The Gentleman Vanishes

by Matthew Costello

  14. Light at the End of the Tunnel

  iSarah parked her car near a small rise, just below the train tracks and the eastern entrance to Winsham Tunnel.

  The space she found looked safe enough, though she had to admit it might appear a bit odd, a car parked below the tracks, no shops or homes nearby.

  She turned to Jack.

  “Ready?”

  And he nodded, opening a rucksack and pulling out what had to be the longest torch she had ever seen.

  “Wow. That’s quite a torch.”

  Jack flicked it on and then off, the light bright even in the early morning sun.

  “Standard NYPD issue. Also serves as a handy nightstick should the need arise.”

  “Which it won’t …”

  She popped open the door, and taking the lead, climbed up the grassy embankment to the stone tunnel.

  And while there was no fence at the top next to the tracks to stop them, there was a sign pointing out the obvious.

  “Property of the Great Cotswolds Steam Railway. Entrance to this tunnel is strictly forbidden, and all trespassers will be prosecuted …”

  Then, in smaller letters, as though the scribe of the warning message ran out of room …

  “… to the full extent of the law.”

  “Well, it won’t be the first time we’ve bent the rules in pursuit of the truth, hmm?” Jack said.

  “I think though,” Sarah said, “in this particular case we are explicitly breaking the law, no?”

  Jack gave her a look that seemed to say, In for a penny.

  They both stood at the side of the track. Sarah looked down the line: it ran for a few hundred yards, then curved into woodland on its way towards Cherringham Junction.

  Turning — she looked at the tunnel. The single track disappeared into darkness beyond the Victorian brickwork.

  Above the heavy stone entrance, rose Winsham Hill.

  Too big to go around, which was why those intrepid engineers had carved their way through it.

  The track seemed almost to touch the edges of the tunnel.

  “I’m guessing the police never walked the tunnel,” said Jack. “No need. The train didn’t stop that day and, as we saw, there’s barely room to open a door.”

  “But you think something happened?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. Like lights going off …”

  Sarah nodded. She stared into the blackness. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea. And the thought of Daniel and his pals doing this “for a laugh” made her pulse race.

  Silence. She could just make out the sound of some rooks in the trees on the other side of the line. She saw Jack look at his watch.

  “You checked the timetable?” she said, trying not to let her voice reveal how nervous she felt.

  “Next train won’t be for an hour. Today’s a weekday, operating on a weekday ‘blue’ schedule.”

  “Plenty of time to walk to the other end,” she said cheerily.

  “Sure.”

  “Then a nice hike back over the hill, get an appetite up for lunch, hmm?”

  “Perfect,” said Jack, with a grin.

  Then he flicked on the torch, and led the way into the mouth of the tunnel.

  *

  A good thing they had Jack’s massive silver torch.

  No lights, as described by Daniel, and with black soot covering the walls, the tunnel could not be darker.

  Now as they walked down the track, trying to avoid the rough gravel and stay on the wooden sleepers, Jack made a slow, sweeping motion, scanning the rails and the walls.

  And — of course — seeing nothing.

  “Getting cold,” she said, after they had made some distance from the opening, well into the tunnel. “And damp.”

  “Figure it should take us half an hour at a good pace,” said Jack. “We’ll soon warm up.”

  She nodded — unseen by Jack.

  And though there was nothing in here save for the tracks, the dark stone, and the eerie way their voices echoed … walking through the tunnel definitely felt dangerous.

  Jack raised the torch every now and then.

  She knew what he was doing; looking for one of those alcoves described by Daniel.

  So dark, but the walls were smooth brick, some water dripping in places, and so far, no openings at all.

  Ten minutes went by. Ten minutes of feeling their way with their feet over bumpy stones, the air getting chillier, the darkness — if it were possible –even more intense.

  But then …

  “Hey,” Jack said. “Just ahead. See that?”

  And when she looked up, she could see the brilliant light of the torch picking up an opening.

  Though she was excited, spotting the tunnel as described by Daniel — still she wasn’t at all sure it meant anything.

  They started to walk a bit faster to that opening, just ahead.

  When they both heard a sound. In the distance behind them.

  The blast of a train whistle. Then again, closer now.

  She turned to Jack, both of their faces picking up just scant light bouncing off the rails, the only reflective object in the tunnel.

  “Jack — the train. Thought you said—”

  But in answer, another fatal blast of the whistle.

  And Jack said, “No time to dash out, either way.” He flashed the light along the tunnel opening behind then back ahead.

  “C’mon!”

  And as though she might even consider not following, he grabbed her hand, and pulled her, running over the tracks.

  Both of them realising they were now racing a train that — though old and not fast by anyone’s standards — was just now entering the tunnel and roaring right at them.

  *

  Jack wasted no time in guiding Sarah into the alcove, his torch dropping to the ground in the rush.

  She fell against the inner wall of the tiny space, the rough brick hard against her body — then she felt Jack wedge himself in. Tight fit — and the headroom a good few inches lower in height than he was …

  Another train blast, the sound a massive howl as it echoed in the tunnel; the roar of the engine now so close.

