The Body on the Train

by Frances Brody

  My time with Mr. Cohen was at an end.

  I had a train to catch.

  “Don’t look so glum, my dear Mrs. Shackleton. Your friend probably doesn’t understand English law. Only a very few of us do. You did the correct thing in communicating the facts as you knew them. The family had a right to know what happened to their loved one. And I’m sure that the French Embassy played a part behind the scenes. Without your information finding its way into the right hands, Stephen Walmsley would not have been freed.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  My taxi stopped outside The Savoy. The taxi driver ceased to be helpful after he deposited my case on the pavement, taking my tip and saying he had to keep moving or he’d hold up the traffic.

  The commissionaire came across to take my luggage. As he held the side door open for me, I froze to the spot. Coming out of the hotel through the revolving door was Gertrude. For a split second, an invisible thread held us in each other’s gaze as the revolving door continued its movement and Eliot appeared.

  The commissionaire waited patiently for me to move.

  Eliot paused, tilting his head. “Well, well. Fancy meeting you. If you are here for our first meeting, you’ve missed it. Sit in on the repeat performance in an hour. Meeting room on the first floor, sign on the door.” He nodded at his own magnanimity. “Excuse me. Breath of fresh air.”

  Gertrude had taken a few steps and was waiting for him. They turned back and looked at me. I held my ground and stared back, watching as they walked off arm in arm.

  A porter took my suitcase from the commissionaire.

  It took an effort to sign the register. Mrs. Sugden was right. This was madness. Only the thought of meeting Annette Kerner kept me here. It sickened me to think of Gertrude and Eliot walking free, prospering, sure of themselves, and untouchable.

  But I would not let them make me change my plans. They wouldn’t dare try anything here.

  One look at my arm in a sling and the porter pressed for the lift. We stopped at the first floor. The room opposite the lift had a sign on the door.

  BROCK-DELL INVESTMENTS

  BLUEBELL MINE

  So I was not only in the same hotel. Fate led me to the very floor on which they would make their glib presentation of the prospects and profits to come from the Bluebell Mine.

  I did not need to attempt unpacking. Good as his word, the manager had arranged for a member of staff to come and do that for me.

  I went back downstairs to wait for Annette.

  She beamed with pleasure at having got me here at last, as she put it. Our waiter opened the champagne and poured. We toasted female detectives.

  “Even with broken limbs, we triumph!” She raised her glass again.

  “You don’t have a broken limb.”

  “No but I spent three weeks in a drugs den, until I could stand my own stink no longer.”

  “Mr. Woodhead?”

  “Who else? But I am here to tell you that the commander has retired to the country, to spend more time in his garden.”

  “So that’s the lie of the land.”

  “I thought you’d want to know. You’re still on the list of wanted women for the right sort of investigations. You would have been anyway. In a place so big, the left hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing.”

  She did not volunteer any more information.

  Instead, she talked about the sort of cases she enjoyed, working for rather grand people, who remained nameless, but who got themselves into bother now and again, “Particularly the young people whose parents are most anxious to guard reputations.”

  “We move in very different circles, Annette.”

  “Ah and before I forget –” She produced a fat white envelope from her elegant bag. “You are not allowed to refuse this, as you’ll see from the writing on the envelope.”

  It was handwritten, and I saw straight away that the penmanship was not English.

  For The Benefit Of The Orphans

  “It would take rather a long time to count, and so you may want to put it in a second envelope and have it kept in the hotel safe.”

  For some reason, my heart began to pound—a feeling I could not explain. This felt like an indirect way of paying me for my information about the murder of Harry Aspinall.

  “Is it from Mrs. Aspinall and her son? Are they still in London?”

  “Oh no. As far as I’m aware, they went back to France with the poor man’s body. Couldn’t wait to be away from here.”

  “Who then?”

  “I’m not allowed to say his name, but he is very charming and diplomatic, and is acting for the person most senior to himself.”

  “Bernard Campaner?”

  “You don’t see me shaking my head.”

  As far as I knew, I was as much in his debt as he in mine. Had it not been for the intervention at higher levels than our CID and Commander Woodhead, Stephen Walmsley would be in the dock.

  After I had done as she suggested, and deposited the money in the safe, she came up to my room, to help me change. I can manage with one arm in a sling, but it takes such a long time.

  “What’s the matter, Kate?”

  I told her about my episode at the Dell house, and my sojourn in the cellar. “And they are here, Eliot Dell and Gertrude, conducting their business, in this hotel, on this floor.”

  “Good heavens! And you have the nerve to stay here?”

  “Gertrude once said that I don’t give up, and she was right. Let them think I am here to stay on their trail.”

  “They might try again.”

