Timetable of Death

CHAPTER TEN

It was an unwritten rule that when they had breakfast they never discussed anything of real moment. Neither Lydia Quayle nor Beatrice Myler wanted to start their day with a subject that might lead to argument and impede their digestion. Over their meal that morning, therefore, they confined themselves to domestic trivia. It was only when they’d finished and when the maidservant had cleared away the plates that they felt able to move on to a more serious matter.

‘The decision, of course, is entirely yours,’ said Beatrice.

‘I know,’ said Lydia, her throat tight.

‘It’s a real dilemma.’

‘It’s more than that, Beatrice. There’s no right way to proceed. I’ll be damned if I do go back and damned if I don’t.’

‘You’ll hear no criticism from me.’

‘I won’t need to. I’ll provide more than enough censure myself.’

‘Oh, this must be preying on your mind dreadfully. What if …’

Thinking better of it, Beatrice lapsed back into silence and reached for her tea. Lydia was eager to know what her friend was about to say and eventually cajoled her into telling her what it was.

‘I was only going to pose a question,’ said Beatrice. ‘What if your father had died of natural causes? Would you have been tempted to go back then?’

‘No,’ said Lydia, ‘definitely not.’

‘You sound very convinced of that.’

‘I am, Beatrice.’

‘And what if your mother had passed away? You’ve often told me how fragile she is. Would that draw you back to Nottingham?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know. But it’s a decision I may have to face soon.’

‘It should be easier now that your father is … out of the way.’

‘Where my family is concerned, there are no easy decisions.’

Beatrice felt sorry for her but there was little she could do beyond offering her unqualified sympathy. Her own family life had been so different. It had been happy and blissfully uneventful. Never having the desire or the opportunity to get married, she’d found fulfilment elsewhere. Having come into a substantial amount of money on the death of her parents, she could afford to live in a delightful house and visit Italy whenever she chose. But the truth of it was, she now realised, that she’d never been forced to make a decision of the magnitude that now confronted Lydia. It was therefore impossible for her to put herself in her friend’s position. She had never met any of the other members of the family or experienced the deep divisions that they appeared to have.

‘Whatever you do, Lydia, you’ll have my full support.’

‘That means everything to me.’

‘I won’t presume to offer you any more advice.’

‘What about your Uncle Herbert?’

‘Oh,’ said Beatrice, chortling, ‘he was an archdeacon. He’ll give you advice whether you ask for it or not. Uncle Herbert would see it as his duty.’

‘How much have you told him about me?’

‘It wasn’t necessary to tell him anything, Lydia. People like him just know.’

Lydia spooned sugar into her tea and stirred it, contrasting the life she now led with the one that she’d escaped. When she’d been at home, she had a family, a position in the community and an ability to follow her interests whatever the costs involved. It was the friendship with Gerard Burns that had been the catalyst for change. Slow to develop, it had started at a cricket match when she saw him in supreme form. As a bowler, he’d terrorised the batting side. Suddenly, he was much more than simply a gardener. Though he was increasingly fond of her, he was held back from making even the smallest move in her direction because she seemed quite unattainable. For anything to happen between them, therefore, it had been up to Lydia to take the initiative and that was what she’d finally done. She’d been shocked at her boldness but thrilled with his response. They began to meet in secret and the attraction eventually burgeoned into love.

As she looked across the table, she realised that Beatrice had never had that sense of madness, that fire in the blood, that conviction that nothing else mattered than to be with the man she adored. It had somehow been beyond her friend’s reach. What Beatrice had in its place was something that Lydia had come to cherish because it brought a peace of mind she’d never felt before.

‘I’d rather stay here with you, Beatrice,’ she said.

And the discussion was over.

Madeleine Colbeck took advantage of the bright sunlight flooding in through the window of her studio and started work early that morning. While she knew that there were other female artists in London, she flattered herself that she was the only one who’d forged a reputation for painting steam locomotives and railway scenes. Her father was her greatest source of technical advice but he was also her sternest critic. When she heard the doorbell ring, she feared that he’d called unexpectedly and would come to view her latest work before it was ready to be seen. Opening the door, she listened for the sound of his voice. In fact, it was Victor Leeming who was being invited into the house. After putting her brush aside and wiping her hands on a cloth, Madeleine went downstairs to greet him.