  Jack on the outer edge of the alcove, his body exposed to the stream of cars about to race past.

  And in those seconds before the train finally reached that spot, Sarah was aware of something else …

  How close Jack was.

  She could feel his steady intake of breath, in and out … aware that he must also feel her breathing.

  So many feelings in that terrifying moment …

  Until, with a whoosh like she’d never felt before, the locomotive with its churning wheels screamed past, only inches away from the two of them, pinioned together.

  The smoke and steam and ashes, hot and overwhelming in the tight space.

  As Jack’s arms held her, she pressed herself hard against the wall, barely able to breathe, her eyes stinging, forcing away a stifling urge to cough.

  Then, like an ancient zoetrope, the flickering windows of the passenger cars rolled by.

  If anyone from the train had looked down, they’d have seen only the darkness. Maybe a shape. But nothing that would cause any suspicion.

  And though it only took seconds for the train to race by, it seemed to take forever …

  Until …

  It was gone.

  *

  Sarah felt Jack step away from her, back onto the track, and heard him coughing in the swirling smoke and steam that billowed around them both.

  She sank to her knees in the alcove space, legs weak, one hand propped against the rough, wet brick, the other on the gravel — and finally managed to take a deep breath.

  She sensed, rather than saw, Jack just a couple of yards away — still coughing.

  “You … okay?” he said, his voice a croak.

  “Just about.”

  She saw Jack pick up his torch, swing it round, and suddenly they weren’t in the complete darkness
of the tunnel.

  They both coughed some more, then finally she said: “I thought … you checked the timetable.”

  “I did. Today, weekday, the train follows the ‘blue’ schedule.”

  But then he stopped.

  “Unless—”

  She saw him look up and down the tunnel, the long curve of Winsham Tunnel hiding the openings at either end.

  “Yes?”

  He turned to her.

  “Is today, maybe … a race day?”

  She laughed then coughed again. “Race day … right. I’m not exactly an … aficionado, Jack. But I guess — that must be it.”

  “Race days …” He paused and coughed too. “They run the red timetable. Um … not the blue.”

  “Easy mistake to make.”

  Breathing normally at last, she could see the smoke and steam thinning. As she shifted her hand to lever herself up, she felt a shoe.

  Jack’s — she guessed. Must have come off as we scrambled off the track …

  She held it in one hand, steadying herself against the wall.

  “If we do this again,” said Jack, “I’ll take more care.”

  “If we do this again, I’ll be in charge of the timetable!”

  And then, both of them laughing, Jack turned to the rest of the tunnel ahead.

  “Shall we finish our walk?”

  “Don’t you need this?” she said, holding out the shoe.

  Jack spun his torch towards her hand — and now she could see exactly what she was holding.

  A creamy brown shoe, the shine perfect. A brougham wingtip with the decorative pin holes creating a fleur de lis pattern at the toe. It gleamed under the intense light of Jack’s torch.

  The kind of shoe an elderly gentleman would wear.

  And certainly not Jack’s.

  He stared at the shoe. For a moment neither of them said anything.

  Jack picked it up.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  She nodded. Then watched as he spun the torch slowly round to illuminate the tunnel again.

  He touched her arm.

  “Look up there.”

  Jack had the torch aimed squarely at a spot fifty or so feet along the track.

  For a moment, she thought someone was there, huddled against the tunnel wall. The shape on the ground indistinct. Could it be someone crouched there, some desperate homeless person, someone hiding?

  Or worse — the body of Bernard Mandeville? She shivered, suddenly chilled at the thought.

  The old man somehow stumbling, confused, falling from the train into the darkness, his body lying here for a week unseen …

  But as they now started walking slowly towards it, what was ahead became clear.

  First, the light picked up trousers, and, knotted with them in a jumble, an overcoat, and then, finally — as they came right beside the opening — another shoe.

  Sarah crouched down, noting the distance between the pair of shoes, as though they had been …

  … thrown, one at time.

  “Jack — you think — tossed here from the train? And—”

  She picked up the matching shoe …

  “Exactly the thing Bernard Mandeville would wear.”

  And though the torch was aimed squarely at the cache of clothes, she could see Jack nod.

  “Precisely. And that fact can be easily determined.”

  “The butler?”

  Another nod.

  Then he turned to her.

  “Bernard Mandeville’s clothes … thrown out here …”

  “When the lights were out. No one seeing.”

  Jack’s face still wore a confused expression. They had indeed found something, but what did it mean?

  “Jack, why would someone do that?”

  “It’s evidence,” he said. “No doubt about that. But evidence of what?”

  He started picking up the clothes, taking care, she saw, to carefully fold the trousers as if readying them to be packed — the tweed overcoat, draped over the arm that was holding the torch; his other hand picking up the pair of shoes.

  “I think—”

  But she knew what he was going to say.

  “We should look at the CCTV again?”

  “Exactly. Looking at this, knowing the train went dark … I’d say we missed something.”

  She reached out and took the torch.

  “I’ll take this. You hold onto the evidence. If that’s what it is.”

  And then she turned the light towards the way they came, and they headed back down the track.

