Murder on the Brighton Express

by Edward Marston

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Leeming,’ he replied.

  ‘Is that why you’ve come – to tell me the bastard is finally dead?’

  ‘I’m looking for Dick Chiffney.’

  ‘And so am I,’ she said, baring the blackened remains of her teeth. ‘I’ve been looking for him all week.’

  Josie Murlow was a fearsome woman in her thirties, tall, big-boned and with red hair plunging down her back like a hirsute waterfall. Her face had a ravaged prettiness but it was her body that troubled Leeming. She exuded a raw sexuality that seemed quite out of place on a Sunday. As a uniformed constable, he had arrested many prostitutes and had always been immune to their charms. Josie Murlow was different. He could not take his eyes off the huge, round, half-visible, heaving breasts. Leeming felt as if he were being brazenly accosted in broad daylight.

  ‘Are you Mrs Chiffney?’ he asked, making a conscious effort to meet her fiery gaze.

  ‘I’m Mrs Chiffney in all but name,’ she retorted. ‘I cooked for him, looked after him and shared his bed for almost two years then he walks out on me without a word of warning. It’s not bleeding right.’

  ‘I quite agree.’

  ‘Who gave him money when he lost his job? Who nursed him when he was ill? Who kept him in drink? I did,’ she stressed, slapping her chest with such force that her breasts bobbed up and down with hypnotic insistence. ‘I done everything for that man.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Over a week ago.’

  ‘Did he have a job at the time?’

  ‘Dick’s been out of work since he knocked his foreman to the ground when he was laying some new track on the railway. We had to get by on what I bring in.’

  Leeming did not have to ask what she did for a living. Even though she was now wearing crumpled old clothes and had no powder on her florid cheeks, Josie Murlow was patently a member of the oldest profession. He decided that she must have catered for more vigorous clients. Only big, strong, brave, virile men would have dared to take her on. Others would have found her far too intimidating.

  ‘Why are the police after Dick?’ she said, belligerently. ‘What’s the mad bugger been up to now?’

  ‘I just wished to talk to him.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me. I’ve had enough dealings with the law to know that you never simply want to talk to someone. There’s always some dark reason at the back of it. Dick is in trouble again, isn’t he?’

  ‘He might be,’ admitted Leeming.

  ‘What’s the charge this time?’

  Leeming was evasive. ‘It’s to do with the railway.’

  ‘The foreman started the fight,’ she argued, leaping to Chiffney’s defence. ‘He threw the first punch so Dick had to hit him back. In any case,’ she added, sizing him up, ‘why is a detective from Scotland Yard bothering about a scuffle on a railway line? There’s something else, isn’t there?’ She glared at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It may be nothing at all and that’s the truth. I just need to speak to Mr Chiffney. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here, would I? Josie Murlow is not a woman to give up easy. I’ve searched everywhere. What I can tell you,’ she conceded, ‘is where Dick likes to drink. I been to all the places but he must have seen me coming because he wasn’t in any of them. You might be luckier. Dick doesn’t know you.’

  Taking out his notepad, Leeming jotted down the names of four public houses that Chiffney frequented. As he wrote, he kept his head down, glad of an excuse not to look at her surging bosom. Josie was well aware of his interest. When he looked up again, he saw that one flabby arm had dropped to her side while the other rested on the door jamb beside her head. Her crudely seductive pose made him take a step backwards.

  ‘Would you like to come in, Sergeant Leeming?’ she invited.

  ‘I…don’t have the time,’ he stammered.

  ‘I’ve got drink in the house – and a very empty bed.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Josie Murlow gives value for money, I can tell you.’

  ‘I’ve no reason to doubt that.’

  ‘Then why are you holding back?’ she said, putting both hands on her hips and turning sideways so that he saw her body in enticing profile. ‘What better way to spend a Sunday?’

  ‘I’m a married man,’ he said, indignantly.

