The Excursion Train

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nothing revealed the essential difference between the two men as clearly as the train journey to Ashford that morning. Inspector Robert Colbeck was in his element, enjoying his preferred mode of travel and reading his way through the London newspapers as if sitting in a favourite chair at home. Sergeant Victor Leeming, on the other hand, was in severe discomfort. His dislike of going anywhere by train was intensified by the fact that his body was a mass of aching muscles and tender bruises. As their carriage lurched and bumped its clamorous way over the rails, he felt as if he were being pummelled all over again. Leeming tried to close his eyes against the pain but that only made him feel queasy.

'How can you do it, sir?' he asked, enviously.

'Do what, Victor?'

'Read like that when the train is shaking us about so much.'

'One gets used to it,' said Colbeck, looking over the top of his copy of The Times. 'I find the constant movement very stimulating.'

'Well, I don't – it's agony for me.'

'A stagecoach would bounce you about just as much.'

'Yes,' conceded Leeming, 'but we wouldn't have this terrible noise and all this smoke. I feel safe with horses, Inspector. I hate trains.'

'Then you won't take to Ashford, I'm afraid.'

'Why not?'

'It's a railway town.'

Lying at the intersection of a number of main roads, Ashford had been a centre of communication for generations and the arrival of its railway station in 1842 had confirmed its status. But it was when the railway works was opened seven years later that its geographical significance was fully ratified. Its population increased markedly and a sleepy agricultural community took on a more urban appearance and edge. The high street was wide enough to accommodate animal pens on market day and farmers still came in from a wide area with their produce but the wives of railwaymen, fitters, engineers and gas workers now rubbed shoulders with the more traditional customers.

The first thing that the detectives saw as they alighted at the station was the church tower of St Mary's, a medieval foundation, rising high above the buildings around it with perpendicular authority, and casting a long spiritual shadow across the town. A pervading stink was the next thing that impressed itself upon them and Leeming immediately feared that his bath the previous night had failed to wash away the noxious smell of the cesspit. To his relief, the stench was coming from the River Stour into which all the town's effluent was drained without treatment, a problem exacerbated by the fact that there were now over six thousand inhabitants in the vicinity.

Carrying their bags, they strolled in the bright sunshine to the Saracen's Head to get a first feel of Ashford. Situated in the high street near the corner with North Street, the inn had been the premier hostelry in the town for centuries and it was able to offer them separate rooms – albeit with low beams and undulating floors – at a reasonable price. Colbeck was acutely aware of the effort that it had cost the Sergeant to get up so early when he was still in a battered condition. He advised him to rest while he ventured out to make initial contact with the family. Within minutes, Leeming was asleep on his bed.

Colbeck, meanwhile, stepped out from under the inn's portico and walked across the road to the nearby Middle Row, a narrow, twisting passage, where Nathan Hawkshaw and Son owned only one of a half a dozen butchers' stalls or shambles. The aroma of fresh meat mingled with the reek from the river to produce an even more distinctive smell. It did not seem to worry the people buying their beef, lamb and pork there that morning. Poultry and rabbits dangled from hooks outside the shop where Nathan Hawkshaw had worked and Colbeck had to remove his top hat and duck beneath them to go inside.

A brawny young man in a bloodstained apron was serving a female customer with some sausages. Colbeck noted his muscular forearms and the dark scowl that gave his ugly face an almost sinister look to it. When the woman left, he introduced himself as Adam Hawkshaw, son of the condemned man, a hulking figure who seemed at home among the carcasses of dead animals. Hawkshaw was resentful.

'What do you want?' he asked, bluntly.

'To establish certain facts about your father's case.'

'We got no time for police. They helped to hang him.'

'I've spoken to Sergeant Lugg in Maidstone,' said Colbeck, 'and he's given me some of the details. What I need to do now is to get the other side of the story – from you and your mother.'

Hawkshaw was aggressive. 'Why?'

'Because I wish to review the case.'

'My father's dead. Go back to London.'

'I understand the way that you must feel, Mr Hawkshaw, and I've not come to harass you. It may be that I can help.'

'You going to dig him up and bring him back to life?'

'There's no need for sarcasm.'

'Then leave us alone, Inspector,' warned Hawkshaw.

'Inspector?' said a woman, coming into the shop from a door at the rear. 'Who is this gentleman, Adam?'

Colbeck introduced himself to her and discovered that he was talking to Winifred Hawkshaw, a short, compact, handsome woman in her thirties with a black dress that rustled as she moved. She looked too young and too delicate to be the mother of the uncouth butcher. When she heard the Inspector's request, she invited him into the room at the back of the property that served as both kitchen and parlour, leaving Adam Hawkshaw to cope with the two customers who had just come in. Colbeck was offered a seat but Winifred remained standing.

'I must apologise for Adam,' she said, hands gripped tightly together. 'He's taken it hard.'

'I can understand that, Mrs Hawkshaw.'

'After what happened, he's got no faith in the law.'

'And what about you?'

'I feel let down as well, Inspector. We were betrayed.'

'You still believe in your husband's innocence then?'

'Of course,' she said, tartly. 'Nathan had his faults but he was no killer. Yet they made him look like one in court. By the time they finished with him, my husband had been turned into a monster.'

