The Victim in Victoria Station

by Jeanne M. Dams

  However, only the cats were there to greet me when I finally pried myself out of the car and went into the house, and they displayed little sympathy. They were HUNGRY! Human problems have little importance compared with the urgent needs of cats, who are the ultimate pragmatists.

  I pulled off my hat and took some aspirin even before I fed the cats. My head was throbbing almost as much as my leg. By way of food for myself, once my domestic tyrants had been placated, I heated a can of soup and collapsed on the parlor sofa with it and a small jolt of bourbon.

  I felt a little better with food and drink inside me and the comfort of my house closing around me. I love my little seventeenth-century cottage. Just sitting in front of the lovely old fireplace, even on a warm evening with no fire, was soothing. Tomorrow, as Scarlett tritely observed, was another day, and I could start planning a more active life now that I was released from medical restrictions. Right now all I wanted to do was sit with a cat on my lap—I reached for Samantha, my Siamese, who was handiest—and read the paper. A little later I’d blow the budget and call Alan. The sound of his voice ought to complete my cure.

  But what had I done with the paper? Oh, of course. I smacked my forehead in the classic gesture. I’d forgotten to buy one. The accident in the cab had driven it right out of my head. Drat! I wanted to read about the man in the train, and by morning it might be too late—old news. Alan and I didn’t take an evening paper, only the Times and the Telegraph in the morning. Did Jane, my next-door neighbor, subscribe to the Standard? Was I too tired to go over there and find out?

  I set Sam aside and stood up. If I let myself give in to “too tired,” I’d turn into that decrepit old lady Dr. Reynolds thought I was.

  Though it was nearly nine, the sky was still quite light, the long twilight of a northern country in June. I walked across my backyard and tapped on Jane’s door. She opened it at once, and she and several of her bulldogs greeted me cordially.

  Once we were comfortably seated at her kitchen table, she studied me critically. “Look like something the cat dragged in,” she observed. Jane seldom bothers with diplomacy.

  “I feel like it, too. It’s been a rotten day, Jane. There wouldn’t be any coffee, by any chance?”

  “Just coming. Kettle’s about to boil.”

  “I’ve always thought you were psychic.”

  She snorted. “Saw you coming across the garden. Any fool could see you needed something. There’s whiskey if you’d rather.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve had as much as is good for me, and anyway I’ve got a headache. Coffee’s better. Jane, a man died in the train today, on my way to London.”

  She raised her eyebrows, but the kettle whistled just then, and she turned to make the coffee. As she poured hot water over the grounds, the bright, modern kitchen was filled with fragrance. (Jane’s house is also old, Georgian, but like me she prefers modern convenience when it comes to cooking.) I began to feel invigorated even before she set a cup in front of me and poured out the rich brew from the French press carafe.

  “Mostly decaf, this time of the day,” Jane announced. “But it tastes real.” She let me take a few hot, revivifying sips before she raised her eyebrows again and said, “The man in the train?”

  I told her the story. My voice got a little thick in places, and I had to clear my throat and drink some coffee.

  “Upsetting,” said Jane with masterly British understatement. “Who was he?”

  “I can’t remember! You know I’m never especially good about names. Bill something. That’s one reason I came over. I wanted to look at your Standard, if you have one.”

  “Help yourself. Nothing in it about a dead man in a train, not that I noticed.”

  She handed me the paper. I skimmed quickly, frowned, and looked again more carefully. “No, nothing,” I said finally, disappointed. “Maybe it happened after their deadline. I’ll have to check in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, really. I guess I feel involved. I didn’t even know him, but I liked him. I need to know what happened, who he was. I—it sounds silly, but I think I want to mourn him properly.”

  Jane gave me a long look, and when she spoke it was gruffly. “Not thinking there was something funny about the death, are you?”

