrs. Webster?”

“None. No reason.” She had sniffed into a delicately embroidered handkerchief. “He had everything. Me, two children, this house. What more could any man want?”

George Hennessey watched as Olivia Stringer drained the glass of port and staggered with the empty glass to the bar. She fished out a plastic bag from the pocket of her jeans and from it tipped coins onto the bar top. She counted out, in silver and bronze, enough for another large port. She carried the drink unsteadily back to the seat in the corner and began to sip it. She also began talking to herself, as Hennessy’s mind went back to the next stage in that inquiry.

The next stage had been a visit to Mr. Webster’s place of work. He had found the mood among the staff sombre and subdued.

Mr. Penge received the then Sergeant Hennessey in Thomson Webster’s paneled office. “I’m a caretaker manager,” he explained, “here to look after the shop until things get sorted out.”

“Things?” Hennessey had asked. “Many things?”

“About half a million things. We would have been calling the police in now anyway,” Penge, a tall man with a serious attitude, sighed. “I confess, I never thought... a smallish family-owned bank... we enjoy a lot of staff loyalty...”

“A half-million things?” Hennessey had pressed.

“A half-million pounds.”

“Missing?”

“Well, yes, but not in the sense that we don’t know where it’s gone, but missing in the sense that it’s not where it should be. We don’t keep money like that in the vaults; it’s been drained out of a number of dormant accounts. Only found out when one account was activated and we traced the money to Thomson Webster’s personal account, from where it has been taken out in the form of cash. Confess, for a banker he left a trail any idiot could follow.”

“When did you first notice something amiss?”

“About a week ago, which was when Mr. Webster phoned to say he had flu and wouldn’t be coming in to work. We did our investigation and have concluded what we have concluded, that Thomson Webster, loyal employee of the bank, not long to go before retiring, has ruined his life by embezzling half a million pounds of customers’ money. We were about to call the police, but your timely arrival has saved a phone call. Suicide, you say?”

“Appears to be so. This morning on the railway line just south of York.”

“Poor Thomson. I knew him, knew him well. I always found him to be a man of integrity. I can’t imagine what brainstorm he must have had to make him do that... then to kill himself... Now that is the Thomson Webster I knew, a man who’d rather take his life than live with a compromised integrity, but Thomson Webster a thief... no... no way. He was a practising Christian. It must have been a period of insanity. If he had returned the money, it was something the bank would have managed... Early retirement, I would have thought, something of that sort.” Penge leaned forward and rested his forehead in the palm of his left hand. “Oh dear... then this morning we received this in the post.” He handed Hennessey a receipt. “It’s a left-luggage receipt from York station. It came with this.” He then handed Hennessey a second piece of paper which revealed itself to be a handwritten note. “It’s all there... so sorry. T. Webster.” “It’s Thomson Webster’s handwriting.”

“You haven’t collected it?”

“Well, we’d want the police with us anyway if he has put the half-million pounds in the left luggage at York station. We wouldn’t be happy walking through York with a bundle like that.”

“I can imagine. So, shall we go and see what he has left us? I can arrange for a number of constables to bolster our numbers.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Hennessey and Penge rendezvoused with three constables at York Railway Station’s left-luggage office and presented the receipt. In return, they were handed two large suitcases. Neither was locked and when opened, both were observed to contain large quantities of bank notes.

“We’ll escort you back to the bank with this,” Hennessey said. “A police vehicle and a couple of constables.”

“Appreciate it,” Penge had said. “It’s all going to be there. All half a million. Poor Tom... I know why he killed himself... He couldn’t live with himself after doing this. But why, why did he do it in the first place?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Hennessey had said.

By this point in his recollection, Olivia Stringer was about halfway through the glass of port and was staring into space, chatting quite amicably with herself. Hennessey couldn’t remember who supplied the name, Mr. Penge, or Mrs. Webster, or one of the bank staff. Hennessey couldn’t even remember the name, but it was the name of a man who was of Webster’s age and he and Webster were described as being “like brothers.” Hennessey met him the day after Webster’s suicide, by which time the man had heard the news and was in a state of shock. They sat together on solid wooden garden furniture in the pleasingly mature garden at the rear of the man’s house in Nether Poppleton, where, beyond the garden, was a pleasant view across the meadows to the River Ouse.