'It must have affected your trade.'

'It has. Loyal customers have stayed with us, so have our friends who knew that Nathan could never have done such a thing. But a lot of people just buy meat elsewhere. This is a murderer's shop, they say, and won't have anything to do with us.'

There was resignation rather than bitterness in her voice. Winifred Hawkshaw did not blame local people for the way that they reacted. Colbeck was reminded of Louise Guttridge, another woman with an inner strength that enabled her to cope with the violent death of a husband. While the hangman's widow was sustained by religion, however, what gave Winifred her self-possession was her belief in her husband and her determination to clear his name.

'Are you aware of what happened to Jacob Guttridge?' he asked.

'Yes, Inspector.'

'How did the news of his murder make you feel?'

'It left me cold.'

'No sense of quiet satisfaction?'

'None,' she said. 'It won't bring Nathan back, will it?'

'What about your son?' he wondered. 'I should imagine that he took some pleasure from the fact that the man who hanged his father was himself executed.'

'Adam is not my son, Inspector. He was a child of Nathan's first marriage. But, yes – and I'm not ashamed to admit this – Adam was thrilled to hear the news. He came running round here to tell me.'

'Doesn't he live here with you?'

'Not any more.'

'Why is that, Mrs Hawkshaw?'

'Never you mind.' She eyed him shrewdly. 'Why did you come here, Inspector?'

'Because the case interested me,' he replied. 'Before I joined the Metropolitan Police, I was a lawyer and was called to the bar. Almost every day of my life was spent in a courtroom involved in legal tussles. There wasn't much of a tussle in your husband's case. From the reports that I've seen, the trial was remarkably swift and one-sided.'

'Nathan had no chance to defend himself.'

'His barrister should have done that.'

'He let us down as well.'

'The prosecution case seemed to hinge on the fact that your husband was unable to account for his whereabouts at the time when Joseph Dykes was killed.'

'That's not true,' she said with spirit. 'Nathan began to walk home from Lenham but, when he'd gone a few miles, he decided to go back and tackle Joe Dykes again. By the time he got there, it was all over.'

'Mr Hawkshaw was seen close to the murder scene.'

'He didn't know that the body was lying there.'

'Were there witnesses who saw him walking away from Lenham?'

'None that would come forward in court.'

'Where was your stepson during all this time?'

'He was at the fair with his friends.'

'And you?'

'I was visiting my mother in Willesborough. She's very sick.'

'I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs Hawkshaw.'

'It's the least of my worries at the moment. If things go on as they are, we may have to sell the shop – unless we can prove that Nathan was innocent.'

'To do that, you'll need to unmask the real killer.'

'Gregory and I will do it one day,' she vowed.

'Gregory?'

'A friend of the family, Inspector.' A half-smile of gratitude flitted across her face. 'I don't know what we'd have done without Gregory Newman. When others were turning away, he stood by us. It was Gregory who said we should start a campaign to free Nathan.'

'Did that involve trying to rescue him from Maidstone prison?'

'I know nothing of that,' she said, crisply.

'An attempt was made – according to the chaplain.'

Her facial muscles tightened. 'Don't mention that man.'

'Why not?'

'Because he only added to Nathan's suffering. Reverend Jones is evil. He kept on bullying my husband.'

'Is that what he told you?'

'Nathan wasn't allowed to tell me anything like that. They only let me see him in prison once. We had a warder standing over us to listen to what was said. Nathan was in chains,' she said, hurt by a painful memory, 'as if he was a wild animal.'

'So this information about the chaplain must have come from a message that was smuggled out. Am I right?' She nodded in assent. 'Do you still have it, by any chance?'

'No,' she replied.

Colbeck knew that she was lying. A woman who had made such efforts to prove her husband's innocence would cherish everything that reminded her of him, even if it was a note scribbled in a condemned cell. But there was no point in challenging her and asking to see the missive, especially as he already knew that there was an element of truth in its contents. The Reverend Narcissus Jones had made the prisoner's last few hours on earth far more uncomfortable than they need have been.

'Does this Mr Newman live in Ashford?'

'Oh, yes. Gregory used to be a blacksmith. He had a forge in St John's Lane but he sold it.'

'Has he retired?'

'No, Inspector,' she said, 'he's too young for that. Gregory took a job in the railway works. That's where you'll find him.'

'Then that's where I'll go in due course,' decided Colbeck, getting to his feet. 'Thank you, Mrs Hawkshaw. I'm sorry to intrude on you this way but I really do want the full details of this case.'

She challenged him. 'You think it's us, don't you?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You're not really interested in Nathan, are you?' she said with a note of accusation. 'You came to find out if we killed that dreadful hangman. Well, I can tell you now, Inspector, that we're not murderers. Not any of us – and that includes my husband.'

'I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,' he told her, raising both hands in a gesture of appeasement. 'Very few cases are reviewed in this way, I can assure you. I would have thought it would be in your interest for someone to examine the facts anew with a fresh pair of eyes.'

'That's not all that brought you here.'

'Perhaps not, Mrs Hawkshaw. But it's one of the main reasons.'

'What are the others?'