  The clothes that Jack held, Sarah realised, were their first real contact with the man who loved trains, the man who disappeared.

  And as they walked, and Sarah thought through the implications of what they had found, a theory began to form in her mind.

  A theory, as strange as it was, that seemed to explain at least one of the unknowns in this very strange case.

  And — if she was right — it would all be revealed when they examined the CCTV footage.

  15. The CCTV

  “Again?” said Reg Syms, peering up at Sarah through the barred window of the ticket office. “You want to look at the whole lot, all over, again?”

  “If you don’t mind, Mr Syms,” said Sarah. “We’d really appreciate it.”

  She saw him lean forward and peer down the platform — perhaps hoping that a crowd would miraculously appear and save him from the fate of letting Jack and Sarah back in the ticket office — his sacred domain.

  But the platform was empty. Sarah knew the next train wasn’t due for another hour.

  Behind Reg, Sarah saw Tim Waite. The volunteer gave her a smile and a discreet little wave.

  “It’s quite urgent,” said Sarah, as Reg sat back in his seat staring blankly at her again.

  “Very urgent,” said Jack, joining her at the window.

  Reg Syms pursed his lips. Then he carefully stacked the little pile of cardboard tickets, placed them in a tin, locked it, and looked up at them both for a few seconds.

  “All right then,” he said. “But this is really irregular. Most irregular.”

  He got up and went over to the office door and unlocked it.

  Sarah looked up at Jack and winked.

  “Come on,” she said, and led the way into the office.

  *

  Jack shifted his weight on the tiny wooden chair and peered at the CCTV screen over Sarah’s shoulder.

  Reg had gone off to the little café to have lunch, leaving Tim in charge of the office.

  And Tim couldn’t have been more helpful — sorting the various DVDs of camera coverage from both Cheltenham and Cherringham Junction, setting up the machine, even bringing them both a cup of tea.

  Now it was all down to Sarah — and her theory. Which she hadn’t revealed yet.

  Jack liked that she had a theory, and he was itching to hear it.

  “Okay. We’ve been through these,” she said, sliding a DVD into the player. “But we didn’t know what we were looking for.”

  “And we do now?” said Jack.

  “Maybe,” said Sarah. “Right then — oh — here we are. Racecourse, main platform, camera two, fifteen minutes before Bernard’s train arrives. Double speed. Okay. Now … recognise anyone, Jack?”

  Jack watched the screen carefully. The platform was almost empty. Two volunteers. An elderly couple sitting on a bench. Then — a family group arriving. Adults, children, buggies.

  “Hey, that’s the vicar and his wife if I’m not mistaken. And the others …?”

  “Right. The vicar’s brother, sister-in-law, three children — I recognise them from a lunch party my mother threw last Christmas. Also … his aunt and uncle, apparently. I called him yesterday just to check.”

  “That’s the group you mentioned, Tim, hmm?” said Jack, looking over her shoulder at the volunteer.

  Jack saw him nod.

  “Now, okay — let’s fast forward. Another old gentleman on the platform. N
obody else. And — hold on — here comes the train.”

  Jack saw the train pull into the station and come to a halt in a cloud of smoke and steam.

  For a few seconds, the view of the platform was obscured.

  “Now — watch carefully,” she said, pointing at the vicar’s group as they began to board the train. “And count the adults …”

  Jack concentrated on the group — and immediately saw what Sarah intended him to see.

  “Hang on. There’s an extra adult!”

  “Exactly,” said Sarah. She paused the image and Jack leaned forward.

  “A woman,” he said. “Right in the group.”

  “Blends in well, doesn’t she?” said Sarah, smiling.

  “How about that.”

  “The vicar said she was very friendly and talkative. Helped lift the kids up onto the train. From her accent — Italian, he reckoned …”

  “Wait — Signora Grisoni?”

  “Just what I thought,” said Sarah.

  She moved the image forward, frame by frame. Jack saw the woman clearly: about five-five, dark hair, dark blue overcoat, carrying two plastic shopping bags.

  “Note the bags,” said Sarah.

  “Noted.”

  He watched as Sarah leaned forward, ejected the DVD and inserted another.

  “Now — let’s move forward half an hour to Cherringham Junction.”

  Jack saw the new view — the very platform they were now on — and the same train pulling in. Again — clouds of smoke and steam billowing. Sarah pointed at the train on the screen:

  “There’s the first-class compartment where we think Bernard was sitting. And there on the platform, our friend Theo waiting to pick him up. Now, I’m just going to slow things down again — see the doors beginning to open?”

  Jack watched carefully. One by one passengers were getting off the crowded train, joining the jostling crowd on the platform.

  “All right. Look for our mystery woman in the blue coat,” said Sarah, flicking the view between different cameras on the platform …

  “There she is!” said Jack, standing up from his chair and pressing his finger to the screen. “The car next to first class.”

  He watched as she stepped down from the train and looked both ways — up and down the platform.

  “No bags,” he said. “She left them on the train?”

  “I don’t think so, Jack,” said Sarah. “Let’s keep watching.”