It was now the last weekend in January 1855. Their parting five months earlier had been on a positive note, and it had not seemed unreasonable to hope that by the following summer she would be Mrs Killigrew. But she had not replied to any of the letters he had sent her since then, and the mail service between England and the fleet was usually pretty good. Killigrew knew all too well that relationships started under intense circumstances never lasted but, his relationship with Araminta predating the adventures they had shared in the Gulf of Finland, he hoped it was firmer than that. On the other hand, it had not taken her long to find a new beau while he had been in the Arctic; and for an heiress as eligible as the Honourable Miss Araminta Maltravers, it did not seem impossible that she might have fallen for the charms of someone from her own kind: richer than Killigrew, better-looking than Killigrew, a better prospect for marriage in more ways than he cared to consider. He tried to tell himself there was no point worrying about it now: all would shortly be revealed.
The next day was a Sunday and there were no trains, so Killigrew and Molineaux spent two nights at a hotel in Montmartre, exploring the city separately during the course of the intervening day. Killigrew knew Paris well, and Molineaux had also picked up French somewhere along the line, so the two of them were able to amuse themselves well enough.
On the Monday morning they rendezvoused on the platform at the Gare du Nord in plenty of time to catch the Double Express Service to London via Boulogne, where a packet steamer waited to take them across the Channel. At Folkestone, Molineaux was about to join Killigrew in one of the first-class compartments when he caught sight of an altercation between a prettily distraught Frenchwoman and the guard, who clearly did not speak a word of French but seemed to think that if he spoke English loudly and slowly enough, she would understand.
Molineaux intervened. ‘Pardonnez moi, mam’selle. Puis-je vous aider?’
‘Vous parlez français, m’sieur? ’
‘Oui, mam’selle, bien sûr.’
‘Je dois prendre le train à Londres.’
*‘Mais certainement, mam’selle. Le train ici, c’est le train à Londres.’ *
‘Ah, merci, merci, m’sieur! Merci beaucoup!’
Molineaux turned to Killigrew. ‘I’d best go with her, sir,’ he said with a wink. ‘Make sure she gets off at the right station.’
The commander smiled indulgently. ‘I’ll see you at London Bridge.’ He watched Molineaux go, and shook his head, chuckling wryly. He had been impressed by Molineaux’s abilities as a seaman long ago, and had learned to turn the occasional blind eye to his impudence. Once he had promised himself that if he ever got the chance to help Molineaux in his career he would certainly do so, but looking back he could not help thinking that Molineaux had done more to advance his, Killigrew’s, own career, if only by keeping him alive.
There were four first-class compartments in each carriage, opening straight on to the platform. Killigrew found an empty one, climbed inside, and settled down on one of the seats, taking the front and back pages of the previous day’s Manchester Guardian and spreading them on the opposite seat so he could rest his boots there. He leafed through the remaining news pages, which were full of the terrible sufferings of the troops in the trenches before Sevastopol. The member of parliament for Sheffield, a Radical, had moved a resolution calling for a committee of inquiry to be set up to investigate the Tory Government’s conduct of the war, and Lord Aberdeen’s administration was looking very shaky indeed.
‘I do beg your pardon. Is this the London train?’
Killigrew looked up from his newspaper to see a clergyman leaning through the door of the compartment, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with a shovel hat and a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on his nose.
‘It is indeed, Reverend. Hop aboard.’
The clergyman climbed into the compartment and closed the door behind him. He put his shovel hat on the hat rack, hung up his furled umbrella, and turned to Killigrew, looking pointedly at his cheroot.
‘Does this bother you? I can put it out, if you like…’
The clergyman shook his head. ‘Not on my account, please! But would you mind if we opened a window?’
Killigrew waved a dismissive hand. ‘By all means. I’m not averse to a little fresh air myself.’
