The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

THE MAN WHO TOOK OFF HIS HAT TO THE DRIVER OF THE TRAIN by Peter Turnbull

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 walked 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 it 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 tee-shirts and jeans and trainers, and drink among the city’s youth and hope to blend.

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 recognize him and walked quickly, urgently, in such a manner that a casual observer would see her 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. He saw a rather frightened woman, speeding away from something, something within her, something in her past from which there was no escape, no matter how breathlessly fast she walked. He recognized 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 to his private life. She approached him and swept past him, the sagging cheeks, the heavy make-up, 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 Waggoner’s Rest. Hennessey followed her into the pub. He was familiar with the Waggoner’s Rest though he 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 in the evenings the haunt of a youthful set of locals, to which the woman clearly felt she belonged. By the time Hennessey entered the pub, the woman had purchased a large port and was sitting alone in the corner of the then empty lounge bar. 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 tee-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 an Edinburgh to London express train had brought his train to a rapid but controlled stop and had reported to York control that he had had “one under”, giving the approximate location. All railway traffic on the up line was halted, and the emergency services had sped to the scene.

George Hennessey, then a Detective Sergeant with the Vale of York Police, was asked to represent the CID at the incident, procedure dictating that a suicide has to be considered suspicious until foul play can be safely 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, leaned against the police vehicle and pulled heavily on a cigarette. 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 incident 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 remembered being amused to note that driving a locomotive capable of 125 m.p.h. 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 the impact. I brought the speed down as fast as I could but there wasn’t enough track to stop. Reckon I hit him doing about forty.”

“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 that 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 and he stamped it into the soil whereupon it lay, 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’s it… Webster. What was his Christian name? Something… Webster?

Darius. That was it. Darius Webster. A bank manager of the Gillygate branch of the 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. Darius, his grandfather, was called by that name, and he was christened with that name too. He wanted our son to bear the 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 on to 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 Darius, 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 “Darius” rather than a “Cyril”, especially if he had to grow up in the gritty north of England where “Cyrils” can have an uncomfortable time.

“Could 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, fished out a small plastic bag from the pocket of her jeans and from it tipped coins on to 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 Hennessey’s mind went back to the next stage in that inquiry.

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

“We would have called the police in now.” Mr Penge received the then Sergeant Hennessey in Darius Webster’s panelled 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.” 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…”

“Half a million things?” Hennessey had pressed.

“Half a million pounds.”

“Missing?”

“Well, yes. 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 but rather 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 Darius Webster’s personal account, from where it has been taken out in the form of cash. I 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 an investigation and have concluded what we have concluded…that Darius 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 Darius. 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 Darius Webster I knew, a man who’d rather take his life than live without integrity. But Darius 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…D. Webster’. “It’s Darius Webster’s handwriting.”

“You haven’t collected it?”

“Well, as you see, we’d want the police with us anyway if he has put the half a million pounds in the left luggage. 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.”

“Thank you.”

Hennessey and Penge rendezvous-ed with three constables at York station’s left-luggage office and presented the receipt. In return they were handed two large suitcases. Both were unlocked, and when opened both were observed to contain large quantities of banknotes.

“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 here. All half a million. Poor Darius…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 the time Hennessey had recollected this, Olivia Stringer was about halfway through the glass of port and 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, there 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, saying, ‘He’s got two children, no further point in our sleeping together.’”

“She said that?”

“Yes, in this house. Darius 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 makes her twenty years his junior. Didn’t like the sound of her really, seemed a bit of a good-time girl, not Darius’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 his 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 by magic. He remembered meeting her for the first time.

“My boyfriend pays for it,” she had 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 the previous day 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 the story.

The second part 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 faggots in the hearth of 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 a 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 Waggoner’s Rest, feeling Olivia Stringer’s eyes burning into him, wondering who he was, and how he knew her name?