The Secret Hangman

10

T he disappointment was huge. Truly challenging crimes are rare. You might get four or five in a career. Sure, there were questions to be answered, but they were just for the record. All the impetus had gone. He’d fallen prey to wishful thinking.

Back to reality. He stuffed his week’s washing into the machine and switched on. Ten minutes into the cycle he realised there was something amiss with reality. His thoughts weren’t fully on the job and he hadn’t put in any soap powder. He’d made this mistake before. Adding the tablets now was no use. They’d still be sitting in the dispenser when the wash finished. And if he opened the door — as he had a couple of times — he got water all over his kitchen floor. He’d just have to wait until this soap-less wash was through.

He left it running and went to his overladen bookshelves in the front room, where the biographies of Scotland Yard’s finest, men like Fred Cherrill and Bob Fabian, kept company with his eighty-three-volume set of Notable British Trials, the most valuable possession he had. Reading about old murders could be therapeutic when he was hard pressed on his own investigations, reminding him that sometimes good sleuthing brought a result.

Some of those shelves dipped dangerously in the middle. He kept telling himself he would thin the books out, but he hated throwing them away. There was a whole row of Agatha Christies that Steph had collected. He hoped to find someone who would appreciate them.

He picked a book that had him absorbed until the wash was ready for its second try. The case was an old one, dating back to 1864, and so intriguing that he almost forgot the tablets again. And when he reached one footnote, he recalled a recent conversation, and smiled. His thoughts had turned to someone else who would be interested.

Later, he went to the computer that he still thought of as Steph’s, because she’d made the most use of it, contacting her friends and finding out the details of films she wanted to see.

The machine started all right, but wasn’t receiving e-mail, which meant he couldn’t send it either. He tried various options on the keyboard and then a message appeared suggesting he phoned his server. They must have given him up for dead, or decided he was a deserter. He dialled the number and found himself listening to syrupy music until his ear ached. A voice broke in occasionally to tell him he was in a queue. And paying for it, he thought.

Finally he got through to a living individual.

‘You don’t seem to have used it lately,’ the woman on the line said.

‘But you’re getting my money each month,’ he told her. ‘It’s on direct debit.’

‘No problem,’ she said.

‘What do you mean, “No problem”? I’m telling you there is a problem.’

‘Sir, if you wait a few minutes,’ she told him, ‘you’ll receive whatever has come in since you last opened your mail. There’s quite a lot of it.’

‘All junk, or spam, or whatever you call it,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother.’

‘I have to send it to reactivate the service.’

‘All I want is to send an e-mail myself.’

When the avalanche arrived and the little counter logged up something over six hundred messages, he could tell at a glance that he’d not deprived himself of much. Ignoring the invitations to improve his sex life unimaginably, he clicked create mail and typed in Paloma’s address, copying it from the card she’d handed him. Surprise me with a really unusual request, she’d said.

He kept the message terse.

How about a Muller cut-down?

Didn’t even add his name at the end. She’d see it was from Diamond when she downloaded.

This had to qualify as an unusual fashion item. Franz Muller, he’d learned from the book, had been the first train murderer in Britain. He was a young German tailor. One foggy evening in July, 1864, he’d stepped into a railway compartment and sat opposite an old man wearing a gold watch and chain. The temptation was too great. Muller battered the old man senseless with his own walking stick, relieved him of the watch and his gold-rimmed glasses and pushed him out. The victim was found on the line between Hackney Wick and Bow. He died soon after. But Muller made a critical error when leaving the train. He mistook the old man’s black top hat for his own and left his own hat behind with the victim’s stick and bag.

Within twenty minutes a reply came from Paloma.

Is that Muller or Miller?

She hasn’t heard of it, he thought. She’d also added a PS.

This might be easier if we use a chatline. Are you on one?

Good suggestion, he thought. Steph once used a chatroom to reach her friends. He went back to the desktop, found the icon and opened the page. Now what was her password? He typed in Raffles and it worked. Proud of his new-found computer skills, he put in Paloma’s address and was ready to go.

Muller is correct. Should have an umlaut, but my machine won’t do one.

These days, a hair sample from the killer’s hat would have provided DNA evidence. In 1864, proof of identity was more difficult. Fortunately for the police, the young tailor had remodelled his own hat, cutting it down an inch and a half and sewing it together again. Neatly stitched, of course. But it was not the work of a hatter, who would have used glue. Franz Muller’s altered hat became crucial to the hunt for the killer. His cut-down topper caught the interest of the newspapers. And started a fashion.

Paloma answered. There will now be a short delay.

He smiled and looked at the time. After twelve minutes came back the response.

It’s a style of top hat shortened, circa 1865. Am I right?

She’d done her research by now and probably knew the grim story behind it.

Perfectly. Your reputation is safe. This isn’t a fashion question, but how about a Muller Light?

I’d enjoy that. Where and when?

He smiled. She’d fallen into his trap.

A Muller Light was an idea from the railway company to tempt people back onto trains after all the bad publicity. It was a peep-hole cut between compartments so that passengers would feel safer. It had the reverse effect and put them off.

She wrote back. I’m a fashion person, not a railway expert. My last message stands. Why not come here about seven tomorrow and I’ll get some in?

This time it was his turn to delay. He’d started this. Perhaps subconsciously he’d been pitching for a date, and this hadn’t been about Franz Muller’s hat but Peter Diamond’s suppressed desires.

He stared at her message for another minute before writing: Just checked my diary. I’d be delighted to come He hesitated. Now what? A full stop, or a ‘but’…? Go for it, he told himself, and pressed the full stop key.