He gave a disarming smile. 'I've taken up enough of your time. Thank you for being so helpful.' He was about to leave when he heard footsteps descending the stairs and a door opened to reveal a fair-haired girl in mourning dress. 'Oh, good morning,' he said, politely.

The girl was short, slender, pale-faced and exceptionally pretty. She looked as if she had been crying and there was a vulnerability about her that made her somehow more appealing. The sight of a stranger caused her to draw back at once.

'This is my daughter, Emily,' said Winifred, indicating her. 'Emily, this is Inspector Colbeck from London. He's a policeman.'

It was all that the girl needed to hear. Mumbling an excuse, she closed the door and went hurriedly back upstairs. Winifred felt impelled to offer an explanation.

'You'll have to forgive her,' she said. 'Emily still can't believe that it all happened. It's changed her completely. She hasn't been out of here since the day of the execution.'

Victor Leeming was dreaming about his wedding day when he heard a distant knock. The door of the church swung open but, instead of his bride, it was a plump young woman with a wooden tray who came down the aisle towards him.

'Excuse me, sir,' she said, boldly.

'What?'

Leeming came awake and realised that he was lying fully clothed on the bed in his room at the Saracen's Head. The plump young woman was standing inside the doorway, holding a tray and staring at his bruised face with utter fascination.

'Did you hurt yourself, sir?' she asked.

'I had an accident,' he replied, leaping off the bed to stand up.

'What sort of accident?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'It would to me if I had injuries like that.'

'Who are you and what do you want?'

'My name is Mary, sir,' she said with a friendly smile, 'and I work here at the Saracen's Head. The other gentleman told me to wake you with a cup of tea at eleven o'clock and give you this letter.' She put the tray on the bedside table. 'There you are, sir.'

As she brushed his arm, he stepped back guiltily as if he had just been caught in an act of infidelity. It was a paradox. As a policeman in earlier days, Leeming had been used to patrolling areas of London that were infested with street prostitutes yet he was embarrassed to be alone in a room with a female servant. Mary continued to stare at him.

'Thank you,' he said. 'You can go now.'

'I don't believe it was an accident.'

'Goodbye, Mary.'

'Did it hurt, sir?'

'Goodbye.'

Ushering her out, he closed the door and slipped the bolt into place. Then he stirred some sugar into the tea and took a welcome sip. A clock was chiming nearby and his pocket watch confirmed that it was exactly eleven o'clock, meaning that he had slept for over two hours. Grateful to Colbeck for permitting him a rest, he opened the envelope on the tray and read his instructions, written in the neat hand that he knew so well. Leeming was not pleased by his orders but he seized on one benefit.

'At least, I don't have to go there by train!' he said.

Ashford was the home of the South Eastern Railway Company's main works, a fact that gave the town more kudos while inflicting a perpetual clamour upon it during working hours. The construction of a locomotive was not something that could be done quietly and the clang of industry had now become as familiar, if not as euphonious, as the tolling of a church bell. Robert Colbeck was delighted with an excuse to visit the works and he spent some time talking to the superintendent about the locomotives and rolling stock that were built there. To find the man he was after, Colbeck had to go to the boiler shop, the noisiest part of the factory, a place of unremitting tumult as chains were used to manoeuvre heavy pieces of iron, hammers pounded relentlessly and sparks flew.

Gregory Newman was helping to lift a section of a boiler into position. He was a big man in his forties with a mop of dark hair and a full beard that was flecked with dirt. He used a sinewy forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Colbeck waited until he had finished the job in hand before he introduced himself, detached Newman from the others and took him outside. The boilerman was astonished by the arrival of a detective from Scotland Yard, especially one as refined and well dressed as Colbeck. He took a moment to weigh up the newcomer.

'How can you work in that din?' asked Colbeck.

'I was born and brought up in a forge,' said Newman, 'so I've lived with noise all my life. Not like some of the others. Three of the men in the boiler shop have gone stone deaf.'

'I'm not surprised.'

'They should have stuffed something in their ears.'

Newman had a ready grin and an affable manner, the fruit of a lifetime of chatting to customers while they waited for their horses to be shod or for him to perform some other task in his forge. Colbeck warmed to the man at once.

'Why did you stop being a blacksmith?' he said.

'This job pays me better,' replied the other, 'and locomotives don't kick as hard as horses. But that's not the real reason, Inspector. I used to hate trains at first but they've grown on me.'

'They're the face of the future, Mr Newman.'

'That's what I feel.'

'Though there'll always be a call for a good blacksmith.'

'Well, I won't hear it – not with all that hullabaloo in the boiler shop. It's a world of its own in there.' His grin slowly faded. 'But you didn't come all the way here from London to hear me tell you that. This is about Nathan, isn't it?'

'Yes, Mr Newman. I've just spoken with his wife.'

'How is Win?'

'Holding up much better than I dared to expect,' said Colbeck. 'Mrs Hawkshaw was very helpful. The same, alas, could not be said of her stepson. He doesn't have much respect for the law.'

'How could he after what happened?'

'Was he always so truculent?'

'Adam is a restless lad,' explained Newman, 'and he likes his own way. When he lived at home, he and Nathan used to argue all the time so I found him a room near the Corn Exchange. There's no real harm in Adam but he won't let anyone push him around.'