‘What are you doing here, Victor?’ she asked.

‘I’m to act as a postman,’ he replied, handing over a letter. ‘The inspector said I was to deliver this before reporting to Scotland Yard.’

‘Come in the drawing room and tell me everything.’

She led the way into the room and sat beside him on the sofa. Anxious to open her letter, she felt that it would be rude to do so until she’d talked to her visitor.

‘Is Robert still in Derby?’

‘Yes, he is, and likely to be there for some time.’

‘Have you made any headway in the investigation?’

‘I like to think so but I daresay you’ll read about it in the letter.’

‘Why did Robert send you back to London?’

‘He has work for me to do here, Mrs Colbeck. I’m to stay the night.’

‘That will please Estelle,’ she said. ‘By the way, she came here for tea with the boys a couple of days ago. We had a lovely time.’

‘Did my lads behave themselves?’ he asked, worriedly.

‘They were as good as gold. My father saw to that. Between you and me, I’m very glad that he’s not here at the moment. If he were, he’d insist on telling you how to solve the murder.’

‘I wish somebody would. I’m completely confused.’

‘Why is that?’

‘It’s too complicated to explain and I don’t want to repeat what the inspector has told you in his letter. Besides, I need to see Superintendent Tallis. I don’t know why,’ he said, despondently, ‘but whenever I go into his office, I feel as if I’m about to face a firing squad.’

Madeleine laughed. ‘He’s not that bad, is he? Robert enjoys teasing him.’

‘I’d never dare to do that. He’d have me back in uniform in a flash.’ He got to his feet. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mrs Colbeck, and to know that I’ll be in a more comfortable bed tonight than the one I spent the last two nights in.’

She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll show you out.’

‘There’s no need. You enjoy reading your letter.’

‘I’m dying to open it.’

‘Then prepare yourself for a surprise. I’ll see you again this afternoon.’

‘Do you need to come back?’

‘Those are my orders,’ he said with a smile. ‘You and I are going to be working side by side. Open your letter and find out why.’

To work up an appetite for breakfast, Colbeck had taken a walk around Derby before its streets were bustling with people and noisy with traffic. He liked the town. Its rich medieval legacy was still visible and there was a sense of civic pride that he admired. When he’d had his breakfast, he went off to find Maurice Cope.

‘Derby is a good blend of the old and the new,’ he remarked. ‘It’s full of lovely, narrow, winding streets as well as big, solid, purposeful buildings. You must enjoy living here, Mr Cope.’

‘Actually,’ said the other, ‘I live in Kedleston. Not in Kedleston Hall, I hasten to add — that’s far too grand for me. I live in the village.’

‘Does it have a railway station?’

‘Not yet, but I hope that it will one day.’

‘I could say the same of Melbourne. A branch line there would have saved me a lot of time. How do you get into Derby every day?’

‘I ride,’ said Cope. ‘I find a steady canter very invigorating of a morning. It’s only three miles away from Derby.’

Colbeck was surprised. In his view, Cope was an unlikely horseman. Indeed, he looked as if he got very little physical exercise. Yet, although he worked for a railway company, he chose to live somewhere yet to be served by it. That seemed perverse. They were in an office that seemed to reflect Cope’s character. It was clean, well organised and dull. There was nothing to excite the eye or stimulate the brain.

‘How did you get on in Melbourne?’ asked Cope.

‘I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. The Hall itself and the church nearby are exceptional.’

‘I was referring to your meeting with Mr Burns.’

‘He was quite exceptional as well, in his own way,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s a first-rate gardener and an outstanding cricketer. Few of us have two such strings to our bow.’

‘What did you make of him, Inspector?’

‘I have something to find out before I make a final judgement.’

‘Is he a credible suspect?’

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘I’d like to pass on the observation to Mr Haygarth. He wants to know about every stage of your investigation.’

