The Secret of the Night Train

by Sylvia Bishop

  As they walked, Budapest continued to darken around them, and the street lamps were turned on. Celeste kept up a furiously fast pace, and Max had to half run to keep up.

  It seemed almost surprising, after she had done and seen so much, that the station should be waiting where she left it, so unruffled and calm. The cream stone looked majestic against the darkening sky, and the windows glowed a gentle gold. She had made it. When they went inside, they found the train already waiting for them on platform six.

  Bucharest, thought Max, suddenly exhausted. Bucharest, Istanbul.

  The Ister was almost empty when Max boarded, and it was still almost empty when it pulled out into the inky dark. She and Sister Marguerite had a couchette car to themselves.

  What with the long day, her sleepless night and the soothing rhythm of the train, Max was struggling to keep her eyes open, but she had to swap notes with Marguerite before they could sleep. She wolfed down the sandwiches Marguerite had bought, and recited everything she had seen.

  “Magnificent work, mon lapin,” said Marguerite, lacing her fingers together and propping up her chin, which Max was now noticing she did whenever she was thinking hard. “You’ve done brilliantly. That tattoo of Klaus’s. Describe it carefully?”

  Max described the angry red-and-black tattoo on Klaus’s shoulder.

  “Hm. That’s the mark of Die Eiserne Hand – the Iron Hand. Self-styled ‘security experts’ – they’re just a gang of thugs for hire. Vicious lot.”

  Max stared at Marguerite. She was suddenly rather glad that her friend was carrying a gun, and began to wish that it was loaded after all.

  “So,” said Marguerite brusquely, as if she shared trains with vicious gang members every day, “Klaus is not Ester’s nephew, and he’s an Iron Hand. And Ester tried to sell something today – Marek, Marek and Ruszy are auctioneers, and rather shady ones too. Not above dealing in stolen goods on the sly. This is excellent work, Max.”

  Max never knew what to say to compliments, so she just looped a plait around her ear, and said, “What about Rupert?”

  Sister Marguerite sighed. “Total washout. He spent the whole day mooning around after that Celeste woman, trying to casually bump into her, finding ways to impress her. Like a lovesick puppy! If he did have criminal intentions when he got on this train, he’s clearly decided that they’re not as important as this schoolboy crush. I think maybe he is just on holiday.” She stitched her fingers together harder than ever. “The one that interests me now, though, is Celeste. At first I couldn’t work out what she was doing. She spent all day just wandering at random and waiting outside buildings and staring. But I began to see what was happening, and now I’ve heard how your day went, I know I’m right. Celeste spent the day following Ester and Klaus.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Precisely the question I would like answered,” agreed Sister Marguerite. “I don’t like it. I don’t know what her game is. And whatever it is, Max, I’m afraid she will almost certainly have noticed that you were also following Ester.”

  Max’s heart skittered again, thinking of Celeste’s dragon smile. What was she up to? For a while the two of them sat in silence, thinking, while the Ister slid through the darkness. Then Marguerite stood up abruptly, and pulled the curtains shut.

  “Bed,” she said. “I might not be the most conventional guardian in the world, but I can still enforce bedtime.” And she shooed Max off the seats, and began turning them into berths. “Go on, go and get our bedding. It’s in the guard’s room this time. At the end of the train.”

  So Max pottered down to the guard, and picked up two packs of bedding. She paused on the way back to lean her forehead on the cold glass of a corridor window and think about what she had learned. It was hard to adjust to Klaus as a violent gang member. And why was Celeste mixed up with them? And had she, Max, got tangled up in it now too?

  The window was open at the top, and there was an icy draught on the back of her neck. The train had stopped at its first station; an electric light picked out the sign, which proclaimed they were in SZOLNOK. Nothing moved in the frozen night. For a minute there was just cold, and peace.

  Then Max saw a shadowy figure cross the platform. It was Rupert. He walked right up close to her window, and for a moment Max thought he had come to talk to her. She almost waved. But then he stopped a foot away, under a ghostly overhead light, and she realized that he was by a payphone – it was a red phone mounted on a platform pillar, with a plastic shell above and around it. He stepped under the shell. Max ducked down out of sight and waited, hardly breathing, determined not to miss a word.