The clergyman opened the window and sat down opposite Killigrew, opening a copy of the Bible. At last the guard on the platform blew his whistle, and a hiss of steam sounded from the engine. A succession of clanks sounded as each coupling took up the strain, and then the whole carriage gave a slight jerk and they were on their way.
Killigrew gazed out of the window, watching the rooftops of Folkestone roll by, until the train had left the suburbs behind and was barrelling through the snow-covered Kentish countryside. A stiff breeze blew through the window, but both Killigrew and the clergyman were well muffled against the cold.
Killigrew tilted the brim of his wideawake down over his eyes so he could snooze, and looked forward to his reunion with Araminta. Of course, his first priority was to report to Napier as soon as possible; but already the winter sky was growing dark, and the Admiralty would be closed by the time the train reached London. He could go back to Paddington, spend an hour cleansing the grime of his long journey from his pores at the local hummum baths, change into some clean clothes, and it would still not be too late to call at the Bullivants’…
An exclamation from the clergyman snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Bless my soul!’
Killigrew pushed up the brim of his wideawake with an index finger and met the clergyman’s expression of alarm with a quizzical glance.
‘I’d clean forgotten: we’ll be coming up on the Sandling tunnel at any moment!’
The last thing they wanted was billows of smoke from the engine’s smokestack filling the compartment with soot. ‘Stay where you are, Reverend,’ Killigrew told him, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll get it.’
He grasped the leather tab to pull it back up, but it was stuck. The clergyman stood up behind him; to help him close it, he assumed. He was trying to jerk it free when he glanced down and noticed a broken matchstick wedged in the crack, jamming it. The matchstick could not have been there when he had opened the window only a few minutes earlier, which could only mean…
He started to turn, and at that moment the train entered the tunnel and the unlit compartment was plunged into darkness. Killigrew felt something cold and unyielding looped over his head and pulled tight against his throat. The clergyman hauled him backwards, pulling him off balance, and forced him down with his chest against the edge of one of the seats. Killigrew felt a knee between his shoulder blades, and then the cold, hard metal of the chain was cutting into his Adam’s apple, choking him.
It was done as expertly as any thug garrotting an innocent traveller on the Grand Trunk Road between Delhi and Lahore. Too late Killigrew realised he should not have been taken in by the shovel hat; the man was far too broad-shouldered to be a man of the cloth. He flailed to break free in vain.
Drawing up one knee beneath him, Killigrew managed to brace it against the floor at the foot of the seat. He let himself go limp. The assassin was too much of an expert to stop garrotting him, but he grew more confident. Killigrew braced his hands against the seat and, in conjunction with his leg, heaved himself backwards with all his might, carrying the assassin with him. The two of them crashed against the side of the compartment, and Killigrew heard glass smash as the assassin’s head collided with the window. The earthy reek of smoke filled the compartment, the clatter of the wheels on the track echoing against the walls of the tunnel.
The fading sunlight filled the compartment once more as the train emerged from the tunnel. Killigrew rammed an elbow into the assassin’s ribs and managed to break free. The assassin came at him again as he turned, the fob chain of a watch stretched taut between his gloved hands. Killigrew caught him by the wrists, but the assassin was stronger. He forced the commander back against the door, pinning him the
re. Before Killigrew could brace his arms, the chain was digging into his throat once more. He felt himself choking, the assassin’s face an impassive mask dissolving in the red haze that filled his vision.
Realising he had only a few seconds of consciousness left, he aimed a kick at the man’s crotch. But the assassin expected nothing less and twisted to receive the blow on one leg. Killigrew’s attempts to pull the chain away from his throat were in vain. In desperation, he reached behind him until his groping fingers clasped the door handle.
He opened it.
As the door swung open behind him, he felt himself falling back. He caught hold of the doorjamb and hung out from the side of the carriage, painfully conscious of the gravel bed of the railway rushing past beneath him at breakneck speed, close to forty miles an hour. The wind whipped the wideawake from his head in an instant.