  ‘So are most of them – they want something special for a change.’ She gave a low cackle. ‘I make sure they get it.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m still on duty.’

  She became aggressive. ‘Are you turning me down?’

  ‘I have to find Mr Chiffney,’ he said, retreating from the door.

  ‘Well, when you do,’ she yelled, ‘drag him back here by the balls. I want a word with that swivel-eyed bastard.’

  Returning to Brighton by cab, the first thing that Colbeck did was to find a hotel where he could buy himself a light luncheon. He then took time off to look at the town’s most famous sight, the Royal Pavilion with its strange but arresting mixture of neo-classical and oriental architecture. In the previous century, the restorative properties of its sea water had helped to turn Brighton from a small fishing port into a fashionable resort. The Pavilion had added to its appeal. Built over a period of many years, it had become a main attraction well before its completion in 1823.

  The brainchild of the future King George IV, it had failed abysmally to exercise the same fascination for Queen Victoria and ceased to become a royal residence. Colbeck was glad that it had been purchased by the town in 1850, allowing the public to admire its unique design and its spacious gardens. Those who flocked to the seaside in warmer months did not merely come for the pleasure of walking along the promenade, enjoying the facilities on the Chain Pier or merely reclining on the beach and watching the waves roll in. They were there to view the majestic Pavilion and to get a privileged insight into how royalty lived and entertained.

  After seeing his fill, Colbeck set off on his second visit of the day. St Dunstan’s Rectory was only a stone’s throw from the church itself and it had been built at roughly the same time, retaining its medieval exterior while undergoing many internal renovations. Shown into the drawing room by the housekeeper, Colbeck was given a cordial welcome by Ezra Follis who pulled himself out of his high-backed chair with barely concealed pain.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand, Inspector,’ he said. ‘My hands are still somewhat tender and I had difficulty turning the pages of my Prayer Book during the service this morning. Your visit is timely. I was just about to have my afternoon cup of tea.’

  ‘Then I’ll be happy to join you, Mr Follis.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Ashmore.’

  A nod from the rector was all it took for the housekeeper to bustle out of the room. The two men, meanwhile, sat down opposite each other. After the grand proportions of the library he had visited earlier, Colbeck found the room small and cluttered. The low ceiling, thick roof beams and little mullioned windows contributed to the sense of restriction but the place had a snug, homely feeling about it. Follis had less than a quarter of the number of books owned by Giles Thornhill but Colbeck suspected that he had read far more of the contents of his library than the politician had of his.

  ‘What brings you to Brighton again?’ asked Follis.

  ‘I had to speak to one of your Members of Parliament.’

  ‘Then it must have been Giles Thornhill.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Colbeck. ‘Like you, he was a survivor of the crash.’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘I think he’s still in considerable discomfort.’

  Follis chortled. ‘That’s a polite way of saying that he was singularly inhospitable. It’s no more than I’d expect,’ he said. ‘On the one occasion when I called at his house, Thornhill kept me waiting for twenty minutes before he deigned to see me.’

  ‘I t
ake it that you are not an admirer of the gentleman.’

  ‘Voting against him at the last election gave me a sense of delight, Inspector. I despise the man. He manipulates people to his advantage. The only thing that animates him is the greater glory of Giles Thornhill.’ He chortled again. ‘When visitors come to Brighton for the first time, I ask them what they think of the monstrosity.’

  ‘The Royal Pavilion?’

  ‘No,’ said Follis, ‘our Parliamentary eyesore – Mr Thornhill.’

  ‘What has he done to offend you?’ wondered Colbeck.

  ‘He’s treated people with contempt as if he inhabits a superior order of creation. Then, of course,’ said Follis, knowingly, ‘there’s the small matter of his inheritance.’

  ‘Judging by the size of his house, I’d say that it was an extremely large one.’

  ‘His father made his fortune in the slave trade, Inspector.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  ‘He grew rich on the suffering and humiliation of others. That may explain why Thornhill regards so many of us as mere slaves. However,’ he went on, sympathy coming into his voice, ‘I’m genuinely sorry that he was injured in the crash and did my best to help him at the time. Needless to say, I received no thanks.’