“I should have seen it coming,” the man said. “All those signals, clear as daylight in hindsight.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, it started, or stopped, whichever way you look at it, after the birth of their second child. After that, Mrs. Webster moved into the spare room. ‘He’s got two children, no further point in sleeping together.’”

“She said that?”

“Yes, in this house. Tom didn’t know where to put himself.”

“A man wants more than that.”

“Of course he does, and a woman, too, but not Mrs. Webster. From that point onwards, her idea of keeping romance alive in her marriage was walking arm in arm with her husband to and from the ten o’clock service. So long as it all looked right, the reality didn’t matter. And he stuck it, too, for fifteen years, more, he put up with that charade. Then, maybe it was because he’d finally snapped, maybe it was because he’d found himself in a mid-life crisis, he told me that he’d found a ‘girl.’”

“A girl?”

“That was what he said. He was delighted, he could not contain his excitement, he was like an adolescent with his first real girlfriend. It was all a bit embarrassing. That was about three months ago.”

“Did he mention her name?” Hennessey remembered that he had asked that question.

“Olivia. Never told me her second name. She’s about thirty, that puts her twenty years his junior. Didn’t like the sound of her, really, seemed a bit of a good-time girl, not Thomson’s type at all. Then, earlier on this week he phoned me. He said, ‘I’ve ruined my life,’ and then he put the phone down. I phoned him at work, then at his home, he wasn’t at either place. He was nowhere to be found.”

Hennessey watched Olivia Stringer drain the glass and then look disappointed and lost. She stared at the glass as if willing it to refill as if by magic. He remembered meeting her for the first time.

“My boyfriend pays for it,” she said, smiling. Designer clothes, designer jewellery. “This flat, it’s rented, as is, furnished, but my boyfriend pays for it all. Well, he’s older than me, a bit of a sugar daddy, I suppose, and I’m his sugar baby.”

“I see,” Hennessey growled disapprovingly.

“Men do what I want them to do,” she said, twirling her figure. “I can make men do anything.”

“Can you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m thirty, have to start thinking about settling down, so I told my sugar daddy that if he got some serious money I’d go away with him and we’d settle down together. Anyway, how did you find me? And what do you want?”

So Hennessey had told her that her name had been found in her “sugar daddy’s” address book. He also told her that just that day previous said “sugar daddy” had stood on a railway line and said thank you to the driver of the train a second before the impact despatched Sugar Daddy to the hereafter.

And that, Hennessey mused, as he drained his glass of tonic water, was the first part of his story.

The second part of the story occurred some ten years later when George Hennessey and his son Charles, by then a student, had whiled away a winter’s evening by burning fagots in the hearth in the living room of their home in Easingwold and “jawing.” George Hennessey’s dear wife, and dear mother to Charles, had died sadly young some years earlier but had left a strong and warm ghost in the house and garden, and father and son had bonded in her absence. It had grown to be George Hennessey’s practice to tell his son of cases he had been involved in, never compromising his professionalism by naming names or cheapening their jaw sessions by relating salacious or sensational incidents, but rather choosing incidents which offered his growing son some insight into the human condition. The story of the man who took his hat off to the train driver was one such, and he had related the story one evening as the dried twigs crackled and flamed in the fireplace.

The third part of the story was a wholly unexpected exchange between Olivia Stringer and George Hennessey. That lunchtime an emaciated Olivia Stringer, focusing her eyes on Hennessey as the only other customer in the pub, had staggered over to him and said, “Can you buy me a drink, sir? I’m down on my luck, sir.”

Hennessey had stood and said, “No, Olivia, I can’t,” and had walked away, out of the Waggoners’ Rest, feeling Olivia Stringer’s eyes burning into him, wondering who he was and how he knew her name.

Copyright © 2011 by Peter Turnbull