The assassin tried to prise his fingers off the jamb. With his other hand, Killigrew reached up and grabbed the top of the door to brace himself. But he lost his footing on the threshold as the door swung out further and found himself dangling from one arm. He swung his other arm up and hung there, staring through the open window to where a train coming in the opposite direction hurtled towards him.
The assassin leaned out from the door, trying to grab him and drag him back inside the compartment. Killigrew would be hanged first. He thought about throwing himself from the train, but the rocky embankment below the track offered escape only at the cost of a broken neck. There was only one way to go.
Up.
He hauled himself up the side of the door with his arms, ignoring the painful protests of an old injury in one shoulder, until he could get his foot on the window-sill. He boosted himself up until his hips were against the top of the door – still swinging wildly with the swaying of the train, it was almost impossible to keep his balance – and he could reach across to grab the luggage rail that ran around the flat roof of the carriage.
The other train was almost upon him.
With one hand gripping the rail, he reached across with the other and entwined his fingers in the netting that held the luggage in place on the roof. Kicking himself clear of the door, he hauled himself over the rail, clambering over the neatly arranged luggage. He swung his legs clear less than two seconds before the rush of air from the locomotive slammed the swinging door against the side of the carriage and ripped it clean off its hinges with a crack like a rifle-shot, loud enough to be heard over the shriek of the passing locomotive.
The toecaps of Killigrew’s half-boots scrabbled against the netting as he hauled himself to the centre of the roof. Gripping the netting tightly, he lay there gasping for breath. But he knew he could not afford to rest: the assassin was clearly bold and determined, and would not waste time before climbing up after him.
The wind made Killigrew’s eyes smart. He looked towards the head of the train in time to see the arch of another tunnel bearing down on him. He threw himself flat and hugged the luggage through the netting, trying to melt into it. The roof of the tunnel roared overhead, plunging him into darkness once more. Acrid smoke stung his eyes and clawed at his lungs as the brickwork slashed past barely inches above his back. He glimpsed a light somewhere ahead, and moments later the train emerged from the tunnel.
He gulped the fresh air into his lungs, blinking tears from his eyes as he peered up ahead. No more tunnels for a while, as far as he could see. He eased himself gingerly into a sitting position, facing towards the side of the train, waiting for the assassin to show his face above the level of the roof so the commander could ram the heel of his half-boot into it. At least, with the door gone, it would be more difficult for him to climb up…
But why climb up on that side, when there was a perfectly sound door on the other…?
Killigrew twisted in time to see the assassin ascending behind him. There was barely time to brace himself for the onslaught, except the assassin rose to his feet, struggling to keep his balance on the bucketing carriage, and reached inside his frock-coat. Going for a dagger or a pistol; Killigrew did not know which and was not going to wait to find out. He threw himself at the man, catching him around the waist and bearing him down to the roof. The two of them tumbled perilously close to the edge.
The assassin rolled on top, straddling Killigrew and pinning him down. He belaboured Killigrew’s face with his beefy fists before reaching under his coat again and pulling a large knife from his belt. He tried to plunge it down into the commander’s face, and Killigrew barely caught him by the wrist in time. It took the strength of both arms to keep the blade at bay. Killigrew jerked his head to one side and relaxed his arms, allowing the blade to come arcing down and bury its tip deep in a steamer trunk less than an inch from his ear. Then he sank his teeth into the man’s wrist and bit down with all his might.
The man screamed and Killigrew tasted blood in his mouth. He thrust his assailant off, crawling several feet across the luggage before turning to face him. The man had risen to his feet again and drawn the knife from the trunk. Killigrew had little choice but to rise to meet him, the wind buffeting his back as he stood up. He tugged off his greatcoat as the man came at him again. There was no need to throw it: all he had to do was let go and it flew from his hands to wrap itself around the assassin’s head. The man flailed wildly with the knife, but Killigrew had already turned to run – or at least totter – towards the front of the train. He picked his way over the netting-covered luggage until he reached the end of the carriage.