  ‘Do you see Mr Thornhill often?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘At least once a week – we catch the Brighton Express every Friday evening and often share a carriage. Though we acknowledge each other, we rarely speak.’ Follis grinned. ‘I fancy that he knows he can’t rely on my vote.’

  They chatted amiably until the housekeeper arrived with a tray. As she served the two of them with a cup of tea, Colbeck was able to take a closer look at Ellen Ashmore. She was a stout woman of medium height with well-groomed grey hair surrounding a pleasant face that was incongruously small in comparison with her body. Though she and Follis were of a similar age, she treated him with a motherly concern, urging him to rest as much as possible.

  ‘Mrs Ashmore will spoil me,’ said Follis when she had left the room. ‘She did everything she could to stop me taking the service this morning. I told her that I had a duty, Inspector. I couldn’t let my parishioners down.’

  ‘I’m sure that they appreciated your being there.’

  ‘Some of them did.’ Adding sugar to his cup, Follis stirred his tea. ‘Incidentally, did you manage to get anything coherent out of Horace Bardwell?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s hopelessly bewildered.’

  ‘We prayed for him and the other victims.’

  ‘While I was at the hospital yesterday, I spoke to some of them. Two, apparently, were in the same carriage as you.’

  ‘Oh? And who might they be?’

  ‘Mr Terence Giddens and a young lady named Miss Daisy Perriam. They were both highly distressed at what happened to them.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ said Follis with something akin to amusement. ‘Instead of being trapped in hospital beds, the pair of them had hoped to be sharing one.’ Colbeck was taken aback. ‘You didn’t see them together as I did, Inspector. Had you done so, you’d have noticed that, though they pretended to be travelling alone, they were, in fact, together. That’s why Giddens was so desperate to get out of the hospital.’

  ‘He told me that his bank needed him in London.’

  ‘I heard the same lie. The truth of it is that he was afraid that his wife would read about the crash in the newspapers and see her husband’s name among the injured. The last thing that Giddens wanted was for his wife to discover that, instead of doing whatever he told her he would be doing that weekend, he had instead slipped off to Brighton with a beautiful young woman. He lives in fear that Mrs Giddens will walk through the door of his ward at any moment.’

  Colbeck was impressed. ‘You’re a shrewd detective, Mr Follis,’ he said. ‘I wish I had your intuition.’

  ‘It’s something one develops,’ explained Follis. ‘If you’d sat by as many sad deathbeds as I have, and settled as many bitter marital disputes, and listened to as many tearful confessions of wickedness and folly, you’d become acutely sensitive to human behaviour. As it was, Giddens gave himself away at the start. When I first spoke to him in hospital, he wanted to know if Daisy Perriam had survived the crash. He was far less interested in the fate of Giles Thornhill and the others in our carriage.’

  ‘I wish that I’d talked to you earlier.’

  ‘Why – are you going to offer me a job at Scotland Yard?’

  ‘No,’ said Colbeck, tickled by the suggestion. ‘By inclination and training, you’re clearly far more suited to the Church – though I’m bound to observe that there are very few clergymen who’d share your tolerant view of people’s peccadilloes. Any other gentleman of the cloth would be scandalised by the relationship you discerned between Mr Giddens and Miss Perriam.’

  ‘God has punished them enough for their sins,’ said Follis. ‘I don’t feel they deserve the additional penalty of my disapproval. Given their condition, they’ll get nothing but sympathy from me.’

  Colbeck could not imagine that view being expressed by any other churchman. It would certainly not be endorsed by Edward Tallis, a man of high ideals and a stern moral code. In his report to the superintendent, Colbeck would make no mention of the liaison between a respected, married banker and an attractive young woman. The more he got to know Ezra Follis, the more interesting and unusual the man became. Colbeck was about to ask a question when the rector read his mind.

