The Body on the Train

by Frances Brody

  Moments later, he was seated by the vicar’s large roll top desk. “What can I do for you, Mr. Sykes?”

  “It’s about Mr. Harry Aspinall. I called at the Manor House, hoping to make enquiries there but found it shut up.”

  “Mr. Aspinall lives abroad.”

  “Were you expecting him back?”

  “What makes you say so?”

  The suspicion in the vicar’s voice alerted Sykes that he must give some detail, to convince this clergyman to cooperate. He explained about the American he had met at Moortown Golf Club, and the arrangement they had made to meet Mr. Aspinall during the Ryder Cup tournament.

  “Oh yes. I saw an article in the paper about the tournament.”

  “From what my acquaintance said, I thought the house would be ready for Mr. Aspinall’s return.”

  The vicar seemed to cheer up a little. “I wish that could be true. The house has stood empty for years. Mr. Aspinall never comes back, but perhaps something has changed. A parishioner did write to him.” He sighed. “Though if he has returned, it would be too late.”

  As the vicar spoke, he glanced at the paper he had been writing on. Sykes quickly followed his glance. A name was block printed, and below it the dates of birth and death. The name was Helen Farrar. He knew now that he must come straight to the point, and was glad to have a small interruption as the housekeeper brought coffee.

  “I usually have coffee at this time. Will you join me?”

  “Thank you.”

  The vicar poured. “So what news did the American golfer have of Mr. Aspinall?”

  Sykes explained the story of the Americans having been given Mr. Aspinall’s card, and the plan to break open a bottle of champagne, whoever won the tournament.

  The vicar smiled. “You are genuine. That’s Aspinall for you.”

  “And vineyards trump mining and railways.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “He has connections here still?”

  “No family here. He married a French woman. They have grown-up children, two sons and a daughter.” The vicar took a sip of coffee. “But what is this about, Mr. Sykes?”

  It was time for Sykes to come clean. “I’m sorry to say, I have reason to believe that Mr. Aspinall has met with harm.” Sykes took the artist’s drawing from his pocket. “Would you be able to identify him from a sketch?”

  “I should think so. I saw him in Lille last year.”

  Sykes set the portrait on the desk.

  The vicar’s mouth tightened. “That’s Aspinall.” He stared a moment longer. “He’s dead.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The eyes. This was by a halfway good artist. The colour is right, but the eyes are wrong. He had such life in his eyes.”

  There was no point in lying, or evading. “Yes, he is dead.”

  “When did he die, and under what circumstances?”

  “I regret I am not at liberty to say at present.”

  “This was nothing to do with golf and Americans was it?”

  “Oh yes, that part was true.”

  “Are you with the police?”

  “I am helping Scotland Yard with the investigation.”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  “Not secrecy, sir. Mr. Aspinall was found without identification. Now that you and his American acquaintance have identified him, there is something to go on. It would be helpful to know the purpose of his visit, and the details of his next of kin.”

  The vicar lowered his head. He ran his hands through his hair. “Mr. Sykes, this has come as a shock. I need to ask you more questions, just as you may wish to ask me. I came home late last night from burying my father. Tomorrow I will be conducting a funeral. Please allow me time to check your credentials before I say more.”

  “Of course. The most direct way to check on my credentials would be to call Chief Superintendent Hood at Wakefield Police Headquarters. His number is on the back of my card. I am very sorry to have brought bad news at a difficult time.”

  “Drink your coffee, Mr. Sykes. Such niceties matter to housekeepers.” The vicar looked again at the portrait. He turned over the business card where Sykes had written Mr. Hood’s name, title and number. For a moment, Sykes thought Mr. Branscombe would pick up the telephone but he did not.

  “The parishioner who wrote to Mr. Aspinall was Helen Farrar, a shopkeeper. You may have heard what happened to her?”

  “Thank you for telling me. I do know about the death.”

  “You may wish to know what she wrote to him about.” He reached for the sheet of paper. “Helen Farrar spoke to me on the day I was going to Morley to be with my father. She was distressed about some matters being discussed by the trustees of the orphanage, the Bluebell Home. I’m sorry to say that though Mr. Aspinall was a trustee, and he gave Mrs. Farrar his proxy vote, he had long since given up responsibility or interest in what went on here.”

  “I see.”

  “There can surely be no connection?”

  Sykes fell back on one of his usual lines. “I have no reason to suppose any such connection.”

  The vicar walked him to the door. Sykes somehow missed asking him the time of tomorrow’s funeral, and so he asked the gardener instead.

  He wished he had a way of contacting Mrs. Shackleton directly. But if he failed to reach her today, through her father, he felt sure that she would be at the funeral tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Mrs. Sugden took the telephone call from the estate agent. She could view the Corner Shop in Thorpefield today. Every instinct told her that it was too soon to be poking about that poor woman’s premises. He was cagey when she asked him whether Mrs. Farrar was decently buried, but gave the impression that she was. The fellow must be anxious to have the Corner Shop off his hands quickly because he offered to be at the station and give her a lift.

  Mrs. Shackleton said it was important. And Jim Sykes had called round, telling her they now knew who the man was, and things were moving. “Stand by the telephone,” he had said.