  “Jane! I admit that I’ve been somewhat more involved in murder than most respectable women, but I plead not guilty this time. No, this is pure curiosity, with some sorrow mixed in. I simply want to know what happened, so I can stop feeling there was something I might have been able to do.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  When I got home, I decided my spirits had improved enough that I didn’t need to call Alan. It was really too late, anyway; he was a couple of time zones away. Tomorrow would do, when I’d read the paper and could give him a coherent account. For now, the miserable day had finally dragged itself to a close, and I’d never have to live that particular one again. And tomorrow would be a good day to make a nice cozy phone call; it was certainly going to rain, if my leg was any sort of weather prophet at all. Followed eagerly by the cats, I went upstairs, took a couple of pain pills, and fell into welcome sleep almost as soon as the three of us were comfortably arranged on the bed.

  2

  It was the cats who woke me. Esmeralda ran her claws into my thigh, and I jerked into semiconsciousness, glancing at the clock. It was a little after three.

  “Emmy! Bad cat! What did you do that for—?” I stopped because I could see, in the dim glow of the night-light in the hall, that Sam’s slender tail was bushed out like a bottlebrush, and her ears, fully alert, were turned toward the hall door. Somewhere, probably next door, dogs were barking hysterically.

  I caught my breath and heard Emmy give a low growl. In the same moment I heard glass breaking, and both cats jumped off the bed and raced downstairs.

  I didn’t think twice. The phone was right next to the bed. I picked it up, punched in the emergency number with fingers that trembled, and whispered to the responder, “Someone is trying to break into my house.”

  The four minutes that it took them to get there seemed like hours. I waited until I heard the reassuring voices of several policemen before venturing out of bed, and then I thought I’d never get my bathrobe on, my hands were shaking so.

  “Mrs. Martin!” The voice that called up the stairs wasn’t familiar, but it was welcome. “I’m Sergeant Drew. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m coming down.”

  “Don’t forget to put on slippers. There’s a good deal of broken glass in the kitchen.”

  The next hour or so was a jumble of confusion. The house seemed full of people and animals. There were two policemen and one policewoman, and my cats, and Jane, and one of her bulldogs. “Brought him along just in case,” she explained gruffly. “Didn’t know what was happening over here, glass breaking. Damn fool thing for me to do. Scaring the cats into fits.”

  That wasn’t quite true; the cats were furious rather than frightened. It was the dog that whined and rolled his eyes and tugged at his leash. Emmy had clawed his nose once, and dogs have long memories. Eventually Jane, reassured that I was unhurt, took him home, and I was left with the police.

  They searched the house thoroughly, inside and out, but found no one. That endless four minutes had apparently been long enough for the burglar to get away. “The chap was pretty thorough,” said Sergeant Drew. “Tried all the ground-floor windows before he broke the glass in the back door. A good job you had the new locks put in. He couldn’t unlock it even from inside without the key.”

  “It’s also a good thing Alan thought to give a key to you people, or you wouldn’t have been able to get in, and I’d probably have stepped in all that glass. And it’s just pure luck that the downstairs windows were closed. I thought it was going to rain, and I didn’t want to have to mop up puddles in the morning. I do appreciate your getting here so fast. I was in a real panic.”

  “We look aft
er our own, Mrs. Martin. We were all sorry when the chief retired. He’s a good man.”

  “He certainly is.” I found I had to swallow a couple of times, hard. “What do we do now?”

  “You’d best go back to bed. We’ll see to cleaning up the glass. Because of the possibility of fingerprints or other evidence,” he added, seeing the query on my face. “We’ll also look after boarding up the door, and we’ll leave WPC Murray here to look after you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said weakly. Woman Police Constable Murray, who was standing by Sergeant Drew, looked like the epitome of sanity and comfort, and in fact her presence would be very welcome. I was still shaking.

  “It’s standard procedure when a police family is threatened, Mrs. Martin. This was probably just a standard break-and-enter robbery attempt, but one can never be certain.”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would think we had anything to steal, but you must be right. Unless—I suppose Alan must have made some enemies in all those years on the force. Has anyone gotten out of jail lately who hated him particularly?”