  ‘The honest answer is that there have been occasional moments of friction,’ he said, blithely ‘That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? You were wondering about my relationship with my bishop.’

  Colbeck blinked. ‘How did you know I was going to ask that?’

  ‘It’s what most people think when they hear some of my rather eccentric opinions. They marvel why I’ve not been rapped over the knuckles and forced to toe the line.’

  ‘The Anglican church has many restraints.’

  ‘And I willingly abide by most of them,’ said Follis. ‘But I reserve the right to conduct my ministry according to my own promptings. I’m more concerned about the response of my parishioners than the strictures of the bishop or the dean. As long as I can preach to a congregation, I’ll continue to do so in my own way.’ He took a sip of tea. ‘Now, tell me, Inspector – what progress have you made?’

  ‘We’re still in the early stages of the investigation,’ said Colbeck, ‘but I have every confidence that we’ll catch the person or persons responsible for the crash. It’s only a question of time.’

  ‘That’s reassuring to hear.’

  ‘We already have some suspects in mind.’

  ‘It must be someone with a fierce hatred of trains.’

  ‘You could well be right,’ said Colbeck, unwilling to give any more information. ‘Even after all this time, railways are still not universally accepted. Whoever caused that crash wanted to inflict serious damage on the LB&SCR. He knew how calamitous the consequences would be.’

  ‘Journeys to London have been badly disrupted,’ remarked Follis, ‘and that’s a nuisance to those of us who go there on a regular basis. Not that I’ll be doing any travelling for a while,’ he went on. ‘I’ll have to wait until I begin to look more human.’

  Colbeck sampled the tea. ‘This is excellent,’ he said.

  ‘Mrs Ashmore looks after me very well. Here in the rectory, I have everything a man could desire – peace, harmony, a selection of fine books and the loving care of a woman.’ He set his cup and saucer down. ‘In view of your well-deserved reputation, Inspector, I’ve every reason to accept your judgement but I have to point out that your view is not shared by everyone. All of the passengers still believe they were victims of an unfortunate accident.’

  ‘Until we catch the perpetrator, I’m happy for them to think that. There’s no need to spread alarm, especially when the survivors are hardly in the best condition to cope with it. No,’ said Colbeck, ‘the official view remains th
at of the inspector general.’

  ‘He puts the blame on the driver of the Brighton Express.’

  ‘That’s both wrong and unjust.’

  ‘Is he aware that you hold a very different opinion?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Colbeck. ‘Captain Ridgeon and I have already clashed once. I daresay that we shall do so again before long.’

  Captain Harvey Ridgeon was in a purposeful mood when he called at Scotland Yard that afternoon. Demanding to speak to the most senior detective on the premises, he was shown into the office of Edward Tallis. After attending church early that morning, the superintendent had spent the rest of the day going through reports of the various cases that came under his aegis and making copious notes of the instructions he intended to give to his respective officers. He could see at a glance that his visitor had come to complain.

  Once introductions had been made, Ridgeon was offered a seat. As former soldiers, they had similar attitudes, similar upright sitting positions and similar ways of speaking. What distinguished Tallis was that he no longer attached his military rank to his name, preferring the nomenclature conferred on him by the Detective Department.

  ‘What can I do for you, Captain Ridgeon?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like you to remonstrate with Inspector Colbeck,’ said the other, coolly. ‘I find his interference both unhelpful and annoying.’

  ‘Then your argument is with the railway company itself. It was they who sought his assistance.’

  ‘I need no assistance, Superintendent. As my record shows, I’m perfectly capable of carrying out an inquiry into a railway accident.’

  ‘Nobody disputes that. The point at issue here, however, is that we are not dealing with an accident. Inspector Colbeck is certain that a heinous crime has been committed.’

  ‘The facts are open to that misinterpretation, I agree,’ said Ridgeon. ‘What surprises me is that the much-vaunted Railway Detective has misread them so wilfully.’