'How does he get on with his stepmother?'

'Not too well. Win is a good woman. She's done all she could for him but he was just too much of a handful for her. Then, of course, there was the problem with Emily.'

'Oh?'

'Adam was always teasing her. I'm sure it was only meant in fun,' said Newman, defensively, 'but I think it went too far sometimes. Emily's scared of him. It wasn't good for them to be sleeping under the same roof. They've nothing in common.'

'They share the same father, don't they?'

'No, Inspector. Emily is not Nathan's daughter.'

'I assumed that she was.'

'Win's first husband was killed in a fire,' said Newman, sadly, 'and she was left to bring up a tiny baby on her own. She and Nathan didn't get married until a year later. His wife had died of smallpox so he had a child on his hands as well – Adam.'

'I'm told that you were close to the Hawkshaws.'

'We've been friends for years.'

'Was it a happy marriage?'

'Very happy,' returned the other, as if offended by the query. 'You can see that from the way that Win fought for his release. She was devoted to her husband.'

'But you ran the campaign on his behalf.'

'It was the least I could do, Inspector. Nathan and I grew up together in Ashford. We went to school, fished in the Stour, had our first pipe of tobacco together.' He smiled nostalgically. 'We were only twelve at the time and as sick as dogs.'

'Was Mr Hawkshaw a powerful man?'

'Stronger than me.'

'Strong enough to hack a man to death, then?' asked Colbeck, springing the question on him to gauge his reaction.

'Nathan didn't kill Joe Dykes,' asserted the other.

'Then who did?'

'Go into any pub in the town and you'll find a dozen suspects in each one. Joe Dykes was a menace. Nobody had a good word for him. If he wasn't getting drunk and picking a fight, he was stealing something or pestering a woman.'

'From what I heard, he did more than pester Emily Hawkshaw.'

'Yes,' said Newman, grimly. 'That was what really upset Nathan. The girl is barely sixteen.'

'I met her briefly earlier on.'

'Then you'll have seen how meek and defenceless she is. Emily is still a child in some ways. She was running an errand for her mother when Joe Dykes cornered her in a lane. The sight of a pretty face was all he needed to rouse him. He grabbed Emily, pinned her against a wall and tore her skirt as he tried to lift it.'

'Didn't she scream for help?' asked Colbeck.

'Emily was too scared to move,' said Newman, 'let alone call out. If someone hadn't come into the lane at that moment, heaven knows what he'd have done to her.'

'Was the incident reported to the police?'

'Nathan wanted to sort it out himself so he went looking for Joe. But, of course, he'd run away by then. We didn't see hide nor hair of Joe Dykes for weeks. Then he turned up at the fair in Lenham.'

'Were you there yourself?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'Did you go with Nathan Hawkshaw?'

'No,' said Newman, 'I rode over there first thing on my own. I've a cousin who's a blacksmith in Lenham. A fair brings in plenty of trade so I helped him in the forge that morning. It made a nice change from the boiler shop.'

'So you didn't witness the argument that was supposed to have taken place between Hawkshaw and Dykes?'

'I came in at the end. There was such a commotion in the square that I went to see what it was. Nathan and Joe were yelling at each other and the crowd was hoping to see a fight. That's when I stepped in.'

'You?'

'Somebody had to, Inspector,' Newman continued, 'or things could have turned nasty. I didn't want Nathan arrested for disturbing the peace. So, when Joe goes off to the Red Lion, I stopped Nathan from following him and tried to talk some sense into him. If he wanted to settle a score, the square in Lenham was not the place to do it. He should have waited until Joe came out of the pub at the end of the evening when there was hardly anyone about.'

'So there would have been a fight of some sort?'

'A fight is different from cold-blooded murder.'

'But your friend was clearly in a mood for revenge.'

'That's why I had to calm him down,' said Newman, scratching his beard. 'I told him to go away until his temper had cooled. And that's what Nathan did. He set out for Ashford, thought over what I'd said then headed back to Lenham in a much better frame of mind.'

'Did he have a meat cleaver with him?'

'Of course not,' retorted the other.

'One was found beside the body. It had Hawkshaw's initials on it.'

'It was not left there by Nathan.'

'How do you know?'

'To begin with,' said Newman, hotly, 'he wouldn't have been so stupid as to leave a murder weapon behind that could be traced to him.'

'I disagree,' argued Colbeck. 'All the reports suggest that it must have been a frenzied attack. If someone is so consumed with rage that he's ready to kill, he wouldn't stop to think about hiding the murder weapon. Having committed the crime, Hawkshaw could have simply stumbled off.'

'Then where was the blood?'

'Blood?'

'I spoke to the farm lad who discovered the body, Inspector. He said there was blood everywhere. Whoever sliced up Joe Dykes must have been spattered with it – yet there wasn't a speck on Nathan.'

'He was a butcher. He knew how to use a cleaver.'

'That's what they said in court,' recalled Newman, bitterly. 'If he'd been a draper or a grocer, he'd still be alive now. Nathan was condemned because of his occupation.'

'Circumstantial evidence weighed against him.'

'Is that enough to take away a man's life and leave his family in misery? I don't give a damn for what was said about him at the trial. He was innocent of the crime and I want his name cleared.'