  Whoever picked up spoke first, and at length. Max knew because there was an eternity of uninterrupted silence before Rupert was allowed to speak. Thankfully, his English was clipped and clear, and Max could mostly follow.

  “I said I’d call. I keep my promises. I’m sorry I’m late – there wasn’t time at Budapest.”

  A shorter silence.

  “No. Not yet.”

  A medium-sized silence. Max peeked over the edge of the window. Rupert was hidden by the shell, only his legs showing. His trousers were too short. “There’s no need for that,” he said. He sounded much less vague than usual, and strained. “No need. Be reasonable. I’m telling you I’ll get it.”

  There was another pause, and then Rupert half shouted “Please—” but the unknown caller must have hung up, because a moment later he slammed down the receiver. Max heard the sound of footsteps hurrying back to the train, and – loud in the Szolnok silence – one sharp, gulping sob.

  The sob was so sad that she very nearly ran to Rupert’s car to see if he was OK. She only just stopped herself in time. However upset he was, he was still a suspect – and she needed time to think about what that phone call might mean. Hugging the bedding close to her chest, she hurried to tell Sister Marguerite what she had heard.

  But when she returned, Ester Rosenkrantz and Klaus Grob were in their car.

  “Klaus snores,” Ester was announcing. “I’m sleeping here.”

  Klaus smiled apologetically. “It’s true. Runs in the family. My great-great-uncle snored competitively. Won a lot of medals for Switzerland.”

  “Why this car?” asked Marguerite bluntly.

  “Next door to mine,” said Ester. “I want to be near my nephew.”

  Max and Marguerite both snorted sceptically at the same time. There was a second’s awkward silence, interrupted by a loud thrum as the train started up again.

  “Make my berth, Klaus,” Ester ordered. “I’m tired.”

  And so Max couldn’t tell Marguerite anything, and had to lie down on her berth with the whole day bottled up inside her, listening to Ester sucking on her pear drops and smacking her lips.

  Her mind whirred, keeping her awake. She got out her notebook and updated her suspect pages, which helped. When she had finished, they read:

  ? – RED-HEADED LADY

  CELESTE LE BLANC

  “Take great care”. Who is M? Why is he writing to Celeste, and why should she take great care?

  Are they up to something?

  Following Ester and Klaus?! Why?

  ESTER ROSENKRANTZ

  Weirdly heavy case, but couldn’t see anything.

  Jewel collector. Keeps her diamonds at Fort Vaults.

  Visiting Istvan Marek. Why? What was she trying to sell?

  KLAUS GROB

  Who needs that many socks?

  Ester Rosenkrantz an only child. Klaus claims to be her nephew. Who is he really? Why are they lying?

  UPDATE: Member of Die Eiserne Hand. Here as Ester’s security? Why didn’t she want him to join her in the baths?

  RUPERT NOBES

  Late to the train – missed police search. Blamed his snapped glasses.

  Huge empty bag. Leaving room for something?

  Known con man!

  Strange phone call. Promised he would have something for somebody. Sounded upset.

  Max tucked away the n
otebook, and tried to banish the images of the day from her mind. She kept seeing the fear on the security guard’s face, and the fury in Celeste’s smile. For the first time, she felt the weight of what they were doing. Was she getting caught up in more than she could handle?

  The Ister was chillier than the Kálmán Imre, and Max tucked her blankets tightly around herself. It had been a long day, and she had hardly slept the night before. Despite her worries, she fell straight to sleep.

  She was woken up again by a loud thump.

  Or, she thought as her mind began working properly, maybe she had dreamt a thump and then woken up. It was difficult to be sure. Either way, she didn’t know what time it was or where in the world the Ister was by now, and she was in that night-time haze where nothing seems quite real, and there was a strange sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. If it had been a dream, it had been about something awful.

  Now that she was awake, she needed the toilet too badly to just drift back to sleep. She poked a cautious foot out of the blanket. It was freezing. She poked the rest of herself out of the blanket very reluctantly.

