The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

  ‘Didn’t see him, did you, Mr Spargo?’

  Spargo shook his head. ‘It’s taken from the small fir tree on the hillside.’

  Mitchell scrolled through more thumbnails and clicked on one. Spargo jumped in his seat.

  ‘My house!’

  ‘No surprise there,’ Quinn said, leaning forwards and studying it. ‘The man was a reporter. He takes pictures for his work.’

  ‘All digital,’ Mitchell said. ‘We have his camera and an impressive array of telephoto lenses.’

  Spargo sat quietly. Something he had seen earlier puzzled him but he wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Go back, go to Kilcreg. I want to see the pictures that don’t show any police vehicles.’

  He waited. Mitchell brought one up on the screen. Spargo tried to take over and Mitchell moved to stop him. Changed his mind.

  ‘Don’t screw the thing up or they’ll have my head. By rights this should have gone to the lab.’

  ‘Was there any time Kilcreg looked like that?’ Spargo asked, nodding at the screen. ‘When there were no police vehicles at all?’

  Mitchell hesitated. ‘We were there for three days and nights. These must have been taken later in the week.’

  ‘That’s not right. What’s the date on this file?’

  ‘The pictures don’t have dates on them.’

  ‘No, I mean what’s the image date, the date on the file?’

  ‘The dates don’t help, they are all the same, all well after the murder. It’s probably the date Letchie downloaded them from his camera.’

  Spargo brought up an image that showed the back of the cottage.

  ‘How do I make this bigger?’

  Mitchell zoomed the image. Spargo squinted at the screen.

  ‘The kitchen window’s ajar,’ he said.

  Quinn moved closer. ‘Looks closed to me.’

  Spargo pointed. ‘Look at the other windows. They are all the same except this one, the kitchen window. The reflection is different. That could only happen if the glass was at an angle and was reflecting something else. It means the window is open, just slightly.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘There are no police vehicles in any of this group of photos. Would your colleagues leave a window open when you weren’t there?’ At any time after the murder?’

  ‘Not a chance. We left the place secure… and there is no incident tape anywhere, we had some strung along the back fence. It is probably still there.’

  ‘Your point being?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘His point being,’ Mitchell said, ‘that Letchie was there before the murder, taking photographs. No way of knowing if it was the day before, or weeks before.’

  Quinn left the room to make phone calls. Mitchell sent out for sandwiches and took Spargo back to his office, collecting coffee en route.

  ‘There was more room where we were,’ Mitchell said. ‘But the room’s booked for the afternoon.’ He grasped the back of a chair and spun it around. ‘Sit down, Mr Spargo.’

  Spargo looked at his watch and wondered where the day had gone. Mitchell sat cradling a coffee mug.

  ‘What if you are right,’ he asked. ‘What if some of those pictures were taken before your mother’s murder?’

  ‘You’re the detective.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I’ve got the answers. I didn’t live there, you did. You knew your mother, I didn’t. The obvious conclusion to draw is that Letchie was checking the place out before the murder, but for what?’

  ‘Taking pictures for somebody?’

  Mitchell fell quiet. Placed a hand over his mouth, thinking.

  ‘Such as who?’

  ‘Such as the person who killed my mother.’

  Mitchell jerked himself upright.

  ‘Bloody obvious I suppose. But it’s the most constructive thing I’ve heard so far.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It doesn’t give us a motive for your mother’s murder but it gives us one for Letchie’s. Reporters sniff around, they wheedle their way into things. Sometimes I envy them. Unlike us they get away with it, they have excuses when challenged, they say they’re doing a piece on development, on land use, on local schools, who lives here, who lives there. They can always find somebody willing to talk.’

  ‘So why kill someone so useful?’

  Mitchell sat silently, rotating his wedding ring six turns one way, six the other. ‘Kill Mr Letchie, you mean? Outlived his usefulness? Started to get in the way? Wanted more money? Threatened to write something? Could be any number of reasons. Got out of his depth, that’s for sure.’

  Spargo flashed a frown. Mitchell’s all-seeing eyes didn’t miss it.

  ‘Something bothering you?’