There was no time to stop and measure the gap: he leaped without thinking, launching himself from the edge of one roof to land on the other. It was not much of a leap, at least not in terms of the breadth of the gap, but the wind was against him, as well as the uneven surface of the netting over the luggage packed there. One foot slipped out from beneath him and he stumbled, falling heavily and rolling over the side. Feeling himself slipping from the roof, he caught hold of the rail with one hand, and the breath was knocked out of him when he slammed against the side of the carriage.
He hung from one arm for a few seconds, flailing wildly until he caught hold of the rail in the other hand. He found himself dangling opposite the window of another first-class compartment. He tried to get the occupants’ attention in the hope they would lower the sash and let him in, but peering through the window he saw there were only two people in there, a man and a woman, and both so intensely locked in a carnal embrace they probably would not have noticed if it had been a hippopotamus in lawn sleeves hanging outside the window.
The assassin leaped across the gap between the two carriages and landed on his feet, swaying only slightly before turning to stand over Killigrew. Grinning, he raised one foot over the commander’s right hand where it gripped the rail. Killigrew transferred his grip to the netting and braced his feet against the side of the train, giving the netting an almighty tug. It was pulled out from beneath the assassin’s feet and he landed on his back across the luggage.
Killigrew pulled himself up on to the roof and turned in time to see the assassin coming at him again, knife in hand, his back to the front of the train. The commander looked past him, and his eyes opened wide with fear. He threw himself flat on the roof, clasping his hands over his head. Seeing this, the assassin did not waste time glancing over his shoulder to see the low bridge hurtling towards him, but likewise threw himself flat.
Which was a mistake, because there was no bridge; Killigrew’s act had fooled him completely. As the assassin lay on his stomach, waiting for the non-existent bridge to pass overhead, the commander stood up and ran across his back, whirling to grab him by the ankles and swing him off the roof of the train. The assassin twined his fingers in the netting to stop himself from going over, but the netting tore, so that he found himself swinging against the side of the carriage, with only a few strands of the netting still in place. He started to haul himself up, only to find the side of a steamer trunk blocking his way on to the roof. Looking up, he saw Killigrew had set the trunk on
its end, and now stood behind it.
‘No!’ screamed the assassin.
Killigrew gave the trunk a kick. It toppled over the side and hit the assassin on the head, breaking his grip on the netting, and both trunk and assassin plummeted from the side of the train to tumble down the embankment. The trunk burst open, spilling shirts and handkerchiefs to the wind; the assassin rolled over and over, disappearing into a patch of brambles beneath the embankment.
Killigrew watched the brambles as they receded into the distance, and then slumped on the roof of the carriage, breathing hard.
Most likely the assassin had been an agent of the Third Section. It came as no surprise to learn that there were Russian spies operating in England, although it was alarming to discover they included assassins as well as observers and political agitators. It seemed unlikely that the man had been sent specially to England to murder Killigrew; Nekrasoff had had plenty of time to send a coded telegram to one of his agents with a description of the commander and instructions to await his arrival at Folkestone, the most likely point of entry into the country for anyone returning from the continent.
It was ironic in a way. Conscious that the Russians might try to retrieve the plans before he could hand them over to the Admiralty, Killigrew had kept a weather eye open for trouble all the way from Danzig to Boulogne; only when he had set foot on English soil had he relaxed his guard. That had been foolish of him, he now realised; the Russians would have expected nothing less, so it was the obvious place to ambush him.
The train was slowing. He looked up to see them entering the next station on the line: Ashford. He waited until the train had come to a complete halt before levering himself up and dropping down from the roof of the carriage to land on the platform next to an astonished elderly couple.
‘Shockin’ conditions in third class these days,’ he told them, shooting his cuffs, before collecting his holdall and going in search of a less draughty first-class compartment.
Killigrew and the Sea Devil Page 3