  Sergeant Drew grinned. “Not likely, I shouldn’t think. The wide boys usually blame the copper who collars them, or the judge, or even the jury. They don’t know the chief constable exists. No, it’ll be someone who thought this looked a nice house, worth a go. He’ll be long gone, of course, but we’ll keep an eye out.”

  “Well then, I confess I’ll be very glad of Constable Murray’s company, if you’re sure you can spare her. I get rather nervous when Alan’s away.”

  “Yes, of course. Now, do you have Mr. Nesbitt’s telephone number where he’s staying? We can find out, of course, if you don’t have it handy—”

  “Oh, I have it, but do you have to notify him? I’d rather he didn’t know until I get a chance to tell him myself. I’m afraid he would worry, and he’s doing such important work, I—I don’t like to distract him.”

  Sergeant Drew nodded soothingly. “Of course,” he said again. “I thought you might want him to know first thing in the morning, but as you wish. You do look tired, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Miss Murray, can you see Mrs. Martin to bed?”

  I felt, and probably looked, like death warmed over. I gratefully accepted WPC Murray’s assistance up the stairs, told her to help herself to coffee or anything else she wanted, and fell into bed. This time my sleep was undisturbed, except by dreams.

  It was shamefully late by the time I finally made myself get up the next morning. True, I had all kinds of excuses, and there was nothing in particular I had to do that day, but I’ve never been able to shake the notion that sleeping late is somehow discreditable. Too many years spent living up to the work ethic, I suppose. At any rate, I sent WPC Murray on her way, after making sure that she had indeed made herself some breakfast.

  “Are you quite sure you’ll not feel nervous alone?”

  “Quite sure. I’m rested, and it’s daylight, and I’d feel really guilty if I took up the time of a hardworking policewoman when you’re so understaffed. Off you go!”

  “Daylight” was something of a euphemism. It was one of the darkest summer days I’d ever known. True to my tibia’s forecast, the rain was coming down in torrents, and the sky was dark bluegray. I would actually have liked to have a bite to eat and then go back to bed, but I was stern with myself. Old ladies do that sort of thing. Active middle-aged women face the day with alacrity.

  You’ve got to be kidding, said an inner voice.

  Well, if alacrity wasn’t in the cards, I’d try to muster something more positive than sleepy gloom, anyway. I made fresh coffee, very strong, and after a couple of cups had pumped some life into my system, I sat down with the papers. Half an hour later there was enough adrenaline in my system to make the caffeine redundant.

  There was no mention of my dead man in either paper.

  I hadn’t expected headlines, but surely a dead American, found in rather unusual circumstances, was worth a small paragraph! I felt insulted, personally and patriotically. Okay, London is a big city, and people die there every day, but not foreigners, not in a train, not of a heart attack at age thirty or so. How could they just ignore it?

  Would CONNEX, the railway company, be any help? It seemed unlikely. Since the demise of British Rail and the privatization of what used to be England’s admirable rail system, I’ve almost never found any railway official to be of the slightest help about anything. It was, however, worth a try.

  Several phone calls later, my opinion of the railway bureaucracy was left unchanged. Nobody knew of a dead man in any train that had called at Victoria Station. Nobody thought it at all likely that such a thing had occurred. Nobody considered that anyone, much less an American, would have the temerity to die in any train operated by CONNEX. Thank you, madam.

  Very well. I hadn’t wanted to bother the police. It was, in any case, highly unlikely that the Metropolitan Police would release to me the name of the young man. However, there was no point in being married to a very important, if retired, policeman if one didn’t use the connection now and again.

  I picked the phone back up and put in a call to Detective Chief Inspector Morrison, the most senior police officer I knew. He called back in five minutes.

  “This is a pleasure, Mrs. Martin. Not found another body for us, have you?”

  The Inspector and I had first met over a body in the town hall.

  “Not really,” I said with a rueful laugh. “This time it’s more a case of my wanting you to find one for me.”