  ‘It can wait.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s nothing. A while ago someone sent me an email.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Out of my depth, it said. At first I thought it was spam.’

  ‘Who was it from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I sent a curt reply but it bounced. Whoever it was closed the sending address.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘When I got home. The day I collected the journals from you.’

  When Quinn appeared in the doorway Mitchell went quiet.

  ‘So you are calling them journals?’

  It was a deliberate change of subject and Spargo played along, didn’t return to the subject of emails. Feeling he should offer Quinn a chair, Spargo went to stand up. Quinn waved him back down. He crossed the room, cleared files from the corner of a side table and sat on it, his legs swinging.

  ‘Journals, yes,’ Spargo said. ‘I took them to a researcher my daughter knows. The woman is a lecturer. Or something. It’s what she called them. She’s already found fault with the translation your man did.’

  ‘Lewis? He only did half a page. Are you telling me it’s wrong? I haven’t had a bill from him yet. Perhaps I should refuse to pay.’

  Quinn came to life. ‘Lewis? Translator? Elderly man?’

  ‘I’ve never met him,’ Mitchell said. ‘We use him once in a blue moon. Apparently he used to teach up here. When he retired and moved to Edinburgh we continued to use him. Elderly, yes. Must be.’

  ‘If you’re expecting a bill from the man then forget it. We have been looking into a hit-and-run. Victim’s name was Lewis. Buried recently in Piershill.’

  Daylight had gone. The rain that started as a few large drops on the windows of Mitchell’s office now howled up the Moray Firth in long drenching sheets, hitting the seaward side of the building with a sound like thrown sand. Quinn cursed. Said he had to drive back to Edinburgh today because he had court in the morning.

  ‘We’ve finished with your house,’ he told Spargo before he left. ‘Best you don’t go back today though. Not sure who’s got the keys.’

  Back in his car Spargo called the motor lodge where he stayed last time and booked a room. Then he called Jez and told her his news. Said the dead man in his basement might have been reconnoitring his mother’s place for someone else.

  ‘So bizarre…!’

  ‘And there’s something else. DI Quinn was here, he drove up. He said the translator, Lewis, was killed in a hit-and-run in Edinburgh.’

  Jez stayed quiet for so long Spargo asked if she was still there.

  ‘Dad… I don’t like the sound of this. Stay out of it. Please stop poking around.’

  Remembering the motor lodge didn’t serve evening meals Spargo drove into town, stopped near the railway station and bought a pizza. By the time he had checked in it had gone cold.

  That night he dreamed not of the ghosts of dead miners but of Mitchell and Quinn on the hillside at Kilcreg, competing in an egg-rolling contest with Letchie’s laptop as the prize. It beat his imaginings hands-down. Wished he could have more like that.

  The motor lodge provided self-service breakfasts. Men and women in suits and crisp shirts sat at small tables with open newspapers in one hand and forks of food in the other. Still
hungry from yesterday Spargo took a plate from a pile and assembled some do-it-yourself food. Poured himself coffee and carried it to a table.

  ‘Hey, Spargo! You mind if I join you?’

  Spargo stifled a groan. There was no mistaking the voice. He swivelled around, gave an insincere smile and said, without enthusiasm,

  ‘Mr Kalman…’

  The Elvis trimmings had gone. There were no trinkets, no jewellery, no heavy belt buckle. What remained was workmanlike – a spotless white tee and a pale, washed-denim jacket.

  ‘So how’re you doin’, Spargo?’

  Kalman transferred the contents of his breakfast tray onto what little space remained at Spargo’s table. When everything was arranged as he wanted it he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘So why’re you here this time, Spargo?’

  To give himself time to think, Spargo cleared his throat and mumbled something about work. Kalman laughed.

  ‘So it’s mining business, Spargo? They got mines up here? Okay, you don’t want to say. I respect your need to protect your contacts. You need have no worries there, I’m strictly an underwater man. Underwater, okay. Underground, no way!’

  Spargo winced. Being with the man was bad enough without corny rhymes.

  ‘Are you still on holiday?’ Spargo asked, wondering if he should have used the word vacation. ‘Not back on the rig?’

