The Body on the Train

by Frances Brody

  With that cheerful thought, Sykes walked towards the clubhouse, a modest single-storey building with tiled roof. Once inside the comfortable room, with tables dotted about and a bar by the far wall, he caught the attention of a young waiter.

  “A word with the senior steward, son.”

  “Right, sir!”

  Sykes was glad there was none of that, “Who shall I say wants him?” business. He waited, looking out of the window at the vast stretch of green. A few Americans had arrived. He could pick them out. Unlike the British players in their varieties of tweed, the Americans wore a sort of uniform in navy. They sported V-neck sweaters and smart caps with a deep neb. One had draped a second sweater over his shoulders. He must be feeling the cold. In another ten minutes, they would envy the Englishmen’s tweed jackets.

  A player strolled into the bar, walking as if the world belonged to him. His skin was brown from the sun. He looked healthy. Perhaps Mrs. Shackleton was right. The unknown man in the artist’s portrait might have been an American golfer.

  The steward approached. He was a thin, balding fellow whose shoulders made points in his jacket. He spoke pleasantly enough, though seemed slightly wary. “You wanted to see me, sir? I’m Jack Braithwaite, senior steward.”

  “Jim Sykes, private investigator.” Sykes produced his card. It had Mrs. Shackleton’s telephone number. Mrs. Sugden sometimes annoyed Sykes, but she had a manner of answering the telephone that could not be faulted.

  The steward stared at the card. He turned it over and looked at the back. “What can I do for you, Mr. Sykes?”

  “This is a routine enquiry, Mr. Braithwaite.” Sykes produced the artist’s portrait of the unknown man. Let the dog see the rabbit was Sykes’s philosophy. What Scotland Yard didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. “I wonder if this face is familiar to you?”

  The steward looked carefully at the portrait and shook his head. “No, sir, never seen him before. Should I have?”

  “We think he may be a golfer.”

  “A wrong un?”

  “We have no reason to believe so. He is a man we are trying to trace.”

  “Name of?”

  “Unfortunately, we do not have a name.”

  “I get it. You think he might be one of the American players, or an American visitor?”

  “Nothing so precise.”

  “Is this a kind of warning?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I get it, sir. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

  Of course the man didn’t get it. He was guessing, playing the part of the helpful fellow. There was no possibility of Mrs. Shackleton’s unknown man being recognised, unless he had a twin brother, or unless the dead revisit the earth at the time of a golf tournament.

  “You won’t see him here, but someone who plays golf may recognise him.” This was ridiculous. Sykes began to feel like an actor in amateur dramatics, an actor who had forgotten his lines. “He may be a golfer and that is why I thought it wise to elicit your help, Mr. Braithwaite.”

  Having gone to the trouble and risk of paying for extra copies, Sykes made a bold decision. “I’ll leave this portrait with you. Will you please show it to members of the teams?”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Use your discretion. This isn’t for the general public. We are very keen to hear whether anyone closely connected with the game recognises him. Contact me directly if you have information.”

  “I’ll be glad to help, sir. And do you play?”

  Sykes never liked admitting certain things were beyond him. “I’m a cricketer.”

  As he left the clubhouse, and glanced at the figures on the course, he had another reason for being profoundly glad he did not play golf.

  There would be a day when everyone knew the story of the body on the train. While Sykes felt satisfied at having accomplished this morning’s mission, he imagined a time when some golfer would point him out.

  There’s that private investigator chap. He came to Moortown Golf Club hoping to find a dead man swinging a club.

  Chapter Eight

  My request to see the prison governor must have been expected.

  “Governor’s in a meeting, madam. I can ask the senior officer if he will have a word.”

  “Very well.”

  I waited on a hard wooden bench. The atmosphere now seemed stifling. I felt my heart racing. Now I thought of questions I might have asked Stephen. As to the mystery of the man whose portrait sat crumpled in my pocket, I could think of nowhere to go with it. I had wanted justice for the unknown man, justice in some abstract way, given that it was too late for him. Now I also wanted justice for this gentle young man. Unless the real murderer of Mrs. Farrar could be found, the police would not give up on Stephen Walmsley.

  After several moments, the senior officer appeared. “Can I help you, madam?”

  He sat down beside me. I wished I knew what the prison governor and his staff had been told about my visit. Without that knowledge, I thought it best to keep a neutral tone and limit my questions. As someone with “high up” connections, I should not need to ask what solicitor was representing Stephen, but I did.

  The reply did not surprise me. I recognised the name of a man who would take his fee and go through the motions, listening to whatever the police told him.

  As if explaining one syllable words to a child, he said, “Walmsley was found with blood on his hands, madam.”

  “What was his motive?”

  “Robbery.”

  In a way this was a relief because it sounded so absurd. Stephen was in work, would have a pay packet. Mrs. Farrar looked after him. He loved her like a granny. He played in a band, had friends and neighbours who would rally round. If he had battered the old woman to death, I would swallow the cherries from my mother’s red hat.

  “How bad was the injury to Mrs. Farrar?”

  “She was struck on the back of the head with a heavy object.”