  “Then they will be showing their hand, and this time may not get away with it.”

  “All the same, I’m going to ask at reception when they are leaving. If it’s not very soon I shall move in here with you.”

  “You will not!”

  It did not take her long to return, with the news that Mr. Dell and Mrs. Brockman would be leaving directly after their next meeting.

  “Come on then, Annette. I want to walk along the Embankment. If we see the pair of them, I shall stare them out. Did you ever do that as a child? You’d stare at your friend until one of you blinks?”

  Bright sunshine reflected on the sweet and smelly Thames. We watched a pleasure cruiser, a Tyne collier barge and a small motorboat gliding and chugging. A child waved to the passengers on the pleasure cruiser and some waved back. No sign of Eliot and Gertrude.

  By the time we came back to the hotel, a kind of fury had grown inside me. Gertrude had been willing to sacrifice the children, scatter them to the winds, send them across oceans. She and Eliot had committed murder, and now they were presenting themselves as respectable business people. Trust your money to us. Sink your funds into the deepest mine in Britain, perhaps the deepest mine in the world.

  “Where are you going?” Annette asked, as I began to climb the stairs.

  “Into the meeting.”

  “For heaven’s sake, you’ll have us thrown out of the hotel.”

  “Worse things happen.”

  I charged up the stairs. She was a few steps behind me, talking, urging caution, but I wasn’t listening. With no idea of what I would say or I do, I walked along the corridor.

  DC Martin Yeats was standing by the door of the meeting room. I felt like screaming. Not only had they got away with murder, but they had police protection.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  The door opened. I would have gone in, but someone was coming out. In fact, several people were leaving the room, headed by Chief Inspector Emsley from Wakefield CID. He stared at me. His mouth opened, but no words came. It was quite something to be able to astonish such a self-possessed man.

  Behind him came Gertrude, handcuffed to a detective constable. The look on her face was of puzzlement, and disbelief. It reminded me of a time decades ago, when her pony refused to jump across a stream. She never understood when things did not go her
way. Eliot followed, handcuffed to a burly constable. He gave me a look of pure hatred.

  When they had gone, Martin Yeats said, “Well, what are you doing here?”

  “Pure coincidence.”

  He glanced from me to Annette. “I’m not sure I believe in coincidences.”

  Had Annette known something was going to happen, I wondered, that arrests were imminent? Perhaps that explained why she was so keen for me to visit.

  Martin began to walk along the corridor, towards the stairs. “There’s something, someone, you should see.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  We did not speak until we reached the second floor. Martin cleared his throat. “Mrs. Brockman adopted a child yesterday, a baby by the name of William. There is a nursemaid in an adjacent room, quite oblivious to everything.”

  He was going too fast. “Martin, I knew that Gertrude planned to adopt.” There was no point in saying that she was adopting her own child, hers and Eliot Dell’s. “But tell me, when was it decided to arrest the pair of them? I’d given up hope.”

  “Sometimes evidence builds, and builds.”

  Annette chipped in. “Thanks to Kate Shackleton and cohorts!”

  Martin gave the slightest incline of his head. “Mr. Dell and Mrs. Brockman have been arrested on suspicion of murder. They’re to be escorted north and questioned in the presence of solicitors.”

  Oddly enough, I no longer held their attack on me against them. It paled when set beside their other crimes. Attacking me was a kind of madness. They must have known there was no longer a way out. They vented their rage, and then continued to sleepwalk through the nightmare of their own making.

  Their turning point came when Harry Aspinall refused to comply with their plans and wishes. After that, there was no going back, and no redemption.

  “Does Mr. Brockman know that his wife has been taken into custody?”

  Would this be a great shock, or had Benjie known? Somehow I thought not. Raynor would have protected him.

  “Mr. Brockman will be informed by a local officer shortly.”

  “I’d like to see little William.”

  Annette tapped my arm. “Kate, I’m not a great one for other people’s babies. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  Martin seemed relieved. “The adoption papers are signed by Mr. and Mrs. Brockman. The society would consider taking the child back if necessary.”

  The baby lay in a Moses basket. The nursemaid beside him was a middle-aged woman, her black hair streaked with grey and with a severe centre parting. I thought she may not want me near her charge, but she was pleasant.

  William looked up. He had a scrunched up little red face and slightly pointy ears.

  I reached out my hand. He grasped my little finger in his tiny fist.

  Oh Gertrude, what have you done? She had talked so blithely about adopting a baby that would be intelligent and with no bad blood.

  I hoped little William would never know the true history of his parents, and that Benjie would not look at those pointy ears and think of Eliot Dell.

  Martin sighed. “It’s going to be rather awkward for the local officer to tell Mr. Brockman that his wife has been arrested, and then to ask about the future of the child.”