  ‘Hey, Spargo, I haven’t been on rigs for years. I’m Leading Diver on the Posi-Three. Didn’t I say that? Thought I told you she was moored in the harbour?’

  Spargo nodded. ‘Yes, sorry. Bilge pump failure.’

  ‘Turned out to be more than that. We got parts flown from Philadelphia, you believe that? Philadelphia! Now she’s fixed. Due out tomorrow.’

  Spargo took a bite of cold toast. He was about to ask Kalman where he and the boat were going when he remembered what happened last time he asked questions.

  ‘We had to leave a load of gear on the bottom out there,’ Kalman said. ‘Recovering it should not be a problem, weather permitting. If we don’t recover it this week I reckon it’s gone for good. Not the safest job I’ve done, Spargo, that’s for sure.’

  Before Spargo realised it, the words were out.

  ‘Job? What job?’

  Kalman had his fork halfway to his mouth. He stopped and returned it to his plate. ‘You haven’t heard? I thought this whole darned country would know, way it’s been spread around.’ He stood up, gesturing to Spargo to stay seated. ‘Stay there, Spargo. Just you stay there.’

  Kalman scraped his chair back and headed for the lifts. Five minutes later he was back with a white plastic carrier bag tucked under his arm. He sat down. Placed the bag under the table.

  ‘Can’t tell you what we’ve been doing, Spargo, not officially,’ Kalman said, reaching down. His hand returned holding a newspaper he unfolded and thrust at Spargo. His finger stabbed at an article at the foot of the page.

  ‘We are supposed to keep this thing under wraps, Spargo,’ he said. ‘Then some jerk goes and prints this.’

  Spargo’s gaze fell on the journalist’s name. He swallowed, uncomfortably.

  DIVERS LOCATE SUB

  by our Special Correspondent Ian Letchie

  Divers recently located the wreck of a submarine in deep water near Fladen Ground off the north east coast of Scotland. A spokesman for Posidonian Enterprises, the diving company undertaking the work on behalf of a US-based trust, revealed the wreck is a German U-boat believed to have struck a mine in the Second World War. Diving the wreck has been dogged by inclement weather. The dive boat, Posidonian Explorer III, is now moored in Inverness Harbour with mechanical problems. Teams are expected to resume their work next week.

  ‘Damn near cost me my job,’ Kalman said. ‘How the heck was I to know the creep was a newspaper man?’

  Spargo sat quietly, trying to fit pieces into place in his mind while Kalman continued to rant.

  ‘Ian Letchie, the reporter who wrote this, has been murdered.’ Spargo said quietly and as nonchalantly as possible.

  It was meant as a shocker to shut Kalman up. It hadn’t worked when he told him about his mother’s murder and it didn’t work now. Kalman stayed cool.

  ‘Can’t say that surprises me, Spargo. Guy that pokes his nose into other people’s business like that sooner or later is going to get whacked. Can’t be that good at his job either, because he got it wrong. The sub didn’t hit a mine, that’s for sure. Also the guy couldn’t even get the location right.’

  ‘Where is Fladen? Sounds Dutch.’

  ‘Fladen Ground. That’s five hours out from here. They’re fishing grounds, Spargo, one hundred metres of water. Is that deep, or what?’

  Spargo tried to imagine such a depth. He had been deeper in mines, much deeper, but the thought of diving in any depth of water unnerved him. A cubic metre of water weighs a tonne. At a hundred metres depth that’s one hundred tonnes of pressure on every square meter.

  Kalman picked up his coffee, drank it down and went for more. Brought one back for Spargo.

  ‘Were you the ones that found it?’ Spargo asked.

  ‘The sub? Hell no, someone else did that years ago. Posidonian are contract divers. We carry diving gear, not all that exploration shit.’

  ‘So who’s paying you? Why are they doing this? Are they planning to raise it?’

  Kalman frowned, tilting his head as if he didn’t understand the question. ‘Why would they want to raise it?’

  ‘Put it on show? Get some of their money back?’

  Kalman laughed loud. Heads in the restaurant turned.

  ‘Heck, these guys don’t need money, Spargo! Raising her wouldn’t work anyways, she’s rusted to hell. The old tub would break its back if anyone were fool enough to try.’