Gregory Newman spoke with the earnestness of a true friend. Colbeck decided that, since he had supervised the campaign to secure the prisoner's release, he was almost certainly involved in the doomed attempt to rescue him from Maidstone prison and in the upheaval during the execution. For the sake of a friend, he was ready to defy the law. Colbeck admired his stance even though he disapproved of it.

'You heard what happened to Jake Guttridge, I presume?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'What did you think when you learnt of the hangman's death?'

'He was no hangman,' said Newman, quietly. 'He was a torturer. He put Nathan through agony. When she saw the way that her husband was twitching at the end of the rope, Win passed out. We had to take her to a doctor.'

'So you didn't shed a tear when you heard that Guttridge had met his own death by violent means?'

'I neither cried nor cheered, Inspector. I'm sorry for any man who's murdered and for those he leaves behind. Guttridge is of no interest to me now. All I want to do is to help Win through this nightmare,' he said, 'and the best way to do that is to prove that Nathan was not guilty.'

'Supposing – just supposing – that he was?'

Newman looked at him as if he had just suggested something totally obscene. There was a long silence. Pulling himself to his full height, he looked the detective in the eye.

'Then he was not the person I've known for over forty years.'

Colbeck was impressed with the man's conviction but he was still not entirely persuaded of Hawkshaw's innocence. He did, however, feel that the conversation had put him in possession of vital information. If the butcher had been wrongly hanged, and if Colbeck worked to establish that fact, then Gregory Newman would be a useful ally. Though the boiler maker had little trust in policemen, he had talked openly about the case with the Inspector and made his own position clear. There was much more to learn from him but this was not the time.

'Thank you, Mr Newman,' said Colbeck.

'Thank you for taking me away from work for a while.'

'I may need to speak with you again.'

'As you wish, Inspector. Do you want my address?'

'No, I think that I'd rather call on you here at the works.'

Newman grinned. 'Are you that fond of locomotives, Inspector?'

'Yes,' said Colbeck, smiling. 'As a matter of fact, I am.'

Unable to hire a trap, they settled for a cart that had been used that morning to bring a load of fish to Ashford and that still bore strong aromatic traces of its cargo. When it set off towards Lenham and hit every pothole in the road, Victor Leeming could see that he was in for another painful ride. His companion was George Butterkiss, one of the constables in the town, a scrawny individual in his thirties with the face of a startled ferret. Thankful to be driven, Leeming soon began to regret his decision to ask Butterkiss to take him. The fellow was overeager to help, even in a uniform that was much too big for his spare frame, and he was desperately in awe of the Metropolitan Police. He spoke in an irritating nasal whine.

'What are our orders, Sergeant?' he asked, whipping the horse into a trot. 'This is wonderful for me, sir. I've never worked for Scotland Yard before.'

'Or ever again,' said Leeming under his breath.

'What are we supposed to do?'

'My instructions,' said Leeming, keen to stress that they had not been directed at Butterkiss, 'are to visit the scene of the crime, examine it carefully then speak to the landlord of the Red Lion.'

'I know the exact spot where Joe Dykes was done in.'

'Good.'

'Sergeant Lugg showed it to me. He and his men came over from Maidstone to arrest Nathan Hawkshaw. There was no point, really. They should have left it to us.'

'Did you know Hawkshaw?'

'My wife bought all her meat from him.'

'What sort of man was he?'

'Decent enough,' said Butterkiss, 'though he wasn't a man to get on the wrong side of, I know that to my cost. Of course, I wasn't a policeman in those days. I was a tailor.'

'Really?' said Leeming, wishing that the man had stayed in his former occupation. 'What made you turn to law enforcement?'

'My shop was burgled and nobody did anything about it.'

'So you thought that you could solve the crime?'

'Oh, no, Sergeant. There was no chance of that. I just realised how horrible you feel when your property has been stolen. It was like being invaded. I wanted to save other people from going through that.'

'A laudable instinct.'

'Then there was the other thing, of course.'

'What other thing?'

'The excitement,' said Butterkiss, nudging him. 'The thrill of the chase. There's none of that when you're measuring someone for a new frock coat. Well, I don't need to tell you, do I? You're another man who loves to hear the sound of a hue and cry.' He gave an ingratiating smirk. 'Would someone like me be able to work at Scotland Yard?'

'Let's talk about the case,' insisted Leeming, wincing as the wheel explored another pothole with jarring resonance. 'Do you think that Hawkshaw was guilty?'

'That's why they hanged him.'

'He wouldn't have been the first innocent man on the gallows.'

'There was no doubt about his guilt in my mind,' attested the driver. 'He and Joe Dykes were sworn enemies. It was only a matter of time before one of them did the other in. Joe broke into the butcher's shop once, you know.'

'Then why didn't you arrest him?'

'We couldn't prove it. Joe used to taunt Nathan about it. Boasted that he could walk in and out of any house in Ashford and nobody could touch him.'

'I'd touch him,' said Leeming, 'good and hard.'

'We gave him warning after warning. He ignored us.'

'What was this business about Hawkshaw's daughter?'

'It was his stepdaughter, Emily. Pretty girl.'

'Is it true that Dykes assaulted her?'

