by Lisa Cutts
‘Tommy,’ I began, ‘it’s not that we don’t appreciate that you’ve helped us out by keeping clear of the booze, but isn’t it dangerous?’
‘I feel fine,’ he said, though his complexion, and the nails digging into the arms of the chair, said otherwise. ‘I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I’ve decided I want to see this out.’
I smiled as genuinely as I could manage, but it was difficult. The hopelessness was coming off him in waves. He was a grown man and I couldn’t force him to go straight to the hospital but he was making me feel uneasy. Enough people had already lost their lives over the years; I didn’t want to add another name to the casualties.
His mind was made up, though, so we let him talk. Wingsy wrote and I asked the questions. Well, to be more precise, I asked the question, singular. The only words I spoke were, ‘Tell us about Leonard Rumbly and the train crash,’ and he talked for an age.
Once Tommy got going, he relaxed more into himself, sitting back in the chair and reducing the chances of wearing away the upholstery on his recliner’s arms. He began by recapping what he’d already told Wingsy and me forty-eight hours earlier, but giving more details this time around. He was a near-perfect witness, apart from the rotting liver that threatened to take his life at any point. Most of what he had told us was already typed up and saved on Wingsy’s laptop. The object of this visit was to get as much detail as we could, add it to what we already had, print the statement off from the mobile printer and get Tommy to read and sign it. Simple. Or it would have been if he hadn’t looked like death warmed up.
‘I’ve already told you how I met Leonard,’ he said. ‘The most important part, the part you want to know about, is how and why the train was derailed and why I kept quiet about it. It’s important that you know I had no direct involvement in the accident. I was on the train. It wasn’t supposed to derail, but be delayed by a few hours. Rumbly had a small team around him then. He couldn’t afford any more loyalty than one or two minders. If they’re still alive, the men you want to speak to are Lance Phillips and Martin Withey. They’re about Leonard’s age and came from the East End. Haven’t seen them in years either. They would have known about any plans he had. There was nothing those two didn’t know, although they didn’t have the brains between them to organise anything, just turn up and look fierce.
‘Rumbly’s genius plan was to delay the train to postpone the football match we were on our way to. If the match was off, the bets were off and he wouldn’t have to pay up. He’d have to give the stake money back, but he wouldn’t be out of pocket. In the meantime, he used the money for other matters, laundered cash through his bookies and returned the cash he owed. He thought it was foolproof. Only trouble was, it went wrong – terribly wrong.’
Tommy paused at this moment and reached for his mug of tea. As his unsteady hand picked it up, he let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure if that was due to reliving the horror of the train crash or because he had forgotten he was drinking tea and not whisky.
‘Leonard Rumbly got a fella called Malcolm Bring to leave his fruit and veg lorry on the track and put in a call to stop the train. There was a problem with that: Malcolm Bring was not only an unreliable idiot who left the call too late, but Bring might have had an ulterior motive. Bring’s girlfriend, Marilyn, was on the train.’
I knew I looked surprised at this comment. I could feel the creases in my own forehead.
‘Malcolm Bring’s girlfriend was pregnant, and someone told Bring that Leonard Rumbly was the father of the unborn child.’
40
‘Do you need a break?’ Wingsy asked, looking up from his note-taking.
Tommy answered with a shake of his head. I could see the damp creeping through his hairline. On a brighter note, he no longer looked like a living corpse and actually seemed to have a bit of colour to his cheeks, other than grey.
‘You see, Bring knew that his girlfriend was cheating on him with the very man he was in debt to,’ continued Tommy. ‘I didn’t know any of this until some time later, you understand. As far as I knew, the train was just going to be held up, or I wouldn’t have been on it. Martin Withey – he was the henchman with two brain cells rather than one – he told me that Bring had been reluctant to be a part of any of it but desperately needed his debts cancelling. It was his only way out. He knew his girlfriend was going to be on the train, and he’d been told she was carrying someone else’s child – it might have been enough to make him do it.’