‘Then you may tell him that we are still gathering evidence across a wide front. Given the fact that he worked for Mr Quayle and fell out with him, Mr Burns must be considered as — how shall I put it — a person of interest to us. What was your estimate of him, Mr Cope?’

‘I’ve never met the fellow and nor has Mr Haygarth.’

‘So you’ve never seen Gerard Burns playing cricket?’

‘It’s a game I have no time to watch, Inspector.’

Colbeck glanced at a framed photograph on the wall of the Derby Works.

‘There’s another reason why I like this place,’ he said. ‘It’s a railway town but quite unlike most of the others. Places like Crewe, Swindon and Wolverton have their works near the heart of the town, and so does Ashford in Kent. Yours is on the outer edge of Derby.’

‘Other industrial developments got here first, Inspector.’

‘I’d value the opportunity to take a look around the works.’

‘You won’t find any murder suspects there.’

‘I just want to satisfy my curiosity, Mr Cope.’

‘Then I’ll ensure that you’re made welcome there. Will Sergeant Leeming want to accompany you on a tour of inspection?’

‘No,’ said Colbeck with a laugh. ‘He doesn’t share my enthusiasm for rail transport. In any case, he’ll be back in London by now.’

Cope was astonished. ‘What’s he doing there?’

‘He’s widening the search.’

‘You seem to have strange methods of investigation, Inspector.’

‘They usually bring gratifying results, I assure you.’

‘There’s something I wish to say,’ said Cope, clearing his throat for what was plainly a rehearsed speech. ‘Donald Haygarth is part of the backbone of this company. He’s essential to its future success. Since he is the person to profit most from the unfortunate demise of Mr Quayle, it’s only natural that some people would name him as a suspect. I know that Superintendent Wigg has done so. I can see it in his eyes.’

‘The superintendent has made no secret of the fact.’

‘He needs to understand that nobody is more committed to unmasking the killer than Mr Haygarth. It was he who sent for you, Inspector.’ He hunched his shoulders interrogatively. ‘Do you think he’d be rash enough to do that if he had any blood on his hands?’

He paused for an answer that never came. Early in his career, Colbeck had been summoned to solve a murder by the very man who’d committed it and who was certain that he would be absolved from suspicion by making contact with Scotland Yard. Ultimately, his hopes had been dashed. There was no proof so far that Haygarth was attempting the same sort of bluff but he had certainly not been eliminated as a possible suspect working in conjunction with others.

‘What is your next step, Inspector?’ asked Cope.

‘I’m going to pay a visit to Ilkeston.’

‘Why do you need to go there?’

‘There’s an alibi that needs to be checked. It’s one of those tedious jobs that a murder investigation always throws up but it can’t be ignored.’ He looked Cope up and down. ‘Tell me, sir, would you say that you had a good memory?’

‘I have an excellent memory, as it happens.’

‘And would you describe yourself as honest?’

Cope bridled. ‘I find that question rather offensive,’ he said. ‘Speak to anyone in this building and you’ll find that I’m known for my honesty.’

‘Gerard Burns would think differently.’

‘What has he got to do with it?’

‘If your memory was as sound as you claim, you’d remember. You once approached him on Mr Haygarth’s behalf to entice him away from his job by offering him more money. Has that slipped your mind?’

‘I deny it flatly,’ said Cope, standing his ground.

‘Are you claiming that Burns has made a mistake?’

‘No, Inspector, I’m claiming that he’s told you a downright lie. But, then, what can you expect from an unprincipled rogue who wormed his way into the affections of one of Mr Quayle’s daughters?’

‘When we spoke about him in Mr Haygarth’s presence, you insisted that his name was new to you. How is it that you’ve suddenly become aware of his reason for leaving Mr Quayle?’

Cope held firm under Colbeck’s accusatory gaze. ‘I, too, have been making enquiries,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one who can do that, Inspector.’

The anomaly had been pointed out to him many times. Victor Leeming was one of the bravest detectives at Scotland Yard, justly famed for his readiness to tackle violent criminals and for his disregard of personal injury. His courage had earned him many commendations and won him promotion to the rank of sergeant. Yet when he had to spend time alone with Edward Tallis, he had an attack of cowardice. Taking a deep breath and pulling himself to his full height, he knocked on the superintendent’s door and received a barked command to enter. Leeming went into the room and closed the door gently behind him. Head bent over a document he was perusing, Tallis kept him waiting. When he finally looked up, his eyes widened.