  As she crept down the dimly lit corridor, something about that thump lingered in her mind. She hurried to the toilet double-quick and hurried double-double-quick back again – but as she passed Rupert’s door she paused, remembering his desperate phone call, suddenly overcome with pity for him. His door was open, rattling slightly as the train swayed along. She peeked inside.

  Rupert wasn’t there.

  He had turned his seats into a berth, and made up the bedding. It gaped in the darkness like an empty mouth, the blanket lolling over one side like a tongue. As the train sped past electric lights the car flashed light-dark, light-dark, reminding Max of the blue lights outside Fort Vaults. Her unease seemed to thicken. What was Rupert doing, creeping around at night?

  Somewhere further down the train a door banged, snapping Max back to her senses, and she hurried to bed before Rupert could come back and ask what she was doing. She slept, but she dreamt uneasily all night.

  In the morning there was snow.

  Now, I don’t know how much snow you have seen in one go, but you probably need to picture more snow than that. There was a flat sheet of snow stretching all the way out to the horizon, finally meeting far-off mountains covered in more snow. Only the very tallest mountains had snow-free peaks, and they stood out against the winter sky like bruises. Sometimes the train passed fir trees iced all over with snow, and every now and then they passed houses oozing icicles from the eaves – houses with football posts and picnic tables, monuments to a summer that was now impossible to imagine.

  Sister Marguerite woke up to see Max with her nose pressed to the window, and smiled. “Welcome,” she said sleepily, “to Romania, mon lapin.”

  Ester Rosenkrantz had got up before either of them woke, and they found her in the restaurant car, tucking into an enormous breakfast. Klaus was opposite her, breakfast finished already, knitting needles in hand. Celeste arrived only moments after Max and Marguerite, and sat down with a book. It was almost a complete set of suspects: only Rupert was missing. There were some strangers in there too, mostly half asleep, clutching coffees and tackling piles of breakfast. Max just ordered a hot chocolate. She wasn’t really hungry. And besides, she hadn’t gone this long without chocolat in years.

  “No food? None of my delicious food?” said the Romanian man in charge of the car. He was round-faced and ruddy, with a permanent smile, and spoke to Max in English. “It is very good. I guarantee!”

  “No, thanks,” said Max, smiling to make up for her lack of Romanian and her limited English.

  “With that smile,” declared the man, “I forgive you! Some people in this car do not have smiles.” He glared over at Ester, who chewed steadily on her breakfast as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “Sadness! I will not have people bring sadness into my restaurant car. We shall have some happiness.” And he turned on a radio, which he apparently thought would bring happiness. A poundingly cheerful pop song played. Ester turned a violent shade of purple, Celeste pointedly held her book even closer to her face, and even Klaus looked a bit pained.

  Max joined Sister Marguerite at their table, where the houseplant was already in place. Marguerite was tapping her foot in time as if she, at least, was quite enjoying the radio.

  With one last flourishing key change, the song finally ended, and a serious Romanian voice came on and told them the news.

  Marguerite smiled at Max. “Did you sleep well, mon lapin?”

  Max stirred her hot chocolate. “Kind of.”

  Marguerite leaned closer. “You are quite safe,” she whispered. “I promise. I am taking care of you.”

  “Thanks,” said Max. And she did feel a little better. Outside, the snow twinkled merrily at her, as if it was on their side as well.

  There was a clatter behind them. The chef had dropped a plate of toast, and was staring at the radio in horror. At the smash of plate-on-floor, everyone turned to look. The man kept staring.

  “Everything all right, mon poulet?” Sister Marguerite asked him.

  A rapid exchange of English followed, that Max couldn’t keep up with. Marguerite’s face drooped in horror, and she fired back urgent questions. Celeste seemed able to follow, and listened wide-eyed. Ester and Klaus continued eating, unconcerned.

  “What was it?” said Max, when the chef had bustled out of the room, muttering worriedly to himself.

  Marguerite had turned very white. “A man was found by the side of the train tracks,” she said. “There was some sort of accident. He fell from the Ister last night.”