Tommy paused to stare miserably into his cup. ‘Marilyn was taken to hospital and nearly lost the baby. Apparently Bring was beside himself at what he’d done: the deaths of innocent people, the near-death of an unborn child. He found out the truth from someone, I was never sure who told him, and he went to have it out with Rumbly and got the crap beaten out of him by Withey and Phillips. It’s the only reason I know about it.’
Tommy had begun to turn the cup round and round in his hands, studying the pattern. Eventually, he put it down on the carpet and wiped the back of his hand across his clammy forehead.
When I thought I’d given Tommy enough of a pause to compose himself, I carried on. ‘What we need, Tommy, is something a little more substantial than you telling us that Rumbly was behind the crash. Malcolm Bring is dead, we have no forensics, which we rely on these days, and any documentation would probably be long gone. Can we start with how you know so much about Leonard Rumbly’s business?’
After several seconds, he answered me. ‘I was in Leonard Rumbly’s debt by then too, you see. Not the kind of debt Bring was in, but Rumbly had me where he wanted me. I’d placed bets on matches I was playing in and he had something on me. That’s what he did: he gained my trust and then I couldn’t get out. He used to invite me to his warehouse in Deptford to drink, chat, play cards with him, Phillips and Withey.’ He gave a dry laugh and carried on, ‘Withey always talked too much when he drank. Sometimes it was innocent fun, you know? Other times it got out of hand.’
‘Out of hand?’ I echoed.
My question was greeted with a small shrug. ‘That’s all water under the bridge…’
Tommy trailed off, avoiding my gaze, and for the first time I thought that he was hiding something. Nevertheless, I made myself concentrate on what we’d come here for, making a mental note to ask him again on another occasion.
‘Where will we find Withey?’ I said.
‘I’m not sure. He and Rumbly had a falling-out about money a few years later. He may help, if you can find him. If you get no joy from him, Malcolm Bring’s ex-girlfriend may talk to you. Her name was Marilyn Springate but she’s married now. Reckon she’d want to help, since Rumbly ruined her life as well as many others.’
I had so many more questions but I could see that Tommy was struggling to hold it together. We’d been in his house for over an hour and I was worried that we were wearing him out. As much as I was reluctant to leave and return again another day, it might be better than exhausting him now, and there would be other questions further down the line.
As if he’d pre-empted what I was about to suggest, Tommy said, ‘I’d rather get this finished today, if you don’t mind. It’s not that you’re not welcome here any time and I’ll assist you in any way, but I think it would be better if we got this done. You never know, do you?’ A sad smile tugged at his mouth.
‘I’ll add what you’ve been saying to the statement on the laptop,’ said Wingsy, ‘while you two talk. We can get out of your way then.’
Tommy eased himself out of his chair. ‘May as well put the kettle back on,’ he said, moving to pick up the cups.
‘Want a hand, Tommy?’ I asked.
‘No, thanks, love,’ he said. ‘You can have a look through the photo album again while I’m making a brew. There’s a couple of newspaper clippings of the train crash in the back. They may be interesting.’ He shuffled over to the sideboard to get the album he’d shown us on our previous visit before going to his kitchen.
I flicked abse
ntmindedly through the pages of memories, some showing glimpses of the happiest moments of the lives they portrayed, some capturing the sadder times. All of them pertinent to Tommy, and, once, to his wife. I was aware of the noise of the keyboard as Wingsy typed next to me, as well as the sounds of tea-making from the kitchen. But then every outside distraction faded. I was staring at a page from a newspaper dated 20th June 1964. It was a black and white photograph of the derailed Chilhampton Express. The photo showed a view the police pictures hadn’t. It was the impact of the engine and Malcolm Bring’s lorry. The lorry had a gaping hole in the side. Where I expected to see crates of carrots, cabbages, apples, I saw an empty mangled wreck. Where exactly was the fruit and veg? It should have been strewn all over the crossing and ground.