  She could hardly stand by the telephone while haring off to Wakefield to meet an estate agent. She didn’t like this whole business. It was too spread out and too far from home. You didn’t know what people would be like when all their born days they’d lived nowhere but the back of beyond, and that back of beyond was the place where a poor woman was done in. A back of beyond where helpless bairns were packed off to the workhouse.

  At school she learned a poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. One line came back to her: “Someone had blundered”. There was a never a time when someone high up didn’t blunder. It was always them at the top of the heap who blundered and them near the bottom of the heap who paid the price.

  Not that Mrs. Sugden thought of herself as at the bottom of the heap, nor Mrs. Farrar neither. From what she gleaned of Mrs. Farrar, Mrs. Sugden regarded her as a sensible woman and a hard worker.

  Mrs. Shackleton must be feeling desperate, feeling the strain of living in a wilderness of mines and farms and fields of rhubarb. If Mrs. Shackleton could face it, so could she.

  She would take her big shopping bag. What’s more, she would straight away make a list of questions a person might ask neighbours about the shop. She would draw up a plan of campaign. There might be a need to stay overnight. Anything was possible when Mrs. Shackleton was on a case.

  This was a matter of what the military would call reconnoitring.

  Picking up her pencil, she wrote the word Questions. A person would want to know the rent, what stock was included, what the takings might be. Some trusting shopkeepers allowed their customers to put items on the slate. If customers did that, would they, in times of hardship, have the wherewithal to pay up?

  None of that would help track down a killer. Unless there existed some customer unable to pay up and sufficiently fiendish that he or she would be willing to put an end to the obliging shopkeeper, and thereby wipe their own slate clean, risking hell and damnation in the pro
cess.

  A person would want to know who lived nearby, and whether a woman taking over the business would be safe from thieves and murderers.

  It made her jump when Harriet and Sergeant Dog came bounding into the kitchen. She quickly pushed a few items into her bag. She had been so absorbed as to not hear the pair come in. Having lately experienced an annoying earache, Mrs. Sugden worried a little. Could this be too much wax, or the onset of deafness?

  “Did you come in right quiet just now?”

  “No, just the usual.”

  “You’ll be on your own for a while, Harriet. I’ve a bit of business to attend to.”

  “Business for Auntie Kate you mean?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s all right. We don’t mind, do we, Sergeant Dog?”

  The dog wagged his tail.

  Mrs. Sugden frowned. “Sometimes little bits of business take longer than you think. If you need anything while I’m away, or if I’m delayed overnight, you’ve got Miss Merton close by.”

  “I won’t need anything.”

  “No, but if you do, you’ve got Mrs. Sykes nearby and you know where Mr. Duffield lives. Mrs. Duffield is a friend.”

  “Yes I know all that.”

  “Take any messages that come. If you have to go out, ask Mrs. Sykes to come and stand by the telephone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just near Wakefield. I’m only being cautious in case something crops up.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve to look at a shop.” She didn’t want Harriet traipsing along.

  “You’re nervous aren’t you?”

  “I’m not nervous. I leave nerves to other people. I’m just thinking about you and Sergeant Dog managing on your own.”

  “Well tell me where you’re going.”

  “I’m being met at Wakefield station.”

  “What about Sookie?”

  “She’s all right. She’s asleep on my bed. She can get in and out the window and everything she needs is there.”

  “Have a nice time.”

  Mrs. Sugden gave a bit of a snort, as if to say that nice times were for other people. Nice times were for softies and soppy articles.

  Harriet saw that Mrs. Sugden had been making notes, and had covered them with blotting paper. “Before you go, I’ll just go get myself a bar of chocolate.”

  Harriet thought Mrs. Sugden might be suspicious about her taking a second wander with the dog so soon after the first, but Mrs. Sugden was preoccupied.

  Harriet walked along the street. Sergeant Dog, sensing some urgency, trotted smartly beside her, foregoing his usual great interest in the smells of Headingley. He looked up at her in listening mode, waiting for some important instruction.

  “Sergeant, do you get the feeling that we’re being kept in the dark? I don’t think we need trouble Miss Merton or Mrs. Duffield. We’ll visit Rosie Sykes. We won’t tell any lies, just think of a way of getting a little bit of information. Do you agree?”

  Sergeant Dog wagged his tail.

  Rosie was sitting with her feet up, reading yesterday’s Yorkshire Evening News. She was glad to see Harriet, and to be made a fuss of by that sloppy dog.

  “Mrs. Sugden’s packing her shopping bag, Rosie.”

  “She doesn’t waste time.”

  “Only she’s forgotten the address where she’s going, some shop.”

  “She’s being taken there isn’t she?”

  “Yes, being met at the station.”

  “Well then the person who’s taking her ought to know. It’s some general store in Thorpefield, sort of place that sells necessaries and sweets and such like.”

  Harriet chatted a bit. She asked Rosie was there anything interesting in the paper. There were all sorts of interesting things. Harriet thought she’d never shut up.

  “Right then, I’d better be off. Oh and Mrs. Sugden says would you mind standing by the telephone because she might be a few hours and I have to be at work.”