  The hot chocolate in Max’s mouth suddenly felt sticky and cloying. “Rupert?” she whispered.

  “It’s hard to be sure. The description was a bit vague. But brown eyes, brown hair, middling height – it could be him. I haven’t seen him this morning. He wasn’t in his car when I passed.”

  “And he wasn’t in his bed last night,” said Max. She felt sure it was him. She was remembering the sickening thump. “What did they say happened? How do you just accidentally fall off a train?”

  “In my opinion,” said Marguerite, too quietly for anyone else to hear, “it would be difficult without some help.” And behind the houseplant, she made a little pushing motion with her hands, to show Max what she meant.

  Max thought of the threatening phone call she had overheard, and felt sick. “Is he…?” She didn’t want to finish the question.

  “He’s alive. Luckily. It’s a miracle anyone found him. Lying in a snowdrift. A few more hours…” Marguerite stared at the passing snow, and left the sentence lying between them, limp and unfinished. Max shuddered.

  She looked at Celeste, Ester and Klaus. Who would push Rupert? Celeste, annoyed with his attention? Or, she thought, or, had he really been following Ester and Klaus? Did that phone call last night hold any clues?

  She felt awful. She knew it didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t help feeling that she might have stopped it, if she had been able to tell Marguerite what she’d heard. The memory of his choked-back sob played on repeat in her head.

  Klaus tapped Sister Marguerite’s shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance. Under his furious eyebrows, his eyes had widened. “Sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t help overhearing. Someone has fallen from the train?”

  Max nodded, watching Klaus. He looked upset.

  “We think,” said Marguerite shakily, “that it was the young British man who has been with us since Paris.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Klaus. “In the tweed? Yes, I remember him! Rupert, wasn’t it? Remember him, Ester?”

  “No!” declared Ester.

  “Excuse me,” Celeste cut in.

  All of them turned in mild astonishment to Celeste. It was not like her to volunteer to speak. A stranger came sleepily into the restaurant car, took one look at the shattered crockery and the unlikely collection of faces gawping at Celeste, and left in haste.

  “What makes you t
hink the man was Rupert?” Celeste asked. She was staring icily at Sister Marguerite.

  “Well,” said Marguerite, “the description…”

  “The description was very ordinary,” said Celeste, with uncharacteristic passion. Under her freckles, her face had flushed. “Every second man fits that description. They didn’t even say that the man who fell was British. Why would you assume that it was Rupert?”

  That wasn’t easy for Max to answer, as the answer was “Because we know that someone on this train is smuggling a diamond to Istanbul, and Rupert is one of our suspects, and I eavesdropped on his phone call yesterday so I know that someone is threatening him, and then I was snooping around in the middle of the night after I heard a loud thump and I snuck into Rupert’s room and saw that it was empty”; and that didn’t seem like something she should just announce to everyone over breakfast. There was a longish pause. The radio had moved on to an angsty ballad with lots of dramatic drum rolls.

  “Look, Celeste,” began Sister Marguerite, in her best reasonable voice, “we’re all feeling – OW!”

  Max had kicked her under the table, but it was too late. Celeste’s eyes had widened in shock; then she rearranged her face into its usual empty stare, snatched up her novel, and swept out of the carriage.

  “What?” said Marguerite, rubbing her shin. “What did I do?”

  Max was trying to find a way of silently explaining, but it was a difficult sort of thing to mime. How would you say, without words: We haven’t actually been introduced, so neither of us is supposed to know Celeste’s name?

  As it turned out, Max didn’t need to explain, because Klaus did the job for her. Well – sort of.

  “Oh dear, she’s taken it hard. Oh, poor man. What awful news,” he said. He had hunched his shoulders as small as they would go, and was doing a good imitation of shock and sorrow, but Max could not forget the arrowheads marching across those shoulders under his shirt. After a hunched, sad little pause, Klaus started knitting again, and said casually, “Why did you call her Celeste?” – and there was a moment of penny-dropping on Sister Marguerite’s face, before Klaus confused things, by adding, “Her name’s Suzanne.”