‘Is that you, Leeming?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What the devil are you doing here?’

‘Inspector Colbeck sent me to deliver this report,’ said Leeming, stepping forward to put the envelope on the desk then jumping back as if he’d just put food through the bars of a lion’s cage. ‘He sends his regards.’

‘Does he, indeed?’

Tallis opened the letter and read the report with a blend of interest and exasperation. His grunts of disapproval were warning signals. Leeming was about to become the whipping boy yet again.

‘So,’ said Tallis, glaring at him, ‘the Inspector is scouring the Midlands for an unusual top hat and you have been amusing yourself by pushing a wheelbarrow uphill. Is that the sum total of your achievements?’

‘There’s more to it than that, sir.’

‘Then why is there little else in the report?’

‘The missing top hat and the wheel marks of a barrow in the churchyard might turn out to be useful clues.’

‘Then again, they might not.’

‘We shall see, Superintendent. Does the inspector make no mention in his report of Gerard Burns, one of our suspects?’

‘Yes, he does,’ said Tallis, ‘but Colbeck seems more interested in telling me about his ability as a fast bowler than about his potential as a killer. And what’s this nonsense about a search for Miss Lydia Quayle?’

‘The inspector believes that she will give us information that can’t be obtained elsewhere. In the shadow of a murder, you expect a family to retreat into itself but, in this case, they’ve shut us out completely. Inspector Colbeck called at the house and had short shrift from Stanley Quayle. He’s the elder son. You’d have thought he’d have wanted to help those of us who are trying to catch the man who murdered his father but he’s shown no interest. His sister may be able to tell us why.’

‘Lydia Quayle had a disastrous relationship with this fellow, Burns.’

‘That’s why it’s important to find her, sir.’

‘You and Colbeck were sent to Derby to solve a heinous crime. I don’t want the pair of you poking into a misalliance between a gardener and a lady who should have known better. This is work for detectives of another kind,’ said Tallis with utter contempt. ‘I refer to that odious breed of private investigators that enjoy peeping through keyholes and eavesdropping on conversations. We are dealing with murder, Sergeant, not with sexual peccadilloes.’

‘The inspector called it a true romance.’

‘Well, he’d better not do so in my hearing.’

‘They must have loved each other to take such a risk.’

‘Don’t you dare invite me to speculate on the stratagems to which they resorted,’ said Tallis, leaning forward aggressively. ‘This attachment was never going to be sanctified by marriage. All that it did was to estrange a young woman from her family and give a dissolute fast bowler a reason to hate her father.’

‘Oh, he wasn’t dissolute, sir.’

‘Don’t argue with me, you idiot!’

‘Inspector Colbeck described him as a responsible person.’

‘And look at what he was responsible for!’

‘It happened years ago, sir.’

‘He ruined this young lady’s life and drove her apart from her family. And now,’ he continued, glancing at the report, ‘he’s had the gall to get married.’

‘It’s not a crime,’ retorted Leeming, emboldened by the scorn in Tallis’s voice. ‘If it is, you must arrest the inspector and me because we’ve both found someone with whom to share our lives. What happened between Gerard Burns and Lydia Quayle has a direct bearing on this case. One of them has been found,’ he stressed. ‘It’s important that we track down the other.’

Tallis was so stunned by the unaccustomed forthrightness of his visitor that he could find nothing to say. Instead, he scanned the report again so that he could take in the fine detail. When he’d finished, he looked up at Leeming.

‘As you wish, Sergeant,’ he said, chastened. ‘Find the lady.’