'Yes,' said Butterkiss. 'Someone disturbed them just in time.'

'Was the girl hurt?'

'Emily was very upset – who wouldn't be if they were pounced on by someone like Joe Dykes? It was a big mistake for her to go down that lane. It was one of his places, you see.'

'Places?'

'He used to take women there at night,' said the other, confidingly. 'You can guess the kind of women I mean. Even in a place like Ashford, we have our share of those. Joe would take his pleasure up against a wall and then, as like as not, refuse to pay for it.'

'And that's where this girl was attacked?'

'She thought she'd be safe in daylight.'

'It must have been a terrifying experience.'

'That's what fired Nathan up. He was very protective towards Emily. He went charging around the town in search of Joe but he'd had the sense to make himself scarce. If Nathan had caught him there and then,' said Butterkiss, flicking the reins to get a faster pace out of the horse, 'he'd have torn him apart. I've never seen him so angry.'

'Was he carrying a weapon of any kind?'

'A meat cleaver.'

Travelling with George Butterkiss had its definite compensations. Annoying as his manner might be, he was a fount of information about Ashford and its inhabitants and, since the murder case had been the only major crime in the area during his time as a policeman, he had immersed himself in its details. Victor Leeming overcame his dislike of the man and let him talk at will. Long before they reached Lenham, he had acquired a much clearer understanding of what had brought him and Colbeck to Kent.

'Is this it, Mr Butterkiss?' he asked.

'Yes, Sergeant. The very spot.'

'Where exactly was the body lying when discovered?'

'Here,' said the policeman, dropping obligingly to the ground and adopting what he believed to be the appropriate position. 'This is where the torso was, anyway,' he added. 'Some of the limbs were scattered about. They never found the other bit.'

'What other bit?'

Butterkiss got to his feet. 'Joe Dykes was castrated.'

It was the first time that Leeming had heard that particular detail and it shook him. They were in a clearing in the woods near Lenham, a quiet, private, shaded place that would have beckoned lovers rather than a killer and his victim. Birds were singing, insects were buzzing, trees and bushes were in full leaf. To commit a murder in such a tranquil place was like an act of desecration.

'Who found the body?'

'A lad from a nearby farm, taking a short-cut home from the fair.'

'I'll need to speak to him.'

'He was the one who spotted Nathan close to here.'

'Let's talk to the landlord of that pub first,' said Leeming. 'That was where Dykes was drinking before he came out to meet his death.'

'Will this go into your report, Sergeant?'

'What?'

'The way I was able to demonstrate where the corpse lay,' said Butterkiss with a willing smile. 'I'd appreciate a mention, sir. It will help me to get on as a policeman. A lot of people in Ashford still treat me as if I was still a tailor. But I'm not – I'm one of you now.'

Leeming choked back a comment.

Since there were so few customers that afternoon, Adam Hawkshaw elected to close the butcher's shop early. After bringing in everything that had been on display on the table outside, he took off his apron and hung it up. Then he opened the door at the rear of the shop and went into the room. Winifred Hawkshaw was seated beside Emily with a comforting arm around the girl. Both of them looked up. After a glance from her mother, Emily went off upstairs. Winifred stood up to confront her stepson.

'I told you to knock before you came in.'

'Why?' he asked, insolently. 'It's my house as well.'

'You moved out, Adam.'

'I still own a share of this place now that my father's dead. He always said that he'd leave it to me.'

'He changed his mind.'

'You made him change it, you mean.'

'I don't want another row with you,' she said, wearily. 'Not now, please. You'll be able to see the will in due course.' She noticed that he had no apron on. 'Have you shut up shop already?'

Adam was surly. 'No point in staying open,' he said. 'The only customer I had this afternoon was a woman who didn't buy anything. Came to complain about the beef we sold her. And you know why.'

'Yes.' Winifred bit her lip. 'We can't get the best meat any more. Mr Hockaday refused to supply us when your father got arrested.'

'So did Bybrook Farm. We have to pay a higher price now for meat that's only half as good. It's killing our trade.' He heard footsteps over his head and looked up. 'How is she now?'

'Much the same.'

'Has she started to talk again yet?'

'No, Adam,' she replied, sorrowfully. 'Emily has hardly spoken more than a few words to me since this all began. She spends most of her time up there in her room, frightened to come out.'

'She never was one for saying much.'

'Emily needs time to recover – just like the rest of us. We could all do with a period of peace and quiet.'

'How can we get that when some Inspector from London turns up to cause trouble?' he snarled. 'You were wrong to talk to him like that.'

'Why?'

'Policemen are all the same, even fancy ones like that. You never know what they really want.'

'I know what Inspector Colbeck is after.'

'What?'

'He wants to find out who killed the public hangman.'

'So do I,' said Adam, eyes glinting, 'because I'd like to shake his hand. Guttridge being murdered was the one good thing to come out of all this. I hope he died in torment.'

'That's a vile thing to say!' she chided.

'He killed my father.'

'I lost a husband that day, Adam,' she told him, 'but I don't want vengeance against those involved. I just want the stain to be wiped away from our name so that we can hold up our heads in this town again.'

'We may not be staying long enough for that.'

'We have to, Adam. We can't crawl away in disgrace.'