This thought had flitted through my head some days ago but had got lost in the ether. Now it meant something else – the crash must have been pre-planned. Even Malcolm Bring wasn’t stupid enough to waste money by filling his lorry with stock if he knew he was about to use his vehicle to derail a train.
41
The sight of Tommy’s cat trying to get into my handbag brought me back to the present moment. That, and Wingsy whispering, ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’
‘The cat is in my handbag and there’s no fruit and veg in this lorry.’
‘Can you hear yourself?’ said my friend, trying to shoo the cat away and leaning in for a look at the newspaper cutting.
‘The lack of food strewn on the railway line has always bothered me,’ I said. ‘It shows Malcolm Bring always planned to derail the train, not simply delay it.’
‘Not sure that’s going to make too much difference anyway. He’s long since dead.’
‘Yeah, I know that, Wings, but the point is that surely this will in some way show that Leonard Rumbly knew it too.’
Wingsy paused from tapping on the keyboard to mull over what I’d said. I paused to tip the cat from my bag.
‘Not necessarily,’ he said, scratching his balding head with the biro he had put behind his ear. ‘It could still just have been Malcolm Bring’s decision. We’ve got to show that Leonard Rumbly had something to do with it if we’re going to charge him with conspiracy to commit murder, and, besides, even if he wrote off Bring’s debts to derail the train, it would have been up to Bring whether he wasted his own money or not. Rumbly wasn’t involved in Bring’s legit business, was he?’
‘Yeah, fair point.’ I was silent again, looking through the memorabilia of tattered lives while Wingsy carried on with his typing. It was miserable reading when I thought it through too deeply. On a lighter note, the cat had made itself scarce.
Tommy returned with more tea and we chatted about football while Wingsy finished typing up his statement. At last, when I’d looked at every family photo Tommy had to offer and made as much conversation as possible about a sport I knew nothing about, Wingsy announced he was finished. He explained the process to the sweating, fidgeting Tommy and began to read the statement from the laptop, making amendments where needed as we went.
Eventually, we were all happy with the content and, most importantly, Tommy was happy to put his signature to the statement. Wingsy set up the printer, produced a paper version of Tommy’s words and asked him to read and sign. As soon as he’d done what had been asked of him, Tommy waned. It was so slight, I almost missed it. He looked as though someone was letting the air out of him, bit by bit.
‘We’ll be on our way soon,’ I told him as Wingsy dismantled the printer and shut down the computer. ‘Can we get you anything before we leave?’
‘No, thanks, love,’ he said. ‘Everything I want has long since been out of reach.’
I looked down. I couldn’t face his expression.
We packed up our equipment and paperwork and went through to the hall. As we opened the front door, I turned to our witness and said, ‘We’ll be in touch, and see you very soon, Tommy.’
‘Hope so, love. God willing.’
42
I opened the back door of the car to let some air inside and threw my handbag on to the back seat. As I’d been rummaging through it for the car keys, I’d found a piece of chicken kebab in the compartment designed for mobile phones. That would probably explain why the cat had tried to climb inside it.
Wingsy opened the boot and stowed the computer and printer. As he slammed the boot shut, I distracted him by saying I thought I’d just seen a peacock in the field. He turned away from me to look and I quickly flicked the piece of kebab over my shoulder.
‘That’s not a peacock, Nina, it’s a blue carrier bag caught on a nettle.’ He shook his head and got in the passenger seat. I got in the driver’s seat.
‘Are we going straight back to Riverstone?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a stack of paperwork to catch up on. And I thought Hammond was chasing you for an update on Joe Bring.’
‘I’ve got to say, there’s never a dull moment, is there?’ We turned out of Tommy’s side road and back on to the main road.
We’d been travelling about twenty minutes when Wingsy said, ‘The car seems to be making a strange noise.’
‘Does it?’ I said.
‘It might be best if you pull over and we take a look.’
‘Brilliant idea,’ I said. ‘Apart from the fact that neither of us really has a clue what we’d be looking for – and don’t make out that you would – how do I know you’re not going to drive off and leave me here in the wilds of Sussex.’