  “Let me make a telephone call.”

  Martin looked alarmed. “Not to Mr. Brockman? He is in ignorance of all this.”

  “I’ll speak to his butler, Mr. Raynor.”

  Something told me that the baby might fit in well at Thorpefield Manor. Perhaps the Bluebell Mine would prosper too, when those who would have raided its profits were absent from the scene.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Easter Sunday came on the last day of March that year, and a fine day it was too. Good Friday is always a day off in Yorkshire, which makes for a long weekend.

  Philip Goodchild and Alec Taylor closed the garage for four days. They hired a charabanc to go to Scarborough, where I had booked rooms at the Crown Hotel. Philip and Alec would take turns to drive. Benjie was persuaded to go, and to take the eight children, the baby, the nursemaid, Valerie Pennington, Harriet, Milly, Stephen Walmsley, Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright and Joan.

  Raynor worried about the cost. The mine would do well, but that was in the future. I assured him that the holiday was thanks to a well-wisher, but did not name the well-wisher as the French Ambassador.

  Sykes and Rosie went to stay at the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool over the Easter weekend. Keen ballroom dancers, they intended to spend most of their time at the Winter Gardens, reprising the success of their younger years, when they won many prizes on the dance floor.

  I decided to stay at home with Sergeant Dog and my aged cat, Sookie. I would walk in the woods, read, and persuade my broken wrist to mend.

  Mrs. Sugden thought this my best idea yet. As I lay on the sofa, thinking about going for a walk, she brought in a tray. “That’s it, you rest. Here’s a cup of tea, and a slice of my rhubarb pie.”

  She can be very sensitive about her baking. “I’m sure it’s very good, but no rhubarb pie for me.”

  Author’s Note

  The question writers are often asked is “where do you get your ideas?” The simple answer is, everywhere. If one is lucky, different ideas then come together. I was interested in the way investigations can become skewed by a false trail, or by a detective becoming obsessed with a particular line of enquiry. At the time of writing, there was a great deal of discussion about “fake news”, leading me to think of fake news in the 1920s. The letter that opens this book was inspired by a forged letter that contributed to the downfall of the Labour government in the 1924 General Elections. Known as the “Zinoviev letter”, it purported to be from a Ukrainian-born Russian Jewish revolutionary and politician, urging British Communists to incite revolution.

  There was a special train, six nights a week, between Christmas and Easter, setting off from Leeds Central station to King’s Cross, transporting up to 200 tons of forced rhubarb to London. It ran until the early 1960s. The idea of that train with its cargo of scarlet stalks intrigued me. Trains are such a familiar trope of Golden Age crime fiction that I was tempted to commandeer one.

  Formerly a triangle of land of about thirty square miles, the forced rhubarb growing area now covers about nine square miles. In 2010, twelve farmers within the Rhubarb Triangle successfully applied to have Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb added to the European Commission’s Protected Food Name scheme. Those who know the area may recognise some of the places in this story. Thorpefield is fictional.

  London-based Annette Kerner, known as the Mayfair Detective, began her work as an operative during the First World War. I have taken the liberty of borrowing her name and a little of her history. I also borrowed the name of the vicar of Holy Trinity in 1929, the Reverend Mr. H S Branscombe. I like to think that Ryder Cup team members Al Espinosa and Leo Diegel were accompanied to Leeds by Mrs. Espinosa and Mrs. Diegel.

  The initial inspiration was none of the above. That came from the way the children of the poor fare in twenty-first-century Britain. The opposite of justice is poverty.

  Also available by Frances Brody

  KATE SHACKLETON MYSTERIES

  A Snapshot of Murder

  Death in the Stars

  Death at the Seaside

  A Death in the Dales

  Death of an Avid Reader

  Murder on a Summer’s Day

  A Woman Unknown

  Murder in the Afternoon

  A Medal for Murder

  Dying in the Wool

  OTHER NOVELS

  Halfpenny Dreams

  Sixpence in Her Shoe

  Sisters on Bread Street

  Author Biography

  Frances Brody lives in Leeds where she was born and grew up. After leaving school at 16, she worked and traveled, including a spell in New York. She then won a place at Ruskin College, Oxford, and afterwards studied at York University. Before creating the Kate Shackleton mysteries, Frances wrote historical sagas, winning the Harpe
rCollins Elizabeth Elgin award for most regionally evocative debut saga of the millennium. When not writing or reading, Frances likes to test her less than brilliant map reading skills by walking in the Yorkshire Dales.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Frances McNeil

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-160-0

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-161-7

  Cover illustration by Helen Chapman

  Book design by Jennifer Canzone

  Printed in the United States.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First North American Edition: November 2019

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