'The shop is the only thing that keeps us here,' he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, 'and most people walk straight past it. I'm not a butcher any more. I'm Nathan Hawkshaw's son – a killer's whelp.'

It was remarkable how much information they had garnered between them in the course of one day. When the two detectives met over a meal at the Saracen's Head that evening, Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming compared notes and discussed what their next move ought to be. Though no firm conclusions could yet be reached, the Inspector felt that the visit to Ashford had already proved worthwhile.

'He's here, Victor,' he announced. 'I feel it.'

'Who is?'

'The killer.'

'Which one, sir?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'The man who murdered Joseph Dykes or the one who finished off Jacob Guttridge in that excursion train?'

'The second of the two. That's what brought us here, after all. Until we've solved that particular crime, Mr Tallis will hound us from morn till night – and he's quite right to do so.'

'That's the only advantage of being here,' said Leeming, rubbing a buttock as he felt another twinge. 'We're out of the Superintendent's earshot. We can breathe freely.'

'Not with that smell from the river.'

'Going back to Nathan Hawkshaw for a minute.'

'Yes?'

'Before we came here, you had a few doubts about his guilt.'

'More than a few, Victor.'

'And now?'

'Those doubts remain,' said Colbeck, spearing a piece of sausage with his fork. 'I spent the afternoon talking to people in the town who knew the butcher well – his friends, his doctor, even the priest at St Mary's Church. They all agreed that it was so out of character for Hawkshaw to commit murder that they couldn't believe he was culpable.'

'I've come round to the opposite view, sir.'

'Why?'

'According to George Butterkiss, there was another side to the butcher. He liked an argument for its own sake. When he used to be a tailor – Butterkiss, that is, not Hawkshaw – he made a suit for him and got a mouthful of abuse for his pains. It was as if Hawkshaw was finding fault on purpose so that he could have a good quarrel with the tailor.'

'Did he buy the suit in the end?'

'Only when Butterkiss had made a few slight changes.'

'Maybe there were some things wrong with it.'

'I don't think so,' said Leeming, munching his food. 'Butterkiss reckons that he only started the argument so that he could get something off the price. The tailor was browbeaten into taking less for his work. That's criminal.'

'It's business, Victor.'

'Well, it sums up Hawkshaw for me. He was no saint.'

'Nobody claims that he was,' said Colbeck, 'and I know that he could be argumentative. Gregory Newman told me that Hawkshaw and his son were always gnawing at some bone of contention. It's the reason that Adam Hawkshaw moved out of the house. Nothing you've said so far inclines me to believe that Hawkshaw was a killer.'

'You're forgetting the daughter, sir.'

'Emily?'

'When she told her stepfather she'd been assaulted by Dykes, he grabbed a meat cleaver and went out looking for him. That doesn't sound like an innocent man to me.'

'What it sounds like is someone who acted purely on impulse. He may have brandished a weapon but that doesn't mean he would have used it – especially in a public place where there'd be witnesses. In those circumstances,' said Colbeck, 'most fathers would respond with blind rage. You have a daughter of your own, Victor. What would you do if some drunken oaf molested Alice?'

'I'd be after him with a pair of shears!' said Leeming.

'I rest my case.'

'Only because you didn't meet the lad who saw Hawkshaw near the place where the murder occurred. I did, Inspector. He gave evidence in court that, when he walked home through the woods, Hawkshaw was trying to hide behind some bushes. He was furtive,' insisted Leeming, 'like he'd done something wrong.'

'Did the youth speak to him?'

'He tried to but Hawkshaw scurried off into the undergrowth. Why did he do that if he had nothing to hide?'

'I don't know,' admitted Colbeck.

'It was because he'd just hacked Joseph Dykes to death.'

'Maybe, maybe not.'

'I'll stick with maybe, sir. The victim was castrated, remember. Only a father who wanted revenge for an attempted rape of his daughter would do that. It has to be Hawkshaw.'

'Did you talk to the landlord of the Red Lion?'

'Yes,' said Leeming. 'He gave evidence in court as well. He told me that Dykes went in there that day, drank a lot of beer and made a lot of noise, then rolled out as if he didn't have a care in the world.'

'What was he doing in that wood?'

'I can't work that out, sir. You'd only go that way if you wanted to get to the farm beyond. It was where that lad worked, you see. My theory is that Dykes may have made himself a den in there.'

'Take care, Victor!' said Colbeck with a laugh. 'We can't have you succumbing to theories as well. In any case, this one doesn't hold water. If there had been a den there, it would have been found when the police made a thorough search of the area.'

'Dykes slept rough from time to time. We know that for certain.'

'But even he wouldn't bed down in the middle of the afternoon when there was a fair to enjoy and several hours more drinking to get through. What took him there at that specific time?'

'Hawkshaw must have lured him there somehow.'

'I think that highly unlikely.'

'How else could it have happened?'

'I intend to find out, Victor,' said Colbeck. 'But only after we've caught the man who stalked Jake Guttridge on that excursion train.'

'We know so little about him, sir.'

'On the contrary, we know a great deal.'

'Do we?' asked Leeming, drinking his beer to wash down his food. 'The only thing we can be sure of is that he's almost illiterate.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because of that warning note you found at Guttridge's house.'