  “Yes? An unusual taste, if you’ll forgive my saying so. But to each her own.”

  “Maybe I phrased that badly. Let me explain.”

  I did so, detailing the circumstances, the day and time the train got to Victoria, and a description of the dead man for good measure.

  “I do understand that it’s really none of my concern, but I’d feel a lot better if I knew who the man was and how he died. I keep thinking there ought to have been something I could do. I know you’re busy, but I didn’t think Scotland Yard would listen to me.”

  “You might be surprised,” he replied, rather cryptically, I thought. “But I can speed things up. I’ve rather a lot on my plate, as usual, but I’ll make a few inquiries and report back.”

  I puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up bits of glass that the police had missed. I should call someone to replace the window in the back door. The piece of wood that covered the gaping hole was not only unsightly, it darkened both the kitchen and my spirits. I’d never had my house broken into before, and the shattered window was a disquieting reminder. Last night I’d been afraid of the intruder. This morning, I was pleased to discover, I was angry, a much more useful emotion. My house had been invaded, or nearly invaded, and damaged in the process. I had been terrified. How dare someone do that! How DARE they!

  The last straw was the tiny overlooked shard of glass that had somehow flown across the room to the kitchen counter, where I managed to run it into the pad of my thumb as I tidied up. That did it. For five minutes I was simply, gloriously furious, indulging in language I hadn’t known I knew.

  Pounding my fist on the counter, however, was the final gesture of my tantrum. It jarred the sliver of glass in my thumb, which hurt—a lot. The pain jolted me back to my senses. I looked around a little guiltily for the cats. They had fled when the storm broke. My wrath hadn’t seemed to be directed at them, but a cat can’t be too careful. I had the fleeting, foolish thought that I was glad they didn’t understand enough human speech to know what I’d been saying. Then I went up to the bathroom to find the tweezers.

  I’d managed to pry the sliver out of my thumb when the phone rang. I picked it up in the bedroom. It was Inspector Morrison’s secretary.

  “The chief inspector asked me to say he’s sorry he couldn’t ring you back himself, Mrs. Martin. He’s been called away to an incident.” Which could mean anything up to murder. “However, he was able to talk to the Metropolitan Police. They state that no
bodies were found in trains coming into London yesterday, nor for months. They checked all stations for good measure. There were no such reports. In fact, it was a quiet day at the stations; the police were called to two pickpocket incidents and one stolen luggage. That was the extent of it.”

  “But that can’t be true! I saw the man myself! And the doctor told me he was going to report it to the police right away.”

  “Perhaps the man was only comatose, Mrs. Martin. To the layman—”

  “But the doctor wasn’t a layman, and he quite definitely said the man was dead!”

  A silence fell, a silence that became, imperceptibly, quite heavily tactful.

  “I see,” said the secretary finally. “Quite a mystery. When Inspector Morrison returns—”

  I pulled myself together. “No, don’t bother. He’s busy. I expect I made some sort of mistake. Thank him for me.”

  I hung up before I lost my temper. On the whole, I thought it was a good thing I’d expended all that emotional energy on the sliver of glass and my intruder. I was left with less to waste on an impervious Scotland Yard.

  Mistake! Of course I hadn’t made a mistake. That man had been dead as—as a coffin nail, Dickens would have said. So why didn’t the police know about him?

  Because they weren’t notified, said the other half of my brain calmly.

  But the doctor said—

  What doctor? Do you believe everything you’re told?

  My temper deflated rapidly. I had, hadn’t I? Oh, my, how naive of me. At my age, and with my somewhat unusual background, one would have thought I’d be more critical. The respectable-looking man had called himself a doctor. I’d believed him. He had said he was going to call the police. I’d believed that, too.

  He’d also said the dead man was the victim of a heart attack. That, I was beginning not to believe at all.

  I went slowly downstairs, picked up the telephone pad, and sat down at the kitchen table. What did I know about the dead man? I started to make a list.

  I knew his first name.