Though Ilkeston was in Derbyshire, it was much closer to Nottingham than it was to the county town that Colbeck had just left. It was an archetypal industrial community, owing its wealth to coal, ironworks and textile manufacture. When he got his first look at the place, Colbeck despaired of ever finding a cricket pitch there. It was so defiantly urban that the few trees he could see were like nervous guests afraid to step fully into a room. The ironworks stood at New Stanton to the south of the town and it soon made its presence felt. One of the three blast furnaces on the banks of the Nutbrook Canal suddenly boomed out and made the ground quake. Colbeck mused that even an experienced bowler like Gerard Burns would find it hard to maintain the rhythm of his run-up if disturbed by the deafening noise from the Stanton Ironworks.

The cab driver had a pleasant surprise for him. There was indeed a cricket pitch half a mile out of the town and he spoke fondly of it. Colbeck asked to be taken there. Having watched matches at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, he was bound to compare the Ilkeston equivalent unfavourably with it. Small, oval and encircled by trees, it also served as a park and a few tethered goats were grazing on it. Yet it was relatively flat and had a pavilion of sorts, a long wooden shed with a verandah in front of it. An old man was coming out of the pavilion. When Colbeck approached him, he discovered that he was talking to the groundsman.

‘How often are matches played here?’

‘Not often, sir.’

‘Is there a regular team here?’

‘Not really, sir.’

‘How much money is spent on the upkeep of the ground?’

‘Not much, sir.’

‘I see that you’ve got goats here.’

‘Better’n sheep, sir — far less dung.’

There was an element of pride in the man’s voice. What was a rather sorry pitch in Colbeck’s eyes was a source of pleasure to him. It was he who kept the grass cut and marked everything out. Ramshackle as it was, the pavilion had a fairly recent coat of white paint.

‘You had a match here a few days ago.’

The man chuckled. ‘We beat a team from Matlock, sir.’

‘Why was that?’

‘We ’ad best bowler in’t county.’

‘Gerard Burns?’

‘Aye, thass ’im.’

He went into rhapsodies about the game and described how none of the Matlock team could handle the speed, aggression and accuracy of Burns’s bowling. The Ilkeston team was gathered from the surrounding area. Miners, ironworkers and those employed in textile factories showed little interest in cricket. They saw it as a game for gentlemen and preferred rougher sports. Yet a cluster of spectators had turned out to watch Ilkeston destroy Matlock.

‘It were a treat, sir.’

‘I wish I’d seen Burns in action,’ said Colbeck. ‘I’ve heard a lot about him.’

‘The lad were champion.’

‘What happened after the game?’

‘We drank till we dropp’d.’

The old man’s reminiscences were so filled with excitement and spiced with the local dialect that Colbeck didn’t understand much of what he said but he heard the salient details. Burns had been invited to join the team by someone who’d seen him play for Nottinghamshire and knew of his move to Melbourne. It had taken time to persuade the gardener to represent Ilkeston as a guest player but, once he’d committed himself, he gave of his best. The celebrations went on into the evening and Burns had drunk more than his share of beer.

‘Then he went back to Melbourne, I suppose,’ said Colbeck.

‘No, sir. I were on’t cart wi’ ’m when it took us ter station.’

‘So where did he go?’

‘Derby.’

Colbeck felt a minor thrill of discovery. Flushed with alcohol, Gerard Burns sounded as if he had been in the right place and at the right time to kill the man he hated. How he had contrived to get Vivian Quayle to Spondon was not so easily explained. Nobody had been able to tell Colbeck where exactly Quayle had been in the twenty-four hours leading up to his murder. He was as ubiquitous as he’d been industrious. Was it possible that Burns had somehow become aware of the man’s movements that night? He had, after all, returned to what was part of the Quayle fiefdom. The coal mines in Ilkeston and beyond were owned by the family. They employed large numbers of people from the town. Burns would have been well aware of that. Was that the reason he’d come to Ilkeston in the first place?

Colbeck’s speculations took him all the way back to the railway station. When he descended from the cab, he paid the driver and thanked him for his help. He was just about to walk away when a carriage rolled past nearby. The passenger could be seen clearly. He appeared to be wearing funereal garb but it was his top hat that made Colbeck stare. Tall and with a delicately curved brim, it looked remarkably like the one missing from the murder victim. At that moment, the passenger turned his head idly in the direction of the detective and there was a searing moment of recognition between them.

Colbeck was looking at the face of Stanley Quayle.