‘The wilds of Sussex! You just thought a carrier bag was a peacock. What do you know about – ’
I held my hand up to quieten him.
‘I can hear a cat,’ I said. ‘It meowed.’
Wingsy made an abrupt shift in his seat to look over his shoulder. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Tommy’s cat’s on the back seat. It’s got its head in your handbag.’
‘It’s after the chicken.’
‘What chicken?’
‘The doner from the other night. I found some chunks in my bag. We’re going to have to take it back.’
‘You really are a muppet, Nina.’
‘It’s not my fault that the poxy cat got in the car. Why weren’t you looking out?’
‘What for? How often does a cat jump inside someone’s motor? It’s not the type of thing you expect to happen.’
Wingsy kept a cautious eye on the stowaway as I made a hasty about-turn in the next layby we came to. He seemed very jumpy with the animal’s company and must have been straining his neck. I’d never really thought about my friend as being the nervous type, but it was good to have something to wind him up about later.
Eventually we were on our way back to Tommy’s with his stowaway pet. We were undecided whether we should stop at the top of the drive and let the cat out so Tommy didn’t see us, or take the cat to the door. It clearly didn’t have enough sense to stop itself from getting in the situation in the first place, however, so we couldn’t guarantee it would ever find its way back to the house.
‘What do you reckon?’ he said.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ve been gone too long to say we found his cat at the top of the road and brought it back. We’re going to have to knock.’
‘I don’t fancy knocking and saying, “Sorry, Tommy, but we seem to have driven over thirty miles without noticing your cat was chowing down in my colleague’s handbag.” He’s going to think we’re idiots.’
‘This does put us high up the halfwit chart. How about we pull up and, if he comes out, we say, we thought we’d left something behind but now we’ve found it.’
It was too late for him to argue with me, as I was driving and we were almost back where we’d started forty or so minutes ago. Wingsy was out of the car before I’d even turned the engine off. I smiled to myself at his reluctance to open the door and release the savage tabby cat within. I went around to his side of the car so that, if Tommy was watching out of the window, the position of our car meant that he wouldn’t see the
cat bolt from our vehicle.
As the feline shot across the patchy grass masquerading as a lawn, I glanced up at the upstairs windows. Convinced that when we’d got to the house earlier that day the bedroom curtains had been closed, I was now struck by something odd about their position. Had they simply been open, I probably wouldn’t have given it further thought, but the front main bedroom curtains were open on one side and closed on the other.
Wingsy stood beside me and looked up at the window.
‘That’s strange,’ he said. ‘You knock; I’ll go round the back.’
He moved out of sight to the back of the property as I went to knock at the door. Something wasn’t right at Tommy’s house. We’d been gone less than an hour but a lot could happen in that time. We’d passed no other vehicles for some time so, whatever the problem was, I was sure it was already in the house.
I knocked as loudly as I could and shouted out ‘Tommy!’ several times before Wingsy opened the door to me. His face had taken on a serious look I could only recall seeing on a few occasions. Even more concerning was that he had taken his asp from inside his jacket.
‘No one down here,’ he said leading the way upstairs. I followed, listening out for sounds of movement. The only noise I heard was that of laboured breathing, growing louder as we hurried to the first floor.
43
The door to the main bedroom stood open. The sunlight came straight through the window where the curtain had been pulled back, illuminating the figure on the bed. Tommy’s ashen, clammy face looked even worse in the harshness of the sunshine. His eyelids fluttered as if he was trying to open them but couldn’t manage to do that as well as wheeze. I preferred that he put all of his efforts into breathing; seeing could wait.
I quickly checked the room to make sure that no one else was there as Wingsy moved from room to room. I was sure that Tommy’s physical state was caused by a medical emergency and not an intruder, but nevertheless we weren’t taking any chances. I saw the phone next to the bed and made a grab for it, calling out Tommy’s name as I did so, telling him who I was. I had no idea if he could hear me but it seemed the right thing to do.