  “You don’t take that dog to the pictures do you?”

  “He’s no trouble. He sits in the manager’s office.”

  None of them ever remembered Harriet’s shifts or her hours. That was sometimes an advantage.

  * * *

  The stationmaster blew his whistle. Mrs. Sugden seated herself on the far side of the carriage so as to look out of the window for the short while it would take to get to Wakefield. The carriage door opened. She looked up to see who would join her. “Harriet! What are you doing here?”

  “I just thought me and Sergeant Dog would come with you.”

  “You little monkey! How did you get here?”

  “We caught the tram to the station and then –”

  “Well what I’m doing isn’t for a child and a dog.”

  “I’m not a child, and Sergeant Dog missed qualifying as a police dog only through his extreme good nature. We won’t be in the way.”

  “I’m being met.” Mrs. Sugden groaned. “It’s all arranged, and no mention of an entourage.”

  “Well, you can say that you had to bring your daughter and the dog.”

  Mrs. Sugden opened her mouth to object that Harriet would not pass as her daughter, but Harriet did not give her time.

  “It will be more natural to have me with you. No one would suspect a person of investigating a crime if that person had a young relative with her. And a villain would think twice about having a go at us with Sergeant Dog at our side.”

  Harriet decided against saying that in case of an emergency she would be able to run for help. Mrs. Sugden couldn’t run for toffee.

  “The telephone –”

  “Rosie Sykes was very keen to practise answering it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Old Mrs. Dell had fallen into step with me when we entered the church of Holy Trinity. Benjie, Gertrude and Eliot Dell made their way to the front of the church. Mrs. Dell wanted to be closer to the centre, and on the end of an aisle. “I hate to hear my stick clicking on the tiles,” she had said, “and to slow everyone down.”

  Given that this was a funeral, I thought people would not mind being slowed down, but did not say so.

  The vicar, whom everybody knew had only recently returned from burying his father, looked tired and drawn. He seemed to be going through the motions, like a man with only half his mind on the task.

  This changed when he began to speak about Mrs. Farrar. He glanced down at a sheet of paper where he must have had notes of what to say. He forgot it was there, looking at the congregation, with a glance of approval, as if he had only at that moment realised that the church was packed.

  “We are here today to pray for the soul of Helen Farrar, whose blameless and virtuous life was brought to an untimely end. We will pray for the repose of her soul, and remember her as we knew her.

  “Mrs. Farrar married late in life but even so was a widow far longer than she was a wife.”

  That gave me pause for thought. Someone who married late would have to lose her husband very quickly in order to be a widow for such a length of time. Perhaps there was a story there.

  The vicar continued. “Helen Farrar had no children of her own, but when she was young, and for many years, she was nursemaid to the Aspinall family. She was well loved by that family, and particularly by the boys, Oliver and Harry. Their mother died when Harry was born. Helen was young, not much more than a child herself, but she became a mother to the boys. That is why there is a place for her in the Aspinall family plot, here in Holy Trinity Church churchyard, the plot she tended after Oliver died.

  “She was a good Christian woman who loved her neighbour as herself. There are those of you here today who will remember her kindness when she was a friend to the Bluebell Children’s Home.”

  The vicar led prayers. Hymns were sung. But all this was now happening at a distance for me, because an idea began to take shape.

  The vicar had said that Helen Farrar took care of young O
liver and Harry Aspinall. She became a mother to them. She was so close to the family that she would share their resting place in this churchyard.

  The Arkwrights were on good terms with Mrs. Farrar. They witnessed her despondency about the children’s home. But on the day she died, that changed. She was expecting someone. According to Stephen Walmsley, everything that would polish was polished. She set daffodils in a jar. Full of cheer, she sang. Not just any song, but a nursery rhyme she would have sung to her little boys. The Grand Old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again.

  What if she was expecting someone with the influence she lacked—the boy she mothered? Harry Aspinall. Like the grand old duke, her expected visitor would ride to the rescue. Like the grand old duke, his marching would be in vain.

  I was groping in the dark.

  Perhaps we would never know the identity of her expected visitor.

  When the service ended, bearers carried the coffin into the churchyard. Mrs. Dell took my arm for support as we followed the other mourners. Sykes was standing to the side of the door. He caught my eye and moved closer, touching my hand. I took the note from him and slipped it in my pocket.

  As we stood by the grave, I glanced at the mourners. Sykes was standing on the opposite side, behind a young man in a well-cut dark coat, and white silk scarf. Something about him seemed out of place, yet there was sorrow in his eyes.

  Until the moment that Mrs. Farrar’s coffin was gently lowered into the ground, a respectful silence held at the graveside. Then came sobbing. It came from Milly, crying for the day’s sorrow, for Mrs. Farrar’s passing, life’s pitfalls, and most especially for Stephen Walmsley.

  Joan of Arc put an arm around Milly’s shoulders, and passed her a crumpled hanky.

  The sad commotion did not give me time to glance at Sykes’s note. I was standing between Gertrude and Mrs. Dell. “Who is the girl?” Mrs. Dell whispered. She watched my lips.

  “Milly. Stephen Walmsley’s sweetheart.”