  “What sort of object?”

  “A two-pound brass weight from her own weighing scale.”

  Something strange happened as I listened to his words. The shadow of a blow rippled down the back of my head, turning my neck stiff and my shoulders to iron.

  It was a great relief to step out of the prison doors into the yard and an even greater relief to come through the wicket gate. Yet that weight remained. It grew heavier, as if by dark magic.

  What also came out into the cool air with me was the unimaginable ache of men who had lost all hope.

  * * *

  Philip must have been waiting nearby, because after a couple of minutes, he appeared on the other side of the road, by our designated lamppost. He did not wave, or call, but simply stood. Waiting.

  I crossed over.

  Without a word, the two of us walked to where he had parked the grocery van.

  When we climbed in, he asked, “Where to, Kate?”

  I wanted to say, just take me home.

  But I was on a case, and this might be the most important case of my life. Dear Philip, dear PH, so much passed him by. He shut out matters that might confuse him. He was waiting for instructions, a look of bovine complacency on his sweet face.

  “Would you take me round where we used to play, round by the rhubarb fields? I want to do a bit of reccy.”

  He frowned. I had not been specific enough.

  I tried again. “I want to go by the farms we used to cycle to, along the lanes that lead to the big pit. I want to go beyond Ardsley Station. There’s a children’s home, we saw it once.”

  He nodded. “It had big gates. There were swings and a slide. It was private.”

  “And I want to go by that shop where we bought halfpenny drinks and liquorice and lollies. It won’t be open. I just want to see it.”

  “Why won’t it be open?”

  “Because the owner died.”

  He hesitated. “Can I ask you something before we go?”

  “Of course.”

  “Mam keeps telling me about a
big garage where I can mend the cars.”

  “Nearby?”

  “Not far from us, along the Wakefield Road. The owner is retiring to Morecambe.”

  “And what does your mam say about it?”

  “She wants me to think it over. The owner, Mr. Battersby, he wants me to think about it too. Why should I go to another garage? I like to be in my own garage.”

  “I know you do. Your mam knows you like your own garage. You are used to it.”

  “Yes. I’m used to it. Is she fed up of me? Is she fed up of seeing me when she looks out of the kitchen window?”

  “Oh no! She thinks you might like a bigger garage.”

  “Well I won’t.”

  “No one will make you move. Your mam will never be fed up of you.”

  This satisfied him. Without another word, he started the van.

  Perhaps I had said the wrong thing. His mother must be trying to plan for when she was no longer here. What Philip would do without her, I couldn’t imagine.

  Whenever I drive myself in the Jowett, I attract attention. I congratulated myself on the good idea of exploring the area this way. No one would look twice at a passenger in a grocery van.

  Chapter Nine

  As we left Wakefield, driving along winding lanes, a vivid memory came to me from childhood. We used to cycle to the rhubarb fields, do battle with sticks of rhubarb as swords.

  “Do you remember, Philip, when we played at the Trojan Wars?”

  “We played at the Battle of Waterloo. Sometimes we were supposed to be fighting marauding Scots.”

  “And when we got hungry, we could eat our rhubarb swords.”

  Philip drove on, passing the fields with the sheds where the forced rhubarb grew, each shed with a track leading from gate to shed.

  “I am in the process of counting the rhubarb sheds,” he announced, “all of them.”

  “How long will that take you, driving round?”

  “I am counting them on the Ordnance Survey maps. After that, I will drive round to confirm my findings. I have counted three hundred and five so far.”

  That was a lot of rhubarb. Was there rivalry among growers, perhaps? Or some nasty landowner who had decided he did not want unsightly sheds to mar his view? New and daunting possibilities sprang to mind.

  We passed the first coal mine, its winding gear stark against a sky streaked with grey.

  “I’ve written about that pit,” Philip said.

  “Are you counting coal mines?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What did you write?”

  “All its facts. How deep it is, how much coal it gives, the names of men who died there.”

  “Just that pit?”

  “For now. I will write about them all. I have written about rhubarb, all the facts.”

  “Philip, what you said ties in with an idea I’ve had.”

  He smiled. “Do you want to read my facts?”

  “Yes. I’d like that.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The facts about the rhubarb, to begin with.”

  We drove on. I asked to do a short detour, passing Ardsley Railway Station. It had a small station office, and extensive sidings.

  Philip stayed in the van. I took my camera, went into the station, making a show of looking at the timetable for passenger trains. I then walked along the platform to where a goods train stood. A truck door was open. This may have been where the unknown man was brought. Perhaps someone had conveniently left a truck door open on that day, too.

  If I asked questions, I’d stick out like a sore thumb. Already attracting attention, I put the camera back in my satchel. This part of the investigation would be best left to Sykes.

  We drove on. Philip pulled in to the side of the narrow lane, allowing a herd of cows to waddle to their milking parlour.

  As he set off, a horse and cart loaded with a bed, a couple of chairs and a table came dangerously close. The wobbling furniture, not very well secured with rope, seemed an apt image for the enormity of my task. With little to go on, and hampered by the instruction to investigate with discretion, I felt like a person playing with dice loaded in favour of the tables.