  ‘So why bother to explore?’

  ‘There are some folks out there with more money than you ever dreamed of, who knows why they do these things? Call it philanthropic or whatever but these guys have spent two million dollars so far. That’s on the dive, not the not exploration stuff.’

  ‘Two million?’

  As if it were no big deal, Kalman shrugged. He had brought sachets of ketchup back with the coffees and he tore them open, decorating what little was left of his meal with their contents.

  ‘They gave us two tasks,’ Kalman said, wiping his fingers on a paper serviette. He held up his hand and splayed out his fingers. Gripping his index finger as if about to teach Spargo how to count he said ‘Number one, we were to positively identify the boat. The guys that found it used a ROV, that’s a Remotely Operating Vehicle, a submersible with cameras. Their video showed no identifiable markings or numbers. What it did show was the sub had no deck gun, and that seemed to mean something to the money guys.’

  ‘Is that what you’re using, an ROV?’

  ‘Hell no, we’re technical divers, we breathe tri-mix – that’s oxygen, nitrogen and helium – I guess you know it, it’s the stuff that gives the Donald Duck voices. Oxygen on its own is poisonous below sixty metres, did you know that, Spargo? Between you and me we’re well below the safe limit, but who the hell’s to know.’

  ‘Did you manage to get into the sub?’

  ‘You bet. The bow compartment was easy, there was a darned great hole in the hull. Inside we had big problems. The watertight door from the bow was rusted shut, so from the outside I cut a hole in the hull. You can only stay at that depth for twenty-five minutes before the gas gets into your blood, Spargo. Been there right through summer and that’s a fact. On my last dive I got into the engine room. Guess what I found there, Spargo?’

  He looked at Spargo expectantly. Spargo just shrugged. Kalman jabbed his hand into a pocket and took out what looked like a small strip of brown plastic. He held it out. Spargo took it.

  ‘Bakelite, Spargo, the stuff they used to make light switches, you remember?’ Is this history, or what?’

  Spargo looked at the strip. It was nameplate with fixing holes at each end. Two words in Germ
an had been engraved on it by machine but they meant nothing to him. Beneath them, in much smaller print, was the code U-1500. Spargo, unimpressed, handed it back.

  ‘I told the trust guys I’d found this label and one of them flew over specially to see it. I showed it to him and he just stood there shaking his head. Said he had finally found the right sub. Said he’d found it, Spargo. Not me and my guys.’

  ‘You said two jobs. You said identifying the sub was the first of them.’

  Kalman held up his hand again. This time he clenched his second finger. ‘Second thing, okay. We were to do a stem to stern search of the sub. They said look for something big. I’ve got something big, I told them, I have a German submarine. Inside it, they said, something big the sub was carrying. You think you’ve seen rust, Spargo? When the sub went down the acid from its batteries leaked out, helped the saltwater do its job of corroding every damn thing. Felt sorry for the folks that were in her when she went down. You know what gas is given off when battery acid mixes with seawater?’

  ‘Chlorine,’ Spargo said.

  ‘Chlorine gas,’ Kalman said as if Spargo hadn’t spoken. ‘Poor devils.’

  ‘What makes you think they didn’t get out?’

  ‘Whole crew went down, I reckon. Hole in the bow looks like it was made from the inside, the hull’s split wide open. How do you reckon that could have happened?’

  Spargo shook his head and waited for the answer. Realising there wouldn’t be one he volunteered his own. ‘One of its torpedoes exploded.’

  ‘Now that’s the odd thing, Spargo. She had no torpedoes. No torpedo tubes either.’ Spargo tried to comment but Kalman talked over him. ‘There wasn’t one inch of space in those boats they didn’t use, Spargo. They bolted stuff to the roof and walls and when it rusts it all comes down. You disturb it, you get crushed by a ton of rusted steel. Can’t say it’s a job I want to do again. Never. Not ever.’

  Spargo tried to imagine it. Tried to compare it with old mines. He had been into abandoned workings and seen collapses, rotting timbers with great globs of mould. It had intrigued him. Scared him.