'Go on.'

'It was nothing but a scrawl. Half the words weren't even spelt properly. The person we want is obviously uneducated.'

'I wonder,' said Colbeck. 'People who can't write usually get someone to do it for them. The man who sent that message to the hangman may have wanted to appear unlettered by way of disguise. But there's another factor to weigh in the balance here.'

'Is there, sir?'

'The man who killed Jake Guttridge may not be the one who sent him that note. He could well be someone else altogether.'

'That makes him even more difficult to track down,' said Leeming, popping a potato into his mouth. 'We're looking for a needle in a very large haystack, Inspector.'

'A small haystack, perhaps,' said Colbeck, sipping his wine, 'but that should not deter us. We know that we're looking for a local man with some connection to Nathan Hawkshaw. Someone so outraged at what happened to his friend that he'd go in search of the hangman to wreak his revenge. The killer was strong, determined and cunning.'

'Have you met anyone who fits that description, sir?'

'Two people at least.'

'Who are they?'

'The son is the first,' Colbeck told him. 'From the little I saw of him, I'd say he had the strength and determination. Whether he'd have the cunning is another matter.'

'Who's the other suspect?'

'Gregory Newman. He was Hawkshaw's best friend and he led the campaign on his behalf. My guess is that he even tried to rescue him from Maidstone prison and he'd have to be really committed to attempt something as impossible as that.'

'If he was a blacksmith, then he'd certainly be strong enough.'

'Yes,' said Colbeck, 'but he didn't strike me as a potential killer. Newman is something of a gentle giant. Since the execution, all his efforts have been directed at consoling the widow. He's a kind man and a loyal friend. The priest at St Mary's spoke very highly of him. Gregory Newman, it transpires, has a bedridden wife whom he looks after lovingly, even to the point of carrying her to church every Sunday.'

'That is devotion,' agreed Leeming.

'A devoted husband is unlikely to be a brutal murderer.'

'So we come back to Adam Hawkshaw.'

'He'd certainly conform to your notion that an uneducated man sent that note,' explained Colbeck, using a napkin to wipe his lips. 'When I left the shop yesterday, he was lowering the prices on the board outside. He'd chalked up the different items on offer. Considering that he must have sold pheasant many times, he'd made a very poor shot at spelling it correctly.'

Leeming grinned. 'He's lucky he didn't have to spell asphyxiation.'

'He's certainly capable of inflicting it on someone.'

'It's that warning note that worries me, sir.'

'Why?'

'Guttridge had one and he ended up dead.'

'So?'

'According to George Butterkiss,' said Leeming, pushing his empty plate aside, 'someone else had a death threat as well. Sergeant Lugg, that policeman from Maidstone, told him about it. The note that was sent sounds very much like the one that went to the hangman. The difference is that the man who received it just laughed and tore it up.'

'Who was he, Victor?'

'The prison chaplain, sir – the Reverend Narcissus Jones.'

Though his job at Maidstone prison was onerous and wide-ranging, Narcissus Jones nevertheless found time for activities outside its high stone walls. He gave regular lectures at various churches and large audiences usually flocked to hear how he had conceived it as his mission to work among prisoners. He always emphasised that he had converted some of the most hardened criminals to Christianity and sent them out into society as reformed characters. With his Welsh ancestry, he had a real passion for choral singing and he talked lovingly about the prison choir that he conducted. Jones was a good speaker, fluent, dramatic and so steeped in biblical knowledge that he could quote from Old and New Testaments at will.

He had been on good form at Paddock Wood that night, rousing the congregation to such a pitch that they had burst into spontaneous applause at the end of his talk. Everyone wanted to congratulate him afterwards and what touched him was that one of those most effusive in his praise was a former inmate at the prison who said that, in bringing him to God, the chaplain had saved his life. When he headed for the railway station, Jones was still beaming with satisfaction.

He did not have long to wait for the train that would take him back to Maidstone. Selecting an empty carriage, he sat down and tried to read his Bible in the fading light. A young woman then got into the carriage and sat opposite him, gaining a nod of welcome from the chaplain. He decided that she had chosen to join him because the sight of his clerical collar was a guarantee of her safety. She was short, attractive and dark-haired but she was holding a handkerchief to her face as if to dab away tears. At a signal from the stationmaster, the train began to move but, at the very last moment, a man jumped into the carriage and slammed the door behind him.

'Just made it!' he said, sitting down at the opposite end from the others. 'I hope that I didn't disturb you.'

'Not at all,' replied Jones, 'though I'd never care to do anything as dangerous as that. Are you going as far as Maidstone?'

'Yes.'

'And what about you, my dear?' asked the chaplain, turning to the woman. 'Where's your destination?'

But she did not even hear him. Unable to contain her sorrow, she began to sob loudly and press the handkerchief to her eyes. Jones put his Bible aside and rose to his feet so that he could bend solicitously over her. It was a fatal error. As soon as the chaplain's back was turned to him, the other man got up, produced a length of wire from his pocket and slipped it around the neck of Narcissus Jones, pulling it tight with such vicious force that the victim barely had time to pray for deliverance. When the train stopped at the next station, the only occupant of the carriage was a dead prison chaplain.