  I had always thought of Thorpefield as a village, but of course it is just a hamlet. We came in on the back lane and came close to the Corner Shop that we used to call the halfpenny drinks shop. “Slow down, Philip, please.”

  “It’s closed,” Philip said. “No drinks today.”

  The shop stood alone. The large rear garden bordered adjacent fields. It would be possible for someone to come across those fields unnoticed and enter the house part of the building from the back.

  “Keep going, Philip, just drive up one street and down the next.”

  “Someone robbed that shop,” he said. “Someone killed the halfpenny drinks lady.”

  “Yes.”

  He drove up Silver Street, the first in a row of workers’ cottages. Number 42, last in the row, was where Stephen walked with Joan after band practice. I imagined the police going door to door, asking questions. But perhaps they had not needed to ask questions, when they found Stephen Walmsley with blood on his hands.

  “Kate, why would someone rob a little shop when there are big shops?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “There are no big shops in this village. Everywhere else there are Co-operative Stores. Here there are none.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Are you investigating?”

  “I know you can you keep a secret, Philip.”

  “I never told how far we used to come, and how we got sick on the rhubarb.”

  “I hope to be back here very soon, to start investigating.”

  He nodded. “Is there anything else you want to see?”

  Stephen Walmsley had mentioned the children’s home. “Philip, where is that orphanage with the big gates? I can’t get my bearings.”

  He turned left onto a narrow lane. It wound round behind the area of housing. The way grew dusty, and I soon saw why.

  The gates were gone, and so were the swings and slide. The ground was churned.

  Philip stopped the van.

  The only sound was the creaking of wheels as a woman pushed an old pram along the lane.

  I glanced out to see the baby, but saw only the stone figure of an angel with a chipped wing. The woman saw me looking. “It’s a crying shame,” she said. “Something has to be saved from that fine place.”

  She didn’t stop.

  Philip drove a few more yards. Where a house once stood, there was nothing. The children’s home was gone. Piles of rubble made a sad pattern across the grounds.

  I had seen enough. We turned back.

  Philip was enjoying our drive. He stopped by a lane where in summer the trees reach across and touch each other, forming a green canopy.

  “We called this the fairy way, do you remember, Kate?”

  “Yes. Thorpefield Manor, my friend Gertrude’s house, is up there. I don’t want to be spotted snooping.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve written to her, inviting myself to stay. She would think it odd if she sees me before she has had time to reply.”

  “Does she know that you are investigating?”

  “No.”

  “Will you be safe?”

  “Yes.”

  He took one hand from the wheel. “Thorpefield Manor is very old. In the wall, there are bee boles. I’ll leave my treatise on rhubarb in the third bee bole from the gate. The bees don’t go there now. They prefer a different hive.”

  “Well, thank you.” It was always a good idea to go along with Philip’s suggestions. Alternative ideas might lead to upsetting confusion.

  “And if you need me, Kate, leave a message in that same bee bole.”

  Chapter Ten

  Success! I came home to a message on the hall table. Gertrude had telephoned.

  Mrs. Brockman delighted for you to come. Telephone her about a
time.

  I put in the call to Gertrude before taking off my coat.

  The butler answered. I remembered his sonorous voice. Over the telephone, he sounded as though he might be speaking from beyond the grave.

  Gertrude was not long in picking up.

  “I’m thrilled that you’re coming to stay, Kate. We’ve so much to talk about. Can you come tomorrow?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  “Now, I wanted to ask, will you be bringing a maid?”

  “Gertrude, you know that I don’t have a maid.”

  “Ah, I’d forgotten. Not to worry.”

  “And I don’t need a maid.”

  “If you say so!” She continued. “I’ve arranged a small dinner party for tomorrow evening.”

  “That sounds lovely.” I sensed the appearance of a man without a wife, to be carefully seated within pass-the-salt distance.

  “Oh, and we will go riding. I have just the horse for you.”

  Preparing the ground, I told her more about my magazine commission, making it up as I went along. Riding would give me the opportunity to see places of local interest, but then she mustn’t think me rude that I would need some time to explore alone.

  Naturally she was keen to help me in this imaginary endeavour.

  Sykes arrived as Gertrude and I wound up our conversation.

  My bloodhound lay on the kitchen floor, appearing to listen. I swear he senses when I am planning to go away, although he does have a permanently sulky impression which he cannot help.

  Sykes, Mrs. Sugden and I sat at my kitchen table with cups of tea. Sykes gave a cheerful account of having strayed into the foreign territory of a golf club, and a less than cheerful account of visiting rhubarb growers.

  We checked which growers he had called on, and the farms still to be visited. I made a note of some names. “Since I’ll be staying at Thorpefield, I’ll call at some of the local farms. Growers may be more relaxed about talking to someone who will take their photograph and show an interest in the business.”

  “Good luck with that,” Sykes grunted.

  Mrs. Sugden pushed her notebook towards me. “I consulted the directories, like you said. These are the names and addresses of estate agents in the area. Shall I ask to be notified of any corner shop or general store that becomes available?”